Life has a funny way of bringing you down, then bouncing you right back up.  I’ve had a string of both rejections and sales recently, the most recent being the rejection of both THE FALL OF JERICHO and RENEGADE at Carina Press.  While I’m disappointed they don’t like my westerns, I have resolved to sell these two stories, as they happen to be two of my favorites.  (Don’t authors say that about every book they write? lol)

Anyhow, undaunted, I’ve decided to send them both on to Samhain Publishing.  However, my editor is currently slammed with submissions, so she can only do one at a time.  She has JERICHO right now, so RENEGADE will have to cool its boot heels a little while longer.  Don’t worry, intrepid western fans, the book is worth the wait. 

Submitting a book is kind of like throwing magnets at a fridge and seeing which one sticks.  However, I’ve never been one to submit a book at more than one house at the same time.  I guess it just kinda rubs me the wrong way to tell one interested publisher that you’re going with the other guy.  So I torture myself by waiting to see what one publisher has to say before resetting the submission clock.

However, if these rejections have gotten me down, a few positive notes have brought me right back up again.  First of all, I got my first round edits on both RIDE THE LIGHTNING and MARK OF THE B*E*A*S*T*.  Both editors said they really liked the stories, but my editor for MotB said she loved the book and could hardly put it down.  Authors LOVE it when the ol’ ego is stroked.  Heh.

My other editor for RtL gave me a great idea for the ending, which I won’t spoil for you, but kind of brings a clash of future meets past in ideology (since it’s a time travel).  That was unexpected, but I loved it, so I added it in.

Also, a couple of my readers have told me out of the blue that they read, and loved, HIGH NOON, my one and only western (currently) at Samhain.  (Thank you Cindy and Kathy!!)

Through all of this hoopla, I have noticed a new trend with eBook pirates.  They’ve found me.  I’ve hidden from them for years, not finding any of my books on the premiere sites, until a few months ago, it was like the Becka Big Bang, and suddenly everyone was pirating my books.  However, since this amazing, disturbing discovery, I’ve noticed my sales have noticeably been on the rise.  Are these two events related?  Probably.  If a reader reads one book for free and really likes it, sure, they can go back for more freebies with the pirates, or sometimes, they can choose to support the author they’ve pirated.

I’m not advocating eBook piracy here, but I’m choosing to look for the silver lining.  If any of my new readers have found me through nefarious means, all I ask is for you to spread the love and get me more readers.  Support a scrounging author!  LOL   Hey, I love me some hot pirates, but even those pirates, at the end of the book, end up buying the cow, even though they probably already got the milk for free… Heheh

So with this grand turn of events, my many rejections, my few acquisitions, I have made a decision.  I’ve told you about my five year goal – from five years ago – and I tried this year, I really did, to break into the big leagues.  But it seems as if the universe at large is telling me “NO!”  Therefore, I will let go of that dream and concentrate all my will and determination to become the Best Damn eBook Author Ever (or at least the most prolific) and try my hardest to become a Big Fish in this eBook pond. (Which won’t be a pond forever, and is even now probably a lake.  With an outlet to the ocean.)  But until the day when everyone is reading eBooks, I want to build my audience, get people to know and recognize my name in eBook romance, and become more than just a “run-of-the-mill eBook author”.

I’ll be THE Rebecca Goings.  And I’ll be kicking some ass.

~~Becka, who thanks the many editors over the years who’ve rejected her stories, for those rejections have now strengthened her resolve to become a force to be reckoned with in the eBook world.

I’ve been thinking about this topic lately.  I first began thinking about it when one of my husband’s friends asked me if I was still writing those “love” books.  Then he stopped and said, “No, I mean romance, which has nothing to do with love.”

Needless to say, I was perturbed by this comment, but this seemed to be the consensus of my husband and the rest of his guy friends.  “Romance” is the ooey-gooey saccharine-sweet puppy love of flowers and chocolates, while real “love” is enduring, a rock in the storms of life.  As my husband likes to call it, “Love is not a feeling, it’s an act of your will.”  (He gets that from a song lyric, btw. lol)  Basically, what that means is, the lengths you are willing to go for another person.

