This year let the new year come with a new world of possibilities instead of resolutions. I feel like resolutions are things that ultimately stress us out, so instead I choose to face possibilities in 2019 instead of resolutions. May your possibilities be endlessly motivating and move you to new heights this year!

Cheers

Keep Writing and Edit On.
I Write, I Edit, I Write Again. Witness!
We're Making Better Words, All of Them, Better Words.
I Write to Burn Off the Crazy.
A Good Day Writing is a Day Writing.
It Puts the Words on the Page or it Gets the Hose Again.
Just keep writing...just keep writing...writing, writing, writing!
Writing is Magic.
The First Rule of Write Club is You Talk About Write Club.
If You Aren't Writing, You Aren't a Writer

So, welcome to 2018. The new year finds me breaking new ground with my writing. I have sent my first query letter to an agent (2 actually, woohoo!) and am putting together my first author resume for the Isle Royale Artist-in-Residence Program. These experiences remind me that as a writer, I should always be expanding my writing in some way. Joining panels at conventions and talking about new and exciting topics is one way of doing this. Also, making new networking connections. Trying a writing contest or a new writers group can also keep you on your writerly toes. Even if you don't have anything to pitch right now to an agent, work on an elevator pitch for your half-finished novel. It will be great practice for later. I guess what I'm trying to say is this: there are lots of experiences of being a writer other than writing. Try some! :)

Keep Writing and Edit On.
I Write, I Edit, I Write Again. Witness!
We're Making Better Words, All of Them, Better Words.
I Write to Burn Off the Crazy.
A Good Day Writing is a Day Writing.
It Puts the Words on the Page or it Gets the Hose Again.
Just keep writing...just keep writing...writing, writing, writing!

So, you've heard this before, I'm sure, but despite the millions of books on Amazon, the writing/publishing world is actually a very small place. I had a recent experience that highlighted this for me personally. I was participating on an author panel at the Barnes and Noble in Brighton and spoke with another author there who's friend is a literary agent. One week later, I'm attending an event for authors at the Ann Arbor library and who should be one of the featured speakers but the literary agent friend! I was like, "Hey, I know that guy!" Anyways, my point is two-fold: 1) Networking as an author is crazy important, and 2) Don't burn bridges!

Focusing on point one, getting yourself out of your sacred, sequestered writing space and meeting other authors can be incredibly beneficial. I'm not saying that you won't ever get published if you don't network, but becoming part of a writing community keeps you in the loop with what is happening in the publishing world both locally and globally. Also, once you get to know other authors they may be able to introduce you to publishers, literary agents, editors, cover designers, or other people that could be very helpful for your writing. It's also just a great experience to sit around with a group of other authors sharing in each others triumphs and woes, discussing what is happening in the publishing industry, and getting fresh ideas about things like marketing and staying in the creative zone.

Point two is that because the world of writing and publishing is so small, news spreads like wildfire. This can be a good thing like in cases where a certain publisher is screwing over their authors, but can also be a bad thing if you let your frustration on being rejected by one publisher dictate your Twitter post. Also, bad-mouthing other authors or their work gets around, especially if it's done on social media. Even though the internet seems like a huge ocean and one little rude comment seems like a drop of water, just one person seeing that post can lead to another and another and then eventually someone you might want to read your work. Disrespectful comments can bias a publisher or agent against taking you on as a client, so just keep that in mind and maybe hold your tongue.

Keep Writing and Edit On.
I Write, I Edit, I Write Again. Witness!
We're Making Better Words, All of Them, Better Words.
I Write to Burn Off the Crazy.
A Good Day Writing is a Day Writing.
It Puts the Words on the Page or it Gets the Hose Again.
Just keep writing...just keep writing...writing, writing, writing!

Blah, blah, blah, platitudes and reminders of how this year is a brand new year filled with opportunity and possibilities, etc.

Keep Writing and Edit On.
I Write, I Edit, I Write Again. Witness!
We're Making Better Words, All of Them, Better Words.
I Write to Burn Off the Crazy.
A Good Day Writing is a Day Writing.
It Puts the Words on the Page or it Gets the Hose Again.
Just Keep Writing, Just Keep Writing; Writing, Writing, Writing...

