Tag Archive | stories

Author Confessions: Who Is My Audience?

Aug11
Reading Time: 4 minutes

Author Confessions: Who Is My Audience?

This is a questions authors are asked by publishers and agents. When writing a book, who is your audience? Who are you hoping will purchase this book? It can’t be too broad. I write romance and I cannot say, “Women from 18 to 98.”

Although I have had women from that age range (and younger, and sometimes men!), the idea is to narrow down the audience so marketing can be aimed their direction.

I ran some advertisments last year through META and it was funny because someone messaged me complaining about my ad being on her page. “Get off my page!” she stated. I explained that it was automated and she can tell Facebook she doesn’t want to see the advertisment. I told her to have a nice day and then she was nicer to me. Obviously, regardless of what META’s algorhythm was, she wasn’t my target audience.

I’ve had teenagers read my books and I’ve had a man in his 80’s be the first in line to pick up any new contemporary romance from me. A former pastor of mine also read all my books as they would come out. Mine were the only fiction he would read and he greatly enjoyed the stories.

So then, who is my audience?

Originally, I started writing for myself. I always loved Regency romances, however, many on the market have unnecessary sex scenes. There was not a lot of inspirational or Christian Regency romances available to someone who devoured them (me!). Those were my great escape. When I started writing, I wrote a Regency (The Virtuous Viscount) and the audience was: me.

I primarily write the stories I want to write, the ones I believe God is giving me. Some are easier to write than others and with everyone I learn new things about writing, life, and myself. Writing fiction can be a revelation to me, not just to the reader. When I’ve co-authored, there was a differen’t process for those books and to be honest, they were harder for me to write. I’m glad I did them, and I learned a lot, but prefer writing my own stories while still editing those of other authors I work with through Pelican Book Group.

I am my audience, but that doesn’t sell many books, does it? It takes a lot of my time between the first draft, edits, and then going through the publishing process (with numberous other edits) and marketing. I do want other people to be blessed by the books God gave me to write. They will not be everyone’s cup of tea, and there is a lot of great fiction out there.

While there’s a part of me that envies authors who have a bigger audience and reach, I remember that I only need to reach the one person who needs the message God gave me for each book. A message that might encouraged them, or cause them to draw close to God in a fresh way, or even for the first time. While that’s a noble thought it doesn’t pay all the people who work on that book, does it? Every single one deserves to be paid for the work they do from cover art, editing, copyediting, formatting, getting it in the system, marketing etc. A book at $17.99 isn’t going to be enough to pay for all that and the cost of printing.

While I say I write for myself, I’m missing the most important audience: Jesus, the Word Himself! I write as an act of worship and hope to honor Him with the words that are put on the page.

A relationship also happens with some readers, who I know personally, who have blessed me with their prayers and words of encouragement “When is the next book coming out?” It’s wonderful to know there are those who love the stories, but some of them even love me. That is a blessing I cherish.

All that to say, I pray that God will lead people who need my stories to find those books. I work harder at that now than I ever did on the marketing. Not sure yet how that will all work out but I recognize that fame and fortune, while good and yes, I would like money to help sustain the basic necessities of life, are not as important as honoring God in and through the process. He is the One who is in control.

Fans of my stories can also help by writing reviews on Amazon. They can be short and sweet but they can help others find my books. Also helpful is sharing with others about them and recommending them. Word of mouth, or sharing on Facebook or Instagram or Twitter can help as well. The nice thing for new readers is, there is a great back-catalogue of stories for them to read if they decide they like my stories.

I’ll keep plugging away at the writing… and appreciate your prayers and encouragement on the way.

Who is my audience? Most likely it’s you.

Author Confessions: Flip the Script (AKA Reframing)

May19
Reading Time: 7 minutes

Author Confessions: Flip the Script (AKA Reframing)

As an author, I get to dictate how my characters tell their story which can sometimes reveal how they view the events of their past. Sometimes, even the not sharing of details can tell a lot as well as the emotions they experience attached to those events.

