Veteran Aspiring Author

I won't apologize for letting this blog sit and gather a few cob webs. I've been engaged in the work this blog espouses. Writing. Reading. Editing. Learning. Oh, and periodically, living my life, too, outside of the literary pursuits--such as it is. Blogging is a spurt-sport for me. I do it in spurts. Not so with the writing of my books.

Currently, I am pitching my books to agents and publishers, and while this is a fresh endeavor, it's not due to any greenness on my part. I have said many times that I spent 20 years falling in love with my craft, rather than with my words. The tide has shifted so that I finally feel I can offer my work for public consumption in a more professional and acceptable way. So I'm doing that now.

In the midst of sending two different queries for two different commercial novels, and receiving my first two rejections (yeah! Two down, an unknown number to go!), I am also in the middle of three queries for three different books to three different small publishers. And I am also writing five other books. (I don't work on them at once, really, but sometimes I get stuck on one, or inspired about another and I switch off. Different writers have different modus operandi. ).

The issue that has reared its mottled head, is that because I have been at this writing endeavor so long, I find myself in a strange netherworld of "Veteran Aspiring Author." I do not feel like I "aspire" to be an author. I already am one. But then you have to get into the quagmire of definition. What is the difference between an "Aspiring Author" and "An Author"? An author, in its simplest definition, and the one to which I refer, is a person who writes a book. Not "tries" to write it. But writes it. Completes it. When you begin your first book, you are a writer. When you have finished it, you then become an author. That is to me the most concise way of framing what an author is.

So, having said all that, I am an author. I have written 13 books. I am currently writing 5 others. Imagine my discomfort when I try to find my peers. I join writing groups and the discussion is "How do i get ideas to write about?" or "do i need to start a new paragraph when each character speaks?" or "Why dont publashers except my writeing?"

Okay, not on that level anymore... But having peer reviews from other "unpublished" writers can be equally frustrating, when I've read their work and know that they are still making horrendous stylistic, grammatical and plotting errors in their own material, while seeking to help me "improve" mine. That's a risky thing to say, as it can easily come off arrogant. I assure you, there's a difference between arrogance and substantiated confidence.

Anyway. That's where I am. Veteran Aspiring Author.

Veteran Aspiring Author

My Muse Still Breathes

All authors get to a point in their writing life, where they feel they have plumbed the depths of the well the Muse provides, and begin to doubt that they have anything else to offer. This is usually a case of stagnation within the mileu of new experience. Without new input, new contrasts in our day to day lives, we can only reiterate what we have already learned.

I had reached this point a few weeks ago. I feared that the 12 books I have in print and the 2 I'm almost finished with, were to be the last. I couldn't imagine having another fresh idea, even though I had just completed an entirely fresh novel from start to finish (Baggage). This book wasn't based on anyone I knew, and it had no personal experiences in it. I want to have an equal number of mainstream books as I do "gay" ones, to increase my chances of finding a mainstream publisher or agent. So I've been trying to break away from the need to write about only gay characters. I also needed to write without the temptation of including numerous sex scenes. It can sometimes be a cop-out to do that. So Baggage had no Gay characters, none of them inspired by anyone I knew, including myself, no scenes that were based on something that happened to me or anyone else in my life. It was entirely new. So I was pleased to have accomplished that goal.

But then, as I was about to complete the other few I had not finished, it occurred to me that I had no more tidbits after that, in my writing files, from whence to nurture and develop a new story. I spent so many years writing portions of books and then putting them away, that I had plenty to work with.

The day came when I was nearing completion of all those old projects, and was faced with the impending task of creating something entirely new.

As the days wore on, I still couldn't think of anything, still couldn't find inspiration that would give me the new book. So I let go of it. Not for long, just a few days, and asked my subconscious mind each night to provide something in my sleep. Dreams have always been a rich source of material for me. From the odd short story, The House of Escher, (included in the collection, "Brainmatter") to any number of springboard scenarios that became various novels, my dreaming mind could always serve up something new and interesting.

I knew I needed to focus on other things and other people, and try to break out of my routine for awhile. I created about 7 new paintings, (Shown on left) having been inspired by the work of Russian artist, Wassily Kandinski, and watched a lot of TV and movies, and read about 3 new Koontz novels, since he has been such a mentor to me. I have studied his writing for a long time, because I wanted to understand how he managed to provide so much reading pleasure. I have actually figured out how he accomplished this on many levels, and that has been helpful to my writing in many ways. I hoped that reading him again, and getting all this other input, would stir something up.

It did.


My best friend and I had been talking about the concept of Walk-ins, and I had read some material about it out of curiosity. Then, after having headaches everyday lately, and some blurred vision, I had a tragic fantasy that my eyesight might be in danger. That led me to consider that I hadn't ever written about a blind character.


After that, I had this image in one of my dreams, of a woman standing on a precipice. She is shot in the shoulder and falls into the void. That was not a dream that was much fun to wake up from, since the woman was myself. While I suspect it was some subconscious fear that my love life has been killed by the lack of hope, and I feel I am about to descend into some romantic void, I ignored this in favor of using it for fodder.

Then, I used a method that had worked for me before: taking previous seedlings of unrelated ideas and putting them together to see what happened. It's kind of like creative cooking. You know that certain things go together, but then you throw in a few things to see if it tastes different or better.

From this collection of disparate ideas, my muse baked me something new.

I now have the seedlings for a new book, and am working on it along with completing the two novellas in progress. (Those--Quintessence and Another Justice--should be available in November). The new book, is as yet untitled, but that always reveals itself in the writing, unless I have begun with the title itself.

The blurb I have so far, concerning what the book is to be about, is:

"A non-physical walk-in soul makes an agreement with another incarnated soul to take over her body. The Walk-in, perhaps too fearless, and too hungry for the pleasures of the flesh, discovers she has inherited the life of a Morman goody-two-shoes who is live-in caregiver for two men--one blind, the other wheelchair bound.

And someone is trying to kill her."

My Muse still breathes.

My Muse Still Breathes