They have more in common then you might think.
Okay, I have never been to an AA meeting or a Weight Watchers meeting. I’ve never had a reason to go to AA and while I have over the years (most of those times immediately following childbirth) had cause to go to WW I have avoided those meetings like the plague. Why? Because my impression of those meetings is a bunch of people sitting around rah-rahing everyone ad nauseum. I also felt the people attending those meetings were the type who needed constant stroking and assurance that they are good worthy people. I am not a rah-rah person and I do not need constant stroking, I know I am a good person and don’t need anyone to tell me. I do not need group hugs or group inspiration or group anything. I am an island. What I did need to do, was go on a diet. I have a few pounds to spare and even though I am fairly consistent with my daily walks and light weight lifting, I can’t seem to lose this extra 20 pounds. So at my MIL insistence, I finally agreed, (only to make her happy) to attend our local WW meetings.
It was everything I expected it would be, and it was more. Much, much more.
First of all it was not nearly as painful or embarrassing as I thought it would be. I wanted to shout to the room I was there only on behalf of my MIL, yanno to support her. But I didn’t. Instead I was warmly greeted and given a little form to fill out, and then the deadly weigh in. I had in my mind that I would have to step onto one of those scales with the sliding weights up top like at the doctor’s office and everyone would be looking to see how far right the big hundred pound one would have to go. Instead I stepped onto a little pad and the smiling lady behind the table wrote down my weight on the card and handed it back to me. I went and sat down in the front row, coz I wasn’t gonna hide, and my MIL sat next to me. As people began to filter in for the meeting my uppity ‘tude started to wane. There were woman who had the most gorgeous figures and there were women and men who had hundreds of pounds to lose. I felt myself choking up a bit and thinking how brave they were for just showing up. I saw men and women who had years of dieting in their future. It was going to take some dogged determination but they had that look in their eye the look of, “I want this, and damn it, I’m going to work at it until I get to my goal weight.” Then it was time for the meeting. As I guessed, the gal who ran it came on stage like Jay Leno and proceeded to wow us with her stand up act. My MIL and I looked at each other at one point and rolled our eyes. But, about half way through her routine, I realized this woman had been one of those who had over 100 pounds to lose, and she had, and kept it off, for years. She was there for all of us, unselfishly. Yes she’s getting paid but I’m sure it isn’t much.
She spouted phrases like, “Choose how you live.” “Eat smart.” After the meeting, she introduced me to the Points Plan and the Core Plan. Being one to do things as simply as possible I chose the Core Plan. It’s simple, they give you a list of core foods you can eat. Don’t stray.
Now how does this pertain to writing you ask? Well, first of all you have make the decision to write, to get something done, to commit. Same with WW. If you’re going to lose weight you need to do all of the above. I see the people at the meeting with lots of weight to lose as newbie writers. Like I was five years ago. I knew what I wanted, I knew what my goal was, but I needed help to get there. Each pound lost is a step closer to my goal weight; each manuscript written was closer to my goal of publication. For some, the pounds come off quick, for others slower, and they have setbacks. Same with writing. As writers we must “Choose to write.” And “Write smart.” We must encourage each other, and take regular stock of our progress and share with each other what works and what doesn’t work. When the rah-rah WW lady asked if anyone would like to share good news, I cringed, and thought, okay, here we go, the blabbering confessions. Well, there was none of that, people shared a diet tip or a cool food they discovered or a way to break the monotony of exercise. It’s the same thing we writers do. We share writing tips, writing successes and failures, and we come together with the commonality of the love of writing. So, while I won’t tell you what my goal weight is or how much I want to lose, I will admit I realized at that meeting I am not the island I thought I was, and that I was wrong about the people who went to WW. I thought I was an island when I began to write, and it wasn’t until I reached out to other writers and began to understand the business that my progress began in earnest. If there are any of you out there who have been toying with joining WW, do yourself a favor and join. You have nothing to lose but those extra pounds, and if you apply the same principles to writing, you will find yourself closer to your personal writing goals. We live a sedentary life us writers, and we need regular exercise and good nutrition to see us live to hit number one on the N Y Times list.
Do you have any tips to share that help you achieve your writing and diet goals?

Okay, the rumors have to stop. I’m nipping them in the bud . . . now.

A good cyber-buddy of mine (with a book coming out next month . . . check it out) emailed me after I posted on one of my many email loops. I’d mentioned I had a book due in seven weeks. She commented that she’d read somewhere that it only took me two months to write a book.

Uh, no.

I did write a book in six weeks. It was the unpublished futuristic that garnered me my only editor request for a full manuscript out of the fifteen unpublished contests I finaled in back in 2003. I was in the middle of THE PREY, got stuck, and wrote the first draft of FATAL SECRETS in six weeks.

