Looking Forward (Not Resolutions)

Last week was a week for looking back, recalling those good old days, and launching into the new year without the last year's baggage. If you can figure out how to make this work, please let me know.

This week is all about the future. In the upcoming year, I'm scheduled to attend three writing seminars: Superstars Writing Seminar - Colorado - May; ThrillerFest - NYC - July; and World Fantasy (WFC)- Brighton, England - October. I may try to sneak down to DragonCon or up to Balticon (more likely) since they are relatively close to me, but family, workload, time and money will dictate whether I make those two. WFC will mark the fourth time I've been out of the United States, and the first time my kids will leave the country. Come the fall, my oldest will start high school. How in the world did that happen?

My goal is to finish the current WIP this month, with a submission to my publisher in March. I've committed to writing 50,000 words on a new story in the next four months. I need to have this one completed and ready for submission by ThrillerFest (July). I also want to finish the re-write of the novel I took to Dave Farland's Novel ReWriting workshop by the end of February, with submissions starting in May.

Then, of course, there's the family time. I also want to spend more time at the pool with the kids and get my garden planted this year. Last year I managed to get the garden beds ready for planting, but changes in my law practice ate up all my "free" time this past summer. 

Speaking of my law practice, I need to finish setting up my new office in Fairfax. I want to grow that law practice in 2013 to the point where I can justify having a full time associate (junior lawyer) or paralegal.

So, 2013 looks to be as busy as 2012, and that's just the stuff I know about. I can't wait to see what 2013 holds. I hope you join me for the ride.

Why writing is like farming.

Recently, I've heard writers lamenting about their sales and royalty checks. Some of them have gone as far as saying that the cost of writing a story so outweighed the financial benefit that they have received from that story that they will no longer write.

When I was talking to my husband about this, he said that it seemed to him that "writing was like farming."  I asked him to explain what he meant. It struck me that his analogy was a lot like Kevin J. Anderson's popcorn theory, and like Kevin's also particularly apt. The analogy that follows is Matt's:

Writing is like farming. First, when you start you have to work very hard to clear the land, prepare the soil, and plant the seeds. You work to weed and fertilize the crops. The first harvest is never what you want it to be. But it's a start. Once you've harvested that first crop, you have to work the land and reseed it for your next one. Then the weeding and fertilizing starts again. You have to move sites every once and a while so you don't use up the land and make it useless. And you have to do it year after year never knowing what the sun, rain and pests will do to your harvest.

When you have your very first harvest and take it to market, no one knows you or what you're selling. They don't come and buy that harvest in droves. If your lucky you have a few brave souls willing to take a risk on you. And you spend hours at farmers' markets and other venues trying to get those few precious sales.

After a couple of years, people begin to learn about you and come by to see if they like what you are growing. And if you have a bad year, some of your customers will go away and not come back. But you have to keep putting your harvest out there for sale, and tell people about it at the grocery store, gas station and every other place and time you can.

Then, years and years after you start, people will be coming by regularly for your crops. You will know them, and want to grow better crops for them.

And then a bunny will come and eat your lettuce, but you won't mind so much.

Nancy again -

Our neighbors across the street are farmers. They grow hay, corn and about half a dozen other crops, as well as, hogs, goats, chickens and cows. He and his family perform massive and exhausting labor every day. After Leighton's heart attack, his first question wasn't "should I give up farming" but "how long before I can get on a tractor again?" If I suggested he should stop farming just because his hogs aren't selling well this year, he'd look at me like I was insane. And he'd be right. You don't give up when one crop fails. You have other crops in the works because at some point every crop will perform poorly.

It seems to me that you can substitute the word "book" for harvest, and crops, and the word "writing" for growing fairly easily. Breaking out in the writing industry is hard work.  First, when you start you have to work very hard to come up with the idea and write the first draft. Then, you have to work at editing (weeding and fertilizing) the story. When you have your very first novel and take it to market, no one knows you or what you're selling. They don't come and buy that book in droves. You spend hours in promotions, blog hops and doing everything you can think of to sell that book. The first book is never what you want it to be. But, you keep writing.

Most writers who have "broken out" didn't do it with their first book, or the second. If I recall right, Kevin J. Anderson quit his day job after his tenth published book, and with a year of savings in the bank. A recent Daily Kick from David Wolverton advocated having no back-up plan for writing. If writing is what you want to do, you need to sink your heart and soul into it.

Leighton, Dave and my husband are all right. (Yes, Matt, I said that on the Internet so now you have proof).  If a story isn't performing as well as you'd like, and all your marketing isn't helping, work on your next one. Get more product to the market. Eventually, all your time, effort and energy will pay off.

Families of blood and affiliation

Families have been on my mind a lot lately. So, please forgive today's deviation from more writer-ly topics.

 

As I see it, there are three different types of families:
   1. Blood;
   2. Surrogate ; and
   3. Affinity.

For me, blood means the family you were born or legally adopted into. You don't get to pick this family, they or fate pick you.

The second group, surrogate, are the people with whom you had a near blood relationship with growing up. These people tend to be your parents' close friends, and your close friends' parents. You have a little more choice over who falls into this group. There are only three people I consider part of my surrogate family.

The rest of the people who are more than just acquaintances to me fall into the last group - my family of affinity. They are the people I chose to share my life with. You know who I'm talking about. They are the people you can call up the day before a move, and have them show up on your front door to help for nothing more than the promise of pizza. They'll even show up when the last time you talked to them was two years earlier when they moved you into the place you're now moving out of. Those people. My husband - in case he was wondering - falls into this category.

I haven't forgotten the pets and other critters that share our lives. But they're their own special class of family.

So, why is family on my mind? The usual reason. If you read my blog post over at the Fictorian's site, you'll get the sense of it.

I had a very June Cleaver-like childhood. My mom worked, but not until we were all in school, and then only on a part-time basis until I was in high school and stopped coming home at 3pm. A few years back, I asked her about something that was bothering me, a mother myself now:

"Mom," I said. "We always had dinner at 5:00, right?"
"Yes," said Mom.
"HOW?"I  wailed. I struggle to get dinner on the table by 8:00, and am often still in the office at 5pm.

So, she told me that she only worked until 2:00 until I was older and my siblings were already in college. AHHH. Okay, now I get it.

Anyway,  my surrogate family was a tangible force. And I've been blessed with a wonderful family of affinity. No one likes the knowledge that one, or in my case all three, of their family groups is going to be smaller in the near future. But that love, and loss is what makes us.

Weighed on the scales of the somewhat idyllic family life I had is my husband's job. He is a Guardian et Litem, or a lawyer appointed to represent the children who get caught in the American justice system. Sometimes these kids are the victims, usually of people who were suppose to protect them, and sometimes the kids are accused of crimes.

So, what's been on my mind other then the looming threat of loss lately?

Why do people insist on telling us things about those we've lost when that information will change how we see the person?

How does a parent abandon her child from an earlier relationship in favor of her current lover's children?

How does a parent neglect or intentionally harm a child?

Does the loss of a surrogate parent cut as deeply as the loss of a biological one?

Why is it easier to accept the decision not to treat a terminal illness of a surrogate parent than a biological one when that choice is probably the best for that person?

How in the face of all the ugliness in the world, do some people find the  love to take in other people's cast off children?

Why is is sometimes easier to rally around an affinity family member than a biological one?

Is the only real difference between my somewhat arbitrary definitions of "family" just the amount of baggage we carry into the relationships?

I don't know. But these are the thoughts that keep me up at night lately. Maybe I write to try to figure out the answers. Maybe the answers are unknowable. But I do know this, losing family, regardless of how you define it, is tough.