One breath at a time

I haven't been blogging as much as I like.

I haven't been sleeping as much as I like.

Let me be clear on this point as well: I haven't been writing as much as I like.

My life feels like it exploded. I'm half moved into a house that's half done (and 3/4 left to do!). I'm working overtime at the day job because construction is expensive.

I've passed the end of the rope. Last week I averaged 5 hours of sleep a night for the whole week. This is not Rena at her best.

I start making poor choices. Things seem bigger than they are. I react more.

I react.

In short, I'd be a terrible character in a novel.

So I unpack a box. I fix a hole in the wall. We replaced a broken window. One foot in front of the other. A blog post here. A short story there. Life will return.

There's a saying that I sums up the determination to keep moving forward when I'm overwhelmed and can barely function in the reality of my own life: If you have to walk through Hell, why would you drag your heels while you're there?

So I unpack another box. Grout more tile (more??? And we're not DONE YET???). Hey Rena, is that cement in your hair?

Don't judge me.

Also, that grout has sparkling glass pieces in it. That's not cement, it's jewelry (also, it's the stain proof grout, so that's not coming out without bleach).

IWSG - A rose by any other name would be 13% less awesome

This month's IWSG is co hosted by Nancy Gideon, Bob R Milne, Doreen McGettigan, Chrys Fey, Bish Denham, and Pat Garcia.

OF course, you should always hop on by the Ninja Captain's secret camp and jump on the linky. 

Right on to the main event. 

I don't know if anyone else saw this, but here it is. This article makes me want to cry. 

Go ahead, go read it. 

A lot of people are saying that it doesn't mean anything. A lot of people are saying that it just means that agents are nicer to men because they figure women can handle the truth but men need to be coddled. 

I'm afraid it does mean something. It's the truth. In academia, they did a similar experiment with applicants to work in science labs across the country and found that male applicants were seen as 13 percent more competent when the only difference in their resume was whether it was a girl's name or a boy's name. 13 percent. The author of this article quotes much higher numbers, ~ 33%, but it's the bias that is important to understand. It's important to note that the lab technician experiment had exactly the same bias across both sexes. Well respected, women scientists rated the boy's application higher than the girl's and the only difference was the name.

I've struggled with sexism in my writing before. It is so pervasive that the first comments out of people's mouths when I pitched a particular book with a woman protag who needed to go save the world was "but who's going to watch her kids?"

No really, that was the feedback I got. Nevermind that the mom is going out to SAVE the World and therefore HER KIDS! Everyone wanted to make sure she was raising those kids right. Oddly, when I changed the pitch to make sure that the kids were responsibly being watched, they feedback was, "but how can she leave her kids to go fight a war?"

This always upset me. Women leave their kids to go fight wars. They have always done so. In recent days, they have done so in the US Armed Forces. And we don't have a lot of fiction that captures how they feel absolutely torn inside about how they want to be the ones tucking their kids into bed at night, but someone has to protect and serve our nation. 

No one asks Superman who's watching his kids, he just has to save the world. This sort of sexism and bias has hurt me in many ways, probably ways I'll never realize, so this article about a woman changing her name makes me want to stop fighting. It makes me want to close down my blog, delete my FB and twitter accounts and set up shop as Guy Fasseless. 

So, I'm insecure because I already know that just having my name on the book means it's already seen as at least 13% not as good as if I wrote as Robert Rocford. 

Thoughts? Comments? 

(also, I totally reserve the right to delete comments that are just nasty, as this is my blog and all)

Moving and intermittent availability

Sweet mother of the seven plots, I am so tired. I'm also moving, and no, that doesn't mean I'm finished remodeling. I get closer everyday.

Somewhere over the last year, I stopped doing weights. Now that i'm schlepping boxing around, I can honestly say: BAD IDEA. On the plus side, I'll get a few weeks of carting around my library boxes prior to the main event: Moving my baby grand piano!

In renovation news, well here it is, a warning not to cut corners at the end. 

A pile of broken dreams or a steel wrecking ball?

I came across an old bit of a post that I'd saved but never published. (remember, we aren't supposed to write about querying, despite the fact that it's one of the hardest things writers do, just after submissions, reading bad reviews, getting dropped by publisher and having agent leave the business).

Anyhow, what I found amazing was how much this feeling doesn't seem to change. Enough prologue, here's a clip from a bit of a distant post that's only now seeing the light of day.





I'm not gonna lie to you: my heart has been broken.

My dreams have been crushed.

