Juggling Summer

(Sad aria playing softly in the background)

My A/C died for the second time this month.  Just happens to coincide with the spike in temperatures in South Florida.  The sweat police are after me.  When you’re already having hot flashes and night sweats, the last thing you want is an A/C on the fritz.

My house has two units.  So of course it has to be the unit that services my bedroom.  My solution – blast the house unit at 68 and hope some of the cool air migrates into my room.  My daughter is sleeping in flannel Sponge Bob lounge pants.  Yeah, well, she can pull up the covers.  I can’t take off my skin.

I’ve rarely seen my blood-thinner-taking hubby so happy.  He’d probably eat all his meals in the sweat lodge if he could.  Again I say, put on more clothes if you want but naked isn’t an option for me – the whole front of my house is glass, don’t want to make the neighbors and dog walkers hurl.  Or see the FedEx guy go screaming down the block.

It could be worse, I tell myself.  It could have been my computer.  Even though I have at least three back-ups at all times, including Carbonite, I still can’t live without my desktop and its 27-inch monitor.  Said monitor has a gremlin, flashes on and off at will and requires a gentle touch on the power button.  Still, I’ll nurse it along because I love it.  It even turns vertically so I can see two pages at once while I’m working.

Which brings me to my point (yes, I have one).  Do you get distracted more easily in the summer?  Is it kids?  Weather?  Activities?  Travel?  I’m always so amazed at how fast the summer flies by.  I don’t think there is a weekend all summer when we aren’t travelling or otherwise committed.  I’m not sure how that happens.  Sometimes I think the Sharpie writes things when I’m not looking.  Not good when I have to have 100 pages done by the end of June.

My solution . . . delegate.  Blood-thinner man can make the runs to the beach and for ‘dates’ to the movies.  He can handle a mall drop-off and pick-up.  He’ll just grumble.  He isn’t thrilled with the fact that our going-to-be-15 in two weeks daughter has a boyfriend.  Truth be told, he’s a nice kid.  He came to her end of year show with a bouquet of crazy daisies for her and has impeccable manners.  And I told him the rules – nothing below the neck or above the knee gets touched.  EVER.  He blushed, and then gave me a ‘yes ma’am’.  I think I put a healthy dose of fear in him.  I already gave my daughter the same lecture and girls being girls, she shot back with, “What about a hug?”  Smart-ass.  I just don’t want to use the phrase ‘baby daddy’ in my lifetime.  And I sure as hell don’t want to have to do it for a 15 year old.

So aside from policing this bout of puppy love and writing and travelling, I counted.  I have exactly 9 days that aren’t committed from May 25^th through August 15^th.  I think I need a wife.  Or an assistant.  Or both.

And speaking of the end of year . . . here's my daughter dancing on stage at Disney (she's the one upside down:

 

Career need a boost?

At some point, every career needs some help.  As writers, we’re held hostage to forces we can’t control.  Buying limitations, genre fluctuations, editor changes, imprint changes, agent changes, writing speed, etc.  So what do you do when your career needs a shot in the arm?

However we do have control over how we deal with changing market landscapes.  For the most part, promotion is left up to authors.  Yes, you may get some publisher support, but for the most part, we’re on our own. 

The one thing I’ve learned is how important it is to embrace change.  Often that’s the only way to hold on to your career.  Easier said than done, though.  Reinventing yourself has some pluses but it also has some drawbacks.  The major plus is a clean slate.  Let’s say you write humor and the market for humor has fallen on hard times.  What to do?  Well, you can try the self-pub route, but that comes with its own pitfalls.  Like the expense of professional editing, cover creation, ISBN, formatting and uploading.  Even if you self-publish electronically, that doesn’t change the truth that the humor market has taken a nosedive. 

The other option is to make a change in your content.  Again, this has pluses and minuses.  The major plus is you might find that you have a talent for writing for a stronger market.  The major minus is you may have to adopt a pseudonym.  Someone buying a Rhonda Pollero book will expect humor but if I write something dark and gory, those same readers may be put off.  Of course changing names has some other downsides – you often lose your reader base and have to start from scratch.  In the end though, by reinventing yourself, you’re breathing new life into your career.

So how do you approach change?  Most importantly, you have to know your strengths and weaknesses.  You can’t jump on a trend and expect that to suddenly reinvigorate your career.  Trends come and go quickly, so what’s on the shelves now was bought twelve to twenty-four months ago.  Check publishersmarketplace.com to see what’s hot right now.  But it’s harder than that.  You need to make sure you have the skill set to make a jump from one type of book to another.  I know I can’t write angst.  I just don’t have it in me.  However I can write a dark serial killer.  So instead of trying (and failing) at writing something that may be saleable and angsty, I have to go dark.  That’s where my skill set leads me.  Will I lose readers who like my Finley Tanner series?  Absolutely.  But hopefully I’ll pick up new readers who prefer something on the gory side.  Above all, I’ll know that I’ve done everything I can to keep my career alive.  Even if it means tackling a new genre.

Happy writing . . .

Xanax Anyone?

Book signings mean only one thing to me – Xanax.  For some reason I’ve always been freaked out by the book signing.  You’d think I’d get better at it after 40 books, but no.  I still quake with fear.

Some people shine during a signing.  I kind of cower in a corner.  With one exception.

