The Glamorous Life of a Writer

So this morning, Friday, my only free day from teaching during the week (besides the weekends of course), I woke up all excited about getting down to the writing and pushing out a chapter, or at least some words, mainly because the day before my hindbrain suddenly decided to reveal the plot for the rest of the book in a massive core dump. I can now see what happens beyond Part I of the book. I can see what happens at the end of Part II now (hee hee!) and how that relates to and drives what happens at the end of the book as well.

I also learned that one of my main characters has a daughter. Who knew?

Anyway, all excited about the writing, I logged on and found emails and such waiting for me. I answered those. Which of course led to doing other writely things online to help with the promotion of the books. I then referred to my list of writerly things to do and one was call bookstores on my route up to see relatives in Maine for Thanksgiving to see if they'd order in stock so I could sign it as I passed by. Did that. Then I saw the packaged stacks of books to be mailed for either the library giveaway or the big bargain booksale, so I decided I'd run them to the post office. Oh, and then there's the shower and brush teeth thing.

So now it's after 11am and I have yet to sit down and write new words. This is the glamorous life of a writer. Most people don't realize that there's more involved than just writing when it comes to writing. There's all that promotional stuff as well, which takes time. I find that about half of my "writing" days are spent doing things to help sell the books already written and on the shelf, because at this point, I'm not a NY Times bestseller. I can't leave all of that to the publisher. Interested in other things on my writerly list that don't pertain to writing? Here's a sample (all from my current list): order more postcards (which means you have to design them if there's a new book coming out); design contest about MySpace or LJ icons; get signing set up at Flights of Fantasy; get book release party set up at the new bookstore in town, RiverRead; get signing set up at Waldenbooks in January; send postcards to independent bookstores across nation (which means I need to research genre bookstores online to get addresses); get press release written announcing German sale of books.

And there's more of course. In good news though, here's a recent fan story: I did a signing at the local university bookstore and a librarian friend of a librarian friend was forced to come down and visit me by said friend. Using my wiles, I seduced her into buying the first two books in paperback. In the first book, I wrote, "Hope you enjoy the books!" In the second, I wrote, "Better than Butcher? You decide." Meaning Jim Butcher of course, because I was chatting with her and learned she loved Jim Butcher, etc, etc, etc.

Anyway, she recently sent an email and in that email she said, "It’s a fantastic series! Butcher should most definitely be looking over his shoulder." *sigh* Jim Butcher better watch out! Varis is stalking him, and she hasn't missed a mark yet. *grin*

In other good news, this fan has decided the books are so good she's getting them in hardcover. Always nice to hear.

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