This is also true for us as real life human beings. However, we can learn to reframe events and consider them from a different perspective which can sometimes make difficult memories easier to bear.

Years ago, when my kids were little and the youngest was in a forward facing car seat, our car decided that after coming to a stop for a red light, on a busy road at night, that it would not move. Transmission issue. After calling the police to see if they could protect us from being hit from behind, because of course was in the middle of three lanes at that point, I called for a tow truck. When the tow truck arrived, he needed to pull our mini-van onto a flat bed trailer. The rules for the company he worked for stated that there could be no occupants. The police officer, however, insisted that it was not safe for us to evacuate three children in the middle of a busy highway. The tow truck operator relented. My kids were frightened about this little ride and I told them cheerfully, “This is an adventure!”

Apparently, I’d been trying to reframe far too many things that way because my youngest said, “I’m tired of having adventures.” Funny kid, but she was serious and scared. After we were secured on the truck, he moved us to to a bank parking lot just off the highway where we then had to empty the van of our belongings, children, and their required car seats. I think that was the most terrifying part because we were really high up at this point with not much space to step when outside of the van. I’m handing my kids down to a tow truck driver, friend, and police officer to help them off. Thankfully, we got everything out safely and transfered  to another vehicle someone brought for use while that one was being repaired. Hint: we eventually ended up purchasing a different model of mini-van that was not as prone to those transimission issues.

Was it an adventure? Sure it was, although I wonder if my kids even remember that night like I do. I wanted my kids to feel safe in a dangerous situation and unfortunately, they saw through it. I was trying to reframe a disturbing event into something fun, like a carnival ride. Didn’t work, but I tried anyway. I think the tow truck driver thought was nuts when he heard me yell that joyfully to the kids. Maybe I was. Maybe I still am!

We all have a tendency to recite stories of our past I believe we become more fixed in those stories as we age. Listen to any older person as they tell the same stories over and over again and in pretty much the same wording. The issue might be senilililty but the brain remembered something it had recited for years.

Part of psychology helps people to look at negative events differently. Sometimes as we grow older we recognize that while an event happened and we reacted to it a certain way, as we gain more information that can change our perspective. Understanding more of what drove another person to say or do things can help us not feel as victimized, which in many ways can decrease a trauma response when the past is brought into fresh light and examined.

My husband has a way of telling a story of his more recent past that concerned me and I finally told him that perhaps he could word it differently. We talked about how not everyone needed to know all those details but if the main point of his story was the ending, and what God did for him, then perhaps he should focus on that part of the story instead. Sometimes dredging up the past and reciting old hurts is a way to process trauma we don’t completely understand. However, if we understand that God used that in a powerful way, then maybe we can learn a new way to talk about that event. It has changed some of his conversations now which is a positive step for him.

I hope I’m making sense. Reframing, or flipping the script and changing the stories we tell ourselves about our past can be a part of our healing process. I think this might be why God kept telling people to mark down events that happened and recite the might acts of God on their behalf. This way they wouldn’t be so inclined to focus on the negative and be whiny complaining victims, instead of trusting a God who had done miraculous things to rescue them from slavery to the Egyptians. Songs were written and sung. There are repetitions throughout Scripture of the faith of those who believed and the faith they had in God.

We too easily fall into a victim mentality and I believe this has escalated in our current cultural climate. Too many have become spoiled, lazy, and entitled. As well as angry and vindictive. This is nothing new. The Israelites did that in the desert, defying and doubting God at every turn and then suffering the consequences of that.

I’m not saying we cannot talk about what hurts us. Life is hard we all face challenges at some level. There are highs and lows in all our lives and sometimes we have to move past hurts from our past to learn a new way to see the world–and the God who created and designed us and delights in those who come to him as Father. For a time it is good to talk a bout these things with someone who can help us view it differently.

