Positivity for Writers #3: Don't Let Others Dictate Your Pace

I can't believe it's already week three of the positivity posts! I hope you've found them helpful. I'd love your feedback. :)

--Raine

With the current culture of ebooks, indie-publishing, and small-press publishers, the pace at which it seems authors want to (or more often, need to) write has really changed. Growing up, I had a favorite Harlequin author, Jessica Steele, and on the very best of years, when her releases fell just right, she put out two books in a calendar year. That was fast. That was insanely fast.

Now, it's almost as if two books a year is standard, if not a little on the slow side. I know authors that release every two months. I know authors that seem to release every month. I know authors who do this *and* have full-time jobs. Is your head spinning yet?

I admit it, I lost myself to the pace for a while. People cheered me on. You can do it! Write more! Write faster! And so I did, and I felt good. Faster, faster, faster... Until my fastest wasn't fast enough. And then I didn't feel good at all.

Between April and December 2014, I will have put out six works. But those works were percolating for YEARS and many were in various stages of drafting and editing before 2014! They just happened to get clumped together and published in a relatively short span of time. So what happens in 2015...?

A very dear friend gave me a piece of advice that I wrote down in journals, on my hand, on scraps of paper, anywhere I might stumble upon it. It's, well, pretty much everywhere. I have to keep it nearby because if I don't, it slips right out of my brain.

Simply put, she said:

Your Creator didn't give you a lifetime's worth of stories, so that you could write them all today.

Write at the pace that works best for you. If a release a month WORKS for you and you are happy--keep doing that! But don't feel like you have to. We want you to take the time you need to craft the story in your heart with love and care. (Except in November: November is NaNoWriMo. Mwahaha!)

Remember: this is not a race, my friends. It's an art. :)

Until next time!
Raine O'Tierney

Ta-Da! Most Beautiful Words! #MMromance #Coverreveal

A very special thank you to Brooke Albrecht who put together my lovely cover and to Will Parkinson who set up the cover reveal. :) And to YOU for stopping by to check it out. Isn't it pretty? <3

Book Name: Most Beautiful Words

Author Name: Raine O’Tierney

Cover Artist: Brooke Albrecht

Publisher: Dreamspinner Press

Blurb(s):

Twelve-year-old Autumn's world is shattered when her beloved Great-Pop, Tommy Johnson, suffers a stroke that leaves him comatose. With everyone around her resigning themselves to the inevitable, Autumn is the only one not willing to give up. She and Great-Pop have more secret stories to share with each other, after all. More stories about Roy McMillan—the great love of Tommy's life whom he lost fifty years ago.

Autumn struggles to keep Great-Pop on this side of death's door. But how can she compete with the beautiful and mysterious Valley—a place of surreal magic where the sun never fully sets? Especially when there's someone familiar in the Valley who will do everything he can to keep Great-Pop from returning to her.

Excerpt:

“So what’s my prize?”

“I’m gonna let you kiss me,” Roy said with a big, devious smile.

“Yeah?” Tommy asked, thinking he was being put on. “All right, I guess I’ll take the consolation prize then.”

“That leaves me with the grand prize by default.”

And he leaned in, and as sweet as anything Tommy had experienced in his whole life, Roy kissed his slightly parted lips. Even when Tommy stiffened, Roy did not pull back. Instead, slowly and deliberately, he gathered Tommy to him with a hold that was loose enough for him to escape from, but tight enough to be a real, romantic embrace. He kissed Tommy until he had to draw breath, and even then he did not let him go all the way.

“You… really wanted to?” Tommy asked, his head spinning. In that moment he had a single, solitary regret. It wasn’t coming out here to shoot arrows, and it wasn’t that he hadn’t pulled out of Roy’s embrace or even that he’d been kissed. It was that he hadn’t kissed Roy first. Because Tommy liked the kissing. A lot. And he wanted to do it more.

Available from Dreamspinner Press (ebook) | Dreamspinner Press (paperback)

About the Author: Called "Queen of the Sweetness" (well, two or three people said it anyway!) Raine O'Tierney loves writing sweet stories about first loves, first times, fidelity, forever-endings and...friskiness?

Raine O'Tierney lives outside of Kansas City with her husband, fellow Dreamspinner Press author, Siôn O'Tierney. When she's not writing, she's either asleep, or fighting the good fight for intellectual freedom at her library day job. Raine believes the best thing we can do in life is be kind to one another, and she enjoys encouraging fellow writers. Writing for 20+ years (with the last 10 spent on M/M) Raine changes sub-genres to suit her mood and believes all good stories end sweetly. Contact her if you're interested in talking about point-and-click adventure games or about which dachshunds are the best kinds of dachshunds!

Raineotierney.com | Dreamspinner Press Author Page | The Hat Party (LGBT Author Interviews!) | Facebook Fan Page | Twitter

Tour Dates: 9/10/14
Tour Stops: Parker Williams, Prism Book Alliance, Cate Ashwood, Velvet Panic, Fallen Angel Reviews, Regular Guys, Hot Romance, Wake Up Your Wild Side, Iyana Jenna, Elisa - My Reviews and Ramblings, Love Bytes, Amanda C. Stone, LeAnn’s Book Reviews, Scattered Thoughts & Rogue Words, Up All Night, Read All Day, Rainbow Gold Reviews, Nephylim, EE Montgomery, Inked Rainbow Reads, Andrew Q. Gordon, Emotion in Motion

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