‘Dem Bones, ‘Dem Bones…

I started to type the title for my post and the theme to “Bad Boys” came into my head. ‘Dem bones, ‘dem bones, whatchoo gonna do? Whatchoo gonna do when dey come fo’ you… Our theme next month is releasing our ghosts through writing and I couldn’t resist posting to that a little early. It feels Octoberish in my part of the States right now anyway, so here we go.

Many, many words have been penned about memoir, personal writing, journaling, keeping a diary, and a host of other ways to say the same thing: meeting ourselves on the page. I read once that journaling is the closest we come to being in the moment, except that it’s still at one remove because we’re talking about the moment and not literally being in it. (Sit with that thought a moment, it’s rather Zen but I think is a good point to ponder.) So how the hell do we do that?

One of my favorite books for getting into the moment on the page is by Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones. In it, she gives a series of essays and exercises to guide us in getting in touch with ourselves on the page and for getting into the moment. It amounts to getting out of our own way and quieting the censor, that voice that says, “That’s not how you spell censor!”

Rather than worrying about how we’re writing, we write and let the words flow out of us like the breath. When we breathe, we don’t worry about how we’re breathing, it just happens automatically. When we start to speak to someone, we open our mouths and the words flow out of us – we don’t think about how to breath to form speech, how to shape our mouths, where to put our tongue, or any of that. For most of us it’s simply an automatic process. We speak, simple as that.

I remember the first time I picked up Ms. Goldberg’s book. I was living in Mount Shasta at the time. I worked in a bookstore/coffee house and my official story was, “I was on sabbatical to write books.” That’s also the literal truth, though I wouldn’t have put such fancy language around it. I wanted to write books with every fiber of my being but, unfortunately, there’s not a book-writing tree from which we can go pick fruit and BAM! a book results. It’s a lot of hard work and there’s a lot of “stuff” in the way: chiefly, that censor I talked about above. Ms. Goldberg’s words practically floated off the page and hit me between the eyes: try filling one notebook a month.

One notebook a month? Is she nuts? Crazy? Cracked? Wrong?

Nope. She’s pretty much on the ball with that one, as I discovered over the months after reading her book and fighting with the exercises and learning, word by word, page by page, to get over myself and just write.

What about you? What’s your favorite tool for getting onto the page?



--
“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.”
- E.E. Cummings


The Chicagoland Shifters series:
Book 1 BURNING BRIGHT, available from Samhain Publishing.
Book 2 TIGER TIGER, available from Samhain Publishing. An All Romance eBooks Bestseller!

The Persis Chronicles:Check out EMERALD FIRE, available from Torquere Books.
Check out "Seeking Hearts", available from Torquere Books.

Check out COOK LIKE A WRITER , available from Barnes and Noble.

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Murder, anyone?

Let me just start by saying that I really don't like reality shows. Sometimes I will find myself watching -- fascinated by the penchant some people have of making total fools of themselves for the world to see.

Personally, I prefer make believe. My favorite form of television entertainment? For years and years, it's been the weekly mystery/crime drama. If they can add a bit of humor, all the better.

I remember tuning in every week to watch Columbo or McMillan and Wife, and others in the NBC Mystery Movie night. These die-hard favorites often included intrigue, danger, some quirky characters, and a car chase or two. I loved Columbo and his wrinkled raincoat; his seemingly inept manor that put every bad guy and gal at ease. I thought Susan St. James was wonderfully cute and perky while she tried -- in an almost Lucille Ball fashion -- to help her husband solve crime.

But I was young. And, in all honesty, so was television for all intents and purposes. The weekly crime drama has evolved. Blood and gore abound... plots are a bit more twisted and not always so easy to figure out. But I do still love a good murder. ;) My favorites, however, are the ones where I have to figure it out along with the show's resident 'detective' -- whether that person be a mystery writer, cop, or forensic scientist*.

*Although, really, how many pathologists head out in the field to question suspects? Ummm, I'm thinking not many.

I love puzzles. I adore discovering those clues right along the hero (or heroine) on the small screen. I thrill at being able to piece it together and, sometimes, figuring it out before the professional sleuth does. With some shows that task is often difficult -- and those are the ones I watch more often.

So, while I still need a bit of mindless, silly comedy from time to time, (Thank you, Disney Channel); and something educational at rare moments (ala The History Channel) -- the crime drama is still my special fave.

Monk, sadly, is gone, except in reruns. But I still adore:

NCIS (the original, not the LA version. Sorry).

