Writing in a Time of Discontent

Here by the creek, we do mornings by rote. I head to the kitchen to brew up a strong cup in our French press and prepare the perfect bowl of oatmeal with fresh fruit, while Michael, the darling, feeds the animals and makes the bed. (It must be his Navy training that allows him to create such perfect corners.) We take breakfast seriously, waking slowly as we sip and eat and discover the world’s news—or, in my case, what Facebook and various blogs have to offer.

Words seem too loosely used these days, anger too acceptable. Maybe it’s just man behaving badly to man as he has through the centuries, but I feel as if social media exposes me—us—to accusations tossed like darts at a corkboard in the hope of hitting something, anything. A certain edginess seems to be sneaking up on any unguarded flank.

I’ve met a few folk who claim to have turned off and tuned inward, but does that really work? We can’t live in the world—even if we choose not to be of it—without the mess affecting something—or someone—near or dear to us.

Maybe political writers are doing a happy dance at the angst that provides fodder for their words. But what about the rest of us? I don’t know about you, but I’d like to get on with the story. To explore and create and write.

And yet. And yet.

Story comes from deep within us, sometimes from a well of peace and occasionally from a cauldron bubbling with anger. Whatever’s brewing inside will show up on the page because story does not evolve in a void. Our worldview always creeps in, but what about that next level, the stuff that pushes us to react one way or another as we tiptoe around in a world that feels very much on edge—and I don’t mean on the edge of anything good.

We face a contentious election and prophecies of doom, gloom, and judgment. We look at wars and rumors of wars, at violence escalating around us. In the US, a country supposedly at peace, many are frightened—or at least worried—that they’ll be a terrorist’s next target.

While we’re living this life, responding—or not—to the stimuli slamming us from all sides, we’re writers and so we have stories to tell. What’s in us will emerge. What’s filling our heart and our mind will show up somewhere.

Writers of suspense and intrigue, murder and mayhem have a natural outlet for angst, but what about the rest of us? Does the anger flowing in so many directions, swirling through the atmosphere in real time or online, affect your world and your writing? Do you fear for the future for yourself, for others, for this world? Or does faith guide and flow through you? How do you make that work?

Has anything changed for you? What sort of questions are you asking? (Or aren’t you asking any?)

I find myself questioning my purpose more than ever and wanting my words to count. I’ve spent a lot of time wondering what, if anything, I might do differently to keep my focus on the true and the important. We who believe know the end of the story and Who wins. And while that comforts me, it doesn’t change the fact that I’m not sure how much time I have for business as usual.

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Writing in a Time of Discontent @NovelRocket

Normandie studied sculpture in Italy before receiving a BA, summa cum laude with special honors in English. Her women’s fiction has garnered numerous awards across the country, including a recent final in the Maggie (Heavy Weather): Becalmed (2013), Sailing out of Darkness (2013), and Heavy Weather (2015). Her first romantic suspense, Two from Isaac’s House, released in November 2015 and was a Romantic Times Top Pick. From Fire into Fire is her fifth book. A lifelong sailor, she and her husband spent a number of years on board their 50-foot ketch, Sea Venture, in the Sea of Cortez, Mexico.

www.normandiefischer.com

https://www.facebook.com/NormandieFischer/

@WritingOnBoard

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How Editors Make a Difference ~ Tess Gerritsen

Tess Gerritsen left a successful practice as an internist to raise her children and concentrate on her writing. She gained nationwide acclaim for her first novel of medical suspense, the New York Times bestseller Harvest. She is also the author of the bestsellers Life Support, Bloodstream, Gravity, and The Surgeon. Tess lives with her family in Maine. (PHOTO CREDIT: Paul D'Innocenzo)

How Editors Make a Difference

Tess Gerritsen (reprinted from Murderati)


It's called a death spiral, and I was in one. The year was 2000, and I had just turned in my fifth thriller, The Surgeon. In the U.S., my first four books had hit bestseller lists. In the UK my career was, if not dead, barely twitching. In publishing, "death spiral" describes the steady decline in an author's sales over time, a decline that's almost impossible to reverse. With each new release, the orders are smaller. With smaller orders there's less visibility and poorer distribution, leading inevitably to even poorer sales.


