Please welcome guest blogger Marilyn Brant, who is not only a lovely friend and avid blogger, but also author of the hilarious, romantic, and moving new book According to Jane. The story of a young woman who receives advice – some good and some questionable – from the spirit of Jane Austen, According to Jane won the Golden Heart, the top award for unpublished romance novels, quickly setting Marilyn – and her book – on the path to publication.

I loved According to Jane when I read it and can easily give it my recommendation. Read on to see how you can win a signed copy of your own! But first, Marilyn has a few things to say…

Over the past few months, Caryn and I had a running email conversation that went something like this:

July

Caryn: “Hey, when According to Jane comes out, how about doing a guest blog on my site? Maybe about what it’s like to be a debut author? Something fun like that?”

Me: “Oh, sure. Sounds great! Just let me know a good time. We can chat about it some more after I get back from the RWA conference. Did you know I have to bring bookmarks and postcards and all sorts of stuff this time? Even ARCs. Oh, there are gonna be a few extra meetings this year, too.”

Caryn: “Really? Like what?”

Me: “A bookseller/librarian gathering, a Book 3 planning session with my agent, a few publisher-hosted events. I get to meet my publicists…”

Caryn: “You get to meet your publicists? In person?”

Me: (nodding) “Kinda cool, eh? My publisher takes that whole marketing and selling thing pretty seriously.”

August

Caryn: “How’s it going — busy? Still want to blog next month?”

Me: “Yeah — to both questions. It’s weird, though, you know? There’s a LOT to do before a book comes out. I’d almost go so far as to say it’s an ENDLESS stream of work… Having a release date looming at the end of September is making my life surprisingly stressful. I’m not really sleeping.”

Caryn: “That’s not good.”

Me: “No. Um, not to change the subject abruptly or anything, but do you have any idea how to make a magazine-quality PDF for an advertisement that’s going to run in a national print publication with a readership of over 10K?”

Caryn: (squinting at her computer) “What?”

Me: “That’s okay. That’s okay. Never mind…” (pause) “How about newsletters? What have you heard about the pros and cons of email marketing?”

Early September

Caryn: “So, did you want to set a date for your blog visit now?”

Me: (fighting to breathe from underneath a suffocating stack of advanced reading copies for reviewers, unmailed prizes to contest winners, thank-you cards, 45 single-spaced pages of interview questions, promo details and Book 2 revision notes) “Huh?”

Mid-September

Caryn: “You okay? Maybe it’d be better to have you guest blog later — you know, AFTER the release. When things calm down a bit for you.”

Me: “OMG, OMG. They’re putting my BOOK on the SHELVES. In STORES!! And LOOK! Amazon reviewers!!” (pointing at the screen in a state of near-delirium) “They RATED it. With STARS! I mean, I knew they did that, but did you see what that one person from Seattle said about my main character?! It was NOT nice! But then this guy from Boston wrote in, and he said…” (wandering off to click obsessively at the different pages showing the Amazon rankings and review comments for the week of September 29, 2009)

Caryn: “Marilyn? Hello? Helllooooo??! You still there??”

Early October

Me: (in a stream-of-conscious monologue to anyone who stood still long enough to listen) “…and I have to do a few book signings THIS WEEK!! And a library presentation! And did you know how popular book clubs are?! I’ve been invited to SEVEN of them already! Why do people keep asking me if I’m okay? I’m FINE…really, totally fine…hey, are those chocolate-covered espresso beans? Could I have, maybe, a handful of those NOW? Also, who knows how to find out first-week sales figures? Someone here has to know that, right? Right?!”

Caryn: (muttering to herself) “I’m not even gonna try to email her…”

Late October

Me: “Oh, whoa. When did fall start?” (glancing around with the surprise of a revived coma patient) “That’s strange.”

Caryn: “So, you seem a bit calmer now with the release behind you. What’s it like being a debut author with your book out and everything?”

Me: “Hmm.” (trying to think of an apt comparison, given my rather fuzzy recollections of the past 4 months) “Well, even though I read Pride & Prejudice & Zombies, I’m hardly an expert on the living dead…but, given that it’s Halloween week and all, this might be the best way to explain it: You know how zombies are portrayed as sort of alive in that they’re wandering around, mindlessly doing lots of unnatural things but, mostly, they’re in this trance-like state of un-restfulness and their people skills really suck?”

Caryn: (typing back worriedly) “Yeah?”