Other favorites include: Castle (love the character interaction);
Flash Point (fast-paced and often riveting);
Psych (much silliness and Shawn's dialog tends to wear me out.);
The Mentalist (sort of a 'grown-up' Psych?);
The Closer, a must-see every week (Again, love the characters!);
Bones;
Warehouse 13 (rarely murder involved, but I love the sci-fi aspect and the characters).


I suppose it really comes down to which shows have characters that fascinate me? Entertain me? Characters that I care about?

This life-long fixation is why I like to include a bit of mystery in my novels. It keeps me, and the reader, involved with a story.

Do you like mysteries? Crime drama? Or do you prefer to laugh your way through television viewing?

~~Meg Allison

Indulge your senses...
http://www.megallisonauthor.com

Characters - Write what you know?

People who know I'm an author often ask what parts of myself I put into my characters. People who know me well want to know why I'm not trying to sell my life story to Lifetime. *grins*

I'm a product of the foster care system. In a lot of ways, my life does read like a Lifetime movie. It's one of the reasons I write Paranormal Romances. I have always written to escape my reality, not embrace it. Having said that, it's impossible for my past not to bleed into my work.

When the concept for the Ladies of St. George popped into my head, I initially shelved it. I thought the idea of a bunch of damaged heroines wouldn't make good romances. And then I heard Destiny. After writing the opening scene, I talked to a friend about my concerns. Her answer? Write what you know. One of the reasons Bella is so engaging is that she's real.

So, I did. I took all the isolation, anxiety, and personal backstory into the St. George world. You see, I know what it's like to live life without a safety net; to know that every decision, good or bad, will have irrevocable consequences. I never had anyone to bail me out if I made a wrong move. In college, I worked two, sometimes three, jobs to make ends meet because not earning that degree simply wasn't an option. I had nowhere to go and no marketable skills without it. At a college filled with silver-spooners, it was hard to watch my fellow students squander Mommy and Daddy's money because they didn't care.

But I carried more than that into my St. George heroines. I don't make friends easily. Growing up, the one thing foster homes and abusive homes have in common is that friendships are discouraged. In abusive homes, it's to keep the abuse hidden. In foster homes, it's to ensure a smooth turn-over when it's time to move on to the next one, usually after you cross an age milestone or when your usefulness has ended. That teaches you to be fiercely loyal to those you have the opportunity to grow close to and to hold onto those fragile bonds as long as you possibly can.

Another thing the St. George heroines have in common is the way they value simple things. I never had a milestone celebrated: birthdays, graduations, personal accomplishments, etc. Anything that involved being valued? I was left out in the cold. The only value a foster child has is the rent they bring in. What it taught me was that small things matter, especially those that require personal attention to details.

What I like about my Ladies of St. George series is that I can fold up all the bad parts of my life and spin it into a story where all the weaknesses become strengths and there is always a happy ending.

In BLOOD AND DESTINY, I hear a lot about Yasmine and Destiny with their different life paths. When I introduced Grace in CHRISTMAS GRACE, my inbox was flooded with notes asking about her backstory.

I'm glad people like the St. George heroines because they aren't a mirror of my own life experiences. I'm not using myself as their model. I'm writing stories about how circumstances beyond our youthful control turn us into the women we are as adults. What's cool about that is how each personality morphs the same isolating childhood into a productive life. And how they turn those needs toward the men they chose to share their life with. Yasmine turned hers into a need to create a family, to give to her child the loving home she never had, and that lead her to Kale, alpha family man. Destiny flipped the other switch and became afraid of commitment, of being thrown away when her usefulness was over. So, Destiny fell in love with a vampire who would not only outlive her, but couldn't understand monogamy. Grace turned her demons into the need to put herself first. After all, if she's not going to look out for her interests, no one else is going to care enough to do it for her.

And for you? What parts of your personal backstory lead you down the road you traveled? What part of your own deep needs can you pinpoint to an incident in your past? Me? Well, the reason Yasmine doesn't have a book is because I share her needs. After having a childhood where there were no celebrations, I wanted to give my children everything I had been denied. So far, I'm doing all right.

Characters you love to hate...or hate to love?

In my first completed manuscript (which is still growing mold in some long-forgotten drawer) my focus was so ferociously on the hero & heroine that the antagonists didn’t even make an appearance. They were just some faceless entities that had, for no apparent reason other than that They Were Evil, scarred the protagonists’ careers, psyches, and lives in general.


