Developing a Gratitude Practice

If the only prayer you ever say in your whole life is "thank you," that would suffice.
- Meister Eckhart

In my family, Thanksgiving day is about spending time with extended family, stuffing ourselves with delicious food, and giving thanks for the things we have. But what I've come to discover through my journey as a writer is that giving thanks should not happen once a year but every single day.

As writers, we're constantly thinking about the next step. How can I rewrite that scene so it flows better? What is going to happen next in the plot? Where should I be advertising? When will that agent get back to me? Will that agent ever get back to me? And even when everything goes right and you publish a book, people immediately ask you when the next book is coming out. It's like we never get a chance to stop and enjoy what we've done.

That is, unless you develop a gratitude practice. You see, if you keep looking toward the next thing, you will never stop and enjoy what you've done, and then what's the point of it all? Instead of focusing on what you haven't done yet--and feeling despair for what you might never be able to do--it's critically important to focus on what you have done. Every day. You can post it in your Facebook status ("I'm at 25,000 words! Woo hoo!") or just quietly to yourself ("I have written three chapters. That's more than most people ever write. I am doing it!"). You can go back and read what you've written, marveling at the words on the screen that you created. And you can go back and read reviews and feel gratitude that your work is out there in the world.

Perhaps one of the best times to practice gratitude is when people ask you how your writing is going. My answer is always the same: "Great! I'm having so much fun with it. Writing novels is such an amazing experience." If people say "How are sales?" I answer in a similar vein: "Really good. It's so incredible to me that my book is out there in the world and people are reading it." Because that's what truly matters: my book is out there, people are reading it, I'm getting some nice reviews, and I'm still writing.

So try focusing every day on the things you've already done, whether it's acknowledging that you wrote a single page or have written a complete book, whether a friend sent you a nice email about your latest draft or a positive review appeared on your favorite blog. Practicing gratitude for what you've done will give you a surprising boost of energy. Whereas thinking about all the things you haven't done can make you question whether you're really cut out for this, focusing on what you have done reaffirms that you are already a writer.

Give it a try, and let me know how it goes!

A Work in Progress

On our way out to the desert a couple weeks ago, I caught a glance of my face in the side mirror and was surprised to see how much I’ve aged recently. I froze for a moment, fully aware that I was standing at a crossroads and had two options:

1. Freak out and make myself miserable, spending the rest of my life fighting the inevitable, or:
2. Roll with it.
   

Maybe it was because I was in such a happy, relaxed state of mind—we were on our way to Burning Man, after all—but miraculously, I was able to step through door #2. I decided that I am a work in progress, and that nature is going to continue to mold me and paint patterns on my skin in its own way, so I might as well embrace it. And really, I like the idea of being ever-changing. The Mona Lisa is always exactly the same, century after century, and just hangs there in an environmentally controlled case in a museum. I don’t want to be preserved--I want to live. It’s a radical notion in our society not to cling to our youth, which of course makes it all the more appealing to me.

I’ve found a similar joy in treating Rising Shadow as a work in progress. In the last year since I first published it, I’ve learned a ton about writing, publishing, cover design, marketing, and young adult fiction. The beauty of having self-published using print-on-demand is that as I learned ways to improve my writing, I was able to make little tweaks to the book and upload the latest files. I have had over 50 reviews of Rising Shadow, and along the way, I got incredibly useful feedback, starting from the very first blogger review on the fabulous blog P.S. I Love Books.

If you make little changes that don’t affect the page count or resize the book, you can still use the same ISBN. But if you’re going to make more major changes, you’ll need a new ISBN. Recently, I went through Rising Shadow from cover to cover and did a thorough edit, hacking out anything that wasn’t necessary, tightening up the dialogue, and taking all the great feedback I’ve gotten to heart. I’ve redesigned the cover and am working on a consistent design concept for all five covers. So I’ll be using a new ISBN for the second edition of Rising Shadow, but since they sell ISBNs in packages of ten, I have enough for two editions of each of the books in the series.

That opportunity to revise my story has been one of the things that makes me so glad I self-published. The fact that you can learn from your readers and improve the story, that it’s not set in stone once it’s out in the world, is a wonderful thing. Of course, there comes a time when you have to let it go and move on, and the second edition of Rising Shadow is my final version. But it’s been a fantastic journey, and I’m so grateful to all the amazing people who took the time to read and review my book and shared their insights with me. As my birthday approaches in a couple weeks, I feel so grateful for all the people I’ve met through this process and for making the wishes I made when I blew out the candles last year come true.

