Finding Time to Write--during the Holidays

     You won't. When I first started to write in earnest fifteen years ago, I had just retired. I set a strict schedule that I would write between one and four p.m. every day until I had 1,000 words down. Sounds easy, but it isn't.  I didn't answer the phone unless one of my kids' numbers came up on the caller ID. Nor did I accept offers for afternoon coffee or invites to join afternoon clubs. I got my errands run before noon, had lunch and then I wrote. This discipline helped me to create twelve novels in five years, none sold until Goals for a Sinner, my sixth try, broke through and started me on the course of writing a long running series of sports romances, now up to twelve books. With that success, a couple of other series, Mardi Gras and the Roses, were published and five single titles.
     I soon learned why the publishing industry virtually closes down in December. There is no way anyone but a Super Woman could do all the gift shopping for nine people, address the cards, write the family letter, wrap those gifts, get a tree up and decorated, and still maintain a writing schedule. I was going to dump the Christmas letter, then a few people told me how much they looked forward to it. I considered ordering Christmas dinner from a local grocery store, but was guilted by family who looked forward to the dishes and cookies I make every year. Unfortunately, all of the family lives out of town so having them bring side dishes isn't feasible.
     It's early in the month yet I had difficulty completing the corrections on a galley for Daughter of the Rainbow. There were only twelve corrections, but I did have to read the whole book carefully to find them .Anyhow, they are in my editor's hands now, and I hope she has time to move the manuscript along before the New Year. This third installment in the Longleigh Chronicles should be out in March if all goes well. But, not one word written on the new book which is bumping along like a car on Louisiana's heavily rutted roads.
     Last year in addition to the usual decorating and cards, etc., I hosted the whole family for a week. With four people sleeping in the computer room, I completed zero words on my next book. While trying to get a big turkey dinner on the table for nine, I finally had a meltdown and said, "I can't do this anymore."  This declaration had nothing to do with writing but rather age. Those turkeys get heavier to get out of an oven every year. Anyhow, I am not hosting this year but have turned that over to my grown children.  I still won't get any writing done as we will then be out of town for a week, but I have learned to just lean back and enjoy the holidays with the family.  Let your writing go for a month and get back on the treadmill of writing come January.

The Four Book Year

     This year, I have four titles being released: Heart of a Sinner, Lady Flora's Rescue, Dream for a Sinner, and in November, The Perfect Daughter.  All are full length from seventy thousand to over a hundred thousand words. Wow, people say. You are so prolific. How do you do it? Purely by accident. When I first started to write I realized and was told an author needed to supply fresh material frequently, not simply write one book and be done, though I know writers who have done this when they discover that writing is a ton of work that really doesn't pay.  Anyhow, I figured on two books a year as what I could manage. I've been published for nine years and found I average three books a year, but last year had only one, Putty in her Hands.
     Putty was the last book I did with my long-term editor who retired shortly afterward. Assigned a new editor for Perfect Daughter, I found she was a terrible fit, and I admit I backed out of that contract before I finished first edits so demanding it became her book and not mine. Because most authors lack confidence, I entirely shelved my second book for 2018 and asking for a new editor, proceeded through a glacially long editorial process for Heart of a Sinner which I'd had difficulty finishing. It was at the half -written when I lost all confidence as a writer thanks to editor #2. I struggled to the end, and the book became 93,000 words, but good words. Still, it was put through three edits, line edits, and two pre-galleys, something I'd never heard of before, before getting the final galley. I swear, if there is a mistake in that book, I couldn't find it. Because this editing process ran from July to October. Heart was pushed into 2019 for publication. It came out in January to great reviews.
      In the meantime, I took out the prequel to The Perfect Daughter which had been gathering dust because no one wanted an 18th century historical, and it was too long at 106,000 words. I did a rewrite. It is still 106,000 words, but the book was accepted by another press and sigh of relief, given to an editor I enjoy working with since she edits with a light hand, not a closed fist. The edits went well and fast, but their publishing queue was long, so it appeared in February of 2019. Feeling better about Daughter, I also rewrote it, taking out some of the edits I hated and restoring it more to its original form.  The same press accepted it. I worked with the same editor. That book will finally be out in November.
     And what about the fourth book of 2019? I wrote Dream for a Sinner from scratch while still doing the lengthy editing process on Heart of a Sinner. It is short for me, 70,000 words, but okay, I was a little tired by now.  I submitted it to my regular publisher, expecting a long, slow process that would result in a 2020 release. It winged through all the hoops so quickly I was astounded and will be out on August fourteen, 2019. The Sinners series is my most popular,  and all are written from scratch. That takes time. Usually, I submit one a year. Dream was supposed to be my 2020 Sinners entry, but became my fourth book for this year.  Now, however, fans of the series will have to wait a long time for the next, The Aussie Sinner, which I've started but is going very slowly.
     So, how did I do four full-length books in one year: two rewrites of older books, two brand new books and a crazy publishing schedule. I must admit, I am no Nora Roberts and don't make her kind of money either. Please don't expect another four book year!
   

