When the thrill is gone

I haven't been in a good place lately.

No, I don't mean that I've been lurking in back alleyways or sinister bars. I'm talking more metaphorically. As we used to say back in the day, my head is in a bad place.

How so, you ask? Well. My personal life has been a bit, um, precarious the past couple of weeks. Kids and leaking roofs and bitter disappointments. Rinse and repeat. If there truly is a God, then He's been piling on of late.

But perhaps the biggest concern, for me anyway, is my recent reluctance to write. Be it this blog or my new book, I have been avoiding the keyboard like the plague. It's not even a reluctance, actually. More of an intense YAWN. Like, who the frick even cares?

Being an inquisitive little bugger, I've spent several days researching my dilemma and I believe I've stumbled upon the answer.

I am, in a word, paralyzed. (See? I'm a genius, aren't I?)

There's a reason for my nascent malaise, I believe. I suspect (or at least, I hope) some of you can relate. See, I spent so much time earnestly working on The Devil You Don't Know, naively believing that I would write my masterpiece and then, somehow, just get it published!

I mean, duh. Why would I not want to publish it? So, having no clue as to what I was doing, I rolled up my sleeves (as best I could, since I tend to write in tee-shirts) and wrote my book. Only after the two years it took me to write it did I learn enough of my craft to realize that it's JUST NOT THAT EASY.

While I'm not ready to say just yet that TDYDK will never be published, I admit I'm not as confident as I once was.

And now, I've sat down and started writing book two, Empty Spaces. It's a really awesome book, if I may say so myself. Really, really good. I've done my homework. It has pacing, snappy relevant dialogue, a smart plot and enough tension to string it between two electrical poles.

So what, you ask, is my problem?

To be honest, I sit and allow myself to look forward to another year or two of incredibly hard work, only to find myself right here again.

Look, I am a writer. I must write. Or die. It's that simple. But like most of us, I secretly want to succeed at it, to have others read it. To have an agent and ultimately a publisher love it as much as I do.

I want to -- let's be honest here -- make money at this thing called fiction writing.

I would give anything to go back in time, to that point when all I did was sit down and write, without worrying about all the crap that was to come.

So tell me, how do you soldier on when the thrill is gone?

ROLLER DERBY UPDATE: For those who care, my beloved Hard Knocks lost 134-109 Saturday night. It was a great bout and a tremendous success. The place was sold out, alternative rock and roll blared and the media was all over it. Very cool. And the wife took a teeth-jarring hit and bounced right up, although one girl on the other team was knocked unconscious for a few seconds.

Do you LOVE to write?

I periodically pick up Stephen King's wonderful On Writing, thumb to a random page, and start reading. It seems that no matter where I start reading, I find something useful that aids me in my writing career.

Today, I grabbed the dog-eared copy that lives permanently next to my bed and opened it to ... well, that part the always makes me feel guilty. Damn it.

It's the part of the book where he goes on and on about how much a real writer needs to love the act of writing. According to King, one should write no less than a thousand words a day -- seven days a week. Anything less means you're not (gulp) a serious writer.

And you had better love it. King claims that a real writer (my words, not his) loves writing, the act of writing, more than anything in life. Yes. More than sex. More than chocolate. Even more than baseball!

As Scooby-Do says, "Rut row."

Don't get me wrong. I love writing. Except for those days when I hate writing. You know? I mean, there are days when really good shit just oozes from my keyboard. Those, unfortunately, are few and far between. Mostly, there are days when I sit for hours and crank out 250 words of pure, unadulterated crap. Can I get an amen? No? Never mind.

On those days, I absolutely despise writing. Hate it. I'd rather be cleaning the toilet than sitting at this computer trying to make sense of the crap coming out of my brain.

Ah. But here's my saving grace (you knew there'd be one, didn't you?): I would rather sit here and squeeze out those crappy 250 words than not write. That's right. I'd rather suffer through writer's block and crappy prose and shitty first drafts (thanks, Anne LaMott) and all those things we take for granted each and every day, than not write.

That must mean I love writing to some degree, right? Why else do it? But to say that I love the act of writing more than anything else on Earth?

Nope.

For this writer, doing the really difficult writing is like slicing open a vein. It hurts. It's depressing. It seldom puts me in a better mood.

The only time I'm in a worse mood is when I'm not writing. Sigh.

How about you? Where does writing -- not having written, but the actual act of writing fiction -- fall on your like scale?

Home at last

Actually, we got home about 3 a.m. Saturday after I decided to drive straight through from Williamsburg, Va. Yes, that's right. Seventeen hours. A new personal best.

