All posts by Susan Jeffery

About Susan Jeffery

I am loving the challenge (sometimes) of re-entering the contemporary romance market after a lifetime of raising two fantastic children (it never ends, btw). Just when I thought I was done with kids, I accepted a position as librarian to 900 boys in a Bronx private school. I'm a vintage published author, Harlequin American #206 Fair Game (1987). Winner of the Golden Heart, 1986. Currently exploring the possibility of indie publishing under my new pseudonym (see fresh name, above).

Fear

mermaids, Motivation, Writing, , , , ,
Focus!

Focus!

Fear is good.  It keeps you safe.  Fear keeps you from going down the wrong street, trusting the wrong people, taking risks that are bad for you.  Fear that runs amok and takes control of your life, though, keeps you from enjoying some of the most productive and marvelous moments possible:  working on your chosen craft and enjoying the fruits of your work.

Witness my inability to contribute to the Mermaid short story effort this Fall.  I was silent, unable to compose even a scrap of an idea for that wonderful festival of creativity.  Yes, I was trapped in a web of fear, a crawling, deadly hive of poisonous fear that kept my fingers frozen for weeks that stretched into months.  Why?

Because I was silly enough to trigger a word count on my Lake Effect manuscript instead of just keeping on with the writing.   Argh!  I wasn’t going to finish by my self-imposed deadline!  I’d failed!  Again!   At which point I took refuge in endless edits of material that I wrote last year, instead of taking time to reflect and re-evaluate, to mourn and then do the brave thing:  work forward.

Even now, I get distracted by the details of my story.  Is the father alive or dead?  If I use the alternate opening for Chapter One, will it be possible to achieve the light-hearted style I’d embraced in the original?  Is there a sister or not?  And should Desmond and Nicole break up at the very start of the book, or should I shift that scene back to Chapter Ten (which remains suspiciously blank)?  Do I need to take a break and do my makeup?  Isn’t there laundry that has to be put on?  How tidy does the house need to be before the plumber arrives?  And, oh yeah, how about registering for the RWA Anaheim conference?

my life on jan 18!

You know what that is?  Uh huh.  It’s my fear, taking it out in the sneaky distractions of every day life.  I’m not going to see anyone today, I have clean clothes, the plumber already called and said he can’t be here until next week, and Anaheim isn’t sold out.  Stop making excuses, girl, and get back to work!

Do you make excuses?  I do.  Let’s share and see if we can unsnarl the distractions and excuses we make to justify not getting our work done.

 

 

Holiday Blues

mermaids, Motivation, , , ,

I must confess:  I’ve not been in the holiday spirit AT ALL this month.  I’ve been the queen of not enjoying celebration.  I dial the radio away from Christmas music.  I proposed not having a tree at all this year.  It all just seemed too much, too involved, too wearing to contemplate doing it again.  And it will all have to be put away at New Year’s and that’s tiring too!  Bah, hum-bug!  I see other people having a wonderful time, dressing up, handing out presents, making merry, and I just feel sad.

Now, before you get all sad yourself and turn away…  at this writing, the tree is up, the stockings are hung, the garland is twined, the wreaths are on the door.  I’ve addressed half a dozen cards.  I’ve done all my shopping, except for a gift for MyMerman.  I even made a batch of Christmas cookies last night and was bad enough to eat them for breakfast this morning.   If this isn’t Christmas spirit, it’s pretty dang close.  All I need is some Christmas lingerie, some spiked hot chocolate, the Christmas giftie I know is under the tree (because I saw him tell the girl to wrap it) and MyMan back at home from the wilds of his weekly travels.

I wish I had more time to make a better post, but there are presents to wrap and get in the mail before the lingerie and hot chocolate can come out.  But I’m also scratching my head and wondering how I managed to move from “cancel Christmas” to “how much can I get done by…?” and “oh wouldn’t it be fun if?”

So tell me, friends:  How do you get yourself to move from the supreme pout to the willing embrace of a task that has you scared and running?  Not just Christmas, but any job – like writing?  How do you pin yourself down and do the work when you would really rather be out doing almost anything else?

(ps, I do not know this pouting child, she was a lucky find in a google search and I wish her the very happiest Christmas ever.  All the other photos in her family’s flickr stream show her as a happy little girl. The photo was marked ‘public’ and I used it. Do we want a post on privacy here?)

 

Bad Boyfriends, Old Lovers and Ex-Husbands

mermaids, Motivation, Writing, , , , ,

Robin Mermaid’s post last week (Love It or List It? Nov. 17) got me thinking.  She had started with a book review, but then she mentioned an unfinished story that was haunting her.  She put aside a project that was giving her trouble when another idea caught her attention.  Now she’s had a chance to take another look at the unfinished manuscript and wonders if she dares to take it on again.  Can she fix it?  Will it change?  Do they have a future?