So I’m looking forward to blowing out one more candle this year, to seeing where this journey takes me, and to getting book three finished. Because although Rising Shadow will finally be done, the series is definitely still a work in progress.

Just like me.

Courting Your Muse

Inspiration.

Sometimes it flows like water, pouring words over me as I desperately type, trying to keep up with the torrent. But sometimes, it's more like a faint breeze in the distance, something I can hear rustling in the trees but can't feel.

Recently, I've been wondering where my muse went. I haven't taken her absence too seriously, because I know that my motivation happens in cycles. At work, for example, I'll sometimes hit down cycles when I can't seem to get any work done for weeks at a time. I've learned that if I am just patient with myself, get lots of extra rest and don't panic about it, my motivation returns, usually with a vengeance, and I'm soon all caught up again.

But then yesterday, as I was crying my eyes out over a difficult change that just took place, I started feeling inspired to write again, and that's when it hit me: my muse is not interested in the mundane feelings of peace and calm. She likes drama and turbulent emotions. She isn't interested in being around me when things are "fine." Rather, she always seems to show up when things are wildly exciting or horribly stressful. And I realized that since I started my new job almost six months ago, where I've been really happy, that's about the time my muse started not showing up for work.

I stopped crying long enough to think this through. Several years ago when I was in a really bad situation at work, that's when I started writing poetry. A few years after that, when I went through another bad time at work, I suddenly started writing screenplays. And at my last job, she made a grand appearance right after there was a big round of layoffs. This time, she dumped the plot of all five books in the Soterians series into my head over the course of a half an hour, and for the last two years, I have been her dutiful scribe.

But this lead me to a fascinating realization: that although in the back of my head I've dreamed of being able to write fiction full-time, it would never work for me. Because the truth is, my muse doesn't want to be my wife--she wants to be my mistress. She wants to be the one I escape to when things are crazy. She wants to take me away from it all and immerse me in another world where I can fly. She is not interested in being the breadwinner or standing by while I do my taxes.

And in this realization, I have found the ultimate freedom, because there's no longer any illusion that to be successful, your art should make money. The idea that you're "selling out" by doing something other than your art is a total fallacy. What could show higher devotion to your muse than working a day job so you can afford canvas or guitar strings or ink? What better fodder for stoking the fire of inspiration than living in the world, working hard, and facing challenges every day that you don't necessarily want to face? How can your muse make you fall in love with her all over again by taking you away from it all if you are spending your life sipping drinks on the beach?

Don't get me wrong: there's absolutely nothing wrong with making money off your art. If that's the outcome of your work, that's fantastic, and there are many artists who do their art full-time and make a living at it. But the difference is in my intention. My focus has to be writing stories that make my heart beat faster and transport me to another world. If people want to give me money in exchange for those stories, that's a completely secondary process. But if I write with the intention of making money, I've essentially turned into a pimp. And that's no way to court your muse.

So as I dried my eyes, I promised my muse that although I love my job, it's not a threat to her. There's plenty of drama in other areas of my life that she can take me away from. In response, she just smiled coyly and whispered an idea for...a reality TV show.

Which just goes to show that you can court her all you like, but you simply can't force inspiration.

On the Shoulders of Giants

On our recent vacation in Scotland, it was pouring one Sunday as we waited for the museum to open, so I suggested we duck into a cafe across the street to wait it out. As we stood in line at the Elephant House to order coffee, I saw a sign that made my heart stand still.

This was the cafe where J. K. Rowling wrote Harry Potter.

I am a huge Harry Potter fan. My copies of the books have all fallen apart from so many readings. I used to sit with my daughter in her room, sewing little quilted eye pillows while we listened to the Harry Potter books on tape. Whenever the books came out, we attended the midnight parties and came home with three copies so we wouldn't have to share. Heck, my sister even changed her wedding date because it was going to be the morning after the release of The Order of the Phoenix, and she didn't want me to be reading during the ceremony (I was her matron of honor, after all).

So when I returned to the cafe a couple days later with my laptop and sat at a table with the magnificent Edinburgh Castle visible through the window, I spent some time thinking about those famous books and about what inspires us to write. The cafe was busy and loud, and I could only imagine what it must have been like to write in that environment in longhand, her infant baby fussing at her side. Without question, she must have been completely driven to tell that story. It simply had to come out.

