There’s a Daily Post challenge, too, but I don’t see daily posting in my future anytime soon.

WordPress posts ideas for topics every day — which is nice if you’re one of those folks who needs a little help coming up with something to write about. I’ll probably be using one of their topics from time to time, but hopefully the challenge will be a helpful way for me to get back onto my usual weekly schedule. I’ll be tagging those weekly posts with a special “postaweek” tag, so you can organize them if you so desire.

Anybody want to join me?

Grace doesn’t really believe in happily ever after.  She’s given up on love and marriage, but it’s no great loss.  The white picket fence doesn’t really appeal to her anyway.  Instead she’s made a very pleasant arrangement with two men.  When it comes to the inner workings of the male mind, her best friend, John March, knows everything there is to know.  He knows Grace pretty well, too.  That’s probably why he’s never wanted to be more than friends.

Not that Grace is looking for a relationship.

The other man?  Tal Crusoe, Grace’s friend with benefits.  She’s got a wonderful arrangement with Tal: regular hookups, no strings attached.  Tal is definitely not interested in being more than friends; he’s more than happy with the current setup.  And so is Grace.  At least she thinks she is.

That’s when John offers Grace something that could turn her comfortable arrangement on its ear.  Does Grace have the courage to follow through with this opportunity — wherever it leads?

I encourage all of you to check out the first chapter of Project NSA on this round’s contest page.  If you love it as much as I do, please vote for me!  The chapter with the most votes will move on to the next round of the contest, along with the three chapters chosen by judge Grace Bradley from Ellora’s Cave.

Happy reading!

This week, I’m getting my chapter ready for its debut, and to celebrate advancing in the contest, as well as my return to this long-neglected blog, I’d like to introduce you to some of the characters who bring Project NSA to life. Let’s start with a peek at hero John March, the man responsible for bringing the chemistry to the story.

From a distance, John seems to have everything: a research scientist’s brain in a long, lean, powerful body. His area of expertise? The biology of sex. When it comes to the business of the birds and the bees, John’s got the answers. With all that going for him, you’d think he’d have women lined up for the chance to fog up his glasses. But John’s only got eyes for Grace Foley, and that’s the trouble. Grace is his best friend – and she wants to keep it that way.

So is Grace blind to John’s charms? Tomorrow, we’ll take a look at her and find out.

Or you could sneak a peek at my pitch, and then come back tomorrow. Whatever works.

The interval between New Year’s Day and my January birthday inspire me to take stock of the preceding 12 months, examining all the things I set out to do, the things I accomplished and the surprises that popped up along the way. But every year at about this time, I usually spend more time thinking about all the ways I lost sight of my goals – or kept sight of them and fell short anyway. I can’t help but look at where I thought I’d be by now, and I always wonder what happened to divert me from my goals.

Where am I? Can I still get to where I want to be? Do I still want to be there?

Then, after a few days of New Year’s blues, my annual case of This Year Will Be Different sets in. This is when I set this year’s goals, sometimes wiping the old slate clean and sometimes adjusting previous aspirations for this year’s uses. The excitement is a nice change from New Year’s blues. I’m not a huge believer in the New Year’s resolution per se – typically because I have trouble choosing a specific resolution – but an arrangement of goals and a set of life changes geared toward accomplishing them can inspire me right up until I hit the first setback. I’ve written about the timely appearance of setbacks before, here.

But in the spirit of the season, and after a four-month absence from this blog (now that definitely deepened the New Year’s blues), I’ve decided that This Year Will Be Different. I’ve already started doing some things differently.

First off, I’m taking Margie Lawson’s Defeating Self-Defeating Behaviors class. I don’t want to go into it too much here – there is a lot of material, and it’s terrific – but let’s just say that my previous goal-setting methods were perhaps less than optimal. I’m trying out her methods now, and the idea of setting a daily set of goals instead of a yearly roster of them, which can cascade down at the slightest disruption, has worked out brilliantly so far.

Secondly, I’ve started doing the unthinkable. I’ve started getting up earlier. Much earlier. Like, are-you-serious-it’s-still-dark-out earlier.

And I love it.

There’s nothing going on around here at 5:30 in the morning. When I’m traveling, I find that 5:30 or so is a great time to check out the streets of a big city, to watch the way it’s just waking up. The world is at its most open then, vulnerable and authentic and receptive to observation. It’s a great time to take stock of the day to come and a wonderful time to be writing. I always thought my mind would be too foggy to write, but so far the opposite’s been true.

The other upside is that by the time I get to work, I’ve been up for several hours. I feel better about my day job in a strange way – it’s like it’s okay to deal with that now that I’ve already given several hours to my real work. The writing feels more like my first priority if I’m actually doing it first.

