Fear...

Fear can be a great motivator for an author. It can also be the greatest foe one can face.

It can motivate one because once you have that first sale under your belt, you may fear never having another, so you work twice as hard at your craft.

On the other hand, it can also be the greatest foe one will face:
Fear of putting your work out there for your peers to critique.
Fear of entering a contest because judging is so subjective.
Fear of never finding the right agent/editor.
Fear that once you’ve written one really good book you’ll never be able to duplicate that feat.
Fear that you’ll never be good enough.

Where do these fears come from and why do we, as writers, give in to them?

Even if all we do is tell our story our way, haven’t we accomplished something? Aren’t we then worthy of praise and admiration – even if we never sell a book?

When I tell people I’m a writer, they usually respond with, “I’ve always wanted to write a book.” My response is always, “so what’s stopping you?”

ANYONE can write a book – not everyone can write a GOOD book. Not everyone can write a book well enough to get it published. Some people will always write for their own pleasure, others will write for the pleasure of the rest of us…and we ALL face our fears every time we sit down in front of the computer and put our hands on the keyboard.

When in Doubt...

When in doubt, have a man come through the door with a gun in his hand. - Raymond Chandler

Now there’s an interesting piece of advice. Particularly since I’ve been thinking A LOT about the world of the Archangels – our psychic detectives.

Plot twists and turns - characters with ‘gifts.’ (Some they’d like to return, no doubt.) Good guys, bad guys and those in-between. Heroes of all genders and ages will find their way to the mansion, and why not?

And here’s another piece of advice along the same lines:

When in doubt, blow something up. - J. Michael Straczynski

Maybe that IS what is needed in a true “suspense” novel. Not that these novels are truly romantic suspense, because of the paranormal element, they’ll probably be marketed as “paranormal” novels. However, one (or more) of them will contain some explosives and all of them will have weapons in one form or another – just who will be holding those weapons is still to be determined!

So, we’re looking at a shadowy figure with a gun in his hand and another shadowy figure crouching over something – possibly holding a wire in one hand, possibly setting a timer. Are they friend or foe? Are they moving the story along or just adding a bit of back story?

When you find the answer to that, you’ll discover your own writing talent. Tell the story of the man with the gun in his hand. Tell the story of something that’s been blown up. Tell your story in your words, and maybe, just maybe, I’ll tell you mine.

Cai

Watch and Learn

There is only one trait that marks the writer. He is always watching. It's a kind of trick of the mind and he is born with it. - Morley Callaghan

Yes, I’m always watching…

I also take notes – copious notes. I may not ever use them, but by God, I take them!

I observe my fellow human beings under a variety of circumstances. I listen (without guilt) to conversations happening around me, because WHO KNOWS when I’m going to hear some lovely little nugget that I can use in a story. I’m not trying to eavesdrop; really, I just let conversations flow through my brain until I hear something worth listening to.

In various meetings and other locations, I watch the way people stand, the way they talk, the gestures they use and the way they shield themselves with their clothing or accessories. People who fiddle with their glasses, women who touch their hair or their blouses, men who adjust the knot in their tie, touch their belt buckles (in an attempt to make sure their fly is zipped, no doubt).

The way people act in big crowds and in small groups. I watch and learn.

I may have a character who has to speak in front of a large group. Will she pat her hair before stepping onto the stage, or will she check to make sure her blouse is buttoned and her skirt is straight? Will she clear her throat, touch her earrings to make sure they’re both still there, button and unbutton her jacket? What will she do?

Then I wonder, do other people do this?

I’ve always been a “people watcher.” Even as a young person, I enjoyed “watching” people in various situations. I used to travel to visit my grandparents from wherever my family lived at the time and one of the joys in that was sitting by myself in an airport waiting for my flight to be called and “watching” life happen around me.

You can tell the true “watchers” from those who are just bored. The true “watchers” aren’t worried about being caught watching – they look about with glee, sometimes taking notes, even if they are just mental notes. The bored ones usually also quickly get bored with “watching” and move on to some other activity.

