Christi, Author at Christi Craig

November 23, 2011November 22, 2011

Tidbits of Writing Wisdom and a Host of Gratitude

Not long ago, I wrote about finding community, in life and in writing. This website wouldn’t exist without the help and encouragement from friends and writing colleagues, nor without the interaction from readers like you. But, a large chunk of this blog would sit empty if it weren’t for the many authors who willingly stopped by for interviews about their books and their writing.

In looking at this past year’s list of authors, I discovered two things. One, I’ve had the honor of hosting a lot of interviews, and two, the words of wisdom those authors shared often overlapped: Write what you love, have faith in yourself and the journey, and support others.

So, thank you — to them and to you. Here are links to the interviews, along with snippets of what they each said about writing.

Geraldine Solon, author of Chocolicious.
“Don’t try to follow the trend, but write about what you care about.”

Lisa Rivero, author of Oscar’s Gift: Planting Words with Oscar Micheaux.
“[W]e need to do what we love and trust that the dots will connect down the road. . . . Trusting the dots will connect means taking the long view, scheduling regular practice…not getting caught up in a quest for quick success at the expense of patient, joyful progress.”

Jenna Blum, author of The Stormchasers.
“Reach out to and support as many other writers as you can. It’s good karma, and that must always come back to help you in the end.”

Sean Keefe, author of The Trust.
“My advice for anyone starting out writing is simply to write. If you don’t write something, you don’t have anything to read or even edit.”

Linda Cassidy Lewis, author of The Brevity of Roses.
“…[M]y best advice is to write from your heart. If you don’t love what you’ve written, neither will anyone else.”

Kaira Rouda, author of Here, Home, Hope.
“The best writers I know are readers. They love books, their own and others’. They celebrate the written word and they see the publishing industry as a world of new possibilities today.”

Caroline Leavitt, author of Pictures of You.
“Never give up. . . . You have to sit down and write everyday, and always help other writers. We’re all in this together!”

Ilie Ruby, author of The Language of Trees.
“Write truth. Write where there’s ‘heat’. Follow your questions and relate them to universal themes. Know that if you’re wondering about something, it’s likely other people are, too.”

Rebecca Rasmussen, The Bird Sisters (recently out in paperback!).
“Have faith in yourself and your work. . . . Also, be kind to yourself. When you face rejection, treat yourself to something small that you love. Send yourself flowers or chocolates or go find a little trinket. . . . Pick yourself up. Keep writing.”

Susanna Daniel, author of Stiltsville: A Novel.
“…[Don’t] worry at all about publishing…concentrate completely on the story you want to tell and the voice in which you want to tell it.”

Cathryn Grant, author of The Demise of the Soccer Moms.
“I’ve lived in suburbia all my life, so I think my sense of its positive and negative sides is part of who I am. . . . I am always taking notes, and not just on suburbia. People fascinate me….”

Danielle Evans, author of Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self.
“…[D]o the work that you believe in, because that’s the only part of the process you can predict or control.”

Two more interviews are just around the bend. I hope you’ll stop by to read what these authors have to say as well: Megan Stielstra (author of Everyone Remain Calm) on November 30th and Anna Solomon (author of The Little Bride) on December 28th.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I’m about to bury myself in turkey and stuffing and some mean pumpkin pie. So, on that note…see you post-Turkey Fest!

November 16, 2011November 15, 2011

The Key to Publication is Persistence: Welcome Author, Shannon Mayer

Shannon Mayer writes paranormal romance and is the author of the Nevermore Trilogy: Sundered (Book I); Bound (Book II); and recently-released Dauntless (Book III). One reviewer wrote this about Sundered:

It’s all YOUR FAULT! Today my hair is a mess because I overslept and couldn’t get ready for my meeting without being rushed and I hit traffic because I left a few minutes later than I normally would have, which made me 10 minutes late for my meeting in New Minas…because YOU wrote a book that…was so good that I just kept on reading because I wanted to know what was gonna happen next and then it was 2 am and the book was done and now I have to WAIT for the next one? AAARRRGGHHHHH!

How’s that for writing that brings your readers to the brink and has them begging for more? Wow! The reviews for Dauntless suggest that this kind of energy (and pull) in her writing holds out all the way to the end of the trilogy.

By day, Shannon is a farrier, and like most of us, balancing the day job with the passion to write can be a struggle. Never mind the drive it takes to carry your writing all the way to publication. Today, Shannon shares her story of how getting published is never easy, but it’s possible. And, the benefits run deeper than a finished book in hand. Welcome, Shannon!

