Tag Archives: writing

The Greatest Gift You Get As A Writer… Other Writers!

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Today was an all-over-the-place kind of day. I couldn’t get my shit together with the proverbial pooper-scooper, so I was flying around doing errands on a windy afternoon, trying to TCB before meeting up with my pal Chad to workshop our awesome novels-in-progress. Anyhow, finally I got to sit down with him at our local java joint, and we started parsing the verbiage.

Now, I don’t know about him, but for me, the session was electrifying. I’d been gnashing my teeth and pulling my hair over the direction of BOOK 2, which is very dear to my heart. I am determined to “get it right,” whatever that ends up meaning, but struggling to figure out how best to accomplish my goals. During the course of a couple hours, we got to hash out the central themes, what would make them stronger, what’s working and what ain’t. It was a bit scary, frankly, to find out that my suspicions were correct–this is still very much a work in progress, not perfect straight outta the gate. But it was also pretty remarkable to see how, talking it through aloud, I could come up with some character adjustments and some additions to scenes that would make everything work so much better.

It’s my favorite feeling in the world–when you go, “Ooh, ooh, I got it! How about if X does this instead of that…” and suddenly your story makes more sense. Yes, I’ll have tons of revisions to do because we took such a hard look at the story, but it’s worth it in service to the finished product–and now I’m thinking the finished product is actually not going to suck.

A little while later, a gaggle of NaNoWriMo’s descended (all of whom won, getting 50,000 words while I… well, I did not) and we started working on our novels. The gathering was crackling with cheerful banter, and a great energy settled around our communal table. It reminded me of just how fun it is to do something creative! It’s like being in kindergarten and being handed a huge lump of Play-Doh and told, “Have at it, kids!” I was so happy to be hanging out with people who have the same passion for wordplay I do, who can commiserate over crappy characters and laugh at our shitty first drafts. When you work alone so much of the time, it’s nice to be reminded you have “peeps.”

And then I arrived home and got a lovely, supportive email from a dear friend and pen pal, a wonderful writer who’s enmeshed in “the process,” with all the mushy, gloppy gut-wrenching it entails (entrails?).  It was another reminder I’m not alone, and a validation that writing is a passion, an avocation, and a fucking hard bit of work. And we’re all awesome for undertaking this crazy career.

The Faces of BLISS!

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Sorry I’ve been quiet for a few days… Thanksgiving was quite a distraction, between cooking and snooping around various bookstores to see how & where they’d displayed my baby BLISS. Happy to say I saw it on the New Arrivals table at a few Barnes & Noble stores (between Dolly Parton and a guide to dogs, whee?). Anyhow, thought I’d share some BLISS-ful faces. Feel free to submit a picture of yourself with a copy and I’ll post it!

Book Two Needs a Name!

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I think it’s safe to share a little about the second novel I’m writing. It’s about a woman named Merry; six-foot-three, red hair, former Olympic skier from a high-expectations family. After a horrendous crash ends her career, Merry is looking to find her place in the world, and ends up becoming a travel writer for an online magazine. The magazine abruptly announces her column isn’t spicy enough, so they decide to send her off on “Don’t Do What I Did” missions–anything crazy, dangerous, or just plain gross. Her first mission lands Merry in the tiny town of Aguas Milagros, New Mexico… on a llama ranch. Her job? Muck stables, feed critters, guide tourists up and down the local mountains–anything that needs doing, Merry’s the new Gal Friday. Her bosses are Dolly the llama lady, who raises alpacas as well as her llamas, and spins a mean yarn (literally), and Sam, Dolly’s rough-and-tumble nephew, who’s not too keen on interlopers at the ranch.

The story’s all about finding your true home, coming to grips with your limitations, and challenging yourself to overcome the ones you can. Spitty llamas, adorable alpacas, and even a poltergoat roam the ranch. Wool, crafts, skiing, and naked hippie hot springs play a part–as does an unexpected romance with Surly Sam.

Now I just need a title.  Some early contenders are: Wild and Wooly, Unraveled, Making Merry, The Last Chance Llama Ranch. Maybe y’all can do better…?