True “watchers” can observe for hours. They always find someone interesting to watch. Possibly the mother and child playing a game in the corner. The business man watching them over his laptop as he writes a note to his own children. The single man kicked back watching all the women walk by. The single woman watching him and occasionally wanting to smack him for his perusal of other women. The young couple leaning toward one another, talking softly and holding hands. The older couple, sharing a muffin from the coffee shop. Life is happening all around us and sometimes all it takes to be a part of it is to watch.

Watch & learn.

Happy writing.

Cai

The Muddle...

“Many modern novels have a beginning, a muddle and an end.” - Philip Larkin

And, wouldn’t you know, that’s just where I tend to get bogged down – in that muddle. I can start off with a bang and I know just how I want things to end up – it’s all that “stuff” betwixt & between that slows me down, makes me doubt my abilities as a writer and causes me to gnash my teeth and pound my head against the desk in frustration.

I love creating characters. I can do it all day long. I can give them emotional depth, emotional baggage, backgrounds, families, and all the joys that come along with each of those particular fields. I can picture the perfect counterpart for that character, giving them the same life, breadth, etc., as the first character. I can picture interactions between them and know whether they’re going to “strike sparks” or “fizzle.”

I can take those characters and put them in a story. But then I seem to lose control of them. They go off and do their own thing, leaving me sitting at the computer saying, “But wait, that’s NOT where I wanted this story to go.”

They don’t seem to care, they just go along their merry way, taking the wrong exit off the freeway I’ve planned for them and ending up in a “muddle” somewhere neither of us expected! Granted it’s usually somewhere “interesting” and occasionally gives the story new depth – though sometimes it’s just somewhere “weird” and I have to gently or forcibly steer them back to the path originally planned for them. (Wow, that’s almost like raising a teen! )

It is entirely possible that THIS is why I get into a “muddle.” It’s not the story that’s the problem; it’s the willful characters themselves causing grief! So will I stop? I think not. Eventually we work our way through the muddle and make our way to the end. After all, what would the story be without the happy ending?

Happy Writing.

Cai

On Reading & Writing

Since this is the Cai Stephan blog, I figured I should at least make an appearance. I'm the Cai half...

Reading usually precedes writing and the impulse to write is almost always fired by reading. Reading, the love of reading, is what makes you dream of becoming a writer. - Susan Sontag

I would agree 100% with the above statement. It is my love of reading that has led me to pursue writing as a career choice. I have always loved to read – even before I could, if that makes any sense.

My parents would take turns reading to me when I was a child – my favorite book, was Little Brown Monkey. My father would try to skip pages or leave out whole sentences and even as a child of three (or maybe four) I would call him on it. Little Brown Monkey and his friends got into some very interesting situations – they went to the circus, LBM’s grandmother came for a visit, they went on a picnic and climbed trees – okay, LBM climbed the tree, his friends Turtle and Elephant merely watched. The point is that though more than 40 years has passed since I first heard the story of Little Brown Monkey, I remember those tales. I remember the pictures and could probably vividly describe them to you. I remember most of all, the joy of the written word and how it made me feel to have it read to me.

Imagine my unique happiness when as an adult I came across a copy of Little Brown Monkey in a bookstore that caters to “difficult to find” and “out of print” books. The price tag on the book dissuaded me from purchasing it, (way out of reach of my budget at the time) but I was nearly brought to tears just by holding it again.

Imagine more happiness when my parents made the trek to that same bookstore (the very same weekend, no less, and without my knowledge) and purchased that book as a gift for me and my daughter – oh, they SAID it was for my daughter, but I’m sure it was really for me. You see, that’s one gift I received from my parents that will never go out of style or grow old – the love of reading and the joy to be found in a good (or even just a familiar) book.

It’s a gift I hope I’ve also given to my daughter – the love of a good book.

Happy (writing) reading.

Cai

Dreams and Scenes

"We all dream; we do not understand our dreams, yet we act as if nothing strange goes on in our sleep minds, strange at least by comparison with the logical, purposeful doings of our minds when we are awake."  --Erich Fromm

Quotes intrigue me. I like to take them and write about them. Erich Fromm's caught my attention today.

As a writer, I am very used to being looked at strangely when I talk about my stories to non-writers. My writing friends understand when I start out with, "I overheard this conversation" or "I read this news story" and then proceed to spin out a long, complicated piece of "what if".  Fromm seems to make the erroneous (to me) assumption that everyone thinks in a logical way. I don't. My mind loops, swirls, and rollercoasters to places that others don't even think about.