However, you go online and hundreds (if not thousands) of readers and authors of the romance genre will yell at you until they’re red in the face that the books they read and write are about LOVE, the true, enduring kind.  Some of them even go so far to say it’s splitting hairs, that love and romance are the same thing.

For me, I can see both sides of the coin.  However for me, I believe love and romance go hand-in-hand.  Love is the bond you have with another person that allows you to share life experiences, while romance strengthens that bond.

And I’m not talking about candlelight dinners and skimpy lingerie.

Here’s the definition of romance:

1. A love affair.

2. Ardent emotional attachment or involvement between people; love: They kept the romance alive in their marriage for 35 years.
3. A strong, sometimes short-lived attachment, fascination, or enthusiasm for something: a childhood romance with the sea.
4. A long medieval narrative in prose or verse that tells of the adventures and heroic exploits of chivalric heroes: an Arthurian romance.
5. A long fictitious tale of heroes and extraordinary or mysterious events, usually set in a distant time or place.
6. The class of literature constituted by such tales.
7. An artistic work, such as a novel, story, or film, that deals with sexual love, especially in an idealized form.
8. The class or style of such works.

Romance, to me, is snuggling.  Holding hands.  Telling your partner they look nice.  Reassuring them you still find them attractive.  Defending them to others, and being their cheerleader when something they’re facing seems too insurmountable.

For those of us who write romance, being told we don’t write about “love” smacks of ignorance.  YES, I see and acknowledge the difference between romance and love.  HOWEVER, by book’s end, both characters are in it for life, they have moved beyond the “omigawdheslookingatmewhatdoido” stage into the “Now let’s build a life together” stage.

And here is the definition of love:

8. (initial capital letter) a personification of sexual affection, as Eros or Cupid.

Over the past few days, I’ve noticed my cast was really loose.  It caused me a LOT of pain because I could move my hand in there.  My hubby told me to call the doc, because I might need a new cast and its better than going the four weeks and doing it wrong.

So I call and the receptionist tells me if the cast is loose, I need to come in.  So I go, and the nurse wants to ask the doc’s opinion.  She leaves me for a bit, then comes back to take the cast off, because I’m going to get a new one anyway.  She wanted to ask the doc about splinting instead, so I could have it be tighter.

I’m in the middle of washing my arm – feels so good! – when he comes in.  He seems annoyed my cast was off.  Then he goes into explaining how they don’t have a full arm splint and why I needed the cast with my arm bent, to prevent looking at my palm, and to prevent the side-to side motion of the wrist.  I told him I understood that, but that there was a lot of play in my cast, which hurt when unscrewing the lid to the milk jug, etc.

I was shocked at his look of shock.

Doc: “You’re not supposed to do that!”

Me: “Well, I didn’t pick up the jug, I was just taking off the lid.”

Doc: “Doesn’t matter, ANY action of the wrist, even small ones, won’t allow it to heal, and I can’t send you to the hand surgeon until we’ve proved this treatment didn’t work.”

(Basically, even if he thinks this won’t work, he’s gotta do it first.)

Me: “I have no problem wearing the cast, it’s just that it was so loose that it allowed for the side-to-side motion.”

Doc: (somewhat mollified) “Okay, then I’ll see you back in a few weeks.”

But now I’m kind of mad because no one told me I couldn’t do ANYTHING with this wrist.  The lady who put on my first cast even told me she’d give my fingers some room to grab things…  True, she’s not the doctor, but it would have been nice if someone (re: the doc) outlined what was expected in the first place.  All he told me was it would be hard, I’d need people to help out, and I’d have lots of physical therapy after.