Eventually, no bookstores will order your books. And no publisher wants you as their author.


That's the position I was in back in 2000. My sales had all but crashed and burned in the UK. I'd already failed with two different publishers, and now no one there wanted to touch me. The Surgeon, it appeared, would not be released in the UK at all.


Then a plucky new editor at Transworld Publishers picked up The Surgeon and decided she had to acquire the book. The author's track record was dreadful, getting the book into stores would be a battle, but she was damn well going to do it. She forced (that's the description I heard!) all her colleagues to read the manuscript, and now they were getting excited too. She was the cheerleader, the taskmaster, the evangelist for The Surgeon. I was only vaguely aware of her efforts at the time; after all, I'd failed miserably in the UK before, and my hopes were no higher this time. She sent me the cover design that she was so excited about: a sink drain with splashes of blood.


I just didn't get it. She assured me it would work in the UK market. Anyway, what did I know about the UK market? I was already deemed a failure there, and I was sure to be a failure again. When the book was released in hardcover in the UK, I paid little attention because it was just too depressing to think about.


But this editor wouldn't leave me alone. She kept sending me cheery emails and sales figures. While The Surgeon wasn't hitting any bestseller lists, it wasn't a complete flop. The corpse of my UK career actually took a breath -- if only a shallow one.


The following year, with the publication of The Apprentice in hardcover and The Surgeon in paperback, Transworld invited me for a UK book tour. It was the first time I'd been asked overseas, and I still have one vividly depressing memory of a group booksigning I did in London.


I was sitting next to a bestselling crime author who had a line of fans to buy her book. One man came with a whole box of books for that author to sign. Then he looked at me, shrugged, and said: "I have no idea who you are." He bought one of my paperbacks, but I could see it was only out of sheer pity.


The Surgeon, in paperback, miraculously made it to the top-ten bestseller list.


In the years that followed, as my UK sales continued to climb, this editor and the entire Transworld team never stopped flogging my books. They continually re-packaged the series. They brought me over again and again for tours. They invested in publicity and promotions.


In 2006, I finally hit #1 on the London Times paperback bestseller list with Vanish. And last year, I hit #1 on the hardcover list with The Killing Place.


Transworld not only breathed life back into this old corpse, they got it up and walking and then sprinting ahead of the pack. It demonstrates that even a career that looks dead can be reanimated -- given the right team with the right book. It's a lesson that authors and publishers need to take to heart. If an author writes great books, even if his sales are moribund, he deserves a second look, a second chance. Because he just might be your next #1 bestseller.


Lately, there's been a lot of talk about how authors don't really need publishers anymore because we can self-publish with e-books. Hey, we can do it all ourselves, make more money in the long run, and have complete control over our destinies. To some extent it's true; we can publish our own books. The question is, can we publish our own books well?


(Even in the world of self-publishing, publishers will still play a vital role as gatekeepers. Spam now clogs online booksellers with 99 cent e-books that are either junk or blatantly plagiarized. A publisher's seal of approval can help separate the worthwhile books from the fake ones.)


Over my twenty-five career, I've worked with some truly gifted editors. Every single one has been a pleasure to work with, and my books are all the better because of their input. True, a self-published author could hire a private editor to help polish a manuscript, but the fact is, editors do a lot more than edit. They advocate. They strategize. They even harangue, all on your behalf.


And sometimes, they become your dear friends. This is something we don't talk enough about: how important friendships are in the publishing business. It's not all about sales figures and bean counting. Long after our business associations end, long after we stop needing each other for deals, the friendships remain.


Last month, it was announced that my wonderful UK editor, Selina Walker, is leaving Transworld to take an impressive new job as publisher for Century and Arrow Books. I guess that's what happens when you do a smashing job -- you get promoted. I'm thrilled for her, of course, but I'm also sad that she's leaving. She was the one who pulled me out of my UK death spiral. And that, I will never forget.

