Learning to Tweet

One of the things I've had to learn as a writer is how to use social media and other things like that to be able to spread the word about my books and myself. I suppose the biggest thing I've used to promote things is Twitter, and I've had to learn how to use that platform in order to get my words out there.

It was hard to figure out what to Tweet and how to use it. One of the things that I did at first was to follow a lot of writers and see what they tweeted about. It was a good way to see what kind of things should be put out there when it comes to my writing. And what I found out was that the writers that I followed tweeted about just about everything. It wasn't all about the books or things like that. So that meant that I had a bit of an open forum to use Twitter.

For a while, I tweeted a lot of links about this blog and other things like that. And I definitely tweet to the other authors that I follow when I read one of their books and I just love it. I've made a few friends on Twitter in other independent authors. And it means a lot to me when they talk about their books and ask about how mine is going.

Sometimes I go a few days without tweeting, but that might not be the best thing. Especially when I want to make sure that I've got a presence on social media to keep my name out there. Doesn't mean that it's always on everyone's lips, but it's good to at least keep myself out there.

So here are a few things that I learned about tweeting:

1. Be consistent and tweet often
2. But don't be obnoxious about it
3. Tweet about those things that are important
4. Use Twitter to thank the wonderful people who support you
5. Be honest and make it fun

I Need a Home Office

The longer I spend my time working and writing, I start to think about the things that I should have in my house. And the one thing I'd love to have is a full fledged home office.

In the house I live in now, there really isn't space for a real home office. There aren't enough rooms and there are too many people for me to have a space all my own for writing and all that good stuff. Right now, I have a little space in my bedroom that I'm using as an office area. But it seems like I spend very little time in that space because I'm always somewhere else in the house.

I'd like to have my own room where I can set up a little library space with a few bookcases and a desk with all of my writing materials all in the same area. A space where I can go and turn on some writing music and be able to get a lot of work done.

Maybe I feel like that would make me a more legitimate writer. But I know it would make me feel more organized if I could have all of my writing books, notes, and things all put together somewhere on the desk with my computer and everything else. Because right now I'm writing on a little desk that I can carry around my house, and I don't like it so much. Mostly because I type relatively fast and the desk wobbles whenever I get going on a roll.

Yeah, I think my goal is to be able to have my own home office.

I suppose that means that I'll have to find a new place to live. And that might not happen for a while.

The Agent Search is On

I've done this whole process before. Searching for an agent is something that every writer will do at least once in their career. Most, I think, do it multiple times or over a long period to find just the right fit between your project and the person who is going to fight for it.

Sometimes that part takes a long time.

I've been on the hunt for an agent for a long time. More than once, I've gone out searching for agents and trying to figure out how best to pitch my work to someone. It's difficult to figure out how to put information in a form that will make people get excited about something that I've spent the last year and a half of my life writing, fixing, and polishing.

Perhaps the hardest part of the agent search is hearing "no." I think that's the hardest part because people think that saying no is a simple thing. I've done it as a reviewer, and I know it isn't an easy thing to do. It's hard to tell people that you aren't interested in something that they worked so hard on. I know it has to be hard for the agents to say no to projects, but it's hard for me to hear it too. I don't like being told that something I worked so hard on isn't good enough for someone.

But that's their job, and I have to learn to live with the word "no." It's a part of life, and it is certainly a part of writing.

So the agent search is still on... and one day I'll find the right person to fight for my writing.

Finding Your Writing Genre

When I started writing, I always thought I would write purely young adult novels. I mean, that's what I love to read the most. Since I love to read it, that would be the thing I could write the easiest. It made the most sense.

But as I started writing novels, I realized that young adult didn't hold all the answers for me. I loved writing it. I could get a lot of things out of it, and it's easy for me to write those kinds of stories. But that doesn't mean that I've got to stick to that one specific genre.

