Without further commentary, here’s Tamara’s post:

If you attend a Scottish Highland Games, Civil War re-enactment, or Renaissance fair, no one is going to judge you for ogling the crowd (at least I’m not). One of the best reasons to go to these kinds of events is the people all decked out in time-period-accurate costumes or, you know, in kilts.

But they aren’t the only stars of the show. In fact, every re-enactment or role playing event I’ve attended has had animals on hand.

First of all, this proves what a commitment these people have to their organizations. Anyone can slap on a suit of armor or hoop skirt…but to actually train horses to participate in a mock Civil War battle amidst booming canons? And without trampling the crowd? That takes some time and money and hardcore horsemanship.

It’s not just horses, either (though the ones that participate in jousting are pretty darn awesome). At the Scottish Highland Games, they have a sheepherding event, complete with, yes, sheep. And sheepdogs. And really cute, flannel-clad trainers who may or may not don a kilt later on. At the Renaissance fair I attend, they have peacocks running wild throughout the grounds, screaming like terrified women whenever anyone draws near.

(I’ve never asked what they do with said peacocks during the off season, but I like to imagine they go to a menagerie somewhere warm, where tourists don’t haunt their every waking moment.)

These animals are also great because of their historical accuracy. I’m not saying peacocks ran rampant over the peasants’ fields during the fifteenth century, but they did have quite a bit of religious significance in the art and culture of the time. Besides, it seems pretty authentic to have to carefully evade piles of poop as you navigate the grounds. Just sayin’.

In fact, I’d have to say it’s the animals that really capture what it is I love about re-enactment groups. They take the cool parts of history (animals and clothes) and mix them with modern conveniences (bathrooms and souvenir hats).

Together, they set my anachronistic heart aflutter. And that’s all I’m really asking for.

* * *

 About Love is a Battlefield

 It takes a real man to wear a kilt. And a real woman to charm him out of it.

It might be modern times, but Kate Simmons isn’t willing to live a life without at least the illusion of the perfect English romance. A proud member of the Jane Austen Regency Re-Enactment Society, Kate fulfills her passion for courtliness and high-waisted gowns in the company of a few women who share her love of all things heaving.

Then she encounters Julian Wallace, a professional Highland Games athlete who could have stepped right off the covers of her favorite novels. He’s everything brooding, masculine, and, well, heaving. The perfect example of a man who knows just how to wear his high sense of honor—and his kilt.

Confronted with a beautiful woman with a tongue as sharp as his sgian dubh, Julian and his band of merry men aren’t about to simply step aside and let Kate and her gaggle of tea-sippers use his land for their annual convention. Never mind that “his land” is a state park—Julian was here first, and he never backs down from a challenge.

Unless that challenge is a woman unafraid to fight for what she wants…and whose wants are suddenly the only thing he can think about.

Warning: The historical re-enactments in this story contain very little actual history. Battle chess and ninja stars may apply.

About Tamara Morgan

Tamara Morgan is a romance writer and unabashed lover of historical reenactments—the more elaborate and geeky the costume requirements, the better. In her quest for modern-day history and intrigue, she has taken fencing classes, forced her child into Highland dancing, and, of course, journeyed annually to the local Renaissance Fair. These feats are matched by a universal love of men in tights, of both the superhero and codpiece variety.

You can find her on Twitter, Facebook, and Goodreads.

What about the other side of the fence? You’re mom waltzes in your front door and says, “I had lunch with Betty’s mother’s cousin, Frankie, today. Can you believe what Frankie’s daughter-in-law’s best friend, Gabby, has been up to? She’s started drinking before noon, she returned her birthday present for cash to play Keno!, she smokes funny cigarettes, she has a pet snake and I heard she got a tattoo on her…on her…there!” Your mother points to her upper breast and you can’t help but ask, “What kind of tattoo?” At that point, you realize there won’t be any need to worry about Keno! money because you’ve just been cut off from birthday presents for the next several years.

What’s the difference between the two people your mother just described? Primarily, the first thing that comes to mind for me is the fact that neither of these people are terribly relatable. I get so frustrated when someone talks about the overwhelming perfection or imperfection of an individual because, let’s face it, no one is all good or all bad. People are made up of layers that are influenced by the experiences of life and no one has had a perfect–or perfectly horrible–life.

