All Jokes Aside

As you may already know, my first novel was published in November 2009. It's been an exciting and nerve racking year and a half. I have been trying to learn as much as possible about this new (to me) world called publishing and at the same time also learning so much more about myself; what I'm capable of, what my downfalls are. I'm learning it's important to build a fan base, a platform, and maintain an on line presence that is welcoming and offers something useful to others. The questions I keep coming back to are, How much do readers, online friends, and fans want to know? and How much am I willing to divulge?

This whole on line life is completely new to me, and at my age new things don't come so easily, so I wrestle between openness and privacy and often end up hiding behind humor (cheesy humor at that). This is something I've slowly come to see in myself. Seeing our own faults don't hit as fast as say, seeing faults in others. It's more of a process, like grief, that until we get to a point where we can accept we can not work on making necessary changes. That is where I am, accepting and deciding on how to make the changes.

It's not that I see a sense of humor as a bad thing. It's gotten me through a lot of tough times and helped me to view life less critically. But it can also be a crutch, a way of avoiding something uncomfortable or stressful. When it becomes a crutch it actually builds a wall, a protective barrier, between me and the world. I know this, and believe I have found a good balance with this in my real, off line life. Online, well that's another story. Online, I know that my tendencies toward humor can make me look fickle and even unprofessional at times. This is a problem, because I started this whole on line adventure to learn and enhance my professional writing life, not hinder it. At the same time, I don't want to completely lose my sense of humor in the process.

So, now that I know and accept this, how do I begin to make changes? I'm not sure. I know a big part of it is forcing my self to be more honest and open. I follow some incredible people and blogs online that have both inspired and forced me to look deeper at myself as a person on and off line. There is a difference between the two, for me anyway. I admire the people that can open themselves up to the world, that's not me. I'm a private person by nature. I do pour myself, heart and soul, into my writing, but I think knowing there's a cushion of fiction surrounding those raw exposed parts of me that live in every character I create allows me to do so.

There are no easy answers to this. It's going to be, like most everything in life, a series of trials and errors. I'm just beginning this journey, and know that I will get to a place that allows me to be more open yet keep some degree of privacy, which I think is vital in keeping mine and my family's life sacred and special to us. All I can ask for is patience (from myself and others) while I figure this all out.

My question to you is:

How much do you, as a reader, want to know about the author?

Thank you for stopping by. I do appreciate the time you take out of your own journeys to listen to mine.

Kristin : )

National Poetry Month: The Road Not Taken

We have come to the end of my celebration of National Poetry Month. It was nice to revisit some of my favorite poems by Robert Frost and find a few I new ones. I'll cap off month with Frost's most popular.


The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -
I took the one less traveled by
And that has made all the difference.


I hope you have enjoyed. Thanks for stopping by.

Kristin : )

Writer Wednesdays: Jamie DeBree

The Path to “Writer”

Jamie DeBree

I’ve wanted to be a writer for a long time. I guess some would say I’ve *been* a writer for a long time, just with some very long growth and research periods thrown in (though I never dared use the title until just this last year). I started writing in high school with pages of passionate purple prose that garnered my first negative critique and a suggestion that I not pursue writing as anything more than a hobby. It was a sentiment echoed by well-meaning (and perhaps correct) family members, though their reasons were more practical – according to my mom, a woman should always be able to take care of and provide for herself, no matter her marital status. Wise words to this day, I think.

I’ve always had a very clear understanding of what it is to be self-employed, because my father has run his own business from home since I was very young. Growing up with that made me very much aware of the “feast or famine” lifestyle that any full-time writer would probably face, it’s just the nature of self-employment and contract work. So I had already dismissed the possibility of being a full-time writer…at least not until far in the future when I would be retired and no longer in need of a steady income.

I went off to college, working two, sometimes three jobs to pay for a degree I was pretty sure I’d never use and always, always in the background was the itch to write something more than essays and term papers. I didn’t have time to write back then, but I thought about it almost constantly as I went about my practical life. I’d occasionally jot down a story idea or a few chapters of something, and then walk away from it again as “real life” took over.

