Jacqueline C. Thomas - Romance Novelist

Self Doubt

When the Words Aren’t There

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(Cheers to the words!)

 

The first book I ever wrote, I dreamt. I mulled over the idea of writing it into a book for a day or two, then sat down and did it. I wrote the first book in a week, or at least the first full draft that week. The whole experience was lifechanging for me, as cliche as that sounds, it is true. I knew writing was something that I would do for the rest of my life. I am very blessed not to have a shortage of creative people in my life, and I remember them talking from time to time how creativity wasn’t flowing, and their process was stilted. I remember thinking to myself how ridiculous this sounded… Then karma laughed.

From the first book on, I have never stopped writing. The words have always flowed out of me pretty easily; the inspiration was there. Sure, I’ve had difficulties with sections of every piece I have ever written, but these were manageable hurdles. I am the sort of person that when I set my mind to something and commit, that’s it, I’m not done until I have accomplished what I set out to. “Arse in chair,” is what we say in our house when it comes to writing, meaning sit your butt in the chair and just write, no excuses. Sounds simple enough.. again karma laughed.

Last May, I ran into some health issues, and the scare of a lifetime thus far, yet I kept writing, it saw me through. I poured all of my nervous energy into McKinley Park, letting myself fall into Rachel and Ben’s world. Writing was a haven and comfort as I nervously waited for test results. I was also raising my two children, one who has special needs, working a full-time and sometimes demanding job, and completing my Master’s degree in public relations, but no matter what, I kept writing. My test results came back, and although I was in the clear, I still needed significant surgery, life-altering surgery.

I don’t know anyone who likes surgery, but I hate it. The anaesthesia makes me violently ill for days, but there was no way around it. So the surgery was scheduled; meanwhile my most challenging course of my graduate career kicked off at the same time, a statistics course disguised as a research course. I am not a numbers person; I am a letters woman. I knew with surgery and this course, which I was not going to defer, that I was going to have to put writing on hold for a while. I finished up McKinley Park and stopped writing. It was the weirdest sensation not to be building a world for two people to fall in love in. There was this nagging feeling like I was forgetting something. I suppress the urge to write, knowing that school, work, and healing were going to take all of the bandwidth that I had.

I made it through the surgery with relative ease, and I am grateful for it. I am usually a complications magnet, but things went smoothly. I was told that it was going to be painful, but I had, had two kids by C-section, one of which was 10lbs! I knew pain; I wasn’t scared. This was a whole other ball game, folks. I couldn’t write even if I wanted to. As the days at home dragged on, I wanted to write, but I knew I couldn’t, between being too tired, or hopped up on pain pill, and not in the good slightly unstable author way. (That’s a joke.) Then while I was home healing, the statistics course went from a difficulty setting of 6 out of 10 to a 10 out of 10. Have you ever tried to compute statistics while on heavy pain medication? Let me tell you; it is an experience, one that I never want to repeat.

Slowly my body got stronger, and I returned to work. The statistics course from hell ended and the next course in my graduate program started. I thought to myself that I was finally in a place where I could start writing again. McKinley Park was just about done being published; it felt like the right time to start something new. I was ready…. but where had the words gone? Where was the inspiration that had once come so easily? Reassuring myself that this would take time, I didn’t push, something in me knew not to push. I know I have mentioned it before, but I am not a patient woman. I try to be, but I know I am not. Inspiration was not happening fast enough for me.

Finally, I had a thread of an idea, and I sat down and started writing, only to pitter out two chapters in. It was forced; the words weren’t flowing as they had before. I let myself stop, something I never do. I knew this wasn’t the right idea for right now; I could always come back to it. I found myself missing writing, but not able to write creatively. One of my biggest pet peeves are those who are creative and drone on about process, I am the “arse in chair,” girl, yet here I was. Now what? If you miss it, then put your arse in the chair and start writing.

