The plenary speaker for Write!Canada 2010 was Joel Freeman, a businessman/ entrepreneur/ writer/ speaker/ film producer/ you name it, he’s done it. Dr. Freeman’s best known book is entitled If Nobody Loves You, Create the Demand, and I definitely bought a copy of both the book and the workbook after hearing him speak. He’s a very dynamic speaker who knows how to engage the audience, and he had a lot of good — and scary — things to say about writing, business, and building a career.

One point I want to touch on today is a statistic Dr. Freeman shared with us… and what he said about it afterward. He pointed out that (and I’m paraphrasing here):

“Over 200,000 books are published in North America each year… the chances of any book becoming a bestseller are about 0.01%.”

Then he told us this — on average, you can literally make more money flipping burgers than you can as a writer.

Wow. That’s harsh, and hard to hear. But think about it for a moment, let it really sink in, and then ask yourself…

Do you still want to write?

You should be discouraged. You should look at that statistic and think “well, there’s no chance, I might as well quit while I’m ahead and find something else to do”. You should run as far and as fast as you can from writing.

But if you read that, take a close look at yourself, and answer “yes, I still want to write despite the odds”… then, as Dr. Freeman said, “you’ve really got something”! You’re meant to do this. You were born to do this.

And if we as aspiring authors are willing to keep on pushing, leap the hurdles, adapt to the industry, and think like both writers AND business-people — after all, writing is a business too — then we’ve really got something.

We can be part of that 0.01%. I can be part of that 0.01%. You can be part of that 0.01%.

Still feeling motivated? Go grab yourself a burger… then sit down and write!

And the second book in the June Blog Tour is…

Maid to Match - Deeanne Gist

Synopsis (from the publisher):

Falling in Love Could Cost Her Everything

From the day she arrives at the Biltmore, Tillie Reese is dazzled–by the riches of the Vanderbilts and by Mack Danvers, a mountain man turned footman. When Tillie is enlisted to help tame Mack’s rugged behavior by tutoring him in proper servant etiquette, the resulting sparks threaten Tillie’s efforts to be chosen as Edith Vanderbilt’s lady’s maid. After all, the one rule of the house is no romance below stairs.

But the stakes rise even higher when Mack and Tillie become entangled in a cover-up at the town orphanage. They could both lose their jobs, their aspirations …and their hearts.

My Thoughts:

Let me tell you… some editor, somewhere (I’m assuming at Bethany House, since they published the book) is getting some angry letters right now. Why? Because Deeanne Gist knows how to create a steamy Christian historical romance — yes, I said STEAMY. Get out those fans, ladies, because this isn’t your typical CBA novel!

There is:

• very high sexual tension
• hero & heroine think about each other in emotional AND physical terms
• dancing (lots of dancing… and it’s not a Regency!)
• the main character GETS DRUNK

That’s right, folks — the main character, a female, in a CBA publisher’s novel, gets DRUNK. And I don’t consider that a spoiler, I consider that a reason to read this book. In fact, I’m so impressed with Gist’s work here in creating REAL characters with REAL feelings & struggles (yes, that includes heightened physical attraction) that I immediately lent the book to my sister, recommended it to my sister-in-law and cousin, and told a room full of people about it at a recent writer’s convention I attended when we were discussing “unconventional Christian novels”.

This is the kind of book that anyone can read, regardless of their faith background, because it’s a well-crafted story with people who act like real people.

I will say that there’s one subplot I didn’t particularly care for, as I found it a bit underdeveloped and for some reason it just rubbed me the wrong way. Still, it made sense in the context of the story (and it was a tough subject to tackle… maybe my reaction to it had to do with that… it was a bit much to address inside of this one novel), and I can see why Gist chose that subplot as a way to redeem some aspects of the hero’s character.

In Conclusion…

After reading this book, I bought copies of the rest of her books to read & place in our church library. I wish more Christian publishers would accept and print novels like this, and maybe it’s because of Gist’s reputation as an established novelist that her editor let the heat level & the drunken scene slide through. Either way, it made for quite the unexpected read — and just for that unusual quality, I’d recommend it.

The main story’s not half bad, either… but let’s face it, you’d read something like this for the romance, and yes indeedy, you get it! If this is your genre, it’s worth a read.