Needless to say, we were exhausted for most of the weekend. Today, I drove another six hours to take Brennan to his grandparents' in suburban Chicago for a week of "Camp Gramp."

Nothing much to say, other than I'm glad to be home. We had a great vacation, but I'm looking forward to getting back to writing on a daily basis. This week, I'm back to querying and blogging and planning the new novel. It'll be nice to get back to work after almost three months off.

Hope everyone is well and enjoying the final few days of summer. We shall talk again soon.

Getting to know each other -- Part 2

I owe each and every one of you an apology for being so absent from the Internet the past few days. Instead, I've been spending quality time with my 12-year-old son, enjoying the beautiful weather and spending hours and hours plotting my new novel while sitting on the front porch with a bottle of sweet green tea and a good cigar.

No. Wait. I'm not apologizing for any of that. I've been having a blast -- a relaxing blast, if you can wrap your mind around that phrase.

Anyway, I've only been online sporadically the past couple of weeks. And I do apologize to the members of my crit group for being absent recently. I promise I'll be more involved in the coming days and weeks.

And that whole "I'm not working at all until the kid goes back to school" thing? Forget it. Instead, I've been working a few hours a day between times with the kid. It's been the perfect thing for my anxiety and writer's block I've been going through. And best of all, it's been guilt free!

So tonight, I have two somewhat-related questions for you, dear bloggy friends. Some of you eagle-eyed members of Bransforums might remember I asked similar questions over there some months ago and they got tremendous responses.

Here we go:

1. Do you write in your pajamas? Or do you get fully dressed before you begin your writing/editing/revising?

Me, I usually write in my black and green X-Box pajama pants and a tee-shirt. Sometimes, I'll wear shorts, a tee-shirt and sandals or flip-flops in the summer. The main thing for me is being totally comfortable.

My writing area is downstairs in the family room/study, so I'm usually out-of-view if someone is over to the house -- not that the sight of me in my pajama pants and Led Zeppelin tee would necessarily send someone screaming in horror from the house. But hey, you never know. Better safe than sued, I always say.

2. Do you listen to music when you write? Television? Or do you require total silence?

Me, I need absolute silence to write. No TV, no baseball. Nothing. Otherwise, my attention wanders and I get out of the narrative. This goes for editing and revising, too. I need to fully concentrate, and the slightest distraction pulls me off course.

I do, however, listen to music on my iPod while plotting or outlining or just plain thinking. I especially like to stay up really late, after everyone has gone to bed, put on the headphones, fire up a cigar and sit downstairs in the dark and just think about my story. I let it play out in my mind like a movie. Sometimes, my story takes a weird twist or turn because of a particular song I'm listening to at that moment. Music really helps me create, I've found.

I'm fond of classic rock (70s stuff with a progressive or punk edge), although my iPod has music from the Beatles to Lady Gaga and from the Clash to Lily Allen. I just love music. Period.

So how about you guys and gals? Pajamas? Fully clothed? Music? What kind? TV? Quiet? Let me know and we can all get to know each other a little better.

A lazy Monday

I didn't do much today, although I did get some actual work done.

First, I played some video baseball. And won! Then I read some of Bird by Bird, my newest book on writing and fell in love with it. Then I read some from Donald Maass' Writing the Breakout Novel.

Then I felt a bit guilty and actually went to work. First, I did some minor polishing on The Devil You Don't Know, based on some early feedback from betas. Then I spent about an hour online researching New Hampshire, specifically the small town of Exeter, where my next novel is partially set. There's no community college in Exeter, so I created one. I even found a bare, wooded spot just off the freeway in which to locate it. My apologies to whomever actually owns that land. But hey, that's the magic of fiction, right?

Then I started working on the new novel and managed to knock off a decent start to Chapter 2. It's not great, but it's something to work with tomorrow.

Oh, and I spent a great deal of time on my cell phone, talking to my 19-year-old son Zach, who decided to drive to Chicago this morning with two girls to "hang out" for a couple of days at a friend's place. While I hemmed and hawed and acted all fatherly, I was secretly envious of him. Oh, to be nineteen again and just head off on a adventure. I remember it well. Sort of. My memory of anything that happened to me between the ages of about 14 and 27 is hazy to say the least.

Oh, and he got lost. Big-time lost. Somewhere near Bolingbrook, as best he could tell. When I talked to him a couple of minutes ago, they were lost in McCook. Which is, if I'm not mistaken, somewhere near Bolingbrook.