Me: “Well, I think there may be few parallels…”

Hope you all have a Happy Halloween, Everyone! To Caryn and to those wonderful friends who put up with my crazy pre-pub zombieness this summer and fall, thank you!

Love Marilyn’s writing as much as I do? Leave a comment below to enter to win a signed copy of According to Jane. One winner will be randomly selected from all commenters on the evening of Sunday, November 1st. Can’t wait for Sunday, or maybe you want to get an early start on holiday shopping? Pick up a copy today!

Other than the occasional college hand-me-down, garage sale find, or unnecessary kitchen appliance, my main contribution to our household’s decorating scheme comes in book form. Hardcover, paperback, electronic – if you can read it, I’ve probably owned a copy. Sometimes two or three due to forgetfulness and a variety of gift-giving occasions.

I could blame my long-ago English major for the glut, but my Intro to Shakespeare and Literature of the Romantic Era classes are only partly responsible for the jaw-dropping array of books that took over our back bedroom almost the moment we moved into this house. Piles upon piles soon spilled over the floor, most scattered and tumbled on a search for an unread volume or a beloved favorite. I could have hidden bodies under my Jane Austen collection alone, and no one would know. Not even the most dedicated English lit major could have read all these in four years, plus done all the requisite essays, coffee shop stops and poetry readings, and no sane professor would have required it.

No, a closer diagnosis of the problem actually comes down to one word: Obsession. Since I am a book collector with a typical collector’s zeal for accumulation and a horror of thinning the masses, my toppled stacks have only grown larger and more intimidating over the years. I suspect they brought others into the fold the way all the best cult members do, and naturally some of the more prolific ones bred, so there were soon tiny Little Golden Books running around everywhere, flashing their yellow foil spines and colorful covers. At least the Poky Little Puppy appeared to be house-trained or we’d really have had a mess.

And so over the course of the last several weeks I sorted and stacked and piled and boxed, employing a ruthlessness the strictest anti-clutter guru would applaud. Soon only my unread books and favorite re-reads remained, fluffing out a goodly number of shelves in place of the photos and knickknacks that used to occupy those slots. The second-tier books – the ones I liked but see no need to re-read – I farmed out to friends.

In the end, I dumped the final rejects, those even my friends wouldn’t take, into several crates bound for the library. This gave me a little twinge since it’s a bit of a moral dilemma. My soul could be in peril if I foist off my least favorite tomes on these unsuspecting librarians and their patrons. But then, someone must have seen something in them, or they wouldn’t have been printed in the first place. That’s what I tell myself anytime I encounter a book that doesn’t lift my balloon, at least: Someone must have thought it was good.

The upshot is that we’ve reclaimed a room. I also have a tidy little tax refund for a charitable contribution plus an entire set of shelves dedicated to unread wonders, making new book selection easy. Now the hard part: only buying the essentials until I’ve pared away the unreads. Wish me luck and a great deal of fortitude on that one. I’m going to need it.

After reading Eileen Cook’s new book What Would Emma Do? in one fun-filled weekend, I knew I had to invite her back for another interview. Fortunately, she consented to indulge my nosiness about her book, her writing process (or lack thereof) and the land of publishing. Please welcome Eileen, who has provided heaps of great information, seasoned with her trademark dash of humor.

Thanks for coming, Eileen! First of all, for those who haven’t yet read it, could you tell us a little about What Would Emma Do?

I think of WWED as a mix between The Crucible and the movie Saved. I think I’ll cheat and use the back copy blurb to explain it:

Thou shalt not kiss thy best friend’s boyfriend…again….

There is no greater sin than kissing your best friend’s boyfriend. So when Emma breaks that golden rule, she knows she’s messed up big-time. Especially since she lives in the smallest town ever, where everyone knows everything about everyone else….and especially because she maybe kinda wants to do it again. Now her best friend isn’t speaking to her, her best guy friend is making things totally weird, and Emma is running full speed toward certain social disaster. This is so not the way senior year was supposed to go.

As the blurb and the title hint, WWED addresses some pretty deep issues, but it’s also hilarious and suspenseful, which is no easy feat! Author Meg Cabot admitted that it made her laugh out loud, and I know my mind kept returning to it every time I set it down, since I wanted to know what happened. So how long did it take you to write it, from when you first had the idea to when the book came out?

It took me about a year to write the book. I was lucky in that my agent was able to sell it very quickly – in a couple of weeks. Once with the publisher it takes about a year.  First there are edits, then when you think you are done there are more edits, covers need to be designed, and the sales team needs to talk the book up to bookstore representatives.  I had no idea it took so long from the time you sell a book to the time it hits the shelves. Patience is a virtue for writers.