And for good reason! Some of those places are back alleys with dead bodies sporting slashed throats. Or smoky bars with desperate men and women with agendas. You don't want to come play in my mind unless you too are a writer. Then walk with me among the purple fields where unicorns gambol with heffalumps and Pooh is the Emperor of all. You, my friend, will understand when I start talking about a train crash and end up in Narnia.

So I don't act as if nothing strange goes on in my sleeping mind. In fact, I like to open it up and sift through it in public places just to watch others' reactions. Strange is good in my field. Strange writes books that other people can't put down.

"Close your eyes, and you will see." -Joseph Joubert (1754-1824)

Scene, scene, scene ... I love scene. Scene will hook me as much as dialogue will. It will engross me and hold my attention even in a bad story. Blame that on all the Gothics I read where scene was a third character often. It set mood. It defined characters. It

And I very much love what Joubert says. A good writer can make you see what is happening in the book. I recently read a book by Mary Balogh. Simply Unforgettable is my favorite type of read -- a delightfully light and fun regency. Balogh could have said "He walked into the room where the three ladies worked on her dress." Instead she crafts an image in one paragraph where the hero walks into the room and sees "one woman bent holding pins for another woman hemming a torn ribbon on a gown shot with silver. The third woman adjusted the shawl around her shoulders." What is in quotes is not Mary's writing. Hers is far better. But just from that you should have SEEN what was going on. You became involved in the action.

So I need to close my eyes and see the scene. Then I need to write about it. I need to tell the reader what makes the jungle lush or what makes it dank. It could be the same thing, but how I present it will be what makes it different for everyone. Do I say "the leaves hung low laden with moisture from the gentle rain moments before" or would you prefer "the leaves shrouded the path like sodden blankets that slapped them in the face never letting them forget the blasted daily rain". What do you get from each line?

So go on and write something today. :-) Close your eyes and sift through your dreams. Then describe them in words for that unknown someone to read. Tell your IE (inner editor) to take a hike and let yourself just explore what it is you want to show your reader. Let them taste it, touch it, feel it, smell it, see it through your words. Enjoy!

BB
Stephanie (The Stephan half of Cai Stephan)
Nothing happens unless first a dream. Carl Sandberg

Contests and Eight Balls

Just found out that _Changing Hearts_ finaled in another contest. This one asked for 15 pages where the hero and heroine meet each other. Ours was more difficult because in the scene we sent in they are actually meeting for the second time only the heroine doesn't know this. The first time she met him -- he was in shifted form. This goes on to Anna Genoese for judging.

Finalists - 2005 SFA-RWA Heart to Heart Contest

Paranormal
* Chasing Moonlight by Karen Harris
* Changing Hearts by Cai Stephan (writing team of Cai Smith and Stephanie Lynch)
* The Moon Demon's Lover by Sheley Wimmer

Contests aren't the be-all/end-all of the writing world by any means. That would be the miraculous thing that happens when the phone rings and you get THE CALL. Of course, after you get THE CALL, then you have to work your bo-bo off so you can get a second call and a third call and so on. I spoke to a multi-published author at the RWA conference in Reno this year. She writes lovely historical romances.

She told me that when she sold her first manuscript that she had nothing else to offer! So when they said they wanted another one, she was behind the eight ball. Told me that in her many years and many books, she has always been in that position with that round pool table item. Warned me not to let myself ever get there.

And it hit home hard. This happened to be an author whose work I love. It never occurred to me to envision her or any other writer as struggling to find a story line. I assumed that the next story was just sitting there waiting to be worked on. Cai and I have blurbs for a full seven series line involving a paranormal detective agency. We have five of an possibly unending shifter series begun with one of those being the one on the contest rounds now. The first book is being reworked. The third book is being written as in the fourth and the fifth. Each is in various stages of completion and will need to be reworked. We tend to write the story and then go back and revamp where we are telling rather than showing. And weave in more dialogue and setting. But as we learned in someone's conference workshop a few years ago... it's important to let ourselves "write crap". We can always fix it later!

And that is what we do... write and fix. Others do it differently. Hope you are creating a great day for yourself!