Back from Down Under

     I left for my bucket list trip to Australia at the end of November without giving this blog a thought, but the journey did give me something to talk about other than writing. If you want a day to day account, friend me on Facebook. My husband took lots of great pictures, too. I'm not even going to pretend that my royalties paid for this trip. The cost was paid off monthly since last year and worth every penny from Enhanced Tourist Class on the plane which gave me extra leg room and great snacks plus a glass of sparkling wine to start the journey to watching the penguin parade and hand-feeding kangaroos.
     I was able to establish the Aussie character when a big six-footer reclined his seat into my lap for the eighteen-hour flight. Around two a.m., I desperately needed the restroom and found I was trapped. Afraid I would wet myself, I began shouting, "I can't get out!" and probably woke up half the plane including the guy in front of me who finally put up his seat, let me go, waited until I got back, and fully reclined again. Little did he know women my age need the bathroom every two hours. Each time I tapped him, he good-naturedly let me out again, then resumed his position. When I needed some food around six a.m. to take some meds, the staff provided me with a ham and cheese empanada. He put up his chair so I could get my tray out--and asked for the same. Honestly, very nice but not overly sensitive people. I have to say always willing to help and give directions as we found throughout our trip. Give up a seat on a crowded tram, nope, but share a table with you in a crowded restaurant--no worries. Sit yourself down.
     I did gather information for a Sinners book I plan to call The Aussie Sinner. Yes, there are Australian Rules Football players in the NFL, mostly kickers, but I want mine to play a different position if I can ever figure out what that is. Must get a copy of Aussie Football for Dummies soon, though I viewed several Footy games on the Footy Channel while recuperating from the day's activities. Only thing the games seem to have in common is having a ball of the same shape. Fun to watch as these very fit young men play in shorts with no padding flat out for their quarters, throwing themselves into piles to rip out the ball and sending it flying with a kick to the other end of the field. Our Melbourne guide, Peter, gave me lots of details on the sport as the game originated in that city which has nine teams of its own. I do need to give him a credit when the story comes out, probably in late 2020 so don't hold your breath.
     Meanwhile, The Heart of a Sinner is now up for pre-sale on Amazon and will be released on January ninth. This came as complete surprise to me as it hadn't been given a release date before I took off for the Land of Oz. That should tide you over along with Dream for a Sinner which I left nearly finished in order to take my trip. I do love to write, but traveling is even better. Here's a cover for you. Now I have to get back to cookie baking and present wrapping, both, like Dream, sorely neglected while I dined on kangaroo and flirted with platypuses. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to one and all!

The Physical Toll of Writing

      A somewhat jealous fellow writer constantly asked me how I "cranked" out several full-length books a year. What was my secret? First of all, I don't crank out anything. It takes me three or four months to write a book. Secondly, there is no secret.  I spend four hours each day writing-with social media turned off-and try to achieve one-thousand words at a sitting, which I usually do. I take a break halfway through, walk around, watch Jeopardy, have a snack. I don't write at night as I have a hard time sleeping if I do since the imagination is hard to turn off. Just TV and reading for me in the evening, or going out for a lecture, movie, or play.  But if I keep at it, by the end of three months, I have a 90,000 word book. Of course, I then do a rewrite and will have to do two or three edits after that. It works for me. Others will set a different schedule.
     I began this routine in 2004 at the age of 57 when I started to write in earnest after retiring from a career as a librarian. Now, fourteen years later, I have twenty-three books in print and two more in the works. I have also developed back and hip problems and have difficulty walking. On the way home from a long road trip, one of my favorite things to do, I failed to keep another rule to stop every two hours and walk around. Usually, my consumption of tea and coffee on these trips demand these stops for restroom purposes, but this time I skipped those because I had no thermos with me. I ended up with blood clots in one leg, not the serious DVT ones, but several superficial blots on my leg and some tenderness and pain. Three months on a blood thinner dissolved the clots, but the pain persisted. Why?
      My GP didn't know. My orthopedist said some arthritis of the spine that can't be helped and a hip going bad from age, but he didn't want to operate yet. Desperate for a solution, I hobbled on over to a chiropractor hoping for some help. He placed the blame squarely on the amount of time I spend on a computer writing. I admit, I'd rather be writing than do most other things, the reason why I set aside mornings for errands and chores or nothing would get done around the house. I do try to do water aerobics twice a week but will slough this off if I am deeply in my writing groove. It's not a good idea to ignore exercise no matter how much you hate it (though I do like water aerobics and swimming but not much else).
     I think writers are naturally sedentary. They exercise their imaginations rather than their legs and biceps. My best intentions to get up and stretch usually fall by the wayside, though I do find myself circling my neck when it tightens up from staring at a screen too long. End result of all this is I am being stretched and pummeled by a chiropractor--and it does hurt during and afterwards so I sit writing packed with ice bags on my back and thighs. I am not going to give up writing when my typing fingers, brain, and highly active imagination are still good. I have an excellent incentive--a long planned trip to Australia, bucket list epic, and would rather not be pushed around in a wheelchair.
     So, in addition to having shared my "secret" to "cranking" out books which is basically place butt in chair and write every day, I do caution other writers. Don't skip whatever exercise routine you have. Do get up and stretch. Don't write eight hours a day unless you are really driven (four is plenty), and try to stay healthy.

