Curses, Snacks, and Lots of Words......

I think I curse myself inadvertently. Every time I say "Pheww, I'm glad we got through that. Now I can get back to work," the universe literally laughs itself silly. It's been another year. How is that even possible? It's because I keep telling myself, I'll write a new post as soon as X, Y, and Z are over. The problem is that A, B, and C always follow.

I need to stop waiting for things to calm down, get easier, be normal, etc. This is the normal and I just have to figure out how to keep writing in the middle of the storm.

I'm still writing. I have been all along. Book number one has been completed for what seems like forever now. I queried a few people, entered some contests, made some changes here and there, but let's be honest, I stalled. Why? Who knows. Maybe deep down I know that if I don't actually send anything out, then I can't really be rejected. It makes complete sense when I step back and analyze it, but it's still a little bit insane. I'm doing my best to push through this.

In the meantime, I have been working on my next WIP (the idea that created itself a couple of years ago while on vacation. (See Patrick Swayze). It's a YA, completely different than my first book, other than the ghost idea. Yeah, I never actually told you about book number one, did I? Well, of course not. I'm hoping/wishing/praying, that someday you'll be able to find it on a store shelf somewhere.
In the meantime, I've been rolling right along with book two. I love the characters, and the story makes me smile to myself just thinking about it. It also breaks my heart just a little....and I hope it will break yours someday, in the best possible way.

So, as I said it has been a year. You know what that means - Pennwriter's annual conference. The time when I'm surrounded by people who get me, who motivate me, and who remind me of why I love writing. Sure enough, the magic happened again and I came back twice as motivated.

And, good news -I pitched to two agents, who BOTH requested to see part of my story!
Bad news - one of them has asked that I try to lower the word count before sending it.
Good news - I have a three day weekend ahead of me, and a house all to myself. The plan is to stock up on essentials (Food, coffee, snacks, vodka(?)) and barricade myself at my desk until Tuesday morning. I'm a little overwhelmed, a lot nervous, and a whole lot of looking forward to the challenge. Wish me luck.....

If I don't answer your call/text/email, you'll know why.

~ Adrienne

PS - Writer friends - what do you have to have in order to be productive? Specific snacks, fancy pens, particular music, lucky socks.....?

Finding Your Tribe

Do you hear that? That my friends is the sound of me typing away. Last weekend was the annual Pennwriters conference and I came home with a renewed enthusiasm for writing. My love for writing has never died, but I have to say that sometimes daily life has done it's best to break us up.

I wrote a blog post a few years back called Breathing lessons. It was written after another Pennwriters conference. Reading it today, I realize how much it all still applies. I had to learn to breathe again. Immersing myself into a conference like this is so essential for getting my mind where it needs to be. As I said then, as writers we lose ourselves in another world. But the real world fights us to get out of our heads and stay in the present. I know balance is important, but lately I've felt the scales tipping too far into the real world. I feel it in my restlessness, in my need to daydream, even in my over the top reaction to small annoyances. My heart knows when there is a problem way before I do. This conference was a way to tip the scale back where it belongs.

Which brings me to title of this post. A major difference from a few years ago is that now my writing journey isn't so solitary. Our group of two has expanded into a much larger group within the place we call home. In addition, our conference group has grown from two into four (plus one adopted out of towner.) We've become known as the Buffalo Gals by conference goers. Each conference that we attend is a chance to catch up with people we met years ago, as well as meeting someone new. And with the available social media options you're able to keep in touch long after the conference ends. So even if you met someone once, or only shared a laugh during a seminar, you still feel like you have a common connection. You can reach out on Twitter to see who's writing, retweet a post, or commiserate over a writing problem. Knowing they are out there writing, however far away, makes things seem less lonely. These are the people who help me breathe. These are the people who understand what I mean when I say the real world is overwhelming me. This is my tribe....

Thank you for helping me breathe. 

~ Adrienne

Breathing Lessons.....

