Recently I completed the manuscript for my second novel. It was harder to complete than the manuscript for the first novel. It has been pointed out to me by experienced novelists that this may have been due to the fact that the maximum amount of time I had to complete the second novel—if I had started when I received a signed, sealed and official contract—was seven months. The first book took more than four years. Can you see my problem opportunity? Not that I’m complaining. I’m just saying it took some getting used to. It was a crucible of sorts, a fiery little crucible containing an abundance of what my friend Hal calls “ass glue.” But in the end (no “ass glue” pun intended), it worked.

If you ever find yourself in a similar situation, where you have a limited (read: oh-my-god-why-did-I-not-get-more-done-sooner-I-thought-I-was-doing-so-well-but-this-is-an-impossibly-small) amount of time to complete a task, here are some strategies you might find useful.

1. Go into mole mode. No means no. You decline invitations, no matter how alluring. (Well, unless it’s super-duper alluring and a once-in-a-lifetime deal, like Susan Elizabeth Phillips asks you to go to Iceland with her to lace her hiking boots.) You can go to stuff later. For now, you have to write. It will all be better soon, I promise.

2. Avoid the temptation to nap. See photo of dog on bed. This is a warm, soft dog who is really nice to pet. He is Supreme Pillow Commander on a warm, soft bed. You tell yourself you would only sleep for a few minutes. Do not be fooled. The dog is tantamount to a strumpet (just look at those demonic eyes!). No good can come of this! Run away! Run away!

3. Buy frozen entrees. If I do say so, this was genius on my part. I started out believing in my heart of hearts that I’d grill things. After all, grilling is healthy (except for the char carcinogen factor, but let’s not go there), quick and easy, right? Except that even throwing a chicken breast or burger or steak on the grill with asparagus or peppers or eggplant requires time. I didn’t want to spend time dealing with olive oil and salt and pepper, and cleaning up the dishes, because even though I wasn’t doing Julie and Julia, I was still taking time to cook and clean up. So I looked up “healthiest frozen entrees,” and voila! my writing time expanded. It takes much less time to pop something into the microwave than to grill. Or to make a pb&j, which I did for lunches.

4. Don’t dry your hair. This was difficult for me, a relatively vain person whose hair has no inclination to do anything attractive unless forced. I showered daily, but only dried my bangs (because believe me, if I had to catch a glimpse of my bangs if I hadn’t styled them, I wouldn’t have been able to write anything other than curses). I wasn’t going anywhere, I looked presentable if there was a fire, and I saved more precious time.

5. If your characters refuse to speak to you, write anyway. Oh but this was tough. I had read about this phenomenon but hadn’t experienced it. Those days are over, because it happened several times. I knew what I had to write, but my characters were all listening to their iPods or texting their friends or doing their nails—anything except helping me. What to do? Write anyway. Write crap. Make yourself do it. It’ll either get easier and some of the characters will actually pitch in and help, or at the very least you’ll get the all-important words on the page and fix it later. You don’t have the luxury of waiting for your muse to return your call. You don’t have the luxury of waiting for inspiration. You’re not a waiter, you’re a writer. You write.

6. Go offline. The Internets and the Googles and the Facebook are fantastic places to goof off and not write. They are not your friends. Do not associate with them. They are there to suck up precious time you need for writing. Ignore them. I sometimes went to Ted’s Montana Grill and wrote at the bar because they didn’t have wifi. It was a godsend to be cut off. (No, the bartender didn’t cut me off, smartie.)

7. Shoo away distractions. If you have a spouse who is the equivalent of a Labrador retriever puppy, as I do, you must put up the equivalent of a verbal doggy door to block off the area where you write. I found that a simple, sharp “Eh!” accompanied by a stern look did the trick. He would slink out of the kitchen and leave me alone.

8. Make your desk purty. Even though I was thrilled to have to write a second novel with a deadline and everything, it was still work. As Nora Roberts says, “If writing a book was easy, everyone would do it.” I cut some roses from my garden and put them in a vase on my kitchen table/desk. I also got a little lamp and used it when the sun went down because I abhor overhead lighting. This made my writing space all cozy and happy and inviting and for some reason made me feel more like a “real” writer.