My second manuscript, Beaudry’s Ghost, had a bad guy on stage, even a scene from his POV. Confederate Lt. Zachariah Harris was one of those gleefully vicious, vindictive villains that seemed easy-—too frighteningly easy-—to write. (Did I just use three “v” words in a row??) All he had to do was wield sharp objects and attempt to kill the hero in the end.


Third time around with A Ghost of a Chance, I went with a more insidious villain with a subtler technique for working his evil-doings. A method that, in real life, too often sucks otherwise intelligent women into bad relationships. (Aside: How funny that in a book full of concepts like astral travel and all manner of psychic phenomena and sexy shapeshifters, one reviewer zeroed in on this villain as the least believable part of the story! But that’s fodder for another post.)


Creating three-dimensional heroes and heroines seems to come much easier to me. I’m still working on developing equally rounded villains. Not too long ago I was surprised to learn even the great Stephen Spielberg looks back at “Raiders of the Lost Ark” with pangs of regret. After completing his masterpiece “Schindler’s List”, he said something to the affect that in comparison, the bad guys in “Raiders” were ridiculously cartoonish, almost to the point of being an insult to those who suffered an died at the hands of the Nazis. By the time “Last Crusade” hit the screens, he’d given at least one or two of the Nazi characters some depth.


George Lucas, as well, spent three entire Star Wars movies making us fall in love with Anakin Skywalker before he vanished behind Darth Vader’s helmet. Did it change the way you watched Luke Skywalker's story arc? It did for me.


It’s fascinating to know that everyone, even the best of us, goes through a learning curve.


When I think about it, the stories I like best are the ones that make me ambivalent about wholeheartedly hating the villain. After all, no one is born inherently bad. At some point, he or she was someone’s child, grandchild, brother or sister…maybe even a mother or father. As a writer I think it’s my job to bring all those factors into play when creating a character, even the ones who—-for the purposes of that particular story—-were born to be bad. :)


Can you think of characters, evil or otherwise, in a book you’ve read or a movie you’ve seen that leave you waffling over whether to hate or love them? Or who came back as a hero in a sequel? Here are a couple of mine:

• Jimmy Angelov in “Practical Magic” (okay, only because Goran Visnjic is freakin’ HOT!)
• V in “V for Vendetta” – Hero or psychopath?
• Ilsa in “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade”
• Walter White in “Breaking Bad”
• Severus Snape in the Harry Potter books/movies. Whose heart didn't break for him when we learned his real motivation? (Mine did, and Alan Rickman's on-screen interpretation brought tears to my eyes.)

Love to hear your thoughts!


Carolan
www.carolanivey.com

Ten things I'm going to do on my Summer Vacation

I have always had a summer vacation. I think. I mean, I may have worked a different job, or just worked period over the summer between college semesters, but there has always been that three months (or 10 weeks, if you want to get technical) in the middle of the year where I do something different. Now that I have a new job that is full time during the school year, I am once again living in that glorious time between the end of one school year and the beginning of another. I have big plans. 

1) Sleep past 5 am. 

2) Not get out of my pajamas until at least 7:30

3) Watch television without a computer on my lap

Yeah, you see how glamorous my life is. This is pretty much all I want from the first week of no work, no school, no have to be anywhere at any type of specific time, uh, time. But I DO have other things to do.

4) finish manuscript. Since this is now contracted, I need to get the lead out. Fortunately we're on the home stretch of the first draft, and much of the beginning has already been through the editing machine. Edits I can work on in the fall. 

5) Find agent. This is more of a 'I am going to throw stuff out there and see what sticks' kind of goal. I'm in no hurry with this Steampumk story, except that I want to have it a home before the Steampunk fad fades away. I have had several requests already, so I'm taking it nice and steady.

6) Go to the beach and take day trips with the Boy. I have some money now, and I owe him some serious Mommy time. Not that we haven't had fun at home, but I'd like to show him something else of the world besides our backyard. I bought us a membership to the Adventure Aquarium. We like it there. We also have a trip to NYC scheduled for my birthday (the big one) in August, and I am so excited. We've been before, but we have tickets to a show and to the Harry Potter exhibit and we're just going to have a great time.

7) Start next Steampunk book. I know, I have one last Library of Athena book to write, and it's contracted even, but I have been DYING to write this next book and if I don't at least map it and write the first two chapters I'll scream.

