Category Archives: On the Writing Process

I used to think of myself as a disciplined person. I rose early. I got to places on time, often well ahead of schedule. I completed assignments by deadline and aced my way through college and grad school. Were these not signs of great self-discipline?

Of course there were other reminders that perhaps I was not as in command of myself as I thought. My room, and now my house, were/are never as clean as they ought to be. My body attests to my impulsive compulsive nature in terms of its intake of calories and corresponding size of my derrière. My hair serves as visual acknowledgment that I’m more often in a ‘whatever’ mode than not.

What happened? Have I become lazy – or at least lazier? Maybe. But I also became a stay-at-home mom. For 12+ years the only deadlines I have had to meet are those of my family. And you can bet if lunches need packed or school supplies picked up or cookies need baked for the teachers’ lounge, I’m on it. I still work well to deadlines. Other people’s deadlines.

I don’t work well to my own any more. I guess I’ve figured out the magic secret that if I don’t meet my own deadlines…nothing happens. And for someone often consumed with anxiety and burdened with an excessive need to please people, frankly it feels good to know that if I let myself down the only person I’m hurting or disappointing is me.

But when did it become OK to accept less from myself for myself than for what I give to others? That’s not exactly ideal, right? And how do I prod myself back into working pridefully for me, without getting mired down in the anxiety and rebellion that that often induces?

I ask this as I sit in the cafeteria at a local community college, staring at the draft of my book that I promised myself I would edit this week while my kids are in camps here. I don’t want to edit it. I’m exhausted today, having lain awake for more than 3 hours in the dead of the night, and not even chocolate seems to be snapping me out of it. So this brain fog has me telling myself, ‘Eh, who cares? Play on Facebook or Twitter or Words With Friends or Candy Crush Saga- you can edit later!’

Which is, of course, what I’ve been telling myself for the last few months. Were I working to a deadline – one imposed by someone else, I mean – this sucker would be done. But when it’s my own, I still succumb to the siren song of procrastination. Every time.

I’ll never get anywhere in my writing career this way. Perhaps that’s my own subconscious point – I can’t fail if I never submit anything to anyone, right? (Never mind that never submitting pretty much constitutes a failure in itself.) But I also can’t succeed that way, and living a life in limbo, a life of procrastination, isn’t really living.

I like being my own boss, if one can call me that. But I work better for others. Apparently I’ve decided it’s OK to let myself down. No more. This fall, once the kids are back in school, I’m committing to a writing schedule. I’m going to post it publicly, and I’m going to find someone to hold me accountable (husband comes to mind, although for the sake of marital harmony perhaps I’ll ask a friend). Even when I’m tired. Even when I feel other things in my life ought to take priority. Even when I feel I’m kidding myself that I can ever make it in this business. I’m going to write and edit and research anyway.

And on that note, I’ve got to go. I have a manuscript to revise.

Every summer the family and I venture up from Virginia to the Jersey Shore – Ocean City, to be precise – for our annual Beach Week vacation.

I both love and hate this week. I love it because it’s fun to see family. It’s delightful to swish my toes in the sand. It’s exhilarating to go to Atlantic City and play the slots, even though I lose. Every time. And it’s scrumptious to devour all the food treats available at the shore, such as pizza, crumb cake, frozen yogurt, and more.

Which is also why I hate the shore. Because I love to eat, and it shows. I am not a small person. So walking on the boardwalk in the hot sun is not always appealing. Watching all the thin, beautiful people looking so relaxed and at ease in their bathing suits inspires jealousy. And having to put on said bathing suit and appear at the beach is positively disheartening.

I thought of all of that as I stared out at the ocean last week. I thought of all that, of all the reasons I felt uncomfortable in my body at that very moment, and then looked out at the sea again. Really looked. The sea is huge. It is immense. And next to it, I am a tiny blip. Tiny. The sea is vast. The sea is powerful. And next to it, I and my body – and all my worries, all my anxiety, all my fears – are nothing. How wonderfully freeing is that?

I stood there, soaking in the sight of the waves bashing against the shore, the sounds of the seagulls chattering over the roar of the ocean, the smell of the sand and the water and the sea life and whatever else mixes together to create that unmistakable shore scent, the feel of the sand and water on my toes… and I thought about writing. About how I really am just a grain of sand. I’m just a single drop of water in an ocean of people creating stories and trying to get them published. My words, as much as I agonize over them, are no more than the little tiny clam working its way back down into the sand after being unearthed by the water – or a child. What he’s doing is important to him, but he’s so small compared to all the clams in all the world in all the beaches digging at that very moment. What I’m doing is important to me. It’s worth doing. But I can let go of the anxiety about it. Even were my words the size of whales, they would still just be a small part of a very large whole.

Some may see that as disheartening. I don’t. It was a well-timed reminder that in the grand scheme of things, all of my things are small. My body. My fears. My desires. My words. And because they are small, I can let go of the large fears they produce in me. I can let my writing be for me. Any time the panic and uncertainty well up, I can think back to those moments at the edge of the ocean, and the waves that pounded the shore.

Because that was the second feeling that overcame me. Smallness at first – a revelation in itself from someone who feels their body and their anxiety are often immense, all-encompassing, overwhelming, insurmountable. And then… repetition. Continuity. Consistency. Whether the tide was coming in or going out, the waves still came. Whether they were big or small, the waves still came. Whether we wanted them to (for boogie boarding) or not (for protecting sand castles), the waves still came. They persisted. They persevered. They were dependable, even when not always predictable.