So today while at the dentist's office, mouth numb and full of cotton, I was thinking about life experiences in the context of being a writer. I feel that one must always be on the lookout for experiences that may come in handy in later stories.

For example, had I not had a crack in my tooth, I might never have been able to adaquately describe the maddening non-feeling when the inside of your ear is numb, or the sense that your tongue has turned into a two-headed slug in your mouth when only half of it is numb. Without today's experience I might not know that not only does the anesthetic numb the tooth, gum, cheek, and tongue, but also the lip, ear, and face all the way to the temple.

There was also the blind terror just before the dentist touched the drill to the tooth for the first time followed by the paler, steady fear of the anesthesia abruptly failing and releasing the excruciating pain that I should be feeling. Not to mention the bitter iron of blood mixed with the clove taste of the anesthetic tinged with the stink of burning tooth.

Afterwards, the fear of the anesthesia not working morphs into a dread that feeling will never return to my face. And now anxiety creeps in as feeling returns. Will the old pain come back with it? Will there be new and worse pain from the procedure? Did something go terribly wrong? Is my dentist a closet sociopath?

See, lots of future writing fodder.

For more random thoughts on writing check out:
http://publishedramblings.weebly.com/the-whimsical-ramblings-of-a-confused-michiganian/old-stories-revisit-and-revamp-or-recycle
OR
Perhaps an episode of the podcast I Should be Writing.

Keep Writing and Edit On.
I Write, I Edit, I Write Again. Witness!
We're Making Better Words, All of Them, Better Words.
I Write to Burn Off the Crazy.
A Good Day Writing is a Day Writing.
It Puts the Words on the Page or it Gets the Hose Again.
Just Keep Writing, Just Keep Writing; Writing, Writing, Writing...

So, the good news is that I was a NaNoWriMo winner this year! The bad news is that I've been swamped with things that should have been taken care of during NaNoWriMo since then and have sorely neglected this blog, for which I apologize. One thing I wanted to say in the blog I've been meaning to write for the past two weeks is that now is the time to reflect back over your writing in 2016 and prepare for 2017. What did you kick butt at this past year (Miles From Manistique)? What do you wish you'd done? (Finished editing my YA novel) If you didn't finish your NaNo novel, what is your new deadline for finishing it? (February 1st) Do you want to try to write more short stories next year? (1/month) Do you want to go to more writing workshops next year? (No, but subscribe to Writer's Digest) What do you want yourself as a writer to look like in 2017? (Agent?)

You don't have to plan out all of 2017 now, but try to get a general idea so you can hit the ground running January 1st. If you're not ready to set goals yet, that's fine, but a least think about some goals you might want to set. For instance, one of my goals might be to write a couple of blog posts ahead of time such that it is less likely for me to miss weeks. ;)

Keep Writing and Edit On.
I Write, I Edit, I Write Again. Witness!
We're Making Better Words, All of Them, Better Words.
I Write to Burn Off the Crazy.
A Good Day Writing is a Day Writing.
It Puts the Words on the Page or it Gets the Hose Again.
Just Keep Writing, Just Keep Writing; Writing, Writing, Writing...

Was murdered...typically. So, now that I work at a bookstore, I have come to a startling realization: a lot of best selling books are about the murder of women or girls. I never realized this disturbing trend before, but it was put into sharp relief for me when I read several recent new releases:

1. The Girl on the Train - about the murder of a woman
2. The Girls - roughly a coming of age story, but containing the murder of several people, including a woman and child (I'm not linking this one because I don't recommend it.)
3. The Woman in Cabin 10 - about the murder of a woman

Then I started to take a look at other titles:
- Woman of God (not about murder, thankfully)
- Razor Girl (not murder)
- Gone Girl (about a woman's disappearance)
- Pretty Girls (about a girl's disappearance)
- All the Missing Girls (about a woman's disappearance)
- The Lost Girls (about missing sisters)
- The Girl With all the Gifts (won't spoil this one, not exactly murder...)
- Shanghai Girls (human trafficking of women)
- The Hanging Girl (disappearance and death of a 17-year-old girl)
- The Good Girl (abduction of a woman)
- The Perfect Girl: A Novel (murder of a woman)
- Little Girls (death of a girl)
- Luckiest Girl Alive (woman with a secret)
- The Silent Girls (disappearance of multiple women)
- The Forgotten Girls (murder of multiple girls)