I've seen what it looks like when everything I've dreamed has been burned down to the bitter ash. It ain't pretty.

But, as they say, Life goes on. Life doesn't care that your heart is shattered. Life doesn't care that you were broken. Life goes on, with or with out you.

And the frightening thing, is that all aspects of life go on. I got off the querying horse for a while. I needed a break, like for real. Sure, I have a ton of books just ready to hit go, but I needed to step away because sometimes publishing is crazy. Every book I've queried has broken my heart in some way or another, and now I'm back at that point where I'm trying to screw up my courage and do it again.

I'm back to reading agent bios and interviews, a pass time I'd sworn off. As I read, I find myself falling in love with them, my mind painting a picture of what my life would look like on the other side of finding the agent who will take me on.

I've been here before. I've stood on this shore and watched those waves come in. I always dream they'll be the waves to launch my boat, but instead, they eat away at the base of the cliff. It has always ended the same.

Like a fool, I find that there is still hope, and I wonder how? 

Where did you come from, hope? Did you not see how this ended last time? What about the time before? And the time before that? Why are you the one without reason, Hope? How did you survive the pyres on which I burned my last dream? How are you still alive, letting me fall in love again?

So, as you can see, I'm an idiot. My heart has taken leave of its senses and somehow--magically, for I had nothing to do with it--has reassembled itself to the point of feeling like an indestructible sphere of annihilation. 


But then I hesitate. This hurt last time. Am I ready to have this dream ground under the heel of a business model? Is my heart as indestructible as it pretends?

nope.

But it's too late, I've already jumped.

The current is faster than I remembered.

Sink or swim.

Just a late post about revising and remodeling

I'm in revision hell right now.

I'm also in remodeling hell.

They are eerily similar.

And a bonus post!

Yes, two posts in one week (remember when I posted three times a week? I was crazy!!! Today I have Tara who's showing off her brand new cover for Pop Travel! Take it away Tara!





So happy to be here at the Doc's! Dr. Faerie Godmother, that is! Rena is the best! I've been enjoying this woman's sarcasm and scientific jargon for ages! Thanks for helping me out, woman!

AND Rena is also one of our newest authors at Curiosity Quills! Her hilarious book, ACNE, ASTHMA, AND OTHER SIGNS YOU MIGHT BE HALF DRAGON (I mean, just the title, ha!) is due out in November. And Rena, make sure you let me help you with your release!

Well, I'm going on a little rant today (don't worry, it's got a happy ending, all my stories do!)

Rena's book makes me think I could be half dragon with all my skin problems. Wouldn't that be cool?? But since it's not true, it's just kinda sad and annoying. It also makes me wonder. Has anyone else noticed how rampant allergies, autism, and even vitiligo (white spots where the skin pigment dies) are with kids these days? They're epidemic! Personally, I think it has a lot to do with the extended amount of time we all spend inactive indoors on screens. We are all connected all the time. You know you feel naked without your phone!

this is where my boys are headed...

So here's my crazy theory: All this inside idleness is causing our immune systems to weaken, causing our pigments to be unnecessary to protect us from the sun, causing our brains to turn to mush, and our bodies to flab - ever see WALL*E? My point! I don't believe in the big bang theory (great show tho!) but I do believe in evolution as in survival of the fittest and adapting and changing over time... things that make me go HMM! Or it could all just be my overactive imagination!! I am a writer, after all!

Thanks again, Rena for letting me rant and for letting me show everyone my new POP TRAVEL cover - it's eye-catching! And the re-release has a sneak peek at the first chapter of SIMULATION which comes out Sept 14th!

POP TRAVEL
by Tara Tyler
Re-released July 1, 2015

In 2080, technology has gone too far for private detective J. L. Cooper. He thinks he can avoid pop travel teleportation, until he stumbles onto a video of a pop traveler who turns to dust.

Sparking a series of murders, attempts on his life, and threats to his brother, Cooper wants to pass off the evidence but knows he’s being watched and can’t trust anyone. And who would believe him?

With help from the neurotic genius “Creator” of pop travel and a beautiful Southern charmer, Cooper must expose the deadly glitch and shut it down or die trying. No problem.

Amazon ~~~ B&N ~~~ Goodreads

Tara Tyler has had a hand at everything from waitressing to rocket engineering. After living up and down the Eastern US, she now writes and teaches math in Ohio with her three active boys and Coach Husband. Currently, she has two series, The Cooper Chronicles (techno-thriller detective capers) and Beast World (MG fantasy) She's an adventure writer who believes every good story should have a moral, and a few laughs!

