10 Warning Signs That Your Novel Might Be In Trouble

1.          One of the readers usually considered a lock (wife/hubby/significant other, mother, brother, sister, etc.) thinks your book is "alright".

2.          After deciding to print out your novel for copy-editing, it takes two of you to lift it.

3.          Your cat suddenly abandons the litter box and starts using your manuscript instead.

4.          All of your query letter emails are returned with a cease & desist notification for spam abuse.

5.          After practicing your elevator pitch on one of your co-workers, they respond with, "I saw that movie last week!"

6.          You believe that anything J.K. Rowling can do, you can do better, which explains your Part One of Eight subtitle.

7.          You're having difficulty deciding if it should be classified as YA...or Erotica.

8.          You considered the term non-fiction a loose guideline.

9.          The outline you based your story around looks like Schrödinger's equation.

10.       When asked what POV it's written in, your answer is, "What's a POV?"

Did I leave out any others?

How I Learned to - Never Surrender

Today I offer for your enjoyment my entry in Elana Johnson's Never Surrender Blogfest, celebrating the release of her second novel Surrender.  This week participants are supposed to blog about a time they didn't surrender. Trained for a marathon? Queried agents? Had to study for an entrance exam? She is looking for inspirational stories that her readers might have experienced.   Once again, I'm bending the rules a bit.  Instead of discussing a specific experience, I'm going to let you see how I acquired this trait in the first place.  Although a lot of memories from my past are cloudy at best, I can recall this just as clear as the memory of pouring my last cup of coffee.  I can remember the exact spot as well...underneath a '57 Buick.

There are those that would say never giving up, backing down from a challenge, or stick-to-it-ness, is just a result of being stubborn.  Fair enough.  I can see where some might believe that.  Personally, I feel that it takes an equal portion of discipline inter-mixed with that obstinate reaction to resistance, to truly overcome obstacles.  My exposure to that kind of discipline came from my father.  He was a military man, in the Navy for 25+ years.  He went in as an enlisted man and retired an officer.  My dad was a strict disciplinarian who kept few secrets (or held them so well I still don't know them) and you always knew where you stood with him.  But it wasn't his ties to the military that taught me the most about discipline, but rather cars.

His passion was working on cars.  He learned that skill from his own father, who operated several used car dealerships throughout the years, some of them out of his front lawn.  Automobile repair was a necessity in his family.  Although my dad tried his hardest to pass that skill on to me and my brothers, with me it was time wasted.  I wasnt interested in spending my Saturdays tooling around with broken down relics, but that didn't stop him from trying.  As it turned out, I did end up learning something invaluable from him. 

On one particular Sunday afternoon Dad had me with him underneath the '57 Buick he had been restoring for months.  Living in military housing, we had no garage to shield us from the weather while we worked, so together we endured the chilly temperatures, drizzly rain, and irritation of sharp pebbles from the street pushing into the back of our heads.  Needless to say, I wasn't in the best of moods.  We had been trying to replace the starter on the Buick for days but were having difficulty removing this one tricky bolt.  It was in an unworkable angle where getting a tool on it was next to impossible, and when you did it wouldn't budge.  I had given up on it long ago, content to have the car towed to a shop and let a professional have a go at it.  But not my dad.  Not him.  I laid there as hours turned into days, watching him try tool after tool, angle after angle, position after position, all with the same result.  And my resentment of him grew with every passing minute, every piece of grit that fell in my eye, every shiver that went through my body from the wet and cold.

Until it moved!    

I couldn't believe it when that bolt finally turned.  I cried out as if the prettiest girl in school had just agreed to go out on a date.  My surprise and jubilation was unrestrained.  But my dad just removed the inflexible bolt and simply continued on to the next task.  For him, it wasn't shock...but an expected result.  It had just been a matter of time, determination, and discipline.  I learned something that day, and continued to see it time after time as I watched my father come up against persistent bolts, or screws.  No matter the time involved, he would crack the obstacle.  EVERY SINGLE TIME.  There continued to be occasions when I'd be laying there beside him thinking its time to throw in the towel, or resort to dynamite (kidding - of course), but he stay with it until he conquered the impossible.  Over time my resentment turned into admiration, and although I never did come to enjoy working on cars, I did enjoy seeing that side of my father.  I was in awe of that quality in him, and found myself trying to emulate him in my own way.

It's important to point out that there were times when father did seek the help of others.  He would recognize those situations in his life when he didn't have the requisite skill or know-how to do a job, so he would seek the help of experts.  But where cars were concerned, he was the authority and he was always going to see it through to the end.  That's something else I learned from him.  Seeking help from others is not surrendering.  Whenever I can, I try to become an expert so I don't have to relinquish control, but there are times when that is just not possible.

There is no need to surrender, when you have friends!

