I Have a Confession To Make....

I haven't been writing.

The last time I did any sort of writing was for the interview I did with Liz.

I've been avoiding writing because my self-confidence in my ability to write tanked completely.

Why? Why not?

I have 40 or so rejections from agents on my manuscript in my inbox, I've revised my manuscript til I'm bleary-eyed, yet having stepped away from it for a while, and having submitted it to other authors in a writer's critique group, then re-visiting it, I now know it needs still another major revision. And I've had that stupid nasty little mean voice in my head saying "Who are you to think you can really do this?" It seems that somewhere along the way, I let that voice take over and get to me.

Writing is hard. It's isolating. It requires focus and the ability to block out life's intrusions. There's no guarantee when you start something, that you will actually get to an end that makes sense and that works. And in the end, whenever you are done what you've been writing, there's no guarantee that anyone else will give a hoot about, or like what you've written. If you're writing just for yourself it doesn't matter so much. If you're trying to find an audience, then the next step is so sell yourself.

And that's even harder than the actual writing.

Imagine going door-to-door trying to sell something. After 40 door slams you might be thinking that it would be wise to find yourself another product to sell. And if you've spent months, or years, of love and dedication developing that product, making it the best you can, you start questioning your own sanity.

I've been questioning this journey that I've taken. And after a near breakdown (it's alright, I always survive my near breakdowns even though they are very ugly looking) I was doing the "Hello Universe!!!? What am I supposed to be doing with my life??!! Do I give this up? Is this stupid and useless and a really dumb idea? Do I need to find some other method of connecting with people, of finding purpose??!!!" Because I live my live always trying to find meaning, contributing in some way that is positive, trying to make a difference. That's just me, it's how I roll.

And so today I went to Google employment resources, thinking that on top of my private practice I might find another form of work to make me feel like a valid human being. Only Google refused to let me access anything. My screen just kept a big blank twirling around until I got so frustrated I walked away. Then I called my parents because I haven't called them in a while. I'm a bad kid sometimes. Sorry folks.

Now, I told my parents about this blog when I started it almost a year ago, but they forgot about it. Totally. Something must have happened, I dunno, maybe Dad found me by mistake on a Google search, but anyhow, apparently they recently found my blog, and started reading it. Dad started reading, then told mom to start reading. And tonight, when I was talking to mom, out of nowhere she tells me I have a gift for writing, and that she hopes I'm going to continue doing it. She kept telling me all this stuff about my writing, and how much she liked it. And dad was excited too and he gave me suggestions of things I might try. And then they argued, cause that's what they do, but that's why I love them.

Apparently the universe has spoken to me. I straight out asked it what I was supposed to be doing with my life earlier today while I paused to watch my dog Kita poop. It was one of those, "Oh, you think you have a big crap? Well my life is bigger crap than yours right now girl, and uh, hey Universe, tell me what I should be doing cause I have no clue."

Thanks mom. I love you. Thanks dad. I love you too. Funny how things work out. Thanks for giving me a kick in the right direction just when I needed it. Happy Mother's Day. Happy Father's Day. There. I've just sent you a card on the World Wide Web.

And P.S. Anything I write will always have those interesting universal synchronisities contained within it. Cause that's just how my life works. :)

A Writer's Reality 101: The Stories behind the Stories.

Two weeks ago, I had the absolute pleasure of meeting Liz Kales, author of Destiny’s Weave, silver haired vixen (that's Alberta-speak for foxy lady) extraordinaire, live and in person. I met Liz through the 2010 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awards on the World Wide Web, but, as it turns out, she’s my neighbour. Or nearly so. She lives 15 minutes away from me. Although I think we were both somewhat nervous about meeting face to face for the first time, our anxiety quickly faded, and we had a great time conversing. Liz is a sweetheart, a most gracious host and a fascinating woman.

Lisa: Liz, I’d read or heard somewhere that you used to do some travel writing?

