Lynn Raye Harris

I went through a contest phase when I first joined RWA (we won’t say how long ago that was) and had some early success with the first book I ever wrote. I kind of wish I hadn’t had success, to be honest, but that’s another story. Basically, if I’d realized I needed to keep writing and improving and that first books don’t typically sell, I’d have been better off.

Anyway, starting to look at the contests again for a variety of reasons. Though having bad things potentially said about my writing or my entry won’t make me happy, it won’t stop me either. I have reached the point where negative comments make me pause, but don’t ultimately affect me. I know the secret to staying in the game now. The secret is to KEEP WRITING NEW BOOKS. There, I said it, so now you know.

As I look at the contests, I consider a few things. Cost, yes, but it’s not the biggest factor. I love being able to enter electronically, and those contests get a harder look from me. Final judges are the biggie though. Prestige of the contest is a consideration, but lack of prestige won’t stop me if the final judges are acquiring agents or editors.

Which brings me to research. Do you research the final judges? I do. I’ve noticed a couple of judges in contests lately who either aren’t acquiring or who don’t have sales to their name. I realize that a fabulous story can make a non-acquiring person take on one more. But what about the final judge who has no sales listed in Publisher’s Marketplace? If it’s a new agent, sure, that’s okay. But one who’s been around for a while?

If all I want is feedback, that’s different. (But I have a great CP who does that for me, so I don’t necessarily need contest feedback.)

On the flip side of the coin, I think judging contests is a good thing to do. I’m judging two right now, and it really opens my eyes to what works and what doesn’t to see so many entries arrayed before me. Some shine. Others are painful. Most are well written. Very few are poorly written. But even when the language is good, you can tell when a story doesn’t pop. When it isn’t fresh and new, when it probably won’t sell as written because there’s nothing there to make it stand out.

I am a conscientious judge. Maybe I’m too easy, but I never give anyone the lowest score possible. I don’t want to batter someone, though I give copious comments if it’s allowed. And I never sign my comments, not because I don’t stand behind them, but because you just never know how someone will receive what you have to say. If someone sends me a thank you note (which they rarely do, btw, even though we are told we should thank our judges), I might out myself. I have mixed feelings about not signing, btw. I want to stand behind what I say, but I don’t want to get abused for saying it. It happens sometimes, unfortunately, which is why I remain anonymous for now.

Have you entered any contests lately? Do you also judge contests and have you learned anything from that experience?

Can you imagine writing before copy-paste-delete? Not me! I know some people still write longhand, and then transcribe it into the computer. I can’t do it. I tried it, but my brain moves much faster than my hand, and I got frustrated.

Today is a Sven check-in. My writing has slowed down because I finished the book, and instead of launching into the next one, I started the revisions. I know you’re supposed to let the book sit, but I’ve been writing this one long enough that I’ve pretty much forgotten the first half by now. Really.

Anyway, I wrote 1685 words yesterday, which is kind of scary because the book is over 70K now. Hopefully, today, I’ll do some cutting. But what I’m (re)discovering in this process is that I love rewriting. Once the story is finally on the page, it’s so much fun to go back and expand the stuff I glossed over in my rush to reach the end. It’s amazing to see a scene with new eyes and to be able to pull out the nuances I wanted the first time but couldn’t find because the story wasn’t complete and I didn’t know the characters.

And that’s another thing: knowing the characters. By the end of the book, I know them so well that I have to go back and fix them in the beginning. They weren’t fully formed in my head, and I made them do things that weren’t right. Easy enough to fix once I know them.

I love hearing about process, which is why I like to talk about mine. Everyone is different, but it’s always helped me to know how writers work. I used to think there was a correct way to write a book. Now I know there isn’t.

Process is also a journey in self-discovery. When I first started, I worked on one book for a year, rewriting it as I went, polishing and polishing, until I had a finished product at the end. Truthfully, the book could have stood some revision. I didn’t realize that beautiful sentences and a good story weren’t necessarily the same thing. I had a beautifully written cliche.

The next book I entered in the GH and had to write like mad to get to the end. It was horrible, it didn’t final, and I didn’t bother revising it (pretty much because I didn’t know how). The next book I gave up on. I wrote another book very quickly, then abandoned it during revisions because I got bored.

