Sometimes, life seems like a series of hurdles, and this
winter, a new, huge hurdle appeared out of nowhere, catching most of us by
surprise and forcing us to re-evaluate our priorities.
I hope you and your loved ones are well. We don’t know what
will happen in the coming days, and many of us are struggling to cope with the
present. As some of you know, my husband, Mike, and I own a small lodge in the
wilderness on Kodiak Island, Alaska, and a few days ago, the Governor, in
effect, closed Alaska to visitors for at least the next month. I know he made
the right decision. I am sure the coronavirus will eventually spread to all
areas of the state, but we need to do everything we can to slow its rate of
infection. Folks who don’t need to travel should stay home. Even though Mike and
I feared the Governor might halt travel to Alaska, his mandate still hit hard,
and we find ourselves trying to decide what to do to survive economically.
This is not the first time a national or world event has impacted
us. The 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill and the 9-11 terrorist attack both nearly
decimated tourism in Alaska. Economic downturns always hurt the travel
industry, and during one of the many budget squabbles in the U.S. Congress, the
Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge closed, and we had to cancel goat hunts already
in progress. The COVID-19 threat differs from previous disasters, though. During
earlier crises, I focused my anger on one person or a group of people. Whether
it was a drunk captain, deranged terrorists, or spoiled politicians, I could always
picture the cause of our near-economic destruction.
Unfortunately, a pandemic is no one’s fault. We can’t blame
anyone for the coronavirus. Our government could and should have acted faster,
but even with the best response, a very infectious, novel virus is hard to
stop. We have no idea when this virus will run its course, but until then, we remain
at its mercy.
I find the economics of our situation disheartening and
depressing, and I know the government won’t miraculously bail us out of our
financial woes. Even in the past, when the government caused our economic problems,
we never received assistance to help us rebound. I certainly don’t expect help
this time, but I know we will be okay. We will jump over this hurdle. As long
as our family, friends, and we stay healthy, all else becomes insignificant.
I thank the health care workers and first responders who are
fighting on the front lines of this pandemic. They take incredible chances
every day.
Stay well, and we will get over this hurdle, and hopefully, something good will come from the pain. As you can see from the photo, I have a beautiful place to self-isolate.
Join the Battle of the Books contest, and you could win a $500 Amazon Gift Card! I am very excited to have my novel, Karluk Bones, included in this contest.
I am thrilled to introduce you to Romance Author Dee Knight. Four weeks ago, I wrote about Dee Knight and Jan Selbourne and their combined newsletter. Two weeks ago, Jan wrote a guest post about her award-winning books, and this week, Dee, another award winner, will take the reins.
Dee has written an excellent guest post, and she not only describes
her journey to become a successful author but also offers fantastic advice to
new and struggling authors. I like all the points she makes, but I couldn’t
agree more with her assertion that to write well and succeed as an author, you
must write every day if possible. We are all busy, so if you want to be an
author, it is unacceptable to say you have no time to write. You must find the
time, so get up an hour earlier, write during the fifteen minutes while you’re
waiting for the kids to get out of school, or key punch during your break at
work. Look for those tiny gaps in your day when you can squeeze in a few
minutes of writing.
Before I take over Dee’s post, I’ll hand it to her. Her
words are not only inspirational but also instructional.
So
many authors say they were writers as children. Indeed, some even give the
impression they were developing the great American novel before they even came
out of the womb. Sadly, that wasn’t me. Oh, I’ve always had a knack I suppose
for spinning a tale. But to write it down? No.
I
take that back. In fifth grade we were assigned the task of writing a story. I
liked mysteries, being a Nancy Drew buff, so that’s what I decided to write. It
was truly a dark and stormy night and murder was afoot. I killed off one
character by page three, and by page five, when the murderer was creeping up on
the house to off the next character, I scared myself so badly, I quickly had
the police scoop up the bad guys and happily wrote THE END. I think I decided
then that the writing life was not for me.
Even
when I worked at a county library in Virginia and my coworkers suggested I take
up writing, I smiled and said yes, maybe someday, I knew I didn’t have
the interest. So why, when in my 50s and with a couple of months’ time on my
hands I decided to write a story I’d been building on for years, I have no
idea.
Writing
the story was my husband’s idea. He was working as a consultant and had two
months left before we would be leaving town to go to the next contract. There
was no use in my looking for a job, so he told me to try writing a book.
Truthfully, it sounded fun and easy. I mean, how hard could it be? I had
the story in mind. All I had to do was type it out and fill in a few blanks. So
I set up the keyboard on a TV tray and typed while Jack was at work. In fact, I
typed from when we got up and finished breakfast until it was time to fix
dinner, and again after he went to bed until the wee hours of the morning. I
typed like that for a month, when I ended with 95,000 words and a finished romance
novel.
I
was astounded! I had written a novel, a real novel! And it was fun and
easy! I’d read articles where people said writing a book was hard. What
ninnies, I thought. Writing was a breeze, compared to teaching high school
kids, driving a tractor-trailer nationally, or brain surgery, all of which I’d
done. (Well, not brain surgery. That was a little poetic license.)
Anyway,
now that the writing was done, I was ready to take the publishing world by storm.
