Gary Hurtubise

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Autumn – Season of New Beginnings

September 24, 2019 / / 0 Comments
New beginnings start here! (image by Johannes Plenio from Pixabay)

            “Uhh… Gary?”  I can hear you saying.  “Don’t you mean spring?  Isn’t fall when everything dies or goes to sleep?  As in the season of endings?”

            “Pshaw!”  I say to you.  “Don’t pester me with your pedantic prattle!  I’m the blogger, and I declare that autumn reigns supreme as the season of new beginnings!”

Autumn and Writing

            So, I love autumn.  Always have.  There’s a je-ne-sais-quoi to the air during the months of September and October (sorry, November – by the time you’re in full swing, we’re pretty much just waiting for winter), that energizes me.

            I find myself reaching for my Aran sweater, lured outside by the siren call of the nippy air, cloudy skies, and forests of orange, yellow and red.  My mouth waters for hearty soups.  I binge on scary movies…

Could there be a more beautiful sight? (image also by Johannes Plenio from Pixabay)

            …and this particular autumn, I get to call myself a full-time writer!!

            Yep.  I’ve taken a leave of my senses absence from teaching this fall to dedicate myself 100% to writing.

He’s a Full-time Writer?

            Now, immediately upon reading this, you’ve probably fallen into one of three categories:

1.         You go, girl!  Follow your dreams!

2.         You quit your day job?!  What about the kids?!

3.         Silence.

            To those of you in the first category – dankeschön.  Your support and confidence are noted.

            To those of you in the second category – yeah, I get you.  I thought for a long time that I could do both – keep the security of a steady pay cheque, but still squeeze-in a side-gig doing what I most wanted to do.  It was the smart thing to do.  But it got me nowhere.  (other than increasingly frustrated and bitter.)

(without getting into details here, hubby and I mitigated the financial risks of this by planning ahead.  Because, yes, it would have been monumentally stupid to jump in without some sort of security net… but I’ll leave this for another post).

The ‘Right Time’ to Follow a Dream

            And to those of you in the third category… I know what you’re thinking.  Because I was you.

            You’ve got what I have.  You know, that ‘other thing’ you’d rather be doing.  The one that only gets talked of after the second bottle of red wine is open, when the kids are in bed, over that long weekend while at the cottage, sitting by the fire or out by the water…

Who wouldn’t want to think of their dreams in a place like this?
(Image by NickyPe from Pixabay)

            You’ve been there too.

            But the next morning, you pop an acetaminophen, tidy up, pack, throw the kids in the car, and head home.  Cuz there’s work tomorrow, and stuff needs doing.  And there’ll be time for your dreams… later?

            later.

            When does ‘later’ become ‘too late’?  I didn’t want to find out.  So I held my breath and took a leap.

            Where did I land?

            I guess we’ll all find out in a future post.

            In the interim – get out there and let autumn inspire you!

Wow – yet another awesome image by Johannes Plenio!
Thank you Johannes, for your inspirational artwork in this post!

Reading *and* Writing?

July 12, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Does reading *really* help you write?

            No doubt, you’ve heard this before: one of the most important things a writer should do is read a lot. 

            Great.  Fantastic advice, and easy to follow too, since how many writers don’t like reading?  (I don’t know the actual number; I think its approximately most-to-all.)

            “But wait,” you cry (and yes, I can hear you, fellow-part-time-writer and I’m nodding along with you), “…how do I find time to read if I should be using every spare moment to write?!”

            or, vice versa:

            “…how will I ever become a writer if I’m expected to read every new book that comes out in my genre?!”

            Well, good question.

Writing without reading

            As I’ve alluded to in previous posts, I’m currently splitting my writing time between what I WANT to do (write my own fiction!), and what I NEED to do (write other people’s stuff while getting paid well to do it).

            (Alas, recently, it’s been more of the latter and not enough of the former. A writing career with zero income is no career, sadly, so I do as I must.)

