My Love Affair with Writing

Joanna Young at Confident Writing has challenged us to write about My Love Affair with Writing. She said:

It might be a love affair that’s lasted many years, a brief flame of passion or the heartbreak of unrequited love.

My love affair with writing began nearly a half century ago, but it’s been an on-again, off-again affair.

It started in high school, perhaps my junior or senior year. The high school I attended in a small, rural community had one English teacher for all four grades. She gave our class an assignment to write a short story. My story was a humorous account of a girl trying to introduce her date to her family. I had five siblings, and getting all of them plus my parents (especially my father who was usually working somewhere on the farm) together in one place was a challenge. In my short story, the girl would get a family member or two into the living room, and one of them would disappear before she could find the next one. Eventually the date disappeared …

It doesn’t sound very funny now, but the teacher raved about it when she returned my paper with a great big A+ on the top. Then she asked my permission to read the story to every English class. I don’t recall any compliments or comments from other students, but I do remember the students in my class laughing in all the right places when the teacher read the story. At that moment, I felt like a real writer.

I never considered writing as a career. In college, I majored in sociology and minored in psychology. I didn’t write any fiction, but I wrote a lot of research papers. I also wrote a lot of letters to my future husband as well as to my family.

The first poem I ever wrote - and one of only a handful - was to my future husband on the occasion of our engagement. That poem is handwritten on a card stock picture frame beside my photo used in the engagement announcement in the newspaper, and the photo with the poem, now in fading ink, sits on the headboard of our bed to this day.

For the first few years after college and marriage, I don’t remember doing any writing. After I opened my interior landscape company, I wrote a lot of business proposals that generated sales for my business. I also wrote a few articles for national trade journals; those were inspired by both my love of writing and a desire to build my reputation in the industry.

Journaling has been part of my life through the years - sometimes every day, other times there have been long periods when I didn’t journal.

Throughout my life, I always dreamed of writing “someday.” Then at age 45, I suffered a stroke as a result of a chiropractic manipulation. I knew then that “someday” had arrived. It took a couple of years for me to recover sufficiently to be able to sit at a computer to type, but as soon as I could I started my first novel. Like many first novels, a lot of it was autobiographical about my stroke experience, but I wrote it as a romance. I had been married to my own romantic hero for nearly 25 years at the time and wondered how someone without the kind of support I had could overcome the challenge of a stroke.

I joined writers organizations, attended workshops and seminars, participated in a critique group, wrote three novels, and started another novel in the next few years.

When my first novel was accepted by a publisher after many rejections, I was so excited I didn’t even look at any other books from that publisher (different from my current publisher). When I did start reading, the errors in the books appalled me. I contacted my editor and pointed out the number of mistakes. Fortunately, instead of being offended, she appreciated my interest. She said they were a new company, and they realized their first few books were poorly edited … and she offered me a job editing them!

That experience made me realize I love editing even more than writing. I haven’t written anything new - except journal entries, articles for my church newsletter, and blog posts - for several years. My second novel is scheduled for publication as soon as the publishers are healthy again (the small press is run by a husband and wife and both have had health problems recently). I’m thrilled that it will finally be published, but my greatest joy is helping other writers bring their own books to fruition.

A large part of my freelance business involves work for business clients: proposals, industry articles, resumes, brochures, and manuals. My favorite job, though, is working with authors to prepare their manuscripts for publication. A couple of my clients are submitting their work to major publishers, but most self-publish.

I like to work with my author clients from the beginning of their project, but usually I get involved when they have a completed manuscript. Most of my clients are better storytellers or subject matter experts than writers, and I love to help make their stories and information better. I make their work sound like them … only better. I edit the work, often doing major revisions (like removing the first four chapters of a novel and incorporating the back story that was pertinent into the book where it was needed).

In addition to editing, I offer a wide range of other services: formatting the manuscript for printing, hiring a cover designer and coordinating between the author and the designer, negotiating with a printer, soliciting quotes, writing the back cover blurb, designing and maintaining the author’s Web site and editing the blog, and creating and distributing press releases and other promotional materials.

I’ve called myself a book midwife - helping the author to birth his/her book. Maybe I’m more of an author’s assistant - or the author’s right hand.

My love affair with writing has had many twists and turns, but the passion is still as strong as the day it began, way back in high school when my words first got a positive reaction from my teacher.

Writers Cafe Reopening February 29

The Writers Cafe at Grow Your Writing Business is reopening February 29. I look forward to the weekly opportunity to wind down, network with other writers, learn from each other, and enjoy chatting with writing friends. Hope the place is crowded as we welcome Yvonne and the Cafe back next Friday.