And these are the things I MUST do. 

8) Write a Worldbuilding in Fantasy lecture for a seminar I'm giving at the beginning of August. I'm being paid, so this is a must. 

9) Start planning for next year's lessons. I am the very first librarian my school has ever had. Ever. And so I have a lot of catching up to do. Because once the school year starts, it's going to be all go-go-go all the time. Boy will have football, I will be back in Grad School, and the library itself needs to be completely processed and cataloged. Completely. So I need to get a jump start on the day to day stuff like lessons.

And most important:

10) Try and remember to relax and have some fun. Read. Go swimming. Drink girly drinks and sit by the fire. I am the kind of person who thinks she's being lazy if I'm not doing something every minute of the day. I think I need to break out of that pattern.

Enjoy your summer!

10 Reasons Why I love My Job

10) Being a millionarie is fun.

Well, at least it looks like fun. No, being a multi-published author does not mean that I am rich, or live in a mansion, or even like caviar. What it does mean is that I have a job that I love.

9) Partying with those hot hunky cover models is a kick.

In my dreams. Ha. No, I've never met the sizzling model who became my Cain on the cover of Soul Stealer, or the hot and intense model on Catch Me in Castile. Sigh. But I do have a job that I love that allows me to stay home and party with my hunky sizzling hot hubby and that's heaven for me.

8) Jet-setting around the world to sign books makes my day

Or it would if I could. But I do have a job where I GET to talk to readers on the internet and sometimes in person. This I do LOVE.

7) Being followed by paparazzi is such a pain

For superstars. I have a job where I can be in the public eye and yet few people know who I am. I love fans. Truly big love. So if you do see me and want to chat PLEASE DO!

6) People respect what I do

Mostly. On a very rare ocassion a person will turn up their nose when I say I write romance. Honestly, that is rare. I have a job where I work hard and write the best stories I can write. I am not concerned with those who don't respect what I do. They don't have to buy the books. But if they did, they might be surprised to find that they like them.

5) Writers are wonderful people

They are! I work at a job where all my contemporaries, mentors and mentees all support one another. Writers great and small have encouraged me to succeed in hundreds of ways. How often does that happen in other industries? I love writers. BIG, BIG love.

4) Creating stories is fun

Usually. Except for those days when nothing seems to work and my fingers feel like they are moving through mud. Writing can become painful work. Sometimes my brain hurts. Sometimes I need to take a nap. But! Other times writing IS fun. On those days, my fingers can't move fast enough to get the story down. The charcters are all talking and doing important stuff and really living. And creating stories is a blast.

5) The characters are all me

Not completely. But my characters are usually people that I want to get to know better. They have a flaw or two that I see in myself. I put them in dangerous positions and wait to see how they get out. I learn from them. I cheer for them, cry with them and fall in love beside them. When the book is done, I miss my characters. Is that weird? I don't think so. An author has to get under her character's skin to make them believable beings. Okay, maybe it's weird. But it is one of the main reasons why I love my job.

4) I get to be the boss

Sort of. Sure, I create the world, the people, the life-or-death-problems, but do I get to be in charge? Not really. Once I set my characters in motion, they tend to have lives of their own. This is one of my favorite parts of my job. Watching my creations come alive. Letting them live the story, instead of me bossing them around.

3) A few hours each day is all I need to write a book

This is partially true. I usually type two to four hours a day. But the typing is only part of the job. Writing is more than putting words on a page. There's research, reading, and most importantly THINKING. I won't start writing any story unless I have the plot points in my mind, have sketched out who my characters are and can "see" the setting.

2) Two months is all I need to write a book and then it's party time!
Snort. I can write a first draft in two months. Seriously, it's possible. But that's only the first draft. For me, the real work begins at the editing stage. And this stage can take up to a year.

1) It's Pure Bliss

For me. I can't not write. It's in my bone marrow, or genes, or hair folicals, or something. I am a writer who works every day except Sundays. I think, dream and read about writing. Don't talking to me about writing unless you want a passionate discussion. Creating a new story is amazing. Talking to fans is awesome. Geting to do what I love? Priceless.

Kimberley Troutte
www.kimberleytroutte.com

Creativity, Resistance, and Fear

Writers are creative people. Of course, we aren’t the only ones. People are creative people. Except we aren’t always as creative as we want to be; as we feel, deep down, that we can be. There are as many reasons for this as there have been people. Probably more. There are many books, movies, articles, and art about getting past the fear that stops us. Two of the books are by Steven Pressfield. I got Do the Work as a free Kindle edition, then went out and the hard copies of both Do the Work and The War of Art. Why? Because these books are life changing.