THANK YOU!

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Dear friends, family, and countrymen (okay, colleagues at ye olde day job), I just want to say a huge THANK YOU to everyone who bought BLISS, everyone who let me know “Amazon says it’s in the mail!” and expressed excitement on my behalf. For those who read it early and enjoyed it enough to post a review or tweet kind words, thank you, you’re amazing, and your cookies are baking in the oven.

Speaking of which, the whole latter part of this week is going to be me completely blowing my Weight Watchers points and baking up a storm… (in the middle of a winter storm, which rather sucks). The reason for this is that I’ll be reading and signing copies of the book at Barnes & Noble at the Coronado Mall in Albuquerque on Friday, and chatting with readers at Self Serve Toys in Albuquerque on Saturday night.  The details are on my Events Page. Of course, I don’t want anyone to go away hungry, so I’m making everything from cupcakes to biscochitos to lemon bars to bring along. Let’s all get fat and BLISS out together!

Again, my friends, thank you for the support, the great feedback, and for being in my life. Feel free to send pics of yourself holding up your copy of BLISS, and I’ll post ’em!

Final Countdown

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It’s four days until the official drop date for BLISS. “Doesn’t seem real” barely covers the surreal sensation this knowledge engenders in me. Partly it’s because there’s no red-carpet premiere, no box office numbers to tally when a book comes out. Most authors I know just spend the day obsessively checking their sales rank on Amazon.com, and surely I won’t be able to resist either.  I’ll bombard the Twitterverse with tweets, and annoy the crap out of my Facebook followers reminding them of the big event.  (Apologies in advance!) But otherwise, what marks such a momentous day for a writer? I suspect… not much. I’ll probably wear my cute new shoes, despite Santa Fe being a ridiculous place to wear high heels.  And some dear friends will join me for a celebratory meal.  Aside from that? I can only imagine what’s going on out there, beyond my control.

Are little elves stocking my novel on Barnes & Noble shelves?  Will some avid lover of women’s fiction be browsing a store in South Dakota and come stumbling across a new book with a pretty white cover?  Will she creep closer, daring to pick up the nice, weighty paperback, feel the pleasant tactile sensation of the jacket against her fingers?  Will she turn it over, and snort a small chuckle as she reads the tagline “Nothing says ‘oops’ like your naked ass skidding in the salmon mousse?”  Or perhaps wrinkle her nose and say, “No mousse-y ass for me, thanks!”  Might some store clerk in an indie bookstore happen to flip through it during breaks in the back room (ha, back room!) and decide, “Hey, I dig this, I’m going to put it on the ‘recommended reads’ table?”

I’ve no earthly idea.  And no control at this point. I crafted BLISS as if it were the most important confection of my career, adding all my favorite fantasies and wish fulfillment into the mix. I can only hope it tastes as sweet to the reader as it did to the writer.

You Like Me… You Really Like Me! (At Least 4 of You)

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So, I’m driving a shopping cart full of cat litter and trash bags around Target this afternoon (oh, the joy!) and I stop to check my phone.  (Hey, shopping is boring, what can I say.  At least I didn’t block anyone’s path to the yogurt.)  I see an email from my delightful, I’m-eternally-grateful-to-them publisher with some feedback from readers who participated in last month’s Goodreads first-read giveaway.  (Check it out here to read reviews.)  Not to toot my own horn (okay, totally to toot my own horn), but WOW!  The ones who took the time to write reviews really seemed to enjoy BLISS the way I’d hoped.  One woman said, “This was, for me, a one-sitting, pages flying read.”

Sniffle.

Those of you who are writers know just how important it is that somebody see the same thing in your work that you see in your mind, and that you spend all those hours trying to shovel in there.  It’s why I spend weeks dithering over exactly the right word; why I corner friends and fellow writing workshoppers and demand, “Is this funny?!  Does that make sense?”  But in the end the novel is just out there, alone, without you to explain or excuse or butter up your reader.  If you’re lucky enough to find readers, that is.