[tags]Writers Cafe[/tags]

First Review for On the Wings of the Wind

The Taylors have received the first review for On the Wings of the Wind: A Journey to Faith.

Carolyn R. Scheidies, a wonderful Christian author and an excellent reviewer, posted the review at Author’s Choice Reviews.

I like her ending comment:

An interesting story, high in Scriptural context, and personal anecdotes.

[tags]On the Wings of the Wind, Christian book review[/tags]

More on Magical Thinking

I didn’t intend to write a series on magical thinking. I planned just one post on the subject, my entry in What I Learned From People. However, this has been a learning experience all on its own. Because I used words that many people consider positive in a negative context, my message apparently didn’t get through to a lot of people. Perhaps the following little joke will put magical thinking in context.

A man of faith, Sam, answered a knock on his door to find a sheriff’s deputy standing on the porch. “Sir,” the deputy said, “the dam has broken and the river is flooding. Come get in my patrol car, and I’ll drive you to safety.”

Sam answered, “Thank you, but God will take care of me.”

A little while later, the floodwaters had reached Sam’s house and were starting to cover the porch. A man arrived in a small rowboat. “Sir,” he called out, “I’ll maneuver my boat right up next to your porch. Jump in the boat, and I’ll row you to safety.”

Sam answered, “Thank you, but God will take care of me.”

Some time later, the water had reached the second floor, and Sam was watching the rising river from a bedroom window. Two men appeared in a much larger boat. “Sir,” one called through a megaphone, “We’ll pull the boat up beside the house and toss you a rope ladder. Grab the ladder and climb down into the boat, and we’ll take you to safety.”

Sam answered, “Thank you, but God will take care of me.”

Soon the floodwaters had filled the house, and Sam was standing on his rooftop. A rescue team arrived in a helicopter. “Sir,” a rescuer called through a bullhorn, “we’re dropping a line. Grab the line; we’ll pull you up into the helicopter and fly you to safety.”

Sam answered, “Thank you, but God will take care of me.”

A short time later, Sam was washed away in the flood. When he came to stand before the Lord, he said, “God, I’ve been a man of faith all my life. I put all my trust in you. I knew you would save me. Why did you let me drown?”

“Son, I sent you a car, two boats, and a helicopter. What more did you want?”

Sam didn’t recognize his salvation in the ordinary people and tools of rescue. He expected God to work a supernatural miracle to save him.

In the same way, the man who expects the government to provide him financial security doesn’t recognize the seeds of his security in the entry level job he disdains because it’s menial work at low pay.

In the same way, the cancer patient who wants healing doesn’t recognize God’s healing hand in months of chemotherapy or radical surgery but wants an instant and miraculous cure.

In the same way, the writer who wants to become a best-selling author doesn’t recognize editing and revising and proofreading as early steps in the road to bestsellerdom but thinks her first draft should be good enough.

Magical thinkers rely on supernatural powers rather than the power of hard work. Magic can happen … but I don’t think any of us can count on it!

Someone Who Isn’t a Magical Thinker

In my earlier posts about what I call magical thinking, I said magical thinkers have a sense of entitlement and believe whatever they want should be provided by someone or something outside themselves.

If we had been born without limbs, most of us would feel we should be cared for and supported by family, the government … somebody. Yet Nick Vujicic has turned his disability into a testimony. He travels the world sharing the Gospel. He relies on God for strength, but he takes care of himself and inspires others.

No magical thinking … but the magic of faith.

Freelance Writers Appreciation Week

Thanks for Kristen King at Inkthinker for pointing out the week of February 10-16 is Freelance Writers Appreciation Week. Kristen invites comments from her readers on what they appreciate about the freelance writing life. I said:

Among the many things I appreciate about the freelance writing life are being able to work from home on my own schedule and getting paid for doing something I love.

Erica Hanson has declared the entire month of February Hug a Freelance Writer Month.

 So, to all my freelance writing friends, here’s your hug!

Authors and Magical Thinking

In the last post, I talked about magical thinkers, people with a sense of entitlement who believe because they want something, they should have it and who expect someone or something else (God, the government, society …) to provide what they feel they deserve.

Now, I’m going to bring the subject back to writing. My comments are not meant to be negative and critical. They are meant to make us take a close look at ourselves.

Many writers (especially novelists and writers of literary fiction) I’ve met through the years are magical thinkers.

