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I'm an Author. I love to write, I love to read and I just love books in general.

Thursday, February 10, 2011

My crazy writing world and A's to Q's

I’m not someone who anyone should probably try to take lessons from. LOL. I recently have talked to a lot of authors via emails. I have to say that they are some of the nicest, most supportive people I’ve ever had the privilege of getting to know. Most of them ask me how I managed to get nine books out last year. They want to know my secret. I’m obsessive, don’t have much of a personal life, and I love to write. I also suffer from insomnia so sleep isn’t something I need in spades, I drink a LOT of iced coffee (total addict), and I can literally keep three or four WIP’s going at once. I don’t suffer from writer’s block. If I get hung up on one book, I just switch to another, and then can later come back at it with a fresh set of eyes to make it move again. That’s the secret I guess. I also really love what I do.

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I’m also lucky enough to be at home full time. I have three kids who are all in school and at an age where they are into their own amusement for the most part. That helps. I have a very supportive husband who doesn’t mind going to bed alone while I’m enjoying the writing hours without interruption while they all sleep and he is totally willing to pitch in with the kids and home. We share the cooking duties. He does laundry. It really helps free up more of my time. The hours I put into writing each week would probably shock a workaholic. I love every minute of it. I get a lot of warnings about not burning out. You can’t do that on something you live and breathe. For once in my life I have free license to let my imagination go wild. It’s like spreading my wings and learning how to fly. Amazing!

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I’m a series reader so I guess it affects how I write. I want to know about what happens to the friends and family of characters in books I read. I want to know more about their world, what goes on, and how it progresses. When the stories are mine I can ‘make it so’. (Blame Mr. Laurann for the Trekkie humor) I’d like to write a standalone book at some point.

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My world sometimes hits bumps. Example? A few weeks ago this storyline that I played with a couple of years ago…popped into my head. It got a tight hold on me, became something that filled all my waking thoughts pretty much, and I opened up a new word document. I started to type. One chapter turned into two…and before I knew it…I’d been hijacked by this story. Total obsession.

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It couldn’t have happened at a worse time. I’d been dedicating my time to finishing two books that are close to the end. I wanted to submit one this week. I haven’t touched either of them since this book has taken over my life. I finished it last night so in two weeks I wrote just over 63,000 words in this book. Even for me that’s a feat. I couldn’t believe it could be a good story because to be honest, it came too fast, too easy, and it’s different from my usual stuff. It’s dialog heavy to my mind but I had two people I trust read most of it and they claim to LOVE it! I’m going to edit to clean it a bit and send them the rest…and cross my fingers they love the last few chapters as well.

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I hadn’t even finished this ‘hijack’ book yet but the next two books had already formed inside my head. Last night when I cuddled into Mr. Laurann ready to call it a late night at three in the morning… another book popped up. Now I have three more books I want to write to go with ‘hijack’ instead of two. Note to self – STOP thinking ‘what if…’ when I already have way too many projects on my plate!

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Is my world crazy? YES. I have way too many stories roaming around in my imagination and they fight it out for dominance on who gets my attention. Now that I’ve finished my obsession…I can return to my two WIP’s it took me away from. I’ll then deal with the books that haunt me demanding to be typed out. Right now there are, seriously, about twelve books stuck in my head. I don’t have enough time, ever, regardless of if I put in sixteen hour days and I do write seven days a week. I’ve refrained from turning to technology to get even more done. An author shared this neat program (can’t remember the name) so you can talk and it dictates your words into the computer. OMG. Can you imagine? I’d be out and about, talking away into a recorder, and people would think… wow, that is one crazy lady who talks to herself! I’d hook it up during those few hours I sleep to get my voiced notes into the computer…wake up to it all on the screen…and it would be as if I worked 24/7. SCARY! Tempting…but no! I am with the kids or Mr. Laurann when I’m away from my computer. I want them to have my full attention.

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On top of it all, I wrote for years, have 53 books that sit in a file, and some of them I’d love to rescue. They need updated. I’ve learned A LOT from my talented editors who take the time to teach me my bad habits with every edit so I’m a much better author. I see a huge difference. I write cleaner, I make less mistakes, and it just sounds better. HUGE difference. If anyone out there thinks editors are something they don’t need, think again. They are an author’s best friend even if you dread edits, if they make you flinch, or cringe – even pull out tissues deciding maybe this isn’t something you’re good at. They tell you what works, what doesn’t, and where your weaknesses are. ALL things you need to learn and know.

