"And then, suddenly..."

Deus ex machina. Literally, "god from the machine."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deus_ex_machina

You've seen it before. It's the object that turns up exactly at the perfect time the characters need it to get out of their life-threatening fix. It's the character who suddenly remembers they studied Morse code in Boy Scouts and translates the message that sends them in the right direction. It's the tornado that swoops out of the cornfield and kills off the bad guy just as he's about to kill the hero and heroine.

It's also weak storytelling and should be avoided at all costs.

If you paint (or in this case, write) yourself into a corner, you don't resort to magic wands to fix it. (Unless, of course, it's a story about wizards.) You might, however, be forced to send your story in a different direction than you wanted.

Your other option, of course, is to stop, examine your story from the beginning, and make course corrections to avoid the problem in the first place, or set it up better so it's not a, "And, SUDDENLY...!" kind of moment.

Special Snowflake Follow Up.

Wow. I'm totally blown away (in a good way) to the response to my "You are Not a Special Snowflake" post.

I also had no idea (and I had many private responses besides the ones in the comments) how many people said they'd been afraid to say what I said.

And that, to me, begs the question...why?

As a writer, I want the honest truth, whether it's from a competent critique partner/beta reader, or from someone in the industry dishing out advice on wise career moves. I don't want anyone to ever sugar-coat stuff and tell me what they think I want to hear instead of the truth. Now, obviously, I prefer the truth to be couched constructively and politely, but still, don't piddle on my leg and tell me it's raining.

That's the kind of gal I am.

I'm also glad that so many people were encouraged by my post, because that was the whole point--to encourage you that it's not some impossible dream to make a living as a writer. Writing is like any other endeavor. You can't get one rejection and decide it's not the life for you if you want to grow successful at it. On the other hand, if you do let one rejection get you down, maybe it's not the right business for you.

We writers are crazy people, let's face it. (I'm talking fiction writers, although it applies to some non-fic writers too. *LOL*) I mean, we sit in a dark hole and listen to the voices in our heads tell us what to write. We think about fantasy people and put them in horrible situations and think of ways to kill and maim them. We write some pretty crazy sh*t sometimes. (In my case, some pretty pervy sh*t. *LOL*)

We attempt to take unsuspecting readers with us on that roller coaster ride that is our imagination, to give them a glimpse into what's going on inside our skulls. Face it, when you read, you're looking at the brain of a writer. Not necessarily the Wiz behind the curtain, but you're seeing all the other stuff.

Just like you can't take a single painting class, give up, and ever hope to be the next Da Vinci, you cannot write one thing and give up and expect to be the next Steinbeck or Hemingway. It won't happen.

Fiction authors didn't become fiction authors because the fast-food drive-through gig didn't pan out for them. They're the people willing to work the drive-through gig to supplement their maniacal scribblings. "Author" isn't a job description to them, it's a personality label. It's not what they do, it's who they are.

If you don't want to write for a living and just want it to be a hobby, that's fine too. There is nothing wrong with being a recreational writer. But if you have it in your head you will make a living at writing, then you have to give up some of those fallacies you might have held onto, snowflake, and realize you're stuck in the blizzard with the rest of us, each of us working our little snowflake butts off to end up on the ski slopes and to not get blown into a patch of black ice (or worse, yellow snow).*

If a writer tells me, "I want to make a living as an author," I'll ask them, "How many hours do you spend writing every day/week?" If they give me a blank look or tell me they fit it in when they can at Nanowrimo time, or they can't remember the last time they actually WROTE something, that tells me they are not serious about doing it.

Yes, real life gets in the way. Kids, family, Evil Day Jobs (EDJs), car pool--whatever. But writers with the drive to succeed work around that. Even if they're driving to work, while they're stuck in that commute their minds are usually working on that latest plot snag they hit and trying to solve it. They carry notebooks with them to jot things down. Even if they aren't writing they're still "writing." I've written whole books in my head during long drives. I get home and make notes and start writing. It's great.

A "real" writer doesn't make excuses, they make time. They take action. Even if all they can sneak in is a page a week, then they fit it in somehow. They are always making forward progress of some sort, whether it's reading a book about writing or following industry market blogs or editing their synopsis or crafting a query letter, they are still WORKING at writing.

I think some readers who decide they want to become writers--and I'm NOT saying all readers, of course--think what we do for a living is easy. "Heck, I can write THAT!" They think all we do is sit around all day in our Spongebob Squarepants PJs while drinking coffee and...

