GENREALITY

I travel quite a bit — a couple of big trips a year and several little ones.  I often get asked, do I work when I travel?  Yes and no.

I write every day, and I’m pretty religious/superstitious about it.  Good things happen when I write every day, and things have been going so well I’m really loathe to stop.  But I think I’ve mentioned before my definition of “write everyday” is pretty broad.  I don’t have a specific word count.  Intensive brainstorming and outlining counts as writing, as does extensive revising.  And journaling.

Most of the writing I do when I travel is journaling.  Especially if I’m in a particularly interesting place I’ve never been before (last summer I spent a couple of weeks in Hawaii with my family, and over Thanksgiving I went to Barcelona and the south of France with friends), keeping a journal is pretty much imperative.  I want to describe and reflect on the great things I’ve seen, the amazing meals, the little adventures that ought to be a part of every trip.

This may not seem like “work” (work being stuff that gets written for publication and earns an advance check down the line), but it actually is.  It’s practice in writing about setting, describing landscape, establishing a scene.  I love sitting with my journal at the end of the day, decompressing by reviewing everything I experienced, and then finding the right words to be able to capture what I saw and felt.  At some point in the future I’ll need a scene in a novel that uses those skills, and maybe even a similar scene that I can draw on to make the writing that much more vivid and interesting.

Here’s a bit from last fall’s journal:

November 23 2009 (Carcassonne, France)

I just stepped out on the balcony of our room for a moment.  It’s about 8:30 pm or so I’m guessing.  It occurs to me if this was a D&D adventure or a Steven Erikson book, I could watch thieves travel across the Spanish tile rooftops of the town by the light of the just past new moon.  That I could lean on the ledge and be accosted by a handsome stranger.

Had a lovely dinner in (I think) d’Ostel de Troubadours, which had a low ceiling with thick beams, was dark and atmospheric, and had a roaring open fire in a little ancient fireplace.  It turns out they cook dinner on the open fire, and it was marvelous.  I had salad, sausage and potatoes–the sausage was strong and flavorful without being too spicy.  And the potatoes.  The potatoes in Barcelona, too.  Soft, rich, buttery, perfectly cooked.  And ice cream for dessert.  And a bottle of rosé wine.

I’m leaving today for my next trip — Worldcon in Australia, then two weeks of vacation.  Charlene’s going to be subbing for me the next three weeks.  When I get back, I’m sure I’ll have some stories to tell!

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I have less than a week to do everything I need to do before the next trip.  The list is smaller than it was when I started three weeks ago, at least.  It still feels like I’m not getting anything done.

Part of this is the curse of multitasking.  At one point last week I had three story files open, a file of blog posts, two different e-mail accounts, various online discussions I was following, and my phone on my desk, which I’d been using for various housekeeping/administrative calls.  I wasn’t doing everything at once, but I’d do a little piece of each — a phone call, a blog post, check e-mail, work on a story, another phone call when I got stuck, etc.  Everything gets done, eventually.  But it sure feels haphazard.

I know, I know.  I ought to finish one thing before moving on to the next.  But you know what ends up happening when I try that?  When there’s a thing I need to do that I don’t want to?  I play solitaire for two hours.  This is not a good use of time.  Instead, I tell myself:  answer five e-mails, then work on the story.  Or, if I’m stuck on the story, I have permission to go do something else on the list because at least I’m getting something done.  Baby steps, Grasshopper.

I’m one of those writers who discovered that I don’t produce much more now that I’m writing full time than I did when I had a job.  When I had a day job, I was much more careful with my time.  I really wrote for that hour or so between work and dinner because that was all I had.  I’m still writing about the same amount, but spread out over the whole day now.  And I’m pretty sure I didn’t have nearly as much writing-related administrative crap (e-mails, blogs, interviews, travel, contracts, post office runs, etc.) to do when I still had a job (I only started blogging after I quit the job, for example).

But you know what?  I’m a whole lot less stressed about it all than I was when I had a day job.  I really do have the whole day to get things done instead of just a couple of hours, and that’s nice.