BLISS isn’t officially out until November 19th, but already, people outside of my immediate circle have gotten their hands on it.  Woman’s Day online said they loved it.  Library Journal gave it the thumbs’ up.  And now, real readers!  People who read the kind of books I read are finally being introduced to my work – and so far I haven’t been beaned in the head with a rotten tomato.  I know the responses can’t all be good, but for now, I’m just swimming in delight and so very grateful.

Oh, and one-sitting lady? Slow down. It took me a long time to write that book!

Good Review, Kick-Ass NaNoWriMo First Day… Who Says Mercury’s in Retrograde?

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BLISS by Hilary Fields…Probably a poor idea to tempt the fates in such a way, but heck, I’ve had too much Diet Coke, I’m hopped up on a successful first day of doing NaNoWriMo, and a great rave review of BLISS from Woman’s Day Magazine online. (You can watch the video here.)

I’ve wanted to participate in National Novel Writing Month for several years, but a combination of factors prevented me.  1) I’m chicken-shit, 2) I’m not convinced “vomit-writing” is really a great way to write a viable novel, and 3) I usually spend the last week of November in a turkey/stuffing/yam/pie coma.  But this year I’m on el seriouso deadline.  BOOK 2 must make its debut (at least to my editor) in spring, and that’s no joke.  It’s going great, but a kamikaze balls-out dive into the deep end of my creative juices would certainly only aid my efforts. So I told enough people I was gonna do it that I’d feel like a chump if I backed out.  (Works great for quitting smoking too.)

It was exciting to make this commitment, though daunting, because I usually write closer to 1,000 words on a good day than the 1,667 one needs to average for the thirty days of November in order to “win.”  I don’t think I’m in it to win it, frankly. I’d rather have 30,000 carefully chosen words than 50,000 blurted-out stream-of-consciousness rambles I have to spend the next month sorting out.  But I hoped signing up would spur me to write something every single day.  So last night at midnight I joined my local chapter liaison at Denny’s, laptop in tow (and dressed like Spock because it was, after all, Halloween).  Seven hundred fifty one words and five mozzarella sticks later, I looked up and it was 1:30 in the morning.  Even most of the drunks in Miley Cyrus twerk costumes had headed home for the night.

After collapsing back in bed around 2, reading a bit of Stephen King’s DOCTOR SLEEP (in my opinion one of his good ones), and passing out to endure some very odd llama-and-psychic-vampire dreams, I arose a few hours later feeling like it was going to be a good day.  I added another 1,100 words to my count during the course of the day (and was surprised by a llama named Severus Snape playing Frisbee with Merry’s cowboy hat), all while baking a loaf of sourdough (pictured) and standing at my standing desk instead of sitting around.

Sourdough Bread So I guess success breeds success.  The more you do the more you’re capable of doing, and yadda yadda.  Speaking of success, it’s really been awesome to see the first reviews of BLISS trickle in.  I wish I weren’t too much of a moron to figure out how to post the video review from Woman’s Day, but a link will have to suffice.  It’s just amazing when someone reads your stuff and laughs out loud, relishes the characters, looks forward to your next work.

I can hardly believe the release date for BLISS is only 18 days away. I got my finished copies this week and I think they’re stunning (even if the picture of me in the inside front flap seems monstrously big).  It’s amazing to me that some readers–strangers, out there in the ether–have already gotten hold of copies, and others will soon.  Lots of others, I hope.  All of whom will of course want to plaster five-star reviews far and wide across the web.  Hey, a girl can dream, right?  So here’s to big dreams, and the ambition–and stamina–to bring them to fruition.

Cheers!

What IS it with Writing?!

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dorothy parkerI believe it was Dorothy Parker who said, “I hate writing. I love having written.”  (My favorite quote of hers is actually the one where, when asked to use the word “horticulture” in a sentence, she quipped, “You can lead a horticulture but you can’t make her think.”)

But I digress.  As I am wont to do, because, damn, writing is a weird occupation.