Writing fictional characters that are emotionally complex and thoroughly flawed is one of the hardest things an author can do. Why? Because a balance must be struck from the very beginning, one that allows the hero/ine to display his/her faults with startling frankness and yet still be considered redeemable by the gods and goddesses of publication. Why publication first and foremost? Because if you don’t get the story beyond the gatekeepers there, the residents of Readerdom won’t ever see your story anyway.

But back to creating complex, believable and life-like characters with stipulations on their survival whom readers are supposed to watch grow into better people while completing complex emotional and character arcs (gasps for air). It can be an overwhelming task for writers both novice and experienced. There are a few things that I’ve found that I’ve put to work in my latest work in progress, Raising Cain, to keep me on track. The top three are:

1.  List-making is everyone’s friend.  I don’t care what anyone tells me — lists help. I list out in two columns the characteristic strengths and flaws for my hero/ine and make sure that the strengths list is slightly longer and ultimately stronger because your hero/ine is going to need to draw on these strengths to overcome the flaws and show growth.

2.  Connect the dots isn’t just for kids anymore.  I also draw out the pattern of development for each character. Using a straight line, drop in the first and last developmental points for your hero. Let’s say it’s as simple as “he’s a jerk” and “he’s redeemed.”  It can be that easy. Then, between those points, drop in major changes in plot and his response that will show his growth. It’s not easy if you’re not a plotter (I’m SO not), but that’s also workable. I keep the line running as I write and drop in plot points and growth points together to make sure the running total is pretty equally spaced. So for every major plot point, I want to be sure there’s a growth point for the character involved. It makes me track how they grow with the story. If something isn’t plausible, I can go in and adjust the character’s response based on the list I created in #1.

3.  What’s the worst that can happen?  I also name the worst thing a character can do and make sure he doesn’t do it. There’s always a non-redeemable point where, if a character does this one thing, the reader will never forgive him. I’m walking a fine line in Raising Cain because my hero isn’t a fundamentally good man. But he’s redeemable. So I may waltz right up to the point of no return, but I look at it, see I’ve identified it and then refuse to add it to my character’s dance card. Getting close helps me know exactly how bad (or, conversely, good) my character can be.

Keeping track of how your characters grow is critical because it has to be presented in an organic and evolutionary way to the reader or else it loses its edge of plausibility. For example, if my hero was to throw everything away and declare undying love for my heroine? At this point, I’d have to choke the ever-loving crap out of him because it would be SO unbelievable. It would eject readers from their suspension of disbelief and, frankly, piss them off. Not my ultimate goal, let me assure you.

What tricks and tips do you use to make sure your character growth is a nice arc that the reader can see happening, even if s/he isn’t looking close? Is there something you do to help keep your character development on track? Feel free to share. No — seriously. The comment box below is lonely. Drop a line. Go ahead. I’m not looking.

I was reading a short outtake from Diana Gabaldon’s short story Virgins (Jamie and Ian as Lads) and I was sucked into a paragraph of beautiful writing so rapidly the wind blew my hair back from my face. I was shocked. I mean, I haven’t read anything with my beloved Jamie in a while and I was suddenly there with him, under the stars and craving a father he knew was dead. My gut ached. In a freaking paragraph. WTH?

And then it hit me. I’m in love with Jamie Fraser. Is this a surprise? No. If you talk to me about books, writing, life, love, cooking, breathing or bathing, at some point Jamie Fraser is going to enter the conversation. It’s inevitable. He’s the first hero I truly fell in love with and Diana Gabaldon is the absolute rock star of my world. I want to BE her because of her epic literary awesomeness. But Jamie, oh Jamie. You’re my beloved literary affair in every way. So where’s the epiphany in this?  Buckle up, because here it comes in all its awesomeness:

She created a character in Outlander whom I will follow through time and space.

There it is. Confused? I was too for a second. See, here’s the thing–when a writer creates a character that readers fall in love with in book one of a series, and I do mean truly fall in love with, that character will carry the reader across a number of books before the reader gives up. The series would basically have to fall apart or, as I heard one astute reviewer put it, the author would have to “break her own world” in order for readers to fall out of love.

