Jill Elaine Hughes- The Blog!

Focus

2012-01-16T15:31:00.004-06:00

My New Year's resolution for 2012 is "Simplify." As in, cut out all the extraneous stuff and focus on the most important things. It's general enough to be doable, comprehensive enough to make a difference across many aspects of my life, both personal and professional.

Lately I've been feeling like I have a lack of focus. People who know me well would be surprised by that, since I'm frequently told I'm the most disciplined and focused person most people know. Which may actually be true, but I still think I could be a lot more focused and disciplined. One of the nice things about knowing that perfection is unattainable is the understanding that there is always room to improve.

I do many things very well. I do a very few things exceedingly well, and only one or two things so well that I get paid handsomely for it. What I want to do is move more things from Column A into Column B. (i.e., the "exceedingly well" and "I get paid handsomely" column.) In order to do that, I need to cut out a lot of the "very well" things, and pretty much all of the "I suck" things. I also need to cut out a lot of the sucky unproductive people and activities that are just a waste of my time and energy.

I've managed to cut out several of the negative people already, and a few of the bad habits. I'm trying to reduce my caffeine intake, increase my exercise level, and also improve upon my existing exercise habits (like being able to run farther and more often, and taking on some more challenging yoga poses, for example). I'm still doing a lot of crafts and hobbies, but only focusing on the stuff that I'm really good at (instead of trying to do a little bit of everything). I've even managed to sell some old plays and writing works of mine that have been sitting on my hard drive for years because I'd gotten too lazy to market them.

But I've still got a long way to go. I have many unaccomplished life goals, after all. And I still have several annoying people I need to give the boot. Plus there's the matter of the New York Times bestseller list and the Pulitzer I've had my eye on for a while. . .

One step at a time.

Peace.

Pet Peeves

2012-01-03T14:10:00.006-06:00

I haven't posted on here in quite awhile, I've just been too busy with, well, actual writing work for which I am paid. Priorities, dontchya know. I microblog on Facebook because it doesn't involve much time, and I'd rather expend my very limited free time doing something other than writing, since writing is my job, and when was the last time you did your job as a vacation? But I digress. I thought I'd kick off the New Year with a list of my pet peeves. Some of them are writing-related, others are just general pet peeves. But, since a lot of people go out of their way to annoy me in a manner directly related to my profession, a lot of my pet peeves are directly related to writing. (People really do seem to become unintelligent and socially inept where the writing biz is concerned. I wonder what would happen to our economy if people behaved the same way about the stock market. Oh, snap. . .)

My Top Ten Pet Peeves, in descending order:

10) People who come up to me at parties and ask if I will participate in some half-baked get-rich-quick writing scheme of theirs for free. I have been dealing with this for years, and you'd think people would buy a clue by now, but they never do. Some dude came up to me at a Christmas party last month and asked if I would be interested in ghostwriting a memoir for some Z-list pseudo-celebrity he allegedly goes bar-hopping with. "What would he have to do to hire you?" the dude asked. "He can write me a very large check," I replied. "In advance. The going rate is about $50,000, minimum." The dude was surprised by this. "But, wouldn't you get paid AFTER the book is published?" I was like, "You mean, work for free? I don't think so."

9) People who email me on Facebook asking if I will please use my "connections" to help them track down and hire internationally bestselling authors to work for their half-baked venture-capital computer software scheme, FOR FREE. Uh huh. Because I'm sure people like Terry Brooks, Orson Scott Card and Stephen King would absolutely love it if I showed up on their doorstep asking them to do me a favor for someone I'm not even friends with, and they don't even know me personally in the first place, and somehow I don't think they'd be interested in writing content and characters for your 10th-generation copycat of World of Warcraft for zero compensation when they make more money for a two-hour speaking engagement than I make in a year. Yeah. Right. Please go take a long walk off a short pier. Thank you very much.

8) Flaky people. You know, I am so sick of people asking me to help them with shit, who want me to take time out of my busy schedules to teach them a craft, do them a favor, make them something, whatever, and I offer to do it, and set up a time, yadayadayada, and then they flake out on me and cancel, multiple times, and then wonder why I don't want to help them with anything anymore. Seriously? Go to hell.

7) Flaky people, Part Deux. Ya know, if I've already helped you with something, and all you have to do to complete the task to get what you want is stick it in an envelope and lick a stamp, and you don't even do that, for like a YEAR, and then wonder why you haven't gotten what you want, well, you need help. (And the best way to accomplish something, however small, is to DO IT, and stop BSing about it. This rule is widely applicable. Give it a try sometime.)

6) Childless people who lecture me on how to be a parent. This requires no further explanation.

5) Single and/or multiply divorced people who lecture me about how to have a healthy long-term relationship. Again, this requires no further explanation.

4) People who interrupt me when I'm teaching a class every five seconds. If you're taking my class (or any class, for that matter), you'll find you learn a lot more if you actually LISTEN to the instructor instead of interrupting her ALL THE TIME. I have been known to kick students out of my classes who do this too much. And raising your hand first BEFORE blurting out your questions also helps.

3) Gun nuts. I really have no use for firearms, and even less use for people who continuously espouse how wonderful things that are used to kill people by means of explosion violence are, especially when they ignore all the scientific/public health evidence to the contrary. Seriously, these people piss me off. Stay out of my state. Better yet, go form your own country somewhere in the Arctic and don't come back, ever, and hopefully you will all just shoot each other to death and do the rest of us a favor. Bye.

2) People who don't appreciate the favors you do for them. A simple "thank you" will suffice. Biting the hand that feeds you is usually not a good way to go through life. Nor is it a way to win friends or influence people.

1) Mean, nasty, self-important haters who have nothing better to do than to attack/belittle everything I do, believe, and say. I've run into a lot of them over the past year. Granted, I'm responsible for that to some extent, because I'm tolerant to a fault. But no more. There's a new sheriff in town, and if you act like an asshole, and/or act like an asshole to people I care about, please do not expect me to keep talking to you. I don't care how long we've known each other, or how important you think you are, that rule applies to everyone.

(Oh, and then there's the random no-name people who email me asking if I will write their incredibly fascinating life story for them at no charge, sign over the copyright, and let them keep all the millions of dollars it will surely make for themselves. Gotta love them. NOT.)

Peace.

NaNoWriMo Tips

2011-10-30T16:36:00.000-06:00

November is National Novel Writing Month (and National Play Writing Month too). Since I've written almost 20 novels (most of which are published, though I've still got a couple of failures in the drawer too), not to mention a buttload of plays, this time of year I always get hounded by people who want to know how they can write a novel or a full-length play in a month. Mind you, these are people who are not writers----in fact, they often can't even claim to be wannabe writers.

Nine times out of ten, those same people are not even remotely serious about getting started in the novel-writing process, and the ones that do start often do not finish. (And we're not even getting into their success rates on publication, which are even lower.) So, suffice to say that I am generally pretty cynical when these Johnny-come-latelies interrupt my very limited free time asking for writing advice.

To bypass that, I've come up with a list of 10 tips. So, read these tips, and don't bug me for free advice. TYVM.

1) Write every day for at least 2 hours. Bare minimum. No excuses. And that means EVERY SINGLE DAY, including holidays and weekends. You need to get down at least 1700 words per day for 30 days to have a 50,000 word manuscript (which might be a piece of crap, but at least it's something). Ditto for a play. So get cracking.

2) Don't bother with a bunch of writing "exercises" like outlines or brainstorms or character profiles. That kind of garbage is just stupid busy-work invented by bad writing teachers. Just write the damn novel (or play, or whatever). You can always go back and revise a first draft, but without an actual first draft, you've got jack nada.

3) Don't quit your day job. Unless you already write for a living (and I highly doubt it), do not expect your as-yet-unfinished novel or play to start paying your bills for you.

4) Don't expect to get published. It is very, very, very hard to get published. (Self-publishing and vanity publishing don't count). The brutal truth is, the vast majority of first novels do not get published. Your first completed novel is really more of a training exercise that helps you learn how to write a novel. (Mine was.) Oftentimes, the "first" novels of published authors were in fact the third or fourth (or more) novels they actually finished. (The same goes for plays----don't expect your first play to get produced.) Mind you, I've had dozens of my plays produced and published, and I've still got a ton that I can't even give away---and just FYI, the new play market is worse than the novel market, and it's getting worse every year.

5) Be prepared to give up most of your leisure activities. That means turn off the TV, stop playing World of Warcraft, stop screwing around online, stop going to parties, stop gossiping on the phone, and sign out of Facebook. All of it. That book isn't gonna write itself. If you're not willing to do all of that, then you should probably quit right now.

6) Don't bother me. I am a full-time professional freelance writer with bills to pay and deadlines to meet, I don't have time to answer a bazillion stupid writing questions from strangers (or even friends that I know aren't serious about writing). If I choose out of the kindness of my heart to give you some of my time and expertise, please appreciate it.

7) You are not God's gift to literature. If you've never written a book or play before, then this should be obvious, but you'd be surprised how many people think the exact opposite.

8) No publisher is going to show any interest in an unfinished novel manuscript. So stop reading my blog and finish it! And the market for unfinished (or even finished) plays is approximately equal to the market for used belly lint, so keep your expectations well in line with that.

9) Do not ask me to introduce you to my agent and/or publisher, because I won't. This would be in line with Tip No. 7, but given how many audacious people have asked me to do this, it merits its own tip. (And the one time I did it, I got totally burned, so I will never do it again).

10) Don't say that you "don't have time" to write. I am sick to death of hearing from people with half-finished manuscripts who complain that they would like to finish them, but they "don't have time." Bullshit. You have the same number of hours in the day as allotted to Ghandi, Voltaire, Gore Vidal, J.K. Rowling, and Jesus Christ, and look what they managed to do with it. So, stop making a bunch of bullshit lazy excuses and go write.

Peace.

True Colors

2011-10-08T07:22:00.000-06:00

There are very few things in this world I absolutely cannot stand or abide. I'm a tolerant and peaceful person. I may not like you or agree with you, but as long as you don't try to beat the crap out of me or purposefully torment me, I will put up with you. I won't necessarily be your friend, but I'll leave you in peace. (Hat tip: Lisabeth Salander of Steig Larssen's Millennium Trilogy wants nothing more than to just be left in peace---except no one does, instead they just keep fucking with her, so she has no choice but to defend herself in very creative ways---which is one of many reasons why I adore that character).

But if there are two things in this world I cannot stand or abide, it's deception and violence. Lie to me and get caught (you will), then consider our friendship/relationship over. Become violent, same thing. I always tell my husband (we've been married almost nine years, with plenty of ups and downs) that "There are only two automatic dealbreakers for our marriage, adultery and physical violence. Everything else is negotiable." It's worked for us so far. Adultery is a problem for me not so much for the sex part as it is for the deception part, and I think physical violence is pretty much self-explanatory. And I categorize weapons under physical violence, and that includes guns (both use and ownership.)

I don't like guns. I can deal with things like hunting rifles that use deershot or birdshot pellets for hunting animals. That's fine, I understand some people go out and kill wild game to eat, and no human being is going to die if they're accidentally hit with birdshot. (Full disclosure: I've even eaten wild game hunted by others with guns on occasion, but I have a lot more respect for people who hunt with bows and arrows, since that requires actual work and skill.) But handguns are another story. They serve no purpose other than to kill people. That's what they are designed for. Handguns are not for protection, or security, or peacekeeping. They are instruments of destruction that frequently become murder weapons. I see no reason why anyone other than active-duty law enforcement should ever need to use or own one. And I consider gun nuts who collect handguns, brag about them, and rant/rave about why EVERYONE should own multiple weapons to be insane maniacs. To wit, I consider the new "conceal-carry" gun nut crowd who are going around pressuring state legislatures to allow private citizens to carry concealed firearms under their clothes to be violence, personified. (i.e., they make me sick.) This is why I choose to live in an area where many towns and cities have total handgun bans, and don't really count anyone from the gun-nut crowd as my friends, since they violate my "no physical violence" rule.

The only time I ever handled a handgun was when I sat on a jury in a murder case. It was technically an attempted murder case, and the only reason it wasn't full-blown murder was because the gun used in the crime misfired. Therefore, we the jury had to convict or acquit based on criminal intent alone, and the ballistics of the handgun and exactly how it had malfunctioned were key pieces of evidence. The prosecution frequently displayed the gun and bullets used in the crime (now separated from each other) in their arguments, and they were handed over to us along with other evidence in the jury room. The twelve of us all handled the gun, inspected it, tried the trigger (it was unloaded), looked down the barrel. One of the jury members was a retired tactical officer from the U.S. Marines who explained to the rest of us how guns work, how can they misfire, and whether someone can still intend to kill with a misfired/malfunctioning gun (he said, yes, absolutely.) Even more damning evidence was the fact the defendant went into a police station carrying 40 rounds of live ammunition and a semiautomatic, with the stated intent to kill police officers, and he'd have succeeded if the gun hadn't malfunctioned. So, we the jury convicted him on four counts of attempted murder of a police officer. After we convicted, we learned from the judge that this defendant had been convicted of murder multiple times in the past----had served time, been paroled, and then went out on the streets to try and kill more people. So we felt good about our decision.

I've always been a pacifist, even as a little kid---likely because from a very early age, I was always the target of violence, just because I was different from the other kids. (And it's never easy to be a pacifist, but it's especially hard when you live in a blue-collar/gun-loving area and your dad works a job for the Department of Defense designing nuclear weapons). But up until the time I'd served on that jury, I was sort of indifferent to guns. I never wanted to own one, and I didn't hang out with gun people, but the idea of a handgun didn't necessarily bother me.

After serving on that jury though, I changed my mind. The only reason those four police officers the defendant tried to kill were still alive was because something went wrong with his gun. (It was a cheap Chinese-made gun, the kind that are illegal in most U.S. states due to their low quality and potential explosion dangers, and chances are the guy didn't know how to maintain it anyway). The bottom line is, guns are dangerous because they make it too easy to commit murder with them. A flick of a finger, a tiny explosion of gunpowder, and poof! Somebody's dead. The thought process around what it really means to kill another human being is removed from the equation. Before you've even had time to think, you've already killed (or maimed) someone. That's where the danger lies. And that's where the evil is. It was just a random chance that this guy didn't get to commit murder that day, but he was still evil, and the weapon he tried to use was still just as evil, even though it didn't work.

In the old days when you had to kill people with swords or clubs, you really had to work hard to commit murder. You had to have skill with bladed weapons or archery (which took years of work and training to develop), and clubs took a lot of brute strength. Or if you lacked either one of those, you could always try poison, but that required quite a bit of alchemy knowledge. The point is, murder wasn't something that was easy for everyone to commit until guns came along.

My home state of Ohio passed one of the craziest concealed-carry gun laws in the United States last week---it allows people to carry concealed weapons into bars and sports arenas (two places where people have a tendency to get physically violent even without guns). Even some gun-accepting friends of mine from weapons-friendly Texas and Louisiana think it's a crazy law. It makes me sad, because the Ohio of my youth would never have permitted something like that. But Ohio has changed, and not for the better. And it seems some old friends of mine who I once thought shared my values have changed with it, and not for the better either. That's really the worst part.

The poet Maya Angelou has a saying: "When someone shows you who they are, believe them."

She's right.

Peace.

Today. . .

2011-10-06T18:25:00.002-06:00

Today, I pledge to create, and not destroy. Today, I pledge to be compassionate. Today, I pledge to make the world better than it was yesterday. Today, I pledge to do no harm. Today, I pledge to be true to myself first, and not worry about what others think. Today, I pledge to be honest. Today, I pledge to say and do the hard things, not the easy ones. Today, I pledge to pave my own way through life, instead of coasting along the backs of others. Today, I pledge to be human first.

Peace.

Musings

2011-09-28T21:22:00.001-06:00

Have you ever wanted to go back in time and have a nice long chat with your adolescent self? Probably. Most of us have at one point or another. Lately I've been wanting to go back and talk to the girl I was around age 14-15.

That was a very turbulent time in my life, even by most teenagers' standards. I never had anything resembling a stable home life as a child. My mother was severely mentally ill for almost my entire childhood and adolescence, and her illness continues to this day. (She just got out of the hospital for the umpteenth time yesterday, in fact). My father was married and divorced multiple times, and I got shuffled back and forth between both parents, and suffered through multiple divorces as a kid, not to mention witnessed a lot of stuff no kid should ever have to see. Suffice to say I pretty much raised myself after the age of ten or so, and as such I developed a very thick skin from a very early age----something that's served me well as a writer, but not so well when it comes to emotions and personal relationships.

I was also a social misfit as a kid and had few friends my own age. At school I was the "smart artist girl" and a social outcast, since I was into different clothes and music than anybody else was, not to mention a transplant to a small town from a large city who switched school districts four times in five years. (To give you an example of just how ass-backwards the town I spent my adolescence in was, I got made fun of by the 'cool kids' for liking U2. In 1987, when U2 was the biggest band in the world). But I made up for my lack of social life in an odd way. My dad was involved in a lot of activities (historical reinactment) that he would drag me to on weekends, and as a result of that I got introduced to a lot of older people. And being the smart precocious kid that I was, I became friends with a lot of adults----college age and older---when I was still in junior high along with a few high school kids (none from my hometown). Some of those people remain my friends to this day, and I'm still in touch with them.

But I was still a kid, and as such I didn't necessarily understand a lot about adult relationships or how they worked. What was odd was, some of these people kind of forgot that I was a kid at all (I was very mature for my age, physically and emotionally) and treated me like an adult, one of their peers. Some of them even, shall we say, made passes at me. Not physically, per se----but you know what I mean. They wanted something from their relationship with me that I just wasn't prepared to give at the time. And mature/precocious or no, I was still a kid, and a lot of that just flew straight over my head, so what they were looking for didn't even register in the first place. Despite all the crap I'd been dragged through from an early age, in most ways I was still an innocent.

I remember when I was about 16 or so, at a family reunion I was bemoaning the fact that I'd never had a boyfriend, that I was the geek tomboy girl that nobody liked, that I was a social misfit who never had a date to the dance, yadayadayada. One of my relatives sat me down and said, "Honey, you DID have a boyfriend. A couple years ago. You know, the older boy who used to come visit you all the time and bought you presents." (One of the people I'd met through my dad's group, several years older than I was, from another town, though we were still both teenagers.) I remember just staring back at my relative incredulously. "Oh, you mean So-and-So? He wasn't my boyfriend. He was just----well, So-and-So." And I went right back to bemoaning what a wallflower I was, and my relative just shook her head and skulked off.

I want to go back to the 14-year-old girl I was when So-and-So was hanging around, being really nice and sweet and attentive to me at a time when nobody else was, and knock her upside the head.

Peace.

Sanity

2011-09-23T12:42:00.001-06:00

Those of you who follow me on Facebook know it's been kind of a scary week for me. I had (yet another) near-death anaphylactic experience following an allergy shot treatment. It's ironic that the medical treatment that is supposed to be reducing my allergy levels actually is making them worse---yet more proof that I'm a genetic freak who probably should not be in the gene pool to begin with. But it underscores the fact that I'm an unusual person all the more. I have no intention of doing what is "expected" of me by anyone, and I have built a pretty successful career around that ideology, and I don't expect that to change anytime soon.

I've decided to take some down time "off the grid" this weekend, catching up on reading, maybe doing some crafts, and spending some quality time with my family. A family I'm very grateful to have. I have a husband and a child mostly because while I'm not big on compromising who I am as a person, I am big on compromising and sharing within loving relationships. Something that seems to be in very short supply these days. As my previous post illustrated, I'm not meeting a lot of people these days who are interested in compromising and sharing. But there are an awful lot of people who are only interested in taking and using. Those people aren't going to be hearing from me much anymore.

As someone who almost died of asphyxiation in an ER earlier this week, take it from me----Life is too short to waste time on people who steal your joy. Any relationship you have should be worth having, and not toxic or upsetting to you. Don't be afraid to end the ones that aren't working so you can hold on to and savor the ones that are.

Peace.

Suck it up.

2011-09-21T15:13:00.002-06:00

I've already posted something to this effect on Facebook, but I'm going to go into a little more detail about it here.

I'm issuing a general moratorium on issuing free writing/publishing and/or professional work advice to people. I've had way too many bad experiences with people asking me for help, which I freely give (usually to people I thought were my friends), and then acting like assholes and/or dropping me like a hot potato as soon as they get what they wanted from me. I seldom grant these requests for favors to begin with, but when I do, 3/4 of the recipients act like total jerks. Often because what I tell them about what it takes to write/publish professionally FOR A LIVING (I think it is important to be honest) isn't what they want to hear. (Translation: What aspiring writers usually want to hear is, "Oh, you're awesome, and brilliant, and you're God's gift to the world, and of course, you can make a million dollars TOMORROW without actually working for it? Of course, this isn't what I usually say, so the overly egotistical people who didn't get told what they wanted to hear inevitably get pissed off.)

I am so freaking sick of people taking advantage of my generosity and basically acting like turds instead of being thankful for me taking the time out of my busy schedule to offer some professional advice and expertise based on my own experience writing for a living. This kind of behavior smacks of our selfish, instant-gratification, entitlement-driven culture. Sheesh, people, just stop it.

So, if you want free writing advice, don't ask. If you want publishing contacts for your buddies' supposed half-baked new venture-capital project into online gaming that will include content generated by internationally bestselling sci-fi authors, don't ask. If you want free tips on doing business in China, don't ask. If you want to know how to supplement your income by writing articles for vet and horse magazines, don't ask. Ad nauseum. Because I'll just delete your email. 'Kay?

If you want free writing advice, go to your local library and check out some books. Or subscribe to Writer's Digest. Or read my blog, or read the scores of other blogs out there that cover the publishing industry. Take some freaking initiative, for Chrissakes. There is no free lunch, and anybody who thinks that we working professional writers have massive amounts of free time to spare giving out free advice and/or doing free editing work for you really needs to buy a clue. You wouldn't call up your family doctor and ask him to treat you for free. You wouldn't expect a lawyer to give out free legal advice. Why should I be any different? And if I choose to be generous and give out free advice anyway out of the kindness of my heart, don't freaking bite the hand that feeds you.

People, I work 70-80 hours a week. I've got a kid. And I'm dealing with some health problems. So unless you're already an established publishing professional who knows how to behave professionally in this industry, DON'T ASK ME FOR ANY FAVORS. I won't grant them. I'm sick of being taken advantage of. I don't care if you were friends with me 20 years ago---if you act like a complete self-righteous asshole right after I try to help you, well, then we aren't friends anymore. (Here's a clue: we obviously never were).

Rant over.

Peace.

Pasteups, Part Deux

2011-09-10T08:33:00.003-06:00

These days the closest thing I get to doing a pasteup is linking my latest articles to my portfolio page on my professional website. I always put it off because it's a pain in the ass, but it's a necessary pain in the ass since as a freelance journalist, you're only as good as your latest article. I have a bunch more articles to post this weekend, it's on my list of ~~(procrastination)~~ things to do this weekend, along with some PR copywriting work I'm not in the mood to do right now.

Since I'm waxing philosophical anyway, allow me to continue my post from yesterday about writing for yourself versus writing for an audience. We've already established that amateurs write for themselves and pros write for others. But what happens when a pro gets stuck in a self-involved rut and can't see the forest for the trees? Well, I've got an anecdote to share.

A former coworker and acquaintance of mine wrote and published about 30 pulp sword-and-sorcery fantasy novels (think Conan the Barbarian type stuff) in the 70s and early/mid 80s. Although he never made enough money to give up his editing day job entirely, he did quite well and had an international readership for those books. At one point, he even had the same agent as Stephen King. (No joke). Then, in the late 80s the market changed and nobody wanted to read those kinds of books anymore. Readers' tastes' changed, and the market changed with it. But instead of exploring new things to write about (which is how any writer grows professionally), my acquaintance just kept writing the same damn book over and over again. Small wonder his novel-writing career was dead in the water. His agent dropped him, his publisher killed the rest of his contract, and he couldn't even give his work away.

And so it went for him for about 25 years. He stopped writing altogether because he was bitter. Then he started writing again, but he was still covering all the same old ground. He went the self-publishing route, at great expense to himself and his family. He reached out and mentored younger writers like me (and since he'd been tutored himself by the great Leigh Brackett, I appreciated that---for a while anyway), but his own career still went---you guessed it, nowhere.

Still, I liked the guy. He was smart and funny and knew a lot about books and movies, so he was fun to chat with, and his much-younger wife had a child about my son's age. We would hang out sometimes. Then we got the idea to have a monthly writers' group meeting, where he, I, and one of his hanger-on friends who also wrote on the side would discuss our work.

I went to a few of those meetings, but pretty soon figured out they were a waste of time. First of all, this guy's writer friend was completely self-absorbed, not to mention kind of creepy (he once threatened bodily harm on me for disagreeing with him on something), and second of all, we didn't really talk about writing or discuss each other's work. Mostly the two men talked about old movies, with smatterings of sex and booze and assorted other misogynistic topics, and then they'd switch gears to talking about all the self-publishing projects they had going. They were "investing" thousands of dollars of their own money into vanity-press contracts, not to mention slick, expensively produced book trailers, going so far as to hire professional actors to appear in them. (And neither of them could really afford to be doing that, either). They would insist doing this was the "wave of the future" of publishing, and neither of them wanted to hear much about how I had managed to land multiple book contracts that paid ME advances and royalties instead of the other way around. Not to mention that I earned a steady full-time living as a journalist. No, neither of them wanted to hear anything about how I'd accomplished that. No, they just wanted to talk about how cool they thought their new characters and plots were and how much fun they were having writing them. But there was still plenty of complaining from the both of them about how they weren't making a living as writers and how they thought the whole publishing system was bogus, and people were stupid not to want to buy pulp sword and sorcery books anymore.

