Lynn Raye Harris

This post by Alison Kent should be required reading for all writers!

We talk about fear of failure, but I don’t think we consider fear of success as often. Think about authors you know whose success has meant losing friends, suffering excessive professional jealousy, sacrificing long lazy hours of family time and spending the same touring, signing, pimping. *g* Many authors are private people, hermits of the worst sort. Success puts us into the limelight, but if you believe all the publicity blogs out there, we give up that privacy the minute we sell a book, and we become promotional machines.

Sure, it’s easy to say you’d have no problem, boy, if only that NY house would call you up and offer you a contract. But, as Alison discusses in her post (the Fortune quiz made my jaw hit the floor — so much of that I could say yes to), the fear of success isn’t that simple. What if you get the call, but things don’t turn out the way you thought they would? What if you sell the book, but lose the drive because you no longer have a goal to strive for? Sounds silly, but anything’s possible. (No, I doubt I’d lose the motivation once I had the contract, but that was one of the examples.)

I am good at self-sabotage. I’ve sabotaged myself for the last two years with this Master’s degree. I should have finished it a long time ago, and now the absolute deadline is staring me in the face and I’m sweating and straining and working my tail off to get it done. Oh, I will get it done, but at what cost to myself?

And what about writing? I’ve used the MA as an excuse for years now. I keep telling myself that when I finish the thesis, I’ll have all this wonderful free time to work on my stories. But, you know what, I’m afraid I won’t. I’m afraid that without an academic deadline, I’ll piddle around with the stories, tinkering, tinkering, tinkering and never quite perfecting them (I’m a Virgo, and that’s bad, bad, bad when you want to finish something).

Not that I haven’t written in the last couple of years. Of course I have. I found my voice when I moved to Hawaii, for various reasons. I finished one novel, half of another, saw my work published in several local forums. I’ve designed a workshop and presented it at a conference. I’m slated to give another workshop, with two of my RWA chapter buddies, in October at a local conference.

But I’ve got some things I should have accomplished that I haven’t. I’m not going into detail because it will only make me feel worse.

And that hermit thing — oh yeah, that’s me. I’m not shy after spending many years married to an extrovert and learning how to mingle, but I so DON’T want to read my work aloud to strangers on Wednesday. I’ll do it, and I’ll live through it, but the suffering will come not from being in front of people (I can handle that) but from sharing something so personal (my work) with them. I’d rather they didn’t like me and loved my story than the other way around. Is that weird?

Fear of success? Self-sabotage? Gone any rounds with these insidious beasts?

In 2.5 years in Hawaii, I’ve never yet set up my scanner. So I had to take a photo of the flyer for my reading on Wednesday in order to share it here.

I’m reading with three other Aloha Chapter members. The only other person on here with a website is Michael Little (see sidebar). Michael is a fabulous reader, having appeared on the Aloha Shorts radio program and given readings at various other venues across the island. Go read his wonderful short story, “Walter! Walter!”, which won the Honolulu Magazine fiction writing contest a few years ago. Great story, told from a local angle. The Hawaii that tourists have no idea exists.

I’ll be reading an excerpt from “Maddie’s Marine,” which appears in Strong Currents 2 (see pic in sidebar). I’m working on a new submission for SC3, which should be out next spring.

Early Shakespeare Folio Auctioned for Millions

Morning Edition, July 13, 2006 · A rare first edition of Shakespeare’s complete plays sells for over five million dollars at auction in London. Peter Selley, Sotheby’s English literature expert, talks about the importance of the folio with Renee Montagne.

Update: the Morning Edition link takes you to a story about Rembrandt. Here’s the correct link for the Bard.

The thesis proceeds apace (see word count meter in the sidebar). I’ve written around 3000 words this week, which is good. My goal today is to finish the chapter on Mrs. Dalloway. Monday begins To the Lighthouse, which should be easier for me (I hope) because I already know exactly what I want to do in this chapter. Orlando and the conclusion come next.

And now you’re wondering, with so much hanging over my head, what I’m doing here. Well, quite honestly, I’ve discovered that one needs a break from all this intellectual stuff. I can immerse myself in my fiction and write non-stop for hours and hours, but academic writing tires me out. So, I don’t begrudge myself a break. It’s needed for sanity.