I can see how that could definitely be a surprise. Other than the slow pace of the publishing industry what are some big misconceptions many people have about writing and/or publishing?

I know what surprised me about the process. I was shocked after my first book came out that the world kept spinning along just like it always did. There were no trumpets, no parade, and Oprah didn’t call. I have wanted to write as long as I could remember and it had been such a journey to publication that it seemed that life should somehow be RADICALLY different when it actually came true. The truth is that I still spend most of my days writing in a stretched-out sweatshirt and drinking gallons of tea.

If anyone wants to organize something, I am still very open to the idea of a parade.

I’m sure lots of other people are curious about how publishing works, and you’ve probably gotten numerous questions about it. What are a few that you wish people would just stop asking already?

My two favorite annoying questions would be: You’re a writer? How come I never heard of you? and How much money do you make?

Wow! How rude. Well, as you’ve made your way through publishing, you’ve clearly learned a lot. If you could go back in time and talk to your beginning writer self, what would you tell her?

I would tell myself to hang in there. I had a knack in the early days for taking everything very personally.  If someone told me they didn’t like my work it felt like they spit in my face. Then came back and pushed me down.  I wasn’t prepared for how loooooong the whole process would take and how there would people along the way who enjoy tearing other people down for the sake of making themselves feel better.

I would tell myself to write the books I want to write and worry about the business aspects later.

It sounds like it all came out right, despite those difficulties — lucky for us, since now we get to read your books! What were some of the best decisions you made in your publishing career?

One of the best decisions I made was choosing to sign with my agent, Rachel Vater (Folio Literary).  She has been an excellent business partner.  In this business you need to have someone’s opinion that you can trust.  I count on her to tell me honestly what she thinks of my manuscripts and advise me on details of contracts.  Rachel has a huge enthusiasm for her clients and always picks me up on those days when I want to throw my lap top across the room.

I always stress to other writers to make the agent choice carefully. In the midst of the agent search it can be easy to think “I’ll take anyone. Someone just please sign me!”, but this is going to the person representing you. A good agent can have a huge impact on your career. It’s like marriage, so choose wisely.

I would also add to my “good choice” list surrounding myself with good friends and fellow writers.

What’s your writing process like? Do you tend to plot everything before you start or do you make it up as you go along — or something in-between? How about your writing schedule? Do you have one?

People have a process? I really should get one of those. I love the idea of having a set routine or process, but I find my life keeps getting in the way. Sometimes I write at home and other times I like to be in a coffee shop or at the library. I write in the morning, afternoon or evening — depending on when I have the time. The only consistent would be that when I am in the middle of the story I find I need to write at least a small bit every day or I lose track of the story. What I would tell new writers is to try all different types of approaches until they find one they like. There isn’t one routine that works — it is a case of what works for you. I used to be a total pantster. I won’t ever make it to true plotter status, but now I’m somewhere in the middle. I usually start with a bit of an outline, but leave myself a lot of room to wander where the story takes me.

You’ve captured the YA voice very well. Do you read a lot of young adult books yourself? What are some of your favorites?

I love YA books!  Heck, who am I kidding? I love books period. I am a total author junkie. I love Meg Cabot, Judy Blume, Sarah Dessen, Jacqueline Mitchard, Meg Tilly, Elizabeth Scott, Lisa McMann — I could go on and on.

Anyone who writes (published or not) inspires me because it takes dedication to get the story down on paper and guts to put it out there for others to read.

What is one of the more memorable things that has happened since you’ve been published?

I’m not sure if it’s interesting — but it is funny. After my first book, Unpredictable, came out I was out in a public place and saw a random stranger reading my book. I was beyond excited. This is what I had always dreamed of — someone reading (and seeming to enjoy) something I wrote. I went up and said that I was the author of the book she was reading. We talked for a few minutes and then she asked me sign her book. When I took the book from her I realized it wasn’t my book, the cover looked similar, but is was another book. I signed the other author’s name and hightailed it out there. That was quite possibly the most embarrassing moment thus far — and also the most hysterical.

So what’s next, book-wise? Another YA or back to women’s fiction?

I’m soooo excited for my next book.  It’s called Getting Revenge on Lauren Wood.  It’s a tale of friendship, betrayal, revenge and classic movies. I had so much fun writing it. It will be out in either December or January.

