Misgivings Again?

I think I have an idea for a book. The problem is, creeping doubts are entering my brain again. I don’t know how I wrote as many books as I have given these doubts are my long-time companions. What if I’m subjecting the world to mediocre, or worse, bad writing? What if there’s a reason nobody is reading my books?

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I’m told these misgivings are part and parcel of being a writer. I doubt that people on the NYT Bestsellers List go through them.

I feel like I’m 62 and still haven’t found my niche. What if I’m not called to do writing? What if I’m not called to do anything?

Musing about Writing

I’ve concluded that my writing is not commercially feasible (traditional publishing) because it’s too short for fantasy. At 70,000 words on average, it’s not long enough for agents to be interested in it. It would be short enough for romance, but my writing is really fantasy (or to be more accurate, magical realism is more likely) which is not written short. However, I write tightly and don’t need all those words.

If I’m not selling in indie (self-published) markets, it’s because I can’t get enough traction with marketing. I have tried several things, and none of them seem to work. I feel like, if I wrote romantasy (heavy on traditional romance, lots of spice) I’d have a better chance, but I don’t feel moved to write about those things. I have a niche, but I can’t seem to get introduced to those people.

The saying “Do what you love, the rest will follow”? It does not seem true in my personal situation. I write because I’m possessed with ideas, and what possesses me is shorter novels. People have told me I’m a good writer. I think I’m a good writer.

I’m just trying to convince myself to keep writing, even though I don’t have a readership. It’s a hard sell, because I don’t do things just for myself; rather, I look at what they produce and whether they’re useful. Right now I am starting a garden; I don’t grow the seedlings for their own sakes. I grow them because they’ll give me food someday. My books will never give me food, and I have to figure out whether that’s okay.

What I Write

I want to remind my readers that I write books. I don’t mention that much.

I write romantic fantasy and fantasy romance. The difference between those is the emphasis; fantasy romance is mainly romance and romantic fantasy mainly fantasy.

The fantasy romance novels concern the Kringle Society, a secret society of Santas that infiltrate towns with good deeds. Quirky people fall in love and become involved in the community. You will find Santa scholars, Renaissance re-enactors, toymakers, college professors, and the occasional accountant among the people featured. These are sweet romances; ‘closed door’ in romance parlance.

The romantic fantasy novels feature an agricultural collective, what some might call a commune. The residents are hard workers; they are pacifists, back-to-nature sorts, and people who seek community. Add to the mix immortals, the earth-soul Gaia, and the possible demise of humanity, and you have a people with life-changing secrets hidden in plain sight.

You can find my novels here. Just click on this sentence.

Messages from the Universe

I really wanted the author fair to go better. But the weather was abysmal, and we only had about fifteen people come through. None of them wanted to read Christmas romances or serious fantasy romance, so I didn’t sell a single book. As I have been fretting lately as to whether I should be trying to market my books in the first place, I felt this was my message from the universe telling me to quit.

Then I got this urge to go to Starbucks with my husband afterwards, rather than going home to cry (I really did feel bad). There, I ran into one of the other authors, who had not sold any books either. We commiserated with each other and talked about what we knew was true about being an indie writer — the difficulties in finding venues to sell, the role of luck in getting recognized, and the need to just keep trying.

My husband and I went to Raku for ramen after that and ran into a young woman with whom I had a wild conversation the other day, about lots of subjects including writing as a way to get your feelings in order. She thanked me profusely for getting her back into writing.

So I think messages from the universe are present. As a Friend (Quaker), I have learned to listen for them. I don’t know what to credit them to — “The Universe” seems to have the least baggage attached to it. But I’m listening.

Impasse

Today is the local author’s fair at the public library, and I am suffering from a severe case of impostor’s syndrome. This is new; normally I enjoy the author’s fair, given that it’s the only time I go out in the public and talk about my books. But this year I feel reluctant to do so.

It’s something I have been fighting for a little while, though. I’ve been wrestling with writing something new, I have been unmotivated, I’ve just been feeling blah about my endeavors.

It’s even more complicated than that, of course. I’m afraid of sinking (further?) into obscurity, and I’m equally afraid of my writing career picking up. I don’t want it to stay the same, either. I’m at an impasse where there’s a boulder on the road in front of me and a washout behind me.

Given all this, I would prefer my career to go forward, because that difficulty would come with a side of satisfaction, which is not as present in the other options. I’m all for climbing over the boulder somehow if I can manage it. There’s much I can’t manage in terms of promotion and the like; I am doing all I can within my time and money means. But I have a presence on Facebook, Threads, Blue Sky, and in this blog, and I send a newsletter to 2800 people. To torture my boulder metaphor further, what I need is a bolt of lightning to pulverize that rock so I can climb over it.

I guess what I want is for the effort to be worth it, because I’ve written 9 novels (plus one that didn’t survive) and I feel foolish writing another. If you have a moment for good wishes, wish for me to find a way over the boulder.

Stalled Stories

What do I do when I don’t like where the story is going?

I have this problem with the two works in progress that are not currently in progress. One of them has a main character problem. The main character is a cipher, which is as it should be, as he is keeping a big secret. The thing is that the progression of their relationship seems vapid as a result. Which it might well be, given that he’s keeping a secret, but it’s not good storytelling at the moment.

The other book? The plot got so convoluted that not even I know what’s going on. Why are they going to the planet where they expect the bad guys to be waiting for them? I’m not sure I’ve given them compelling reasons to do something this stupid.

So what do I do? The first thing I do is avoid writing for a while. This is obviously not a good strategy, but this is a blog post about what I do, not what I should do. I’m edging toward the end of my writing hiatus, so I have to try the next step.