I discovered this weekend that I wasn't breathing.......

Did that get your attention? It got mine.

I suppose I should clarify things since my mom will most likely read this and I don't want to scare her. Hi mom - yes I'm fine. 

Here's the thing. Have you ever been going along in your life and discovered that you weren't truly breathing? You weren't taking the deep breaths of life. You were holding it, waiting for something to come along that would make you gasp. You probably didn't even realize how shallow your breathing had become until it stopped altogether. Yeah, that was me.

I need to rewind for a moment to two years ago when I attended my first writer's conference and took the leap into this crazy world. The Pennwriter's conference was a peek into the real world of writing, not the dabbling that I had been doing here and there. My friend and I were new at this so we went for one day and we stuck our toe into the water carefully. What we found was an ocean inhabited by some amazingly talented people. I was hooked. I was gung ho to write that next great novel and get it sent off to an agent. 

Unfortunately life is not an ongoing writer's convention. (God that would great if it was. Talking about books, characters, plots, motivation....) Okay, back to the story. The thing that you realize when you're no longer with all these amazing people is that the writer's life is very lonely and pretty foreign. Think about it. We sit inside our heads making up imaginary friends, or enemies, or vampires...well you get the picture. Meanwhile the world around us needs to keep moving on and it doesn't understand what you mean when you say you need to go get lost in your thoughts. There are groceries to be bought, laundry and cleaning to be done, and the job that actually pays us at the moment. Friends and family would like you to be present now and then as well. On top of that there is the exercise that you need to throw in due to the hours you sit day dreaming. Let's be honest, sometimes these other voices drown out the ones in your head and they win.

My point is that in the past few months those voices were winning....a lot. When they became louder, my breathing became slower, until I literally stopped. You can go a long time without this kind of breathing, but it doesn't mean that you're still alive.

Fast forward to this past Friday when my friend and I returned to the Pennwriter's conference. We were wiser this time, a little more advanced in what we knew. Honestly, in my friend's case, very advanced. She's become my information guru.This time we attended the full three days and immersed ourselves in all of it. We went to seminars, author/agent/editor panels, our area group meeting where we were lucky enough to find a new kindred spirit who is moving to our city this summer! We even ate dinner with a writer who has the most amazing mind for the business side of writing. Jonathan Maberry blew us away with his knowledge and more importantly how open he was to sharing with those of us just starting out. I went through the entire weekend with a new found energy. I couldn't remember the last time that I had that kind of excitement about writing (other than my first Pennwriter's). Telling a friend about it today she said "I haven't heard you talk like this in months!" Let's face it, even this blog has lagged recently. Again when you aren't breathing you tend to stop living.

So my point is that at the conference I took in a huge breath and I have been breathing again ever since. Now, can I guarantee that I won't have moments again? Can I state emphatically that there won't be a time where the day to day world won't win out over my imaginary one? Sadly no. I'm pretty sure it can take a while to get the breathing down properly, but I am willing to say that I won't give up trying to learn it. One of the most telling statements for me this weekend came from an editor panel I attended. When asked what they would like to tell new writers just starting out, the inspiring Heidi Ruby Miller said, "It will become your life."

I pray that she is right.....

I can't thank everyone here (I do believe the blog would crash), but I would like to mention the people who stood out; from a seminar I took, advice and knowledge imparted, and most of all enthusiasm shared.

Mark Tavani, Donald Maass, Jason Jack Miller, Nancy Martin, Suzie Townsend, Bobbi Carducci, Kathryn Craft, Chuck Sambuchino, Jon Sprunk, Becky Vinter, Whitney Ross, Jennifer Barnes, John Lawson, Uwe Stender, Eddie Schneider, Jonathan Maberry,  Dee Romito, Claudia Recinos, Heather Desuta, RR Smythe, Mary Sutton, Wende Dikec, and most of all to Jess Williams and the Pennwriter's group for organizing an amazing conference!

Time to go practice breathing....

Adrienne