I’ve also just heard that my proposal has been accepted to write a middle grade series, so that will be my next project. It is about a young girl who comes from a long line of fairy godmothers. She’d rather be normal. Mayhem ensues.

Those sound terrific! I’m especially excited about your middle grade series; the parnormal element can add such fun to a book! In the meantime, I’ll just have to content myself with What Would Emma Do? and Unpredictable, both of which are available now.

My husband and I lie back-to-back on the hotel bed, neither moving in case the other is finally on the cusp of sleep. No talking, no fidgeting. Those are the rules.

Like most motels, a blaring yellow light floods the concrete walkway outside our door. It spills around the edges of the thick curtains and leaks into the room. I use it to gaze around my temporary habitat – cheap furniture, no clock, bags half-opened to let clothing spill out, a table with one chair, the ubiquitous luggage rack we’ve never used in any hotel.

Over there, inches away, lies another person, in his own world of thoughts. And, as per the unspoken rules, I cannot move or speak to bridge that gap, in case he has tumbled into sleep. Are his thoughts along the same theme as mine? I hate trying to sleep in hotel rooms.

When you’re married, you share everything eventually–even insomnia.

Against my will, paragraphs begin to shape themselves in my mind. I grope for my spiral notebook and a pencil and write them down, my script spiky and angled, overlapping in the dark. When I give up on sleep I slip from bed and fumble for my clothes in the grey darkness. I dress, barely breathing, thankful for the carpet swallowing the sound of my steps. My husband, whose occasional shifts and sighs betrayed his wakefulness throughout the night, doesn’t stir now, and I hope that he, at last, is asleep and dreaming, as I am unable to do.

I run my fingers through my hair and let myself out of the room, padding down the hallway toward the lobby and its free internet access. Around me, the smell of coffee brewing, and on TV a news anchor grimly analyzing the stock market. The cheerful desk clerk nods at me, then goes back to his morning paper. I scan the continental breakfast offering: Danishes, two kinds of muffins, and Tang – carbs and chemicals. Outside, flower petals chase each other on the breeze. Cars shoosh past.

Stifling a yawn, I feed the results of my notebook ramblings into the computer and publish them. Perhaps nearly everything is worth it if it gives you something to write about.

My dearest blogosphere,

In the words of a pen pal from my elementary days, how are you? I am fine. Mostly. I know that it has been ages since I’ve written, but I promise that there are reasons, many of which are even valid.

For one thing, blogging minus the internet doesn’t work so well. It’s been nearly a week since my (former) phone company, a bottomless reservoir of brilliant communicators, interpreted a clear request for ditching our land line as an order to disconnect all service, including our internet and every one of our well-established email accounts.^[1] It’s possible it was an act of spite, brought about by their jealousy at our choosing somebody else’s cell service over their land line offerings. I, however, prefer to think of it as an honest mistake somehow perpetuated by, well, no fewer than six different customer service reps, four technical support gurus, and two managers.^[2] In an act of breathtaking incompetence, they managed to make the problem worse every time I called. While their communication skills may be lacking, their determination to screw things up is admirable.

Whatever the cause, this incident, as you may imagine, has not exactly filled my days with sunshine and rainbows. The good news is that I have now developed an exciting new hobby: unsuccessfully battling the company that ate my internet. Which is excuse number two for not having written. You know how hobbies can be, so all-consuming that at times they almost cease to be fun.

The public library, with its abundance of light, foliage, and wireless internet, is perhaps an obvious choice for those who find themselves marooned in a house without a workable way to surf the web. If only I hadn’t also been battling something mean and contagious, a fight I plan to win tomorrow, or maybe Friday.

Then there was the possibility of writing from work, with its many doors to all things online. Let’s just rule that option out now, though, shall we? I don’t typically blog about work, and I definitely don’t blog at work. The two entities go together like plaid and stripes.

I would like to think that my remaining time has been spent well, however. For example, I’ve attacked my new cell phone, associating different ring tones and photos with almost all of my contacts, a crucial first step in breaking in a new device. And then there are the book revisions. It’s astonishing how much less painful they can be without the worldly web tempting me at every turn.

All of this is to say that there is more coming soon, when I am less annoyed and more coherent. And to apologize for my lack of communication. A new company swooped in a few hours ago to hook us up to the rest of the world, which means I’ll be touring the blogosphere – and adding to it – in no time.

