Lynn Raye Harris

It was a busy weekend here in Northern Alabama! The Heart of Dixie chapter participated in a local event called Female & Fabulous at the civic center. There were health, beauty, and lifestyle booths spread around the center, lots of giveaways, and Clinton Kelly from TLC’s What Not to Wear made an appearance.

I’ve never watched WNTW, but I think I will in the future. I liked what Clinton said. He said one thing that really impressed me: “Don’t dress to please a man.” The other thing he talked about was young women and the pressure to dress like Paris, Britney, or Lindsay. Those clothes, the ones that show lots of skin, aren’t necessary. You don’t have to dress like a ho to be beautiful. After that, I figured I was in love. When he continued on to say that catalog models weren’t women to emulate because they weren’t typical, well, the applause was deafening. The guy was funny, engaging, and entertaining. Other than the women who just wanted to smell or hug him, it was a great question and answer session he gave. (And what’s with people anyway that they raise their hand for a question and then just want to smell the guy when he comes over? Sheesh.)

As romance writers, we often write women who are smart and confident. They may not start out that way, but they end up that way by the end of the book. Confident women moving forward with the man they’ve fallen in love with. They don’t compromise who they are to be with the hero. Nor does the hero want them to. I guess that’s why I love romance.

So, let’s remember that even though real life isn’t fiction, we can still be confident women who have every right to our own sense of self-worth that is NOT dependent upon a man. A man is your partner, not your reason for existing. No romance heroine would ever make that mistake, so why is it that romance novels get the reputation for being fluffy and trashy? Just another thing I don’t get.

What’s the worst thing you’ve ever worn? I can’t remember the worse thing I’ve ever worn, but when I was about nine, I got into my mother’s makeup and proceeded to cake it on. Then I went outside to wait for my grandmother to pick me up for my trip to the skating rink. She took one look and went ballistic. Since she never, ever raised her voice or got upset, I guess I must have looked pretty awful. Needless to say, she made me wipe it all off.

This has been one heck of a week, y’all. I’m still getting used to the changes. I have not sold a book, but my professional life changed in the space of one phone call. And then another call came that iced the cake even more. There have been emails, phone calls, old friends coming out of the woodwork. Mostly, it’s been great.

It’s also been somewhat distracting. I kind of got a glimmer of what it’s like for authors who keep checking their Amazon numbers or need to stop writing and take care of business tasks that won’t wait. You can get caught up following a task until you realize an hour has passed since you meant to stop and go do something else like, say, eat.

And then there’s been the tiniest bit of, well, negativity floating my way. Most people are happy for me. A couple are not. It happens, and I understand that.

But I also feel somewhat blown away by it, by the idea that anyone would think I won the Harlequin contest or finaled in the Golden Heart due to anything other than hard work and a refusal to give up. I had this conversation once with a writer who got a fabulous book deal and then had people talking about how her “connections” are what did it for her. Her supposed connections weren’t connections. She wasn’t the First Dog or anything. (Millie the Spaniel wrote a book with Barbara Bush, you may remember…)

I certainly didn’t get to this point alone. I’ve been lucky enough to have a husband who believes in me, a critique partner who tells me the truth, and an entire organization telling me to climb back on the horse when I fell off. Most of my writing friends know the vagaries of this business from personal experience, but there are always those people who think there’s a secret handshake, a password into the temple of publishing.

There isn’t, folks. You write the best damn book you can, realize when it may not be good enough, and then write another one. And you always, always act like a professional. That’s the only secret I know.

Do you know any secrets to this biz? Why do you think a sensible person typically knows he can’t play Mozart overnight but expects to be able to write an amazing bestseller on the first try?

P.S. Party over at the Writing Playground today! It’s a Friday celebration by my friends at the Playground, so come on over and have a good time!

OMG, I just got the call that my military romantic suspense manuscript, HOT PURSUIT, is a finalist in the Contemporary Series Romance: Suspense/Adventure category!!!!!
I’ve never finaled before, though I think this was my 4th time entering. Y’all, it CAN happen!