Something I started doing off and on last spring:  if I’m feeling useless at the end of the day, I make a list of everything I did.  Everything.  This includes laundry, filling the dishwasher, taking the dog for a long walk, answering e-mails, writing 800 words, updating the website, making trip reservations.  Usually, the list is anywhere from 5 to 12 items long.  Which means I’m getting a lot done, I just don’t often feel like I am.

So, lesson learned:  Spend a bit of time contemplating how much I’ve actually done, rather than focusing on the list of things I still have to do.  I may not feel very efficient about it, but the stuff is getting done.

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I got home from my book tour Friday and have spent the last couple of days doing laundry and trying to recharge.  I thought I had dodged a bullet and avoided the traditional getting sick after a trip — not so much, it turns out.  I woke up with a sore throat yesterday and today I’m rocking a full-on cold.  I’ve been running hard for three solid weeks, and it’s like my body went, “woohoo, a break!” and my immune system promptly shut down.  Sigh. . .

A recap:  the tour was eleven days, eight flights, seven hotels in seven cities, eight signings, and two stock signings at additional stores.  Best of all, people showed up for every single event.  Yay!  Met with friends for meals four times (including breakfast with our very own Ken Scholes and his family, when I got to meet the babies!), saw a movie with my brother in Portland, and caught my first episode of True Blood on the hotel’s HBO.  (Reaction — whoa, I shouldn’t have jumped in on the middle of this one. . .)  It was too cool for swimming in California (overcast and windy.  In July, in California!) and in Phoenix, when I thought I was going to get to hop in the pool, there was a thunderstorm.  Ah well. . .

Things learned:  Grabbing a Danish or muffin right before an early flight and calling it breakfast might work at the beginning and end of a long trip, but doing that five days in a row doesn’t work so well.  The iPod Touch I got to check e-mail and stuff in lieu of carrying around my laptop worked just dandy, and I even read a couple of books on it.  All the cities kind of blurred together — I remember meeting lots of people, but I’m not quite sure where I met whom.  Next time, consider taking pictures.  Also, keep a better record of my contacts (book stores, etc.) in each city so I can arrange meetings and stock signings and things before the trip instead of trying to plan them during.  Also, never hesitate to contact the publicist who arranged the tour for help in making adjustments.  Take notes.

This was a pretty short tour all in all, and it wasn’t too strenuous — a few hours of being “on,” and a lot of waiting at airports for the next flight.  I even got a couple of books read and marked up most of the manuscript I’m working on.  But what I’m wondering is how the big guns who do six-week-plus tours all over the country manage it.  You’d pretty much have to do laundry a couple of times, and I don’t think you could fit everything in a duffle bag like I did, and how do you get any work done?  How do you put your life on hold for six weeks?

Maybe I’ll find out someday.  But if I do end up on a long tour like that, I think I’ll see if I can corner someone who’s done it and get some advice.

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‘What creates a writer is huge, psychological dysfunction.’ ~Kathy Lette

I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately. Not much writing to be honest, but plenty of reading. Partly because we’re very short staffed at the bar and I’m working there lots, but mostly because I’m just not ready to dive into writing to deeply yet. If you’ve been reading my posts for a while you’ll know that I’ve been having issues for the past year or two. Sure, they’re issues of my own making, but they’re still issues, and this blog is all about the realities of the writing life, so I thought I’d slit open a vein and share with you.

When I first decided to back away from writing for a while, quitting wasn’t what I had in mind. In my mind I was simply burnt out and needed some time to relax and then I’d get back to it with even more energy than before. But as time went on, getting back to it was harder and harder. It seemed like no matter how much I wanted to start writing again, I just couldn’t do it. I’d sit down in front of the computer and stare at a blank screen until I was cross-eyed. Then I’d go blog hopping, or download a movie. I managed to do some critiquing for friends, write a couple of short stories, and even start a few projects. (4 to be exact…I have a scene for each, but that’s it.)

