Finding Your Muse While Sunning in Mexico

This past week I was fortunate enough to head to Playa del Carmen, Mexico for a much needed vacation. From the beach sand that felt like baby powder cascading across my feet, to the aquamarine ocean that felt like holy water washing away several months of stress and anxiety off my tired body, the entire trip was exactly what I needed to recharge and reconnect my long illusive muse.

So thrilled to be “away from it all”, I didn’t even care that the airline (which shall remain nameless) misplaced our luggage for a good dozen or so hours and, since for the first time in my life, I didn’t pack at least one change of clothes and a bathing suit in my carry-on bag, I was stuck wearing the same clothes for nearly twenty four hours.

Whatever. I was in paradise.

No cell phone, no computer, no daily work grind, no commute, no constant interruptions – just me, a few of my favorite family members, my notebook and a couple of great romance novels to read. Oh, and did I mention the all-inclusive bar and buffet. Paradise with a capital P.



So with no bathing suit, a Melon Bowl in one hand and my notebook in another hand, I headed for the beach and sat under an umbrella, letting the warm breeze rolling off the water caress my skin, skimming the sand with my ghostly white New Englander toes, and waited for my muse to show up.

And she didn’t. She, at least mine is a she, was pissed off at me and for good reason. I’ve been neglecting her (and me) for months now. Just because I changed the scenery didn’t mean she would magically appear. It didn’t matter that I was finally ready to be hit by some serious writing inspiration.

Deterred, but not down and out, I gulped a few swigs of my cocktail and starting free-writing in my notebook. I firmly believe putting any words to paper is soul cleansing for a writer, so even if it was gobbledygook, it was a better than the non-writing agony I had been experiencing these last few months.

I ended up free-writing for a few days and outlined a couple of new manuscript ideas, but my current work in progress was still stuck with a muddled middle. However, just before leaving Mexico, my muse was finally willing to say hello and help me plot more of my current WIP. It was a welcome exchange. My characters were thrilled by her presence as well.

It was then I realized my muse was with me all along. I had just let life get too cluttered and claustrophobic in the past few months to realize it. So, if I’ve learned anything from my vacation it’s that we can’t let life strangle us too much, and we need to find time to recharge every day so we don’t get separated from ourselves and/or our muses. My muse, she likes me just fine, and doesn’t try to punish me. She’s around even when I’m too busy to notice her. She wants to help me, her vessel, write the love stories that fill my heart.

Another vacation lesson: whenever you get a chance, do things you have never done before (actions that might inflict bodily harm to yourself and/or others excluded, of course), especially if you are uncertain of the outcome, like:

• Go to the swing set bar and actually sway on a swing while drinking a Cerveza.
• Claim that you are allergies to most knits, break out in hives easily and the Benadryl is in your make-up kit when your luggage is “delayed” and an airline is uncooperative...luggage is mysteriously located and brought directly to your hotel room expeditiously.
• Go snorkeling even though you have never worn flippers a day in your life and its pouring rain outside. You are going to get wet anyways. Just remember to get out of the water if lightning starts.
• Tell your deepest secrets to trusted confidants while gazing up at the stars and lying on the beach.
• Flirt with a “pissed” British chap with a killer accent. When in Mexico....

P.S. If you are wondering what a Melon Bowl is it’s a fruity drink with lots of different liquors thrown in that I highly recommend, preferably two at a time.

Post Manuscript Blues (Or why I'm thankful the NEC conference is fast approaching)

Finishing a manuscript and typing the words THE END is one fantastic high. After slaving months trying to capture your characters so readers will fall in love with them as you have, to get the plot just right while keeping story tension high, to do justice to worldbuilding, and deliver full thrust on the sensory immersion into the universe you are creating, completing that wild ride comes with a satisfaction I rarely find in other parts of my life.