But I realized that it's more than the story that drives us. It's the heroes who came before us, both the writers we admire and their characters we love. It's the whisperings of Hermione and Dumbledore, who inform my wiser characters. Hagrid's giant heart, whose lingering warmth undoubtedly influenced my Christoph. And Harry himself, whose uncertain footing in the magical world was so easy for me to relate to that it allowed me to tell Ashlyn's story.

So as I sat and tried to soak up any of the remaining mojo that guided J. K. Rowling, I realized that although having an inspiring place to write is so important (and indeed, I wrote a whole chapter in what felt like five minutes but was actually the fastest hour of my life), we really carry inside of us all the inspiration we need. Those are the gifts given to us by the writers who came before us, and hopefully we'll pass similar gifts along to other aspiring writers later on.

But I must say: if I had the opportunity, I'd do all my writing at the Elephant House in Edinburgh.

Putting Yourself Out There

I haven't posted in a while, because in the last month, I did three things that scared the hell out of me, and I needed time to process before I blogged about it. Because putting yourself out there, doing what is so uncomfortable and scary and important and valuable is the holy grail for writers.

It's all very well to sit at a computer and send emails out to bloggers. Or to post on your Facebook page or tweet about the latest book you're working on. Or to write blog posts.

But going to events and introducing yourself, pressing your book into people's hands, and standing up in a public place and reading excerpts from the work you slaved over, not trusting your senses to tell you how the reading is being received and not having the courage to glance up from your book to look into their faces...that's where the rubber hits the road, my friends.

First stop on the Triple Crown of Fear was Book Expo of America (BEA). I made the decision to go at the last minute. It seemed crazy to drop everything and get on a plane to New York with no real plan or reason for going there. But I just felt that I had to go and see what the vibe was like, see what publishers were out there in case one of them might seem like a good fit for my books, and maybe get ideas for having a booth next year. Besides, the first annual Book Blogger Convention was happening the day after BEA ended, and I was really excited to go there and meet bloggers. I've also hired an assistant in New York, whom I was dying to meet in person and who promised to hold my hand and take me around to meet people, so I finally decided to put my fear aside and just do it.

BEA was insane. An entire exhibition hall absolutely packed with people and booths and banners and speakers and oh my lord I don't handle crowds all that well... I stepped outside at one point in tears, completely overwhelmed after trying to talk to a couple of people, completely sure I didn't belong there and was a total outsider, and feeling very alone and lost. But after taking some deep breaths and making a well-timed call to my mom, who gave me the brilliant advice that I wasn't there to try to sell myself but to interview others to see who might have something to offer me, I felt much better and went back inside with renewed energy. I met one of the principals at Llewelyn, who had a whole booth devoted to Flux, which I realized is the perfect imprint for The Soterians series. I introduce myself to him and got the business card of the acquisition editor, whom I immediately called (left a voice mail) and emailed. I haven't heard anything back yet, but that's okay. I think my books are perfect for Flux, and if it's right, they'll get around to contacting me. If it's not meant to be, I'm still perfectly happy being self-published.

That same night was the meet-and-greet reception for the Book Blogger Convention. This was even scarier than BEA. Because I had so little time to plan this trip, I hadn't even thought to have bookmarks printed up, but my wonderful assistant took me around and wrote my web site address on the back of her cards and gave them out to the people we talked to. And although it was very scary for me, I had a great time. I met bloggers in person whose names I'd heard a million times. I had several people say "Oh yeah, I've heard of your books!" And best of all, the next day at the end of the convention, after I'd stood up and introduced myself in front of the huge room to ask a question, one blogger came up to me and said she was reading my book and was excited to introduce herself to me when she heard who I was. I think I startled her when I threw my arms around her and told her I loved her, but good heavens, it was my first fan. That was a pretty heady experience.

The last event in the triple crown was a book signing at Barnes & Noble last Saturday. The weird thing about this one was that even though it should have been the scariest of the three, I wasn't all that nervous. Maybe it was because I knew the turnout would be low because it was the first gorgeous Saturday we'd had, and the World Cup was keeping people glued to their sets. Or maybe it was because I knew I'd have a friendly audience. Or maybe it was that I was simply getting used to putting myself out there and had learned a lot from the previous two events. Whatever the reason, it just felt so natural and wonderful to walk up and see a huge sign in front of the store announcing my arrival and to set up the table and start talking to people. I was walking on air the entire three hours I was there. Even when I read from Rising Shadow and was worried that the chapter I was reading wasn't all that interesting, I was still having a blast. I got into the characters, read each of their voices with enthusiasm and dramatic effect, and totally enjoyed myself. I handed out bookmarks to passers-by, and I even sold a copy to a completely random person. That was pretty amazing.

