Lemonade

I'm still feeling numb about yesterday. I'm very hard on myself, especially when things don't go right, and it seems things haven't gone right a lot lately. But I can't let myself be affected too negatively by things I can't control.

As Ranger Buddy would say, Suck It Up.

I'm going to try to stop moping and worrying. Things I can control as a writer:

1) writing a good story
2) entertaining my readers
3) promoting wisely and generously
4) look for opportunities
5) keep on writing

Writing Jed's story has been the challenge of my life. He, of all my protagonists, is the most internal and least approachable. With Rick Harden, at least, there's the self-loathing that softened him for some hard lessons. However, Jed is an assassin and his work makes him compartmentalize his emotions and his real self. And that's why, with his story, I have to go back to his past, relive it, and see how this man became the person he is.

Easy to explain. Hard to execute!

But I have been loving the rollercoaster ride of euphoria and depression this man's been giving me for over a year now. And as a character, he's taught me to look hard at myself (as he does to himself) and be dispassionate about certain things. By dispassionate, he doesn't mean,being unfeeling or disrespectful. This man has passion in spades. It's just that he keeps it under control and doesn't allow it to rule him.

Dispassionate, if you look in Jed's battered little dictionary, means "not affected by personal or emotional involvement," the ability to stand in mayhem and still appear to be at a distance, and to take care of what's important first so everything falls back into place and proceed as planned.

I shall work to be dispassionate about this setback and put my head down and continue my writing. It is important to finish Jed's quest. He is, in some respects, my crown jewel, the one that I keep polishing so everything is reflected back in their brilliance--romance, the power of love, adventure, high tech noir.

In the meantime, I hope to entertain you here in my blogs and Yahoogroup. I've heard of authors giving away electronic versions of their stories, so I'm going to look into this for the next project. How it works and whether it works--I have no idea. Maybe you can advice me on this if you've done it before. Would you, as a reader, download a book in chapters? Would you read it? It's not a novella ;-). Big Bad Wolf is at least 90,000 words. At least. I haven't reread it in a while.

And is that good promotion, I ask myself. I feel that I owe you (my readers and friends) something for your patience between now and the end of next year. I also feel that a book such as BBW would be a nice bridge over the River Momentum, if you get what I mean.

However, it's also a risk. BBW was written by an earlier version of Gennita Low ;-). I pitched it to an editor during my first RWA when I didn't even have a story and had no idea what a pitch was. All I knew was the advice the other writers standing in line told me: "Write what you know and a different type of story."

Well, I thought...I know roofing and I bet the editor had never heard of a roofer as a heroine before. Ahem. So, I pitched. About a roofer girl and a spy. The editor loved it--so different, she enthused. She wanted to see the first three chapters. Gulp. The rest was history. I went home and wrote that story pronto.

Big Bad Wolf was my first time entry into the RWA Golden Heart Contest for unpublished writers. It was my first attempt to be professional (of course, I broke like a thousand rules doing that) about my writing. To my surprise, it was one of the finaling entries in 1999.

So, as you can see, I hold this story fondly in my heart. But again, dispassionately speaking, is it good enough as a promotional tool? Oh, I have no doubt there would be many a snicker about the roofer-heroine as a Mary Sue for the author. There is a certain discomfort in that because Jaymee, the heroine, does many things a petite roofer would do. ;-) She also lives in Florida, not very far from where I am, in fact. Lastly, she spouts Florida hurricane codes like someone you know would.

Sigh. It's a gamble, isn't it?

Looking up at the five things I've stated that I can control as a writer, this IS an opportunity to showcase the very beginning of COMCEN (with some rewriting, of course...you don't think I'm going to let this loose into the wild AS IS, do you?!). Those who are into his Jedness would definitely get their fix...just a little. Those who are curious as to exactly what happened would get some questions answered. It all sounds pretty good, doesn't it? ;-) I'm making myself excited just thinking about it, LOL.

But I'm a contracted author. I have to be careful what I give away and how I do it. In my heart, I want to keep my readers happy and also share with them something I think they'd enjoy. How I go about doing it--and that means talking to agent, editor and publisher about the benefits of electronic promotion--will need some figuring out.

You know what? Jed would be pleased with this very dispassionate post.

Ha.

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