That brings me to the current book. I rewrote the first 150 pages twice. Threw it all out and rewrote it. Ouch. Finally reached the end by writing to a deadline (thanks, Sven) and now I’m revising. I’m not bored, and I’m not worried I won’t get to the end. In fact, I think I’ve finally found my process. Write the first third or half, rewrite it once or twice, write to the end, and revise.

I don’t plot (tried it and failed). I don’t plan. I have two characters and a problem and I launch into nothingness. Not pretty, but that’s the way it works. Why am I sharing this? Because I remember floundering and wondering why I couldn’t do it “right.” I didn’t realize there was no right. If talking about my process helps even one writer who is struggling, I’m glad to do it.

How does your process work? Do you plot? Or do you launch into nothingness and hope you make it to the other side? I love hearing about it, so tell me!

Woohoo! I typed 2763 words today to reach THE END, finally, of this frickin book!!!!

I’ll think about revisions tomorrow. Just call me Scarlett O’Hara.

I forgot where I left off on Thursday (pre-retreat), though I only had a few hundred words, but today I’m sitting at 3214 words completed since then. Almost 1900 of them were today. My brain is tired. My book is nearly done. I’d have never gotten here without Sven, or at least not so soon. I clearly need deadlines and pressure. How depressing.

I picked a picture of a grindstone for this post because that’s what today is: back to the grindstone. After a weekend of fun and games, I must return my mind to a working state. I’m Sweating with Sven, after all. I don’t even know my Th-Sun word totals, but they aren’t much. I’d be surprised if I broke 600. (I’ll figure it out later today.)

I took the laptop to TN, and I even used it a few times. I did spend about an hour and a half writing in the two days I was there. Not enough to brag about, really.

And I did solve, I think, a plot issue while lying facedown on the massage table and breathing in lavender while a tiny woman with really strong hands kneaded my back.

The coup de grace of the entire retreat was the Murder Mystery Party on Saturday night. Everyone did a fabulous job, though the coordinator did the best job of all in arranging everything. The costumes were elaborate, the hijinks hilarious, and the mystery was good. I have pictures that I’ll upload eventually.

My mind is rested, but also weird. I dreamed last night that my husband decided to write a horror story, had 50 pages done, and somehow got a passel of agents interested (because I was trying to get them interested in me and one saw his stuff instead, LOL).

After a major bidding war, my husband (the non-writer), got offered a $5.6 million advance on the strength of 50 pages. Everyone asked me if I was jealous, but I said hell no I wasn’t jealous, just envious, and besides, I’d get the benefits of the money anyway. (I ain’t stupid.)

When I told the hubby my dream this morning, he started plotting. I told him that all I knew about his story was that it had a werewolf in it. He thought that wasn’t very interesting and had been done before. I told him it’s the twist you put on a story that makes it unique.

Hubby, being a smarty pants, has decided to pen GayoWolf, about a decorator who goes to Sweden for furniture and gets attacked by a werewolf. The man ain’t right. I’m afraid my dream was just a dream after all. No multi-million dollar advance in the Harris future, it seems.

Has your mind ever come up with weird dreams after a period of relaxation? I don’t know where that came from, believe me. Partly, I’m sure it’s a fear that I’m not a good writer and that I won’t succeed. Partly, my mind was keeping the success close to home in giving it to my husband. And the werewolf had to be a manifestation of my frustration with the paranormal market (and the approach of Halloween).

But most importantly, do you think GayoWolf has a chance?

I’m off for a fabulous weekend of talking, eating, and drinking with my fellow Heart of Dixie chapter members. We’ve rented an inn in the Tennessee mountains and today we descend en masse to take over the place.

Tonight is fun and games, tomorrow I get a table massage, and tomorrow night is our 1920s themed Murder Mystery Dinner party. I’m playing a gambler, which isn’t nearly as exciting as being a flapper, but that’s okay. I’m a terrible actress no matter which way you cut it.

Lessee, Wednesday, I wrote 1377 words. Yesterday, not so good. Too much washing and packing to do. I only got 497 words done. I’m not sure how today, or this weekend, will pan out. I’m taking the laptop, but just look at that picture. Do you really think I’m going to get anything done?

See y’all on Monday!

