An author friend recently asked me how much I worry about promoting my already published books. He asked me this because he admitted that he was stressed out about the fact that he wasn’t promoting enough. And then he was equally stressed because he felt like he wasn’t doing enough writing.

I know what that feels like. And I have a remedy. Start writing again. It’s what got him published in the first place.

The second thing he was worried about was fearing that publishers wouldn’t publish any new work that he did.

Hey, as published or pre-published writers we all worry about that. But stop it. Right now! And think about why you wanted to write in the first place. Do you love telling stories? Are you in love with language? Do you love distilling emotion? Place? Hearing voices in your head and transferring them onto the page? If the answer is yes, then get writing. Stop worrying. Be happy. Yes, I’m sounding like Bob Marley, I know. And that’s a good thing (said by the woman who went to Jamaica on her honeymoon).

Look some anxiety is also a good thing. It’s what might compel me to work on a publicity campaign for a book and to think about that speech I need to write for a conference where I’m speaking in July. But too much worry isn’t good for the writer’s soul. Honestly, I have a tendency to do a big promotional push for a new release and then after a year or so I don’t stress about it. Well, a little. But not too much. And afterwards, I try to do a school visit here and there. And a few conferences but for better or worse, I concentrate on new writing. I find I only have so much energy. And I don’t worry about not getting a publisher interested right away. I just keep on with new projects, believing that one will flow for me. One will work. It just takes patience. Just believe in yourself and stick to what makes you joyful. Once as writers we start stressing then I feel like the prose tightens up and we are not writing from our best place. Concentrate on what speaks to you, and a way will eventually open up for you to share that with a larger audience.

The anxiety rut. It’s something everyone goes through no matter what stage you are in your writing career. There are peaks and valleys just like anything else. Trust that when you are in a gulley you will climb right out and get to the views on the top of that hill. But hills are sometimes hard to climb. But don’t concentrate on the huff and puff of the climb. Concentrate on the birds and the trees as you trudge up the hill because there is a LOT of hill climbing in this business.

Maybe that’s why my mother named me Hillary lol. She knew what was ahead of me.

Keep on keeping on as long as it’s giving you joy and, if it’s, not rediscover what made you joyful in the first place.

Yours,
Hillary

I’m not always an acrobat. But it’s something I’m always working on–balancing motherhood and parenting. Recently, I was blown off course. I was so busy that I found myself not having time to read to my first grader at night. Not good! I have been re-correcting over the past couple of weeks. Here are six ways that I do balance things and that have worked for me:

1) Work out of the house as much as possible–Now I teach my graduate classes online so I don’t need to leave the house.
2) Dovetail what I’m doing with my children’s developmental growth. I’m now writing books that mirror the ages of my children so that as I write I can ask their opinions (all of the time and include them in my business life). When they were 7, I wrote chapterbooks, when they were tweens I wrote tween books and now that I have teens I’m writing teen books.
3) Never take calls during meals.
4) Reserve one day during the weekend to be with my children and not do work (two if possible).
5) Work alongside my children as they do homework.
6) As needed I have homeschooled my children to allow more together time. We do work side by side.

What works for you?

Yours,
Hillary

Recently, I’ve been reading some manuscripts and have written out this advice–”Make sure that themes and storyline are developmentally appropriate and that you’ve chosen the best form to express your story.” Most of us know what this means. Please don’t try to create a picture book about a 12 year-old girl preparing for her bat mitzvah. However, you could write a picture book about a 12 year-old girl’s five year-old sister watching her older sister prepare. But don’t then write a picture book starring said little sister worrying about whether she is following the latest trend at the mall and whether her posse will approve of her shopping choices. Those are concerns for an older middle grade novel.

I don’t want you to think that I completely get this. I don’t. I have started two books that I thought were YA and they weren’t. The concerns and the voice were very much tween and I transposed everything to make it younger. I have also written a middle grade manuscript and upon reflection about developmental milestones, I transposed the narrative into a chapter book.

It might be interesting to look at what some theorists say about childhood cognitive development and see if that gives you any aha insight about where your character fits on the cognitive timeline.

In the beginning of the 20th century, Jean Piaget, a development biologist, described four stages of intellectual development in children, which can be helpful to consider while developing your characters. Below I will describe the stages and what form/s would be typically the most appropriate to express a story for this age.

