Another San Francisco Writers Conference, Another Kick in the Rear

Posted by Joanne Huspek

I love San Francisco, and I really love the San Francisco Writers Conference. It’s not the fine food and stellar accommodations, it’s not the rubbing of elbows with the glitterati of the literati. It’s not even the infectious positive energy that seems to be exuding from everyone’s pores. Nope. This is the one weekend of the year when I receive a much needed kick in the pants.

Lisa See was the luncheon speaker the other day. Her talking points regarding the life of a writer really hit home. Key among them is something I’ve constantly heard. “A thousand words a day.”

Seems like a simple thing to do, but it’s not. Well, it is, but if you’re a world class procrastinator like I am, you can find at least a thousand and one reasons to put off the daily write.

I’m old. I have limited time to devote to writing, and I should make use of that time judiciously. Consider me sufficiently mentally flogged.

This is why I’m up at 4 a..m. writing.

Not really. I’m up at 4 a.m. because I’m still on Michigan time. And because after four days of rushing up and down stairs at the conference and navigating the streets of San Francisco (also up and down, talk about a workout), I feel like I’ve been run over by a truck. Despite my sore muscles and droopy, jet-lagged eyelids, once I post this, I’m going to get busy. Again.

So thank you, Lisa See.

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Book Baby-ing It – Part One

Posted by Joanne Huspek

Over the weekend, I decided to take the plunge. After months (years) of writing, re-writing, editing, thirteen beta readers, online classes, queries galore, a cover design, and critiques up the wazoo, I have decided to finally *sigh* give birth to one of my written creations.

That’s right, Virtually Yours is virtually going live. I’m going to e-pub it as soon as I can.

As we all know, I am not a computer-internet geek-head, much as you might want to think so considering the setting in Virtually Yours (the internet). I only recently learned I was setting up my Word documents incorrectly for publishing. When did the world decide two spaces between sentences was one too many? Or that you should never, ever tab to indent?

I have suffered headaches just casually glancing at Smashwords’ user guide. To be quite fair to Smashwords, perhaps the guide is easy for those whose right brains are near normal. My brain, left or right, is not anywhere close to that level. Even with this online guru’s massive blog about self-e-pubbing printed and by my side, I still couldn’t figure out the conversion.

I don’t have a lot of time. If I did, I wouldn’t play on the internet more. I’d write more.

So…I have decided to enlist the services of Book Baby. For a nominal fee, they will convert your text, assign your book an ISBN, and release it into markets including Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Possible headache averted.

I decided to go for the premium service, which is $100 more. For that fee, a proof will be provided. I’ve proofed my novel at least ten times in the last month; I still miss the typos.

The site is easy to use. You upload your book and your cover, and voila! You’re on your way. While the process is relatively painless, there are a few quirks that caused me to pause before the final click.

One is that you’re warned about not being able to proof or that changes will cost more money. Wait a minute, I thought. I thought I paid for premium? Don’t I get a proof? I then used the “Contact Us” info to contact them. I wanted to be sure before I plunked down my cash for this service. Contact is made by email. There are phone numbers, but I was working on a weekend. I figured email would be faster.

If you’re wondering if it was faster, all I can say is that my email was sent Friday night. I’m still waiting for a reply.

After two days of waiting, I decided to forge ahead and worry about my dissatisfaction later. At the point of payment, the reassuring mention of proof was included. Ah… And then the standard blah-blah-blah about how long it might take (two weeks) but it also might take less than that.

I have no idea what is going on.

As soon as I find out what happens next, I’ll let you know. Also when the book is truly launched. And then my friends who have pledged to buy a copy (leaving me with enough for a Starbucks, I hope) will hopefully whip out their credit cards and PayPal accounts and get busy.

🙂

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Incredibly Horrible Malaise Scares Writer Back to Work

Posted by Joanne Huspek

The headline says it all…

It had to happen.

After bragging for three years about my relative good health and having extolled the virtues of yearly flu shots, last weekend I was felled by malaise.

