The Next Book (for NaNo)

I am laying out the next book, which will give me the opportunity to ~~avoid~~ set aside Avatar of the Maker for a little while. I hope those ideas ripen in the meantime and give me insight on how to edit the document to wonderful effect.

The reason I am starting on another novel is that NaNoWriMo is coming up in November, and I have an annual ritual attached to that. Every November I write the next Kringle romance so that I’m inspired by the holiday season. It’s now part of how I celebrate.

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This year’s, which I don’t know if I have a title yet, involves a single mom/student/barista and a firefighter. These are common tropes of romance, but I’m hoping to make them uncommon. I’m trying to figure out what quirky elements to include in the story. In the past, I have included medieval reenactment and Krampus. I know that the Human Society is involved and the male protagonist is going to be a cat person (somewhat unusual, and something that gets voted down on dating sites, if you can believe that.) Maybe that’s enough, but I like to write for nerds, so maybe I get inspired.

There also needs to be a dance involved, in homage to regency novels. Where would a firefighter and a single mother dance? They don’t have money to go to the hospital Christmas gala. Is there a dance in the fire station? A Christmas party?

If you’re reading and have any ideas on these, let me know!

Considering Big Audacious Goals again

It’s my birthday eve-eve-eve

It’s three days before my birthday. I’m almost 59, or almost-almost 60, so I don’t have a “birth month” any longer. I have an extended celebration, bits and pieces here and there.

This last weekend my husband and I traveled to Kansas City, in part for a writing retreat and in part for my birthday. I got to see a Studio Ghibli double-feature and spend quality time in coffeehouses. We postponed the visit to the classic, elegant steakhouse until the future when we could get reservations in on time, but we ate Middle Eastern and Indian food.

My actual birthday is on Sunday. I’m expecting more coffeehouse time and maybe dinner at the local steakhouse (which is not as fancy as The Golden Ox in KC). Maybe a Kris and Kates’ Birthday Cake twister, although I’m off sweets right now.

Making Big Audacious Goals

What I really want for my birthday is a good day, a calm day with a little joy. A day with a little surprise, hopefully pleasant. Hugs and kittens. I don’t ask for much. Besides, Sunday is not a day for Big Audacious Goals to be met.

I will make the Big Audacious Goals for the next year on my birthday, because it seems to be the right time, avoiding the treachery of the New Year and the spookiness of Halloween. (There’s also Asian New Year and Rosh Hashanah to select from for New Year, if we want to get more complicated.) But instead of correcting bad things (resolutions) I’ll make Big Audacious Goals.

What are Big Audacious Goals? The name spells it out — they’re gutsy and magnificent and perhaps harder than we expect them to be. The idea is to use them to push ourselves beyond our notion of ourselves.

A Big Audacious Goal is best when it specifies the action you’ll make rather than the result you will get, because we have less power over what results from our actions. For example, writing this blog twice a week (which I have only done consistently lately) is a better BAG than getting 100 followers, which is something I have no control over. Coincidentally, I have over 100 followers. I didn’t get to my goal exactly, but close enough to celebrate.

Choosing Big Audacious Goals makes us feel more powerful, as if we have chosen something heroic to perform. I read somewhere that dogs define themselves by what they do: “Hank, fetch!” Now the dog’s name is Hank, fetch! I argue dogs become heroes in their own minds by what they do. We do too by adopting Big Audacious Goals.

What if you don’t succeed? It was a Big Audacious Goal; attempting it in the first place puts you a great deal better than before you adopted it. One of my BAGs was to indie-publish Gaia’s Hands, which I did. Not too many people have read it, though, which was the other half of the BAG (I should have known better). But look at the BAG of indie publishing it. Gaia’s Hands is a highly personal novel, and the one which I found hardest to write, so publishing it is a grand step. Putting it in front of readers, even if they don’t read it, is a grand step.

I don’t know what I’m going to adopt as Big Audacious Goals this year; I’m going to talk about that with my husband. Writing something I’d already planned for writing is not a BAG; the goal should be above the ‘do’ level and into the ‘dream, then do’ level. If it’s another book, it has to be something I think is beyond me. Maybe it’s doing something dramatic in marketing like better TikTok or a podcast (if only I had something to talk about!) A few cups of coffee and I’m sure it will come to me.

Nothing Left to Lose

I’d like to get to where I have nothing left to lose with my writing. Not to stop writing, but to write without an external reason. Not for readers, not for recognition, not for money, not to see my name in print. Just for the sheer joy of writing (when it is joy; sometimes it’s tedium).

I’m not there yet. I don’t care so much about the money, having probably earned only a couple hundred dollars so far. But I want people to read my books, comment about my books, and like my books. I have books with five reviews or fewer (and I have no way of knowing how many copies they’ve sold).

My dream is to have people want to write fanfic about my books, which I would let them do, keeping in mind the restrictions of the world I’ve built. I’d like to be a non-evil version of Marion Zimmer Bradley. This is far from the desire listed above.

Maybe the desire not to care is because there’s such a gap between where I am and where I’d like to be. Like I shot for the stars and ended up in the neighbor’s backyard. On the other hand, the freedom of not caring is exhilarating.

Taking Stock

I have readers!