Death and Authors

     When famous and beloved authors die, we always mourn both them and the fact that there will be no new titles forthcoming, although that is not always the case. I remember when V.C. Andrews of Flowers in the Attic fame passed away. Her books continued to come out for years afterwards under her name but obviously "ghost" written by others. Long lasting favorites like Agatha Christie never go out of print. Her heirs are probably still receiving royalties. I'm not sure what the British copyright law is, but last time I heard in the USA, it was forty years for the author and then another forty for their family.
     But what becomes of the rest of us, the indies, the small press authors, the one book wonders? In my contracts, there is a clause that says all of my works, which now number twenty-three, will immediately be taken down. My heirs will receive my last quarter royalties, probably not enough to buy flowers to cover my coffin. That will be the end of my books and me. I have taken the precaution of naming one of my children as my literary executor. She has a background in journalism and can reclaim my rights from the publishers. Should she choose, she can reprint them or offer them to other publishers. Of course, covers would have to be changed and the books reformatted which is considerable work. As she has a career of her own, she simply may not have the time or interest to do any of this, knowing I certainly did not get rich from my efforts. She is also instructed to share any royalties with her two siblings. I certainly hope they don't get into a fight over that eighty-eight dollars I have coming!
       Mostly, I hate to think of all my characters dying with me. They become so real when I am creating a tale. As it is, I sometimes get inquiries about what happens to them after I've written "The End". What did they do in the future? How many children did they have, etc. So, I occasionally work them into new stories and give them cameos. For instance, Merlin and Jane of A Trashy Affair, easily my most successful book, appear in Putty in her Hands. Jane is now a mother of two boys and still an environmental activist. Merlin serves on the parish council. Both help Julia in her fight to save an old hotel from demolition.  Celine Landry, now wife of billionaire Jonathan Hartz from A Taste of Bayou Water, also joins the cause. They are aided by Miss Lolly and Miss Maxie, two every elderly former teachers, who are willing to chain themselves to oak trees to save the building. These two characters have appeared in my Sinners sports romances and jumped into several of my single titles as well. They always add humor, driving around in their big boat of an old Lincoln and feeling free to say whatever they want as age hath its privileges. They must be pushing a hundred by now, but I still hate to have them die with me.
     My family will have to deal with the stacks and stacks of books I have in our storage area, some good sellers, some gathering dust. As I grow older, I order fewer copies to resell at conferences and book signings as storage is becoming a problem. I imagine each child might each take a set of my complete works, all pre-autographed, and donate the rest to the library book sale where they will resurface for years until they fall apart. It is nice to think of someone reading my now out of print books.
      All of this makes me rather sad.  But, it also gives me incentive to keep on living as long as I can just to keep my characters and their stories alive.

On the Road Again!

