Wait, it’s Tuesday? How did that happen?

Welcome back to Life After Contract where I talk about how things get suddenly different but also exactly the same.

After signing, one of the things that almost immediately happens is your time just drains away. Gone. Like, “Yesterday I had 24 hours in a day, and magically, mystically, today I only have 10. And I’m working my day job for 8 of them!”

Okay, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but almost the instant you get a contract, there’s now a million different things you have to do: edit the book, build a platform (if you don’t have one), edit your book, clean up your online profile (or delete a few as you never know how good your fans will be at digging), edit your book, and of course building marketing.

And all of that stuff is really boring. You shouldn’t talk about editing so much, at least not in any way that is actually interesting. The nitty gritty of editing is really boring and, in some cases, confidential. So no talky.

Building or dismantling profiles, well, no one wants to talk about deleting all those very personal posts on the very public blog. So nothing to talk about there.

Other boring writerly things that are suddenly important: Writing a bio, getting author pics, coming up with a plan for marketing, and unless you have a bunch of money to spend on advertising, now is the time to start selling your services to help launch your book, or to start pitching to all those reader blogs. This stuff swallows time in unreasonably large doses, eating away at all the other time, like the deadline bound editing, and the holy grail: writing the next book.

In the light of all those new responsibilities, many of which are grade A not interesting, it’s no wonder writers suddenly stop blogging so much. It is however part of the whole experience. And you can literally spend hours and hours on those tasks with nothing to show, nothing to point to. So yeah, right after the contract is a very exciting time filled with new tasks—some of which a writer may or may not be good at—and the book news is all exactly the same. So there’s not a lot to say.

Blog posts from this time go like this, “I did more writer stuff today. It was boring and confidential, so nope, I can’t talk about it. Some of it has me happy. Some of it has me sad. I’ve been told that I will sell more when I am happy, so don’t pay any attention to the part that isn’t happy. Besides, it’s not even real unhappiness, it’s disappointment that my contract didn’t come with all the great trappings of fame and fortune like those movies showed me—specifically, I’m not JK Rowling yet. PR refuses to work on that for me.”

For those of you reading who’ve been through the weird post contract-suddenly-my-title-changed-to-published-author-and-it-isn’t-like-the-movies, what parts were the hardest for you? 

Ideas are cheap

At least I tell myself that. But then I have an idea.

And here's how that goes

Shiny New Idea: (waving frantically) Hey! Hey! WRITE ME!! No, don't listen to that other idea! Write me!

Me: I have work to do. You know, a contract?

SNI: But I'm a brilliant new idea. You should be honored to have even had me. Do you know how rare we are?

Me: I had a good idea for a whole trilogy last week, what makes you so different?

SNI: I have an awesome title. (holds out hands while nodding)

Me: I don't have time for this.

SNI: But I won't let you down like all those other ideas. I am the IT factor. (widens eyes and nods).

Me:(long suffering sigh) Fine. I'll write you down. That's all I can promise. You'll have to wait in line with the others.

SNI: A line? A NUMBER? Fine, you wanna make me wait, fine. Have ALL THE THOUGHTS! (floods my brain with the whole world, the strange cultures, the twists, the imagery) HA! SEE IF YOU CAN WRITE LIKE THAT!

Me: Alright, I'll put together an outline, but I really do have a deadline. I need some space.

SNI: Okay, I can be patient. (leaks more imagery and some FEELS)

Me: Hey, I said space, okay?

SNI: I just don't want you to forget. I think I'm pretty awesome.

Me: I noticed.

SNI: (leaks more details)

Me: (sigh)

On limited resources

I write because I sort of have to (I know, I'm one of *those* writers). 

Then real life kicks in. Get to work. Get kids to school. Cook dinner. Clean house. Do laundry. Move the house. It’s not like I don’t want to have a clean home (actually, I sort of don’t care), but I don’t have time for it. I barely have time for anything. And the amazing thing is that I always manage to find time for writing.

Always.

I’m starting a new job soon (Yay!), but I’m worried about the time it’ll take away from my writing (boo!). I probably shouldn’t be. It’s not that I’m some super organized person, but as more hours are eaten, I spend less time watching TV and messing around on the internet. (confession: I sometimes tell myself that I’m giving my brain an opportunity to receive inspiration, but I’ve never had inspiration while messing around on twitter**)

At one point, I thought I should be careful with my ideas, that I might one day run out of them—HA! I wish I could go back and tell that person not to be so careful with those ideas. I might have made some cool stuff if I’d let some of those ideas out into the wild. Now I can barely keep them in orderly queues as they wait their turn to be turned into words on paper.

The time doesn’t run out.

The ideas don’t run out.

So instead of saying goodbye to my blog—like I’ve done when things get all tied up in my head—I’ll just say, I'll post when I post. I'll probably post about the same, but maybe less. Maybe I’ll give up agent and editor stal—research! I was going to say research. So if you see less of me on twitter or blogger or facebook (yeah, I’m on facebook), it’s not that I’ve lost weight, I’m just busy writing.

**I did once get an idea when Bridget Smith, an agent, tweeted that she wanted an MG based off a song. I held that song in my head for 9 months before the characters from that book showed up and introduced themselves. Like all my other characters, I told them to get in line—I have stuff to do.