Saturday Special
This post should be required reading for any and everyone setting out to write a novel for the first time. It WILL get better. But first, the long and winding road. Embrace it, live it, emerge a new writer.
We have title!
SPANISH MAGNATE, RED-HOT REVENGE will be an August 09 release in the UK. The North American release is still to be determined. But I will let you know as soon as I do!
This is truly, truly a dream come true. I know I have a lot of lurkers, a lot of unpublished writers who, like me, are working hard and want the dream. Well, it can happen. You just have to keep writing and keep believing. It won't always be easy. Some days you'll need to back away from the computer and eat a pint of Ben and Jerry's (ice cream for my international readers who may not have this luscious brand of sin in their grocery freezers). You simply must believe in yourself. And that is not always an easy task.
Trust me, I know. You will second guess yourself. You will decide to quit. It's okay, so long as you come back to it. I've quit. And I've come back, determined not to quit again.
Yes, I got the Call, but there is always another hill to climb. My published friends tell me so and I believe them. But I will not quit! And neither should you, wherever you are in the journey. You're gonna write some awful stuff, probably. But don't quit. And learn to grow your craft. If you do that, you'll get there. 🙂 Good luck, and I'll let you know when the Call story appears at the IHP blog!
Lessons from the movies
I've wanted to see The Rookie for a long time — six years, in fact, since it came out in 2002. Dennis Quaid plays Jim Morris, the real life guy who tried out for major league baseball at the age of 35, long after he should have been through and long after he'd bombed out in baseball in his 20s due to injuries. But the guy threw a mean fastball as he got older; in fact, it was even better than when he was younger. And the high school baseball team he coached made a bet with him:
In 1999, Coach Morris made a fateful bet with his perpetually losing team. If they won the district championship, Morris — who threw a 98 mph fastball — would try out for the majors. The team went from worst to first, and Jim, living up to his end of the bargain, threw caution to the wind and was on the road to becoming the oldest rookie in the major leagues.
I love stories like this, because that's what writing is about too. Not giving up. We don't have to contend with aging bodies making our dreams physically impossible. We have only to contend with the doubt demons in our heads, the rotten contest scores, the rejections from our dream agent, or the editor who loved our concept but hated the execution. It's tough and it can be brutal.
But you have to keep trying. That's why I love movies like this. Because they remind me that someone had a dream and suffered to make it happen. That someone took all the hard knocks and managed to make it anyway.
What are your favorite inspirational movies? Do you like baseball movies? I don't care for the actual sport, but I love baseball movies. (Bull Durham is my all time FAVORITE baseball movie — Kevin Costner and the “long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses that last for three days” speech — how can you go wrong?)