Liz: Yes, well, I wasn’t a real one per se, but I was in the travel business for over twenty-five years, so I wrote many articles about things I did. I actually got paid for quite a few of them. Some were published in the Richmond Review and in the Canadian Travel Trade Journals. (As you can see already, Liz is humble as well. She wrote, got published and paid, numerous times. I’d call that a travel writer.)

Lisa: So you traveled quite a bit.

Liz: Yes, we did quite a lot. Not as much as I would have liked to, but we did travel to lots of places and saw many things. I especially enjoyed travelling by ship. I still love it; love cruising, that’s my favourite.

Lisa: How long has writing been a part of your life?

Liz: I was thinking about when I first wrote anything worthwhile, and I was in grade 7, so I was 12 years old. I wrote a funny play about a henpecked husband who was always saying ‘yes dear.’ The principal of my school really liked it so he had it performed for the parent teacher association.

Lisa: Oh, neat! (I’m so intelligently expressive at times.)

Liz: Yes, it was fun. All through high school, I wrote for the school paper, and then when I graduated, I went to work for the Telegraph Office because I had to make some money. That was more important than anything else at the time because my father was retiring and there were no government pensions in those days.

After I while, I got a job at CBC writing advertisements for TV and radio. I really hated writing the advertisements, really disliked it, and it turned me right off writing for a long time. Later when I got into travel, I wanted to write what I wanted to write. I didn’t like the idea of having to please fifty people or more which is what it’s like in the advertising industry. You have to please everyone.

What changed everything—what made me think I have to start the writing again, was when I went through this horrendous chemotherapy—for Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. That was 7 years ago now, and I lived. I made it through, and I thought, ‘well, I’ve got to do something with this extra time I’ve been given.’ I always wanted to write a novel and I knew a lot about my family history. (They say ‘write what you know’) I’d been researching my ancestry for 25 years and I’d learned about my Huguenot background. When I was going through the chemo, my husband, Allan said to me, “ if you live, I’ll take you anywhere you want to go.” I wanted to go to France. So we went and I just loved it there. We went to the little village where my ancestors originated, Exoudun, and I thought, ‘I have to write about these people.’ A lot of the book is based on real events.

Lisa: Can you give me a summary of the book? Just in case an agent or publisher happens across this interview. (Hey, if I can’t get mine published, I can at least promote my fellow authors!)

Liz: Destiny’s Weave is a saga set in the last two decades of the 17th century that tells the story of Pierre and Jacques Garneau – Huguenot cousins brought up together by their grandfather in small village in south western France. (In real life, they were brothers) In 1685, the Huguenots came under siege and their freedoms were taken away. They were told they must revert to the Catholic Church and if they didn’t, they were hung.

Hundreds of thousands of Huguenots were killed and hundreds of thousands more fled the country. My hero, Pierre, a staunch Calvinist, lives by the philosophy of predestination and feels that his fate is already sealed. He does not want to revert to Catholicism to save himself as Jacques has chosen to do. Jacques, on the other hand, believes what William Shakespeare once wrote. "It is not in the stars to hold our destiny, but in ourselves..."

Lisa: How long did it take you to write the book?

Liz: I didn’t know a thing about writing a novel when I started, I didn’t have a clue, so I went on- line and learned about the Writers Workshop Online classes and I started taking them. That’s where I learned to write a novel. I began writing the novel around the end of 2005. Early in 2006, I started the courses and took them for two years altogether. For my lessons, I would do my scenes. It took me a year to do my first draft, what with the lessons. In 2007, I entered it the way it was in the Amazon contest, and surprisingly, it made it into the semi-finals, and I received a nice review. Then I thought I’d better go back and take a couple of advanced courses to get it into the shape it is in now. It’s been a four or five year process, so I can’t just give up on it.

Lisa: Have you submitted to any publishers?

Liz: I have. I’ve sent it out about 20 times. I received one really nice rejection letter from an agent. He loved it, and he thought the themes were beautiful, but he didn’t think it was going to sell in New York, so I have to look for someone else.

Lisa: It sounds like a combination of historical fiction and adventure. Is there romance in it?

