Fantasy is what keeps writers going…
by Ruth Harris
Does any of this sound familiar?
Fantasy: Oodles of long, uninterrupted stretches of time in which to dream, think, imagine.
Reality: Rewriting/revising/editing that *%$& chapter for the umpteenth time.
Fantasy: A leisurely afternoon at a baseball game, or at the park, or relaxing in a hammock.
Reality: Searching ly to purge dreaded adverbs before you send your ms. off to your editor.
Fantasy: A delicious gin-and-tonic with a slice of lime in a tall, crystal glass.
Reality: Another cup of scalding hot black coffee as you try to figure out where your plot went off track.
Fantasy: Reading five-star rave reviews of your new release.
Reality: One beta reader informs you that your characters are boring/unpleasant/
Fantasy: A backyard barbecue, steaks sizzling on the grill, a bottle of frosty cold beer, a game of Frisbee.
Reality: You’re stuck on clean-up duty facing a sink full of dirty dishes, a broken dishwasher, and your kids are on the verge of killing each other in an epic battle over possession of the video game controller while you’re trying to figure out the bad guy’s motivation and the beautiful heroine’s secret wound.
But THEN:
Somehow over the din, you hear an email alert…
- It’s from the publisher-of-your-wildest-
dreams offering you a hefty six figure advance. - They apologize for intruding on your long weekend, but they’re wondering if you’d be interested.
Or you take a moment to check the buy page of your new novel and…
- There are four new rave reviews.
- The book is climbing up the ranks and in the top 10 in in three categories!
Fantasies DO come true!
Anne and I wish you a glorious long weekend and hope all your fantasies turn into reality!
by Ruth Harris (@RuthHarrisBooks) May 27, 2018
Okay, scriveners. Now it’s your turn. In the comments, we’d love to see your own fantasy vs. reality experiences.
If you want to see what Anne’s up to this week, it looks like she’s poisoning people again with another chapter in her Poisoning People for Fun and Profit series on her book blog. This time it’s Carbon Monoxide.
BOOK OF THE WEEK
Because laughter is a great way to deal with reality!
HUSBAND TRAINING SCHOOL (Strong, Savvy Women…And The Men Who Love Them Series, Book 3)
Robin Aguirre uses her Marine Corps know-how to help save other women’s marriages.
But will she ever find her own Mr. Right?
“Hilarious!” “Colorful characters, funny dialogue, and a quick pace.”
“Very well written, delightful and funny. Ms. Harris knows how to write humor.”
Available from All the Amazons
OPPORTUNITY ALERTS
Nowhere Spring Travel Writing Contest $10 Fee. 800-5000 words showing a powerful sense of place: Fiction or nonfiction. Previous publication okay. $1000 prize plus publication in Nowhere magazine. Deadline May 31st
WOW! WOMEN ON WRITING SPRING 2018 FLASH FICTION CONTEST 250-750 words. $10 ENTRY FEE. Guest judge is Literary Agent Sharon Pelletier with Dystel, Goderich & Bourret Literary Agency (DG&B). Short fiction of any genre. First Place: $400, publication, interview, and $25 Amazon Gift Certificate. Deadline May 31, 2018.
Owl Canyon Press Short Story Hackathon. FREE! Writers are invited to submit a short story consisting of 50 paragraphs. The contest provides the first and last paragraph. Prizes: $1000, 500, and $250. Twenty-four Finalists will be included in an anthology. Deadline: June 30, 2018.
Paying markets for your horror or dark fiction. Now here’s a handy guide from the always-useful Erica Verrillo on her blog “Publishing and Other Forms of Insanity.”
Have you been harassed online? PEN America has launched the Online Harassment Field Manual. It’s a first-of-its-kind resource to equip and empower writers, journalists, and all those active online. It also offers practical tools and tactics to defend against hateful speech and trolling.
48 Small Presses looking for children’s books. Now Authors Publish magazine has collated and vetted small press publishers for children’s books..
13 Imprints of Big 5 publishers who take unagented submissions. Another helpful list from the good people at Authors Publish Magazine.
UNO PRESS PUBLISHING LAB PRIZE For book-length fiction. Any genre. $18 ENTRY FEE. The University of New Orleans Press is looking for full-length fiction manuscripts. They can be either novels or short story collections. The selected author will receive a $1,000 advance on royalties and a contract to publish their winning manuscript with UNO Press. Deadline August 15, 2018.
All the best to you both Ruth and Anne! I think I will spend the day off from work tomorrow (not my usual). And my fantasy-reality routine runs a bit more like this:
– Dreaming of how folks will laugh/squeal/gasp at the precise placement of my own sound F/X into the climactic chapter of my a-book.
– Hearing yet another accursed click in the background between takes, from when I had to cut to a different take because the cat was eating from her dish and you can hear her lip-smacking in the background!
Will—Aaaaargh! Are you *sure* that was a cat? Maybe it was a man-eating tiger?
HA! A writer’s fantasies & realities run rampant. May both your l long weekends be simply mahvelous.
CS—And to you as well! May your fantasies all become realities. 🙂
I love this because it’s so true. When you’re a career writer (not necessarily an author, but a “writer”) you work all kinds of hours. My publisher and I e-mail each other at 1 in the morning and that’s perfectly normal. This Memorial Day I’m ghost writing a children’s book for a celebrity and I’m getting photos organized with the tech/design guy. It’s just different from a 9-5 job, and I have no complaints. I prefer the reality to the fantasy.
