Thoughts and Prayers

I know that most of you in the United States are people I already know. My overseas readers, for the most part, seem to be regulars, but I don’t know you (or don’t think I know you). I am addressing all of you.

I need your thoughts and prayers.

Not in the sense of “I need to say something of comfort so I can go back to what I was doing,” as is too often the case when handling preventable tragedies in the US.

But I believe in thoughts and prayers if they occur in the sense of “I hope the best for this person.” I believe this has an effect — not necessarily to bring out a desired outcome, but to provide hope, clarity, courage, patience in the person who needs these things.

I need these things, because I’m struggling with writing. You might have noticed that I haven’t been able to write daily, and that’s because I don’t know if I’m going to continue writing. I have no idea if I’m ever going to be published, and I’m not sure it’s worth the time and money it takes to improve and make a story reading-ready.

But I don’t know if I’m not going to continue writing, either.

So, if you have a spare moment and the intent to help, send thoughts and prayers my way. You don’t even have to tell me you did. But I need to find clarity to move forward in whatever direction opens to me. .

An embarrassment of riches

I don’t know what to write next.

This, as you may guess, is unusual for me. I have eight novels (with two needing serious work to redo), and these were written in a five-year period. (And should have been edited more ruthlessly much sooner, but I didn’t know better).

I want to hold off a bit on editing the two that need serious work (why? Because I feel like I haven’t done anything but edit lately.)

I have a couple ideas of what to write:

Gods’ Seeds. This would be another book in the Archetype universe, taking place after Reclaiming the Balance (which needs much work) and before Whose Hearts are Mountains. and which features a brewing war among Archetypes
A sequel to Voyageurs, which would require a lot of history research, which I detest
A sequel to Prodigies, a New Adult novel, with no idea who I’d be following.
Something new and I have no idea.

None of them are grabbing me yet. Probably because I feel guilty for having books out there that need editing.

I suppose this is an embarrassment of riches and I shouldn’t complain.

Time for me to see what ideas grab me …

Four Sex Scenes

I’ve finished the latest edit on Voyageurs, and it’s ready to go into dev edit as soon as I do one more thing.

Write four sex scenes.

After all, it’s a romance novel, or at least a soft SF novel with romantic elements. There are four places in the novel where they’re having sex, but I don’t go into detail. I suspect that romance publishers will need sex scenes.

I’m terrified.

I have nothing against sex — in fact, you can think of me as sex-positive. But I have seen so many bad sex scenes in my writing time that I fear that sex can’t be written well. There’s over-the-top tentacle sex . There’s overwrought adjective sex, where the men and the orgasms are bigger than life. There’s contractual obligation sex scenes and there’s tab A- slot B clinically detailed sex scenes.

I don’t want to write any of these. I want to write something emotionally fulfilling, heavy on relation and light on mechanics. I don’t know if I know how to do that.

If you hear me screaming today, know it’s because I have to write four sex scenes.

Day 6 NaNo — still chugging

I can’t wait to write again today.

This is what NaNo does to people, I hear — somehow writing without self-censoring (which is necessary to get 1,667 words a day in) — makes your connection to your words and your characters and your plots flow.

By the end of this, I should have Whose Hearts are Mountains’ rough draft finished, and probably 30,000 words on Becoming Kringle, which I will finish in December as the bells jingle along.

Off to write. Sorry this is so short, but maybe I’ll drop an excerpt of Whose Hearts are Mountains tomorrow.

Oh, yes — up to 12,000 words as of this morning.

The Beauty of NaNo

Last night, I hit the 10,000 words mark — twenty percent of the novel is done! No, not really — first of all, there’s the fact that I’m writing between two novels. Second, 50,000 words is not the optimal length of a novel.

But it’s a big, round number, and that’s the idea. Not even NaNo pretends that you’ll have a publishable final product at the end of November. But you’ll have something to start with, or something that you keep to yourself and say, “I wrote this!”

Progress as it stands — I can see the finish line of Whose Hearts are Mountains, knowing that I have a lot of work to do afterward. Richard has restored some of the stuff I took out in the edit of Gaia’s Hands and emphasized things I need to emphasize. He has lots of work to go. It’s nice to think that that novel can be salvaged.

I’m still waiting for the other publishing editor to come up with edits of the first 50 pages of Prodigies. I am beginning to wonder about her — she couldn’t find anything wrong with my query letter, whereas the other publishing editor helped me improve my query letter in ways even I could see. I would work with one of these people again — not so the other one.

I’m beginning to feel like a writer again. That’s what NaNo does for me.

Day 5 NaNo — and a big surprise

Something strange happened on the way to my NaNo count yesterday. I started becoming interested in writing on Whose Hearts are Mountains again. I don’t know how it happened, but I looked at it yesterday after getting my word count yesterday, and I started writing.

NaNo is surprisingly lenient about this — they say you have to write 50,000 words, and they count writing exercises (word sprints) toward this. I suspect I’m legal writing on two books during this time, and if not, I’ll just have to shrug and say “I’d rather ride this wave of success”.

