Tags
Giveaway, Jessica Aspen, Paranormal Romance, Snow White and the Seventh Wold, Twisted Tales, Writing
AAACK! I’m on my own Glob! Look! I’m right over there ==============================>>>>>>
Did I come prepared to share gibberish words of wisdom?
Erm. No.
I came prepared to let Jessica Aspen, a fellow Margie Lawson IMC grad, a talented writer, and one of my good buddies share her words of wisdom.
I’ve been so busy blog-jacking writing, I failed to craft a post of my own between esteemed blog guest gurus Brinda Berry and, today, Jessica Aspen.
For those of you who don’t yet follow Jessica, check out the linky-love at the end of the post, read the book blurb, and leave a comment for a chance to win a copy of Snow White and the Seventh Wolf, the second in her Twisted Tales trilogy.
If you don’t win the free copy, blame Jessica take your pal, Pay, on a vacation to the Amazon or any of the other sites listed. I already own and have read the book. Trust me. Your libido literary mind will thank you for the investment.
I’ll first share the cover and blurb on Jessica’s most recent publication.
Um. Jessie? Your publisher said I’d be getting a royalty check for posing as the heroine on this cover. Please have your peeps call my peeps. I’m shedding hair extensions.
Snow and the Seventh Wolf on: Amazon, Passion in Print, Barnes and Noble, All Romance
Exiled for attempting to kill his sister’s lover, the last thing Seth needs is to be saddled with a human. But Seth can’t turn his back when he discovers Snow fleeing from her avaricious step-parents murder plot. Isolated in a cabin in the woods, Snow attempts seduction and Seth discovers even werewolves are vulnerable to passion’s temptation. Seth’s angry struggles against his desire drive him away, but his over-protective alpha nature won’t let him abandon a female in distress. With Snow in danger again, can Seth overcome his prejudices in time to save Snow from her step-parents’ evil plan?
Since I’m the opening act for this gig, and sort of stole did my own twist on Jessica’s opening line, I’m going to step away and let Jessica take over. Enjoy!
I plan to hang out in comments today. I do some of my best work in comments.
THE THREE *LITTLE PIGS* P’s IN A WRITER’S LIFE
[Sorry, Jessica. Common Sense warned me against adding that. I rarely listen to Common Sense. It’s a character flaw.]
WELCOME, JESSICA ASPEN!
AAACK! I’m finally on Gloria’s Glob!
I’ve been waiting for this moment, my big debut on my friend Gloria’s blog. Gloria and I met up at Margie Lawson’s Deep Immersion class, which (due to Gloria, I’m sure!) became known as Woo-Hoo U. That was over two years ago and we’re both still chugging along with our writing. WOO-HOO!
But just like Gloria I get bogged down in the three P’s of writing: Procrastination, Perfectionism, and oh shoot, I had three last night!
Writing is tough, editing is tough, and staying away from the lure of the internet and social media is even tougher. So I went to my handy-dandy resource, Google. (Whatever did we do before Google? And I searched for the three P’s, because I knew I had heard them before. And here is what came up:
Persistence, planning, positivity
Live in the Present, live with Passion, live with Purpose
Permanence, Pervasiveness and Personalization
And the one I had in the back of my brain from all those First Aid classes I’ve taken just so I can go camping with the Girl Scouts:
“To preserve life by applying lifesaving medical intervention.
To prevent the condition from worsening through correct and prompt clinical response.
To promote recovery by taking appropriate steps to transport and hand over the patient to more qualified personnel.”
The Three P’s of First Aid (The Link for those life-saving methods listed above.)
So why is it that with all these wonderful “P” words swimming around in the proverbial mental soup, I stick with Procrastination, Perfectionism and…what was that third one???
It’s taken me a while to realize that avoiding writing or avoiding querying, in fact, avoiding anything…is my own fault. It’s my fears taking over. Fear that I won’t be able to write anything good today. Fear that what I have slaved over for a year or two is no good. Fear that no matter how hard I try, it will never be good enough. And so those vicious P’s rule my days.
But I still want to write. And I still DO write. And when I sit down and get those words on the page, no they aren’t any good. They are awful. But I’ve gotten to the point that I know that. The first draft will be bad. It is simply getting the action and some dialogue onto the page so I can get to the real work. The deep editing.