It got me thinking about my own novel, Raising Cain. I’m insanely in love with the hero of this series. I mean, crazy in love. It’s a Jamie Fraser kind of love, so you know it’s serious. I look at him and I want to talk to him and walk with him and get to know him better and better. Fortunately, since my own sick imagination takes care of all this, I’m able to do that with each book I write and each side story that develops. But will readers react the same way? I hope so. He’s a badass, a real mercenary type, so he won’t resonate like Jamie did. He’s not that type of character. He’s more like Jericho Barrons in K. Marie Moning’s Fever series. Not even nearly the same, but the personality type? I wouldn’t put the two men in the same room for fear of property damage and inevitable death of one or both characters. That’s my Cain.

Anyway, I’ve found myself desperately hoping that readers connect with my heroine and hero on this level, that they find in my characters the strengths, weaknesses and core personalities that make us want to know them better. Fingers crossed. Now back to the story…

Writing exercises do just that. They teach you the proper way to execute a move, but instead of lifting a 50 pound weight over your head, you’re focused on wielding the English language with enough precision to rip someone’s heart out of their chest, tickle their funny bone, evoke intense spiritual healing, teach better ways to parent and more. Say it with me, people: that’s pretty damned powerful.

Exercises are repetitive in order for the muscle group you’re working on to develop and get ripped. Once isn’t going to do it or that one sit-up I did this morning would have left me looking like Miranda Kerr. It takes repetition–lots and lots of repetition–to get to a maintenance point and then you’ve got to…maintain. This means you keep exercising, maybe not as intently because you’ll have trained your muscles in the way that they should move and behave and exert themselves, but still. The maintenance translates to effort, and without that effort, everything you’ve learned goes to total waste.

But what types of writing exercises qualify? I’m glad you asked, young Jedis. Here’s what I think. You an go to Amazon and find a bevvy of books on the subject. You can spend a gazillion dollars for said books and their corresponding workbooks, plus classes and stuff that will get you pointed in the right direction. You can register for the most comprehensive writers’ workshops and post-secondary classes, whether they’re writing courses or MFA programs. What it comes down to is this: each and every one of them will do the same thing you can do on your own, and that’s write. Professional athletes don’t go out on the field and say, “I read Passing to Win: The Methodology,” and then become expert quarterbacks. No, they go out and practice. They bust their asses and get bruised and beaten and better. Why should we be any different as writers? Aren’t we professionals in our class? Aren’t we goal-driven in so many similar ways to be the best? Don’t we want the symbols of success that differentiate us from our peers? The difference in all of this is that we’re internally driven to produce external works that substantiate our exercise and muscle-building.

So what exercise is best? Depends on what you want to accomplish, but I’m a huge fan of the A.S.S. Method. It’s mine, and not the one you’re thinking of (ass in chair). It’s similar, though, and taken directly from that original. My version is: Ass in the chair, Sit there and Sweat it out. Period. Get some good crit partners. Get a good beta reader. Invest in a good conference or two. Then write. Just do it (sorry Nike). You have to get that experience.

Now if you’re totally sold on buying a couple of books for reference points, go ahead. If that’s what it takes to get you started, by all means, invest. But don’t let that become your handy standby. Don’t rely on those books to get your creative muscles sweating. They’ll help you stretch, get warmed up, but the real work? That’s on you. So find your seat, get ready to work and don’t settle for anything other than the ripped physique of a serious athlete.

But there are so many parts and pieces that lead up to spending a day writing. It’s more than a choice for me anymore. It’s a commitment. The decision to write is no longer secondary to life’s other little demands. No, it’s primary. Why? Because there are big shoes to try to fill on rainy days.

I picked up my Kindle earlier, thinking I’d read a little while. I browsed the gazillion books I seem to have bought over the last year and laughed. So many of them are copies or duplicates of paperbacks I already own yet I wanted the digital convenience of an ebook in my purse. Then there are new authors to me, some that are (truly) new and other who are more seasoned bestsellers I just haven’t read yet. I sidled up to a specific title and sort of flipped through the virtual pages, thinking. Author and title aren’t as important here as the epiphany that arose in that moment. As I move forward with my own writing, and as I find myself on the cusp of my first major New York submission, I want to be this woman, this stranger, this author. I want to step into her shoes–shoes that are undoubtedly as yet still much, much too large for me–and I want to experience what it’s like to be a bestselling author. At the same time, I’d be hesitant to step into those shoes, even if I was only playing dress-up. Why? Because I haven’t earned it. I want that experience to be mine and mine alone when the day comes. And if it never does? I still have my dreams, and no one can take those from me. I’ll just continue to dream of the day and push myself harder and harder to reach that elusive goal. No one can tell me it won’t ever happen because they simply don’t know.

