Finish the Darn Book Blog Series

Last month, I started a series on the Romance Magicians Blog called "Finish the Darn Book." I know that not everyone who reads this blog is also a writer, but several of you are. And what I'm planning to do over the course of this year with these blog posts is to help walk people through the process of writing a book from start to finish.

The first post of the series is here: Finish the Darn Book. The next post is here: Finish the Darn Book: Where to Start?

The first post is an overview about what obstacles can keep us from finishing that book we've been determined to write for years. The second book tackles the first problem we can face: where to start the story. It's not as easy as you may think.

So, if you're a writer, I hope you'll join me at the Romance Magicians blog today and join the fun.

If You CAN Quit, Do It...

I hang out at the eHarlequin Submission Care forum a lot, even though I've been published for five years now. I spent a lot of time there before I sold, talking to people who were in the same boat I was, and I like to post there still, sharing what I've learned since selling and encouraging writers who've hit a rough patch.

But there's something I always say when someone gets discouraged and starts talking about quitting altogether.

I say, "If you can quit, do it."

Sounds like the very opposite of encouragement, doesn't it? But I consider it a pep talk.

If you can quit, then you're not a writer anyway, and you might as well just stop and go find what you love to do and give it your passion and your attention. Writing is a hard business. It can be a cruel business. If you're trying to do it and you're just not meant to do it, then it can be a crushing business.

It takes passion, determination, guts, confidence and discipline to be a successful writer. It takes a tough hide, a tender heart and an open mind, which can be hard to cultivate simultaneously. Some people just aren't cut out for it, and to continue beating your head against a wall that you're never going to knock down—that you were never meant to knock down—is a waste of time, talent and passion.

So if you can really put down the pen, cover the typewriter or shut off the computer, for goodness sake, do it! You're not meant to be a writer, and you're wasting time that you should be devoting to the things you are meant to do. Go find your passion and live a rich, fulfilled life.

But if you can't walk away, then realize you're in this for the long haul, and if you're having trouble breaking through, it's time to get serious about what you're doing wrong. It's time to catalog what you're doing right. It's time to examine your motives for writing—maybe your writing efforts are focused in the wrong direction. It's time to examine your attitudes toward criticism—are you taking other people's suggestions to heart? Are you taking them too much to heart? Have you found your voice?

I think every writer, even a successful published one, needs to stop once in a while and take stock of what you're doing. Sometimes you can get in a writing rut even when you're selling. Maybe you should try something new, just so you don't get hidebound. Or maybe you should push yourself to increase your output so that you can get your name out there more.

If you're an unpublished writer who's been trying to break in to the same line or publishing company for a long time, without success, examine your options. Maybe your voice is all wrong for the line you're targeting. Maybe you should consider trying a different line, even if it takes you a little out of your comfort zone.

For me, I was targeting Silhouette Intimate Moments (the line which will be known as Harlequin Romantic Suspense a little later this year). I spent several years trying to break in there, with no success. Even the book I finally sold, Forbidden Territory, was written with Silhouette Intimate Moments in mind. Fortunately, I lucked into an Intrigue editor who recognized that I had an Intrigue voice. In her first revision letter to me after she purchased my book, she showed me what it took to write for Intrigue, and in the process of fulfilling those expectations, I realized that I could write Intrigues, which I'd avoided out of fear that I couldn't come up with the complex plots the line requires.

So, if you can quit writing, do it. But if you can't, then shake things up a little and see if you can find a new way to approach your desire for publication.

WWW: Habit-forming

There are a couple of things you need to know about me. First, I have a memory like a sieve. And second, I can form a habit faster than most people can form a sentence. Why do you need to know these things about me? Because they're the entire premise for this blog post, and you kind of need to know where it all started.

A couple of years ago, I realized I just couldn't remember things as well as I used to when I was younger. Whether it's advancing age or an expanding daily agenda, I couldn't say. Maybe a combination of both. But whatever's behind it, I have learned that I need to write important things down if I want to remember them. At first, I got a pocket calendar to keep my schedule, but I bought it in the middle of 2009 and it was a 2010 calendar. Of course, well before 2010 rolled around, I'd lost the pocket calendar and couldn't find it. Not that it would have made that much difference. I've never been good at keeping calendars.

Then my niece got a Palm Centro phone. Touch screen, comes with all kinds of fun little apps, including a detailed daily calendar. Wow! I was hooked. I rarely use my own cell phone, so my primary requirements until that point were compact size and a cheap minute plan. But when Paula met the Centro, it was love at first sight. So the first chance I had to change phone plans, I got myself a Centro, and the two of us have never looked back.

So, I know you're waiting for the habit-forming part of this little tale. See, I'm a habit former. I settle quickly into routines, usually bad ones. Eating too much, staying up too late, getting addicted to free online games, watching the same TV shows, sitting on the same end of the same couch at the same time every day--you get the picture. But it occurred to me that the same habit-forming nature just might be used for good as well. I could form a habit of keeping a calendar and using it to keep my busy life from spinning out of control.

So I made a concerted effort to get in the habit of keeping a calendar. And once I was in that habit, I found myself wanting to use the calendar more than I was already. More, more, more, that's my motto! Since I had a blog book tour coming up in conjunction with the publication of my January and February books, I started keeping my blog schedule on my phone. Then my monthly RWA chapter meetings. And finally, I started logging my daily pages on my calendar app, to remind me to write every day.