            Since focusing on my ghostwriting, I’ve learned that I CAN write without reading! At first, things went well – I was busy gathering clients, writing and editing for them, and getting paid (not quite so) well for it (yet)…

            As this went on, though, I started to feel different.  Writing for other people became like staring at a plain white wall, stuffing myself with dry, unsalted crackers.  I could do it.  I like crackers!  And I’m used to staring off at nothing while stuffing food in my face (but that’s a whole other issue I won’t be tackling today).

sitting at a table, facing a blank wall, eating tasteless crackers...
writing, writing, writing other people’s stuff…

            But cracker after cracker after cracker, and nothing but a blank surface to stare at… it numbed me after a while. There’s a blankness now – a rote-ness – to my writing.  And it’s not good.

Reading without writing

            Before I decided to become a writer, I was a Reader (intentional capitalization).  Boy, could I read.  I was voracious.  My visits to the library would be the equivalent of a 1-hour strength session at the gym, with all the squatting to read titles on the bottom shelves, and the lifting of the dozen-or-more books I’d lug around as I perused the shelves…

A typical trip to the library…

            (that work-out reference is for you, Trevor!)

            Now that I consider myself a writer, however, reading has changed for me.

            I’m sure many of you fellow-writers are familiar with this: we now read with a critic’s eye.  And it can ruin a good book.

            …Ok, maybe I should say it can ruin a bad book, but one that wouldn’t have been ruined back before you were a writer.

Every book now subject to my critic’s eye…

            What tops my critic’s eye, though, is that I now grow anxious each and every time I sit down to read.  I’m anxious to be in front of my keyboard; anxious to be writing my own story.  Great twists in a novel no longer simply satisfy me – they inspire me.  And if I don’t drop everything and get my inspirations down, I’ve lost them forever.

Reading *and* Writing!

            Writing without reading is mind-numbing.  Reading without writing causes anxiety. 

            What do we do as budding writers?  Well, we do both, of course.  Just like they told us.  But here’s the real reason why we should:

            Writing drains you.  It’s like you’ve got a reservoir of ideas up there, and you squeeze them all out through your fingers when you write.  What comes out at first is pure magic, but by the time you’ve been draining that pot for a while, all that’s left is the dry-cracker dregs.

            Reading fills you up.  You read and you read and you read, and you’re brimming to overflowing with what you’ve read.  Your reading bladder is full-to-bursting, and you gotta… well, you gotta let it out.

you gotta let it out!

            So, you write, until you’re back to nothing but dry crackers.

            Then you read again, to the bursting point.

Rinse and repeat.

Music to Inspire your Writing

October 16, 2018 / / 0 Comments

So, small confession: I don’t believe in the muse.

I do, however, believe in the music.

            I wouldn’t classify myself as one of those writers who sits in front of a keyboard, waiting for an ethereal, phantasmic, inspirational visitor.  I’m a strong believer in the idea that, if you start moving your fingers, words will come out.  Move them more; you get more words.  Move them less, and, well, that’s when some folk start blaming the muse for deserting them.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not (entirely) trying to come off as pretentious.  I have dry spells.  In fact, I’m coming off a very long dry spell, where I focused on all the wrong stuff for all the wrong reasons.  I think I’m clear of that now.  I’ve been writing consistently for the last four weeks or so, because I decided to sit down and write.  That’s it.

(Ok – that’s not quite it – there’s a bit more that goes into all ‘that’; maybe I’ll flesh that out in future posts!)

How Does Music Come into This?

Not being a neuro-scientist, I haven’t delved too deeply into the ‘why’ or ‘how’* of music’s role in my ability to write; rather, I’ve concentrated on the ‘what’.  And what I’ve observed is that music not only keeps me on task, but keeps me on topic.

Well, the right music, that is.

(*in case you are interested in the ‘why’ and ‘how’, check out this article from sparringmind.com, or just Google “Mozart Effect”)

Music for Different Stages of Writing

Occasionally, I’ll hear a new song, and it triggers an image or an idea.  Infrequently, I’m quick enough to write it down; most times, however, I forget it.  But the next time I hear that song, the image is back, often in more detail than before.

