Last night I did a Twitter interview on RodeoChat. It came about because a dear friend of mine told them they should follow me, and that I mentioned them in And Then You Dance. It started at 7:00 and ended at 8:00, and was great fun.
As a writer, you know who your characters are, how the story came about, what inspired you whether it was character or story inspiration, or both. But, once you finish a book and move on to the next one, you don’t necessarily remember how you felt when you wrote the book before it, or the book before that. And then someone asks, and the feelings and memories come flooding back to you.
Sometimes a reader will ask why me wrote something the way I did, or ask about a part of the story that they hoped I’d write more about, and then when they got to the end of the book, there wasn’t more, and they were disappointed. What about this? someone will ask. Hmmm, I’ll think. I hadn’t thought about it. It often leads to new story ideas.
I was contacted yesterday by an agent representing a big publisher. They’ve asked that I submit my manuscripts for consideration. There are issues, however. Both my books sit at about 80,000 words. They want me to cut 15,000 to 20,000 words for the imprint they’re thinking of. Yikes. That’s a lot of words. On the other hand, a big publisher? Would it be worth it? Yes, of course, it would be.
I read somewhere that if an author isn’t interested in selling or promoting his or her book, he or she should write a diary. If you’re going to write a book, the goal is to get it out there, to be read.
I thought a lot about it yesterday. I took the situation, and wrote it into a new book. I wrote about the author looking back, twenty-five years later, holding the original book in her hands, knowing that what thousands of readers ended up reading, wasn’t her original story. I wanted to see how she felt, looking back on it.
She held onto those original books, kept them in a special place, but knew the decision she made was the best one. It allowed her to continue writing, book after book, and have those books read.
I was struggling once with a decision a character had to make in a book, and I went to a writers’ website and posted the question. Many answers came back to me, but the most profound was, ask your character what he would do. Go to a quiet place, close your eyes and listen to your character, he’ll speak to you. It was the best writing advice I’ve ever gotten. So I suppose, I have my answer. Cut the words, submit the manuscript, see what happens. After all, it’s what my character told me she would do.
Again, a big thanks to RodeoChat. It was fun, and introduced me to new people who may, someday, be character inspiration. I love what I do, I’m so fortunate to get to do it. I believe that those people who choose to follow their dream, whether it’s barrel racing, bull riding, writing or whatever . . . understand, and feel the same way I do.
To read the recap of the interview, visit this blog:
http://cowgirldreamerpmg.wordpress.com; you can also follow them on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/RodeoChat
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