S is for Support Group

All of us need a support group, whether it's blogging friends, family, spouse, or your characters.  Without their voices to help us out of the hard times we might not make it through. 

My husband is wonderfully supportive.  He provides technical support (which I desperately need) and has never complained about the time I spend writing, even though, so far, it hasn't produced any income. 

My mom is another huge support.  She reads everything I write, gives great suggestions, checks for grammar and always asks for more.  Who could stop writing when you've got someone so anxious to find out what happens?

All my family has been supportive.  They even claim to believe I'll make it someday.

I also have my blogging friends and my writers group over at CompuServe.

I'm pretty lucky in this way.  I know people who write despite criticism from those that are closest to them and I'm so grateful that I have such an understanding family. 

Who is your support group?

G is for Gabaldon

Diana Gabaldon is an amazing author.  After reading her books I searched her out on line and I found Compuserve books and writer's community.  It was there I finally got the courage to pursue publication. There I finally learned I could write a novel, even if I didn't write it the way other authors said it had to be written.  It was there I gained confidence.  And I never would have found it if not for her books. 

Summary

I hope you are all doing well, and had fabulous holidays!

I didn’t quite mean to fall off the map like I did.  We had wonderful holidays but the travel did take a toll on us.  And guess what we returned to. A roof leak that had been going on for some time. Due to the torrential amounts of rain while we were gone it gave up any attempt at secrecy and flaunted itself in soaking wet carpets and mold growing behind our walls.  What a great way to end the year, by tearing apart our house and moving our son and all his belongings out of his bedroom.  Still, if we can get it fixed and start the New Year with a safe snug home it will be a wonderful beginning to next year.

Knowing our builder I doubt our home will ever be safe or snug, though.  Sigh. 

The year end, of course, is a natural time of reflection.  Looking back on this year I’m pleased with what has happened.  We’ve had more illness than normal the last six months, possibly because of the mold growing in our walls, but we’ve had some great times as a family and all in all we’ve been moving forward.  Or upward. Or whatever direction you wish to assign to positive movement.

In writing I’ve beta read, been read by betas, edited, began to query, edited again, and when I finish the changes I’m working on will begin querying again in the new year.  Better yet I’ve started a new book that I absolutely adore.  I’m so excited to query just because I can start working on it again.

This New Year may bring some changes and there may be some announcements coming, but even if it’s a continuation of last year I’m happy with that.  Because I’m happy with where we are.  Except for the mold. 

Expectations

Kiersten White once said on he blog "Don't let your expectations poison a perfectly good reality."   

It's easy to picture the end goal in your mind.  We imagine other people who have reached that goal standing around wallowing in their success and we wonder why we aren't there with them. Whether your goal is being published, weight loss, education, career, or what have you it's easy to make ourselves miserable dwelling on each rejection and obstacle. 

But when we do this we miss out on all the great learning experiences.  When you focus solely on blogging to impress an agent with your platform you miss out on all the friends you could make and the things you could learn.  If you push yourself on your story, closing your mind to other things you might miss some great inspiration for your next story, or the lives of your family. 

The thing with writing is that there really is no destination.  The moment you arrive at a spot and have nowhere else to go you know your writing career is over.  So why do we spend so much time resisting the journey, and looking for shortcuts?

When we reach our goal are we disappointed because  there isn't as much money, fans, recognition involved as there was in our daydreams?  So what.  You're still there. Don't let that expectation that was based on inaccurate information ruin the happiness you could have.

Yes, it's good to know where you want to go and to have a plan on how to get there.  But it's also important to enjoy the journey.  Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to think of a few positive things from being where you are in your journey. 

My postivies:
Since I don't have deadlines I can take the time I need to get it right.  I also have the flexibility I need for my small children.

I still have time for blogging.  Ever notice that when someone gets a contract they all of a sudden announce a blogging break so they can finish edits by deadlines?

I can explore any genre, theme or story I want since I don't have to worry about platform or creating a following. 