If you still lament the exit of Miss Snark from the cyber world, maybe Jessica Faust over at Bookends LLC can soothe your wounded soul. Jessica is doing a perfecting your pitch critique that just started today. Unlike Miss Snark, she won’t do 500 of them, but they are a great learning opportunity, especially when you see how downright pedestrian some entries can be. If you have a great story, but you don’t know how to convey that in a pitch, how the heck will you ever get anybody to look at your work?

Edited to add: There are more query/pitch links here today on Diana Peterfreund’s excellent blog. She even has a link to a site where paranormal authors are posting the queries that worked for them in getting their agent or selling their book. The actual queries, with comments by the author about why he or she wrote the query the way they did. Hmm, must be query season….

I didn’t anticipate writing over the weekend, because it’s difficult to do so when the hubby is home (simply because I don’t want to ignore the man who goes to a job every day and lets me stay home to pursue this dream of mine), but I did write on Sunday because he wanted to play with the computer.

Sun = 926

Mon = 1435

Tue = 863

So I’ve written 3224 words in three days (haven’t done today’s words yet)**. I think I’m on target (though my goal was 1285 a day) because this feels right for the story. I’m finally coming to the end of this thing, and I would not have done that if I hadn’t been Sweating with Sven, I guarantee it.

This weekend will present challenges because I’m off to my Heart of Dixie chapter retreat in Tennessee. I’m taking the laptop, and I’ll try my darndest to work, but who can resist the lure of friends, fun, and margaritas?

**It’s Linda Howard’s fault I haven’t started today’s writing yet. Yesterday, I received Mackenzie’s Legacy from Amazon (featuring Mackenzie’s Mountain and Mackenzie’s Mission). Yes, I’m like the only romance reader on the planet who hadn’t read Mackenzie’s Mountain, or any of the Mackenzie stories, yet. This morning, when hubby left for work, I decided to crawl back in bed with the book — just to get a nice start on the morning since it was raining and chilly and I didn’t want to get out of bed yet. Big mistake. I didn’t finish, though I wanted to (less than 100 pages to go of Mountain), but I had to finally drag myself out of bed and to the computer or I’d have spent the whole darn day reading. Wonderful story, great characters. And, as my CP would say, not an explosion or dead body in sight. Just great storytelling. We need more of this kind of story!

On one of my loops recently, someone said that one of the ways she motivated herself was to imagine that she couldn’t write at all. That her writing life was done and she just never wrote anymore. That, she said, made her fly to the keyboard to prove it wasn’t true.

And I thought, yeah, good for you! And then I thought, if it were me, that wouldn’t do it. Because writing is NOT all that important to me.

Now, before I seem nutty or like I don’t appreciate what it takes to live a writer’s life, I’m not saying that I don’t want to write.

What I’m saying is that it’s not WRITING that keeps me writing. I hate to write. I love to tell stories. If I couldn’t tell myself stories anymore, if the pictures in my head dried up and no scenes ever appeared, yeah, I’d be seriously depressed. It’s all about telling those stories to myself. Actually writing them down, well that’s a pain in the posterior. I don’t enjoy that part of writing. I enjoy the thinking and imagining and seeing.

I have always had stories in my head. I’ve even spoken the dialogue, pretending to be two characters (or three or four). When I was twenty and doing that, I thought that if anyone could see me, they’d think I was pretty crazy. Hell, even I thought it was pretty odd. I didn’t know that I should write it down, that the act of writing it would release the tension from my mind and let the story flow across the page.

I’d always written things, mostly short stories, but it never occurred to me that what I was seeing in my head were scenes from a novel. Took me until 26 to figure that out. Once I did, I had a blast. Until the real world intruded and selling what I’d written wasn’t very cut and dried after all.

The pictures didn’t dry up, but the desire to put them on paper did. I didn’t understand that I had to push through that, keep writing them down, and keep sending them out. Not writing isn’t a scary prospect to me. Not having the scenes inside my head — yeah, that terrifies me.

But I’ll keep writing, because now I know how this stuff gets done, how you keep climbing the wall, even when you slide down a few pegs, until you reach the top and get the contract. And then you have other walls to climb. But telling myself that my writing life is over? Nah, won’t work for me. Take those scenes away, however, and I’d be lost.

Thursday words written: 1278

Friday words written: 1248

No words done on Saturday, or yet today. Weekends are much harder because of hubby being home and things needing done.

Weekly total = 6543. So, I actually beat my five day goal by 118 words. Whew!