An Update On My Writing Life

Vitality Stories

I want to be a published author

I recently enrolled in a writing course with Author Accelerator called Story Genius to help develop my new book, In the Doghouse. I’m half way through the course, and I will definitely be applying what I’ve learned to all of my future projects. I recommend it to anyone who has an idea for a book, is having a hard time starting, and is serious about writing.* For me, the strongest component of this course is understanding why my characters feel, think, and act the way they do.

Story Genius proposes that every person–and therefore, character–has a long standing desire and a misbelief (a subjective belief about his/her life and world) that eventually stands in the way of obtaining the desire. Naturally, I decided to make myself crazy by turning a writing course into an opportunity to psychoanalyze my life and identify my own desire and misbelief to see where I might be a self-sabotager.

I created a list of my long standing desires. One is that I’ve wanted to be a published author since I was fifteen years old, and yet, I didn’t make a commitment to write regularly until I was forty-one. I don’t feel alone in the delay though because many dream-writers procrastinate writing. But why me?

Sitting down and staring at a blank page or computer screen is SCARY stuff. Seeing your own words and thoughts in print on hundreds of pages is SCARIER. And letting your inner critic** be involved is SCARIEST. I decided to illustrate an average 24-hour-day of my writing life***:

I can cheat and say I waited until I was 41 to write a book because before then I had to work, didn’t have time, blah blah blah blah blah. The truth is…I don’t know for sure, but as I continue to dig, I suspect it was a combination of two things (and yes, there is probably a deeper reason than the ones below).

First, I was raised with the catch all phrases “timing is everything” and “there’s always tomorrow.” I believed I had all the time in the world to start writing, until I turned 41 and, all of a sudden, I didn’t feel as youthful, and writing felt urgent and vital.

Secondly, I believed that someone or something else gets to determine if I’m a writer, mainly an agent/publisher or a royalties paycheck. But now I realize I can be a writer or author without being published or paid to write. Writers write. Authors author. Publishers publish. Allowing being published to validate my writing was a deterrent for me because I misbelieved that whatever I wrote had to be publishable and so I didn’t write anything.

So what about the cartoon above, The New York Times Best Sellers list, and how I feel today? Well, yes, I’d love to be a traditionally published and best selling author if for no other reason than it would make my stories available to more readers. My true measure as a successful writer is crawling through the writing trenches with my inner critic, friends, authors, and agents, and writing a story I care about from beginning to end and then rewriting it until I feel proud of the story. Plus I love processes, and writing a book and following agents’ and publishers’ submission guidelines are steps in a process that I have fun navigating. But mostly, success is hearing from readers (family and friends count) that something I’ve written resonates with them or that they can’t stop thinking about the characters. THIS connection is priceless. THIS connection is the dream.

An update on Tiger Drive

I’ve decided to revise Tiger Drive. I recently received consistent and helpful feedback from two agents, Jessica Faust and Annie Bomke, and author, Lisa Sinicki, about my characters. Lisa also included the following comment:

“It’s good. But I think it can be great. And let me put this into context. I’d call Room and The Help great.”

I’m not about to ignore a statement like this! Plus, thanks to the process outlined by Story Genius, I know what I need to do for the characters of Tiger Drive.

Once I finish the revision, I will solicit more feedback and then start querying agents once again. You’ll be the first to know when the day comes that I have an agent and am getting Tiger Drive published because this will make my book available to YOU!

Thank you for your help Jessica, Annie, and Lisa.

Cartoons and laughs

In my first “What Makes You Laugh?” newsletter a while back, I shared I was taking a comic cartoon drawing course and the instructor suggested the best material is often the funny lines or gags that happen in our own lives. I’ve decided he is right. With the encouragement of a few writer friends, I’m going to be sharing a cartoon series that pokes a little fun at my life as a writer, and occassionally, my over-the-top optimism. The above cartoon is the first and you can read the *** below to see where some of the idea came from. I haven’t settled on a title but I’m open to suggestions from each of you.

As always, thanks for being you and sharing this journey with me. If you’d like to share your long standing desire and misbelief, or if you have cartoon title ideas for me, contact me. I always enjoy learning from you.

Teri

* If you’d like to learn more about my experience with Story Genius, please email me and we can set up a call.
** If you have inner critcs, you’re going to want to follow Lisa Sinicki’s latest project. It’s priceless.
*** I asked fellow authors of the Women’s Fiction Writers Association: ~ what thoughts go through your head when you sit down to write? When I read Kate Barber’s response in caps, I knew I had to borrow her resonating words: “THIS SENTENCE IS AWFUL, THIS ENTIRE SCENE IS AWFUL, THIS WHOLE STUPID BOOK IS AWFUL, I SHOULD JUST QUIT NOW.” You can follow Kate, a “free range author” on Twitter: @katelizabee