The Writer's Waiting Room

The waiting is the hardest part. -- Tom Petty

Once upon a time, when I was a little girl, my pediatrician told my mother I was a patient patient. Now it may have been an icebreaker, a pun to make a pumpkin-headed, snaggletooth little girl smile, but the truth is, I’m pretty good at waiting. I’ve stood in lines without complaining, I don’t mind red lights all that much and I accept that things will happen when they happen possibly for reasons I don’t understand.

But not everybody is as good at waiting as I am. In my small family, there are Type A personalities, people for whom waiting is akin to torture. They twitch and shift and groan when they have to stand in long lines, they beat their steering wheels like maniacs when they see the light go from yellow to red and they have a difficult time accepting that the future is uncertain. They want to know what’s going to happen at four thirty in the afternoon on August 12, 2022. 

Well, everyone has a chink in their armor and I’ve finally found mine. Waiting. Last year, when I signed my first contract with Ellora’s Cave, I had no idea what to expect. Within a month or so, I got my contract, my cover art form and my cover art. 

Then the waiting began. I didn’t know how long I would have to wait but I was patient. There are a lot of authors at EC and a lot of very busy editors. I picked a spot in the writer’s waiting room and got comfortable. For what it’s worth, there’s good reading material in the writer’s waiting room. 

Then the worst possible thing happened. My editor flaked out on me. As in, no word, no e-mail, just radio silence week after week, months went by. That was hard. 

Really hard.

I wondered what I should do. Should I contact someone? Was this average wait time? Was my flaky editor lying in a ditch somewhere? Were they trying to figure out a way to tell me they’d reconsidered my contract and didn’t want to publish me after all? Did I suck? Should I find the nearest cliff and jump off, saving myself the shame and embarrassment? 

I thought I was going to lose my mind. Suddenly, the expert at waiting was wigging out. It wasn’t pretty, folks. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't think. I couldn't write.

Finally, the Editor-in-Chief contacted me and straightened everything out. I got reassigned a new editor, a worlds better editor and it all made sense. I might have had to wait but the wait paid off. I ended up getting a better editor in the long run. 

Then came the wait for my first edits. Yup, more waiting. Back to the writer’s waiting room. 

Finally, I got my edits. I had some work to do. So I got out my corkboard, my index cards, Post-Its and tacks and went to work brainstorming. I filled in holes and explained things. I made my story even better. I sent in the new and improved version. 

And waited some more. Yes, more. The agony! 

In my sleepless lunacy, I stumbled across some finely-written blog posts about writers and the tortures of waiting. They say some wise things and they say them much better than I ever could. But I gleaned something from them, from the experience. 

While waiting, don’t wait. 

I know, Zen as hell, right?

But I’m serious. Let it go and go on. Keep writing. Forget about it. Keep your head down and stay busy. If you think you’ve waited a fair amount of time, be polite and touch base with your editor or publisher or whoever you think holds your fate by the shorthairs. If you’re worried you’ll offend them, just admit you’re new to the whole process and you don’t know what to expect. 

In short, don’t drive yourself crazy. 

Ever tried to scratch your nose in a straightjacket? 

It’s damn near impossible.

The wait for my Ellora’s Cave debut is almost over. My editor e-mailed me March 31st and told me my release date. “Kilting Me Softly” will be available on May 10^th, 2013.

Easter Present

I got some awesome Easter presents Sunday.

My mom got me a Dream Lite. Wanted one for Christmas. Ended up getting it for Easter. I got the unicorn. So cute, love it.

 Some tank top/under shirts that actually fit. Seriously. Might not be a big deal for most folks, but I was so happy when I walked into my Wal-mart and saw them in the right size and in pretty colors no less. Decently made and very affordable.  

Peepsters chocolates. Found them at Target. OMG. So good.

And a release date for Kilting Me Softly from my editor at Ellora’s Cave.

Whoo-hoo!

Now that’s an Easter basket.

Obituary For A Printer

A quick and bittersweet post. I would be remiss without mentioning my printer. An HP deskjet 940c. It was a beaut. I loved it. I had it for years and years. It never failed me. But one night, it died a well-deserved death. My husband, the geek, tried to fix it but there is no such thing as CPR for gadgets.

So I went without a printer for a while. I missed having one since sometimes I print out hard copies of WIPs to get a better look at them. But with money being kind of tight, I managed. Well, my husband always researches gadgets and devices before making a purchase. He’s good that way. Last week, he insisted on getting me a new printer. He’s a sweetie that way, too. 

But I couldn’t go without taking a parting glance at my old one. So I snapped a pic of it alongside the box the new one came in.

Here’s what he got me. What can I say, I love my geek.

Curses!

 I’ve made no mystery about my recent string of bad luck. 

My mother’s plumbing problems, my step-father’s health, their car trouble, the death of my printer, one of my dog’s tango with a tick-born blood disease, my desktop’s blue screen of death, everybody in the family getting colds, the tax return that could have saved us, the flat tire. And the Writer Waiting Room.

I began to wonder if I wasn’t cursed. 

But then it occurred to me. The world tries to balance itself on a daily basis. In order to have good luck, one must on occasion have bad luck. In order to experience the bliss of glorious good fortune and joy, one must endure the ravages of truly dismal shitty luck.

It stood to reason that if my luck was bad now, it was about to get really good. Is this line of thinking legit or am I just blowing sunshine up my own poop-shoot? 