*****

shoeing3 — Shannon Mayer, Farrier and Author

My publication journey has not been the smoothest of roads. Though I suppose that not too many writers can say that they have had an easy time seeing their books in print. The first thing I did was write a full length, 90,000 word piece of crap that I had edited and then sent out to agents. As you can imagine, it didn’t even get a single request of the five agencies that I sent out to.

After that I moped around for a bit. Got mad. Wrote another full length novel, this one with no regard to what anyone would think and had it edited. Worked with the editor and readers for a good year on it. Queried agents, got requests to see the manuscript. Got rejected. Again.

Sucked it up, re-wrote sections of the manuscript, edited some more, paid for a conference in Seattle and went, with as much confidence as I could muster. I sat down at my first agent appointment, she requested the material; I handed her a submissions package. Thing went fast from there. The agent had me signed to her agency within a week of meeting me. It was a very exciting time.

Then it was more submissions, now to publishing houses. More rejections. No suggestions though from the house editors on how to make the manuscript better. In fact, I got a lot of praise from the editors. They just couldn’t figure out where to put my manuscript. It was a genre buster and didn’t really fit in anywhere. Damn.

My agent seemed to lose steam after 4 rejections, and I began to wonder what was the next step. With my agent uncertain as to what I should be doing (I did ask, she said she didn’t know) I set my sights on self publishing some novellas. Not only would this give me a goal to work towards; it would keep me writing, and keep me from worrying about what the agent was doing or not doing, whichever the case was at the time.

I decided on a trilogy, started them in June 2011 and had the idea I would have the first 2 books in the trilogy out on Amazon by September 1^st 2011. I lined up editors, copy editors, beta readers, proof readers and a cover artist.

Working like a mad woman in between my regular job hours I was able to get the first book out on September 2^nd and the second book out on September 15^th. The third book I published on October 31^st.

So, where does that leave me? Agented, self published and still seeking a traditional publishing contract with a major publishing house. More importantly, it leaves me writing, and loving it.

Read more of Shannon’s work on her blog, follow her on Twitter, or like her page on Facebook. You can also purchase her books, including her most recent one, DAUNTLESS, on Amazon or on Smashwords.

November 9, 2011November 8, 2011

The Secret to Writing While Driving

Last month I struggled to write a short story. It was longer than any of the short stories I’d ever written and came with a set of parameters that (for some reason) kept throwing me off balance. Too, just when a picture of where I wanted the story to go would begin to come into focus, that image would flicker and fade.

Except when I was in the car.

There I would sit, buckled in tight and cruising along, when my muse would mention – in passing – a secret to pulling the story together and making it work. With both hands on the wheel, my eyes would slice to the right to gauge the proximity of my purse and weigh the hazards in rifling through it for a pen and paper. I’d break out into a cold sweat, knowing that the idea might dissolve or fall apart with one false move – and fast – and I’d spend the next few hours or days chasing down the memory of it, like I do the name of my mother’s favorite perfume when struck with the faint, but familiar scent. It’s there, in my mind, if I could only draw it out.

What to do, what to do? I thought.

At times, I’ve fished out what I needed, though scribbling with two hands while driving with your knee is as dangerous as texting. Other times, I’ve let the ideas fall into that writer’s abyss, thinking, Maybe. With any luck. If it’s meant to be. I’ll remember.

Then, on a particularly long drive to a retreat, when I knew I’d be alone and might be fertile for a visit from my muse, I considered my options: driving while writing, or writing while driving.

There’s a difference. And, it has to do with how you record your thoughts.

I discovered on my iPhone, by chance almost, a picture of a microphone. The voice recorder. The memo-taker. The not-just-for-grocery-lists detail-maker.

Of course!

I plugged in my ear buds, so I could do a test run hands-free.

“So…this is just to see how this whole recorder business works…Test…Boo…I’m so cool.”

Then, I played it back: the words were there, the sound was good.

It was magic, and I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of it before. All those drives to work and back, this long road trip to a retreat? I didn’t have to worry. I could still write; I’d just keep my thoughts in digital form.

Those early recordings weren’t anything close to pretty. Many of them started off with a stumble of words and ended with things like, “So, there” and “What d’ya think of that.” Sort of like sass-talking with my muse.

Still, it worked. I visited and re-visited several parts of that short story with my tiny digital excerpts, and I jump-started a few blog posts and articles as well. I’m not particularly fond of listening to myself talk, there’s a nasal quality that worries me. But, I’ve found a new route to writing, on those days when I can’t get pen to paper or fingers to the keyboard, when I don’t want an idea to fall away unexplored.

What about you? Do you write while in transit or record your thoughts in digital format? What’s your secret?

*Photo credit: James Cridland on Flickr.com