Now, my family will say that my “illness” was actually a prolonged hangover (I did drink, not that much. I was happy. My son and his wife were in town, whaddya want me to do? Sit there with an unhappy face?); I also consumed some medium well pork roast and a ton of sauerkraut that spent an afternoon bubbling in a pot along with spare ribs – and ate a deceptively small potato dumpling that probably weighed a pound. (It was my homage to the Bohemian ancestors, again, whaddya want me to do? I don’t make this dinner but on special occasions.) The result: I couldn’t get out of bed Sunday, except to make a mad dash for the bathroom. After several mad dashes, which wore a trough into my carpet, I experienced hot flashes worse than any menopause, accompanied by alternating cold spells where I shivered uncontrollably under layers of blankets.

Obviously, I couldn’t write under these conditions. I couldn’t watch TV (hell, I couldn’t operate the remote), answer the phone, read the paper, drink more than a swallow, or be my usual, charming self to our California company under these conditions. And they were begging me to come downstairs and play Scrabble! I was so ill, even a word game couldn’t rouse me.

As I lay on the floor, wadded up in all the spare bedding in the house, thinking I was going to die, and wondering if I should beg someone to drive me to the local ER, I was hit by sudden panic.

MY BOOKS AREN’T FINISHED YET.

I’m in an online Donald Maass class over at Savvy Author, and I hadn’t completed this week’s homework.

MY BOOKS AREN’T FINISHED YET!!

I’ll be attending the San Francisco Writers Conference in less than two weeks, and was going to firm up my speed dating pitches, but no… been putting it off.

MY BOOKS AREN’T FINISHED YET!!!

I’m trying to finish up an ending for the first novel that makes sense. Gave myself a deadline of the end of January, and it’s still in bits and pieces. And yes, I know it’s February. The EIGHTH.

BUT MY BOOKS AREN’T FINISHED YET.

There’s nothing like a brief recline on the deathbed to get a writer off her fat and lazy posterior.

Monday I felt a little better. Not much. I prescribed myself home made chicken noodle soup (which my husband says was the best I ever made – but he says that every time I make soup) and decided to lay low. Tuesday found me hugely improved. Exhausted but in an upright and locked position.

Today I woke up with more spring than I’ve had in a long time. It’s time to write, people, and the only way I know to get there is to sit down and do it.

Which is where I’m heading after I post this.

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Big Money: A Dream Writers Must Let Go Of

Posted by Joanne Huspek

In addition to writing, I enjoy other interests. Key among them is working, although truth be told, if I were to happen upon the Lotto jackpot, I would retire from the time-sucking Day Job and write full time in a heartbeat. I also enjoy gourmet cooking, gardening; I paint, I sew, I make twisted things out of wire and gems. I play guitar and violin (badly).

I argue that anything one can do in life can be elevated to art. Even the time-sucking Day Job.

Even *gasp* menial tasks.

I think back to when I started writing “seriously” in 2007. I’m pretty sure making money was the furthest thing from my mind. I know for a fact that my seedling of a story had no outline and no intended ending. Getting it all down on paper was the goal, and it was a huge one. Once you’ve achieved the goal, the next step is editing. Re-writing. Polishing. Weaving subplots and intricacies into the story. Editing and polishing some more. And then of course, querying.

I’m constantly amazed by writers who think they can make money from the writing venture. I suppose there are some who can pump out volume after volume and sell – sell big time, even. They talk about platform, social media, marketing. It’s all necessary. Even the big houses aren’t paying for publicity anymore, so the author is expected to peddle – I mean, sell – their own work.

When you add up the time creating, fold in the time and expense of editing, and cap it off with the time marketing, most writers make about 2 cents an hour. If that.

Obviously, one cannot look at writing as a money-making venture.

I liken writing to my jewelry making venture: it’s something I do, and do well. It’s something I enjoy. I love creating art, whether it is visual, wearable, or readable. My output is unusual, quirky and, well… artistic. It appeals to some, but not to the masses. I have reconciled myself as a jewelry artist with any dreams I have of being able to live off my work. I can’t.

