Writer's Guilt

By: Maegan Beaumont

Well, it's that time of year again. Time to start another novel.

I start getting the itch around November. Ideas start to niggle. Characters start to whisper. By December they are no longer niggling and whispering. They are pulling and yelling. I have to shove them aside while I'm basting the Thanksgiving turkey. I have to mentally shout back, I can't play with you right now--my kids are opening Christmas presents.

January, I promise them. I'll start in January.

January is the right month to start, right? In with the new and all that... right? The people in my life will get it. That this is not only my passion but also my job. That it's important to me. That I have to do this on about a hundred different levels.

They love me and want me to be happy. They get that if I don't write I'll end up like Jack Nicholson in The Shining and that's never a good look on anyone.  

They'll be understanding and supportive... right? 

I've come to realize that it just doesn't matter. No matter when I decide to start my novel, I still run into trouble. Kids still want dinner (EVERY SINGLE NIGHT!!). Husbands still want clean socks (my kingdom for a maid... honestly, I'd settle for a chimpanzee I can train to fold towels and match socks). Friends still get weird when you don't pay attention to them. 

I try to juggle it all but I'll never make it in the circus. I suck at juggling. Something's gotta give--historically, it's my novel... which explains why I haven't made a deadline since I started this whole crazy business. It's not that the people in my life don't want to understand. It's that they can't understand. 

They just can't. Not unless they understand what it's like to have an entire universe full of people shoved into their brain, talking all at once. They don't what dinner. They don't want clean socks or attention. They want to exist. They are literally fighting for their imaginary lives. A space, out here in the world, where people can see and hear them.

And sometimes, that's pretty hard to ignore. So, yeah. Something's gotta give.

I guess what I'm saying is that I still-- 4. books. later.--haven't figured out how to balance it all. I struggle. I forget to start dinner. I stumble. Socks get recycled and my husband pretends not to notice the dead fish smell emanating from his shoes. I drop balls. Friends feel ignored and I feel like crap... and my novel still suffers. I give in to guilt and start to put writing off. 

I'll write tomorrow becomes my mantra.

But every January, without fail, I make myself a promise: This year, I will put writing first. Well... maybe not first but definitely in the top 3. Top 5? Ahead of the laundry, for sure.

As I'm writing this, I realize that this isn't about putting my novel first--it's about putting myself first. Something I've never been able to do. Something I'm not even sure I know how to do and yet something I've encouraged others to do time and time again.

Put yourself first. It's okay. You deserve it. If they love you, they'll understand.

This year is different. This year, I'm bound and determined to take my own advice. Kids, husbands, friends--I hope you understand, but there's something I've got to do...

Maegan Beaumont is the author of  the Sabrina Vaughn thriller series. A native Phoenician, Maegan’s stories are meant to make you wonder what the guy standing in front of you in the Starbucks line has locked in his basement, and feel a strong desire to sleep with the light on. When she isn’t busy fulfilling her duties as Domestic Goddess for her high school sweetheart turned husband, Joe, and their four children, she is locked in her office with her computer, her coffee pot and her Rhodesian Ridgeback, and one true love, Jade.

Look for her latest, Promise to Keep, available through Midnight Ink, summer 2015

The Cave of Wonders

                          By: Maegan Beaumont


Lately, I've had a lot of people question me on my writing process. 
How I write (with my hands). How I choose to write what I write (I don't... it kinda chooses me). How much I write on a given day (It depends. I set a personal goal of 700 words a day. Sometimes I barely make it. Sometimes I quadruple it.) 

But without fail, someone always asks this question:

Where do you write?

In the spirit of full disclosure... I can write anywhere. But that doesn't mean all writing spaces are created equal. I've been known to stay in bed all day with my laptop and my dog and I can do that just as easily as I can set up at the dining room table.

But when I'm really looking to bank some major words, I head to my writing cave. It's kinda like the Bat Cave only there's no bats and no butler who brings me tea and cleans my grappling hook.

My desk is way too small and my chair has seen better days but this is where the magic happens.

Any writer worth their salt is a voracious reader. This is how I justify hiding in my cave and reading when I should be doing laundry.

No cave is complete without a dog and access to coffee. 

So there it is--the answer to where... just don't ask me why because that's something I haven't quite figured out.