Liz: It has some romance. It’s not romance in the sense of historical romances. However, there is a love story and there’s adventure and history about the time, and some inspiration.

Lisa: What is your favourite part of the novel?

Liz: My favourite part of the novel is when one of the main characters, Mark, is in China. He goes with his father because they are traveling merchants. There’s a whole segment about him learning to be a tea merchant. This was at the time when England was beginning to get interested in tea. While there, he gets involved with a courtesan, so it was interesting to write.

Lisa: It sounds like you did tons of research for this book.

Liz: Yes, because it was 1700th century China and France, but I loved doing it. I love history.

Lisa: Are you working on anything else now?

Liz: Yes, I’m working on a prequel. It will be set all in France and it goes back to 1628, in La Rochelle with King Louis the 13th. He led a siege on the city of La Rochelle, and pretty much starved the people. It takes place around the same time as “The Three Musketeers.”

Lisa: How much are you into the Prequel?

Liz: About five chapters.

Lisa: Do you plan on continuing to submit to publishers?

Liz: Yes, I’m looking for specific agents that handle this kind of thing. I found a website where you can submit directly to the publisher and they like inspirational history so it may be a good fit for them.

Lisa: When is your favourite time to write?

Liz: I’m not a morning person, so I write from 9:00p.m. to 11:00p.m. or midnight. When I was first going through the chemo I would wake up in the middle of the night, go to the computer, and write; that was a good time for me. I always felt sicker during the day.

Lisa: Do you still have your blog?

Liz: I let it go for a while, because I was so busy, but I’m back at it and I put a blog post up the other day. http://albetkales.blogspot.com/

Lisa: If you were to give advice to someone who is thinking about writing what would you say?

Liz: Start early. Don’t wait until you are 60 something. Just write, write, write. Take some lessons if you don’t know much about it. Then you get the basics and rules and once you know them you can break them.

Lisa: Any possibility that you might self-publish?

Liz: I would. I think I’ll give it another six months and then I will.

Lisa: Is there anything else you want me to let people know, Liz?

Liz: You can tell them my age. I’m 73. I’m more or less doing this to keep myself alive. It’s my motivation. The cancer could come back, but I believe as long as I stay happy and motivated and do fun things and say nice things, I can stay alive.

Lisa: Ah…The secrets to a long life…

Liz: Lots of vitamins! A glass of red wine a day. And I have a great husband. We’ve been married for 47 years. It was our anniversary yesterday. Every year since I lived through the chemo, he brings me red roses. I think our relationship is good because he had a heart attack and I nearly lost him, and then he nearly lost me, and you really begin to appreciate each other.

Something Different

I've promised everyone an interview with Liz Kales, and it's coming. It should be up next week. I met with Liz, author of Destiny's Weave, yesterday, in person. She is the epitamy of grace, determination, strength, and charm, so stay tuned. In the meantime, I just had to blog about my experience at dinner earlier this evening.

My husband and I went to Earls Restaurant, a Canadian chain that serves consistently good food. I think their target consumer is 30 somethings, but they get families, seniors, and a mixed bag of people because of the quality of what they serve. They're a couple of steps up from family dining, and probably only one step down from fine dining. Yeah, whatever, restaurant critics...that's how I see it.

Anyway, when you visit Earls you are always certain of two things. The food will be great and the wait staff will be female, and gorgeous, and their boobs will be falling out of their tops (or at least be threatening to). Earls isn't the only Canadian restaurant that has this claim to fame. We have Hooters (at least they have the gumption to admit this is what their claim to fame is), Cactus Club, Joey's, and a few others. Walk into any of these establishments and you'll have models serving you. Until tonight, it's been no big deal for me. There's been a silent wishing on my part that the owners might mix things up, and my assumption has always been that males weren't applying for waiting jobs.