More soon,

Caryn

P.S. I think everyone should probably be without the internet for a while. At the very least they can rewnew their relationships with the dictionary and the phone book, two worthy publications that don’t see a lot of use these days.

1. That means that if you wrote to me in the past week, I may not have gotten it. And since I’m not about to post my shiny new gmail address online, you can use my contact form to try again. [↩]
2. This is no exaggeration. I actually counted how many people couldn’t help me. I had to do something with all that time on hold. [↩]

I’ve loved author Sandi Kahn Shelton’s blog ever since I first read it many months ago. Her humor and warmth are evident in every paragraph, and her stories are rich with detail. So of course it was no surprise to hear that her newest book, Kissing Games of the World, has received rave reviews, including a coveted starred review from Library Journal. What do they love best? Her multi-dimensional characters. And here to talk to us about how those fictional people came to life is Sandi herself.

One of the most fun things about writing a novel (or as my uncle put it, “telling lies for profit”) is coming up with characters. People are always asking writers where the characters come from — it’s the #1 question when you go for readings and signings — and I’m afraid they always seem disappointed by the truth, which is, “I have utterly no idea.”

With my new novel, Kissing Games of the World, the main character, Jamie McClintock, showed up one morning when I was taking a bath. I was lying there concentrating on keeping the tub filled to the top with hot water using only my big toe (a delicate balance of draining and refilling which practically requires a degree in engineering and physics to keep it just right), when I noticed somebody wafting around over by the shower head, explaining to me about how she was an artist and a single mom raising her 5-year-old boy, Arley, who had asthma. They lived in a farmhouse in Connecticut with Harris, an older man famous in town for his rascally womanizing, who was now redeeming himself by raising his 5-year-old grandson, Christopher, whose father had run away.

I like a character who shows up with her trouble already spelled out; it’s much harder to work with somebody who insists that life is just fine. And Jamie had a whole bunch of trouble. Right at the beginning, Harris dropped dead unexpectedly, and his estranged, hated son (Christopher’s father, Nate) came back to claim the house and his little boy, and move him back to California. As Jamie explained the situation, Nate was a jet-setty, arrogant kind of guy, a salesman, and his plan was to drag his kid along on his business trips and educate him in hotel rooms. Jamie went hysterical over this. (I didn’t mind; I’ve learned finally that you have to put your most beloved characters in lots of trouble, or there’s no story.) I was having lots of fun writing about Jamie’s view of this guy when one day, while I was driving to work, Nate said to me, “Wait just a minute. Would you just hold on a bloody second? I’d like to tell my side of things, if you don’t mind.”

And — well, he proceeded to take over the whole book. (Kind of like when you let a man drive your sports car for a minute. You have to be careful or you won’t get the keys back.)

At first I thought I would just give him a chapter, let him explain a couple of things Jamie couldn’t possibly know about, but then his voice was so strong, and he had such an interesting story, that he and I just kept going together. He had things to tell me about his father, and about his mom and his wife, and why he played baseball as a kid, and who he slept with in high school, and why he thought traveling and sending money was the best thing he could do for his son. He told me about his fiancée and his charismatic boss, and even some of his favorite sales strategies.

And — this is a little embarrassing — but I kind of fell for the guy. In a good way, of course. Whenever I’d be writing his scenes, it was like taking dictation. I honestly could hear his sarcastic, take-no-prisoners tone of voice. He made me laugh.

“Write a book about me,” he would whisper to me at night when I was falling asleep. “Come on. Let’s do this together!”

But I had to tell him, “This is not your book. This is Jamie’s story. And even more importantly, my publisher doesn’t want a story told from the man’s point of view. This is women’s fiction, pal. I have a contract.”

So we compromised. I limited him to every other chapter. One for Jamie, one for him. And an interesting thing happened. While his chapters were exciting and funny as hell and practically came to me faster than I could type them, Jamie realized she was being outdone and had to step up and start making her story deeper and more dramatic, too. I mean, this woman had issues. Not just the kid with asthma either. Trust problems, ex-boyfriend troubles, a wish to use her art to hide from human beings. And when little Arley ended up adoring Nate, while Christopher would have nothing to do with him, Jamie found herself actually hoping that Nate, whom she loathed, would stick around.

He didn’t, of course. Not at first anyway. But I can’t tell you any more than that. Except that it was a real ride, being in these two different heads at all times. It was fun exploring love that comes out of nowhere and slams people right upside the head, as my mother would have put it. I hadn’t ever written a real love story before. I was afraid of being too Hallmark card-ish or sentimental. You know how that can be. And honestly, there were times when I was writing this book that I thought this love story was so unsentimental that it wasn’t going to work out at all, that everybody would go their separate ways and be better for it.