While I was preparing for and recovering from surgery, I also put my querying efforts for The Lake Michigan Affair on hold. I knew I did not have the bandwidth to give the querying process the time it required. I told myself to take the time not writing to focus my efforts here instead. That did not go well either. Deep down, I secretly wondered if I had broken this magical gift that had allowed me to write so effortlessly before. Had I suppressed the desire to write into complete dormancy?

The inspiration was not there, to accompany the words, even though I engaged in things that I knew would spark my creativity. Everything felt flat. I continued to push, to no avail. I was not one of the writers I had previously rolled my eyes at, as karma’s laughter was now a full side-aching, knee-slapping, tears down the face roar of laughter. I was not pleased.

Then the other night as I was laying in bed, I had the most surreal experience. It was almost like the characters I had written were all suddenly there, fresh, at the top of my mind. It felt like a hug from friends. There was something about it that was comforting and reassuring. I started to think about each of them and their stories. All of the other feelings about writing fell away, and it felt freeing. I fell asleep that night feeling like I had sat in my grandmother’s kitchen, that warm feeling of being loved. The next morning, still thinking about the experience from the night before I sat back and thought about the stories I had created.

My first book has a great story, but the writing was poor. It was the first thing I had ever written creatively at that point. I had planned to rewrite it last spring in California, on the coast where it takes place, but life had other plans. I told myself I would not revise it until I was on the coast. I wanted to be where the story took place. I opened the book in Scrivner and started picking at the first chapter, making corrections and reworking parts of it. Before I knew it, I was well into chapter 3. Those first characters I had ever created were there, welcoming me back. In the back of my head, I kept telling myself to stop; this was not when and where this project was supposed to get rewritten.

Finally, last night as I sat and rewrote/ edited further into the book, I told that inner voice to shut the hell up. Now is the time to rewrite this book, I knew  I needed the familiar, needed to see that even in my first attempt to write, I was capable. As I write this now, I am itching to dig back in and continue working on the book, the desire is there, and it feels great. Maybe this book is like writing with training-wheels until I am ready and steady enough to create from scratch again. Whatever it is, I am incredibly grateful and going with it.

Top Ten Ways I Procrastinate When Writing….

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I am not a procrastinator by nature. I am a planner, but it seems the older I get the more laid back I become and then before I know it, I am up against a deadline.  I always make my deadline, whether it is for writing or other obligations in my life. As I was thinking about how I procrastinate to avoid writing from time to time, I thought it would be a funny list to share… because let’s be honest, we’ve all been there.

  1. Twitter– If I have actually got myself to sit down at my computer when I am procrastinating, I usually fall for the lie that I tell myself, “I’ll just pop onto Twitter for a second and see what is going on in the world..” Ha ha ha, silly me, a half hour later I am still scrolling through Twitter and NOT writing.
  2. Homework– I am working on my graduate degree in Public Relations- I will be done in the fall. This is a lame way to procrastinate but, since this post is about outing myself.. yeah sometimes I use homework as an excuse to not write. The bummer is, I actually have to do homework, and end up wishing I was writing instead.
  3. Housework- Yes you read that right, sometimes I would rather clean my house than write. I have been known to organize the closet in the kid’s playroom to avoid writing, this is a multi-day project.
  4. Work Out- I am giggling at myself at this point, writing is turning me into a runner for the first time in my life.
  5. Getting Trapped By TV.- At the end of the day, after a full day of work, dinner, kid’s homework, bath, and bed I am exhausted. My husband will be watching something on television and I will sit just for a second. Two hours later, I am still sitting there, wondering where the hell the past two hours went, but now I am too tired to actually write.
  6. Home Project- I seriously, kid you not. I tiled an entire kitchen backsplash to get out of writing a chapter one weekend. That is a lot of work not to write.
  7. I am Too Tired- Between my full-time job, owning a business with my husband, being a grad school student, raising two energetic children, being a wife to a wonderful man and caring for our zoo full of housepets I am exhausted. Man, I am tired just writing that.
  8. It Isn’t Very Good- I think this is the excuse I hate most of all. I think every writer has that period of self-doubt while working on a project. I sure know I have on just about every project I have completed. It is that little voice in the back of my head that says, “you don’t have to keep working on this project, it isn’t very good anyway.”  Well, that little voice can go to hell, because I don’t quit, but I do procrastinate.
  9. I Need to Run and Errand- “We need cinnamon for the french toast for brunch two weeks from now, I’d better go get it.” Yeah, the important errand that needs to run right away, but in reality can wait for a good ten days at least… that one is a gem.
  10. I Just Need A Break- If I am in the middle of a project and I am really working hard at it, this is a good excuse to pull out. However, it is a trick. I don’t fall for it much anymore because that is when the voice from number 8 comes out. Writing only gets better the more you do it. Plus, if you walk away, you stand a good chance of losing your momentum.

