Travel and the Novelist

by Janis Patterson

Travel is wonderful. Travel is broadening. Travel is fun. Travel is enlightening. Travel can be used as research for an upcoming book - and therefore be made tax-deductible!

Travel can also be very problematic for the professional novelist.

I try to adhere to a writing schedule - a rough and occasionally flexible schedule, admittedly, and have been known to be somewhat slip-shod about keeping it (hey, I’m only human!) but schedules do work best when you’re at home and settled into a routine. Travel can knock all that into a cocked hat.

The Husband would rather fly everywhere we go; as I have an intense dislike of being treated as not-too-bright self-ambulatory cargo, I prefer to drive if at all feasible. The results turn out to be pretty much equal. Whichever way we travel, though, I refuse to go without a computer. (Yes, I am spoiled. And semi-obsessed.) That way I can make notes, keep a trip diary if the trip justifies such, and at least appear to be holding to my schedule. 

The Husband calls it my security object. I loftily reply that I haven’t yet started carrying it with me to the grocery store - though I haven’t yet admitted that sometimes it can be a near thing.

While the stated idea of taking a computer with me is so I can get at least some work done on the work in process (which does have a fast-approaching deadline), perhaps the greatest danger traveling poses to a novelist is the storm of ideas which attack you. I have a projected writing schedule for approximately the next two years. Then I go on a trip and everything goes wonky, as it is a very rare trip when I don’t get at least five or six workable plots, plots which call to me with the seductive whispers of excitement and creativity.

So, like a good little magpie snatching at something shiny, I make notes and jot down ideas, create a file for them on the computer and tuck them away in a remote corner of my hard drive. And, I’ll be honest, sometimes I forget them... but sometimes I don’t. Some of my best and best-selling books have come from these ‘vacation attack’ ideas. 

Anyway, as we are leaving in the morning, I have to go finish packing. All those ideas are lying in wait.

(P.S. - for those of you who are following my republishing blitz, I am happy to report that it is going perfectly according to schedule - a book, freshly edited, freshly edited and as often as not with a new cover - released every other Wednesday since the middle of January! THE EARL AND THE BLUESTOCKING (#15) will go live on 19 July, and INHERITANCE OF SHADOWS (#16 and a multi-award winner) on 2 August. Plus - drum roll here - my second audio book A KILLING AT EL KAB and my third CURSE OF THE EXILE are now available at Amazon and Audible!

Inviolate Writing Schedules and Other Fictions

by Janis Patterson

There are those who say that the success to writing lies only in following a strict schedule. So many words per day, every day, or writing X number of hours without deviation, or... whatever. On the other hand, there are an equal number of equally fervid writers who are convinced that no good writing ever comes from being forced. One should wait for the magic touch of the muse, as anything which is worked at, which happens without fiery and flowing inspiration is unnatural and bad writing.  

Give me a break. Or two.

That said, I will admit that my writing is easier when I am in the throes of inspiration, and that I do try to write a certain number of words every day. Keywords here are 'easier' and 'try.'

Like all of life writing is uncertain. You can vow that you will write a minimum of 5,000 words a day, every single day without fail. If you can, good on you. The rest of us have lives. We have families, cars, homes, jobs... all of which seem to go maniacally wonky just at the worst times. There are things in life that should come before writing - family comes to mind first.

So - you've set a schedule and stuck to it pretty well, then something overwhelming happens and until it is resolved the writing goes out the window. Then what? Your rhythm is off. You haven't kept your word, and if you're so unreliable why go on? Obviously you aren't a real writer unless you .... whatever.

Yes, there are people who actually believe that. I look at writing schedules sort of like I do at a diet. They can be wonderful things from which you can benefit greatly. Depending on your attitude, they can also make your life miserable. If you break a diet, you don't just give up and wallow in a slough of chocolate (however delightful that might seem), you admit what happened, then pick up and go on. Or at least you should. At least, I do. Most of the time. 

Being a writer is a life and career choice - it shouldn't be a sentence. Yes, we have deadlines, and yes, if we've given our word that so-and-so will be done by such-and-such a time, we should honor it, no matter what it takes. That's a sprint, though, not a way of life. 

So am I advocating heedlessness, hedonism, laziness? No. If you are a writer, you must write. But... if you are a human, you must also live. As the Facebook meme says, Eat the chocolate, drink the wine, smell the roses. 

It's all about balance. I am a firm advocate that family comes first. Yes, you owe dedication to your craft, but you also owe dedication to your Self. And your family. And your life, however you choose to live it. But you must also be disciplined and productive in the way that is right for you.

Besides, there is a extra - if rather naughty - benefit to having a writing schedule. When something comes up that you should do, but don't really want to, but can't say no gracefully, you can always say, "I'd love to, but I haven't made my word count for today." Works every time.