My son has a degree in piano performance from a prestigious music conservatory. He’s a fabulous pianist, truly an artist when it comes to playing the piano. But there are hundreds, no, thousands of fabulous pianists within a twenty-mile radius of his house. He’s great, and he can barely live off his work.

I belong to writing associations and go to conferences. Some think that book sales in the 2-3 thousand range is great. It’s not enough to live on, but it’s respectable. You might break even. If enough people love it, your agent might want you to produce more of the same, therefore ensuring continued success.

But are you kidding? There are literally thousands and thousands of great writers. I have a To-Read list that threatens to crush me. Some of the books were recommended; others were given to me to read for review. Many were self-published. Not everyone can do a decent job of writing a book, but believe me, there are plenty out there that do a kick-ass job – and they don’t have contracts with big houses.

As an artist, I recommend the following: let go of the Big Money dream. It’s nice to have for the occasional foray into pleasantville, but the reality is that even with self-pubbing and e-pubbing, the best you can do is small money and some recognition.

As an artist, I thoroughly recommend honing your craft. Study. Make use of information – there’s a ton of it out there. Make a few mistakes, and don’t be afraid of trying something new. Approach writing as a learning experience. Your artistic work is and should be your primary focus, not snagging an agent or getting a contract. God forbid, not hoping for the big pay-off.

After all, you have a better chance of hitting the Lotto.

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Global Search and Destroy: A Writer’s Big Gun

Posted by Joanne Huspek

You can say many things about Microsoft Word, some of which are kind, others disparaging, but the one GOOD thing is the capability to search your document for certain words or phrases.

Why is this so important?

If you write like I do (right off the top of my head, and like I speak), many troublesome redundancies may appear in your writing that will cause the reader to cringe, become bored, or out-right begin to hate you and your story. I also tend to write as fast as I can, one, to get it all down before I forget – as I am pre-Alzheimery, and two, because my writing time is severely limited.

My speaking voice loves descriptors, or adverbs and adjectives. I’m afraid this was the result of my upbringing. My father tends to lean the same way. He once used the word ‘evidently’ so much, I began using it too. I was once so flowery in small claims court, that the judge admonished me to shut up. (I won, but not before putting a muzzle on my mouth.)

Some writers are completely anti-adverb and anti-adjective. The ‘-ly’ words are devils! Too many petals on your prose makes it purple! While on the subject of punctuation, too many ‘!’ are a no-n0, and italics are to be used sparingly.

For those of you who have met me in the flesh or know me because they are unfortunately related to me, I am a passionate person. When I’m angered, I can go on a tirade that withers most steely men to the consistency of wilted spinach. My peeps, I speak in exclamation points. I dream the thesaurus. I observe the world in super-Technicolor. My spoken voice is littered with italics. When I began to write, I peppered my prose with lots of ‘-ly’ words – thanks to Roget’s – and plenty of exclamation points.

Too many.

The first thing my friend and nag, the Little Fluffy Cat, did when she read my first chapter of my first novel was to tell me to get rid of the prologue. And the adverbs. And the exclamation points. And the dead words, like ‘well,’ ‘huh,’ ‘no.’ And the ‘-ing’ words. Why? If you need to get your point across, show don’t tell. Adverbs are unfortunately telling words. Writers must show. Dead words don’t add to the conversation. Many readers’ eyes won’t register the words at all. Why have them if they’re useless? Prose is stronger without them. ‘-Ing’ words are passive. You want your writing to zing. Take all of this garbage away and you are left with a meaner, cleaner piece of work.

LFC taught me to use the ‘Find’ (and ‘Replace’)  feature of Word. With just one click of a button, I can locate where a word is used, and Word also counts the number of times I’ve used it. (I’m so dumb; there is a ‘Find/Replace’ feature?) With that, I eliminated all of my ‘-ly’ words, which deflated the 170K manuscript by about 8K words.

But this was only the beginning.

I personally don’t like seeing the same descriptor in the same paragraph or on the same page. I don’t know why; it just bothers me. As a reader, it’s irritating. As a writer, I think I can do better.