We’ve all experienced some type of creative block. We have all ducked our creative natures for TV, housework, sleep. Procrastination has killed more cat stories than curiosity ever thought about. We all know we procrastinate, we joke about it. But it’s easier to stop a speeding locomotive than to get ourselves past that to the stuff that we want to do.

Pressfield calls this block “resistance,” and that’s exactly what it feels like. Like the resistance against movement in a swimming pool, or the resistance when you try to push together the same poles of a magnet. His books name this enemy and tells us, all creative people, how to fight resistance and do “our work”—the thing that is creative or that will advance us physically, spiritually, morally, ethically, etc.

Some memorable quotes, for me at least, from Do the Work are:

“Resistance is a repelling force. It’s negative. Its aim is to shove us away, distract us, prevent us from doing our work.”

“Everyone who has a body experiences Resistance.”

“Resistance’s goal is not to wound or disable. Resistance aims to kill.”

How to get past resistance?

“Forget rational thought. Play. Play like a child.”

And the opposite of resistance? Assistance.

“Assistance is the universal, immutable force of creative manifestation, whose role since the Big Bang has been to translate potential into being to convert dreams into reality.”

Finally,

“When we experience panic it means we’re about to cross a threshold. We’re posed on the doorstep of a higher plane.”

And before you start thinking of me as a Pressfield fanatic (OK, a little), let me point out that he is far from the only person with a book about blocked creativity. There are many. Another life changing one for me is Ralph Keyes’s The Courage to Write. This book is in large part responsible for my being a published author. Some of my favorite quotes from this book are:

“Writers by definition talk behind other people’s backs.”

“Before they can convey honest feeling to others, writers must be honest with themselves.”

“Its psychic demands make writing an exercise in courage little different from climbing a sheer granite cliff or skiing down a steep slope.”

And my absolute favorite”

“If you’re not scared, you’re not writing.”

Have a great, creative weekend!

Cheryel
www.cheryelhutton.com

Professionalism Is...

When I was growing up, my family had a great stash of Peanuts books by Charles M. Schultz. One that I remember vividly was called "Happiness is a Warm Puppy" (http://www.amazon.com/Happiness-Puppy-Peanuts-Charles-Schulz/dp/1933662077/) with a picture of Lucy (the Schultz character with whom I most identified) hugging Snoopy. Awwww! I thought I'd make a little Thursday Thirteen called: Professionalism Is.

First I took an informal poll of people I know to get them to fill in the blank.

1) From Kendall Grey (http://www.kendallgrey.com/ ): Professionalism is...keeping your tattooes covered. Caveat: unless you're a tattoo artist.

2) From Misty Rayburn: Professionalism is...being honest but in a way where your peers aren't offended by what you say.

3) From Missy Jane (http://www.msmissyjane.com/ ): Professionalism is...an attitude that represents a person both in their career & life. It exhibits pride in self and work ethic.

4) From Kate Johnson (http://etaknosnhoj.blogspot.com/ ): Professionalism is...behaving in a manner appropriate to your client.

5) From Lilly Cain (http://www.lillycain.com ): Professionalism is...an honesty and an integrity that makes you want to believe and trust.

6) From Amanda Gillespie: Professionalism is...acting like a grownup and playing nicely with others.

7) From Laura Gifford: Professionalism is...bBeing honest and reliable and knowing your stuff.

8) From Carolyn Rosewood (http://www.carolynrosewood.com/ ) Professionalism is...taking responsibility for your own behavior and giving credit where credit is due.

9) From Monica McCabe (www.monicamccabe.net ): Professionalism is...to always be straightforward, keep your promises, and never verbally strike out at someone or burn bridges.

10) From GrowlyCub: Professionalism is...only mentioned when people don't like what others do.

11) From Kelly Fitzpatrick (http://www.kellyfitzpatrick.webs.com/ ): Huh? I wouldn't know anything about that.

12) From Me: Professionalism is...a warm puppy. Ok, not really, because puppies tend to pee on the rug and chew up household items. That's not very professional, unless you're a professional puppy.

13) Also from Me: Professionalism is...limiting your weird Thursday Thirteen blog posts to thirteen items.

Cheers!

