How long have you been writing?

This has got to be one of the most frequently asked questions among writers:

How long have you been writing?

You get asked it when "introducing yourself" at workshops, in writer Q&A's, and, most notably, the RWR which notes with each "First Sale" announcement: "Helen has been writing for 22.5 years".

Does anyone really know how to answer this? You don't have a "first day" of writing, like, say, your first day of law school. Are you supposed to count the story about unicorns you did in grade four? Or the angsty journal you wrote in high school? And what day, exactly, did you start the random scribbles on a napkin that eventually became your first novel? Did anyone take notes?

Some writers modify the answer: "Helen has been writing seriously for 22.5 years." Or "Helen has been writing toward publication for 22.5 years." Ah, but this is a different statistic entirely. This is measuring an anniversary of a different sort: The day the writer woke up and said, "Hey, I think I want to publish this thing."

That's not the same as writing. Not at all.



Lots of us actually do remember, with a little clarity, when we started "writing seriously". It's often, though not always, somewhere around the time we joined RWA. For all its faults, the first thing RWA does is wake you up to the idea that you could actually do this, that other people are actually doing it, and that no, you may not be crazy. That's a big leap from the furtive scribbles after the baby is asleep, too ashamed to tell unsupportive family and friends about our stupid dreams, because "those romance books" are only for idiots and you have too many other important things to do to sit around daydreaming.

For me: Fall of 2005.

That said, my first novel was almost entirely finished by then, and the day I started that thing is truly lost in the mists of time. If I say I "started writing seriously" in 2005, that makes me sound like a much faster writer than I actually am, starting my third manuscript in 2008. In fact I am a slowpoke writer. My best guess is that I actually started Manuscript One sometime in 2003. Probably.

We really should can that question entirely. What else is it but a phony way for some of us to try and measure ourselves against others? "Gee, she's published and she's only been writing for two years. I'm a failure." Or "Gee, she's published and it took her 22.5 years. At least I'm not THAT bad." Except that it's a number everyone pulls out of their ass. And probably someone, somewhere, is fudging.

How about "When did you wake up?"

Photo from Flickr.com

Happy Love Day

Switching Stories

I've been in a writing fuddle for the past month.

I started a new manuscript on January 1. Since then, I've written approximately twenty pages. That's it.

I've been trying not to think about it. It was the holidays; I went on vacation; I got sick; I got offered some freelance work to do on top of the day job. And it just won't stop snowing, so I'm shoveling my driveway like twice a day. Who has time to write, right?

When I put it in black and white, you can see how wrong this is. Shoveling instead of writing? Shoveling? Really? Come on, Abby.

So I've taken a hard look at it and I think I need a new story. This one just isn't... giving me what I need. I've been on a few dates with it and I like it fine, but I'm not ready for a long-term relationship yet. Maybe I will be, someday - I'll certainly keep its number handy. But right now I'm not feeling that zing.

This is a hard decision, but after you've written for a while you know the feeling. It's a lot like love. My last manuscript intrigued me at first, then sort of fascinated me. Then I wrote a pivotal scene at the end of Act One and I was head over heels. I saw the story when I closed my eyes at night, I daydreamed it on the commuter train, I walked two inches off the ground at the office. It made me tingly all over.

Sometimes it takes a little while, but it has to come. And if it doesn't, what are you doing it for?

So now I have the task of closing my eyes and dreaming up a new story. Just letting my mind go where it will, and coming up with something. The life of a writer is hard, isn't it?

But first, I have to go put away the shovel.

Back, and reading

Back from vacation. It was terrific until the guy and I both caught the same Cold Virus from Hell that laid us out flat and feverish for the last two days. There's nothing more strangely pathetic than sitting by a beautiful blue pool on a hot tropical day, watching the frolicking adults and laughing children, while you mop your face and burn with fever. (For extra points, try going to a Mexican pharmacy and miming what you want since you can't read any of the labels.)

So, first five days = best vacation I ever had. Last two days = Just shoot me.

I did do some reading, though. I'd heard a lot about the Roselynde chronicles by Roberta Gellis, so I ordered the first one off Ebay a while ago. To my surprise, perhaps the ugliest cover in history arrived on my doorstep. I looked everywhere on the Internet to find a rendition of it, but it seems to be mercifully forgotten. So I snapped a picture of it myself. Behold:




Yes, it is a medieval. Yes, the hero - a medieval knight - is wearing an open shirt with pointed collar, and a Partridge Family haircut. Yes, he's bending her backward in that "has anyone ever actually done this?" romance pose.

The book, however, is terrific. It was published in 1979 and is a reminder of how romance publishing used to be, back in the wild wild west of the 70's and 80's.

To wit: The hero and heroine are apart more often than they are together. There are tons of politics and medieval history mixed into the plot. The hero is 30 years older than the heroine. He hires prostitutes while he's on campaign, away from the heroine for months at a time. The heroine isn't just "spirited" - she smacks her maids around mercilessly and is happy to manipulate to get what she wants. The violence is harsh, including a great grisly scene in which the hero kills some ten men by smashing their heads and chests with a morningstar. Oh, and it's 500 pages long.

They literally don't make 'em like this anymore. Anyone writing something like this today would hear the "it won't sell" refrain. And that's a shame.

It helps that Gellis is an unbelievably skilled writer, and her research is not only thorough but masterfully used (as an aside, there is a five-page afterword in which Gellis notes her sources - another extinct idea in romance land.) In case the whole thing doesn't sound very romantic, let me assure you that Gellis pulls it off.

My favourite quote:
"My love, my love, when I find who has done this to you, it will take him ten years to die."

The only downside is that there are tons of sequels, all of them out of print - and I really, really want to read them now...