*cough*

Never mind. Okay, writing is not easy. Not just the writing (which is, actually, the easiest part of the process), but the editing, marketing, honing our craft, everything I talked about before.

So why (back to my original point) are some people afraid to tell the truth about this?

I am not Superwoman. (I'm not even Half-Assedwoman on some days.) I'm a wife and mom and I'm no different than most people. (Other than my crazy, warped writer brain.)

If I can do this, anyone who WANTS to be a writer (as an EDJ) can do this. Some will start farther back in the pack than others, depending on their writing skills. But if you want to tell stories and you enjoy telling stories, you can learn the mechanics and improve with lots and lots of hard work and practice. You can beat the e-pavement and submit and submit and submit some more. You can promote your ass off.

Hard work? Yes.

Rocket science? *snort* Thank the Goddess no, because I'd be screwed if it was.

So don't be afraid to tell aspiring authors the truth. Is what we do easy? NO. Is it doable? Absolutely. And writers should hear the truth so they don't unrealistically get their hopes up just to get them smashed.

This isn't a sprint--it's the longest-ass marathon you'll ever run. So pace yourself, keep going, and remember it doesn't matter if you finish first, as long as you don't give up.

---

* How's that for a metaphor from a native Floridian gal who's never seen real snow?

You Are Not a Special Snowflake.

I was having a private email discussion back and forth with another writer who, like me, has found better than average success writing for indie e-publishers. They told me something that so totally resonated with me that yes, I have to share it. They were once given the advice to use multiple pen names and not let on how much they write. Not as in how often their butt is in front of the computer, but how much sheer volume of words they turn out on a regular basis. The reason in a nutshell? It might wig some people out and potentially hurt other writers’ feelings.

I pride myself on being honest with my blog readers when I write about writing topics, but this is something I feel is overdue for discussion, even though I know other bloggers (notably one of my favs here and here) have discussed it before.

1) Don’t quit your day job. Chances are, you won’t make enough money writing to support yourself.

2) You can make a good living as a writer.

Yes, I know, those two comments are TOTALLY contradictory. But, they’re both true. Here’s the thing, the majority of writers, because of life, family, evil day jobs (EDJs), or (honestly) quality of writing, will fall in category number one. What bumps a writer from number one to number two has very little to do with luck or magic thinking or even talent in some cases. It has to do with a lot (a LOT) of hard fracking work.

So along with the bubble-bursting I’m about to do, I promise to give you advice to help you find your own way. Some of you are going to hate me for the things I’m about to discuss. That’s cool, whatever. But I’m not going to lie to you and say yeah, it’s sunshine and daisies and anyone at all can do what I and other writers like me do with no trouble at all.

It’s a lot. Of. Fracking. Work.

Let me say up front I am no Stephen King in terms of income. There is this HUGE fallacy that if someone is a “bestselling author” that they are these rich people. I’ve got news for you, Binky, just because a book shows up on the NYT Bestseller list (which none of mine have yet to date *LOL*) doesn’t mean that writer is rich. Seriously. Especially if they never break the top twenty.

The average mid-list writer doesn’t quit their day job, even if they get an advance, because they know that both their agent (if they have one) and the IRS will get a chunk of that windfall, if they even earn it all at once. It’s not uncommon for a publisher to hold back part of an advance until the book actually hits the shelves. And guess what? You don’t see royalties on a book until the advance has “earned out.” And in today’s market, it’s not at all uncommon for a book to not earn out for several years, if at all. The average writer makes less than poverty-level income from their writing.

1) You are not the next Stephenie Meyer, J.K. Rowling, Lemony Snicket, Nora Roberts, Stephen King, Dan Brown, _________.

You. Are. Not. Quit deluding yourself and go take your meds. “Magically discovered” authors are the rare exception, not the norm. Most “successful” writers (who can claim writing as their sole EDJ to the IRS) got that way through a LOT of hard work over several years.

2) “You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You are the same decaying organic matter as everyone else, and we are all part of the same compost pile. “ (Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club)

If you start out unpublished thinking you are the best, the most special, the ungodliest super-dooperiest writer out there and any agent or publisher would be fracking crazy not to sign you, you’ve lost the battle before you ever made it to the front lines. You are not better than everyone else. Chances are, you’re not as good as everyone else unless you’ve spent years working on learning the art and craft of writing.