I know that story all too well, as I’ve had more than one abandoned (relationship) manuscript in a checkered, challenged and generally lackluster (dating) writing career.  There was the hero intent on restoring a vintage Tucker automobile.  The other hero who rode a motorcycle.  The heroine left at the altar (she kept the ring).  The flirtation with inspirational fiction.  The heroine escaping an abusive husband (no, not from personal experience!).

Not one of these stories saw daylight. The floppy disks and hard-drive files are long gone or reused for other projects.  But they all had their moment.  They all served their purpose.  Only one of those ideas has hopes of being resurrected (not the abusive husband!)

In being unfinished, abandoned, left behind or dropped, they are a lot like the bad boyfriends, old lovers or ex-husbands we may have experienced.  Those relationships taught me a lot (well, not the ex-husbands, since I’ve had just the One True Love).  But the others let me learn – about what love is, how to maintain it, how to know when it is over, how to survive its loss.  I certainly had plenty of boyfriends before meeting the OTL who can put up with just about anything.  I’ve dried my share of tears.  I’ve done plenty of mourning, for good relationships that faded and bad ones that cheated or lied and moved on.  Even when I didn’t want them to go.  And I learned.

The same ideas go with stories that start out well and then seem to just lose their zip.  Or have flaws that only show up after years of struggle.  Try as I might, they won’t behave and I can’t get them to change.  I’ve cried over those, too, and mourned them and wished they would come back.  We would make it work!

I believe now that those unfinished stories are lot like those bad boyfriends and old lovers.  They taught me to let go and not believe that I’m the best match for that work.  They also taught me how to write a better story.  There’s a lot of satisfaction in finally getting a scene right, a plot point made and achieving crisp dialogue.  I learned how to write better stories because of those pages.  Would I go back to them?  Not on your life.  And we won’t discuss the men.  For all you know, they’ll end up as characters in a future book…

Have you ever had a story that fought you, or seemed to misbehave when you thought you had it under control?  Did you ever just give up and move on?  What did you learn about yourself and your writing?  Or, did you find a way to compromise, so the two of you could have your own authorial HEA?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Writer’s Epitaph? Suck it Up, Lest Ye Be Judged

mermaids

I’ve been thinking about how we take criticism.  We all get treated to other people’s judgments, deserved or not.  Sometimes we ask for a critique.  Other times we don’t – and we get it anyway!

I’ve been seeing a lot of postings on the Net about critiques and what people consider harsh reviews.  There was the episode, earlier this year, of the writer who committed review-icide over what she thought was unusually harsh criticism in a blog.  Which touched off a firestorm of argument over three days and forced the entire discussion to be closed.

Mostly, writers post more gently, asking the usual why?  Why me?  Why this work?  What do they not get about my writing?  And, since I’ve recently enrolled myself in a website for receiving advance copies of books, and another website where I can post my thoughts on them, I have to consider how a book gets reviewed.  What’s fair?  What isn’t?

Even more important, how would I want MY book to be reviewed, when that happy day arrives?  What does my writing say about me, since a person’s writing is inevitably a window on the writer?  What do I want it to say?

What will your writing say about you?  And how do you want to be remembered for your work?

Which brings the ultimate question:  What is your writer’s epitaph?

 

(PS:  The title for this blog post is the three titles hammered out on my weekend trip to Vermont.  If I can’t decide, why not use all three?)

FIVE MONTHS UNTIL CHRISTMAS

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Deadlines can be disastrous.  August 2 for Congress.  September 1 for School.  December 25 for Naughty or Nice!  No matter what project is at hand, any deadline can be gracefully accomplished, or utter disaster.

I wish this post could be about the Great Debt Ceiling Feud of 2011.  I have plenty to say about that little shootin’ match going on in Washington this week.  But that’s for other blogs.  No, my own personal deadline has been on my mind lately.  You see, I promised myself that I would finish my book this summer.  And I’ve cobbled together all the bits I’ve written on my current WIP into a “master file” document.  It currently stands at 42,000 really messy words.  Am I pleased?  No!

I’m terrified.  And my writing has slowed even more than usual (and I’m not a high-output writer in the first place).  My personal deadline when school let out was to have a 90,000 word rough draft by September 1.  Realization: ain’t gonna happen.  Maybe I should run for Congress!  Wait, I’ve already said that’s a topic for other blogs..  So, I have to accept where I am (not good at that) and reframe my ambition (definitely not good at that!) or abandon the effort altogether (never).

But, as I fussed about this last night, I commented – “I remember when I first started writing full time, I started the day by ‘going to work.’  I wrote from nine until twelve every day.  Then I had lunch, and the afternoon was for the home-improvement projects in the house.”  And that realization, that long-buried memory, was very freeing. I’d had the discipline to write, and I’d been successful at completing a book and seeing it in print.

