The HEA Cafe

Like many writers, it seems I’ve been at it for years. I joke about submitting to Archie and Veronica comic books when I was seven or eight but, honestly, that’s when I got the writing bug. I submitted faithfully for two or three years without getting even a rejection letter to my name.

Throughout junior high and high school, I kept at it, writing poetry, songs and short stories, dreaming of becoming an author. But college and kids and life got in the way and I put those dreams back on the top shelf in the back of my mind. I plugged away at the technical writing work I’d been fortunate to get, telling myself that I’d get back to it tomorrow, or next month, or next year. It isn’t surprising that it took forty plus years to finally get my name on a fiction book.

Friends (aspiring writers, all) ask what finally got me off my duff (or, rather, back on my duff and in front of a computer monitor) to pen my first full length novel.

Well, it wasn’t the money, that I can promise you. After publishing a sports magazine geared to kids, I already knew how hard it is to make a decent living in publishing. Yes, there are multimillionaire authors out there, but for every one of them, there are thousands like me who just hope to make a little spending money after the marketing bills are paid.

The hard truth is I did it because I realized that tomorrow, and next month, and next year had come and gone. I’d been waiting for the perfect time and finally realized there is no perfect time.

Has my life changed since making the decision to try to make my dreams come true? You bet your sweet bippie it has (if that doesn’t date me, nothing will!) For one, I’ve chosen to immerse myself in the writing life. When people ask what I do, I tell them I write. I surround myself with yeah-sayers instead of naysayers, other writers who understand how hard this business is but keep plugging away. I drag friends to RWA chapter meetings, plug RWA Online, and volunteer at conferences. I shamelessly self-promote and buy lots of books from fellow authors, hoping they’ll do the same for me. When opportunities to travel for research present themselves, I pull out my credit card and jump in with both feet.

Over time, I’ve learned to take constructive criticism well, and to look at my writing not as something written in stone, but as a product I’m willing to rework over and over until it shines to perfection. I never stop working at the craft of writing and I plop myself in front of my computer nearly every day. I’ve got one book under my belt and two in the hopper.

I don’t have time to wait. Tomorrow is here!

Have a great day!

Recently, I had a an email conversation with a writer friend. She was discouraged because, even though she’d had some success with contests and landed an agent, after years of writing she still hadn’t sold. In a response to another friend’s congratulations on a contest final, she wrote: it’s hard to keep believing “this will be the one.”

I wasn’t functioning on all cylinders (which means just one cup of tea at that point), but I fired back a post before I could even think, because I felt she was doing herself a grave injustice. This is what I said:

What does *believing* have to do with it? I think there’s been so much emphasis on positive thinking in past years that the forest has got lost for the trees. Where positive thinking matters is that it keeps us working toward a goal. Believing that we can control things we can’t is crazy. The only thing you could control here was entering the contest. You finaled (w00t w00t) and now it’s completely out of your hands. What you do have is exposure and opportunity. Will it lead to anything? Who knows. but you can ride it for what it’s worth (like going to the conference which is GREAT). Will believing it will lead to something change the outcome? I sure don’t think so. Still, we have a mutual friend who sold her book based on a contest win, so the possibility must be acknowledged.

In many ways publishing (and life) is like throwing seeds into the wind. We can hope they’ll land somewhere and take root. But we can’t control that. We can only provide the opportunity. We can only keep going. The only way we can control things is to stop. And that isn’t an option for me, or for you.

To that, I would add now, that we get better at throwing those seeds. We learn how to gauge the wind. We find a hose and water–or learn how to do a rain dance. We do all we can and then trust the soil to nourish them and the sun to make them grow.

And then we go plant another garden. Happy writing!

As my first release date approaches, six days (not that I’m counting…lol), I have found myself looking back at the journey that brought me here.  I have realized how truly thankful I am for all the wonderful support and invaluable asssistance I have gotten along the way from RWA Online and Passionate Ink.

From Monica’s phenominal pitch boot camp that instilled me with the courage to do the pitch, and do a great job, to Chiron’s weekly motivational essays on the Challenge Forum, I have been constantly surrounded by fellow writers that are incredibly supportive.  So, group hug everyone!

I have also learned a lot along the way:

1. I learned that a lot of work goes into a work after you sign the contract.  I had no idea how many stages there were to it, and anyone who says e-publishers don’t edit has never dealt with my publisher…lol.  I always thought line edits and proofing were the same thing.  Uh, apparently not. Oh my!

2. I discovered that marketing yourself and getting your name out there is hard.  Very hard.  It is a lot of networking, and quite frankly, I have a lot to learn in this arena of it.

3. This publishing world is like a small fish bowl.  You never know who knows who. There is so much I could say about this one in particular, but I think that old saying sums it up best, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.”

4. The only way to find out what I need to know and don’t is to get the courage to ask.  I have yet to not get an insightful and informed answer from the wonderful authors in this forum. They are here to help, if we just have the courage to ask.

5. Determination and hard work will pay off eventually, you just have to have the patience to see it through to the end.

There are so many more things, but those are my personal top 5 for what it’s worth. 

So, I am keeping this first post here short and simple.  Have a great Thanksgiving, to those celebrating.  And if you are one of the many and the brave facing the “Black Friday” shopping frenzy, may the force be with you.  And your credit cards, of course.

