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The Artist’s Way

“During a drought, the morning pages seem both painful and foolish. They feel like empty gestures — like making breakfast for the lover we know is leaving us anyhow. Hoping against hope that we will someday be creative again, we go through the motions. Our consciousness is parched. We cannot feel so much as a trickle of grace. . . . And yet we write our Morning Pages because we must.” – Julia Cameron, THE ARTIST’S WAY.

It is closing in on midnight. My blog entry here at A Slice of Orange is due to go up in a few minutes. But instead of writing it, I spent the evening at my mother’s bedside, trying to help her comprehend what is going on while her muddled mind repeats the same questions over and over. You see, she thinks she is dying. Maybe she is. My brother and sister-in-law are convinced she is. Though the caregivers and doctors disagree. However, I do believe that a person can will themselves to die . . . or to live.

My eyes are burning. My brain is throbbing. But I can’t stop thinking about my commitment to write this blog. To tell you the truth, it’s the only thing keeping me connected to my writing at this time. I haven’t even been able to keep up with my own Morning Pages. And yet I write my blog because I must.

Is that too much honesty? Shouldn’t I be burning the midnight oil to finish my proposal promised months ago to an agent? I know a writer who came home at 2 A.M. from the ER (after her mother was finally admitted), and sat down to write her daily ten pages. I thought, “Is she insane?” I admire her dedication. But she probably welcomed the chance to escape into her writing and forget about her real world for a while.

Okay-okay, so I AM burning the midnight oil to finish this blog. As much as I would love to escape reality and write a few chapters of fiction, my brain cells are begging for some snooze-time. Though I must admit that, lately, my sleep has been disrupted by the most bizarre and disjointed dreams. I suppose all that unexpressed creativity has to find a release somehow.

I opened this entry with a quote from Julia Cameron about going through a drought. Is this a drought? Not exactly. But I am trying to keep my writing alive, and that’s what is important. Some writers might disagree and consider me a slacker. That’s okay. I’m the tortoise, not the hare.

Oh, one last thing — Check out Dr. Bruce H. Lipton‘s, THE BIOLOGY OF BELIEF: The Science of How We Create Our Lives. I heard his lecture a year ago at a conference. He’s amazing. We really ARE what we believe.

And now I believe I am very tired and I’m going to bed. ‘Nite all!

– Gillian Doyle
http://www.gilliandoyle.blogspot.com/
http://www.gilliandoyle.com/

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How to Cure Writing Avoidance

May 28, 2009 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives

This Memorial Day weekend should have been very relaxing for me. I was off from my day job, and I could spend the day writing if I wanted to. So thatâ€™s what I tried to do. However, instead of popping out ten or twenty pages today, I found myself practicing Writing Avoidance.

It wasnâ€™t a severe case of Writing Avoidance. No, the symptoms of that are the sudden need to clean out the refrigerator, basement or attic. I was only suffering from stationary Writing Avoidance, where I remained in my desk chair but found myself doing things other than writing.

For example, I would write a sentence or two, then check my email. Then come back and write a couple more sentences, then check my Twitter. Write a couple more sentences and start surfing the web for American Idol interviews. Change a couple of sentences, then realize there is a Bones marathon on, so maybe I should check out a couple of episodes (even though I own all of them on DVD).

This, dear readers, is Writing Avoidance.

I knew something was bugging me today, but I couldnâ€™t put my finger on it. And because I couldnâ€™t put my finger on it, the doubts crept in. I am on deadline with a book. Will I finish it in time? The editor recently read my first few chapters to better design the cover copy, and it was a nail-biter while she was reading it. But she gave me the okay to keep going. I should be over the moon, right? But the doubts had already sunk their claws deep into my psyche.

The market is tight. What if they donâ€™t like the book?
What if they want me to rewrite the book?
I canâ€™t seem to get those first chapters right. Why is that? Is the magic gone?
This book seems harder to write than all the others. Maybe Iâ€™m losing my touch.

Does any of this sound familiar?

Writing Avoidance or not, I needed to get pages written today. My deadline looms before me, and I pride myself on turning in my manuscripts on time. But how to get past this funk? How to convince my muse to stop sulking and get to work?

The best cure for this is to call another writer.

So I did just that, called my friend Susan Meier, who talked me off the ledge and reminded me of all the important answers to those questions.

The market is tight. What if they donâ€™t like the book?
The editor already read it. She likes what youâ€™re doing. Next question.