Music to Inspire

This is how Cage the Elephant’s “Shake Me Down” became the inspiration for my very first short story.  While not a genre of music I listen to very often, the lyrics wormed their way into my mind, setting the stage for a tale about a war journalist finding himself marooned on a dying world – a victim of an interstellar war waging in the heavens above.

Just this past week, as I was searching for some Hallowe’en tunes, and came across Johnny Otis’s “Castin’ My Spell”, and poof – an idea for a future novel popped into my head (yeah, sorta like magic).

Music to Keep Me ‘In the Zone’

Other times, I already have the plot and/or theme of a tale set, and I seek out songs that I can play specifically when I write that story.  These songs I play repeatedly: over-and-over-and-over-and-over-and (well, you get the idea).  The song “Fehu” by Wardruna, a Norwegian group that re-creates Norse-inspired tunes, kept me focused for the better part of a year while I wrote my novel Darksea.

Music to Keep Me ‘In the Mood’

Yet another case is where I’m writing a type of scene – say a chase, or a fight scene – and I need to stay ‘pumped’.  There just happens to be a 10-hour version of the theme song to “Inception” on Youtube that is perfect at keeping adrenaline pouring out at maximum levels.  I’ve gotten quite a lot of mileage out of that one.

What’s Next?

NaNoWriMo – just around the corner.  Now stop reading and go plan your novel (with suitable music, of course)!

Motivation + Habit = Success at Writing!

September 12, 2018 / / 0 Comments

I’ll start my 21st post with some (more) words of wisdom from author David Farland, whose #WritingTips I always look forward to in my inbox:

Motivation vs. Habit

On the door at my gym, someone hung a sign that says, “Motivation is what gets you started. Habit keeps you going.”

I began working out regularly over 20 years ago. Since then, I’ve dropped about 75 pounds, and I’ve run or walked something in neighborhood of 22,000 miles. I can’t even imagine how much I’ve lifted in weights. But think about it, if someone had said to me, “Hey, Dave, why don’t you go run 22,000 miles?” it would have taken an awful lot of motivation to get me going.

However, it only took a tiny bit of habit.

Writing is much the same way. A lot of us try hard to get motivated to write a novel. But writing a novel is a lengthy process. Being motivated doesn’t help much, but developing good writing habits helps a lot.

I learned long ago that exercise is hard when you’re starting out. If you run three days, you’ll want to quit at the end of them. That’s when muscle aches and fatigue are the strongest. But if you run for a week, you’ll begin to notice that you feel better on the days that you’ve run. Soon, the day won’t feel complete without some exercise.

Writing is much the same. Jumping into a project is hard. Working on a novel for one day doesn’t really get you very far into it. But if you try making it a habit—if you bundle all of that motivation up and say to yourself, “I’m going to write for one hour a day this week,” you’ll find at the end of the week that you just don’t really feel that your day is complete if you haven’t spent some time engaged in creative recreation.

With my writing workshops, I generally hold them for a week. I try to motivate my students to write daily during that time, if only for a couple of hours. The goal in part is to teach the writers and get them to develop new skills, but just as importantly, I’m trying to get them into the habit of writing.

Quite often it works. I’ve gotten many letters from writers where the writer has said, “Hey, Dave, I got into the habit of writing at your workshop last year, and I’ve just finished my first/second/third/fourth novel!” Whenever I see that, I always feel as if the mission has been accomplished.

So here’s the key to become a writer: Use your motivation to create a writing habit. Long after you have run out of motivation, you’ll still be writing.

As usual with David’s words of wisdom, I find myself unable to express those ideas any better than him.

Full admission: I’ve fallen out of the *habit* of writing fiction daily.

I have plenty of motivation – heaps and heaps of it!

