Maureen’s Musings on a Hot Summer Day

I’ve been inundated with requests for interviews lately and it’s all very nice but interviewers all seem to have the same generic questions. Of course, each and every request comes with a friendly statement that I should feel free to “speak” (write) about any topic I’d like and the questions are just suggestions. So, I usually try to give an interview that offers up a new angle (I hate repeating myself) and try to execute a clever end run around the same-old/same-old.

Nonetheless, I’m going to answer one of the most persistent questions right here & now (I’ve created a hybrid question that melds together all the possible variations on the same theme); to wit: “what was/is your inspiration; what inspires you when you write; where do you find your inspiration; how can writers find inspiration?” and yada yada yada ad nauseum.

Which reminds me of Stephen King’s great aphorism:  “Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration. The rest of us just get up and go to work.”

Writing is a job – and a damn hard one. Writers don’t wallow in inspiration; writers wallow in work… lots and lots of hard work.

By “writing” I refer to the art, technique, and maintenance required to call oneself an author – one who is still living, breathing and generating new works.

If you’re an author today, whether you’re highly successful or not, you’re an independent business person; you run a business and that business is you. The truth of it is also this: if you don’t think of yourself as a business you will most likely never stand a snowball’s chance in hell of becoming successful commercially.

All authors today are either small business owners (the ma’ and pa’ stores of the industry) or, if they’ve hit the career jackpot, they will either manage or direct the management of a vast enterprise that – guess what? – is still all about them. Before Rowling there was Disney… and between Rowling and the one-book-to-yet-be-discovered author there’s a great group of A-Listers: Grisham, Patterson, Evanovich, Meyer. They have turned their ma’ & pa’ stores, their small proprietorships, into large corporate endeavors but it’s still all about them.

YOU must make it all about YOU; no one else can do that for you.

Which is a nice segue into this next thought:

I continue to be amazed at the author-wannabees who disparage indies because they’d rather “wait for an agent.” They remind me of the desperate spinster thinking that if she catches the bridal bouquet she’ll be the next gal at the altar.

Yeah: we all know how that works. Look around you, sweetie; the girls who make it to the altar have been on the dance floor all night workin’ up a sweat -- while you sat at a table full of babushkas talking about all the women they know who died in child birth... 

Talk about fun...

Seriously, as someone I know once put it: Those who can, DO; those who can’t, TALK ABOUT IT.

Put another way: given the vagaries and realities of today’s marketplace, waiting for an agent to find you makes perfect sense only if you’re really sure you never want to get published.

And whatever gave these wannabees the idea that once they get an agent they don’t have to work to promote themselves? Aren’t they reading what everyone’s been writing? This is something I see all the time – it’s the wannabee mantra: “I don’t want to do all the stuff it takes to be an author today; an agent will handle that for me… so I’ll wait until I hook one.”

What are they smokin’? I guess that’s OK if you want to hang around for five or ten years…

Me? I have a life to live, baby!

Some more rambling musings:

·         You are an author when you actually author something; publication has nothing to do with it. So finish that damn book already and quit talking about it. And spare me your word count. Who the hell cares how many words you wrote today? That tells me nothing. It’s not about the damn word count, kid; it’s about the quality of your writing. A novel is not a novel because it has 110,000 words – the Chicago Yellow Pages probably has 10 million words but that doesn't make it a library.  

·         Perception really is everything: both for you and those you want to follow you. So please! Stop it already with the whiney Facebook pages, blogs saturated with angst and self-absorption and all those Twitter profiles that scream “author wannabee looking for a spouse.”  You know the ones: they say “aspiring novelist looking to have my self-worth and talent validated by a total stranger I haven’t even met yet.” (Think of the spinster: how many offers is she going to get with a sign around her neck that screams “Send me a man to give me an identity, make me feel pretty and loved, give me some babies, and help me avoid bankruptcy”?  Yeah: that’s sexy as hell; a lot of guys are gonna’ bite the bait on that one.)