I know there are more but my kids are up so I'm going to exercise my flexibility and stop now. 

Never Surrender

First I’d like to welcome my newest followers, thanks for joining!  You can see I’m getting very close to 100 followers.  We’ll have to do something fun for that!

Elana Johnson is having a never surrender blogfest!  She’s celebrating the release of her new novel, you guessed it, SURRENDER, which is a sequel to POSSESSION.  You can sign up for the blogfest here.  All you have to do is blog about a time you didn’t surrender.  There is also a drawing you can enter. 

 The idea of this blogfest caught my attention.  Never Surrender.  Everyone has stories they can tell about not surrendering, about trying harder, working longer to get their goals.  I LOVE the idea of getting to know everyone’s stories.  And I love the hope and inspiration that it should provide. 

The only thing was I couldn’t think of any one big moment in my life that was a Never Surrender moment.  For me, not surrendering is a small choice you make a billion times every day.  Getting out of bed when you know you’re going to have to read the same picture book 800 times, or that your kitchen will never be clean.  Getting out of bed to go to a difficult job, or to take care of a sick relative.  Being patient, being happy, working hard and always moving forward.  That is not surrendering.  It’s the little choices each day, that add up to our attitude, the pathways we travel and our whole mortal experience.  Life hasn’t turned out exactly as I planned (I don’t think anyone can say it has) But because of the choices I make each day life is pretty good.   

NEVER SURRENDER. 

What's in your toolbox?

For Christmas The Engineer gave me a second monitor for the computer. Not only is he the best most supportive husband ever, he's also very tech savy and can do things like this.

  They sit side by side on my desk.  And yes, my desk is right in front of a window. This has been one of the nicest things EVER!  It is so nice to have the extra monitor space as I'm working on my edits.  I can have my WIP open on one side, and a beta's edited copy on the other so I can compare.  Or I can have the old version of a scene and my new draft.  I can drag things back and forth between monitors if I need to rearrange things. This is one of my favorite tools in my writers toolbox.  What's your favorite tool in your toolbox. 

To Mom

I'm not big on mother's day but I could hardly let this day pass without recognizing my mother. 

Mom, you amaze me.  I wouldn't be the person I am today without your influence and the stable foundation you gave me to build on.  Your support and enthusiasm for my writing, and my life in general, strengthen me.  You may not have been able to teach me singing or grammar (not for lack of your trying) but your influence is felt in all aspects of my life.  Thank you for being strong, thank you for being who you are, and thank you for putting up with me.  Happy Mother's Day. 

"Focus on the Good" Day

Sorry for not posting Wednesday.  It was such a crazy, busy day.  Life has really been a little overwhelming recently.  It was one of those days where you focus on what's not getting done rather than what is.  Add to that some discussion about feedback and how it affects our writing in the monthly goals thread at compuserve and then this post here. 

Why is it so gosh darn easy to believe all the bad things about us or our writing but not the good?  Why focus on what we didn't get done instead of what did?  (Not on Wednesday though, because nothing got done.  Really.)

Today I declare "Focus on the Good" day!  What do you do well in writing?  What's one thing of importance you've accomplished?  And yes, feeding your family is important, even if that's all you did.

This morning I went to four stores.  With two toddlers.  We made it home hungry but happy.  Doesn't matter that the dishes are waiting or laundry isn't done, that was an accomplishment.  And I'm good at dialogue.  At least in my later drafts. Nothing's good first draft.  So, what about you?  What good are you focusing on today? 

Finally!

I just sent my baby off to beta readers.  I'm a little nervous and very excited.  I can't wait to find out how I can make it better because I have no perspective anymore.  I do feel a little hollow inside.  This draft took about three weeks longer than I had planned so I've been pushing myself and it's been all I've been thinking of.  Now I'm not going to look at it until I hear back from them. I'm so very grateful to readers and critiquers.  I couldn't have done this with out them.