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The trouble is I have so many new projects I want to write…those old files sit. I’ve started to spend at least four hours here and there on them. I sent one of them out to an author friend who was gracious enough to carefully go over that beast to find where it needs help. It’s a BIG book, not an easy task, but she faced it head on. (Authors are fearless sometimes!) It’s also the first book in a nine book series I wrote. That means not only updating that first one and polishing it up but eight more to deal with after that… and if I am being honest, there are six more books in that series that I put on hold when I started my writing career when I wrote Ral’s Woman. Yeah. Fifteen books in all, more stories to tell in that series, so… insane. And we’re not talking a stop at book #15. I’ve been with this storyline of this series for…oh boy…at least a decade. More. Ever heard of an author’s pet project? Their golden child they love the most? I’ll call it N.S series. N.S is my…baby. The characters were my friends, my people, and are real to me. You can’t spend years of your life writing about a subject in your spare time without them becoming a part of you. I know that probably sounds crazy to anyone except an author. I swear I’m not certifiable. I want to launch that series in the future if I’m lucky enough to get them contracted once I have them ready to submit.

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I have another file of ‘books I footprinted’ which means there’s anywhere from one to seven chapters down). Don’t ask how many. It would SHOCK you. I had a lot of ideas but no time to really write before I committed to getting published after all my kids were in school. I wrote ALL NEW stuff when I did submit my books. I’ve only updated and reworked one of my old books to try to get it published. That was Mate Set.

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What is my version of footprinting a book? Example? The 5th and 6th Zorn are partly written. I didn’t want to lose the feel of them although I knew I’d put them on hold after getting four of them published to work on my other series. One of them is half done while another one is about four chapters deep. I can read what is there and literally step right back into the storyline as if I never took a break. It’s why I call it footprinting.

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I try to be fair to my series by writing one of each. I made exception in the case of Touching Ice. I couldn’t leave poor Coal in a life pod stuck with Zorus. I finished Ice and wrote right into Coal. To me it wasn’t as if there were two separate books. It was as if I’d kept writing one but changed over character’s stories mid book. It was really fun! Stealing Coal was picked up by Ellorascave but I don't have a release date yet. I WILL get back to Zorn Warriors (I did start those books) but I need to even up some books for other series I have going first. I just don’t know who will win the fight for dominance on who gets headspace after my next four projects. LOL. Kind of a sexy mental image, huh? I hope they are naked when they wrestle it out! Hang on a sec…I’m imagining that…

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I get asked what kind of books I used to write before I got published. Werewolves (I have a few series I wrote), a lot of books similar to the Raines, and I wrote standalone books! Imagine that! LOL. I wrote two books about two cousins who live on a Reservation after I spent a little time on one. I wrote a few romances with humor from being raised on a farm (I couldn’t resist – I shoved some true humorous moments of my life in there). I even wrote a few murder mysteries! I wrote a few books about some woman who ends up in danger and finds herself rescued by some sexy hero. SIGH… I love to write those. I wrote one historical western. And the closest thing to science fiction I wrote was my first finished book and the four books that followed it. MAJOR work to ever clean that hot mess up! What inspired me to write it? What else? I thought… 'What if there was an accident with chemical weapons involved…' It took me a year to write my first novel, its 300 and some pages long, and I honestly don’t think I’ll ever find THAT MUCH TIME to rescue it. Think of an editor’s worst nightmare MS with so many errors…yeah…and there you have it! But hey, I finished it and that’s how you start! It sits on my bookshelf in a three ring binder printed out and it makes me smile when I glance at it.

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I hope everyone has a great day.

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Laurann

7 comments:

  1. Hi to you Laurann! Congrats on your Feb 1 release! Your wonderful writing habits make most of us jealous, lol. Keep it up. I only wish I were a third as fast as you!!

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  2. Thank you, Kaye. I did mention I have no social life, right? LOL! Thankfully Mr. Laurann enjoys spending time at home with me because I rarely go out.

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  3. I think you rock, Laura. You're one of my many inspirations when I want to slack off and just stare into space instead of write, LOL. I think what you've managed to do is just awesome. Keep doing it! There's nothing like getting to make a living at something you love.

    Hope to email you soon... :)

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  4. Cari,
    I've been VERY fortunate to get to do this for a living full time and yeah...I'm a workaholic. A bit obsessive. I just love it that much. I think you rock too!

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  5. Laurann,
    go for it I say, being healthy means keeping healthy, even with the occasional burn out.
    And I love that term 'gracious' LOL!!!

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  6. gah - that was meant to be - being HAPPY means keeping HEALTHY!!!!

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  7. Mel,
    No worries. See? Editors! Aren't they awesome??? LOL! They would have cleaned up your words before they were printed so people knew what you meant to say but your mind 'burped' on. I do it all the time. Ask facebook. LOL!

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