Ryan—D’accord! The reality is (usually) better and much more interesting than the fantasies. 😉 Thanks for the great comment! Anne and I wish you and all our treasured commenters a lovely, indulgent long weekend.
Fantasy – your book climbs the charts with little effort on your part.
Reality – your book creeps out of the cellar after you’ve done everything possibly imaginable to promote online.
Dreams do come true – two of my books hit number one in their main genre. (That was with a lot of effort, some of which I have no idea what I did…)
Have a great Memorial Day, ladies!
Backatcha, Alex! Yay for you! 2 at #1! 🙂
What a fun post! Here’s my fantasy/reality, Ruth – and it was all in the same review!
First line: “Loved it. One of the funniest books I’ve ever read.”
Second line: “But I’m glad the library had it, because I wouldn’t have wanted to pay for it.”
*hits head against desk*
Melodie—Sheesh! Dealing with the public! I feel your pain. 🙁
Fantasy: Have my author pals visit from Oz, eat grilled meat and fruits, get several great story ideas that might actually have a chance at not sucking, learn that everyone’s book, painting, poem, sculpture, song has been nominated for some cool award.
Reality: Realize this morning that there’s a holiday tomorrow, after seeing a 10-foot high banner at Wally World, where I was getting avocados and apples. Wondering if I could float a story about someone who could only shop for items alphabetically, then wondered what the possible inciting incident could be — and who would care?
Hope you gals and everyone have a great holiday – extra one day… may your realities always be as good as your fantasies.
Personally, I love the weekdays when my block-long street is silent and all the drones are in their hives.
Maria D’Marco
Maria—thanks for an inspiring fantasy and most writerlike reality. 🙂 Hope you’re enjoying your holiday and your drone-free weekday!
Fantasy – quitting the day job now to be a full time writer and author.
Reality – squeezing the writing between work and kids because The job is funding retirement so I’ll have enough then to be a full time writer and author.
} Cathryn
Cathryn—excellent addition! Thanks. Hope you’re having a great weekend!
Fantasy – expecting 10,000+ downloads to be #1 during the freebie Kindle run.
Reality – ends up #1 in a sub-sub-sub category during the freebie run with 1,000+ downloads.
(Which happened to me recently. I’m still new, LoL.)
AG—congratulations! You’re developing the writer’s most basic necessity: a thick skin. Sorry you experienced this, though. All of us here feel your pain.
Just shared this on Twitter. I have over 30 million book sales in 29 languages and STILL I get asked what name I write under. Or worse, relative wishes aloud that I wrote more like Stephen King. Reality check, indeed.
Valerie—LOFL. The one I get is: “Have I ever read anything you wrote?” Oy. Welcome to reality.
Ahh, the two sides of the coin. But for this holiday weekend, enjoy the fantasies Ruth and Anne. 🙂
Anne, I just love this post and have reblogged it on Twitter, Facebook, G+, and tomorrow I will reblog on my post on WordPress! (I would today, but it is Memorial Day).
K.D.—Ruth here thanking you from Anne and me. We appreciate your support and look forward to all your fantasies become realities!
Hahahaha. Perfect. After chatting last night with the hubby about all the fun things we have planned for today, I took “one quick peek” at my edits this morning. I’m still at the computer four hours later. The fun has been pushed off till noon … ish. 😉
Wishing you both a fabulous holiday!!!
Sue—Aaaargh! Those “quick peeks” are the path to doom. No two ways about it. We’re all addicts.
Fantasy – Achieving the high mark on your first draft. 5000 words. Little editing. Nail it!
Reality – The cat peed on half the pages. Twitter is calling. 400 words max. Every word sucks!!!!
Bryan—LOL! Always gotta love feedback from the cat. Persnickety felines never satisfied.
Fantasy: Finishing the last round of edits on Friday/Saturday with plenty of time to spare, get a good night’s sleep before jetting off to Niagara Falls for some rest and relaxation this weekend.
Reality: Well-meaning boss takes us out for a very long lunch on Friday instead of me doing edits at work. Half-day at work allows for several hours of editing before my evening plans… or swapping phone calls with my aunt as we plan the theme for this year’s Father’s Day BBQ and edit the invitation email announcing said theme. Saturday morning provides some uninterrupted editing time… or is spent at an AT&T store after my phone fell in the toilet Friday night and passed from this world. The editor/publisher meeting Saturday night is pushed back until 10pm while I finally do finish edits. Meeting goes until 1am as we finish edits, leaving me with five hours to both sleep and pack for Niagara Falls.
So… yeah. Fantasy and reality look quite different sometimes. But it did get done in the end!
Irvin—Yay for you! Congratulations. You got it done (wasn’t easy though). Thanks for the detailed description of a writer’s reality. 🙂
Twice a month, Thursday through Sunday, I disappear into the ’88 Shasta Travel Trailer on our property and “write.” Of necessity, that unfettered writing time involves a lot of reading, doodling, napping, and rambling with the dogs. Neatly woven into all that “unproductive” time is the inspiration that finally gets me seated at the old, rickety dinette to write until my eyes turn red and my butt gets sore. Hurrah for the long weekend!
Baxter—sounds to me like you’ve got the long weekend down to a science! You’re an inspiration!
Love this! What would we do without our fantasies? We’d have to get ‘proper’ jobs!
Geraldine—thanks! I guess we’d finally have to actually grow up, too. Then where would we be? 🙂
This was a very interesting, very informative post.
Rae—Thanks for the kind words. Appreciated!