Matter of opinion I guess. The thing is, things are starting to turn around. It remains to be seen just how much yet, whether this will be a simple side-stretch or a full-out, skirt-above-my-head, panties-showing twirl. At any rate, I’ve got my dancing shoes on and I’m wearing cute underwear. I’m expecting good things. I’m hoping Fate is a good fucking dancer. 

So that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. That’s how I’ve made sense of the world around me in recent days. Maybe you agree or maybe not, but there’s a logic to what I’m saying and I am a creature of logic. I want, no—I need things to make sense.

Flat

The stroke of bad luck continues.

Husband and I went to Subway for dinner. While inside, I started talking about the possibility of curses. I mentioned something about good luck. Then within seconds, a commercial came on over the radio. It mentioned good luck. I thought it was kind of coincidentally weird. 

After Husband and I ate dinner, we came out and found we had a flat tire.

To the man who asked Husband if he needed help and the woman who stopped to make sure I wasn't stranded and talked to me while Husband walked to the gas station to get the spare tire filled with air, bless you both. Angels come in all shapes and sizes.

My Interview With RC Murphy

My pal Leona Bushman asked if I would interview her author pal R.C. Murphy and I happily obliged. 'Cuz that's how I roll, yo. And I'm so happy I did. It was a hoot! Enjoy.

Hello Renee! Or do you prefer R.C.? Thanks a bunches for doing this interview and telling us about Enslaved. It sounds like a good read.

-R.C. is fine. Though truth be told, I answer to a slew of names. Seem to collect new ones every year.

First off, I love the cover. Nice! Juicy man meat! *wipes slobber from chin* Tell us about Enslaved. What inspired you to write it?

-Ha ha! Thank my editor/publisher Jinxie G. for the hot cover. When she showed me the original picture, I spent days staring at it. What can I say? I’m a sucker for good shoulders.

Enslaved came from, appropriately enough, a dream I had one night. It stuck with me the entire day until I gave in and scribbled down what happened on a Post-It. At the time, I had two other novels, the end of a novella, and a couple short story ideas on the workboard hanging above my desk. But it became apparent a week later that I needed to write this story. Deryck and Shayla were talking. Loudly. This far into my writing career, I know better than to ignore the voices in my head when they start babbling.

The novel rewrites the origins of the incubi. In this world, they aren’t demons. They’re offspring of fertility gods who cavorted with humans. Because of their potential for vast, unchecked power, the gods enslaved the incubi, forced them to sleep with humans in a realm called the Inbetween—not quite the dreamscape, but not the human realm where they’d be able to absorb the energy of the humans they service.

Very few of the incubi know of the out clause. Deryck becomes the first incubus in ages to be given the chance for freedom. He needs help from an office aid named Shayla. However, her history with men is downright ugly. In the end, she holds the power to determine both of their fates.

In the agonizing, thrilling, maddening pleasure-pain experience that is writing, what is your favorite part? Least favorite part?

-My favorite pare of writing has to be getting through the first chapter and realizing, yes this story is awesome. The feeling doesn’t last very long, especially when I get into the middle of the book and start thinking the plot is dragging, when in fact it is going just fine. I’m all about instant gratification, waiting to see the finished product is hell.

Do ideas come easy to you or do they fester in your mind like a canker worm until you bolt upright in bed screaming, “Okay, okay, dammit!”?

-It depends on the project. Some ideas will wake me up, or prevent me from sleeping until I at least take notes. Other ideas have to be coaxed like a shy lover, but once I have them where I want them, they’re amazing.

Speaking of creepy things, your website is a cool dark themed place. Me like. Do you like horror movies? What’s your favorite?

-Thanks! The skull on the banner of my page is named Yorick. I took the photo myself one day in a fit of boredom.

I love horror movies. They’ve been my bread and butter since I was a child. My love of all things horror is inherited from my father, may the gods bless his soul. That love of horror is what started my writing endeavors, back when I thought I could be a screen writer at all of 18. It also lead me to a seasonal job working at The Grove Haunt in Sanger, CA.

As for my favorite horror movie . . . A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors. I watch it at least 30 times a year. It is one of my comfort movies and by far the best of the ANoES series.

You mentioned a pretty awesome list of things that make R.C. Murphy happy, music being one of them. Any artists or song that helped inspire or motivate you to write Enslaved?

-Enslaved had a rather weird soundtrack. Actually, it had two soundtracks because Deryck and Shayla have vastly different tastes in music. Any time I’d swap POV (point of view), I’d have to swap stations on Pandora. For the most part Shayla’s soundtrack was Evanescence, Flyleaf, and Apocalyptica. Deryck’s included Five Finger Death Punch, Slipknot, and Stone Sour. There were also times when the tension in the book was so thick, any noise at all made it difficult to write, so I hunkered down in my cave/office and wrote in silence.

Last but not least, this addiction to puppy breath. What helped you overcome it or did you succumb? I’m uh…*cough* asking for a friend.

-There is no cure for puppy breath addiction. You just accept it and cuddle All. The. Puppies. Of course, you must ask permission from the pup’s owner before you rush over to get your fix.

You can get your copy of Enslaved by R.C. Murphy at Just Ink Press and  http://www.amazon.com/Enslaved-The-Inbetween-Novels-ebook/dp/B00BFGG2VO

Crimson

Today is release day for Crimson Volume 1 with Breathless Press! *cheers* Best of luck to all the authors and here's to some great sales! *raises glass of virtual champagne*