For instance, I kept telling myself I was lazy. Then a doctor told me I had Hashimotos Disease, a Vitamin D deficiency and a few other things. I wasn’t lazy, I was sick, and those malfunctions in my body, impacted my ability to function. I’ve been in remission for a long time now which is wonderful. However, when I have a day when perhaps I don’t get as much done, I do have a wonderful husband and friends who remind me of all I do accomplish. A wise therapist said, “I don’t think you give yourself enough credit for the things you do well.” Whoa.

It is part of our sinful human nature to focus on the negative. The world loves to argue and take issue with people and color individuals with a broad stroke of insults. The reality is we do this to ourselves but perhaps more subversively.

When I have a low key day, I’m learning that I need to listen to my body and trust that a slower pace, or rest, are more in line with what God wants for me that day. I don’t have a tendency to procrastinate, and to be honest, I have a lot on my plate and am juggling so much right now that I’m writing this post the day before it is scheduled to appear. That is not normal for me, but God is ultimately in control of my days and hours and if I’m seeking Him first in all things, then everything else will eventually fall into place. Tell my brain that when I’m trying to go to sleep and all of a sudden the slavedriver inside starts whipping me about a cacophany of things to be done, almost as if I should rise and do them right that moment.

But sleep is important too and without that, anything I try to do the next day is already jeopardized. So I tell the slavedriver to leave me alone and focus on breathing and drift off to sleep. 99% of the time that works anyway.

Reciting the good things God has done, and the ways He has been faithful can help. During a difficult time I asked a friend to remind me of God’s faithfulness to me. I needed to hear it said. She wouldn’t do it because she said I had no faith. I called another friend, a sweet older woman who told me all she had seen God doing in my life and told me that sometimes we need others to remind us. Scripture back this up as older people are to remind the younger of all God had done. That’s general history. How much more do we need to remind ourselves? Those things become part of our testimony of God’s work in our lives.

Someone said to me, “I can’t  believe you married him (referring to my ex-husband).” I told her, “I understand why I did, and what was going in me at that time, but it’s not worth discussing now. I am a different person today, than I was then, and those experiences changed me.” What that person considered a way to insult and demean me became useless. I’m not that person anymore and if I tried to explain it to her she likely wouldn’t understand the role she played in all that. Which is fine. It’s not something important to dwell on now, at this time in my life, when I’m married to a man who treats me with love and respect, and sincerely seeks my best interests. God rescued me and while I despaired over the delay of that rescue, now I can see that His timing was perfect and I’m grateful He helped me stay close to Him through those painful years. Those events are now in a book on a shelf in the library of my mind and I typically only pull out and recite the stories of God’s tangible presence and the ways He continually showed me He loved and cared for me even when I sometimes doubted it.

Refraiming. Flipping the script. Are there events in your life you need to revist and view from a different perspective of time and maturity?

I love these lyrics by Bob Farrell and Greg Nelson. Long Look is an older song but sometimes taking a long look can help us see things more clearly. What do you think?

I can hardly believe my feet have brought me this far
To the top of a mountain, at the edge of the stars
And I know there′s a reaon God has shown me this place
To see with new vision the journey I face
I’m a river that reels through the distance below
Winding through choices and the way I must go
I take a long look, a long look
It′s a hard climb that takes a long time
I can see where I’m going and some places I’ve been
I take a long, long look
Every summit I reach seems the highest I′ve been
With my valleys below, God renews me again
I can say my good-byes to all the struggle and tears
When I see through His eyes I′ve got nothing to fear
For joy’s there to meet me and wisdom′s my friend
My companion that helps me find purpose again

 

Author Confessions: Too Much Trauma

Jun17
Reading Time: 4 minutes

Author Confessions: Too Much Trauma

I was pondering how we use tragedies, setback, unfortunate incidents to move a story along. No one wants to read a story about someone whose life is going along great and they have everything they need materially, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. It’s odd to think that heaven will have none of those things and while we don’t like the trials that come our way, some of our own making perhaps, we do (hopefully!) grow through them in real life.

The same is true for characters in a book. They have to face challenges and grow or the reader won’t want to read the story. Maybe it’s cathartic for the reader (and it can be for the author) to witness, on a page, someone triumphing over difficulties.