And what of my dreams? What are they and where do they roam? That’s something I talked to my husband about extensively today for the first time…ever. I realized that I’m a dream horder, someone who is terrified of sharing the true depth of emotion and desire that fuels her dreams because it makes me vulnerable. I don’t like that part of the dream process, but I also realized this in talking to him: his support is a point of empowerment for me. My husband’s unerring faith in me, faith that I will do exactly what I set out to do, is a remarkable thing. I need to embrace it, as well as the faith that others have placed in me, and use it as a fuel cell for my creativity and drive.

So I’m off to write now, doubly empowered with my husband’s support and my own favorite kind of day. I hope you look at your own dreams and find someone with whom you’d like to play dress up. Find that person you want to “grow up to be” and begin emulating his or her success. I’m having a ball being a bestseller today.

I’m not afraid to admit I’ve made a few missteps so far: 8,103 words worth of cutouts that may or may not make it back. It’s a difficult thing, to put this much effort into something so freaking precious to you, only to realize you may be either writing out of order or writing crap you’ll never use. I hate that. And something tells me you don’t feel much different.

So as I approach this narrow path forward, I started thinking about where inspiration comes from. It’s definitely in the form of music for me (hello, Steve Jablonsky and Two Steps from Hell). I find myself getting lost in scenes when just the right music is playing. I consider this my longitude. It is the driving force of north to south for my emotions, and I depend on my music fiercely. It is as much a writing tool as anything else is for me, and my iTunes account reflects this completely.

When the creative marker shifts to me and me alone, though, I find my own latitude. These are the ideas that push me left to right, forward and back. I come up with my ideas a variety of ways, not the least of which is brainstorming with critique partners (hello Tibby, Amanda and Gina). But I also do a little free thinking, where I sit down with either pen and paper, index cards, or a blank computer screen and I make notes. I write out possible ideas and see what sticks. What I typically find is that there are a thousand opportunities to go forward, several of which will work. But there is one right one. There is one that will take the story in the right direction for all of the players involved and, let’s face it, my stories are rather diverse in primary and secondary characters on both sides of the board (protagonists and antagonists).

The easiest way for me to describe the discovery of the right path when I’m truly lost is to begin running this free-thinking exercise and see where my latitude and longitude lines cross. Because when they do? I’m on to something good. When the fail to intersect at a viable point, say over open water in the mid-Atlantic, the ideas are going to gain any type of foothold. But when the coordinate are right, when I suddenly find myself on terra firma with a sense of purpose and enthusiasm, I move on it. Is it always right? No. But it’s a path forward.

Realize that paths forward do often involve rewrites and discarded words. How else do you try something on for size? It’s like shoe shopping (sigh, I love shoe shopping). You have to go in with purpose for the trip, even if it’s only to browse, and then you begin trying things on. Too tight? Grab a wider size? Heel too high? Look for something lowers. Neon colors aren’t your thing? Seems too bad this year as they’re everywhere, but you’re not interested in that.  :)

I count on my personal compass, the one held mutually by my muse and myself, to map my way through the straight and narrow, to keep me on track as I traverse the broad variety of topography that any good story has. We do deviate, my muse and I, sometimes with one of us running off with the compass with the other left standing dazed and confused until the absconder returns, compass in hand and chagrin on her face. I love those times. I learn. I map out my plot with more wisdom. And I forge ahead.

Here’s to you finding your own compass and your story’s solid points of latitude and longitude. Happy writing!

I should have shut up. I should have taken my lumps and just rolled with it. But no, I thought I’d blog. I thought I’d share some of the miseries that writers encounter because it’s something that isn’t often discussed outside the Seventh Circle of Hell (a/k/a Revisions Road). Did I take my own advice? Nope. Am I taking it now and just moving on? Nope. “Why?” you ask in desperation? Because if I can help even one writer realize that what they’re struggling with is normal, or if I can help one reader appreciate the book they hold in their hands just a little more, it’s worth it.