One of the new novels that I'm working on is more of a new adult genre novel. And it doesn't stay purely in the realm of the traditional work, either. Especially not for me. But it's something that I've wanted to write for a while and something that means a lot to me.

There's no such thing as being stuck in a particular genre. While some authors do the best in writing a particular genre--because that's where their passions are or it's what they are the best at--some can go from one genre to another with little to no trouble. As much as I'm not a huge fan of Twilight anymore, I have to admit that Stephenie Meyer is good at going from the young adult to the adult genre. There are other authors that have done the same and been remarkably successful at it.

I hope one day for that to be me. I hope to be able to go from one genre to another and be successful at it because I can write stories that people enjoy. I don't necessarily want to be the next Stephenie Meyer or anything, but I do want to be the first Ley Hayley. I want people to enjoy the novels that I write and work that I do.

That's what happens when you aren't stuck in one genre. You can write a thousand different stories and appeal to a million different people. And isn't that what every author wants to do in the end?

Is It Normal to Get Tired of Writing?

Sometimes I wonder if I've burned myself out on writing. Pushed myself too hard and too fast. Because there are times when I want to just give up, mostly because I'm frustrated with writer's block and simple exhaustion. I get tired--tired of writing, tired of a particular story, tired of a set of characters. Even though I love them, sometimes I get bored beyond reckoning.

I wonder, is that normal? Is it normal to get tired of writing like that?

I have half a dozen different stories that I want to work with, but that doesn't mean that I don't get tired of things sometimes. Right now, for example, I'm trying hard to fight the writer's block that's keeping me from working on River's Queen. And I'm dealing with exhaustion and frustration in the fact that I'm so tired that I don't have the energy or the desire to work on rewrites for Fire's Princess. That, my friends, is really bad since I have a release in June. I've got to get to work, you know.

Do other writer's go through this? Is that one of the reasons why it takes so long between book releases? I know full time authors have deadlines and there are many more steps involved between first draft and release, but I wonder if some of the problem is just because they get bored with a story.

Because Lord knows I get bored sometimes.

I suppose that's when world hopping comes in. I should do that more often, shouldn't I?

Maybe that's how I'll get over this bought of trouble. I'll do a bit in River's Queen and then hop over to the Off World series or another set of novels I wanted to work on. I know I've got a dozen different ideas of things that I want to write, maybe if I stop trying to force myself to work on the same story over and over, I can get rid of the tiredness and the exhaustion.

So maybe it is normal to get tired of writing. Just of writing the same thing.

Writing the Love Triangle

Well, it's Valentine's Day. I sat down and tried to figure out what kind of post I would do for today. Maybe I'd make a list of my favorite romances or the greatest love stories. Maybe I'd do a review of a romantic comedy or something like that. But then I thought about the fact that I was writing a novel with a love triangle. And I wondered, how is it that most young adult novels end up with love triangles in them? Why do they have them as plot devices? And why are they so important?

I think it's a common thing for young adults and new adults to be drawn to and attracted to more than one person at a time. That's okay because at that age you're trying to figure out what you want in your partner and what kind of qualities are desirable to you. And sometimes that can be a point of a lot of drama in your life. I like that young adult novels are real like that, because romance and relationships are a large part of the lives of young adults. But it isn't everything. It isn't the be all and end all.

Writing a love triangle and using it as a plot device is both easy and difficult. It's easy because it's like breathing--love is natural and it's natural to be conflicted about being in love. It's difficult because as a writer, you don't want to make it the central part of the life of your main character. It isn't everything, it isn't the central part of their being, it isn't all that is the part of them that is the be all and end all. The love triangle is a useful plot device because it provides drama and it's easy to relate to for readers. It's something that everyone has gone through at least once in their life--being torn between loving or liking two different people. Or at least having to make a choice between two different paths in life.

