Samhain Publishing

Welcome to the New Year. Well, for you, maybe. I’m writing this on New Years’ Eve. While the rest of you are out there whooping it up, I’m at home pounding the keyboard. But if you think I’m whining, you’re mistaken.

I think the last time we ventured out on the wild year end spree was 1989 when we got as far as Plaid Pantry before the drunk drivers scared us off the road. Following the national tradition doesn’t appeal to me. It would mean actually dressing up and going out, and then eating too much and drinking things I don’t even want to remember in the morning. Not that I don’t like to dress up. I do it at least twice a year, and actually, I clean up pretty good. But there’s just nothing like hanging around the house in my faded muu muu, fuzzy comfy sox and new Christmas robe that so far doesn’t even have a bacon fat dribble on it. And I already had a glass of wine and some shrimp cocktail that still had frost lingering on the tails. I’m perfectly capable of getting fat without leaving the house.

The truth is, I’d just as soon stay home and write, curled up in said faded muu muu on my bed with my laptop, as do anything else in the world. I spent today finishing the edits of my March 2008 release, APHRODITE’S BREW, and within minutes was working on my next project. Had a rough spot on the last scene when the right words were hiding from me, but I simply did what always works: a whirlpool bath. Sure enough, in five minutes I had all the missing parts outlined in my little notepad, and I leaned back to enjoy the soothing flow of the bubbly water. For maybe a minute. I spent the last 25 minutes planning my next story.

I know what you’re thinking. Couldn’t I have just enjoyed the whirlpool bath without turning it into some sort of workaholic marathon? Are you kidding? What kind of fun would that be? I’m a writer. I write. People who don’t write, don’t. And they don’t understand those who do.

Ever hear about the writer who died and walked up to the Pearly Gates just as they were getting a thorough polishing? While they were waiting around, St. Peter gave the author a tour of Hell because, he said, authors get to choose which place they want to be. Down in Hell, all the writers were squatting before desks made from rocks, pounding on ancient typewriters, while behind them some joker whose name was Deadline (I kid you not) cracked a whip and yelled, “Write, you fools! Write!” As soon as the gates were polished, St. Pete and the author returned to Heaven, and St Peter showed the author the Heavenly Authors’ Chamber. All the writers were sitting before rock desks pounding on ancient typewriters. And darned if that guy Deadline wasn’t right behind them cracking his whip and yelling, “Write, you fools! Write!” “I don’t get it,” said the author. “What’s the difference?” St. Peter beamed proudly and said, “Our Heavenly Authors get to be published in the Heavenly Times.”

Real authors understand that. Any author who had a choice would clearly choose Heaven over Hell, but they’d choose Hell over an ordinary life without writing. We all know about Hell anyway. That’s when you spent the entire night working out a fabulous scene in your mind until you know every single detail. Then you sit down at your computer the next day and discover you do indeed have every little detail in your mind. Everything, that is, except the words to describe it. And Hell is when someone drags you off to a party to loosen up and have fun for a change, just when you’re champing at the bit to write that delicious love scene. (And yes, that’s champing at the bit, All Regency authors know horses do not chomp their bits because Regency authors love their research even as much as they do writing.) Heaven is when your hero is Johnny Depp, Brad Pitt and Gerard Butler combined and you have no trouble at all picturing him or telling anyone all about him. Hell is when you’re a hundred pages into the book and still can’t get a mental picture of Hero, even though he ought to be the most kissable guy you’ve ever written.

This world is very neatly divided into two kinds of people: Those who write, and those who know all writers are crazy. The second group would find no pleasure in running around all day in comfy sox and muu muus, and tyng one on at a New Year’s party is something worth waiting all year for. They consider computers to be work tools and whirlpool baths a source for luxurious “aaaahhhhs”. Writers on the other hand derive incredible pleasure (or pain) from their computers. But whirlpool tubs, being the source of some of their greatest ideas, are clearly work tools.

So those of you who are not writers will not understand my New Years’ Eve gift. It is only for authors. And those of you who are authors will have no trouble understanding. Here it is, my special wish for you for now and all the years to come:

MAY YOU WRITE FOREVER.

Delle Jacobs
Triple Golden Heart Winner

APHRODITE’S BREW coming March 2008 from Samhain Publishing

First off, we kill all the Muses. Oh, wait, Shakespeare said that, only it was about lawyers, not Muses. But we can still use it. Maybe not kill them— that could be a little strong. But that doesn’t mean we have to let them get away with everythng.

You know what I mean. They’re nasty little critters that sit seductively on your shoulder, nagging you to drop whatever you’re trying to get done and get back to your writing, then flitting off to parts unknown the minute your computer screen turns to white.

They aren’t there when you need them, but they won’t leave you alone when you have something else you have to do. They whisper wonderful ideas in your ear while you dream, and you wake up brimming with new creativity, then they jerk it all away just as you sit down to type. You’ve got a fabulous plot outline for a new story, but there’s just this one small hitch, which isn’t so small when you think about it since it encompasses the whole dang middle of your story. And your lovely (read nasty, seductive, traitorous) Muse supplied you with everything except that great big hole. Then Muse went on vacation.

I say, let’s rebel! Let’s meet up and form a posse. Mount up and hunt down all the Muses, round ‘em up, hog-tie ‘em and throw ‘em in the county jail. Then we’ll threaten them with the noose at sunrise if they don’t give up and go back to doing their job. Put ‘em on bread and water until they give in.

So okay, that’s a fantasy. But so are Muses. They’re an animation in our minds expressing our creativity. They’re kind of a good idea, really, helping us visualize how creativity ebbs and flows, and give us a sort of fairy-tale justification for the lack of ideas when we need them most. Otherwise we’d blame ourselves. And unfortunately, authors are very good at blaming themselves.

The reality is, creativity does ebb and flow. Sometimes more ebb than flow. Sometimes stories are more difficult to put together, too, or specific parts of our stories elude us. That could be a good thing, actually.

Think about it. What if story-writing were easy? What if anyone who could type could just sit down and write a story, then zip it off to a publisher to have it published? Yes, know people think it’s easy, and it’s probably true that a really well-written, seamless story flows so well it looks easy to write. But we know it’s not, so that isn’t the question.

But if anyone could write your story, would it be worth reading? No, because you’d have nothing to say that people don’t already know. Your story would contain no surprises, nothing exciting. (Odd thing about writers– they seem to think if the story isn’t coming easy to them, they aren’t being creative.) Most of the time, to find those surprises, those exciting and fresh twists and turns in our stories, we have to dig deeply, work harder, sweat bullets and blood. Muses aren’t much help for that kind of work. They abandon us the minute the shooting starts. Or shoveling, as the case may be. Don’t want to get their wings dirty, I guess.

So I say we hog-tie the nasty critters. Throw ‘em in the hoosegow and let ‘em beg for mercy through their bandana gags while we get down to the hard, dirty work on our own. We’ll go after the gold in our mines ourselves. Let’s just accept that sometimes we have to dig deeper and work harder for it. Then when we haul it out of the mine and we’re all grimy and sweaty from our efforts, that bright and shining gold is a real story, something new and unique, something nobody else could write,

Let’s go get ‘em, authors! Hog-tie all the Muses!