• They don’t listen to good advice about their writing. Their consider their writing “art,” and they don’t want to listen to anyone who doesn’t have their vision. Certainly, writers must be cautious of whose advice they accept, but I believe every writer can benefit from objective feedback from other writers, editors, and even avid readers.
• They don’t think good grammar and writing skills are important. Either they believe their story is so good that grammar doesn’t matter or they expect editors at the publishing house who buys their book will “fix” any problems like spelling and punctuation. They don’t understand that their book will never reach an editor if it’s poorly written.
• They think their book is finished when they reach the end. They see no reason to waste time editing, revising, and proofreading their work. They haven’t learned that “writing is rewriting.”
• They don’t follow publishers’ and agents’ guidelines. I’ve heard stories from agents and acquisitions editors about writers who went to extreme lengths to get an unsolicited manuscript to the editor or agent of their choice. One writer followed an editor into the restroom and slid her manuscript under the stall door! They don’t realize that stalking editors and agents will get attention, but not the kind of attention they want.
• They believe “everyone” is their market. Even the most popular books don’t appeal to everyone. The Harry Potter books have sold more copies than most of us can even imagine, but still only a fraction of the reading public has bought and read the books.
• They don’t market their work if it is published. After all, they’ve written the Great American Novel so the world should beat a path to their doorway. They don’t know that marketing by the author makes the difference between failure and success of a book.

At one time, I was listed as a provider of editing services on the Web site of one of the largest subsidy publishing companies. Although I received a number of queries, I never got a client because the authors who contacted me didn’t really believe their work needed editing. They expected me to tell them their words were golden, and when my sample edits actually suggested changes, they didn’t agree.

One writer sent me the first chapter of a novel that was so unbelievable I found myself thinking, That couldn’t happen! The book began with a secret agent during wartime approaching a foreign woman alone in a bar in a country at war and recruiting her as a spy. I suggested he might consider whether it was realistic that a woman would be alone in a bar in an enemy country during wartime and that a secret agent from a third country would openly approach and recruit her without any previous knowledge or contact. (Note, I didn’t tell him this was a bad plot. I didn’t tell him he should change his plot. I simply suggested he consider whether readers would suspend disbelief while reading the story.) He informed me the book was fiction - that meant is wasn’t true, so it didn’t matter if it was believable or not. He couldn’t understand that fiction isn’t true, but it does have to be believable. Even if the plot is not realistic, the reader has to suspend disbelief and believe it could happen.

As far as I know, this writer didn’t hire an editor. He paid a lot of money for a subsidy publisher to print hundreds or thousands of copies of books that few people will ever read. I suspect he didn’t try to market the book, either, expecting hordes of buyers to order a self-published novel, written by a first-time author with no input from anyone else. And faced with a garage full of unsold books and a huge dent in his wallet, he probably found someone else to blame. Magical thinkers never blame themselves for anything.

In a post titled Will Your Book Ever Be Published?, Daily Writing Tips talks about the book 78 Reasons Why Your Book May Never Be Published and 14 Reasons Why It Just Might. The post lists a few of the reasons your book might not be published … and many of those reasons are the result of magical thinking.

If you want to succeed as an author - whether your publisher is a huge New York conglomerate or yourself, you can’t be a magical thinker. You have to take responsibility; learn the craft of writing and the publishing industry; write, write, write … revise, revise, revise; then once you’re published, market, market, market. Then you just might experience real magic - a successful book!

What I Learned from People with Magical Thinking

When I worked for the state employment commission as part of the federal government’s War on Poverty in the 1970s, I encountered some … different, interesting , unusual … characters. Our clients were “hard-core unemployed;” some turned out to be unemployable.

The program was a collaboration between several governmental agencies and nonprofit organizations contracted to provide training. Participants attended classes to learn the basics of the world of work - from how to dress for a job interview to why it’s important to show up to a job when hired. They received a small weekly stipend during their training.

We counselors created an employability plan to determine what steps were required to make them ready to hold a job, and the job developers tried to find employers willing to hire those who had been through the program. Clients had to report for counseling if they were absent from class or exhibited behavioral problems, and we referred them to other services as needed.

One young veteran of the Vietnam War did not disclose that he was discharged with a mental disability. (One of the problems with the program was that we weren’t allowed to verify information; we had to accept whatever the applicants told us.) He missed classes for an entire week but showed up Friday afternoon for his paycheck from the previous week. When I asked him why he had been absent, he said his wife had left him, and he had followed her to Houston to try to convince her to return. He told me she left him because he didn’t have any money, and he needed money so she would go back to him. I’m quite sure it was his disturbed behavior and not lack of finances that caused her to leave, but he couldn’t be persuaded that he needed anything except money. He did agree to an appointment for family counseling Monday morning - probably just to get me to authorize the release of his check. That night at midnight, he showed up at the back door of a fast food restaurant where he had once worked. Because the manager recognized the former employee, he opened the door to him while he was counting the day’s receipts. The veteran slashed the manager’s throat and grabbed the money. In his confused thinking, he believed that slitting the man’s throat without killing him would keep the manager from identifying him; he didn’t realize the man would simply write his name on a notepad. The disturbed young man was arrested, convicted, and committed to a mental institution.