And finally, I’m going out on a limb more often this year. I’m working harder at putting the writing out there. Above my desk right now I’ve got 16 index cards, each of which has the name (or the main characters) of one of my story ideas on it. Sixteen’s a lot, but I’ve found that looking at them every time I sit down here is making it easier for me to commit some of each day’s work to one of them.

Also from the Out On A Limb files – I’ve entered my very first pitch into a contest. Over at the group blog, Passionate Reads, my pitch for Project NSA is posted with 25 or so others, all of us vying for the attention of Ellora’s Cave editor Grace Bradley. She’ll pick 10 of them herself to move on to the next round (entry of the first chapter), but the pitch that receives the most votes from blog visitors will also be moving forward to the next round, if it’s not among the 10 she’s already chosen. Honestly, it feels good just to be in the company of all the other terrific pitches. But – also honestly – it’d feel pretty good to take the top prize, which is a line-by-line critique of my first three chapters.

So I’m asking you all for a favor. Visit the contest page, and pick one of us to vote for. I’d definitely appreciate your vote, of course, but be sure and pick the pitch you like the best! I’ll appreciate your attention all the more if I know I’ve earned it.

And then maybe you’ll come back here to let me know how your 2011 is going so far. You know how much I love to hear from you!

Rules are made for the common good, which is all very good for the common.  ~ Jasmine Guy, as Whitley Gilbert

Last post, I went after one of my least favorite writing “rules”: Write What You Know.  My favorite teacher never fed me that party line — thank God — and I think I’ve been the better writer for it.  Today I want to go after another rule that’s doing some people more harm than good:

Money Always Flows Toward The Writer.

Before I really get rolling, I want to say that my stance regarding the flow of money is not quite so rigid as my position against WWYK.  Certainly we want money flowing toward the writer.  My opposition is to the dogmatic application of the MoneyFlow rule.  The truth is that not only will money flow away from the writer from time to time, but that the writer should encourage that to happen.

If money always flows to the writer, how are we to buy the things we need to have?  Seriously.  Are we really going up to the register with our box of purple ballpoint pens and telling the cashier, “Hey, no, I’m a writer.  So I don’t have to pay for these.  In fact, you should give me twenty dollars.”

(If we are supposed to be doing that, by the way, I really do need to hear about it, since I’m spending my own money on that stuff.)

The Money Flow rule, applied dogmatically, would seem to prohibit spending any money, not just on pencils and pens and that wonderful stuff but on classes and memberships and things like that.  Not a good result.  Writers need to send money flowing away from them sometimes.  We just need to watch where it flows and why it’s flowing there.

Some of the things I pay for are writing necessities.  There are the pencils and pens I mentioned earlier.  I didn’t pay for my laptop (my dad gave it to me as a gift), but I’ve spent money on flash drives and printer cartridges and paper.  I paid for my AlphaSmart when I thought the Internet was distracting me, and then I paid for a cable to connect it to my computer.  I need that stuff, and it’s been worthwhile to spend on it.

Some of the best money I spend on writing every year goes toward my membership dues for Romance Writers of America and the Virginia Romance Writers.  Every year, I get back more than I pay for.  Just the 12 issues of the Romance Writers Report, the downloadable handouts from each year’s National Conference and the online copy of Keys to Success are worth my annual dues, and the RWA has so much more to offer than those three things.  I’ve learned so much from regular meetings with the VRW (and from the Meetings After The Meetings, at lunch), and I’ve made some great friends I probably wouldn’t have met if money hadn’t been flowing from the writer.  It’s possible to do some networking and keep up with the industry and improve the actual writing without paying a dime.  But I know I’m getting real quality for my money, and if I didn’t think that was the case, I wouldn’t spend it.

Certainly the writing world is full of scams and shadiness and good old-fashioned wastes of money.  I’m a firm believer in investigating spending opportunities before I allow money to flow away from me.  Money doesn’t flow anywhere unless I know what I’m likely to get back — and whether I’m likely to get something every bit as good or better without paying for it.  But I spend money on my writing when it’s worthwhile to do so.

As a romance writer, I often have to grit my teeth and try to respond gracefully when people treat my work like a hobby (graceful responses are listed in Keys to Success, by the way).  But the MoneyFlow rule has made writing one of the only businesses in existence in which owners are actively discouraged from investing money into their own enterprises.  The MoneyFlow rule has the power to close doors and keep them closed.  Don’t let this bit of dogma keep you from getting ahead.

