On Writing

  • Jealousy …

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    So I thought I would talk a little bit about some of the emotions that authors go through (as the mood and time strikes me here on the blog). After all, we write about our characters’ emotions in our books, surely we have some of our own to talk about, right?

    The emotion of the day? Jealousy.

    Yep, I’ll admit it — I get jealous of other authors from time to time. I think any author who says that she never gets jealous is probably lying. Nobody is that nice all the time. Or maybe I’m just that cynical. 😉 

    So what I’m a jealous of? Lots of things. I wonder why this author got more promotion than I did. Or why so-and-so hit the best-seller list when my books are just as good as hers. Why everyone on the Internet seems to love someone’s new book and not mine. Why I never feel like one of the in-crowd or cool kids whenever I go to conferences. Sometimes, when a book I read truly blows me away, I’m jealous that it’s a story that I didn’t write. Why didn’t I have that brilliant idea instead of her?

    I imagine these are the same things that lots of other authors are jealous of too. In case you haven’t noticed by now, us writers are a pretty neurotic bunch.

    But I think it’s what you do with your jealousy that’s important. Me? I try to channel it into something positive. I try to work harder and smarter, do more promotion, and, of course, continuously work to improve my own writing so that maybe I’ll be the one making the best-seller list and getting rave reviews the next time around.

    I’ll admit that I’m not always successful. Wheezley, my significant other, has listened to me gripe and grumble about these sorts of things many times. He usually just rolls his eyes and distracts me with some chocolate. Sadly, it usually works.

    But at least I’m trying to slay the green-eyed monster. In the end, I think that’s what matters most. Well, that and the chocolate. 😉

    What about you guys? Does jealousy ever rear its ugly head with you? How do you deal with it? Share in the comments.

  • To work or not to work …

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    Besides how much money I make on my books, the other most common question most folks ask me is this: Are you going to quit your day job?

    The answer? Maybe someday.

    Don’t get me wrong. I would love, love, love to quit my day job and write full time. In fact, my writing is getting to the point now where it’s a full-time job in and of itself just writing and keeping up with everything else — the blog, Facebook, guest blogs, advertising, promotions … I’m always busy doing something, and there just never seems to be enough time to get everything done. (Seriously, I’d love to just take a week off and do nothing but eat, read, and sleep).

    So what’s stopping me from quitting my day job? Well, the biggie is insurance. I work full-time, which means my company provides me with insurance. I don’t know how much I would have to pay if I was self-insured, but it’s probably a lot more than comes out of my paycheck every week right now.

    Which leads me to the second thing stopping me from quitting my day job — a steady paycheck. It’s very, very nice to be able to count on the paycheck from my day job every two weeks. With my books, I’m lucky if I get a check three or four times a year. Sure, the checks are a little bigger than what I get at work, but it would make me real nervous if my books were my only source of income — especially since publishers are notoriously slow about sending out payments in the first place. And there’s always the risk that I won’t be able to sell more books — which would mean no more checks at all. It’s a scary thought.

    And third, well, there’s me. I think I would go a little stir-crazy if I didn’t have something to get me out of the house on a regular basis. There’s only so much time you can spend with your characters before you go a little nuts. 😉

    Of course, the real irony in all this is that I work at a newspaper — an industry that is dying a slow, painful death. If my newspaper is still around in five years (or at least still publishing in the same kind of format), I’ll be very surprised. Who knows? Depending on what happens at work, I may be trying to make it as a full-time author sooner than I think. Gulp!

    But for right now, the book stuff is my own little side business. I’m not getting rich at it, but I love doing it — and that’s the most important thing.

  • ·

    Readers respond …

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    One of the things that has really awed and humbled me is how many reader e-mails that I’ve gotten for Spider’s Bite. I’m just estimating here, but I think I can safely say that I’ve already gotten more e-mails in the three weeks that Spider’s Bite has been out than I got for all of the Bigtime books — combined.

    And you know what the truly awesome thing is? Almost all of the e-mails have been really, really positive. 😉

    I thought that some folks might be disappointed with Spider’s Bite since it is so much darker and grittier than the Bigtime books, but everyone seems to be really enjoying the world of Gin Blanco. In fact, several folks have written to tell me that they like Spider’s Bite more than they do the Bigtime books. It really seems like people are responding more to the dark and gritty reads these days, especially in urban fantasy and paranormal romance.

    Of course, it’s not all been wine and roses. One lady e-mailed me to say that she didn’t think that I should use giants and dwarves in Spider’s Bite because she had watched some reality TV shows where people had made fun of real-life dwarves.  Um … okay.

    I wrote her back and told her that giants/dwarves have long been popular characters in all kinds of fantasy books, that there are good and bad guy giants/dwarves in my books, and that I’m not making fun of real-life dwarves at all. She wrote me back and thanked me for explaining my position and said that she hadn’t read that many fantasy books — she was mostly going by what she had seen on TV.

    She was very gracious and polite about the whole thing, but it still made me think — why do people e-mail authors in the first place?

    Of course, I understand e-mailing and author to tell her how much you enjoyed her work. I do that myself, and I certainly appreciate it as an author. Writing is a hard, lonely business and getting a positive e-mail from a reader really does brighten my whole day.

    But I wonder about other e-mails that authors get — the ones that aren’t so nice. I haven’t gotten any myself, but I’ve heard horror stories from other authors about people who e-mail them to complain about their books, their characters, or whatever. I’m not talking about bad reviews — I’m talking about personal e-mails where people are basically ripping an author up one side and down the other.

    I’ve always wondered why people do that kind of thing in the first place. Why waste your time e-mailing someone to tell her how much you hated her latest book? Why not put the book aside and just go on about your life? Why not save your energy for the books/authors that you love?

    I guess I just don’t understand why people use their precious free time to do that sort of thing. Maybe it’s because I work at a newspaper. You would not believe the calls that we get — every single day. And you know what? Half of them are people calling to complain about something. Why didn’t we do this story? Why was so-and-so on the front page? We’re Republicans, we’re Democrats, we don’t have the good sense that God gave a toothpick. And on and on and on … It’s like folks don’t understand that there are actual real-life people who work at the newspaper, people with feelings. Nobody likes to be yelled at — especially before 9 a.m. But I have been — plenty of times. The sad thing is that it’s happened so much that it doesn’t even bother me anymore.

    And I’ve heard about authors being lambasted like that. There’s so much negativity in the world already, so many bad things that happen. I guess I don’t understand why people add to it this way.

    Ah, well. Enough ruminating for one day. To all the folks out there who do take the time to contact authors and tell us that you like our books, you guys are the reason that we write in the first place. You rock! 😉

    As for those other folks, maybe I don’t have the sense that God gave a toothpick — but at least I don’t go out of my way to be rude and mean to people like you do.