GENREALITY

Saskia Walker is a force to be reckoned with in the erotic literary world. Her short story work has been published in over 70 anthologies including Best Women’s Erotica, The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica, the Red Sage Secrets series, and the Black Lace Wicked Words series. Her first full-length single title, Double Dare, came out in October 2006 and picked up a Passionate Plume award for Best Contemporary Erotic Romance of 2006. Since then I’ve had several more novel-length publications, including Rampant from Harlequin Spice, which has been nominated for a 2010 RT Magazine Reviewers’ Choice Award.

Saskia is now a full time author with many more stories to tell, and some advice to give. Please welcome her to Genreality.

Saskia Walker, about this writing journey I’m on.

Hi folks, it’s wonderful to be here at Genreality to share some of my writing journey. Can anyone learn from it, I wonder? Hmm. Well, I’m pretty sure someone can learn from my mistakes.

My first paid work was contracted almost fifteen years ago, and it was a short story for the UK Black Lace line. Since then I’ve had short fiction published in over eighty anthologies. I’ve published ten novels, four of which were trade paper books with New York publishing houses. Most recently I received a new two book contract, this time with the mass-market publishing line HQN. It’s been a winding road, and it’s been quite a journey. I’m now a full time author and I work with some terrific people. I really couldn’t wish for better, but as I look back I confess I take a deep breath and shudder, because I can see the missteps and blundering errors I made along the way, things that took me two steps back after one step forward. For a while there it was quite a catalogue of disasters. How on earth did I manage to stagger through this far?!

Hard work and the love of writing kept me at it, basically. I love to learn and I was constantly learning and honing my craft. I adore the storytelling. I also had tenacity on my side, and…a huge great dollop of luck. Yes, luck. Lucky breaks happen when we submit at the right time for that editor, and we can’t know when that is going to be. I’m hesitant to give aspiring authors advice as a result of my mixed fortunes, but I figured I can share some of the advice I read that worked for me, and some that didn’t.

The first thing I quickly learned was that some of the things you read about publishing may never apply to your individual path. There’s no one way to do this, even though some people might seem to suggest there is. (Their way being the best way, of course Here are some bits of advice I read that made me fret: “follow the market,” “brand yourself,” and “write the book of your heart.” I heard these things over and over around the time I started to submit novels for consideration. Follow the market — okay, we need to know what editors are buying, but it was actually luck that I was writing the right sub genre when it was required. And yes, the best thing we can do is write the book of our heart because it’ll be the best piece of writing we can do. If we’re enjoying the writing the reader will enjoy it too. If we’re not enjoying it, it shows. That makes sense. But what if the book of my heart doesn’t fit the market, and how could I brand myself when I was writing lots of different subgenres?

Other writers out there had these great slogans about their work but I couldn’t find anything that represented mine. The best thing I could do was to pick out the most consistent theme in my work and offer that as a brand. My work is characterised by eroticism and strong storytelling. That’s the closest I ever got to a brand because I’ve written erotic fantasy, paranormal romance, contemporary erotica, historical romance, even a bit of futuristic. I write a lot of cross genre stories too. My next publication, for example, is a historical paranormal erotic romance set in Scotland. I’ve written different lengths for different markets in different countries. I’ve sold to the biggest romance publisher in the world and I’ve also had my work published in Penthouse and Bust. Branding what I was doing wasn’t ever going to be easy. Bottom line is I just want to write good stories that readers enjoy. The good news is I got through anyway.

Another piece of advice I read was to make a five-year plan. What, like a five-year dream, I wondered to myself. ;o) I mean, come on..! This isn’t like a regular job where we can study for qualifications and move forward as a matter of course. I was working in an area where things change all the time, not only markets but the whole face of publishing is forever changing. I’m a realistic type and I knew I might never be contracted by a big house. The whole concept of a five-year plan seemed alien to me. The important thing here is to aim high but to keep one foot on the ground, because if we get carried away with the dream the rejections hit very hard (and yes I have a box full of them, it’s been a big learning curve,) and that eats away at our motivation to write. We can make a five-year plan but we need to consider it a guiding star rather than a goal because we need to be flexible and ready to change when the industry changes.