What if they want me to rewrite the book?
See #1. Also remind yourself that this is your twelfth book for them, and your last book required minimum revisions.

I canâ€™t seem to get those first chapters right. Why is that? Is the magic gone?
This is your process. You do this with every book. You hammer at those first chapters, looking for the story, and then when you find itâ€¦ZOOM! The book spills onto the page at warp speed.

This book seems harder to write than all the others. Maybe Iâ€™m losing my touch.
Every book is harder than the last because you grow as an author with each one. If it were easy, everyone would do it. Youâ€™re not losing your touch; youâ€™re just experiencing growing pains.

Only another writer could understand the frustration of Writing Avoidance, especially one who is familiar with your patricular process. Itâ€™s not just that the work is not getting done; itâ€™s also that there is something interfering with your creativity. However, once you understand what is bugging you (such as, say, tension from feeling overwhelmed), you can work through it and get on with business.

This is why writers need other writers. Sometimes there is no one else in the world who could possibly understand. And itâ€™s amazing how ten minutes on the phone with another writer can do more to cure your Writing Avoidance than an hour talking to anyone else.

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A Fantasy Life

May 27, 2009 by A Slice of Orange in category A Fantasy Life by Janet Cornelow tagged as Janet Cornelow, Janet Quinn

By Janet Quinn Cornelow

I went to see the new Star Trek movie. It was absolutely wonderful and Iâ€™m ready for the next one.

Star Trek of course is science fiction and going back and creating a story that came before means that there is a great deal of history that has accumulated over the years that needs to be followed. Taking an existing world and doing a prequel is always a challenge. The writer has to look at the accumulation of facts and make sure that the story follows those facts. With Star Trek, there is a great store of facts. After forty years, just about every aspect of life has been covered.

That, however, can be limiting as to what the writers want to do with the prequel. Do they want to stay with the type of stories from the original series? How can they make changes? Do they want to tell stories that wonâ€™t fit with what happened before? What if they want to put in an illicit love affair? What if they want to kill off a character that hadnâ€™t died before?

This is where the fantasy comes in. Throw in time travel and you can change the timeline and how the characters act. The writers can now change the relationship between characters and make it something it wasnâ€™t before.

That is the one thing a writer always has to think about when writing time travel. If she moves someone backward in time, one little change made by that character can change the entire time line. The results shift and a new ending can be written.

Also, they could bring back Leonard Nimoy as the older Mr. Spock.

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The “Final Four” of Everything American

May 24, 2009 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives tagged as Best American Romances, Best Romances, Bracketology, Final Four

The Bracketology book: The Final Four of Everything is out now with my contribution on Best American Romances. Since I’m not the author and not gaining anything from book sales, I figure it’s OK to share the news. I had solicited your opinions and am indebted to many for their thoughtful, challenging and helpful responses (I post on other blogs and asked my Facebook friends to help!).

The Bracketology concept is simply taking what we see every year with the NCAA Basketball playoffs: selecting the top 32 teams & pairing them against each other to get to Sweet Sixteen, the Elite Eight, the Final Four and then the two top players’ final match to declare a winner–and applying it to things other than basketball. Bracketology is a great decision-making tool, a fund of entertaining argument (you may recall in Diner, the pitting of Sinatra Vs Mathis for who offered the best “music to make-out to,” clearly a Bracketology moment) and it’s a great way to clarify your own thinking.

Check out p.114 to see where the world of American Romance Novel’s square off. I tried to capture samples from what I saw as significant sub-genres (romantic comedies, futuristic, inspirational, time-travel, multi-cultural, etc.) If you don’t like the choices and didn’t help out, then you have only yourself to blame!

This book takes the Bracketology concept further, to 150 different segments. Check out categories like Movie Gunfights, Lousy Husbands, Celebrity Mugshots, First Ladies, Untimely Deaths. It’s a great compilation from some impressive experts: Roz Chast, Manohla Dargis, Mary Matalin, Henry Beard and Christopher Cerf, A.O. Scott, and of course me! It’s guaranteed to make you think, disagree, and want to use the method to build your own version. There’s a blank sample to fill in in the book. But also, the publisher, Simon & Schuster, has created a fabulous site. You can amend the existing brackets or make you own–which are posted and can be send to friends and foes alike.

Check it out–you’ll never think about your preferences in the same way again!

Enjoy!