In the end, more often than not, I do end up making myself sit down and write. It is the best feeling when I do write and get those words down. When I block out the world around me and stop thinking about all of the obligations I have, and just immerse myself in the work I am creating..that is magic. How do you procrastinate, from one procrastinator to another? Let me know in the comments below.

Now, this is the hard part..

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When my husband and I first moved in together he was writing fiction regularly. I was a “book widow,” one who had lost their partner to the craft of creative writing. We were both working two jobs and in college. Every spare moment he had was spent writing. I was happy for him and annoyed at the same time. Then the editing process began and that took twice as much attention. Once his work was complete then came the job of querying. He queried via snail mail, this was old school, now everything is done online.

Years later I began the process myself. My first book came flying out of me, I couldn’t type fast enough. Jon was supportive and brought copious mugs of tea and coffee, and later wine. As I’ve moved on, and began other creative works, the ease of writing is not always there. I had to work at writing, sometimes it was easy and the words just flowed and other times it is work. Then there is the task of finding a decent amount of time to write, not to mention crippling doubt at times and the dreaded writer’s block. The more I began to write, the more I realized it wasn’t so easy, it is work. Writing isn’t always fun, it is having to push through those times where it doesn’t feel like it is going well, that makes it work.

I naively remember finishing the first work that I thought might be good enough to actually try and publish. Jon, said to me, that the book needed an edit like I had never edited a work before. I had the book printed at my local printer and got my red pen out to edit. Editing was difficult! I laughed at myself for thinking writing was the difficult part. I went through my book word by word with my pen, marking typos and misspellings, plot holes and pulling out things that did not belong. Once the first edit was done, I did it all over again with a different color pen to make sure that I agreed with my initial notes and edits.

With my marked-up manuscript, I sat down in front of the computer. Holy cow, if I thought writing was hard and editing was difficult, then making the corrections in the work was formidable. I once again laughed at myself thinking, you thought writing was hard, and then editing on a hard copy was rough, making the edits is the real hard part. Once I got all of the edits in, I had the book reprinted and repeated the process all over again. Finally, after two to three passes at this, I felt the book was in a solid enough spot where if I wanted to I could send it out to the world for querying.

I wrote a book doing Nano-Wri-Mo, after my husband and sister put me up to it. The work that came out of that month turned out to be strong enough to go through the editing process. I have been editing this book for well over a year. At my husband’s urging, I began to think about seriously shopping it out to agents. I dug into what it would take to find an agent, and once again laughed at myself, thinking writing and editing was the most difficult part of the process. At least with writing and editing, I was in the driver’s seat.

I began to research how to query, how to write the pitch, where to find these amazing people, literary agents with their magical ability to bring a book to market. There are a million sources to find this information, some legit and other sources were as slimy and as sleazy as they come. Researching how to query took so much time, that there was little time to actually write. Then I had to work on my pitch letter. Writing my pitch letter was one of the hardest things I have ever done.

Now I am in the process of querying my book The Lake Michigan Affair. Each time I fill out a query form or send off an email with my pitch, I literally have a wave of nausea. I have just started this process and it is nervewracking. I have received a few rejections so far and that is a strange mix of emotion too, relief, sadness and determination to keep going.

Someday, when I do get an agent and move through the next steps of the process in bringing work to market I wonder if the trend of “this is the hard part” will begin all over again. Hopefully, time will tell!