Preparing

I don’t know where you live, but here in Kentucky we’re hunkering down, preparing for some seriously cold temperatures, ice and possibly snow. We’ve known about this storm, Ion, for several days, with both The Weather Channel and local news channels updating forecasts every hour. In response to these dire predictions, there has been a mass assault on grocery stores. (Personally, I’ve closed down all unnecessary rooms in my house, moved my living into a much smaller space, and bought a second pair of Smartwool socks.) Why? Because we’ve known it’s coming so we’re planning ahead and preparing for survival.

As I’ve watch all the warnings posted on TV and driven past the full-to-capacity grocery parking lots, I’ve thought about my writing career. Yes, career. At this moment, I’m still pre-pubbed but that will change soon. And I’m realizing that I need to be prepared for that moment when I flip over to the Golden World of Published. I need to lay out a detailed plan for Book Two and Book Three. And Book Four and Five. I have no intentions of being a one and done writer, I want a career. So I’ve got to ruthlessly hack out time in my schedule for writing.

Since I’m choosing to go the Indie route, these plans and preparations are even more necessary. There will be no editor or agent pushing me to make deadlines. It’s up to me to want it enough to sit down and do the work.

There won’t be a staff of editors ready and waiting for the arrival of my manuscript. It’s up to me to schedule this weeks or months in advance. There won’t be cover artists on stand-by, either. I have to plan ahead and reserve a time slot.

Success in the Indie world is seldom an accident, it’s a planned effort. It’s a disciplined preparedness that keeps you at the computer working on the next book and the next book and the next book.

There are moments when having all the decisions in my hands is overwhelming, but there are also moments when it’s sheer joy, when I know this is right.

So if you’re considering this route, I encourage you to move past dreams and start planning. Prepare to face the mountains of decisions. Prepare to read marketing books till you’re cross-eyed. Prepare for the feeling of elation when you finally do it.

And buy some Smartwool socks. Seriously. They’re great.

Lisa

What's your real job?

Sometimes, when I tell people I’m an author, they get this kind of look in their eyes. It’s usually followed by something like, You’re so lucky you get to work from home! It would be so cool to watch TV all day! 

(huh??) 

And sometimes it’s followed by silly questions like, Do you have a real job, too?

Writing is a real job. It’s my only job. This is a full time gig for me, and even though I love it, it’s still work. 

Definition of Work

1. exertion or effort directed to produce or accomplish something; labor; toil.

2. something on which exertion or labor is expended; a task or undertaking.

3. productive or operative activity.

4. employment, as in some form of industry, especially as a means of earning one's livelihood: to look for work.

5. one's place of employment

I may not have to deal with rush hour traffic every day or trek to the car in two feet of snow during the winter, but that doesn’t make it any less challenging or stressful.

I’m generally at my desk between 6 and 7 each morning, and other than an hour or so for lunch, am usually there until midnight—sometimes longer. There’s a lot to do. The obvious—the writing. But there’s also editing, plotting, synopsis and query writing, emails to answer, social media to stay on top of, interviews and blog posts to write…

*comes up for air*

A friend once said to me being author must be awesome because you sit at your desk all day because you can watch funny dog videos or play Warcraft. Think of all the daytime TV!

I’m not sure about the other authors out there, but I don’t have time for those things. Luckily daytime TV never interested me, and while I will admit to getting distracted at times by other things around the house, I can proudly say I have willpower of steel! Okay. Not entirely true. There might occasionally be a funny dog video stuffed in there.

But only occasionally.

Really.

 

The popular misconception about working from home is that it’s easy. Yes. Most of the time when you’re working from home, you can make your own hours. This is sometimes awesome, but also has serious disadvantages. See, when you love your job as much as I do, and work is only a few rooms away, it’s hard to take a real day off. I can’t speak for anyone other than me, but I find it impossible to walk away. Even on the holidays, my brain is like, I can squeeze in a few minutes before company gets here, or Well I’ll just get a chapter or two done while you hit the food store. And those middle of the night sparks of inspiration? I can’t tell you how many times in the beginning (he’s used to it now) my husband came downstairs at 4 a.m. and found me glued to the computer with no concept of time.