But there can be too much trauma and it can be a balancing act about how much we show the reader about the difficulties a character may face. When I had to write the prologue for Pesto and Potholes because my Editor-in-chief insisted, it should have come with a trigger warning. It was hard to write. There is another scene earlier in the story where my character faces and attempted rape that I had to walk that carefully as well. How to be descriptive and let the reader feel the terror and pain without overwhelming them. It was hard to do.

I was thinking the other day that no one is writing stories about Covid-19. Maybe that’s too close and too universal. Maybe because opinions can be polarizing: vaccinated or unvaccinated. Emotions in this country (and perhaps around the world) ran high and opinions on treatment, masking, social distancing, closing schools, churches, and businesses, are still debated. The trauma is still experienced by many whether they had Covid or not. Too much trauma? Or just too difficult to write a story that would rise above all that? My guess is it is a little of both. Maybe forty years from now someone will write a historical novel about it when we are all far enough removed? But I for one, have no wish to write a novel that deals specifically with that. Could it appear as a side note? Sure, but not center stage.

The reality is many of us suffer from various traumas in our lives. Some are so severe they develop Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder or Dissociative Disorder. There is a newer term called Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder that can encompass more long-term trauma but as of now it isn’t recognized by the American Psychological Association. However, there are a variety of doctors who have been lobbying for it to be included and there are countless books on the subject. I’ve tried reading a few but even that can be triggering so I need to go slow due to my own undiagnosed (because it isn’t valid on medical forms) cPTSD.

There have been some books I’ve edited that could have been triggering and some I’ve struggled with, not because the author didn’t do a good job, or I didn’t like the story, only because it hit too close to my own experience. I had someone who read an early version of Pesto and Potholes who got angry. Why? “How did you know my life story?” I didn’t. She was happy with the final product though and is one of my biggest fans as an author, and a dear sister in Christ who I see often at church. I’m grateful God could use it in a positive way and while I wouldn’t wish a reader pain in reading a story, I’m happy that the way I dealt with it satisfied her. That was a pretty high bar to reach.

There’s a popular phrase that God will never give us more than we can bear. That’s a lie. He often allows too much trauma so we can depend on Him. So too, our characters might face difficulties but the balancing act as an author is to make sure it’s not too much. Sometimes reality is stranger and much more difficult than fiction. I wonder if Job had been written more from a third person point of view of Job (and maybe his wife) we might feel the depth of pain and  loss at a level that would be too difficult to read. He lost all of his kids. Done. No funeral mentioned, just tragedy upon tragedy. But I imagine the depth of grief was the worst of everything he endured. Remembering their births, moments of fun and play, the last time they talked, their dreams, his hopes for grandchildren that would never be. Fast forward and God gave him more  children. Can you imagine? All his kids were adults from what we can discern, then everything is restored but him and his wife go through pregnancy, birth, and raising an entirely new LARGE family! I’m exhausted just thinking about it!

As an author who loves Jesus, I always hope to bring the hope of Christ to every story, no matter what the trauma. Not necessarily “in-your-face” kind of hope but that undergirding strength and encouragement that the Holy Spirit gives us to endure and overcome the challenges in our lives.

When I sign books I always cite James 1:17 which states: Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow. This verse comes after James has talked about trials, difficulties, and temptations and asks us to consider it joy. JOY? That something is gut-wrenchingly heart-stoppingly painful? Somewhere in the midst of our pain there is a gift that God is birthing and James wants to remind us of that. I also sign my books with You are a gift. We can’t forget that God created each person with a purpose to bring glory to Himself but also to serve a purpose in the lives of others in this world.

Trauma. Joy. We can have too much trauma in life and in books but hopefully the love and presence of Christ through His Holy Spirit will get us through to the gifts awaiting us on the other side.