…Translating that into a habit, though (as David describes) is very hard, especially when you let everything else in your life take precedence. For me, this includes the other side of my quest towards authorship: ghostwriting.

I had an epiphany about this time last year.  It went something like this:

If I wanted to be a full-time writer (one who could feed himself, and his family), I’d need an alternate source of writing income. More specifically, it had to be something that I was already comfortable doing. I dallied in the realm of B2B (business-to-business) writing for a while, but realized that it induced ZERO passion for me. The switch to ghostwriting came about at the end of a course I took with Ed Gandia, who is one of the best-known B2B writers and coaches in the field. Ed got me in touch with Derek Lewis, the best-known writer in *his* field (business ghostwriting), and my goal of becoming a ghostwriter took off from there.

A year-in, and I feel like I’ve got a good amount of momentum going with my ghostwriting business (you can check it out at my other website, LiteraryGhost.com)… and now, it’s time to get back into the *habit* of writing fiction. Every Day. Even if it’s only a couple hundred words.  🙂

 

20th Post – getting re-engaged with writing in 2018

January 9, 2018 / / 1 Comment

Hello, and Happy New Year!

Now, I’m not generally a fan of New Year’s Resolutions.  However, I’ve been in a bit of a writing lull recently, and have been looking for a way to get my butt back into it.  So what better way is there to get motivated than to find inspiration in other people’s New Year’s blogs!?

…but first:

Recap of Writing; Fall of 2017

  1. Rejections, rejections, rejections. These little messages in my inbox are becoming quite normal now – in fact, part of me gets a little thrill when I read in the preview box:  “Hello, thank you for letting us read your story.  Unfortunately…”
  2. CANCON 2017 in Ottawa. It was great to meet some local and international authors, and do some <ugh> networking.  Looking forward to next year’s convention!
  3. Working full-time. This is my excuse for not getting a lot of actual words written this fall.  Thankfully, that will all change in February, when I’m back to part time! Yay!  (well, it had better change, or Trevor will not be pleased with me…)
  4. Getting started as a ghost writer… more to follow in a future post!

Ok – onto the motivational part:

Getting Back to Writing in 2018

Two author-bloggers that I follow have done all my work for me for this post.

C. Hope Clark – ready to get writing!

First, Funds for Writers blogger and author of the Edisto Island Mystery series, C. Hope Clark, talks in her New Year’s newsletter about taking a break over the holidays, then getting back into writing – 500 words per day, as a “benchmark minimum”.

Here’s what Hope has to say about January:

This time of year excites me. The whole clean slate sort of thing. In reality the days are no different, but there’s something rejuvenating at having a new chance at making a difference. . . at becoming better. . . at making longer and more productive strides toward a goal.

Read her full post here, and subscribe to her great free newsletter here.

Second, David Farland – renown author of the Runelords series – talks about how he hates the word ‘resolute’, but finds himself always making yearly resolutions.  This year’s advice to others is to develop a new relationship with your computer.  Here’s an excerpt of his #writing tips for the new year:

            …many of your habits are subconscious. Some people teach themselves that the computer is for videogames, or it’s for checking email, or it’s for chatting on Facebook. So when they sit down to the keyboard, by force of habit they immediately begin playing.

But what if you trained yourself to make writing your habit? What if you tried something like this:

Close your eyes and think about something that excites you. Perhaps it’s the idea of getting your first novel published, or maybe it’s an award you’ve won, or just the joy that will come when you complete your novel. Think about it, and let the excitement build for 15 seconds.

Now, sit at your computer, open the file to your work in progress. Do not do anything else. Instead, open your WIP and write one paragraph.

When you’re done with that paragraph, get up from your computer and walk around the room for a moment, thinking about what you might want to do with your work in progress.

Repeat step 1, thinking about something that excites you, and letting the excitement sweep through you.

I like it!  Read David’s full post here, and subscribe to his #writing tips by clicking his banner below!

Ok – with that advice in mind, it’s back to my keyboard for another 500 words today!

