how it comes together-- kind of

Last summer I had finally started on the fourth historical book of the Stevens women, all set in Oregon and beginning with 1852 and the Oregon Trail. For the fourth, I had the plot in mind, the general idea of a hero and heroine, a setting I was not only familiar with but loved.

So I wrote a chapter and got stalled-- that experience has been rare for me in writing.  I would not define my experience as writer's block. It was simply that 'stuff' got in this book's way. It was a combination of many things including a trip to research the historical aspects, which I wanted to know more.

Also, it was a bit more complicated than just outside activities. I couldn't get a handle on the hero. He'd been in books two and three, which generally makes a character easier to write. Not this one. I could deal with him a bit shallowly in those books because he was a secondary character. That was over as soon as he became the hero of his own story. 

Last fall, trying to understand this guy led to extensive research on the US military, you see, he was a career soldier, a West Point graduate, a cavalry officer. To help me get a handle on my hero, the controversial, iconic George Custer was an obvious choice. Reading books about him and then Custer's journal helped me get a feeling for how a military guy would be thinking in 1867 after he'd been fighting Indians for awhile and gone through the Civil War.

Sometimes having a character in a prior book show up as a hero in a new one is a benefit. I already know them, but something about Rand Phillips didn't work that way. He had been not much more than a kid straight out of West Point when the second book's hero, a scout for the Federals, took him under his wing for the Rogue Indian War. He was back in the third and by then he was an experienced warrior returning to Oregon as part of settling the Snake Conflict. He was very alpha male in the third book-- even as a secondary character.

His own book was complicated by my desire to bring the three earlier romantic couples, into this one as secondary characters. It is after all, a family-- with the third Stevens sister the heroine. So I had the general plot, was once again getting a handle on the hero and heroine, had researched the historic period with some excellent books.

Then I lost my beloved cat to a shockingly early death, which led to a dream about reincarnation that I felt deserved to be told. I didn't want to put that off. The dream was fresh. I believed it was the right length for a novella and wrote When Fates Conspire. 

It was while working on its rough draft that I learned of an opportunity to write a short story for an anthology involving other western, romance writers... Couldn't turn that down. One of my ideas for it sounded good. The characters had been in my Arizona historical, Tucson Moon, but quickly I realized it was a lot more story than a short story or even novella. 

I looked for another idea and wrote my first short story, Connie's Gift (also a character in Tucson Moon), which went into the anthology, Rawhide 'n Roses. Although I knew that would lead to promotional activities, they wouldn't come until March.

January had us driving down to Tucson to work on our house. I had not given up on the Oregon story but Tucson has some good museums and that was research I could only do while there. More and more the Arizona historical intrigued me for its period, setting, and two characters I hadn't originally realized would have a romance but once the idea came to me, I wasn't going to let it go. The research was making me even more excited by the story.

In late January I ePublished When Fates Conspire. In March, I began writing the Arizona historical. It went fast, had my fingers flying with more research to enrich the story. It was the kind of writing that is purely a joy to do. One lunar cycle from starting to finishing its rough draft.

Of course, editing was yet to come, which meant it was a good time to work on the second and third novellas, which would continue the fantasy about fate, reincarnation, spirit beings, and what might or might not be out there. 

Supernatural type stories take research too. This was especially so since I was incorporating Native American mythologies into the third novella. Now I had done some of this research through the years. (If you didn't know it already, Libras have an interest in the offbeat, which includes mysticism of many traditions. I'd heard a lot of intriguing stories through the years some of which worked into the writing.) Now I had The Dark of the Moon and, Storm in the Canyon, which was going to be a trilogy-- Diablo Canyon.

 Ben Kern wagon train

About that time, I came across some photos and guys who took people on reenactments of the Oregon Trail (as well as other historic trails). Their photos and information seemed beneficial for my Oregon Trail book, and heck, you don't turn down an opportunity to talk to people as interesting as these guys were. I asked for and got permission to use some of their photos for covers in case I end up putting these books out as paperbacks-- more likely than eBooks as it stands.

I know it likely sounds like a chaotic year of writing, bouncing around quite a bit, but a year later I am back to the Oregon series. Instead of starting writing on the fourth, I decided I would benefit from re-editing the first three to make sure I am staying consistent. Because it'd been awhile, I had to look around to find the notes I'd taken as well as my character timelines. There was one moment where I feared I'd lost them by typing over them with the wrong state. The possibility of doing that to one of my novels (which once I did) is why I keep everything saved onto multiple jump drives-- thank goodness in this case. 

The heroine has always been interesting to me for that fourth Oregon historical. Belle, the youngest of three sisters, is my first warrior heroine. She is spirited, opinionated and left home quite early for school and adventures with friends where many parents wanted her as a companion to their daughters. This is my first time to write a female warrior, although many of my heroines do learn to fight, but it's more to save their own lives or that of their lovers. This young woman chose to be a warrior. It does seem like a fun write to get into how it works for an alpha, warrior hero and an alpha warrior heroine will get along... well, I actually have a pretty good idea. ;)

how it comes together-- sometimes

From what I have heard, every writer has their own way to bring a book from the first sentence to the last. Many writers say they work as either a [pantser or plotter]. Within writer communities, there are conversations about how that works or doesn't. I don't think anybody thinks one is better than the other. It's just how you work. There are famous, very successful writers in both camps. I am not totally either.

I do not write a firm outline for any of my books, which used to frustrate my engineer husband. But on the other hand, I do know where a story is heading. I have it in my head. It's what happens along the way where I run into surprises. So I am a bit pantser and plotter. 

I see it similarly to going on a trip. I am one of those who do not like to plan a trip down to the last T. I will know the general route but along the way might take a different highway or detour when something interesting shows up. I often don't have reservations which can make some vacations dicey. I will though end up where I expected. And so it is with my writing a book.

