I've been doing a bit more reading this past week.  As much as I hate to say it I'm a bit of a tough sell when it comes to reading romance.   Probably because I know how this is all supposed to work, and I find myself questioning various plot decisions the author made.  Sad, I know.  My biggest thing is motivation.  If the character's motivations don't make sense then most likely I will stop reading.

Now I know I sound all holier than thou, and I don't mean to.  I'm not knocking anyone's work.  I'm not saying I'm the world's greatest romance writer, but reading is subjective.  What one person likes will not necessarily appeal to everyone.  So just because I find that a certain character's motivations makes no sense, well, I'm sure there are a number things I do that make no sense.  Like my fascination with calendars.  It's just a square with a bunch of a numbers on it, but I love calendars.  I hang them everywhere.  Why?  Who knows.

So, moving on.  This week I have read an Artemis Fowl book.   Those books are such fun.  Never heard of Artemis Fowl?  Well, if you like Harry Potter you will probably like Artemis, but don't expect the stories to be simliar, because they're not.  Artemis is a boy genius with criminal tendencies.  He does things like trick fairies out of their gold, and he often does it a high tech James Bond kind of way and with a fantasy twist.  Some of his hi-jinx get a bit too high tech and confuse me a bit, but these stories are so entertaining I always keep reading.

I've read two romance stories this week.  Working on another one.  Picked up yet another one, but the plot was a bit too military for my civilian mind, so I put it down.  Shame too.  Seemed like a romance I could get into. 

One of the two that I finished I just LOVED!  Awesome story.  Loved the story, the characters, and the hero, sigh.  The emotion felt so real.  And that's what I like about romance, is well, duh the romance.  I want to fall in love.  I want to get swept away, and this story definitely did that.  It's called Billionaire Next Door by Jessica Bird, and it's a Silhouette Special Edition.  From the other reviews I've read everyone who has bothered to review this book has loved it as well.  Apparently Jessica Bird also writes paranormals under the name JR Ward.  

The other story I read well, I had a bit of mixed emotions about.  The author had an interesting writing style, but I couldn't really connect to the characters.  I finally 'got' the heroine a bit, but the hero never did make much sense to me. 

Warning - Rant of the week. 

Would someone PLEASE write a cowboy story where the hero's conflict ISN'T that he believes no woman will want to live on his secluded ranch because his mother, or ex-wife, or ex-girlfriend all just hated the ranch lifestyle and couldn't wait to get back to the big city.  It's been a done.  A lot.  Can someone think of something different?  Maybe I will.  Anyway to complete my rant I always thought how would these heros feel if the situation were reversed?  If he had to leave the only world he ever knew and live in the big city? 

Rant over. 

So yes, the second book I read was one with the cowboy angle, but despite the obvious conflict the hero's motivation made no sense to me therefore I wasn't too thrilled with the story.

The book I'm reading now is a very well written.  The author can weave the external plot into the story with a skill I may never acheive.  Characters are well developed.  Even secondary characters are well developed.  The supporting cast is a bit large and that confuses me a bit. 

My biggest gripe with the book, well, the romance - I'm just not feeling it.  There's enough interaction between the two main characters, but I'm not feeling any sparks.  None.  Which is sort of the reason I read romance as previously mentioned.  This story isn't sweeping me away in some kind of emotional tale of love.  And no, it doesn't have to be intense and dark.  It can be fun and flirty.  But nope, not getting any of that from this book.  I can see this author being doing well in mainstream market as they focus more on external plot, and she can definitely pull that off, but getting emotion out of her readers.  It ain't happening, at least not to me. 

So score for this week.  Three books read, one in progress.  One fun, one amazing, one not sure, and the fourth one in progress.  Doubt I'll have much different opinion of it when I do finish it but we'll see.

Recently I've been thinking quite a bit about my writing.  Where I'm going, where I've been, that sort of thing.   And I've been thinking about what kind of advice I would give to someone who is wanting to become a romance writer as well. 

