My Writing Spot

As promised, today the authors participating in the Meet an Author Monday blog hop will be showing you their workspace.



For my writing time, I decided to nestle myself into a corner of our living room. I have a beautiful view of grape vineyards outside my window (though you wouldn't know it from the blindingly beautiful glow in the picture). I always have a cup of coffee to my left. My current read (Lauren Kate's Torment) to my right. And if you look closely you can barely see the edges of stacks of paper on the far left...those are the Golden Heart entries I'm supposed to judge by March 1st. I'm a tad behind...

But my writing space is just that...*MY* writing space. No clutter. No bills. No stress. Just an orchid, my coffee, and writing materials. That's where I work best. (I totally just typed "That's where I work beer." Freud would have a field day with me right now!)

On to the hop! Here's how it works:

READERS:

•Follow as many authors as you like. Just follow the Linky list and hop from author to author. The idea is to find as many "new to you" authors as you can, and hopefully some great new reading material as well. Leave a comment as you hop from blog to blog! We'd love to chat with you!

AUTHORS:

•Follow the Meet an author Monday host (Cali Cheer Mom) along with any of the wonderfully talented authors on the list.
•You will need to enter your name and blog url into the Linky tool.
•Grab our super cute button and place it in a post. (THIS IS IMPORTANT!) If you don't create a post for the hop, your readers won't have a place to comment, and the hop will stop with you. So create a post, paste in the Linky code and start hopping!
•The purpose of the hop is to meet "new to you" authors and discover great new reads. Follow as many authors as you can. Leave a comment and introduce yourself!
•If you'd like to share the Linky list in a post on your blog ( Please do!) just follow the link and grab the code.

Signs are EVERYWHERE

Some signs need no explanation...


*This one's on the way to Arnold, CA. It was rainy. Foggy. Snowy. Windy. Icy. Our four-wheel drive decided to malfunction. (Murphy's Law, anyone?) Have you ever driven up a hill completely sideways, skidding the whole way, looking "forward" through the passenger side window? Sad to say I can mark that off my bucket list.


*

Some signs remind you what you should be doing...

*Ruan is the name of my hero in my work-in-progress. Yes, the truck was my inspiration. I thought Ruan...Ruin...tortured hero...PERFECT! But when you're going through a writing slump, bashing a scene into place (which I was at the time), the last thing you want is to see your main character on every milk truck that passes you by.

*

Some signs give you hope...

*I'm currently on submission with Harper Collins' imprint Avon. I haven't seen an ad for Avon in YEARS. Maybe since the late 1980's. Yet there it was, staring me in the face in the Dairy Queen drive through. A reminder to have hope...that there might be good things to come. I said a prayer, crossed my fingers...and picked up my chocolate chip cookie dough blizzard.

*

Some remind us of a forgotten age...



*This sign is one I found while traipsing through Fort Point in San Francisco. I was researching Immortal, Beloved at the time. This one was bolted to a brick wall on the barracks side of the fort.


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And there are those that show us what the future holds...



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Other signs make you read in awe...


*Another Fort Point beauty. I read this one over and over again. I could only dream of writing something so awe-inspiring. It was pinned beneath a window with a view of the center courtyard lightower.


*

Some signs aren't even signs at all. Sometimes the feelings bubbling inside of you are signs. Signs you're on the right path...or the wrong one. I feel happy. Hopeful. Grateful. Appreciative. In my book, those feelings are all signs of good things to come. If I'm a member of this group in any way shape or form, my future is brighter than I ever could've imagined...


*San Francisco Chapter of Romance Writer's of America board. I couldn't ask for a better group of gals to be on this journey with.

Dark Tide Rising Love and Some Giveaways

Okay, there's a few things to mention today, none of which are normal Monday things like school and work, and all of them make me very, VERY happy.

Catch Dark Tide Rising as the featured novel over at Mithril Wisdom. You just missed his 100 Follower giveaway but the blog is informative and witty and you can really hear Mithril's voice through the posts. Could you ask for anything more from a writer? I think not.

Also, romance authors Tina Folsom and Bella Andre (all-around great gals and fellow members of SFARWA) are giving away Nook colors. The requirements to enter are super easy and best of all: THEY'RE FREE. Tina's giveaway ends January 24th (That's tomorrow folks!) at 9pm. Bella's giveaway ends January 31st at 9pm so you have a bit more time.

And last but not least, I'm giving away two signed copies of Dark Tide Rising! I'll throw in a few bookmarks too because they're too beautiful not to pass around. (Geez, how many toos were in that sentence? Two too many. Ha!)

Rules to enter:

~Contest open to US Residents only
~Be a Follower of my blog (All you've got to do is click Follow on the right sidebar and enter your email address. I'll never spam you--promise.)
~Comment this post answering the following question:

In Dark Tide Rising, police sergeant Mark Thurgood is deathly afraid of the ocean. What are you deathly afraid of?

~Winner will be selected using Random.org
~Contest ends one month from today: February 24th at 9pm. Winner to be contacted via email then announced through a subsequent blog post.