Jody W.
So much cyberspace, so little time!
www.jodywallace.com  / www.meankitty.com

Character Building

Another re-run post, copied from my YA group blog. But this came out so nice, I thought it could stand repeating. Besides, none of you read both blogs - do you?


Years and years ago (no, don't ask), I spent two weeks each summer at a camp quite literally on the Mason Dixon line - it ran through a cornfield at the back of the camp; you could run from Pennsylvania to Maryland in about ten seconds. Like all camps, it had rules. Breaking the rules got you time "Character Building". Which usually meant scrubbing out pots in the kitchen or hauling big stones around in wheelbarrows. It was, in short, punishment meant to make you think about what it was you had done and how not to get caught the next time why you shouldn't do it again.

For the record, I never spent any time Character Building.

But I do now, when I come up with characters I write about. Some writers say that their characters just appear, fully formed, into their heads, like some weird cabbage-patch mythical offspring. Physically I guess that's true for me, that I can see what a character looks like sometimes right away. Otherwise I need to build my characters, put them together like Frankenstein in his lab (insert mad scientist laughter here). Okay, maybe not.

What does that mean? Well, when I do school visits, I explain it this way: If you were going to write a story about your best friend, you'd already know everything about them - what their parents are like, if they have any brothers and sisters (and how they get along), their favorite color, their favorite ice cream flavor, the fact that they are allergic to peanut butter, that their greatest ambition is to farm alpacas when they grow up. You'd remember that the scar on their chin is from when they fell out of your tree fort in second grade. You would know it all without having to work at it, and writing a story about your best friend would be easy.

I do the same thing. I get to know a character, make up all that stuff from nothing. I have a handy character worksheet that I use, that I got from another writer somewhere along the way, a fill-in-the blanks kind. It's dead useful. Some of the items I might never ever use in the story, but knowing them makes it easier to write the character in whatever situation I put them in, because I understand them, I've spent time with them, as it were, and learned all about them. If we went out to lunch, I know what we'd talk about.

Take for example, a character's bedroom. The story I write might never show the character's bedroom, but knowing what their bedroom looks like can be very useful, because a person's most personal space says something about them - whether they are messy or neat, for example. What color are the walls and why? Is the bed made or not? I might know what kinds of music they like (from the posters on the walls), do they have a desk and what is on it? What kinds of books are on their shelves- romances or horror novels (or reference books)?

This does NOT mean, however, that there are no surprises. Like best friends, characters (and everyone) have secrets, and you might discover something new about a character that you just hadn't considered. This recently happened to me- I was just sitting there, thinking about the book I'm working on, and something popped into my head about a secondary character, something important. I knew at once it was right and perfect, wondered why I hadn't realized it before. But I don't know if it will ever make it into the book. Or the next one. But I know, and that's enough.

I never used to do the character worksheets, used to learn about my characters as we went along. But for my last WIP (out on submission to agents and editors) I did write them, at least for the two main characters, and I found that I loved it. It made certain aspects of story writing so much easier, the story so much richer and deeper. I wondered why I'd never done it before. It's like cool, secret dossier like they have in spy stories, and you feel like some super secret spy, knowing everything about people you made up in your head! (okay, that sounds weird...)

Worksheets are much easier than hauling stones in a wheelbarrow or scrubbing pots. Given the choice, I'll take my version of character building over the summer camp version any day. Happy Writing!

Going to Disney World, Baby.

Okay, I'm a little bit excited.

It's THAT time of the year again...the Romance Writers of America Annual (RWA) Conference.

Squeeeee!!! For four jam-packed days, I will be immersed in all things writerly. From workshops on craft, the publishing industry, and how to tame that pesky muse, I will be glued to my chair. I will be surrounded by people who are, well, writerly too (agents, editors, multi-published authors, some of the biggest names in the industry). I am getting chills just thinking about it.

During the year, I sit all alone at my desk creating worlds, lives, loves. At RWA I get to sit with thousands of others just like me with the same hopes, dreams, goals, and desires. I don't know most of them, but I KNOW them. It's amazing.

It can also be a little daunting.

I'll never forget my first conference in 2003. It wasn't sponsored by RWA, because frankly, I hadn't heard of RWA at that time. I was a clueless, young, closet-writer. I wrote lots, but worried that I stunk big-time (which, thinking back now, I probably did.) I couldn't utter the words, "I am a writer." for fear that a burly guard might boot me out of the conference for writer-impersonation.