SIGH

So, doc leaves, and the nurse puts on cast #2, and all the while I’m thinking the doc just chewed me out (dramatics added for effect) for doing the right thing by coming in and changing my cast.  Even the nurse said sometimes the arm shrinks in there, swelling goes down, etc., causing the cast to get loose.  I just feel like the doc thinks I’m whiny.  The splint wasn’t even my idea and he marches in there as if to tell me I will wear this cast, by gawd… (again, dramatics added).  And I was a little miffed that he couldn’t see the evidence of my loose cast for himself because the lady had already taken it off.  It was like he thought I was being whiny and there probably hadn’t been anything wrong with it.

I understand his decree of total rest, I do.  But if I’d been TOLD THAT in the first place, I might not have had so many issues.

Still would have needed a new cast, though.

I decided to go purple with the new one.  But I’ve still got glitter!  It’s much skinnier than my first one and it feels SO MUCH BETTER!  Oh my gosh, night and day difference.  Can’t move anything around in there.

Doc’s probably off some place shaking his head that his patients are dumbasses.  LOL  Or maybe he woke up on the wrong side of the bed.  He *was* wearing a full suit, whereas the other times I’ve seen him, he was business casual.  Maybe he was stressed about something.  Maybe I just blew it all out of proportion.  But I’ve got news for ya, doc.  NO ONE wants this wrist healed more than I do.

And that’s a fact.

I did notice that while my elbow was somewhat tender, I could bend it all right once I was out of the first cast.  But my wrist – forget about it.  It hurt to just hold it while the nurse prepared the new casting material.  My ulnar side was much more swollen that it had ever been.  This does NOT bode well for getting the cast off in 3 weeks…

My daughter said, “Wow, Mommy, your arm looks much skinnier in that cast!”  I said, “I wish the rest of me looked skinnier.”  One of the nurses going to lunch in the parking lot snickered as she overheard me.  LOL

Anyways, here’s to doing/holding/carrying/twisting/lifting absolutely nothing until February 9th.  For all intents and purposes, I’m one-handed.  And yes, I’m typing one-handed right now.  Yes, it IS a giant PITA.

Pic of purple cast:

~~Becka

Since there’s not a lot of posts/blogs/forums/stories online about casting treatment for a TFCC tear (read: there aren’t any), I decided to document my experiences here.  Besides, I’m sure some of my readers are curious as well.  All the posts will be categorized with the tag “TFCC Tear Treatment” if you want to find the entire saga easily.

You see, all the info online that I can find, even the stories of others with this malady, have had the surgery or scheduled one.  I haven’t found anyone in a cast for non-surgical treatment, but as I understand, that’s the default treatment.  If the TFCC cannot heal itself, then you get the surgery.  But I haven’t found anyone who’s healed with casting alone.

So we’ll see if this works.  If anyone reading has found my site and healed with casting and physical therapy let me know!  I’d love to hear your story.

Okay, so not quite one week in my full-arm cast and I can safely say this is a pain.  Showering is an adventure with trash bags and duct tape, and yes, I have fashioned for myself a wire hanger itch-scratcher.  I’ve bent the wire in half so it looks like an elbow, I’m not ripping up the padding in my cast, don’t worry about that.

My doc’s office didn’t give me a sling so after a few days of intense pain at holding it up, (I was crying, making my kids cry in the process) I went out and bought one myself–The Ultimate Arm Sling, if you must know.  Aside from that, the Aleve wasn’t doing anything for me.  since it seems as if my doc’s office is determined to torture it’s patients, they said to try Ibuprofen with some scattered Tylenol and some Vit-C, as Vit-C has been shown to help speed healing (I guess).

The sling has helped A LOT, but the cast is so heavy, it hurts my neck to wear it all the time.  When I’m sitting I prop it on a pillow and when I’m doing chores, I’ll wear it.

The Ibuprofen and Tylenol seem to have helped better with pain management than the Aleve.  Of course the sling is also a big help.  When you’re holding up the cast with just your arm muscles, it would seem you are also engaging the ligaments in your wrist, as mine was on fire after just a couple of errands.  So be wary of that if you have this injury with a big heavy cast.  The point of the huge full-arm cast with the bent elbow is to prevent supination of the wrist, or twisting your arm to look at your palm.  But it’s so hot and uncomfortable!