 

 

Top 5 Highlights of the Limestone Genre Expo

June 5, 2017 / / 2 Comments

I came away from the 3rd annual Limestone Genre Expo this past weekend with plenty of inspiration (for not only writing ideas, but the business of writing too), some great new connections in the sci-fi / fantasy world, and a load of new books to boot!

Here I am, looking pensive with my arms crossed, listening to the panelists at this weekend’s Limestone Genre Expo!

Top 5 Highlights of the Weekend:

  1.   Panel on Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation in Speculative Fiction

Some interesting insight into the state of LGBTQI in science fiction and fantasy by a panel of diverse authors.  Probably the panel I appreciated the most of all the bunch.

  1.   Building Your Readership workshop, with Eve Langlois

I thought a two hour workshop would drag on – especially first thing Sunday morning, but Eve – New York Times bestselling author of ‘romance with a humorous twist’ – is a funny, engaging speaker with a lot of great advice on marketing yourself as an author.  I could have listened to her talk all day.

  1.   World Building workshop with Alyssa Cooper

Alyssa is an author from right here in Kingston, and demonstrates writing wisdom beyond her years.  She truly impressed me during the ‘Fantastic Tales’ panel on Saturday, and so I was ready for an interesting workshop with her on Sunday – she did not disappoint.  Plus I got to flesh out one of my novel ideas in the process!

  1.   Pitch Session with MLR Press Editor in Charge, Kris Jacen

My first ever pitch session, for which I was woefully under-prepared L.  However, Kris was gentle, and asked the right questions to keep me ‘pitching’ in the right direction.  And what do you know – she asked for the full manuscript of Darksea?!?!  Must have been my overwhelming charm and panache.

…and:

  1.   Meeting Tanya Huff!

CanCon 2017 here I come!

            Ok, so if you know me, you know that I don’t get celebrity crushes (except for Patrick Stewart, of course), but meeting Tanya – knowing that she’d chosen my short story to win the genre expo writing contest – had me in a bit of a state.  I quickly introduced myself to her on Saturday, but only built up enough courage to approach her again Sunday afternoon, to ask her a few things about ‘the business’ of writing.  What a relief to find that she is approachable, grounded – not to mention that she very graciously offered to introduce me to some movers-and-shakers at this fall’s Sci-fi / Fantasy convention in Ottawa, CanCon (yep – it’s already on the calendar!).

            Big props to Liz Strange, Delina MacDonald, Marlene Smith and all the volunteers for running such a fun expo.  I’m already looking forward to next year’s!

 

How to Keep Writing Over the Holidays

December 18, 2016 / / 0 Comments

Feeling down due to the frantic pressure of institutionalized holiday cheer (aka: the purchase of tawdry commercial goods to exchange with family and friends that you’d normally keep no closer than several hundred kilometers at any other time of the year)?

Overwhelmed by the reams of tasks that always seem to build up at this time of year?

Have you already started your yearly holiday treat binge (can you say: let’s add candy canes to everything)?

Or… most importantly…

Have you lost your will to write?

 

…It’s insidious, the way it happens:

Maybe you’ve come off a month of crazy productive writing (aka: NaNoWriMo), and said to yourself: ‘hey – that wasn’t so bad.  I should keep this up for December too!’  And then you find yourself one week from the 25th of December, not having written a bloody thing…

Or maybe you’ve been in a good, dependable writing routine for months, which has inexplicably trickled down to nothing – without you even ‘noticing’?  (But you did notice it, didn’t you?)

 

So what’s your excuse?

Does your holiday make you see red…rum?

The holidays, of course.  They’re a time to slow down, relax, chill-out, enjoy life—what’s that, you say?  They’re the most stressful time of year?!  There’s no time to do anything, much less writing?!?

Of course there’s no time to write!  Everything else at this time of year is too important, you know?  Your family members or your friends or your employer – they all take precedence over you, don’t they?  Don’t be so selfish as to think you can fit this silly little writing habit into your holiday…

So when will there be time for you?  For your writing?