The one time I brought up to them that they were not succeeding as writers because they were thinking too much about themselves and not about readers, well, I didn't get a good reaction.

So, suffice to say I ended that friendship. But I learned a great deal from it nonetheless. And I'll leave you with this. Yesterday I got copyedits back from my editor on two articles I wrote about mental illness in the United States. My editor said,"Wow, these were great pieces! Really made me think, and even made me outraged. I can tell you're really passionate about this topic."

And it's true, I am very passionate about it. I have multiple family members who struggle with mental illness so it's a topic close to my heart. I told her that, and also said that I try to do my part as a journalist to keep people informed about it. She replied, "Wow, that's great. By the way, my grandfather committed suicide, I wish we could have gotten him some help. It's nice to see journalists like you take that topic on."

And that, my friends, is what makes my job worth doing. I don't write for myself, you see. I write for others.

Peace.

Paste-ups

2011-09-09T08:42:00.001-06:00

I don't blog these days as much as I "micro-blog" on Facebook, but I try to post longer, more thought-out posts here. Still, today I'm sort of cheating since this post is more of a compilation of some recent Facebook conversations.

I've been working some long hours writing-wise, with lots of deadlines and competing projects. I just landed a new long-term freelance client, just upped my monthly article load, and also spent about a month and a half on an intensive edit of my latest novel release, which was especially arduous. (But in a good way, since I made that editor very happy and she's made it clear she wants to buy more of my books so she can keep working with me. Always a bonus.)

One thing that a lot of aspiring writers (and even some writing teachers) will tell you is that you should always write "for yourself first." Which has got to be the worst piece of writing advice ever, especially from a career perspective. If you really want to make writing your full-time paying career, you have to learn to write chiefly for OTHER PEOPLE. (In other words, readers.) If you want to get paid for writing, you have to be able to write something other people are willing to pay for. Unless, of course, you're planning on just paying yourself all the time, and that's not a good career strategy unless you're a billionaire.

If you want other people to pay you for the privilege of reading your work, then it helps if you actually have some idea what other people want to read. How do you do that? Well, you could probably start by reading everything you can get your hands on. Newspapers (online or print), magazines (online or print), books (print or digital). Go to the bookstore, or the book section of WalMart or Target and see what's on the shelves. Go to your library and ask the librarians what books are most popular with patrons. Read, read, read. Think about what you yourself like to read and what kinds of writing you plunk down your own hard-earned money to purchase. Then apply that to your writing. Always write with an audience in mind.

There is a certain amount of selflessness involved in writing for a living. Only amateurs write "for themselves." (If you write only for yourself, you'll likely have an audience consisting only of yourself.) Pros write for others.

An old friend of mine and I had a Facebook conversation the other day about when she used to work for a print magazine in the old days of paste-ups and column typesetters. She said, "We had a group of heavyset older ladies who would typeset out and paste up everything into columns [ahead of printing.] Boy, you did NOT want to piss off those ladies with last-minute changes!"

Publishing used to be a lot more labor-intensive than it is now. The digital age has removed a lot of the barriers to writing for an audience by taking a lot of the physical work of publishing out of the equation. But that's not necessarily a good thing. As my old friend pointed out, in the old days you thought a lot more about how what you did affected other people in the publishing queue. Maybe we need to go back to that a little, because too many people these days think only about themselves when it comes to their writing, and not about others. And they wonder why they don't have an audience.

More on this topic tomorrow. Peace.

Recession? What recession?

2011-08-18T18:19:00.003-06:00

I've been plugging away at this self-employed freelance writer thing for a few years now, and I'm proud to say that I'm now very, very successful at it. Almost too successful, in fact. Because I now have so much good-paying work being offered to me by many different clients that I've spent the past 2 weeks working 12-18 hour days. Not to mention proofing galleys and audiobooks for my published novels on tight deadlines for my book editors. It's grueling, but rewarding. And not just financially. Having people come out of the woodwork completely unsolicited offering you good money to write for them sure is a confidence booster.

It's odd, though. Even though I'm thankful for the success, in today's troubled economic times I can't help but feel a little guilty to be doing so well. (Especially when I was struggling myself not that long ago.) I know lots of unemployed writers, many of them former newspaper reporters and magazine/book editors who've lost their jobs in publishing, some of whom had been working as professional writers for 30 years or more and now don't know where their next meals are coming from. Plus there are tons more writers who struggle to write on the side while working day jobs they hate (if they're lucky enough to have day jobs at all), and they seldom make more than the price of a Chinese dinner for their writing---if even that much. But for me, this year has been a banquet, and it keeps getting better and better.

But then again, it kind of follows my longstanding pattern of going against the grain in life. In the late 90s, when the economy was on a tear and people all around me were making money hand over fist, I was barely getting by. I worked staff writer/editor jobs that paid a pittance when I was lucky, and waited tables/worked in retail when I wasn't so lucky (staff writer/editor jobs are the last hired and first fired even in good times). I did freelance writing on the side, contributing articles to the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Reader, and numerous magazines, but the pay for that was low and intermittent, though it helped me build a nice portfolio of clips. Plus I was living in a big expensive city, I was single, I had massive student loan debt (now mostly paid off) and a low/mostly unstable income. I had friends from grad school who had originally aspired to be writers choose different careers because they didn't want to live hand to mouth; they made more money than I did but weren't necessarily happier. But I wanted to be a writer, dammit, and I swore I'd never give up the dream. Seventeen years later, I still haven't, and now I'm the envy of many of those friends.

But I'm still not satisfied. I won't be until I have a book on the New York Times Bestseller list. Then two. Then four. Then all of them made into films. Then, I want my ultimate childhood fantasy fulfilled----I want one of my plays to get a successful run on Broadway, preferably to include a Tony (maybe even a Pulitzer, but one thing at a time).

Okay, okay, maybe I'm getting carried away now. But the thing is, even though this recession and job market are brutal for a lot of people, I'm doing better professionally now than I've ever done in my entire life. I'm thankful for it, I appreciate it. And I'll keep right on working my ass off. I've only been doing it for seventeen years now.

Gotta go, deadlines await.

Peace.

A Grownup's Guide to Inner Peace

2011-08-15T15:13:00.004-06:00

Lately I've been reflecting a lot on my own life choices, as well as the life choices of some of my friends and family. The old saying "the grass is always greener" is true---to a point. While I have single friends and family who have zero responsibilities and the freedom to gallivant all over the country and world at a moment's notice doing all sorts of crazy, glamorous things (and sometimes, I have to admit, I find myself envious of them even though I lead a very full life myself), I honestly would not trade places with them. Why?

Because in most cases, these are people who are older than me (sometimes MUCH older) but still don't have their "real" lives together yet. As in, no stable relationships (and/or multiple broken ones/divorces), blah-blah careers, no family or dependents, sometimes even no real financial stability. They spend their time jumping from one glamorous "adventure" to the next, jam-packing their schedules with every thrill-seeking activity they can possibly think of, without ever once stopping to notice what they're really doing is hiding from themselves. I can certainly understand the need to stay busy, since keeping busy is something that I do to address my tendency to get depressed if I don't. But there's a very big difference between finding productive things to do and running around like a chicken with your head cut off.

One thing I've learned as a Buddhist is to place a lot of value in keeping still. We all lead crazy lives, but at some point, we all have to slow down, sit down, and listen to ourselves, or we'll lose touch of who and what we really are. Not only that, a big part of being truly happy is serving something (and someone) other than yourself. Part of what it means to be a grownup is to consider yourself part of something larger than just your own needs and wants---whether that's a long-term relationship, a family, or even just your community. That can be hard to do when all you're doing is chasing the next thrill.

I can understand the appeal of the thrill-seeking life, since I spent the better part of my 20s pursuing it myself. But I also spent the better part of my 20s as a miserable emotional wreck who was full of anger and self-loathing. It wasn't until I slowed down and spent some serious time doing nothing but the basics of existence that I really figured myself out. All those years I spent travelling (I still travel, I just do it for the right reasons), jumping from one project/interest to the next, bed-hopping with umpteen-million boyfriends and casual one-night-stands did nothing for my self-esteem or for my character. Sure, they've given me some good stories to tell at cocktail parties, but that didn't make me me.

People often justify their crazy, impermanent, never-stop-to-smell-the-roses lives as "ways to find themselves." But that's not it at all. Really, what they're doing is running away from themselves. I know, because I've done it. All it got me was a major crash-and-burn in which every aspect of my life----personal, financial, spiritual, emotional----literally fell apart around me, and I was left with nothing.

How did I right my ship when that happened? (It happened about 10 years ago). I just stopped. I totally rebuilt my life from the ground up, and I did it by chucking all extraneous activities (other than work, exercise, and sleep) in favor of meditation. Seriously, I did that for almost an entire year. It worked. Within a year of doing that, I found myself married, with a good job, owning a home, and with a career that was going places.

Do yourself a favor. This week, get out your crazy-busy schedule, look it over, and then DELETE everything on it for at least one day. Or even a half-day if that's all you can do. Go out and sit on your porch or in the park or in a field and do nothing but just think, and breathe, and meditate (or pray, if that's your thing). Really take a hard look at yourself and your life, but don't attach any feeling or judgment to what you find. You might find yourself a little freaked out by what pops into your head while you do this. Be prepared to get upset, angry, maybe even cry a little. But it's worth it in the long run. When you're forced to look hard at yourself, you learn two things. One, that your own life really isn't all that important in the big context of the world, and two, that it's the people around you that really matter most. That doesn't mean you have to start sacrificing your own happiness, though. What you'll often find is, if you're where you should be, your happiness will just be there regardless of what you're doing or who you're with.

Easier said than done, I know. But you can start by inquiring within. And it sometimes it takes a major slowdown in order to speed yourself up for good.

Peace.

The Writer's Conundrum

2011-08-10T11:45:00.000-06:00

You know what's great about being a successful writer/artist? You see and feel things that others don't, and when you express what you see and feel, people pay attention.

But you know what's also really bad about being a successful writer/artist? You see and feel things that others don't, and when you express what you see and feel, people pay attention.

Peace.

Confessions of a Straight Talker

2011-08-01T19:40:00.002-06:00

Facebook is great for a lot of things, including stimulating political debate. But one thing it can also do is piss people off. Especially when you're an outspoken, straight-talking Irish tomboy lass like me who grew up to be a professional writer. I've pissed some people off online with my straightforward, open, no-nonsense style of late. They weren't people who were necessarily important to my real life, though in some cases they were old friends I hadn't seen in years but had renewed correspondence with. Others were people I didn't really know well personally (though I'd met them, at least) but whom I'd grown fond of online. Then, one day I make one of my trademark blunt-as-a-dull razor statements (which they should have grown accustomed to by that point---indeed, many people actually become friends with me in the first place because they like this personal trait of mine) and poof! Gone.

I got all hot and bothered and anxious by that over the weekend, since in one case in particular the people in question really went after me personally (one thing I always try to make a point not to do whenever/wherever possible, even when I'm at my bluntest). But after the edge wore off, I decided that I just can't continue to let that sort of thing bother me. Here's some reasons why.

1) I am not going to censor myself just to please you. While this doesn't mean I'm going to go around spewing obscenities like a Tourette's victim, don't expect me to "shut up and behave like a lady," as one person choicely put it to me last week. I've always been more comfortable talking with men than women because I don't do the whole passive-aggressive/overly emotional thing very well. This is who I am. Get used to it.

2) And pursuant to No. 1, people who spew overemotional hot air with no rhetorical substance (usually women, though I've seen men do it too) do not tend to get along with me, so be forewarned.

3) I am hard-wired this way. I have been an upfront, straightforward, straight-talking broad since I was at least 2 years old, or so my parents tell me. I don't have the "off" switch in my brain that most people do. Some might say that's a psychological defect of some kind, but even if it is, I've managed to make a pretty lucrative profession out it. If I think something needs to be said, sooner or later it is going to fall out of my mouth (or my pen). So telling me that I need to learn tact is not usually a good piece of advice for me to follow. You might as well tell a blind person to get glasses.

4) I always think honesty is the best policy. Again, I'm hard-wired this way. Lies make me physically ill, unless I'm writing fiction. I think the whole reason I became a writer was because it was the only way my brain could process the natural human tendency for lying. (This is probably because I was always severely punished for "making up stories" as a young child, as young children are often wont to do.) So if you want to know if that dress makes you look fat, but you are really just looking for an ego boost, you should probably ask someone else.

5) I have more self-awareness than a lot of people, and that's not necessarily a good thing. If I censor myself (or even show restraint), my conscience often makes me feel guilty for being dishonest. Not only that, I spend a lot of time evaluating my faults and looking for ways to improve upon them, though I don't always succeed. (In other words, I beat myself up a lot, I set very high standards for myself, and I'm never satisfied.) As if that weren't hard enough, I also expect other people to adhere to my high standards, and of course they usually don't, so I'm frequently disappointed, and I frequently say so. Loudly.

6) Aren't you glad you aren't me? The neurotic writer who lives alone in a garrett is a cliche. But the scary part is, it's also true. I'm a neurotic writer who spends 10-12 hours a day working in an attic and not talking to anyone. You'd be a little "off" in the head if you were me, too.

Peace.

Patience

2011-06-21T09:02:00.005-06:00

So much about writing for a living involves patience. Lots of it. First off, it takes a great deal of mental discipline, concentration, and self-control in order to write. You have to shut out all distractions (not easy these days!), stay focused on a narrative throughline (in the case of fiction) or a topic (in the case of nonfiction or journalism). You even have to be "on" when you aren't writing, filtering through all the random thoughts and ideas that pop into your brain when you're housecleaning, or out jogging, or driving your car---and then keep track of which ideas are usable and which are not, and which can be filed away for possible future use. And if you're a features journalist like I am, you also have to "keep your finger on the pulse of America," as my editors like to say, so I can pitch them my monthly story topics that are timely and of interest to my publications' readership. Not an easy task, for sure.

But that's just the tip of the iceberg. Even when your writing is complete, you often spend a lot of time just waiting around. Waiting for interview subjects to return calls or to approve their quotes. Waiting for your editor to reply to your latest email. Waiting for your agent to get back to you on all those submissions she made to big publishing houses in the positively glacial world of New York publishing. Waiting for that quarterly royalty check. Waiting, waiting, waiting. And then more waiting.

I think the main reason most people who aspire to be professional writers simply don't have what it takes is a lack of patience. It often takes years and years of work, study, and self-defeating rejection just to get published, after all. And even after you've "made it," the waiting and the need for humility and reams of patience never really stops---if anything, it just gets worse. That's why when random half-committed (if that) people waltz up to me and say they want to do what I do for a living, I tell them, "No you don't. Go out and sell real estate, or get a job as a secretary or something. Don't do this." They usually give me a dirty look and walk away. But they always seem to take my advice, at least when it comes to getting a job.

Peace.

Falling In

2011-06-07T10:15:00.003-06:00

Last night I took one of my now-rare forays into the city of Chicago (where I spent the better part of my 20s and early 30s living) for a theater benefit performance gala that also included a rare Chicago performance of my most-frequently produced stage play, "The Devil Is In The Details." (Because of some of the odd peculiarities of the Chicago theater world, which I won't discuss here but I've blogged about in the past, I long ago stopped pursuing productions in Chicago in favor of more high-profile---and paying---play productions in New York City, Los Angeles, and nationally). I don't do this often for a whole host of reasons, let alone on a weeknight, but I did it not only to see my play on its feet, but also because I'm a longtime member of the producing organization, Chicago Writers Bloc, a playwrights' collective.

One of the great things about Chicago Writers Bloc versus some of the other playwrights' organizations in town (who shall remain nameless, ahem), is that most of the members actually make their living solely by writing (me included). We have several current and former (retired) Chicago Tribune and Sun-Times reporters/editors, people who've written/published upwards of 30 books, people who make/write successful documentary films and TV shows, people who've had their plays produced all over the country. The one thing we all seem to have in common is the Chicago theater "establishment," which tends to be very actor-driven, wants nothing to do with us. (Which doesn't seem to hurt our careers as writers, but whatever.) There were several very respected Chicago-area journalists and columnists there last night, and I got to shoot the breeze with them and "talk shop" about what it means to make a living as a writer in this town.

One of the cool things that happened was, I got to talk to one of my fellow Chicago Writers Bloc playwrights, Kenan Heise, at length about his life as a reporter, then editor, at the Tribune during the 60s, 70s, and 80s, as well as his time in the trenches of the 1960s civil rights movement. I knew of course that he'd done all of those things (he's retired from journalism now, though he still writes/publishes books and is now moving into playwriting), but I had never really talked to him about it. He shared some wonderful anecdotes of his old days at the Trib, but he also shared this interesting tidbit----he had absolutely no formal training or education as a journalist. As a matter of fact, he'd spent the better part of his 20s and early 30s as a Franciscan monk under solemn vows, living in a monastery not far from where I grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio!

Wow! You could have knocked me over with a feather when he told me that. He said that due to his epilepsy and a disagreement with his father superior, he'd been made to leave his order. He got involved in the civil rights movement in the 60s, then eventually "fell into" news reporting at the Tribune. I told him about how I'd also just sort of "fallen in" to being a freelancer lifestyle reporter in the 90s for the Tribune's then-new online Metromix section, also with no formal journalism training, only a useless graduate degree in media studies/critical theory from University of Chicago and an undergraduate degree in literature. And yet, I make a full-time living as a journalist now, something that has become next-to-impossible to achieve, if all the out-of-work reporters I know are any example.

Kenan replied, "Of course you did. All the best reporters out there 'fall into' journalism. Journalism school is a waste of time." He went on to tell me that he has frequently been called in to address students at Northwestern's prestigious Medill School of Journalism, and he always told them, "If you want to make it in this business, break the rules."

Well, from a guy who got kicked out of the Franciscan Order, rode freedom buses and got beat up in the 60s, then went on to have a rich journalism career after doing graduate studies in Latin, I think he knows there's a lot of truth to that. So do I.

Peace.

The

Deadlines

2011-05-23T10:04:00.003-06:00

One of the realities of being a professional writer is deadlines. When you're a full-time freelancer like me, your ability to get paid centers on your ability to deliver usable quality work by a deadline. I am self-employed, providing clients with a valuable service (i.e., my writing). I am assigned article topics to deliver (I also pitch my own topics to editors) by a set deadline. If I don't do it, I don't get paid. It's that simple.

One reason that many people like to work a cushy job with a regular salary is they get paid whether their work gets done or not. I know this from experience. When I worked in the corporate world, oftentimes my own work was dependent on a whole bunch of other people who seemed to have trouble with deadlines. If they didn't get their work to me, I couldn't make my own deadlines. (Funny thing, a lot of the people who didn't make deadlines and also seemed to do no work in general often outranked me in both job title and salary; that kind of bullshit is one major reason why I prefer to be a sole proprietor).

I have tried to explain to people (i.e., aspiring writers, my three-year-old son, my mom, my husband, ad nauseum) that when I am on deadline, PEOPLE CANNOT BOTHER ME. My mother is especially talented about calling me up and wanting to chat for hours when I'm on multiple article deadlines. Her usual response when I tell her I'm too busy to talk is, "But you work at home! You can do whatever you want!" I have long since tired of explaining to her why I can't talk to her when I'm on deadline, and use caller ID just to screen my calls and not answer them.

People, if I don't make deadline, I DON'T GET PAID. Period. It's that simple. This is why I get irritated with people who think that just because I'm a freelancer who works out of my house that I can just screw around and do whatever I want all day. Some days when I'm not on deadline I do have a lot of freedom and control over my own time (which is one reason I'm self-employed) but not when I'm on deadline.

Also, I do self-impose a lot of my own deadlines, such as when I'm writing fiction. I tell myself that I have to finish that novel by Day X, and I do it. Self-discipline is necessary in this business. That's why I call bullshit whenever people tell me that they "don't have time" to finish that novel they've had sitting in a drawer for five years. They DO have the time---but they don't have the self-discipline to set themselves a deadline and meet it. We all have the same number of hours in the day everybody else does, it's all about how we choose to use them.

I think that we might solve a lot of the world's problems by forcing everyone to work the way I do. If you don't do your job, you don't get paid. What a concept. How many people out there would be totally screwed if that's how the world worked? I can name several hundred right off the top of my head.

Peace.

Fantasy Island, Part Deux

2011-05-15T10:09:00.003-06:00

You probably remember my last post about people having the strange notion that writers/editors can and should work for free. I'd like to add another post about the strange fantasy world people seem to live in regarding my line of work.

Case in point: a week or so ago a friend of a friend whom I hadn't previously met came to my home to pick up some silk I had purchased for her friend when I was in China recently. (The person I actually bought it for couldn't pick it up herself, so she sent this friend of hers to do it since her friend was in the neighborhood.) She was a nice older lady who knew a lot about fabric and sewing, and had at one time worked in the fabric retail industry, so we struck up an interesting conversation about sewing, which was kind of fun. She also helped me with the formidable task of dividing up 40 yards of silk into 4 equal 10-yard pieces.

While we were visiting, she asked me about what it was like to write for a living. (our mutual friend had filled her in on my profession). I gave her a 2-minute rundown of what I do and how I do it. She then asked, "Do you need to hire a proofreader? Because I do that."

I just shrugged and said, "Well, I do that too." I don't generally proofread professionally anymore because the pay is too low to make it worthwhile when I can make more money writing, but I have done it for pay. But I do proof my own work religiously, and then once I've handed over a clean copy of it to my clients and/or publishers, they all have their own in-house editors/proofers who do the same before publishing it. When I explained this to her, she frowned. "Wow, that's not how it was back when I worked in publishing at all."

I pressed her for details, and it turned out she had spent some time working in the magazine industry about 35 years ago, back in the days when everything was done by hand on paper (and "cut and paste" literally meant get scissors and glue). She had worked as a manual proofreader and typesetter in those days. I politely explained that neither of those things are done manually anymore.

"So it's all done on computers now?" she asked. I nodded. "I remember when computers first came out in the 80s," she said. "I didn't want anything to do with them then, and I don't want anything to do with them now. But my husband died recently and I need a job, do you know where I can get work as a proofreader? I do everything the old-fashioned way, with a pen and paper. I take my time, too."

"Uh huh," I said. "Well, if you actually need to make a living, I would highly recommend you take some computer classes and then look in the online job classifieds for something."

She just stared at me. "Oh, I don't want to do that," she said. "I thought that if maybe I can't find a job as a proofreader, I'll go into business reading people's auras." (Seriously, no joke. She said this. With a straight face.)

I wished her luck and sent her on her merry way.

Peace.

Fantasy Island

2011-05-04T12:27:00.002-06:00

I had a Facebook exchange about this today, thought it might make sense to blog about it.

It never ceases to amaze me how many people think that professional writers/editors should just work for free (or next to free). (I'm not alone in that sentiment, even big-name pros like Harlan Ellison frequently gripe about repeatedly being asked to work for free: check out this video to see what I mean). Just this morning I opened six different emails asking me to write stuff and/or edit stuff FOR NOTHING, and/or were complaints that rates I had quoted them for my professional services were too high.

Well, excuse me for fucking living, but I'm a professional writer, with a helluva lot of serious publishing creds, not to mention almost 20 years' experience being paid to write, either as a freelancer or an editorial staffer. I did not just fall off a turnip truck yesterday and hang out a shingle asking people to pay me to type and/or spew hot air. I have been published in major newspapers (Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, I could go on), have hobnobbed with high-level government bureaucrats, have published multiple books, have written speeches for CEOs, ad nauseum. If you want me to work for you, PAY ME.

Just because there are a bunch of clueless amateurs out there willing to give away their very questionable writing "services" for free does not mean that I should too. Just because you can hire some flunky in a Pakistani word-churning/plagiarism mill three cents an hour to fuck up your already unpublishable work (and make it even more unpublishable and/or illegal) doesn't mean that I should also charge only three cents an hour to do an actual professional, quality job. You wouldn't expect the guy ringing up your groceries or the nurse taking care of you in the hospital to work for free, so why should I?

And while I'm on the subject, before you decide that it's cool to criticize me for my choice of publisher/agent/tax accountant/level of writing income, perhaps it would be somewhat intelligent of you to first have some idea what you are talking about. (i.e., like maybe being able to claim you are a full-time writer earning at least $75,000 a year from writing, like I do). Just saying.

I am a professional freelancer who owns/runs a small business. I contribute to the American economy. I'm lucky to do so, and most (i.e., 95%) of the people who try to do what I do professionally will fail. But that's really not my problem. I'm a businesswoman, and I'm not running a bleeping charity. So don't ask me to work for free. And while you're at it, why don't you get off Fantasy Island and join the rest of us in the real world?

That is all.

Peace.

Housekeeping

2011-05-03T12:13:00.004-06:00

Okay, so I've been away for a while. Sue me. The month of March was insane work-wise (I wrote 20-plus freelance articles for four different publications, including the Washington Post), then the first two weeks of April were equally insane as I tried to pack a full month's worth of writing work into half the time, since I was travelling overseas for the second half of April. On top of all of that, I finished writing a novel and sent it to my agent, as well as cared for a sick child and hubby, packed for a trip to SE Asia, did housework, yadayadayada.

The writer's life is never easy, but when you're doing it for a living (which is basically running a small business) and also running a household/parenting, little things like blog posts tend to fall by the wayside. Those of you who follow me on Facebook know I do some microblogging there, but it can't replace a longer, well-thought-out post. Which is not really what this is, but I digress.

