On Editing.

I just turned in the second pass of edits for the first of my Love & War in Dallas series.  When I finished, I realized that this is a very hard process to explain to people (husbands, children) who don't understand why other hypothetical writing people  can't focus on anything (e.g., laundry, personal hygiene) until edits are done. So I thought I'd try to illustrate the editing process from a writer's point of view, using the magic of a new technology that captures the fundamental nature of human experience (GIFs).

By the way, this story will be told in third person, deep POV.  If you don't know what that is, well, I'm not sure I'm the best person to ask.

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful writer, Regina Falange, just going about her daily life.

Then she gets an email from her editor, which is very exciting!

Or it could contain horrible news. So the beautiful writer is waylaid by some important procrastinating.

But finally, Regina finds the time to open the e-mail and remains completely calm even while faced with what looks like a Dexter Morgan crime scene.

First, Regina texts her  writer friends to let them know the good news!  They know exactly what to say.

Regina also lets everyone on Twitter know that she will be #editing. As always, Twitter is totally supportive.

After clearing her schedule, Regina sits down and gets ready to review her editor's notes. As with every good critique, Editor starts off with all that is right in the book.

Then she points out  more positives!

Then she makes a few teeny tiny suggestions to "polish" the document and get rid of the "rough edges."

Regina was calm and professional,

And decided to get started on the minor tweaks her editor suggested.

50,000 calories later, Regina was a little overwhelmed by the challenges presented by re-writing a jillion words.

But then... after some more of this:

And going down some wrong-way streets:

Things started clicking. Light bulbs started to, you know, shine and stuff.  And suddenly, Regina looked at her editor's suggestions with a fresh appreciation.

And while it was hard, grueling, difficult, challenging, backbreaking work to think of synonyms for every word in the document, Regina got excited by what was happening.

Regina tells herself that she knew what she was doing all along.

And all her writer friends agreed that they knew she could do it all along.

When she couldn't edit the hell out of that book anymore, she hit "send."

Regina felt invigorated by the whole, life-affirming process that reminded her why she wanted to write Happily Ever After stories to share with the world.

THE END.

Author's Note:

The above story is fictional and bears no resemblance to anyone, living or dead, and especially not me, Lindsay Emory, who is a competent, professional, chill writer chick who really, really loves editing especially because it makes her beloved novel 1000% better.

Also, if you caught it, the above verb tenses were switched on purpose. For art. And reasons, OK? Geez. Let it go, already.

On Serendipity and Sacred Voice

So many smarter and more astute people are posting their wrap-ups to RWA14. Some can even do it with Supernatural GIFs.  (Jennifer Armentrout is so full of win.)  If you follow my twitter you’ll see that

I LEARNED SO MUCH.

And I didn’t even learn what I went to learn.

Which is great.

I will explain.  I went to RWA nationals with the intention to learn everything I could about craft, to only take the workshops that taught the fundamentals and mechanics of writing. I looked at the workshop offerings and thought, “publicity, six figures, publishing, blah blah blah.”  Those other things were for people more advanced in a writing career than me.  Someone like me, a virtual unknown needs to write a damn good book. Or six.  Hence, the  focus on craft.

But then I got to San Antonio and I just started… following. Following the whispers, the advice, the serendipitous occasions. Following Julia Kelly. (Or did she follow me? We may never know).  And when I followed this mysterious  whispering wind, I found myself in the presence of Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Nora Roberts, Jayne Ann Krentz, Sylvia Day, Julia Quinn, Bella Andre… the list goes on and freaking on. And sometimes those fabulous women would talk about craft (SEP’s exercises on character will stay with me for a long time) and sometimes they would say stunning  things like “Don’t write from a place of fear” (That was the ah-maz-ing Sarah Maclean) or “Stop fucking around and write” (that was the inimitable Nora Roberts. Seriously. Nora Roberts is a BAMF.)

I heard these inspiring writers talk about having no regrets, even when their careers were dead and no one believed in them. To them, a dead end only meant they got to scale the wall or throw their truck into four wheel drive and take it off road. They look back and are thankful for a bad contract or an unhelpful publisher because it pushed them to be better, be stronger, be more resilient.

I heard, “Be you.”

I heard, “Your voice is sacred.”

These are not messages women hear every day.

And these were the  messages I needed to hear.   Maybe they won’t help me write a damn good book or six.

But maybe they will.

Welcome to Texas, RWA!

For those that don't get the title, RWA = Romance Writers of America. Every year, they hold a national convention and this year it's in San Antonio, Texas! When I heard that last year, I told Hubs that I was going. San Antonio is, after all, just a short six hour drive down I-35. What could be more convenient?

So I'll be heading to RWA Nationals this week. I'm terrifiedly excited and nervously jittering. SO MANY WRITERS. One small Riverwalk. And margaritas. It's an introvert's nightmare and my every dream come true. *Takes steadying breath*

On our way home from our Great All-American Family Roadtrip a couple of days ago, I got the idea to make a Texas-themed playlist for all the writers descending on Texas this beautiful July. So here it is.

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNGDRL6jNuBbv_8FXYpmMHJNfsq7FTDIK

I tried to include some of my favorite Texas-themed songs, some of which are in the playlists for my Love & War in Dallas series. Or some of them are just by my favorite Texas artists. Not all of the Pistol Annies are from Texas, but Miranda Lambert is, and I thought "Hell on Heels" was a pretty good theme song for some (most?) of the ladies headed to RWA14.  And I stopped myself at a reasonable number of videos. I couldn't include all of Robert Earl Keen's albums, or all of the tracks on Lyle Lovett's Road to Ensenada  which might have been about his breakup with Julia Roberts and also helped me find myself again after a breakup (but not with Julia Roberts). Or all the songs I drank to in parties while single in college. And for some of my favorites, there aren't good videos on You Tube.