Twitter ~~~ Facebook ~~~ Blog

Also by Tara Tyler, MG/YA Fantasy series, Beast World,

Book One: BROKEN BRANCH FALLS

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IWSG: Writing is like Iris hybridizing? But I thought it was like construction??

And here we go, another installment of writer's support group. Say "Hi" to the Ninja Captain and hop on the Linky. Also drop by our co-hosts, Charity Bradford, S.A. Larsen, AJ, Tamara Narayan, Allison Gammons, and Tanya Miranda! This blog hop has gotten huge, and we need all the wrangling we can get.

This week, I’m taking care of my mother’s Iris habit. No, really, we’ve reached addiction level, and to make matters worse, she has started breeding them. Last year, she made somewhere between 500 and 1400 seeds from her various crosses. Of those, some 300 or so sprouted and are currently building up enough gumption to bloom (but probably not until next year).

And out of these hundreds, it’s likely only one or two will ever be taken to an Iris show. Hundreds of possible genetic combinations, and only one or two will get to go to the show to compete against the one or two brought by the other dozen hybridizers in the region. Of those, only a handful will go on to the next level of shows―if you’re into writing and publishing, I bet you know where this is going.

To start with, those seedlings, the original crosses are new genetic material, the likes of which the world has never experienced before. So are the thousands of novels cranked out by writers every year. No one else has a novel like yours. Sure, it has some similarities, but it’s a new creature altogether. And of the books that get published, well, only a few of them will do well in any given year.

As I’ve been watering those hundreds of seedlings (did I mention it was 110 today? I’m wilting just thinking about it), I keep thinking about how much writing is like those Iris. Some of those plants are going to make Iris blooms. Bright lovely blooms that look just like every other Iris introduced twenty years ago. Sure, the flower is pretty enough, but that’s not enough. If it looks just like the other flowers, it’s got nothing.

Almost as bad are the hideously ugly ones. Sure they have the form of an iris, but they come out looking like someone painted a flower using manure. No joke, dog doo brown is a common color in the iris world. But at least there aren’t a million other people introducing a flower called Hero’s Duty (my mom would probably say that’s because everyone else had the sense to throw out the plants that looked like the dog crapped on top of the stem).

But that’s part of the problem, with writing too. Your story might be amazing, but how much room is in the market for a book like yours? Worse, is that book really in the Poo Parade? Our society sort of romanticizes the idea that hard work pays off, but that’s not always the case. Sometimes, you work really hard, you have a great book and a great idea, but all the hybridizers were crossing romance and sci fi this year and your book is suddenly elbow deep in competition.

So am I insecure? You betcha. I’m one of the seedlings yet to make a bloom and come to my fate (my mother has promised me she’ll ruthlessly destroy the unwanted flowers to make room for the ones she likes). And I feel, increasingly like there’s a lot riding on the outcome of this book.

I’m told nerves are part of the game.

Deep breathes.

Just a quick weekend post (with a video!)

These past couple weeks I've been away from writing in general because I've been working on my house. A kind commenter asked for a vlog about remodeling and writing, and here it is:

Something we don't talk about: publishing is more business than dreaming

Hey writers, you know that dream you have? You know the one. It's that one where you sell your book and it magically goes from manuscript to book and everyone buys it, and in the mean time you write your next masterpiece without so much as a care about the rest of the world? Yeah, that's a lie.

I know I'm not the first,  but I sort of feel like it should be mentioned that there's a reason most people only put out a book a year and it has nothing to do with all the time it takes to write a book. It's because of everything else. There's the writing--of course--then there's the editing. Then there's the crafting a pitch (long, medium, short, and super short), the author bio (I hope you've been working on that cause there's nothing more nerve wracking than explaining yourself in third person to complete strangers), marketing material, editing, editing, editing, proof reading (both the MS and the Galley), then there's the promotion, the chasing down leads, the helping other people because if you don't have friends and support, how are you going to get the word out there when it's your book's turn?

And that takes a lot of time. I mean a lot of time.

 I had hoped to be up to drafting my shiny new idea by now, but suddenly, there's a big line in front of it. It's stuff like "read manuscript One. Last. Time." and "Write Bio." and "Do I write the acknowledgement now or later?" (pro tip, if you have to ask, now is the time; you can always edit it later!) Then there's the "prep manuscript for submission," task and the "prep other manuscript for querying based off of recent feedback."

These things all take time, and not one of them is in the "write and edit the original book" category.

