The Write-aholic Intervention

     My family says I’ve changed since I’ve become an author. Not in the sense of becoming overly confident or proud. They say I no longer clean my house.

     Ashley, my youngest, said to me over the Christmas Holidays. “Mom, Jennifer is very worried about you. There’s dust on the cabinet in the upstairs hallway. And cobwebs!”

     Me:  “There’s cobwebs upstairs? I hadn’t noticed.”

     Ashley: “That’s the point. You’ve never had cobwebs. You’ve never had dust. Maybe you should get a cleaning lady to clean your house.”

     I look around at my home. It’s not that bad. Maybe a bit of dust here and there, but it’s presentable. Isn’t it? I’m retired. How do I justify a cleaning lady? When I worked as a Controller for a corporation in St Louis, I didn’t have a cleaning lady. My husband would think I’d lost it if I suggested I needed help to clean my house now that I’m home every day.

     Me: “I don’t think that’s necessary. I’ll assign a day to cleaning.” That should take care of it.

     Ashley: “You need to cook dinners for Dad once in a while.” She couched her words carefully.

     Maybe my husband was wondering if I was ever going to leave the computer.

     My face fell. My husband comes home from work every evening and cooks dinner. I always offer to help just as soon as I finish the scene I’m writing. By the time I type the last word, dinner is on the table.

     Me: “You’re absolutely right. I’ll cook every Thursday. It’s your dad’s late night.” I beam at her as if the one night solves the issue.

     Ashley sighed and went on. “Maybe you can help him with the laundry.” My poor daughter was obviously uncomfortable, but had taken on the job of opening my eyes to my overzealous dedication to my new career.

     Me: “Your dad likes to do the laundry. He’s always done the laundry.” By now, shame is written on my face. I hate to do laundry. Maybe there’s another trade-off. “I’ll do the grocery shopping.” I’m satisfied; it’s a good compromise.

     Ashley: “Dad likes to do the shopping. He likes to buy things for the kids on his Sunday morning adventure to Wally-World.”

     Me: I sigh. “He does, but he also likes to do the laundry.”

     Ashley: “Maybe you can mow the lawn once in a while.”

     Me: “I can’t use the zero-turn. I’ll mow down his trees.”

     Ashley: “Mom, he bought you a riding lawnmower. It’s sitting in the barn.”

     I have no answer for this. There is a miniature riding lawnmower sitting in the barn. The grandkids drive it around when they visit.

     Ashley:  Adding a positive note to my write-aholic intervention. “Well, he is happier now that he doesn’t have to take care of the horses every day. At least you did that for him.”

     Me: “Yes, he is. I’m glad I gave in and sold them and sent Juno to the trainer.”

     Ashley finally stops talking. I know she’s beside herself having to be the one to give me the talk, but who else will do it. She’s the closest. She doesn’t intentionally want to make me feel like a horrible person, but I am a horrible person. At least when it comes to neglecting my family and squirreling myself away to write. And I’m married to a Saint. For years,   I thought I was the Saint, but who was I fooling. No one, but myself.

     I promise to do better. That evening, my husband comes home, and I tell him I’m going to be a better person. I’ll cook and clean and mow the lawn.

     Husband: “When are you going to write?”

     Me: “I’ll fit it in.”

     Husband: “Don’t be silly. You love to write.”

     Without my husband, I wouldn’t be able to write as I do. I’m able to spend hours at the computer typing away, spinning dreams, creating heroes, but the biggest hero in my life walks through the door every evening and cooks me dinner.

To find Stolen Hearts on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Stolen-Hearts-ebook/dp/BooE3LMF71
http://www.facebook.com/AuthorPHudson
http://www.twitter.com/AuthorPHudson
www.wordpress.com/patriciahudson
http://smpauthors.wordpress.com/meet-patricia-hudson/
Books:
Released 2014
Stolen Hearts
Coming in 2014 by SoulMate Publishing:
The Call    April, 2014
Love on the Double T   May, 2014
Moody Gallery   Summer, 2014
The Exchange   September, 2014

Poetry in Motion: Truth or Consequences

Poetry in Motion: Truth or Consequences: I'm excited to reveal the cover for Truth or Consequences, a romantic thriller.  Soul Mate Publishing  has slated a tentative release in...

The Promotional Quagmire

     It was midnight, and my critique partner and I were still discussing the science of promoting books. Both new authors, it was AP Physics for us. Someone suggested we join Twitter. We became clicking fools, clicking away at the follow button. She was better at it than me. She’d clicked over a thousand followers compared to my paltry three hundred and fifty. I was jealous.

     “April, do you really think this is going to help? All we’re doing is following authors. We need readers.”

     She responded with a sigh, “I know, but the authors have followers.”

     “It’s not going to help unless they share our tweets. Do you actually think they’re going to do that?”

     “Just click,” she responded.

     We were thrilled when we received a follow from someone with ninety one thousand followers.

     We spent fifteen minutes talking about how that’s even possible.  He must have a program that does it for him, we concurred. I Googled him to see what wonderful author had that many followers.

     “April, he’s a porn star,” I lamented

     “Oh my, should we unfollow him?”

     “What happens if we do that? I’m going to unfollow you. Let me know if you receive an email informing you of my despicable action.”

     I hit the unfollow button. I was anxious to know what punishment Twitter would dole out when I did this. There were a few unfollows I had my sights on. For those of you out there who thank your followers without a follow, it’s very irritating. I received great pleasure in hitting the unfollow button for these writers who made me feel like an outsider.

     Nothing happened with the unfollow click. It snuck by under the radar of the twitter police. I went to town on my unfollow button. Oh it made me feel better, not to mention it improved my ratio of follows to following. Yes, we tracked this like good statisticians.