     After a long, hot, slow summer, Never a Sinner came out to good reviews, and all the work is done for A Place Apart for its November first release.  Great covers on both books which capture Teddy Billodeaux's joy of life, and the isolation of Jacob Day, a damaged veteran to wants nothing more than to be left alone on his deserted island which is suddenly claimed by a socialite also seeking solitude.  Sparks fly!  I've also made a start on The Heart of a Sinner, Annie Billodeaux's story, but must put it aside to satisfy my wanderlust again.
     I am off to Iceland shortly to tour the island and bathe in the Blue Lagoon and other hot springs. When I return home, I have a week's break before going to St. Louis to see the ancient mounds of Cahokia and eat good barbecue. The question recently came up as to whether I plan to site a book in Iceland.  Probably not, but I never know.  When I started writing Sister of a Sinner last year, I had no idea that my brief cruise to Cozumel and my tour of the ruins there would come to play a part in Xochi Billodeaux's story, but that is where her kidnappers take her.  Sister only came out this spring, again to good reviews, but I don't want to spoil the story for you, so no more on that. A trip to Wisconsin provided Alix Lindstrom with a home state, though it doesn't figure heavily in the story. A spring visit to Minneapolis might give me another. It is quite a vibrant, multi-ethnic city, not bland and white at all.
      I finally got the courage to write A Place Apart several years after a visit to Maine.  When out of my comfort zone of south Louisiana, I always fear getting the details wrong, but favor Road Scholar for my tours. They are dubbed Learning Adventures, and you do learn! I save reams of information they give me for future use. In Place Apart, I recreate a sloop ride on Penobscot Bay early in the book and spin off on a legend I heard there--besides eating lots of lobster, one of my favorite foods. Although a man of education and many talents, Jacob Day chooses the hard life of a lobster fisherman to avoid others. The title came from a quote I heard at the Island Institute, founded to preserve the way of life on the many coastal islands, places apart indeed. It is my first book based entirely on one of my trips. I yearn to write one about western Ireland where I went a couple of years ago, but again, the devil is in the details.
      On my Road Scholar tours, I also meet so many interesting people like a Navajo code talker, sadly now deceased, the first woman to run the Iditarod in Alaska (she lost badly but did finish the grueling race), a shaman with a sense of humor, and many glib-tongued Irish men.  My traveling companions are equally interesting, folks who have worked with NASA, a nurse who who served in World War II, people who are so talented they can learn to play a penny whistle overnight or write an limerick in minutes to amuse the group. Any of these are worthy of a book of their own.
     So, off I go again.  Undoubtedly, I will fill my Facebook page with tales of Iceland in the next month. I'm counting on my daughter, an excellent photographer, to supply the pictures. See you later!
     

Doing What Must be Done

     Where has May gone? Five days of it went on a trip to Madison, Wisconsin, to see my son get his doctorate in physics.Yes, I'm bragging a little. Having no math skills at all, having taken advanced biology and dissected a cat to avoid taking physics in high school, I am immensely happy he got my husband's brains for this subject. The weather was terrible--windy, cold, and rainy, but we rejoiced anyhow and mostly celebrated indoors. Spent one extra day of this trip stranded in Houston when our last flight was cancelled--and then there was the week long catch up on mail, e-mail, laundry, and groceries. You would have thought we were gone a month instead of less than a week.
     Regardless, I didn't work on my new book, Sister of a Sinner, for over a week.  It is hard to get back in the groove of a writing schedule even after such a short time.  A Will of her Own came out in April, and The Courville Rose is due out first week in June, both needing some publicity efforts. An Ashy Affair went through two edits and is now off to line editors and the galley stage. I guess it will be my autumn book, appropriate since it takes place in October. While all this was going on, I worked in spurts on Sister, five-hundred words here, a thousand there, and some days nothing.  It has picked up speed now since my only other resolution is to find an agent for my Regency series. I'd rather write than face all those rejections again.
     Yes, seventeen books in print, soon to be eighteen, and I still fear rejection.  A good friend has given me the name of his agent. As soon as he wrote the name, I realized this is a revered old agency, one that rejected me many years ago more than once.  I have grown a lot in my writing skills since then, have a modest fan base (and ten followers of this blog!), yet I am still scared to approach them.
     Being fairly good at forcing myself to do what must be done which includes painful cuts and rewrites of my work, I will take this plunge, but probably not before I finish Sister. I'm over twenty-thousand words in on what will probably be a seventy-thousand word book, so I should have it done in around sixty days or two months, say by the first of August. In the more laid back field of e-publishing, I've learned to set my own goals and deadlines.  Discipline is the key to getting 'er done, whatever it is that is holding you back.  Write every day. I strive for 1,000 words each time I sit down at the computer. Some writers won't have the time to do that much, so do whatever you can. Promise yourself  you will complete that book by a self-imposed deadline, good practice should your publisher ever impose one. When edits and galleys come through, do them at once, and then get back to writing your book. No dallying!
      I revise yesterday's work before beginning today's writing. This makes for a very clean first draft needing only light revision.  Once I polish the second draft, I move on to writing the synopsis and a blurb that can be used in a query or on a back cover. With this is complete, boom, off it goes to my editor to accept or reject, and oh, yes, I still get rejections.  I've had three I thought were sure things turned down. Two were accepted that I felt were long shots as they aren't my usual type of book.  However, those long shots went through grueling, unpleasant edits that often made me wish they had been turned down.  Both became very good stories, I think, and the reader will never know what blood, sweat, and tears went into them--as it should be.
     So, discipline, self-imposed deadlines and word counts, editing as you go along, then taking the big leap to submit will get you where you want to go--eventually.  Good luck to all of us.
   

Out of the Comfort Zone--Again!

