Lynn Raye Harris

Things I’ve done recently:

1. Redesigned the website again. It was no longer an accurate reflection of all I’m writing. It is now more generic, though I warn you it will likely change again as I contemplate hiring a designer.

2. Started a Newsletter. You can sign up for it here:

Click to join lynnrayeharrisnews

Or scroll down and look for it on the sidebar (or at the newly revamped website…).

3. Did anyone else watch the premiere of Life last night? I loooove that show! So happy to see it come back on again. I was ticked that they canceled Moonlight, but at least they kept Life — and Pushing Daisies. That’s on tomorrow night.

Any shows you’re looking forward to? Any website redesigns? Anything?

Oops, didn’t get around to writing a new post until now. The anniversary graphic, while nice, is no longer relevant. We did have a nice time, though. Nice dinner out the first day, home cooked meal at Mom’s house the next. Pleasant times.

Finally, it’s starting to cool down a bit in Alabama. There’s a Fall nip to the air in the early mornings. I like that. You can still wear shorts or capris during the day, though. I like Fall. When I lived in Hawaii, I loved the weather. Summer all the time. But I realized when I moved that I did miss the seasons. I could do without Winter, of course. But Fall has that feeling of new beginnings, doesn’t it? Maybe it’s conditioned into us from the school years, but Fall is when you embark on something new. More so, I think, than New Year’s.

I love fresh start feelings. I think of new projects, or get into the mood to revitalize old projects. I have a new manuscript planned, and I’m having fun thinking about it. And yes, this pantser is trying very hard to write a synopsis and character backgrounds FIRST. It’s tough, but I think it’ll make the writing easier. But I won’t be committed to a definite path, so I can still change things as I write.

Any fresh starts for you this Fall? Busy weekends? Anniversaries?

Today is my anniversary! Not saying how many years, but it’s more than I can believe. When you spend enough time with a person, you get to a point where you’re amazed it worked out and positive you couldn’t live without each other.

Tomorrow is our anniversary too. We were married in Germany, so one day was the Burgermeister wedding, where we had to get married in the town hall, and the next was the church wedding for family and friends.

And we’re going to spend the day with both sets of parents. Kind of cool since we are all quite a bit older than we were then…..

I found this story inspiring!! An idea, thirty years, umpteen rejections, and finally published to acclaim.

And not only is it my debut novel, but it is my first piece of commercial fiction ever, and after an entire adult life of trying.

Would you give up if it took you 30 years? We are always told not to keep rewriting the same book. I happen to agree with that advice. But obviously it worked for this man. Fascinating story. What do you think?

I believe today’s post will be appearing at I Heart Presents. I’m talking about revisions and working with an editor. Stop by and ask me a question!

UPDATE: As of 8AM central, it wasn’t there yet. Keep checking. If not today, then hopefully tomorrow. But Amy told me today….

UPDATE AGAIN: It’s there! Click on over…

Do you get a lot of it? Because I don’t seem to lately. I go to bed at a reasonable hour (sort of) and then I lay awake thinking about what I need to do, what I want to do, and what is going to happen. Not a lot of fun to be tired and have your mind race.

When morning rolls around, the hubby gets up for work. And I can’t help but get up with him. Right now, his parents are visiting. And there’s a whole relationship with coffee that I thought I understood but apparently don’t. I love my coffee in the morning, don’t get me wrong.

But my FIL is SO worried about it, like I’m going to oversleep and he will have to sit there without it for hours on end, that I make sure I get up and put a pot on. I just can’t listen to the endless questions every night — “Will you make coffee in the morning?” or “Is there going to be coffee in the morning?” or “Are you making coffee?”

As IF.

So, even if I haven’t slept well, I have to get up and make the coffee. Add in the stress of revisions, submissions, and waiting for news and you have an insomniac writer. Guess I could work on the next book idea…..

Do you have trouble sleeping? What do you do for it? Do you have a crazy FIL who obsesses about coffee? Let’s talk. Just wake me up if I’m dozing….

It’s that time again, contest season (is there a season, or is this just when I’m judging a lot?), and I’m noticing something.

Good openings are hard to do. It’s tricky to get a character on the page, let the reader know what she needs to know, and get the ball rolling. There’s a balance to be found, isn’t there?