That’s how I want my writing to be – dependable, even if not always predictable. Something that persists, that batters against that shore of worry and anxiety and fear and family obligations and kids’ needs and unending house chores. That keeps coming, whether I want it to or not. And I want to keep in mind as I ride those waves in my writing pursuits, whether I’m gliding in smoothly or being bowled over (as happened once this year), that even those waves are small in comparison with the huge expanse of the sea.

Thank you, ocean.

A hilarious and true-feeling article (even for nooby writers like me): 10 Reasons Not To Be A Writer by Matt Haig

If you’re a writer, what compels you to write?

This is the question I’ve been asking myself lately as I tip-toe down this new path in life, a path which I hope leads toward publication. But why? Why do I care if I’m ever published? I can just write for myself, right?

Of course I can.

And I did, last year. I wrote my first book. O.K., first draft of a book. I kept telling myself I was doing it for me, and it didn’t matter whether or not anyone else ever read it, much less liked it. That was a bald-faced lie, of course, but I had to keep repeating it to my anxiety-ridden brain, or I never would have finished the thing.

“Who do you think you are?” “You think you can write like Eloisa James? Lynn Kurland? LaVyrle Spencer?” “You’re not even trained for this – you never took any creative writing classes!” “Like you’ll ever actually be able to do this – give up!”

These are just some of the thoughts my inner demons have thrown at me along the way – and I still battle them daily, as evidenced by the fact that five months after I finished it, my first draft remains a first draft, and that the draft of my second book is only at 15K words, written in dribs and drabs as I wage war against the bombs of self-doubt exploding continuously in my head.

I don’t say this to invoke pity – I’m no different than most writers, I guess. Self-doubt seems to be a common theme among authors as I read through more and more tweets, blogs, writing guides, etc. I say it to force the question, again, of why do I want to write? It’d be easier not to pursue this dream. Many days it is. Many days the only writing I do consists of Facebook updates or silly tweets.

But the urge is there, within, blazing against all the barriers I’ve set for myself. I want to write stories. And I want to share them with the world. Even more, I want the world to love them.

Do I care about financial success? Not particularly. Would it be nice to bring home some money to ease the breadwinning burden my husband has born for 14 years? Sure. But I know in my heart I’m not in this for money. Which is a good thing, since in spite of my husband’s insistence that I could be the next E. L. James or Stephenie Meyer or J.K. Rowling, I know better. I know that ain’t happenin’.

So if I don’t care about the moola, what do I want?

1. I want to write good, well-crafted, entertaining, heart-touching, laughter-invoking stories with a happy ending. I LOVE a good romance. I have since I was a teen. I’ve always realized that romance novels are not the simple formulaic stories others accuse them of being: most of the authors I love are highly educated smart women who write for smart audiences. All the elements have to come together to make a romance sing: characters, plot, story development, dialogue, outcome. It takes talent to do that. Do I have such talent? Who knows?

2. I want to connect with other people. Writing by and large assumes an audience. I suppose diaries may desire a viewership of one, but any other form of written communication seeks just that – communication. Connection. Bonding. Understanding. And maybe a little bit of ego – a little bit of, “Look at me! Here I am! Pay attention to me!”

3. I want to be entertaining. Nothing attracts me to others as much as a good sense of humor. I love things that make me laugh, and what usually gets me grinning is witty word play. I read romances more for the zippy interactions between characters, especially when slight snark is involved, than I do for the sex, people.  A well-written sex scene? OK, yeah, I’m good with that. But what I *really*  love is the romantic build-up, the sexual tension, the will-they-or-won’t they (even if you know they will; it IS romance, after all) – all of it. Much of that, for me, is shown through wit, through dialogue as foreplay, if you will. I’ll take verbal dexterity over muscles almost any day. But put them together and…*dreamy sigh*.

4. I want to prove to myself I can do it. I’ve been told my whole life that I am a good writer. I’ve been telling people my whole life that I’m going to write romance novels. But I excel at, well, not delivering. Those anxiety bullies in my head? They’re pretty good at stealing my lunch money. They’re great at keeping me from my goals, whether through letting myself get distracted by other obligations, real or imaged (I am a wife and mom, after all, so it’s not like I don’t have any other responsibilities), paralyzing me with self-doubt that leads to nowhere but inaction, or making success sometimes feel as scary as failure.

5. I’d like to think the voices in my head are characters who are asking for their stories to be told, rather than, uh, something else.

Those are my reasons. What are yours?

I am giddy. Giddy.

I joined the Romance Writers of America last week, and received my official membership confirmation yesterday.

I know it’s not nearly the same as publishing a book; not at all. But for me it’s thrilling because I’ve put myself out there and declared to the world that I’m really doing this.  I’m finally pursuing my dream of writing romance novels, a dream I’ve had (and proclaimed) since I was just a kid in high school. Yeah, I’ve announced such on Facebook and Twitter. Yes, I’ve got my shingle out on this website. But joining an established writing association feels more significant, more… real.

For many this is just a logical no-brainer step on the path to success, but it took a lot for this anxiety-ridden mom-turned-author-wannabe to, as the Hokey Pokey says, “put my whole self in”.

So here’s to facing the fear. Here’s to revising and editing that first draft of “A Man of Character” and submitting it to someone, somewhere, before the end of 2013. And here’s to – hopefully – attending the RWA conference in 2014.

And now back to writing. Because joining all the associations in the world won’t accomplish a thing if I don’t do the work.