     I nearly forgot to do a March post as I have shipped out of my comfort zone again and am researching and writing a contemporary romance taking place in Maine. I'm good about doing my Romancing the Jock blog since they send me a reminder every month to get something on the site, but my personal blog sometimes slips my mind if I am deeply engrossed in a new topic.
     The last time I left Louisiana mentally and set off for foreign parts, I wrote Paradise for a Sinner which took me to the other side of the world and into a culture I knew nothing about. My research folder for that book is among my fattest. At least, I've been to Maine, eaten plenty of fresh lobster, and met the locals most of whom do not have a Down East accent for which I am very grateful when writing dialog. No need to find out what Samoan men wear under their lava-lavas. I can assume lobster fishermen go with boxers or briefs or boxer-briefs--but what do they wear aboard their boats?  After watching an hour of Hulu posts, I conclude chest high waders in various colors and rubber boots. Other than that, whatever floats their boat.
     American courtship rituals should be similar, only maybe a lobster dinner isn't as impressive as in Louisiana where we only have crawfish and our lobsters are flown in from Maine to reside in tanks in high-priced restaurants.  But every area has its own colloquialisms.  In Maine, lobster isn't merely good, it's wicked good. I second that as it is one of my favorite foods which I eat only once or twice a year in Louisiana, but dined on every day in one form or another while visiting New England.
     New writers are often urged to write what they know.  Not bad advice for the beginner.  But after a while, all authors want to strike out in new directions. At the moment, I think I could write about Louisiana in my sleep, but not so Maine. While all Americans have certain similarities, it is the details of speech, food and drink, the history of the area, and how people earn their living that will bring a story alive. One caveat, however.  Do not clog your story with dumps of cool stuff you learned and can't wait to share. If it cannot be worked into a scene that reads naturally, don't include the info. I know. I just hate not being able to use it all--but don't.  I so desired to share the factoid that more Confederate soldiers survived amputations because the maggots in their wounds ate out the infection than the better cared for Yankees, but couldn't find a place for it. Hey, I just did--this blog. Nothing is ever wasted. You know, Maine had one of the highest enlistment rates in the Civil War. I think I can work that into A Place Apart, my new title that I hope to finish by September if I don't get totally distracted by my research (another pitfall to avoid). At some point, you must write the story. I'm already 10,000 words in so things are looking good.
     Bringing you up to date on other Lynn Shurr books, Son of a Sinner was released yesterday in e-format and soft cover. Queen of the Mardi Gras Ball is due out in reprint on April 3rd after being out of print for over a year. Have to go now. I need to do just a bit more research on Portuguese Water Dogs.
   

Untypical-That's Me

     I once asked my editor what kind of books she thought I wrote.  Strangely, an author often doesn't know. She replied Untypical Romance or perhaps women's novels with romances in them.  In other words, I seldom follow the tried and true formula of one man, one woman, one romance.  My lovers live in a larger world where other things are going on besides their love affair.  In my Sinners books, the members of the team form a community.  They help each other out when problems crop up - mostly having to do with women. They have wives and children and problems of their own, too.  They have sex, but not in every other chapter, just when it applies to the plot.
     Having recently finished writing Love Letter for a Sinner, I realize it is another of my untypical romances.  I have followed the career of quarterback, Joe Dean Billodeaux, from his first success and now to the end of his career.  He has gone from a womanizer to a family man, from a party guy to a team leader, and helped younger players along the way while dealing with his own dilemmas.  The new quarterback is on the bench waiting for his retirement and his last chance for a Super Bowl is coming up.  He must overcome his dislike of the new guy and even help him find a good woman in order to get his final wish for a fifth ring.  Will there be more Sinners books?  Maybe.  Joe's oldest son, Dean, is now seventeen and showing great potential as a quarterback.  His second son, Tommy, is gearing up to be a kicker.  Like all things in publishing, it depends on how the previous books sell, but being untypical, I write two books a year whether I have a market for them or not.
     I've always thought I simply wrote romances. But it took a contest judge to clue me in that Queen of the Mardi Gras Ball was a "big" historical novel with a romantic sub-plot.  I believed Mardi Gras Madness was a mystery.  Not so, my editor said.  A mystery must start in the very first chapter. I seem to recall Miss Marple wandering around her village for page after page until the actual mystery crops up, but you don't want to argue with your editor.   So, it is a romance with a mystery buried inside of it. Got another one of those coming up later this year, Courir de Mardi Gras, but I won't dare call it a mystery.
     Whatever I write, I try to give the reader a good absorbing story that reads fast and smoothly to its happing ending.  All I can hope for is that people enjoy them no matter how untypical they are.