9. Eat things you like that aren’t too messy. I viewed grocery shopping as gathering supplies for the foxhole. This is not an excuse to go crazy and eat poorly (although…). This is a strategy to keep your creativity fueled. I stocked up on healthy snacks and allowed a couple splurges in the unhealthy category. I also allowed myself a glass (or two) of wine in the evening. (My characters thanked me.) Apples are good because they are easy to eat while you write. Same with those mini carrots. (Please note these are also horse-approved foods.) Dark chocolate is a must. And I don’t like to drink water, but if put it in a fun little bottle, it becomes appealing. So do that. I used an 8.45-oz. San Pellegrino bottle. It made me feel European.

10. Move. I know I said you have to stay put because you have, after all, applied a generous amount of ass glue. But exercise is important. I mostly walked my dog every morning (if you don’t have a dog to walk, borrow one. Or try walking the cat. A plant? How about a spoon? Then the neighbors can call you “eccentric,” which is perfect for a writer.), and sometimes took two walks. I did crunches. I did push-ups. The beauty of exercising is you can think about your book while you do it, and often those scenes that weren’t quite working miraculously sort themselves out in your head when you’re busy doing something else.

Well, there you go. My wisdom broken into digestible bits. If you have more (and I know you do!) please share. Go! Write! Win!

COMMENTS

Writing a novel has changed my day-to-day life in ways I could never have imagined. Yes, there’s the actual writing, which (usually) happens daily. But there are other ways too. Not big ways, but small ways that often take place online.

Take blogs. Before writing, I never used to read blogs regularly. Blogs were for the politically active who needed to keep track of which senator said what to whom and what it all meant. Blogs were for the family and friends of the self-indulgent who needed to record their children’s rashes, their cat’s progress through a feline MENSA program or their attempts to build the perfect bong. Boy was I wrong.

Now, I read Roni Loren’s Fiction Groupie blog as though she’s paying me (she isn’t…yet). I hear about blogs via several email chats, loops, etc. that I subscribe to. I don’t read other blogs as regularly, but I’m going to blame that on the fact that my company blocks blogs on my computer at work because obviously, they are the work of the devil. Or our competitors. (Who are also in cahoots with the devil.)

I also have acquired new vicarious personal publishing holidays, or VPPHs. These are the days that my author friends’ books come out. I am delighted to find that I am genuinely excited for them and very much enjoy downloading their works to my Nook. Every time I do, I imagine the day when I’ll do the same for Thrown.

Besides VPPHs, I have also acquired new friends via the World Wide Web. Facebook, Twitter, blogs, email loops…they have all introduced me to some damn cool and talented people who are out there writing books. Some I have met in person, some I have yet to meet. Either way, it has been rewarding. Plus, on Facebook, I can pretend Susan Elizabeth Phillips is one of my personal Facebook friends because she tells me what she’s doing every day. I’m still waiting for that invitation to go on family vacations with her, but I know it’s coming…any day now…she’s just busy…

Writing has made me more of an observer. I now carry a notebook in my purse and a little voice recorder in the car, just in case I think of a spectacularly brilliant line of dialogue or witness what Pam Houston calls a “glimmer,” or a moment or interaction that could be the kernel of a story or scene (or whole book!). I used to say, “Oh, I’ll remember that!” and I seldom would, so now I whip out the notebook/recorder and free up those brain cells that would have forgotten it anyway.

Writing has also made me a different kind of reader, for better or worse. Now I can’t just enjoy a book—oh no, I have to notice craft. How does the author handle her characters’ points of view? What is the sentence structure like? Ooh, that’s a good phrase, I might have to use that (properly altered). This book is superbly paced—how did the author achieve that? And on it goes. NOT that I don’t like reading—I still love it—but the genie is out of the bottle and I will never be able to just read ever again.

But it’s all good. Sometimes change is difficult. These changes are welcome.

Thank you again for your continued support!

COMMENTS

This post is a violent act of procrastination. Yep, I’m entirely and completely avoiding working on my manuscript because…well, because I have to go on a flight from Nashville to Denver and there are thunderstorms en route and I’m sure it’ll be bumpy and I’ve developed an annoying turbulence phobia. Me. Someone who works in the aviation industry, with pilots, and has had them explain turbulence and how the planes are built to fly through it and pilots do their best to avoid it and of all the zillions of flights every year that experience turbulence there are precious few incidents and…blah blah blah. Doesn’t matter. I’m a turbulence wimp. It’s pathetic.