That is where the struggle really begins. Realizing that even though I can type my rough draft at a rate of one thousand words an hour, I edit at a rate of about 1,000 words a day. Slow. Tortoise slow. Slower than tortoise slow. Because once I’ve edited that first pass. I have to go back and do it again.
But it’s important to realize that once I’ve pushed aside my procrastination day-after-day and the ms is done, it’s time to send out the book for exposure to criticism.
Hence the last P… Panic.
That’s the one that makes my stomach churn. I send the book out to agents, editors, friends and Panic sets in. And since the publishing world (hey, is that another P?) is so slow, I have to live with gut-churning Panic for months. And months. And months.
Those editors and agents (my friends are super good about turn-around) take forever to even look at your work. And they take even longer to make a decision. As much as it tortures me I try to give them a little slack while I’m chewing my fingers to the bone with waiting because I believe that they are also beset by the three P’s. And I have to have a little Poise, and Pluck, and Pertinacity (yes, it’s a real word) and cut them a little slack. We all have those days.
Tell me your P stories. Do you put things off? If you don’t, how did you get to the point where you overcame your fears and created your own Positive P’s?
I’m giving away an e-copy of my recent release in the Twisted Tales: Come into the Woods Series, Snow and the Seventh Wolf to one lucky reader (WARNING, you must be over 18 to win). Leave a comment to enter and good luck!
Author Bio: Jessica Aspen writes paranormal romance near the foothills of the Colorado Rockies. Her books are full of elves, were-wolves and sexy men who walk on the dark side of the knife. She loves dark chocolate, walking the dog, hiking and is obsessed with new electronic writing devices. Jessica is also obsessed with writing, learning about writing and is currently hard at work on the third novella in the Twisted Tales: Come Into the Woods series, Goldi and the Bear available Fall 2013. She is a member of RWA, CRW, FF&P and PRO. You can find Jessica most days during the week at http://jessicaaspen.com
Author web links:
Discover Little Red Riding Wolf, the first book in the Twisted Tales: Come Into the Woods Series
REALLY! SERIOUSLY! Discover Little Red Riding Wolf. You don’t want to miss any of the books in this trilogy. Yes. They are that well-written and toe-tingling steamy.
Available at: Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Passion in Print, and All Romance.
Okay. Time for some FUN! Comments. I love comments. Jessica loves comments. If things work out as planned I’ll be the first person to toss my two cents into the comment pond.
Gloria Richard 
SKA-WEEET! Things worked out as planned.
I get to be first to throw my two cents into comments. I get to
playpromote Jessica’s talent in comments today. I get to collect money from those of you who were only willing to pay a penny for my thoughts.That’s all for now. I simply wanted to barge to the front of the line to thank Jessica for rescuing my Glob before the itsy-bitsy spider formed a web on the pages.
One of her links in this post is calling my name. It’s the one with Passion in the title. Yes. I’m a morning person. Yes. I wake up most days seeking Passion from
an Alpha Malemy imaginary and real worlds.I’ll be back with details on where to send those pennies for The Gloria Richard Adopt-Some-Nonsense-Don’t-Trust-Her-Fund.
Good morning, Gloria! And everyone else! I should not be surprised to see Miss Gotta-Beat-Ya-To-It here first. And how nice to have the welcome. 🙂
Thanks for having me as your guest, Miss Gloria, I feel like I’ve made the big time!
Happy to be here and I’ll be here all day, so leave some questions and comments for me, and of course Gloria, because if you saw Sherry Isaac’s Saturday post, where Gloria hi-jacked the blog and I guested, we’re pretty verbose. So don’t PROCRASTINATE, say hi, or whatever and join the hi-jinks!
Good morning, Jessica! Caffeinate that brain!
That Sherry Isaac (my bestie on days she wants to claim me), has a new post up today in her Trixie series. Here’s the linky love for that post.
And, you MUST READ Jessica’s post from Saturday. She wrote a poignant, compelling, blog-jack heaven post about Trixie.
Welcome, Jessica! I’ll even waive the penny for you, since you made this site a B-L-O-G today.
So then, I beat Sherry and am the first “legit” commenter? Well Brooklyn girls are fast, furious and fun. My three “F” words. I could use reliable, reasonable and resolute … or since you asked for it, Jessica … pensive, particular and … well I can’t help this one … passionate.