• sensorimotor stage (birth to age 2). During this phase, kids use their five senses to understand their world, and see the world from their point of view. In the middle of this period, children understand object permanence. In other words, objects exist even they can’t be seen. Board Books

• Preoperational stage: (ages 2 to 7). During this period, children acquire all sorts of motor skills and their egocentrism begins to diminish. They also may display magical thinking, where they assume if they clapped their ones and it thundered outside, it will happen again. Picture books, easy readers (at upper end), chapter books (at upper end)

• Concrete operational stage (ages 7 to 12). Children are able to see other points of view and think logically, but usually are very concrete. chapter books, middle grade

• Formal operational stage (ages 12 and up). Children think logically and develop abstract thought. Upper middle grade (tween) and Young Adult.

Hope this gets you thinking about what whether your character’s thoughts are developmentally appropriate! Of course, if they aren’t that might be fine too. I mean that in and of itself could generate a story problem. But I think it can interesting to be aware of the rubric.

Yours,
Hillary

Hi Everyone,
I love finding out what books you’re reading and what you currently recommend. I was influenced by reading Laini Taylor’s recent blog post about not writing through the end and getting the first one third right, and in the comment section, I came across her book recommendation list. Her posting about the values of spending gobs of time over the beginning of your WIP is funny because I had recently just written a post about the value of writing through to the end, and it made me realize something BIG. I actually do exactly what she does which is obsess over the first quarter to one third of the book for a long time before I can move forward. This is because I’m trying to find the correct way to launch into the book, the right voice, the right way into the story and this, unfortunately takes me awhile, usually. There is one WIP, only one, where I just got that whisper in my ear and I knew pretty much exactly the cadence and how to start the story because of the muse in ear moment. It sounds freaky, I know, and it’s only happened once but it was sweet.

Of course, I have not finished that WIP. It’s in the first draft phase and someday I need to do a real second draft but I’m focused elsewhere right now. And when I do get to that revision, I’m probably completely change the beginning and the voice lol.

And my point was? Yes, my point was this. That I agree with Laini that there are no rules. That for some writers the write-through-to the-bloody-end, even if it’s complete crap, works and for others, polish, polish or obsess over the beginning until launching forward works, too.

But here is quasi rule. I mean I agree with the no rule thing. But here is a semi one. If you want to turn something into a publisher or your agent or your beta readers (I had to put that in since that’s the term I hear bandied about I just say readers in real life) you probably should have a full draft.

But of course, I have sold books on a few chapter and I know other authors who have done this as well. But trust me it’s very nerve wracking because I change everything so much along the way that it means that the publisher doesn’t really know what they are buying. They just have to trust me as much as I trust myself. Gaw. I hope that my editors don’t read my blog because I’m giving too much away right now. I’m admitting that I never know exactly where I’m going. Like this blog post. I had an idea what it would be about–book recommendations, and it’s taking an unexpected turn.

Actually I wasn’t going to actually write in today’s blog. I was going to write up a list of book recommendations and post a photo and get back to writing. I was jealous when I read that Laini Taylor has been mostly putting up visual things on her blog because she’s actually writing her manuscript and on deadline, and I realized that last week I had put way to many hours into my blog post and spent like four hours writing it and perfecting and futzing with it, which meant that day I really did actually very little writing.

How do other authors do it? I’m not sure. But I guess I’m not capable of just posting a cute visual, and leaving it at that. But it’s a good goal. Look for a quick and clever fast visual in the near future. But I have been writing this blog post very quickly in the write to the end mode of finishing things, and it works. In it’s own way. Still, you might prefer last week’s post where I spent egob of hours writing it than this seat of my pajamas one. Yeah, it’s 7:40 a.m. and I’m still in my fuzzy Peace and Love P.J.s

See, there are now rules. Obsess vs. write through to the end. I hate that. I so want there to be rules.

Oh, and back to the original intention of this post. What are you reading? I’m reading Do Androids Dream of Electric Sleep by Philip K. Dick, and LOVIN’ it! Sure, there were a a few annoying FYI moments but, overall, he’s such an amazing storyteller and world-builder and has so much to say while I’m turning those pages. I love Blade Runner, so I’m shocked that it’s taken me this long to get to the book that it’s based upon. I have a feeling that if I re-watch the movie I’ll see it very differently. Probably be irritated that it’s not the book. But I wanted be irritated to see a young Harrison Ford up on screen.

