November Recluses

It's that time again for novelists, but the first time for me!


National Novel Writing Month happens every year in November. Writers sign up to complete 1,600 words per day and go into their caves to do it.

I'm taking the opportunity to finish my first draft of Lovelier than Daylight, which is at about 30,000 words now. This means that instead of writing 1,600 words per day, I'll be writing 2,000, or about eight pages.

Yikes! Please forgive me if I don't get around the blogosphere as much as usual. I'll still post here every Monday, and I'll be back to something approximating normal in December.

And if you would like to be my writing buddy, my NaNoWriMo name is Rosslyn Elliott.

See you there, and happy writing!

The Adjustable Publishing Dream

I've been watching publishing discussions with interest of late.

It's just as educational to watch human reactions to change as it is to watch the change itself.

Some people describe the change in the publishing industry as a total positive, others condemn it as an absolute negative.

I'd like to propose something for your consideration: the changes themselves are neither positive nor negative. So when someone says "paperback sales are down 64%" or "free e-books are creating a devaluing effect on the book market," those statements are neither positive nor negative.

They simply ARE. This is the situation in the book world. But, as with most events in life, what makes them positive or negative is how we react to them.

If we hold so tightly to our own vision of how things are "supposed" to be, then change may seem negative.

We must keep our dreams adjustable, give them elastic waistbands and big hems, make them of reversible material so we can turn them inside out and still wear them. We don't have to abandon our dreams-- we just have to refashion them for the time in which we live.

You may think this is easy for me to say, as an author who landed a professional contract under the "old" system with a traditional publisher--a system which may or may not look the same in five years time.

But let's say I hadn't landed that contract. What would I have done, if no publisher had been interested in my series?

I would have been crushed, at first. Then, I would have picked myself up and self-published my series, after hiring the best editor and cover designer I could afford. I would then have gone to Ohio to market it to the regional audience there.

In other words, I would have done something very similar to what I have been doing for the last year. But I would have done it on my own schedule, without deadlines, which would have meant more time for marketing that first novel, particularly for connecting with the crucial regional market for my series based on Ohio history.

I have no regrets about the path I did take--I'm very blessed and grateful to have been able to work with the experts in editing and design at Thomas Nelson, and to have the financial support of a traditional contract. But traditional publishing is no longer the only way for an author to fulfill her dream, especially with the seismic changes occurring in the publishing world.

I'm telling you this because I want to encourage you. If you don't have a contract yet with a traditional publisher, if you don't have an agent, don't see the changes in publishing as a negative. They aren't. They're just changes. Keeping your dreams adjustable is the key to realizing them. We all need to understand that success in publishing may look different in only a few years. Let's be excited about it! When someone says paperback sales are down but e-book sales are up, let's enjoy the feeling of living in a time when anything might happen, when authors may find more autonomy in their work, when we have the opportunity to interact in unprecedented ways with readers.

I keep my own dreams adjustable. I do my absolute best to write good novels and to publicize them as best I can with the time available. But in the end, I don't have control over my novels' future. Only God does. And I'm completely at peace with that. Because whatever is in store for me, whether it looks like success or failure to the outside observer, I know beyond a doubt that it's going to work out for my good. I have that promise, and so do you.

Called...Again

As a faithful writer, you may hear a heavenly Call to the work of writing.

But what happens when that's not the only call in your life, and not the only work that matters?

This summer, I faced more than one calling, and I was not too pleased about it! How did I handle it when I got the second call, the one I thought I couldn't handle?

I hope you all will join me this morning for my frank guest post at Seriously Write, a wonderful blog by Dawn Kinzer, Annette Irby, Angie Arndt, and Ocieanna Fleiss.

Come stop by and meet these lovely and thoughtful writers!

Clash of the Titles: Tournament of Champions

Some of you are already familiar with the fun battle-of-the-books website called:

Clash of the Titles

This month, Clash of the Titles is hosting its first ever Tournament of Champions, which means my debut novel Fairer than Morning will be a contender sometime during the challenge! When it is, I'll let you know so you can go read the two dueling passages and vote for whichever you like best.

(Ordinarily, Clash of the Titles is anonymous, but for this special promotion they have allowed us previous-champion authors to announce our participation.)

The first of the clashes is posted today at the site! I don't know whose books they are, as the excerpts remain unlabeled, but if you want a little fun to start your Monday morning, go read them and cast your vote.

There are lots of prize giveaways in honor of the Tournament of Champions, including gift cards for places like Amazon and Starbucks. So stop by and leave a comment for your chance to win!

I am Small, and that's Good

I don't understand the grand scheme of things.

Neither does any of us, which is some comfort.

The greater design, the complexity of Providence, is far beyond any human being's vision. And that's a good thing. I don't want to know the future or be able to comprehend exactly where we're all headed, as a society, as a world. My head is filled already with the limited number of things I'm supposed to understand, so I'll gladly leave the rest of it to God.

My piece of the design is very small, barely even a blip in the history of the human race.

It's tiny, but it's there, just like your tiny blip and the tiny blip of every other human soul.

So, if I feel silly or ashamed or disappointed because something goes wrong, or just doesn't go the way I expected, I try to pull back, contemplate the great design, and acknowledge my smallness. I also acknowledge the fact that I don't know my purpose here. I can take my best guess, and try to serve in the way that seems appropriate, but the deeds that appear most important to me may actually be completely insignificant.

Writers may be tempted to assume their writing is the most important service they will ever perform for others.

It may be. It may not be. We can all see, now, that the writing of C.S. Lewis was his life's purpose, his contribution to the great plan. But a C.S. Lewis is rare, and most of us writers know very well that we're not on that level!

It may be that my purpose is raising my daughter to fulfill her own purpose. Or, I may unwittingly accomplish my life's chief mission in some random five-minute encounter with a stranger that will slip out of my memory in a day or two.

I hope that in heaven, we'll get to see movies (or dreams, or something along those lines) about all the purposes that were fulfilled that we never understood while we were here. I look forward to that enlarged vision in which I will see all the beauty and staggering intricacy of the great design.

Do you think you have a pretty good hunch about what might be your earthly purpose, or do you see it a different way?