Novel #1 is now down to a reasonable 113K, but in writing, re-writing, and editing, I found the same (annoying/blah/overused) words keep popping up. While in a momentary lull last week, I searched out a few of them. I found 92 instances of ‘family’ were about 72 times too many. I eliminated more ‘well’s’ and ‘mmm’s’ from my dialogue.

So if you, as a writer, are suffering from writer’s block, pull out your manuscript and try the ‘Find’ feature. (Under ‘Editing’ – ‘Find’) Play around with it a little. See if you can eliminate your garbage/fluffy words to make your writing stronger.

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Using Real Life Angst in Writing

Posted by Joanne Huspek

Real Life might get in a writer’s way. In fact, that’s the common complaint for those of us who write on the sly. Commitments are a bitch. Time is a precious commodity; making time to write is a monumental task, up there with moving mountains with a hand shovel and ants carrying a thousand times their weight. But Real Life does provide a wealth of opportunity for the writer, especially if your Real Life situations involve a lot of grief and angst.

Certainly, Real Life can be ugly. No one wants to experience, pain, heartbreak, financial distress, loss, failing health, death and/or any other number of things that can cause the mind to go crazy and the heart to palpitate.

I’m only mentioning this because there have been a lot of trying personal setbacks I’ve had to deal with in the last month or so. It’s not just the holidays, although for some reason, Christmas seems to bring out either the best or the worst in people – usually the worst. It’s not the upcoming birthday, the date on the calendar wagging an accusatory finger at me. (F*** off, birthday.) It’s not the SAD I’m experiencing, although the revelation that the Detroit metro area only sees about 70 days of sunshine per year is enough to make me jump out of my window (where I would land on the sidewalk, broken but not dead). It’s not the recent full moon, or the feeling I have that the stars are not aligned in my favor this year. (I saw 2012. We’re doomed. Although John Cusack can save me any day. In fact, I’d prefer John Cusack over any superhero out there. Please send John Cusack.)

When I started out writing poetry, I found using my personal anguish as a creative outlet was extremely therapeutic. Plus, the best writing is sprung from disaster. I don’t know about the “real” poets out there, but my best poetry was born out of hardship and anxiety. It was the case then and is probably so now that I can’t write poetry at all when I’m happy.

Writing prose is a little different, but not much. I have to be manic to write sassy stuff. It helps if I’m majorly pissed off when I write opinion pieces. And I must always be in the throes of a near meltdown to write anything else.

There’s a fine way of incorporating your heavy heart into your writing.

First tip: get a notebook. I’m partial to small ones that can fit in my bag. These days I like pretty ones, although it doesn’t really matter what the cover looks like. Carry it and a pen with you at all times.

Second tip: at the apex of your distress, whip out the notebook and begin to jot a few things down. These don’t have to be complete sentences. They don’t even have to be pretty thoughts, just record. How does your heart feel? Can you breathe at all? Does your head hurt?

Third tip: expand on your observations. If you felt like crying, what prevented you? If you did break down and sob, what did that feel like? Try not to use the old cliches, like “it felt like I’d been punched in the stomach.” Find a new way to describe your discomfort. Play with words; your thesaurus can be a goldmine, but not until you get out the pick axe and start digging.

I’m employing this technique right now to enhance the emotional description I’d already laid down. It is more likely that you’ll take your notebook and tuck it away, like I did – until I’d unearthed it.

Make use of your angst. It’s a valuable tool.

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How an Editor for Life Made Me a Writer for Life

Posted by Joanne Huspek

I’ve been dying to (and trying to) write this post for a month. You know how it is. December = holidays + end-of-year-tax-queasiness + noticeable lack of sunlight. End result, many trips to CVS for stomach relief medicine. One of my resolutions – besides the standard lose ten pounds, exercise more, and WRITE – is to contribute to the blog more than once in a blue moon. More like once a week. Here goes:

When a person decides to write something more substantial than a blog post or article, something epic, like an actual novel (many thousands of words, many hundreds of pages, many characters and plot twists), it’s like a journey to another land.

