The HEA Cafe

I didn’t do this deliberately, but having the 4th of each month as my regular blog day means every year I get to write a Fourth of July blog.  And I like that.[g]

I was listening Friday to Morning Edition on NPR, as I do most mornings.  They followed a long standing ritual of having their anchors and correspondents read the Declaration of Independence.  It was fun picking out the voices I knew–Daniel Shor, Nina Totenberg, Sylvia Poggioli and all the various anchors of Morning Edition and All Things Considered.  That was special fun for me because I used to be a news director/anchor on the radio, and even now, decades later, older residents of my town recognize my voice.  When I’m in the grocery people will hear me and say, “Didn’t you use to be so-and-so who did the news on WGGG?”, which is nice after all these years away from the microphone.

Anyway, something struck me as I listened to the NPR correspondents read the Declaration of Independence aloud.  The richness of the words contained in that document.  So many of us neglect to take the time to read our country’s historic documents, even though as writers words are our tools.  You’re missing something if you don’t.  Maybe it bored you in junior high civics class, but as an adult and as a writer you should have a greater appreciation for the clarity of the writing of our Founding Fathers, the care with which they chose the words they would pass down to us more than 200 years later.

For example, did you know that Section Eight of the US Constitution authorizes Congress to “… grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal…”?  This means Congress can authorize individuals to be privateers, and someday I may write that thriller  about Congress authorizing a post-9/11 privateer to hunt down terrorists.  Oh sure, there are now international treaties outlawing privateering (and incidentally, the US signed on very late to that–after the Civil War), but this is the constitution.  If I wanted to, I’m sure I could work out the details.

Anyway (again), the point of this rambling blog post is this:  It’s the Fourth of July.  If you’re an American, be proud!  Read your Declaration of Independence. Enjoy the shiver it sends down your spine when you think about these individuals pledging ” our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor” so that you can live today in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.  Had they lost, they would have been drawn-and-quartered or hanged as traitors to the Crown. They chose their words carefully.  Maybe they had a premonition that 200 years later we would be reading them, and saying “Thank you.”

“Every human is an artist. The dream of your life is to make beautiful art.” – Don Miguel Ruiz.

I recently read The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz and am trying to apply them to my life, because, hey, like everyone else, I want to help change the world.  It begins with me, right?

Only, applying the four agreements to every area of my life feels like moving the proverbial mountain, so I decided to do a test drive with my writing career. So far, it’s working. Better than working, it’s actually providing what Miguel promised it would: freedom, happiness and yes, even beautiful art.

Agreement One is Be Impeccable With Your Word. In life, this translates to stop the negative voices in your head and quit gossiping about others. When it comes to writing, you can apply this agreement to the voice inside your head that tells you your writing sucks. You can also apply this to your characters. In the beginning of your story, they’re lying to themselves and lying to other folks as well, trying to keep some secret buried or their feelings under lock and key. As the story progresses, they should come to terms with their truth, internally and externally, in order for them to grow.  Make this particular agreement with your readers and deliver it faithfully and you’ll have fans forever. 

Agreement Two is Don’t Take Anything Personally. I struggle with this agreement a lot. I take everything personally. Once I came to terms with the idea behind this agreement, though, I fell like a weight fell off my shoulders. It’s NOT about me. The way others react to me is a projection of their reality, not mine.

With my writing, I’ve learned it’s not about me either. It’s about the story. As the insightful Stephen King tells us, we should serve the story, not our ego. When an agent or editor rejects what we write, it sucks, but remember the rejection is about their reality. They have markets to abide by, budgets to keep in mind, office politics to deal with. Yes, the story is our baby, but it’s also a marketable (or unmarketable) commodity. The book of your heart is not the book of everyone else’s heart.

Agreement Three is Don’t Make Assumptions. Personally, I spend a lot of time reliving the past and projecting into the future.  If I’d only said this, or did that, or stood up to so-and-so, I’d be happier. As writers, we make a lot of assumptions, too. My critique partner said I better drop my prologue or no agent will ever sign me. The hero and heroine must meet in the first chapter because Bestselling Author always writes her stories that way. I’m doomed because I’ve accumulated five rejection letters.

