The Rules of Water

Every morning, the writing Muse gives me a glass of water.

 But it's so much more than water.

It's my daily allotment of creativity, discipline, and focus.

Every molecule is teaming with a kaleidoscope of ideas.

Anything can steal a sip--bad news, good news, noise from a chain saw...even a ringing phone.

These things are out of a writer's control.

Still, I must guard this water.

Bit by bit, the water level drops.

Sometimes the world around me takes a big gulp.
Sometimes I pour this gift onto the ground.
Sometimes I hoard that last drop.

The next morning, the Muse leaves me a new glass.

And she tells me that her daily offering shouldn't be rationed or coddled.

The lesson is inside the glass.

A writer has to be like water.

“Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless - like water. Now you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup, you put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle, you put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.”
--Bruce Lee (http://www.thinkexist.com/)

Lather, Rinse, Repeat or Writing Is Basically a Whole Lot of Rewriting

An editor once told me, "Writing is hard work, Mlee." 

Lawd, she wasn't kidding.

It's time to put on the coffee and power through revisions.
What am I forgetting?
Tomorrow is the drawing for the $100 Amazon gift card.

The Nesting Instinct: Or Why Writers Do What They Do

When I’m working on a novel, I become a nesting bird. I sit in one spot for a long, long time. Nothing but thirst and hunger will lure me away. When nice people invite me to lunch or a party, I politely decline.  I must disconnect from the Internet, too--this is downright painful because I truly love blogging. After a while, the hair grows in, but I can’t even go to the salon and get my eyebrows waxed. I’m sitting on my egg.

 I sit on my egg because I love the whole process and because I know what can happen if I flit away, even for a short time. In recent years, I've become even more determined not to abandon my nest because the publishing industry is unbelievably tough.

          

A writer must be everywhere (Facebook, Twitter, etc) and nowhere (the nest).  She eats a daily bread called Angst, topped with Doubt. True, she drinks sustaining nectar called I-Love-My-Job, but it only flows when the hen is focused. Otherwise, the results can be unpredictable.

I began writing seriously in 1981. My first novel, Crazy Ladies, was published in 1990—I sat on many eggs that didn’t hatch. I still do.

Over the years, people have asked, “Must you watch that egg? Can’t you leave it alone for two hours? A few days?”  

It sounds like a good idea, doesn’t it? Have some fun! All work and no play. Blah, blah, blah.But when you return, your egg might be a different egg--or gone.

The work suddenly becomes harder when another question arises. Someone you love and/or respect might say, “Do you think this egg is the best, most unique, gonna-change-the-world egg?”

No. This isn’t about hubris. It’s about keeping the egg alive and intact. It’s because you don’t have a choice. You are called by an unstoppable force. And if you leave the nest, you know the consequences.

Been there, done that. More blah, blah, blahs. At the very least, my egg might get damaged...

 or worse.

“It wasn’t a strong egg,” a serpent-voice whispers. “Don’t fret. It wasn’t meant to be. Another egg will come along.”

No, no, no. That’s not the point of nesting.

In general, people take a dim view of nesters. It doesn’t matter if the writer is struggling to sell her first novel or if she’s sold fifty—the nesting instinct is an ethereal concept. Hard to understand, even harder for non-writers to understand. To complicate the issue, not all writers nest.

An article in the June issue of RWA’s magazine, Romance Writers Report, discusses the challenges a scribbler faces at home. Author Shirley Jump examines how the ever-changing publishing industry is just one of many problems we must endure. Extended family might not understand; or sometimes they understand and become subversive. Friends may abandon your coop, leaving you alone with your silly egg.

 “Writing is an extremely difficult career path. Most people have no idea how hard it is to write something saleable.”

--Lori Wilde, New York Times bestselling author

Another writer friend often tells her naysayers to write a book--or just half of book. Then set it free. How does it feel?

It stops feeling ridiculous when it starts being you. 

If you don’t take your work seriously, how will anyone else respect it? Some people are blessed—bolstered by their nearest and dearest. For some, the words might hatch in abundance. No struggle. No defensive clucking.  The rest of us are in the hen house, guarding our wee egg, flapping our wings at intruders.

Shirley Jump interviewed many authors in her article; some asked for anonymity and others gave testimonials.  Author Lani  Diane Rich said, "If you're writing, you're writing because you're called to write, and that's a sacred thing."

I needed to hear those words; I've needed to hear them for a couple of decades. I want to thank Ms. Rich because our work is a mission, a passion, and a privilege. Why else would you sit on an egg that might not hatch? If it hatches, the chick might survive two weeks.  The proceeds won’t cover a bag of chicken scratch, yet the busy little hen is already gathering twigs and feathers for her new nest.

The rooster is crowing, “Where’s my daily worm? One of the nestless chickens scratches a message in the dirt—LMAO.

Go ahead, the little hen thinks. Laugh your arse off. But I’m laying another egg. As for the broken shells and lost dreams, well, nothing goes to waste.

Our hen settles onto her nest and sighs. She is a bird on a mission. A writer with a Calling.