Don't worry, I still have plenty to do.  I plan to polish my query, get it critiqued, polish, critique, polish.... you get the picture.  I'll also be working on synopses of it plus the two that follow just in case I can find someone who wants to buy the whole trilogy.  Hey, I can dream.  I'll continue to research agents and maybe, just maybe I can catch up on blogging.  I'll be coming to all you campaigners! 

I just started babysitting again and today is my first day with the 2 month old.  Since we got pretty girl when she was 16 months old it's been 3 years since I had an infant.  I forgot how much they spit up.  Off to clean.

What will you be doing in the near future?  Any fun plans. 

What Makes You Happy?

Is it just me or has the internet been a little quiet lately?  It’s possible everyone is at  LTUE, maybe some of you are gearing up for a long romantic valentine’s day weekend, or maybe everyone has the February blahs.  Because I have the last one I’m going to list a few things that make me happy.

My kids.  Despite their constantly trying to drive me to an early grave.

Writing.  Writing calms me down, takes me out of myself and helps me focus.  When I’m done I’m usually a better person.

Good Bread.

Chocolate.

Good books.  The kind that suck you in and make it so you can’t crawl out until you’ve finished it.  Twice.

Date nights with The Engineer. 

Weekends.

There are more things that make me happy but those were the first that comes to mind.  What makes you happy? 

Dear Favorite Author...

I've come across two posts this week that made me think.  I hate it when they do that. If there had only been one I might have blown it off but two posts coming so quickly after thanksgiving made me pay attention. 

The first one is here where they challenge us to write a letter of thanks or appreciation to an author.  Let them know how their book affected you.  In a good way of course.

The other post is here.  At the end he asks if we've ever had a book that changed our lives and did we write the author. 

If we can step back for a moment I'll tell you of an experience I had in college.  A couple students and the professor were sitting in our classroom hanging out and chatting.  I remember asking the professor a question though I no longer remember what it was.  He looked at me for a moment as if I was some harmless but repulsive bug, turned to another student and started a different conversation.  Situations like this happened all the time.  I don't know if my question was lame, or maybe he just didn't know who I was or why I would talk to him (yes, he was my professor)  I do tend to be invisible.  Thing like this have made me wary of approaching people.  And there's also my fear of coming off as a teenage groupie or kiss up. 

These things have stopped me from telling people how much I appreciate their work.  The few times I have it was a casual "hey, I enjoyed your book"  That meant so much more than what I said.  These two blog posts made me reevaluate.  If- scratch that, when I become published I will want people to tell me they enjoyed my book.  In fact I think I'll bask in the praise and buy a new hat since my head will be so big.  I won't assume everyone is a stalker or kissing up to me.  I can imagine that hearing how their book changed someone's life will be an amazing experience for an author who worked and loved that book long before it was published.

Have you ever written or received a letter such as this?  How did you feel about it?

My Mother

As far back as I can remember I was surrounded by books.  My mother loves them and our bookshelves were always overflowing. Even though she was very busy she often took time to read to us and I remember sitting on the floor earnestly listening as she read The Twenty One Balloons, or Fantastic Mr. Fox.    

She is a constant source of inspiration and encouragement to me.  She’s been with me since the beginning when I would get so excited about a scene that I had to share it.  Even though they were painfully bad she still saw some good in them.  She listens when I get discouraged and cheers my successes. 

So much of who I am is because of who my mother was. It is because of her love of literature and reading that I grew to love it and it is because of her belief in my writing that I can believe in myself. Thank you mom, Happy Birthday. 

I'm It!

I was tagged by a couple of wonderful friends Deniz and Zan Marie.  Thanks for thinking of me.  I’m going to answer all the questions but I’ll warn you it’s probably more info than you want to know.  Not that I want you to stop reading by any means.

Do you think you’re hot?  Moving on.