Discipline is Freedom

by Janis Patterson

While this might sound like some a totalitarian mantra etched on the walls of some dictator's forced labor camp, it really isn't. It's a sign on the bulletin board next to my desk. And while I admit to sometimes being a minor-league martinet, I'm quite a ways away from full-blown dictator-dom.

Scary as it might sound, discipline really is freedom. I try to adhere to a reasonable writing schedule - a minimum of 1,000 words a day (a pathetically low number, I know) to be fulfilled at least 5 days a week. Most days and weeks I do more, sometimes much more, but that 1K/5day goal is my benchmark when I'm in writing mode. Editing, etc. is different.

Before I set up a minimum daily requirement, my writing suffered as I am lamentably frivolous and light-minded. The lures of lunch with friends, a night out with The Husband, some more remodeling of my office... any and all temptations that aren't writing, to say nothing of the boring necessities of life such as laundry, dusting, cooking, etc., would sing their siren song to me and my production would inevitably decline, sometimes sharply.

"I can write tonight," I would say, then trot off merrily for whatever. "I can catch up later." The only thing is, I didn't. Sometimes days or even weeks would go by with only a paltry few hundred words captured in pixels, and that just wouldn't do.

I am not by nature a disciplined person. I dally. I shilly-shally. I am frivolous and easily distracted. But - I knew something had to be done if I were to continue to regard myself as a professional novelist.

I don't know where the phrase 'Discipline is Freedom' came from. Maybe unearthed from some unconscious awareness of reading about some nasty time in human history - or maybe not. Maybe it was a gift from my abused muse. Whatever it was, it suddenly appeared in my mind one day and I knew it was true.

Now I work mightily to get at least my daily minimum done; usually it is much more, for once the pump is primed the words keep flowing, but even if they don't I have done my allotted ration. Once that is done, I can do whatever else calls to me with a light heart. I can go to lunch or shopping with a clear conscience, for the work has been done. I don't even feel resentful of the necessary housework any more - at least, not for interfering with my writing - because my book is progressing at a fairly stable pace.

Of course, nothing is perfect, and any system has to be flexible. There are emergencies and unforeseen circumstances that blow any schedule out of the water. Families have problems; mechanical things maniacally break - usually two or three in a clump. There are wrecks and injuries and illnesses; there are losses and the ones who remain must be comforted. There are also joys, such as a quick visit from a friend now living overseas, or the birth of a new baby in the family. That is called Life, and such events should always supersede rigid schedules. Writing is not and should not be the end-all and be-all; it is a job. An important and meaningful job, yes, but still a job. Life and family should always come first.

The trick is that once the breach in your schedule has happened and has passed, get back on the pony. Discipline yourself to begin once again your self-imposed schedule, then when your minimum - or beyond - is reached you can give yourself permission to go do other things and not feel guilty. Such freedom is the gift of discipline.

Discipline is indeed freedom.

Writerus Interruptus

by Janis Patterson

I envy and am astonished at those people who can write with small children around – or big children, for that matter. How do they concentrate?

I am fortunate enough to be able to work at home in my own office, but always accompanied by our furbabies – one demanding cat and one prissy diva of a little dog. They are both rescues from horrific situations (curses be forever on the heads of those who abuse animals!) and though both our furbabies have been with us for several years they still bear the psychic scars.

In the everlasting attempt to be able to concentrate uninterrupted on my writing, I tried locking them in their rooms. (Yes, they each have their own, generally better furnished than The Husband’s and mine.) Ours is a reasonably large house, but totally insufficient to block the chorus of demanding barks, aggrieved howls and pathetic whimpers engendered by such obviously unjust incarceration. I doubt if Blenheim Palace would be large enough.

Failing that, I let them into my office, which though they enjoy it is not the best thing for me. Chloe the cat will sleep for hours, then demand to be taken into my lap just when I am trying to concentrate on a particularly difficult scene. ‘Demand’ is not a word I use lightly; a large cat, she stands on her hind legs and paws at my lap. (She was declawed when she came to us, but her little ‘fingers’ are incredibly strong. If she were not declawed I would be positively anemic from bloodloss…) If I don’t stop and take her up, she starts to sing the aggrieved song of her people at ear-splitting decibels. On the rare times that doesn’t work, she becomes more direct and simply bites me on the leg. Seldom hard enough to draw blood, but definitely hard enough to get my attention. Once ensconced on my lap, she takes offense if I go on typing; she wants all the attention.