And her egg-quest will continue.

From Wiki:

per·se·vere/ˌpərsəˈvi(ə)r/

Verb: Continue in a course of action even in the face of difficulty or with little or no indication of success.

Resources:

You can find RWA on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/romancewriters and http://www.rwa.org/.

For workshops and free chats: Savvy Authors http://www.savvyauthors.com/vb/content.php

Lori Wilde's blog  http://wildelori.blogspot.com/ (She's sponsoring a Kindle giveaway.)

Shirley Jump http://www.shirleyjump.com/

Lani Diane Rich http://www.lanidianerich.com/

Images courtesy of Fotolia, Dreamstime, and Dreamstime Free.

A Writer's Journey

Writing a book is like navigating through a twisty maze.

Or climbing an endless stairway.

But at some point, the journey ends.

The writer finishes the book.
I finished the copy edits on Acquainted With the Night, and in about six months, I will hold the finished book in my hands.

I celebrated with a salad--and I was sorry to see the meal end.

I was sorry to be finished with the book, too. Part of my thoughts were still in the maze--maybe I should have turned another way? 

Maybe. Maybe not.

But I'm not alone, because my editor will know if this journey still needs tweaking.

Meanwhile, I will gather all the empty teacups around my desk ...

And rest.

Lawd, I'm tired, and the (lightning struck) house is a wreck.

(The television has been repaired, btw.)

I must rest because another journey is about to begin.

Teeny Templeton needs my help in her next adventure, A Teeny Bit of Trouble.

One journey's end ...

.

.. is another journey's beginning.

Images courtesy of Dreamstime and Fotolia. Used with permission.

When Lightning Strikes

I'm in still in Deadline Mode, which means little sleep and too much coffee. Last night,I worked until 2 A.M. It was dark outside, but I finally saw a wedge of brightness in the manuscript. All I needed was one more day. A day without a household calamity or an earache.
The Yorkies and I went to bed, only to be awakened by whistling wind, slashing rain, and the crack of lightning. It was 4 A.M. The television still worked, and the storm map on Channel 5 showed a block of red over the mid-state.  Pushing in behind it was a bigger block of red.

Another boom shook the house, and our hard-wired smoke alarm began shrieking, along with the carbon monoxide detectors (including the one that was already chirping). My poor, little Yorkie, Mister, yelped and dove under the covers.

Mind you, our house was struck last month while I was on book tour, and lightning had scorched various household objects, including our HVAC system.

His Lordship managed to turn off the shrieking.
"I've solved the problem--again," His Lordship said in a snippy tone.
A while later, lightning set off another ear-piercing howl. His Lordshit (yes, I'm mad at him, but for another reason) fixed it again, but the old beep, the one I mentioned in a previous post, was joined by a louder, nerve-jangling second beep-beep. Then it sounded like a thousand crickets on steroids.
Bandwidth put on his Noise Police hat and discovered that yet another carbon monoxide detector had gotten deep-fried.
And so much more, too. I haven't begun to assess the electrical damage (but I just heard Bandwidth  say, "Oh,  no, not that, too!)
The noise pollution continued until noon.

When events like this happen, I go tharn like the rabbits in the novel Watership Down. My brain quivers like a Jim Morrison song, with leaping toads. Because I'm Southern, catfish are jumping in there, too.

A trusty knight (my electrician) smashed the dragon-like detectors on my behalf (actually, he repaired them). But all is not well in electrical land.
Now I'm listening to a soothing Puccini aria, but my heart is leaping against my ribs, waiting for another blast of high-pitched noise. Because outside, it's still lightning.
Like my mother always says, "What man breaks, man can fix."
She didn't have a comment about what happens when Mother Nature attacks.

If you are still reading, you might wonder why I wrote this discursive post.  Yeah, I'm a whiner. I break just like a little, pig-tailed girl. And I am still on Deadline (missed it). I should be looking for punctuation errors and murdered sentences, but I do have a small point.

I must move beyond the fear-of-future-noise and honor my deadline.

Writing is tough.

True, many things are tough. But if you work with words--in books or blogs--you probably know how noise affects you. (You might tolerate beeps but loathe something else.)

But this is a blog about writing, so I will share what best-selling author Nora Roberts said last year at RWA: 

"Writing is hard," she said. "It's supposed to be hard. The fact that it's hard is what makes it special, makes it worthwhile to keep going. Embrace the hard work."

When a writer experiences a visceral emotion, it's not always a bad thing. It's an opportunity to jot down the physical sensations. It's easy to forget them when the danger has vanished, easy to forget your quivering bottom lip, or the sticky-sheen of your clammy palms, or the bees zooming out the top of your head.

Writers use it.

My mother thinks this attitude is a trifle cool, which in Mama-speak translates to icy/ridiculous.

But she is a normal person, not a writer, and I respect her opinion.

So if you deal with words, if you are sound-sensitive, if you fear the household heebie jeebies, here's an idea.

The next time lightning strikes,

  and you want to dive under the covers with a Yorkie,

remember Nora's words and "ride the hard."
Because it's not all about the writing, is it? It's not about noise or fear of noise or interruptions and missed deadlines.