If you've done any studying of the craft you will hear tons of things about goals, motivation, and conflict or in romance writer lingo - GMC.  And for those of you who don't know how to apply that to writing, goals are what your characters want, motivation is why they want it, and conflict is why they can't have it.  That may sound simple but you'd be amazed at how many writers, including me, struggle or have struggled with this concept. 

But that's not the point I want to make.  Learning all the different things that make up a good romance story is valuable stuff to learn, but having a decent grasp on the mechanics of writing unfortunately is only part of the battle.  Now you have to actually write something.  There really isn't any right or wrong way to put the story down on paper, but the process can vary greatly from writer to writer.  And learning the process that works for you can be as much of a struggle as learning the craft.

Sounds crazy I know.  I mean how hard can it be to put words down on paper?   You have your plot, you have your characters, you have your conflict, and you have the romance angle worked out - isn't that all you need? 

Well, here's my story.  I'll try to be brief, but this may take a bit of explaining, sorry. 

About four years ago I decided that if I was going to pursue my dream of becoming a published writer I just needed to do it.  The half measures that I'd been putting forth just wasn't enough.  I knew the craft, knew the market, and I felt I had pretty decednt grasp on what I needed to do.  I'd already finished one story but that was a few years prior, back when I had no clue what it took to write a marketable story.  But I knew better now so it should be easier. 

Wrong!

I'd get an idea, start writing, get a few chapters in, stop to review what I'd written, not like much of what I've writtten, make some changes, still wasn't satisfied, make more changes, still didn't like it, and eventually decide that I needed to approach this story from a different angle.  Surely that will solve the problem. 

Wrong again!

This went on and on and on for several months.  And after about four months of continually tossing aside idea after idea I realized I had a problem.  A big problem.  I needed advice.  I needed guidance.  I needed more than the form rejections I'd been getting, but where could I get this advice, this guidance when I couldn't join any writer's group because of the cost.  Contest fees could also run into some money, and having heard a number of conflicting stories pretaining to some writers experiences with contest, I was reluctant to go that route as well.

Where to turn?

Finally I heard about a pitch contest that didn't cost anything to enter.  And it was for the line I wanted to write for.  All you had to submit was two lines that summorized your story and the editor of the line would chose the best five.  The five chosen would be given the chance to pitch online.  The catch was the story was supposed to complete.  I didn't have anything complete.  But given the winners wouldn't be announced for a few weeks yet, and the actual pitch was scheduled for a few weeks after that surely I could have a decent headway on something by then.  This had to be the push I needed.

Wrong!

I sent the idea in, and again couldn't get past the first few pages before I was questioning my premise.  Maybe I should do this.  Maybe it would work better if I took this approach.  Didn't so and so once say that editors perfer this kind of story?  I was hopeless. 

The winners were finally announced and my name wasn't among them.  Oh, well.  That idea must of sucked and besides I'd already talked myself out of it anyway.  But I still hadn't found a solution to my problem.  A couple of weeks went by and I was still struggling to overcome my continual second quessing myself problem.  Entering a contest hadn't given me the push I needed so now what?

The night before the pitch was scheduled I received an email.  One of the winners of the pitch would not be unavailable on the day of the pitch, and since my entry was next in line - wow! Next in line?  I was convinced it must have sucked! - would I be interested in doing a pitch?  Interested?  Of course I was interested! 

My moment of happiness lasted all of about three minutes.  Long enough for me to race into the bedroom to alert my husband, do the - Look!  There's my name! - thing, and a brief happy, yeah, me, dance around the living room before reality and panic set in.  One, I had no idea how to do a pitch, and two, gulp, I had NOTHING to pitch.  I was so screwed.  

Help!

Fortunately a newly published writer took pity on me and help me organize my pitch.  Of course I had to search through my files to see if I still had the original idea  because after it was initially passed on I had decided that it sucked and I thought I had deleted it. Thankfully I found it.  Put together a pitch, hashed out something of an outline in case I was asked about certain plot points - remember, this story was supposed to have been complete before I entered the contest. 

Yeah, this was not good.

The following day I put a bit more work into my outline hoping to have some kind of handle on the plot before the session.  The pitches were to take place in an online chat room, and some computers for whatever reason couldn't access the chat rooms.  I knew my computer could, but I wanted to make certain that it wasn't going to cop some sort of attitude at such a crucial time so I headed towards the room just to make double certain that I could get in. 