So, we come to my point. We're creatures of habit. We find comfort in the familiar, as long as it's also easy. But the same patterns of behavior that make us eat pizza every Friday night or get hooked on Chuck every Monday night can also help us get into the habit of writing two or three pages every day, or blogging every week. It's a little harder to form, perhaps, but the beauty of a good habit is, it's just as compelling as a bad one, once you've formed it. And it tends to feed into other good habits. Blogging once a week becomes addictive, and you find yourself challenged to blog twice a week. Checking off that three pages a day, day in and day out, makes you wonder how much more you could do if you wrote four pages a day instead. You get your head into a more organized place where your daily schedule is concerned, suddenly, you're becoming more organized in other ways as well.

So how about you? Are you a habit-former? Are there any bad habits you'd like to get rid of or good habits you'd like to pick up? Have you formed a good habit that you'd like to brag about? Tell us all about them!

WWW - Writing and the Next Food Network Star

I love Food Network, but until 2009, I'd never watched a moment of The Next Food Network Star. However, about halfway through the season, I stumbled across the program while channel-surfing and stopped to watch. I was quickly hooked. Sure, I love food. And I don't mind the occasional behind-the-scenes drama, although that's my least favorite part of the show. But what really grabbed my interest, and held it until the end of the season, was my realization that almost all the lessons I was learning from The Next Food Network Star could apply to a writer's life as well.

Let's take the top three 2009 finalists: Melissa D'Arabian, Debbie Lee and Jeffrey Saad. Each of them had distinct talents and distinct challenges, just as we writers do. And those talents and challenges had a bearing on how they performed from episode to episode.

For Melissa, the stay-at-home mom with little to no restaurant experience, her "amateur" status was an obstacle for her from day one. Watching Melissa, I learned a lot about how to get past being "inexperienced" and instead letting your passion and your talent help you gain the experience you need. But I also saw how fear of failure can threaten your dreams and make you hold back when you should be putting everything you have to offer on the line.

Melissa D'Arabian's lessons for success:

1) Know yourself. Know what you're passionate about. Work around the obstacles and challenges in your life to live your dream.

2) Don't fear a lack of professional experience. Instead, use the experience you do have to find your niche and become the very best you can be within that niche. If you concentrate too much on what you can't do, you'll forget to show people what you can do. Excellence in a small area of concentration often opens doors to new opportunities on a broader stage.

3) Listen to good advice from experts and use it to improve yourself. You're never so experienced or talented that you can't benefit from the experience and talent of others.

4) Don't go into a challenge expecting to fail. Instead, expect success, and put in the effort and creativity necessary to make it happen. You may still fail, but it won't be because you sabotaged yourself.

For Debbie Lee, one of her strongest suits was her natural ability to converse and connect with others. A Korean-American raised in the South, she had a strong, specific viewpoint as a cook, and her concept as a chef was a fusion of Korean and traditional Southern cuisine. She had a strong brand from the get-go, and she was a talented, personable cook. But sometimes, even a strong brand can create its own set of problems, as she learned when she became repetitive and hide-bound in her choice of recipes and her presentations in the challenges.

Debbie Lee's lessons for success:

1) Take advantage of your unique assets, whether it's where you were raised, where you live or your heritage and traditions. What's ordinary to you may seem intriguing and exciting to other people.

2) Have a clear idea of what you have to offer and what you want to achieve, then work on that plan with determination and grit.

3) While it's good to know who you are and where you come from, you also need to broaden your experiences and your expertise. What seemed novel and cool the first time around gets to be boring and rote if you do the same things over and over again.

4) Don't make excuses for failure. Don't duck your own responsibility for what went wrong. We want people to see us as good and successful, but people respect you more when you're tough enough to take your licks when things don't quite work out how you planned.

Finally, Jeffrey Saad brought what seemed like the whole package—experience as a restauranteur and chef, an intriguing food concept (his passion for traveling the world seeking out new ingredients and then bringing them home to the States to use in his own recipes), and a charming, engaging personal style. He had a loving wife and two adorable children supporting his dream every step of the way. He's like that amazing writer you've read and loved, who seems to hit a home run with every book—and has that hunky husband at home who loves her writing and gives her daily foot rubs. But guess what? All that he had going for him didn't make Jeffrey immune to some pretty big mistakes, like overreaching on a risotto recipe that was a spectacular disaster at a critical time.

Jeffrey Saad's lessons for success:

1) Seek out new experiences and new opportunities to learn.

2) When you come across a new experience or new information that moves you or delights you, take time to figure out how to weave what you've learned and experienced into your normal routine, infusing an otherwise ordinary situation with the rare or exotic.

3) Invite the people you love to share in your journey toward your dream. Give them the chance to invest in your passion and share in your successes.

4) Don't get over confident. When you think you're on top of your game, you can start to feel invincible. People who feel invincible take foolish risks and think they can get away with shortcuts. You're never so successful that you're immune to failure. Winners are people who make smart choices about the gambles they take and who know that excellence requires your full time, attention and effort.

Like these chefs competing to live their dream of sharing their talents with a television audience, most writers dream of publication, our chance to share our thoughts, our dreams and our wishes with the readers who pick up our books and give them a chance. I think the life lessons learned by Melissa, Debbie and Jeffrey are lessons we can take to heart ourselves.

Maybe you're not a writer but you have a dream you're working toward attaining. The same points that worked for these wonderful chefs, and that work for writers as well, probably work in your chosen field as well.

Tell us about your own personal life lessons about finding success in what you do, whether it's writing or anything else. What are your challenges? What are your strengths? What lessons have you learned over the years? Share them with us in the comments!

(Originally posted in slightly different form on the Intrigue Authors Blog on August 7, 2009)