I was eight years old and in third grade when I wrote my first story in her class.  I may already have told you that it was a long (for me, anyway), handwritten mystery involving nuclear waste and a wildly complicated government conspiracy reaching from the Oval Office to our classroom.  There was even a little romance in it.  I enjoyed writing that story so much; it was more fun than anything I’d ever done before.  And it felt … right. 

My teacher gave me lots of opportunities to keep using that part of my creative energy.  She was the first person to show me that writing stories was something real people did as a job.  From that day to this, I’ve had only one answer to the question “What do you want to be when you grow up?” 

Today — after too much time away from this blog and from actual writing — I want to write about something my teacher never told me.

She never once said, “Write what you know.”

If she had, as so many others did in the years that followed, I would have stopped cold and never written another word.  I knew a lot for a little eight-year-old girl.  I was writing to get away from it.  The last thing in the world I wanted was to put what I knew into my stories, which were exciting and fun and everything I wanted from life.

Fortunately, my teacher let me write whatever I pleased, and if she minded the ambitious scope of my stories, she never let on.  By the time someone first tried to tell me to write what I knew, the warning had little effect on me.  I heard it all the time, but I wasn’t listening.

Write what you know (WWYK) is one of the most dangerous things people say to new writers for a number of reasons.  There’s sound advice at its base, but the delivery is keeping new writers, especially the young ones, from hearing it.  Like a lot of other writing “rules,” WWYK has lost its true spirit to robotic repetition and dogmatic application.  The heart of WWYK is worth preserving.  Today, I want to examine what it could really mean.

1.  Write What You Feel.

WWYK drives young writers into formula and cliché because it feels limiting.  So many of us come to writing when we’re coming to terms with the limitations of Real Life, as opposed to the realm of No Such Thing As.  At that crucial juncture, the warning of WWYK can sound a lot like “there’s no such thing as,” which in turn can sound a lot like a restriction to the confines of Real Life.  What a bummer for the young writer!  That would have put a stop to my tale of conspiracy for sure, and I’m not sure any of my current stories would fare any better.  I’ve spent too much time in earlier posts wailing about how little I know of Real Life romance.

The better approach is to encourage young writers to Write What You Feel.  Preserve the outlandish scenarios.  We grownups used to call it playing make-believe, but now we call it suspension of disbelief, and we need it to survive Real Life.  If reality must intrude — if we really need the story to be realistic — let’s build that foundation with real emotions.  It’s the same thing that makes science fiction and fantasy work so well.  No matter how wild the rest of the story is, what draws us in is not whether we *know* about magic or *know* about space travel.  What draws us in is what we feel for the characters, what we feel with the characters, and what we can learn about our own feelings and our own lives.

2.  Know What You Write.

WWYK has always sounded to me like a condescending reminder that I haven’t convinced my reader that I know the details about my subject matter.  Years ago, I think a lot of writing teachers would have stopped me as soon as I started with the nuclear waste (it was a lovely bright green and glowed in the dark).  Nuclear waste isn’t really like that, they’d say.  Shouldn’t I stick to something I know more about?

Well, sure I could.  But I couldn’t think of a plausible reason the Oval Office would be involved with anything I knew about.

Seriously, though, rather than limiting writers to what they already know, why not encourage them to get to know what they’re writing?  The Internet’s a gold mine, if all you need are superficial details, but if you need to know a lot about what you’re writing, that’s where the fun really starts.

I started work on a story where the hero and heroine were traveling in a single-engine plane.  At first, I had a fight scene planned, in which the hero would struggle with the villain at the back of the plane.  But I realized that I had never been in one of those planes before, and I wanted to be sure I got the layout of it right.

So I went to the handy-dandy Internet, and I went searching for someone nearby with a single engine plane.  I found New Kent Aviation and Doug Cumins.  According to his website, Doug would not only show me the inside of a single-engine plane, he’d let me take the wheel, and all for a surprisingly low fee.  I sent Doug an email explaining that I was a writer researching a story and looking for details about single-engine planes.  He signed me up for a discovery flight. 

I wanted details, and I sure got them!  I thought I’d only be spending a little time in the pilot’s seat — I was surprised to find that I’d be there for most of the flight.  Doug had a set of controls on his side, thank God, but I learned firsthand what it might be like to fly that plane.  As if that weren’t more than enough, Doug answered all my questions about emergency landings, how much space my characters could use for luggage, how far they could expect to travel on one tank of fuel, everything.  It was the experience of a lifetime, and now I know more about what I’m writing, too.  I’ve just got to actually write it.  That’s another post for another day.