It amazes me how many first-time writers think they are da shit when they wave a crappy manuscript around in the air and berate agents and publishers for not liking them when they never bothered to even print and edit the damn thing because they think they are just. That. Good. (Again, go take your meds.) Bucky, if you don’t know your to/too/two, and your its/it’s from your arse, and you need the apostrophe police to come arrest your sorry self, you need to sit down, shut up, and get to work learning those basics before you can make grand proclamations. Seriously. Dude.

And if you think your work is too good to edit? Phwoar! Think again. Even I--someone who knew I wanted to be a writer for over twenty-five years and spent that time working and honing my craft--know I NEED an editor to look over my work. If you’re a diva right out of the gate, duuude, you’re screwed.

3) "’It's only after you've lost everything,’ Tyler says, ‘that you're free to do anything.’" (Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club)

Okay, forget “holding out” for a “real” book deal. Seriously. Have you LOOKED at the state of traditional publishers lately? Yes, they take new writers, but revisit my first point again. Then revisit point two. I know some of you reading this ARE able to back up your belief in your ability as a writer with good, solid writing. Good on ya. But trust me, do you really want to spend five or ten years waiting for New York to come knocking, or would you rather write for a living and see your manuscripts published and actually read by people? Not to mention making you money.

Give up the notion of scoring that dream NY contract and instead focus on taking the indie world by storm. You can make money, build a solid readership, then when you try NY again, you can proudly wave your accomplishments in their face and if they still say no, you’ve still got the knowledge that you can and do make sales. It’s the big fish/little pond principle at work. What do you have to lose? You have NOTHING to lose by going indie. “I like the feel of a book in my hands.” Bullshit. I like the look of a royalty check in my bank account. If you’re blessed with an EDJ that pays your bills, maybe you can afford to wait around. I can’t. And with so many people in dire financial straits these days, many other wannabe writers can’t afford to wait around either. So work those indie publishers. Build a following. Learn the business.

4) You’re on your own.

Whether you’re signed at an indie publisher or a big NY house, you. Are. On. Your. Own. It sucks, and it’s not fair, but most publishers will not put advertising and co-op dollars into promoting writers who aren’t A-listers. Some larger indie houses are now taking out group ads for their writers (I’m blessed enough to be a writer for one of them), but for the most part, you’re on your own. You cannot turn in a manuscript and dust off your hands and forget about it. You have to network, hustle, promote, and build your author brand.

5) Writing for a living is not art, it’s business.

If you write because you enjoy it and you write and don’t care if you sell books, then stand aside for those of us who want to make a living at it. Post your “art” on the free reading sites or Lulu.com and quit clogging the slush piles. Seriously. I’m not saying anything others haven’t said before (and I’m sure I’ll get whacked for that one) but frankly, it’s the truth. If you don’t want to get paid, why in the Goddess’ name are you submitting and wasting editors’ and agents’ valuable time? You’re making it harder for us who DO want to make a living at it. You’re like the slow driver in the left-hand lane with their right turn signal on. Move. The. Frack. Over.

6) If you want to make money writing, you HAVE to treat it like any other business.

That means sacrificing family time and play time and Wii time and TV time to plop your ass in front of your computer and put words on the paper on a regular basis. You can’t take ten years to write a book. You need to, seriously, invest in a typing software and learn how to touch type and speed up your production. You need to learn how to self-edit on the fly and not take six months to revise a book once you’ve completed the first draft. You need to learn to write for the money. Which brings me to the next point…

7) If you want to make a living writing, you have to write where the money is.

I learned early on that there is decent money to be made writing erotica. Therefore, I follow the money. I don’t sacrifice the quality of my writing or the depth of my storytelling, I still stay true to myself in those regards. But I don’t write about unicorns if hot Alpha wolf shifters are what’s making money. If my publisher came to me and said, “Okay, possum shifters are the next big thing and we’re selling the hell out of them,” guess what my next book would be? You guessed it, possum shifters.

8) Don’t try to imitate the latest craze.

No, this doesn't contradict point 7. By the time your book gets out there, it’s been overdone by other writers with the same idea. Be original. If you want to write vampires, write them your way, not the same old hackneyed plot and angst everyone else uses.

9) Don’t take things personally.

Yes, it sucks big hairy donkey balls to hear “no” from an agent or publisher. I know it. It does, I’ve been there, done that. I put in my time and ran the gauntlet of agents and publishers. I’ve got a file full of rejection slips until I made that first sale. However, if you let it crush your soul, you’re ignoring point 6 – writing is a business.