Now Mindy Moo the dog will sleep though all this, until I pick up the cat; then suddenly the cat is trespassing on Her Mommy, and she makes her displeasure known. I have to divide Lap Time equally between them, which can be vexing, as I can only hold one of them at a time. As Mindy Moo is a terrier (I say she is half terrier mix and half pure diva) she is most decided about her wants. Any attempts to train her have gone unfulfilled by the wayside – with two exceptions. She does use her pee-pads. We don’t dare let her out, as we have both coyotes and red-tailed hawks in our neighborhood and at ten pounds she would be a tasty morsel for either. She also has made a fine art of obeying to ‘sit’ and ‘ask’ and getting a treat for doing so. Anything else – hah!

What is most alarming for me – as a writer of mystery and occasionally horror – is that she will sleep quietly for hours, only to explode into frenzied barking and snarling without warning – usually when I am deep into an unnerving and/or frightening scene. Perhaps she just wants to make sure my heart is working properly. It hasn’t exploded yet, though sometimes I wonder why. Despite the dark places in my mind, though, it is useful to know that neither postman nor UPS man nor marauding moth can approach the front door without Mindy’s noisy alert. I really don’t know if she thinks she is protecting the house or if she regards the postman and UPS man as a sophisticated, self-ambulatory version of meals-on-wheels for dogs. The moths are probably just for fun.

However – I love them (most of the time) and the three of us can rub along together tolerably well. Again, most of the time. But I still am in awe of those who can write with children around. My hat is off to all of you!

(By the way, A KILLING AT EL KAB, a Janis Patterson mystery, and CURSE OF THE EXILE, a Janis Susan May Scottish Victorian Gothic Romance, are on sale for only $1.99 each at most major ebook outlets through 18 February)

Gurus, Schedules and Misbehaving Muses

by Janis Patterson

All the successful ‘make a million’ and 'you too can write a bestseller' gurus stress the importance of structure… how dependable it is. How good it is. How having specific times and goals for specific projects increases your creativity. How freeing a firm schedule is. One even said ‘discipline is freedom’… Sounds like something out of a totalitarian work camp doesn’t it?

Heaven knows I’ve tried. I’ve set word goals and deadlines and definite working hours. I’ve made charts and visual reminders and promised myself chocolate if I fulfill all these targets. I just can’t understand how I can concentrate on goals and targets if I’m thinking about the chocolate that I supposedly can’t have until it’s all over? That’s a real killer – and not the good kind like I put in my mysteries. Then there’s life itself… the laundry must be done, or perhaps the washer maniacally crashes just as The Husband runs out of his favorite shirts. Aunt Edna comes into town for the first time in years and must be looked after. Accidents, problems, family… the world is full of interruptions just waiting to happen.

Unfortunately, my Muse is not well trained. Pretty much untrainable, if you ask me. She comes when she wants to but not when she is ordered. She sulks when something takes precedence over her when she is ready to pour forth deathless prose. Sometimes when she doesn’t want to work I can jumpstart her by forging through by typing a bit of rubbish that she rushes in to improve, but she has never responded well to regimentation. I can work without her, of course, which usually sends her into a sulk and my writing into the pits, but at least that way I have something down that might lead to something worth keeping when she is ready to forgive me. All in all she’s a pretty good Muse and I guess she should be allowed some leeway.

My real drawback is me – and the worst problem is Procrastination.

No, not writers’ block. To me that means you can't work or create at all. With Procrastination the mind keeps running at full tilt, adjusting scenes, coming up with dialogue (with me saying all parts, of course), hatching beautiful metaphors and descriptions… I just don’t want to write it down right now, even as I know full well that once I am ready to get back into writing mode all those beautiful words will have irretrievably dissolved into vapor. I just don’t want to do it now. I want to straighten my handkerchief drawer, or do just one more jigsaw on that lovely new site, or just sit in front of the TV and pretend to be a vegetable.

Not productive, but I firmly believe necessary to the soul. And I will write a piece expounding on that theory, too. When I get around to it. Eventually.


ps - in case you haven't seen it, my new Flora Melkiot mystery is out -

Oh, Those Pesky Ideas!

by Janis Patterson

I am a pretty organized kind of person – where work is concerned, that is. We won’t talk about my housekeeping. With my books, however, I am very orderly. I try to write a fair number of words every day – though I don’t always make it every single day. (Life just gets in the way sometimes!) I keep to a schedule and respect deadlines. I have my books blocked out for the next eighteen months – a gothic romance, the first book of my new Rachel Petrie archaeological mysteries, a sweet older-heroine romance… It’s a nice, orderly system.

Except when it isn’t. Unfortunately, creativity has no respect for schedules and orderly systems.

I’ll explain. Last month The Husband and I took a trip to Las Vegas. We had won it some time ago and it had come down to use it or lose it, so of course we used it. We were put up in the Plaza, an older but nicely refurbished hotel/casino at the end of the Fremont Experience. That’s sort of an outdoor mall – it used to be one of the main downtown streets, but they closed it off, put an enormous canopy over it (way over it – 6 or 8 stories!) to keep the worst of that vicious Las Vegas sun off. I personally prefer the funky downtown Fremont Experience to the Strip.