So what did I learn from all of this? First, you have to put yourself out there, no matter how much it scares you. There is something so beautiful about putting your actions behind your art and saying "This matters, and I'm doing everything I can to get it out into the world." Second, try to have a wingman if at all possible. Having my assistant at the reception and several members of my family at the book signing gave me way more strength than I would have had on my own. Third, even if nothing comes of an event, it's great experience, because the more you do it, the easier it will become. Talking to strangers becomes easier. Saying your elevator pitch (your fifteen-second description of your book) becomes more natural. Your smile becomes more relaxed, and you come across as one of those really cool, down-to-earth authors that everyone is excited to go home and tell their friends about. All it took was three events in just over two weeks to go from crying on the phone to my mom to feeling at ease and confident at a Barnes & Noble book signing, for heaven's sake. If I can do it, I'm fairly certain anyone can.

Just please remember to print bookmarks before you go.

Potty Training for Self-Published Authors

In case you haven't figured it out by now, I love book bloggers. I love how they tirelessly read and read and read and selflessly share their insights with the rest of us. They spend a lot of time and money on this hobby, and a wonderful side effect of their efforts is publicity for authors. Free publicity, mind you, except for the cost of the book and postage when you send them a review copy, if they didn't already buy the book themselves. It's a beautifully symbiotic relationship: we write the books that feed their voracious appetites for good stories, and they blog about our books, giving us exposure to hundreds of followers in one go.

Given the remarkable service bloggers are providing to us, you would think all authors would treat bloggers like the royalty they are. Right?

Wrong. There is an astonishing number of authors--sadly, many of them self-published authors--who seem to feel that just because they wrote a book, they are entitled to sit back and enjoy watching their book go viral without any effort on their part at all, and that the world somehow owes them reviews and publicity and fame and fortune. They treat our beloved bloggers with disdain, badgering them with emails asking why their review hasn't come out yet. And they harass booksellers--a publicist recently told me that an independent bookseller she knows gets 20 to 30 self-published authors a day coming in asking them to carry their books. Mind you, these are often the same authors who didn't bother spending the time or money editing their books, expecting that readers will not only send them feedback if anything is amiss, but that they'll actually pay for the privilege. (It reminds me very much of software companies who put out buggy software and simply expect users to do the quality testing for them...on their own dime. But that's a whole separate rant.) It's no wonder so many people in the book industry frown on self-published authors. We're a very mixed lot.

So how can you separate yourself from the unprofessional authors and set yourself apart as one of the shining examples of what self-published authors can be?

1. Always be courteous.
It's ridiculous that this needs to be stated, but it does. I can't believe the stories I hear about authors who request that a blogger review their novel, only to then send the blogger nastygrams because they haven't reviewed their book yet or they didn't like the review once it came out. I don't care how bad a review is--if someone took the time to read your book and comment on it, extend them the courtesy of a professional response, or just don't say anything at all.

2. Do your homework.
Again, it makes me cringe that I have to point this out, but there are authors who find a list of bloggers (which someone took the trouble to compile) and then simply spam them all with a blanket request to review their book, regardless of the fact that a) those lists usually say which types of books the blogger is interested in, and b) most bloggers also clearly spell out their review policies/interests on their blog. Why on earth would you want someone who doesn't care about your genre to read and review your book? Don't be lazy and expect other people to do your homework for you--only send requests to bloggers, reviewers, and bookstores who are actually interested in your genre.

3. Edit your work.
I've brought this one up several times, and I can't stress it enough. Do NOT expect your readers to edit your work for you, or worse, try to pass off horrible grammar and punctuation as "a unique voice." And if someone is kind enough to point out a typo in your book, for heaven's sake fix it and upload a new version. That's one of the key advantages of print-on-demand that we self-published authors have over our traditionally published colleagues who have tons of stock they can't just up and replace. I don't care if it costs you another $30 for a proof copy and you have to stop production for a few days--do the right thing and put the highest-quality work out there that you can.