Publishers aren’t going to publish you because they like you or think you’re a great person or have a winning smile or killer personality. They’ll publish you (or not) based on whether that wad of words you dumped into their in box is salable or not, or if it’s salvageable enough (time and effort invested versus cost/potential earnings) to accept. It’s that simple. But if every writer that heard no gave up or let it crush them stopped trying, NONE of us would be published. Seriously. Consider it a badge of honor that you survived the process and get over it.

10) Not everyone will like what you write.

It could be the best, most well-polished manuscript, interesting characters, intriguing plot, kick-assiest story ever published. I guarantee you, SOMEONE will hate it, even if just because they can’t stand you having success. See point 9 – don’t take things personally. It’s a business. Move on. My own mother loves me but won’t read 90% of what I write because erotica is not her thing, and that’s cool, seriously. My husband isn’t into m/m scenes and will skim through those. Again, that’s cool. Some people that love my erotica don’t like my non-erotica. Again, whatever. That’s fine. See point 9.

11) Don’t give up.

If you throw your hands in the air and cry about it, you deserve to fail. Seriously. If you have the drive to make it, the guts to fight through the masses, the mental drive to improve yourself as a writer and seize every opportunity to better yourself as a writer, you can make it. Is it easy? Hell no, it’s not. Don’t. Give. Up.

12) Write your ass off.

Between the time my first book was officially released on 08/08/08 and as of this writing, I’ve got nineteen releases out with several more contracted and pending. More WIPs in the wings awaiting me to finish and submit them. You do the math. That’s an average of a book or more a month. Not all of them were full-length novels, some were short stories and novellas, but still, that’s a lot of copy.

Doing Nanowrimo is great, but it’s not uncommon for me to turn out 10k words or more in a DAY when I’m in a writing cycle. The most I’ve done so far was 80k words in a week. Again, back to this IS my EDJ and I’m in front of my laptop on average 12 to 14 hours a day. Sometimes writing, sometimes editing, sometimes promo and web maintenance. Again, heed my advice about learning to touch type. And the more you write, the better you’ll get at it. I spent several years writing non-fiction for a living, some of that in a journalism environment. When an editor tells you they want a ten-inch column in three days, they won’t accept, “But I have writer’s block!” as an excuse.

I ALWAYS have multiple manuscripts going at once. If I get blocked, I immediately start working on a different one so I’m at least making forward momentum on something. Write something. ANYTHING. Don’t sit there and whine you don’t know what to write about. If you don’t know what to write about, seriously, you won’t become a successful professional writer. My problem (and other successful writers have this as well) isn’t coming up with ideas to write about, my problem is not enough time in the day to do it. People ask me how I keep the ideas straight. Well, it’s my job.

13) Not every book will make you money -- live with it.

Don't let it stop you from taking chances. I have books that have blown me away by how well they’ve done, and I have books that have made me less money than it cost me in paper and toner to run them on my home printer to do the edits before I submitted them. Seriously. It’s a numbers game. And it’s not that the books are “bad” books, but they’re not money books. And that’s okay. It could be any number of things—genre, heat level, lack of visibility—contributing to that. But I don’t dwell on it. I move on to the next project. And it balances out. This goes back to several of the previous points, including don’t give up, write your ass off, and treat it like a business. Move on to the next project, learn from your mistakes, and keep going.

14) Study the market.

You will not change the market. Period. You need to adjust your writing and marketing plan to fit the target audience. You will not sell a fluffy-bunny teddy bear story to hard-core BDSM erotica lovers. It won’t happen. If you want to write fluffy-bunny teddy bear stories, fine, but do your research and try to sell and market them in appropriate markets. The fluffy-bunny teddy bear story lovers likely won’t hang out in the BDSM discussion forums, either.

If you don’t believe me, go cruise the Amazon.com romance discussion forum and read how many people there complain about the amount and kind of sex in Lora Leigh’s stories and in other books technically considered erotica. (Not to pick on her, but that’s just one I recently read.) Um, hello, Lora Leigh’s stories are usually erotica.

Now, it’s not her fault the romance readers are complaining about erotica, but it illustrates the point that you need to clearly market and brand yourself as a writer. (Again, not her fault they picked up her books.) I’ve also heard people who hate paranormal books complain about paranormal books they’ve read. Again, you can’t help that they picked up a book they normally don’t like, but you need to market yourself to try to reach the readers you want to reach.

15) Don’t be a one-trick pony.