I’ve discovered in the past few days that 33 people have read Kel and Brother Coyote Save the Universe. I don’t know how many people have read any of the Kringle books because I only find out about those who have reviewed it, but I have a few reviews on each. There are a few reviews on Gaia’s Hands as well. There is hope.

I would like more readers. Of course I would. One purpose of writing is to have something for people to read. I could act selflessly and deny that, but I don’t do selflessly well. My goals are to have a readership and maybe make enough money to defray the costs I incur for writing and editing programs, the occasional book cover, and conferences.

Mission and vision

My mission and vision are important. My mission is what I want to accomplish now and my vision is the dream.

My mission: To write books for geeks of all ages who like their fantasies romantic and their romances fantastic.

My vision: To write worlds interesting enough that other people want to play in them.

I’m definitely fulfilling my mission. I need more of a readership to fulfill my vision, although my husband has written in the Archetype universe.

From here

I think I need to post my mission and vision statements on the office wall, along with my two posters from books I created. This should focus me toward what’s important to me — the writing and the connecting.

Weather and the Writer

I’m sitting by the window at Starbucks. My husband sits across from me, finishing his first screenplay, based on my first Christmas novel. The Kringle Conspiracy has sold a few copies, and I have distributed free copies to almost 5000 people on BookFunnel in exchange for registration on my mailing list.

It looks like it wants to rain out. It rained earlier, but we could use more rain. I could use more rain, wind, and petrichor to remind me that summer will be over soon. I talk about the weather a lot, because the weather always surrounds us and engages our senses.

Writers use weather to inform their scenes, but not always in the way we expect. Do happily ever afters always happen under sunny skies with rainbows? I can see scenarios where the last scene, the big kiss, happens in the pouring rain, or in a snowstorm. Each of those would communicate two different feels — the pouring rain might be tempestuous or cathartic, the snowstorm cozy or threatening. A battle in a torrential rainstorm would be grueling, but on a sunny day, be ironic.

I want you to take a moment and imagine some weather, either some that you love or some you hate. Then tell a story about what happens in that weather, describing the air, the sky, the precipitation (if any). Make the scene about the weather and what happens in this weather. Write it down.

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You are now a writer!

Forcing Myself to Write, Pt. 2

Today, I went to Starbucks with my husband, who was definitely going to hold me to being there for at least two hours. I actually got 1000 words done, which is more than I’ve written for a couple months. I’ll have to force myself to write now that the fall semester is about to start!

Forced to Write

I haven’t written in a while, having spent some time querying and some time prepping for classes and some time traveling the past two weeks. But I’m here at Starbucks, waiting for my husband to show up for lunch. It’s only 10:45 and I expect him here at 11:30. Or noon. And I have to do something.

So I’m forced to write, starting with this blog. The words are flowing out after feeling blocked for the longest time. From here, I’m going to look at Maker’s Seeds and see what might have inspired me in the hiatus and tweak, then find new purchase in the story.

Maybe I should trap myself into writing more often. That should be a good way of forcing me to write.

Feeling the Tension

I’m once again querying, sending out a manuscript and all the trimmings to agents looking to see if any of them want to represent my book.

It’s a nerve-wracking proposition, especially as I have had no luck so far with getting agents to look. It’s difficult putting one’s best work out there, not knowing if this time it will get some traction. Face it, rejection is difficult to face, and no, I am not used to it.

I’ve sent ten queries out today and I don’t expect to hear from any of them today, as it’s Sunday. Tomorrow, the early rejectors will reply, and I will wait on the others as I send out more queries. I’ve done this before.

I have made some important changes to this version, some having to do with grammar throughout and the more important ones having to do with something I should never have attempted with the story.

Wish me luck!

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As the End of the Summer Approaches …

I can feel the end of the summer. The County Fair is over, the weather is boiling, and I’ve done all my digital setup for the fall semester. I always do it early, according to my Facebook posts from years past, mostly to prepare myself for the fact that my days will be fuller and more carefree, and there will not be nearly as much free time to write.

School starts August 17, less than a month from now. Meetings start a week before that, and there will (hopefully) be a beginning-of-semester cookout for faculty and staff which represents the beginning of the semester more than any ritual could.

What have I accomplished? I’m a quarter of the way through one book, an eighth of the way through another, and I don’t know which one to write. I have finalized It Takes Two to Kringle, which is waiting only for some last minute putting together before I submit it to Kindle. I have edited an old but (in my opinion) outstanding book called Prodigies, which I hope to send off to agents soon. I neglected my garden again. I relaxed.

Life is good and I passed through the summer doldrums without much damage. Soon I will go through the beginning of semester highs (If this sounds like bipolar, it is, sort of). But it’s my cycle of the year and I will do my best to meet it.

Blessings in Disguise

I have a tendency to feel rejections keenly, thinking that they are a personal judgment of me. But what if they’re blessings? What if they’re there to keep me from really embarrassing myself with a mediocre (or worse) submission?

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I’ve been going over old works I have written. I’ve written so many half-developed character sketches that aren’t stories, so many poems of the same, with no hook. Novels with plot twists that became deal-breakers.

I’m not a poor writer, but I want to be a better one. I want to be accepted for publication more often. Someday I want to have a novel professionally published. This won’t start happening unless I see these rejections as blessings in disguise. (Or even if I do, I suppose, but I’d like to be optimistic.)