I can’t agree with Dorothy about hating writing, or say I only get joy from the completion.  I love the “Oooh, ooh, I got an idea” aspect, and the fun I have with alliteration; tinkering and toying with language.  I adore having characters make me laugh with their crazy dialogue, which totally arrived out of the blue and not out of my head.  It’s a rush, and a delight, and a privilege to spend so much of my time in my imagination.  So no, I don’t hate writing.  What I hate is how damn uncontrollable it is.  You can’t own it, and you can’t direct it.  You can surrender to it, try to trick it, bargain with it, or make a blubbering fool of yourself over it, but it permits no master.

The image I most often picture is that of those weird water snake toys we had back in the seventies (cough-cough, I mean eighties) where you’d try to hold onto them but the tighter you gripped, the faster they’d squirt out of your hand.  The equivalent of that happened to me today.  Work on the new novel was slow going for most of the day, with me wailing and agonizing and, as I usually do when I’m fearful, merely editing old pages instead of getting on with the show.  (This isn’t wholly a bad thing, as it saves me having to do a zillion drafts.)  Then, just as I give up, head to the living room, and turn on CNN for my evening dose of “Hey, look how shitty the government is!”, I go back into my little cave… just to close up my computer, you see… and come out an hour later with five new, rather lively pages.

What. The everloving. Fuck.

Perhaps it’s time I learned to cede control over the process, and just accept that it may take me a whole day of banging about the house, being useless and catching up on episodes of Nashville (which is fucking fantastic, by the way, at least if you write romance), before my brain ekes out that elusive element I’m after… inspiration.  Yet anyone who knows me knows that “laissez faire” and I are not on speaking terms.  I don’t easily let anything ride.  (My calender reminders have calender reminders.)  I fear if I don’t wrestle, I’ll get nothing done, and frankly I don’t think I’m wrong about that.  I suspect that without the all-day grudge match, my unconscious would not have had time to percolate.  And the more often I apply Ass A to Chair B, the closer I get to producing Product C, which is the novel I need to write.

I guess that’s why they pay us writers the big bucks.  Ahahahahahahahahaha.

Seriously, it’s a privilege to be a writer, and I’m luckier than I have any right to be.  But it’s not always easy.  And boy-howdy, it’s one trippy gig.

The Outline That Wasn’t

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Notebook picI lack discipline.

Absolutely and incontrovertibly this is so. Exercise regimens, vows to eat vegetables, promises to keep track of my budget–all are beyond my capacity to fulfill.  I can’t commit.  Can’t stay committed. It’s not that I want to conform for the sake of conformity, or be admired for my ooh-la-la adult-ish behavior.  Honestly, I’d happily don my old combat boots, shave my head into a mohawk, and shout “Fuck that noise!” if it weren’t for the fact that I actually want the benefits of a disciplined mind.  (And that I suspect I have an unflatteringly shaped skull.)

Anyhow, I wish I was some Stephen King type, a holier than thou “I write every day no matter what” dickbag.  I want more than anything to be regular in my writing habits, because, as my jealousy no doubt gives away, I believe that structure and sitzfleisch are some of the keys to great writing.  The more you plan ahead, the more focused your mind, the tighter your story weaves together and the better your book.

With pain, with wailing, hair-tearing and tears, I’m learning to glue my tuchus to the chair (I once had a roommate in college literally tie me to my desk with twine while I was trying to write an essay), but even once there, my mind won’t think in straight lines.

Thus, the outline that wasn’t.  Merry’s novel (AKA Book  2) is a series of great ideas, vignettes, and sample chapters right now.  She’s coming along great as a character, and the theme of the story is clear in my mind.  I know most of the important turning points, and have a store of hijinks just waiting to deploy.  But whenever I try to write a chapter outline to get all my ducks neatly in a row, I just…

SQUIRREL!

…go off on a tangent.  I get a few paragraphs in, determinedly denoting what makes each scene essential to the whole, delineating the important details, making decisions about what has to happen.  It’s incredibly helpful.  It clarifies concerns and opens doors, lays down the metaphorical railroad tracks ahead of my train of thought.  But then, just when I’m chugging along, I get a case of the “and then’s.”