Upload a picture or wallpaper you’re using at the moment.    Well, the thing is my wallpaper is just one of the stock pictures that came on my computer.   I put it up, I don’t remember how many  years ago, with plans that it would be temporary.  You see I had thoughts of taking a Cool Picture that would always show how awesome my photographic skills are and make me think of the time I (insert whatever cool adventure I took pictures of)  Yeah.  In reality I don’t do that much and my photo skills are pretty sucky.  Which is also why I don’t have a photo of me up on the blog yet.  I always come out looking sullen or a half wit.  Sigh.  

When was the last time you ate chicken?  Last night in the egg rolls I made.  Yum.

Name a song you listened to recently.  The Phineas and Ferb soundtrack.  Hey I have a two-year-old.  And a husband that really likes cartoons.  

What were you thinking while doing this?  How none of these questions have anything to do with writing.  Which is ok, I guess, because I know you wanted to know all this stuff about me.

Do you have nicknames?  What are they?  My nickname is Spesh.  It dates back to ninth grade when people called me Special Package which was a play on my initials.  You can see why it was shortened to Spesh.  

Tag eight bloggers.

This is where it gets hard.  There are many wonderful and amazing blogs out there and I know I can’t tag everyone so I’m just going to list eight blogs that were the most influential to me when I was starting to learn about the publishing world.They are in no particular order.

Query Shark.  If you want to learn how to write a query spend some time here.

Nathan Bransford.  While he is no longer an agent his archived posts are chock full of publishing advice.    

Pub Rants.  One of the things I like about this blog is how open she is when talking about advances, contracts and all the nitty gritty legal details of becoming an author.  

Compuserve.  This website has been invaluable to me.  It has provided me with a wealth of knowledge and many friends who have encouraged, goaded, taught and pushed me to be better.  Thanks everyone.

Rachelle Gardner.  She has very clear and common sense posts. 

Editorial Anonymous.  While they've been a little sporadic of late this blogger has spent a lot of time answering questions from her readers. 

Between Fact and Fiction.  This is the best site for publishing info you'll find written by someone who is as yet unpublished.  She's spent a lot of time on submission though and has been through pretty much anything.  It's a great place to find encouragement and advice because she has truly seen it all. 

Historical Romance by Jo Bourne.  She has so much knowledge about the craft of writing I'm surprised her head doesn't explode.  Plus she can put it down in a straightforward, easy to understand way that always results in my knowing what is wrong with my WIP.

There are other fabulous sites out there, and there are amazing people running each of those sites.  Unfortunately there is no way I can list them all so thanks to everyone who is trying to make the internet a better place by blogging about writing, publishing, or anything else interesting. 

Summer Reading

During the summer my mother used to pack us all up in the station wagon every other Wednesday and take us to the library.  It was a magical place, not only for the air conditioning, which we didn’t have at home, and the fascinating carpets in the children’s reading room.  It was wonderful because we got to pick out books to take home.  We could peruse shelf after shelf of colorful pictures and printed words that opened new worlds to me.   It was my favorite day.  Wednesday morning always dawned with a little extra sunshine.  It was torture waiting until ten when the library opened.  I don’t remember at what age I started begging for my own magic card that would allow me access to so many books but I was eight when I received it.

Ever since then libraries have been a part of my life.  Before I move one of the first things I do is find the closest or biggest library in the area.  I may not be able to tell which way is north but I can sniff out a library pretty darn quick.  Actually it usually finds me.  We’ll be driving around and there it will be, shinning in all its glory. OK, it’s a government building, they usually aren’t glorious.  At least on the outside.  

Don’t get me wrong I love to buy books too, but my budget could never keep up with the amount I read and the library gives me the option to test drive books.  To find books to add to my collection that I will cherish and read over and over again. 

It’s summer now, school is out and every Wednesday I feel I should be on my way to the library.  I take my son on Fridays though, that’s when they have story time.  Really it doesn’t matter which day we go as long as I can give him the same wonderful memories I have and an abiding love of books.