Maegan Beaumont is the author of SACRIFICIAL MUSE, the second book in the award-winning Sabrina Vaughn thriller series. A native Phoenician, Maegan's stories are meant to make you wonder what the guy standing in front of you in the Starbucks line has locked in his basement, and feel a strong desire to sleep with the light on. When she isn't busy fulfilling her duties as Domestic Goddess for her high school sweetheart turned husband, Joe, and their four children, she is locked in her office with her computer, her coffee pot and her Rhodesian Ridgeback, and one true love, Jade.

























"... Sacrificial Muse is heart pounding intrigue at its very best. A fast paced, exciting read that I couldn’t put down." - Book Chatter

Kid in a Candy Store

By Maegan Beaumont

When a writer lands on a story idea, it usually happens one of two ways. It's either like being hit by lightening or like watching a seed germinate. Either way, once the story takes root, your head starts to swim in The Sea of Possibilities...

This is good--possibilities always are, but if you're not careful, you start to look like this:

or like this:

and then, eventually... like this:

Having a fiction writer's imagination can be both a blessing and a curse. We can spin straw into gold but sometimes, we get carried away. Every idea we have is a good one, every plot twist we come up with is absolutely vital to the outcome of the story (or so we fool ourselves into believing) so, we pile it on. We're gluttonous. Greedy. We have what I call Kid-in-a-candy-store-itis.

Before we know it, we're working plot points for a paranormal, dystopian, sci-fi,western about a half-vampire, half-werewolf who falls in love with a time-traveling mermaid... which, by the way, has absolutely nothing to do with our initial story idea.

Just remember to keep it simple. With roughly 1,100 years between us and the first printed page, an original plot is damn near impossible. Originality comes from our voice. Don't let it become cluttered and bogged down by an over active imagination or you'll end up like this guy:

And remember: friends don't let friends write paranormal, dystopian, sci-fi westerns about a half-vampire, half-werewolf who falls in love with a time-traveling mermaid.

Maegan Beaumont is the author of SACRIFICIAL MUSE, the second book in the Sabrina Vaughn series (Available through Midnight Ink, summer, 2014). A native Phoenician, Maegan’s stories are meant to make you wonder what the guy standing in front of you in the Starbucks line has locked in his basement, and feel a strong desire to sleep with the light on. When she isn’t busy fulfilling her duties as Domestic Goddess for her high school sweetheart turned husband, Joe, and their four children, she is locked in her office with her computer, her coffee pot and her Rhodesian Ridgeback, and one true love, Jade.
She also writes a blog dedicated to helping writers with plot woes and answering writing questions. Check her out – http://maeganbeaumont.blogspot.com/ 

Fade to Black

By Maegan Beaumont

My annual client conference held by my agent is coming up soon and it's made me think about something that happened while I was there last year.

 It was my first time attending, having only been picked up officially that August, so I was a bit out of my depth. I was in a strange city full of complete strangers. I had absolutely no idea where I was going or who I was going with. If you know me at all then, you know that these are things that usually send me into a tailspin… but I maintained.

I was very proud.

While we were waiting for the train to take us into the city for dinner, I listened to people talk—“Hi, I’m blah, blah. Blah, blah has been my agent for 2 years.”

“Oh, I know you. My name is blah, blah. I’m with blah, blah.”
 

“So, what's your name and who are you with?”

It took me a few seconds before I realized someone was talking to me.

“Ah… My name is Maegan Beaumont and I’ve been with Chip for a few months.”

I sounded like I was introducing myself at an plumbers' convention, but I managed to get the words out without any nervous stuttering. Suddenly, the young woman standing in front of me whirled around and after a few seconds of scrutiny, said, “You’re Maegan Beaumont?”

Oh. God. What did I do? The juvenile delinquent in me was screaming—No. No you are not. Deny, deny, DENY!!

“Yes…?”

She smiled. “I joined the agency the same week Chip received your manuscript. It was the first thing he gave me to read. I couldn’t get past the first five pages. I still think about it,” she said. “I’m pretty sure it scarred me for life.”

I didn’t know what to say. What did that mean? Was it really that bad? Before I could say anything, she saved me from imploding.

“Oh, no. It was really, really good… but it was too intense for me,” she said. “Most writers have this fade to black moment where they choose to leave the rest of a graphic scene to the reader’s imagination. I kept reading your work, waiting for the fade to black… but it kept going. I kept reading, waiting for it. Fade to black… I kept thinking, when is it going to fade to black? Fade to black. Dear God—FADE TO BLACK!!” She mimed flipping through pages, her eyes as wide dinner plates.