Except, I had no idea how to do that. I looked up publishers online and came up
with a few ideas. I sent inquiries off to five, and promptly received four
rejections. The fourth publisher was more encouraging. I like your writing
style, she wrote back. However, we are a publisher of erotic romance and
your book doesn’t have enough sex in it. If you decide to write an erotic
novel, I hope you will consider us.
Sex?
She wanted sex? Who can’t write about sex?
So I
sat down for the next month and wrote a 95,000 word sexy romance—or what I
hoped was a sexy romance. Until then, I’d never heard of erotic romance and had
no idea what made a book erotic. I must have done all right because she accepted
it and set me on the path I continued taking for the next sixteen years. In
that time, I’ve written a variety of romance sub-genre, nearly all erotic.
There have been space romps, ménage, paranormal, time travel, contemporary and
historical, and one non-erotic novel. I write using three pen names: Dee S.
Knight, Anne Krist, and Jenna Stewart.
I
have to admit, I’ve enjoyed these years of writing, though getting the books on
paper (or disk or whatever) hasn’t always been as easy as it started. At times,
beating my head against the wall would have been more fun than getting words
out. I started one book, Passionate Destiny, in February, and by October
swore that if I didn’t have it finished by Thanksgiving, I’d toss it out.
Fortunately, I completed it a week before then and sent it off. It became a Top
Pick in Romantic Times magazine. Other books—some easy and others more
difficult—have won awards from RWA (Romance Writers of America) chapter
contests. I’ve been lucky enough to win the prestigious Maggie award from Georgia
Romance Writers, and most recently, Only a Good Man Will Do, won Best Erotic
Romance of 2019 by the Las Vegas Romance Writers.
It’s
humbling to submit your work to someone else to review and judge, but
submitting to contests is something I would suggest to writers. Unless you
simply want to write for yourself or your family, you have to let others read
your work eventually. Contest judges critique the entries and make suggestions,
helping you grow.
Another
suggestion I’d make is to consider online publishing. When I started, my goal
was to get in with New York publishers, to have an agent and to see my books on
bookshelves. It was a big disappointment to learn that bookstores will not
consider print-on-demand for their books, and back then, success with an
ePublisher wasn’t considered worthy by NYC publishers. It took years for
ePublishing to get its act together and prove their editing and authors were
not only good enough but in some cases excelled over the print world. Now, I’m
happy with ePublishing and the advantages it offers—excellent cover art and
more say in the cover, excellent editing and some back and forth in what is
accepted, and faster publication.
I
would suggest for novices to publish through a publisher before giving into the
temptation of self-publishing. With opportunities like Amazon and Draft2Digital,
it’s easy to put your ideas into electronic format and sell to the world. But
working through a publisher first means you see the great advantage of working
with an editor and cover artist. Those things are very worthwhile and will help
shape the kind of work you present to readers. It’s like walking before
running. I was with publishers until very recently, and each taught me
something new.
I
haven’t written thousands of books, but I have written a few. So, if I were to
give any advice to beginning writers it would be:
Writing takes discipline. This is something I wish I’d understood early on. Set aside some time for writing a bit every day.
Write every day, and keep on writing. You think that taking a break is okay and that writing again will be easy. It isn’t. Take it from me.
Don’t second guess yourself by thinking others are better than you. They aren’t. They’re different from you, but that doesn’t make them better. Believe me and my experience, and don’t talk yourself out of writing because you think you can’t write XYZ better than another author. Be your own voice.
Learn to self-edit before submitting your work to publishers or agents or contests. One of the best ways to do this is to read your work out loud. Believe me, if I can read my sex scenes out loud and not die of embarrassment, you can read what you’ve written. It doesn’t have to be in front of anyone, just so you hear the words as they are on the page and not in your head.
Learn the craft of writing. When I wrote my first several books I had no idea what point of view was, or conflict, or internal/external goals. I just wrote. But once you know all that stuff, your books will be better.
If you can find a critique partner, it’s a good idea. But, find someone who will be honest and not just nice, someone who will support you and not knock you down, someone who respects you and your work. That isn’t easy to find, but when you do, you’ll see how invaluable such a person is. If you join a group, make sure it’s not too large or you’ll be spending all your time trying to sift through contradictory comments to find what’s right. Trust me, when it comes to critiquing someone else’s work, everyone has an opinion.
As I said earlier, enter a few contests. Not all of them cost a lot of money and the feedback is worthwhile.
Don’t give up your day job. Treat writing as a business (instead of a hobby) but don’t expect for it to pay as a business. Not right away, anyway.
Write. Always write. The only way you learn how to do it and do it well is to do it.
Develop writing habits. If you have good habits, it will help your writing. If you have bad habits, you’ll spend a lot of time redoing your work.
Thanks, Robin, for letting me share!
Thank you, Dee. I enjoy meeting authors who write in genres
other than my own. I find it difficult to write love scenes in my novels, let
alone erotic romance scenes, so maybe I should get a few pointers from you!
I agree with your advice for new authors. Authors today have
many publishing options, but they are not all good choices, and too many scam
artists prey on those eager to publish their first book. Do your homework
before you sign a contract.
In my next post, I plan to write more about Dee’s advice for authors and offer a few tips of my own. Dee has inspired me!
