Tuesday, November 5, 2013

I'm back!

My "Fall Fever" left me this past week. I blame the drop in temperature and the gray skies. At any rate, I've gotten back to business.

The business at hand now is...deciding what to do next. Maybe my previous inertia had more to do with the fact that I finished "Riverbend" than the nice weather. I have sent it out to see what happens, which is a waiting game all writers are familiar with. No joke, some writers get a rejection slip years after they submitted a manuscript. The lucky ones can write back with the cheerful news that their book has been in print for some now, thank you very much.

No writer I know sits back and waits. The kind of inertia I experienced last week can wreck a career before it starts. Kristen Lamb blogged today that success comes only with hard work (which we know, or should know). She likens it to planting an orchard. No one plants a seed and expects a tree full of fruit the next day.

A writer is planting seeds every time she blogs, Tweets or leaves a post on Facebook. But, like the farmer, she should not expect her work to yield an instant crop...of readers, not peaches.

Until I read that, I was getting discouraged. The agent I pitched "Riverbend" to told me gently that historicals just aren't selling now.  The new big thing is erotica, which I won't touch. I'm not against it if that is what people enjoy, but I don't enjoy reading it and I don't think I would enjoy writing it. Or maybe I would, because I would be laughing at myself as I wrote.

I'm toying with an idea now, running it around in my brain, trying visualize the characters, wondering what kinds of stumbling blocks I put in their way as they journey toward their goals. And what are those goals? Do they even know, or do they think they want one thing when deep inside they really want another?

Yeah, I may look like I'm napping, but inside my head the wheels are turning, folks.

And, I'm still cultivating my orchard ( 3 trees full now!) I need only two more reviews for "Angels Unaware" before I can submit it to a newsletter that suggests titles to its readership. It's just another way to get it noticed, which is the hardest thing for a new writer to do. Unless she changes her name to Nora Roberts.

But I think that's unethical, if not illegal.

4 comments:

  1. I get "fall fever" any time of the year! smile. I haven't written much lately, but - like you - have many wheels turning. I did read Fifty Shades of Gray. OMG! Pure erotica! I couldn't write anything like that either and it's the last one I'll probably ever read! I don't know how it will become a movie unless it's Porn! Glad you are out of your "funk" and look forward to reading more from you.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I think historicals are coming back - so be ready to go when the market changes!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sandy, Enjoyed reading your post. I like the metaphor of comparing writing to seeds in an orchard.

    ReplyDelete