I’m discovering that Whose Hearts are Mountains is going to be shorter than I’d thought at probably 75,000 words. That’s 4500 words more. It’s probably long enough, and it will get a little longer when I come back and add in some descriptive stuff and other editing. But I’m writing more than 20 words a day on it. Yay NaNo!

I’m still writing on Becoming Kringle, and I will probably work more on it as we approach the
In other developments, Richard is editing my problem child (now our problem child), Gaia’s Hands.
The Gaia stories overlap with Apocalypse and Reclaiming the Balance, but deal more with humans. So we’re co-authoring, and wondering if we should have both our names (I vote yes) or the combined pseudonym Lauren Richards (his vote yes).

So I’m re-energized for writing, and anticipate that December is going to be an editing, rather than a writing month.

Facing my fears (writing related)

My worst fear about writing is that, after developmental editors and publishing coaches, I will be left with this choice: Write what I love or get published.

I have gotten several rejections by agents. I don’t know if anyone will read me if I self-publish, because I’ve never been good at self-promotion.

There, I said it.

This has been my fear all along, that I will hit a dead end in my writing career — and yes, I think of it as a career, or at least the start of a career.

If that’s the worst thing that can happen, what are the possibilities?

I keep trying to find an agent, with the great possibility that revising my query materials will not attract an agent.
I self-publish, trying to get a readership on my own, which scares me to bits, because I hate self-promotion. I am convinced there’s a psychological disorder called “Midwestern Female Syndrome” in which sufferers display inward perfection while at the same time striving to look mediocre to others
I give up writing novels, because it’s really a waste of time to write novels that nobody reads.

I don’t have more than three possibilities in my mind. My mentor Les says that’s a bad thing, because there are always more than two options. I, however, cannot quit until I’ve exhausted all avenues.

On the flip side, how would I measure success?

An agent, and eventually a publisher if going the traditional route
At least 1000 copies sold of a self-published book, without having to resort to buying the books myself and reselling them
In the short run, at least breaking even on the investments I put into coaching, editing, and other items.

My vision, or where I would like to be:

Money to supplement my retirement in 10 or so years
A devoted readership
A book signing tour
The confidence to say I’m an author

I think my goals are realistic — perhaps too modest, but realistic.

This is where I am, world.

If you could send encouragement (non-anonymous preferred), prayers, wishes, or advice I’d greatly appreciate it.

Dear Universe (warning: frustrated writer)

Dear Universe:

I don’t know how I feel about my writing right now. When I started writing, I felt I had things to say, things about true heroes meeting the world with kindness, peacefulness, and acceptance of others. I wrote about these things, edited my stories, and eventually submitted them to agents. And I got hundreds of rejections for them.

I realized I needed help making my works better, and I submitted my work to beta readers and a developmental editor to polish the stories, Then I submitted a few of them again to agents. And got many, many more rejections.

There is a Quaker concept (yes, I’m a Quaker) called “praying for a way to open.” I have been doing that for a long time, even though I wonder if I have a right for the way to open given how much more privileged I am than too many people out there. I have not seen a way opening; in fact, every time I feel a glimmer of hope, another door closes. I pursue ideas for publication — the Kindle Scout program, which shut down just as my book was submitted; asking a successful author to put in a word for me; submitting directly to presses that take direct submissions. None of these have succeeded for me.

It is not that I am not trying, Universe; I have tried harder than (I believe) most. I do not say this because I want to guilt you into opening a door to me. I say this merely to point out that I need some guidance so I know whether to keep trying or not. I need to know whether I really have something important to say or if this is just a matter of my own self-importance. It seems to me that kindness and peacefulness, not to mention acceptance of others is even more needed now than it was when I started writing.

So here I am, asking for a way to open — or for a clear indication that I shouldn’t seek out publication anymore.

Love, Lauren

Recovery

“Here, this won’t hurt a bit.”

This is my favorite picture from Missouri Hope’s moulage headquarters. Here I’m demonstrating various techniques on one of our moulage artists who was kind enough to let me bruise and cut her up pretty badly.

I estimated from yesterday’s stats — 180 roleplayers in three shifts, 4-6 moulage artists per shift — that boils down to 7-10 roleplayer moulages per person per hour.

I haven’t totally recovered yet. I feel like I have jet lag although I haven’t gone anywhere — except to the mythical country of Atlantica, torn by tensions between north and south, crippled by an earthquake and its aftermath. A country I helped create.

Life will be back to normal, back to writing, in a day or so, when I find my feet on firm ground and arrive home again.

Positive today

I find it miraculous at times that I am still writing, that I still consider myself a writer, despite all the rejections and the setbacks. Maybe this has become part of who I am, and getting published will just be, as they say, the whipped cream on top of my mug of hot chocolate.

(Note to readers: Tell me your favorite hot chocolate recipe. I will feature you in a future column.)

It’s Sunday, and I’m going out to write today. I’m finally done with the major revision of Apocalypse and all I need is a pass-through to send to my dev editor. My goal is to try to finish Whose Hearts are Mountains before NaNo time, so I can have fun writing a Santa-filled romance novel (more quirky and meet-cute than Hunky Santa in a G-String, if you know what I mean.)

I have not given up.