So what happened? Monday happened. It began as a rather innocuous day, nothing to set off the Paranoid Writer’s Alarm System (PWAS™). Then came this sentence: “I banged on the trailer door with the side of my fist, barely stepping clear of the door’s sweep when it was flung open.” This shall forever be known as The Sentence That Changed It All. It marked the change in the manuscript from where I distinctly knew the manuscript was working to the point I wanted it to work when I knew it didn’t. I tried to use older sections of the manuscript–stuff that was written before the complete rewrite of Raising Cain was complete. It was a bad, Bad, BAD choice.

I fought with the manuscript, wrestled with rewriting paragraphs and pages, struggled with keeping the characters true to form and the world rich and engaging. By struggled, I mean I sweated blood and cried pink tears. It was ugly, people. U-g-l-y. I spent four hours of my life, four hours I’ll never get back, trying to salvage about three thousand words. In the end, I cut them all–right back to that fateful pounding of fist to door–and I started again.

This time, when I focused on the true plot points and the character arcs, characterizations and world development, I found that the words were slower to materialize. I learned that the words that take time to produce typical matter more, because you’re thinking them through. You’re assigning them value. You’re making sure they fit in your overall plan. It’s like building a puzzle with all the right pieces versus building a puzzle where 30% of your pieces aren’t quite right. If you know that going into the puzzle build, do you waste your time? Of course not. We call that wisdom. Wisdom comes for learning and let me tell you, I’m wiser after today’s little self-induced lesson.

I came away with about 1,800 words I could keep and far more which I couldn’t. The discarded words are never far because I keep them all in a cut file. You never know when you’ll be able to use them; you never know when you’ll be able to recycle them or even find inspiration in them. I’m primed and ready for today, convinced I’m on a better path with this story than I was yesterday. I’ll stay true to the arc and characterizations no matter what. And I’ll be wiser, and far happier, for the effort.

There’s not much I hate worse than having to cut words. A lot of writers I know are like this. We don’t want to believe that we’ve invested all this time and energy into creation–adhering to story arc, plotting, structure, character development, pacing and the like–only to have to cut it out and discard it because it’s wrong. I mean, who knows this story? Who owns it? The answer should be me, but when I have to deconstruct it and redo it to get it right? It leaves me wondering how competent I really am . Besides, some of my best one-liners are often in the sections I find I need to cut. It annoys the crap out of me. I want to scream and pull out my hair. But going bald isn’t going to help my cause or solve my problems, so we’ll talk about it here.

But it’s critical to the integrity of the story that a writer learn what works and what doesn’t, and that the writer is willing to do what it takes to get it right. And if that means adding to the trash pile? You add to the trash pile. The admirable Stephen King talks in his book “On Writing” about the necessity of sometimes killing your darlings. What does that mean? It means your favorite passages, pages and even one-liners sometimes must make their way to the trash in order for the story to be what it was mean to be. Writers can become enamored with their own words and not be willing to make changes–necessary changes that make the manuscript better. When that happens, objectivity is lost and you get so close to the story that a number of things happen. First, you lose the ability to see what’s good and what’s not. Second, you lose the ability to cull the bad passages and polish the better ones. And third, it means you lose the ability to be effectively critiqued and/or edited, whether it’s by a crit partner or a professional editor. You become so defensive of your words that they become more important, individually, than they do as a whole.

It’s important to maintain objectivity in your writing, no matter how hard. When I queried Deidre Knight, she responded that she loved the story but it had taken a wrong turn for her. She wanted to know if I’d be open to edits. I said I would and she sent me her suggestions. We worked together in November, December and half of January on a total rewrite of the story. What emerged under her guidance was a story to fantastic I was sure I’d been possessed when I wrote it because no way could I have managed to write this. And you know what? In a way, my thinking was right. I hadn’t done it; she had pointed me in the right direction the entire time.

What it all comes down to is this: never doubt that there will be words to cull, passages to delete and pages to make bleed. It’s a miserable truth of writing. But you can rest assured that when you take the brave stand of doing the right thing for your story you’ll end up with a wild sense of satisfaction and, hopefully, a sense of wicked pride that you wrote a killer manuscript.