Can you feel the drama? The heartbreak? The despair? Save it for your characters. Channel it into them. And while you’re caught up in their story, pause for a moment to realize you’re living in the moment when you’re writing. Not the past and not future – well, at least not your past or your future. You’re in the present, no assumptions in sight. Live it to the fullest and I guarantee it will show in your story.

The final agreement is Do Your Best. Unlike life, we can redo and rewrite our stories ad infinitum; however, if you do your best with every draft, you’ll end up with a wonderful story you’ll feel proud to show the world.

Even if you’re not a writer, you’re an artist of your own dream, your own life. Check out the four agreements, take them for a test run in one area of your life, and see what comes of it. You might just make beautiful art.

(This blog originally appeared in The Samhellion. Thank you to all the authors who contributed!)

My name is Misty, and I’m a writing addict. 

Today I wrote The End on my third super agent book. As I gave my hero, Michael, his long-deserved HEA, I actually teared up. He’s such a good guy, and I put him through all kinds of hell in the first book of the series, Operation Sheba. His girlfriend betrayed him with his old rival, his boss set him up as the CIA’s mole, and terrorists held him hostage in his own home. He was turned him into a human bomb and shot in the chest.

I left him alone for the second book, giving him a chance to recover. He needed to grieve over losing Julia, and he also needed time to let his physical wounds heal. Then there was the post traumatic stress he was trying to suppress and the deep rage over the hostage situation building inside him. All difficult internal challenges he had to overcome in the third book.

Bringing characters to life, and putting them through hell in order to find a happy ending, gives me a high that no drug can. The thrill of writing sends me on a rollercoaster ride. Every scene, every chapter, is a slow, deliberate climb to the top and an exhilarating zoom down to the bottom again. I’m a prolific writer and when people ask me how I turn out stories so fast, I always tell them it’s not the how that’s important, it’s the why. I’m an addict. I need the rush.

I’m not alone with my God/Dr. Frankenstein complex. Several of the authors I interviewed for this article, including Marie-Nicole Ryan (One Too Many), stated similar reasons for their choice to be a writer. As she puts it, “Writing fills the undeniable urge to create, which is always present in my life. There’s much magic involved in creating and completing a new story.”

Vivi Andrews (The Ghost Shrink, the Accidental Gigolo & the Poltergeist Accountant) loves the control writing gives her. “There is something extremely cathartic, emotionally speaking, about having the power to make that happily ever after happen.  Good, bad, or ugly, everyone gets what they deserve and I get the intense satisfaction of seeing that justice in words when it can be so elusive in ‘real’ life.  If I can control that one area, I can let go of all the things I can’t control.  It’s my own private therapy session for the control-freak within.”

Writing as therapy was a common denominator among the authors I spoke with. “Writing can be boiled down into two major parts for me,” Michelle Miles (Nice Girls Do) says. “One part is Quell The Voices In My Head, and one part is Escapism From The Real World.”

Shiela Stewart (Tempting the Darkness) agrees. “For me, writing has always been both a necessity and a means of escape. I need to get the stories out of my head or it will explode, and escaping into the fantasy world makes me a much saner person.”

In the current economy, escapism is the new black. We’re all in need of a good fantasy. “Writing gives me an escape from the chaos that is my life,” states Kaye Chambers (Tiger by the Tail). “When I’m writing, I can be whoever – or whatever – I want to be and not give a hoot about the consequences!”

According to scientific studies, writing has positive health benefits. Because you use your left brain, which is analytical and rational, to put sentences together, your right brain is free to create, intuit and feel. Mental blocks crumble and give you brainpower to better understand yourself, others and the world around you.

Keith Melton (Blood Vice) has found this is true. “Getting out of my head and into another person’s head, and living their dreams, fears, needs and sorrows, increases my empathy and ability to relate to the rest of humanity. I believe the experience of fiction enhances the connections between us all.”

