Positivity for Writers #2 : Just Bloom, Beautiful Flower

Welcome to week 2 of my Positivity for Writers series. My intention with these posts is not to say THIS IS WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO TO BE HAPPY! but instead to share some of things that have worked for me. I hope they will speak to you!

--Raine

It's going to happen to you at some point. I don't care if you are the most well-adjusted, self-assured, confident writer on the planet. At some point, hanging out on FB, traversing the internet, attending a con, or, heck, just browsing Amazon.com, the feeling is going to hit you: you're not as good as Mr/s Writer Person X.

Darn Writer Person X with their fancy sales and their fancy fans and their fancy success! And as you try to shield your eyes from the glow of their awesomeness, that feeling of not being good enough is going to get into your bones and you're going to think: what am I even doing? Why am I even trying?

For a while I thought it was just me, being awed by others and then feeling small and insignificant. Then I read a status update from an author I admire (and one who I consider 'big time' within our community) talking about he felt small and insignificant. But really Writer Person X?! You're Writer Person X! How can you feel small, too?

Because he has his own Writer Person X looming over him with their fanciness!

And because ANY time you compare yourself to someone else, especially through the filtered glitz of facebook, you're going to come out feeling less than.

In my lowest moment, when I thought I might just give up, author JC Wallace (who has his own special condo in my heart!) sent me this picture:

(thank you @and_spiritually_speaking!)

The saying struck me in just the right way.

I started taking mindful breaks from the Facebook community. I started putting on blinders (figuratively!) when I was writing. I made a chart of my sales, not to compare to others, but so I could set goals against myself and compete with me.

I get it, I'm small-time right now. One day, I may not be. But there will ALWAYS be someone bigger than me and always someone coming up from behind to take my spot. If I don't want to lose my mind to competition and feelings of worthlessness, there's only one thing I can do: stop looking at the other flowers, and just bloom.

I hope you will too!

Raine

Positivity for Writers #1 : The Year of Writing Dangerously

This is the first in a series of positive thoughts for writers. I think the best thing we can do in this community is build each other up and support one another as creative individuals. These are some of my thoughts, some of the things that have worked for me. I hope they will speak to you as well.

--Raine

Last year, on my birthday, I set off on a journey. I called it The Year of Writing Dangerously and I was guided by one principle: write bravely. No matter what, don't let the fear (or in my case, the obsessive thoughts) rule you.

Be bold, be true, be lionhearted in all your writing endeavors.

Exactly one year later, I released my very first ever published novella.

I'm not saying that setting off on a 365 day journey of brave writing = publication. Besides, publication is not always the end-all goal. But I am saying that writing despite a head full of little demon doubts is the greatest feeling in the world!

I kept a journal of each brave day and it's interesting now to go back and re-read it. The doubts and the successes, the frustrations and the excitement. The day I'd given up hope that Dreamspinner Press would ever want me and the day after when I got to write: I signed the contract.

Writing bravely isn't about not having those fears and self-doubts, but instead, moving through them, for yourself and for your goals.

I proved to myself that I could be brave. Now, I'm trying to decide what my next journey should be. The Year of Writing __ ? I'm excited to see what I can do with another 365 days. What will you do with your year?

More #MMRomance Than You Can Shake a Stick At! or New #Contracts! (Heh, she said "Stick"!)

I'm so stinkin' excited, y'all! Just this week I signed TWO more contracts--one with Dreamspinner Press and the other with Dreamspinner's YA imprint, Harmony Ink. (Yup, the revise and resubmit has been revised, resubmitted, and accepted <3)

Here's the new estimated release schedule as it stands:

The Most Beautiful Words in the World 

(OCT 2014)

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 sets? Especially when there's someone familiar in the Valley who will do everything he can to keep Great-Pop from returning to her.

Bowl Full of Cherries 

(EARLY DEC 2014)

Porker, Fatty, Tons-of-Fun, Roly-Poly: Crowley Fredericks has heard it all. He’s dropped a lot of the weight since his high school days, but he’s still a big guy, and the painful words follow him. Rejected—again—because of his weight, Crowley’s starting to think that maybe love just isn’t meant for huskier men. And then his roommate, Tyler, invites him home for Christmas in snowy Susset and everything changes.

Averell “Rell” Lang is one half of the Lang Twins. But where his brother Tyler is snobby, elitist and the consummate ‘hipster’, Rell is funny, laid back, and yes, maybe a bit of a slacker. The twins couldn’t be any more different. So when Tyler brings home his roommate for the holidays, Rell expects the worst—a Tyler clone. What he gets instead is Crowley. Beautiful, funny, fascinating Crowley. Rell’s never looked at a man this way before, and what he sees in Crowley Fredericks has nothing to do with his weight.