UPDATE: The finalist list can be found at Romance Writers of America.

Okay, so I worked today. Wrote about 1500 words. I had a panicky moment where I thought I’d never get into the groove, but then it came. Sometimes, it’s like pulling teeth. Other times, you’re rolling along so good you don’t even want to stop and eat. I had both sensations today.

Some of it, I’m sure, was performance anxiety. I’ve never had to actually sit down and produce pages for anyone but me (if you don’t count college work, lol). This is a new feeling. One I can totally get used to. I told the hubby that it felt like the first day at a new job (in a strange kind of way). It’s exciting and thrilling and odd all at once.

Tuesday’s goal: 1500 words.

Thanks again to everyone who came to congratulate me. I appreciate it so much. You kept me smiling and feeling great for days.

Y’all, I’m so excited I can hardly stand it! I found out yesterday that I won the Harlequin Presents Instant Seduction contest!!! I have won an editor for a year. I’m still in shock. And I’ve already talked to her on the phone, and she’s fabulous. I’m looking forward to working with her on making THE SPANISH MAGNATE’S REVENGE into the best book I can.

I know it’s not my usual military romantic suspense, but Presents novels have always been special to me. They were the first romances I ever read, and I’ve always wanted to write for them. I got up the courage to try when the contest was announced. I never thought I’d win, and certainly not over 599 other entries. I’m so happy and humbled by the experience.

What next? Get to work on the book, of course. Now I feel like I have a real deadline and people not to disappoint. It’s no longer about me writing for me. I have an editor and a goal. I have a great critique partner, an awesome RWA chapter, and a supportive family. Somebody pinch me.

I dug into the photos to pull out this one of a (I think) torch ginger from Kauai. Love the vibrant colors of the flowers in Hawaii!

Anyway, it’s Spring Break this week. Which means next to nothing for me. I don’t have kiddies out of school. I’m not a coed anymore.

But, strangely, I have Spring-Break-itis of the mind. My head is not in the game this week. I’ve stared at my WIP(s), typed a few words here and there, but had no major break throughs. For one, I had a stupid moment where I misread the KOD Daphne requirements. I wanted to get two entries in, and I thought I had until March 15 to enter electronically. Nope, no electronic entry. You could pay with PayPal, which is what threw me, and then you had to send in your hard copy to reach the coordinators by March 15. I realized this on March 13. Not good.

Stupid brain. :/

Whenever it gets a little warm out right after cold winter days, my mind turns to spring cleaning. I get these urges to vacuum and wash things. House projects start to crowd my head. Landscaping here, curtains there, paint that room, reorganize that closet, etc. I recognize that these are creative endeavors of a sort, and that it takes energy away from writing, but sometimes you gotta let the mind wander.

So, this week, I’m wandering. I bought some house plants. Hubby and I did a couple of small projects in the house. We’re talking landscape, looking at plans, thinking about what we want.

There’s always more to do, and I can’t spend all my time away from the computer. But this week, I’m letting myself relax. No WIP pressure, no sit-at-the-desk-all-day-or-be-a-failure recriminations. I’m having a Spring Break of the mind. Don’t you agree it’s a good idea from time to time?

This morning, I was driving hubby to an appointment when something on NPR caught my attention. The report was called “Put Your Money Where Your Girth Is.” The gist of it is that people who put money on the line to lose weight tend to do better than people who simply decide to reward themselves when they reach their goal.

“There are a significant portion of people who have an explicit preference for commitment,” says Karlan. The commitment, or the stakes, help people act in their own self-interest. The contract helps them stay the course.

Karlan describes a recent effort in the Philippines to help smokers quit. Through a local bank, the smokers signed agreements to put their cigarette money into savings accounts and agreed to urine tests. At the end of six months, if the tests showed they had nicotine in their system, their savings were lost — given to charity.

Basically, people respond more to the idea of losing money than of making money. You know this got me thinking, right?

The holy grail for most fiction writers is to sell their novels, whether it’s the first novel or the next series of novels on a new contract. We do all kinds of things to keep ourselves writing. We promise ourselves rewards in addition to the reward of selling. New clothes, a trip, a spa day — whatever it takes, right?

