Why Wait For the New Year?

It's mid-November, which means we're looking at a long stretch of good food and lack of self-control. Everyone knows that starting a diet right now is begging for failure, and so a lot of us just cave to the inevitable, gorging on pies and cookies, cheese ball and turkey, because hey... we'll take care of that in the New Year.

Cheers.

But... here's the thing - so is everyone else. Go to any gym in January and you'll find a lot of huffy, sweating people who I'll bet have very shiny, very new membership cards... and I doubt they fly out of the purse or wallet much past February. We're all guilty of those front-loaded good intentions that wither away when we discover they're actually, you know - work.

The same applies to your writing. So maybe you told yourself it's too late to hop on Nano, or maybe you started out Nano with a bang that withered away into a low word count. Now shopping lists are staring you in the face and people want to come stay at your house. So screw it. Why even try? That shiny New Year's resolution will make everything better - and this year will be the year you stick to it.

Right?

Except, much like the gym, a lot of other people are making that same resolution. And while in the gym all this means is that there's a longer wait for the elliptical and more of a permeable musk in the air, but with the publishing industry it means that agent's inboxes are fuller than usual. And that can mean two things - either one of these queries is a similar concept to yours and beat you to the dream agent, or all those queries are horrible and the agent is disenchanted with these reborn resolution queriers by the time s/he gets to you.

So measure up, and ask yourself - is my life really going to be that much better in January? Less busy? Will I really feel more inclined to take my writing seriously just because an electric ball hit a platform with numbers on it in Times Square? I doubt it, so call today January 1 and polish that query, or finish that manuscript now, before the hordes beat you to it.

Oh, and go to the gym too. You'll feel better.

Blogging Is Dead

That's the word on the street, anyway.

It used to be the first question that came up when social media was mentioned - do you have a blog? Now I'm asked more often if I have a Twitter or Facebook... although I'll add that the latter is quickly falling off the inquiry list.

The answer is yes, I do. I have all of them. I also have a YouTube channel, Pinterest, Instagram and even a LinkedIn. Sure, a couple of those are virtual cemeteries when it comes to traffic, but because they exist, I have one. Some are more work than others, some are easily fed by content from each other, and some I can get lost in for hours looking at videos of cats.

But the blog? This blog - the one you're reading right now.

This is work. Real work. This is me talking to you about writing life on Mondays, sharing how other authors achieved their success on Tuesdays, diving into etymology on Wednesdays, taking a little tour of my head on Thursdays, doing a virtual librarian book talk on Fridays, and offering up query critiques on Saturdays.

And everyone says it's dead. They say no one reads blogs anymore because it's easier to look at gifs and easily digestible 140 characters of wisdom than read a whole paragraph. For the most part, I am seeing this pan out in the numbers. The group blogs that I contribute to are seeing less traffic and comments have nose-dived everywhere. Interaction is a thing of the past and even giveaways aren't pulling in the clicks like they used to.

So this makes me sad, because I like blogging. I'm one of those people that does it because I enjoy it, not because I have massive amounts of followers or because my traffic consistently has four digit hits daily. It doesn't. In fact,  if I told you what my average traffic is like you would advise me to stop wasting my time.

And maybe I should. But I'm not going to, and I'll tell you why. Underneath my snail-house exterior I'm a complete softie for those people who come up to me at book fairs and signings to tell me how much they like my blog. If you ever see me and you feel the same way, say so, and you'll get to see a real smile - one that doesn't flash out that often. The one that pushes my cheeks up so far that my eyes practically close.

That's because this blog is work, like I said, but it's a work of the heart. My novels are too, and I'll gladly accept compliments on those as well. But if I'm being totally honest I write my novels for me, and I blog for you.

So tell me that it means something to you, and you'll make my day.

Why I Don't Have Heroes & How It Affects My Writing

Who is your hero?

I hate that question. I've always hated that question. Call it a knee-jerk reaction or a chronic inability to recognize that someone else might be better at something that I am, but in the end I have a really good reason for hating the question. And I've just lately figured out what that is.

People start asking you that when you're really young, before we even have a real concept of what a hero is. In school people would give what I felt were slightly ridiculous answers like NASCAR drivers, athletes, pop stars, or whoever happened to be on the cover of People at the time.

Most of those heroes aren't in the limelight anymore, having fallen out because of some dirty doings on the side or a nasty past slid under the rug, depraved relatives, bad dating choices, or drunk driving issues. And once those things are out there our heroes lose their luster, even if it has nothing to do with the quality that drew us to them in the first place.

The problem with labeling another person a hero is that it turns that person into a idealized version of whatever aspect of them you found attractive in the first place, a symbol for that quality. But the thing is, heroes are just regular human beings and like the rest of us they have some character traits that are less than awesome.

Yes, it's a pretty jaded view of humanity, but in the end it's realistic and helpful in my writing. My heroes and heroines are regular people that have good qualities and bad qualities. You're never going to find a perfect person in my books, because perfect people don't exist.

For fun, I want you to think about the people who were your heroes when you were younger, and if those people still exemplify the qualities that drew you to them in the first place.

Unless of course, you took the easy route in school and said that your hero was your mom.

Of course she was, she should be.