But that was the only book I wrote in less than two months. (Oh, and in case you’re wondering, I never ever heard back from said editor after sending her the manuscript.)

My stories sit in a crock pot and stew for awhile in my mess of a brain. I’m constantly thinking of plot threads, my characters, situations . . . so when I sit down to write, I don’t stare at a blank screen. I have ideas to explore . . . and if I go down the wrong path, that’s okay. I just backtrack. Two steps forward, one step back . . .

Now, to squelch the rumors: it takes me on average 250 hours to write a book. If I wrote four hours a day, every day, that would mean I could write a book in 62 days. I wish. I average 15-20 hours a week WRITING time (not thinking time), which puts me between 12 and 16 weeks to write about 450 pages, and my writing speed increases as the story progresses.

Now that the myth is debunked, onto more important things . . . THRILLERFEST!!! I’m joining Deb and Nat in Phoenix for the First Annual conference for International Thriller Writers. I’m really, really excited to be on a panel called “Thrillers with Heart” with Sandra Brown, Heather Graham, CJ Lyons and Debra Webb. Please pray that I don’t put my foot in my mouth.

I’ll blog about my festivities, maybe over the weekend if I have time; if not, next Thursday!

I think I’ll have internet service, so I’ll stop in and visit later today . . . until then . . . be good

Well, I’m in the middle of the desert again, and my sinuses feel like they’re packed with wads of cotton. Aside from not being able to breathe, I have a touch of a stomach virus, which means everything I eat takes a fast, direct route right out of my body.

Behind me is a different bed than the one I slept in last night. This one looks kind of hard, and the pillows are flat. I have dinner to look forward to, though. Another burger and coke. It was either that or pizza…erk!…then I get to shower in a stall that looks like it was installed in 1965, all the while cleaning up with a bar of soap that smells like Lysol and is about the size of a postage stamp.

To add insult to injury, my hair currently looks like the “before” picture in a Tony and Guy’s Beauty Salon ad. You know the one of the broad with stringy, flat, and dull hair?

Sounds glorious, right? This is life on the road while on a book tour….well, for me anyway. I’m not one of those authors who garner a six or seven-figure income that allows them luxury hotels, fillet mignon every night, and a traveling companion that handles minutia.

As my butt numbs to the rhythm of the road, I often ask myself, “Why in the hell are you putting yourself through this?” The answer is always the same…”Because it’s part of the deal, dammit.”

This physical road is long and hard, but in truth, it’s no harder than the one you take every time you sit down to write a book. Long hours, little sustenance, solitude, flat butts and bad hair are givens on either end of this highway….and you deal with all of it without any guarantees. No one’s promising your manuscript will sell after you’ve written it, and no one’s claiming you’ll sell more books if you tour. Then why do either?

We write because we can’t not write. Something inside us needs to give birth to all those stories stirring around in our brains. And we tour and promote to give those babies a chance at a real life. To me, it’s really not that much different than raising actual children. We struggle to give them birth, struggle to raise them right, then, when it’s time for them to leave home, we do all we can to give them a foot-up in this world. No one questions why a mom or dad does so much for their children. It’s simply understood. Because it’s part of the deal, dammit.

Last night I dreamed Johnny Depp was living in my basement.

It was Christmas, and we were opening presents, and I suddenly said to my children, “Oh, I need to go get Johnny. After all, we did buy presents for him, didn’t we?” We did. I got him a gift certificate to Barnes and Noble. Not sure what the children got him, but they don’t think he’s quite as hot as I do, so I’m sure it wasn’t very exciting.

I went downstairs to tell Johnny to come up, and heard a feminine laugh and saw some very spiky heels through a small opening in his door, and decided this was PROBABLY not the time to interrupt Johnny, and so I went back upstairs and told the girls he would have to open up his presents a little later.

Then I woke up. First thought, “Hello? You don’t HAVE a basement.”

Second thought, “Johnny DEPP? What is UP with that?”

Third thought, “Pirate!”

Fourth thought, “Man, I have some weird dreams. I wonder if I can work this into a book?”

Well, I still haven’t figured out how to work Johnny Depp in my basement into a book (Get your mind out of the gutter, Jen!) but I know that real life gets into my books all the time.

For example, I am currently getting revenge on ALL the pyscho dance moms by writing a pyscho dance mom mystery series for Berkley. Er, well, it’s not officially called the psycho dance mom series. It’s the Jenny T. Partridge Mystery series. But those moms are all pretty worried they are going to be spotlighted. LOL. I might live to see my next birthday. Or not.