But what about losing something instead of winning? What if instead of promising myself an evening of watching television if I write 5 pages, I pay myself a salary. A salary I will lose if I don’t meet the goal I’ve set for myself.

I’m not talking about 5-page-a-day goals, or novel-in-a-month goals, but realistic goals like those I will face when I get the contract. If my hypothetical contract specifies I will turn in a novel two months from now, then I will pay myself for two months while I work on that novel. And if I miss the deadline, the money either goes to charity or it goes to my hubby to buy whatever he wants for himself. I don’t have to pay myself a lot (obviously there’s a budget), but enough that it will add up in the end to a sum I really don’t want to give up.

I’m still working on this thought, turning it over in my head, but I kind of like the concept. I was the girl who never failed to turn in a paper for college because I had two things in mind: loss of an A grade and loss of the money the class cost if I were to withdraw or fail in any way. The first thing was personal, but the second was, surprise, about money. Money is a good motivator for me.

“What we know about incentives is that people work a lot harder to avoid losing $10 than they will work to gain $10,” explains Ayres. “So something that’s framed as a loss is really effective at changing behavior.”

So what do you think? Is it effective to think in terms of loss rather than gain when trying to write a novel? A statement like if I finish this novel, I can sell it (I hope) and make X dollars (I hope) becomes if I don’t finish this novel on time, I will lose X dollars for sure. I think it could work, but maybe that’s because I know I’m already oriented toward preventing real $$ loss. Hypothetical bucks won’t do it for me. It has to be real. Think hubby will notice if I pay myself $50 a week?

Today, we have a commercial for Mac. Specifically, for a Mac application called Scrivener. Oh, the love I feel! The L-O-V-E. Really, I could break out in an interpretive dance here (if I could dance).

I am a Pantser. Meaning I sit down with an idea, a character or two, and start writing with no rhyme or reason or idea where things are headed. Wish I could outline, but frankly, the thought of outlining freezes me into a catatonic state of inertia (is that possible, or have I just won the prize for most amazing redundancy?).

Anywho, Mac + Scrivener = love. And here is why.

The corkboard, ladies and gentlemen. You can break all your chapters down, make notes about each, and then pin them to the corkboard. You can color the pins any color you want — like red for romance, blue for suspense, etc. When you lay out those index cards with the pins (click of the mouse), you can then see your plot progression and how much you are devoting to each aspect of the novel.

The corkboard also can be viewed in outline format. Notice the colors of the outline. You can have your outline display the colors you chose for different aspects of your plot. At a glance you can see the progression and how much you are devoting to romance or suspense or subplot A, B, etc.

Another cool thing is the research area. You can pull in photos, webpages, etc, and make notes about characters or settings. I’ve started putting photos into my research area. When I want to get the mood of the swamp or of a plantation home, I click on my research tab.

The skinny: the Scrivener folks will let you download the application to try for 30 days. After that, if you want to keep it, it’s $39.95 — and anyone with MS Office knows what a bargain that is.

The truth: I downloaded the program months ago, played with it (but didn’t take the tutorial on how to really use it), and didn’t buy it. I figured I didn’t need it, even with these cool features, because I had Word and would be writing in Word because it cost so much. But, I came across a blog post the other day where someone was talking about the infamous plotting board. I’d tried it before, getting a big dry erase board and colorful stickies and graphing out the plot. It was okay for me, but I hate messing with all that real estate, you know?

So I thought about Scrivener again. And this time, I took the time to actually DO the tutorial. It’s not long, and it helps you see the full capabilities. That’s when I realized how cool the program is. I do NOT write in it, btw. I write in Word, I paste the document in chapter chunks, and then I go for the labeling and notes. I have both programs open and I go between them. It works for me. You can import a complete document into it, which I did, and you can break it out into chapters — which really helps for the labeling. I’m not sure this program will work for me in the writing stage, but in the revising stage, it’s perfect.

The photo I pasted into my research folder to inspire me when I’m writing my hero?

