The HEA Cafe

Archive for March, 2008

Publishing is a relatively small world, especially in the confines of RWA. Even though there are upwards to 9000 members in our community, chances are you “know” many of the membership, whether it be through the online world of the RWA yahoo groups, online chapters, or live chapters. Most of the active members have “met” one way or another.
The sense of community we have is very strong, but like with any close-knit family, our closeness can also be our weakness.

We’re only human, after-all.

We’re not only human, most of us in RWA are also women.

Women are funny creatures. I’ve had (almost) 39 years to study them, me being a woman and all. On the whole, we are fiercely loyal, hardworking, supportive, and creative. I wish I could stop with our positive traits. I do. Because our positive traits are what make us such good mothers, wives, friends and employees.

Unfortunately, being human and all, we women also have a set of negative traits we carry around. Most times, we keep them buried because they directly interfere with the very things that make us so awesome.

Sometimes we have no choice but to be ugly. It’s a part of who we are. Something important in our life is threatened and Katie bar the door, we come out bearing our claws and fangs. We do what we have to do to make things right for those we love.

But in our little family of writers, I’ve noticed another kind of ugliness. Not the kind that comes out when someone you love is threatened, but the kind that rears its head for no reason other than pettiness. Ugliness. Bitterness.

Some people (mostly women, though I have heard a few things from some men in the industry as well) will badmouth anyone, whether they know them or not. It makes them feel better about their own mediocrity to bag on the successes of others—who happen to be mostly women. Funny that.

In a community built for women, by women, I am constantly surprised at the sniping and backbiting that goes on here. Are we adults? Because after some of the things I’ve heard, I have to wonder.

Publishing is constantly changing and you either change with it, or fade away. Nobody is successful because of pure luck. Sure, luck has something to do with it, but their success was built on the back hard work. They write, sweat, toil, and bleed over their manuscripts. Oftentimes they sign with their perfect agent who works, sweats, toils and bleeds over the negotiations. As a new writer, we want to take the first offer given. We have to leave it in the hands of our agent who work hard at getting us the best deal possible.

I’m almost amused by the whisperings I hear. Instead of genuine happiness, you hear things like “I bet that was a small deal. Probably just the basic. No negotiation there. She’s wasting commission with that agent.” Or “She’ll never sell through that advance.” So, damned if we do, damned if we don’t?
It’s hard work. All around. And in this world, the only way to succeed is to continue working hard. Badmouthing others might serve as temporary lidocaine to the bitterness in your gut, but it certainly won’t get that book written. Or more money in your pocket. Or make you happy with your career or lack thereof. And it won’t make those who are happy and successful any less so.

I guess all in all, this post boils down to choice. We’ve all had these feelings; it’s how we choose to act on those feelings that matters.

“Once you replace negative thoughts with positive ones, you’ll start having positive results.” Willie Nelson

I’m hip deep in galley edits and far too brain-weary to be pithy today. So I rummaged around some old files in my computer’s hard drive and found a poem I wrote eons ago. Which is a bit of fun. It was written when I still lived in NJ (yeah, that long ago) and our house was heated by oil, which was delivered by truck at the beginning of the winter. I put this in as explanation because those of you in the southern climes (as I am now) will have no clue as to the reference to an ‘oil  man’–which is not some wealthy Texan, no. He’s the guy who delivers the heating oil. 

THE SWEET SMELL OF 

The oilman smells of oil. 
Do I smell of words? 
Idle notions, vague ideas occur 
to mingle with events. 
Plots of stories hammer down my fence 
at night, to scatter 
at the light of day. 
All that lingers, my heroine’s sweet scent. 
Adventure-tinged, unpretentious. 

By noon, 
paragraphs unfurl their punguent plumes. 
A touch of sandalwood and spearmint. 
Practicality flees the room, 
the stench too powerful. 
A fantasy bouquet, 
Essence of Over-Active Imagination 
pervades. 

Then, when all good people lie abed, 
content to seek their rest, 
I’m besotted by my pen’s perfume, 
“Eau de Chapters”. A strong incense 
intoxicates my mind 
as my hero’s masculine scent assails me, 
and I breathe my stories
into life.  

~Linnea

Linnea Sinclair
www.linneasinclair.com 
RITA(c) Award Winning SF Romance from Bantam Spectra
2007-08: GAMES OF COMMAND,  THE DOWN HOME ZOMBIE BLUES, SHADES OF DARK
Coming 2009: HOPE’S FOLLY

So here it is, 5:00 pm (Central time) and I’m just now sitting down to write my blog entry. Sigh… Lately it seems like everything is “right in under the wire.” On time, well done, but with no leeway, no breathing room.

