I’ll take any title that lets me be queen. Although I have a marked preference for supreme ruler of the universe. 
At the end of 2010, I did a retrospective of my writing goals. In 2011, my goals changed significantly thanks to my final in the Golden Heart®. I did query A TALE OF TWO SISTERS beginning March 25 and sold it. Two big checks off goals I don’t really have that much control over.
Of course, this meant putting other writing projects aside to concentrate on my Regencies. I need to write a second book, following on SISTERS. I began RUINED last summer, and then let the pressure get to me. I’m maybe halfway through?
So that’s goal number one for 2012. I need to finish RUINED. I’ve got this pesky deadline that’s all scary in black and white in a contract, and I need to get to it.
Goal number two will be revisions on SISTERS, which depends on when I receive them from my editor.
I still can’t believe I’m typing that, BTW. Yes, I have an editor. In New York.
Gulp.
Two huge goals achieved last year, two huge hurdles for me to leap this year. I can do it.
The really scary part is going to be all the promo stuff anyway. Thank goodness my first book isn’t coming out until next year.
Happy 2012. May you surpass your goals.
Dear Mr. King,
It feels strange to be writing you a thank you note. I’ve never considered myself a fan of yours. Ironically, I married a fan who, as of the mid-80s owned every one of your books in hardcover, some of them in two different languages. He tried and tried to get me to read your books, and I dug in my heels. I didn’t like horror. I’m squeamish that way.
I still don’t, if I’m honest. And I know you’ve written things that aren’t considered horror. My husband convinced me to read The Eyes of the Dragon at one point, since I do like fantasy, but I didn’t like it. I’m stubborn that way, and it was probably my own prejudice talking.
Recently, however, I acquired a copy of On Writing. I know, I’m late to the party, but I wanted to thank you from the bottom of my heart for writing this book.
I’m not even done reading it yet. I put it down in the middle of a section to write this. I was going to email you personally, but I see on your website, that you don’t give that out. That’s OK. I hope, at some point, this post reaches you somehow, perhaps, through the magic of Google alerts.
The section where I set the book aside was the one on that jackhammer, the plot. I’ve always considered myself an inveterate pantser, but as I’ve worked my way toward publication, I’ve taken classes and workshops, read craft books and listened to other writers. If you poke about my website just a bit (not that you would, because you probably don’t have a lot of time for it), you might notice I’ve recently signed a publishing contract for a historical romance novel. It’s actually a two-book deal, and I’ve been struggling with the second book.
Part of that struggle is the pressure of knowing this second book has to come up to scratch and me being worried that manuscript I sold was a fluke. Book two, you see, was nothing more than a kernel of an idea, a situation if you will, that I pitched to my editor over the phone when we were talking about a possible deal on the first book.
So as I’ve struggled with this book having to be right, I’ve wondered and worried about the plot. Am I doing it right? Am I going to have those turning points exactly where I need them? Am I going to have the proper through lines? The right structure?
And then I read that section in your book about plot being a jackhammer and breaking at least as much as it helps in extracting that fossil of a story.
How liberating.
I wrote that first manuscript not worried about any of those things. And I sold it. I need to get back to that mindset, and I need to get back to the joy.
So thank you for that reminder, from the bottom of my heart.
Thank you for writing this book.
Sincerely,
Ashlyn Macnamara
When I’m not writing, I knit. In fact, I haven’t done a lot of knitting in ages. The pesky day job I had kept me from it. But now that I’ve given that up, I’ve gone back to knitting.
I’ve actually been a knitter far longer than I’ve considered myself a writer. I’m semi self-taught. I learned around the age of nine or so, after several family members attempted to show me. My older sister’s lessons were the ones that stuck and from there I figured out more on my own with whatever knitting books she wasn’t using at the time.
So a couple of days ago, I started a sock.
I pasted my first scene from my WIP into this meme and here’s what I got:
At least it wasn’t something scary like H. P. Lovecraft–not that there’s anything wrong with him, but I don’t think it’s quite the style I should strive for as a Regency author.
Today, I’m at The Lovestruck Novice talking about my journey to published authorhood, among other things.
Yesterday, Tracy Brogan endured my snark, I mean interviewed me on her blog.
Finally, in celebration of my last week at the retail job, I will be blogging at Blame It On the Muse about some of my more memorable customers. That’s next Wednesday.
Spread myself out a bit more, as it were. I’m blogging in two places today. First, over at Caroline Clemmons’ A Writer’s Life, where I’m talking about gentlemen’s clubs and gambling in the Regency.
Secondly, I’m at Blame It On the Muse with my first post in a regular blogging stint. Drop by and we’ll talk about the obstacles we put in our own paths.
First off, I’m over at Barbara Bettis’ blog doing her Writers Wednesday feature.
Secondly, for a truly scary look at my life, venture over to Stitch–Read–Cook.
If you dare.
We all hear about it, but I don’t suppose you can understand it unless you’ve gone through it. I had the bright idea of working on the sequel to Sisters while waiting for my revisions letter. Good idea, in theory. In practice not so much.
I keep second-guessing myself. My draft should be better. My voice has lost its sparkle. I have no clue how the story is going to end. I ought to be farther along in the story. Sisters wrote itself in three months, and here I am plodding along, lucky if I’m writing 500 words a day.
So what better than to ask for advice from those who have gone through this before? I, of course, turned to that font of collective internet knowledge—Twitter—and begged the published authors out in cyberspace to reassure me that I wasn’t going insane. Read More
Only a month after the fact, but I’d better do this now, if I’m going to do this at all. And to make things easier, I’m going to make it a list.
This summer at RWA Nationals, I got to:
