Inspiration

Tomorrow I go to Croatia for a week. I don’t really know very much about this part of south-east Europe but I’ve heard the scenery is beautiful, so I’m really looking forward to seeing it, and finding out more about it.

I’m wondering, too, if it will provide me with any inspiration for a novel. After all (as I’m sure you will recall), it was my vague musings aboard a Nile cruise ship that led to ‘Her Only Option.’

Inspiration can strike in so many different ways. Sometimes it’s a place that captures your imagination, other times it may be an anecdote about a person or an event. It can be something you see or hear, or simply, as happened with me, a vague musing about something that ‘might’ happen.

It seems to me that you can’t ‘force’ inspiration. It happens, often unexpectedly, when something strikes a kind of chord in your mind, and then won’t go away. A seed is sown, and starts growing …

So – Croatia, here I come (as long as I can manage to get up at 4am tomorrow, as we have to be at the airport at 5am!)

And here's Dubrovnik, where I shall be staying for part of the week. 

 

 

What's Your Plan?

One of the questions I get asked most often is whether or not I have a specific writing schedule.

Usually, I respond by explaining that when my kids were younger, I used to write at night, but as they, and I, got older, I tended to do most of my writing while the kids are in school. Makes sense. The house is totally empty and in theory, I should have about six hours of uninterrupted writing time.

Yeah, right. Add in phone calls, walking the dog, errands and all the other various work that I do and that six hours whittles down to maybe one or two at the most. Still a nice chunk of time, although not nearly as impressive as those six!

Well, for the past two weeks, I’ve been lucky if I could find even half of that to write. My book released, and I’ve been on a promo frenzy. The school year is almost done and suddenly my kids need end-of-year project supplies RIGHT NOW. They leave for camp in two weeks and there is packing and shopping an organizing to do (none of which I’ve actually started). And I have a major fundraising project that I’m chairing that is in the organizational stages, which is sucking even more time away from me.

Needless to say, if I write 75 words at a stretch, I do a major cheer.

However, my kids are leaving for camp in two weeks! And that will give me three and a half weeks of uninterrupted writing time. Now, don’t laugh. I know I said that above when I talked about having time while they’re in school. And I know that things will get in the way while they’re away. But my major goal this summer while they’re at camp is to spend the majority of my days writing. Just like I spent February writing 1,000 words a day, I’m aiming for at least that while they’re away. And my incentive, to keep that up, is the NJ Romance Writer’s Put Your Heart in a Book Conference in October. I’m going, and I’m pitching agents on one of the two stories I’m currently writing. I even told my husband I’m not doing any of the house projects I usually tackle while they’re away.

So I have a goal and I have a deadline. I think I’m going to be able to do it. Want to join me?

Thank you, rain gods

I was expecting to do more transplanting today, but it is raining. Yippee! I have the day off.

Spring came very late to Minnesota, and we are pushing to get plants into the ground. (I'm kneeling in the foreground setting in melon plants. Behind me are rows of zucchini, peppers, eggplants and slicing cucumbers.)

People who work in agriculture keep schedules that baffle people I've met. We work around the weather, not by the clock or a 5-on, 2-off calendar.  The old expression, "Make hay when the sun shines," is literal, even on Sunday and holidays, or after nine, ten, eleven days straight.

Other professions and situations are similar. Clean-up after disasters. Motherhood. Broadway and film actors. Mom and Pop businesses in seasonal tourist areas. These require an acceptance of a reality that doesn't fit into a 9 to 5 Monday through Friday work world.

Take family dairy farmers. Cows need to be milked twice a day, seven days a week. We did that for eighteen years, then switched to beef cows and veggies--not because we were tired of the schedule, but because the milk plant refused to pick up our milk unless we milked a lot more cows.

For me, the downside of this kind of schedule is not having the fortitude to adhere to a consistent writing schedule. I satisfy my craving to write in this blog, and by other small efforts. I think about my WIP, and dream of the day when writing will be my day job.

Cheating?

For the past few years I've been participating in my local library's summer reading program. I do a lot of reading in the summer and this is a fun way to keep track of some of the things I read, not to mention there are prizes awarded! To participate, I need to log six steps in each of three rounds, plus a bonus round. I earn a prize for completing the round. Round prizes are books, candy, small gift certificates, etc. For each step completed in the round, I get to fill out a raffle ticket. The big overall prize this year is a Kindle Fire. Other prizes are a set of luggage (This year's theme is a travel one.) and greater value gift cards. Since each round has six steps, on the outset it would appear I could log 24 books for the program.

But there are some 'cheater' steps. At least in my mind. The first step in each round is to watch a DVD or listen to a CD. The third step in each round is to watch a World Language DVD or another non-fiction DVD. To me, I'm not sure why these are included in a reading program. My husband teases me because I'm disappointed with these requirements. It's just that I'm a purist, and if I'm participating in a reading program, I want to read! It's not like I won't read 24 books anyway, but it seems like the easy way out to include CDs and DVDs as part of the program. I kind of feel like I'm cheating. The fifth step is my choice of a CD, DVD, or book, and of course I'll pick the book. The sixth step is an optional audiobook step. Okay, this is a bit closer to reading, but not quite. At least in my mind. My hubby and I tried listening to an audiobook on a trip once. We figured we had a lot of traveling time to kill, and unfortunately, I get car sick if I read in the car, so this seemed like a good solution. But we had trouble following the story. Too many distractions around. Maybe we'll give it a try again this year.