I will be in Minneapolis in November. Cai's local chapter of RWA, Midwest Fiction Writers, needed one more workshop slot filled so I will be teaching my Tarot for Writers. Looking forward to that!

BB
Stephanie (The Stephan half of Cai Stephan)
"When we do the best that we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in our life, or in the life of another." -Helen Keller

"My life has no purpose, no direction, no aim, no meaning, and yet I'm happy. I can't figure it out. What am I doing right?" Charles Schulz

Maybe some of us are cut out for goals and motivational speakers and other things of that nature. And maybe some of us are better at wandering. Robert Frost told us about the "road less traveled" and I have always been inclined to agree with him on that. I'd rather forge my own way through the woods than follow someone else's footsteps.

Set me goals. Tell me my raise depends upon it. Tell me you wouldn't ask any more of this than your own children. Watch me mulishly kick my heels at you while my eyes flash in rebellion.

Tell me you want me to participate on a project. Tell me the state of the region depends upon my job. Tell me that you know I can do this because you have heard good things about me. Find a report you requested on your desk three days earlier than you expected.

I write the same way I work, I realize. I like to write. I like to write to get things done, but not because someone is breathing down my neck. I am fortunate in that Cai and I work well together in this type of thing. She is a very good goal setter and reacher. Yet she also follows her own path as she sees fit. She doesn't demand that I meet any specific goals other than to get my behind in the chair and write.

I find that when I write freely I breathe more freely. So when someone asks me what my purpose is? What my direction is? My aim? My meaning? I have to tell them... nothing.

• I have no purpose other than to be be happy and to experience life.
  
• I have no direction other than forward to find more experiences to share with my loved ones and to take in for future books.
  
• I have no aim other than to reach for the stars in hopes that I might touch the moon just to see what it feels like.
  
• And I have no meaning other than what I mean to myself. What I mean to my loved ones. What I mean to those important to me.

Other than that? Who cares? I mean really? What is the importance of someone else knowing where I am going? Am I not the captain of my own ship? Am I not in charge of my own life? To those of you so involved in running other people's life, or is that ruining, go do yourself the biggest favor ever.

GET A LIFE OF YOUR OWN!

You will be much happier!

Helping, Pretending, Writing and Rookies

Helping others is a good thing. Marianne Mancusi whom I do not know and have not read (sorry!!!) lost everything in a fire while at the Reno RWA convention. People have pulled together to donate things for an eBay auction.

You can hit the auction here to see everything, but the critiques are the thing! Even Steven Axelrod put one in. His is currently going for $825! Yes, you read that right! The next closest is Beth de Guzman at $340 and Deidre Knight at $260. It is amazing! I have three Tarot readings that are doing all right for themselves as well. I am tickled to see them up there. But do go take a look!

I've been working. Changing Times has grown from 163 pages to 171 so I am proud of that. Up to 49k words so I am almost half way there. Cai is working on the Archangels who have been plaguing her of late. Changing Times is the first book in our Shifters series. The one winning the contests is Changing Hearts. We realized that our heroine needed a bit more spunk and our hero needed just a dash more of bad boy sauce. The villain of book one is the hero of book two because he was just so darned interesting!

I think that sometimes characters take on lives of their own. When I say that it makes me laugh, because I remember one of my first RWA conferences (in Denver) when I attended a workshop put on by a regency author I have come to adore. She was adamant about the fact that HER characters never took on lives of their own and never talked in her head. She said if she didn't have control then she wasn't an author. Sadly, in her eyes, Cai and I are not authors then. We are merely beasts of burden who carry our characters' lives and words to the paper via our pens.

See, Cai and I talk "in character" all the time. We are our characters for brief shining moments. No.. not THOSE moments, silly children. LOL! We are best friends and that is all! But those moments when a character is arguing about something, sometimes one of us will drop into the character of someone else in the story so that there is a back and forth. We can do this at the drop of a hat in email, instant messaging or person. We get weird looks from our loved ones when we do it in person, but that is the price we pay.

We both joined the FF&P chapter of RWA today. I am looking forward to diving into that chapter to see what I can learn. Some great folk are there already. "The Sisters" belong to that chapter. These are two ladies (Mary and Margaret) from California. They had us sign their authors bag that they raffle off for charity. Said it was going to be our rookie bag. :-) I love their enthusiasm. Margaret also gave me her FF&P pin which was awfully sweet of her!