So they haven't gotten very far. Oh well. They'll find it. Or not. As long as he doesn't find himself in the Cook County Jail, he ought to be fine.

And the wife is a bit miffed with her search for a roller derby nickname. It turns out there is a huge national database of registered nicknames (who knew?) and most of hers are already taken -- including the wonderful Punky Bruiser.

Damn it. Oh well, we might go with Gina's idea -- Ghengis Mom. It's not taken. But now that she can't have Punky Bruiser, it sounds like the coolest derby nickname ever.

Well, I'm out of here to make dinner. Sorry for the slight, rather rambling post. Just not much going on in my life today. And that, my friends, isn't always a bad thing.

Until tomorrow.

Writing what I know

A couple of years ago, when I first discovered that there was this whole vibrant, thriving community of writers online, I found a blog through a link from a famous agent's blog.

I started reading this guy's blog, knowing nothing about him and knowing very little about the career I had chosen for myself a year earlier. I was thrilled to have found someone out there who sits at his computer every day, agonizing over every word, every phrase. Trying to get it just right. Just like I was.

This guy spent much of his blog time dispensing advice on everything from how to write a good query to the proper font to use, to how many words certain genre manuscripts ought to be. I was thrilled. This was more information than I had uncovered in months of reading out-dated books on writing.

About a week after becoming this guy's biggest fan, I went to his blog and he had posted about a certain grammatical rule that I won't go into here, lest he accidentally stumble into my blog and read this and see himself in what I am about to write.

Anyway, he was lecturing his 200-plus followers on this and I thought: Wait a minute. He's dead wrong. What the hell is he talking about?

I say this not because I am an expert on fiction writing -- not by a long shot am I that. No, but I was a journalist for 25 years. A pretty good one, in fact. I won lots of awards. I was a reporter, a regular columnist and was an editor for the last 15 years of my career. I taught journalism and news writing at the college level. I know a little about writing. Trust me.

So, like a good journalist (ahem), I started poking around on this guy's blog. And I learned something shocking. This dude, who spends all of his blog time arrogantly lecturing people on how to be a good writer, how to get an agent, how to write a query, how to format a manuscript, etc. HAD NEVER BEEN PUBLISHED. In fact, even though he had been querying for two years, he hadn't gotten a request for a partial, let alone actually found an agent.

And I thought: Why in the hell am I listening to this guy? Shouldn't I be listening to someone who, I don't know, actually knows what he's talking about?

Now fast-forward to this past Thanksgiving. I started this blog and I decided I wanted it to accurately reflect my quest from newbie to published author (from my lips to God's ear!). But I also made a decision that I wasn't going to lecture people on things I, personally, haven't pulled off yet. So I don't harp on queries, for instance, other than to throw mine out there and whine about how it sucks. Who am I to tell you how to write a query, when mine still sits here fermenting itself on my desktop?

I can tell you that your participle is dangling (how dare you!), but I can't tell you how to find an agent. Why not? Because I haven't figured that out myself yet. I can tell you how to write a good news lede in 25 words or less. But I can't really explain how to write an opening to a novel that grabs a reader by the throat and doesn't let go. Why not? Because that hasn't happened to me yet.

Instead of dispensing advice like Pez pellets, I instead write about my feelings, my fears, my insecurities. I can't write about my success as a fiction writer because it hasn't happened yet.

When I started this blog, I made a promise to myself that I would always tell the truth. I really want this to chart my journey, warts and all. So that when I make it, I can go back and remember how things were on the way up. (I can only hope.)

This is why I no longer follow that guy's blog. The blog friends I have now are very much like me, in that they understand that they are where they are. No more, no less. I like that about each and every blogger I follow. Some are published, some are about to be and others are much closer than I am. I listen and pay attention to what they write, since they are further along on their journey than I am. And those who are where I am, I can read their stuff and chuckle. Because I know exactly how they feel.

I figure if I get an agent, I'll blog about how I did it. If the agent gets me a book deal, I'll blog about that, too. And so on.

But until then, I'm going to stick to what I know best -- my own feelings. It's the most honest thing I know to do.

WORK UPDATE: I revised a chapter and a half today! Whoo hooo. My goal (unrealistic as it is) is to get it all done by a week from today. We shall see.

Have a great night.

Unflinching honesty

Why am I still screwing around with this novel after three years? I'm about halfway through my umpteenth round of revisions on this thing and still, I'm not even sure if it's any damn good.

Look, I know I'm a decent writer. I was a professional writer/columnist/editor for 25 years. One doesn't pull that off without a modicum of talent. But fiction writing? Ah, that's a cat of a different color, now isn't it?