She stopped and smiled at me. “I took it back to Chip and said, “It’s really, really good and really, really disturbing. Here you go—you should read it. And now you’re here.”

I had no idea what to say—again. I felt like an apology was in order but I swore to myself a long time ago that I’d never apologize for anything that I’d written. Maybe I should offer to pay for her therapy…

Her name was Erin and she turned out to be the one person I really connected with in Chicago. We split a pizza and she admitted that I was nothing like what she expected. I took it as a compliment. We really didn’t talk about my work again (although, she did ask me if my husband was afraid to fall  asleep around me...) but her reaction has stuck with me. nearly a year later and I’m still thinking about it.

Fade to Black.

I’ve tried writing that way but it felt… almost like a lie. What I’d "put on paper" was not what I really wanted to say—the problem was, what I really wanted to say was pretty freakin’ disturbing. I was worried what my family would think. I was worried how, if it was ever read by the general public, I’d be regarded (remember, nice girls don’t write about torture…). Would the parents of my children's' friends think I’m a depraved lunatic and keep their kids away from mine?

I was afraid of offending someone. I was afraid of disappointing everyone. I was afraid of what people would think.

I was afraid.

But you can’t write with fear—not if you want write with honesty and passion and all the things that make a book worth reading. Good writing isn’t always pretty or pleasant. It isn’t about what people want to hear. It’s about what you have to say. As soon as I realized and accepted that, I was able to let go of all that worry and doubt and just write. Instead of fading to black, I kept the lights on. I threw open the doors and windows and wrote.

And what I wrote scared me. Not the actual content… okay, maybe a little... but  what really scared me was that the words came from me so easily.  That I was able to go there without any real effort at all. As I sat back and read what I had written, I felt  the strong and sudden urge to delete it off the page before anyone else saw it. I didn’t. I considered cutting it from the book. I didn’t do that either. I’ve come to recognize that feeling this way is a sign that I’ve written something that will affect people. And if we’re not affecting people with our words, then what’s the point?

Truth is, there’ll always be people who will be offended. There will be some who are disappointed or disturbed by the things I write. Who will see me differently. Who will build pre-conceived notions about what I’m really like. And as much as I wish it weren’t so, I can’t let any of that dictate what I write. I’ll go crazy if I do…

So write what you want. Say what you need to say, in the most honest way possible. Don't let fear or doubt decide what you put on paper. You deserve better than that, and so does your reader.

Fade to black. Or not...

It's totally up to you.



Maegan Beaumont is the author of CARVED IN DARKNESS, the first book in the Sabrina Vaughn thriller series (Available through Midnight Ink, spring 2013). A native Phoenician, Maegan’s stories are meant to make you wonder what the guy standing in front of you in the Starbucks line has locked in his basement, and feel a strong desire to sleep with the light on. When she isn’t busy fulfilling her duties as Domestic Goddess for her high school sweetheart turned husband, Joe, and their four children, she is locked in her office with her computer, her coffee pot and her Rhodesian Ridgeback, and one true love, Jade.


"Prepare to be overwhelmed by the tension and moodiness that permeates this edgy thriller. Beaumont’s ability to keep the twists coming even when the answer seems obvious is quite potent."

--Library Journal

 

Ready...Set...Write!

by Jennifer Harlow

Today I began work on my tenth (holy crap!) book, the third in the Midnight Magic series. Really I started work on this one years ago on many a sleepless night. The main characters, the basic story arcs they've been locked away in my brain for eons and now it's time to finally put pen to paper and bring my imaginary friends to life.

I've been staring at a blank page for an hour.

I know exactly how it begins. I have the scene playing in my brain but I just can't pick up the pen. I hate this day. It's the hardest day of the project. The start of countless hours, months of diligent work start TODAY. And it is hard work, damn hard. I was once asked why I wanted to be a writer. The pay's crap, there's no guarantee the work will be seen (this one's already been sold so it probably will), and on average it takes six months to get a complete manuscript, and that's before the trillion edits it'll need. The truth is, for me at least, I can't NOT write. I wish I was meant to be a doctor or psychologist or even a stay at home Mom, but since I was a child I've always known I was meant to be a writer. And selling six books before age thirty is a good guidepost that I was right.  And most days I love it. I love the inception, the research (and there's a lot for this one), the character sketches, even later the editing. I just don't like today.

