Writing is a lot like Riding

There's a certain culture surrounding equine sports that I used to assume was unique to the horse world. A certain commonality in socialization. I've realized, though, that there are strange customs in all arenas. On the surface, writing and publishing seem to have nothing in common with competitive dressage. But in both circles, similar behaviors prevail.

Whether it's a barn full of horse enthusiasts or a gathering of writers, you are guaranteed to observe the following:

1) All prior experience, education or expertise is irrelevant when meeting new people in your field; they all assume you are a a complete novice and know nothing.

2) As a complete novice, it is deemed imperative that you join one or several clubs, organizations, networks, and/or loose social gatherings so that your education can begin.

3) All of your new friends will tell you how congenial, helpful and generous they are.

4) All of your congenial, helpful, generous new friends ask for your support and in return, offer to support you.

5) All of your congenial, helpful, generous new friends do not support you in return.

6) Randomly greeting or attempting to engage anyone to whom you haven't been introduced results in scorn and/or dirty looks.

7) There are approximately a million experts and geniuses in your midst whose opinions are law and whose advice you simply must adhere to if you hope to ever be a success.

8) These geniuses use the majority of their skills telling others how they might become successful - they are so busy doing this, poor dears, that they accomplish very little for themselves.

9) It is understood that everyone excels at everything, and that focusing on unique skills is forbidden.

10) Taking advice into consideration, politely nodding, then doing what you feel is best is a cardinal sin, one which all your new congenial, helpful, generous, genius, highly skilled, completely fabulous, unfriendly friends will not hesitate to tell you about.

Whether it's riding or writing, you quickly become disenchanted with the social aspects and decide that what you truly want to do is write, or ride, and that if you let yourself get too caught up in all the "help" being offered you, you will become the antithesis of what you set out to be. I'm passionate about writing and literature, and I love talking to others about it, but this idea that you "have" to do anything is just as absurd as being given the cold shoulder the morning I walked down the aisle of the show barn and deigned to tell everyone, "Good morning." I don't follow any of the strange writing world customs, and I'd like to think that any and everyone feels welcome to ask me about any and everything. True friendliness, true help and generosity, shouldn't be something the self-appointed "it" crowd lords over others. Unfortunately, that's the world we live in, and choosing to go a different way makes the path a tricky one to navigate.

More Fix You

I had such high hopes of picking back up with Made for Breaking, but I've finally learned that I need to concentrate on one novel at a time. Right now, I need to concentrate on Fix You. I'm working like a madwoman and hoping to have it ready for a March release. Until then, here's another sample from my rough draft. I should be posting more snippets and more deleted scenes in the next couple of weeks. Thanks for reading!

Jess made the mistake of telling her sister about their backyard creeper the next morning at breakfast.

            They were at the dilapidated old picnic table beside the cottage with the kids, waiting on Ellie and Chris to arrive before the day could begin, both of them dressed for work, Jess sipping coffee while everyone else dug into Eggos.

            Jo paused in the act of drizzling more syrup onto her plate, big eyes going saucer wide. “Excuse me?” she asked. “There was a – and you didn’t come tell us? Or call us? Or -,”

            “What would you have done?” Jess asked. “Sicced Tam and a flashlight on him?”

            “Well, yes!”

I'm Gonna Call it a 'Fan Encounter'

This is not a true statement because twenty-five-year-old indie authors don't have "fans", per se. But yesterday, when I arrived at the dentist for my six month teeth cleaning, a copy of Keep You was set before me at the front desk and I was asked to sign it. I had the loveliest five minute conversation about the Walkers in which I was so flattered and touched that I wanted to dance around like a little kid. It was so unexpected, and so kind...I think, for writers, it always feels like a great favor when someone reads our work. But every once in a while we are reminded that there are people who read it voluntarily, because they like it, and they want more of it, and they ask when the next book will be out.

Sometimes, dedicating my time to providing entertainment feels foolish. But encounters like the one I had yesterday remind me why I do what I do.

These Boots are Ruining My Life

These boots, found HERE, keep popping up in my inbox and on Facebook. This is what I get for liking Country Outfitters on FB. One of these days, I'll be able to squander $362 on the most perfect pair of cowboy boots ever, but until then, these boots are ruining my life.

That is all.

Memories

“Touch has a memory.”
― John Keats

 

 

I love writing memories. LOVE. That sounds weird, yes, because a memory is an intangible thing. But memories are what separate humans from animals; they give our minds a linear quality, and provide us with this constant kaleidoscope of past sensations that come rushing back to us at times of unexpected provocation. People have memories both hideous and cherished, triggered by scents and sights. Because I'm seriously obsessed with fictional characters who feel like real people and not just vehicles for the writer's story, I think it's important for characters to have memories too. Because when the character recalls a touch, that moment in the past becomes concrete, and not just something the writer wants me to assume.