The Wonderful Dilemma

     Here it is near the end of June and I almost forgot to do my monthly blog post.  Why?  Edits for my two new books came in back to back, a problem I never thought I'd have. Queen of the Mardi Gras Ball went well enough, but being 114,000 words long, took some time. One week later, the edits for Mardi Gras Madness arrive.  One of my earlier books oft rewritten, I had so much more to do to satisfy my editor.  I worked long days getting the first edits done, then the second arrived on their heels.  Ahead, a long-planned week at the beach with my family loomed. By the time I finished, I needed that vacation.  Meanwhile, I had thought to finish Paradise for a Sinner by the end of June, but take out of month of writing time to do edits, and I am way behind.  Poor me!
    
     True, all this work did wear me out and put me behind my own self-imposed schedule, but what I am doing here is bragging.  I have two new books coming out this summer.  I have another nearly finished and desired by the small press that puts out my work.  And, they just sent me a contract for my beloved Trashy Affair which should be published next summer along with Courir de Mardi Gras, not back to back, I hope.  Look at me.  I have a real writing career.  Who would have thought it?

Entitled

No, I don't mean to food stamps, though if you are trying to live on your earnings as a writer, you might be entitled to that and free health care. I refer to book titles. Early on, I was told not to stress over giving my book a title. The publisher will change it anyhow if and when it goes to print. So, I simply used one word working titles, Goals, Wish, Flames, etc. I quickly learned in some contests, points were given for your title. When plain, old Goals, a football romance, became Goals for a Sinner, I started claiming all five of those points and eventually placed in a couple of those contests. Sometimes, that extra nudge pushes the book over the top.

Flames attracted little attention until I retitled it Mardi Gras Madness (and rewrote it six times). After all, you must have a well-written book following that unique title, too. Still, I piqued the interest of more editors once the title change took place, and one of them liked the story enough to offer a contract. Mardi Gras Madness with its mystery sub-plot will be out this coming fall.

I also found that in the e-publishing and small press world where I mostly dwell, titles are seldom changed, so you need to create a good one that will attract attention and not fade in the crowd of similarly named works. For instance, I avoid Love, Heart, and Passion in all my titles. These all run together. In a contest I recently judged, four out of six entries had one of these words in their title. I had to go back and skim the first paragraph to jog my memory when assigning the final score. Also, just imagine a new reader wanting to find your book but not quite recalling your name. Punch in Love and a bizillion titles come up making yours very hard to find.

Naming a book can be a fun group event, too, if you belong to a critique circle or even ask for ideas on FaceBook. I can tell you my current WIP, A Trashy Affair, earned lots of chatter. Put a little effort into titling your book. Make it unique and original, hopefully like your wonderful story. Attract attention before the reader even opens the cover. And that is my advice for the month.

Welcome to my new followers! You have swelled my ranks from four to seven. Thanks.

Intervals

Generally, I write two books a year whether anyone wants them or not. Takes me from three months to six to complete a novel depending on how much research I must do or the length of the book. So, what do I do with the other three months? Catch up on neglected household chores for one thing. ( I really must see about the leaking washing machine-just laying towels on the floor to sop up the water every time I do a load is not a good alternative.) Work in my garden-if the two flats of snapdragons I bought two weeks ago while fine tuning the last book are still alive. Research my next historical novel. What do I know about painters of the early nineteenth century? Not much, though I do paint and took the obligatory art history course that went with my liberal arts degree and enjoyed it. Maybe the hero should have some other occupation to save time. No, I have a whole month to learn about this. Go for it.

I also try to complete a book before the holidays set in so my time is free to bake cookies not on my diet, shop for gifts online and off, and roast that turkey because the whole family will be home. I take time to enjoy them, too, and all the chaos that comes with having a houseful of people. Writing isn't everything. Remember that.

This year, I finished my WIP earlier than expected, but didn't want to start anything new until after Christmas, so instead rewrote two of my older unsold works using all I have learned since getting two books published. They are much improved, I think, but then, I liked them in the first place. Thanksgiving looms ahead, and I am free and clear - except I just got word that Kicks for a Sinner goes to editing next week. Hmmm, pass the gravy and a batch of sticky notes, please, and hope I get the edits done before Christmas.

Length

I am known primarily for my sexy football romances, so discussing length could mean many things. Get your mind out of the gutter! I am referring to the length of a book. Current wisdom says no novel over 120,000 words will be published today due to the atrophied attention spans of readers contracted from television viewing, computer use and tweeting. An agent at a recent conference declared she wouldn't look at anything over 100,000 words. One of my e-publishers is constantly urging their authors to produce 50,000-60,000 word Harlequin-style romances, not easy to do as I have tried it and failed. Supposedly, people using e-readers won't order anything longer. Forget classics like Gone With The Wind. Margaret Mitchell would be advised to cut that length in half or issue her story as three back-to-back novels. Sad. Okay, I will admit I've only gotten a quarter way through Northwest Passage, but it was the unrelenting dialect that made me put it down, not the length.