Laying Siege

I missed last month’s Alex J. Cavanaugh’s IWSG post while trying to recoup from the A to Z Challenge, but I’m back now.  Actually I’m in Las Vegas on business, but you get the point.  This month I want to discuss protecting our insecurities, and as they say…the best defense is a good offense!   

I’ve spoken many times about my theme for 2012 as far as my writing career goes -- Making it uncomfortable in my comfort zone.  Well, we are almost mid-way through the year and it’s time to take stock of how I’m doing.

In short, I’m laying siege to it.

Most of you who’ve been following me for awhile know that I’m a card carrying introvert (quite a few writers are).  I also suffer from acute shyness (no, it’s not the same thing as being introverted).  And any of you who experience the same maladies know that there is no “fixing” them, you simply learn how to cope.  But in order for me to achieve my writing goals I needed to stop avoiding situations where my personality would be tested.  I also had to swallow whatever imagined insecurities I allowed to erode my confidence and step out of my cozy little world.  The best way to do that was to shake things up and go on the offensive.  Let’s see how I’ve done.

In 5+ months of 2012, I started off by joining a new in-person writers group, I sent out about 35 query letters, took part in the A to Z Challenge, participated in a “touchy feely” leadership development camp, attended my first major writers conference…by myself, submitting my writing for public scrutiny at the conference, made an in-person pitch to an agent, and interacted with my critique partners via direct phone calls.  Now this might not seem like much to some of you, but for me…my comfort zone is shaking like a leaf. 

The real question is -- has any of it paid off?  It’s still too early to tell and the truth is that most of these efforts are meant to change my direction, not hit a particular target.  It’s not pleasant, and sometimes downright unsettling, but you have to ask yourself how committed are you to this journey?  If your answer is the same as mine, then there’s only one thing to do.

Lay siege!

Blog Years - Revisited

I wrote this piece in 2010, but I wanted to dust it off and update it to draw attention to the micro-poll I’m running on my sidebar.  The points raised by this post and questions it asks are still relevant, so I hope you enjoy it…again.

The first official post of my blog was on January 22, 2009.  It was an inauspicious little tale about a neighbor boy and his bike.  My next post didn’t appear until six months later, on July 6^th.  After that second post I began updating my blog on a regular basis, at least a couple articles a week.  Because of the long gap at the beginning, a misstep if you will, I consider July 6^th to be the real inception date of my blog.  DL trivia fans now know the truth. 

In just over four weeks my blog will be celebrating its birthday.  Three years, 312 posts (now 313), 73384 site hits, 953 Google friend followers, 49 Networked Blogs followers, dozens of blog awards and 8248 comments later.  This simple communication tool has cut a path through the obscurity forest and led me to this charming little village filled with acquaintances, friends, dear-friends, collaborators, critique partners, admired role-models, and wide-eyed beginners, all with “like minds”.  So much has happened while building and settling into my existence here in the blogosphere, that I’m amazed how short of a time it’s actually been. 

And countless numbers of you are having the same experience.  So many in fact, that I started taking a closer look at the age of the blogs I follow.  It turns out that most of them came into being right about the same time as mine.  The average looked to be about three years old…maybe four.  So I created this micro-poll (on my sidebar) in order to help gauge the ages of the blogs that visit.  Thinking about blog longevity makes you wonder…where are the older blogs…the ones that have been around for 5-6-7 years?  Are there any?  Blogging in general is a relatively young activity, so maybe 3-4 years is the norm.  But what about the elders, the ones that blazed this trail for us?  Where did they go?

Does a blog have a life span?  Personally, I think a blog doesn’t age the way we normally expect.  Maybe it’s more akin to dog years?  One blog year equates to seven years in the real world.  Think about how things seem to happen at such a fast pace in this community?  To an individual, the publication process seems so long and drawn out, but when we look out into the entire blogosphere something is always happening to somebody.  Drafts are started, WIP’s edited, critiques returned, revisions endured, queries offered, rejections suffered, THE CALL celebrated, manuscripts sold, cover-art debated, books launched.  With all that going on it’s easy to see how time feels accelerated.  So, how soon does it really take for a blog to reach adulthood, middle-age, the golden years?

Me, I see my blog as just beginning to mature.  I still catch myself making youthful, headstrong, selfish mistakes (aka pulling the plug on my blog last year), but I’m now comfortable with my place in this world and the expectations I’ve created.  I’ve gone from crawling in January 2009…to baby-steps in July…to confident strides today.  At this pace will I be using a walker in a couple more years?

There have been rumblings lately, not many, just a few whispers in dark corners about how blogging maybe dying.  Most of that seems to be fueled by a drop-off in comments left (for everybody except Alex that is).  My own opinion is that although the blogging community as a whole is reaching its prime, there are still many, many years ahead of it.  Agents and Publishers alike still agree that blogging is the best way to build a brand, way ahead of Twitter and Facebook.   

What do you think? How old is your blog (please take a moment to take part in my poll) and where do you fall in the blog aging process?