I’d parted ways with my last agent before I finished my contracts with Berkley and Kensington so I thought maybe if I had a new agent interested in one of my ideas it would spur me on some. So, I spent some time sending out queries and talking to those that showed interest. When a couple of agents I really liked showed some interest, and I still couldn’t make myself get down to it I knew I was in trouble. Thoughts of completely quitting writing started to float through my head and I seriously considered it.

So I picked up more hours at the bar, and gave myself permission, true permission, to not even think about writing. Of course I still thought about it. Every now and then I’d think about working on a a whole new something different, but I still never sat down in front of the computer. I’d been super excited about working on an anthology with a friend just for a fun, but when it came down to the wire I just wasn’t able to force myself to write anything-even something just for fun. So I decided to focus on other creative things. I did a couple of photo shoots and set up a portfolio, and thought about turning my second bedroom-my previous writing space-into a studio. And I started reading again.

Not just reading friends books, or ones that I felt were research or competition in the same market as mine, but reading for fun. For entertainment. For enjoyment.

Ever since I got my library card I’ve been reading constantly. Pretty much anything and everything I could get my greedy little hands on. Some I only read a chapter or two of, some I devoured and then went out and bought for my keeper shelf. In the last couple of months I’ve rediscovered something I wasn’t even aware I’d lost-my love of books.

It was during this time that I realized why I was struggling so much. It wasn’t because I didn’t want to write. It wasn’t because I was trying to write the wrong genre either. It was because I seriously felt that I was incapable of writing something unique or special.

When I got over my initial burn-out I realized it had come on because I’d started to feel like I was simply churning out stories, and I was starting to struggle with my characters. By that I mean I was starting to feel as if I was unintentionally regurgitating them. I couldn’t come up with a new proposal for my editors because every time I started to get something going I’d sit back and read it, and think, “Wow, this feels familiar…and not in a good way.”

This thought made me look at my pile of recently read books, and think about the ones that I hadn’t been able to get into past the first chapter. It made me think about my comfort read authors that have been around for a long time. Authors like Linda Howard, Lee Child, Susan Elizabeth Philips and Janet Evanovich.

What am I getting at? I’ve figured out what’s been holding me back. I want to repeat the success of my previous stories, but not the stories themselves.

I only started writing in 2002, and my plan was to write a novel by 2010. Well, I way surpassed that goal. Not counting novellas and short stories, from 2005-2008 I wrote 9 novels. I now see why some writers limit themselves to one novel a year and it’s not because they can’t write faster.

Now, I’m not saying that writing fast, or many, means they won’t be as good as slow and steady. What I am saying that I learned something about me, and what I want as a writer. I want to slow down, take my time, and work at creating characters and stories that are brand new to me. I want to filter through all the ideas and characters floating around in my mind (and in my idea files) until I hit on something, or someone that truly excites me and makes me feel that driving urge to let my imagination flow with words on a page.

A couple of years ago starting to write a new story was just like starting to read a new book – exciting. I’d lost that. Now that I found my love of reading books again, I know my love of writing them isn’t far behind, and I’m getting excited again because another phase of my journey is about to start.

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Whew, I had a busy couple of weeks there.  Kitty Goes to War and Discord’s Apple are both out in the wild now, with all the attend hoopla and stress of a book release, times two.  I tried not to read reviews — instead, I made my friends do it for me.  I did my first signing at the Tattered Cover in Denver Thursday evening and spent part of the weekend at the Rocky Mountain Romance Convention, and I’m tired.

But not too tired, because I’m on another adventure this week.  I’m currently at Launch Pad, a NASA-sponsored astronomy workshop that helps writers put better science in their works.  That’s another rule for being a writer:  never stop learning.

That reminds me of one of my favorite idea generators:  The Astronomy Picture of the Day.  Go ahead, scroll on through and prepare to lose a couple of hours.  The images of the vastness and beauty of the universe, from right here on Earth to way beyond our galaxy, constantly make me think of spaceships and epic adventure.  I propose that if this site doesn’t get your imagination going, you may not actually have any imagination.  (Ooh, look at this one, or this one, or…)

Then I have a day at home before I head out on my very first multi-city book tour.  I’m sure I’ll have lots to say about that in a couple of weeks!

Soon, I might be able to sleep…

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