I get this cast off on February 9th, and after that is PT, so we’ll see what happens afterward.  I’m wondering if the casting is nothing more than a “smoke screen” for health insurances to cover the surgery, to prove they did “conservative” treatment first.  I seriously have not found any stories of anyone in a cast for a TFCC tear.  Everyone with a story online talks about surgery.

Here’s hoping this works for me.  I have no idea how big my tear is, but I’ve got to wonder if it got bigger over time, as my pain before I went to the doc was getting worse, not better…  My fingers and strength in my left hand are so weak now.  I don’t know if that’s because the cast is preventing the wrist to compensate for their weakness or what, but just taking the lid off the gallon of milk is a chore.  I can’t hold on to anything to chop for dinner, either.  Not just because its awkward, but because there’s no strength.  And when I try to hold something harder, I feel my wrist pop and slide, like the bones aren’t stable.

That’s a bit scary for me.  I have just over three weeks in this thing and I’m only feeling a little worse than when I got it on–with the strength in my hand, and the bone popping.  (Gross, I know)

Anyway, I don’t know if I’ll need a brace after the cast but probably, considering I’ll need the PT.

People online talk about how you don’t really heal 100% from this injury, about how your wrist will always be weak.  Mine’s been weak since I was 13, now it’s gonna be even moreso?  I’m 35 now and already falling apart.  Lovely.

Until the next update.

~~Becka

Yup, at 29,119 words, RIDE THE LIGHTNING is finished.  Not only is it finished, but the blurb is written, the synopsis is done, and I submitted it to Carina Press!  If you haven’t heard of them, they are the eBook arm of Harlequin Enterprises.   However, they’re their own publishing house.  So, you won’t be able to find eBooks there from Silhouette Desire, let’s say.  They’ve got their own thing going on.

Anyway, I decided to give them a try.  They’re brand new, opening spring of ’10, and I thought well, maybe now’s the time to get in good with them and expand my audience, not to mention my resume.   Who knows how many westerns they do or do not have, right?  RIGHT?  Heh.

Okay, okay, so you’ve pulled my arm, here’s the blurb for RtL:

Rumors of a ghost cowboy didn’t stop Jillian Brady from buying a rundown ranch in Cold Creek, Texas.  When a mysterious horseman appears in a flash of lightning, she thinks it’s the locals playing a prank.  But once she confronts him, she soon finds out the chilling truth.

Unless Jillian can intercede and save Mitch’s life, he’ll be doomed to ride the lightning forever…

~*~*~

Sucky thing is…after I submitted this book, I realized the formatting was a tad janky.  I don’t know what happened.  I wrote the book in Mac Pages, then had to convert it to a .doc so I could open MS Word for the Mac and convert it into a .rtf file.  If I convert a file from Pages directly to a .rtf, the formatting is WAY off.  I didn’t write the book in Word, because I didn’t have Word for the Mac until about a week ago.  So, I had to do the round-a-bout convert then convert again wanky wankness.

Fortunately, the “janky” formatting isn’t as horrible as it could have been.  The final sentence on each of the 15 chapters is centered on the page.

Seriously?  What a random problem, eh?  Only thing I could think of is when I do my page breaks, I do it on the same line as the last sentence.  Therefore, I’ll be going down to the next blank line for the page break to the next chapter in future books.

Let’s just hope the Powers That Be at Carina Press will judge the story by the story and not by my ghetto way of getting the dang file into .rtf.  (Seriously, what’s with the .rtf, ppl?  Doesn’t ANY ONE ELSE ON THE PLANET have a Mac?  I can’t be the only person who has these ginormo problems getting Mac Pages to read .rtf.  My edits on HEAVEN SENT were more like SENT FROM HELL.  lol  **Good news, tho, Leanne, I’ve got MS Word for the Mac now!!!**)

Let’s hope that solves my problems…

Okay, in other news….