Isabel Swift
my blog

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Advice to Myself as a Newbie Author

May 22, 2009 by A Slice of Orange in category Advice to Myself as a Newbie Author by Shauna Roberts tagged as Advice to Myself as a Newbie Author, Jill Marie Landis

by Shauna Roberts
http://ShaunaRoberts.blogspot.com

Todayâ€™s Guest: Jill Marie Landis

Jill Marie Landis is the author of more than twenty award-winning, best-selling novels. Her books have appeared on the New York Timesâ€™ extended list and the USA Today list. She has been an RWA Rita finalist seven times and has won a Rita, the Golden Heart, and a Golden Medallion among other prestigious industry awards. She lives in Hawaii with her husband, and when sheâ€™s not hula dancing or sitting on the beach, sheâ€™s writing. Her latest release, a single-title Western historical romance, The Accidental Lawman (Steeple Hill), will be released on May 28th.

If you could travel back in time to before you were first published, what advice would you give yourself?

As a firm believer that Iâ€™m always in my right place, I tend to live in the moment and donâ€™t look back, so itâ€™s hard to picture myself giving myself advice on how to do things differently, but hopefully the following will help someone else along the sometimes smooth and sometimes rocky road of publishing.

1. Write faster. Because I was blessed enough to make great advances from the beginning, I was content (notice I say content and not lazy) enough to write only one single-title novel a year. If I had it to do over again, I would write two books a year in two different subgenres (for example, one historical and one contemporary) or one single title and a category, perhaps. After twenty-five years in the business Iâ€™ve seen a whole lot of authors come and go and have noticed that itâ€™s not always quality that promotes staying power, but stamina and quantity. The perfect combination is quality and quantity. Making a name for yourself and keeping it out there in front of readers is what counts.

2. If itâ€™s not broke, donâ€™t fix it. Stick to what is working if your books are selling. I wrote eight Western historical romances and they were making all the best-seller lists. After six of them, I wanted to do something different. My editor wanted two more Westerns. I wrote them and thought Iâ€™d throw up if I had to hang one more gun on one more cowboy. The books did really, really well and the publisher promotion was great. Foolishly, I ventured into other historical settings, New Orleans and the Caribbean, Africa, pioneers in Kentucky. Sales didnâ€™t slip but they didnâ€™t skyrocket and treading water in the publishing business is not a good thing. Readers want what they have come to expect from youâ€”over and over again. My adviceâ€”give it to them. If you get bored, change your name when you try something new.

3. Know when to make the big moves and make them quickly. A very well-known big name author told me very, very early on, â€œLeave your first publisher when you are on top. They will never see you as anyone but the little author they found.â€ Me? I was into loyalty. Isnâ€™t that worth something? Isnâ€™t loyalty an honorable trait? To a point. I stayed at my first publishing house for fifteen years. I was well paid. I was fat and happy but never slotted at the top of their list. I watched them â€œstealâ€ other romance authors from other houses and place them ahead of me. I should have let myself be â€œstolenâ€ and wooed by another house before it was too late.

4. Know when to change agents. For me, changing agents is the most gut-wrenching, hardest decision Iâ€™ve ever had to make in publishing. If you are thinking itâ€™s time to change, itâ€™s probably past time.

5. Learn the business. Face facts. You can do a lot to promote your work, but the bottom line is publisher backing and support. The product is whatâ€™s most important. Write the best book each and every time you can so that when your work is promoted and slotted and out in quantities where readers can find it, be sure you are giving them the best youâ€™ve got.

This next piece of advice is something Iâ€™ve always tried to remember. This is for the newbies out there reading this blog:

6. Network, network, network. Make writer friends. Get to know agents and editors, even if they are not ever going to be your agent or editor. The more people you know and who know you personally, the better off you are in the business. Make friends, not enemies. Theyâ€™ll guard your back and help when you need advice, encouragement, and a shoulder to cry on. True friends will celebrate your successes. Be happy for your fellow writers and not jealous of them. We have an old friend who is an actor on a long-running soap opera. His favorite quote is one to live by: â€œBe nice to everyone on your way up. Youâ€™ll see them again on your way down.â€

âœ¥âœ¥âœ¥âœ¥âœ¥

To learn more about Jill Marie Landis, please visit her Website at http://www.jillmarielandis.com or her blog at http://www.jillmarielandis.com/blog. You can preorder The Accidental Lawman and purchase her July 2008 book, Homecoming (Steeple Hill), at your local bookstore as well as at online bookstores. Click on your favorite bookstore below to go directly to the purchase page.

The Accidental Lawman: Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Borders

Homecoming: Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble

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