Whenever you get back from an extended trip overseas, there's always lots of housekeeping to do when you get back. Like mowing the lawn, going through all the mail that's piled up, returning phone calls, etc. Except when you're self-employed like I am, it goes double. Plus there's that pesky little thing called jet lag, which is brutal when you're coming back from Asia. So I'm just now getting back on my feet, having caught up on my accumulated list of chores---such as updating my website, returning emails to my editors, alerting interviewees that the articles I wrote about them are live, cleaning up my dark pit of a house, unpacking 16 suitcases (okay, I'm exaggerating a bit, it was only 5 suitcases, it just seems like 16), catching up on bills, trying to figure out where some of my royalty payments went, etc.

It's very nice earning a full-time living as a journalist now, but it is sending the fiction writing (which I still get paid for, just not as much) to the back burner a bit.

Just before I left, I got my authors' copies of my latest novel release in the mail. It's slowly trickling into bookstores, and one of these days when I get a free minute I need to book some signings at my local Barnes & Noble locations. Two of them have already agreed to let me do signings at their respective stores, I just haven't found the time to call the store managers back to get on their event calendar. I'll do it eventually. I just need to remember where the phone is. (I think it's under a giant pile of laundry.)

Interesting week

2011-03-26T08:34:00.005-06:00

It's been a cool week in some ways, and weird in others. First off, I got over being sick only to have hubby and kiddo get sick. We went from balmy springlike temperatures to a second winter. The USA invaded Libya. And just when I thought I had finished my freelance assignments for the month (all 18 of them) I got offered my 19th assignment----a chance to write a piece for the Washington Post.

Before you start picturing me as a future Pulitzer winner in All the President's Men, take heart---it was basically a puff piece for the Washington edition's (not the venerable national edition, alas) real estate section. The content aggregator that is providing me with most of my work these days actually sells content to the Post (among other respectable outlets) and offered me the job. After taking over multiple last-minute assignments for other freelancers who couldn't meet their deadlines, I guess this content aggregator now views me as the go-to person to save their ass and deliver good content on short notice. Since I've never once had to revise a single story that I've delivered to these folks (for multiple clients), I figured I had this one in the bag.

The story was basically a profile of how various Washington-area property-management companies are contributing to Japan disaster relief efforts. Pulitzer Prize material it definitely was not, but at least I was writing about charity work instead of say, Brangelina. The Post editors even gave me all my sources, so I didn't have to do any legwork or digging to find my own sources like I usually do for my other clients.

However, this assignment wasn't without a learning curve. All the sources were basically PR people, which meant they had canned responses and didn't respond well to probing questions. I had to conduct a second interview of one of them----which I never do, and journalists always say is a sign of a bad interviewer----in order to get the angle my editor was looking for. I also had to go through several drafts on the deadline wire until my editor was satisfied. Which was definitely new territory for me. But then again, this type of article was a bit outside my usual subject area, and as I told her, sometimes it's good to stretch your chops a bit. Multiple rewrites and a hat-in-hand second interview can be a good way to do that.

Besides, it's the Washington Post. I'd walk backwards naked through a receiving line of blowtorches to get a Post assignment. What journalist wouldn't? Sure, my piece will be running in a tabloid Sunday-only print insert that is mostly full of apartment advertising, but hey, it's a start.

Peace.

Busy Bee, and Thoughts On Japan

2011-03-19T08:17:00.004-06:00

My son has been in child care full time for about 3 weeks now, and I've been more productive in those three weeks than I have in three years. I've picked up another freelance journalism client, and when combined with my main client, I will have filed 18 different feature stories for the two of them in the month of March alone. I'll be filing the last two stories on Monday morning, which means I'll have completed all 18 March article assignments with a week to spare!

I'll be dedicating that week to catching up on some other things I've been neglecting, like some website development and fiction writing, and some other miscellanous administrative tasks (like preparing and filing my quarterly taxes, a must now that I'm a full-time freelancer). I've been working on my current novel for about a year now, and I'm really hoping it will be my "breakout" book that launches me mainstream into a wider audience. Of course, I've been hoping for a breakout novel for a while now, but I've really been working on this one with that explicit goal in mind. If I can finally finish the draft by early April and get it off to my agent, I'll feel really good about my fiction-writing career this year. I have another completed manuscript that's been percolating at my agent's office for a while now (she's finally going to pitch it to editors at a conference next week; the main editor my agent thinks will be interested has been on maternity leave, and she wanted to wait until that editor returned to work before shopping the book.) Plus I've got another book sitting in front of an editor at a major NYC publishing house that's been there a while now, and I'm hoping they'll make a decision soon.

I've decided once I'm done with my "breakout" manuscript that will be the end of my fiction writing for the year. I'll need to focus more on being a journalist for a while, since that's by far the most stable income-producing line of writing in my life right now. I've put playwriting on the back burner entirely (no money, total pain in the ass, though I do still get productions of my published plays).

I also have decided I want to dedicate some time to looking for a "real" journalism staff job, instead of just being a freelancer. I'd like a salary and benefits, and everyone knows the staff writers get the best assignments, anyway. The recent events in Japan have really reminded me of just how important journalism and journalists are, and having traveled to Japan myself (it's a beautiful country and an ancient culture, and I follow Zen Buddhism, which is part of that culture), I am very saddened by the state of things there. Journalists can and do make a difference in the world, and I'd like to be part of that----at least more so than I already am.

Peace.

Productivity

2011-03-07T12:22:00.003-06:00

My 3-year-old son has been in preschool for one week now. It's been a difficult transition for both of us, especially since he has never spent any time in daycare until now and I've been his full-time caregiver (often while also working from home) that whole time. But it's been good for him----I am already seeing him grow by leaps and bounds learning-wise in just a few days, and his behavior is much, much better---and good for me.

Good for me in that I'm so much more productive now. My work output has gone up by a factor of about 400%. Plus I'm getting to do things I haven't been able to do in a long time, like listen to whatever music I want while I'm working (instead of, say, The Wiggles), take long walks at noon, have CNN or NPR on while I'm having lunch, et cetera.

I have always been a high-productivity person, even when I was in high school (in fact, I even managed to stay productive when I was depressed.) And yet I continue to run into people who don't have even one-tenth of the amount of responsibility as I do----people who are single, childless, working part-time if working at all, etc.----who just can't seem to do even the bare minimum. I don't understand that at all. Lying around the house doing nothing is not a good way to pay your bills, for one thing. And productivity breeds productivity, for another. I've found that the more I keep myself busy, the more I get done overall---even if I'm just keeping busy with housework or childcare. Plus keeping busy is good for your health, mentally and physically.

Somebody told me the other week that I'm the strongest woman she knows. Which was a nice complement to get, but I didn't really feel like I deserved it. I know plenty of women who are much stronger and more productive than I am (Hillary Clinton, anyone? Michelle Obama? Nora Roberts? Jodi Picoult? Jacqueline Mitchard? Sara Gruen? I could go on.) I view myself as just an ordinary middle-class working stiff who does the best she can, which often still isn't good enough. But you'll never see me hibernating in my house doing nothing. (At least, not for more than an hour or two). I've got bills to pay, and a child to raise. Slacking is not a verb in my vocabulary.

Peace.

Feast or Famine

2011-03-02T17:19:00.005-06:00

I've been plugging away as the whole freelance-journalist thing for the better part of 15 years now. I got my first freelance assignment as a copyeditor for the International Engineering Consortium back in 1997. From there I began pitching and selling stories to the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Reader. I ended up getting some gigs at both papers right away. They didn't pay much, but it sure was cool landing full-length lifestyle features jobs at major newspapers as a freelancer with basically no experience (or even formal journalism training, natch---my degrees were in English Literature, and I never took a single journalism course in college or grad school, though I did write for my college paper occasionally) from the get-go. These pieces paid approximately the price of a Chinese dinner, but they were serious street cred as a writer. Not a living by any means, but I had various staff position day jobs to pay the bills (editor at a financial brokerage, book purchasing manager for a library, proposal writer/copywriter at various ad agencies, plus some work as an executive assistant and even a waitress between the inevitable corporate layoffs). I eventually wrote pieces for several magazines and smaller regional papers and publications too, and built up quite an impressive clip portfolio over the years. Those clips eventually translated into staff writer positions that had real salaries and benefits.
Eventually I got into work as a medical writer/policy analyst in organized medicine (organizations like the American Medical Association and its sister orgs), where I got to do a lot of medical writing, hobnob with top physicians and researchers, and also come into contact with top health policy bureaucrats and legislators in Washington, DC. It was a grueling job with long hours and lots of travel (and the pay didn't match, since I was working for a nonprofit) but as far as getting the necessary experience to be a top healthcare journalist, it was gold. I left that job after my son was born, then sort of wandered around aimlessly for a while, writing my fiction and not making much money at all. Then about a year ago I landed a steady freelance gig that had me writing medical journalism about 10 hours a week for a pittance. That gig began to grow slowly, with some interesting circumstances (like a two-month drought with no work at all, which was subsequently followed by a huge increase in work, along with a huge raise in pay).

From there, I ended up picking up some more work from some more clients who liked the work I was doing for the first client. And now, I'm getting unsolicited requests to write more healthcare and technology journalism for more clients, to the point I'm now doing this full-time, 8-5, five days a week (plus some evenings), making enough money to put my son in expensive daycare/preschool and still have plenty of money left over. It's a great feeling, really.

I'm finding myself so busy, in fact, I've been worried about whether I can really deliver all the articles I've been hired to write this month. Which I suppose is a good problem to have, especially in this economy. Another cool thing that's happened is the fact that some of the media relations/PR staffers at the various government and nonprofit agencies I've been contacting seeking interview sources have straight-out asked me how I manage to make my living as a freelance journalist. Today I got asked that question by a PR staffer at a Washington DC-based lobbying group who also happened to have a graduate degree in journalism from a VERY prestigious journalism school. I could almost detect the jealousy in his voice when I described how I make my living and how I get my gigs. He even mentioned how he was unsure why he'd even pursued journalism school in the first place, given how expensive it was and how poor the job prospects can be these days. (I'll be interviewing a couple of deans at top journalism schools this month on that very topic for one of my article assignments, in fact).

It's very ironic that a graduate of a top journalism school would even ask me that question, since I have no formal journalistic training and basically learned on the job. My original career goal was to become a professor of literature and/or drama at a university, and that's the education I pursued. It didn't work out, of course, for a whole bunch or reasons I'd rather not go into. But as the person I spoke with said to me on the phone today, I could very easily walk into a job teaching journalism and creative writing at a university today based solely on my own professional accomplishments. (I've been offered those jobs already, in fact---though so far they don't offer enough pay to be worth pursuing). Which sort of brings things full circle, doesn't it?

Gotta go. Have dinner to cook, then more interview calls to make and work to do this evening. Feast or famine, so it seems.

Peace.

How Not To Win Friends and Influence People in the Facebook Age

2011-02-25T14:50:00.003-06:00

The other day I blogged about a complete and total jackass ex-classmate of mine who contacted me out of the blue on Facebook looking for a favor (which I granted----several favors, actually), only to have her throw it in my face. I'm still reeling from the sheer audacity of this person, but having chatted with some other people about this very issue, combined with some other rude and/or disrespectful behavior that I've dealt with online lately, I thought I'd do another post about it.

The Internet and Facebook in particular are great for keeping people connected (especially people who've been out of touch for a while----Facebook has helped me rekindle several wonderful old friendships over the past couple of years), for spreading news (personal, national, and otherwise), for marketing (I've got 4000 Facebook friends and 2500 Twitter followers, most of whom read my books), and even for engaging in friendly political debates. Like anything, though, Facebook and the Internet in general are just tools. They shouldn't be used as weapons (but unfortunately, they often are). And they're also easy tools to abuse.

Over the past year or so (and the past couple months in particular) I have seen far too many people use Facebook chiefly as a means for using and taking whatever they can get (including people), without ever once thinking about the consequences of that behavior. It's just "me, me, me" all the time----and fuck everybody else, basically (sorry, but I think the F-bomb is appropriate here). If I get one more out-of-the-blue request for a favor/gift/advice/whatever from another ex-coworker who treated me like crap in the office when we actually worked together, or barely-remembered classmate who was one of the "cool kids" back in school (here's a clue: I wasn't one of the "cool kids"), or complete and total strangers who email me demanding that I drop everything and give them my full, undivided, and completely uncompensated attention (and then harrass me when I don't), I am going to scream.

Here's the thing, people. I'm a very busy woman. I work an average of 50 hours a week these days (my freelance writing business has really taken off). Plus I've got a toddler (and no child care, natch---though that's finally changing starting next week). And I've got a husband, and a marriage, and bills to pay, and a house to take care of , yadayadayada. Time is the absolute most precious thing I have. If you want some of it, be prepared to pay handsomely for it. And on the off chance I decide to give you some of my priceless time and/or expertise for free (and I'm known to do both on occasion), you sure as hell better appreciate it.

Furthermore, I'd like to talk a little bit about the true meaning of friendship and camaradarie. One of the things Facebook is great for is keeping you in close touch with your friends----new and old. As I've said, I've rekindled many wonderful friendships that way over the past year. On the other hand, some of those same friendships abruptly ended when people "defriended" me for no reason---at least no reason I could see. I've guessed it may have had to do with my strong opinions, left-wing politics, Buddhist/agnostic religious beliefs, tendency towards dry humor, whatever----but these are people who have known me long enough to understand that's a part of who I am. I certainly don't defriend people just for their politics (as leftie as I am, I count several right-wing Republicans as my friends), or their religion, or their occasional tendency to fly off the handle sometimes (after all, I'm occasionally known to do the same.). These same people wrote to me seeking advice, asking questions about things I'm an expert in (like writing)---which I freely gave, seeking nothing in return but their friendship----and I didn't even get that.

Then there's the people who ask if I can help them with something, which I agree to do (also for no pay). We agree on a time, which I set aside from my uber-busy schedule, and then they either don't show up or reschedule at the last minute. And reschedule again. And again. Ad nauseum. After a certain point, I am no longer interested in helping them (for obvious reasons) but yet, they still ask. Ask, ask ask, take take take----and they give nothing back.

You know what I call people who do shit like that? Users. Users and takers. Superficial, one-dimensional, self-absorbed people. The same types we all see on reality TV shows and laugh at/despise. They're not just on reality TV, folks. They're everywhere. (And if you don't see it, it might be because you're too busy staring at your navel.)

We've become too polarized as a society these days largely because people seem to have lost the ability to see things from anyone's point of view but their own. Both sides of the political spectrum spend a lot of time demonizing the other side, without ever once trying to understand where the other side is coming from or finding any common middle ground. I even have friends who refuse to associate with people who are not carbon-copies of their own political/religious/whatever selves (they're all lefties like I am---except ironically, I'm usually further left politically than they are). Which I think is a real shame. They're missing out on meeting some great people that way.

I don't expect everybody I know or am acquainted with to agree with me all the time. Hell, I don't even expect my husband to agree with me all the time (if I did, we'd have divorced years ago). I think I have a much richer life as a result of that attitude. People of diametrically opposed viewpoints and belief systems can be great friends---even lovers or spouses. (I know this well, trust me). And yet, there are people with whom I've had friendly online debates with (I wouldn't even call them arguments---and people who know me well know that I love a good argument, provided it's done respectfully) drop off the face of the earth, defriend me, block me, pretend like they never met me, without one drop of explanation----even if they wrote to me seeking advice/help/whatever just a week earlier. I've also noticed that these same people often seem completely unwilling to compromise on anything, ever (I think it's no coincidence that many of them are still single and/or divorced well into their 40s and 50s, natch)

People, can we not do this? Can we all at least make an effort to do better? I try to do better every day. I don't always succeed, but at least I try. And before you judge me or cry foul that I'm even bringing this topic up, know this. Anyone who has known me personally for any length of time knows that I am very generous with my friends and colleagues. I am thoughtful, I am loyal (almost to a fault), I respect people (including their differences), and I treat them with dignity. I go out of my way to do it, in fact. Is it too much for me to expect other people to do the same?

Think about it.

Peace.

Seriously, Don't Do This.

2011-02-23T08:29:00.008-06:00

Okay, so those of you who follow my blogs know that I like to post from time to time about writers behaving badly (or as I affectionately call it, Stupid Writer Tricks). Well, I have got the ultimate be-all end-all in Stupid Writer Tricks to tell you about. And in all fairness, I'm included as one of the stupid in this story, because it wouldn't have happened at all if I hadn't been such a sucker.

I get random emails and Facebook IMs from random people wanting me to help them get their books published, help them get agents, write their books for them, donate my organs to them (well, maybe not that one, it just feels like it) EVERY SINGLE DAY. Usually I just delete those messages, unless I actually know the person and have reason to believe said person actually has a chance in hell of knowing what he/she is doing. So when I got a Facebook IM from a high school classmate I hadn't heard from in 20 years asking me for erotica writing help, you can understand why I was tempted to delete it along with all the others.

But this message was different. It was very well-written, it showed the person had done a lot of background research into my work before contacting me (indeed, another high school classmate of ours suggested to her that she get in touch with me), and showed she had already done considerable research into the erotica publishing market. She asked politely for some publishing advice if I was able to offer it. Since this was someone I remembered as being pretty nice in high school, I thought I'd do the world a good turn and respond to her. We ended up striking up an interesting conversation, and I eventually agreed (against my better judgment, but more on that later) to take a look at a sample of her work.

She sent me some sample chapters to read, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that her writing was nothing short of excellent, as good as any of the best erotic writing anywhere. Having been an erotica editor myself, I know how rare that is, and (again trying to do the world a good turn) I offered to hook this person up with my agent. This was a very generous thing to do on my part, mind you, because a) my agent is currently closed to submissions, except by referral by one of her existing clients; and b) I do not refer people to my agents and/or editors unless I think their worth is top-notch, since it can reflect poorly on me if I refer amateurs or people who are not quite ready for prime time.

Needless to say, my old classmate was very appreciative of this---or so she seemed at first. She gushed about how wonderful I was, and how grateful she was, and she was practically in tears with gratitude. Which is nice and everything, but as I cautioned her, I just made the referral---there was no guarantee my agent would offer representation, of course. So after getting my agent's permission to pass along her contact information, I told my classmate to do the query submission, and I alerted my agent to look for it.

A couple of weeks passed. My classmate's submission was sitting in my agent's review queue (she's very busy). Then, out of the blue (again) I got a Facebook IM from my classmate, which went something like this:

"Hi, I've been doing some research and I've determined that literary agents are completely unnecessary. I don't want to give up 15% of my income to somebody else, and besides, I'm a lawyer [with zero publishing experience or creds, natch], so I can just do all of that work myself. [and other arrogant, idiotic misconceptions to that effect, yadayadayada]. So I wanted to let you know I'll be withdrawing my submission from your agent's consideration. Okay, bye!" Edited to add: this is my very watered-down paraphrasing of her email. The actual email was hair-curling in its arrogance and rudeness."

WTF????

After I picked my jaw up off the floor, I typed a very polite yet firm response, in which I informed her of all the various and sundry reasons why her "research" (which I'm sure included a combination of disgruntled writers' message boards and scam publishers) into literary agents was incorrect. I also informed her that the decision to have an agent or not was hers alone (hey, it's her career, if she wants to throw it into the toilet, that's her business), and signed off. After I did that, I immediately fired off an email to my agent, informing her of this exchange, how rude this person acted, and to expect her submission (which she couldn't have made without my generous referral, natch) to be withdrawn.

Oh, and it gets better.

So about 10 minutes later, I get a very neurotic response from my classmate (NOT my friend, let's just be clear on this) in which she says "Oh, you must think I'm a total flake now." (Really? Ya think?) She blathered on about "this publishing business is so intimidating, I'm getting conflicting advice, but yours has been the most frank and informative" (maybe you should have followed it then, hmm?), "I'm such a doofus" (yes you are), blah blah blah. Then she basically said, "Maybe it's not too late to salvage this, I haven't actually emailed your agent yet."

To which I replied, "Oh, it's defintitely too late to salvage it, hon. Because maybe YOU haven't emailed my agent yet---but I have. I told her you were extremely rude, and arrogant, and all manner of other adjectives, and if she has half a brain on her shoulders (here's a clue: she does) she will not waste a single solitary minute more of her time with you. And neither will I. And by the way, don't email people at random for the first time in 20 years seeking advice and favors, then turn around and throw both in said favor-giver's face. Goodbye, have a nice life, and by the way, don't contact me ever again."

The moral of the story is twofold. One, there is a reason why most established authors don't go around granting favors to every random yahoo who emails them asking for one. (because the one time you do it, you can have THIS happen to you). And two, in the extremely rare event an established author goes out of his/her way (i.e., exchanging emails, giving publishing advice, taking hours out of her busy schedule to read your manuscript for no pay, making a very generous agent referral), it would generally behoove you not to behave like a complete idiot asshole.

Seriously, people. Don't do this.

Peace.

More Blog Tour stops

2011-02-22T13:17:00.001-06:00

Today I'm interviewed at Seriously Interviewed, and Part Two of my interview at Boxing the Octopus is up today as well. Enjoy!

Peace.

Blog Tour stop at Boxing the Octopus

2011-02-19T11:33:00.001-06:00

I'm blogging today (the first of 2 parts) on writing and ebooks at Boxing the Octopus: www.boxocto.com

Peace.

Blog Tour in progress

2011-02-18T08:57:00.003-06:00

I'm spending the next month or so making "appearances" at various writer- and book-related blogs. I made my first appearance last week at Dusk to Dawn Romance, and I'll be doing several more. I'll be blogging about such things as the romance genre in general, what it's like to be a full-time freelance writer, how I choose my novel storylines, and more. I'll try to remember to post links to each blog appearance here, but for the latest news watch my Facebook and Twitter feeds.

In honor of the blog tour, TENDER IS THE KNIGHT is only 99 cents at Amazon Kindle, & FREE @ AllRomanceEbooks.com. For a limited time only, so take advantage!

Peace.

Weird week

2011-02-10T20:53:00.002-06:00

It's like something you'd see on TV----a frozen pizza sent me to the emergency room.
(Actually, it wasn't even the frozen pizza, it was a tiny piece of cheese the size of my fingertip that fell onto my kitchen counter after I put the damn thing in the oven that sent me to the emergency room, but I digress.)

I'm a good work-at-home/fulltime writer/housewife, and as such I cook dinner at home for my family most nights. Many nights it's a multi-course affair, and I frequently cook from scratch, but not every night. Some nights (like when I'm on deadline) I just pop a frozen pizza in the oven and make a side salad. Such it was last Wednesday, when I popped a locally-made Gino's frozen pizza in the oven, and like I've done so many times, popped one of the stray pieces of cheese that fell off the pizza onto the counter into my mouth. I did it without even thinking, like I've done hundreds of times before. (and I keep my countertops fastidiously clean, as anyone who's been to my house can tell you).

Almost immediately, I started feeling very strange. First off, the cheese didn't taste at all like cheese. It tasted more like Comet Kitchen Cleanser. Odd, since I know the company that made the pizza (a family-owned company in Crystal Lake,IL, just about 15 miles from my house) makes its own real cheese using milk from Wisconsin cows----one of the reasons I bought the pizza in the first place. Cheese isn't supposed to taste like Comet Kitchen Cleanser, that's for damn sure. Not only did it not taste right, I started feeling really weird. Like sick to my stomach. And dizzy, and then I began to gag, and even feel my throat swelling shut like it does when I go into anaphylactic shock after being stung by a bee. (I already carry an epinephrine shot everywhere I go because of that).

It immediately struck me that I might have been poisoned somehow----like the pizza I got was laced with cyanide or something. I called my husband's cell phone to see where he was on his commute (he was already late getting home by that point). Turns out he was still on the train, and the train was stuck in a snowdrift, so God only knew when he'd be getting home. So I bit the bullet and called 911, and told the dispatcher that I suspected chemical poisoning. For a little while I was worried I was going to die. (Death By Frozen Pizza---crazy, I know.)

So the ambulance and the fire truck show up at my house, followed by several curious neighbors (I live in a very quiet neighborhood). The EMTs say I need to go to the ER, and my next-door neighbor offered to watch my son until my husband got home. I get to the ER, and the ER doc tells me that I haven't actually been poisoned, but I have had an anaphylactic allergic food reaction, likely to the preservatives in the tiny crumb of frozen pizza cheese I ate. (Imagine what would have happened if I'd eaten a whole slice!) I got treated with prednisone and eventually left with instructions to go see an allergist.

I went to the allergist yesterday, and I'd say her job title would more accurately be described as Master Torturer. I got 48 different allergen scratch tests (24 on each arm), plus 13 (yes, 13!) subcutaneous shots (which hurt like a BITCH, by the way---this is coming from the lady who had 30+ hours of unmedicated labor with my son, mind you). After all of those tests, I discovered that I am not only allergic to multiple food additives and preservatives, but also chicken, soy, coffee, and peanuts. Who knew???

So now, I'm on an elimination "detox" diet, where I can basically eat only fresh foods that I prepare myself from scratch, with very little added to them. Chinese food is out due to the MSG (try that when you're married to a Chinese person), as is pretty much all frozen, canned, or otherwise processed food. I have to go back next week for more tests, and possibly even a year or more of allergy shots. Not only that, I've suddenly become hypersensitive to all sorts of foods and food additives---things are tasting different and strange, and making me have odd reactions (like today when I tasted a small amount of my son's Lofthouse sugar cookie and thought I'd eaten a mouthful of Drano).

I've never had a food allergy in my life, at least not until last week. How on earth did this happen? The allergist explains that as we age, we can acquire new allergies spontaneously, and that our bodies also can become hypersensitive following any anaphylactic event. Hence the elimination diet---I need to "reboot" my system so that I'll eventually not be allergic to everything I touch.

The bottom line is, this sucks. I love good food, and I love variety, and I also love the convenience some prepared foods offer me as a busy mom. But for the time being, I'll be eating nothing but unseasoned pork loin and plain white rice because that's all my body can tolerate. Le sigh.