4. Be gracious about interviews.
Recently, I read a comment from an author who was all up in arms about bloggers asking questions about her book that had already been covered a million times in other interviews and for asking stupid questions like what's your favorite color. Again, most bloggers are people who do this for a hobby. They are not paid professionals. If it annoys you so much to answer a question that's already been answered, copy and paste your answer from a previous interview. If you don't like the more mundane questions, just don't answer them, and maybe suggest some other questions that might be more thought-provoking. But remember--every blogger has a specific following, and while one blog's followers might be very interested in hearing you wax philosophical on how your book is a searing indictment of human frailty, another blog's followers might be much more interested in hearing which flavor of Ben and Jerry's you prefer. Either way, be gracious about it, and better yet, be a good sport and just answer the questions.

5. Be patient.
This overlaps with the other categories, but really take this one to heart. Do you see how many books a blogger lists in his or her "In My Mailbox" post each week? They're busy, they have a lot of books to read, and they'll get to yours when they can. It's fine to send them a brief email to confirm whether they received your book that you sent them, but then drop it. Yes, there are some bloggers out there who are only after free books, who request a review copy and then never review your book. But these are very few and far between, and unless you FedEx'd a copy to Timbuktu, you're not out that much money. So be patient, set up a Google alert with your name and book title so that you get an email alert whenever a post shows up about your book, and then let it go. Whenever a review appears about Rising Shadow or Merger, I see it as a gift--a wonderful, happy event that always makes my day, rather than my God-given right simply because I spent $10 sending them a copy of my book.

So there are my top five tips for setting yourself apart as a professional self-published author. Please leave comments if you have other tips to share...bloggers, here's your chance to share the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Finding Balance When Receiving Feedback

If there's one thing I've learned from being a technical writer for the last 19 years, it's to have a thick skin when it comes to getting feedback. I am so used to having my drafts come back covered with red ink that I no longer labor under the illusion that my words are somehow sacred or divinely inspired. Instead, I get really excited when people give me feedback, because it means they took the time to read what I wrote and paid enough attention to give me comments. I think developing this attitude toward getting feedback is absolutely essential for a writer.

That being said, you must also be careful to take all feedback with a grain of salt, and part of what helps you with this is getting many different people to read your work. If you have only two people read your book, you can get wildly different opinions and not know which way to turn. But if ten people read your book, and seven of them tell you your dialogue is too stilted, chances are you should listen to that feedback.

A couple examples of this came up for me recently. Two of my favorite bloggers sent me fantastic and detailed feedback on Merger, the second book in the Soterians series, which I just released. They both liked it, but one of them felt that there wasn't enough romance and she missed the interactions between Kai and Ashlyn that had been more plentiful in book one, Rising Shadow. The other blogger, on the other hand, said that there was too much romance for his taste and that he wished there'd been more action. I value both of their opinions very highly, and knowing that they represent two different audiences for my book, I felt that this critique meant that I had actually gotten it just right. If I'd just paid attention to one or the other, I might have been tempted to take my next book too far in one direction, so getting this type of varied feedback was very useful.

The other example was the feedback I got from the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest. Rising Shadow made it to the second round, where two judges read an excerpt from your book and give you feedback. Their opinions were again pretty different; the first one liked it a lot and said she was left feeling like she wanted to find out more, whereas the second one said it left her feeling like "so what?" The second judge acknowledged that she'd just read another entry very similar to mine and that it might have impacted her impression of my book. The vibe I got from the first judge was a lot of energy and enthusiasm, whereas the second one just sounded tired, making me wonder if my excerpt was the last of the 250 she'd had to review. This is incredibly important to remember: no matter who is giving you feedback, they are people, and as such, there's no such thing as a completely objective review. Their feedback will depend on what else they just read, how they're feeling that day, even (as one agent said about her process of sifting through submissions) what they had for lunch.

So the upshot is that when you receive feedback, it's important that you a) put yourself into as centered and receptive a mood as you can, b) listen deeply without being defensive and try to see where you can improve your writing based on the feedback, and c) take it all with a grain of salt, because no matter how well-regarded or brilliant your reviewer happens to be, there are many factors at play that affect their perception of your work.

In other words, keep in mind that neither your words nor those of your reviewer are sacred. Once you truly grasp this, you'll find receiving feedback is actually a wonderful experience--or, at the very least, slightly less painful.