The Writing Bug is Contagious

Yesterday morning my eighty-seven-year-old grandpa called me to tell me he'd written a story.

My older brother is half-way through his first novel.

My younger brother started writing his book too.

My seven-year-old daughter carries a notebook around with her and is constantly writing things down. She wants to be a writer when she grows up, just like her mom.

The stories they write make me happy, and I wonder if they'd all be writing now if I hadn't tried it first. I'm glad I did.

Do you have friends or family who have caught the writing bug?

I Believe in You

Pursuing publication is hard.

If you are reading this you probably wrote a book. A WHOLE BOOK. You spent hundreds of hours of your life making it as good as it can be. You loved it. You were proud of it.

You queried agents. You're work was rejected. Maybe, eventually, an agent liked it and you moved to the next step. Maybe no one connected with it, so you wrote another book, and maybe another one after that, hoping that someday, someone would appreciate your work.

If you are one of the lucky ones (and yes, luck does play a role here) who managed to find an agent who loved your work, then you moved onto the next step, editor submissions. Maybe your book was brilliant and it got picked up at auction the first week. Or maybe you waited. A long time. And you came so close, but never close enough. So you wrote another book, hoping that maybe this would be the one to make it to the bookstore shelves.

Maybe you decided to self publish. Maybe you gave up on publication and instead wrote just for you and your family. Maybe you gave up writing all together for a while.

We've all traveled different roads to get us where we are today. I know that among my blog friends there are BRILLIANT writers who have worked at it for years. I also know there are some of us who are just starting out, who will learn in the coming years exactly what it means to be a writer.

I just want to tell all of you, whether you've been writing for a week or fifty years, that I believe in you. I really believe you can write a book that people will love.

It won't be easy. In fact I promise it will be very, very hard. But you can do hard things. If this really is something you want, you CAN do it.


Happy Holidays everyone! I'm going to take a little blogging break so I can put all my focus on the kids while they're out of school. For all those who celebrate, have a wonderful Christmas!

You Gotta Have Friends

I just wanted to say thank you to everyone for the sweet comments and well wishes and emails and everything this week. You're all wonderful.

It's been kind of a stinky time, I'm not going to lie, but the baby and I are doing okay and I'll be 30 weeks along on Sunday, which is good.

I managed to get some writing done this week! It feels so great to accomplish something again. I am inching along on this manuscript, but I really love what I've got so far, so that's encouraging.

And I made a surprise appearance at RWA on Thursday to hang out with two of my favorite people, Sara Megibow and Karen Hooper!

My trip was made possible by the photoshopping skills of the talented Megan Rebekah (I love that she added a pregnant belly!), and the photography skills of the lovely Tiffany Reisz. You girls are awesome. :)

I've been following all the RWA tweets and blogs all week and that has been ALMOST as fun as being there. It sounds amazing. I will make it there someday! Karen has had a bunch of great updates on her blog, so if you want the inside scoop you should check it out.

I looked at my summer word count yesterday and it's shockingly low. I've only written about 5000 words since June 1. Granted, it's been a crazy summer. I'm just hoping the quality is a little better than usual and that's why it's taking forever.

How has summer been for your writing? Are you more productive, less productive, or about the same during summer months?

Getting to Know You: Who is your biggest fan?

I'm excited about this one. I am a firm believer that every artist needs a fan. I am very blessed to have many people who support and encourage me in my writing endeavors. I come from a huge family (I have 2 brothers and 3 sisters) and all of them read multiple drafts of my novel and offered tons of praise and very little criticism (this is why I needed my critique group.) But my #1 fan is definitely my husband.

This is him and me--both looking very crazy--we might have overdosed on chocolate.

My hubby is always there for me. If I need extra time to write he takes the kids outside to play. If the house is a disaster when he comes home from work (which it is at least half the time) he never says a word, and often helps with dishes and laundry in the evenings even though he's spent all day at the office. He's read my manuscript almost as many times as I have, offering a few suggestions every now and then, but mostly just telling me how brilliant I am (I try to remind myself that he's biased). He was more excited than I was when I called to tell him that Sara had offered representation. He believes in me, and his encouragement buoys me up as I pursue this dream.

Hopefully we all have people who believe in us. Who is your biggest fan?

A Little Encouragement Goes a Long Way

Well, this is my last post for the week. We are going on a not-quite-vacation tomorrow and I will be without blogging capabilities. I will miss you Thursday and Friday! Don't say anything too awesome while I'm away :-)

Now for today's post...

In high school I had an AMAZING English teacher. He was brilliant and his class was hard. He was like one of those teachers in movies who makes the kids realize that learning is fun.

He only gave A's to truly exceptional students (which meant he only gave an A every couple years). I wasn't an exceptional student. I worked very hard for a B. But, despite the fact that my English grade ruined my nearly perfect GPA, I loved his class.

We were reading THE GREAT GATSBY (still one of my favorite books) and we had to write essays about the symbolism. I can't remember exactly what I wrote about, but I do remember that after we had turned in the essay and the teacher had graded them, he read excerpts of his favorites in front of the class and mine was among them. It was the first time a teacher had ever complimented my writing (beyond writing an A on the top of the paper). And because this teacher was so tough, I knew he meant what he said.

When I decided to try writing a few years ago I remembered this teacher and others from college who had been positive about my writing. The encouragement they gave me years ago was enough to pull me through months of self-doubt when I was starting out.

Did you have a teacher, parent, youth leader, etc. that helped you believe in your ability to write? I'd love to hear about them.

(I'll see you Monday :)

Confidence is Attractive

Have you ever known a person who wasn't good looking but was very attractive? I've known many. I think half of my high school and college crushes were guys who would never be considered hot (and some that couldn't even pass for "okay"). But these less-than-hot boys had one thing in common--they were confident. Confidence is attractive.

I've been thinking about confidence a lot lately.

A few months ago, when I was just finishing Underground, I was talking to a neighbor and he asked what I did for fun and I told him that I was writing a novel. He seemed impressed and he asked what it was about. I brushed him off and said, "Oh, it's nothing. It's just a book for kids."

I've noticed that I use this response often when people ask me about my writing. It's a bad response. It makes the person who was kind enough to ask about my book feel put off, and it undermines my confidence in myself.

So, I'm working on it. I think if confidence can make a short, chubby, hairy guy attractive, it can do wonders for my writing. Plus, it's possible that in the months to come I'll need to promote my book and I KNOW it will be way more attractive to buyers if I am confident about it.

The truth is I'm proud of my little book. It definitely isn't the most brilliant thing ever written, but it was fun for me to write, and most of the people who've read it think it's fun to read too.

Do you struggle being confident about your writing? What are you doing to become more confident?