While I don't think that the love triangle is the central part of a young adult novel, I think it can be important in highlighting the choice between two opposing paths for the main character. Take the Elemental Royals Trilogy for example. The main character, Rosalind, could choose Gavin and live a life that was simple but always on the lookout for trouble. Or she could choose Andrew and have a life where she was safe, but where she would have to bear the weight of a crown and two kingdoms. It isn't so much about the fact that she loves two different men. It's about the fact that there are two choices of a life for her that she could have, choices where she could be happy and have a different kind of life. I think that's the real importance of the love triangle.

And that's why I write them.

Revision Depression

I love to write. It's something I've always wanted to do, ever since I was a little girl.

I just don't like to do revisions. Editing has never been my favorite thing.

Revisions depress me.

I have a bunch of lovely people who beta read stories for me and go through and edit them for me, but the story revisions are always on me. I'm my own editor, which means it takes twice as long for the novel to go from first draft to ready for print. That means I have to go through it two or three times to check for problems with grammar, continuity, and just tightening sentences and making the plot better.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm the only writer who gets depressed when it comes to revisions. I mean, sometimes I get sick of the same story over and over. Even though I love these characters and they're part of me, I get tired of having to go back and read the same story over and over and over. Maybe it's because I know the details of their lives that go on between the scenes that are shown to the reader. Or maybe it's because I've lived with this story for years. But it gets boring after two or three revision read throughs when I have to pay such close attention to everything.

To deal with it, I have to plan things out so that I have at least a month between revisions so that I can "forget" things about the story and go back to them with new eyes. That's the only way I can avoid the frustration that leads to the horrible depression that makes me feel like I can't work on the story anymore. That's what happened with my first novel. I got so bored with the story that I haven't worked on it in four years.

Perhaps I should go back to it to help break up the monotony of the series that I'm working on right now. It might just help.

Writing warm ups--just as important as muscle warm ups

For the longest time, I would just jump straight into writing whatever I wanted to work on that day. And I learned pretty fast that my writing would always be crappy. It was like I had writing soreness--just like the soreness I'd get if I started working out without warming up first.

As a writer, you've got to get yourself in the right mindset to write. You can't just go from your real life into the world that you've built in your head and expect everything to flow. You've got to ease yourself into it. And that means warming yourself up. Sometimes that actually means warming up your muscles. There are times when I have to stand by my desk and stretch myself out because my muscles just aren't ready to sit down in that chair and work.

Once I do, though, I can't just go straight to writing. I've got to do something to get my mind into the frame of telling the story. That's where the writing warm up comes in.

I think I mentioned a couple weeks ago--or maybe it was just last week--that part of my ritual was to do a warm up as soon as I started my work. I do about 500 words on that just to get me started. By the end of that, my brain is up and ready to go. I'm warm and the creative juices are usually flowing, and I'm chomping at the bit to get into the world that I'm working with that day.

Sometimes the warm up is just a random writing prompt. Most of the time, though, it's part of another short story that I'm writing. At the moment, I'll admit, my warm up is part of a fanfiction that I'm writing for fun. I'm not giving anymore detail than that. I'm not telling. At least it helps me get started when it comes time for me to work. I can write with hardly any trouble at all.

I even do warm ups before I start editing and doing revisions. Either way, I have to get my brain in the mind set of working. And dealing with words and worlds. Warm ups do that for me, just like stretches do for an athlete who's preparing for an event.

Character Interviews as Ways to get to Know Your Characters

I read a manual on writing once that said doing character interviews were a great way to get to know your characters. Honestly, I feel strange doing them because I feel like I'm doing an interview with myself.

It sounds strange, but the characters feel like another facet of myself. They feel as if they're a completely different part of my personality. And I know that sounds strange, almost like I'm saying that I have dissociative personality disorder, but that's the best way I can describe it. I feel as if I know everything about them without having to ask them about it.

I know that Rosalind, the main character in my Elemental Royals Trilogy, hates blackberry tarts and that she has a scar on her left foot from falling off her first pony when she was five. I know she learned how to read tarot cards from her tutor, who thinks that every educated woman should know how to tell the portends of the future.