But I went. Why? Because I knew I stunk big-time, but this was my dream--to become published. I wanted someone to teach me. I wanted to know what I didn't know (which, looking back on it was a ton!). I wanted inspiration and hope and acceptance. I had never been in one place with so many writers before. This was awesome.

And rip the guts out of your body terrifying.

During orientation it was announced that we were supposed to bring the first five pages of our manuscript to workshops lead by multi-published authors, stand up and read those five pages aloud, so that the entire class could critique them while you, or really I, crawled under the nearest table and died a thousand deaths. (No the last part wasn't mandatory, but I could see it coming in all the gory details). I was beyond myself with terror. Remember, I couldn't even mouth the words, "I am a writer." and here we were going to prove it in front of God and all those strangers!

My heart in my throat, I turned to the person sitting next to me and said something like, "Aaagggk!"

It was the last intelligible sound I made for three days. I kid you not. I developed psychosomatic laryngitis. I could not speak above a whisper for almost the entire conference!

On the third day, I wandered into a workshop where the multi-published leader read my pages for me while I held my notebook over my face and blushed like a madwoman. In the end? The members of the class cheered. It was the first time the audience had cheered and the leader recommended my piece for an award. They liked me, they really did.

And not surprisingly, my voice came back that evening.

Jump forward to the year 2010. I can say, "I am a mutli-published author!" And yet, I am nervous to go to conference. I always am. But excited too. I still want to improve my writing and I know I have a ton to learn. I want to be inspired and accepted. I want to be surrounded by people who "get me." I want to meet new friends. Most of all, I want to be that author I always knew I could be.

I hope to see you there.

Kimberley Troutte
www.kimberleytroutte.com

Fictional Real Life

Facing demons, uncovering long buried secrets, battling shadowy monsters that haunt childhood. No, I’m not talking about my latest novel. I’m actually talking about the emotional results of writing a novel.

It isn’t something writers talk about much, but it happens all the time. Writing fiction is a deeply personal experience that somehow draws on memories, experiences, feelings the writer may not even know are there.

When I wrote my first novel (cough, cough) years ago, I knew very little about repression. But I’m here to tell you: repressed memories are real. And not everybody recovers those memories with the help of a hypnotist with an agenda. For me, all it took was writing a novel. And those flashback-inducing events from my early childhood sure as heck aren't fiction.

You’d think, after that I’d have found something less stressful to do, like brain surgery or air traffic control. Turns out, writing fiction is an addiction. Before long I was at it again.

Over the years I wrote characters that I felt were less like me. When I wrote Shadows of Evil, I thought Kia Wolfe was the least like me of any heroine I’d ever written. I was actually quite proud of that. Then one day my husband made a comment, “You know Kia is you.” My first reaction was to laugh. “That’s ridiculous,” I told him. “There is not enough money in the world to make me move into a haunted house by myself.” But then he listed the similarities: stubbornly independent, struggling to find her place in the world, difficulty with allowing help from friends, in love with a handsome man (okay, I threw that in, but it’s true). So, I had to accept the situation.

Then there’s the manuscript I’m currently working on. The plot is unlike anything I’ve personally experienced, but I’m beginning to understand how a fictional situation can be a metaphor for the writer’s life. I eventually gave in to the inevitable and began to consciously use my experiences to bring the characters to life.

Is this a bad thing? Obviously pulling up old wounds has the potential to be harmful. Writers and other creative people are famously prone to depression, substance abuse, and even psychosis. But those are the instances we hear about, that make the news or that become part of the lore surrounding the lives of famous people.

There is the other side, though, the optimistic side. Most writers handle the emotions and memories that writing brings to the surface without benefit of alcohol, drugs, or psychiatric crisis. In fact, for a lot of writers, lessons learned from their characters are beneficial to them. For me, for instance, learning that I wasn’t showing emotion in my characters led me to the knowledge that I hid my own emotions a lot of the time. Being more open with my feelings has benefited my relationships with my friends and family.

There’s a benefit for the reader too, fiction that is grounded in real-life events and emotions is stronger and more realistic — even if the fictional events and real-life events are worlds apart.

I would like to say one more — very important — thing. If you're having a hard time emotionally, whether provoked by writing or not, please don’t be afraid to get help. I’ll be seeing a therapist next week. I want to be able to play in my fictional worlds for a long time, and if that means admitting I have problems I can’t handle alone, so be it. I go to my doctor for my high blood pressure without shame, I’ll go to my therapist the same way.