Maybe the program needs to be called a summer media program. Or a summer listening/watching/reading program. But with half of the steps having nothing to do with reading a book, it seems like a misnomer to be calling it a summer reading program.

Just my two cents.

And it's not like the set up discourages me from participating. It's still fun, and I do love filling in my log. There's something deeply satisfying about that. And I try to challenge myself to complete the program by the end of June instead of the end of July when it officially ends. Because reading program aside, there's no better time than summer for curling up with a good book on the porch, or on the patio, or out by the pond, or next to the creek on vacation, or...anywhere! I just love being a book nerd!

Until next time,

Happy Reading!

Debra
www.debrastjohnromance.com

Knitting with Fog

I’ve finally reached the last chapter of my ‘work in progress’. People often ask how long it takes me to write a novel, and I usually say, ‘About six months’. This was a total guess as I’d never actually ‘timed’ myself.

With this one, however, I made a note when I started it - November 30th, 2012. I also made a note of when I began each chapter. It soon became very apparent I was writing (on average) one chapter per week, which actually fits with my general estimate of writing about 500 words a day (again an average).

Until I got to Chapter 22 on April 22nd. Since then, it’s been like knitting with fog. I knew where I wanted to get to at the end. I just didn’t know how to get there!

I had two attempts at writing Chapters 23 and 24, each of which took me almost two weeks to write. Chapter 25 was supposed to be the last one. I started it on May 19th, and I thought I would actually reach my (self-imposed) deadline of finishing the novel by the end of May i.e. 6 months since I started it.

Wrong! By May 31st, I hadn’t finished the chapter, and – even more significantly – I realised I couldn’t get to my planned ending in that chapter anyway. The characters were demanding another chapter, but they weren’t helping me to sort everything out!

Every sentence has been a struggle. My friend Gilli calls it ‘carving granite with a teaspoon’ but that implies something solid you can scrape. In this case, it’s all been far more nebulous –hence the fog analogy.

I’m sure I’ve felt like this with my other novels, but in a way, it’s akin to producing a baby. Once the babe is born, you forget all the discomfort and pain you went through. If we didn’t, we’d never have more than one child! I guess the same can be said for producing a novel.

How do you cope when it seems like every sentence, even every word, is a struggle to produce?

New Book Release

My book is out! Actually, my publisher released it on Saturday, which was a great surprise. I spent all weekend publicizing it on Facebook and Twitter. On Sunday, I participated in a virtual release day party (you can also click here) with a whole bunch of other authors. We talked about our books, and gave blurbs and excerpts throughout the day. I’m now going to be going on a bunch of blog tours—check my Facebook page for details.

I’m trying a few new marketing things this time around. I’ve hired Goddess Fish to handle a blog tour and a review tour. I paid to have my book cover and a buy link on the home page of Joyfully Reviewed. And of course, I’ve contacted a bunch of my writer friends to guest post on their blogs. I’m hoping that this will result in more people becoming aware of my book. We’ll see what happens.

The Seduction of Esther is now available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, AllRomance and BookStrand as an e-book. Paper version will follow shortly.

Blurb: Samara Goldberg has a problem even the most beautiful singing voice can’t fix. She’s a walking disaster, especially when she’s around handsome men. To make matters worse, she’s in desperate need of someone to play the character of Mordecai for the Purim spiel she’s producing and the new congregant, Nathaniel Abramson, is a perfect fit. Nathaniel is a divorced dad who’s recovering from the biggest public scandal of his life. The last thing he needs is a relationship with the choir director at his new synagogue, who also happens to be playing the lead female role of Esther in the very play he’s been coerced into joining.

Woven around the Jewish holiday of Purim, The Seduction of Esther is a story of two people whose lives mirror the plot of the Purim story. Like Esther, who had to hide her Jewish identity from the King of Persia, Samara and Nathaniel are hiding key pieces of themselves. Evil Haman wanted to destroy the Jews, and the nasty Josh will do anything to keep Samara and Nathaniel apart. Will their love survive, like the Jewish people in Shushan, Persia, or will their fear keep them apart?

I hope you’ll check it out and if you’d like, leave a review on the site where you purchased it.

In the meantime, if you’re a writer, do you try new marketing techniques or do you stick with the tried and true ones? And if you’re a reader, how often do you leave reviews?

Hunting for Treasure

Writing a romance is like supervising a treasure hunt. After you pick a setting, story theme, hero and heroine, you select a starting place for the plot and go.

Along the way you discover their friends, mentors and antagonists. They can ramble until they find a sure-footed path or two, or run pell-mell into obstacles and disasters. You can channel them into plot canyons with only one way out, or drop them into a vast wilderness and accompany them on their quest.

A simple tool to frame the rest-stops on your treasure hunt is the following set of sentences. Answer them and you'll be well on your way to a winning story.

Once upon a time there was ___. 
Every day, ___. 
One day ___. 
Because of that, ___. 
Because of that, ___. 
Until finally ___.