I know that Kable, the main character in my upcoming Off World Saga, is terrified of heights and hates confrontation. She has panic attacks and blackouts.

The truth is, I don't a character interview to tell me these things. I just know them. And I know them because these characters are a part of me and they tell me everything about their lives.

It doesn't matter that character interviews don't work for me. Sometimes they work for other writers. And that's absolutely okay. Every writer has their own process, their own zone, their own way of dealing with their characterizations.

Characters are part of my life. They are like extensions of myself, extensions of my family. I love them, nurture them because they tell me their stories and share their lives with me.

Early bird or night owl?

I have some friends who are writers who have the hardest time writing during the day. They cant' get a word out while the sun is up, but at night they work themselves into the ground trying to make up the work that they missed. Their creative juices start to flow almost the second the sun goes down. Sometimes I have those kinds of days, but for the most part, I have to get my work done during the day.

What can I say? I really like to sleep.

I can't say that I'm really an early bird either. Seven AM is early for me, and six is just ridiculous. I hate having to get up early. My brain doesn't really start working until about ten. That's when my creativity really starts going and I'm able to really get some writing done.

Everybody has those days when they get up at some God-awful hour and just can't go back to sleep. And then there are those times when there's no going to sleep, and you just have to find something to keep you occupied or else you'll be bored to death. For me, it's all about the characters in my head and when they decide they want to start telling their story.

Wow, that made me sound more than a little crazy.

It made me sound like I hear voices.

I don't. But I do. Not really. It's kind of hard to explain. Other writers will understand. I'm not crazy, I promise.

I suppose you could say I'm a little bit of both depending upon what's been going on lately. When it comes to being back at work, I'm more of an "early bird" because I have to be up to catch the bus to head into the city. But oh, how I'd love to sleep in. I remember days when I could sleep until noon or one PM. It was wonderful. For me, at least. Not so much for everyone else in my life.

Organize, organize, organize!

I'm the first to admit that I'm a little obsessive-compulsive. I like to have things put in just the right place and done in just the right way. Sometimes I just can't help myself.

Being a writer and tutor, I have to keep myself completely organized. Otherwise I'll forget what I'm doing, who I'm talking to, and what I'm supposed to be teaching. It's happened before. Once I went into a biology tutoring session and started talking to the students in Spanish. They all looked at me like I was completely insane. I honestly don't blame them. After that, I kept a color coded calendar. That way I could just look at it and slip into a different mindset just by seeing a different color. What can I say? It works.

I've found that it's important to stay organized when I write, too. Even if it means just keeping the things on my desk put in the proper place. When things around me are organized, it feels like my mind stays organized, too. And it makes writing so much easier. It helps with planning a blog tour and keeping all those dates and posts and everything straight, too.

Although I'm still trying to figure out Rafflecopter. It's going to be interesting.

The point is that being organized is something that sometimes falls by the wayside as a writer. We get lost in our own heads so much and sometimes we see these events in our heads so out of order that we forget that things in the real world happen in a sequence. And organization is key.

So whether it's in your personal, professional, or writing life--organize, organize, organize!

Why bad reviews are better

Every writer puts their heart and soul into their books. They work for months or even years to put together this story that is so much a part of them that they sometimes forget that they aren't a part of that world. And it's only right that a writer wants other people to love that world and those characters as much as they do. Every writer wants good reviews for their books.

But I would argue that bad reviews may be better. How do you grow as a writer--or even as a person--if you never fail? If no one ever tells you that you have flaws? Sometimes you need to be told something is wrong so that you can figure out what to do right.

I'm not saying go out there looking for people to write bad reviews of your books, or send them to people with the sole purpose of getting a bad review (you know, a reviewer who absolutely hates the genre of book you write). But what I am saying is be grateful for those bad reviews. Be willing to accept that you aren't the best at what you do. And you probably never will be.

