GENREALITY

*rushes in* I’m so sorry I’m late!!

I think I mentioned I normally work nights at a bar/pub.? I’m on days shifts this week covering someone who’s on holidays, and it threw me so totally off that I forgot what day of the week it was!

Anyway, I had this post already written , I just hadn’t schedulesd it to publish, so I’m so sorry for being late. My brain doesn’t work so well during day shifts. * blush*

So..here goes… If it isn’t one, its the other.

Writing can be very solitary work. I tend to be a weird mix of people person and loner. I love my night job or waitressing/bartending because I love to deal with people. But, I also love living alone and being alone. I’m content with my own company. However, when I hermit away and write a lot, it can get very lonely and depressing. I think most writers will agree with me that sometimes spending too much time in our own heads isn’t a good thing. Thats where pets come in.

Most writers I know have a pet of some kind. A cat, dog, bird, or some live thing that keeps them company while they write. Someone that helps them get out of their own head when they need to.

I have 2 cats. They don’t always get along with each other, or with me to be honest, but I love them. They greet me at the door every night when I come home from work, and when I’m at home writing hard, they tell me when it’s time to play because I’ve been working too hard. And like writing, I have a very strong love/hate relationship with them both…depending ont he day.

Today I love them.

Let’s take a poll…Do you have a pet?

Or not.

Happy April Fool’s Day!  The obvious thing for me to do would be to post a bunch of really bad writing advice.  Unfortunately, lots of sites already do that, every day, and pass it off as the real thing.  Like lying on your cover letter.  Dude, just don’t.

This LA Times blog article shares some gems of bad writing advice:

• Remove all your commas. Editors don’t like commas and they pull the reader out of the story.
• The first page of your novel MUST include the protagonist’s sex, age, physical description and location. Preferably, this is all revealed in the first paragraph.
• Worst advice: Your character should experience only one emotion per scene.
• Narrative is what makes a good story.  Get rid of all the dialogue.

Gawd, that’s awesome.

I could write a parody article.  But this industry offers so many opportunities to make fun of itself, it’s hardly worth the effort for me to try.  Especially when so many people are already doing it better than I could.  The Onion, God bless ‘em, conducts much mockery on our behalf.  My favorites stories are probably “Author Wishes She Hadn’t Blown Personal Tragedy On First Book” and “Author Too Much Of A Pussy To Kill Off Characters.” Thank goodness I’ve never had that problem.  Killing off characters is so much fun!

Slate tells us how to write a fake memoir without getting caught.  Those of us on Genreality have solved that problem by writing, you know, FICTION.

And everybody’s heard about the Atlanta Nights sting operation from a few years back right?  This wasn’t an April Fool’s Day joke, but it could have been.  A group of science fiction and fantasy authors got together to purposefully write the worst novel ever:  Atlanta Nights, by Travis Tea.  And then PublishAmerica accepted it.

I’m going to end with some good writing advice.  Good, and snarky.  You know, the kind of advice that makes you think, “Um, yeah, I might have done that a couple of times and I probably shouldn’t.”  It’s John Scalzi’s Even More Long-Winded (But Practical) Writing Advice, and it’s one of my favorite writing advice articles.  Here’s the summary:

1. Yes, You’re a Great Writer. So What.
2. I Don’t Care If You’re a Better Writer Than Me.
3. There is Always Someone Less Talented Than You Making More Money As a Writer.
4. Your Opinion About Other Writers (And Their Writing) Means Nothing.
5. You’re Not Fooling Anyone When You Take Your Laptop to a Coffee Shop, You Know.
6. Until You’re Published, You’re Just in the Peanut Gallery.
7. Did I Mention Life’s Not Fair?
8. Don’t Be An Ass.
9. You Will Look Stupid If You’re Jealous.
10. Life is Long.

I’ve known a couple of writers who’ve been offended by the attitude here. For my part, I’m not sure how anyone survives in publishing without a very healthy sense of humor.  Now, go forth, laugh at yourself and this crazy business, and have a wonderful day.

I’m on the road this week, visiting my brother in Oregon, so here’s a quick post:  egoboo.

Yes, authors really do go into bookstores and take pictures of their books on the shelves.  This is from my trip to New York City last month, at the book store in Grand Central Station.  It wasn’t until I got home that I saw I had done double duty egoboo:  here are Lynn and I, almost side by side in the romance section!

There’s a whole other topic, about how my books get shelved in both science fiction/fantasy and romance, how urban fantasy is weird because it crosses so many genre boundaries, and what the heck do genre boundaries mean anyway.  But I’ll save that for another time.

Okay, maybe not just the weekends, but.. mostly.

To start at the beginning, this post is about trying to balance everything you have going on in your life, with your writing.