Oh well. At least I'm not dead.

Peace.

TENDER IS THE KNIGHT, as advertised in RENAISSANCE magazine!

2011-02-07T19:59:00.001-06:00

Just got copies of RENAISSANCE magazine in the mail today. My publisher Decadent Publishing paid for a full-page ad in the February issue for TENDER IS THE KNIGHT. There's an article on the Society for Creative Anachronism (where the novel is set) on the next page. Nice placement!

Stand back folks, I'm a professional.

2011-02-03T14:29:00.003-06:00

This week I've been weathering the Blizzard of 2011, an epic storm even by our tough Chicago winter standards. All in all I only lost about a half-day of productivity as hubby and I worked to clear the 2 feet of snow from our driveway and walk, but then it was back to business as usual. Not that we had much of a break---my husband was still expected to put in a full day's work from home for his corporate banking job, and I also put in a full day's work as a freelance writer-slash-mom.

Lately my freelance writing income has really picked up, to the point it is now roughly equal to what I earned working full-time in the corporate world. (This notwithstanding the fact that on a strict hours-worked basis, I am still only working part-time). People ask me how I do it. I tell them it's my livelihood, and since I have bills to pay, somehow I manage to muddle through. Which is not always easy when you're also caring for a busy three-year-old boy, mind you.

A while back a local playwright friend of mine marveled at the fact that I don't keep my "creative" writing and my "business" writing separate. In the theater world, it is pretty much de rigeur for people to have "day jobs" that they work their theatre lives around, and that's also true for many playwrights. But I'm a writer by trade and profession, and as such I consider playwriting to just be another kind of writing that I do for my livelihood, so I don't see any need to keep it "separate." (It's not as if I'm doing a lot of playwriting these days anyway, since I prefer to devote my attention to writing for a living, as opposed to for fun. I do get paid for my playwriting, mind you, but it's a drop in the bucket compared to what my other writing pays). This same playwright also doesn't have any children to worry about feeding, so I guess that probably plays into her decision to compartmentalize her writing life.

Some people in my playwrights' collective have been wondering where I've been lately since I don't make it to meetings much anymore, and I just tell them I've been busy working. "Doing what?" they ask. "Writing," I reply. Which is usually met with a puzzled look, then silence.

To me, either you write for a living or you don't. Plenty of people wax on about how they would love to write for a living, and yet they don't treat it like a job. If writing is your job, you get up every morning, and show up for work. (And if work is your laptop in your living room instead of an office, you still show up.) A typical day for me will include setting up interviews for the articles I'm required to file as a freelance journalist, writing an article or two and filing with an editor, then maybe plugging away at my current novel-in-progress. There might be an email or two into my literary agents or my editors, plus general housekeeping, keeping track of earnings and taxes, whatever. If I'm lucky I'll also have some time to read for pleasure (which I also consider part of my job as a writer, since reading other writers is the best way to keep your writing chops up). And remember, on top of all of this, I'm caring for a three-year-old, with no child care help.

So let's just say I really have no patience anymore for people who say, "Oh, well, I've been meaning to write, but I have writer's block," or "I really want to finish that novel I started, but I don't have time," blahblahblah.

Well, I've got the perfect cure for writer's block. It's called the mortgage payment. Deal, folks. And if you can't, leave this writing stuff to the professionals. I've already got enough competition as it is.

Peace.

Creativity

2011-01-22T16:29:00.006-06:00

I've been neglecting the blog of late since I've been devoting a lot of my free time to some hobbies. Call it "refilling the tank," if you will. I'm a very creative person and always have been. And since my profession (writing) is also creative, it was a great career choice for me. But sometimes my writing saps my energy and drains the creative tank, as it were, and I get stuck. I need to change things up a bit in order to get the writing juices flowing again. Plus I have some neurotic tendencies (well, to say "some" would be a gross understatement) that tend to smooth themselves out when I'm working on making something from scratch----be it cooking a dish, baking a cake, sewing a dress, painting a picture, whatever. I really get into the "zone" when I make things by hand, and the whole world and my troubles just dissolve.

Some people take Prozac. I do crafts.

I was very into arts and crafts as a teenager, and my original college major was in the nationally ranked design and art college of the university where I would eventually pursue an English degree. I spent pretty much all of my free time in high school in one of two places: the art department and the theatre/music department. I took four years of studio art in high school as well as music/theatre/performing arts, and even got professional (paying!) art commissions and singing gigs as a teenager. I kept up with the music and theater throughout college and my adult life (doing both professionally, as well as writing professionally) but my studio arts interests kind of fell by the wayside after my freshman year of college. (I did eventually write art reviews and cover the Chicago art scene as a journalist, but that's not the same.)

I had originally planned to be a fine arts major in college, but my parents were terrified I'd end up starving to death, so I compromised and became an architecture major instead. I could draw, but I also was good at math and science and I thought buildings were cool, so I thought this was a reasonable compromise. Plus I'd actually stand a chance of getting a job when I graduated. I got admitted to the No. 1 architecture program in the country at the time (University of Cincinnati, which US News and World Report still ranks as No. 1) on a full scholarship. To say that the program was rigorous would be a gross understatement, too. Not only did I have to shell out literally thousands of dollars in drafting supplies my first quarter, I also pretty much had to give up eating and sleeping and spend my entire life "in studio." The program was hard to get into to begin with, but the first year was designed to weed out 60% of the incoming freshmen class. It was so very, very hard that I often I sat up nights at my drafting table and sobbed. Being one of very few women in a male-dominated major was also not easy to deal with. I also had bad experiences with professors and fellow students (and one other woman in particular, who harrassed me and destroyed my architecture models because she secretly liked the guy I was dating at the time).

After trying to stick it out for a while, I knew that architecture was not for me. I considered switching majors over to fine arts, but the fine arts studio was right next to the architecture department, and I wanted to get the hell out of that entire end of campus. So I followed my love of reading and writing across the quad to became an English major instead. To keep my parents happy I told them it was really since I planned to go to law school, but that was pretty much a lie. I just wanted to read and write and be left alone. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Speaking of history, I've always been a huge history buff, and one of my hobbies is historical reinactment. I'm especially fascinated with the history of writing, books, and publishing, especially old illuminated manuscripts. I had done some calligraphy and illumination as a kid but stopped doing it after the architecture-major fiasco. But lately I've been getting back into it, and I'm surprised how good I am at it after taking an almost 20-year hiatus. Spending an hour or two working on long-obsolete writing and publishing techniques has done wonders for my psyche, not to mention give me a newfound appreciation for just how easy it is for us to communicate in writing here in the 21st century. It wasn't always that way----reading and writing used to be a luxury enjoyed by very few, and books were luxury items that cost lots of money and also were a means to show off the great wealth of their owners.

I've been back into my artsy-crafty stuff for about a year now, and it's actually boosted my productivity as a writer tremendously. Whenever I get stuck on a writing project, I go paint something, or maybe do some sewing or leathercraft, which I also like. Eventually I want to put all three skills together and make a leather-bound medieval manuscript codex, but I think I'll have to wait until kiddo is a little older before I attempt something that ambitious. In the meantime, here's some samples of my work.

A Few New Year's Discoveries

2011-01-01T19:52:00.003-06:00

In celebration of a new year (and new beginning), I thought I'd share the following few lovely tidbits I've discovered recently. Hope they brighten your life as much as they have mine.

1) If you want to go shopping for some new stuff, but you can't because you're broke, go root around in your closets, cabinets and attics through the boxes and bags of crap you forgot you had in the first place. Chances are you'll find some great stuff.

2) Hotel shampoo makes great (and cheap) bubble bath.

3) The smell of lavender will make you happy.

4) Just because you disagree with someone's political/personal/religious/whatever beliefs, doesn't mean you can't be very good friends with that person.

5) When people make harsh judgments about other peoples' relationships, it usually means they have a history of bad ones.

6) What happened back in high school doesn't matter anymore. Except, of course, when you rekindle a beloved old friendship.

7) Sometimes crying can be a good thing.

8) Never underestimate the power of tea.

9) No one can judge you until they've walked two hundred miles in your shoes (and gone through labor, too).

10) Silence is indeed golden.

11) Most stuff that is labeled "As Seen On TV" sucks.

12) It's never too late to make things right.

13) Sometimes you just gotta spend a day in the house doing nothing but watching bad Japanime cartoons.

14) You're never too old to enjoy a good comic book.

15) If it sounds too good to be true, you should probably quit drinking and go to bed.

16) No matter how old you get, you'll never be as old as Dick Clark.

17) Nothing is quite as magical as the smell of gingersnaps baking during a snowstorm.

18) Snow angels are the best angels.

19) There's always someone worse off than you. Just look at Lindsay Lohan.

20) Remember that cute boy you had a huge crush on in junior high who wouldn't give you the time of day and called you mean names? Well, now he weighs 300 pounds and is unemployed and miserable. Karma, baby.

First-person, present tense.

2011-01-01T11:18:00.002-06:00

Today on New Year's Day, I'm blogging (as Jamaica Layne) at the Decadent Publishing blog about the challenge of writing in first-person, present tense. Check it out here.

Peace.

Banned In The SCA

2010-12-08T09:49:00.008-06:00

Added for clarity: It's not my book itself that's been banned, it's just any advertising for it. (Just in case any lawyers are reading this). Draw your own conclusions as to what that really means.

Once upon a time, book publishers would splash "BANNED IN BOSTON" across book covers as a selling point. The same thing was done by Broadway show producers, when it was common to pre-screen new plays in Boston before opening them on the Great White Way---it was also common for the Watch And Ward Society, a powerful group made up of certain leaders of those strait-laced Irish-Catholic Bostonians, to object to books', movies', and stage shows' supposed "immoral" content, and to subsequently have the offending material banned (for more information about the history behind this, check out this book).

Yep, banned. As in, shut down the shows, burn the books, close the bookstores that sold the books. (Of course, all this accomplished was making the books/movies/plays that much more popular everywhere else.)

What sorts of things got Banned In Boston, you ask? Here's a few examples of such notorious smut that posed a dangerously subversive moral risk to the Boston community:

The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway
Oil!, by Upton Sinclair (recently made into the film There Will Be Blood)
Elmer Gantry, by Sinclair Lewis (made into an Oscar-winning film in the 1950s)
Most of the works of William Faulkner (seriously)
The Atlantic Monthly magazine and the entire Alfred Knopf publishing house were also frequent targets of the Watch and Ward Society. (Because everybody knows what kind of immoral smut they put out, right?)
Also burlesque stage shows and even straight dramatic plays, like the works of Eugene O'Neill (!)

You might wonder what Banned In Boston has to do with me. Well, it seems that I've managed to get one of my own books banned. My novel TENDER IS THE KNIGHT, a sweet, Cinderella-story/comic romance novel set in the SCA, recently spurred the creation of a Draconian (or dare I say, Orwellian) across-the-board SCA corporate policy banning the advertising of any work of fiction from appearing in any official SCA publication----from Tournaments Illuminated all the way down to one-page local shire newsletters.

This policy was instituted in direct response to my publisher's requests to purchase display advertising in several SCA publications. Rather than accept the ad dollars for my apparently very controversial book, the SCA banned these types of ads from appearing altogether. Even better, SCA turned those ad dollars away at the same time that they're jacking up SCA membership dues due to "difficult financial circumstances." (Huh?)

The reason given for the policy? "Because advertising works of fiction is contrary to the SCA's educational mission."

Again, I say, Huh? (Oh, right, I forgot. Reading works of fiction is in no way educational. Can I get an amen?)

You might remember my post of a couple weeks ago about the hate mail my book TENDER IS THE KNIGHT has generated. Well, suffice to say, I think it's pretty obvious these two incidents are directly related.

In response to this, I've decided not to renew my SCA member dues until further notice (which will also entail me resigning my local herald's office). Sorry, but I can't send my hard-earned dollars to any organization that institutes authoritarian, across-the-board Orwellian book-suppression policies that smack of hysterical censorship. If you're an SCA member I suggest you do the same. Even better, write a letter to the SCA Board of Directors protesting this decision. They won't listen to me (I've already been told as much by Those In Power) but they might listen to you.

In the meantime, buy my book. It's Banned In The SCA, after all---so it has to be good. Peace.

Why You Need An Epub Agent

2010-12-05T14:13:00.001-06:00

I get asked all the time why I have an agent when so many of my books are published by epublishers. Because you can still land ebook deals without an agent (and because epublishers often pay very small advances, or none at all), many people think you shouldn't bother getting an agent.

Based upon my experience, I would disagree. Saritza Hernandez, a staffer at the L.Perkins Agency where I'm a client, specializes in the ebook market, and she recently wrote this blog post about why you might need an ePub agent. Thought I'd share.

Peace.

I'm Really A Playwright

2010-12-02T18:15:00.003-06:00

I created this little ditty on Xtranormal after I saw some similar ones posted on the topics of "So You Wanna Write A Novel" and "So You Wanna Get A PhD in the Humanities". Since I'm not only a novelist/graduate of an expensive graduate degree program in the humanities, but also a playwright, I thought I'd be ideal to comment on the fabulous world of playwriting for the American theater.

Because if you can go $50,000 into debt to complete an advanced arts degree at an elite university and then fritter away 15 years of your life trying to get your plays produced, you too can enjoy the fabulous life of the American playwright, which features such perks as rampant classism, the proverbial casting couch, Midwest bias, rampant substance abuse, and early death by suicide (or perhaps if you're lucky, a grand old age spent living in flophouses and eating Alpo):

Peace.

Great review for A CAPITOL AFFAIR!

2010-11-30T12:17:00.001-06:00

My novel A CAPITOL AFFAIR (Ravenous Romance, 2009) got a nice review today at Ramsey's Book Reviews. Check it out here. I especially like this review because the reviewer appreciated the book's allegory of BDSM as power-play in the politically charged world of Washington, DC.

More hilarious Wannabe Writer posts coming soon!

Peace.

Wannabe Writer Week, Part Deux

2010-11-29T23:06:00.002-06:00

In keeping with this week's theme of wannabe writers, I'm going to share a sobering statistic I got today from my agent Saritza Hernandez, a staffer at the L. Perkins Agency who handles my books for the epublishing market. (I am repped by multiple agents there, each specializing in different markets).

Some people think (erroneously) that epublishing is subpar in terms of quality and is essentially the same as self-publishing. (Hint: It's not). Granted, unlike print publishing, it is possible to get an epub book deal without an agent (for the time being, anyway), but as the digital market continues to grow by leaps and bounds, more agents are getting directly involved in digital dealmaking----and as such, more and more authors targeting the epub market are seeking out agent representation.

To wit, Ms. Hernandez recently announced she was temporarily closed to new query submissions so she can get through her current backlog of over 500 unsolicited author queries. When I asked her what her query acceptance rate was, she shared the following:

"Last month, I got through 131 queries in my inbox. Of those, I requested 4 partial manuscripts and 1 full manuscript." (Which she has yet to read and/or accept/reject, mind you). In other words, she expressed interest in less than 2% of the authors who queried her. (Saritza currently reps 21 clients and has sold 10 books so far this year. Full disclosure---two of those books were mine).

And mind you, Saritza is only agenting in the epublisher market, which remains a very small portion of the overall publishing market. (I should also add that Saritza is an AWESOME and very efficient, effective agent; she once sold a book of mine in less than a week.)

So those of you who think this whole publishing thing is easy, chew on those stats for a while. Then go have a beer.

Peace.

So you wanna be a writer

2010-11-28T16:22:00.000-06:00

Had to share this little gem. Any novelist (published or aspiring, assuming you've actually completed a manuscript) has run into somebody like this. I'm reminded of several wannabe writers who've put their foots in their mouths telling me about how their not-even-written-yet books will be bestsellers. I'll share some of those amusing stories later this week.

Fan mail versus hate mail

2010-11-19T16:04:00.003-06:00

One of the definite perks of being a published author is getting fan mail. It's always cool to open your email account (or the good-old-fashioned mailbox) and find a letter from someone you've never met or even heard of who gushes about what a wonderful writer you are and thanks you for telling such a wonderful story that entertained them and spoke to their heart. It's even cooler when they ask you when your next book is coming out, and also promise to buy everything on your backlist, just because they enjoyed INSERT BOOK TITLE HERE soooo much. It's one of the reasons I keep writing. (God knows I don't do it for the money!)

But of course, the flip side of that is, the hate mail. Yes, the hate mail. For every twenty or so fan letters I get, I get one completely scathing, rage-filled letter/email/Facebook IM/whatever that says I cannot write, that I should cease and desist thrusting my "garbage" upon the world, that calls me a sex-crazed evil lunatic bitch, or even accuses me of Satan-worshipping witchcraft (seriously, true story.) More often than not, hate mail is sent anonymously. (Gee, I wonder why?)

Hate mail comes with the territory of being published. There are a lot of wackjobs out there, after all, and many of them like to read. Plus there's a huge contingent of hate-mailers who are frustrated writers who can't get published, and they take their anger out on people who are published. (They also probably need to be on medication, but I digress.)

I fully realize that dealing with the occasional wackjob is one of the prices you pay for having your writing available to the general public. But this week, I've received the King Cobra of hate mail. Not only did I receive this scathing anonymous letter, but so did the Board of Directors of an organization I'm a member of, along with Amazon.com and several book review sites. I mean, everybody's entitled to their opinion and all, but I think that's just a little over the top. Especially considering the book that the writer hated so much is a lighthearted comic romance novel. It's not as if I authored some controversial investigative journalism expose or an explicit sex manual or something. I wrote a sappy, funny, light-reading romance novel, and not even an erotic one. Romance novels are about as non-controversial as you can get outside of cereal-box copy.

I guess every published author out there has a story like this. I have to admit, after the initial shock wore off, I find this situation absolutely hilarious. Not to mention sad. I guess some people just don't have enough to do with their time.

Of course, I now reserve the right to base a nutjob character in my next book on this little incident. Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.

Peace.

Stop by the Decadent Publishing blog and enter to win!

2010-11-08T08:33:00.001-06:00

My alter ego Jamaica Layne is profiled today at the Decadent Publishing blog. Learn a little more about me and why I wrote my latest release, TENDER IS THE KNIGHT. Leave a comment for a chance to win some great custom Ren Faire artwork from Robert Quill!

TENDER IS THE KNIGHT releases today at Decadent Publishing!

2010-10-29T09:56:00.003-06:00

Hi Readers!

My latest novel, TENDER IS THE KNIGHT, releases today at Decadent Publishing. It'll be out in ebook format first, followed by a trade paperback edition in a few months.

This book began its life over 25 years ago, when I joined the Society for Creative Anachronism (www.sca.org). Or rather, when I was forcibly dragged to my first SCA event, Pennsic War 13, by my father who had just recently joined SCA via his new girlfriend. For those of you who don't know, SCA is a historical reinactment organization that specializes in the Middle Ages. It has chapters worldwide and over 100,000 worldwide participants. It's on a par with other historical reinactment groups that focus not just on daily life but also military/war in history, like those groups that specialize in the American Civil War, for instance. So in addition to getting dressed up in medieval clothes, eating medieval food, and dancing medieval dances (seriously!), one of the SCA's chief attractions is its tournaments and wars, which feature swordplay, jousting, even large-scale battles involving hundreds (sometimes even thousands) of armored fighters.

One of the SCA's other guiding principles is the recreation of the "ideals" of the Middle Ages----including romance, courtesy, and courtly love. After spending most of my life active in SCA in one form or another, I learned a great deal not just about medieval history (which led to my love of history in general, as well as my future career as a historical fiction writer), but about you guessed it, ROMANCE. And a few years ago, when I was just getting my romance writing career in full swing, a thought occurred to me----what if I set a romance novel in the romantic world of the Society for Creative Anachronism?

When I first joined SCA back in the 1980s, the historical reinactment world was very tiny---and also regarded as "weird" by most people, since many participants in both SCA and other historical societies like it were also into offbeat things like Dungeons and Dragons, science fiction novels (indeed, science fiction writers like Marion Zimmer Bradley and Robert Aspirin were among SCA's founding members), sword-and-sorcery comics, computer games, and other realms of geekdom. But as time went on, living history groups began to enter the mainstream. Renaissance faires began springing up all over the country and became quite popular with the masses. Dungeons and Dragons and computer gaming, once the denizen of nerdy geeks with no social lives, was replaced by massive-multiplayer online roleplaying games like World of Warcraft, which is played by everyone from teenagers to Hollywood celebrities. Movies set in and around the Middle Ages, like Ridley Scott's KINGDOM OF HEAVEN and ROBIN HOOD to fantasy films like the Lord of the Rings trilogy, made the romance of the Middle Ages front-and-center in popular culture. Would a book set in a fictional version of the SCA---with all its oddball characters, historical foibles, modern-day knights in shining armor, and medieval romance---be a big seller?

My literary agent thought so. But when she shopped it to the major NYC publishing houses, they all turned it down. While they liked the book, they didn't think it would find an audience. So, enter Decadent Publishing. Decadent saw the huge potential market for TENDER IS THE KNIGHT among both the living-history/recreation set and mainstream history buffs, and agreed to publish it---first as an ebook, then in print. Since I'm already a veteran of the ebook romance marketplace, I jumped at the chance. And I've been very impressed with the professionalism of all of Decadent's staff, including its editors, who have provided some of the most thorough editorial support and feedback I've ever received in my career.

TENDER IS THE KNIGHT features a modern-day heroine, Lisa Smith, who is bored with her dull workaday life as a factory forewoman in Dayton, Ohio. When her best friend Pegeen introduces her to her new hobby (the SCA) Lisa is skeptical at first. But soon Lisa meets Sir Philip Reginald of Whitestar, a sexy SCA Knight and the local favorite to become the local SCA "kingdom's" next King. Lisa soon gets caught up in the swashbuckling romance of it all----but soon finds herself in way over her head. Will she reach her fairy-tale ending? Buy the book at www.decadentpublishing.com and find out! (Also available at Amazon for Kindle, BN.com, and other popular ebook distributor sites).

Nostalgia

2010-10-10T17:37:00.004-06:00

I have come to the conclusion that nostalgia is overrated. I've spent the better part of this year revisiting some earlier eras of my life, with mixed results. I suppose you could say I'm having my mid-life crisis about 10 years early, and of course that probably means I'm bound to be disappointed in just about everything.

This past weekend I went home to Ohio to visit my mother, who has been dealing with some major health problems. I was really looking forward to the trip, especially since I've grown so disenchanted with living in Illinois, what with our astronomical taxes, high cost of living, corrupt politicians, and a general morally bankrupt culture that transcends everything from the mayor's and governor's office to the offices of the once-venerable Chicago Tribune. Not to mention getting laid off my longtime freelance gig and the hard time I'm having finding work to replace it, the stress of being a mom to a three-year-old, my stagnating writing career, yadayadayada. (In other words, the recession sucks.)

With so many things at home making me miserable, it only makes sense that I'm looking for an escape. With so many things about the state of Illinois completely fucked (sorry) right now, lately I've been waxing nostalgic about my old life in Ohio. I left Ohio for good 15 years ago, and for the most part have not regretted that decision. But it's hard not to miss certain things about it, among them the mild climate, the beautiful fall colors, the EXTREMELY low cost of living, the nice people, the low-stress lifestyle, and perhaps the most important thing of all----the complete lack of an entrenched, corrupt, morally bankrupt political culture like the one we have in Illinois right now. (Ohio is a swing state; and as such, one of the benefits of virtually every office in every election always being hotly contested is a tremendous reduction in political corruption. Not to mention increased government efficiency.) What routinely goes on in Illinois simply is not tolerated in Ohio. If any Ohio elected official attempted even one-tenth of what Illinois politicians get away with on a daily basis, that elected official would find himself very swiftly in jail for a very long time.

I was really looking forward to going home this time, probably more so than I have for any Ohio trip in a while. (I go "home" to Ohio 2 or 3 times a year, on average). And since my hopes were high, it only follows that those hopes were dashed. First of all, Southern Ohio is currently in the midst of the worst drought in almost 50 years, and the place just looks dead. Dead grass, dead trees, dead flowers, dead everything. It's hot (90 degrees in October, for Chrissakes) and the air was so dry and dessicated that my contact lenses became too painful to wear and I got dehydrated. Add on top of that the complete shambles that is most of the Ohio economy, and my home state is a depressing place indeed.

My mom's once-nice neigborhood in working-class Norwood, Ohio is now mostly made up of abandoned, foreclosed houses. Drug dealers and squatters have moved in, and stray animals wander aimlessly up and down the street. Many of my favorite old hangouts in Cincinnati are closed down, boarded up, and sometimes even burned down. My mom even pointed out a half-finished shopping mall that was begun just before the current recession started, and never finished----apparently financing ran out halfway through, and what was supposed to be high-end luxury shops is now an eyesore of crumbling concrete and rusty I-beams. My mom and I barely got along the whole weekend, which I think just illustrates how bad things have gotten there.

Dayton is doing a little better than Cincinnati, but not much. I drove through Dayton (where I spent a good chunk of my younger years) today and was saddened by how bad much of it looked. Even my old friends in Ohio have lost their luster. I rekindled some long-dormant friendships this year, but I've found in the interim that perhaps I might have been better off leaving them dormant. Sometimes you outgrow friends and phases of your life just like you outgrow clothes, and sometimes it's best not to try to squeeze your older, wiser (and fatter) self back into them.

There's nothing like a visit home to your decaying, ugly, economically depressed Rust Belt home state to remind you of why you left in the first place.

Peace.