It's about coping.

It's about pulling yourself together as opposed to falling apart.

It's about inner grace. 

I must rise above an insignificant beep-beep. I must cast aside the notebook and feel a true visceral emotion for someone other than myself and the nervous Yorkie. And count blessings.
Lightning can be an illuminating streak in the dark, fodder for poets. It can also start fires and take lives.
Let's be really real, Piper. A beep is nothing.

Compassion for others, true compassion, breeds strength--because it is the luminous core of humanity.

all photos courtesy of Dreamstime except the rainbow, which is mine.  

$100 Amazon Gift Card Giveaway Plus a Short Glimpse into a Writer's Messy World

**Contest Restricted to followers of this blog**

On Friday the Thirteenth, while Blogger was having the vapors, I thought things couldn't get worse--then my house started beeping. I tried to ignore it,but the Nancy Drew inside me rose up and I turned into the Noise Police.Searched everywhere. Couldn't find it. Oh, the pain, especially since my ear is still wonky from too much air travel. I just wanted to move to a house that didn't beep.

The shrill, relentless eeeking pulled me out of my copyedits for a while. For a writer, when the work is going well, you enter a waking dream, and beepbeeps can jerk the words from your head.

My younger son, Bandwidth, came home from work and two seconds later, he'd Noise Policed the source of the horrid sound: a dying battery in the carbon monoxide detector.

However, he couldn't repair it immediately, so I listened to my iPod, which is soothing noise for me, and I returned to the dream.

Writers enter a doorway:

And then we sit around for a while and wait for our characters to do something. Lord help you if you haven't taken the time (months) to get to know these people. There are tricks of the trade to develop characters, and I use many of them; but they're short-cuts. I must inhabit the book via the dream and get to know my characters. The plot doesn't work (for me, anyway, and maybe not for you) unless it is driven by the characters, but that's a discussion for another post.

When I finish the copyedits (they're due this Friday), I will dream another dreams. Bits are starting to gather; I keep seeing Caro Clifford in the rain (Book II: A Requiem for Daylight).

What's she doing? What happened to her umbrella? Is the color green really green or is Caro trying to show me a metaphor?

(Personally? I hope not because I'd rather know what she's feeling.)

So I'm having an adventure and I'm swirling. The words are coming faster and faster and faster. Oh, I'm loving them. This is fun, fun, fun.

I get to travel to the Congo and I don't have to go through airport security or get my eardrums blown up or be a pin cusion for a slew of immunizations.

I don't even have to get dressed. I can be a slob.

Then I hear the beepbeepbeep and my husband puts his hand on my shoulder

(but I'm half-way in the dream and I think it's a tarantula)

and he says,

"Honey, I'm out of underwear."

So I'm out of the dream, but it's just as well. Because everything I wrote is worse than beeping, it's the worst, stinkiest drivel. The words must die, die, die.

But I needed to write awfulness to reach the place where I want to go. And I'll go there the minute I wash His Lordship's undies.

A new blog is like moving to a new, beepless house in a new town. It's quiet. And different from a food blog, which is unbelievably hard work--shopping for food, cooking the food, photographing the food, editing and uploading the photos, and writing copy. A vampy blog is a cakewalk in comparison.

But it's still lonely.

So here's a contest to kick off Piper's new blog.

The contest is open to exclusively to Followers of AWTN blog (Yeah, I know. But if you genuinely like vampy/action/romantic fiction, following will give back with goodies and member-only sort of stuff. So I'm thrilled if you follow and your name will go into the pot for the contest!  Anyone who follows AWTN will be "followed" by Piper.)

The new rules at certain social networks forbid anyone to hold contests or giveaways or mention their Trademark, but the links to Piper's hangouts can be found on the blog menu under "contact Piper" or you can click on the sidebar.
If you do visit me at other places, I'll enter your name extra times for a follow or "I Heart/L--- This."

If you're wondering about Acquainted With the Night, it's a thriller with vampires, a mystery, and a love story. It's not Southern (that's where Piper Maitland comes in, so my two readers --Hi, Mom and Mister--won't think this is Teeny, Vampire Slayer, and feel disappointed).

Extra chances to win if you click a button at the top of Piper's Amazon Page that shows your fondness for the book. If you visit these places, please come back here and leave a comment, so I will be sure to add your name extra times.

The Contest starts today, May 16th, and ends June 6th.

The winners' names will be announced here and on Twitter.

The Main Prize:
A $100 Amazon gift card, where you can buy Godiva chocolate, vampy, red dishes, or anything that strikes your fancy.

(And because we must have food), novelty "vampire" lollipops for two winners:

Thank you for visiting my new house--I'm so glad you're here--and yes,I have cake and coffee.

By the way, your visit makes me forget about the awful beeping, failed dreams, and wadded up papers.

XX00 

Images courtesy of http://www.dreamstime.com/  and http://www.adigitaldreamer.com/gallery/index.php. If you're in a time crunch and need photos for your blog, the latter link has free, royalty-free images.