An amusing post today over at Miss Snark (what’s new about that!).

Every year, English teachers from across the country can submit their collections of actual analogies and metaphors found in high school essays. These excerpts are published each year to the amusement of teachers across the country. Here are last year’s winners…..

Just a few of my favorites are:

6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

8. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife’s infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM machine.

11. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you’re on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.

23. The ballerina rose gracefully en Pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.

You really have to go read the rest. Some aren’t bad at all, and some are hysterical.

You should also check out Alison Kent today. Seems as if an unpublished writer went and wrote a nasty review of a published novel on Amazon.com. Never, ever a good idea. Yes, writers are readers too, but if you want to have a career in publishing, you simply MUST realize what a small community it really is, especially within genres. This woman wants to publish romances, but she publicly trashed a romance and didn’t hide her identity when she did it. Not good, because now this post is making its way around the cyber-community like a house afire. And as we know, editors and agents blog too. Ahem.

Does this mean that writers can’t have opinions? Of course not, but there are better ways to say you didn’t like a book. Just state the reasons why it didn’t work for you, without insulting the author, editor, and readers. But, if you want my advice, don’t say anything if you can’t say anything nice. There are plenty of non-writer reviewers out there for that. And just remember, if you DO sell a book one day, it’ll be up for review. If you wouldn’t want it said about you, then don’t say it about someone else.

Live aloha, baby.

Western will not do (some of you thought the previous template had an Old West feel), so until I have the time to build my own template, here’s something nice and readable. Whew, darn Blogger. If it hadn’t eaten my other one yesterday, I wouldn’t have to do this!

I did not set out today to change the look of this blog! One minute I was reading comments and the next the background was gone. I kid you not! I wasn’t even signed in, just hit the refresh button, and my template was gone. Lots of white space, no colors or columns or anything. All my material was still there, but the background was MIA.

That, of course, would not do. I checked out other people on Blogger and saw that no one else seemed to be having a problem. I waited several hours, refreshing periodically, and still no template. I checked the HTML — it was still there and should have worked.

Finally, I gave up and went in search of a new template. So, voila! I unveil for you the new Romancing Paradise, soon to be renamed Romancing the South or something like that.

And if any of you have a clue what the hell Blogger did when it decided not to display my template anymore, I’d love to know. For once, I’m stymied. It can’t be my fault because I wasn’t signed in and fiddling!

Hope you like the new look.

Aloha.

I’m coming out of thesis overdrive to sample the blogs (because let’s face it, a non-stop diet of Virginia Woolf, no matter how amazing her work, can get depressing without something else to think about periodically). I surfed over to Allison Brennan’s site and found this link to an article by Sarah Weinman about blogging. Great article! Check out her 8 tips to a successful blog.

I used to try to post every day, but I just can’t manage it lately. Maybe I need to plan better, definitely post on certain days of the week. I like to take weekends off because I’m spending it with the hubby and I can never predict what we’re going to be doing.

One of the things Sarah talks about are long-term goals. I don’t think I have any. I started blogging as a way to reconnect with other writers and with the writing community. Several years ago, one of the best writers’ communities anywhere was a bulletin board. It was on the GEnie network and was a meeting point for romance writers everywhere. The sense of community was amazing, and when it went the way of the dinosaur (individual web presences becoming de rigeur) I missed it very much. Starting a blog, and reading blogs by other writers, gives me that same sense of community I had on the RomEx. (And I get to connect regularly with at least one other writer who was a part of my intimate circle on RomEx, the fabulous Terry K. who blogs at I See Invisible People.)

Beyond that, I had no long term goal. I suppose I wanted a web presence because I was also looking ahead and thinking that when I sold my first novel I didn’t want to have to learn how to do all this. I wanted it ready to go, the learning curve long since mastered.

I know I’ve asked before why you blog, but how about if I ask what your long-term goals are, if any, with the blog?

Saturday was my monthly RWA meeting. I’m so going to miss my friends from the Aloha Chapter! We’re a small group. We have 26 members, but probably half of them live on the mainland, so it’s usually just 10 or so of us that meet regularly.