Champagne Books has offered me a contract for MARK OF THE B*E*A*S*T*!!!    Once the ink has dried on that contract, it shall be slated for a SEPTEMBER 2010 release.  WOOOHOOO!  I’m so excited for it, you don’t even know!  I know, it’s 10 months, folks, but who knows, by then I should have a LOT more good news to share (I’m hoping) followed by a bunch of other release dates **crossing fingers**

I’ve got…FIVE books out for submission right now.

Question is, what should I write next?  Time for that magical desert sheikh? Hmm…

Any suggestions on some awesome Middle-Eastern flavored music?

~~Becka

Okay, folks, if you don’t already know, you’re probably not a reader of this blog from way back.  I’m a geek.  I’m a big-time geek.  I’m a Browncoat, I frakkin’ hate toasters, Scorpy and Harvey–I hate to love ‘em, Mr. Spock is my wingman, my best friend is a Wookiee and I’m homeless since my home planet of Gallifrey was destroyed somewhere in the Pegasus galaxy.

My heroes are Wil Wheaton, Bruce Campbell, and Neil Patrick Harris.

I’ve played D&D for 15 years, I love board games, and I’ve sat around with friends and had lengthy end-of-the-world discussions involving certain scenarios and what we would do should the zombies finally attack.

After all this, it shouldn’t be too far of a stretch for you to realize that one of my two favorite sitcoms is…you guessed it…Big Bang Theory.

If you’re not familiar, it is a show about 4 best friends, each a genius, each a geek, and their social ineptitude when it comes to dealing with people.  You have Raj, the man from India who cannot even talk to women unless he’s drunk, Wolowitz, who likes to think he’s a ladies’ man (when he’s anything but), Leonard, who’s had a crush on Penny in 4B since the start of the show (who, of course, is a total hottie), and you have Sheldon, a man who is so far removed from society that he’s almost childlike in the way he deals with the world.

In all the seasons of BBT, we’ve never seen Sheldon “fall in love”.  The seasons have revolved around Leonard, some shows involving Wolowitz, some with Raj, and yes, some with Sheldon, but as Wolowitz has finally found the one girl who can put up with him, I’m thinking perhaps Sheldon should have some time to shine.

You see, Sheldon is my favorite character on the show, and is arguably why the show is so wildly popular (aside from the geeky references you either get or you don’t).  People tune in to see what he would do next.  He seems perfectly happy in his own little world, and needs to have things “just so” in order for his world to flourish.  NO ONE can dare sit in HIS SPOT on the couch.  Every day of the week is a certain take-out meal from different restaurants.  He’s got some OCD going on in there, but he’s such a lovable character, like a young child you just want to take under your wing and protect from reality (even though he’s a grown man).

My point?  Well, I would love for the show to grow a bit.  And by grow a bit, I mean take the focus off Leonard and Penny, Wolowitz and Raj and let Sheldon have a love interest.

True, they would have to tread lightly.  As I’ve stated before, Sheldon is somewhat a fragile snowflake, but if done right, I think they can pull it off.  Obviously, she could not be a genius.  I don’t believe Sheldon could be with a woman “on his level”, as by his very nature, he has a certain arrogance that yes, he really does know what he’s talking about.  I don’t think they should give Sheldon a hottie, as Leonard is the one who went this route.  I don’t even believe they should give him a woman who is a little socially inept herself, like the girl they gave Wolowitz.

No, what Sheldon needs is a GEEK.  And here’s how I’d do it.

The guys hang out regularly at the comic shop.  This is where he should meet her.  And I think she should work there.  The guy who owns the shop could hire a new girl, and she could help Sheldon find some rare and obscure comic.  They could even have a comic-off, meaning “quizzing” each other on their knowledge of comics.

Eventually, she becomes friends with the group, and the guys know Sheldon obviously likes her.  Imagine the comedy gold right there.  The awkwardness of his clumsy courtship, the way she’s willing to put up with him and his quirky-ness.  Knowing Sheldon, he might try to give up or think he’s not worthy, or just plain not know what to DO.  And then you have Wolowitz giving him pointers on how to score with the ladies (OMG, I’m laughing even now), Penny telling him what women want from a man (and Sheldon failing miserably at being a white knight), Leonard telling him to just go for it if he really likes her, and Raj, well…maybe her geekery would be cause enough alone for him to like her, so they can have another player on Halo night (assuming Wolowitz bails due to his new lady love).