I wish I knew what the cause was. It’s not so much that I’ve accepted too much work. Most of it is little stuff—a 500 word article here, a 5,000 word short story there, a quick guest blog or this group blog that I know I’ll have every single month. It SHOULDN’T be so difficult.

But real life keeps intruding. I didn’t plan on a slew of baby goats. We keep the males and females separated, after all. Different pastures, locked gates. Yet the babies started coming nonetheless. Mind you, I LOVE baby goats. They’re like little Tiggers, bouncing on legs loaded with springs. I didn’t plan on difficult births that forced me to call the vet to save the mother. I didn’t plan on two of our dogs getting into a fight that left multiple puncture wounds on legs and faces that forced us to build a third kennel for when they have PMS. Yep. No kidding. Our dogs get PMS and have nasty tempers. We’re in the process of spaying them, but we had to wait until they were old enough.

Then there was the refrigerator dying in a plume of smoke that made me call the fire department. No damage done, but days and days of getting rid of old food, shopping for a new unit, filling the unit, and getting back to real life. It never seems to end.

And yet, through it all, I LOVE this job. I like sitting and staring at the walls and creating new worlds and then having the time to actually write them. It’s fun and challenging and makes me happy to turn something in. The more we do it, the more things we get INVITED to do, too, which is fun. But it eats away at the time and one of the things getting chewed into this year will be conferences/conventions. While I’d love to go to ALL of them, I just can’t and still get out the work. We went to six last year (as I discovered with shock while preparing my deductions for the accountant to start doing taxes.) This year—it might have to be TWO. I’d love to say National was going to be one of them. It probably won’t be. RT might be out too, but that’s still up in the air since we’re up for awards.

How do the rest of you guys manage it? I don’t even have kids! I can’t imagine how it works for you who have to juggle school and sports and PTA or even day care. Yikes!

Let’s hear your horror stories, or your best tips for time management.

Hi, WIP in case you didn’t know is WORK IN PROGRESS. My WIP is the second in a historical series that takes place in Texas during the Texas Revolution against Mexico in 1836. I have learned a TON about the time and it’s been very enjoyable.

But since I’m a novelist, I must torture my characters, especially my hero and heroine. My hero just rescued her from some nasty Mexican bandidos (translation bandits). He doesn’t know if she’s been sexually assaulted or not. And he doesn’t know how to help her. I mean he’s a wonderful hero but he’s the strong silent cowboy type.

I wanted to make sure I was portraying my heroine and hero’s reactions accurately–I mean rape or the suspicion of rape is the same in any century. So I did some quick research on the effects of kidnapping and rape and found that they had similar psychological effects. And then I did some face to face research and asked my husband how he would have felt and reacted if I had been raped, especially soon after we were married. My husband in case you haven’t met him is the strong silent electrical engineer type. Anyway, he gave me his feelings and then I read to him a bit of my hero’s dilemma and musings about how to handle this–and in the middle of a war.

It was very reassuring to find out that he reinforced that I had it right for my hero. And that’s so important.

My question is–Do you as an author ever ask your husband or friends about how they would react in a certain situation?

BTW, I just found out that my July 2007 book, DANGEROUS SECRETS, won the Romantic Times Best Love Inspired Suspense for 2007. I’m smiling!

Hope spring is starting where you are–we’re still waiting!

Lyn

The sun is shining, the daffodils are spearing out of the ground, the birds are chirping.  It’s springtime.  What am I thinking about?  Cleaning.  This time of year I get the urge to clean out closets, scoot out the refrigerator and vacuumn the coils, dust off the picture frames.  It’s a sickness.  Really.

But this year I’m going to try a new type of cleaning and I’m going to suggest you do the same.  This year I’m wiping my mind of all the rules of writing.  You know the ones.  The hero and heroine must meet in the first twenty pages.  Head hopping is a big no-no (anyone hear of Nora Roberts?).  Prologues and epilogues are wasted space.

Don’t get me wrong – some of the “rules” were created for a very good reason but I think we as writers get too bogged down in how we’re writing and forget why we’re writing.

Writers and readers love a good story.  If you have fleshed out characters with strong conflict and interesting plot, then the rules don’t matter so much.  So write.  Turn off the internal editor and sit at the computer and tell your story.  Then take a break.  When you come back and reread your work, you’ll be able to tell if that switch in POV during the love scene worked.  If you’re still unsure, get someone else to read it.  Here at RWA Online, we’ve got a great forum called Critters where you can post a scene or chapter and get multiple objective reactions.

Be true to yourself, true to your story, and forget the rules.  After all, spring is a time of rebirth and celebration of life and love.  Celebrate HEA for you and your characters!