3.  You Know More Than You Think.

The worst part of WWYK is that it gives writers little credit for what they do know and how many different ways that can be applied.  It’s easy to say “write what you know” and far more difficult to encourage young writers to really examine what they know.  Even the youngest of writers has a perspective, a point of view, a body of life experience that’s fresh and new to the world.  That’s the WYK of WWYK.  It’s not about a list of accomplishments or milestones along the road of life.  It’s something personal and unique that is a part of every writer in such a way that they may not recognize that it’s a source they can use for their writing.  Every writer knows something — at least one thing — that no one else knows.  That’s absolutely what should be written about, and it’ll find its home in any setting the writer chooses.  Even the outlandish ones.

(I think I owe her a thank-you note.  Better get on that later.)

I did finally thank Mom properly for what she’d given me.  I always had books around (book addiction is a family disease), but those were so powerful and so special that they really stood out for me.  Years ago, an ex-boyfriend brought me a box filled with part of the Great Books of the Western World series — he’d found them at the thrift store, and I thought I was going to faint with delight when I saw Aquinas, Augustine and Moliere on the spines!  A box filled with gold bars wouldn’t have made me happier.  Another ex-boyfriend gave me a book by one of his favorite authors.  It was something I would never have chosen for myself, but I’ve read it and re-read it and given four or five copies away to friends. 

These days, I think the trend is leaning more toward giving gift cards instead of books, and I can understand that people hesitate to give books on the chance that the recipient won’t like what they’re getting.  I’ll always prefer the book to the gift card.  Giving someone a book creates a relationship.  It’s an offering of a very personal part of yourself.  It’s the unspoken hope that your offering resonates with this other person.  It’s the flash of recognition: “Wow!  You get it!”  It’s that warm realization: “Wow.  She gets it.”  When you get it right, a book is a very intimate, timeless gift.  It can become a part of the recipient’s history.  To me, it’s what gift giving is all about.

Today, let’s share a word or two about a meaningful book gift — given or received — and why we love to give or get books!  And of course, if you can’t bear to receive or give another book, I want to hear from you, too!

My personal preference is for the regular sort in white with the lines.  Most of the time I use 4×6 cards, but Mom sent me several packs of unlined 3×5 cards which have served me quite well.  I’ve never gotten into the multi-colored ones; I know I’m not organized enough to use color coding.  It would only take a few minutes for me to use the wrong color for the wrong thing, and then I’d start beating myself up for sure.

Just for kicks, I thought I’d list some of my favorite uses for index cards here, just because I love them so much.  Index cards make all these tasks more portable, and they have a way of filling up quick and stacking up fast, so that I feel like I’m getting more done.  I’m always curious about what other people are putting on their index cards, so if you’re a fellow 4×6 fanatic, sign in here!

1. Plot-sey Goodness!

Plotting is one of the more popular writerly uses for index cards, but I think every writer uses them a little differently.  My style is in more or less constant flux.  Right now, I put a scene on each card.  On the top line, I put a name for the scene and the POV character, and then on the body of the card, I’ll write down a few scene and sequel sentences.  I put down the character’s goal for the scene, what’s in the way, why it didn’t work out (because it can’t work out — where’s the fun in that?), and then I put down the character’s response to why things didn’t work out.  If I can see or hear any of that scene, I jot that down on the back of the card, along with any other scene goodies. 

There are drawbacks to this approach — in my last WIP, I think I made at least three separate sets of cards, and now I can only find parts of each set.  I’m struggling to figure out which cards are which, and it’s slowly destroying the precious remnants of my sanity.  So the next plot card upgrade is to add numbers or letters or some sort of alphanumerical code so I can keep them straight at a glance.  And maybe I can stop losing them, too.  That might help.

2. Researchey Goodness!

When I was in high school and learning to write research papers, my English teacher introduced me to the Cult of the Index Card.  When I was in school, there wasn’t any of this fancy Internet research stuff.  We went to the good, old fashioned library and stacked up some books.  Remember the Twayne Series?  The Twaynes and I go way, way back. 

(Apparently, the Twaynes have gone digital now; I’m seeing searchable Twayne databases online.  I’m not sure how I feel about that.  Yes, I am.  I feel old.  I feel old about that.)

Anyway, when you get your huge stack of books together in the corner of the library, you’d pull out your faithful pack of index cards.  Then you pull down the first book and you write the bibliographical info on a card labeled “A.”  Then when you go through the book, you write down whatever is useful on its own card, also labeled A, along with a couple of words so that you can tell what the card is about at a glance.  As I recall (it’s been thousands of years, you understand), you could add a code to the card for direct quotations from your source, your own analysis based on the source, or info paraphrased from your source. 