I just love Sheldon.  I think he’s quirky, but he’s so dang adorable.  Since I am also a fan of romance (orly?), I often think about what kind of woman would put up with him.  He’s obviously not “dead”, since he managed to get to second base with Penny (not romantically, but she was injured and needed help getting dressed from a fall in the shower) so c’mon, Bill Prady and the writers of the show.  Give us a Sheldon love-interest!  He gets the shaft so often that I feel the poor guy needs a happy ending of sorts, in more ways than one.  And just imagining THAT alone makes me giggle.

Will we ever see Sheldon find a woman, other than Penny, who will sing him Soft Kitty, Warm Kitty?  Please, please, pretty please?!?

Sincerely,

~~Becka

Hey everyone.  If you follow me on Twitter or my fan page on FaceBook, you’ll know I recently had a “four day” weekend (not counting Labor Day) for writing.  DH went to Seattle recently for the PAX convention while I stayed behind with the kidlets and had myself a fun writing weekend.

What am I writing?  RENEGADE!!  This book is filled with so MUCH, that I honestly think it’s the best book I’ve written.  I’ve learned so much over the years with regards to prose, voice, POV, emotion, and showing vs telling that I’m sooo hoping it’s come across in this manuscript.

I stayed up late a couple of times, burning the midnight oil with a pot o’ coffee.  I tried hard to get 100 pages written over my four day weekend, but alas, my final page count was 89 pages and 16,000 words.  I would have loved 100 pages and 20K, but I’ll take what I can get.

Of course, you have to realize, at any given time, I had eight children, and at times, ten children in my house, including two infants.

You see, the “price” for being left behind for the PAX con, is that I was designated baby-sitter.  Not so hard, as I have a few older children who can help me with the youngers.  Throw in there the neighbor kids (who are thankfully very well behaved!) and you’ve got a daycare chock full of DRAMA!

Needless to say, the lion’s share of my writing came after bedtime, which is why I burned the midnight oil until 3am a coupla times.

However, I didn’t have three of the children (including one of the infants) for the entire weekend, only Thursday morning through Friday night.  Then they were passed on to their grandma, who took over for Sat/Sun duties.  However, the drama continued, due to the dire straights of the neighbor kids.

They’re a Mexican family, and in their father’s hometown of Oaxaca (pronounced Wa-haka), each citizen must serve a year of community service.  He did six months of that year awhile ago, and came back to the states for a time.  He has since left to serve the other six months, so they don’t have their father around.  Couple this with their mother traveling to Mexico to be by her dying grandmother’s bedside, you have a bunch of older teens watching younger kids and trying to make a little $$ to get by.  (older teens meaning adults at 17/18 years of age)

They had to work really early in the morning down in McMinville, which is about 50 minutes away from where I live, and is actually where the Spruce Goose is hangared (is that a word?) in the Space and Aviation museum.  Anyway.  They couldn’t take the two younger kids with them, and in their desperation, they asked me to watch them for an evening because they couldn’t be left alone.

These folks make AWESOME Mexican food, so keep in mind, saying yes is somewhat selfishly motivated. LOL

Anyhow, even though the kids I’d been watching for our friends had left, I was still watching the neighbor kids.  It was a rough weekend, not just because I had kids in the house, but because I just wanted to WRITE and at times could not.

DH has said many times he will make it up to me.  I’d just love some kind of vacation FROM the family.  lol  I homeschool my kids and stay home all day.  There’s never really a time I get away, unless it’s for a random movie in the afternoon with girlfriends.  Needless to say, I was indeed a tad jealous of my hubby’s kid-free weekend.

And also because he met all sorts of super-cool celebs in geeky circles.

Anyhow, I did get a good chunk of my book done, and have at least one more love scene and some wrap up to do before I can call it finished.