And I am still trying to work in the story my sister-in-law told me this weekend. See, she was told NOT to have any stress in her life, because her heart was acting up, so she went into the bank to ask them–nicely, without any stress–why her debit card was not working, and why she could not get money from the ATM. And after being told, “Gee, we don’t know. It looks fine on this end. We’ll see if we can locate the problem,” she had to–calmy–walk back out to her car. And there, she discovered a riding lawn mower parked on the hood of her new car.

“Bet you couldn’t do that again if you tried,” was the comment that came to my mind. That’s what Jenny T. Partridge would say. I mean, COME ON? It was a LAWN mower! Yes, a riding one, but she then had to call for help, telling my parents, “My car just had an accident with a lawn mower. Can you come help me?”

Lately, I’ve been finding more and more humor in these situations. Because, by God, if you cannot laugh at your life, you will have a nervous breakdown.

For example, we have these neighbors that are renters. My good friend OWNS the home, but she moved away to a nicer house and kept this house as a rental. And so far she doesn’t have a great track record of screening renters. The first set was a doozy. I did one of those Internet searches where you can find sexual predators, and discovered that I had one living RIGHT NEXT DOOR.

Robin got rid of them pretty quick, but then rented to an odd woman with about forty-two kids, no husband, and a high pitched voice that could drive anyone to drink. A lot.

She screams at her children in that voice, and my dog tries to dig a hole in the living room floor and bury himself in it. Every weekend they have Mormon parties and all forty-two children come, some with spouses and friends, and they ALL try to park in front of her house and ours. It doesn’t work well. And it also means that we have nowhere to park. Well, LAST night my husband had had JUST about enough, and with nowhere to park, he went over and asked them if they would be kind enough to move at least THREE of the forty-two cars out from the front of our house so he could park his truck.

They didn’t like that. One of the sons got mouthy, and well, you know what happens when men get mouthy. Other men are compelled to compare penis size and chest hair and bump bellies in shows of superiority.

So the POLICE got called. HELLO! I sent MY husband into the house, because I was not amused by the “mine’s bigger than yours” act and told the police at least six times this was stupid. Surely they had more important business than parking issues. “Well, you do not own the street. It is public property.” Indeed. They were right. Park away, Mormon Mom with forty-two children. Of course, might I mention it would be nice if we could park within FOUR BLOCKS of our house, but HEY, I know, we don’t own the street.

Mormon Mom told the police she was MOST upset about the “physical threat.” I think my husband offered to help the boy move his truck, in a “not so helpful” way.

THEN, to make matters really weird, Mormon Mom folded me into her arms and told me of her CONCERN for me because of my husband’s violent tendencies. Huh? Boy, I know why she isn’t married. You have to figure this stuff out. This is what guys DO. Plus, don’t know you lady. Don’t want to. Move your hands.

Luckily for us, at this point, some little miscreants started lighting off illegal fireworks and the cops started twitching to go after some REAL lawbreakers.

Of course, they had to huff it several blocks to get INTO their cars, which were parked FAR FAR AWAY from the complainant’s house because she has FORTY-TWO CARS WITH FORTY-TWO CHILDREN parked in front of it.

No complaints were filed. I, however, filed it all away for material. Tonight, all is quiet in the Collins neighborhood. And Johnny Depp is NOT in my basement. Remember? I don’t HAVE a basement…..

I really hate my process. HATE IT. But it’s mine, so I’m stuck with it. My process…

Book Stew:

1) Take an idea
2) Butcher the idea
3) Rework the idea, toss it out, start over with new idea
4) Wonder why you ever though you could cook (write)
5) Add characters and stir. Still too flat, uninteresting?
6) Add conflict and tension
7) Taste—it’s flat, one-dimensional and BORING
Try a subplot to ratchet up the tension
9) Read a really good book like say BODY DOUBLE by Tess Gerritsen and realize that she did a masterful job of weaving subplots and the main plot. Time to add large dose of self doubt.
10) Rework subplot then realize you’re not Tess Gerritsen and go back to your original subplot.
11) Taste—better, but not full bodied enough (Fully Developed) Must be the lead characters
12) Rework characters, adding more dimension and motivation…
13) Pick up wooden spoon and smack myself in the head. Over and over. (By now, my husband has hidden all the sharp knives.)
14) Tell myself I can fix the stew, just keep cooking…uh…writing…what WHERE IS THE WINE?????
15) Throw in a sex scene. Someone needs to work off tension…and maybe the characters will start behaving if I let them have sex. Please God!
16) Keep stirring and simmering and working. More adjusting of characters, plot, pacing….
17) Suddenly, and I don’t have a freaking clue how it happened, but there’s a new scent in the air…it smells like Book Stew.
18) The book is finished. Husband still won’t return the sharp knives.

What does your recipe for Book Stew look like?