But you can be the best writer you can be. It's all up to how you take bad reviews and rejection.

And that, my friends, comes back to how you take rejection and criticism. Because you'll deal with a lot of that in this business. Not everyone is going to fall in love with your work. But you can make a good name for yourself by being professional and learning from what people say about your books.

Who knows, you may end up learning something that makes you a better writer all because someone gave you a bad review.

The importance of keeping a notebook

Writing is such a part of my life that I do it every single day. It is everything to me. And sometimes it's hard to remember the ideas that swirl around in my head. Especially when I have a thousand ideas and fifty things going on at once. So I learned long ago that I should keep a notebook with me at all times.

Every writer should keep a notebook on them. It should be just a basic rule of writing. Rule number 1: Notebook.

My notebook wouldn't make sense to any other writer but me. Sometimes I just jot down titles or phrases that give me a bit of inspiration. Or I might see someone who inspires a new character because of how they move or something they said. Most often, it's names. A strange name that I hear or see will go in the notebook. And every now and then, I may even plan out a story--a few plot points that stick in my mind.

Writers always have so many ideas in their heads and they think of so many things. It's a wonderful thing to have something with you so that you can write down the things that you need to know so that you can write a new story later. Forgetting things is never good.

Keeping a notebook allows a writer to never forget the characters that enter their minds. To never lose the threads of the stories that weave themselves into our minds.

Notebooks are secondary to our laptops. Absolutely necessities.

I can't get enough of trash TV

To me, trash TV isn't really... well... trash. Sure, it tends to show the worst of the worst. Cheating spouses and deadbeat dads. But I think there's more to it than that. What I really love about it is the drama. The complete and total overwhelming drama. That's what "trash" TV is really about.

And isn't that what a good story is about? Aren't we, as writers, supposed to open up these new worlds and bring drama and angst and a thousand different emotions to our readers? If you really think about it, before there was television, books and stories were trash TV. It probed the darkest reaches of our humanity and the emotions that we lived with. Today we watch them on television, then we read them on the pages of a book.

And while they're entertaining, I have to say that I love to watch episodes of trash TV because it's a new way of seeing the drama that real life can bring. Because I've only seen parts of life's drama. There are things that I will personally never understand, darkness that I will personally never walk into and see through with the candle of hope. But through the lens of trash TV, I can see what other people see.

I think writers should be open to learning about anything and everything that can help them to reach their readers on the deepest level. And I love learning how to be dramatic, to be uncommon, to be a writer beyond what I know.

That's why I can't get enough of trash TV.

Okay, and maybe it's because I love watching Steve Wilkos throw liars and monsters from his stage.

The rituals of a writer

I'll admit that I'm just a little bit obsessive compulsive. I have rituals when I do just about anything, mostly because I have a lot of anxiety about a lot of things. Welcome to my world, ladies and gentlemen. But I've found that my writing suffers if I don't do a certain series of rituals that puts me in the writing mood.

Every writer has their own set of rituals, I suppose. Some will sit down to write and can only begin writing new material once they've gone through the material they wrote the day before. Others write with word counts or page counts--they write until they hit that magic number and then they're done for the day. And still others will only write when the mood hits them. And only if they're in the right place for it.

I'm something very different, I suppose. A mixture of those if you will.

My rituals begin with the order in which I do things. When I think about writing, it doesn't just mean working on the new novel or revising an old project for publishing. For me, writing also means dealing with my website, my blog, and my book review blog. And it deals with promoting my books, talking to reviewers, and planning tours. So my writing takes up a lot more time than just sitting down to write a novel.

I always begin with working on new blog posts. I like to have one or two blog posts ready to go ahead of time, that way they automatically post. Because I'm so obsessive compulsive, I like to have my blog posts planned out ahead of time--and by that I mean a month ahead of time. If you looked at my schedule right now, you'd see that my schedule so far runs all the way to the end of January. Soon I'll begin planning for February. So I start my writing day with working on at least one new blog post. Sometimes I'll even do two.