So today is calmer.  Once I post this, I’ll set a time limit for how long I’ll be at the keyboard today, working on my book.  Once that’s over, I won’t go back.  I won’t dwell.  I’ll certainly think about my writing.  I might scribble some notes.  But I will NOT obsess about that deadline.  It’s history.  I’m not going to make myself sick over it.

So – do you obsess over deadlines?  How do you handle the stress of these demons?  Avoid?  Negotiate?  Reframe?  Or embrace?

And remember:  Christmas is just 5 months away.  Start those shopping lists now!  Every minute counts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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What Is It Worth To You?

mermaids, Motivation, , , ,

Being at the RWA national conference must have triggered some deep-level thought processes I was unaware of.

What do you want? What are you prepared to do?

Here’s the story – I was a member of NYSC for several years.  I loved that gym and all it had to offer.  I’d  joined with a friend who later discovered that she would get a cheaper membership with her school district’s corporate membership, and she loved getting that bargain.  I tried every trick in the book but I couldn’t match her. She worked closer to home. I didn’t. She made more money. I certainly didn’t! Even with a husband who’d been tossed out of work, there was no mercy. Pay the price, or take a hike.

But, because her school district had negotiated a corporate membership, she had advantages I didn’t. And I was supposed to be happy. I wasn’t. I kept thinking about leaving, but couldn’t find a gym that would make me happier and I didn’t want to leave her behind.

Finally, when family finances forces her to reconsider the cost she was paying even then, we both moved to a gym that was closer to home and a lot cheaper to join. And it wasn’t the same. At all.

Being part of a gym that didn’t offer the machines I worked best on, had locker rooms on the first floor, didn’t have towel service, didn’t have a pool, or the showers I loved, or the soaps I enjoyed, or a sauna — those were losses I had to live with. I thought I could probably be happy. I was keeping a friend happy and saving money.  I should be happy. Right?

Wrong.  As time went on, I didn’t use the machines that were available. I was intimidated by the few aerobics classes that were offered. There were two classes I liked and no machines. Finally, in a Zumba class of all things (and I don’t really like Zumba), I stepped on my own foot and fell, and cracked my wrist.

I had to re-evaluate. Was saving money and keeping a friendship worth cracking a wrist?

And, after visiting my old gym this morning, I began to think – taking the easy way out on a gym membership, favoring the cheaper, closer gym that offers fewer classes and services is like taking the easy way out on writing. My former gym offers a new membership, just for teachers, and at a reduced rate (my former director fought for this with me and all the other teachers in mind).  It will cost $5 more a month and be a longer drive.  It will also give me back a facility I loved and benefits I’ve missed.

Yes, I will be re-joining the original gym.  And, in thinking this over, I come back to a central question: what is it worth to you?  What is writing worth to you, and what are you giving up to pursue this? When you are tempted to throw in the towel because of too many rejections, too many nay-sayers, too many days without making a word count or a meaningful connection to your work, what do you say?

Are you willing to pay the price?

 

Writing Right Where We Are

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With laptops at our hands, it’s easy to write almost anywhere. I’m writing this post on my living room couch.  It’s not my favorite spot, but it’s where I am this evening.

Do you have a favorite spot to write?  I’ve had several.  In my first house, I wrote in the back bedroom.  I had a view of the forsythia bush planted against the fence, and loved watching its changes through the year.  My second house had a view of a suburban street, beige walls and very ugly blinds left behind by the prior owner.

I’ve also written in a nice, private study with a view of the front yard and the court where we live now.  I earned my Master’s Degree in that downstairs study.  It was quiet and private, a professional space I shared with my husband without problems. Then my son entered a private high school and that was the end of the study!  Five years later, I’m still wondering what happened.

Since re-entering the ranks of fiction writers, I’ve been camping out in the dining room.   Our property is wooded, so I have a view across our deck of squirrels, birds and the flowers I keep on the deck during the summer.  Also deer who love to eat my daylilies (grrr).  I’m close to the coffeepot, the telephone, and (oddly enough) the TV.  There’s plenty of room to spread out my work.  I hope I don’t have guests for Thanksgiving.  Or Christmas.

I’m at the point, though, where I might like to have my own quiet, private place for writing.   Just like I’ve insisted on a sewing room, where the cats couldn’t bother my projects, I could have a writing room.  A writing room, all my own.  One that is close to coffee, phone and TV.  Like my dining room!

Where do you write?  What type of space feeds your creative soul?  Do you need a window?  A view?  Photographs?  A special chair?  Does writing in one particular spot, or with a special talisman nearby, make us feel more like a writer?