Anyone keeping score?  How many stories is that now?  Lessee…  It started with BLACK ANGEL.  That flowed into THE FALL OF JERICHO.  Then I finished KINDRED.  Then I wrote HEAVEN SENT.  Now, I’m almost done with RENEGADE.  Five stories in 11 weeks?  That’s a pretty good track record, even if only one of them is a full novel. 

I should be writing the blurb to RENEGADE soon.  I’ll pass it on once I do.

~~Becka

Before I was published, I had so much fun writing.  It was the excitement of it all, the hope for a contract, the endless possibilities of what could happen if I applied myself.  The sky was the limit, the options boundless.

Submitting and actually getting into the biz can be a sobering experience.  What you thought was a perfect manuscript is returned to you with thousands of red marks from your editor.  You finally get your first honest feedback about your story that isn’t endless praise from friends and family.  And sometimes, those reviewers, especially the snarky ones, can really hurt a blossoming author.  Well, her feelings, anyway.  It’s a hard lesson to learn, to disconnect your personal feelings about your creation from the review.

But once you get accepted at a publishing house, you again feel invincible, and you write more and more.

Until, that is, writing begins to feel like a chore.

At some point, after a few years of promotion and chats and public appearances, your writing feels more like a job and less like a hobby.  You do a lot of work that doesn’t necessarily involve WRITING.  Promotion is a necessary evil to sell books, and no one is going to do it for you (unless you throw money at a publicist).

But there’s the rub.  Unless you’ve got goo-gobs of books and a massive following, you aren’t going to make much money in ePublishing.  But those popular authors did much more than promote their asses off, they wrote kick-ass stories.

Endless promotion, minimal $$ for maximum effort, and tiring appearances where nobody shows is quite wearing on an author.  Believe me, I know.  After I had my baby Sophie, I seriously asked myself The Question.

Do I want to continue to be an author?

I had one more book contracted (KINDRED).  I’d promised my fans a fourth book to the BEAST series.  But after that?  Was it worth it anymore?  I couldn’t find time to write.  One of my daughters is struggling in school, so I had to rethink how to teach her.  On top of it all was a newborn baby.  A messy house.  Endless ironing.  Writing was just another “chore”.

But where had that spark gone?  Where was the excitement?  The almost “It’s Christmas Morning!” mentality?  When did I lose that along the way and become a jaded, cynical author?

When I examined my true feelings behind my writing, I realized that must be why I couldn’t write a word for MONTHS.  I was tired of promotion.  Tired of piddly royalty checks.  Tired of booksignings where I’m signing books for fellow authors at the signing with me.  Where were these elusive “readers”?  Sure, authors are avid readers too, I should have been thankful.  But I wasn’t.

My pride had gotten in the way, you see.  I felt I “deserved” more.

Once I had that epiphany, I realized why I wasn’t writing.  Why I no longer had the passion.  I’d allowed my pride to get in the way of my imagination, thus blocking my muse from writing anything more than a blog post, a text, or a tweet.  THIS is the reason certain authors turn into Divas.  The mentality that the world owes them for writing their stories.

Oh my Gawd, was I turning into a DIVA?!?  Not exactly, but I guess I was on that path.  So I knocked some sense into myself.

For my entire life, I’ve written stories for my own entertainment.  They were my means of escape, of traveling to exotic locales, of meeting new, exciting people.  Being in control of what happens to my characters was thrilling for me, because I knew no matter what I threw at them, they’d eventually have a happily ever after.  The emotion and the angst, THAT’S what I loved the most, not the promotion, not the appearances, not even the royalties.  If you’re good enough, your story can transcend all that material bullshit (pardon my French).

When I realized that wisdom, I let go of my pride and allowed my muse to go where she would, without inhibitions, without expectations.  Since I’ve “released” her, I’ve written two stories, finished one that had been eluding me for two years, and started another, of which I’m already fast on my way to page 100, and this all within a SIX WEEK timeframe.  For those keeping score, that’s two novellas, one short story, and one full-length novel.  I’ve scheduled in my writing time during the day, after chores and school, between 3pm and dinnertime.  Nowadays, I get frustrated when I’ve got to stop my train of thought to feed the family.  I’m constantly plotting, bouncing ideas off my crit partner (Donica Covey) and finally getting into that groove I used to be in when the “world” was new.