 

I like trying to bring memories to life, like this: "She remembered the night they’d made him – the frost on the windowpane, the smell of sandalwood soap and the taste of too-expensive wine on his tongue, the way everything had clicked and the world had melted away for a few perfect, preserved minutes that still reminded her of the brush of silk sheets against her naked skin even now." ~Fix You

 

And I like writing flashbacks, too, because sometimes I think it's important to "see" exactly how a certain piece of history unfolded.

 

Some people don't like flashbacks, and I understand that; they slow the narrative and can be hard to follow at times. But I love blending past and present because it's something very real and something that happens to me quite a lot.

 

For instance: last night, I walked past this picture of my very first horse Skip, who I had for fourteen years and who I lost about a year-and-a-half ago.

 

 

 

I was just passing through the kitchen and my eyes landed on the photo and all of a sudden, my hand remembered the slick feel of his new red spring coat - slick as seal hide. My nose remembered the warm, outdoor smell of horse that was his and his alone - you think I'm strange, but all horses have their own clean horse smell. I remembered the way he twitched his lip against my shoulder, asking for a carrot, and I remembered the coarseness of his forelock the last day of his life when I smoothed it across his forehead. I looked at the picture once, and a thousand memories - tiny, tactile things like the sound of his hooves on asphalt and the swish of his tail - went tumbling through my head and it was like I'd just left him down at the barn a few minutes before.

 

 

So yeah...I dig writing memories.



Deleted Scene - The Little Ones

I don't know about anyone else, but I love getting to see the deleted scenes from a movie. They're usually just fluff, but I like fluff. Most books have deleted scenes too; some are truly deleted while others, like mine, were never written in the first place but were happy little notions of fluff that the author wanted to write.

Here's a bit of fluff from Better Than You that I never got to write.

 

 

 

The Little Ones
(From Better Than You)

Mike told Tam he was going outside to see if the girls had arrived yet; really, he needed some air. Out on the terraced front steps of the courthouse, the city square choked with traffic and pedestrians spread before him, he took a deep breath down into his lungs that reeked of car exhaust and whatever was being grilled up for lunch at the pub just across the corner. He could hear the fountain, the whine of engines, the occasional snatch of a laugh, the rumble of the train two blocks away. It was a brilliant day – intense with July sunlight, unrelenting in its brightness. The world was alive with dancing heat mirages; the heat, after leaving the air conditioned courthouse, soothing and oppressive all at once. There was nothing fresh about the air he’d needed – it was fully-baked and saturated with the smells of the city – but that was immaterial. He needed, for some stupid reason he didn’t quite understand, to wait, hands in his pockets, as his mother, his fiancée, and his sisters came up the sidewalk and started up the stairs to him.

He greeted all of them, pressed a fast kiss to Delta’s lips, but it was Jo he detained with a hand on her forearm. “Can I talk to you a sec?”

The look she flashed up to him was reluctant and knowing, but she nodded.

Sneak Peek of Fix You

Happy Monday, all! I'm editing Better Than You today, so here's a sneak peek at the next volume in the series: Fix You. I'm hoping for a March release on it, but I'll just have to see how cooperative Jess and co. agree to be.

 

 

From Fix You

 

7

 

 The drive was two dirt tire tracks with a strip of grass between, so unremarkable Jess would have missed it had she been the one driving. But three-hundred-year-old Millie Marshall the real estate agent saw it, bifocals and all, and her boat of a Cadillac hit the rut at the curb with a jump that sent Tyler bouncing up out of his seat. Jess saw his head in the rearview mirror and was grateful the weight of Willa’s carseat kept her from smacking against the roof.

            “Whoa,” Tyler said with a laugh, and Willa giggled. So at least they weren’t bothered by the whiplash.

            “The house sits on the back of the property,” Millie said. She had a voice like the rustling of bird wings, too quiet and indistinct. “It has a beautiful view of the lake.”

            “Okay.” Jess grabbed at the dash as they bobbed down into a pothole to the sound of more giggling from the backseat. “Where’s the guest cottage?”

            “Right beside the house, dear.”

            The drive snaked between thick copses of pines and birches, climbing slowly upward, and then the Cadillac waddled its way over the crest of a hill and left the trees, emerging into a several acre clearing that did, in fact, on either side of the house, go all the way to the muddy brown edge of the lake. Jess saw the waving, tall stalks of grass, the overgrown gardens, the falling-apart outbuildings and the little white cottage for caretakers, but it was the mansion itself that pulled her eyes: a monolithic, decaying beast of a structure.