I’ve never been a 9-5′er and I’m not the best at keeping to a schedule. I tend to be a bit obsessive about whatever I’m doing, and have a hard time pulling away. I’m pretty much a binger, in all things I do. (One of the reasons I prefer to watch TV shows on DVD< I can watch the whole season in two or three days) Which works well for some things, not so well for others.

When I first started writing, I wrote constantly. I'd go to work, come home, write, sleep, got to work, write, sleep, write, work... so on. Then I quit my job and did nothing but write for a while. That lasted a little over a year before I headed back to work, just part time. Mainly because I'm single, I live alone, and when I did nothing but write, I became a true Hermit. Anyone ever see that movie Secret Window with Johnny Depp? I wasn't quit that bad, but it was getting there.

Recently I took a break from writing, completely. I focussedon getting back to normal, going out with friends, working at the bar, hitting the gym a bit. Basically, rebuilding my life after being a hermti for a while.. Now, I'm getting back to writing, but I'm not quiting my night job at the bar. I work 3-4 shifts a week and I like it. I like dealing witht eh people (mostly) and I liek the money, and the commraderie of working there. Plus, working there helps me stay motivated and inspired with my writing.

Since January I've been trying to get back to writing on a regular basis, but I keep getting distracted. It's not in m to set a gola of a certainmnumber of words a day, or a week, and make myself do them before I have my off time. I understand the theory of it, and I knwo it works for many may people, but not me.

What works for me is when I want to write, I do nothing but write. So, my new plan is to be a weekend writer. Well, a 2 day writer. whatever 2 days a week I have off in a row, those are my ‘nothing but writing’ days. The nights I work at the bar, those days are the days I do other writing ‘stuff’. (the website stuff, blog posts, promotional stuff, and even brainstorming.) I also have on other day in the week where I don’t work at the bar, and it’s not in the 2 days together writing days. That day is my day off to do whatever I want. Read, watch DVD’s, party, …whatever I want.

So it goes like this..for example.

Monday ~ Write
Tuesday ~ Write
Wednesday ~ Bar & Business Stuff
Thursday~Bar & Business Stuff
Friday ~ Bar & Business Stuff
Saturday ~ Day off!!
Sunday ~ Bar & Business Stuff

I only started this plan in the last 2 weeks, but it’s been working great so far. I almost feel organized!

So tell me, how do you balance everything you want to do in life? Especially those of you with families. How do you do it all?

I turned in a revision on Monday (for the next Kitty book, Kitty’s House of Horrors).  This may simultaneously be my most and least favorite step of the process.  On the plus side, this is the chance to take a thoughtful critique and use it to mold the book into something even better.  It’s the chance to make sure the pacing and plotting are as tight as they can be, to tie threads together that I’ve maybe left hanging, to polish up the rough edges that I may have let go in the first draft.  A good revision can be the difference between an okay book and a great book.  (Per some of last week’s discussion, I have an editor who’s very good at revision notes, talking in detail about the problems she had with the book and places I might look at to develop, expand, and make the book even better.  What’s really great, she points out the problems without imposing solutions.  “You’re the writer, it’s your book, you figure it out,” she often says.  I appreciate this, because while I don’t always see the problems, once she points them out I can usually figure out how to fix them on my own.)

But I pretty much hate the basic physical act of revising.  Of sitting there with my editor’s notes, my manuscript with dozens of colored post-it flags stuck on problem sections (love the post-it flags!), and the file on my computer screen, trying to keep all three in my mind at the same time while envisioning something great, the book the way I would like it to be rather than the way it is.  Fixing the problems starts to feel like trying to stomp on all the cockroaches in an infested kitchen.  I stop being able to see the goal and only see a book full of cockroaches.

I discovered something this time around (This is the seventh Kitty book, you’d think I’d have figured this out by now, but no…):  My brain turns to complete mush while I’m revising.  I can’t work on anything new.  I can stare at the same page of notes for an hour without actually doing anything.  Computer solitaire becomes fascinating.  All I really want to do is watch American’s Next Top Model.  I think I may even drool.

I recreated my thought process during the worst stretches:

–I really need to change this bit.
–But I don’t wanna, it’s hard, waaaaaah.
–But the book will be better if I make this change.
–Waaaaaaaahh… let’s play solitaire!
–Okay, but then I need to work through this bit and finish the damn thing.
–Frak! hate solitaire, stupid game.
–I don’t want to look at this manuscript anymore. It’s too hard.
–Let’s walk the dog instead!
–Yay, walk the dog! Then I’ll fix it when I get back.
**walks dog.  returns to computer**
–Crap. Don’t wanna, it’s hard. Let’s play solitaire.

Of course, I feel better once I actually just buckle down, make the changes, and finish the damn thing.  But gaw, until I actually do it, vacuuming looks like so much more fun.

I’m so happy to get this out of my hair so I can work on something new.  I’m so much happier than I was two days ago.