As an omniscient teenager, I figured I didn’t need to waste time with any silly index cards, so my plan was just not to use them and go back to taking notes on little pieces of paper that I kept in the boundless wasteland of my backpack until the Last Minute arrived and I tried to write the entire paper in the space of two or three hours.  Anticipating this, my English teacher said she was going to grade the cards.  I’m so glad she did!  I still use index cards for research.  It’s a convenient way to keep track of my material, and it makes citation a breeze.

3. Controlling Book Addiction

A few years ago, I settled in for a nice long afternoon with a good book.  I was really excited about it.  The cover blurb and the few pages I had read in the bookstore piqued my interest, and I couldn’t wait to get into it. 

After a few pages, I started to think that the book was very similar to another one I had read.

After a few more pages, I started to think the book was identical to another one I had read.

A few pages after that, I figured out why the language sounded so familiar.  I had bought this book once before, read it before, and then passed it along to someone else. 

I had to wonder how many times I had done that before.  How many times had I bought the same book over and over?   And here’s an even scarier question — if you don’t remember reading this one book before, what chance do you have of remembering the last time you did it?

So now, whenever I finish reading something, I write down a few words about it on a 4×6 index cards.  I keep them filed away in a recipe box, arranged according to the author’s last name.  It works really well, even if I don’t refer to the cards that often, because the act of writing the information down helps me remember things better.  If I’m reading a series, index cards are a great way for me to keep track of where I am, and it’s nice to refer to the cards for recommendations and quickie reviews for friends.

4. Affirmation Platforms

Blank index cards make a wonderful platform for written goals and affirmations.  I like to cut the unlined 3x5s in half and use markers to write down those things I need to see all the time.  The cards are durable enough to stand up to push pins and the bulletin board, especially after I use the “poor man’s laminate” on them.  (Poor man’s laminate: Cover both sides of the card with packing tape.)  Plus it’s a good excuse for using the markers and scissors.  I just find that sort of thing soothing.

Okay, friends — what’s on your 4x6s?

On the first of the month, I said I was going to rededicate myself to the fine art of getting some words down onto the page.  I actually wrote that post on the 23^rd of February.  On the afternoon of the 24^th, overtime hours became available at my job.  I’m an hourly employee, and a temp on top of that, so when overtime is available, it’s basically mandatory for me, economy being what it is and all.  So I basically worked overtime every day after writing that promise, including the weekend, right up until the second of March, when the overtime went away and my job went with it.

The rest of the week has gone like this:

March 3, morning: Called around for another assignment.

March 3, noon: Went to church, to pray for another assignment.

March 3: afternoon: Received another assignment, to start March 5. 

I want to pause here to say, with complete seriousness and sincerity, that prayer works.

March 3, evening: Volunteer work.

March 3, night: Celebratory dinner, capped off with resolve to live like a full-time writer March 4.  The plan was to sit down at 9 on the morning of March 4 and work the dream schedule I have posted on my bulletin board (9 to 1, writing; 1 to 2, lunch; 2 to 6, writing).

March 4, 9 a.m.: Turned on laptop.

March 4, 9:03 a.m.: Received call from temp agency asking whether I can report to work immediately.

March 4, 9:07 a.m.: Closed laptop and reported to work immediately.

March 4, evening: Catching up on blog.  Ordinarily, I’d give this time to my promise, and I’m going to do that as soon as I’m done here.  But during Overtime Week, two of my fellow bloggers wrote that my little operation is a blog of interest to them.  I was so excited!  I read Denise and Gale quite often myself, and I always love what they have to say.  So I want to have something up for any of their readers who might happen by, as well as for my readers, who have probably come to expect the occasional accountability collapse from me.

Anyway, this is where I’ve been, and this is why the nifty word counter over there is still reading ZERO.  I feel better for having said this to you all.  It just seems like whenever I get myself resolved to take care of business, something happens to throw a wrench into the works.

What about you?  Is it always something for anyone else?

And me?  Well, I feel guilty.  And envious.  And kind of frustrated.

In other words, I feel not so good.

The only time I manage to make that kind of progress, I’m noticing, is during NaNoWriMo, and it should be more difficult to work then, what with the holiday season and all.  The rest of the year doesn’t work out as well for me.

Well, no more.  I can’t promise you that every Mo is a NaNoWriMo, but I am going to rededicate myself to getting the work done.  I can never be sure what I’ll be working on, but starting here and now on March 1, I’ll be sure to be working on something.

To that end, I’ve got a totally cool word counter over there to the right so you can all play along at home.

Happy reading and writing to us all!