Whether writing satisfies our need to create, keeps us sane, or helps us relate to others, we are all addicted to telling stories. No drugs or professional therapy necessary. Just another story…

I was going to take a break from writing this week. Do some spring cleaning. Catch up with a few friends over lunch. Paint my bathroom. But all I can think about is the next world, the next character, the next rush. Yep, I need another hit, another story.

Writing is my addiction, and I don’t plan to break the habit any time soon.
Misty Evans is an award-winning, multi-published author of CIA thrillers and paranormal comedy. Visit her at www.readMistyEvans.com .
 

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One of my favorite shirts from the recent presidential campaign said “Change in Which We Can Believe”.   You can find it at CafePress under writers, editors and grammarians for Obama.

Of course, the slogan heard nationally was “Change We Can Believe In”.  Catchy, but not grammatically correct.  I mention this because today, March 4, is National Grammar Day, so proclaimed by the Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar.

I do not like to call myself a grammar snob, because I make mistakes.  I sometimes (but seldom) misuse “who” and “whom”.  I find my Southern heritage creeping in with “towards” rather than “toward”.  But I am educated enough that grammatical errors in others’ work tend to leap out at me, and this can be a problem. I was reading a historical last week by a well-respected author, and the sentence “He wanted to lie her down…” hit me like the sight of the proverbial turd in a punch bowl, taking me so far out of the moment I was tempted to not finish reading the book. I had already forgiven the author her misuse of “who” and “whom” in an earlier scene, but this was going too far!

There’s the possibility that it was not the author’s error, but the editor’s error.  If so, that is even sadder.  I depend on my editors to keep me in line, to catch those errors that might slip past me, like whether I should have used the word “may” instead of “might”.   The editors I know, the ones who have managed to cling to their jobs in an age when editing appears to be considered a luxury for academic presses, but not necessary for publishers of mass market fiction, I honor those editors.  They are fighting the good fight!

So as you go through your day today, red pen in hand, Elements of Style by your side, be ready to fight the good fight yourself!  Grammar counts!  Spelling counts!  Punctuation counts!

We owe it to our readers.  Someday they’ll thank us for it.  Maybe.  Regardless (NEVER IRREGARDLESS!!!), it’s the right thing to do.

Oh, and if you spot any grammatical errors in this post, please let me know.  I would appreciate it.

This past week, I blogged about my religious upbringing and how that gave me ideas for WITCHES ANONYMOUS at the Samhellion blog. The post generated some great comments, so I thought I’d share it here. 

I was raised in a Southern Baptist household and cut my teeth on Old Testament stories full of the Devil and damnation. Having an active imagination and a strong desire to find good in everyone, I was particularly taken by the story about Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden. To me, it was a love story, maybe the greatest ever told. Adam gave up having heaven on Earth to be with Eve after she ate from the apple. He could have resisted her and temptation and hung out with God, but he was so enamored by Eve, his good sense went out the proverbial window and he damned himself right along with her. 

Destined to be a writer, I transformed many Biblical stories in my head, and questioned what might have happened if things had been different. What if the original garden had been the Garden of Evil and it was God who had to tempt Eve to eat from the apple in order to create heaven on Earth? What if God sent Adam and Eve back to Earth for a redo and once they got here and hung out with all of us, they had to decide if wiping out sin—which would include all of us born in sin—was a good deal? 

  In WITCHES ANONYMOUS, I played with a couple of those ideas, letting Adam come back to Earth and find the perfect Eve (who happens to be named Amy). I took the Devil and gave him the ability to love, which in some religions, he was capable of as an archangel. And I flipped the ideas of good and evil on their heads, just to see what would happen. 

The story reminded me that good and evil exist in each of us, and it is our choice to resist or give in to temptation, whatever form it appears in. WITCHES ANONYMOUS is a comedy, because having been raised on Old Testament beliefs; I can tell you laughter is the best way to deal with the Devil.

If you’d like to read my take on Adam, Amy and Lucifer, you can find my story at http://www.mybookstoreandmore.com/shop/product.da/witches-anonymous