So what I’m hoping is, I’ll get so involved in revising THROWN during the flight, I won’t be bothered so much. This has happened before, so I have reason to believe it could happen again.

I’ve had a bit of a discouraging email since my last post. An agent I was hoping would like my writing (let’s face it, I hope every agent likes my writing, but I had met this one and thought she was more likely to like my writing than your average bear), alas and alack, did not. I did not float her boat, nor did I knock her socks off. She was not wowed or gobsmacked. She was nonplussed and maybe even bored and/or annoyed.

Oh well. Now I know. And seriously, I’ve hardly been out there in the trenches getting buffeted by dozens and dozens of brutal rejections. I have little right to complain.

It makes me both less and more determined to get published. Right after I read it, I thought, “Yes, I am a terrible writer!” The agent never said anything like that, but that’s how I interpreted it. Then, after telling Tom and his friend Cindy what the agent wrote, and emailing with Joanne Kennedy (who I’ve dubbed my “publishing shrink” and whose latest book, Tall, Dark and Cowboy is my reading material for those times in flight when I can’t use electronic devices), I decided that it’s just one person’s opinion and someone else out there will love it and want to represent me. I just have to work really hard at rewriting it and make it sparkle even more brightly.

I know this all builds character, but really. Do I need THAT much more character? I went to a Catholic girls’ school, for heaven’s sake! Apparently so.

If I let this come full circle, my fear of turbulence may echo my fear of writing. Not a fear of writing exactly, but fear of making revisions that don’t sparkle enough. What if I spend hours and hours and hours rewriting to deepen my characters, and I send THROWN off to that agent who asked me to revise it, and she doesn’t think it’s all that great? What if I get a big “Meh”??!

As I often do with myself when I worry, I go to the next logical step. Okay, what if I DO get a big meh? What if the agent doesn’t like it? I’ll have an arguably better book and I can cross another agent off my list. I’ll send it to other agents until I find someone who loves it. And if I run out of agents, then I’ll figure something else out. Self-publishing, maybe. Or not. But whatever the case, a meh isn’t the end of the world.

Update: On my flight back to Denver, there were a few mild bumps, but nothing that made my stomach drop or made me clutch the armrests in abject terror. That’ll learn me to worry about some stupid low-pressure system! In other words, the turbulence turned out to be a big meh.

COMMENTS

Aspen, Colorado. That’s where I am today, NOT because it’s the setting for Thrown. But curiously, an email I received recently makes it seem like perhaps fate led me here for that very reason.

Before I tell you about the email, as we’ve strolled about town today, have I been driving Tom (long-suffering spouse) mad by saying things like, “Amanda and Grady ate here,” and “I bet Grady tried to buy Amanda those earrings” and making other references to the characters in my book? You betcha. Tom kept telling me Grady and Amanda aren’t real people, but he’s mistaken. Oh and I gave a sweet (no pun intended) woman who owned the Aspen Candy Company (a very fun place, unless you’re a molar) my author business card when she made the mistake of telling me she liked to read.

So about that email. First, for those of you playing along at home, let me give you the box score on my agent/editor activities. Ready?

Publishing professionals who rejected Thrown: 3
Publishing professionals who have the full manuscript: 3
Publishing professionals not yet heard from: 3

This list includes agents and editors. I’m being purposely vague about who’s doing what because I suppose I’m superstitious and don’t want to give too much away at this point. Or maybe I’m chicken. Try not to judge.

Back to that email. It was from a publishing professional who read the full manuscript and wrote an exceedingly nice email saying that Thrown showed promise, and would I be willing to revise it and resubmit?

To which I reply: HELLS YEAH!

And I don’t even say “Hells yeah” in my everyday speech. Like, ever. Which is how you can tell how important this is to me.

As a result, I’m going to stop revising Love in the Time of Colic and go back to my firstborn. I have work to do, to be sure, and it won’t be easy, but I’m rolling up my figurative shirtsleeves (it’s cold here in Aspen, so there will be no literal rolling up of any sleeves) and digging in. I have no doubt I’ll make it better, I just hope I make it better ENOUGH.

COMMENTS