Can both men overcome their hang-ups to unwrap more than Christmas presents this holiday season?

Alchemy Ever After (with Siôn O'Tierney) 

(LATE JAN 2015)

The city of New Alexandria is filled with marvelous wonders: the largest library known to man, powerful magicians-in-training, mechanical follies, and much more! Yet it is not this thoroughly modern metropolis that lured Idrian from his hometown, but the promise of learning the new art of alchemy. Master Maketh is a scholar combining the spectacular new technology of the era with the ancient art of magic, and he’s taken Idrian in as an apprentice. Together, they are animating a living sculpture from ice. It is the culmination of years of research, and Idrian cannot wait to unveil it alongside all the other marvels being presented at the annual Spring Festival.

But after witnessing his master in a passionate embrace with one of the students from the New Alexandria Academy of Engineering & the Magical Arts, naive Idrian's mind is no longer strictly on things alchemical. When his warm touch accidentally awakens the consciousness within the living sculpture, Idrian learns lessons firsthand about passion and physicality.

I'll Always Miss You 

(MAR 2015)

Isa Zaman could forgive his parents for taking in a friend of the family's son if only he wasn't the most boring teenager in the universe. Macklin Cormack’s only interests are "reading and the outdoors"? Yeah, right. Isa's convinced that "Mackie" is either a pyro or a klepto. Plus, as a white kid, Mackie looks ridiculous in the Zaman’s Arab-American household. Forced to share a bedroom with the new intruder, Isa keeps butting heads with Mackie, until a hilariously absurd fight breaks the tension between them.

Isa’s just starting to figure things out: this new house guest, his cultural identity, school, and girls, when the whole family is suddenly uprooted from their home, for reasons Isa can't understand. They move from their tiny apartment in the city to a giant, old house in a small town, hours away from all he's ever known. Oh, and the new house? It's probably haunted, or so says the ten-year-old next door who can't make facial expressions. As if things weren't weird enough, Isa's friendship with Mackie just took a strange new turn, down a path he's not sure he wants to follow. Mackie Cormac? Not near as boring as Isa imagined.

~ ~ ~

My life's work, right there... I know it seems like I squeezed out all these novels at once, but actually, all my releases have been in various stages of completion for the last decade. 

Now what?

Writing, of course! I've got more stories to tell and hopefully I'll be able to get back into the swing of things soon.

--Raine

For the Low, Low Price of NO DOLLARS...Some Advice on #Writing and #Creativity!

This was originally written for Wedbriefsfic.com on my Under the Table and Into His Heart blog tour. Published Mar 25th, 2014.

In my day-to-day life, I am a library lady and as such library things interest me. In a meeting with our programming department, we jokingly asked if we could get Neil Gaiman as the author for our NaNoWriMo after-hours party this November. Mr. Gaiman’s appearance fee is a well-earned $30,000—so, no go. But have you heard the man speak? He is SO motivating.

I am no Neil Gaiman.

But in my 20+ years of writing, I have developed a small set of advice that I keep close to my heart. For the low, low price of NO DOLLARS, I want to share it with you now.

Be brave in all things.

Writing is scary. Writing can be downright terrifying even. If you aren’t scared of writing, there is always sharing your stories, editing, soliciting for publication, blurb writing, release day, promo, reviews, self-doubt, and the NEXT story. There’s always something to be nervous about. That’s why you must be brave to pursue your dreams.

Write boldly.

The bolder the better. Don’t let anyone set limitation on your story. Write with the graceful wordcraft of an adult and the imagination of a child.

Write for yourself.

Money is awesome. Writing and getting paid to write? Awesomely awesome. But writing FOR money? It’s taxing. It’s draining. I don’t care if you are following trends or not as long as, at the heart of it, you are saying something meaningful for yourself. Speak with your voice, not the voice they want you to have.

You have a lifetime of stories, they don’t have to all be written today.

This is not my advice—it is my friend Lisa’s. She drilled it into my head. When you craft, craft with precision and care. The goal is not to write 100 mediocre stories when a little more effort and a little more time would produce five AMAZING stories.

You are a creative being.

Prove it! Write, draw, sing, knit, garden, dance, bake, design, sew, anything. Get your fingers moving and your brain flowing. Be creative in all things!

Dream, dream, DREAM!

We’ve all been told at one point or another that dreams are for babies and dreaming is pointless. SCREW. THAT. Dream big! Dream bold! Dream in defiance! DREAM. And then do something about those dreams.

I believe in you,
Raine O’Tierney