Author Confessions: We Don’t Always Get to Publish the Story We Want

Apr8
Reading Time: 5 minutes

Author Confessions: We Don’t Always Get to Publish the Story We Want

That seems kind of odd to say doesn’t it? If I publish a story, wasn’t it the one I wanted to publish? Not necessarily. There are several reasons why an author doesn’t always get to publish the story they want to.

Reason 1: The story is not one that a publisher accepts. This might be because the author hasn’t found the right publisher for their story. Or maybe they did but the publisher already published something similar or has something similar in the works. Even with fiction they don’t want to publish stories that are too close in concept. I have received stories that were no where near what our publisher would accept as they violate our core principles (not Christian faith represented, foul language, sex…) and those I had to politely reject.

Reason 2: The story isn’t ready yet. This happens quite often where an author submits a story that needs a lot more polishing. As an editor I used to give a lot more feedback on stories like this but after being taken advantage of too often I can no longer do this. Yes, I was a sucker. I understand how hard it is to be published so I would read the entire story and give concrete feedback on how it could be improved. This is something I was not paid for. One author responded and said: “I knew it wasn’t ready but wanted your free edit.” Really? Now that wouldn’t have been so bad if she had resubmitted it to me with the changes so I could have maybe recouped my time in some kind of compensation down the line. I told that author’s agent that he should never submit any of her work to me again. She had taken the story, reworked it, and submitted it to someone else and got published. And to be honest, I don’t have that kind of time to do that for free.

Reason 3: There are drastic changes that need to be made to the story. This happened to me. I had a story, Truffles & Traffic and I tried something a little different with four points-of-view. I’d seen another author do this successfully and thought maybe I’d give it a shot. My editor hated the concept and I had to rewrite the story drastically, removing that romance to only be seen through the eyes of the two primary characters. I think the story is still good, but it wasn’t want I had wanted to publish. I tried something and failed at it. Now maybe another publisher would have liked that but had already contracted it before being given that news so I did the work to get it changed.

Reason 4: The author never submits the story. Yes, this happens way too often. I might meet an author at a conference and hear his or her pitch for a story and get excited about it and want to see it. Fear often sets in. Sure they might work on it more based on suggestions or things they learned at the conference but either they chicken out and fear the rejection or they realize this is more work than they really want to put into it. I attended a conference where an author got a book contract and the editor said he didn’t know whether to congratulate her or feel sorry for her because now the hard work was going to begin. Another part of this is that some authors have stories they wrote or started and never finished. Fear? They started writing something different and left one behind. It just never gets published and that’s OK!

This actually happened to my friend DeeDee Lake who I finally co-authored several books with. She had started it and had a lot of ideas but the timeline didn’t work and she had too many plot points to fit well into one book. As a result we wrote four together! The first story wasn’t want she initially intended, but I think it was better.

Reason 5: Not ever story needs to be published. Writing can be it’s own reward. I’ve met with many people who want to write and I encourage them to do it, but don’t start out writing with the goal of being published. While it would be lovely if every story could be published, it is a lot of work and sometimes writing your story, your experiences, or even something creative, is all that you need. There is catharsis in doing that. I’ve seen people make their own books to only share with family but not sell to the wider public and that is fine as well. Not every story needs to go through the gamut of the publishing industry to have value. If you write something and love it and want to share it with the world and are willing to commit to the work it takes to get published? Then go for it.

Reason 6: Something in your story is triggering something in the editor. Whew, this is a tough one. Usually if I contract a story, I’m the editor for it, but we have copyeditors as well and sometimes it might be that person who has an issue with something in your story. This might result from a bad experience they’ve had and they might react to some of the content or the way your story takes shape. The reality is not every story is right for everybody. I had an author pitch a story and something about it made me uncomfortable. We’d published other stories by her and we wanted to work with her. My Editor-in-chief gave a suggestion about how it could be changed to be more palatable but due to the initial “yuck” factor I asked that it be assigned to another editor. It was. Then that editor needed to resign due to health issues and it ended up back on my plate. It was a fine story but due to the emotions I had the first time around I never could shake that “yuck” feeling although with the changes it was just fine. I had this happen to one of my stories as well and finally I needed to ask for a different editor because I realized the emotional reaction she’d had to my story, even after I made many of the changes she requested, meant that she’d not be able to accept that it was MY story and some of what she asked for, I wasn’t willing to change. That’s a hard road to travel as an author. I’ve even called authors to talk to them when a copy editor has had an issue–mostly so they understand that I am in their corner and I love their story–but could you go back and make these changes? Every time it has been good but sometimes the personal touch is important. Otherwise most of what is communicated is on paper and it can lose the validation that an author really does need. Publishing can be a scary process.

