Hello, hello! How’s everyone doing this wonderful Wednesday? Things here are fine. Mardi got groomed yesterday, so she’s a new pupper. That’s about all the interesting stuff going on right now. Anyway, I thought I would continue in the same vein as last week by sharing 5 more women authors. The only difference is that I am acquainted with these people. So, shameless friend/mentor promotion!
1. Nancy Holder. She doesn’t really need an introduction. Aside from being an amazing human being and writer, she’s an awesome mentor.
2. J.R. Dawson. Another wonderful human being and fabulous writer. She also encourages my love of demons with a twist. And my love of villains in general. And there’s the fact that we torture each other with FMA memes. I think I’ll keep her.
3. Renee S. DeCamillis. A fellow Capricorn and lover of sharp pointy things. She writes horror as well! This is a picture of her upcoming book. You should follow her for more information about it.
4. Theodora Goss. Another mentor and awesome writer. Along with some of my favorite novels, she also writes beautiful poetry.
5. R.M. Romero. A lovely person and wonderful writer. On top of gorgeous stories, her book covers are always entrancing.
Feel free to share your lovely lady authors here or on my social media pages! I’ll be back next week with the monthly book review.
Happy March! How was your Leap Day? Mine was actually pretty productive. It was the first day in a long time that I met my “this is acceptable” word count (1000+ words). I broke one of my golden rules to do it, but the writing is what’s important, right? Rules are made to be broken and all that. Or maybe I’m just nuts. Or trying to rationalize things that don’t really matter. I mean, it’s not like anyone’s going to punish me for breaking my own rule, right? It’s just the voices in my head that complain about it. They’ll deal eventually. Do you have rules you stick to when writing? Or is that just something crazy people do?
Nancy Holder! Blame her for the rules thing.
I suppose the whole “rules” thing started during my first semester at Stonecoast. Up until then, I had no rules, no discipline, and all I was writing was short stories. I wrote when I felt like it or when something was due. Deadline induced panic was an essential part of my process. Then Stonecoast happened.
I was actually pretty terrified at the prospect of writing a novel, but I wanted to do it. My mentor at the time was Nancy Holder, and she’s a super supportive type, so she encouraged me to do it. There was no “try,” there was just “do it.” Of course, I asked “how?” Her response was “keep writing!” Yeah, it wasn’t helpful at the time, but she was right (as mentors tend to be). So I wrote, got past twenty pages (my usual stopping point), and kept writing. Around page fifty, I wanted to stop and work on something else. Nancy said no.
It was kind of like that.
She explained that starting a new project was a form of procrastination that all writers are tempted by. If you’re constantly stopping one thing to start something else, you’ll never finish anything. It made a lot of sense, especially for something as large as a novel. And thus, my first rule (the one I broke) was born. I’d never start a new novel while one was sitting half-finished and waiting on me (aka one I haven’t given up on). I’d wait until I at least had a first draft. It only applied to novels, so I admit to writing flash fiction, short stories, poetry, etc. Basically anything to give me a break here and there, but that could be finished in a few days was acceptable procrastination.
But, since I’ve been in a slump, I finally decided to say “screw it!” and started a new WIP. It doesn’t mean that I love the old one any less, it just means I can’t get into that world right now. Same goes for the screenplay. I love it, but my heart just isn’t in it. Hopefully that will change as I get back to a normal rhythm, but for now, I needed something new that no one has seen or heard about. Something strictly mine. Something that doesn’t have any expectations to live up to. It can fail completely, I can trash it, and no one will ever be able to ask “what happened to that novel about that thing?” Does that even make sense?
I still have a bunch of other rules that I haven’t broken, but I guess what I’m trying to say is that it’s okay to break a rule once in a while if nothing else is working for you. So, what are your rules? Have you ever broken them? Did it help? Or am I just crazy?
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