But then — well, a whole bunch of stuff happened. It always does, if you’re lucky. You’re at the mercy of these characters who show up in the bathtub with you, or sitting next to you in the passenger seat, or chatting you up from your pillow in the middle of the night — and suddenly they take on a life of their own, and you’re just along for the fun of it. That’s the thing you can’t ever really explain to people who think the character surely is really you, or your best friend, or a guy you went to high school with.

They’re nobody you know, but for a little while, they move into your head and explain life to you — and then one day you finish the book, and you look around for them, but they’re gone. And soon, somebody else is lurking by the shower fixture, saying, “Pssst. I have something to tell you…”

Sounds like a terrific story, doesn’t it? If you want to know more, check out Sandi Kahn Shelton’s website, then head over to Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, or your local indie bookstore to pick up your copy of Kissing Games of the World. Who knows? Maybe someone on your Christmas list would enjoy a copy, too…

For the past several years I have volunteered at the local high school, advising a number of very talented students in the creative writing club. This year I mentioned NaNoWriMo to several of them. Word spread, and now we have a large group of students who are all determined to write an entire novel this month. Only problem? Some of them had no idea where to start. Since I’ve dealt with this same issue, I made up the following list for them. Since many of you write — books, term papers, blog entries, thank-you notes — I figured I’d share the list with you as well. Have favorite ways to jump start your writing? Please share!

