The HEA Cafe

Archive for the ‘Writing Life’ Category

I was born in the middle of the 20th C. and sometimes I stop and marvel that I’m now living in the second decade of the 21st C.

Of course, it’s not perfect. I don’t have a robot to clean my dishes, and I’m still waiting on my jetpack and flying car, but there are plenty of aspects of life in 2KX that I find exciting. Too many to list, but one’s certainly connected to this blog and my writing world.

Ebooks. The latter part of 2009 saw a record surge in ebook sales and the sale of ereaders. The options out there are many and the buzz continues–Kindle, Sony Reader, Nook and soon, the much anticipated iTablet. Without ebooks and ereaders I would have far fewer readers than I do. While my books are available in print, much of my sales are electronic, and they’re worldwide. My readers can download all of my books in a few minutes, adjust the font size for comfortable reading, and store them on a device the size and weight of a paperback.

If you have not yet made the commitment to an ereader, now may be the time to consider it. There are plenty of price ranges and options for the various machines, and the blogging world can offer advice to make it easier to choose. The well-read blog Smart Bitches, Trashy Books has recently done analysis of the more popular models and continues to test drive ereaders and review them for the romance reading community.

Talk to people who are using ereaders. Get their advice and their feedback before making a decision. And as always in this age of quick turnaround on electronics, remember that yes, there will be a snazzier model out at some point after you make your purchase. Don’t let that hold you back. As a reader who’s gone over to the electronic side for much of her reading, I can assure you that it’s a great feeling to have a device in your purse that’s got 100+ books on it, so you never have that panic attack again over not having something to read while you wait in line.

Along with Mars and Mercury, my ambitious ego has gone retrograde. For the past two years, I’ve been swimming upstream like mad, pushing myself with word count goals, editing deadlines and every promotion under the sun. Since September 2008, I’ve published three novels and a novella in digital and print formats while dealing with debilitating back problems, the loss of my mother-in-law, my twins entering middle school, and a bathroom remodel. (While those last two things pale in comparison to the first two, they were nevertheless extremely stressful.) 

I spent most of 2009 flat on my back, either in bed, on the floor, or on the surgeon’s table. None of the procedures I had done worked. My cure has been a constant dose of physical therapy and clinical Pilates, patience and time.  I’m not a patient person. Before, when I suffered from health or other problems, I simply put my head down and bulldozed my way through it. This time, however, there was no bulldozing through the pain or immobility. Hubby bought me a laptop holder that allowed me to work from bed and I learned to value the days I could stand, walk or drive more than the word count I produced. 

Every year at this time, I pull out my journal, read the goals I set on January 1^st of the current year, and make new ones for the coming year. Usually I have a lot of goals, most of them professional. At the beginning of 2009, I knew it was going to be a year full of work, and it was. Looking ahead to 2010, however, my ego no longer feels that driving need to produce. Is it because I accomplished so much this year and my ego is happy, or is it because my back ordeal taught me the importance of taking one day at a time? 

The answer eludes me as I type this blog, but I’m happy to wait it out. Right now, I’m writing a new story in a new genre and loving the freedom it provides. I’m content to hibernate for awhile, not worrying about how many words I get down today or tomorrow, instead focusing on the crisp scenes, layered characters and making sure my theme resonates in every chapter. 

My back is healing, and while the old me would normally jump into everything I used to do (and basically overtax my back and stress management levels all over again), the new me is content to roll with the flow. A good day? I’ll write and bake and enjoy my kids. Bad day? I’ll watch Bravo and HGTV and Soapnet, read a good book, and crank my iPod. 

The New Year brings a new decade, a fresh start, and for me, a new attitude. My ego is content to stop swimming upstream and float for awhile. To hibernate, meditate, clear out the clutter and embrace health. I’m ready to take a break. 

How about you? Will you be swimming or floating in 2010? Either way, I wish you a happy and healthy 2010.

I’m sitting here in front of a roaring fire on a yucky December day, a dozing dachshund snuggled at my side. If she was in her preferred spot, my lap, you wouldn’t be reading this right now because there’s no room for dog and laptop, and the dog usually wins.

I’m trying to mellow out, but it’s difficult because OMG I HAVE A BOOK COMING OUT THIS WEEK!!!

Yes, that’s exactly what it feels like. I don’t know if someone like Nora Roberts or Stephen King gets the same kind of rush every time they know one of their babies is going out into the big, bad world, but for me as a romance author there’s no feeling quite like it.

On December 6 the ebook edition of The Bride and the Buccaneer will be available at Amber Quill Press. There’s a link at my website. In addition, there will soon be a paper edition, a Kindle edition, and sales of the ebook at Fictionwise, BN.com and other sites. The Bride and the Buccaneer was a fun novel for me to research and write, and I’m thrilled it’s ready for publication.