The Good Life

2010-08-31T07:07:00.005-06:00

I haven't been blogging on here as much lately, though I do "microblog" on Twitter and Facebook. I've developed quite a following on Facebook especially. Nearly 3,000 people follow me on Facebook, most of whom I have never actually met. Many of them are publishing and/or writer types, and many are fans of my books. A couple of writer friends (one of whom is a two-time Fulbright Scholar and an internationally bestselling writer) have suggested I collect my Facebook status updates and publish them together as a book. She finds them that funny and entertaining, which is a great compliment coming from her. And I've gotten plenty of other compliments as well.

Apparently, I have a talent for entertaining people. Which I have sort of known intuitively for a long time. But getting that actual positive reinforcement is always nice. Especially when the financial rewards tend to be very small.

I've supported myself as a writer pretty much my entire adult life in one form or another. I've never held any illusions about it being lucrative. After all, we writers are usually the last people hired and the first people fired----when we have stable jobs at all. Mostly we just float from project to project, client to client, and hope the check will eventually come. (And sometimes, it doesn't---I've been stiffed by freelance clients and publishers before). I don't regret my career choices, but sometimes it's hard to take when I look at friends of mine who've made career decisions based solely on money. They have reaped material rewards for that, of course, though they aren't always fulfilled by their work, especially if they gave up on their real dreams in order to get monetary rewards. I've said it before and I'll say it again----money alone won't make you happy, though it certainly helps.

I honestly can't imagine spending my entire life doing something I hated just to pay the bills. Sure, I've had plenty of crummy jobs (waitress, put-upon executive assistant, mind-numbing software tech writer), but they were always temporary. I've never given up on my dream of being a New York Times bestselling author and Broadway-produced playwright, and I never will. I'm getting there a little bit at a time, too. I don't mind making sacrifices for that dream, any more than I mind taking on dull freelance writing work so I can pay my bills this month.

But my commitment to my dreams didn't make it any less humbling when a longtime friend of mine recently invited me to spend time out on her 36-foot yacht (which probably cost more than twice my husband's annual salary, and at least half that much to dock and maintain each year.) Or when other friends invite me to go out with them to Ravinia or rock concerts and I have to turn them down because I can't afford to pay for tickets AND a babysitter. Or when my husband and I have to ask the hospital for a discount on our out-of-pocket medical bills.

Don't get me wrong---I have a comfortable life. I have retirement savings, a nice house in an affluent suburb with plenty of equity, a husband with a stable, well-paying job, two late-model cars that are both paid for in full. We take a vacation at least once a year, often overseas. But that doesn't mean we don't scrimp and save---or that we don't have to. 36-foot yachts certainly aren't in our near future.

Life is all about choices. The only question is, are you happy with the ones you've made? I am, but that doesn't mean I don't wonder sometimes what my life would have been like if I'd just chucked it all and become a stockbroker.

Peace.

Mid-Life Madness

2010-08-04T10:50:00.005-06:00

They say that everybody goes through a mid-life crisis at some point. At age 36, some experts would say (like this article from Time Magazine) that I am in fact middle-aged. So if that's true, I suppose I'm due for one. And lately I've been wondering if perhaps I have begun losing my mind.

I've actually lost my mind a couple times before. I had a nervous breakdown once in college, and another one in my late 20s that was especially awful. Nothing that required hospitalization or anything, mind you, but still pretty bad. The one in my late 20s occurred after a very dysfunctional cohabiting relationship fell apart, and I literally ended up homeless and broke for a while, relying on the kindness of friends to keep a roof over my head until things got better. I come from a long family history of mental illness, and though I have direct family members who have dealt with much more serious psychiatric issues than I ever have, the very real possibility that I could totally crack and wind up in the looney bin someday is never far out of my mind.

When you pick up a tabloid or turn on the TV these days, you see so many celebrities who are engaging in all kinds of crazy self-destructive behavior, not because they are self-absorbed celebrities per se, but because they are seriously mentally ill. Frankly, I'd argue that anyone who spends a major amount of time in the public eye is either already mentally ill (i.e., narcissistic/exhibitionist personality disorder), or will soon become so. I mean, all you have to do is look at the antics of any tabloid queen from Lindsay Lohan to Kate Gosselin to Jennifer Aniston to know that they are seriously screwed up in the head and desperate for attention----any kind of attention, even the very negative kind. And yet, even while their behavior disgusts me, I pity them, and I also sympathize with them. Because I know from personal experience what it feels like to be so empty and dark on the inside that the only way you think you can fill up that aching, bottomless pit at the bottom of your soul is to do completely stupid, self-destructive, exhibitionist things in the vain attempt to make somebody---anybody---like you. When you're dealing with those kinds of demons, sometimes you have to make yourself small in order to feel big.

Although I've spent the better part of 15 years "dealing with my shit," as I like to tell people, I know I'll never really be over being as sick as I once was. Like many artists and writers, my brain is just wired a lot differently than most peoples'. I'm overly sensitive to some things that others barely notice, like the subtle motivations behind other peoples' behavior, the tiny little changes in their emotions (and my own), even such seemingly insignificant things as the color of a wildflower by the side of the road. And yet some other things----like when not to run my trashy, plainspoken Irish mouth about something and keep my trap shut instead, for example----don't seem to compute for me.

Most people have an "off" switch in their brains that they can flick when it comes to being polite or "proper" in certain social situations. I've never really had one of those. I've always been the person who says what everyone is thinking but nobody else has the guts to say out loud----which is a great asset for a writer to have, but not so great when you want to make friends or get invited to that all-important cocktail party. I even had this problem as a really little kid. To this day my mom and dad tell stories of all the times I embarrassed adults as a precocious gradeschooler with my overly frank comments. Like the time I made fun of a lady's big nose at one of my dad's dinner parties, or the time I asked a recently divorced man point-blank where his wife was and what he'd done to her. (Or my personal favorite, the time I called out my own grandfather at age five for spending more money on my brother's birthday gift than he did mine, and made him feel about two feet tall in the process). Although a select few people admire me for my honesty, most people just think I'm a total pain in the ass. And I suppose they're right.

Lately I've been spending a lot of time revisiting some past eras of my life. I've rekindled some old, long-dormant friendships, gotten back in touch with some old hobbies, and even seriously considered making some major life and career changes. But with a toddler at home and a budding writing career, mostly I've just had a lot of alone time on my hands in which to think too hard about tons of weird shit. Which can be a very dangerous thing for a writer/artist with a history of having the crazies to do, mind you. I end up running all kinds of scenarios in my mind, wondering how my life would have turned out differently if I'd made different choices at some point along the line. I often wonder if what I have is the best I could have gotten. I also wonder (with quite a bit of fear and trepidation) if I'd even still be here at all if I'd made different choices. As someone who once seriously considered suicide, I know there's a strong possibility I could have ended up dead if I hadn't made the decision to "deal with my shit" and find a way to lead a healthy, stable (yet creative) life.

Yesterday I had a lengthy phone conversation with a good writer friend of mine, and she and I talked for a while about why so many people in the creative arts are seriously mentally ill and/or lead highly solitary, dysfunctional (and often short) lives. It's kind of a chicken-and-egg question that may never be fully answered, but I think it's an important one. Why is it that so many of the people we look to for entertainment end up so miserable? Do they go into the field because they are miserable and seeking an outlet, or does the industry make them that way, or both?

I know that as someone who's in a stable relationship, who is reasonably financially secure and also has a child, that I am doing better than about 90% of the other struggling creative artists out there. But could I do better still? Do I even want to?

These are the questions I ask myself when I'm cruising up and down the grocery aisles with a screaming toddler. These are the questions I ask when I'm hosing the poop off my son's back in the bathtub for the umpteenth time because he's had yet another "accident." These are the questions I ask myself late at night, when I can't sleep and listening to cheesy 80s music. And I know these are questions that pretty much every other young mother asks herself too, if not quite so harshly and critically as I ask them of myself.

Peace.

THE FORBIDDEN is now available, plus an interview

2010-07-28T06:41:00.002-06:00

THE FORBIDDEN, my alter ego Jay Hughes' much-anticipated Gay Amish Romance sequel to THE SHUNNED, is now available for sale at Ravenous Romance. Be sure to check it out.

I was also interviewed yesterday about my writing career at WhoHub. Here's a link.

Lots more exciting news to come in the upcoming weeks!

Peace.

What's New and Coming Attractions

2010-07-14T11:39:00.005-06:00

Now that I'm recovered from my mega-illness, I'm back to work at writing. I've got a big (potentially HUGE, actually) freelance medical writing gig that I'm working on, plus the novel-writing career remains in full swing. I can't talk about the new freelance gig yet (other than to say it involves a pretty famous TV personality) but I can talk about some great developments in my novel-writing career.

First of all, my erotic novel KNIGHT MOVES (written as "Jamaica Layne"), originally released as an ebook with Ravenous Romance, has just been picked up for worldwide trade paperback distribution by Red Wheel-Weiser's Red Silk Editions. KNIGHT MOVES is one of my bestselling ebook titles and now it will be available on bookstore shelves all over the world! Further details and release date to come.

Second, Vol. 3 in my popular Vital Signs medical romance series (title: Prescription for P assion) is now available. While the first two volumes in the series are published by Ravenous Romance, this volume is published and distributed by Silver Publishing. (they will likely publish any further volumes in the series as well). All of the books in the series stand alone, so you can read them out of order, but I encourage you to read all of them, in chronological order if you can. I really enjoy writing this series since I've spent so much of my professional writing career working around doctors and hospitals.

And last but not least----my alter-ego Jay Hughes has a new novel coming out soon, THE FORBIDDEN. This is another Gay Amish Romance----the sequel to "Jay's" very popular debut, THE SHUNNED. I don't have a release date yet, but I will soon. So, more red-hot Gay Amish Romance is heading your way this summer. And just look at that cover. Yowza.

Peace.

Sorry I haven't written. . .

2010-07-10T09:00:00.003-06:00

Okay, so I haven't blogged for almost 2 months. Here's why:

Yeah, that collection of prescription drugs (and that's not even all of it) represents an almost 6-week illness that required 2 hospitalizations and almost $15,000 in medical bills. It started out innocently enough----as a nasty summer cold-slash-allergy attack. Then it turned into a drug-resistant bacterial infection (aka a "superbug") that was the single worst illness of my life. Fevers of 104 degrees for weeks, extreme dehydration, trouble breathing, hallucinations---the whole bit. Seriously, there were a few days I actually thought I was going to die. The superbug stumped my doctors----I saw five of them, plus the hospital docs and even two infectious disease specialists---and none of them could figure out why none of the antibiotics were working. Finally, after three separate rounds of antibiotics, two hospitalizations, and a lot of good-old-fashioned praying, I finally began to get better. In the meantime, I really had to re-order my life. I cut out a bunch of extra stuff, shut down a side business, pushed back all my writing deadlines, and just generally changed my world outlook. Life is short and precious, and you just never know when it might end.

In the meantime, I have a new book coming out today. It's Vol. 3 in my popular VITAL SIGNS medical romance series---this time with a new publisher, Silver Publishing. (You can still get Vols. 1 and 2 from Ravenous Romance.) Check it out.

On Being From Ohio

2010-06-06T11:00:00.004-06:00

I grew up in Southwest Ohio. My father's side of the family had been there for several generations, but my mother's side was from Appalachia (Lee County, VA; I can trace my ancestry there back to the late 1600s) and only moved to Ohio in the 1950s to seek employment in Ohio's many factories. While Ohio is a classic Rust Belt working-class state that has fallen on hard times, it's also a very literary state. With its huge collection of prestigious colleges and universities (there are more colleges and universities per capita in Ohio than anywhere else in the US) and strong literary tradition, it's kind of a writers' heaven. Scores of famous writers have come from Ohio, and many more choose it as their home (partially because it's so cheap to live there, which is good for writers with sporadic incomes, and partially because there's just a lot of writers there already.)

Though I've spent almost 15 years living in Chicago (and I've travelled all over the world), I still consider myself an Ohioan at heart. And I've encountered quite a bit of snobbery and prejudice towards my humble Ohio origins in my life----whether as a grad student studying literature and film at the elite University of Chicago, or in the theater, or in publishing (two industries dominated by East Coast bluebloods), ad nauseum. None of which makes sense to me when you consider how many literary giants and screenwriters have come out of Ohio, and even chose to live there after they became famous----a few of whom even abandoned their high-flying Hollywood or NYC lifestyles in favor of a simple Ohio existence. I recently went home to Ohio for a mini-vacation, and the slow pace of life there (along with the many smart, well-read people you run into there) reminds me of why the state has so much appeal for writers.

Here's a few writers you've probably heard of who are from Ohio; many of them chose to live there even after they became rich and famous. This is by no means an exhastive list, either:

Joe Eszterhas (screenwriter of BASIC INSTINCT and SHOWGIRLS, also former editor-in-chief of ROLLING STONE and bestselling author; he lives in Cleveland)
Dave Chappelle (writer/standup comedian; he lives in Yellow Springs)
Virginia Hamilton (bestselling children's author; she also lives in Yellow Springs, a literary enclave of sorts)
Lori Foster, bestselling romantic thriller author (lives outside Cincinnati)
Jennifer Crusie, bestselling romance author (lives near Columbus, she's originally from Cincinnati)
Sherwood Anderson (author of Winesburg, Ohio and other early 20th-century realist fiction, he lived in northeast Ohio)
Zane Grey (uber-famous author of pulp Western fiction; he was from Zanesville)
Harlan Ellison (science fiction writer, he was from Cleveland)
Paul Laurence Dunbar, (poet, from Dayton)
Rita Dove (poet laureate of the United States, from Akron)
Toni Morrison (Nobel Prize-winning novelist, from Lorain)
Erma Bombeck (humorist, she was from Dayton)
James Thurber (humorist, he was from Columbus)
Leigh Brackett (sci-fi novelist and screenwriter of THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, THE LONG GOODBYE, THE BIG SLEEP, and RIO BRAVO; although she was from California and spent at least half of every year living and working there, she also maintained a residence in eastern Ohio and did most of her best writing there)

One of the nice things about being a writer is you can live anywhere. Sure, there's a mystique that the best writers only live in big cities like New York or Chicago or L.A., but a lot more of them choose quieter lives in quieter places. Maybe if I ever become rich and famous, I'll pull a Dave Chappelle and abandon my high-flying big-city-millionaire lifestyle in favor of running a small farm in Yellow Springs.

Peace.

Back to normal

2010-05-21T09:26:00.003-06:00

Well, I finally got my computer back to normal. I lost a good day and a half of productivity last week thanks to that malware/spyware attack, and I'm still not totally back where I was. Though my computer is now virus-free (or so my MacAffee program says), and even though I didn't lose any actual files, I did lose my entire RSS feed. Which is a total bummer. (I had to completely disable it/delete it because that's where the spyware decided to attach itself to my computer).

For those of you who aren't familiar with RSS technology, it's basically a way for you to keep track of any new content that shows up on sites that you visit frequently. It first appeared in connection with blogs, and allowed you to track when your favorite bloggers posted new entries without actually having to go visit their sites over and over again. Then news/commentary sites got in on the bandwagon and added RSS feeds, then social networking sites, and so on.

I only had about 15 feeds set up in my desktop RSS widget (I know people who have hundreds), but I accumulated those feeds over a couple of years and now they would take me a long time to redo manually. I followed a few of my friends' blogs and those were in there, plus some publishing industry blogs, some Huffington Post commentators that I like, and a few custom online news feeds that I set up around certain keywords. Plus I had the Playbill.com news blog, which helps me keep up with Broadway and off-Broadway theater news.

The RSS feed really made my blog and news reading more convenient. Once or twice a day I'd look at the feed widget and see if any of my favorite sites had new content. If they did and it looked interesting (you'd get the blog/article heading and the first sentence) I'd click on it to go to the full site to read. It really saved me a lot of browsing time and also helped me be a little more choosy about what I read.

Of course, when the spyware made my computer blow up, the RSS feed went haywire. The spyware was probably running contantly, scanning every site I had linked in my feed looking for site traffic data. Popups kept appearing all over my screen, and eventually my computer shut down. I had no choice but to get rid of the whole thing. Which sucks, because now I either have to spend hours manually re-entering all my old feeds, or spend hours actually going directly to all those sites every day looking for new content. Neither of which I have time to do right now. So, I guess I just won't be reading online as much.

I think maybe this whole thing was a divine message from the universe sent to tell me that I waste too much time screwing around online when I should be working on my book.

Peace.

Facebook users, beware

2010-05-13T08:59:00.005-06:00

I love Facebook. You could probably say I'm addicted to it. I've found it can be a great networking/marketing tool (I have a bunch of romance novel fans who follow me on Facebook and that's helped beef up my book sales, for example). Plus it's a great way to keep up with friends and family that you rarely see in person. Not to mention get into interesting random discussions about random topics.

But Facebook has a dark side, too. It's a free site (for now), but the people who run it have to pay for things somehow, so they use advertising. And Facebook has been getting criticized lately for continually changing it's "privacy" (I use the term loosely) policies so it can have more leeway when it comes to tracking what Facebook users do online (so they can then sell that data to marketers/advertisers). And as such, there are a lot of "applications" floating around on Facebook that pretend to be fun little games and quizzes, but are really spyware apps designed to track and monitor all your Web browsing. (Surprisingly enough, despite the fact that marketing spyware usually acts like a virus on your computer, it's usually perfectly legal to spread, unlike hacker viruses).

The other day I made the mistake of taking one of those innocuous-looking Facebook "quizzes" and my computer has been behaving strangely ever since. First my Gmail and Google Calendar accounts started behaving strangely, with emails and email attachments getting corrupted, and appointments mysteriously disappearing off my Google calendar. Then my Internet Explorer browser window would shut itself down and restart itself right when I was in the middle of doing something. And then yesterday, the RSS feed widget on my desktop I use to track new content on some of my favorite blogs and news sites kept rebooting itself and sending me a popup message "You have new content" several times an hour, even when there was nothing new in my feed. And then when I closed the popup for the bazillionth time, my computer shut itself down.

That's when I figured out something was really wrong (and not just some random annoying Windows Vista system bugs). I ran a McAfee scan, and found some spyware/malware embedded in Internet Explorer and my RSS feed functionality---probably some kind of marketing spyware designed to track what kinds of sites I browse and then target advertising to me accordingly.

These online marketing types think that what they're doing is innocent enough (and they work hard to convince Congress of that fact) but the truth is, they're really doing a lot of damage. I wasted three hours trying to fix this late last night. And that's three hours I'll never get back.

I wish I could afford a Mac so I wouldn't have to deal with this at all.

Peace.

Top 10 Lists

2010-05-12T22:07:00.004-06:00

I've been having a little trouble working out how to finish the chapter I'm writing in my current novel-in-progress, so I'll procrastinate by making up a few random Top 10 lists. (I used to do this in grad school whenever I was blocked while writing papers, and it always worked.) So, here goes.

My Top 10 favorite movies (these are all films I can watch over and over again without ever getting tired of them; it's not necessarily a measure of their artistic quality but their sheer entertainment value:)

10. Out of Africa

9. Back to the Future

8. Citizen Kane

7. Gone with the Wind

6. GoodFellas

5. Star Wars: Episode IV, A New Hope (that's the original film from 1977)

4. Boogie Nights

3. Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan

2. Casablanca

1. Star Wars: Episode V, The Empire Strikes Back (from 1980) Yes, you read that right. The Empire Strikes Back is, in my opinion, the best movie ever made. So there. Watch it, damn it.

Okay, I'm still procrastinating, so I'll add my Top 10 favorite books, too.

10. Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides

9. Emma, by Jane Austen

8. The Stand, by Stephen King

7. Crossing California, by Adam Langer

6. Misery, by Stephen King

5. The Queen's Fool, by Philippa Gregory

4. The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, by Alexander McCall Smith (well, the whole series, really)

3. The Mists of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley

2. Gone With the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell (note I rank the book higher than the film)

1. The Road, by Cormac McCarthy (which I personally think is the single greatest book ever written, but that's a topic for another blog post).

Okay, I think I'll finish that chapter now. Bye.

Daydreaming. . .

2010-05-11T18:57:00.004-06:00

Lately I've been getting a lot of interest from New York for my plays. With several of my scripts sitting on several very important desks in NYC right now (I don't want to say too much or I'll jinx it) it is inevitable that I've been daydreaming about my (still very theoretical) future Broadway success. Like wondering which big Broadway house would be the home (and/or homes) of my future big Broadway productions. Like researching which big-time Broadway producer family (e.g., the Nederlanders versus the Shuberts) would be more likely to underwrite my plays for production. And of course, wondering what my caricature on the wall at Sardi's would look like.

These are all still pipe dreams, of course. But when the big boys at least show an interest in talking to you (which I know they don't do for about 98.5% of the people who try to talk to them) it's hard not to dream big.

The other reason I've been looking mostly to New York for my playwriting future is because Chicago theater as we know it really seems to be dying out----which is a very bad thing in some ways, but a very good thing in other ways. (I know a lot of people will get upset when I say this, but it's true.) There really is no tradition of supporting theater here, at least not for the long term and certainly not from a political perspective. The powers that be here in Chicago are totally corrupt, of course----and so much of city politics is controlled by slimy real estate developers who just want to build as many condos and strip malls as they can (and will bribe whoever they need to in order to get it done), and damn the cultural consequences. Any commercial or nonprofit theater house that manages to survive here at all has to fall prey to Chicago's ever-increasing bevy of arbitrary fees, overpriced PPA licenses, near-unobtainable liquor licenses and overly stringent, ever-changing building codes. Three of Chicago's major commercial theaters have gone bankrupt this year (and two of those houses have shut down completely, along with several dozen other well-respected and long-established nonprofit companies, including the venerable Apple Tree and the likely soon-to-be-defunct Pegasus Players). And the one (somewhat) viable commercial house still standing in Chicago that doesn't exclusively stage Broadway tours---the Royal George---is dark at least half the time these days.

Then of course there's shit like this, further illustrating how there is no job security or stability even for some of Chicago's most reputable and established theater venues so long as there are bloodthirsty real-estate "investors" waiting in the wings for their chance to strike. (Full disclosure: I am good friends with several of Theatre Building Chicago's former and [likely] soon-to-be-former staff---all hardworking and talented people who are now casualties of other peoples' greed). As long as King Daley is in office to squeeze as much inflated taxes and grift as he can out of Chicago's North Side, I expect the dominoes will keep falling, until there are very few "real" Chicago theaters left.

But then again, aside from seeing my friends at TBC suffer, I'm not sure how much of a loss that really is. I've often blogged about how stupid and incestuous Chicago theater is, especially when it comes to working with playwrights. Maybe in some ways this is karmic good riddance? Who knows?

New York City really has its priorities straight when it comes to theater. For one thing, the city government recognizes that NYC's theater scene is its No. 1 driver of tourism (Broadway alone is a multibillion-dollar industry, and the Off-Broadway scene generates huge dollars for the city as well), and supports it accordingly. Almost all the houses on Broadway are protected from razing or uncontrolled redevelopment by landmark status. (And unlike Chicago, where the decisionmaking power in theatre is held mostly by directors and even by actors, in NYC the playwright is God. As a playwright myself, I of course wholeheartedly approve of this).

And yet, there are still some quirks and idiosyncracies about New York's theatre scene. Almost all the theatres on Broadway are privately held by two families---the Shuberts and the Nederlanders---who between then have controlled the Great White Way for over a century. (Interestingly enough, the Nederlanders run their theater empire from Detroit, not New York, even though most of their properties are in New York). Getting either the Shuberts or the Nederlanders (or some of the other independent "investors" floating around) to back your show is very, very, very hard, especially if your name isn't Nathan Lane or Stephen Sondheim. But then again, many of the respected off-Broadway theaters (like the Public, Manhattan Theatre Club, MCC Theatre, and The New Group) that can serve as launching pads for getting your show onto Broadway have totally open play submission policies that really do give everybody (and I do mean everybody----if you submit to them, your competition numbers in the thousands) an equal shot. They make their decisions based solely on the words on the page, and not who you know or who you've bought dinner for (read: bribed) that week. I know this, because they've given me a shot, and these people don't know me from Eve. (Read: In Chicago, it's about who you know, while in NYC, it's about WHAT you know.)

I could go on and on about the differences between Chicago and NYC all night, but I won't. I need to get back to daydreaming.

Peace.

New website

2010-05-07T22:29:00.002-06:00

After literally months of procrastinating, I have finally updated my new professional website at www.jillelainehughes.com. Now I'll just have to dig up my old Tripod login and password so I can delete the ancient (circa 2001) free do-it-yourself site I've kept on that server for years. (I figured since I'm now a full-time freelancer, it was high time to bite the bullet and spend the money on a real professional site).

Anyhoo, check it out. Note I'm finally using my personal site to promote my professional/corporate writing and editing for the first time ever. (Hint: I need more clients).

Peace.

The Irish Psyche

2010-05-03T19:14:00.005-06:00

Edited to add: In response to some very bigoted and pigheaded British comments I've received on this post (now deleted) I hereby state the following. Being ethnically Irish does not necessarily imply that I support or condone the IRA or any of its actions. And since both sides of my Irish family have lived in the USA for over 200 years, I can state unequivocally that we have absolutely nothing to do with the IRA, and never will. And also for the record, I have spent quite a lot of time in Britain, and even have relatives who live there who are also British citizens, and one of my book editors is British. I like spending time in the UK, but I also despise the history of genocide perpetrated against the Irish by the British people, and I'm not afraid to say so. Any further comments pertaining to the IRA will be deleted.

"This is one race of people for whom psychoanalysis is of no use whatsoever."
-------Sigmund Freud (about the Irish).

Yeah, as someone who's about 90% Irish, I will say that this is definitely true.