Many others, but I think you get the idea. Point being, violence against women and a preponderance of the word "girl." It just doesn't seem right and doesn't make me feel good. I feel like readers seem to be obsessed with the murder of women, and not just women, but girls. What does that say about our collective psyche as a culture? And I'm not even talking about the mystery section of the bookstore which likely has a high percentage of books (without the word girl in the title) that are about the murder of a woman. Also, this is just literature. This does not include CSI or Law and Order or any number of other television series that focus on the murder of women!

Truth is, I love CSI and I am completely guilty myself of being in the middle of writing a thriller about a serial killer who predominantly murders women. But why? I'm doing it because I think it will sell, but why in general are we so fixated on the murder of young women? Personally, I don't have an answer. If you do, I'd love to hear it.

P.S. I don't just read books on the murder of women. For a more comprehensive list of books I've read lately, please check out my previous post What Have You Read Lately?

Keep Writing and Edit On.
I Write, I Edit, I Write Again. Witness!
We're Making Better Words, All of Them, Better Words.
I Write to Burn Off the Crazy.
A Good Day Writing is a Day Writing.
It Puts the Words on the Page or it Gets the Hose Again.
Just Keep Writing, Just Keep Writing; Writing, Writing, Writing...

I’m not one of those people who wanted to be a writer when I grew up. Though I did take a creative writing course and wrote some really bad YA in high school followed by some really awful poetry in undergrad, I understood that science was my forte, not writing. I loved biology and wanted to be a doctor like my father, but wound up a veterinarian. After a failed pathology residency, and several awful years working as a small animal practitioner, I took a detour to New Zealand and obtained a Masters in Forensic Science. Returning to the States, I couldn’t find a job or get into a PhD program, so a friend suggested that I write a book in all of my newfound free-time through a program called NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month).

With two vague scenes of a novel in the back of my mind, I decided to go for it and make the attempt to write 50,000 words of a novel in the month of November. The only problem was that I’d forgotten about NaNoWriMo until the fifteenth of November, so I only had half the month left to write. At the time I didn’t really realize that there weren’t any actual prizes for participating and finishing on time, so I frantically put words to the page without regard for paragraphs or punctuation. Despite the shortened timeline, I managed to get 50,000 words by the end of the first week in December and was proud…and dumbfounded.

Having never suspected that it was possible for me to write a novel, when I finished up that first novel a few months later at around 75,000 words I wasn’t too sure where to go from there. The unedited monstrosity needed a ton of editing and TLC, but it was written. Not having much in the way of resources available for editing services, I enlisted my husband (a software engineer) and a few of my friends who acted both as copy-editors and content editors. Some of those friends had English degrees and one was a librarian, but none were authors.

With that stellar editing process completed, I Googled small presses accepting open submissions in paranormal romance. I submitted my novel to the first one on the list and got a positive response, but with some suggested changes. Having made those, I resubmitted and was rejected. After reading one of the publisher’s own novels, I completely understood why: not enough sex. Undeterred, I submitted to the next publisher on the list who accepted my novel for publication. What?!

Having heard all of the horror stories surrounding the book publishing process, I was completely unprepared for this near immediate success. I had a lawyer friend look over the contract, but nothing malicious stood out, so I signed and several months later had a paperback contributor’s copy in my hands. This was not the way things were supposed to happen, and as I started writing the sequel, I kept waiting to wake up from this crazy writing dream.

I’ve since published a full trilogy with the same small press, but things haven’t been all roses and cucumber sandwiches. The first novel was published with numerous embarrassing typos and at least one copy was missing pages. The second novel was better edited, but took much longer to go from edited to published and had cover issues. And the third novel…well the third novel took a lot longer to write, a lot longer to edit, and was submitted at a time when the publisher was going through a lot personally almost two years after the second novel was released.