Okay, it’s Spring Break, my youngest is up sneezing. I should probably go. And here’s that link the Laini Taylor post. http://www.lainitaylor.com/2012/03/maybe-post-about-writing.html Then scroll down to the comments to see her current book recommendations.

Enjoy!
p.s. Excuse any typos or mechanical errors in the post. I wrote it in 15 minutes and I’m sticking to that!
Hillary

There is this collective wisdom among many novelists that one should write through to the end. In my mind this means–get to the finish line and then worry about figuring out what you have created. Only after typing the last sentence should you angst about discovering your theme, and maybe what your true beginning should be, as well as continuity issues. You have–and probably do have–entire chapters that are unnecessary. The second draft is not usually about fine-tuning so much as about hacking. An axe may be necessary.

This counsel resonates with me. I have several–okay, maybe more than several–starts on something where I have the first ten pages, sixty pages, even one hundred pages and have obsessively worked on the beginning without plowing through to the end. Obviously, none of these WIPs are published. And while they all feature some writing that I’m proud of, none of them are ready to show anyone other than a few trusted readers. Why? Well, because I haven’t gotten to the end, which means they haven’t gone through the full drafting process, which means I don’t know my characters well enough, which means that the story world is populated by ghosts, figuratively speaking. In other words, my characters don’t always have enough substance because I haven’t loaded them up with enough backstory. Yet.

The old get-to-the-end trick seems to work. Sorry, as much as I hate to admit it, you’re only going to publish novels that you finish. Rats. I really wish that there were some way out of that one. Even my dreams know this.

You see, I had a dream last week where I was lumbering up this huge mountain and it was really exhausting. Switch backs, a heavy pack and then it was icy cold outside. I was uncomfortable and wanted to leave, even though the scenery was filled with magnificent sweeping vistas of snow-topped peaks.

But in my dream there was this voice, the voice of one of my best friends, going, “you can do it! There is abundance. All of the riches are there.” And that voice, that cheering, positive voice kept me going. I hated the switchbacks and the heavy pack full of equipment and not being able to feel my toes, but I remember thinking—I can do this.

Well, obviously, my dream was telling me to keep on believing, to keep on trudging through my manuscript, that the writing journey won’t be easy but it will be worth it. Furthermore, I have anxiety about being out in the open wild. In fact, I have only taken two serious backpacking trips, and during one of them when I got close to being above the alpine level, I remember panicking about not having enough water and every ten minutes I wanted to fill my canteen with water from a meandering stream. I desperately needed my canteen to be always full, which drove my then boyfriend crazy. I didn’t have faith that when my canteen was low I would be able to find adequate water (even though we were following a stream!). And then when I set my pack down to refill my water for the 99th time, a huge black bear prowled up next to me and trundled off with my pack.

I was petrified, of course. The great big bear seemed to manifest all of my fear. But my boyfriend didn’t carry around a backpack of fear. Nope, he heaved a big rock at the bear and actually got him (I’m only assuming it’s a him) to drop the pack. I got it back, filled with a little bit of bear drool and one claw mark.

Now I’d like to tell you that after this up-close-and-personal experience with bravery (foolhardy as it might have been), I changed my ways. I didn’t shoulder my fear from that moment onward. Sorry, it didn’t work that way. I became even more riddled with anxiety and I made my boyfriend promise that we could camp for a night or two and turn around and Not trek to the top of the mountain (a peak near Mt. Whitney).

So what did I learn? Well, that I can manifest fear and successfully not make it to the top. And I learned my lesson well. For years, I successfully started my novels only to turn around when the going got tough.

But I did finally finish a book. For about seven years I worked on this idea of completion and when I completed my WIP, I made my first sale. Not on the book that I completed actually but on the promise of another book. The editor liked my voice so much that while he did not buy my middle grade novel, he auditioned me for a chapter book series, and that’s how I got my first big break. And the great thing about getting a contract on six books you have not yet written is that someone out there believes you can do it. That editorial voice cheering me on allowed me to finish my work because of the faith in my abilities. We all need to believe we can do it. And if we believe—as corny as it may sound—that we can do it, we can. There will always be challenges along any journey, and anxiety will always manifest when we doubt our abilities to meet a challenge. And that’s okay, momentarily. Admit your fear, then say goodbye to your worries and shoulder on up that road.