REALITY CHECK

PAPERBACK AVAILABLE NOW AT AMBER QUILL PRESS/AMBER HEAT

What I've been thinking about is how difficult it is to write a book, a short story or a novella. I realize ideas and words come more easily to some than others, but writing's still a long and arduous process. Mystery writer Robert Crais says short stories and articles take the most time of all. He advises going straight to novel length. I'm not so sure about that. In a novel you have more of everything...characters, situations, complications, and maybe even more than one setting. But then, who am I to refute what the guy who made up such terrific characters as Elvis Cole and Pike says?

Why some of us choose to tackle this craft is a mystery in itself. It doesn't bear to look at the average income of writers reported by statisticians, so money isn't always the answer. Obsession, challenge, the "Look what I can do!" syndrome, feelings of prestige that come with being published, or creativity demanding to be expressed? Take your pick.

So. You've decided to write fiction. You've chosen the length (although in the end you may find it chose you), you have characters, a setting, and a rough idea of a plot. At this point you need to make your first reality check: Can you really complete this project?

Completing any written work centers on TIME. Ask yourself how much time you have for conducting research and interviews? How much of it can you honestly spend with your rear in the proverbial chair writing? You need to look hard at this before you begin.

I have a friend who wrote her first romance at her desk on her lunch hour using the company's computer. The only time I've been able to write at work was two weeks while providing private duty services as a registered nurse. I worked evenings, and when my patient was asleep for the night I sat at her bedside writing silently with a ball point pen on a yellow legal pad. In every other job, there wasn't time to even think about personal stuff, not even on my thirty-minute lunch break.

Of course, with determination you may be able to sandwich writing time in between everything else in your life. When my children were little, I wrote at night while the house was blessedly quiet and only the nightbirds sang. When the kids were teenagers I was still young, and I worked full-time, trained after work to run marathons, attended classes for a master's degree, and managed a household and a husband. I sporadically made time to write. Looking back, I have few tips on how I managed this. (Well, I do know housework was the first to go, and I gave up ironing. My husband once told friends we were the "worst pressed" family in town.) I think Blind Ambition best describes my mindset in those days. I didn't turn out any novels, but I did sell and win awards for smaller pieces.

I have a friend published by NY in romance, and she hires a sitter to be with her two young children for four hours while she writes. She doesn't answer the phone or look at her emails. The children of another friend of mine are adults, so they're no longer under foot, but she doesn't answer the phone from nine o'clock until five. She says, "I work."

My paperback OTHER REALMS, OTHER LIVES includes two erotic time travels, PORTAL TO DARKNESS and its sequel WOMAN IN BLACK LACE, and the fantasy TEARS OF THE DRAGON. I had a deadline for each of those stories, which were originally released in digital format, and I didn't worry about the things I mentioned above. Why not? Because I'd written to meet deadlines many times before.

Although I'm retired, I don't set aside blocks of time to write, and I don't write the same amount of words every day. Experience has taught me what I need to do to meet a deadline and it comes automatically now.

Still, reality checks were important in meeting those due dates. For instance, what answer did I give a friend who invited me to go out to lunch? "May I take a rain check" or "Can we reschedule this after I've sent in this book?"

Could I afford the time to play golf with my husband this week? Yes, because staying healthy is a subject for another blog. Could I watch my favorite TV shows and make my deadline? No. I taped them to see later.

I do have a loose plan for my days and what I need to accomplish with my writing, but life intervenes. It does for each of us. Yesterday, I'd planned to sleep in, and I did, but then I had to rush breakfast because hubbie stuck his head in the kitchen to say we had to take the car to the mechanic. Of course, later in the day we had to pick it up. I hadn't planned to have to run to the lab for a blood draw, but I'm taking an anticoagulant and I noticed bruising on one arm. There went at least two unexpected hours out of my writing day.

A reality check may cause you to postpone starting something you can't finish. But if you begin, you'll still be making reality checks, as I do, to be sure you meet your deadline--either the one you made for yourself or the one your publisher did.

Happy writing!

Carolina Valdez

Carolina Lives Here
Carolina Has Space Here
Carolina Tweets Here

"It's the content, not the format."
Author Natalie J. Damshroder

Passion - Heat - Ecstasy