Sagging Middles

No, I'm not talking about that little pooch hovering around your middle. I'm talking about the drawn out middle section of your work-in-progress.

You'll know if you have one:
Is there a certain chapter driving you mad? Giving you all kinds of problems? A certain character who won't get in line and do as you want him to? Is the writing slow and choppy? Have you edited it a thousand times over and *still* something doesn't seem right about it?

If you answered YES then your problem most likely is not that chapter or character or scene that is "sticking"...it's the sagging middle pulling down other threads of your story. The plot should roll. Fast. (Although I struggled in my own WIP to make certain parts PERFECT, and rewrote them {and rewrote them over and over again}, I honestly felt like I was still in the beginning throws of my book, still tossing conflict at the characters, still building their relationships, when I suddenly realized I had to start wrapping things up. I started panicking that I didn't have enough room to finish the growth that the characters so needed.)

So how do you stop the middle of your book from sagging?

Use the Three Act Structure.
Use GMC: Goal, Motivation, Conflict. (Although I prefer reading it straight from Deb Dixon.
Remember Vogler's Hero's journey.

Those are great tools. If you're still stuck, here's a quick checklist you can go through to be sure your middle doesn't sag:

1-Characters aren't drifting through--make sure they have solid, clear goals.

2-Are characters getting closer to those goals? Or closer to realizing what they are, at the very least?

3-Are all scenes ending with the characters' needs being met? THEY SHOULDN'T BE. Do you always get what you want? No. Neither do I. Neither should your characters. It complicates things and that's exactly what you want.

4-Do you have unexpected twists and turns? Some event that takes the story in a different direction? (And side note: what would happen if that event pushed your character into a corner?)

5-Are your emotional stakes high enough in the middle? Do they escalate?

6-How's your pacing? Is it choppy and quick? Or long winded and dreary? Speed things up by creating a sense of urgency, not just with your words, but with your sentence structure.

7-Are there dead weight scenes? Find THREE purposes to keep the scene in your work-in-progress. If you can't find three VALID reasons, HACK IT.

8-Is your writing cliche-driven? Does your plot have predictable patterns? Change things up. Lead the readers a certain direction in your chapter or scene, then end it COMPLETELY DIFFERENTLY.

How's your middle looking now?

Thick Skin

(This post brought to you by the news of my first "on submission" rejection.)

Rejection sucks. It really does.

Whether you're trying to break into the publishing industry with queries to agents or submissions to editors...or whether you just passed along your very first draft to your very first critique partner...you always stand the risk of being told "it's not good enough."

And, sadly, that's what I was told earlier this week. Three times. Yup. The first rejection was from a major publishing house in NY. I'm bummed to say the least. But Enemy, Beloved is still with two houses, and there's a few more out there so DONT'FREAKOUTKRISTIN!

*deep breath*

The other two "rejections" came in the form of critique partner feedback for Immortal, Beloved, the sequel to Enemy, that I just finished. I sent off the last 50 pages to be torn apart by two of the most vicious (and also smartest and most appreciated) critique partners out there. They didn't hate it...per se...just tore it to shreds saying it could be tons better.

*deep breath*

This writing gig is hard. Really hard. I feel like I'm competing with the likes of authors I love to read (ie: Brennan, Novak, Ward, Ione, Kate, McCarty) and here's the even scarier part...I AM! I really am. I desperately wanted to send my crit partners my work and have them tear the house apart running to the computer screen. I wanted them to devour the pages. I wanted them to call screaming that they want more...a third in the series! But they didn't.

So in the face of the three rejections this week I did absolutely nothing yesterday other than watch DANGEROUS BEAUTY. Do you remember the film about the 16th century courtesans? If you haven't seen it OHMYGOSHWHYHAVEN'TYOUSEENIT you should netflix it. It's about forbidden first love and tears my heart out for the heroine every single time. I kept myself busy by cleaning cobwebs out of my vaulted ceiling and my brain. I devoured my crit partners' harsh, but heartfelt, words...and chocolate.

Then I got back down to business. Instead of saying "thanks for reading my work" and moving along with minor edits to appease my injured ego, I listened to all they had to say. Really listened. I took notes. Asked questions about my own plot, including hypotheticals. I asked where they were taken out of the story (took notes) then where they were "in" it (took more notes). I analyzed why and read (I mean researched) some of my favorite books, rereading parts that hooked me and asked myself why. Why do I care at that moment? How did Ms. NYT Bestselling do that? I took more notes.

It would've been easy to say my crit partners were too harsh. It would've been easy to let their sobering advice about one of my plot points fall on deaf ears. I could've easily thought "I'm the writer, and I like this scene, I'll do what I damn well please."

But this writing gig isn't easy. So if I want to make it among the likes of Brennan, Novak, Ward, Ione, Kate, and McCarty I have to work as hard as they do. I have to take that soul dampening advice and chop apart my manuscript no matter how much I want to be done.

That's my challenge today: look at the manuscript with fresh eyes. Love nothing so dear that I can't chop it to bits. Try not to worry about being done, but rather being great.

And *deep breath* here I go.