·         As to the “inspiration” question: I never knew a “natural born” anyone who needed “inspiration” to be what came most naturally to them, especially in the creative arts. Inspiration is overrated and as a term seriously overused. The burning need to write, or paint or dance or make music is not borne of inspiration external to self – it is self. It emanates from within; it’s your soul crying out to be free as only you can be free, as only you are; it is a life force within you and if it is true and genuine it cannot be denied.

So where does the work come in? Ah, I knew we’d get back to that point: just because it’s your natural born talent doesn’t mean it’s not work. The need to express yourself through writing or dance or music is inborn – it comes from somewhere deep inside and takes us back to self. How successfully one may transform the inner need to write or dance or make music and become an author, a ballerina or a pianist hinges on discipline and the capacity for hard work.

In my opinion, anyone with a burning need to write or dance or sing can certainly do so and probably will do so – they will find some way to express that need. However, turning pro requires kicking it up a notch. It begins with first learning the tools of one’s expression; with the writer it is having a solid command of language, grammar, punctuation. (So, yes: I do believe if you want people to read and respect your writing you must write well – and that includes knowing the rules of the road.) Even Mozart took lessons (remember Salieri?). It was only after Mozart mastered scales that he could soar and become… well, Mozart.

Here’s my advice to anyone who wants to transform their inborn need to write into the business of being an author:

Maureen’s Rule #1: Master language – from the double negative to the dangling participle: get it down. Once you have it mastered then and only then can you decide how to creatively play with the rules and become an e.e. cummings or James Joyce. There’s a world of difference between breaking the rules for emphasis or to push the boundaries of literary license and just being an unlettered clod. 

Maureen’s Rule #2: Practice, practice, practice (if you really love to write, this is the easy part).

Maureen’s Rule #3: Draft, draft, draft (this is the part that requires serious discipline, if not carloads of humility).

Maureen’s Rule #4: Draft some more (this builds muscle and also confidence).

Maureen’s Rule #5: Don’t be the spinster at the wedding. Don’t wait for a date. Don’t wait for a lover. Don't wait for anyone; ever. It's your train, your schedule.

Maureen’s Rule #6: Love yourself. Dance with yourself. Hire yourself – Become Your Own Agent.

Maureen’s Rule #7: Did I mention you need to draft a lot?

Maureen’s Rule #8: Finish the damn book already.

I like this pic so much
I'm using it twice! Remember:
U can do this
baby!

Maureen’s Rule #9: Publish the damn book already (you can do this baby, you really can...).

Maureen’s Rule #10: Prepare for the wedding but while you’re waiting for the guests to arrive: write another book.

Note: Any sexist language in this article is purely for literary convenience. These comments and rules are applicable to both sexes and analogies can go either way... I'm sure you can figure it out, right? 

Final Comment:
Remember ---> Authors write; everyone else just talks about it. ~Maureen Gill

Ryne Pearson Douglas and My Garden

Boy, that's a headline with a hook, huh?

Don't worry: there really is a nexus between my garden and Ryne (an no, it's not Mr. Potato Head).

Listen up & I'll explain:

As I've written here before, this blog is an evolving, living, breathing... thing... or something like that... and I've been wondering whether this blog should be impetuous, spontaneous, unpredictable or scheduled, reliable, consistent...

Think I'll go with the former and not the latter... I've already "been there, done that" with the first choice (35+ years in the world of "traditional work" in fact) and now I just want to go with the flow... especially here.

I mean -- what the hell -- it's a blog, people! This ain't NEWSWEEK.

And what I feel like doing today is gardening... both outside and inside the house and not writing new copy for this blog.

Therefore, I'm going to help my better-half finish putting in the vegetable garden (and then hopefully in about 3-4 mos we'll have bushels of fresh veggies) and after I've changed my thought process with an hour or so in the fresh hair and warm sun I'm going to return to my desk and do some serious weeding and pruning in March Storm. 

March Storm's opening is a winner (I know it's a slam dunk; I really do -- you know what I mean: you know when you've really nailed it) but the middle is weak and needs to be turned over, rototilled, and reseeded...