I am a particularly pensive and passionate Italian who didn’t know what the heck she was doing. And not being able to afford a graduate course, and limited numbers of workshops (I did Margie once) … I wrote over a million and half words … through twleve full length novels and over thirty short stores.
We can read, relax and reflect. We can revise, review and ruminate … but what we can’t do is stop writing … can’t listen to that mean “B” girl who wants us to fail, falter or flatline.
Falter? Fail? Flatline? I’m putting those words on snippets of paper and will burn them in my fireplace.
SQUEEE! Are we playing an alphabet game here today? If yes, I’m glad you already took the “F” words. 😉
Of course Florence Fois took the F words out of the game. I love the R’s she used though, makes those other three “R’s” obsolete. I had no idea you had that many words in the word bank, Florence. You go girl! Definitely not a procrastinator in Brooklyn!
I’m thinking of my own three P words this morning: Praise for Gloria’s chuckle-chortle humour, (I’m spelling in Canadian here…snort), Praise for Jessica’s ever-increasing list of books and ways to present them to the world, and Praise for all writers who just keep going. Thanks for a Perfect start to my day, ladies!
Elaine! So good to see you, and jeepers *blush* on the chuckle-chortle humoUr. Tiny secret? I’ve been hanging out with Canadians so much, I often add the U to words. I’m sure folks in The Land of the U Hogs can spare the few I use.
Jessica’s third in the trilogy is due out soon, too. Which is why I should not be dinking around in comments. I should be working on my WIP.
Thanks for the Praise, Present (for Jessica’s book Promo), and Perfect addition to the comments thread.
Love your three P’s, Elaine! And as a side note, I spell many things Canadian, but I always thought it was British spelling. Never knew it was actually Canadian all along to spell gray, grey etc. But hey, now I have Canadian friends, so I can blame them!
And thanks for the plug Gloria on my third book, Goldi and the Bear coming out Fall 2013. That is pretty exciting, and maybe, just maybe, I’ll have something else exciting to tell you all very soon. That’s all I’m saying because I’d hate to jinx anything!
Comment Part Two … I just had to get that up there before “someone” with sizzle beat me 🙂
Jessica, I’ve read you a number of times this month and I never, never, never (there’s Margie) tire of listening.
Glorida, get the words on the page and don’t stop. Never stop. No doubt, depression or destitude emotions. No fear. Be strong. Be that feisty gal with a “tude” and write until your fingers curl under and scream for mercy.
You are both so talented and need to be out there where readers can appreciate you.
I mean, I appreciate you. Sorry but could not think of three “A” words … then there is artistry, amiable, amorous.
So you both know (but are not the first to hear) this is the year I get it done. Get between the boards, bend the peddle to the metal and crash land on the page. Five years and a million and half words later, I KNOW I am good to go.
I have you and a few dozen wonderful bloggers, a half dozen writing books, classes and two wonderful BETA readers. Now it’s time to find an editor, an agent, a publisher.
Persistance ties it in a red ribbon. Love you guys 🙂
WTG, Florence!
YES! 2013 is our year. For you. For me. For Sherry.
I should keep two windows open at all times. One when I’m “doing some of my best free-writing work” in comments, and the other with my WIP.
It might be a great way to tag the energy I get from social interaction and transfer that write-with-abandon MoJo to ALL INN.
The voice I read on your blog is going to be one helluva fun voice to follow through a full manuscript. You rock!
I am waiting to buy both of your books. Waiting, wondering, wailing that they aren’t here yet! I have space on my kindle and I’ll make room on that TBR shelf, even if I have to chuck a few books to do it. Goals, ladies, Goals. Of course I know it’s not the number of words with you Florence, so maybe that’s not the thing. Maybe it’s submission. Ah, submission. That opens up all those sleezy sultry S words!
WOO HOO U reunited (er, almost).
Jessica, my P word today is Paralyzed. I’m back in the query Pool again, hit send one week and two days ago. Guidelines say I’ll hear back in two more weeks and five more days.
I can handle the ‘No thanks, not for us’ message, should that be the message they send. I am prepared with a query addressed to the next agent on my list. It’s the waiting that’s killing me. I vote we start spelling Torture with a P. A silent P, in honour of your Post.
Ptorture.
PA-Shnort!