Transcontinental. By covered wagon. Through a summer Death Valley and a winter in the Sierras. Alone. (Well, except for the one horse.)

Despite the fact that there are educational institutions, libraries full of reference books, conferences and seminars galore, critique groups, writing friends, and of course, the vast Internet, the writer is flying solo. Or in my case, walking alongside the covered wagon solo.

A few years ago, I decided to enlist in professional help. I’d completed two novels. I have plenty of online writing friends, many published authors, who have cheered me on and slapped me silly. I joined a local critique group. But something was missing.

First of all, I can only bother my online writer friends just so much. They are busy writing. Some had paired up with others for mutual in-depth critiquing. This happens best if both writers produce in a similar genre. I will BETA read other genres, sometimes for pleasure, sometimes I’m asked, but I know from the get-go that my favorite reading material is women driven, contemporary, and literary. And it’s a lot to ask someone to be your crit bud for life.

Second, writing, like many artistic endeavors including music and the visual arts, can’t be self-taught, despite all of the reference books out there. My library is a testament to writing reference. If it was printed, I bought it, from Donald Maass to Stephen King to Noah Lukeman and beyond. Sure, the creative juices are yours and yours alone, and you’re the master of your creation, but without (superior, constant, personal) guidance, one might fall back on easy and bad habits.

I’ve been in a few critique groups, some temporarily. I’m fairly intelligent, have a decent grasp of grammar, punctuation, and of course, am a stellar speller. I don’t need a line editor or proofreader. What I’m looking for in a group critique situation is similar to what I expect from my online writer friends: brutal honesty on story development. If I wanted sycophantic praise, I’d have given my material to some sympathetic BETA readers I know. I knew my writing was lacking something, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

I could tell my writer friends were patiently annoyed by my requests. Books can only give so much information. The critique route wasn’t working. I had to do something else.

Going back to school was instantly nixed. I own a business (several) and I don’t have time to commit myself to college. Plus, I’m just too old. I can see myself in a class room with a bunch of teenagers…NOT!

For me, there was only one alternative, and that was to pay for professional help.

I know what you’re thinking. Pay? Money? For an editor? Was I out of my mind? Was what they say about teachers (those who can, do; those who can’t teach) directly applicable to editors?

Well, how was I to know? Unless I looked around.

I’d met several professional editors along my rutted wagon trail way, some online and some at the San Francisco Writers Conference. (Hey, there are worse things than talking to professional editors at a conference…for free.) I’d struck up a rapport with a couple. Some are outrageously expensive (albeit, these are the gurus, the top guns of the industry) and others seemed to be dirt cheap. Those on either side of the spectrum worried me. I’d used a few to help me with beginning chapters, and one to assist with all of VIRTUALLY YOURS. Some were easy to work with, some not so.

Mr. ED (of VY fame) approached me with a novel *punny* idea: That is, he suggested a tailor-made program for me. Editor for Life.

I’ll have to admit, the ED for Life thing sounded a bit off the chart. It was expensive. In case you didn’t know, I’m cheap. We all know I am a cynic. But I did enjoy working with him. He got my vision, yet wasn’t afraid to tell me when I wandered way off track. I returned his offer of lifelong help with many questions. Serious questions, including provisos in case either one of us died. (Honestly. Either one of us could get hit by a bus tomorrow and then where would we be?) I thought, and I thought some more, and I finally agreed. (In installments. I’m not fabulously wealthy.)

There is a moral to this long, twisted tale of me and my writing covered wagon, and I’m getting to it.

Once I made the commitment to ED for Life, my outlook on writing changed. I became a WRITER for Life.

That’s right. Since signing on the dotted line, I’ve been writing or editing nearly non-stop. Almost daily. No longer did I suffer writer’s block or depression over my work. I’ve been pumping out words like there’s no tomorrow. (That’s because theoretically, tomorrow might never come. Plus I want to get my money’s worth.)

The writing tables have turned. Now I have two horses hitched up to my covered wagon. The journey will be bumpy, but at least I have a navigator.

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