Maybe it has to do with physics. Yes, I'll blame Sir Isaac Newton and his first law: "An object that is at rest will stay at rest unless an unbalanced force acts upon it." It all comes down to drive. I've always been a very driven person but as I get older I get...well...lazier. It gets harder and harder to pull myself away from cult classic movies and BBC America. I can do research and sketches while watching those but not when I really need to concentrate. I have to sit at my desk or the library 8+ hours a day for months with only music for company. But really, that's not it. Really, it's fear. 

A hundred horrible thoughts race through my mind as I'm sitting down on this day. What if I can't pull this off? What if my characters are unlikable? What if I can't pull of the voice? What if it's just total and utter crap? What if I'm not good enough to tell this story? I'm usually a damn confident person. Just not today. But I will solider on because this is important. (And I have a hard deadline.) I will pick up that pen, I will write that first word. Then the next, then the next 80,000 and when I see all my hard work sitting in a bookstore and when I receive lovely e-mails from people who enjoy my book, today will be nothing but a distant memory.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to defy Newton's law.

Oh, and MY NEW BOOK IS NOW OUT!!!!! My baby arrived into this world at 323 pages. Her name is What's A Witch To Do? and is the first in the Midnight Magic "Series." Here's the blurb:

Mona McGregor’s To Do List:

• Make 20 13 potions/spells/charms

• Put girls to bed

• Help with Debbie’s wedding

• Lose 30 pounds before bachelorette auction

• Deal with the bleeding werewolf on doorstep

• Find out who wants me dead

• Prepare for supernatural summit

• Have a nervous breakdown

• Slay a damn demon

• Fall in love

With her to-do lists growing longer each day, the last thing Mona McGregor—High Priestess and owner of the Midnight Magic shop in Goodnight, Virginia—needs is a bleeding werewolf at her front door. Between raising her two nieces and leading a large coven of witches, Mona barely has time for anything else. Not even Guy, the handsome doctor who’s taken an interest in her.

But now there’s Adam Blue, the sexy beta werewolf of the Eastern Pack who’s been badly hurt, warning Mona that someone wants her dead. Hell’s bells! A demon is stalking her, and Mona starts to suspect her coven members and even her own family could be responsible for it. With two attractive men and a determined demon after her, Mona teams up with Adam to find out who really wants her dead . . . and who really wants her.

I'm doing a massive blog tour with fifty stops. To read some interviews or new posts, including an interview with Mona and new short story that re-imagines The Wizard of Oz check out my website www.jenniferharlowbooks.com under Harlow Gazette. And for the soundtrack click "The Soundtracks."

Staycation

Last Sunday I sent my steampunk book "Verity Hart Vs. The Vampyres" to my agent. I wrote and edited this one in five months, a new record. And during that time I was also working on lining up publicity for "Mind Over Monsters," entertaining family members, doing NASCAR research, and trying to have a life (epic fail on that last one). So for five months I've been working six days a week, usually for ten hours a day. I'm not complaining, I love what I do, but tend to get lost in the work.

Hello, my name is Jennifer Harlow and I am a workaholic.

When I was a teenager I had this evil teacher who loaded us down with homework. The only time my parents worried about me as a teenager was that year because I locked myself in my room doing homework all the time because I COULD NOT LET THAT BASTARD WIN! (Sorry. PTSD flashback. Continuing.) I had to get an "A" come hell or high water. (I so did.) The same thing happens when I'm working on a book. Other people have to force me to stop working. So since I am a starving artist and went like seven places last year even Canada, I took a much needed few days off at home. All two of them for what will soon be obvious reasons.

My schedule was as follows:

8:30-Wake up, check e-mails

9:00-Tabatha's Take-Over Salon

10:00-drive to gym, find is closed for a week (Yipee!)

10:30-go home, change, check e-mails again

10:45-none. Now what? YouTube of course

12:00-okay, watched way too many cute cat videos. Never again.

12:15-check fridge, no food has materialized

12:30-flip through 600+ channels, nothing on

12:45-check online again, nothing new, realize I am very unpopular, reflect on that, realize don't care

1:00-more You Tube cats

1:15-no food materialized again, fall on couch and stare at ceiling. Lots of spiderwebs, realize don't care.