1. Go back to when everything last worked and to see if you went off-track.
2. Skip ahead to what you do know and write that. Sometimes you’ll find that the scene you agonized over really doesn’t need to be there, or in the meantime you – or your subconscious – could think of a good way to fix it.
3. Think of ways to make your characters’ lives worse, then implement them. It’s hard to have a book if you don’t have conflict.
4. Make a list of all the scenes that have to happen in your book. Good. Now you know where you’re going, and you have a goal. Start figuring out how to get from your current scene to the next one.
5. Read what you’ve already written to get back into the groove. Danger: Don’t let this lead you to edit too much; it’s possible to spend all your time polishing the first three chapters and never get anything else written. You’ll have a great beginning, but you won’t have a book.
6. Write with someone else. This can often be inspiring; when others around you are being creative and productive, it’s hard to keep your own pen off the page.
7. Writer’s block is often caused by fear. It may be fear of writing something imperfect, fear of what others will think, fear of rejection, or even fear of success. What are you afraid of? Sometimes just knowing will help you conquer it.
8. Remind yourself that this is only a first draft. Most books go through many, many revisions, so if it’s not perfect the first time around that’s normal. You don’t have to show anyone until you’re ready.
9. Perhaps you’ve lost sight of your characters’ goals, motivations, and conflicts. What would your character would do next in order to reach his/her goal? Now prevent him/her from it.
10. Watch a movie or read a book for inspiration. Sometimes the creative well just plain runs dry.
11. Brainstorm with someone.
12. Or, the reverse could be an issue: Perhaps you’ve talked about your book too much and now it doesn’t seem fresh or fun anymore. If that’s the case, try going in a new direction to freshen it up a bit, and keep it all to yourself for now.
13. 90% of all people who begin a novel never finish it. 85% of all those who began NaNoWriMo last year never finished. Beat the odds no matter what, even if means writing utter crap. You can always revise later.
14. Reexamine why you’re doing this in the first place. Write your motivation(s) on a sticky note and post it next to your monitor.
15. Sometimes having too many options can cause a block. For example, should the character be an architect or a plumber? Should his/her parents be divorced or still together? It’s difficult, but make a choice and stick with it. If you still can’t decide, write each choice on a piece of paper, fold up the pieces, throw them in a hat or bowl and draw one.
16. Set a timer and tell yourself you’ll write for this amount of time, no matter what – but that you’re allowed to stop after that if you want to. Anyone can write for 15, 30, or 60 minutes if they put their minds to it. Take a break to eat or do something fun, then set that timer again.
17. Develop a writing routine – light a candle, write at the same time each day, choose a special writing chair, etc. Just going through those motions can tell your brain that it’s time to write.
18. Shake up your writing routine. Write at a different time or place.
19. Allow yourself some awful first sentences each time you begin a new writing session. After all, quite often the hardest part is just getting started. Once you’ve warmed up, it usually becomes much easier.
20. Next time you write, try stopping in the middle of a sentence, paragraph, or scene. This way you’ll know where to begin when you come back to it.
21. Write daily. Make it a habit. Often the longer you go between writing sessions, the harder it can be to get back into it, and the more time you’ll have to psych yourself out.
22. Tell everyone your goal so that you are held accountable. Then you have no choice but to get something down.
23. Start with success: Do something important but easy, such as finding a good last name for your character or doing some simple research. This gets you back into your story, and the success is often motivating.
24. Sometimes you just have to get yourself out of your own way. Take a shower, do the dishes, knit a scarf, take a long drive, play a computer game, hike, run, swim…Do something that keeps your hands and body occupied but your mind free. Then assign your brain the task of thinking about what to write next.
25. Disconnect your internet, so if you’re ever tempted to conduct another email check you have to get up and walk over to the modem to plug it back in. Quite often your willpower will return before you set aside your laptop or notebook.
26. Think of what you could be doing that you want to do even less – homework, cleaning house, writing that thank-you note to your Great Aunt Pearl, whatever.
27. Give yourself silly goals such as finding random words in the dictionary and having to use them, or starting the first sentence with the letter A, the next with B, the following with C, etc. The challenge can help get your mind off your fear and spark your creativity.
28. Open a new document or turn to a clean page in your notebook. Anything goes when you’re starting fresh. If you like what you come up with, you can always add it in later. Sounds silly, but it’s actually one of my favorite — and most effective — methods.
29. Type with your eyes closed. This can remove inhibitions.
30. Begin a free-write with, “I don’t know what to write,” and go from there, writing whatever comes to mind but slowly working your way into examining your book and then, perhaps, starting to write it again.
31. Interview your main character, or write a monologue from his/her P.O.V.
32. Keep a notebook by your bedside, in your car, in the bathroom – wherever you’re likely to get an idea. When one comes to you, take a moment to (safely!) write it down. Next time you’re stuck with your writing, look through your notebook for ideas.
33. Maybe you’ve gone the obvious route with your writing, and you’ve ended up boring yourself. Throw something big into the works to change things radically: someone new (dead or alive) turns up, your character finds out a devastating secret or is suddenly faced with what s/he most fears, the hero fails at an important task.
34. Make a list of 20 things that could happen next. Cross out the first 10-15 since those are often the more obvious choices, then consider implementing the last few.
35. Let your subconscious do the work. Long before you sit down to write, give yourself a problem that needs to be solved, anywhere from “What should I write next?” to “How should my protagonist react when s/he finds the dead body?” Think about it from time to time. By the time you write, a solution will often present itself with minimal effort.
36. Eat, go to the bathroom, and do any urgent business before writing. That way you have no reason to get up from the keyboard once you start. Just make sure you don’t put writing dead last, or you may never get to it.
37. Whatever you do, don’t delete! If you really don’t think it’s worthwhile, cut it from the manuscript and paste it in a new one so you can put it back in or use it in something else. Sometimes all you need is a little perspective, and that can take time and distance. If you’re stuck, go through your file of deleted scenes for inspiration.
38. What do you like about certain books/movies? How can you incorporate that into your own work in a creative way? What do you hate about particular books/movies? How can you write it better, and with your own creative twist?
39. Work on something else for a while. Ever have several books going at a time, reading whichever one interests you right then? The same can work with writing.
40. Remember that writing is hard. Just because it doesn’t always flow, it doesn’t mean you’re blocked. So realize that it might not be easy, and work through it. After all, things that are worth it rarely come easily.
41. Examine your attitude before you go into it. Are you expecting to have a fun, productive writing session, or are you expecting pain and blockage? Your brain often delivers what you expect.

Seems everything needed repairs this week. First there was an elderly but sturdy machine at work, which required my second-favorite set of instructions ever: the now-infamous page 36 from the vintage manual I keep in a nearby cupboard.

Raise your hand if you had to stifle a juvenile snicker when you read the title above. Raise both if you were unsuccessful. Very good. You get three points if you’re the first to spot the spelling error, and ten if you can identify the machine in question.

Page 36 also requires a trip to the following diagram, which I would argue makes their assurance that it’s only “7 easy steps” a giant lie. Like the photo above, click if you need more detail, but do so with care lest your brain explode.

Despite my near-uselessness when it comes to anything mechanical, I managed to muddle through and get the mystery machine up and running again — just in time to go home and spend another evening trying to fix my book. Alas, that task doesn’t come with an instruction manual.