I wish RWA had asked my opinion and organized a real Texas country music concert for the conference.  It's not that I'm a huge country music fan - I listen to music like I read - I'm an omnivore.  But when you're in San Antonio, you need more than the Riverwalk and five or six margaritas to experience Texas. You have an opportunity to discover the soul of a nation and music can help you do that.

Since there will be no concert, pop my playlist on and get ready for San Antonio. If you're going to be at RWA, I'd love to meet you! I'll be the girl with the margarita, singing Willie Nelson songs.

Doing what frozen things do in summer...

[youtube=http://youtu.be/UFatVn1hP3o]

I can't believe it's July. I'm looking forward to a family roadtrip to Colorado next week and then I'll be headed to the Romance Writers of America (RWA) convention in San Antonio!  It'll be my first RWA and I'm so excited to see what all the fuss is about!  

I've been such a bad blogger here but there hasn't been much to update. I've been writing, editing and writing more. My beautiful debut novel is being polished ever so lovingly and I'm trying to use this time before publication to cram as many words into other projects as I can. If you don't see updates here on the site, please make sure you follow me on Twitter as this is like my formal living room, with the plastic covers on the couches and the old-fashioned silver tea set that needs a good polish - it only gets used for important events.  Twitter is like the basement man cave, where I click on the big screen, invite tons of friends over, let their kids get hopped up on juice and Cheetos and we just shoot the bull  and whip up margaritas on a Saturday night.  You may prefer one environment over the other, which is cool.

Or Pinterest! Pinterest is like... the kitchen. Everyone always ends up in the kitchen. There's always something to look at and talk about in there. 

And then there's Facebook. If you haven't heard, it's a difficult place to be right now, especially if you want your friends and followers to actually see your posts, since Facebook is controlling what pages you see on your timeline. Continuing my (rather uninspired) metaphor, Facebook is like the laundry room. Completely necessary but not super convenient for the hostess or the guests.

So follow me in all the places, and you'll soon see a newsletter signup. It's my goal to do that this summer. After RWA and before school starting and in between book drafts.  It'll happen! I promise!

Check in with me from time to time and hopefully I'll have the Big Book News that everyone is waiting for soon!

Happy 2014! The Year of...?

I love New Year's Day. For the past eight years, we've celebrated New Year's Eve with a rockin' party with our good friends ("rockin'" = chili, hot dogs, pajamas, cookies, ok... wine.) Then after midnight, everyone goes home, I sweep up the crumbs and throw away the paper plates and go to bed, waking on New Year's Day with a full heart and a clean house.  

For nearly twenty years, I also would start a new calendar on New Year's Day. What better way to start a new year? So full of promise, possibility? A clean slate, literally. Pages and pages of potential parties, trips and tasks, just waiting to be filled in.

Just thinking about it is making me warm inside.

Except this year...  There is no fresh calendar. No clean pages. No blank squares.  Because 2013 was the year I went digital.

After years of mocking  and derision and dumbfounded looks from friends, colleagues and spouse, I stopped writing things down. On old fashioned paper.  With crude implements of plastic and ink.

It's all in a slim pink box now that I pretty much have to keep on me AT ALL TIMES. I am a slave to the phone and the calendar, the alarms, all the bells and whistles that keep me eternally on call for... something. Everything.

But...I still write things down. As I stated on Facebook yesterday, I keep track of all the books I read in a journal. Made of paper. Using crude implements of plastic and ink. That's not to say Goodreads isn't a useful site, but for me, there's something so important about reading a book, that I have to physically record it.  I keep a Christmas notebook as well. I record gifts given, cards received.  Again, things that need to be memorialized in a tangible way.  Notes of phone conversations, the most ethereal form of communication, litter my desk. Grocery lists are made most every week, on an actual piece of paper.  (Fear not - I do throw these away once the shopping trip is completed.  Although inexplicably I have kept written records of dinners cooked from 2006 to 2010, a history of a time when getting dinner on the table every night, with two children under four, was a feat worthy of a history book.)

As you can probably tell, going to a digital calendar was a pretty big deal for me. I don't think this is a generational thing, either. I see plenty of college students still clinging to paper planners.  There's something about the physical that grounds us.  Holds us to a moment, or a goal.  When our whole life seems lightning fast and uncontrollable, we still have this thing. This book. And it is real. And it confirms that we are doing what we are supposed to be doing. Or it tells us, "hey goofy, get back on track. There's a whole list of to-do's that do not have a check mark next to them."

So I sit on New Year's Day. My planner is next to me. I have bought no new calendar but I have journal pages, for things that I want to still keep solid and real. Things like  a list of books I have read. A packing list for my vacation.  The new addresses of old friends.

2013 was a big year for me. It was the year I went digital... sort of.  I imagine that most people, even when they find themselves in the midst of big changes still find that some things stay the same.  We give up paper calendars... we're still scribbling in a notebook.  We lose twenty pounds... we still battle with holiday sweets.  We sign contracts for multi-book deals... we still find ourselves in pajamas at our computers, living the life of an introverted, insecure writer. 

I may not have a shiny and new paper calendar, but 2014 is still full of possibility.  I know 2014 is going to be full of big, huge, sparkly stuff and probably a lot of pajamas and to-do lists.  And I can't wait.