Then I work on contacting reviewers and blogs. Depending on how many I have to contact that day, it may take me anywhere from half an hour to an hour. I send out emails about book reviews or blog tours. I make contacts in the reviewer community so that when I have a new book coming out, I have someone I can get in touch with to help promote it. Because I don't have a big publishing house with a PR department behind me. I'm all on my own here.

After I've got that done, it's all about the writing. I start with a short warm up. Usually it's just 500 words on some short story or prompt that I'm working on. It just gets me in the writing mood. I usually have a playlist for my warm up. I'll admit, right now my warm up is a fanfiction. But it does the job.

Once the warm up is done, then I tackle the new project. And I try to do a minimum of 2,000 words. It goes faster if I'm in a good writing mood and I'm listening to my playlist. Right now, my new project is the final book in the Elemental Royals Trilogy. Sometimes I can get through the word count quickly--an hour to an hour and a half. Other times, it takes me hours, or even all day, to get it done. But I'll work it until it's done.

Then, if I have it, I'll work on revisions. And that's usually if I still have any energy left. Sometimes I just don't have the energy to deal with the story anymore that day. It all depends on all long it took me to get that word count out. Or what kind of mood I'm in.

Every writer has their own rituals. But this is what works for me. A writer's rituals are sacred, a liturgy that put us in that place that connects us to the characters and the worlds we try to put on paper.

The suffering relationships of a writer

Writers can be reclusive sometimes. We tend to get caught up in our own worlds and our stories. Sometimes we forget that there are other people around us and that there is even a real world. And that means that our relationships suffer.

We don't mean for it to happen. We honestly don't mean to lock ourselves up for days on end and ignore the important people in our lives. It isn't done consciously. But when that writing mood overtakes us (or deadlines), we sometimes don't have a choice. For a writer, putting words to paper is almost like eating. It's a part of life that we can't live without. And it's incredibly important for us. And sometimes the people we love suffer because of it.

But sometimes we get lucky. We find those people who are wonderful and patient. Those people who are strong enough to handle the silence and the overwhelming craziness that is life with a writer. And when we find those people, trust me, we appreciate them. We might not say it out loud enough, but we appreciate them more than anyone could ever imagine. Because those people are there when we are caught up in the emotions of our characters and we can't get away from them. Those people are there when we need to get out of our own minds and take a break. Those people are there when we need help to just relax.

Our relationships might suffer, but that doesn't mean we don't love the people around us.

Check out my blog post here about why the family of a writer is made of saints.

The importance of being professional

First impressions are important. There's that saying that people judge you within the first few seconds of meeting you. I suppose you could say that goes for online presence as well. And especially with readers and your books.

Being a self-published author is about being a professional as much as being a writer. You have to do a lot of the leg work yourself. And when you do, you have to do it professionally. You have to be courteous. You have to keep track of everything that you've got to do and keep on top of dates, jobs, and emails. And you have to be humble and accepting of "no" when it comes.

You are your selling point. Your face and your reputation will be known to the readers and to people in the business. If it gets around that you're unprofessional, people aren't going to want to work with you. And that can be the kiss of death for a writer's career, especially if you're a self-publishing or an indie author trying to get their foot in the door of a big publishing house.

So here are some tips on how to be professional in your online presence:

1. Use people's names. If you know last names, use proper titles. 
2. Don't send mass emails. Tailor emails to individuals.
3. Double check your emails. You don't want to have to explain why you sent an email to someone with the wrong name on it.
4. Answer promptly and courteously, even if the answer is "no."
5. Be on time with things. If you get a "yes," make sure you get things to people by the deadline they give you or, preferably, earlier.
6. Follow up with people. 
7. Say thank you. This is the best thing you can do to show you're a professional.