I'm Irish on both sides of my family. Dad's family is working-class Irish-Catholic ("Black Irish," from Counties Derry and Donegal in Northern Ireland, no less, though they've been in this country for almost 200 years) and Mom's family is backwoods Appalachian "Scots-Irish" (otherwise known as Irish Protestants; in Ireland they're scathingly called "Orangemen" after their backing of William of Orange for the throne of England four hundred-odd years ago). "Black Irish" Catholics and Scots-Irish Protestants are separately two of the most stubborn, explosive, moody, bad-tempered and hardassed ethnic groups out there. Mix them together, and you get---well, me. So, you've been warned.

Here's a basic primer for dealing with a wild Irishwoman like me.

1) Don't ever lie to me. Seriously. Don't. Don't even do it out of politeness to save my feelings. Nothing ever infuriates me faster than catching someone in a lie, no matter how trivial. I'll respect you a lot more if you can always tell the truth, even when it hurts. (And I will always catch you in a lie sooner or later, and when I do, I'll be pissed).

2) Be a straight shooter. Don't play passive-aggressive mind games with me. The Irish in me does not like that one bit. Put all your cards on the table, don't hide anything behind your back. And most of all, don't say/do one thing and mean another, and then expect me to somehow be able to read your mind (and then complain about why I didn't get your hidden meaning somewhere down the road). Back when I was single I broke up with a lot of boyfriends over this very issue, and it's still something I have a lot of trouble with. Deal with me straight, or don't deal with me at all. (This would be a big reason why the Japanese and the Irish do not tend to get along. The same goes for the Irish and the British. 'Nuff said).

3) If you are a phony, I will tell you so. (And I'll tell everyone else, too.) My favorite fairy tale is "The Emperor's New Clothes." If you're walking around naked---literally or figuratively---you can be sure I'll be the first person to point it out.

4) Don't ever assume that I give a shit what you think. We Irish have based our very survival on thumbing our noses at all the people in power for hundreds of years now, so don't assume I'm going to change anything about myself or what I do just because somebody doesn't like it. And if you're powerful or important (or think that you are), that goes double.

5) Get to the heart of the matter. Whether it's relationships, art, or politics, the Irish in me wants your heart. All of it. If you aren't passionate about everything you do, you're wasting your own time and mine, too.

6) Have integrity. Be fair, be just, be compassionate when it counts, and don't tolerate evil, cruelty, bigotry, or general bullshit. And don't be a bully, either. We Irish hate bullies. (See our centuries of fighting the British for more information on that one.) If you are a bully, we will stand up to you, get in your face, and show the world just how much of a douchebag you are until you back down. And we don't give up easily, either. (See our centuries of fighting the British for that one, too).

7) Always have good beer and music available. I think that one's pretty much self-explanatory. (But if you need any clues, Guinness, U2, and the Chieftains are a good start.)

8) Oh and by the way, we Irish have most of the good writers. Joyce. Beckett. Wilde. Yeats. I could go on and on. . .

Peace.

Wild Suburban Kingdom

2010-04-26T21:06:00.003-06:00

If you've ever watched old cheesy sitcom reruns on Nick at Nite or TV Land, you've seen a version of this marital conversation a million times:

Wife: Honey, please mow the lawn.
Hubby: I mowed it two weeks ago.
Wife: The grass is a foot high. We're getting complaint letters from city hall.
Hubby: I can't mow it now. The ground is too wet.
Wife: It hasn't rained in two weeks.
Hubby: I can't mow it now. The game is on.
Wife: Football season is over.
Hubby: Baseball season just started.
Wife: Fine, I'll just do it then.
Hubby: No! You have to wait until dusk/morning/afternoon/when mosquito season ends/whatever.

And on and on, ad nauseum. All marriages have their battles, but the big battle in my house is yard work. As in, I am the only woman on the block who gets stuck doing most of it. And that's because a) my husband grew up in Hong Kong, which has more concrete per square foot than Manhattan and therefore he does not know a lawnmower from a shovel; b) my husband is an uber-tightwad, and thinks that the pennies it costs per week to maintain the yard is better spent on penny stocks; and c) he just plain doesn't want to do it.

Which leaves me, the corn-fed, backyard-loving Midwesterner of the couple, stuck doing almost all of it. Which I don't necessarily mind, but between the two-year-old and the full-time writing job, I don't exactly have the time. I can barely keep up with the gardening and the housework as it is. And our neighborhood has very high standards for lawn care (most of our six-figure-earning neighbors employ professional landscape companies to keep their lawns and gardens looking pristine with twice-weekly treatments by muscle-bound crews of eight laborers). Meanwhile, our one-and-a-half-income lawn looks like something out of Little House on the Suburban Prairie.

What my husband doesn't seem to understand is there are consequences when our lawns turns fallow. Like our neighbors getting pissed off, for one. Like our property values going down, for another. Not to mention the fact that if our grass gets longer than say, about five inches, the place turns into fucking Wild Kingdom. Last week I finally convinced hubby to mow the grass when we found a greasy pile of feathers that had once been a large bird (torn to shreds by a red-tail hawk that had taken up residence in our overgrown yard) out by our back deck. Today as I nagged my hubby yet again that the lawn needed to be mowed, I pointed out not only the pile of coyote poop by the air conditioning unit, but also the scattering of broken robin's eggs and half-eaten squirrel carcass in our front yard (more evidence of that pesky red-tailed hawk). Hubby is taking the day off tomorrow, and I just might have won this round. That maggot-ridden squirrel next to the driveway probably sealed the deal.

So next time you need to get your spouse to do something around the house, just rustle up some roadkill and leave it in the front yard. Should do the trick.

Peace.

How lovely to be a woman (not)

2010-04-24T20:39:00.002-06:00

You know, I've always been proud to be female. I've been an outspoken feminist since girlhood (and I've put my money where my mouth is, doing everything from producing feminist theater to writing for feminist magazines to writing woman-positive erotica aimed at female audiences). I endured 30 excruciating hours of unmedicated labor when I had my son, only breaking down and accepting drugs when my life literally depended on it. And I've always stood up to sexism whenever and wherever possible, though not always successfully (like when I was unceremoniously forced out of my job simply for having a baby).

But on the other hand, I haven't always enjoyed the company of women much, or particularly enjoyed all that goes with being female. For example, I've always had more guy friends than girlfriends---going all the way back to elementary school. (I have always hated the gossipy, passive-aggressive, and overly judgmental behavior that often goes on among women. I prefer the straight-talking, no-bullshit company of men instead.) Whenever I go to a party, you'll usually find me sitting at a table with a bunch of guys at the end of the night, talking business and politics. Unlike most women who tend to run in packs, I have always been pretty solitary, with a very small and select (though tight-knit) group of female friends, most of whom are like me in this same regard.

One thing I'm very outspoken about, though, is I've always thought women are tougher than men----physically and emotionally. We have a much higher tolerance for pain, we have more endurance (marathoners versus sprinters----we're biologically programmed this way thanks to being made for pregnancy and childbirth), and we are better at understanding and managing our emotions. (Note to men: I don't think that men who never cry and "act tough" actually ARE tough----there's a big difference between looking it and being it). And it's a damn good thing too, because we ladies have to deal with a lot of crazy shit when it comes to how our bodies work.

Men pretty much have the same hormonal dish served to them every single day of their adult lives. Women, on the other hand, ride a different roller coaster every single day----and that's when everything is working the way it should. Women's bodies are frighteningly complex, and difficult to deal with even when things are working properly (guys, if you've ever lived with a woman of childbearing age, you know exactly what I'm talking about).

If that weren't bad enough, when something goes wrong with our bodies, it REALLY goes wrong. As in, massive blood loss and anemia and dizziness/fainting/collapse/fatigue. Not to mention pain. (Not the pain of childbirth, mind you, which is in a category by itself---but still very unpleasant). This week my body decided to totally fuck itself up, to the point that I had to see a specialist, have a battery of very invasive tests (and there are more to come), nearly need a blood transfusion, and spend days in bed when there are a multitude of things I'd rather be doing----like writing my novel and taking care of my kid. And all because some hormone or other in my body isn't being secreted at the proper level. (And there's a lot more detail I could go into here, but I won't because it's just gross.)

Damn it, sometimes I just wish all I had to worry about was whether to wear boxers or briefs. Men, you guys just don't know how lucky you have it.

Peace.

If I can make it there, I'll make it anywhere. . .

2010-04-20T21:30:00.004-06:00

I just finished sending out a round of play submissions. I don't do it as often as I used to---but then again, since the recession hit, there just aren't as many submission opportunities for new plays anymore. Many theaters have either stopped producing new plays in favor of the old standbys---or have gone out of business entirely. Plus I'm also being a lot more targeted about where I send my work. I'm not bothering to send my stuff to all the piddly little community theaters in Timbuktu anymore. (I'm not even sending my work to small professional theatres in big cities much, either.)

No, I figure after more than 15 years in the professional playwriting business, after racking up publication credits that include being anthologized multiple times alongside Pulitzer winners, and building up a production resume three miles long, it's high time I focused my attention only on the Big Boys. As in, New York City. And not just anybody in New York City, either. The Big Kahunas. The theaters that have a tendency to rack up Pulitzer Prizes and Tonys for the new plays they produce. Yeah. Those Big Kahunas.

And believe it or not, I am doing pretty well at this strategy. In the past two months, I've drawn the attention of some pretty major NYC theaters----including The Public Theater and MCC Theater, both of which have multiple Pulitzer Prize-winning plays in their production histories. Not to mention some other very respected smaller theaters in both NYC and Los Angeles. These people are very interested in me. Even if they aren't producing me right now, they have made it very clear that they like my work and want to see more of it. Not too shabby for somebody that doesn't even have a dramatic rights agent (which have gotten just about as rare as the Dodo these days). After years of banging my head against the wall in this kooky theater business, I think I just might have reached a turning point.

Over the past couple of years, I have come to two major realizations when it comes to my playwriting career. Number one, I will never have any kind of playwriting career in my hometown of Chicago. All the production doors here are closed to me, mostly for stupid political reasons. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. As the recent controversy surrounding this year's Pulitzer Prize for Drama illustrates all too painfully, the center of the American theater universe always has been (and always will be) New York City. People in Chicago like to brag about how this town is supposedly the center of the theater universe (Chris Jones of the Tribune especially), but from a playwright's perspective, that just isn't true. New York is still the most important place to have your work premiered and produced. Period. If you impress New Yorkers, you impress the world. Chicago really is still the "second" city. (Or rather, the third).

And I've had very good luck getting my work produced in New York----without ever meeting with (or schmoozing with, or sucking up to) the people that have produced me there. The NYC theaters that have produced me and/or taken an interest in my work don't know me from Eve. They just happened to read a script that had my name on it, liked it, and gave me a call. A novel concept when you compare it to the usual process for getting producers to notice you in Chicago----i.e., go to parties, go to fundraisers, schmooze directors in bars and buy them drinks, donate large sums of money to the theatres/playwrights' orgs, etc. (I think this is proof of how what is totally fucked up about Chicago politics affects how just about everything else in this town runs itself, and that includes theater.)

Here's the other thing that I've come to realize. My father gave me a piece of advice some years ago that I didn't take to heart at the time. (My father and I are very different people, especially when it comes to business and politics.) When I was having a hard time dealing with an asshole boss and co-worker at a former day job, my dad's advice was, "Don't waste time or energy on people who don't matter."

Of course, Compassionate Humanist Me was horrified at this advice. (I believe that all people matter, after all.) But I missed Dad's point at the time. That point being, some people just aren't worth trying to please. Some people just aren't important when it comes to certain things like career development. Far better to just walk away from those people and focus on the people that do matter to you, and not worry about it.

Well, I've finally done that, and it's working. Thanks Dad.

Willpower, Part Deux

2010-04-19T11:28:00.002-06:00

I still have a lot of venting to do about lazy "aspiring" writers that I didn't cover in my last post, so I'm picking up right where I left off.

About once or twice a year, I get a random email out of the blue from a "friend" I usually haven't seen or spoken to in years. These "friends" inevitably get in touch with me only when they want something. Usually, they email me asking for writing advice, because they've decided to write the Great American Novel. (Not only that, they ask if I can hook them up with my agents and/or publisher for the Great American Novel that they haven't even written yet----annoying and arrogant to say the least.)

I'm always happy to give advice when people ask for it (though I'm not a fan of either giving or receiving unsolicited advice). But when I do give advice, I speak frankly, and sometimes rather harshly, because when it comes to the publishing business I don't think it does anybody any good to sugarcoat things.

Whenever someone emails or calls me saying that they plan to write the Great American Novel, they usually also talk at length about how they plan to write said novel. I've heard all kinds of things about their plans, which have included everything from taking vacations to the exotic places where their novels will supposedly be set, to signing up for a bunch of expensive writing classes, to trying to figure out how much time they should spend writing "character studies" and "plot analyses" (which are useless wastes of time dreamed up by unpublished creative writing teachers, but I digress).

To which I reply, "Uh-huh. But when are you actually going to WRITE the novel?"

At this, I usually get a response that goes something like---"Well, umm, but----uhhhhh----"

This is where my usual advice kicks in. I sum it up basically as follows:

1) If you want to write a novel, you have to actually WRITE. Sitting around bullshitting about it or engaging in useless (and often expensive) procrastination activities such as overpriced "creative writing" classes and "character studies" do nothing for your actual novel. The only thing you need to start writing your manuscript is a basic outline, which you can usually put together in one page or less in about an hour. (And if you write organically like I do, you don't even need to do that. Just sit down at your keyboard and begin.)

2) Write every day. Novels are indeed written one page at a time, but unless you want to spend the rest of your life writing this book, you need to write-----at absolute bare minimum----a page a day. (That's about 250 words). Most serious writers write far more than this. When I'm in full swing of writing a novel, I average about 1500 words a day (that's about 7 pages). Sometimes more, sometimes less---but it's a pretty consistent average. If you write a page a day, it will take you a year to finish the first draft of a 350-page novel. If you write more per day, it will take less time, if you write less, it will take longer (or you won't finish it at all).

3) Be disciplined. Your book isn't going to write itself, and writing is hard work that takes time and commitment. Part of being a novelist is being willing to give up some of your other favorite pastimes (in fact, most of them) in favor of writing. I don't know how many times I've heard "aspiring" writers say things like, "well, I really want to write a novel, but it's the middle of Gilmore Girls/Dancing With The Stars/LOST/whatever season and I don't want to miss any episodes." Yeah, well, boo fucking hoo. If you really want to write that novel, you will make the time to do it. Otherwise, you don't actually want to do it at all.

4) Read. This is another one I get a lot of complaints about. When I tell aspiring novelists that in order to be good writers, they first must also read other good (i.e., published) writers, I often get a shrug and an eye-roll. "But I don't have TIME to read," people often whine. Either that, or they make up some lame excuse like "But if I read other writers, it will detract from my own voice." To which I reply, "If you don't read, you won't even know what 'voice' is in the first place."

5) Check your ego at the door. Believe it or not, the mere feat of finishing a novel manuscript----and an impressive feat it is----does not make you at all special. There are thousands upon thousands of other aspiring novelists out there who have done the exact same thing, and chances are, the vast majority of them will never be published----and neither will you. Be humble and learn to accept defeat early and often. Be prepared to write several complete novel manuscripts before getting even one of them published. There's an old saying in this business---"a professional writer is just an amateur who didn't quit."

6) Don't ever expect to make any money. For all those starry-eyed aspiring writers out there who think writing the Great American Novel will lead to easy riches, I have news for you. 99% of completed novel manuscripts will never see the light of commercial publication. Of the 1% that do see commerical publication, the majority will not earn out their very modest (i.e., $5,000 or less) advances. Of the tiny percentage of published books that sell more than 5,000 copies, an even tiner percentage end up on the New York Times bestseller list----and that doesn't necessarily mean that those books are making millions, either. If you aspire to be the next Stephen King or J.K. Rowling, good for you----but you have a better chance of being struck by lightning or being elected to the U.S. Senate.

After I hand out this advice, 99% of the people who came to me seeking help just stare at me gape-mouthed. They usually never even write a single page, let alone complete a manuscript.

But occasionally I do run into aspiring writers who do manage to finish writing their books, then manage to land an agent and get a book deal. And most of the time, these people did it entirely on their own, and didn't need my advice to begin with.

Peace.

Willpower

2010-04-13T19:46:00.003-06:00

One of my writer friends shared this blog entry by literary agent Nathan Bransford with me today. In it, Bransford asserts that a writer's greatest asset isn't talent, or skill, or even a good literary agent. It's willpower. Writers that succeed at any level, whether it's completing a full-length manuscript, getting an agent, getting published, or becoming super-successful bestselling authors, have one thing in common----writing isn't a do-it-when-you-feel-like-it hobby to them. It's work. Work that they've committed to at a deep level, work that they treat like a full-time job (even if they already have one doing something else). Writers work harder, and longer, (and for less money, natch) than just about anybody.

Every time I go to a cocktail party, or a wedding reception, or a children's play date, people ask me what I do for a living. I tell them I'm a writer. They usually raise their eyebrows at me and say, "No, really. What do you do?"

To which I reply, "I'm a writer. It's what I do for money. It's my job."

I then go on to explain that I write journalism pieces for magazines and newspapers. And I do healthcare writing for universities and healthcare companies. And I'm a playwright (produced AND published, thank you). And I'm a novelist (published, too). I even do some freelance editing on the side from time to time.

I'm always amused by some of the replies I get when I tell people what I do. Like most freelance writers, I explain that I'm self-employed, earning a modest living that I've cobbled together writing for multiple markets. I've written several books, and even have had some of them (a lot of them, actually) published. Sometimes I get these corny, naive replies like, "But doesn't everybody get their books published after they write them?"

Um, no. (I always have to roll my eyes at that one.) Only about 5% of completed novel manuscripts actually see commercial publication. The numbers are slightly higher for nonfiction, but not by much. And that doesn't even include all of the unfinished manuscripts floating around out there.

I also get really annoyed with all the people who think just because I've had a few novels published, I must be as rich as Stephen King. (Um, no.) According to the Author's Guild (which by the way, sets strict publication criteria for its members before admitting them), the average annual income of the American freelance writer is $10,000. Yeah. As in, below the federal poverty line.

But the people who annoy me the most are the people who say, "You know, I've always wanted to be a writer, but---", or "You know, I have this great idea for a book, but I just don't have time to write," or my personal favorite, "You know, I really think I should write my life story, but I'm not really a writer, so will you write it for me? And then after you write it, will you let me put my own name on it and also let me keep all the $$ it makes when it hits the New York Times bestseller list?" (You'd be surprised how often I've heard that one. And not from celebrities offering big ghostwriting bucks, either.)

I'm also annoyed by people I like to call halfassed writers. These are people who have actually managed to finish writing the first draft of a manuscript or two, but then they don't have the balls to sit down and do the hard work of revisions, researching the publication markets, querying agents and publishers, etc. These are people who will leave their first drafts sitting in drawers for years, lamenting why no one will give them a book deal (or a play production, or a newspaper contract, whatever). Any working professional writer will tell you that the actual writing is only about 20% of the equation. The other 80% is hustling yourself and your work to the businesspeople (publishers, producers, etc) who will pay you for it. And that part of the biz is just brutal.

But here's the thing I hate the most---"writers block." I really hate it when the reason people give for not writing is "writers' block." I have one friend in particular who is a halfassed member of a couple writers' groups I participate in. For the past two years, this person has been flaking out of attending our meetings because he has supposedly had writers' block for that entire time.

People, THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS WRITERS' BLOCK. Do you know what writers' block really is? It's called being lazy.

As Bransford says in his blog post, real writers are the people who force themselves to write even when they don't want to. Real writers write even when there are eight hundred other things they'd rather be doing instead. Real writers sit down at the computer (or typewriter, or longhand journal, whatever) and write laundry lists if nothing else will come out.

In other words, real writers have willpower. Lots of it.

Peace.

We Give A Damn Contest Winner

2010-04-11T08:43:00.002-06:00

Congrats to Saranna deWylde for her wonderful entry to the We Give A Damn contest. She'll be receiving a care package of romance novels from my personal collection. Thanks to everyone who entered! (Saranna, I'll be in touch with you to get you your prize.)

I do plan on doing some more of these contests in the future, so keep your eyes here for further info.

Peace.

Web 3.0

2010-04-06T15:21:00.005-06:00

(Just a reminder, my We Give A Damn writing contest is still open; I don't have any entries yet, but I'd still really like to see some. And I do have several prizes to give away).

Here in 2010, we're now in what I like to call Web 3.0. The Web 1.0 era took up the entire second half of the 90s and lasted up until about 2005 or so, upon the launch of the first "smart phones" and the early social-media sites like Myspace (oh, so passe now). Suddenly the World Wide Web unleashed itself from desktop computers and laptops and made its way out and about onto streets, buses, airports, and just about everywhere else. People stopped buying CDs and became dependent on their iPods instead (except me, of course). Then in the past couple of years, with the launch of the iPhone, the Kindle and other digital readers (for ebooks), and sites like Twitter and Facebook, it has become de rigeur for us to do literally everything online, no matter where we are-----read books, listen to music, talk, chat, journal, keep up on the news, follow the stock market, ad nauseum. Via Facebook and Twitter, we constantly update everyone we know (and in my case, even sometimes thousands of people we don't know) of virtually every thought that enters our heads. Social media has revolutionized everything from popular music to book sales to politics. (Most political analysts agree that Obama won the 2008 election in part because he understood these new electronic media better than his stodgy Baby Boomer competition).

With the launch of Apple's iPad, we're now into Web 3.0, only a couple of years after Web 2.0 (which took close to 15 years to happen, natch). The ever-shortening timeslots between updates just illustrate the exponential power of written communications technology to upend societal norms. What's going on now hasn't really happened on this scale since Gutenberg invented the printing press circa 1400. What's next on the horizon? Who knows?

But here's something I do know. With the advancement of all of this rapid-fire technology, there is one thing we're definitely losing track of. And that's common decency and manners. When you put a flatscreen monitor or an iPhone touchscreen between yourself and whoever is on the other end of the conversation, it's easy to just forget all rules of common courtesy and act like a complete asshat. We saw this on a smaller scale with the Internet and it's now-quaint chat rooms and message boards, but in the age of Facebook it's getting even worse.

I'm a pretty thick-skinned person in general (and I'm a straight-talking, bogtrotting Irish pottymouth sometimes, too), but I also believe in good old-fashioned respect and manners. And yet, in addition to the usual mix of anonymous online-asshat behavior I've come to expect over the years, I've also seen some people I have known and respected for years blow atrocious, obnoxious shit out of their asses (I mean, mouths) on Facebook lately.

To be fair, I'll admit that I'm just as guilty of this as anybody else. When you're typing alone in your attic, sending your words out into the ether, it's easy to forget that there are real people out there reading it. And not just anybody. People you actually know, and occasionally even see and socialize with in person. (Wait, does anybody actually DO that anymore?) Sometimes I wonder.

Somebody recently told me that the way people behave on Facebook is actually the way they are deep down. Maybe that's true, maybe it isn't. But if it is, it can be both a good thing (in terms of fostering creativity and communication along with mutual understanding across cultures), or a bad thing (i.e., people acting like asshats).

I'm a casual member of a historical recreation society that specializes in the Middle Ages. Every couple of months, I decamp from my busy, overworked suburban-mom life, disconnect myself from the Internet and Facebook and my cell phone, dress up in a costume, and pretend to be someone from the 16th century. It's fun and it's educational. But most of all, it gives me a chance to unplug from this world that is moving entirely too fast, and to get back in touch with what it means to have real human communication of the kind that just doesn't exist anymore. Like handwritten letters on vellum, long slow conversations over homebrewed beer somebody spent months making in his cellar, and the kind of ceremonial politeness and courtesy that is basically extinct now.

I write ebooks for a living, so my very existence is dependent on Web 3.0. But I still think there can be way too much of a good thing sometimes.

Peace.

We Give A Damn Writing Contest

2010-04-02T20:28:00.003-06:00

Well, my Spring Has Sprung writing contest was a success, and I still have a lot of stuff I need to give away, so I've come up with another writing contest.

In honor of the We Give A Damn campaign for GLBT equality, I'm putting a call out for 1-paragraph writing entries relating in some way to GLBT (that's gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered) equality). You do not need to be GLBT to write an entry, because chances are, you know (and love) at least one GLBT person, or has at least had someone from the GLBT community make an impact on your life. Write a 1-paragraph entry around this theme, and submit it as a blog comment no later than April 10. I'll be giving away more free books (and maybe some other goodies) as prizes. Make sure you include your name (a pen name is fine) and an email address so I can get in touch with you if you win.

Below is a paragraph of my own that you can use as an example (though you're by no means limited to something like this.)

"I'm straight, but I have always been a big supporter of GLBT rights and community, even before it was popular. One time about fifteen years ago, right after college, I was running the Chicago's Proud to Run 5K race, which is sponsored in part by the Howard Brown Health Center, a Chicago-based nonprofit that provides low-cost healthcare to the GLBT community. (This race is traditionally held in Chicago on the day before the annual Gay Pride Parade.) One part of participating in the Proud to Run race is taking sponsorship dollars to support local AIDS charities. I posted a little thing about it on the bulletin board at work and was surprised when someone I had never spoken to before came and gave me a large donation. She then proceeded to flirt with me a bit. That's when I figured out she batted for the other team. (She was not too discreetly hitting on me, and though I was flattered, I politely turned her down.) But privately I admired her a lot for her guts, since we were both working for a very buttoned-down, very Republican, very anti-gay investment bank. Nobody at work knew about her lifestyle and I kept quiet about it until I left the company. She still works there to this day and as far as I know, is still closeted, because she could lose her job if she came out. The fact she has to hide who she is to stay employed is wrong, and it's one reason I continue to speak out as a straight person who supports GLBT rights."