Aren’t they pretty? Good thing I don’t use red ink, or these pages would look like they’d been murdered, and that would ruin the tone of the whole book.

Then, of all the luck, I needed repairs, too. Yes, the flu visited again, just a month and a half after it last stopped by. So much for my weekend plans. Instead of going into the mountains to take photos like the one below, which I snapped a few years ago…

…I got to photograph things around home. This is not nearly as exciting — or as pretty.

Unfortunately, alien creatures kept popping into the frame at the last minute. The blobby heads and tails were so big that even Photoshop couldn’t help me fix the results. Too bad. I do hate to leave things unrepaired.

On Friday morning steel gray clouds scudded across the sky and a restless breeze washed over the neighborhood, heralding bad weather to come. Hoping for rain, I ducked into my car and turned the key, then glanced over my shoulder as I sped down the driveway, later for work than usual. Then a thought struck me and I lurched to a stop a few feet from the road. My sunglasses, unnecessary that morning, were still in the house. It may have been too shady for shades, but the sun could break through later, leaving me to squint my way home again at the end of the day. I pulled up the parking brake, unclicked my seat belt, and threw open the door.

At that precise moment, the sprinkler in the front yard sprang into action. After the last cycle the head had come to a stop facing the driveway and now, with no warning, it burst on, hurling morning-cold water at my face, my skirt, the inside of my car. I spluttered, jumped out of my seat, and slammed the door, then sprinted onto our porch and out of range. As time ticked, I paused to wipe the drops from my face and watch the sprinkler sweep across the yard, dousing everything in its path.

I laughed, of course,  and shook my head. I had to. It had been that kind of week, every day filled with miniature disasters, every night spent in tense tossing instead of sleep, every email and phone call left unanswered. This Friday morning comedy routine only added to it all with such perfection. I wanted to put it in a novel, down to the promise of rain hovering above the scene as if foreshadowing the whole event. It was, however, too well-timed to be real, too slapstick to be believed, and therefore too weird for fiction.

It seems I am in A Phase. Over the weekend I waved a cheerful goodbye to two unfinished novels, then dropped them off my nightstand. The week before that, I got twenty-three pages into another before dumping it onto my library donations pile without so much as an apology. This morning I broke up with a fourth, a best-seller with reviews that swore there was no way I would not love this book. After forty-eight pages I gave up and searched my pile of unread books for yet another victim.

Most of the time I go through books the way I would eat chocolates if my hips allowed it. I finish one and delve immediately into the next, savoring the characters, the plot, the clever turns of phrase. Each time I exercise or clean house or push a squeaky-wheeled cart up and down the grocery store aisles, I plug into an audio book, letting stories wash over me. When hubs and I take our canvas chairs to a nearby overlook to watch the sun set over the desert, we often tote along something to read aloud to one another.

But I cannot, no matter how much I try, completely lose myself in reading while I am in the middle of revisions. Once I spend hours analyzing each sentence of my own work, the picky part of my brain is turned on. From then on, every bit of writing I encounter, whether it is mine or someone else’s, is routed through my editing filter.

That is happening now. The obligatory six weeks have passed between the draft I wrote this summer and the edits required to start submitting it. Now, after several days spent performing major surgery on my novel at every opportunity, my brain has once again turned into an Equal Opportunity Editor, and I’ve gone from eager-to-read to impossible-to-please. The quality of my reading does not matter. If I am spending hours each day examining my own writing, then by habit I will analyze every other sentence to waltz my way as well. Only blogs, it seems, are exempt, perhaps because the style is so different.

My inability to switch off the ruthless reviser inside me is exhausting and inevitable, and totally unfair to the author of whatever pleasure reading I attempt. Worse, my inability to relax with a good book feels unnatural and somehow very wrong. Reading, after all, is what led me into writing, and now writing is preventing me from enjoying reading.

I’ve gone through this before, and I know that it will end. Within days of finishing edits, I will be able to see an adverb without feeling the impulse to ink it out. I will once again have the patience to read backstory — it is, after all, sometimes necessary. I will not automatically pause after I read each line of dialogue, wondering if it should be reworded to make it sound more authentic. I will, in short, be able to lose myself in a book again, which is the best possible incentive for finishing revisions. I’m already saving several books I know I will love for after edits, as a reward.

The second best incentive, for the record, is getting to begin a new story. My next book has already begun to evolve in my mind, and I cannot think of it without a little zing of excitement. But first, revisions.