We had the usual fun time, talking about writing and stories, then carrying the conversation over to lunch. We practiced reading our work aloud since 8 of us are reading at a local library in the next two weeks. I’m reading on Wednesday, July 19th. This will be my first reading in public and I’m trying not to think about it too much. Ha! I’ll be reading “Maddie’s Marine” from Strong Currents 2.

What I learned about reading aloud? Slow down, first of all. You may think you’re reading slowly, but chances are — if you’re new at it — you’re reading much faster than you think. Slow dooooowwwwwn. Enunciate and take your time.

Secondly, make eye contact with your audience. Project your voice outward, not down to the page in front of you. Third, practice, practice, practice at home before doing this in front of an audience. And time yourself, so you know how long it takes to read the excerpt you’ve chosen. We will have approximately 10 minutes each, so that’s time for an introduction, a bit about the story, excerpt, and thanking the audience.

I’m sure we discussed other tips too, and I have notes and the handout that our experienced reader prepared, but this is what I remember off the top of my head. Most important, I think, is the advice to practice, preferably in front of someone you trust to give you good feedback. Fortunately, my husband is an accomplished public speaker and he’s been giving me some good advice.

Did I mention, btw, that the first word of my story is “sex”? I can’t believe I have to say that out loud in front of a bunch of people I don’t know. Yikes.

How was your 4th? Ours was pretty neat. We could see three fireworks displays at once: Hickam Beach, Pearl Harbor, and Magic Island. We drove out to the beach about 15 minutes before the fireworks began and had a great view over the water of the Hickam display. Fifteen minutes after it started, Magic Island and PH started. We couldn’t see those quite as well, but it was still cool. Traffic getting home was a breeze, fortunately, and I thanked my lucky stars when I watched the news later that we did not go to downtown to watch the Magic Island display. People were still trying to get out of there two hours after the fireworks ended.

Around the ‘sphere this morning, I’ve recently discovered a new-to-me site: The Writing Playground. They have a recent interview up with Brenda Chin, Harl Blaze editor extraordinaire. And, best of all, these ladies are members of the Heart of Dixie chapter, which is the chapter I will join when I get to Alabama. Looks like a fun crowd.

Bookseller Chick had this link to a USA Today article about paranormal romance. Fascinating.

Now that it’s July, you know what that means. Yes, countdown to the RWA National Conference in Atlanta at the end of the month. I’ve managed to be an RWA member for quite a few years now and still haven’t gone to National. I thought this year would be the year. Nope, not with a retirement and cross-ocean move coming up. Maybe next year. (Which is what I say every year.)

Countdown to retirement: approx 4 months. Countdown to move: approx 4.5 months. Countdown to thesis due in library, finalized version: 3 months. Countdown to first draft due to mentor: 3 weeks. Countdown to me getting my butt off the computer and into high gear: .5 seconds.

Aloha…..

You know about “found poems,” right? Those poems you create from a collection of words or phrases found in a piece of literature? Found poems can be fun, and they can be a way to jump start your own writing for the day. I once found a poem in Mein Kampf — can you believe it? It wasn’t pretty, of course. It was ugly and nasty, just like the author, but there it was and I couldn’t help but cobble it together.

So what’s found wisdom? Well, it’s not something you cobble together, but something you find when you pick up a book at random and open the pages. Lately, I’ve been going through my bookshelves, which is a frightening, daunting, time-consuming (and sneeze-inducing) task. I have hundreds of books and some tough decisions to make regarding them. Some of my books are old, given to me or found in musty old bookstores halfway around the world.

One such book is called Caravan by Nobel winner John Galsworthy (of The Forsyte Saga fame.) This copy is a 1929 hardcover edition. I can here admit that I had never cracked the book open before today. Caravan is an assembly of short stories, but it’s Galsworthy’s foreward that hooked my interest. Here is a bit of wisdom for every writer.

Like some long caravan bearing merchandise of sorts, the tales of a writer wind through the desert of indifference towards the oasis of public favour. Whether they ever arrive, or drift to death among the shifting sands of popular taste, lies on the knees of the gods–their author has no say. When he has mustered and sent them forth, he may retire and squat afresh on the carpet of vision, having done all he can.

Whoa, is that wisdom for the ages or what? I love it. The desert of indifference. Geez, does it get any better than that?

(Now where the hell did I misplace my carpet of vision…..?)