One of the best pieces of advice I read (and I really do want to reiterate this one) is to investigate a publisher as much as you can before you submit, and be wary of new publishers with no history. Yeah, I could really understand that. Trouble is, it’s so tempting. New publishers are eager to fill their slots and things move so much quicker. Very tempting for a new author, and I confess I fell for it. Several times over. Hence the missteps and errors I mentioned earlier. Let me explain.

The first time I erred I’d read the warnings but I figured this one was reasonably safe because it was an established publisher who was opening a new erotic line. My first novel was contracted and I celebrated….and then waited. And waited, and waited. My work was totally locked in, and a year later the line was cancelled having never opened. I didn’t even hear this devastating news directly from the publisher or editor. I heard it from another author. I was never officially notified. I had to contact them and beg for my rights back. In retrospect I consider it a lucky escape. At the time I was gutted about the lost year.

Then a year or so later I did it again. I know, can you believe it?! An exciting new line from a publisher who was interested in fantasy and paranormal romance. I was dazzled by promises of mass-market titles and audio books and exciting growth and development plans. I plunged in and was fast tracked. Shortly after my two titles went to print the line changed direction completely from short fantasy romance to big urban fantasy, and my books and those of several other authors were suddenly wallflowers in warehouses. These things happen, publishing is a business after all. But once again I was a casualty of publishing and it was a huge disappointment. Luckily I did manage to get the rights back and those stories have better homes now.

Then I heard about this exciting new e-publisher starting up in my own country. No way, I said! Not falling for that one again. But…it was here in the UK, and it did sound exciting, and they were actively looking for authors. I held back for a long while, and when I did investigate I went in with extreme caution. I submitted a short story that was a rights returned project. That meant I could investigate without committing any writing time. Yup, finally got the old brain in gear by this point. ;o) As it happens, that new publisher turned out to be a terrific one. I’m still working with them years later and have a substantial backlist there.

On balance I would reiterate this gem of advice: always investigate publishers thoroughly, research on the net and be brave and email other authors asking questions. If there is negativity there you’ll soon hear about it. If it’s a new publisher on the block, be doubly cautious. Let some other fool tread the path first, someone like me. ;o)

In closing, here are some of the best bits of advice I can offer to new writers. Keep your head in the clouds but your feet on the floor. Never stop learning. Love what you do, it’s the love of the craft that will keep you going through the hard times. And my favourite: “read, write, submit, repeat.” If you’re not in you can’t win. Good luck!

Visit Saskia’s Website
Visit Saskia’s Blog

There’s a philosophy of critiquing that goes something like this:  be as absolutely mean, vicious, and cutting as possible when you’re critiquing someone’s story.  If the author of said story is really cut out to be a writer, he can take it, maybe learn something, and maybe even get shocked into becoming a better writer.  On the other hand, if you scare them off and they never write again, they were never meant to be a writer in the first place and you’ve done them a favor.

I don’t recommend this technique.  I’ve been on the receiving end of it, and while I proved that I really am cut out to be a writer because I didn’t quit and came back with a better story, the trauma it engendered has stayed with me on some level for a very long time.  And I pretty much stopped listening to the person who delivered the critique entirely.

Here’s a much better litmus test to discover if you or someone you know is really cut out to be a writer:

“He left her.”
“He left her alone.”

What are the differences between those two sentences?

Now, if you just spent fifteen minutes thinking through every permutation of meaning you can achieve by adding or subtracting the word “alone,” you’re probably a writer.

(And yes, I really did get stuck on those sentences a couple of nights ago.  I was just describing someone leaving a room, but I became utterly fascinated with how the word “alone” changed the sentence, and the tone of the entire page.)

Happy Saturday, Folks!

As a whole, I don’t think our performance-driven culture celebrates nearly enough.  And road into professional writing can be a rather bleak, long stretch of learning.  I think learning how to celebrate our milestones is every bit as important as learning how to pay it forward. 

And there are a lot of milestones.  Finishing that first story.  Submitting that first story.  Hanging that first rejection slip on the wall.  Making that first sale.  Cashing that first check.

I wasn’t very good at celebrating in the earlier years of my life but with writing, I managed to hold onto it as a value.   I’m particularly a big fan of giving myself presents. 

For a lot of milestones, we hit a local steak and pasta place here in St Helens called The Dockside…less now that our toddlers are joining us.   This last week, we went there to celebrate Lamentation’s win of France’s Prix Imaginales and our first royalty check on the series.  Two huge milestones that I’m pretty excited about.