My favorite openings begin with a character in crisis. And I don’t mean running from a killer either (though that can work too!). I mean someone encountering something they usually don’t. Being forced to make choices and act.

I hate set up. I hate a character angsting about a situation and telling me all the bad things that have recently happened in order to get me up to speed. Just dump me in the thick of it and let me figure it out!

Long passages of our emotionally torn heroine thinking about what went wrong when her sister ran away with the circus clown, and how that meant she had to go tell the hunky hero what her sister had done — and, oh yeah, turns out he now owns or controls something very important to her — while checking her hair and eyes in the mirror and talking about how she doesn’t feel sexy these days…..

Um, no. Don’t like. Not enough to make me want to keep reading.

But openings with immediate drama and tension, I’m there. And yet I think writers sometimes get confused about what constitutes immediate drama and tension. A person on the run from something in and of itself isn’t enough. There must be some kind of sense for the reader of the stakes. What will be lost if a character I don’t even know gets caught?

Which, I suppose, comes down to this: Make me care about your character. I’m not sure this can be taught in 3 easy lessons. It must be learned over time and with much practice, I think.

I have often rewritten my first chapters until they were right. I’ve rewritten first scenes a dozen times, until it clicked. I don’t always get it right, but I’m not simply satisfied with an evocative first line and then a bunch of backstory.

Get the ball rolling. It doesn’t matter what Famous Alice Author does. It matters what YOU do.

What are your favorite types of openings? Least favorite?

There is a sense when you’ve turned in a book that everything is about to fall apart. Or at least that’s how I feel. I know this is normal. All my writer friends tell me so. Published authors still get worried about what their editor will think when the manuscript is turned in. (It goes without saying that unpublished writers are anxious when they send out books!)

Anxiety: A state of uneasiness and apprehension, as about future uncertainties.

This is my state today. I’m in that no man’s land between having turned in the book, waiting for the response, wondering whether to work on something else, and just thinking I ought to climb into bed and pull the covers over my head.

Anxiety comes with symptoms, among them headaches, nausea, insomnia, trembling, pacing, inability to concentrate, etc. There are many, many symptoms. Mine consist of the nausea, insomnia, and restlessness mostly. The headache is always an option with me.

I’ve pretty much decided this is part of the writerly state, part and parcel with the job. Every job has its stressors; I’m experiencing mine now. The book is gone and there’s nothing I can do but worry about it.

Anything making you anxious today? Any anxiety remedies?

“One should never criticize his own work except in a fresh and hopeful mood. The self-criticism of a tired mind is suicide.”
Charles Horton Cooley

So that’s pretty much my frame of mind right now. You? What are some of your favorite writerly quotes?

Here’s another one I like:

“I have rewritten–often several times–every word I have ever written. My pencils outlast their erasers.”
Vladimir Nabokov

That one’s been on my mind a LOT lately. I read a quote over on Jane Porter’s blog the other day that sort of says the same thing. It’s so good, and I agree so much, that I’m copying it for you here:

Getting a new book going is hard for me. I have all these ideas but putting the actual words down on paper is like wringing water from a virtually dry dishtowel. Just not a lot there. Maybe there’s never been a lot there. Books, I realize, are written word by word over long periods of time. Even on my good days, when words rush out in paragraphs, I’ll probably have to edit those down by slicing pages at a time.

Wringing water from a virtually dry dishtowel. Oh man, do I know that feeling! Sometimes it’s exactly like that. Other times, you type so fast but your hands can’t really keep up with everything coming from your head. I’ve had both and everything in between.

And yet, as I told my writer friend on the phone this afternoon, I can’t imagine doing anything else. No matter how tired I am, no matter how many nights I stay awake until 6AM the next morning writing like a fiend, I am SO happy. And so lucky. She agreed. Pretty much your worst day writing beats your best day doing anything else. Yeah.

Today, I’m going to lunch with my friend and just chilling. It’s a good feeling. What are you up to today? Writing plans? Other plans? If you’re a reader, what have you read lately that just knocked your socks off?

Yeah, so I’m writing. Lots’o drama. Hopefully not melodrama…..

Thanks for visiting me! Sorry I don’t have much to say at the moment. I’ll be back soon!