Yes. It is.

And those of us who write fiction -- hell, those of us who read fiction -- know there's far more to a good novel than just decent writing. There has to be a story, and a pretty good story. It has to more or less follow a standard formula and it must contain things like pacing, good dialogue, suspension of belief, drama. Stuff like that.

Because if it has none of those things, it's just a collection of words. Decent words, sure. But words nonetheless. Not a novel.

Where am I going with this? I don't know. I know I'm exhausted from working 15-hour days on Friday and Saturday and getting very little sleep in between. And I know when I'm exhausted, I get cranky and when I get cranky, I shouldn't be allowed within twenty feet of a computer. Especially one containing a blog I happen to write. Because I tend to rant and rave and ramble on like a crazy person.

But I digress.

Or do I? It's possible I think the novel is crap because I'm cranky and in a bad mood. Right? Possible. Maybe I freaked out a bit over the edits that kindly book editor Staley wants me to do and chose instead to believe she hated the book and is just too nice of a person to actually tell me that.

Maybe. I hope so.

I can be a bit paranoid when it comes to my writing because, damn it, I have no way of knowing if it's any good! I am not a good judge of my own work.

Man, that is so frustrating. I mean, I can read someone else's work and know immediately if it's a piece of shit or if it has possibilities. But when I read mine, I want to puke. Seriously.

What I need is a couple of really good, really honest beta readers who will go through the entire manuscript and then tell me, straight up, if it's any good. Who will give me constructive feedback when needed. I don't want someone telling me how great it is, I want someone to tell me how I can make it better.

I want -- I need -- unflinching honesty.

Any volunteers?

On reading

My wife and I are voracious readers. When we moved in together, our book collections collided like two large, slow-moving barges. We were (are) literally swamped with books -- hard covers, paperbacks, textbooks. You name it, we have it.

It was also stunning how similar our reading tastes were. If you don't believe me, take a look at any of the dozen or so bookshelves in the house and you will see duplicates of at least half the books. Mine and hers. Ain't that sweet?

We go through periods where I read more than she does. But I'll admit it: She out-reads me. The woman always has her nose in a book. Always. Me, I read most every day and go through two or three novels a month. Sometimes more, sometimes less.

She reads a novel a week, sometimes more. And our 12-year-old son might read more than the both of us combined.

I also admit that I have a stack of books on the dresser next to our bed that has grown precariously large. It wobbles and sways and is always threatening to fall down upon my head while I sleep. Probably adding Stephen King's Under The Dome to the top of the pile wasn't the smartest move, since it weighs about as much as a 1974 Ford Thunderbird.

The pile represents every book I've read since last spring. All are new purchases, and here's the deal: We no longer have room for them! None of them. Our bookshelves are double-rowed as it is (books in front of books!).

While the Wife and I like many of the same books and authors, we have our separate faves, too. She likes what I sometimes lovingly call "chick books," those romantic books (not romance per se, though) that are almost exclusively written by women. I read Lawrence Block Scudder detective novels when I'm bored. I figure that makes us even.

But we share a love of many classics, along with Anne Tyler books, Pat Conroy books and most anything by Tom Clancy. I know! My wife is a Clancy freak. Go figure.

The point I'm getting at here (laboriously, I admit) is that in order to write well, one must read. A lot.

I know many so-called writers in the journalism world who brag that they don't read for relaxation or enjoyment. How sad for them. I can only imagine how much better their writing would be if they read more.

So crack open a good book and kick back. You deserve it.

Oh, and please comment and let me know your faves. Maybe we can work out a swap. If nothing else, I can maybe get that pile down to a more manageable height. Like, say, five feet or so.

Questions, answers, thoughts ...

It's Sunday. We've made it through another week virtually unscathed.

I thought I'd post a bit early tonight, since I plan to spend the evening flipping between the Grammys and the Pro Bowl. It's a tough life, but someone has to do it!

I've been a bit down this weekend, and it took me a while to figure out why. And then it hit me. I had been scoping out literary agent Nathan Bransford's awesome blog yesterday, and someone in his forums wondered whether the dream of getting published is really worth all of the hard work and stress.

This poster then mentioned that dreaded number that always brings me down: .01 percent.

That's right. Of all novelists who actually finish their book (most don't), only .01 percent actually get published. Now this doesn't count vanity presses or self-publishing. It refers instead to the gold standard -- you know, where a publishing house pays you for the right to publish your work, not the other way around.

Think about that for a moment. One one-hundredth of one percent of finished novels are actually published! My God, it makes playing the lottery seem low risk by comparison.

