Learning to Float

While transitions are a part of life, I like to fight them. I'm that swimmer in the ocean - the one swept out to sea and struggling with the waves instead of letting them carry me back to shore. Because ultimately, isn't that what transitions do? Carry us to our next phase of life? To our next chapter, so to speak?

My transition back from Spain this summer was a bumpy one. I was getting used to soulful conversations around gourmet food at the magical artist residency in El Bruc. While I didn't necessarily come home kicking and screaming, I came home looking backwards instead of forward. Once I got my bearings, I was thrust into another transition: five hours before teaching my first class of the semester, I got a call that enrollment was down at the college and my class was canceled. Ouch. Really? Five hours notice? I freaked out appropriately and then set to work finishing my third novel, the one I was too busy to tend to in Spain. I finished it. With all this new spare time I also decided to publish my ebook Imperfect as a traditional book. It is now available for purchase. 

Another birthday, the loss of a friendship, the birth of twelve new ones, applying for wonderful and adventurous teaching opportunities, finishing a novel, starting a new one... all transitions. 

With our without our consent, change is coming. I suppose it's time to stop fighting it and to start trusting the ride, the chapters, the story. 

Melissa Clark is the author of Swimming Upstream, Slowly, Imperfect, and the recently completed Bear Witness. In the above photo she is learning how to float in the ocean.

The Creative Ram: Dealing with Transitions

by Malena Lott

Transitions are a fact of life. Last night finished off my third open house for my kids. I've sat in a tiny chair for my second grader, traipsed up and down the halls in a middle school, and finally, back and forth in a freshman academy for my higher schooler. The transitions are impressive -- and scary. They must become more independent and self-reliant. They have to prepare for their future.

Creative transitions are no less scary. What was once a fairly straight path - manuscript, query, agent, publisher, book, now looks as varied as a map itself. It could be manuscript, production, digital publication. It could be a mix of both. Many of my trad published friends now have books that are still with publishers and a backlist or other "almost sold" manuscripts they are publishing "indie" or with the help of small publishers or with the help of service vendors.

I used to vex about this myself. Even though I'm a marketer and have been a creative director for years, I had liked that I could let other people figure out what to do with my fiction writing career. I was relying on my agent, editor and publisher to just "take care of it" even though as the years went on, it became apparent authors must build their own platform. In 2011, I started an imprint to my creative company to publish stories of all sizes. Buzz Books is a huge undertaking, but I decided I wanted to immerse myself in stories. If I could market a university, for example, why not market books? I'm also doing workshops - and many GBC authors are contributing advice and tips GOD BLESS YOU - to support the art and craft of novel writing.

A couple of weeks ago my agent surprised me by saying she wanted to send out a young adult manuscript again that had been passed over several years ago during a particular saturation period. She knows that transitions are a part of life, too. Editors come and go. Types of stories are hot then cold then hot again. You know, who knows? And why not?

Transitions can also mean writing under several pen names and managing several "brands." But I like to think of it as putting on a different wardrobe from the same closet. I'm still me, but my "costume" is different for each genre. I've even got a cool trench coat in my wardrobe I'm wearing as I write my first mystery. I don't even know what I'm calling that "me" yet.

The important thing to remember is that you are still what matters. It takes the writer to write the story. Only you can write the story in your head, not your crit partner or your agent or a Girlfriend. You.

Hang in there. Ebb and flow. Breathe. Write. Write every day. Don't limit yourself to one brand or one type of story if your muse is telling you to try something new. Don't be afraid to try a new opportunity to get your work out there. You have to look out for your future. No one else is going to do your homework for you.

Malena Lott is the author of The Stork Reality, Dating da Vinci, Fixer Upper, and her next novel, Something New, releases in November. She also writes young adult paranormal under the pen name Lena Brown. She's the executive editor at Buzz Books USA and is a den mom, dance mom and yoga chick. 

Transition is in the Air

Tra-Tra-Transiiiitions!

Ah, transitions! There are so many kinds.

Writing transitions

How you get from one scene in a story to another. My personal writing philosophy is Just Don't Do It. As in, never write a transition scene.

Others may be brilliant at writing transition scenes but I am not. For me, nothing happens in those scenes -- DOH -- because they exist only to move my story from Point A to Point C. This is not the same as a scene that allows the reader to breathe between scenes of intense action while I also set them up for the next WHAM moment in the story. Those scenes are necessary.