So, while I do all this really serious gardening (it is very serious, it really is: for one thing, I have people waiting for the sequel to January Moon and, for another, we're already dreaming about my homemade bruscetta and ratatouille), I'm going to offer up something interesting to read: my interview of Ryne Douglas Pearson. It was published at the Self-Published Authors' Lounge January 7th, 2011 but I think it bears reposting.

Of course, Ryne's a very talented author and screenwriter but what I'm most drawn to him about is probably the fact that he's gone indie and that's something I wanted to address in the interview.

But let me add some background about how the interview came to be:

A friend recommended a murder mystery about a priest; she said she thought I'd like the book. (Note: when people think you're Catholic they love to recommend books about priests). So, on her word, I dowloaded Confessions on my Kindle and WOW -- I loved it.

I loved it so much I decided to write a review (I don't like writing reviews; in my whole life I've probably written five so this speaks volumes about what I thought of the book).  

Then, to my utter astonishment, almost immediately after I posted the review I received an email from Ryne thanking me most graciously for my review.

One thing led to another and later on I asked Ryne if I could interview him for posting in the Self-Published Authors' Lounge and the rest is history.

I doubt Ryne will mind if I repost the interview here so I can go do some gardening...

See, there is a tie-in between my gardening and Ryne... well, sort of... (please, cut me some slack here, OK?) 

Coming up next... Ryne.

Scooping the poop

I'm trying to learn how to scoop the poop in my life more effectively. I really need to and here's why:

I'm trying to write both my second novel (March Storm, the sequel to January Moon) and a non-fiction work (a history book for grown-ups titled Daylight & Deja vu), and of course I blog here and at The Pragmatic Progressive Forum and sometimes I do laundry and scoop cat poop (actually, I always scoop cat poop because I have 4 very healthy cats).

I also maintain a website, answer a LOT of email, and sometimes write book reviews... I just jumped into the waters in Twitter and am learning about tweeting and have been maintaining a presence and finding wonderful people on Facebook. Learning all about social networking has been fun (but sometimes exhausting).

What else? Oh yeah, and I have my own press now (Black Dog Communications to publish my own works and, I suppose, anyone else's) and I'm also learning how to use my experience as a 100-year old fat white woman novelist, blogger, educator and historian to do some guest speaking... well, actually, that's not really new. I've done some of that before (the guest speaking) but this time I'm viewing it differently (as in marketing and promoting myself more seriously than I did before). This, my lawyer tells, me will fall under Black Dog Communications.

I had my first radio interview last week and am getting ready for my first big store book signing and two book clubs have invited me to speak.

But I've gotten so broad in the beam from sitting at this desk all day I can't fit it into any of the really nice clothes I have hanging in the closet and I'm wondering what the hell I should wear to a book signing or public speaking gig and know, damnit, that I used to have a nice pair of "fat slacks" in the closet somewhere... and did I mention I could seriously use a day at a salon... and what the hell did I do with those nice patent leather flats that didn't give me blisters?

I want to make a promotional video for January Moon and I like the idea about a podcast on my website and I want to also write about the characters in my book and their favorite Chicago restaurants and recipes and there are just all these neat things to do...

Did I mention it's probably time to scoop some poop?

The poop scooping is morphing into a metaphor for learning the ropes about being a newbie novelist and indie publisher and everything else that falls under those umbrellas... as well as being very, very disciplined and focused... which I always thought I was but now seem morbidly "focus-challenged."

There's just so much that falls under those umbrellas!

Which, I realize now, is the hard part about being an indie novelist... writing and publishing books is relatively easy in comparison... it's hoisting those umbrellas and trying to figure out what to put under them that's the hard part... and not getting derailed.

If life were only as easy as Tidy Cats' Scoopable Brand Litter... it sifts the poop from the sand for you; it's "clumpable." It makes the decision what stays and what goes.

I wish it were so easy to sort the poop from the necessary litter in life. But there's no magic scoop that can be waived over my desk that will clump together what I should toss (abandon) from what should stay (and I should develop).

Screw it. I really need to find those @#$#%^%$ patent leather flats...