 

Key #1 to successful holiday writing: SELFISHNESS

Yeah.  It’s an ugly word.  But when’s the last time your kids, or your spouse, or your friends, or your boss said: “hey – why don’t you just take today for you?  Don’t worry about us.  We’ll manage just fine.”

I bet it’s been a while, eh?

Remember: if you were sick, they’d manage, wouldn’t they?

If you were away on a trip, they’d manage too.

And even if you said: “you know what?  I’m NOT cooking tonight”, they’d still somehow manage, wouldn’t they?  (They’d just order out pizza, of course.)

So let’s say you do it: pull back from life, and force in a few hours – hell, even a day! – of writing.  You might be surprised (disappointed, even) to learn that you’re not as critical to the smooth running of the universe as you have come to believe.

The first step to writing over the holidays: TAKE time for yourself.

(Oh, but be prepared for pushback.  In fact, you might have to be a bit of a Grinch about it!)

Alright, you’ve gone all selfish and grinchy, and you’ve bought yourself writing time. Now what?  Does the muse immediately jump right back into your life and send you into a whirling, whizzing frenzy of writing?

No, she does not.

You sit at the computer, aglow from you new-found (albeit temporary) writing block, ready to work the magic.  But hold on!  You haven’t checked Youtube in like, at least an hour, so maybe you should just– No, wait!  IT’S A TRAP!

 

Key #2 to successful holiday writing: ACCOUNTABILITY

This is my weakness.  I’m a classic procrastinator.  I work with hard deadlines.  But self-generated ‘soft’ deadlines?  They just make my monkey laugh. (No, I’m not being gross or weird – check out this TED talk on the inner monkey of a procrastinator).

Me, sitting at my desk, alone, without a deadline…  Well, that’s just a recipe for Zero Productivity.

I’ve tried lots of things to put the evil procrastinator monkey in its place:

-making detailed to-do lists, organized by degree of importance and urgency

-setting small, easily attainable goals

-promising myself rewards for work well-done

-the Pomodoro Technique

-setting up a tickler system of file folders in my desk drawer

-trying to work up enough shame and guilt to drive me to ‘get it done’

They all work at first.  Maybe a few days.  Maybe a few weeks, even.  Then something weasel’s its way into the works (typically resulting in an unavoidable change in schedule, even for just a few days), and I’m back to square one, surfing hours (yes, hours) of the best Youtube has to offer.  Or, very often, the not-so-best.

Why were none of these techniques my holy grail for a no-procrastination writing routine?  Well, for one, I don’t believe in a holy grail for anything (life’s too complicated for a single fix, imho).  Secondly, all of the techniques I tried were monitored and policed by… moi.

I can’t do it.  I wish my will was stronger.  And maybe, at some level, I’m just being a cop-out.

 

Regardless of the why, the who has to change.

(And that’s where I should end this post.  Because I don’t know what else to say.  I haven’t solved this problem yet.  I’m not sure who is… who.

Maybe I need an anti-procrastinator coach – someone to hold me to account for my actions and accomplishments day-to-day or week-to-week?

Maybe a writer’s group is the key (in-person would be better – you can more easily ‘slip away’ from an online forum).

Or maybe I need to be looking for a procrastinators-anonymous group out there somewhere?)

 

Anyways, as Christmas ticks closer and closer, I’ll be fighting my monkey, and looking for the solution to who I need to keep me writing.

 

And that’s it for 2016!  Until next year, I wish you and yours a happy and safe holiday season!

NaNoWriMo… here we go again!

October 10, 2016 / / 0 Comments

nanowrimo_crest

Get involved!                    Get writing!

I’ve been on a two-month hiatus from writing my fiction – life and work getting in the way as they always seem to do…

However, as November approaches, there’s a very good reason to get back into fiction writing – one that many writers find is just what they need to jump start their creative endeavours, as the cold weather settles in: NaNoWriMo!