There was a time between the second book getting published and the third book where nothing was happening in my writing career. Short stories were getting rejected and then rejected some more. I’d written another novel and submitted it to a couple of larger publishers with no success, and I wasn’t selling enough copies of my novels to be considered a professional writer. Also, I was coming to realize just how tiny a writer fish I was in the ocean of genre fiction. Go to any Science Fiction and Fantasy related convention and you realize that half the people in attendance have written a book or two.

This was a definite low point in my writing journey, and everything was slow, painful, and uninspired. Other paths started to look more appealing, like going back into the sciences. I felt like I was kidding myself that I could truly become a successful author. Then one of my short stories got an honorable mention in the Writers of the Future Contest, I finished my 5th novel, and my publisher very quickly agreed to publish the final book in my paranormal romance trilogy.

It was also around this time that I started an online Master Class on writing taught by James Patterson. Well worth the $90 fee, there was also a contest for students to co-write a novel with Mr. Patterson. This spurred me to take another look at one of my story ideas and modify it slightly to fit within the contest’s confines of the novel being a thriller or mystery. I didn’t win, but through the contest I learned more about pitches, hooks, and ultimately query letters. All important tools for success as an author.

Becoming a writer is its own hero’s journey. It is full of highs and lows, ups and downs, overcoming adversity, and constantly transforming yourself and your writing. I still hesitate when people ask me what I do for a living, probably because I don’t yet truly make a living from writing, but I’m getting better at saying, “I’m an author.” Someday I might not even stutter at all. Someday I might be able to read the novels I’ve written after they’re published. Someday I might be able to comfortably afford that writers retreat in Iceland. Someday I might actually get one of my short stories published. Someday I might win an award for my writing.

But today I am a writer sitting on the couch with a cat on my lap, sipping cold tea, hoping someone will read my words and smile.

Keep Writing and Edit On.
I Write, I Edit, I Write Again. Witness!
We're Making Better Words, All of Them, Better Words.
I Write to Burn Off the Crazy.
A Good Day Writing is a Day Writing.
It Puts the Words on the Page or it Gets the Hose Again.
Just Keep Writing, Just Keep Writing; Writing, Writing, Writing...

On that day the world lost its shine. The world was still there and she was still in it, but everything was dull and two-dimensional. Everything that she saw was either a reminder of her sorrow or nothing. One phrase just repeating over and over in her mind’s ear, No shine. Even the concept of happiness was something that was a far off memory, and it was impossible to imagine getting back to a place where things mattered. She wondered how feeling sorrow or despair was of evolutionary benefit. Her emotions had always run too deep, and had broken her many times. Eventually the pieces had mended, though each mending left her more fragile than the last. A piece left behind at each damaging event; this time something critical to the repair was missing. She didn’t feel like a human, but an alien made entirely of emotions sent here to a world of daily tragedy to suffer for some forgotten crime. Though maybe she was human after all, just born with a fatal defect, a pathological empathy, that hadn’t fully manifested until now. Perhaps she was normal, and just metamorphosing into one of those adults with the hollow eyes. The ones that lived productive, joyless lives devoid of frivolity. Zombies paying bills, washing clothes, getting their oil changed, performing the drudgery of existence without actually living. Now that was her, forcing her body into motions that accomplished tasks. Every action devoid of animus. Perhaps time would fill the void within her, plump her up like straw in a scarecrow, and if not mend her, at least make her a semblance of a person again. Perhaps not.

Keep Writing and Edit On.
I Write, I Edit, I Write Again. Witness!
We're Making Better Words, All of Them, Better Words.
I Write to Burn Off the Crazy.
A Good Day Writing is a Day Writing.
It Puts the Words on the Page or it Gets the Hose Again.

So do you ever notice how things seem to fall to pieces on Friday afternoons? You never break a tooth or need a locksmith in the middle of the week. Oh no, it's always a Friday afternoon when you need someone, who has decided to start their weekend early, to help you out. I don't want to divulge too much about my current frustrating situation, but suffice it to say, I am waiting next to a phone for a call back regarding a time-sensitive issue that likely isn't going to happen today. :(

Keep Writing and Edit On.
I Write, I Edit, I Write Again. Witness!
We're Making Better Words, All of Them, Better Words.
I Write to Burn Off the Crazy.