Creature of Habit

The Writer's Desk

When I read about J.K. Rowling writing in longhand on a legal pad while sitting in a coffee shop, I shudder. To each his own, but this sounds like torture to me.

Every writer has his/her own way of creating. I used to write on a manual typewriter at my dining room table. Then I wrote on an electric typewriter and then a desk computer in an office in my home. Then I moved to a different house and made the whole upstairs an office and library and wrote on a new desktop computer. Then the Internet, routers, and laptops took over and I now write on a laptop in a downstairs office. I keep thinking that I'll start writing in the upstairs office again, but then I think it's dumb to heat and cool that whole floor.

The point is, I like to write in basically the same place and on the same instrument, day after day. Sometimes, if my back his aching or I'm crushing a deadline, I'll take the laptop into the living room and sit on the couch to write during the evening after writing all day in my office. 

My library upstairs is hardly ever used now and I've donated more than half of my books that used to be shelved up there to charities. The Internet has become my main source of information, along with a few books about the west and cowboys that are out of print.

I haven't written in longhand anything fictional since I was a kid and didn't know how to type yet. I know of several writers who do write in notebooks, but it seems odd to me. They will have to commit their work to type for it to be saved and/or emailed, so why not start off keying in the computer and skip a step? Or they have to hire someone to key the whole thing into a computer. Waste of money. The longhanders say this way of writing makes them more creative and allows them more time to think.

For me, I think faster than I can type -- and I type fast. When I think back to the days of the typewriter and correction fluid/tape, I break out in hives.

I also use my computer to read back what I've written. The computer guy (I like to use the male voice) reads it to me and that helps me catch mistakes, misspellings, omitted words, etc. It also makes me laugh when he reads my sex scenes in his monotone, unemotional voice.

Back when I was part of a critique group, the reading of our work aloud was a godsend. We could hear it, catch the odd phrasing, wince at the wrong wording, tsk at the poor punctuation, and question how believable a plot point was and if someone really would talk like that. After years and years of being critiqued, I still have one or two other people I respect (as in, they are astute writers and/or readers) read my final drafts and tell me where I've succeeded and where I've failed. It's part of my writing "habit."

That's the thing, you see. Writers are creatures of habit. That's the only way you can actually become a writer. You have to make sitting down in front of a computer screen (or notebook) a habit. Every damned day until it is ingrained. Until it's almost an addiction. If I miss a day or two, I have withdrawal symptoms. I feel that something is amiss. I'm antsy. I feel guilty. That's why most writers write while they're on vacation. They need their "fix."

That's also why some writers continue to write in longhand on lined paper. It's habit. It's their daily drug of choice. The "fix" is in.

 

All Good Things Must End

I'm winding down on my Mind's Eye series. I admit I'm dragging my feet. I've loved being in Levi Wolfe and Trudy Tucker's world. I have loved their romance and now their marriage. #5 in the series -- THROUGH HER TOUCH -- is (or will be in a few days) available on Amazon and I'm writing #6 now (THROUGH HER HEART). 

I thought I'd create a new series, but I'm not so sure now. Series take a lot of planning, thinking, character development, etc. The Mind's Eye is my first one and I originally plotted three books. But the main characters had so much to say and reveal, that I had to expand it to six books. This series had been buzzing in my head for a good ten years, so I had spun a long tale in all that time.

A new series? I have a couple of characters in mind, but I might just place them in a single title romantic suspense novel. I haven't decided. After this series is finished at the end of the year, I'll write a western historical romance. That will "cleanse my palate" for the next contemporary novel, whether it is a single title or the first book in a series.

Marketing a series is also a big task because it is never ending. I'm always trying to tempt readers to read the first one and, hopefully, get hooked and read all the others. It's strange to me how readers can rave about the first book and say they want to read the whole series, but then don't seem to follow through. Maybe there are too many books out there and attention spans are extremely short these days. I've given away at least a hundred copies of the first book in the series and I haven't received a hundred reviews, although most of those people promised to post one. Readers, for the most part, don't understand how important reviews are -- especially for "indie" writers. Even my best friends admit they don't leave reviews. Most of the time they lament that they don't know what to say. I tell them, "Write that you read the book, liked or loved the book, and want to read another book by the author." How hard is that, I ask you?

So, if you're reading this and feeling a pang of guilt. Good! Go write a dang review on Amazon. Not for an author who already has a few thousand of them, but for an author who has fewer than 100 of them! You will give that author a thrill and feel that you've earned a gold star as a reader.

Happy Reading, Everyone!

Thinking It Through

Just Staring and Plotting

When a writer stares off into space, that writer is usually working. A writer acquaintance of mine once told me about how her young daughter -- the child was about seven at the time -- piped up one day and said, "Mommy, I'm going to work like you!" And she sat down at her desk and stared out the window.

What we do takes place in our heads -- in our fertile imaginations. If you don't have an over-active imagination, you'll be hindered as a novelist. Although I had one sibling, I was, for all extents and purposes, an only child because my sister was almost 10 years older than me. Therefore, my closest playmates were in my imagination. In my bedroom or backyard, I acted out whole TV shows and films I'd seen. I was Roy Rogers, Dale Evans, and their horses.

Which brings me back to the point of this. It might look as if we're just sitting and staring, but there is more to it. We're imagining. We should wear a sign that states:Caution! Writer At Work.

I just returned from sitting out on the patio. I went out there for a minute to let the dogs do their thing and I ended up staying there for half an hour because I was working out a tangle in the plot I'm developing. Something about the story was wrong. I couldn't put my finger on it, but I knew that some element wasn't firing properly. Out there on the patio, I finally saw the trees and the forest. My antagonist was wrong. Not nearly frightening enough or disturbed enough. That pivotal character was coming off mild, and that's the kiss of death for a suspense novel. Problem solved. I blinked, realized that the dogs were dancing around me, wanting back inside, and I came back to myself and my desk and untangled the knot in my plot.

That's how it works. Half of writing a book consists of not writing. It consists of staring while your mind whirls, pulling up this plot thread, examining it, casting it off, grabbing another, until you finally find one that you can weave in and out seamlessly to tighten your story. The best outline ever still needs tweaking, revising, and bolstering. That's because as characters take shape and find their own voice in your head, plot points can change. What once made sense for a character is now out of character. Actions taken by a character now are preposterous.  Dialogue spoken by your protagonist suddenly seems forced. So, it's back to sitting and staring or jogging, doing laundry, vacuuming the rug -- it all works. Mindless activity to allow your brain to create scenes, conjure places, and pen dialogue.

As Dee Hock once put it: "Clean out a corner of your mind and creativity will instantly fill it."