These are bleak odds, people. Very bleak. There's really nothing I can write here to sugar coat it. Those odds suck, plain and simple.

That said, I plan on beating them. Really, I do. Because if I didn't honestly believe that, I would have quit writing, editing and revising a long time ago. No, that's not accurate. I would have quit writing in the hopes of being published, and instead would just write for myself. And get a job. A real one.

On to more upbeat things. I am really bad at answering people's questions on this blog, so I thought I would grab a handful of them and try to answer them as best as I can.

Here we go:

Anonymous: Do you think your 12-year-old son can relate to 1980s movies as we did at the time? Or do those movies seem "dated" to him?

Me: For those of you (and that's quite a few, I realize) who don't follow this blog regularly, we have Family Movie Night every Friday evening, and lately I've been pushing an '80's movie theme. Okay, Fine. I'll admit it. I've been pushing a Molly Ringwald theme.

But only lately. We also watched Adventures in Babysitting and Ferris Buehler's Day Off, too. Not only does the kid relate to them, he wishes he actually lived in the 1980s! I know! I don't have the courage to tell him that the real 1980s were far different than John Hughes' version. I mean, does anyone remember the Cold War? Reagan? Alf? Mr. T? Hair bands? Rehab? (Oh, wait. That was just me). Wham!?

Ick.

Anyway, they hold up well as fantasies go; as for real life, not so much. But the kid loves them, especially the music and the fashions. Go figure.

Anonymous: Do you have a side job? If not, I'd be curious to hear how you were able to "take the plunge" into full-time writing while still being able to make ends meet.

Me: Hey. Is this my wife? Come on, honey. Fess up!

No? Okay, then I'll try to answer as best I can, without going too much into my personal finances. First, my wife has a great job. She's an editor at my former newspaper. And I have a couple of side jobs: I am a vice president and director of communications for RS Operations, a global marine salvage company (we hunt for sunken Spanish galleons!). I also do some free-lance journalism gigs (including working for the Associated Press and Bloomberg News). I also took eight months off from writing the novel in 2008 to run a U.S. Congressional campaign that, while not exactly like hitting the lottery, paid pretty well.

Of course, when I left the newspaper, I had a fairly large 401k and my pension, which I was able to tap because the corporation I worked for had a 25 and out policy. So I have been able to write pretty much full time with the exception of most of 2008, and still live comfortably.

It's been a blessing, trust me. And it won't last forever. The moment of truth is somewhere down the road (see the couple of paragraphs on those damned odds above). Gulp.


Marty: Have you written a book proposal for the novel?


Me: Marty, a friend of mine who moved to New York City and became a big-time writer and radio personality, has had a couple of non-fiction books published. When you write non-fiction, you are required to submit a book proposal to a prospective agent or publisher.

Fiction writers do not submit a proposal, but instead must submit a query letter. It's essentially the same thing in that its main purpose is to entice someone (an agent, editor or publisher) to want to read and publish your work.

Yes, I have written a query. An early version of it can be found somewhere on this blog. It has been polished even more since then, and is almost ready to go! Now if I can just get that manuscript revised ...


Gina: I am a huge 80's fan, but I've never seen Broadcast News. Will I be shunned?

Me: Yes. ;)

Although you can remedy that by running out and renting it right now. It's that good!

Andy: So what's with the fuzzy, geeky photo of you on the blog?


Me: No one likes a smart ass, Andy. Well, okay, I do. So I'll answer your question (which was asked in real life, not on the blog).

Yes, I realize the photo is not flattering. I know I look tired, worn out, exhausted. You know why? Because I was.

Each year, usually in January or February, I join a group of a dozen or so wonderful people and we travel to the jungles of the Yucatan Peninsula for a weeklong mission trip. We live in the little Mexican village of Leona Vicario and travel about 100 kilometers each day to a very small Mayan village called Tres Reyes. We do this every day for a week, and we build a small church and school for them. It's the most incredible, awesome week of the year for me. I love it.

It's also brutal work, in hot, humid conditions with the most primitive of tools. The photo I chose for this blog was taken in the tiny Mayan village on the last day of work last year. It was about 95 degrees and the humidity felt like a hot, wet blanket. We were tired, hungry, sore and ready to come home.

We were also happy. Very, very happy. We leave again in less than three weeks, and this year I'm taking my 19-year-old son for the very first time. I cannot wait.

And that's it for today. A long post, I know. But I enjoyed it. Hope you did too.

Have a wonderful evening, and a great Monday!