A Slice of Orange

“It is never too late to be what you might have been.” –George Eliot

This quote was floating arount Twitter today, being tweeted and re-tweeted in every trending writing topic I follow. Every writer out there seemed to be picking it up and passing it along, like the torch in the Olympics. The reason for this? It rings with truth.

By nature, writers are worrywarts. We spend weeks and months pouring our souls into our books, then we send that work off into the world, like a child on the bus on the first day of school. We bite our lips and worry that everything will go all right, but our concerns do not stop us from putting that little one on the bus–or from dropping that manuscript in the mailbox.

But then once it’s gone, you start to fret. Was it polished enough? Had you enclosed a SASE? What if this industry professional does not like it? Maybe you should have changed that line after all. Or held off another day before submitting it, just to go through it one more time. We worry and obsess and twist in the chains of our own anxiety. What if this manuscript gets rejected? What then?

It is never too late to be what you might have been.

Okay, maybe the work gets rejected. Do you stop there? Throw up your hands and declare your writing career at an end? Or do you get back on the horse, read the rejection letter for useful feedback and then make changes to strengthen your work? I hope you do, because if not, that rejection will have been the end of your career…because you gave up.

Persistence is half the battle in the publishing business. The more you do something, the better you get at it. So then isn’t it logical to keep writing, to keep practicing, to keep getting better?

No writer was born a New York Times Bestseller. All of them started somewhere with page one, perhaps not having any idea what they were doing, just driven by the desire to write. What would have happened if Nora Roberts had given up after her first rejection or bad review? The world would be short around 180 books about now, and millions of people would never have had the chance to fall in love with her words. Ask any author, and you will hear stories of writing during breaks at work or longhand in the park or on a lunch hour or while the kids were sleeping. Those writers found time to practice their craft; persistence was the key.

No matter how many rejections you get or how many bad reviews or how many years between sales, the simple truth is that there is always a second chance. Hang in there, learn new things, keep writing, keep submitting. Sooner or later, persistence pays off.

Because it is never too late to be what you might have been.

I am working on a new book, untitled as of yet, which is a fantasy romance. It is a parallel universe story where one of the universes is magical.

The biggest problem so far has been to figure out why the evil wizard was sneaking into other universes. What did he need and why is he doing what he is doing? Pax is chasing him in our universe because the wizard is leaving a string of dead bodies. (Okay, dead bodies are not really romantic, but they can be worked in.) The heroine is sexy enough to make up for the bodies.

I was at the last OCC meeting and talking with some others at lunch. My wizard came up in the conversation. Someone must have asked what I was writing. I told them my problem, and several people had ideas. But, the one idea I really liked was that the wizard was stealing small electronics like iPods. He is using, or trying to use, the electronics to boost his magical powers. The problem is that he has to keep replacing them because his universe does not use electricity to power things. As long as he steals items with batteries, he can use them until the batteries die, or he shorts them out.

There even may be a theme in here somewhere. Themes are not my best thing.

I am running a contest on my website, www.janet-quinn.com. Check it out.

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Hi everyone! Check out the exciting online classes offered by the
Orange County Chapter of RWA!

May 10 – June 15, 2010

“Another Time, Another Place”
with Terry Blain

Enrollment Information at http://www.occrwa.org/onlineclassMay10.html
COST: $20 for OCC members, $30 for non-members
If you have specific questions, email occrwaonlineclass@yahoo.com

About the Class:

Historical romances should transport readers to another time and another place. This workshop will help you with the tools you need to transport your readers. Workshop will cover a discussion of all the elements that make a historical romance historical. Items covered include aspects of research, such as where to look for information, how accurate you should be and keeping records of your research. Also covered is how to integrate your information in to the framework of your story through the craft of writing. Topics covered will be settings and costume, attitudes and social mores, dialog, including using dialect or not and, of course- sex scenes.

About the Instructor:

Terry Irene Blain was lucky enough to grow up in a large Midwestern family with a rich oral tradition. As a child she heard stories of her ancestor’s adventures with Indians, wild life and weather so naturally she gravitated to the study of history in college.
Her military service was as an electronic technician at Miramar Naval Air Station in San Diego where she helped maintain the radio communication gear for both the Navy and the civilian Air Traffic Control Facility.
After the service, she used the GI bill to continue her education and received her Masters in History along with a second BA in European Studies which she used to teach US History and Western Civilization at the college level. Married to a sailor (now retired) for over thirty years, she’s had the chance to live in various parts of the country and to travel to foreign places such as Hong Kong, Australia, England and Scotland.
Terry says: “My degrees in history and my teaching experience make me a natural to write historical romance. Writing historical romance gives me the opportunity to pass on stories of who we are and where we come from while exploring the relationship between men and women. What could be more fun than that?”

Enrollment Information at http://www.occrwa.org/onlineclassMay10.html
COST: $20 for OCC members, $30 for non-members

Coming in June:
June 14 – July 10, 2010
“THE LESSONS OF FIREFLY: LEARNING FROM THE WORKS OF JOSS WHEDON”
with Jacqui Jacoby
In this workshop, Ms. Jacoby will reveal the lessons of FIREFLY. By using class participation and examples from the episodes, she will translate with words what Mr. Whedon was teaching us on screen.

http://www.occrwa.org/onlineclasses.html. Check out our full list of workshops.

Want to be notified personally two weeks before each class? Be sure
you’re signed up for our Online Class Notices Yahoo Group! Sign up at
the bottom of http://www.occrwa.org/onlineclasses.html or send a blank
email to OCCRWAOnlineClassNotices-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

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