1:30-Netflix streaming, start and stop five movies because all boring

2:30-No new e-mails, hit head against wall for something to do

4:30-wake up from concussion, realize haven't eaten anything, go to McDonald's

5:30-Stuffing face while watching "The Town" for millionth time, OD on eye candy

7:00-shower

7:15-climb into bed as so tired from long day

7:30-start and stop three books that all "suck"

8:00-Law & Order, seen them all but nothing else on

10:00-Oh, thank God I can go to sleep without feeling like I'm

11:00-can't sleep, too bored

12:00-can't sleep, too bored. I hate vacation.

2:00-fall asleep

Repeat next day.

I am not meant to be idle.

Luckily in exactly a month from today my book, MIND OVER MONSTERS will be out(!!!!!) and I will be crazy busy with guest blog posts, radio interviews, and signings among other things. Still putting the schedule together so keep checking www.jenniferharlowbooks.com for updates. Also, the soundtrack to the book will soon be up.

What about y'all? Did you have a better vacation than me?

Jennifer Harlow

Deadlines

Did I hear a collective groan?

I made the mistake today of cataloging all my upcoming deadlines:

Daily:
1. Projects at work, moveable at rush jobs appear
2. Get supper on the table
3. Continue writing book 2

2-3 Times per Week:
1. Laundry
2. Work out at the gym

Weekly
1. Grocery shopping

Within the next 4 Weeks:
1. Copyedits for book 1
2. Two birthdays

Within the next 16 Weeks:
1. Christmas
2. Author events (no idea, yet, how many there will be)

This looks way too much like part of my kid’s physics homework: If writer A has X minutes to complete task B, how soon will writer A’s head explode when tasks C, D, F, and G are added at a rate of Y per hour? This is my instinctive reaction to that formula:

Then again, this is where being an anal-retentive type comes in handy. I’m a pretty good hand at multitasking, and I’ve become more efficient at it over the years, when I learned how to take advantage of Found Time. Those are all the little bits of “hold time” while waiting in line, waiting for dinner to finish, waiting at the soccer field.

Like many of us who write and maintain a Day Job and (often) household, if I didn’t monitor my schedule daily, I’d drown. Hooray for phones with a calendar function. And Post-It Notes. Those little sticky pieces of paper have rescued many a plot point from oblivion.

Today’s tasks aren’t done, and there are tomorrow’s to prepare for. And the next chapter. And the laundry… I think I’ll lay down with a cool cloth on my forehead for five minutes. No; wait. That’s not on my schedule. Guess it’s time for this:

Permission to not Make Videos, Blog, Tweet, Facebook, or otherwise Go Viral, by Jess Lourey

Authors, like any business owner in a competitive field, are expected to promote their products. It has always been this way, the need to set yourself apart from the pack and carve creative time out of the haunch of the promotional beast. Just ask Charles Dickens, who literally collapsed while on book tour. I don’t know if the pressure for authors to promote is stronger now, but I do know it’s more varied: Facebook, Good Reads, signings, blogs, blog tours, videos, Twitter, phone-ins to book groups, appearances at conferences, newsletters, is there more? Probably. And I’m probably not doing that, either.

You see, two years ago, about the time August Moon, the fourth book in my series came out, I gave myself permission to pare down my promotional obligations. I did this with a great deal of guilt shaded by jealousy as I watched my fellow authors promote circles around me. At least at first I did. But now, I revel in this tiny bubble I’ve chosen for myself, feeling only a twinge of guiltosy when I hear about new promotional breakthroughs for writers. It’s for sure the next best thing, let’s call it Twitbooking, but it’s not for me.

I’ve brought my focus back to writing. I blog monthly on the awesome Inkspot, I save enough money to attend one conference a year, and I set up a dozen or so signings in my region and happily show up for TV and newspaper interviews when a new book comes out. All that extra time that I used to spend desperately riding the next promotional fad I’ve channeled into volunteering for MWA (SinC is also a great place to invest some time, as are many other local and national writing outfits) and the rest goes right back into writing, or my kids, or my boyfriend.

That’s my balance. And each book sells better than the last. That might be because I’m building an audience with the series, or it might be because my writing has improved as I’ve made more time for it. Either way, I’m happier, and so are the people around me. To those of you who promote across the spectrum, I applaud you and I send some spare energy sparks your way to use when you feel overwhelmed. To those of you who are scrambling to do it all and who find you just can’t, I give you permission to stop Twitbooking and redirect that energy into being the most amazing writer you can be. We’re all in this together, I believe, and we all have to find our own right way.

There are many good ways to promote a book. There are also many good ways to write a book. Problem is, they both take time. What is your balance?