Write in different genres, even if it means you think you need multiple pen names to do it. This will help you maximize your earning potential. Someone who hates cowboy stories won’t read them. And if all you write is cowboy stories, you won’t make that sale. But if they love paranormal and you write paranormal, you might pick them up as a reader and they might decide to take a chance on your cowboy stories.

16) Don’t keep sticking a pen in your eye and saying ow and doing it again.

Learn from your mistakes. If you find a publisher isn’t a good fit for you, make a business decision and move on. I’m blessed to have great publishers, and remember, not every publisher is a fit for every story. You don’t take your Ford in to a Chevy dealership for repairs, and you wouldn’t try to sell a BDSM erotica story at a Christian inspirational romance publisher. Seriously. If you write steampunk, find a publisher that will be a good fit. If you write paranormal erotica, find a publisher than handles a lot of it. Check Amazon.com Kindle rankings for authors and stories and publishers.

17) Once you’re published, obsessively check your rankings.

Seriously. At one publisher, I can check my real-time sales data through their site (not the third-party sales though). But at all my publishers, I can check myself on their bestseller lists. I can cruise my Amazon.com rankings. I can check Fictionwise and Mobi and others for the most part, or at least make an educated guess as to where I am. I check my web stats, I look at referral and search landing data. Use the data you get to make business decisions about how to market and seeing what works and what doesn’t. There is no magic bullet.

18) Have fun.

Yes, treat it like a business, but have fun doing it.

19) Indie/e-publishing is REAL publishing.

It puts out REAL books that can be read by REAL readers and earn you REAL money you can buy REAL things and pay REAL bills with. ‘Kay? ‘Nuff said.

***

Most writers won’t make enough to make a full-time EDJ living writing, or they will give up before they even have a chance to start because of whatever reason. But I’m not a special snowflake—ANYONE can do what I’ve done. Others have done it.

I didn’t write this to discourage you. I didn’t write this to piss you off or start a flame war. I didn’t write this to try to keep you from being successful.

See, here’s the thing, being a “successful writer” isn’t this one-up, top of the heap position you have to heavily defend. There is PLENTY of room at the top for anyone who wants to work their ass off to get there. And believe it or not, there aren’t people standing up there kicking at you if you get too close. They know there’s plenty of room up there and generally, they’re too busy trying to keep themselves up there to worry about whether you make it up there with them or not. Seriously. I know there’s this myth that writers will backbite each other, well, maybe some do. Fortunately for me, I haven’t seen that happen although I’ve heard urban myths about it.

I want you to succeed. Why?

Because I’m sick of the stupid asshats claiming that you can’t make a living writing in indie publishing, and I’m sick of the asshats who keep putting down romance and erotica, and I’m REALLY sick of the artsy-fartsy people who claim you can only be a “serious writer” if you write artsy-fartsy writing published by a “real” publishing house. I want to blow the fallacies—good and bad—out of the water so you can wade through the crapload of misinformation and get the information you need to make a successful living doing this.

Let’s prove these jokers wrong. I’m storming the hill, want to join me? Don’t worry, there are no bullets coming at us, just morons lobbing laughable grenades full of skewed, old-fashioned babble. The only thing standing in our way is ourselves. You with me?

Let’s go.

Promotions

I responded to a promo question from newbie author who is a fellow writer at one of my publishers. I thought it might not be a bad idea to share my answers with y'all. Feel free to contribute your own ideas for what's worked for you in the comments.

Her e-book won't be out for a couple of months yet, but she was asking what she could do to promote it. Here is what I told her:

1) Website. If you don't have one that's up to date and relatively typo-free, you need one, asap. Which brings me to point...

2) Blog. You can point a domain name at a free blog if you don't have a website, like Blogger. Blog on a regular basis, and not just about your stuff, but value-added content like goings on in the e-book industry, writing how-to things, humor, free stories, etc.

3) Social Networking. Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Ning, etc. At the VERY least you need Facebook and Twitter. It used to be MySpace was a must, but Facebook and Twitter are really taking over.

4) Email List. Promo on the Yahoogroups, make SURE to follow all list guidelines for posting excerpts.

5) Guest Blog. Many of the review sites have guest blog opps. Follow up on them and use them.

6) Answer Emails. This might seem like a no-brainer, but whenever a fan emails you, write them back. One of the main things I constantly hear from fans is they're amazed I answer my email, because apparently a lot of writers don't.

7) Caffeine. Lots of it. Lots and LOTS of it.