     Next, we zeroed in on WordPress. I count my blessings every day that I found April for a critique partner. She pulls me kicking and screaming through the world of blogging and posting.

     “I can’t blog,” I whined.

     “You have too. It’s one of the musts to get the word out.” April advised

     “If they read my blog, they’ll never buy a book. Trust me on this.”

     April was busy posting beautiful poetry and I had a blank page. Heck I’d better do something. I wrote a blog. Of course, my brilliant partner had to put it on WordPress. I had no clue how.

     “It’s working. Blogging helps.” She told me just last night. “I’m getting likes on Twitter and Facebook.”

     “Wonderful,” I respond. This time, I seriously had to hide my jealousy. I’d just checked my blog, which still had zero likes. It had three on hers. Who does that? Why not like it on the writers…so rude?

     “Write me a poem,” I begged.  It must be her poetry that’s bringing in the fans. After all, anyone who writes poetry must be a fabulous writer.

     “About what,” she asks.

     “I don’t care…a horse. I just need a poem.” I knew if I got a poem on my site, they would come in droves.

     And so it goes. It’s a nightly thing with us, trying to work through the secrets of promotion.

     Does anyone out there have a poem for me?


To find Stolen Hearts on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Stolen-Hearts-ebook/dp/BooE3LMF71
http://www.facebook.com/AuthorPHudson
http://www.twitter.com/AuthorPHudson
http://smpauthors.wordpress.com/meet-patricia-hudson/
Books:
Released 2014
Stolen Hearts
Coming in 2014 by Soul Mate Publishing:
The Call    April, 2014
Love on the Double T   May, 2014
Moody Gallery   Summer, 2014
The Exchange   September, 2014

Writing the Love Scene or Not

     How do you prepare to write the big love scene? Maybe you’re one of the lucky ones who finds it easy. No inhibitions to hold you back. No pent up emotions or repressions. Free thinking parents who always called body parts by their real names. Parents who explained that love (sex) was a natural part of life. If you are, then I’m jealous.

     I remember saying the word sex at the dinner table and my dad, who was the most loving father in the world, choked on his cup of tea.

     My mother, also an adoring parent, never mentioned specific body parts. She would just point her eyes to that part of my body until I got what she was talking about.
When I heard the words spoken by friends, you can imagine my distress. They’re descent to Hell was a big concern.

     Are you beginning to understand my difficulty?  Now here is where things really get weird. I am a CP for a wonderful writer of erotica in addition to her other genres. I hear you laughing. I didn’t know she wrote erotica until we’d bonded, and the thought of losing her was traumatic. She’s the best CP, ever.

     She obviously knew my difficulty with love scenes. After all, she’d listened to me lament about them for hours. “Do you want to CP my book? It’s okay if you don’t. I understand.”
Maybe this was an answer. If I read graphic sex scenes, I’d build up a tolerance. A type of immunity to the chilling words. I’d read somewhere that if you do something over and over, you become desensitized.

     I agreed to CP her book. I secretly thought I could skip the sex scenes and concentrate on the story. Erotic books are all about sex scenes. Did you know that? I was able to muddle through it and even give some good suggestions. She actually changed some of the scenes that didn’t make sense to me.

     Now, to write my own scene. I was armed with knowledge, a blasé attitude, and the will to succeed. I can do this, I said with great determination. Right! Wrong.

     Reading someone else’s sex scene is not the same as writing your own. My hands shook when my fingers tried to type the dreaded words. I really wanted to write a sexy scene. I put on some music. Michael Buble has some very sexy CD’s. I poured a glass of wine and gulped (not sipped) while I wrote. I made myself type the words. I sat back with a satisfied and tipsy grin on my face. Well done, I said. I’ll read it tomorrow with fresh eyes.

     “April, I’ve written a sex scene, a real one.”  April is a pro at this. It always confuses me, because she is very shy. How does she manage to type the words and describe the act in such detail? I mean excruciating detail.

     “Let me read it. E-mail it to me.” I copy and paste the best scene I’ve ever written into the body of the e-mail. I write that tongue-in-cheek.  I read it for a tenth time. It’s very sexy, I think, proud of my accomplishment. My finger clicks on the send button.

     I wait, and I wait, and I wait. What’s taking her so long? Does she think it’s as great as I do? She’s probably stunned because I wrote such a graphic scene.

     My computer dings. I have an e-mail. I can’t wait to hear her praise.

     “It’s cute,” she writes. Cute, cute! What does cute have to do with a hot and torrid sex scene? Sexy, hopefully… Sensual, of course… but cute. Cute and sex do not belong in the same sentence. Even I know that. My head drops to the computer.

     I let myself go and write the hottest scene of my writing career.
The next day I couldn’t wait to read my scene. I knew it was going to be sexy, romantic, and hot. I scrolled to the scene and began to read. My heart raced. I felt the flush creep up my body until my face burned with embarrassment.

     Dear Lord, I can’t publish this. My fingers went wild deleting. What was left were two paragraphs of mish-mash.

     I rewrote the scene.  Sigh, I doubt I’ll ever reach the level of sensual or hot.
 

To find Stolen Hearts on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Stolen-Hearts-ebook/dp/BooE3LMF71
http://www.facebook.com/AuthorPHudson
http://www.twitter.com/AuthorPHudson
www.wordpress.com/patriciahudson
http://smpauthors.wordpress.com/meet-patricia-hudson/
Books:
Released 2014
Stolen Hearts    

Coming in 2014 by SoulMate Publishing:
The Call
Love on the Double T
Moody Gallery
The Exchange