Why some books should never be published

I know, coming from another writer, that sounds very, very bad, doesn't it? Let me explain myself.

First off, every author has a voice and a story to tell. And I strongly believe that everyone's voice is worth hearing. That goes without question.

But sometimes... you just put down a book and go, "How did they ever get a book deal?"

I won't mention specific books or specific writers, but I've read more than a few novels that I couldn't figure out how they got published. The characters were flat and one-dimensional. The story line was crap or horribly researched. Or it was so blatantly ripped off from somewhere else that I couldn't believe it made it off an editor's desk.

I'm not saying that the book or the author should never ever be published. What I am saying is that as it hit my hands, it just wasn't ready. Or that book just really shouldn't have seen the light of day. Sometimes authors see their novels or their work in a way that other people don't. And I say this from experience, because I looked at my first novel and thought it was brilliant. And the first couple people who read it told me it was the most boring thing they'd ever read. As an author, you can't get blinders on about your work.

So sometimes, you have to realize, maybe your book shouldn't see the light of day. At least not yet. And maybe--sadly--not ever.

So, yes, sometimes, some books should never be published. *cough cough* Twilight fanfiction porn. *cough cough*

The Four Types of Writers

In my experience, which I'll admit is limited, I've come across four different types of writers. This is mostly gleaned from interviews and speaking to my writer friends, but it seems to be pretty accurate. There seem to be four different types of writers out there when it comes to how they get the inspiration for their stories and how they write them.

The "One Scene Inspiration" Writer

The writer who falls under the category of "one scene inspiration" is the writer who sees just the flash of one little bit of the story in their head. This writer sees just a moment in the timeline of their characters' lives and goes from there. The "one scene inspiration" writer can build an entire world around just that one little vision. 

The "See It Like a Movie" Writer

This writer literally sees their story like a movie in their head. They have the complete story--pretty much--start to finish. It's almost like they have the screenplay and they're just taking the dialogue and the stage directions and making it much prettier. It's like a novelization of a movie, just better. These are the writers I envy.

The "Snapshot" Writer

These writers are the ones who get "snapshots" or little glances of the lives of their characters. They may get one moment from the beginning and one from the end and have to figure out what happened in between. Or they may have a photo album full of snapshots that they just have to string together into a narrative. The more snapshots they have, the more detailed their story becomes.

The "Voices in their Heads" Writer

This is the writer whose characters actually tell the story to them. They have their characters in their heads, fighting to tell their side of the story, describing their emotions and their actions in detail. I find that I like to read books by these kinds of writers because the characters seem to be more engaging. And I feel like I'm there.

So, you may ask, which of these am I? I suppose you'll have to read my book and find out. ;-)

Why a writer's family are saints

There are some professions where the family has to have the patience of a saint. I contest that the family of writers need that kind of patience. And I'll tell you why.

At least in my case, when I write, it's almost as if I'm in another world. I might be sitting on my sofa in the middle of my living room, but if I'm writing, it's like I forget everyone else is there. I don't mean to ignore my family, but I just do. All my attention is focused on whatever story I'm working on, whatever part of the process I'm engrossed in and the rest of the world just disappears for me.

The family of a writer also has to deal with our mood swings and the fact that we sometimes do nothing but talk about our story. We get to the point where all of our interest is in our story, the characters who are in our head, and the little whispers they put into our ears. Our stories take over our lives. Sometimes we feel what our characters feel. And then there are deadlines, and those moments when we're overcome with the urge to write. We get frustrated, and it feels like there's nothing we can do about it.

Our families have to deal with all of this. Our partners, parents, and children. Extended family and friends. They have to deal with us talking about a story that they have no idea about, listen to us gripe about writer's block and complain about deadlines. They have to deal with us being locked away in a study for hours on end and being emotionally distant for God only knows how long.

So if you ask me, the family of a writer has to have the patience of a saint. After all, they have to deal with us.