----Jill Elaine Hughes

Spring Has Sprung Contest Winners!

2010-04-01T08:55:00.000-06:00

Hey everyone! I'm pleased to announce the contest winners for the Spring Has Sprung contest---one for each of my blogs:

Jill Elaine Hughes, The Blog Winner: Ryan Field

Jamaica Layne, The Blog Winner: Stacey

Ryan and Stacey will win care packages of romance novels from my own personal collection! Congrats!

Also, HONORABLE MENTION goes out to all entrants. Everyone who entered the contest will receive a FREE Gift Card to Ravenous Romance!

I will get in touch with everyone today to get your snail-mailing addresses. Or to save time, just email it to jamaicalayne@yahoo.com.

Peace.

Spring Has Sprung Contest!

2010-03-23T15:52:00.003-06:00

Hey everybody!

Spring is here, the snow is melting, the fog is lifting, and even the economy is getting better! And health reform just passed (yay!) so things are certainly shaping up to be a good year!

In celebration of Spring, I'm going to have a contest, which I'm also cross posting on my Jamaica Layne blog. I'm offering a gift basket of paperback romance novels (not books I've written, just some paperbacks from my own personal collection that I'm downsizing) to the winners.

To enter:
Using the "Post a Comment" function on my blog, submit a 1-paragraph long piece written on the topic of Spring and Romance. Those are the only criteria----so run with it. And have fun.

My blogs do not allow anonymous comments, so you'll need to identify yourself (a pen name is OK.) Make sure you include an email address at minimum, so I can get in touch with you in case you win. I'll post the top two winning entries (one from each blog) and both winners will get a nice basket of free books and other goodies.

Looking forward to reading your submissions!

Peace.

Edited to add: Submit your entry (via blog comment) no later than March 31. And spread the word!

Hubby Tales

2010-03-21T08:40:00.002-06:00

I'm married to an uber-practical, super-frugal Chinese immigrant. There's a reason why the Chinese own more than 60% of the US national debt----these people are the most tight-fisted people on Earth. And they have no use for anything that doesn't generate money. A LOT of money.

My husband has been very suspicious of my writing career from the start. In his view, if you aren't making as much money as Stephen King from writing, it's a waste of time. Far better to get into the banking, widget, or restaurant business instead.

And yet, he's tolerated my writing aspirations for over seven years of marriage now. As recently as two months ago, he was telling me to give it up, that it was a waste of time, energy, and talent, that I'd never make a real living at it, etc., etc. But when my lastest book became a big hit (by ebook standards, anyway), he had a change of heart.

"You've got to stick with this," he said. "You've tapped into a niche market. You need to exploit that. You might not make a whole lot of money per book, but you can make it up on volume. So get busy."

Spoken like a true Chinese businessman.

Peace.

Writing and Money

2010-03-18T11:30:00.002-06:00

When I was working full-time as a writer/editor in the corporate world, I spent several years in the trenches, working long hours for relatively low pay. But after about a decade or so, I built on that experience, as well as my several years' of doing freelance journalism and creative writing for publication on the side, I was able to pull down impressive salaries (by staff writer standards, anyway). By the time I was pregnant with my first child, I was earning nearly $75,000 a year. Not super-great money when you live in an expensive city like Chicago and also still have huge student loans from the University of Chicago, but still pretty damn good.

Of course, my employer at the time wasn't too keen on working mothers, so I basically got forced out of my position after my son was born. I took a couple years off, just doing some small writing projects, but by the time my son was two, I was back working about 25 hours a week or so as a freelance writer. I did creative writing (novels, mostly) for publication, as well as freelance technical and medical writing for corporate clients. With a huge recession and massive professional-writer unemployment driving sales and wages down, the money was very bad, and the projects few and far between---at first. But now after plugging away at it for about a year and a half, I'm finally seeing some real financial success. My freelance client base is growing, and paying me rather well. And my book sales are up---way up, in fact---and the resulting royalty checks are rising steadily, too.

According to the Authors Guild (of which I am a member; not everyone is qualified to join, mind you), the average professional working published book author and/or freelance journalist in the U.S. earns $10,000 a year. Not exactly a real living. It goes without saying that most authors and freelance journalists have to keep their day jobs. Since my full-time "day job" is raising a two-year-old, I'm a part-timer too, but it looks like this year at least, I'll be well above the Authors Guild national average for writing earnings. And all the writing that has earned me that $$ so far is published, and paid---either as hourly for-hire work or in advances/royalties.

So it may not be equivalent to what I earned in the corporate world---yet. But it's a goal I'm definitely working toward.

I'll close with a favorite quote from one of my favorite authors:
"If you wrote something for which someone sent you a check, if you cashed the check and it didn't bounce, and if you then paid the light bill with the money, I consider you talented." ----Stephen King, in his memoir On Writing

Peace.

THE SHUNNED is here!

2010-03-10T08:39:00.003-06:00

My latest novel, (written as "Jay Hughes") is here----THE SHUNNED.

It's essentially a gay version of WITNESS, only with a happy ending.

Gay. Amish. Romance.

Buy your copy today at http://www.ravenousromance.com/

Jamaica Layne fans, meet Jay Hughes!

2010-02-24T20:59:00.003-06:00

Dear Jamaica Layne Fans:

I'd like to introduce all of you to my long-lost gay cousin, Jay Hughes. Jay is the author of the forthcoming novel THE SHUNNED, coming soon from Ravenous Romance. THE SHUNNED is best described as "the gay version of WITNESS." That's right.

Gay. Amish. Romance.

THE SHUNNED releases very soon at Ravenous Romance. (release date TBA). Meanwhile, drop by Jay's site to learn more about him.

Gay. Amish. Romance.

(I love saying that.)

Peace.

Rave Review for THE MERCENARY BRIDE

2010-02-23T08:49:00.002-06:00

Yesterday I was having the day from hell. But just before I went to bed I got some good news. There's nothing like a great review of your latest book to pick a romance author up when you're having a bad day.

Literary Nymphs just gave my book THE MERCENARY BRIDE the best review I've received in my entire writing career, saying "THE MERCENARY BRIDE is one of the most enchanting, beautifully written romances I’ve ever read," giving it 5 Nymphs and also naming it a Golden Blush Recommended Read, a rare accolade on that site. You can read the review here.

I have some more exciting news to report. I recently "met" my long-lost cousin, Jay Hughes, who has just written a gay romance novel set among the Amish. That's right. Gay. Amish. Romance. Seriously. Details to come.

Peace.

A sign of the times. . .

2010-02-12T10:22:00.002-06:00

Yesterday I got a call out of the blue from Chicago Dramatists (you know, the "elite" Chicago playwrights organization that has put its residency program up for sale for the bargain price of $400 a pop---the very same group that basically told me I had no writing talent and to go the hell away). These are not my favorite people, mind you. When I saw their number flash across my caller ID, I was tempted not to answer. But I finally did, just to see what the hell they wanted.

On the other end of the phone was some flunkie unpaid intern, asking me if I wanted to update my headshot and resume in their actor database.

At this, I had to laugh. Whatever headshot and resume they have in their database has to be from at least 10 years ago. I haven't acted in non-musical theater in years, and I only do musical theatre very, very rarely (like, once every 18 months or so, and even then it's usually as a favor to someone). I gave up acting years ago to focus exclusively on my writing.

It seems that as far as Chicago Dramatists is concerned, I'm not a playwright at all. I'm just some washed-up character actress with a tattered old headshot and resume, circa 1999. Sigh.

Needless to say, I politely told the flunkie unpaid intern that they could toss that old headshot in the trash and take me out of their database. And hung up.

Peace.

Disillusioned

2010-01-29T23:30:00.000-06:00

So I haven't been blogging much. I really haven't felt like it. I've become too disillusioned with writing and publishing lately to feel much like doing any "extra" writing that I'm not getting paid to do. (And the writing I actually do get paid for pays so little and is so menial and tedious that it's draining the life out of me).

This week I'm reminded of the line spoken by William Holden, portraying struggling screenwriter Joe Gillis in Sunset Boulevard----the scene at the beginning of the movie where he's trying desperately to sell a script to Paramount Studios.

The studio boss' secretary says, "You're Joe Gillis? Hey, I thought you had talent."

To which Joe replies, "That was last week. This week I'm trying to make a living."

I'd really like to make a living, too. A real one.

I hear they have some openings right now at Wal-Mart.

Peace.

It's All B.S. Until You Sign On The Dotted Line. . .

2010-01-29T18:55:00.005-06:00

Remember the old Richard Marx song from the 80s called "Don't Mean Nuthin'?" As in, "It Don't Mean Nuthin' Until You Sign On The Dotted Line?" It was Marx's send up of the B.S. of record-company dealmaking. The same applies to the publishing industry and professional writing in general, especially these days.

Here's a hypothetical situation:

You're a working, published midlist author with literary agent representation. Your agent called yesterday, and said she had a nice book deal inked for you. It was a work-for-hire type deal, though a decent one. You went over the details with your agent, and it seemed like a good opportunity that fit your skills and career path, so you agreed to do it. She promised to take care of the paperwork and get the ball rolling right away. You hang up and think you're a few grand richer, and are getting the new year off to a good start.

Then, this morning, this article runs in the L.A. Times about how freelance writers are seeing their incomes completely evaporate in the current recession as newspapers and magazines go belly-up, while the few outlets that are still publishing articles are paying one-tenth of their old (already miniscule) pay rate----if they pay at all. In today's Web 2.0 world, it seems the powers that be think that writers should either be content with just publication----for no pay at all----or even pay for the privilege of being published themselves. (i.e., vanity publishing)

Today, the supposedly done book deal your agent called you about yesterday has evaporated. When your agent asked for the publishing contract based on yesterday's agreed-upon negotiations, it doesn't come. Instead, the deal is revised to a tiny fraction of the agreed-upon price, along with the complete elimination of covered expenses (which now restricts the gig only to writers who live in a certain city---I'll let you guess which one). The dealmakers also indicate they are no longer looking for a "professional." So much for the old days of publishing, where deals are negotiated on good faith and a handshake.

The lesson is this: Publishing dealmakers have discovered that they can get books written a lot cheaper. As in, for free. As in, "why should we hire and pay a professional to do something when we can just post an ad on Craigslist and find a bazillion wannabe writers who will do a crap job for nothing?"

In the words of Godfather II: "This is the business we've chosen."

Don't ever become a writer. Seriously. Don't. Because these days, this is the kind of shit hand you will be dealt.

Peace.

The Decade That Was

2009-12-31T08:46:00.002-06:00

The 2000s started and ended with Democratic presidents. The two Republican administrations sandwiched in between started and ended with massive recessions that put me and others out of work.

Nobody really knows what to call the 2000s. It's not like the Nineties or the Eighties, and certainly not at all like the iconic Sixties (which were before my time. ) "The Zeroes" just doesn't seem to have the same ring to it.

I think I will remember the 2000s as the Decade of Unemployment. I spent most of it either out of work or looking for a job, or working a job I hated as a temporary means of survival until I found something better. (As a professional writer/editor by trade, I am accustomed to being the last person hired and the first person laid off, as well as one of the lowest paid----professional writers, especially female ones of childbearing age, are as disposable in the corporate world as used Kleenex). The one stable (and best-paying) position I had, as a health policy writer and analyst for a large nonprofit healthcare organization, I held down for a little over three years, only to be pushed out because I made the cardinal mistake of getting pregnant.

I also spent the better part of this decade pursuing my creative writing career, with mixed degrees of success. After ten years of plugging away, I got a couple of decent book deals (not living wage material, but publication and some money), two different literary agents (not at all easy to land, and I had to fire one of them), and scores of play productions, mostly in cities other than Chicago thanks to the totally fucked-up internal politics that control theater decisionmaking in this town (the Chicago theatre community is fucked up in the same way that Chicago politics is fucked up, but I digress.)

One thing I'm particularly proud of is the fact I've been included in the Applause Books' annual BEST AMERICAN SHORT PLAYS anthology for three consecutive years now. (In fact, to my knowledge, I'm the only playwright that has had pieces included all three of those years.) In those three anthologies (available at bookstores everywhere) I've shared pages with such theater luminaries (and Pulitzer and/or Tony winners) as Neil LaBute, David Ives, David Lindsay-Abaire, and John Guare. I'm the only Chicago playwright appearing in these anthologies, and my productions for the plays that are included were mostly in New York. You would think that with this kind of accolades, I would be making some real headway in my playwriting career, but you'd be wrong. The big theaters won't give me the time of day, I can't land a theatrical agent, and the main playwriting organization in my hometown has long ago written me off as an untalented whore. Brutal? Yes. Typical? Yes? Fair? No. I have no other explanation for it other than the old adage, "Life is not fair." And so, life goes on.

Last night I saw the wonderful film UP IN THE AIR, which was based on a novel that first appeared at the beginning of this decade. The main takeaway from this beautiful film is "Life is not fair." It gets the message across a lot more beautifully and poignantly than that, but it's still essentially the same message as the phrase we all heard from our mothers and fathers starting when we were five or six---you don't always get what you want, and there's often no good reason why. It's just life.

Maybe I'll call the 2000s The Unfairness Decade instead. That seems to fit, too. The Teens should be better. Maybe they'll be unruly and temperamental, yet fresh and beautiful, just like real teenagers are.

Peace.

As Seen On TV

2009-12-13T08:58:00.002-06:00

This year, it seems the hottest holiday gifts are the ones advertised on television in those "Call Now! Operators are Standing By!" commercials.

Like the Snuggie. And the Obama Chia Head, which apparently is being sold as a serious homage to our current President, and not a gag gift. And Bendaroos, which my six-year-old niece, who after she saw the commercial fifty-seven times on Cartoon Network, requested as the only thing she wanted for Christmas.

And in keeping with that, Ravenous Romance is pleased to announce that its Escape With Romance segment will be back on HSN this coming Friday, December 18. My books THE MERCENARY BRIDE and VITAL SIGNS, along with the books of other Ravenous authors, will be featured on this national TV spot on Friday, 12/18 at 8 am Eastern and 2 pm Eastern (7 am and 1 pm Central, an so on, this is LIVE TV). Check your local listings for the HSN channel in your area. There will be special holiday pricing, and guaranteed Christmas delivery. This was a great success when our books first appeared on HSN in October, and it looks like this will be a regular ongoing featured HSN product.

Get your Ravenous Romance books now! As Seen On TV!

Peace.

It was one year ago today. . .

2009-12-01T09:13:00.002-06:00

. . .that Ravenous Romance opened its doors. Many people in the romance community said that like so many erotica/romance epublishers before it, Ravenous Romance would never survive, let alone thrive. And there was good reason for those harsh judgments----many epublishers do not manage to stay open for a full year (indeed some, which shall remain nameless here, make a huge splash in the publishing media, then never even manage to open their doors for business in the first place.) After its first full year in business, Ravenous is going strong, and it staff and authors are raking in accomplishments and accolades, not to mention sales.

In the fall of 2008 I was invited to be published with a new startup epublisher whose staff had decades of experience in traditional publishing, and I jumped at the chance. Over the past year, I've written several novels and short stories for Ravenous, all of which has sold well, received great reviews, entertained readers, and put dollars in my pocket. And in less than a year, Ravenous managed to get my work (and that of several other RR authors) featured on national television, they have sold reprint rights on RR books to St. Martins Press, Alyson Books, Cleis Press, and others, RR books have been Top 10 bestsellers at AllRomanceEbooks.com, Audible.com, and Fictionwise.com, and there is even more exciting news to come. The editors and staff at Ravenous are wonderful, professional, and supportive. I look forward to working with them in 2010 and beyond!

In celebration of today's one-year anniversary, Ravenous is offering ALL its ebooks for only 99 cents each! It's Ravenous' way of saying thanks. Now is the time to stock up on all your favorite RR authors!

Peace.

Don't Know Thyself

2009-11-20T20:15:00.002-06:00

I have spent the past week sick in bed with pneumonia. (Thank you, H1N1, for the holiday cheer). And after a week of being bedridden, there is no end in sight. I've learned it can take up to 6 weeks to recover from this. If that's true, I'll be dead before I get better.

Whenever you're stuck at home in bed with nothing to do but sift through your own thoughts, things can get ugly. Especially when you're a neurotic, oversensitive, ego-fragile failed writer like me.

Over the past week, I have arrived at the following conclusions:

1) I am a bad mother. And a bad wife, and a bad cosmetics saleswoman, and a bad novelist, and a bad playwright. The reason I am not successful at any of these things is the same reason that I became sick. Namely----I am careless, I am lazy, I didn't wash my hands enough, I went out into the infected public too often, I didn't eat right, I drank too much Diet Coke and not enough orange juice, I didn't schmooze with the right people, I am not pretty or smart or good enough in general, and I'm now paying for it with both my lungs.

2) Daytime television sucks.

3) Codeine cough medicine causes hallucinations.

4) I hate the inside of my house so much I want to rip it apart.

5) The Bridges of Madison County still makes me bawl like a baby. (Must be the codeine)

6) Everything is my fault. Including the Israeli-Palestinian crisis. And Afghanistan too. Yup. My fault, all of it.

7) I need to get the hell out of here before I really lose it.

8) I need to get a real job.

Peace.

Hope

2009-11-12T19:00:00.003-06:00

Today I got a very uplifting email. It was from a very gifted young male actor who is based in Los Angeles. This actor contacted me some time ago requesting a copy of a play I wrote about five years ago called The Man Upstairs. It was a play I wrote based on a very difficult situation I was enduring in my home, a situation that brought a lot of racial prejudice, anti-immigration, and domestic violence issues into play, and I wrote the play to try to deal with some of those issues. I ended up showing the play to a fellow writer I respected, asking for his opinion. That writer in turn called me at my day job to tell me how much he liked the play, and also to tell me he was going to help me pull some strings to get it produced.

That writer, who also happened to be a resident playwright at Chicago Dramatists, helped me get a staged reading of the play there for the Saturday Series----something I'd never been able to do on my own in almost a decade of trying (I've been kicked to the proverbial curb as an untalented hack by that organization more than once, but that's material for another blog post). The reading attracted the attention of several movers and shakers in town (including the dramaturg at Steppenwolf and even playwright Keith Huff, whose play A STEADY RAIN is now running on Broadway, starring Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig----Keith later told me he admired The Man Upstairs greatly). The accolades the play got at that reading were huge, and a lot of people I really admired and respected told me that I had written something truly great. I thought that my playwriting career might finally go somewhere, with that play as the flagship.

Then. . .nothing. I sent the play out for production consideration, and nobody would touch it with a two-hundred-foot pole. Theatres said it was "too political", "potentially explosive," even "racist" (as someone who is in both an interracial marriage and is descended from a mixed-race grandfather, I find that label almost funny). I used the play to apply for residency at Chicago Dramatists (several times, in fact; the last time I not only got rejected, I was told in no uncertain terms to stop applying). After making the rounds to every theatre in Chicago and just about everywhere else, I finally gave up and stuck it in a drawer.

Then, that gifted, young, African-American actor (who also happens to be the son of immigrants) took an interest in the script as a possible vehicle for him to perform in. I won't give away too much because too much is up in the air, but this young actor could become very very big, very very soon. That was several months ago, and after so many disappointments, I had pretty much given up hope of ever hearing anything more about it. But this morning, I did hear something back. And it was very positive. And I will be hearing more next week.

It might be nothing. God knows I've had plenty of play productions (even book deals) fall through at the last second. But I won't give up hope. Because I really, really believe if somebody has the courage to produce that play, even with all its explosive, controversial content, it could really mean a lot to my career. And maybe, in a very small way, it could even mean a lot to the world.

Last year, President Obama taught me to never give up hope. And I won't. Not this time.

Peace.

Music and Memories

2009-11-09T22:18:00.004-06:00

Have you ever heard a song on the radio that you hadn't heard in a long time, and it triggered a long-forgotten (or rather, repressed) memory? That happened to me tonight on my drive home from a business meeting. It happened twice in ten minutes, in fact.

I switched to a radio station I don't usually listen to so I could skip over an annoying commercial. That radio station was doing a music respective of seldom-heard hits from the late 80s. I was a teenager during that period, and very into pop music. The first song the DJ played was Guns-n-Roses' "Sweet Child O' Mine," which I actually hear a lot on the radio these days, but for some reason hearing it tonight triggered a memory of a particular pair of acid-washed jeans I liked to wear in 1989, ones I had decorated with pseudo-anarchy symbols, peace signs, and other goofy teenage angst crap with ballpoint pens and Sharpie markers. That was the closest I got to rebellion as a 14-year-old, wearing graffiti-covered clothes. That, and hanging out with older kids who would pile 13 people into their crummy, beat-up Chevettes and go joyriding that way on the winding country roads surrounding the small Ohio town where I grew up. And for some other crazy reason I pictured the exact look, feel, and design of the cheap denim purse I carried around at the time, too. (also decorated with Magic Marker teenage grafitti).

Here's the other weird memory trigger. The techopop song "Rock Me Amadeus" (with the original German lyrics, not the later English version that became popular in the US in '85). Hearing this song momentarily made me think of the nights I spent in my bedroom listening for that song on the nightly Top 10 list on Cincinnati's Q102 FM station, but then my mind switched to another time and place entirely. I was reminded of the time in the late 90s that I spent in a dingy, smelly basement death-metal bar in Vienna, getting dumped by my Austrian boyfriend (who flew me all the way to Vienna for the sole purpose of dumping me in an Austrian death-metal bar). Austrian death-metal is a helluva long way from Falco (and 1999 is a long way from 1985), but for whatever reason, that was the memory the song triggered.

My debacle with the Austrian boyfriend was one for the record books, a textbook example of a stupid romantic relationship with the absolute worst possible person at the worst possible time, and a memory I don't usually care to revisit. But tonight, driving in the car, listening to Falco and remembering every detail of that smelly, filthy death-metal bar buried in an 18th-century Austrian cheese cellar, I finally realized one thing:

Vienna is a pretty damn nice place to get dumped.

Peace.

KNIGHT MOVES is half-price today only!

2009-11-06T10:03:00.001-06:00

My bestselling ebook KNIGHT MOVES is half-price at Ravenous Romance today only as part of 5-Star Friday (in honor of RR books that have received multiple 5-star reviews from critics). This bawdy satire is funny, filthy, and a wild ride. Check it out.

Jamaica Layne Interview and Chat

2009-11-03T21:54:00.000-06:00

I'm interviewed today (as Jamaica Layne) at Whipped Cream: http://tinyurl.com/yz3eovp

I'll also be chatting online on the Whipped Cream Yahoo group tomorrow (Wed. Nov 4) at Whipped Cream Yahoo group. (you have to join the group to chat):

best,
Jill/Jamaica

Royalties

2009-10-30T18:55:00.001-06:00

Got my third-quarter royalty statement today from my main epublisher. I'm pleased to report that most of my titles with them have now earned out their advances. Which is good, but still not a whole lot of money (actually, a tiny amount of money, but it shows continued sales growth for a relatively new epublisher, which is promising in the current environment). A couple of my books are doing way, way better than the others (and not at all the ones I expected to do so well), which goes to show that some types of books will sell better than others for reasons that nobody can really fathom, even if they're by the same author.

What was really great news was the numbers that came in on my two books that were featured on HSN. I basically sold 5,000 copies of my books in less than one hour of airtime. Which is absolutely stupendous. A lot of debut authors in midlist print can only expect to sell 5,000 copies for the length of the life of the book, which might be two or three years in bookstores. I did that in less than an hour. That's like, 83 books a minute. And the books are continuing to sell online via HSN's website. Ravenous Romance is going to be featured again on HSN (details TBA) in what will very likely be a monthly and/or bimonthly feature, so it looks like I could keep pulling those numbers in. I just wish those numbers would spill over into other books on my backlist.

In other news, I'm working on beefing up my freelance medical writing business. My specialities are healthcare policy, nursing, surgery, general academic medical writing, and pharmaceuticals. I also dabble in legal/business/technical writing. I'll be redesigning my personal website this fall, and I plan to include a section on that. Would appreciate any suggestions.

Peace.

Mediocrity

2009-10-22T21:40:00.003-06:00

Mediocrity is. . .

buying all your clothes at JCPenney and Old Navy when all your coworkers/classmates/friends prefer Nordstrom and Lord & Taylor;

driving an eight-year-old Hyundai Accent;

six-month-old margarine on your stale English muffin when you could have had Kerrygold Irish Butter on pumpernickel;

store-brand yogurt;

using the free business cards from Vistaprint;

only getting around to watching The Office for the first time when it's in reruns in syndication;

fake leather shoes;

knowing the difference between cheap Chinese-made baby wipes from Wal-Mart and the even cheaper India-made ones from the dollar store (both highly toxic, but one far less so than the other);

never owning an iPod, even after they are passe;

very old underwear in tatters (your favorite);

wondering if you'd have been better off single and childless, then changing your mind;

Jiffy Pop popcorn, burned on the stove.

Peace.

This is why I quit acting

2009-10-20T21:31:00.011-06:00

Take a look at the pic on the left, taken this evening in my bathroom mirror. Do I really look 85 years old? Do the glasses (I wore them instead of contacts today on purpose) really add that much to my age? Am I really that old and ugly and fat? (Yes, actually, if you look at me from the wrong side, I am).

There is a running joke about my acting career that has been going on for a long time. Whenever I acted, either professionally or not, it was usually in musical theater (starting at age four), or in solo performance/monologue shows (starting in high school) or improv comedy (starting in my 20s). And inevitably in all three, from a very early age, I always ended up playing roles that were several times older my actual age.

