drowning in a flock of classes

Yes, they look cute now... but just wait.

It happens every year about this time, when all the chickens I adopted in January come home to roost.

In this case the chickens are writing classes. Every January, my inbox fills up with promos from the dozen or so writers' groups I belong to for a breathtaking array of classes. As I believe that even a good writer can always get better, I sign up. And sign up. And sign up.

At $10-$20 each, the online ones are a bargain, and even the bad ones generally produce at least one usable tip. Unfortunately, my aspirations always outpace the hours available in my day. Especially in those months when I discover that I've signed up for six classes at the same time (what was I thinking?), I invariably end up archiving the materials for at least half of them. The result: I have stacks of class materials I've never even opened.

of country songs and romance novels

I love all kinds of music, from opera to Celtic to rock. But in my humble opinion the best storytellers to be found anywhere on the airwaves are consistently on American Country music radio.

From Brad Paisley's "Anything Like Me," in which the singer sees a first sonogram of his son and imagines who he'll grow up to be, to Kenny Chesney's "Somewhere With You," about a man pining for a lost love in a heart-wrenching minor key, the folks who write and sing modern country music are even better than Conway and Loretta were at telling stories that speak to the masses and tug at the heartstrings. What impresses me most is that they do it so effectively in three minutes or less.

One crop of songs that has been resonating lately with the romance writer in me deals with the theme of intimacy, with getting to know another person on a very private level. They focus on the gift of being permitted to see the person that most of us never show to the outside world, and with the trust required to let down your guard and expose the silly, messy, vulnerable and sexy sides of yourself to a lover.

all we have to fear...

And don't you come back!

It's a new year, which means a renewed commitment to marketing my books. Since I'm a professional marketer by day it should be easy. Next to crafting a novel into something that works, however, promoting myself is the toughest job I've ever done.

I've boiled down why, and what I'm left with is the same cold, black lump of coal that virtually every artist faces at one time or another: Fear. Little wonder. Each foray into marketing, each query letter, synopsis, or partial I send is another invitation for disappointment and rejection. Another chance for someone who doesn't know me -- and who knows only the barest details of my work -- to proclaim that it isn't good enough.

As I look at the black lump before me, however, I'm reminded of the auditions portion of American Idol.

when 2nd feels like 1st

They've finally posted the news on The Golden Network website, so I feel free to announce here at last that my manuscript Traitor to Love placed second in the 2010 Golden Pen contest in the "Novel with Strong Romantic Elements" category.

Placing in a contest is always a great feeling, but I'm at least as excited about this second-place finish as I am about some of the first-place wins the manuscript has racked up. The reason is the nature of the contest.

The Golden Network comprises past winners and finalists in the Romance Writers of America's prestigious Golden Heart contest. The Golden Heart draws 1,200 entries every year and taps just a handful of them as the most promising, yet-to-be-published voices in romance writing. The Golden Network, therefore, is a group of talented, proven writers who know what makes a romance manuscript work because they've passed a test that is, in many ways, as selective as being signed to a publishing contract.

seven stages of editing grief

I learned a lot about how I process feedback on my manuscripts from a post on Penny Lockwood Ehrenkranz's blog about editor and writer Karen McGrath's Seven Stages of Editing Grief. The stages, for anyone else who might benefit, are:

1. Denial: This feedback is stupid and useless. 
2. Pain and Guilt: How could I have made such a mess of this?
3. Anger: Who does this editor/crit partner think she is?
4. Depression: Why did I ever think I could write?  
5. Acquiescence: Maybe I should at least give these comments a serious look.
6. Reconstruction: If I do this and this and that, maybe I can make this work.
7. Hope: This is better than before. Maybe I can even take it a little bit beyond what she suggested.

eating my words

One of these days I just might learn never to say never. What might finally teach me this valuable lesson? The iPad.

Like most writers, I love books. Not just the stories they contain but the books themselves. Especially hard-bound books. Especially hard-bound books with leather covers and beautiful end-papers. Opening such a book is a never-ending joy. Crisp, clean type on fine paper. The smell as you open the cover, the anticipation of the adventure to be had on those pages. If I've been lucky enough to meet the author and have him or her sign my treasure, it will get a favored forever-spot on the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves in my library. Right at eye level among the most well-loved books I own. Right next to The Lord of the Rings.

Beyond being a lover of books, I'm an aspiring author. All my life I have dreamed of holding a book with my name on the cover, of seeing it in a bookstore, of autographing it for friends, of placing it in the most favored spot among those beloved books on my shelves.

For both of these reasons I have said -- vehemently, repeatedly, and publicly -- that I could never picture myself reading a book on a computer. I certainly couldn't picture myself enjoying such an experience.

And then I purchased an iPad.

can you hear me?

"Sing, sing a song, sing out loud, sing out strong..."

I'm currently reading Eat, Pray, Love. I know, I know, I'm way behind the curve, but I've been reading a lot of romances and middle-grade/young adult fiction, filling the well of inspiration for my own work. I really want to see the movie -- I *love* Julia Roberts, and Javier Bardem looks positively yummy -- but for some inscrutable reason, I can't bring myself to buy a ticket until I've read the book. The Universe insists, and I've long since learned not to argue.

I don't read many memoirs. I think the last one may have been Joan Didion's National Book Award-winning The Year of Magical Thinking. Unfortunately, that book -- brilliant as it was -- quashed my desire to read more memoirs. After a year of almost daily miracles, which Didion moved past without seeming to notice, she concluded that there is no God, "no eye on the sparrow." It depressed me for weeks.

The movie trailers make it clear, though, that Eat, Pray, Love is a celebration, not a pity-wallow. So I'm reading it. And if ever there were an antidote for Didion's hopelessness, this is it.

Elizabeth Gilbert deals with weighty subjects, but the woman is hilarious. In real life we'd probably start shouting at each other within five minutes of meeting -- our politics are polar opposites -- but I love her on the page. Possibly because of the journey she chronicles in the book, she has a wonderful sense of the ridiculousness of her own existence, the insanity of taking herself and her life as seriously as we all tend to do most of the time. It's downright refreshing. But it's not just her outlook that entertains. It's the way she expresses it, the fresh similes and memorable images she uses to sear her truths onto the reader's brain. Her voice comes through, loud and clear, insecure yet brash, on each and every page.

As a novelist, I struggled long and hard to put my finger on that elusive must-have known as voice. Ask an editor to give you an example of voice, and it's likely she'll point you to a story full of dialect. But dialect is not voice; for someone grappling with what voice is, finding it in a book full of dialect is an exercise in futility. In memoir, though, nothing stands in the way. The writer doesn't have to be anyone other than who they are, so their personality is free to come out on the page, unfettered and true. I've never read a better, more in-your-face example of voice than Gilbert's. So if you're a writer who struggles to understand what voice is, read Eat, Pray, Love. I guarantee you'll finally hear it and know, on a gut level you'll never forget, what it is.