Shaken Baby Syndrome

Here in Santa Fe, our clouds have a golden lining.

Snazzy, eh?

So, when I was in Memphis a few weeks ago, talking to the River City Romance Writers (many thanks to LaTessa Montgomery for inviting me!), we had a long and winding conversation. I asked them what they wanted to hear about from me: career path, digital first publishing, writing erotic, writing short, writer's life? They said, yes.

We ended up talking about all of those things, which made for an interesting conversation.

The thing about being a professional writer, and by that I mean, wanting to make money from your work, is that most discussions about it naturally include both aspects of creativity and considerations about the market. Neither aspect can be escaped. Stories must come from our creative selves. I know there are some authors who say they care nothing about art and treat writing entirely as a business. I suspect they simply view their creativity in a different way. And, no matter how much other writers cling to the purity of art over commercialism, we'd all like to be paid well for our stories. The demands of the market cannot be ignored.

However, I'm a believer in making sure these things occur in the correct order: creativity first, then market. If you put these two things too close together, guess what results? Yes. Shaken baby syndrome.

See, our new stories, or even story ideas, are like infants. They have soft spots in their skulls. Their plot backbones can't hold up their heads. They can't stand alone, much less feed or defend themselves. When we have a new story, we must cuddle it close and nourish it. Lots of quiet. Some silliness and fun. Maybe long walks and wordless humming. It's a special, intimate time.

When your story is new, you can maybe show it to a few special people. The ones you know will coo and tell you how beautiful your baby is. They might cuddle it too and speculate on what a fabulous future your baby might have. Choose these people carefully.

Because there are other people who won't be so careful. There's the selfish love-interest who'd just as soon kick your baby into a closet, all the better to have your attention. There's the careless teenager who criticizes your baby. Worst of all are the industry professionals.

It's their job - and they're good at it - to take your baby and shake it. To shake it hard and see if it's neck snaps. Then they'll hand it back to you with a sorrowful look and suggest that it might be brain-damaged. They'll tell you your baby can't hack it in the market.

Of course it can't - it's just a little baby. And now they've damaged it. Perhaps fatally.

Now if you grow your baby up, feed it the best nourishment, work with it to make it strong and smart then, when it walks into your agent or editor's office, it can take a bit of slapping. And likely give back what it gets. Then they give you the happy smile and say, yes! Now this kid has got what it takes. Let's send her out on the town! She'll take the city by a storm!

I know this can be difficult, especially when you have an agent. After all, an agent's job is to look over your babies and tell you which ones might make it and which she thinks you should just smother in their cribs. This happened to a friend of mine. She took her new novel idea - that she was tremendously excited about - to her agent and the agent said, Meh. She said there were too many other kids out there like it. Don't feed it, she said. Let it die.

My friend isn't working on it. But I know she still has that baby tucked into a back room and she's feeding it on the sly. She can't let it die. She loves it.

I'm totally behind that. I think she should grow this kid up, like the princess hidden away in the deep, dark forest. Then, when she's sixteen and more beautiful than anyone else in the kingdom, she can trot her daughter out and say, see? Look at *this* kid! She could be Queen of the realm.

So, my point is, baby your new stories. Realize how fragile, how vulnerable they are. It might take a lot of time for them to be strong enough to take the vicious blows of the marketing end. Don't expose them to that. Protect them. Be good to them. Love them.

Then bring out the tough love and put them through the wringer before they face the world.

Your stories will go on to lead brilliant lives. I just know it.

Love and Sunsets

I love it when the ridges look like this, all two-dimensional, like stage props to hint at landscape.

I remember coming down to Santa Fe with my folks when I was a kid -- right around this time of year, too. We'd often come down for Spring Break, sometimes staying, sometimes continuing farther south. I loved this look then, too. I'm pretty sure I even wrote an abysmal poem at some point about cardboard mountains propped against the western sky. It undoubtedly included something about my state of angst and wretched loneliness, which was, naturally, nonexistent.

But if there's angst to be found, an adolescent girl will dig it out.

Last evening I gazed at this view and thought how amazing that I get to see this every day now. Instead of wretched loneliness, I felt a rush of overwhelming gratitude. I took a moment to offer my thanks for all the blessings.

One of my favorite professors from college, David Hadas, who described himself as a non-practicing Orthodox Jew, had a favorite saying. It might have been from Martin Buber. He said that when terrible things happen to us, we raise our eyes to the sky and say why? Why me? But when wonderful things happen, we never ask "why me?"

Perhaps we are like favored children that way - we never question that we are loved, that we have a beautiful world to enjoy, that we have plenty. We might be just slightly spoilt that we throw tantrums when we don't get what we want, exactly the way we want it. But we mature and grow wiser, realizing that the bad comes with the good. How we decide to handle that defines who we become.

It's something for me to remember, that I'm incredibly lucky to have so many blessings in my life. Wanting more means that I'm alive and growing. In the meantime, I get to enjoy what I have.

Love and sunsets.

Why me?

Now, Where Did I Pack My Writing Career?

I hoped to get a shot of our covey of quail for you today, but I missed them.

Instead you get Teddy watching the sunset. Or maybe looking for quail in the chamisa.

It could have been that it was sunnier and brighter today. The last two days they all trooped by and pecked around in the gravel around 9:15. You can hear them coming, snooting around in the juniper to the west of the house. They chuckle amongst themselves as they approach. Then they scurry into sight from around the yucca plants.

They don't stay long. Maybe ten minutes, before they head off in a line again, heading farther east. Sometimes I see them come back through in the evening.

Today dawned bright and clear, however, so they might have started their perambulations earlier. Not like the cool misty mornings of the last two days. I, too, am resuming my schedule. As mine solidifies, I should better learn theirs.

We've gone running the last two mornings, though we're not back to getting up at 5:30. I've been productive at the day job. And now I'm going to work on my book revision. A file that has not been open since July 19, over a month ago. And I'm reasonably certain, by the timing of that date, that it was only to send it to an agent I met at RWA National. The outtakes file is dated June 2.

A sinking feeling tells me I haven't worked on it since June.

Time flies when you're losing your mind.

I had a little crisis this morning. My friend, Leanna Renee Hieber, celebrated the release of her first book yesterday, The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker. In fact, several friends had releases in the last few days. I tried not to be too envious. But then I also received my "royalty statement" from UNM Press for Wyo Trucks, which shows that the book is really dead to the world at this point. Never mind that I haven't been putting in ANY effort to sell it lately.

Nor into my revision of Obsidian.

Nor into writing anything new.

Thus: my crisis.

But my friend Allison was on the other other end of the IM with the perfect pep talk. She made me realize that all this means is that I have my head above water again, that I'm even thinking about my writing career again, instead of what box my frying pan might be in. It makes me think of Maslow's Pyramid of Needs, a model that has served me well all my life. Basically the idea is that, if a lower tier on the pyramid isn't handled, you can't possibly reach a higher tier. What sucks for us artist types? Creativity is the very top piece. Which basically means you have to have everything else in your life handled first.

So unfair.

But I have my manuscript open. I've got some great ideas from Allison on working my way back in.

Wonder-Twin Power? Self-Actualize!