Excitement, Excitement!

well, about four months ago, I swore I was done with contests. I'd entered one with two entries, and out of a total of six judges had one who had anything remotely constructive to say. The rest went hog wild over things like separating dashes with spaces, how many spaces came before/after elipses, and the title of my manuscript. Seriously.

Cathy, fellow Dreamweaver, convinced me to enter one more -- North Texas RWAA's Great Expectations.

So, I polished my newest manuscript, my first romantic suspense, and mailed it off and promptly forgot about it.

Until I got a phone call telling me I'd finaled!

Actually, my mother received the call while I was snowed in on my farm. She phoned me in the middle of my, "Oh my gosh, the tractor cleared 4ft of lane and I need milk!" trip to the grocery store. I recieved the news while browsing hamburger.

Now it's wait and see. The manuscript goes to the final round editor and I am over the top excited about the opportunity. Fingers and toes crossed!

~Claire

www.claireashgrove.com

When Desire and Ability Don't Mesh

I've long been someone who preaches "You just have to make the time to write." Along with, "Write every day."

These last couple of weeks, I'm realizing that I have a burning desire to write, and my writing hours aren't meshing with that desire. My ability to produce, has been blindsided by one thing after another.

Sure, I'm still putting in words daily, and I'm still making sure I devote the effort, but I'm getting increasingly frustrated with the number of things that are intent on deterring me.

The latest was my living room.

Today while I'm getting things in order and gearing up for what would be a productive night of writing, with the ability to knock out at least half of my remaining words needed to complete a book, a friend of mine walks into my kitchen and says, "There's a puddle in your living room."

Well, my first instinct was, "Damn dog."

Oh no. It couldn't be that simple. My roof is leaking. Which put my mind on roof repairs for the rest of the day. And that means my weekend is now devoted to repairing the roof. Now, I have a pan keeping water off my hardwood floor and praying for everything to freeze solid. Snow, that I was bemoaning and hoping would go away, I want to stick around. Heck, big fat chunks of ice that take years to thaw out would be awesome right now. Anything to stop the plink plink plink background noise and the reminder that I have a headache to deal with that I can't fix immediately.

All of which is making it terribly difficult to focus on conflict resolution and happily ever afters.

Ugh.

But for those of you who are having similiar experiences with confined muses, take heart. If you can manage to drown out the noise, when you can tap into that muse and escape the reality for a little while, it does make the pounding in your head a little easier to deal with. The hammers might start up again the minute you get away from the computer, but as I've learned in the short tidbits of time I've been able to steal since January started -- for a little while, everything is normal and calm when I can craft words.

If I can just figure out how to, say, keep the kids from drowning the cat when I send one to help the other wash his hands... I might be able to eek out a few more words each day.

Laugh!

Happy writing all.

~Claire
www.claireashgrove.com

Frustrations

Several weeks ago, perhaps longer, I read a post by Dean Wesley Smith about how authors should not be afraid to mention how long it takes them to write a book, and that the perception that writing a book in a short time is a bad thing is hogwash. He went on to say that prolific writers are the writers of the future. At the time I read that, I had really no idea attitudes or perceptions like this existed.

Oh, could I have not begun to realize how quickly my little delusions would shatter.

I am a prolific writer. I write quickly to boot. (It drives my critique partners nuts sometimes -- right gals?) I have been fighting constraints related to this. Been told to slow down. Been advised to steer away from areas I want to pursue. Been told to not admit how quickly I can put a book together start to finish.

All since I started reading Dean's blog -- maybe he jinxed me. Laugh!

So today, after hitting a final plateau in my frustrations, I bit the bullet and reinvented myself incognito so I can pursue some of my other passions. And you know, it felt liberating to take that jump. To embrace this evidently shady side of my nature and celebrate it by promoting it. I'm still Claire, still writing romance, and that won't change. But I also have an alter-ego, and my alter-ego doesn't write romance at all.

Let's change this, authors, if we can. It's really a shame that an author can't be congratulated for multiple accomplishments under the same identity. We've been branded, we've given control over our careers to others. I read an agent who said once, "Revisions should take at least six months to complete." -- Says who? Doesn't that depend on how quickly the author grasps what's being asked of her, how quickly she can apply that, and how much time to spend with her craft she has?

There's something wrong with the belief that quality is only established within certain parameters of time. Quality is only dependant on how seriously the author applies herself to her craft. I can't buy into any other philosophy. I mean, we're talking sheer math to a degree. If one author has 12 hours in a day to write, and another author has 2 hours to write... yeah... those revisions might take six months for the second, but that time is going to be significantly shorter to the first author.

It's like saying the only way to achieve an "A" in school is to study by one method and one method only. And as authors, people who exercise -- really exercise -- the creative part of our brains, telling us there's only one way to write and only one acceptable approach is simply... unacceptable.

So here's to escaping frustrations, and here's to embracing the red-headed stepchild of my personality :)

~Claire

Looking Forward

Well, it's that time of year again, where I start looking at what I did this year, and what I want to accomplish next year. I'm working on a series of posts about goals on my personal blog, The Muse, so I'm going to skip that discussion here. But I thought I'd do a brief recap since part of our Dreamweaver blog is geared to share experiences.

QUERIES/SUBMISSIONS:
Thank every being that is powerful and divine I no longer have to deal with this. My agent (bless her a hundred times over) now holds the bulk of this responsibility. Sure I have to input. Sure I have to provide the content for her to work with. But wowee, this is the best darn part of having an agent for me -- I only have to write these damnable things and open myself to blood-letting rejections for contests or in preparation for a face-to-face pitch.

That said, I'll share a little bit of insight on what was shopped this year.

--My Templar book1 went on submissions, and sold.

--My historical project has met the brick wall of currently not in market demand. Sad, as I am particularly in love with that series, but so be it.

--I submitted a brand-spanking new project to my agent, in a brand-spanking new subgenre that will go out sometime early in 2011.

--I revisited a previously completed paranormal project and it is currently under review.

SALES:
I had two sales this year, the Templar series and A Christmas To Believe In to the Wild Rose Press.

PROMOTIONS:
Where I've shed the nightmare of queries, I've inherited the nightmare of promotions. This year I've blogged my little heart out, tried to network as much as time can allow. I purchased some advertising opportunities (after extensive consulting with fellow authors -- more time), that will happen in 2011. I've made book trailers for three books/projects. (Go check 'em out!)

WORKS COMPLETED:
Hee. This is always my favorite part because what I have done in a particular year is never obvious by an end-of-year recap. Where I only show that I sold two books, I have written six and 3/4 books, plotted in detail double that, revised one, started a side-project, and handled edits on two. Shew!

So what am I looking at in 2011?

Well, of those manuscripts completed, two already sold, another two are contracted, and I already discussed the others. Which leaves me looking at finalizing the Templar series in 2011, starting a new historical project, finishing the side-project, completing another project for TWRP with Dyann, and writing the follow up to the brand-spanking new project. All told, I'm looking to complete seven full length manuscripts in 2011. If the project currently under review gets the go-ahead, that will also mean revisions on the second book already written.

I anticipate a year of heavy editing as well. I'll have edits for Templar1, possibly edits for Templar2. Edits for the TWRP project.

My special project is in a field completely unrelated to romance. That requires some intensive market studying and research there as well. But I hope to break into the market and embed myself professionally there too. If it goes, I'll have to change out one of my planned writing projects to write a sequel.

RELEASES:
I will see the release of Waiting For Yes. That's all I know concretely at this time. Though I anticipate an additional Christmas release, and the release of Templar1.

PROMOTIONS:
The bane of my existence will only intensify. Each book sold will require a trailer -- not necessarily a demand but something I've committed myself to maintaining. Blogging has to keep up, and I must maintain my attempts to network.

I'll also be traveling this year, presenting a workshop at the NOLA STARS conference in March, and hopefully attending two other events that I haven't quite nailed out yet off my list of possibilities.

2011 is promising to be a busy year. While on the surface it may seem impossibly busy, it's really not much more than what 2009 or 2010 has presented. It's just a readjustment of priorities and a matter of trading out some of the things I was doing, for some of the things I must now do.

To accomplish these things I've developed a very tedious schedule and a whole set of individual goal lists.

As I mentioned before though, and will continue to mention on The Muse, being a writer is a job. It isn't just a lark. And while some might believe that getting published is the end of the ladder, an accomplishment that makes life easier... oh heck no. The only time it becomes easy is when a writer attains the status of King, Koontz, Roberts etc. Authors who are household names and folks who don't even read the genre know them. I'm not saying their work is any less difficult than mine, necessarily, but one thing is for certain... they can be counted on to sell just on name alone, and promotions definitly isn't something the author has to invest a lot of time with. Submissions/queries/sales neither. They have their own share of heavy demands. But when one attains that level, the job of being an author falls more in line with the perception of having a 'cush job'. I'm absolutely certain the reality is different.