Interested? Here’s a LINK to an EXCERPT if you want to give it a try! (Want more? Here’s a Q&A with the author!)

Book has been provided courtesy of Baker Publishing Group and Graf-Martin Communications Inc. Available now at your favorite bookseller from Bethany House, a division of Baker Publishing Group.

So, since I didn’t write during the conference, my numbers aren’t quite where I’d like them to be… but that’s all right!

As of Monday, June 28th, I’ve written 20,884 words on this story this month… and while I won’t make the 35,000 goal I set at the beginning of the month, I still have a few days to improve on that… AND, since I wrote 5k for that other short story, that means I’ve really written 25k this month. So I’m only 10k behind my projected goal.

That’s not so bad! I’m going to look on the bright side — it’s 25k more than I had written at the beginning of the month, so that’s still something. Forget that missing 10k! I didn’t need it anyway.

(Okay, maybe I do need it… but that’s what the next few days are for!)

How are you doing on your projects this month? Any progress, no matter how big or small, is still progress!

Hit 10k on the “novella” today, only to realize that… this isn’t going to be a novella, because I haven’t even introduced the Major Plot Point (er… something to work on in the edits), and there’s no way I can feasibly do that and wrap it all up on another 25k. Nope, this is going to be just what I didn’t want: a full-fledged novel. Ack, writing short is HARD!!!

But onto another thing — I’ve printed out what I have so far and I’m going to let my hubby read through it, or maybe just for fun, read what I’ve written to him each night as a “bedtime story”. LOL. My question is, do you print out and read over your work as you’ve written it? Have you ever shared what you’ve written with someone close, as it comes out? And are they the kind of person you could trust feedback from?

I’m curious! I know we all handle rough drafts differently, and I’ve never printed & shared before (until the whole thing was done), so this is a new thing. It never hurts to try new things, right?

(Er, unless the new things happen to be poisonous or deadly… so, uh, maybe forget that sentiment…)

Mom Still Likes You Best: The Unfinished Business of Siblings – Jane Isay

Promo material for Mom Still Likes You Best suggests that the book is a “must-read” for anyone blessed/cursed with a sibling. However, I might suggest that the book is more appropriate for someone who’s somewhat bored and possibly suffering from a bit of insomnia.

Not that there isn’t some interesting material in this book… no, the title tells us exactly what to expect – stories about siblings and their “unfinished business” with each other into adulthood – and there are more than enough anecdotes to satisfy the curious. Strong sibling bonds, tenuous ones, bonds that fail… Isay asserts that the foundation of sibling relationships happens when we’re very young, and we carry this over into adulthood, making it very difficult to change our perception of our siblings unless we consciously make an effort to do so.

An interesting theory. But is it true? Unfortunately, we’ll never know… because that’s where the theorizing ends. Instead, Isay pads the book full of anecdote after anecdote, barely pausing for a breath before diving into the next example. The transitions are clunky, and though the sentence at the end of each anecdote is supposed to set up the one that follows (then we get the title of the next segment, and then the next segment), instead it reads like the first paragraph in each new section has been hacked apart. That’s not a transition, that’s just poor organization.

Since the book is 98% anecdotal, this also means that we have a lot of names throughout the book. I think Isay tried to help people keep things straight by frequently not naming people (referring instead to them as “her brother” or “his younger sister”), but when you’re giving an anecdote where there are three younger siblings and you talk about them all and don’t name them, it can get pretty gosh dang confusing. I don’t know how many times I had to re-read sections to figure out who was doing what to whom, and this often made me put the book down in frustration.

That’s not simplifying things, dear author. That’s just making it more difficult for the reader to follow the logical sequence within each story.

That said, I think it’s true that people with siblings will probably see themselves reflected somewhere in this book, and it really is horrifying to realize what some people do to their brothers and sisters. However, if you want more than a list of anecdotes — such as, understanding why people act this way, or what triggers the behavior, or whether it’s part of a pattern, or psychological, or anything at all — you won’t find it here.

And that was what I found most disappointing of all. There wasn’t anything to tie it all together, so it just read like a bunch of stories about people we don’t know. Would I pay $28.95 for this book, the suggested cover price for the hardcover? Absolutely not. I also wouldn’t buy it for someone else at that price (plus, the thing is less than 200 pages to boot).