---

So what else has worked for you?

Avoiding Head Hopping POVs.

Well, yesterday I did something I don't get as much time to do lately as I'd like. I sat and finished reading a book.

Unfortunately, this book was an older romance (published in the early '90's). I ordered it and the sequel from Paperbackswap.com because the sequel had been talked about on an Amazon.com discussion board and caught my interest, and when I looked it up, I found it had a prequel so I got that too.

I'm almost afraid to read the sequel.

The book (no, I'm not going to tell you the title or the author) is a historical set in England and involves pirates. (That narrows it down to about a bazillion books.) And while the story was okay, the characters okay, one thing that slammed home within the first ten pages was head-hopping.

I'm not talking every once in a while, I'm talking all the time. Including dropping into the heads of MINOR characters for just a sentence or two.

I'm guessing the author wanted to write this book in third-person omniscient, and while yes, that IS a valid POV approach, the way they went about it, especially for a romance, totally pulled me out of the story time and again and was executed so poorly I spent a lot of time trying to figure out who the heck's POV I was in.

It was both a lesson in patience and writing for me. I've seen poorly-executed POV shifts before. This...this was just flat-out BAD. Now, I don't know if romances published in this time period had a lot of that, or if this was just a particularly bad example, but jeez Louise, give me a break.

Here's how NOT to execute a POV shift, especially in a romance:

1. Don't shift multiple times on the SAME PAGE. (Only one or two shifts PER SCENE, and limit them to major characters.)
2. Don't flip into a minor character's POV for a paragraph or two when it's not integral to the story. (Most of the time, it's not integral to the story.)
3. Don't make your reader work to try to figure out whose POV they're in. (I cover this shortly.)
4. Don't give every character their own POV. (See point #2.)

I mean, it was baaaaad.

Limit your POV shifts to the main characters, and only once or twice during a scene. In a romance, that is your hero, heroine, if it's a menage/multiple story then other lovers in the story can have a POV, and if there is one, the antagonist can have a POV. Sometimes minor characters can have their own POV, but ONLY if the scene they're in is one in which they are the pivotal character IN that scene.

For example, in my Tymber Dalton book, "Love Slave for Two: Family Matters," Tommy's mother, Peggy Kinsey, gets several scenes in her POV because she is the lynch pin in those scenes. Nevvie (the heroine) actually takes a backseat to her mother-in-law because of the events. That was a perfectly acceptable use of that POV. There are other scenes where she (Peggy) is in the scene, but I never flip to her POV because it's not necessary.

When you flip to a different POV, CLEARLY indicate that's what you're doing. One of the easiest ways to do this is the following example yanked from my brain:

(Long scene in hero's POV, ending in the following...) He walked over to the TV and angrily turned it off. "I want to talk to you about this." Sue looked scared. Good. He wanted her fear now, because maybe it would mean she would actually listen to him for once.

Sue watched as he turned off the TV and turned to her. She'd never seen him look so angry before. I wonder if he's going to yell at me, she thought. "What's wrong?" she asked him.

Again, that's an out of my butt example. But you can see where when I flipped to the heroine's POV, I clearly indicated it by identifying her immediately by name and by showing an observation from her point of view, followed by a thought, followed by her dialog. Now, I didn't have to have all three of those things, of course, but the key was I immediately identified her and an observation clearly attributed to her, that only she could make, so I anchored the reader in her POV. It is patently obvious we are now in the heroine's POV. And if I was to continue the example, there I would stay for a while. I would NOT immediately flip back to his POV in a paragraph or two.

Another technique for a seamless POV shift is the character whose POV we were in leaves the room or falls asleep and another character takes over. This is effective when you had three or more people in the room and need to flip to a third POV. Then you can avoid a scene break (if the scene hasn't ended).

In a romance, especially during romantic scenes, it's very tempting to flip back and forth in POV during love scenes. I know, because I used to want to do it a lot. But there is a fine line between head hops and legitimate POV shifts, and the more I write, the more I'm finding ways to avoid them so I don't have readers wanting to toss a book. *LOL* I actually approach writing differently now than I used to simply to avoid unnecessary POV shifts. There are a lot of houses now who will not accept ANY POV shift within a scene simply because so many people cannot properly execute POV shifts without it becoming head hopping.

So pay attention to your POV and save yourself agonizing choices later during edits. While writing, anchor yourself as the writer in one character's POV and remember you cannot write something that character doesn't personally think, observe, or say. So if you're writing from the heroine's POV, you cannot write that the hero thinks something while in her POV.