And then tonight, at Earls, Chad arrived at my table. Standing 6 feet, tattooed to the nth degree, and built like a line backer, he said hello and asked for our drink order. My brain crashed. This was not the usual order of things. I gaped. My husband glowered. Chad smiled patiently as my synapses kicked back into gear and I ordered a drink. He left, and I, in my glee at not having to have cleavage shoved in my face during another dinner out, expressed my surprise to my husband. He in turn yowled about wanting to be put in another section.

When Chad returned to our table, I asked him how he managed to become employed by an establishment that up until now, only hired from the top 10% of female beauty. I turns out Chad has an amazing amount of restaurant experience, has worked all over the place, and he knew someone at Earls who was finally willing to give him a break and let him wait, which is what he's always wanted to do, but never been allowed to do. (I'm thinkin a few of the beauties were too busy partying late at night, didn't bother showing up for their shifts, and management finally went for reliable).

The reason Chad hasn't been giving a waiting job? Apparently male business customers, and male customers in general, are quite vocal about wanting to be served by sexy female waitresses. That's right girls. Your dinner views are being controlled by the squeaky wheels of male gender.

Now maybe some of you are going to say "Good on it for females!" They make good money waitressing, and leave them their territory. Me, I'm not quite so inclined. I'm not that comfortable with the reverse discrimination going on, and I'm not that comfortable learning that the reason for it is again being controlled by men. But....the only reason that this is happening that I can see, is that men are more vocal. So...when I meet up with one of my best friends for our friday lunch at a restaurant where we always yak about the amount of hours the waitresses must put in to getting ready for work, and the fact that even though we've been lunching there for over two years none of them look familiar, I'm going to be very naughty. I'm going to very politely state that I would like to be served my a male. Fair is fair. Us women put a lot of money out to dining establishments, and we have our needs too. And the squeaky wheel gets the grease.

News....

Hello world,

It's been awhile. This is a pic of my dog Kita when she was a baby. If you look close you can see the mischieviousness in her eyes. She's still a baby, but a lot bigger now.

I've joined a writer's critique group, in the hopes that I'll learn even more about writing. . . and maybe get to the point where my manuscript gets more than a rejection from agents or partials. I'm not submitting anymore at the moment. I found a publisher who will take full manuscripts to read, so I've sent mine in, and am now doing the waiting game.

My apple trees are flourishing, leaving and blooming - they are happy in their new home. If you want to know what that's about, you have to dig into my archives of postings.

At the moment I am in human experiment mode. Trying out web remedies for teeny ailments that are creeping into my body. At the moment, I'm experimenting with toe fungus and Vicks Vapor Rub. It seems to be working. Read the ingredients before you ever rub it on your child's skin.

I'm twenty pages into book two, and am now attached to it. Don't know where it's going yet...how close is that to child rearing? This book is more of a challenge, not so much humour as the first, and there is a war of my mind wit to see where I might end up.

I've got a new interview coming up, and I'm really excited. I'm interviewing Liz Kales, author of Destiny's Weave. She's my neighbour, a very refined silver haired vixen, and I get to meet with her in person.

I've met some terrific people in the writing field, authors working toward publication and some who have been published. I swear some of them never sleep. They are too busy writing, promoting, giving of their time to other authors, blogging, networking, and doing a gazillion things to make it in today's world of book-selling. If nothing else, I am learning so much about the passion, dedication, commitment, emotional rollercoastering, hard work, and love that goes into creating a book. I'm hoping I can begin to show some of that in the interviews that I do. I'm starting to realize that authors don't sleep much, and when they do, they dream of writing, they dream of creating that book that will hold you captive, entertain you, make you laugh, cry, react, want to turn the page.

Cheers to all the writers I have met and that I am meeting. Thank you for letting me walk among you.

Urghhhhhhhhhh!!

Wanted to do some housecleaning on my blog...make it all pretty, but am frustrated with the limitations (both mine and bloggers) of what can be changed and shifted. I see some blogs that are so pretty and everything is properly in its place.
I can relate to closet cleaning. Help me Blogger! Design this like my closet where I can chuck, shift, move, destroy, etc. That would be much more fun.

A Writer's Reality 101: The Stories behind the Stories.