Share your thoughts, please.  Perhaps we can gain inspiration on what makes a perfect writing space, just for ourselves.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rewriting: the Love/Hate relationship of writing and how we manage it

mermaids, Motivation

I have a draft open on my laptop right now:  “Lucky Numbers v12 100p June4”.  Tomorrow, the version 12 will be version13.  One hundred pages will have been re-read and minute changes made, for the thirteenth time.  If I can finish those hundred pages tomorrow it will be submitted, along with the synopsis (currently version 14) to an editor who requested it at the WRW retreat in May.

But my secret is, I didn’t write all of it.  I’m putting the final rewrite on a manuscript I’ve been writing with a collaborator for two years.  This is the most recent version of the tale, and it’s been a long and complex production.

How do you handle rewrites?  Is putting the story down a breeze, and the rewriting a slog?  Do you plot as you go, and then have to go back and patch up all the holes you left behind?  Or is it all carefully planned, with minor time needed for revision?  Do you struggle for the words, even though you love the craft?

I’ll out myself here:  I rewrite too much, and it ends up being an excuse not to submit.  I’ve done rewrites where entire pages were dropped or scenes reworked.  My heroine in “Lake Effect” had a sister (briefly) suffering from Multiple Sclerosis.  Poor thing, she’s gone after one scene and six pages.  Reworking the plot yet again, she was unnecessary.

In “Lucky Numbers” this evening, Joanna’s cat went from having silky fur to having almost none.  After all, a life that’s trying to achieve perfection needs something that can never be perfect at all.  It’s a minor detail, but it says a lot about what she’s been through.

I have a deadline for the “Lucky Numbers” project, though, and a collaborator who is waiting for me to perform.  I can’t let them down.  So, I will read every line of these 100 pages for detail.  I will find the periods that were deleted by accident when a line was changed.  The awkward phrasing will be reworked.  A better word will be chosen.

And, though these current 100 pages has been through twelve versions, I’m reminding myself this weekend that I’ve had my hands on just six of them.  We send the work back and forth, with strict rules for rewrites and comments and (most important) version control.  Yes, I’m thrilled to have the final say in this manuscript.  Terrified, too.  Tomorrow, it goes out.  I owe myself, and my partner, that much.

So, back to the question:  how do you approach your rewriting?  Are you eager to tackle the job?  Is it an excuse not to submit?  And how do you cope with someone else’s comments if they mark up your cherished words?

 

She’s Got a Ticket to Ride

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Writers talk a lot about finding time to write.  I’m one of the writers who works a full-time job outside the home.  I’m a librarian and not because I love to read (that’s for another blog).  It’s enough to say I have to find time to write.  Or make time.

There were years when I couldn’t make any commitment at all to a writing schedule.  Family, illness (I’m an MS patient), career, and a loooong commute all conspired against a writing career.  Now, though, the kids are grown, the MS is under control and I’ve changed my schedule so I can take the train to my job in the Bronx.  No car, no every 6-week oil changes, no zillion $$ in gas each month.  And almost ten hours a week to sit back, think and (gasp) write.

Riding the train is all about the schedule – the minutes it takes to get from here to there.  My schedule puts me on the train at 7:04 a.m. every weekday.  I change trains at 7:52.  That’s 48 minutes when I can write.  A take-out cup of coffee, get up the stairs and across the causeway to the tracks, and I’m back down on the platform in time to claim my favorite seat.  Even better, morning trains are super quiet.  After all, we just woke up!

When I decided to start writing again, I started carrying a notebook with me in my satchel.  Now I settle back and pull that moleskin out.  Slip the elastic, move the bookmark to a fresh page and note the date.  For this morning:

5/18 Why her?  His usual GF – dark, sensual, stormy.

Her: cool, blonde, composed

— his challenge:  rattle her cage

Why him?  Her usual – stormy artist BUT she has broken that habit.

Wants a stable life

Sam = bad boy  Nicole =control

Yes, these are just notes on what the main characters’ normal dating patterns are and how these two people will be thrown off balance.  But I can begin to visualize the scenes Nicole and Sam will be pushing each other’s buttons and what they might think as the action unfolds.  Plus, I promise myself that I have not finished my writing for the day until I’ve made those notes into paragraphs in a scene on the laptop at home.  Turning the pages back this evening, I saw a cryptic note:  Keep Grandma?  Dad?  Nursing home?

Well, I did keep the grandmother in the story, but the father is currently dead.  Which means I have to write a scene of mourning for lost father/daughter bonding opportunities.  Which means I’ll begin drafting that on the train sometime soon.

In four more weeks, though, school will be out and I’ll be off for the summer.  I won’t be riding the train in the morning again until September.  Or will I?  I’m considering buying a $139 monthly commuter ticket for June, July and August and making myself get on that train.  Just to keep myself in the habit.  I could be riding the rails, watching the scenery spin by and having nothing to do but scribble in that notebook or maybe even bring a laptop.  Who knows?  The MTA might just be my new office this summer.