Victoria Beckham is one lucky lady, don’t you think?

Hubby asked me the other night if, once I sold a book, I could write two or three a year like Other Writers. Not sure which Other Writers he meant, but I was kind of surprised at the question. I don’t think he was trying to insult me, but he knows how long I’ve been working on this particular book. And yeah, it’s ridiculous how much time I’ve spent rewriting the d*mn thing. So I understand his concern.

The answer, I told him, is yes. And I said it without hesitation because I know it’s true. Yes, I am capable of writing fast. And writing well, I believe, while doing it. So why the wheel spinning this time? Because for the longest time it was just me and WIP. No critique partner, no beta reader, no editor or agent to tell me the idea wasn’t viable the way I’d written it. Me, writing like a maniac, then stepping back and saying, “Uhhhhhh, hmm….”

It’s taken me time to figure out what works and what doesn’t. There’s a lot that goes into a manuscript, much more than pretty sentences that read perfectly. I’ve read a lot of beautiful contest entries that go nowhere. Going nowhere is the greatest sin committed by the unpublished writer, I think. Because the published writer has an editor saying, “Hey, that lovely scene where your heroine drives to work thinking about how she got to this place in her life and how she’ll never find love and how her last boyfriend was a jerk? It’s got to go because it’s not the real beginning of the story. The story starts on page 15 when the secret agent bursts into her office.”

My process has improved with the right critique partner. Tanya keeps me on track. She’s the one who told me my heroine was doing a lot of reacting and not a lot of acting. And then, when I asked, she told me how to fix it. She gave me suggestions that made sense. I didn’t use any of them, because I rewrote everything, but I used the gist, the core, of what she told me. My heroine doesn’t react anymore. She’s not passive, and she doesn’t let the hero take control. I think Tanya will be proud when I send her those pages again.

Yes, I’ve rewritten this same book 3 times now. I mean throwing out hundreds of pages and rewriting. I have a discarded scenes file that’s longer than the book is. Scary, huh? But I believe this is right. I believe I’m making the right choices this time. I believe the final product will be good. This time is the last time. This version goes out the door. I’ll take editorial suggestions gratefully, in full knowledge that I CAN fix what needs to be fixed. But this is the final rewrite on my own. The next time is for an editor.

And I haven’t completely been spinning my wheels. I’ve written and submitted two entries to the Harlequin contest, and I’m working on a Red Sage novella. I also have the second book in my special ops series planned and the first pages written. With every word, I get better. Every word, whether discarded or polished to a shine, propels me forward and makes me a better writer.

Yeah, honey, I can write more than one book a year. I’m getting faster and better all the time. My choices are better. My instincts sharpen with usage. My wheels have found purchase in the muck. I’m moving forward.

Any lessons you’ve learned lately? Can you write more than one book a year? How many rewrites are enough for you?

What’s mad about today? No idea, but it sounded catchy. No, in fact, there’s nothing mad about today. Except I can’t seem to get myself started with my revisions. I left off on Friday in a good spot — basically, I’m rewriting a scene from the hero’s POV instead of leaving it in the heroine’s. I know what happens next, know where I have to go. But I guess I’ve been second guessing some choices I made in the novel. Should I axe this character and subplot? Does he do anything to forward the story, or is it confusing?

I’ve already axed one character and subplot because it was unnecessary on the rewrite. Now I’m wondering if this other character is unnecessary. *sigh*

Hubby helped me with an idea for a different book last night. It was fun bouncing ideas off him and, as usual, he had a really good idea for the heroine that I hadn’t thought of. This book is simply in the concept phase. No pages written, no names picked out, nothing. But I think it could be a cool book. Naturally, it’s in a different sub-genre than what I’m currently focusing on. Though, in fact, there is a military character, but it’s more of an urban fantasy.

On tap for today: finish the d*mn scene. Go get propane for the grill. Write pages of a different book for a contest. Straighten up living room before mother stops by for a visit.

(Why a rocket? Because this is Rocket City, of course. Photo by hubby.)

How’s your Monday Madness going? What do you do when the little voice tells you to cut characters from the book?