Then there’s the stress. Everyone’s job has it. Being an author is no different. Trust me. Will the readers like my next book? Will my agent? What about my editor and the reviewers? I don’t think I’ve ever met an author that didn’t stress about how their work would be received by the public. That epic project you’ve been obsessed with at the office for the last six months and are about to unveil to your boss? Yeah. Same thing. There’s business travel (conferences and out of town signings). I’m a homebody at heart. Leaving my husband and four-legged kids behind is hard—but it’s part of my job and needs to be done sometimes. And deadlines? Don’t even get me started…

So you see, we’re just like everyone else—except maybe just a tad more caffeinated with weird sleeping patterns and conversations with people who aren’t really there. What about you guys? What stresses you out at your job?

Drama vs Melodrama

In a few years this post may be completely obsolete, in that there may be no meaningful difference between the terms I'm using. To teens, drama means melodrama. To a writer, they are something different.

Drama
–noun

1.

a composition in prose or verse presenting in dialogue or pantomime a story involving conflict or contrast of character.

Melodrama

–noun

1.

a dramatic form that does not observe the laws of cause and effect and that exaggerates emotion .

2.

melodramatic  behavior or events.

By my handy definitions above, the term should be high school melodrama queen. But, A. It's high school. If you get everything right in high school, you get to skip ahead 5 spaces to middle age. B. Drama queen is catchier and easier to say, and it's been used by books and movies for the last few years. 

Verdict- Melodrama Queen is never going to catch on. 

But as a writer, the difference is very important. Drama= tension and stakes. Melodrama= stuff that makes a reader roll their eyes. It can be the same stuff, the same events, the same types of conflict. The difference lies in how  the writer tackles it and how the reader responds. 

I got a little sentimental this week and took out the ARC for my first book, Handcuffs, and read the editorial letter at the beginning. Even as an adult, I'm sure you remember the giant hole that was left in your life when a relationship ended. Walking down the halls, sharing a classroom with an ex...breaking up is an experience that is only more agonizing in the high school setting. I could argue that many (read--most) things are more agonizing in the high school setting, but yeah a high school break up can be very public and agonizing. It can also be dramatic or melodramatic depending on how it is presented. 

I guess it's easy to say the difference comes back to the stakes and the tension. Right now I'm writing post-apocalyptic whole world depends on the outcome drama. So different sets of stakes, tension caused by danger and possible death! (sorry that required an exclamation point!) In an adventure story, the stakes are naturally higher. But as a former writer of the realistic and the contemporary, and as all our realistic contemporary friends can surely attest, making the everyday situation fraught with genuine drama is possible. 

Possible but not required elements for creating Drama (as opposed to that other thing)

1. High Stakes- make the reader understand why it is important. Make them believe it. 

2. Tension- get the reader on the edge of their seat. I always use the Truman show as a great movie that builds tension more effectively than many horror films I've seen. 

3. Authenticity- make it seem real so that readers can relate.

Some adults look back on high school as a roller coaster of the melodramatic. But if you really let yourself feel the pain and the angst (admittedly, you have to be crazy to do this)  you have to acknowledge that the emotion is real. The pain is hyper-real. The anxiety, the pressure, the passion... :) 

In reality, your adolescent Psyche text will tell you that teens lack a sense of the big picture. They often feel that they are the only person on earth who has ever been so in love, so devastated, so elated, so sad. This lack of perspective makes all of us adults want to A. roll our all-seeing adult eyes and B. slap them. 

As, neither eye rolling nor slapping are the desired emotional responses to our teen protagonists, in your quest for verisimilitude, you may want to leave that part out. Instead, go for depth, go for emotion, and go for the gut wrenching reality of teen emotion that your teen readers will recognize and your adult readers won't throw across the room. Drama, not melodrama. 

Back to my original definition- conflict is the heart of your story, high school/the teen years are the epitome of conflict, so the YA author should be all set up for drama. 

And, of course, that part is always subjective. I had a student who insisted, INSISTED, that the MC of The Hate List was whiny. I loved that book and was outraged. Whiny! She had tension, high stakes, and authenticity, and I believed every bit of her pain. And most of my students did, too. But to this student, it didn't ring true. By the same token, I got frustrated by Liar because the stakes kept changing with the story. My favorite realistic book of the year was Before I Fall, which I felt built high school tension beautifully.