So what are you doing today? Leave me a comment so I know you are out there!

Create a great day today!
Stephanie (the Stephan half of Cai Stephan)

On Waiting

"Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait."
-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

Writers do a lot of waiting. We wait for the editors. We wait for the agents. We wait for the rejections. We wait for the critiques. We wait for contests. We wait for The Call.

But those of us who forget to labor while waiting are missing the point. The fact is we are going to get rejected. It's part of the weeding out process. Those who can't take the rejection don't come back which leaves a place at the table for those of us who swab down the wound with alcohol and go back for more.

If piece of steel isn't heated up to nearly melting, beaten with a large hammer, plunged into icy water repeatedly, then it will never become the weapon it needs to be. And a writer is a finely honed weapon once they have gone through the rigors of trying to become published. It isn't easy. It isn't fun. It's like making bread by hand only you have to grow the wheat, pick the wheat, hull the wheat and grind it into flour before you can even THINK about putting it with water and salt and yeast!

So don't finish a project and send it off unless you are ready to dive into your next project. Cai is the one on our team who is good about this. She keeps writing. Nothing seems to stop her. So I write as well. Have to keep up. :-)

We have a manuscript on the contest rounds right now that is doing fairly well. Two agents and one editor are looking at it. One agent and one editor are thanks to contest wins. And we are rewriting the first one in that series as well as looking ahead to the other books. Plus we are working on another paranormal series that features a very interesting group of guys and gals. We can't seem to not write series. Grin! We have another finished first draft of a manuscript that involves one of seven sisters in a planned series.

So, 'let us, then, be up and doing'! And don't let your heart be torn down by whatever Fate may bring you today. Instead see rewards as stepping stones and critiques as accomplishments! Keep moving and keep writing and keep reading!

My recommended read is Enchanted, INC by Shanna Swendson. It's hysterical! Went from that to Amanda Quick's Paid Companion. Yes, I genre hop all the time. Why do you look at me that way? :-)

Create a great day!
Stephanie (The Stephan half of Cai Stephan)

Author! Author!

Well one of the other fun things to do at conference is ribbon hunting. Sonj made it a goal to talk to as many "pinks" as she could. Pink is the color of the PAN ribbon. PAN stands for the Professional Authors Network. Sonj tells me she stopped counting after 250.

One of the funniest things that happened to Sonj was on the elevator. She got on with woman. They proceeded to have a chat about the possessed elevator (the darn thing didn't stop where they asked it to). Then someone else got on the elevator and immediately began hyperventilating to the tune of "OH MY GOD, you're Nora! You're Nora Roberts!"

Sonj says she turned to Nora to apologize for not recognizing her. LOL! Apparently Nora was happy to be not recognized for that brief ride! But now Sonj wants to read something by Nora. :-)

I didn't get the chance to meet Nora other than briefly at the book signing. I did get to see Naomi Neale who also writes YA as Naomi Nash. One of my favorite authors, Rocki St. Clair, I managed to catch up with at the dinner before the Gala. I wish I could remember them all, but I can't. Cheyenne McCray stopped by the Moonlight Madness table where I was doing tarot readings. That was fun. I also got a book at the literary signing from someone who had taken my workshop on Tarot forWriters! Wow!

Didn't get a stitch of writing done yesterday! Must do that today. I am off until Wednesday so surely I can get some done, right?

Create a great day!
Stephanie (the Stephan half of Cai Stephan)

Politics and Writing

This is from Stephanie. For what it is worth, I didn't agree with what happened at the RWA Gala in Reno. Politics have their place in my life, but not in my romance writing forums. I went to this ceremony expecting to be entertained as I have the past three years with skits aboutwriting and then watching the winners win.

This year was different. Politics took center stage. A brouhaha has erupted on the RWA Board of Directors as everyone says what they did ordidn't do. It's a public relations night mare.

Instead of promoting our "Have We Got A Story For You" campaign, now we are trying to make our organization look good to the membership itself.It makes me very sad.

On a good note, the editing of Changing Times is forging ahead! I got four new pages into it Thursday. I will be writing more today once Ihave finished my overdue Tarot readings.