After college I got a “real” job, and started working 8-5, amazed at how much *time* I had left over in the day with only one job and no classes or homework. I finally indulged my desire to write, throwing myself headlong into National Novel Writing Month and shocking myself by completing a 50,000 word novel. It was supposed to be a mystery-thriller, but turned into a mish-mash of all the genres I routinely read (romance, mystery, thriller, horror, and even some literary elements). It was bad (it’s still bad, actually), but it soothed that deep, aching need to write that I’d been carrying around for years. I still knew that writing wasn’t a “practical” career, so my writing would only be a hobby, but I wrote several more NaNo novels after that, each one improving. I dabbled a bit with editing, but it was overwhelming, and I couldn’t quite get motivated to put that much work into a “hobby”. I even tried to just give it up – quit writing altogether, but then November came around again, and I…just couldn’t stay away. Pretty soon I started the serial novel on my blog…my first novel written “in public” so to speak, and the first fiction I’d shown to anyone since high school. I got a few encouraging comments, and started meeting other writers – it felt good. It felt “right”…like I was doing what I’d been meant to do all along.

Last March, I decided to buy a netbook. A new story was percolating in my head at the time - I wanted to write, and I didn’t want to be stuck back in my office doing it. The week it got here I started writing the novel I’m currently editing for submission this summer. I've been writing regularly ever since – I just needed to be able to do my writing with the rest of the family (my husband and dogs). I really rebelled against locking myself away to work on my novels.

I also started interacting with other writers…and reading everything I could about the publishing industry. My practical side was downright giddy when I learned that there were authors out there who really did make a living selling their books. The key, it seems, is to be prolific, and most self-sufficient authors either sell the big bestselling thrillers, or romance novels. I read a lot of both, but my own novels lean heavily toward the romance side, so it was pretty easy to choose romance as my main genre. My romances are contemporary, but I can’t seem to write one without some sort of suspense element, so I’m calling them romantic suspense for now.

At this point, I'm working hard to set myself up to be successful not only in telling good stories that will entertain people, but also in publishing and selling enough books to earn a comfortable living. My current goal is to publish four books per year, and see how close that will get me to earning what I currently make at my day job. We'll see how that goes, but I'm optimistic. I'll start submitting my first “good” novel (my fifth completed ms) this summer. And that will be the start of a whole new journey.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Thanks Jamie for being a guest for this edition of Writer Wednesdays and thank you to all who took time to stop by and read Jamie's Path to Writing. She also has a great blog that displays some of her work and offers excellent advice to writers Variety Pages . You can also follow her on Twitter @JamieDeBree .

Kristin : )

If you would like more info about this series, please see Writer Wednesday: The Intro

Memoir Mondays: On Writing Well by William Zinsser

On Writing Well by William Zinsser is not exactly a memoir, but it does have a chapter on Memoir writing. So, for that it has earned a place on my Memoir Monday shelf.

This is "an informal guide to writing nonfiction". It is intended to help the nonfiction writer with things like, improving your lead, how to interview and critique. It covers writing about Science, Technology, Nature, Business, Humor, and, of course, Memoirs. In addition to all this I think it offers great advice to all writers.

It's important for all writers to know that "rewriting is the essence of writing" and the best way "you learn to write [is] by writing". Those quotes from the book may sound redundant and simple, but they are true. The more you write, the better you will become at it and that goes for rewriting too. Zinsser puts it perfectly with this thought, "Nobody becomes Tom Wolfe overnight, not even Tom Wolfe."

My favorite part of this book is that Zinsser respects there are "... all kinds of writers and all kinds of methods, and any method that helps people say what they want to say is the right method for them."

Some other great points I took from Zinsser was to simplify as much as possible, grab the readers attention right away, keep focused on what you're trying to say, and if you don't have passion for what you're writing you shouldn't be writing it.

I'm going back over my WIPs now to apply some of these. What do you think of William Zinsser's advice? Have you read On Writing Well, or any of his other books?

Thank you for stopping by.

Kristin : )