A warm welcome for Ms. Jocelyn Rish, my brave second victim in this interview for the ongoing series: A Writer’s Reality 101: The Stories behind the Stories. Yes, I have re-named it. It’s my blog and I’ll do what I want to.

Jocelyn, my dog Kita likes cats, and I like cats, and you apparently like cats too, so here you are. Luckily, here, is somewhere in cyberspace, so you won’t have to endure any of Kita’s incessant licking. That’s what happens when you smell like a cat, which I am not saying you do…anyway, on to the interview.

Lisa: Whatever made you enter into this life-sucking, soul-snatching, 1001 ways to find rejection occupation (oops, sorry, had another ‘no thanks’ response to a query last night. It’s obviously impacting my biases today) called writing?

Jocelyn: Even though it’s clichéd for a writer, it’s true: I was one of those kids. The one with my nose buried in a fascinating book causing me to ignore irrelevant things like eating, homework, or sleeping. Somewhere along the way, I decided I wanted to write stories that inspired that same type of passion and obsession. Unfortunately, fear kept me from doing anything about it until the day I saw an ad for the Institute of Children’s Literature that changed my life. I completed their course Writing for Children and Teenagers, and I was ready to get started.

Then I heard about National Novel Writing Month in 2006, and I completed my first novel, a YA horror, in an exhilarating month. For NaNo 2007 I wrote my rough draft for The Hunt, a YA thriller that is a quarterfinalist in this year’s ABNA. And in 2008 I tried my hand at writing a YA fantasy, but it is pretty much crap.

Lisa: For those not in the know, ABNA is short for Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. Authors with unpublished or self-published novels can enter their works for a chance at a publishing contract. Congratulations on making it to the quarter finals. How do you feel about that?

Jocelyn: I’m not gonna lie – I cried a little. Nothing over the top, just a nice shimmer in the eyes that welled up until one glistening tear escaped and trailed down my face. But seriously, I entered last year and didn’t make it past the pitch stage, which was a crushing blow to my poor writerly ego. So this year I’ve gotten emotional each time I learned I was still in it. First the fist pump, then the crying, then the laughing and dancing with my dog as she comes to check out why ‘mommy’ is acting crazy. I’m really excited about it even as I dread what the PW review might say about The Hunt.

So see, I’m a prime example of why you shouldn’t lose hope. When I entered last year, I was sure my novel was in top-top shape. But after a light bulb moment about my character’s voice and several revisions, my novel is MUCH better this year. So as much as it hurt to not make it past the pitch last year, it was really a blessing in disguise, because in retrospect, I’d have been embarrassed if any strangers had read last year’s excerpt.

Lisa: I lose hope frequently, but luckily I’m a moody person, and my state changes every three minutes or so. You also do some script writing as well, don’t you?

Jocelyn: Because of NaNoWriMo, I found out about Script Frenzy, where the goal is to write a feature screenplay in a month. I’d never thought about trying that, but it seemed like fun, so my brother and I teamed up to write a horror movie about a local SC legend. We had a blast and found a new calling. Since then we’ve also written an action thriller and a ghost story.

I also write short stories and had my biggest success with a short I wrote called Saying Goodbye. I’d read about the true story of Oscar the death predicting cat and was inspired to write a story from the perspective of a woman in a nursing home coping as a cat predicts the death of her friends. The story ended up one of the 2008 South Carolina Fiction Project winners and was my first time being published – sooooooo exciting!

It was my brother’s idea to turn it into a screenplay. Once we’d rewritten it as a script, we entered it in a competition for a grant from the SC Film Commission and we won!! We were awarded the money to make our short film. Filming was a CRAZY but amazing experience. We are currently in post right now editing the film (which is a little like revising a manuscript again and again and again). If people want to find out more about the project, they can visit www.sayinggoodbyemovie.com.

Lisa: I looked at the site and was really intrigued. It sounds like a wonderful story. If people would like to read Saying Goodbye how can they do so? And the short film, once it’s complete, how can people view it?