Writing is a uniquely lonely type of thing.  For an introvert (like myself!) it is a welcome escape from the invasive outside world.  It’s therapeutic, too – a balm to soothe the raw stress from all those… people (said with the utmost disgust) intruding themselves upon me day in, day out.

However, I have found that the private nature of writing is a double-edged sword.  There are times when even this introvert (I cringe to admit) craves contact with other like-minded humans.  Specifically the writing kind of humans.

Now, writing being an activity whereby you are lost in your mind and you stare intently at a screen for hours on end, contact with other such beings can be hard to come by… unless you all share a similar goal.  Say, the writing of a complete novel in the space of one month.

Well, look no further: National Novel Writing Month has you covered!  In fact, they couldn’t make it easier for you to get involved – to whatever degree you feel comfortable with.  You fill out some information on yourself and your prospective novel, you pick the local community you’ll be writing with, and once November rolls around, you start writing!  There’s a nifty little graph that shows you how much you’ve written, and if you are on (or off) your word count goal.  There are weekly activities, both locally and across the world that you (again) can participate in, or not.

This will be my third year participating, though I’ll immediately admit I’ll be cheating just a bit – I’m aiming to complete the same novel that I started last year (an urban sci-fi mystery… thingy) – however many words that ends up being.

Regardless of my insidious plans, NaNoWriMo is just what I need to get my fiction writing kick-started again.

21 days and counting…

…in the meantime?  I’ll be getting another batch of agent queries out, and outlining the next bits of that novel that is going to write itself! 😉

Piggyback Your Writing Retreat onto Someone Else’s Hobby!

July 24, 2016 / / 0 Comments

nice-pen

How would you love a four-day writing retreat for one?  Can’t see how to fit it in?  Let me tell you how I just did it.

 

I was in Lake Placid NY this past weekend for the Ironman race.  No.  I’m not an Ironman.  Nor do I ever think I will be.  I’m what’s referred to as an Ironman Sherpa.  My job is to help cart the equipment for, drive around, and generally support one of the Ironmen athletes (who just happens to be my husband).ironman

If you don’t live with an Ironman, or a triathlete in general, you might not understand their routine.  It consists of them going out and doing ridiculous amounts of swimming, biking and running for about a year, in preparation for one full day of – you guessed it – swimming, biking and running.  Plus, they generally go to bed early.  Every night.

Now, if you happen to be a writer – one who enjoys writing in relative peace (like me) – then you might already see how this could be beneficial to your craft.  If, on average, someone training for a race like this puts in two hours per day of training, seven days a week, that turns into roughly 730 hours of writing time (not to mention the time you get after they go to sleep at 8:00pm).

730 hours of writing is just under 15 hours per week – basically the equivalent of a part-time job!  Think of what you could achieve, if you had that time set aside exclusively for writing!!

freetime

Unfortunately, I did not make use of those hundreds of free hours my spouse granted me.  No, it’s not because of procrastination (though there’s a fair amount of that in my schedule L ); alas: we have kids.

Ugh.  The bane of a creative mind.  Small humans whose sole purpose in life is to figure out when you most need a few moments to yourself during the day, and seek to fill those moments with needy little whines, self-generated disasters, pointless arguments with siblings and the ever popular throwing of a fit.  We’ve got two of them.  Small humans, that is.  Two boys.  One who loves to bug, and one who loves to shriek incessantly when bugged.

So for me, those hundreds and hundreds of hours when hubby was out training, I was on Daddy-duty.  Don’t get me wrong: I love my boys.  I love writing too, though.

The payoff comes on race weekend.  Finally – a full year of training has gone by, and we’re ready for the big day (whew!!).  Triathlon is an equipment-intensive sport.  More than one person (ie: the athlete) can comfortably handle.  That’s why it’s nice to have someone along for the race – the Sherpa.