We celebrated the book deal (and my fortieth birthday) with a trip to Mexico a few years ago.  I’m giving myself a binge-month of Xbox 360 time and the boxed set of Star Blazers to celebrate finishing Requiem.   We’ll do something Big and Fun as a family when I finish the entire series.  It’s just factored into my budget now that my writing is bringing in some revenue.

But celebrating doesn’t have to be big or spendy at all.  Nor do the milestones you’re celebrating.  Sometimes, I celebrate finishing my daily word count goal with an hour or two of video games or a movie.   As a matter of fact, I told myself I could celebrate with an hour of Xbox if I finished both my Genreality blogpost and my Darkcargo interview.    

Now that was a fine bit of self-bribery! 

So what do you do to celebrate the milestones in your writing life?  And how often?

Over on one of my OTHER group blogs, YA Outside the Lines, the topic of the month has been, “What does an unusual and spectacular writing day look like for you?” To which three of us in a row basically: “Any day that I manage to write is a good day.”

In case you don’t go read that post, here’s the gist: Writing full time doesn’t mean long stretches of blissful writing time. In fact, I have more interruptions of my writing time now than I did when I had a normal job (whatever that means) and wrote on my “off time.”

Some of that is simply changes in my life. I take care of my mom. I live in the same city as ALL my relatives. I have friends 30 minutes, not 300 miles, away. I have neighbors now, not just cows, and I have three needy dogs who bark at every noise outside, which is a lot, because I have neighbors. Noisy ones.

But, lifestyle aside, I made MUCH better use of my writing time when I had limited amounts of it. Why? I’m glad you asked.

People ask you to do things. It probably started harmlessly, where you offered, because you have a flexible schedule. But it snowballs, because you like these people, and theoretically, there’s no reason you can’t take a break just then. But still. People you love and WANT to help will infringe on your time. But only because….

You let them. It’s a terrible trap, the knowledge that you can make up your time any time. That you can always write later. You know how much you could write in two hours when that’s all  you had. So taking grandma to her doctor’s appointment is no problem, you can make up the pages then. Except you can’t, because…

An open schedule opens doors to doubt and second guessing. Plenty of time to write means plenty of time to over think, to get scared, to get trapped in the endless revision cycle. Because you’re not wasting time if it’s limitless.

Nothing makes as good an excuse for procrastination as doing something for other people. (see #1) And if there’s anything I know, it’s that procrastination is a major symptom of fear. (see #3)

When I had to carve out time for writing, I was viciously protective of it. More than anything, that meant being strict with myself about not wasting that time or giving it up for anything less than an emergency. My family respected my writing time because I respected my writing time, and I didn’t let anything steal it from me–including self-doubt.

I know it’s hard to look at your other commitments–whether a job, or kids or family or other responsibilities, paycheck-related or not–as a blessing. But those demands on you do one important thing. They don’t let you take your time and your writing gift for granted.

So whether you have all day to write, or all lunch break, value that time, and make the most of it.

I’m in grad school this summer and one of my classes is Creativity and its Development. We’re studying several philosophies behind creativity from Freud, who always relates to sex somehow, to the humanist who have more of a whole person approach. One of the first assignments was to talk about what creativity was to us.

I had to think on that one a bit. It’s easy to confuse inspiration with creativity or to apply it only to the arts. When I talked about what it meant to me, I mentioned my cousin and Math Goddess Laura and how creative she was with her dissertation on a statistical problem. Scientists who move their various disciplines forward are also creative. They have to think out of the box and become mavericks. They can’t always use the tools others before them did.

Think about DaVinci, Galileo and even Franklin. All of these guys were about trial and error. They went beyond the expected.

I believe whatever our creative endeavors, we should always strive to go beyond the expected. If we’re writing a story about a cowboy with amnesia, who adopts a child and falls in love with the nanny, then we need to have twists and turns that make it unlike all the other cowboy amnesia books. We should always strive for more with our writing and to take the path that hasn’t been charted.

That’s one of the things I enjoy about being a pantser. I never know what is going to happen next. In a conversation with my editor last week she said, “I never knew where you were going next with this book and it was a good thing.”

So I’d like to know a couple of things this week. What is creativity to you? What is your creative outlet? Where do you look for inspiration?