Some POV slips can be taken care of by exchanging an internal thought or observation into spoken dialog. This is an easy fix for many things. Or you can say the other character "seemed" to ______ or "apparently" _______. That would convert it to an observation the other character could make, preserving POV.

Happy Writing!

(Bad Pun Alert) Easy Writer.

I want to let you in on a little secret about writing. (It's not a secret for my fellow pubbed authors, because they already know this, so quit that snickering there in the peanut gallery.)

Writing is the EASY part of your job.

Yep.

You know, all those gallons of sweat and all those buckets of tears you put into your manuscript, along with a few pints of blood to season the mix?

Child's play.

See, once you get your "baby" accepted and published and then you get your first round of edits back from your editor...let's just say make sure you've got a glass of something stronger than soda water ready to steady your nerves.

And I don't give a rat's ass how many times you went through that puppy before you submitted it, how clean you thought it was. Once it's sat in a darkened corner for a while and you get your eyes on it after an editor has been through it...

Owch.

I don't mean to sound cold and callous or discouraging to newbie writers, but frankly, if you think getting your words on the page was the hardest part of the process and the rest is all downhill from there, Sunshine, have I got a cold, hard wake-up for you that you're not going to like.

Let me say it again for those who missed it the first time around: Writing your book is the EASY part of the entire insane process.

And that's taking the submission part right out of the queue and jumping to the assumption that your manuscript is placed with a publisher.

Why do I harp on this? Because I'm seeing more newbie writers out there who apparently haven't done any research on how publishing works. They think they can write, submit, and sit back and get paid.

Now, I'm NOT trying to discourage them from writing. Quite the contrary. I think they should be prepared for the process ahead of them so they can survive it without having to be admitted to a mental hospital in the process.

And then, let's not forget self-promotion. You cannot sit back and assume someone will do it all for you. If you already have an evil day job that isn't "novelist," you must find a way to make time in there, along with family obligations, sleep, eating, and car pooling, to self-promote. If you do not self-promote, you will not sell books. Or you will not sell many books.

Now, all that said, you might ask why the hell anyone in their right (write *LOL*) mind would want this gig?

If you are a writer, you already know the answer to that question.

So newbie writers, don't despair. No matter how hard it might feel getting that book pulled out of your brain and onto the page, once it's finished, you'll appreciate it for what it is:

The easy part.

Now gird your loins and go forth and kick butt and know that you're not alone in your post-writing misery. We feel your pain.

Determination.

Approximately a year ago, about this time, my older Toshiba laptop died. Well, as I panicked when the screen, which had been getting progressively redder upon start-up over several months, went totally black, I realized I still had lights on in the main laptop body. Meaning it wasn't dead-dead, just sort of dead. I unplugged it from everything, raced it back from the living room to our office, unplugged a desktop monitor from a tower and into my laptop...

*Huge sigh of relief!*

Toshi wasn't dead, just disabled. The screen, that is.

Hence started a huge-ass back-up to get all my past and current projects up-to-date on my back-up external flash drive (500gb).

And I went to plan B.

Plan B was my little (and by that I DO mean little) Asus eeePC. Tiny little thing. When put up against my normal sized laptop, it's a leeetle teeny baby computer. But at the time, I was in the process of starting a manuscript that I really needed to finish. Now, I didn't have Word installed on the Asus, but I did have Open Office. Despite the tiny screen and tiny keyboard, I was determined to make do.

Fortunately, my cousin is an uber-geek-god when it comes to fixing electronics and he assured me he would get Toshi up and running.

In the meanwhile, I didn't want to take over my dh's laptop, and I just can't write on a desktop anymore.

So I installed SuperNotecard on the Asus, copied my current works in progress files, and away I went. I did have to invest in a full-sized wireless keyboard/mouse combo, but after several weeks my cousin got Toshi back up and running before I went blind from the tiny screen.

In the meantime, I finished and submitted the manuscript for "Love at First Bight." Written almost entirely on the Asus.

I posed the question on my Facebook wall the other day asking fellow writers what was the strangest/most unusual way you'd written something, usually in desperation. I would have to say since I don't usually write longhand (arthritis), that my month-long stint on my Asus was my strangest to date. Toshi was returned to me as good as new, but earlier this year I upgraded to a new Toshiba laptop, and my "old" Toshi has been relegated to back-up status. (Keep in mind, I use my laptops like most people use desktops, and my laptop is on usually 12+ hours a day.)