And the funny thing is that so many writers talk about this, but until you're in the midst of it, you can't see it. I remember reading about Shannon Messanger talking about this stuff. Beth Revis talked about it, too. I really looked up to them, but when they went on about the business side, I sort of wrote that off under the "must be nice" category.

And it is.

But I haven't written a new word in months, and that's not healthy for me or my writing. My goals all along were to get back to writing by the end of June. Do you know what month it is? Do you know what it's not looking good for?

Admittedly, most of my last 18 days of crazy stem from tearing out floors, walls and ceilings (vlog to follow soon, I hope), but it's still a real thing. I'm still not up to writing the next book. 

A wise person would set aside the writing, finish working on the house, and get back to writing when the house is in a livable state.

Let us be clear, my friends: I am not a wise person. I'm also not superwoman, so it's time to adjust some goals, and maybe recognize that the drafting isn't going to happen. (or maybe I can find a way to sneak in some minutes on my lunch break... Yeah, that's healthy, work ten hour shifts and spend my thirty minute lunch writing a novel, that's totally reasonable!)



And what about you all? How do you handle the crazies that come with the business side? How do you balance the "simple" things like having a family and writing?!

All Work and no play makes me...

...closer to finishing everything but my novels.

Right, so I bought a house.

Then I tore out everything up to the rafters.

Green courtesy of previous owner

Then I tore out everything down to the slab.

Sad construction chair is sad.

I have one room left, and I'm taking it down to the slab and up to the rafters.

I've decided I must have some sort of sickness, because this is sort of how I operate with novels too (but, just so we're clear, it's WAAYYYYYY faster to hit delete, and you don't have to pay to have the garbage hauled away!).

Now would be the usual time when I'd go into the whys and hows of comparing home remodeling with novel editing, but I'm just too tired. I work ten hour shifts with two fifteen minute breaks and a thirty minute lunch (which I use to write, because I've lost my marbles and can't even take my lunch off). After work, I've been going up to the house and working for three hours because, you know, a ten hour shift followed by construction work is totally reasonable.

When I'm committed, I expect all of you to deny I mentioned any of this.


But, even with all this, I find my brain sneaking away to think about my Shiny New Idea. Yanking nails and I'm figuring out politics of my world, magic systems, and who the bad guys are and why they are such bad bad guys.

Which means, all of this is to say that some ideas can wait. Some can't, some ideas are like delicate flowers that bloom once and are done. Some are like orchids and will wait for a while. And then there are the ideas that are like trees.

How 'bout you all? How are your ideas, delicate with a fragile beauty, or are they the robust trees?

Insecure Writer's Support Group: No Logic in publishing

If you don’t know what IWSG is all about, hop on over to TheNinja Captain and check it out. Then go say howdy to this month’s cohosts, M. Pax, Tracy Jo, Patricia Lynne, Rachna Chhabria, Feather Stone, and Randi Lee. Jump on the linky and get a hopping!

So how are things going for everyone today? For me, things were, well, it’s hard to say really. I was having all the wishy washy feelings that come with being involved in a contest. Most writers know them by heart:

My writing is crap.

My work is just a gimmick.

I thought this novel would be different.

But I thought I’d gotten so much better! This is so embarrassing, how long have I been writing and I’m not even the top ten percent of a contest???

So, some time back I started writing (it was longer ago than I’d care to admit at this point, but you know, stuff), and for some reason, I thought that we just got better with time. Like I thought that we just climbed the steps and you got better as you went. I also thought that getting better sort of equated to having the IT stuff of contest glory and marketability.

I’m such a fool sometimes.

And then, while I was sulking around the house (wrangling kid and getting ready to go pour my life into my day job again), I realized something: My Super Duper FAVORITE QUERY in the WHOLE CONTEST hadn’t been picked.

O.O

As in, the writer who had what I considered the IT factor, the well written, well polished, AWESOME concept, story that I would have bought based on query and first page in the bookstore (maybe even in hardback!), that writer hadn’t been picked. She was probably having all the same feels as me, and it was absolutely wrong. Like there is no justice in the universe, because I would so buy that book, then go watch the movie adaptation. And I would make ALL MY FRIENDS go with me (I have some powers of persuasion). And that creator was probably having the tough feels about worth and value and how her writing isn’t good and no one wants to read her stories.

Like OMG, What the poor-scientific-method Batman? How is that fair? And there’s nothing else I can do except say “I love your query and first page.” But somehow, the words of a fellow contestant aren’t going to have the same impact as one judge in a contest that ultimately doesn’t actually mean anything. I mean, yes, it is awesome to be picked, and the coaching phase is super awesome, but it’s not any bigger than the regular slush pile.