Next I start doing some writing exercises. I need to interrogate the two characters in Walk Through Green Fire, explore where they’re at right now and how they feel about it. Interrogating the character is interviewing the character, except for the tricky part that they don’t exist. It helps me get into the character’s motivations.

Then, hopefully I’m in the space to write. If not, I abandon the book and start on another project. I’ve already done this with Walk Through Green Fire once. It may be a fundamentally flawed work, I’m not sure. Or something I’m not willing to write because reasons. In which case, I need to find a new novel. Maybe it’s time to do the Kringle novel for this year.

Getting into the Swing of Things

The above is a very American phrase meaning something like “getting into the rhythm of what’s currently happening.” It’s such an ingrained phrase in American English that it’s hard to define without using the phrase itself.

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“Getting into the swing of things” is a descriptor of where I am right now. My fall semester starts tomorrow, and it will take a few days before I fall into the rhythm of life as a professor again. My schedule is much less flexible, I add more necessary tasks for my job, and i have much less free time. Writing time will become scarce and scheduled secondarily to my work tasks.

The challenge is to allow at least a couple hours a day writing, with three hours being optimal for flow. I can look at the schedule right now and see where that will be difficult. Mondays will be the most difficult, as I have meetings after my afternoon class lets out. Meanwhile, Wednesdays and Fridays will be easier — I can schedule 2:30-5 as writing time and maybe even go to Starbucks to write. Tuesdays and Thursdays I work at home, and I can do what I did over summer — get my work done first, and spend that later afternoon block writing. Weekends will be as always. So it’s doable.

The challenge will be to switch gears (another Americanism) from work brain to writing brain. They’re two different modes. Seldom does my work life demand creativity. (My creative life demands a certain amount of critical thinking, though.) Right now I have an afternoon to write before fall semester begins, but I’m not feeling inclined to write because I’m in work brain mode.

I’ve done this transition before — for many years, in fact; I don’t know why it’s a struggle this year. Maybe because I’m in-between projects, and there’s not a writing project currently obsessing me. This, too, will change when I get into the swing of things.

Hopeful Thinking

I have discussed writing as a flow activity often enough that I’ve made the case that writing for the sake of writing is a worthy pursuit. Even so, I like to get recognition for my writing. I want to know that I am an interesting writer and have some skill.

Right now, in society, wanting external validation is a weakness. We call it “attention-seeking”^* and that’s considered bad. However, external validation shapes our self-esteem, according to sociometer theory. When we don’t get it, we shape our behavior in order to get it.

In some ways, I get the validation I need. My friends know to ask me how the writing is going. That’s appropriate and my sociometer registers positive.

What I wish I had, though, is the readers. This is something most indie authors struggle with. There are so many writers out there, and so many books, and some people use traditional publishing as their judge how worthy a book is to read. What traditional publishing signals, in reality, is how well the idea sells. There are good writers in independent publishing. But they’re hard to find, and there’s a catch-22 that dogs indie writers: People read books that are read by others.

How to get readers? I wish I knew. I advertise mine on Facebook and Threads and Instagram. But the ads are not tempting readers to read, and I don’t know what to do about that. It’s hard sometimes, but I persist in hopeful thinking that I will get a following someday.

^*Not all attention-seeking is good, and I can explain this in terms of sociometer theory. The bad form of attention-seeking is that which violates one of the social norms of a group, and that is attention-hogging. We don’t approve of one person getting all the attention, but are often too polite to signal that directly. Wanting positive attention in and of itself is not bad, however; it’s something we’re programmed to do.

Short Break

I’m writing at home today; trying out another day to see if I can get my word count up without going to Starbucks.

So far, so good. I wrote a 750-word breakup argument, which was a lot of fun. It’s a reminder that I need to get more of the relationship between Forrest and Sage into the book. Remember, I’m pantsing this book (aka “Flying by the seat of my pants”), which means I figure out what’s wrong in retrospect.

I only have four chapters after this before Carrying Light is done. I could happy cry. When I’m done, I’m going to put the novel into a figurative desk drawer to see if fresh eyes will find all the changes I need to make. And then what? I have a novel to re-edit for January 1 publication if I don’t chicken out. It’s a somewhat unusual novel with very different focus from the previous Hidden in Plain Sight novel Apocalypse. I have a couple ideas for novels, but I’m not happy with either one of them. Maybe it’s time to write more short stories. But about what?

People have suggested elven detectives in the manner of Howard the Duck, a battalion of squirrels, and a library run by sentient marmots. These will not happen.

The Beginning of a Writing Journey

Seven years ago today

Seven years ago yesterday, I finished my first novel. To be exact, I finished the first draft of my first novel, which was then revised so many times over the years that it’s not the book I originally wrote. Coincidentally, it’s the book I hope to self-publish by the end of the summer, Gaia’s Hands.

After that first novel

I thought I’d quit writing after I wrote that novel, because I had fulfilled one of those Big Audacious Goals that I thought I’d never fulfill, being a short-story person by nature. But I wrote six and a half more novels — the half novel being 50k of a book that needs another half.

So far, only one book, The Kringle Conspiracy, has been published. My family likes it and it’s helped me get quite a few newsletter readers in the past few weeks. That book was almost 40 years in the making, coming from a vignette I wrote in a high school creative writing class.

There will be (hopefully) two other books to be (self-) published soon: the aforementioned Gaia’s Hands and the second Kringle book, Kringle in the Night.

Where to from here?

Obviously, I’m probably going to keep writing, although I haven’t written a novel since — checks watch — last November. I’d like to start writing a new novel soon, even though I’ve been advised to stick with short stories for a while. Getting things published is also important to me right now.

For you

Do you have ideas for a novel? Dreams of writing a novel? Write them here!