So what's your story? My point of this entry is that there are plenty of excuses why you "can't" write. But if you are a "real" writer, you know there are no excuses. Whether it's one sentence or a whole novel, you find a way to write it because it's not just what you do, it's who you are. So feel free to share your strangest/most desperate/unusual writing tales.

(And don't forget to back up your data!)

(PS - For you government FCC blog geektards, yes, I purchased both my Toshiba laptops and my Asus eeePC. But if either company ever wanted to offer me a freebie I'd take it in a heartbeat. So pppptttppp!)

Configuring retro-Word appearance.

Do you miss the old versions of Word where you could use a dark background and light text?

I got this link courtesy of author Douglas Clegg:

http://www.ehow.com/how_4494872_make-word-2007-look-feel.html

You can not only change Word 2007 so the background and text colors are reversed for ease of use, you can make it look like an old-time word processor and reduce your time-suckage distractions by setting it up for full-screen viewing!

Mega-cool, and a HUGE thank you to Douglas for the link!!!!

English is hard!

First of all, I didn't write this, I got it through the Writing email list on the Internet Writing Workshop. I don't know who originally wrote it, but kudos to you, sir or madame. I'm classifying it as a "writing how-to" post because frankly? It sort of is. *LOL*
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You think English is easy???

Read to the end . . . a new twist

1) The bandage was wound around the wound.

2) The farm was used to produce produce.

3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.

4) We must polish the Polish furniture.

5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.

6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.

7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.

8) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.

9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.

10) I did not object to the object.

11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.

12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.

13) They were too close to the door to close it.

14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.

15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.

16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.

17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.

18) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.

19) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.

20) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

Let's face it, English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat. We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth, beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices? Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?

If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Drive on a parkway and park in a driveway? Have noses that run and feet that smell?

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which, an alarm goes off by going on.

English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all. That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.

P.S. -- Why doesn't 'Buick' rhyme with 'quick' ?

You lovers of the English language might enjoy this:

There is a two-letter word that perhaps has more meanings than any other two-letter word, and that is 'UP.'

It's easy to understand UP, meaning toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake UP?

At a meeting, why does a topic come UP?

Why do we speak UP and why are the officers UP for election and why is it UP to the secretary to write UP a report? We call UP our friends.

And we use it to brighten UP a room, polish UP the silver; we warm UP the leftovers and clean UP the kitchen.

We lock UP the house and some guys fix UP the old car.

At other times the little word has real special meaning.

People stir UP trouble, line UP for tickets, work UP an appetite, and think UP excuses.

To be dressed is one thing, but to be dressed UP is special.

A drain must be opened UP because it is stopped UP.

We open UP a store in the morning but we close it UP at night.

We seem to be pretty mixed UP about UP!

To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of UP, look the word UP in the dictionary.

In a desk-sized dictionary, it takes UP almost 1/4th of the page and can add UP to about thirty definitions.

If you are UP to it, you might try building UP a list of the many ways UP is used.

It will take UP a lot of your time, but if you don't give UP, you may wind UP with a hundred or more.

When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding UP .

When the sun comes out we say it is clearing UP... When it rains, it wets the earth and often messes things UP. When it doesn't rain for awhile, things dry UP.

One could go on and on, but I'll wrap it UP, for now my time is UP, so...it is time to shut UP!

Now it's UP to you what you do with this email.

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(Note to writers from Lesli: "Up" is one of those sneaky little "filler" words we all use without thinking, but really, in many cases, they're extraneous and just pad your word count with worthless extras. For example, you don't need to say the character "sat down." You can say, "He sat." Down is implied. But, if for something particular, like he's going to pay attention to someone speaking, you can say, "He sat up straight in his chair," or similar phrasing to indicate what he's doing. It's easy to say, "He sat back down," when, "He sat again," or, "He returned to his chair," would be better. So beware those sneaky little words!)

Quick historical research tip.

Just a quick tip today. Here's something neat I discovered with my old friend, Wikipedia. (Yes, I know, you have to double-check what you find on Wikipedia, but it's a great place to start.)

If you need to do research on a particular year for, say, a historical romance you're writing, you can type in something like this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1879

and it gives you major events, births, and deaths for that year. Substitute the year you want, of course.

Again, it doesn't mean you can get away with no other research, but if you need a starting point to help you get a feel for a year, there you go. Enjoy!