Length has cost me some contracts as my two best books both ran over 100,000 words. They have found a home at L & L Dreamspell. My first historical, Queen of the Mardi Gras Ball at 113,560 words, will be coming out in early 2012. Wish for a Sinner, already published, was originally 108,700 words. I cut it back to 103,000 in a vain attempt to get it under that magic 100,000 word barrier, but could not go the rest of the way. Its length was one reason it kept getting turned down. Thank heaven, the lovely ladies at Dreamspell feel length doesn't matter. It's what you do with it that counts. No, no, don't bombard them with your 700,000 word tomes. They are a small press and aren't accepting manuscripts right now. But know that here and there, people who like a good, long story do exist even if we are headed toward extinction. As for me, I did manage to bring the manuscript of Kicks for a Sinner in at 90,000 words. That was a close one!

The Bad Review

Honestly, as an author I have grown the hide of an alligator. But even alligators can be injured if you shoot them in the eye. I can endure agents not liking my voice. That's individual taste. Or just not caring for my genre or how I presented my story. I still get wounded when someone doesn't like my characters. They are like my children. Please don't call them ugly. Recently, I received a poor review on Wish for a Sinner. Okay, the reader still gave me an average grade. All the others have been higher. However, she hated every major character. After I cried on the shoulder of my grown journalist daughter who understands, I did go back and check this person's other reviews. Mostly, she likes paranormal romance and is cool towards other forms of the genre. So I give her credit for even trying a sports romance. It was not her thing. Arrogant athletes and the women who tame them don't stack up the same against sympathetic vampires and loving werewolves. I do feel better now.

Another that hurt was a rejection from an editor who said one of my beloved but unpublished Regencies was merely Jane Eyre rewritten. True, I have read Jane Eyre many times, one of my favorites, so it is possible some of that flavor crept into my story. I can swear, however, that Jane Eyre never had sex with Mr. Rochester prior to marriage, and just because a heroine is plain and a hero brooding does not make them Jane and Mr. R. My gal is a tart-tongued spinster who bullies a man back to health and falls in love with him of course. If you reject all arrogant masters of the manor and plain women characters, there goes half the romance genre into the waste basket. I've never sent that story out again though I do still love it. Just want to protect my ugly children.

Writing for the Minute

Recently attending a writers' conference always gets me thinking, as it should. As usual, I went to the agents and editors panel to see what they were looking for in the way of new books. I wasn't at all surprised to hear most say they want something fresh and of course, the next big thing, although no one knows what that is. All would like to represent a best seller, the one all the book clubs want to read. I truly wish I could offer them The Help or Water for Elephants, both marvelous works of fiction, but I am afraid I don't have great literature in me. I write not for the ages but for the minute. My stories are designed to entertain and bring on a smile or a laugh to take the reader away from this troubled world for awhile and into another where a happy ending is guaranteed. Rarely does a literary novel do this, though the two mentioned above manage to pull off satisifying conclusions that don't leave one depressed for a week after finishing the book. Kudos to their authors. As for wanting something fresh, offer that and it will usually be turned down. If a story is not easily categorized for the publisher or book store, rarely will an agent or editor accept it. Not their fault. That's just the way it is in traditional publishing. So, the fresh and unique books today end up coming out e-published. Over the past few years, I've been told the 1920's won't sell, the eighteenth century in America won't sell, football romances won't sell, and a hybrid novel having both contemporary and historical elements won't sell. Seems I have a real penchant for writing the wrong thing. So, look for my football romances selling steadily on Amazon.com under the Lynn Shurr name, both put out by e-presses. And keep an eye out for probably my best book, Queen of the Mardi Gras Ball, a 1920's novel to be released in January, 2012, by micropress L & L Dreamspell in both paperback and e-book. I hope they make you smile.

Christmas Presents, Christmas Past

Last December, I blogged about what writers want most for Christmas. I got several of my wishes this year - like a computer keyboard that works on both sides so I can now use the cap lock again to type titles. Goals for a Sinner came out in April and people are actually reading my book. Then, Santa arrived again on Christmas Eve and announced that the sequel, Wish for a Sinner, had been posted in e-book form Amazon.com, Fictionwise, and All Romance e-books with the softcover to follow in January. Already elated, I opened my next e-mail from the good women at L & L Dreamspell and found a contract attached for my next book, Queen of the Mardi Gras Ball, a 1920's era historical with romantic elements. Could Christmas get any better?

Yes. Another e-mail informed me that my niece had given birth around eleven p.m. on Christmas Eve, mother and son doing fine. She went into labor at the church service while singing Joy to the World. In fact, her water broke right there in the chapel. Not only will she have a great story to embrarrass her son, but you know it will turn up in one of my books some day.