You know: when you’re excited about an idea and you’re telling it to a friend, and you start spit-balling, and suddenly you’re saying, “and then… and then… a space cow flew outta the clouds and it started hurling plasma flops at everyone, and then… and then… um… Gary Oldman stepped up and whacked them with a cricket bat!  And then he saved the day, and then…”

Shit like that.

Next thing you know, your notebook has fifteen pages of Unibomber chicken scratch on it, with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one (points for knowing the reference there).  However, though you’re all fired up, you’re nowhere close to knowing exactly how you’re going to wedge cosmic cow flops and classically trained British actors into your story.  All you know is that you may as well just sit down and write a scene–any scene–and see where it leads you.

Because discipline ain’t leading me nowhere.  ‘Cept maybe the booby hatch.

A Room of One’s Own–Now With 100% More Lava Lamp!

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A few days ago I decided to “claim my space.”  Hoo, doggy, does that ever sound pretentious.  But it’s kinda what I did.  And I swear, it pertains to writing.  Lemmie ‘splain…

When we moved from a 500-square-foot studio in Manhattan to a 2,500-square-foot rental in a Santa Fe subdivision (not counting the garage), I felt like Julie Andrews whirling around atop the Alps, arms thrown wide.  We had more rooms than we had people!  More rooms than we had cats!  (So we adopted another cat.)  A guest room and a room just for the treadmill I carted 2,000 miles knowing I’d never use!  A few Craigslist expeditions later, and I even had some secondhand furniture to fill them.

The little bedroom in the back was supposed to be my sanctum sanctorum.  My writer’s cave.  My room with a view (of scrub brush and cactus, but still).  Instead it became home to a litter box, an ugly hutch-topped desk, and the aforementioned clothes hanger (ahem, treadmill).  It was depressing.  And smelly.  And I hated the hutch.  So I never went in there.  I wrote at the kitchen table or out at a cafe.  Which made for a messy, paper-strewn dining table and a lot of overpriced coffees charged on my credit card.  And no space where I could properly focus on being a writer.

I’d say this went on for over a year.  Then suddenly–eureka!–I got a bug up my butt.  “C’mon, husbeast,” I cried.  “Let’s spend your precious Sunday night shifting furniture around and hitting things with hammers!”

I have a very gracious husband.

And a couple hours later, I had a very inviting space.  Hutch dismantled.  Desk moved in front of window for maximum bunny-and-coyote spotting.  Litter box, banished.  Treadmill, relegated to inconspicuous corner.  And the funky blue lava lamp my brother got me when I was seventeen dug out of storage and placed proudly atop my desk.

lava_lampI haven’t turned it off since.  I freakin’ love that thing.  It reminds me of my essential ridiculousness, and the ridiculousness of what I do.  (Hell, I’m writing about a gal who gets exiled to a llama ranch right now…)  It’s useless as a light source, and a total waste of electricity, but for me it’s a beacon of silliness and creativity.  I watch it blub and bubble in my new, cozy office, and I feel like I’ve given my writing self a home where it’s okay to warm up, let thoughts burble to the surface, move mysteriously.  And for me, writing is mysterious.  As are my needs as a writer.  You’d think all I’d need is a laptop, or a pen and some paper.  Have muse, will travel, right?  Environment should be irrelevant…

Shouldn’t it?

Not so much.  For a while now I’ve writhed and wriggled like a kid with a wedgie every time I sat down to work on the new book.  I thought my restlessness and discomfort were never going to go away, or that I’d lost the knack for concentrating.  But since I claimed my space (there goes that obnoxious phrase again) I’ve felt a sense of renewed focus and energy.  I now love going into my cave in the morning, setting my coffee on the little warming disk, lighting some “Scents of the West” incense and listening to Neko Case or the National. When I’m in here, I’m a writer.

Turns out, I just needed a little, quiet corner to call my own.  And now I’ve got one.  Lava lamp and all.