... All the world's a stage and most of the cast has opening night jitters

Isn't that the truth? And we never seem to get over those opening night jitters. What will it take to calm us all down so we can do what we weremeant to do?

Create a great day!
Stephanie (the Stephan half of Cai Stephan)

Editors, Agents & OH MY!

[from Stephanie] Well, the highlight of every convention for me personally is the editors and the agents. I met Anna G from Tor at the Denver conference (my first as well as hers). We became friends and I always look for her. This year all I managed was a fast hug in passing. She was rushing one way and I was standing in line for free books.

But I have gotten to talk to agents like Mary Ellen Seymour as well as Deidre Knight and editors from Harlequin, Dorchester and more. Each one of them has been more than generous with their time and talents. And honest to boot. Our first ms was requested (full) by Linda Curnyn. She sent back a detailed rejection letter on why it wouldn't work for their line. What we didn't realize at the time was that she went above and beyond what she needed to. These talented ladies and gents are swamped. Often they send out form letters because that is all they have time for. Little did we know that our first rejection was a "good" rejection.

Then Anna G rejected our first Shifter book because our heroine lacked spine. She was gentler than that, but it was the gist of the message. Cai and I kept writing. We got our PRO pins proving that we meant business and we forged on to the next in the Shifter series. This one was better. So we thought we would trot it out on the contest circuit.

OUCH! Contest judges can be hideously mean. We have found that the published authors are far more gentle than the non-published ones. Our hero was roundly and soundly hated last year. So we rewrote the intro. We took 15 page and knocked it down to 5. We gave our heroine a bit more inner motivation. But we didn't soften our hero up. We removed one line that was unanimously disliked and removed it. Other than that, Slade never gave an inch.

This year we have seen that same ms with our edits final and win in several contests. It is on the desk of a Dorchester editor, a southern agent and will soon be in the hands of yet another southern agent. This could be the book that makes a difference in our career.

Keep your fingers crossed for us, won't you?

Stephanie (the Stephan half of Cai Stephan)

"When we do the best that we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in our life, or in the life of another." -Helen Keller

Are We In Reno Yet?

This is Stephanie reporting on the RWA conference 2005 in Reno, Nevada!

My part of the trip began in Denver, Colorado where my partner, Sonj, and I loaded up the 2000 Saturn and headed to Las Vegas. The original plans were that we would overnight with Cai and her daughter in Las Vegas. The next morning I would rent a car so that Cai, A and I could drive in luxury and air-conditioning to Reno which we were told was only a short drive away. (Those of you from that area are to stop snickering RIGHT NOW!)

We headed down I-70 stopping in Glenwood Springs for a dip in the hot springs. While I lounged in a metal bar chair with holes in it as air was forced through to make a whirlpool chair, I thought about the native peoples who first found these springs. What must they have thought when they first touched the boiling water? What my body enjoyed was a cooled down 190 degree cement pond, but the original springs still bubbled and boiled off to the side. It was marvelously relaxing and I swore that I had to go back soon. Sonj pried my pruning body out of the pool saying that we had to go!

So back in the car we got! The scenery in southern Colorado is amazing. If you haven't traveled that part of the country, I highly recommend it! I even saw a herd of bighorn sheep on the side of the road. I crowed about that for 15 miles. Simple things make me so happy in life!

Back to the trip! We rolled into Vegas about 9pm and hooked up with Cai et al. Spent the night in Vegas. Of course we did a bit of gambling. Won too. Then lost it. Cash out! Cash out! And quit! That's how you win in Vegas.

Monday morning found Cai and I without a car and me slightly hysterical. Sonj and Cai calmed me down (I'm the high strung one of the bunch) and we decided to take the Saturn. To say we were packed in doesn't cover it. We had to use a shoehorn to sardine Cai and her daughter in the back seat along with luggage. They didn't see one another until Reno other than refreshment breaks! But we made it to Reno. That short drive was a nine hour nightmare that almost ended with the Saturn T-boning a fire truck. Trust me when I say... that fire truck was totally in the wrong!

But we were all frantically happy to see Reno's lights burst up from the valley. Found the hotel with no problem and fell into bed. Oh... after we gambled a bit. :-)

More on the conference later! Welcome to our Blog!

Stephanie Lynch (The Stephan half of Cai Stephan)