You can handle the “No thanks, not for us” messages? Great news! I’ll have all my query responses sent to your address instead of mine.
I can then stay in a state of ptorture and pdendial and poptimism.
Hey! I like that poptimism word. Want to start a new trend, Sherry?
I possess the potential for publication until a publisher pricks my poptimism.
I have been in that position, prostrate to the publishers, or agents. Waiting for their response. And let me tell you, almost none of them reply by the day they say they will. Unless it’s an out and out no thanks. So keep waiting, because waiting longer is actually a good sign. Tough, but good!
Reblogged this on JessicaAspenWrites and commented:
WOOT! Gabbing away about the evil three P’s on Gloria Richards Blog.
I postpone, I petrify and I peter out… I really need to get back in the saddle. Thanks for posting!
I hear ya’ Carole!
We need some zippy, zany, and zzzzzz’s to recharge our batteries sometimes.
You? Back in the saddle? The calories you burn on the tennis courts contradict that peter out comment.
Oh, and posting! I find that when I stop writing it gets really hard to get back in that saddle, so the only way to do it on a regular basis is to not stop. Easier said than done!
If by “posting” you refer to globs, Jessica…
OUCH!
Those saddle sores I’ve been avoiding? Must. Learn. To. Post. So I can trot this horse named GLOB on a regular basis and still be able to sit without wincing.
Hey! Trixie learned to post in her first book in the series. I can do it! I can do it!
Great post, Jessica. I now have a P earwig 🙂 but seriously, perseverance is a good one. In this business, we all need that because nothing about publishing is easy. Even though I’ve been writing for a while, I still panic and procrastinate when it comes to hitting send. Then I wait imPatiently for the replies, hoping like heck it’s not a plethora of rejections!
Happy writing 🙂
LOL, Shelley! It’s so hard to hit send, and then when the rejections come it’s even tougher. But someday you get the response that they want to acquire your book and funnily enough it’s difficult too, because then you have to move into the next sphere of challenges! Good thing writers love writing. 🙂
Thanks for taking time to tell us your tender tale of tenacity, Shelley.
Dang! I should have started an “sh” string, so your name would be an oh–so-alliterative fit.
BONUS! You used one of my favorite words: plethora!
Jessica, put Shelley’s name in the hat twice for the free book drawing. Why? Do I need a reason? Really?
Should I taunt your readers with the fact that I OWN a copy? Tell them to get their own? Okay. Jessica, I can’t wait to read it. Gloria, we should have taken the horrendous hats with us <–secret insider message. 🙂
Yes! Taunt away, Brinda! Tease and tantalize those readers that you already own Snow and the Seventh Wolf.
Now you have me wondering about the horrendous hats!
The hats had horrendous and hideous messages, were formed and fashioned and forced upon us by a waiter with a winning smile and more whimsy than wisdom.
Brinda and I set out to lunch at The House of Blues. It wasn’t open for lunch.
We detoured and devoured delicious hamburgers at a dump named Dicks.
[Personally, I suspect I set us up when I corrected his spelling on a hat he fashioned for a nearby table.]
I’ll add puttering and putzing (a word my mother liked to use whenever I was dawdling or not moving quickly enough for her liking, as in “quit putzing around and clean your room.”) as two P’s that are evil and counterProductive to my writing. Sometimes I find it difficult to switch out of Playful mode into a more Pensive mode that is more Purposeful for getting the words on the Page. My Persnickety inner editor gets a little Perturbed with me when I’m like that.
Oh Tami! That was very good! You can come play the alphabet game any day. 🙂
In the puttering and putzing parade, I am prone to steam clean bathroom floors when I face a particularly challenging prose.
Sanitized floors do not a winning novel make.
Forsooth.
Yes, Jessica, I could cut and paste your article and sign my name to it, if not for another p – plagiarism.
I struggle with exactly the same P’s. I’ve found it not as reaffirming to be a published author as I’d thought. I am even more critical now that I know how our work is judged once it’s published. More than ever, I want to put my best work forward and that feeds the perfectionism/procrastination/over-editor in me.
But, you said it, I must remember that first drafts are ugly and I’m glad to know I have a kindred spirit in you when it comes to editing because it’s a slow crawl for me too.
I am forever grateful to have my coaches, Gloria, Sherry and Carole to keep me on task, and inspiring friends like you!