Right after Christmas, we left for a trip. I left behind my latest WIP, a Regency titled Lion in the Heather, within 5,000 words of completion and a list of things I needed to do as a writer upon return. The list: Order post cards for Wish for a Sinner, Submit a short story to an e-anthology, Fill in Author Profile on Amazon, finally, and oh, finish my book. Day five of the new year. How many of these items have I ticked off - none. Great end to 2010. Slow start to 2011. But I wouldn't mind having another Christmas just like this one.

How to Get Free Books

Become a writer-or a reviewer of course. Once you embark on a writing career, you will join associations, go to conferences, and never come home without a load of free books. The trouble is as you work on your own book, you have less and less time to read. I estimate my pile of to-be-reads is now two years deep. Recently, I pulled Hollis Gillespie's book, Trailer Trashed, from the bottom of my pile. It was at the bottom because, being a hard-cover, I used it to balance all the paperbacks above it. But, I have owned the book for two years having purchased it at the HeartLa Readers' Luncheon a long time ago. Her short, pithy, often humerous pieces are just what I am in the mood for right now. Hollis, sorry it took me so long to get around to it. Some of those paperbacks will yellow before I get to them.

It's often said once you become a published author, you no longer enjoy reading quite as much. In some ways, this is true. Suddenly every undetected typo jumps out at you, and you notice a very famous author used "was" twelve times on her first page. You can tell when a writer is padding to get her word count. You must turn off the editor in order to enjoy the books. And now, I have so many to read. Because in the end, all authors want is for someone to enjoy their story.

What You Want

I love writing, creating the story, even polishing it to a fine shine. Begging agents and editors to look at my work, not so much. With both Goals for a Sinner and Wish for a Sinner being football romances, they were often sent back as unread with the note "We do not do football stories" by many agencies that publish or represent romance. Eventually, I found two small presses that looked beyond the occupation of the hero to the good story being told and got those contracts.

I'd heard before signing that producing a book is hard work and have learned this is true. Over Labor Day weekend, I spent sixteen hours doing third edits on Wish. We were well beyond making any changes to the story and into looking for the tiniest mistakes to make this book the best we could. Some glitch caused the quotation marks to be turned in the wrong direction in about a third of the book. Page after page, I noted this correction. At last, they disappeared and the tedious third edit proceeded more normally with a missed "a" here and dropped period there. I sent off the corrections and was rewarded with the most wonderful compliment by my publisher. She replied she'd repaired the quotation marks, but at times got so caught up in the story she had to go back and make sure she'd gotten them all. Somehow, that made the sciatica flare up I suffered from spending so much time hunched over a computer on a holiday worthwhile.

So, I've learned the truth of be careful what you wish for-it's harder than you think to prepare a book for publication, but so very worth it.

Patience Required

If you want to see your book in print, be sure to stir up a big vat of patience and put it up in jars to use when needed. I signed the contract for my first book, Goals for a Sinner, in late June of 2009. Edits began immediately. All the edits and the galley were done by early August. Then, I waited nine months until the end of April 2010 to see the book in print, by publishing standards not very long. In fact, my pub date was moved up twice to the approximate time it takes to bring a baby to term.

So I signed the contract for the sequel, Wish for a Sinner, on November 1, 2009, and thought maybe it would be out in time for the 2010 football season. This time around, I wasn't assigned an editor until August, 2010, so make that the 2011 football season. First edits were done between the time I left for Wisconsin to deliver my son to grad school with all his worldly good in a U-Haul and getting on a plane for my daughter's baby shower in D.C. I think there must be some kind of Murphy's Law that says edits will arrive the very moment life is the most hectic. Last winter and spring-remarkably quiet until Goals came out, my son graduated, my oldest daughter got pregnant, and my younger daughter lost her job, moved home, found a new job and moved out again. Such is life. Open one of those big jars of patience and imbibe.

Pitching

Pitching, and I don't mean softball or woo, but pitching to agents is one of the most excruciating things a writer is expected to do. Now, people who know me say I have the gift of gab. I can strike up a long conversation with a total stranger or speak in front of an audience of a hundred or a thousand without fear. But, put me at small table across from an agent or editor, and no matter how well I have rehearsed, I blather.

I've pitched seven times and will probably have to pitch a thousand times more. My first time, I received a cut sign half way through my spiel. "I can't sell a 1920's novel. There is no market," she said very kindly. But she did allow me to send a few chapters, gave me a great critique, and told me I was a very good writer, but to choose another topic. So, I spent the next year writing what I thought was a lovely Regency. Got three requests for fulls - and three rejections. Whatever the disappointment, I figured I had pitching nailed at least. So, I trotted out my fresh, brand new historical, Lady Flora's Rescue, at this year's conference. The agent listened patiently. "Look, 18th Century with Indians won't sell, sorry." she said. I guess I will force myself to pitch again next year, but have no idea what to write next. Hmmm, maybe if those Indians were vampires.