Only problem is, once that floating on clouds feeling begins to wear off, finishing also comes with post project blues. Before I’ve barely gotten the story out the door to my lovely critique partners, had a chance to read through my pages again to begin the long editing process (although I actually do a lot of revision as I go along so a completed first draft is not really a first draft, more like a third) or even formulated a plan to pitch the project, I am already moving on in my head to my next story. I find the first weeks after I finish a manuscript are full of a flurry of brain activity, brainstorming and developing characters for another project. It’s unrealistic, since I must refocus my mind on tweaking and revising and polishing the completed story to make it shine. Usually the frenzied descent into my next big idea tapers away after a bit and I come down to earth and try to resist jumping into something new until I’ve done the finish work on the first manuscript. But the blahs definitely set in.

I love writing. When I’m not creating something new, I feel listless, purposeless. I find myself reading more. (Not that that’s a bad thing.) As it happens, I’m in one of those periods right now. I finished my last story a few weeks back and started making copious notes about a potential sequel. But now, I’ve hit the listless period. I need a new infusion of energy to keep me going before it’s really time to start the next project. Hence, my excitement over the NEC conference. You can find information on this conference in the left column of the Quirky blog.

Conferences are a fantastic way to create new writing energy and recharge batteries to prepare for the process of trying to sell a manuscript. At a conference I become amazed all over again how many wonderful writers are out there just as driven by their muses. Others like me who think it’s perfectly natural to be swerving all over the road while trying to jot down story ideas on a Dunkin Donuts napkin from the glove compartment of their cars. I’m embraced by a community of like-minded folks who consider it normal to hear voices in their heads. I am validated. I am stimulated. I am proud to be a writer.

So now I have to make it through the blues to March 27th when I can walk through the doors of the hotel and soak in the excitement. If you too are experiencing writing related stress, whether from let down blues or any other difficult part of this crazy writing life we’ve entered, then I suggest you find yourself a conference. There are tons out there even if you cannot consider the remarkable NEC Let Your Imagination Take Flight event.

Community is the key. Writing can be a lonely endeavor, but it doesn’t have to be. So, conference-up, cowboy. Maybe I’ll see you there (wink).

Secondary Characters--They're too damn fun!

The other day Dalton blogged about her stuck hero, his frustrating silence and the breakthrough they achieved together in the chiropractor's office. I commiserated, believe me. My protagonists like to torture me, refusing to develop in the nice character arcs I'd imagined when I faithfully explored and defined their GMC's and envisioned their penultimate evolution following the most terrible of black moments. (Yes, I'm a plotter, though discovering every day I'm less of one than I thought. But that's for another blog.) So it's a true pleasure and often titillatingly fun to slog through the sometime dungeonlike torture of writing these main characters and arrive at the easy flow of secondary characters.

Secondary characters. My fingers fly on the keyboards giving them witty lines, playing with outrageous personalities, alluding to their own weighty baggage that I'm not responsible for resolving in the story. They offer up so many possibilities and I don't have to deliver on them. At least not right away. They're easy. I can have fun with no nagging worry. Or so I believed.

I'm a series writer. I love books featuring the same hero and heroine working their way toward achieving some ultimate goal or resolution. It's the urban fantasy model, or that's how I look at it. That means I've created a whole host of alluring secondary characters that must appear in book after book and whose own GMC's (which I created as spur of the moment delightfully fun exercises) now have to be realized without taking too much time away from my main protagonists' stories. This is in contrast to many other talented authors who write series with great secondary characters, each installment featuring a different set of heroes and heroines from the same world building cohort (think Suzanne Brockmann for instance). The secondary characters in one book all get to have their time on center stage in another. Unfortunately, with my model I have to deliver satisfaction to my readers without allowing these supporting personalities to be featured in their own tales. What was I thinking?

I know what I was thinking--this is fun. In the end it's a challenge I enjoy. Will I keep up the habit? Probably. Will it drive me crazy in new ways aside from the torture from my main characters? Most likely. But I've fallen in love with Tarn and Sebastian, Qest and Christian, Del, Shiv and Morgana. Maybe someday, once I'm published, you'll be lucky enough to fall in love with them too.

In the meantime, here's a toast to secondary characters and the smiles they bring to our faces. Bottoms up!

Michelle