Oh — you may be asking yourself if it was worth it to take Deidre’s suggestions and work with her to get the manuscript rewritten, first page to last. Deidre offered representation and is now my agent. Was it worth it? Hell yes. I’d do it all over again.

Happy writing!

Given this truth, it conversely fascinates me to find that, globally, we all grieve with similar basic reactions, regardless of our belief system. It only goes to reinforce my repeated assertion (read here: soap box ramblings) that, as human beings, we’re more similar than some care to acknowledge. That’s a post for another time, though.

Back to death and my story. So what is it about fiction that requires a writer to research specific mythologies, religions, etc. if all she’s going to do is mix it all up and create new rules anyway? Here’s the thing: even if what we’re writing is fiction (created), it has to be grounded enough that the reader accepts what we establish as truth. What, exactly, does this mean? Basically, even the stuff we make up has to be carefully crafted so that it makes sense, fits into the world we’ve created and can be examined from a variety of directions without its armor of creation displaying transparent spots. Face it: no one wants to write the proverbial Emperor’s New Clothes. Great kids’ story, horrible thing to have happen because you didn’t do your homework. (My personal armor would undoubtedly display transparencies of the ass. It’s the way my dice roll.) One of the easiest ways to make sure your story’s bare bum isn’t left showing is to take facts from different areas of established reality and meld them together to make something new. It’s sort of like taking six different colors of Play-Doh and squishing them together really, really well. You end up with a new, unique color that’s offers a cohesive surface, interesting striations, and is larger than all the pieces you started with. See? You’ve created something unique that serves a, um, purpose. What you intend to do with that Play-Doh is totally up to you. I was just using it as an example.

Hopefully you see how important it is to create something that withstands the scrutiny of readers and reviewers. But the questions still remains — why pull from reality? Let me tell you that there’s  no right answer here, just what works for me and my writing, combined with my own experiences in writing multiple series. Here’s a simple fact: if you “borrow” facts from a pre-established source (i.e. the Book of Revelation in the Bible), you are using information that is pre-established and, therefore, can be validated, or authenticated, by the reader. It can help lend a type of immediate believability to your world. (Sidenote: this isn’t a religious lesson or debate. You may not believe the Book of Revelation but it exists and can be referenced.)

If you create your own realities (or mythologies) entirely, which is completely reasonable, you must enable the reader to slip into your story and accept rules, creatures, characters, etc. as absolute. You must create concrete points of reference and anchor your reader in the story. Keep in mind, I’m not promoting one approach over another here. I really only want to stress the author’s responsibilities to readers regardless of the approach you take. I’ve approached storytelling both ways, creating and borrowing established mythologies, but you must commit to providing your reader with a structurally solid foundation for their suspension of disbelief. Regardless of which method you pursue, make sure you keep notes and are consistent in your application of facts — both established and those you establish — so that readers are able to develop absolute faith in you that you’ll take care of them. Nothing ejects a reader from a story more thoroughly than an author who mixes up his/her own facts.

What it all comes down to is this: choose the method of approach that works best for you. And what about me? If you read any of my stuff you’find I just tweak the color of the Play-Doh a little lot.

Drop the fire, dumbass.

Seems like it would be sound advice, right? You’re holding something that’s going to burn you, leave you with blistered skin and scars for life.

So put it down.

But what if it’s not that simple? What if it’s not a matter of just letting go? Because you know what happens when you let go, right? The law of gravity is unavoidable. It’s impossible to defy without strapping rockets to your ass and, well, that’s just a bad idea.

Yet what if it’s something that’s so important to you, you can’t figure out how to let it go…and still hang on? Because letting go just isn’t an option. You can’t afford to watch it fall, crash, burn itself out and go still and quiet, leaving a charred lump of “oops” in its wake. You’ve worked too hard. You’ve wanted it too much. What is this thing, the thing that’s on fire and threatening to burn you to the ground?

It’s your writing career.