I have other stories that changed drastically over the course of editing, before and after being contracted, so they weren’t the story I originally intended to tell. Some of that is me growing as an author in my craft, but it’s good to remember that sometimes even after a contract, significant changes might be made to a manuscript. A good editor will understand your voice and respect that. Still, before you submit a story, remember that we don’t always get to publish the story we want--but hopefully it will be even better than what you had planned for.

 

 

The Difference between Being a Writer and a Schizophrenic

Aug4
Reading Time: 3 minutes

Non-writers probably cannot relate to the obsession to write that overtakes an author. Some writers plot and plan everything. For me an idea, a character, or a first scene starts me off. Slowly the characters share with me their back story and as the story progresses I have no idea what will happen next.

Image courtesy of anat_tikker / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Image courtesy of anat_tikker / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

It’s a wild roller-coaster ride, but I hold on tight. I can’t avoid it as the characters will taunt me until I set my fingers to the keyboard and write.

My characters pretty much hijack my life. They hold me hostage at gunpoint with an urgency to get their story on paper (or computer). There’s a desperation that underlies the tale.

So I write. Frantically. I leave gaps and highlight spots to go back to. I think about my characters first thing in the morning and I dream about them at night.

When life calls me to leave the house to do other things–serve at church, grocery shop, mow the lawn, editing work on other author’s stories–my characters are always there.

How is being a writer different from schizophrenia? Schizophrenia is a mental disorder where the sufferer often hears voices that are not there. They might see things that are not there. Feeling and smelling things is rarer. Sometimes those voices are mean and insulting. Sometimes they deceive and taunt the sufferer. The difference between a writer though and someone with this type of mental illness is multiple:

  • I can shut up my characters by writing what they tell me. When I get a story down on paper and it’s done, they leave me alone. I’m free to move on with my life. Voices for those struggling with mental illness are constant and rarely change. They don’t even have a story to tell. They are just there and serve no helpful purpose.
  • My character’s voices are generally nice. Since I write happily ever after stories, while they might suffer and struggle to get there, I love my characters and enjoy the time I spend with them. The become dear friends, but my time in their company is short. Schizophrenics can sense friendliness at times from their imaginary friends, but most often they are not. And they never really go away.
  • People generally want to know about my characters. They want to hear about the stories and hopefully will read them. Most people with schizophrenia are afraid to share their voices, and because the voices don’t tell a nice story, there’s nothing fun to share with others that anyone would really want to hear.
  • My characters never force me to do anything worse than write their stories. Sometimes people with mental illness are led to actions that are harmful to themselves or others. Usually those are isolated incidents and minimized with the help of medication. The terror that many live with though never really goes away. It’s only managed. Medication doesn’t help a writer but might actually make the voices louder. Probably why many great writers throughout history had substance abuse issues. They found those things helped them access the creativity and write in a more uninhibited way. (I am not advocating that!)
  • The one similarity though may be a tendency to be more moody. I deeply experience whatever my characters are going through. Depression is not uncommon among writers. Schizophrenics as well can become quite depressed as they experience emotions related to unreal events.

It is sometimes said that writing is the only acceptable form of schizophrenia. That’s really not true. For one, they are not the same and secondly, schizophrenics are acceptable human beings too. They just suffer from a terrible illness that can make relationships difficult to maintain. Trust is a challenge and reality is scary.

Hopefully my books do the opposite for those that read them, in spite of the wild ride I take to get that rough draft written.