We arrived at Lake Placid – amidst the beautiful Adirondacks – on Thursday afternoon, and left Monday morning.  The race was on Sunday (like – all day Sunday – it takes about 12 hours to complete it.  No joke).  Aside from a few administrative tasks (attending briefings, dropping off bikes, driving the course), that leaves most hours of the day free…

By the way, my husband is my biggest supporter when it comes to my writing, and it was he who saw the opportunity for me; he who suggested I accompany him.  So while I’m taking credit for this blog, it’s he who gets credit for the idea.

 

When exactly did I get my writing in?

-on the drive here and back (it took us 3½ hours each way);

-while my husband attended his pre-race briefings;

-while he did his last few workouts;

-while he dropped all of his kit off at the race site;

-while he slept (restlessly, stressing about the race!);

…AND

-on race day, of course!  12 hours of uninterrupted ‘me’ time.  It was awesome.

Swim start of the 2016 Lake Placid Ironman.

Swim start of the 2016 Lake Placid Ironman.

So now, I’m on the lookout for a new race for him.  I’m thinking a marathon in the fall – that should be worth a three-day mini writing retreat!

 

Are you a writer-with-kids like me?  What do you do to fit writing into the circus that is parenting?  Drop me a line and let me know!!drop_a_line

No New Year’s resolution… just ‘be’ a writer!

January 13, 2016 / / 0 Comments

The holidays went well for me this year.  I ate less that I’d feared, and wrote more than I’d hoped, so all in all: a success!

think_like_a_writer       I thought like a writer over the holidays too: not once did I worry about my day job (the one that still pays the bills).  Instead, I planned what short stories I’d write in the coming months, picked which agents I’d send my next queries to, added up my freelance writing earnings for the past year (peanuts, at this stage, but growing!), and saw story ideas everywhere I went over that two week period.

In retrospect, I can’t believe how good I had it for those 14 days (helped by the fact that the in-laws were occupying the kids, which granted me that time to just… think – thanks guys!).

New Year’s eve came and went (we were playing a game of Quelf with friends as the clock struck midnight), and I purposely didn’t make any resolutions.  Instead, I decided (subtly, though – not really admitting it, even to myself) to simply continue the habit of ‘being’ a writer, for the rest of the year.

So far, my (non)-resolution has been easy… After all, I want to be a writer!  …

The secret to New Years' resolutions!

(…wait a sec – did I just crack the secret to New Year’s resolutions!?!)

Top 5 Writing Goals for 2016

With this new habit of ‘being’ a writer, what would I like to accomplish this year?

1.  Get Published

       Specifically, get a short story published (or recognized somehow – contest or otherwise).  Currently, my bio is conspicuously free of any writing credits, which means any and all queries I send out – either for my novel, or my short stories – show me as an unpublished rube.  It’s not helping my success rate… or my confidence!

2.  Get Representation

       (ie: agent representation)  Yep.  My career as a novelist is basically hinging on this step right now.  But I’m up to my 4th batch of agent queries, bringing my total to just about 30.  My agent is out there.  Hopefully in this time frame, spatial dimension, and planet.

3.  Get More Freelance Writing Work

       So far, my fiction writing has not paid many bills (precise number of bills paid: zero).  But freelancing does!  I’m a regular contributor to Gay Parent Magazine (gayparentmag.com), and I’m looking to expand that significantly, as 2016 progresses.  Key word: self-marketing.

4.  Get More Readership

       To paraphrase Julia Roberts, social media is like yelling into the wind.  Sure.  Sorta.  Just make sure you’re facing the right way when you do so.  And listen to others who are doing the same thing.  I need to spend more time seeking out like-minded individuals, and join their secret leagues.

5.  Get More Writing Done

       As I ‘think’ more like a writer, I think up more little tasks that need doing – many of which do not include writing.  I can’t forget that the whole point of this endeavour is to write more.  And so I really need to focus a part of each and every day just for plain, unadulterated  w r i t i n g.

       Should be easy, right?

used_to_hate_writing

 

 

 

 

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