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Writing Romance When Your Marriage fails ~ Kit Wilkinson

Kit Wilkinson is a former Ph.D. student who once wrote discussions on the medieval feminine voice. She now prefers weaving stories of romance and redemption. Her first inspirational manuscript won the prestigious RWA Golden Heart and sold to Harlequin’s Love Inspired. She is currently working on her fourth novel.

Besides writing, she loves hanging out with friends and family, cooking for lots of people, and spending time in the sun. She, her two children and one extremely energetic Border Collie live in central Virginia.


Writing Romance When the Real Romance Fails

How do you write a happily-ever-after when your own story has turned into a tragedy?

When I landed my last novel contract, frankly, it was the first bit of good news I’d had in a long while. I’d prayed to be able to write this book for a few months, thinking it would be just what I needed to take my mind off of what was going on in my real life—a divorce.

I was so thankful when it came through. I read through my editor’s notes immediately and sat down at the computer. I couldn’t wait to bury myself in this new story. But instead of pouring my energy into the new book, I found, for the first time ever, that I couldn’t write at all. Not only could I not write, I loathed sitting in front of the computer. I found myself doing anything else—bathing the dog, painting rooms, cleaning the garage, all sorts of things I REALLY hated to do. And, if I did happen to get in front of the computer, I was emailing my lawyer, trying to negotiate the sale of my home or figuring out whose weekend it was with the kids. Even emails I feared would be full of bad news. And I especially avoided staring at the blinking cursor on the white page of my very incomplete manuscript. The document sat minimized on the dock of my desktop.

My deadline came and went and I’d barely squeaked out half of the story. I started wondering if I could finish. I started wondering, if I could even write romance anymore. I mean let’s face it I was a failure. I’d failed as a wife. And now I was failing as a writer... What next? I was afraid to think about tomorrow.

Desperate for inspiration, I pulled out writing books and plotting outlines. I went to my favorite writing spots. I tried using Scrivener, thinking something new to look at would inspire me. I set little daily word count goals and failed at those. I even tried to use some of my confused feelings to “get into” my story, but while sorrow and depression might inspire some artists to abandon themselves into their work, I was stuck with the worst case of writer’s block ever. My ability to focus on anything had vanished and I didn’t know how to fix it. Depression hung like a cloud in my mind and my fingers were paralyzed at the keyboard. Even with great family and friends and a whole lot of prayer, there were days when I wanted to crawl in a hole and come out in a year or two when all the difficult stuff was over.

It was in the midst of all this that I found myself at a writer’s conference sitting on a panel of “pro” writers (something I’d agreed to do a long time before all the other life turmoil began). I looked out into the audience at other authors and even at my editor who should have been pointing at her watch and glaring at me for the late manuscript I owed her, except that she’s way too nice for that. I was feeling like a total fraud when someone in the audience asks, “What are inspirational romance readers looking for?” Great question. I repeated it for recording purposes then promptly passed the microphone to the author next to me because...well, I had no idea... I couldn’t write anymore.

It was author Margaret Daley who sat next to me. She leaned up to the microphone and without a second of hesitation said, “HOPE. Our readers are looking for hope.”

Hope. Now there was a nice little four-letter word that I’d forgotten about. A romance story needed hope. Or wait...maybe I needed hope. Because how can I give my readers hope when I have none of my own? If I wanted to finish my story—and I did—I had to find a way to remember my hope. I was determined.

But it didn’t happen overnight. It was slow—one minute, one hour, one day at a time, I stole back that hope that sorrow taken. I’d find hope in my children’s eyes. I’d find it in a friend’s voice. I’d find it in God’s promises. I’d find it in doing something for someone else. And the hope began to trickle over into my work...

I quit trying to write the story as fast as I could. I’d find a few quiet minutes here and there and I’d write a page. Many times that was it—one page. But then two or three and slowly, so slowly those characters worked their way to a happy ending. In some ways, I felt like I was healing along with them.

Of course, real life doesn’t stop at page 385 like a storybook romance, so I won’t end here by saying I got my own happy-ending. But I do have all I need to expect many more happy chapters. I have God’s promises and perfect love. I have friends and family and two beautiful children full of life.

And soon I’ll have more stories to tell of romance and love and hope.

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