As we all know, a writer’s job is to challenge her characters, put them in impossible situations, and really make them suffer.  That’s how we force them to change and grow.  Well, little did I know when I took a recent research trip to Peru that my experience would challenge me as much as any character in my book.

I went to Peru to do research for the second book of my upcoming miniseries for Silhouette Romantic Suspense (To Protect a Princess, coming Fall 2008).  I didn’t want to stick to the usual tourist routes; I wanted to get off the beaten track and into the remote mountain villages just as my characters do.  So I got the bright idea to spend a week with a medical missionary group working around Ayaviri, a town at nearly 13,000 feet in the Andes Mountains.

Of course, I prepared for the trip.  I read everything I could about Peru, spent weeks planning, packing, gathering supplies.  I got a slew of shots, started taking Diamox, which is a medicine that helps your body acclimate to high altitude.  Unfortunately, none of this helped.

First off, I got sunburned.  Ayaviri is a dusty, treeless place with freezing winds and brutal sun.  And I mean brutal.  My 65 SPF sunblock was useless.  Luckily, someone in our group lent me a hat to wear (I had planned to buy one there, but it turns out that Ayaviri is not exactly the place to shop, unless you are in the market for potatoes and coca leaves).  And October is “springtime” in Ayaviri, which means dressing in several sweaters, a jacket, a wool scarf, hat and gloves.  Night and day.  I froze.  I’ve never worn so many clothes to bed in my life.

And despite the medication, I immediately came down with altitude sickness.  My head throbbed constantly.  My blood oxygen level dipped to a dangerous 71%.  Walking across a room left me gasping and heaving for breath.  One of the doctors in our group had to be hospitalized and put on steroids because the fluids in his brain swelled. I escaped that fate, but the entire week I was there I felt dreadfully weak.

It didn’t help that we were “roughing it” on this trip.  We stayed in a hotel with no heat, no hot water, no towels, soap, toilet paper or mirror.  Electricity was sporadic.  Toward the end of the week, even the water completely shut off.

But like a true heroine, none of this kept me from doing my research.  Each day I staggered around with the group as we went to different villages to set up our medical clinic.  And I got lots of authentic details for my book.  The people in that area are mostly Quechua, descendants of the Inca.  Many don’t speak Spanish.  They grow potatoes and beans, sheep, cattle, alpaca, and pigs.  They live in mud-brick huts with thatched roofs and no running water, electricity, or heat.  Bathrooms consist of holes in the ground.  Women herd animals and hoe potatoes with their babies strapped in blankets on their backs.

The poverty is overwhelming.  Disease (especially caused by parasites) is rampant.  Health care is nonexistent.  Dental care consists of pulling rotten teeth.  Even the children’s cute “rosy” cheeks are thick calluses caused by the damaging sun.

So, obviously, after seeing how they live, I could hardly complain about my temporary deprivations.  So what if I had to do without heat or hot water for a week?  So what if the electricity occasionally went out?  These people went without such necessities their entire lives.

At the end of the week, my husband and I left the medical group and traveled by bus to Cuzco.  My plan was to wrap up my research by touring Machu Picchu, which I have always wanted to see.  We booked a room in a beautiful hotel which felt sinfully luxurious after our week roughing it in Ayaviri.

Unfortunately, fate had further punishments in store for me.  Not only didn’t the altitude sickness subside at the slightly lower elevation, but I came down with a violent case of traveler’s diarrhea — so bad, in fact, that I missed the tour of Machu Picchu.  I spent the entire day sitting by the baño while my husband enjoyed the tour.  I came home ten pounds lighter, and with the depressing knowledge that I lead a spoiled and pampered life.

I’m sad to conclude that I’m probably not heroine material.  If I had to face any of the disasters my characters face in my book, I would not prevail.

But despite everything, the journey really did make me grow and change.  I certainly appreciate such amenities as safe food, hot, clean water, and heat.

Will I do it again?  Maybe.  I’d like to think so.  A real heroine would.  But me?  Hmm… I’ll have to think about that for awhile…

If you’d like to see photos from my adventurous trip, you’ll find them on the EXTRAS page on my website: www.gailbarrett.com.  I hope you’ll take a look!

Home again. I’ve just spent a week with twelve writers at the beach. I slept to the song of the ocean and woke to work until I couldn’t go without coffee a second longer. Then, usually back to work, unless I couldn’t bear to go another second without walking on the beach.

I don’t normally sleep well. I slept a lot–still not all the night through, but more hours. I thought about new stories (and actually started one that taunted me all the way home today).

I wrote and wrote and talked about writing, and learned about new people and enjoyed making new friends. It was almost hard to leave.

Especially the water. I spent two hours yesterday with my feet mostly in the water, saying goodbye to the ocean. I didn’t realize it was two hours, until I finally sensed my frozen face and toes.

Deep down, in the places where I’m nothing except the bits and pieces of raw soul and feeling that form me, the ocean owns me. I feel more peace. I feel brighter, and I feel creative at the beach.

But I had to come home. I have family and a cat and things I have to do. So, here’s my task, to bring that part of me that flowers in sand and ocean and the wind tumbling the clouds with salt–home. To be that happy, peaceful, excited person here, locked on land with my laptop and most of the people I love best.

What is your beach? And how do you manage to live as if you’re there, when you cannot be?