I arrived in the chat room over an hour early and was surprised I wasn' t alone.  What was up? Was everyone so anxious that they arrived an hour early?  And then it hit me.  Duh!  The editor I was pitching to was on Eastern time not Central time like me.  I nearly missed the pitch because I hadn't thought about the time difference.  I felt like such an idiot.  If I hadn't decided to make one last check I would have missed my only chance to pitch to a real editor.  And my first real chance to finally achieve my goal of becoming a published author.

Well, my stupidity made me all that more uncomfortable about doing the session.  I did it, and got a request for a full, but I was so ill at ease, and felt so completely flustered by the rush to get something together, by nearly missing the pitch because I couldn't tell time, I was so glad when it was all over.  And I had a request for a story that was supposed to be finished and wasn't even begun. 

What in the hell had I done?

Finally I set down to write.  I wrote like eight chapters in like a week and a half, and was totally amazed.  But remember this was only the second story I've ever written, and I wasn't all that sure about my process yet.  I felt like my story was rambling around a bit and I was worried about getting further off track if I continued, so I decided it would be advisable to do a bit of editing. 

And the whole process came to a screeching halt.

I decided I wanted to as fully as possible edit each chapter before moving on.  It seemed like a good idea.  That way when I finished I wouldn't have all that much to edit.  But I hadn't counted on the continual back tracking making me lose all sense of forward momentum.  Before I was like, hey, I'm on chapter four, and the next day, hey, I'm on chapter six.  And now it was like eight days later and I'm struggling with chapter three. 

Working on my story became a chore.  I had to force myself to keep going.  And all this time the continual - but this story was supposed to be finished weeks ago - haunted me.  More pressure to finish, but I just couldn't make this story work.   Weeks turned into months.  I did the pitch towards the end of October and now Christmas had come and gone.   Then New Year's.  Finally February was here and I still hadn't finished.  I was still struggling to 'edit' my story.  I had managed to move beyond my initial eight chapters, but the process was slow.  And painful. 

Then finally one day it hit me.  Duh!  If I hate the continual editing so much, stop doing it!  Finish writing the story, then edit.   The clouds finally lifted.  Finishing the story was a breeze.  The end wasn't great, and I knew it.  But so much time had past and I needed to move on.  Within a few weeks I had finished the writing and editing, and sent it in.  Time to wait. 

It didn't get published.  It didn't even get a personal rejection.  I got a form rejection for my trouble, but I had learned a very valuable lesson.  And no, it wasn't to not pitch on an incomplete manuscript.  Without the stress of - this was supposed to be complete already- I probably wouldn't have finished it.  What I learned was the imporatance of knowing what works for me.   And the importance of continually moving forward. 

I now write a few chapters, usually up to at least five, before I stop, then I do a bit of editing, maybe go through the chapter once or twice, and yes, I know it's not great yet, but it's better, so I move on.  That is the key.  That to me is probably one of the most important lessons I've learned and that is the advice I will always give to anyone who asks.  

Just keep going.  Give yourself permission to write crap, and just keep going.

Hopefully someone can help me.  Things I'm researching for my latest story.   Multiple births, most partically higher order births relating to quintuplets and sextuplets. 

Also ideas for hosting a local benefit.  I intend for this to be something of a Bluegrass festival and the goal is to raise money to help a family with the expense of having sextuplets.  I'm even thinking about maybe making it something of a community baby shower.  Thoughts?

Also college admissions.  My female main character is about 24 years old.  Haven't decided on what she wants to go to college for, but this is something she's wanted for a while and has put off once already.  I know that some of the major universities you have to start the application process like a year and half in advance.  Or am I misinformed?  Also this college needs to be somewhere on the east coast.  Any suggestions?  

All usefull suggestions appreciated.  I have no problem with someone clowning around, but please don't sound off on my blog.  I'm too stressed out as it.  Then I have to delete it, and rant to my husband about it, who hears me rant too much all ready, so please spare us both the agony. 

Thanks!