When we left I had just finished the final edits on the new Flora Melkiot mystery – Murder in Death’s Waiting Room – and I had thought she was ready to be retired for a while. After all, I was already doing prep work on my new gothic and even had a couple of chapters written, then had started doing some early prep work on the first book about contract archaeologist Rachel Petrie. I also have two books ready to self-publish, and that takes a lot of work.

Except once in Vegas ideas began pelting me like summer hail in Texas – big and fast. Starchy, proper, elderly Flora and Las Vegas seemed made for each other. The entire story – motive, method, murderer, MacGuffins, clues (sorry – I couldn’t think of a word for clues beginning with ‘m’) – spooled through my head with terrifying cohesiveness. During our wandering around I wore a purse only big enough to hold my credit card, a hanky or two and my phone.

You know, that could be a writer’s vision of Hell – a great idea and no pencil or paper. However, I have adapted well to modern times, so while The Husband fiddled with the slots, I would sit and email ideas to myself on my phone.

It’s still a great idea, and I’ll probably write it just as soon as I finish this current, half-written gothic which has a hard deadline. And it works out well too, as my primary advisor for the Rachel Petrie series has to defend her PhD thesis this summer, so we’ve agreed to start over in the fall.

Schedules? How can they hope to stand up to inspiration?

… And The Adventure Continues

by Janis Patterson

There are times I think I might be crazy.

Then there are times I know it.

Like now.

I’ve been published in novel-length fiction since 1979 (am I dating myself?) and while I never really worked at it as I should have (too busy traveling the world and having fun); still I’ve amassed a fair backlog of out-of-print books. Most are romances of one stripe or another written under my Janis Susan May name, as that’s where I began. Most have been metaphorically under the bed for a long time.

Fortunately, I managed to get most of the rights back before the current trad-pub rights grab, and was able to get more back from a publisher that some fear has been acting less than honestly. (Blogged about this adventure back in January…) There are more I’m still working on, and some I know that because of restrictive and wily contracts I will never ever get back.

So, what to do now with the books I do have the rights to? In this present climate, the obvious answer was republish them myself. I had released a few with pretty but inexpensive pre-made covers as ebooks only last year, and while they did okay there was no way The Husband and I could retire on the proceeds. A couple of nice dinners out, perhaps, but anything more – no.

My late father always said “If you’re going to do something, do it the best. Period.” I figured what could I lose besides some money, so I tracked down a fabulous formatter and a spectacularly gifted cover artist. Since the book had been published with a then-major house it didn’t need editing, but I went over the manuscript with a fine tooth comb, tweaking and smoothing and putting in front matter and back matter, making it ready for the formatter. I got a fantastic cover and – a dream of mine – made it available in paper as well as electronically. FAMILY OF STRANGERS, a traditional Gothic romance, is now available and doing rather well.

However, it took over a month to get it ready to upload. I wanted to get the rest of the books out faster, but being the Queen of Procrastination, I fiddled around with them, doing something on this and something else on the other… and getting nowhere.

Realizing that the best way to get things done was to prioritize, organize and hit them straight on, I decided on a business plan and made a schedule. I sent the schedule to my artist and formatter, and – after their exclamations of shock – they agreed it could be done. My MasterCard began to weep in sheer terror. I’ve tried to convince it that quality will pay off, but it still shuddered every time I came near.

I made a spreadsheet of everything that has to be done – it’s now at 26 separate steps for each book, which shocked me, but there’s no way I can overlook anything. I made a checklist for what goes into an ebook file and what goes into a print book. I’ve created Word and My Pictures files for each book. I created a publishing name (Sefkhat-Awbi Books) and got a DBA from the county.

And I work. Hard. The Husband has been very supportive, taking us out to eat quite often and not saying a word when the laundry pile reaches Matterhorn proportions or I spend the evenings in my office working even after a full day at the computer. I haven’t written a fresh word in several weeks, but my responsibilities to each book are well ahead of schedule.

My poor MasterCard is almost on life support, but that will change. I hope.

So what is this vaunted schedule and why am I crazy for doing it? I plan on releasing a book both in paper and electronically every two weeks between now (actually 30 June) and 30 October. And I think I can do it. (Sound of fingers crossing.) Will keep everyone updated.

Commercial : PASSION’S CHOICE, a sensual romantic time-travel to the dangerous, scandal-ridden court of the woman Pharaoh Hatshepsut circa 1458 BC was the 30 June release. On 15 July I plan to release THE FAIR AMAZON, a traditional Regency romance.

Caveat : Writing books is a lot more fun than publishing them. Trust me.