It might make for interesting reading if you see it at the library and have nothing else going on. Then again, it might just frustrate you. And hey, if you don’t like your siblings very much, it could even make the perfect birthday gift…

I received a complimentary ARC version of this book from the publisher.

…you spend your entire day in your pjs, haven’t showered for 3 days, sit at the computer hitting “refresh” on your email (or Twitter, or Facebook) every 5 minutes, and subsisting on nothing but coffee, pre-packaged rice, and lip gloss.

Yes, there’s a deadline for a magazine tomorrow, and I’m trying my darnedest to get this story done so I can send it in. I don’t even think I’ll have time to send it to my crit buddies first… o_O

Oh well. If I don’t make it, I don’t make it… and at least I’ve spent a day feeling like a writer. A dirty, half-starved writer.

Ah, yes… this is the life we live for, my friends. Write on.

Just a couple words of encouragement this Monday morning:

“All research is 99 percent failure, and if you succeed once you are in. If we are going to progress in any line, we must learn to fail intelligently, so we won’t become discouraged at the 99 percent failures.” — Charles Kettering.

Fail intelligently… I like the sound of that. Doesn’t make it seem quite so bad, when you put it that way.

So, I say… go forth and fail! But be smart about it. We could all learn something from this approach.

I’m still revising my NaNoNovel from 2007. I’m not giving up! It’s going to get done, because I love the story and really feel strongly that learning how to correctly edit/revise with this novel is teaching me some very valuable skills.

However… I also know that I should be writing something new at the same time.

For just over a month now, I’ve managed to not actually write anything new fiction-wise. It’s frustrating, but I have this wonderful habit called procrastination that I constantly have to be aware of and consciously battle, or else I won’t get anything done. Yes, I’m one of those people who works best with real deadlines.

So, I’ve realized that I need to have a second manuscript nearly done once I start to query this one. I have no illusions about A Work in Progress (yes, that’s the title!) because from what I’ve heard, the genre is pretty much toast right now. It’ll come around again someday, but for now, no one is buying this stuff.

Which means I have a choice to make:

- Write another book in the same genre (I already have one started) and trust that someday, someone will start buying humorous women’s fiction / chick lit again. I just might be waiting awhile.

- Write another book in a different genre (historical fiction, for which I have 2 plots semi-thought out) knowing that I’d enjoy writing it and could see myself continuing to write in the genre, but thus starting from scratch in terms of taking on a new genre

- Write something in MG or YA (again, I have plots for a few books here too) because that’s what’s selling right now

I think I’m suffering from “too many ideas” syndrome. I also think I have a slight fear of being pigeon-holed into one genre… but then I consider that there are plenty of authors who write in multiple genres, and they all had to start somewhere! I guess you work toward being able to write and sell in multiple genres, taking things step-by-step.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Do I stick to writing another novel in what’s been termed a “dead market”, or do I write something else that — although I love the idea and story and am sure to love writing — would mean I’d have to start my area of focus from scratch?

Ah, choices…

What would you do?

Ultimately, this book offers just what the back cover copy suggests: examples of Biblical truths using observations taken from the television show LOST. On more than one occasion, Seay takes things a bit far, but he admits on a few occasions “this may seem far-fetched, but…” and I commend him for that.

But I suppose the main fault I see with the book is its simplicity. I’m not entirely sure who the target audience is for this book – Christians? Seekers? – because the simplistic presentation of the gospel will likely bore the believer, while being too watered-down for a seeker to truly get the point of Jesus’ message.

Seay methodically looks at each main character in the TV show, drawing examples from the episodes and relating their experiences to Scripture. The main point he tends to draw out is that we’re all broken people, especially the figures on LOST, but we’re not actually lost forever. Jesus’ truth can save us, in the same way that the island seems to be the redemptive point for many of the characters on the show.

This isn’t a book for someone who’s never seen the show. In fact, if you haven’t seen the show, I’m not sure why you’d bother with this book at all, since it already assumes a level of familiarity with the characters. I appreciate what Seay is trying to do, but without a clear target, I’m afraid that the reaction he’s aiming for falls badly off course… much like Oceanic 815.

At the very least, for a believer, it might provide a good starting point for discussions with friends of all backgrounds — and I suppose that’s something.

This book was provided for review by Booksneeze.com.