What I do now is omit the transition. If ::gasp!:: I find myself writing one, I stop myself and delete it. Almost until the end, I ignore those abrupt breaks. By the time I have a complete draft that has been gone through a few times, one of these conditions exists:

1. Through my editing and revising, I have much more subtly and elegantly transitioned the scene at the ending of the previous chapter or the beginning of the next. Sometimes that's as easy as a slug line at the top of the next chapter along the lines of "Two Weeks Later" or what have you.
2. I discover I don't need any transition at all -- perhaps, for example, an abrupt change works.
3. I write a transition because there's no other choice given the structure and arcs of the novel. So far, I've never done one longer than a paragraph or two.

Career Transitions of Writers in the Wild

I can only talk about mine, of course, but golly. I now have an completely amazing and self-serving example. (File in the Shameless Self Promotion department.)

Midnight Scandals

Midnight Scandals is a self-published anthology of historical romance by Courtney Milan, Sherry Thomas and myself. All three of us have been RITA finalists for historical romance; Sherry has won twice. Both Courtney and Sherry have hit bestseller lists, Courtney made the NYT for a self-published novella.

So. Three traditionally published authors self-publishing. Two years ago this would not have happened. Period. Two of us are (so far) continuing to traditionally publish while self-publishing.

Welcome to Doyle’s Grange, a charming house near the hills of Exmoor, where the garden is beautiful in every season, and the residents are respectable year-round.

Except when the clock strikes midnight…
One Starlit Night by Carolyn Jewel

Ten years away from Doyle’s Grange isn’t quite long enough for Viscount Northword to forget Portia Temple, or their passionate adolescent affair. Portia, however, is about to marry another man. Northword tells himself it is wrong to interfere in her life at this late hour, but interfere he cannot help, with his words, his body, and the truths of his heart.
What Happened at Midnight by Courtney Milan

Fleeing the consequences of her father’s embezzlement, Mary Chartley takes a position as a lady’s companion, only to find herself a virtual prisoner at Doyle’s Grange, her employer’s house. And then the nightmare truly begins: the man she loves, who also happens to be the man from whom her father stole, shows up at her door seeking recompense. And not merely in pound sterling…
A Dance in Moonlight by Sherry Thomas

After losing her childhood sweetheart to another woman, Isabelle Englewood is heartsick. But then something remarkable happens: Upon arriving at Doyle’s Grange, her new home, she meets Ralston Fitzwilliam, who looks almost exactly like the man she cannot have. Come late at night, she tells him, so I can make love to you pretending that you are the one I love.

Little does she realize what she is about to unleash.

Places to Buy Midnight Scandals

All Romance eBooks
Amazon
Apple
Barnes & Noble
Google Books
Kobo

Not Proper Enough

Not Proper Enough is my September 4th release from Berkley Books.

The Marquess of Fenris has loved Lady Eugenia from the day he first set eyes on her. Five years ago, pride caused him to earn her enmity. Now she’s widowed, and he’s determined to make amends and win her heart. But with their near explosive attraction, can he resist his desire long enough to court her properly?

After the death of her beloved husband, Lady Eugenia Bryant has come to London to build a new life. Despite the gift of a medallion said to have the power to unite the wearer with her perfect match, Eugenia believes she won’t love again. And yet, amid the social whirl of chaperoning a young friend through her first Season, she finds a second chance at happiness.

Unfortunately, the Marquess of Fenris threatens her newfound peace. Eugenia dislikes the man, but the handsome and wealthy heir to a dukedom is more charming than he has a right to be. Constantly underfoot, the rogue disturbs her heart, alternately delighting and scandalizing her. And when their relationship takes a highly improper turn, Eugenia must decide if the wrong man isn’t the right one after all.

Where to Buy Not Proper Enough in the US and Canada

Amazon.com (Paper)
Amazon.com (Kindle)
Barnes&Noble
Find a store through BookSense
Directly from Penguin

But What about outside the US and Canada?

Berkley only bought North American rights. That means I can (and will) self-publish the book in those territories where I have the rights. There will be a bit of a delay since I have to prepare the files, but the cover is ready. I expect to be able to release outside North America within 30 days, probably sooner.

How about those Transitions!

A traditionally published author now has many more career options than she did just a year or two ago. Selling only North American rights might once have been cause for dismay. But now? Not so much.

My writing career has definitely transitioned. I can directly support my traditionally published books with novellas or short stories in ways that 1) increase sales for the trad pubbed books and 2) create an independent revenue stream that is more profitable to me.

This is a benefit to readers, too. They get more books to read and at different price points. Readers who might otherwise have had no way to legally purchase a book by an author they like can, in a situation like mine, now do so.

To me, this transition is a win.

Agree? Disagree? What do YOU think?