My current work in progress follows three earlier Oregon historical manuscripts,  ranging in span from 1852 to 1865. The fourth will start in 1867 and involve the Snake Conflict, one of Oregon's bigger Indian wars. I have no plans as it stands to publish any of them.

The first of those Oregon historicals I wrote in my early twenties. It has had a lot of rewrites since that time including an extensive period working with a professional consulting editor. That story led to the next two. These four will fit into a series but I haven't figure out a name for it-- although I have the books all titled-- including the WIP.

It might seem strange to a non-writer to think I'd put so much into books I wasn't sure I'd ever put out. Why not write in genres I would publish? In my case though, since I've been doing it all my writing life, it seems very natural to write for the joy of writing and consider marketing a separate question.

I might as well admit that the reason I haven't been sure about publishing these four is because of not having yet found a regular readership. Some indie writers have that, and they have readers eager to get their next book. I would love to be in that situation, but I am not. I haven't given up on getting there but also have to accept that it might not happen for me.

Looking at it as objectively as I can (and that's never easy for a writer who loves all the books they write), what I write doesn't 'totally' satisfy the romance reader, and non-romance readers won't give them a chance because they are so turned off on the genre. Now personally, I consider my stories to be hybrids-- between novels and romances. But it's hard to find a way to market something that doesn't fit into boxes.

That first Oregon Trail book, the one that has been part of my life for nearly 50 years, how would I feel if it met the fate of the last historical, Comes the Dawn (one sale in a month)? It's a lot easier to see a book fail to find support or readers when you have put less into it.

Now I can't say I don't put a lot of work and of me into all of them, but the Oregon Trail story goes way beyond that. It would definitely depress to me if it was similarly rejected. The Arizona historical was a good test to see if I had enough readers to even get the book seen on the Amazon lists. The test said this isn't the right time for any of my Oregon historicals-- except maybe as paperbacks with a hope that I can find local bookstores interested in their mix of romance and history.

Here's a plain truth-- if you can't take rejection of your books, it's not wise to be a published writer. You can write to your heart's content, but putting them out there, that's a whole other story. I've learned to be happy for writers who are selling well, not feel hurt if my books don't get support. I can mostly do that, but I could not with the Oregon books. They are way too much a part of me going back to when the story first came to me and I was the age of its heroine. 

Anyway that's all the marketing end, not what I was intending to write about. I guess though it's a good beginning for how a year of my writing life went with the planned and unplanned. The experiences I had are why I love being an indie writer even as I admit sometimes I get a bruised ego. Actually that might be good for a person... or so they tell me ;).

So coming next blog will be more about that year which might not seem very organized but... Okay, it wasn't very organized ;).

And then...

Often I mention how much I enjoy writing as an independent. Being an indie writer offers many benefits to self-motivated writers. I am sure those who work on contract for their books feel it's worth it for the benefits they receive in promotion and prestige; but they do have time constraints that an independent writer does not have except what they put them on themselves. 

When I decided to go independent, I had been writing all of my life-- literally. Oh as a child it wasn't much detail, but it was still there in creating stories whether for paper dolls (which I had to make myself as nobody put out what I wanted which were hot women and handsome men-- none of those cute baby or little girl paperdolls for me), or my first ones written down with words, they all were about putting together plots and characters. My cousin and I, on family gatherings, would go for walks taking turns telling parts of an ongoing story.

My writing has involved worked with a consulting writer to develop the skills of the craft. Some of my stories were handwritten, then came the old Royal typewriter, electric typewriters, white out, carbon copies and finally the first Atari computer, which I couldn't believe would be better until I learned you could rearrange where a paragraph set and no more need for erase papers-- finally to today with the machine sitting in front of me and the internet. Yes, fiction writing was always in my life.

The decision to go indie was actually pretty easy. I had a lot of manuscripts (very few of which had I ever sent off to publishing houses for an assortment of reasons). I didn't want to make them fit what the editors had told me I would need to do. 

I also assessed the drawbacks of going indie. You must do all your promotion. You don't have the prestige that goes with publishing houses, but for the writing work itself there were only pluses. 

Being an indie writer lets me arrange my workday, set my goals, and allows me to bounce from project to project. I can edit or write. I can work on places to promote. Because I love what I do, am good at self-motivating, and am not easily distracted, it works for me.  In the morning I pretty much know what I will be doing that day but if I wish, I can reset the day. My writing work (about 8 hours a day at least 5 days a week, with less hours on week-ends but no days without some writing) are made up of a variety of activities which may involve covers, social media, researching, editing, and writing on more than one book.

It might seem crazy to a non-writer, but I had begun writing the next full-length novel when I still had one more edit due for Comes the Dawn. There were reasons for that. If you keep editing and re-editing a manuscript, pretty soon, you don't really see it. You lose focus. By having other work in between, when you come back to the original, it feels fresh.

With a good start on the Oregon historical, a deeper look at my characters, I then put it aside and did the final edit on the Arizona historical. I was really loving how it was going but I needed that last edit.  This had been the shortest time I ever had between writing a rough draft and putting a book out, and I might not do it that way again. But with its final edit, I fell in love with Comes the Dawn all over. That'd not have happened had I kept reading and re-reading it. Time between let me look at the work afresh.

That ability to change course, between editing and writing something original or to work on something I might never publish, is one of the big pluses of being an indie writer. With no contracts, the only promise I have is to myself and to the stories. It also means nobody else is forcing me fit a mold, which, to be honest, might've made the books sell better. Life is though a set of trade-offs. Stay true to your own self or fit what others want? Those choices don't just occur with creative work.