Jocelyn: My short story can be found at http://www.postandcourier.com/news/2008/sep/21/fiction54338/. As for viewing the film, we’re still not sure about that. Because it’s only 20 minutes, it will never be theatrically released. However, we do plan to submit it to film festivals around the country, so some people might be able to see it that way. Then after a (hopefully very successful) festival run, we hope to make it available online. So the best way to keep updated on how to see the film is to keep tabs on our website or become a fan on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Saying-Goodbye/119785993310

Lisa: Having just read Saying Goodbye, it is an absolutely beautiful story. It moved me to tears.

Jocelyn: I'm so happy to hear you were moved by Saying Goodbye. The main character has a lot of my grandmother in her, and she had passed away in a home not long before I wrote the story, so I cried while I wrote it. I sometimes still get teary when I reread it, but then I worry I'm being all self-indulgent and stuff.

Lisa: Your Young Adult novel – The Hunt- what is it about?
Jocelyn: My one-line pitch for The Hunt is: After the body she discovers in the woods disappears, seventeen-year-old Breanna must prove it was not the product of her notorious overactive imagination, but rather the handiwork of a killer who plans to silence her.

Basically Brea is well-known for her "stories"- so no one believes she found a body in the woods. She decides the only way to save face and prove everyone wrong is to investigate the murder on her own. She discovers evidence pointing to a classmate, so she joins his team for the school's video scavenger hunt hoping to uncover the truth about him. There are a lot of funny moments throughout the scavenger hunt, but there is always the undercurrent of danger as she tries to unmask a killer.

Lisa: What’s the toughest thing you find about being a writer?

Jocelyn: The toughest thing for me is getting my butt in the chair. I’m a big time procrastinator - trimming my dog’s toenails, cleaning the crumbs out of the toaster, scrubbing the grout with a toothbrush – I’ll pretty much do anything to avoid sitting down and writing. And it’s all so ridiculous, because I love to write and I hate doing those other things. But, man, I have the hardest time making myself start a writing session. Maybe I should seek professional help about this issue… oh, hi Lisa! ;-)

Lisa: I'm in total agreement with you about the procrastination for writing so I won’t be much help – I still need to work at my own. Kita is howling at me to find out what kind of dog you have, so put her out of her pain, and me out of mine...what is yours?

Jocelyn: Freya is a pound puppy. She looks like a big cream-colored German Shepherd with blue eyes. My mom, dad, brother, and sister each have their own pound puppy, so for Christmas this past year I got everyone a doggie DNA kit. It was so much fun guessing the various breeds and seeing who was right. Freya’s primary breed turned out to be Siberian Husky and then she had two minor breeds – Chow and Miniature Poodle. Yes, my 95 pound dog is part mini-poodle! Freya sends Kita big, slurpy kisses.

Lisa: How are your family and friends with your writing? And how are you with them, in terms of talking about it?

Jocelyn: I quit my job to focus full time on my writing, so my friends and family all know how important writing is to me. They are all extremely supportive, even if it does make my dad super nervous that I have no steady income. I bounce ideas for new projects off of them, and several of them are beta readers.

Lisa: Any tips, comments for people thinking of entering the world of fiction writing?

Jocelyn: My advice is to run far, far away! No, not really, but you have to really love writing to pursue it. The odds of it making you rich or famous are miniscule, and the pursuit of publication is more likely to leave you frustrated and depressed, so you have to be passionate about it. But if you do decide to do enter the writing world, make sure you study the craft: take classes, read books about it, attend conferences, join a critique group. It's important

Lisa: Thanks so much for doing this interview with me Jocelyn.

Jocelyn: Thank you so much for interviewing me! It has been so much fun thinking about my writing in a different way.

There's a new interview coming with a new author. Git your pants out of their twist, and make yourself presentable.

I'm interviewing authors who are 'yet to be discovered,' getting into the grit and the everyday reality of those of us who are working our way toward publication.
Welcome to an undiscovered world. If you like Indie films, you'll be blown away by the world of Indie Publishing.