Thanks to Murder on the Beach bookstore in Delray Beach, I get to have a little party at my house.  We serve munchies and cake and wine and other cocktails and the guests are always friends.  That’s when I feel comfortable.  And thanks to Joann Sinchuk, it’s an easy day.  She brings all the books up from her store; brings her credit card machine and sells the books.  All I do is sign and mingle.

Maybe it’s about having friends only.  Or maybe I just feel less like a failure because people actually show up.  Or maybe it’s just being in my own house.

So here’s my tip.  Make friends with your local indie bookseller.  They are far more accommodating than any chain store.  They hand sell your books and know their clientele.  You can’t buy that kind of publicity.

It’s so much better than being in a chain store when half the questions you get are ‘Where are the restrooms?’  Now that’s a humbling experience.  And sadly I often know the answer, so I often feel more like a traffic cop than an author.  Then there are the questions/comments I loathe. 

“Did you write this?”

“Yes.”

“I have a book idea, if I send it to you; will you look at it for me?”

“Um, no.  You need a publisher’s eye, not mine.”

“Oh,” (picks up book) I don’t read this kind of trash.”

Silence on my part.

“Would you recommend this book?”

“Of course.”  Do they think I’m there because I have nothing better to do on a weekend?

See, no one asks me those things at a home signing.  Maybe that’s why it isn’t a Xanax event.  I envy people who can hawk a book at a signing.  I’m not one of them.  And I don’t think that will change any time soon.

Cat Fight Anyone?

So, what to do when you and your agent/editor are not seeing eye to eye?  Part of the answer depends on what kind of problem solver you happen to be.  Me?  I’m total conflict avoidance, so I tend to take the wimpy road out of town.  Others are very comfortable with mini-confrontation, and I often envy that quality.

Here’s my advice.  Don’t call, write, email, text, send a smoke signal or communicate in any way when you’re angry.  Chances are you’ll say something that will come back to bite you in the ass.  There’s a fine line between being assertive and being a prima donna.  Make sure you stand behind the line.  Before you make contact, have a plan.

I write out whatever the problem is and then I try to brainstorm solutions.  It’s much easier to come to the table with a solution in hand than to simply leave it up to ‘fix this.’  You may hate the fix more than the problem.  As foolish as this sounds, practice.  Make sure you’re presenting your issue professionally and honestly without sounding like a whiner.  The last thing you need is to be considered a ‘problem’ author.  Think of as many solutions as possible and rank them in order.  But be realistic in your thinking.

Try not to leapfrog.  Some battles aren’t worth fighting over.  DO you really want to leap over your editor’s head to talk to his/her boss?  If you do, be prepared for your editor to get his/her feathers ruffled.  At times, the ruffle just leads to punitive damages.  It takes longer to get things done; you get last minute revisions.  Hey, these are people and they don’t like it when you got to their supervisor.  That’s simple business 101.

What if the problem is with your agent?  They are the gatekeepers of our careers.  Hopefully you have an open relationship with your agent, allowing for frank conversations about things that matter to you.  The problem I see most often is people thinking their agent can read their mind.  Well, they can’t.  You owe it to your career to tell them what it is you want so they can accurately present the issue to your publisher or know how to market a submission.  It’s very important not to sit on your hands here.  Delays cost you money and valuable writing time.  Again, no stalker calling or texting every hour.  Define the problem, then think of possible solutions.

What if that doesn’t work?  Well, I’m a fan of firing an agent who doesn’t have my best interests in mind.  If it isn’t working out, move on.  Just do it professionally.  Make sure you really want to fire your agent and you’re not just pissed about one aspect of how you’re working together.  And if you’re afraid of your agent, definitely get a new one.  You need to have an advocate, not an adversary. 

Most of all be true to yourself and know where you want your career to go.  That requires long and short-term goals.  Attainable goals.  You can’t control hitting the Times list but you can control how many manuscripts you can write in a year.  And never forget that at the end of the day, it is all about the writing.

Appliance Suicide Pact

Why is it that when one appliance breaks, other’s follow suit.   It’s as if they get together in the middle of the night and decide who will throw in the towel next.

My first suicide was my icemaker.  It died in February and I’ve been waiting all this time for a special order part.  Weird since my fridge is only 7 years old.  So I’ve had to revert to a 1950’s housewife, using cube trays for the first time in forever.  Inconvenient but not the end of the world.  Unless you’re having a part, which I am.  On Sunday.

Not only will my guests be treated to a bag of ice from the local store but they’ll also have to position themselves strategically to stay cool in the Florida heat.  Because the most recent victim to succumb is my 2 ton A/C.  Now I have two units, one cools most of the house but the broken one cools my bedroom, living room and dining room. 

Why is this such a big deal?  Because I have a bookseller coming to my house, with books and her credit card machine for a Mother’s Day Book Signing Party.  My only hope is the wonderful folks at Hayden Air can get the repairs done ASAP.  God help me if they have to order a part.

On the plus side, my office has A/C, so I can at least get some stuff done without sweating like a stuffed pig.

If bad things happen in threes, I’ve got one more surprise coming.  And I don’t like surprises.

Switching gears . . . thanks to everyone who has bought Slightly Irregular.  It’s been on Amazon’s hot new female sleuths bestselling list since it debuted in April.  Keep those purchases and downloads coming!