What’s it about, you ask? Here’s a blurb:

“Lucky Jack” Burrell’s quest for revenge against Sophia Deford will have to wait until he discharges a debt. He has to help her find the fabled pirate treasure Garvey’s Gold. Then he can wring her dainty neck.
Sophia has no intention of sharing anything with anyone. She will have all of Garvey’s Gold, no matter how much Jack’s lean-muscled body makes her want to get to know him just a little bit better before she gets rid of him.
As the two adversaries squabble their way across Territorial Florida following the clues on their treasure map, they know that before they’re through they’re either going to kiss each other, kill each other, or both…

People ask me why I write when so many days I’d be just as effective banging my head on the keyboard until blood flows. The answer is because of the rush, the emotional lift that comes from hearing from people who bought my book and liked it.

Next month I’ll have something more concrete on the writing process, but for December’s HEA you’ll have to forgive me if all I want to do is sit here and bask in the firelight, and think about my book going out into the big wide world.

I’ve been published in ebook form since 2001. I can’t read my original works because they were sold on a format that’s no longer supported by my computer, floppy disks. I did, of course, keep paper backups of my work but that’s a different article–the need for back-up.

Today I want to talk about moving into the 21st century of ereading. I finally broke down and bought a dedicated ereader, the Sony PRS 300, their new “Pocket Reader”. Three things led me to this point: 1. the price came down to a place that was more affordable for an ereader, $199. 2. Some of my favorite authors were releasing novellas and back list works only as ebooks. 3. I’ve been doing more ebook reading at my notebook and not finding it especially comfortable.

The feedback I’ve been getting from my own readers shows a rising curve of ebook sales, and I’m now an ebook consumer as well. My little Pocket is the same size as a mass market paperback, though thinner. It can hold 350 books. I automatically slip it into my purse each day, and don’t worry that I’m leaving the house without something to read. Most importantly, the next time I go on a trip I’ll have more room in my carry-on because it won’t be full of books.

I’m still buying books in paper, but now I’m restricting it to hardcovers and paper copies of books I know I’m likely to want to keep. Much of what I’ve been buying gets recycled to the library book sale as soon as I’m done with it, and while the library will lose a bit with this purchase, it’s certainly better for the trees and the environment.

If you’ve been thinking of getting an ebook reader, this may be the right time. More models are scheduled for release later in 2010, and there’s still talk of an Apple Tablet that may make Mac users happy. My wish now is that publishers would figure out a good pricing scheme for ebooks. Some of them are releasing ebooks for twice the cost of mass market paperbacks, which makes no sense to me at all and I refuse to buy them that way. Eventually, however, I believe the market will drive them to a standard, reasonable pricing scheme.

In the meantime, I’m still getting used to my little device, but I think I’m going to like it. Maybe I’ll report back in six months on how this new love affair is progressing.

I tweeted earlier that I was going to shower to figure out what I’d be blogging today. Yes, Twitter can be that lame. But it worked. While I was showering I realized I could blog about…showering.

I’ll spare you the damp details of my shower. It’s not about my fabulous remodeled bathroom with its two shower heads, it’s about why showering boosts your creativity. Yes, being clean and smelling sweet is wonderful, even when you’re the only one in your house staring at your screen and keyboard, but it’s not about that either. It’s about how boring, repetitive tasks can free up your mind.

I hear this all the time from other writers–”I get my best ideas in the shower.” Think about it: You’re in a box without anything exciting catching your eye. You probably wash yourself using the same pattern of movements almost every day. This repetitive mindless activity may be just what your muse needs to wake up and give you that plot breakthrough you’ve needed. It’s happened to me more times than I can count. I used to think I needed a waterproof board and crayon with me to write things down, but fortunately that hasn’t been necessary. I do, however, keep a notepad and pen in my bathroom drawer, just in case.

The other place where my muse comes awake is on my daily dog walk. I very purposefully do not take a phone or music player with me. Sure, it’s more boring that way, but that’s the point–the very boring nature of the task opens up parts of my mind that aren’t coming into play when I’m focusing on my driving or listening to a phone conversation.

However, there are times when music can do the trick. Ask any writer what she listens to while writing and you’ll get a range of responses about the playlist. For me, it’s epic movie soundtracks: Braveheart, Rob Roy, Gladiator, Lord of the Rings and of course, all of the Pirates of the Caribbean scores. When that music kicks in, it’s a signal to my brain that it’s time to write and I’m much more focused without being distracted.

So, if you’re doing something different but it works for you, what is it? I’m always looking for new ways to wake up my muse, and one of you may have just the thing that’s needed!