Writing is fun again.  Why?  Because it isn’t about the hype, the fame, the money, or the entitlement.  It’s about the STORY, something Samhain Publishing* knew all along. 

~~Becka

*”It’s All About The Story” is Samhain’s company motto. 

Five years ago, I wasn’t published, but I’d submitted a novel for publication at a small, online Inspirational publisher, By Grace Publishing (who is now defunct).  In October of 2004, I signed my very first contract, and by January of 2005, I was a published author.

Why am I telling you this?

Because I’d just had a distressing thought.  Five years ago, I had a goal, and that goal was to be with New York by now.  Everyone has those “in five years” hopes, and mine was to be with a New York publisher.  Well, here I am, still rockin’ the small publishers, not that there’s anything wrong with that.  I’ve made a name for myself, that much is true.  I’ve confused people by writing both mainstream and Inspies (back in the day).  I’ve since stopped writing those tender romances, and focused more on fantasy, westerns, and paranormals.

I have a fairly good reader base, at least, a few people beyond my immediate family.  I think most of my friends know I write books, but only a handful of my friends have read any of my books, and even then, none of them are avid fans.  Would I like them to be?  Well, sure, I suppose.  Perhaps that’s why I never talk about my writing much, because everyone I know in real life doesn’t have any more than a passing interest in what I do.

But I’m not here to cry you a river.  I’m reflecting on my five year goal, the one that hasn’t come to fruition.  So, I find myself taking stock, and asking myself what I really want with regards to writing.  I WANT to be with New York.  I WANT to KNOW my books are in stores without “hoping” I’ll randomly run into them if I’m lucky.  I want to get paid an equal compensation for the work I fricken’ put into this process.

However, does being a successful New York author jive with being a full-time mom and homeschooler of five children?  Can one woman “do it all?”

I have no idea.  But I have made a decision.  In TWENTY years from now, much less five, I don’t want to look back on my life and think, woulda, shoulda, coulda.  I don’t ever want to pass on a dream I’ve had for most of my life simply because it’s hard work, time consuming, or a little scary.  If I try and I fail, well, at least I gave it a go and I can give this small press thing all the attention I can throw at it.

Therefore, I’ve decided my next full length novel will be going to New York.  I’ll probably be sending it to an agent, as I want to write the way *I* write and see if they can fit it somewhere, rather than trying to adhere to a specific publishing house’s rules.  This process is going to take awhile, as it takes a few weeks for an agent to respond to a query, then it takes a few more weeks after they request a partial, then a few MORE weeks IF they request the full manuscript.  From there, they shop it around, which takes more weeks, and once it’s sold, it can take months before it’s actually published.  This is going to be a long process.

I’m going to give it a good two years.  I can write a book, submit it, and find out about publication within that time frame.  In FIVE years, I want to have more than one book in New York.

And in that TWENTY year scenario I mentioned above, I want to be able to look back and be thankful I decided to finally kick my ass in gear and get the lead out.  No  more excuses.  I’m ready for the big leagues.  Bring it on.

~~Becka

Yes, folks, if you’ve come here within the last like… month & 1/2, you’ve no doubt noticed the ugly dead space where my scrolly pics used to be.  For some reason, our webhost refreshed our info, but not those pics.  They’re still somewhere out there in cyberspace, but my DH needs to help me retrieve them to put them back.

Of course, I’ve poked him a couple of times already, so any further poking could be construed as “nagging”, and therefore would result in grumpy hubby.  LOL  They’ll come back when they come back, I suppose.  But I’m totally aware of the problem, so don’t worry.

I’ve never really “liked” this template much, but it worked in a pinch.  I might just see if I like something else.  I know what I have in mind, but I just need to find something that would work.  Ah well.  At least you can still find my books if you poke around here enough. 

~~Becka