I know, I know. You look at this and think, “Huh?” But it’s true. And it doesn’t just apply to writing, but let’s start there. Writing is a generally solitary endeavor. You create imaginary friends and build worlds to play in, and people sometimes pay you for it. How could this get any better, right? How could this possibly go wrong? It happens when you aren’t looking, when you’re so focused in another direction that you never see it coming. You get caught up in the momentum of creativity and you forget, quite innocently at first, that there’s life outside the worlds you create, real life. You find writer friends and pull them into your sphere. They are, after all, people who understand you and can validate your mania. And they fit in so well. Already, the balance beam of your writing has been lit, at both ends, and you’re too enamored to see the growing flames.

After a while, you get so wrapped up in what is going on that you ignore the flames that are creeping toward you. I mean, the heat feels pretty nice. It’s January, after all. Consider it a free cosmic utility.

And then the fire’s there. It’s nipping at the tender pads of your fingers and you’re dancing around, blowing on the flames to try to chase them back. You can’t figure out how you didn’t see this happen, how those closest to you didn’t encourage you to tamp the all-consuming flames into a manageable, sustained burn. But you know what? It’s not their responsibility.

Writing is like anything in that too much of a good thing is, well, too much. Authors are required to do so much for their careers, whether they self-pub, e-pub or traditionally publish their works. There are different mindsets on this, that author sales aren’t influenced at all by exerting the time and effort to those who pour everything they have into their work, spending every waking moment pushing forward with the hope that the wall separating them from elusive success will move, even an inch. You know what I’m going to say, right? Both approaches are wrong. Both. Are. Wrong. If you aren’t willing to invest at least something, don’t expect anything in return. This is true in life, love, friendship, pet ownership, cooking, hell – even breathing. Nothing comes without some effort. You can’t take a single breath and expect that to be all the effort required of you any more than you can write a story and expect it to carry itself to the NYT List. Yes, it happens — to vampires and other oddities. Most of us don’t fall into that category.

It’s equally wrong, though, to become so involved in writing that all else ceases to exist. It is remarkably unhealthy to eat only one type of food (hello, Little Debbie) or to think one singular thought (hello, uh…never mind but Sam Bond? It’s totally about you.). You have to experience the rich and abundant offerings of life or you become monochromatic and unbalanced (infer what you will). There are experiences to be had, some that are even like ripe, low-hanging fruit — there for the taking. But you can miss them if you’re busy burning up your talent in one grand gesture of crazy effort. And you know what? Whether you want to believe it or not, your writing will suffer for such a narrow viewpoint of life. How can you think to give a richness of life to your characters if you don’t step out and live it?

So how do you achieve balance like this? There are three key ideas here.

1.  Manage the Fire: You need to have a certain level of burning passion for your writing, whether it’s a hobby or a career. But notice I say  ”a certain level.” I’m never going to endorse someone dousing their creative mind in lighter fluid and reaching for a match. Uh, hell no. You’ve got to do what firefighters call a Controlled Burn. You direct the flames, you control what they have access to as far as fuel and you never let it get out of control. If you don’t control it, it will control you. Simple matter of fact, my friends.

2.  Develop Support Networks: Have friends around you who are brave enough to tell you when the flames are beginning to singe hair. I have one friend in particular who said this to me last week. I balked and shook my head, backing away from the crazy lady. Turns out you can’t run from yourself: I was the crazy lady. She was right. I’d delved too far into the flames and was losing myself. Surrounds yourself with people who will help fan the flames of creativity, but are also will to help you keep from burning alive. It’s a fine balance, yes, but it’s possible to achieve.

3. Live: Seems simple, doesn’t it? If you’re burning out of control, it’s not. You’ve got to remember that there is life outside of your writing. I am the absolute worst at remembering this, so don’t feel like I’m pointing fingers. I get wrapped up in my word count and deadlines and begin to live, eat and breathe writing. My life has suffered for it. I’m remarkably fortunate that I have a husband who is totally supportive and patient, friends and fellow writers who encourage me to get out and absorb a little vitamin D and a family who loves me despite my obsessive quirks. Make time for yourself. Make time for those who are important to you. Don’t ever put yourself in the position where you look up and find yourself alone. Nothing, not even writing, is worth losing the most precious of your relationships over. The flip side is that the people who are most precious to you will understand and not ask you to give writing up. Find a way to invite them to roast marshmallows near the flames of your passion; involve them.

Never forget to live, my friends.
Your stories will be richer
for your own experiences.