In another case, a young lady with a two-year-child was found to be pregnant. She said and asked very strange things about pregnancy - things that most women would know, especially if they had already borne a child. One day, she came to me in a panic and said, “They took my baby.” When I finally made sense of her confused and confusing statements, I realized that she had taken her two-year-old to the county (charity) hospital for medical treatment, and the hospital would not release the child to her. I made some phone calls to find out what had happened and learned that the child was not hers. As a tiny infant, the boy had been left with her to babysit. When the parents returned a few hours later, the house was empty and the babysitter and baby had disappeared. I confronted the client with this information, and she said, “But God gave me the baby. I wanted a baby so bad, and I prayed to God, and He sent me the baby.” She was charged with kidnapping, but I believe she was determined to be mentally incompetent to stand trial.

These are tragic stories of people who were seriously ill. However, they are more severe cases of a phenomenon I see far too often, what I call magical thinking. A lot of people who are not clinically ill suffer from magical thinking.

There are two elements of magical thinking:

1. Magical thinkers feel a sense of entitlement. Because they want something, they believe they should have it.

2. They expect someone or something outside themselves to give them what they want. I believe in the power of prayer, and I know God gives us good and perfect gifts we don’t deserve. But he doesn’t answer a woman’s prayer for a baby by giving her the opportunity to kidnap another family’s child.

Often magical thinkers expect the government to give them those things to which they feel entitled: health care, education, job security, retirement income, a bailout from financial problems … Now, I’m all in favor of the government protecting the most vulnerable among us - but the Constitution says we’re all entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We aren’t entitled to happiness, and we aren’t entitled to a life free of challenges.

Robert Hruzek at Middle Zone Musings has challenged us to write about “What I Learned from People.” I’ve learned there are two kinds of people. Of course, there are many superficial differences - race/ethnicity, intelligence, appearance, personality, and dozens more. But these are superficial. At the core, we all want the same things - love, family, security, happiness.

The only real difference between people is whether they are magical thinkers or not. Those who aren’t magical thinkers recognize they aren’t entitled to everything they want and are willing to work to make their dreams come true.

“Pray like everything depends on God; work like everything depends on you.” (I couldn’t find the citation for this quote; if you know who said it, please let me know.) (St. Ignatius of Loyola) Thanks, Brad Shorr.

Self-Publishing Podcast Part 4 from Authors on the Net

Phil Davis of Authors on the Net has conducted a series of interviews with me about self-publishing. Part 4 concludes the series.

You’ll want to listen in order, so if you’ve missed earlier interviews, listen to them first. I hope you find the Self-Publishing Primer and the podcasts helpful.

[tags]self-publishing[/tags]

Writing Better with Auto-Correct

In an earlier post, I mentioned that I use auto-correct in Word while writing the first draft even though I don’t edit until the first draft is complete.

Auto-correct gives you options to correct as you type - automatically capitalizing the first word in a sentence and the names of days, for example. Then there’s a list of words, symbols, and letters to replace as you type - such as inserting the trademark symbol when you type the letters tm in parentheses or changing yuo to you. The list includes many common errors, and turning auto-correct on can save you time so the program changes tellt he to tell the or teh to the.

Did you know you can customize auto-correct? If the words that you frequently misspell aren’t listed, you can add them. Just type in the way you wrongly spell the word in the “replace” field and the correct spelling in the “with” field. Of course, you’ll need to check the dictionary before you add an entry to make sure you spell it right. Otherwise, Word will “correct” it so it’s wrong every time.

You can also create abbreviations for words that you type a lot. For example, in my novels, I create abbreviations for the main characters. Just remember that the abbreviation will always be converted into the character’s name, so don’t use an abbreviation that is a real word. I learned this the hard way when I abbreviated Marilee as MA (the initials for her full name Marilee Anderson). In another document, I used MA (correctly) for Massachusetts, and Word addressed my letter to Boston, Marilee! I could use MAR, which works because auto-correct is case-sensitive. The word mar (to damage) doesn’t change; only MAR becomes Marilee. However, I find it easier to type mari and avoid using caps. This is especially helpful if you have a character with a long or difficult name. Not only does it save time but it avoids typos as well.

Learn to customize auto-correct, and you’ll write faster with fewer errors.

If only it would read my mind and insert the words I leave out …

[tags]auto-correct[/tags]

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