So yeah, Chin Up my writer buds. If you’re feeling down on your work, and the whole “no one loves my work," try to realize that my absolute favorite out of 195 (yes I read all the queries), that person didn’t get an invitation in the first round. As in she beat out 99.4% of the competition in my eyes and she wasn’t even picked. So, while you’re having the tough feels, just try to remember it could be you I’m talking about.

Still under it's spell

Turns out, I'm having a devil of a time getting this silly Shiny New Idea to leave me alone for even short periods of time.

I dream about it.

No really, as in, I can't stop thinking about it. This idea is going to drive me insane. And let's be clear, I work a job where I really have to think and I have to think for long stretches of a time. But the second I stand up to go to the bathroom, I'm in another world.

Sometimes the real world is just frustrating in that whole I need a job to pay the bills thing.

*wistful sigh*

How about you? Do you cave to your new ideas, or do you beat them back with a stick? Are they easy to fend off, or are they intrusive, causing you to have somewhat obsessive behaviors around them--wait, that's a silly question, if you wrote a novel about it, you were obsessed. As we all know writing a novel is an act of madness.

right, and in the mean time, enjoy this picture of an iris from my mother's yard:

IWSG: Thin

Welcome back to another stirring edition of me spewing my insecurities to the world. If you don't know what this is all about, be sure to check out Ninja Captain Alex and his co hosts, Eva Solar Melanie Schulz, Lisa-Buie Collard, and Stephen Tremp.

This month is brought to you by the letter T. As in, I've spread myself too thin. 

I know, you're probably thinking that I'm whining. After all, if I love writing so much, why isn't it easy? Why doesn't it recharge me? Why do I talk about spending myself?

Right, well, those are ideals, and sometimes, there's more to it than writing and a full time job. Like writing and a full time job with extra overtime to make the bills. Or writing, job, overtime, and a kid who is absolutely a priority. Or writing job, overtime, helping out the parents, putting hours into things that need to happen for family security (I'm looking at you house hunting), things that need to happen to make houses livable, doing the one thing that is any fun in my life (and fun for others, so I guess I'll be doing that for the foreseeable future, which is great, cause i love it but it takes time), editing a book that has a deadline in a couple weeks, arranging to fly out of state for an event (again, super excited, but super tired already), trying to memorize lines (long story, can't explain now), provide required documents, bolster my "online presence," start thinking about marketing and coming up with a marketing plan, help other people with their marketing so I'll still have friends when it's time for me to share my release and cover reveals, and are you going to enter the writing contest?, you have an article to write for the paper, there's a job you need to apply for, there's a manuscript that needs a decision and an edit, a manuscript that needs to be written, and sweet mother of kittens you signed up for the A TO Z CHALLENGE!!! What, did I take my stupid pills when I agreed to this?

I have, perhaps, taken on more than I can muster. I'm not talking to my friends as much as I used to, and it makes me sad because those are supports I need, but now, I literally don't have time in the day. Like right now, I should be sleeping, but I've used up every other minute I had today, and it's the first wednesday of the month.

With every passing second I feel more and more like Bilbo when he was describing himself as butter spread over too much bread. At this point, I could cut out social media and survive, except, doing that will destroy my marketing, and I have a book out in exactly six months.

So yeah, I'm feeling a little insecure because I've written Laundry Soap on my hand for three days in a row and have yet to manage to pick it up from the store despite walking down that aisle more than once. I'm losing my mind--well, I might have never had it, but I was always very good at faking it. Now, I'm flubbing that up too. I know there isn't a panacea out there, but it feels better to admit that I've taken on more than I can chew. 

And I admit, there may have been a person wiser than I who suggested my planned publishing schedule might be a little rigorous (the quote was "It's your funeral.") so I have no one to blame but myself. 

And I really enjoyed doing the A to Z challenge videos. They shall live in beautiful obscurity on the internets, but I lurved making them. So yeah, I'm tired, but I lived. Now I just have to get to the next one of these posts. See, positive thinking. 

All good things: The last A to Z challenge post for 2015

Here we are at the end! I can hardly believe it! How did this happen? How did I make it this far?

I'll be visiting blogs for months after the challenge to catch up, but I can say, it has been an absolute pleasure. Thank you all so much for all your kind words, and I hope you've enjoyed the show!

A to Z: Y

And we're all the way up to Y for You Can't Handle the Truth.

No really