Like in high school, when I played the crotchety old Mrs. Harcourt (age 60+) in the 1961 rewrite version of Anything Goes. Like in college, when I played one of the middle-aged gossips in The Music Man and one of the hideous old witches in Gilbert & Sullivan's Ruddigore. Like in my 20s, when I played a parody of "M" (the Dame Judi Dench version) in an improv-comedy version of the James Bond films. Or the countless dried-up old maids and grandmothers I've played in concert readings of new musicals in development at Theatre Building Chicago. (parts that were invariably cut in the rewrite), or the old Polish landlady I once played (my face caked in about four inches of aging makeup and latex) in an independent film.

Only one thing is certain when it comes to my acting career. Unless I was playing myself in one of my old Spaulding Gray-esque monologue shows, my parts were always of people decades older than I actually am. Just add approximately 45 years to my actual physical age, and you've got the perfect role for me. I can even draw upon my years of doing voiceover work and actually sound like a convincing 85-year-old person. But do I look like one? Really? Is that why I keep getting cast as an old woman, even for on-camera work? I know my body hasn't exactly recovered the youthful suppleness it had before I got pregnant (anytime I look at pictures of my midsection in profile I shudder), but sheesh. Even I know I'm not that bad-looking.

Tonight was no exception. I played two parts (one was age 85, the other, age 55) in a staged reading of a play written by a friend of mine. Nobody showed up to the reading other than the playwright, the director, and the usher there to take the tickets. We did the reading anyway, since the playwright wanted to listen to how his play sounded. But I'm almost glad no one showed up, because I am sooo sick of this very peculiar form of typecasting. It doesn't exactly do a lot for my self-esteem.

I remember I got fed up and cut all my old acting agents loose after I got sent on my fiftieth audition for "mom" roles that called for women aged 45+. (Mind you, I was getting sent on these calls when I was 25). The casting directors would look at me, roll their eyes, and say "Why did your agent send you? You're way too young." I would say, "You picked me out based on my headshot/comp card/voiceover demo." I'd go ahead and read the copy, and they often liked how I sounded, but I would never get cast because I didn't look right. Same went for all the cattle calls I got sent on for plus-sized women (I've always been a size 10/12, which isn't plus-sized, but apparently in a world of size zero actresses, being average made me fat.) The casting directors would look at me, say "sorry, we're looking for fat people", but I NEVER got called in for the "real skinny" parts, which are 85% of the parts out there for women under 35.

It's the whole reason I (mostly) quit acting. Occasionally I will do a staged reading for a fellow playwright or a concert reading of a musical, usually as a favor for the writer or director. I'm a very good actor---I know because of the compliments I get from directors, audience members, and fellow actors alike. But just once, I'd like to play a part that isn't 45 years older than my actual age, or requires that I be fat and ugly, or actually results in an audience bigger than 3 people. Just once.

I think I'm going to go look into how much plastic surgery costs. I could really use a facelift and a tummy tuck.

Peace.

Musings

2009-10-19T21:52:00.002-06:00

Lately I've been wondering if I've somehow let life pass me by. Here I am, at age 35, a stay-at-home mom with a writing career that is going nowhere (financially, at least). I've got a two-year-old son and would like another child before I get too old, but that's looking increasingly unlikely. My career is at a stalemate. In order for my writing career to really go anywhere (moneywise, anyway), I'd have to make a move to either New York or L.A. and make a go at writing for the TV and film industry, but as long as I'm linked to a corporate husband who must work at a job (which supports me and my kid, natch) in Chicago, that's impossible, too. And my age (and my sex) is working against me in that world, too----Hollywood writers are mostly men (well, more like 98% men) under the age of 35 (by the time they break out, anyway).

I have an advanced degree from one of the world's finest universities (University of Chicago) and yet I can't find a decent job. I have one of the best literary agents in New York City who can't land me a decent book deal in the current economic climate. My books are featured on national TV, and yet haven't sold enough copies to pay for a Chinese dinner. My classmates from college and grad school all seem to have done much better than I have, though none of them have chosen a creative life above all else (unlike me). (Me, I chose a creative life because I am flat-out incapable of doing anything else---my sensitive Irish-Catholic-Buddhist soul just cannot deal with being a corporate phony.).

I am a stay-at-home mom, with a house in the suburbs, very little income of my own, a crabby husband who yells a lot, a 2-year-old who drives me up the wall, and a career that is wandering a lonely sagebrush path that leads nowhere close to where I thought I'd be at this stage in my life. How did I get here?

If you'd have asked my feminist-freespirited-theatre-producer-slash-arts-journalist self this question 10 years ago, I would have laughed in your face because I'd surely have thought you were pulling my leg.

How does anyone, let alone me, end up an anonymous rube in the suburbs, contemplating the state of her life in front of a computer late at night, Googling old classmates and boyfriends, and generally feeling depressed about the state of the world as she drinks a glass of cheap Zinfandel? Ask anyone. Ask the clock on the wall. It'll tell you. Time passes everyone by, eventually.

Peace.

A much-needed break

2009-10-17T12:53:00.002-06:00

Well, I finally dashed off a proposal and sample chapters for my latest project and got it off to my agent this past week. Earlier in the week, I also finished my latest under-contract novel a full week ahead of my (albeit extended) deadline. So now I have a bit of a lull. I'll still have articles due for my freelance writing "day job", but without anything creative taking up my extra time, I'll finally have some time to do some chores and also some "fun" stuff. Such as:

1) Clean out my closet (and my son's closet---it is truly amazing how quickly he outgrows his clothes) and donate a ton of castoff stuff to the YWCA;

2) Try to organize the ever-more-chaotic place that passes for my home;

3) Appear as an actor (yes, an actor---sometimes I dust the mothballs off my old acting chops and perform) in a staged reading of a friend's play. There will be another blog post about this soon, because it's shaping up to be a very odd experience.)

4) Catch up on some reading.

In other news, I have a good feeling about my latest book project. I'm not spilling any beans on what it is yet, since I don't want anyone copying my idea and getting a deal on their version of it before I do. But my agent is actually having dinner with Gore Vidal (yes, THE Gore Vidal) next week, and she and I both think he might be of particular help on this project if we can get him to do a jacket blurb for it. And that's all I'm gonna say right now. Stay tuned.

Peace.

Way to go, Barack

2009-10-09T19:48:00.005-06:00

I can now truthfully say that one of my former neighbors is now a Nobel Laureate.

When I was in graduate school at the University of Chicago in the mid-90s, a young law professor and community organizer named Barack Obama lived three blocks north of my crummy student housing building. He and his wife occupied a tiny two-bedroom condo, saddled with massive law-school debts that his community-service oriented job couldn't pay. While other Harvard Law grads raked in piles of money doing corporate law, Barack and Michelle Obama did low-paying work on such legal issues as civil rights and health care for the indigent. They lived small so their work could live large.

I saw Mr. Obama speak at a small community rally a block away from campus when he was running for state senator representing the working-class college neighborhood where I lived, Hyde Park. I was impressed with him. So impressed I voted for him that first time he ran for office (a tiny, inconsequential office in state government) in 1996. And followed his career ever since.

To all of those who don't think that Obama deserves the Nobel Peace Prize, because he's too early in his presidential term, or he hasn't achieved world peace yet (or whatever other petty nay-saying reason you come up with) I say this.

The Nobel Peace Prize is not awarded to recognize efforts for peace, human rights and democracy only after they have proven successful. That was never Alfred Nobel's aim. More often, the prize is awarded to encourage those who receive it to see their efforts towards peace through, sometimes at critical moments. That's the whole reason there's a large sum of money attached----not to personally enrich the fortunes of the winner, but to help support and sustain the causes the winners champion. This is the part that a whole lot of people are missing right now----including a lot of top media people.

Dr. Martin Luther King actually won his Peace Prize before his civil rights movement had actually garnered any real legislative action or had even quelled racial violence. (indeed, the worst of the 60s race riots occurred after Dr. King was assassinated.) Instead, Dr. King essentially won the Peace Prize for his "I Have A Dream" speech, which inspired the national call to action on civil rights. Inspired. Sound familiar? King's speech was a "promise" that inspired millions----not at all unlike what Obama has done, in both the United States and around the world.

Plus, Dr. King's movement was local, and didn't aim to bring peace between nations---only between citizens of the same country. King's winning of the prize is now widely considered the tipping point in the civil rights movement, along with the "I Have A Dream" speech itself, which the prize recognized. And I don't think anybody today would argue that Dr. King didn't deserve the Nobel Peace Prize just because his movement hadn't "succeeded" yet when he won it.

Chew on that, Republicans. The more you guys deride this, the more you look like you're on the wrong side of history.

Peace.

Whoa, two daily blog posts in a row. . .

2009-10-08T22:00:00.002-06:00

Okay, I have actually managed to write a blog post for two consecutive days. Can't remember the last time that happened. It's amazing how life can get in the way of something so simple as making a simple diary entry. Then again, my blog isn't a diary so much as it is a public rant about the insane demands of my ever-more-busy-and-frustrating life.

Today was a very interesting day. My son took a three-hour afternoon nap for the first time in months, which meant I actually got something productive done before 8 pm. I managed to catch up on a bunch of administrative stuff for the freelance gig I'm doing (healthcare-related writing for a major university), and also do some household stuff. I'm stuck in a rut on the current novel, though (which, incidentially, is due in to the editor next week). But the end is in sight. I've done a thorough copyedit of what I've already written, and I only need about two more chapters before I can call the thing finished.

I told my agent and editors the other week that I needed to take a break from my Jamaica Layne sexy writing for a while. I have cranked out 9 books in less than a year, which is just plain insane. The well is dry. I got nothin' left. At least, not for a while. I need to refuel the tank.

But it seems I will have plenty to keep me busy in the meantime. The freelance gig seems like it can go on to infinity. I got an email today from a writer friend asking I come out of retirement from performing onstage and act in his play later this month. And I just signed a contract to have one of my plays included in the annual Best American Short Plays for the third year in a row. Lots of other interesting accomplishments and opportunities abound, too.

But what I'd really like more than anything else at this point is a steady paycheck. Well, scratch that---I've got a steady paycheck, but it's small. I need a BIG steady paycheck. Big enough to buy myself a goddamn nanny. I've been a full-time mom for two years now and I am starting to forget how to be an adult.

Peace.

Okay. . .

2009-10-07T18:20:00.002-06:00

. . .so I haven't been good about blogging lately. I admit it. But there's only so much of me to go around these days. I'm trying to meet novel deadlines, and I'm coming up with new book proposals for my agent to pitch, plus I've taken on some corporate freelance work. AND I've got a two-year-old. AND I was busy with rewrites/rehearsals for one of my plays (just finished). AND I seem to be coming down with the flu.

So, cut me a break here, folks. More posts to come.

(Note to the FTC: No gifts were exchanged/received/promoted via my blog in the past year. So keep those $11,000 fines to yourself, please. And please take your Nanny State and shove it up your ass. )

Peace.

JAMAICA LAYNE AND RAVENOUS ROMANCE ON NATIONAL TELEVISION!!!

2009-09-13T09:40:00.001-06:00

Okay, folks, here's the news you've all been waiting for. Jamaica Layne (my romantic alter-ego) and the authors of Ravenous Romance are hitting the airwaves of NATIONAL TELEVISION tomorrow, September 14, 2009! Ravenous Romance has partnered with HSN , a home-shopping channel that averages 90 million daily viewers, to present "Escape To Romance," an exclusive collection of 18 romance novels, grouped into three categories----Contemporary, Historical, and Paranormal. I've got titles in the Historical and Contemporary groups----The Mercenary Bride and a "PG-13" version of my medical-romance novel Vital Signs.

The "Escape to Romance" segment airs tomorrow, September 14, 2009. See below for airtimes, and check your local listings for the exact channel location. HSN is available on all basic cable services, and is also broadcast free over the air in many areas. Even if you can't tune in, you can order the collections RIGHT NOW at HSN.com---here's a link. It's very likely this could become a regular ongoing segment on the network.

Airtimes: Monday, September 14, 2009 at 8:35 AM (7:35 am Central), 4:35 PM (3:35 pm Central) and Tuesday, September 15, 2009 at 3:00 AM (2:00 am Central). Note: This is LIVE TV broadcast from the East Coast, so if you're out on the West Coast check HSN.com for local airtimes.

A full press release is available at the Ravenous Romance blog.

Romance novels on national television! Who'd have thunk it?

Tomorrow will be a very important day for the publishing industry---maybe even a game-changer.

Peace.

Thoughts For The Day

2009-09-11T07:41:00.001-06:00

Here's a few quotes and platitudes in light of some recent events:

----Pressure creates diamonds. And diamonds are indestructible. Charcoal leaves a brief dark mark, then falls apart.

----Be kind to others on your way to the top. You'll meet them on your way back down.

-----"Small people will criticize, naysay, and tell you you can't do it. The truly great will encourage, support, and help you become great alongside themselves." ---attributed to Mark Twain

----Oceans form one drop at a time.

----Quitters quit, doers do.

----Little pitchers have big ears.

-----Sometimes the nerdy new kid that nobody likes grows up to be Bill Gates.

Stay tuned for a news release posted here this coming Sunday that will be a very, very big deal. (Hint: National television is involved.)

Peace.

On Manners, Professionalism, and Karma

2009-09-09T21:08:00.003-06:00

I don't blog about the publishing industry at large on here much, since my blogs are mostly focused on my own writing life. And I've learned the hard way not to get sucked in to online flame wars. But I just couldn't resist commenting on the Quartet Press debacle.

Those of you who follow my writing career know that I write for Ravenous Romance, a relatively new epress that was founded by several people with literally decades of experience in traditional NYC print publishing (my venerable literary agent Lori Perkins among them). The relatively new world of epublishing has never mixed well with the old-school, big-time NYC print publishing industry (most of the people who run independent epublishers started those epublishers with no prior publishing experience of any kind)----indeed, it's been kind of a "Wild West" for many years. So when Ravenous was founded in late 2007, it created quite a stir in the very tiny epublishing community, mostly due to the fact that Ravenous had big-time print publishing connections and business experience---and wasn't afraid to show it.

The relatively small, close-knit (and dare I say, snarky and emotionally immature) epublishing blogosphere pounced on Ravenous and its authors, claws drawn. The attacks, flame wars---even out-and-out harrassment---of Ravenous Romance's staff and authors by a small group of epublishing bloggers and (mostly) unpublished authors was like something out of Dante. It was like the meanest sorority-girl-slash-junior-high-school prank turned into an online horror movie. Worst of all, even some editors and staffers at some of Ravenous' competitors got in on the "fun," in appalling public acts of unprofessionalism. One blogger in particular (who shall remain nameless here) became a ringleader of sorts, dragging on the vicious mean-girl hazing (I can think of no better term for it) for several months.

And today, lo and behold, Quartet Press, which had been praised and cheerleaded to the high heavens for months by the very same bloggers that had viciously derided Ravenous Romance and its authors (not to mention had hired one of the aforementioned editors who had joined in the hazing, and had even publicly announced it would publish the ringleader blogger's debut novel) collapsed and shut down today before it published a single book.

Meanwhile, Ravenous Romance (and its authors, myself included) is going strong, has just signed an 18-book print deal in partnership with major media, and will be making a MAJOR national media splash on September 14 (stay tuned).

Poetic justice, perhaps? Karma? Something else?

I'll leave that for you to decide.

Edited 9/11/09 to add: The above-referenced blogger has categorically denied having a book deal with the defunct publisher, despite making prior Twitter posts, comments, etc. to the contrary (which may have been a practical joke on her part, who knows). Whatever the truth is, it seems there may be a gag order in place on the publisher participants, so it seems we'll never know. In any case, there was certainly a strong relationship of some kind, financial or otherwise, between the above-referenced blogger and Quartet Press' staff, which likely contributed to the chummy PR relationship between the two.

Moral of the story: Don't believe hype without actual dollars and results behind it, no matter who is dishing it out.
Peace.

The Wee Small Hours of the Morning

2009-09-07T23:19:00.002-06:00

I've never been much of a night person. I'm not really a morning person either. I've always been more of a middle-of-the day person. Or perhaps just a stick-to-a-regular-schedule person. I'm definitely an eight-hours-of-sleep-a-night person. None of which bode well for being a writer/mom.

Anyone who has small children can tell you that you absolutely, positively cannot get anything productive done at the same time you are watching/feeding/bathing/otherwise taking care of said children. Which basically leaves you no time to do anything besides Take Care Of Your Kid. Forget about doing (or folding, or ironing) laundry. Forget about cleaning the bathroom. And certainly forget about Writing The Great American Novel---let alone 10 of them, like I've done in the two years since my kid was born.

How did I do it, you may ask? By not sleeping. Ever.

The only time I can get anything productive done is when my kid is sleeping. I reserve my child's morning and midday naptimes (which can range anywhere from fifteen minutes to three hours, totally unpredictable) for doing dishes, checking email, cooking, and other must-do chores. Any real writing (or anything else that requires time and concentration, like paying bills, or reading a book, or doing my taxes) has to be done after my son is in bed for the night. And since getting his needy little toddler self to bed each night has become a long, drawn-out, two-hour chore in and of itself, that means my prime work times are between the hours of 10:30 pm and 3:00 am. Working this late several nights a week is the only way I can meet my contract deadlines, balance my checkbook, or do basically anything else that involves being an adult.

I still have to get up by 6 am every day, mind you. My son still wakes up at 6 am on the dot every day, and does not understand that Mommy Is Still Very, Very Tired. I still have to cook his meals, clean the house, bathe him (and myself) and basically run a 24-7 nursery school every single day on less than 5 hours' sleep. My body runs on a combo of Cheerios and Diet Coke.

Don't let anyone tell you that stay-at-home moms don't actually work. Come spend a day on my schedule sometime. I'll show you work.

Peace.

Microblogging

2009-08-31T12:19:00.002-06:00

In today's world of ever-shortening attention spans, it seems that even blogging is beginning to suffer. (Hence, I haven't been posting here as much, as I'm sure you've noticed.) I've gotten away from traditional blogging in favor of microblogging on my Twitter and Facebook pages.

For those of you still living under rocks, Twitter and Facebook allow users to "microblog" via short sentences in their status updates. Twitter even goes so far as to limit how many characters you can use (140). Facebook is more user-friendly, with a lot more features (and a vast improvement over its clunkier, now-passe competitor, Myspace), and real-time updating that is completely addictive.

I've been using my Twitter account mostly to promote my Jamaica Layne-branded writing. I use Facebook the same way, but also take advantage of its other many features to not only promote my writing work and sales business, but also to microblog about my day-to-day life as a stay-at-home-slash-working mother. Being a full-time writer and mom to a rambunctious two-year-old definitely has plenty of not-so-glamorous moments, and I've built up quite a following of friends who wait with baited breath to hear what shenanigans my son has gotten into lately. Here's a sampling of my recent Facebook updates:

"Looked in the mirror today and was stunned at how thin I've gotten. Haven't looked like this since my mid-20s. I highly recommend breastfeeding as a means of weight loss."

"Kiddo hits me, kicks me, bites me, pulls my hair, destroys everything I own, misbehaves wildly, has no respect for "time out." But I love him anyway."

"Add my brand-new trendy wraparound sunglasses to the list of things kiddo broke today. sigh."

"My son's capacity for destruction knows no bounds. He destroys jewelry, calculators, remote controls, toilet seats, carpeting, computer cables, books, and clothes. All in 24 hours."

All this Facebooking and Twittering instead of doing what I really should be doing (like writing, or exercising, or reading a damn book) really makes me wonder. If even novelists get distracted by Facebook (huge time-sucker that it is) what kind of future do novelists really have?

Peace.

The difference between Chicago theatre and New York theatre

2009-08-14T06:09:00.003-06:00

I don't write about my playwriting career on here much, but something occurred over the past few days that reminded me why I can't stand dealing with the Chicago theater scene most of the time. My work is rarely produced here, and with good reason. There are a lot of completely nonsensical and frankly stupid practices in the Chicago theater that simply don't go on anywhere else----especially in New York, which is where my plays mostly get produced these days.

Chicago theatre is actually a lot like Chicago politics. It's not about what you know or what talent you might have. It's much more about who you know, and how much you're willing to pay (or rather, bribe) them. Talent, craft, and ability plays very little into it.

On the other hand, in New York, you're pretty much judged on your own merits. I've never met any of the people who have produced my plays in New York City, let alone schmoozed with directors or networked at fundraisers (or donated money at fundraisers), or done any of the other things that Chicago playwrights tell you that you have to do in order to get your play produced. All I did was put my script in an envelope (or attach it to an email) and send it to the address listed in Dramatists Sourcebook. A few months later I'd get contacted by whoever was in charge at that theater, and be offered a production. This has happened multiple times. (Sometimes I even got paid. What a concept.) And never, ever did I have to schmooze anyone, or help raise money, or kiss anyone's ass, or deal with directors demanding unreasonable rates of compensation.

Traditionally, people think of New York as a closed society friendly only to the elite, while Chicago is regarded as the open, working-class town where everyone has an equal shot. In my experience, the opposite is true.

Hmph. Maybe I should move.

THE MERCENARY BRIDE releases today!

2009-08-11T07:49:00.002-06:00

My latest novel, THE MERCENARY BRIDE, releases today at Ravenous Romance. This book is a bit of a departure from my usual style----it's a "sweet" (i.e., non-erotic) historical romance set in 12th-century England. Fans of my bestselling book KNIGHT MOVES will find a lot of familiar settings and themes, though, and lovers of traditional historical romance will enjoy it, too. The ebook is out now; the print version will release nationally (details to come, stay tuned!) on September 14.

Here's more info:

The Mercenary Bride:
Synopsis
It’s the year 1101, and England is still reeling from the Norman conquest a generation earlier. Lady Sabina of Angwyld is the eldest daughter of the Duke of Angwyld, a Saxon nobleman with estates near the Welsh border. The Norman invaders want to take the Duke’s land and title by force, and the only hope the he has for saving Angwyld is to marry his eldest daughter off to a ruthless, evil Norman nobleman, Lord Reginald de Guillaume. Sabina will have none of it, however. She thinks her only alternative is to take the veil and enter a convent. So she runs away.

Sabina is fleeing Angwyld on horseback on her way to the Abbey at Glastonbury when she meets Robert de Tyre, a swashbuckling Norman mercenary who serves as a cavalry officer in Lord Reginald’s army. Though Robert de Tyre has been sent by Lord Reginald to capture his intended bride and bring her back in time for her forced marriage, the sparks soon fly between them, and their worlds are turned upside down. Will Sabina overcome her hatred for all things Norman as her romantic feelings for Robert grow? And can Robert protect Sabina from the pursuing armies of his ruthless, jealous employer and make her his own? Only time will tell...

I'm in WRITER'S DIGEST!

2009-08-04T16:15:00.003-06:00

Some of you might recall last year when I had to go through the rather unpleasant process of firing a literary agent. It's never a pleasant task, but it's something most writers have to do at some point in their careers. Firing an agent can be especially terrifying because industry etiquette requires that you fire your current agent before seeking a new one----and there's no guarantee you'll find another agent willing to represent you, either!

Fortunately for me, the process was a relatively easy one because I understood the importance of crafting a very graceful and carefully worded query letter that explained why I was seeking new representation. That query letter landed me a new agent less than a week after firing the old one. And this month's issue of Writers Digest magazine thought enough of it to do a special online feature on that very letter, along with commentary from the new agent I landed, the legendary Lori Perkins of the L. Perkins Agency.

Here's a link to the WD article. Enjoy!

Jill Elaine Hughes- The Blog!

Focus

Pet Peeves

NaNoWriMo Tips

True Colors

Today. . .

Musings

Sanity

Suck it up.

Pasteups, Part Deux

Paste-ups

Recession? What recession?

A Grownup's Guide to Inner Peace

The Writer's Conundrum

Confessions of a Straight Talker

Patience

Falling In

Deadlines

Fantasy Island, Part Deux

Fantasy Island

Housekeeping

Interesting week

Busy Bee, and Thoughts On Japan

Productivity

Feast or Famine

How Not To Win Friends and Influence People in the Facebook Age

Seriously, Don't Do This.

More Blog Tour stops

Blog Tour stop at Boxing the Octopus

Blog Tour in progress

Weird week

TENDER IS THE KNIGHT, as advertised in RENAISSANCE magazine!

Stand back folks, I'm a professional.

Creativity

A Few New Year's Discoveries

First-person, present tense.

Banned In The SCA

Why You Need An Epub Agent

I'm Really A Playwright

More Fun Wannabe Writer Stories

Great review for A CAPITOL AFFAIR!

Wannabe Writer Week, Part Deux

So you wanna be a writer

Fan mail versus hate mail

Stop by the Decadent Publishing blog and enter to win!

TENDER IS THE KNIGHT releases today at Decadent Publishing!

Nostalgia

The Good Life

Mid-Life Madness

THE FORBIDDEN is now available, plus an interview

What's New and Coming Attractions

Sorry I haven't written. . .

On Being From Ohio

Back to normal

Facebook users, beware

Top 10 Lists

Daydreaming. . .

New website

The Irish Psyche

Wild Suburban Kingdom

How lovely to be a woman (not)

If I can make it there, I'll make it anywhere. . .

Willpower, Part Deux

Willpower

We Give A Damn Contest Winner

Web 3.0

We Give A Damn Writing Contest

Spring Has Sprung Contest Winners!

Spring Has Sprung Contest!

Hubby Tales

Writing and Money

THE SHUNNED is here!

Jamaica Layne fans, meet Jay Hughes!

Rave Review for THE MERCENARY BRIDE

A sign of the times. . .

Disillusioned

It's All B.S. Until You Sign On The Dotted Line. . .

The Decade That Was

As Seen On TV

It was one year ago today. . .