#Nanowrimo Day Three: Write Like You're Getting Paid for It

From the time I was eleven years old, I wanted to be a professional writer. For those of you who do not know the story, it started as a Halloween assignment, when my very first creative writing assignment was selected for the Wall of Honor. This surprised me at the time, even though I had a history of being an exceptional student, one who was regularly honored at year’s end for my academic performance. As I grew older, these accolades became fewer and fewer, so by the time I was eleven years old, it was a huge freaking deal to be singled out and praised in such a way.

It was such a huge deal that my previous plan, to go to school to become a lawyer, to fight for truth, justice and the American way, flew right out the window.

I wanted that feeling for the rest of my life, where I presented something that I had created from scratch and it was treated it like it was truly special.

Where I was treated like I was truly special.

Since I was a voracious reader at the time, the idea of joining some of my heroes, which, when I was twelve, included such romance icons as Janet Dailey, seemed like the ultimate dream come true. By the time I was fourteen, I completed my first novella, a story titled “My Father and Me,” inspired by Barry Manilow’s song “Ships.” This made the idea of writing for a living even more intoxicating. I regularly created for fun, developing my own soap opera around a randy bunch of Barbies that lived the lives I could only dream of living. (There may or may not have been a character named Ginger, who may or may not have married a character named Steve Perry.)

I had this idea that I could play for a living. I could craft these wonderful stories into books, sell them far and wide and become a huge success, famous of course, but the kind of famous where I could still go to the grocery store without being stopped, photographed or recognized. (The fictional me may or may not have been plagued by the paparazzi.)

I held fast to this dream all the way through my early twenties, when I started to shop around my ever so genius material, only to learn that cracking open the gate to a professional writing career wasn’t quite as easy as I had planned. I thought for sure that I was special enough to make it happen; everyone I had ever shown my work to beforehand had reinforced this belief.

Though it was hard, both to finish a book worthy of representation/publication and finding anyone who was willing to stick their necks out for me to buy (or sell) my work, I held fast to my dream of one day being a professional writer, who could make a living doing what I wanted to do.

That making a living part is the key. Like I told you before, the odds are stacked against both traditionally published and independently published authors, a majority of whom barely make enough to keep themselves stocked in caffeine, liquor and one bullet... just in case... much less enough to pay for groceries, rent or one freaking electric bill. What I dreamed for years on end, to write at my leisure, to produce books that fans clamored for, to travel far and wide to exciting places as part of my glamorous career as a renowned author, is basically a fairy tale for most writers, myself included.

I began to see the cracks in the veneer when I hit my thirties, and I decided, in the dawn of this new millennium, to dip my toe in the shark-infested waters of screenwriting.

The idea had been presented to me in the 1990s by a former agent, who was told again and again that my writing style was more visual and might be better suited to the screen. At the time, I was perfectly content to write romance novels. I thought that was something I could definitely pull off. Writing a screenplay, a hundred or so pages that someone would want to invest millions of dollars to bring to life, was daunting to me.

Basically I didn't believe I could do it.

In 1999, I met my second husband, Steven. He was a total movie buff, who generally saw all new releases when they hit the theater. He had racked up more than 500 points on his AMC card, so much of our courtship was spent inside a darkened theater. This was a new experience for me. From the time my father passed away in 1980, my life had been devoid of frills like this. I grew up in the 1980s without my MTV simply because we couldn't afford cable. Needless to say, I can count the number of movies I saw in the theater in those 29 years on two hands, with several fingers left over.

So, after meeting Steven and living in his world for a bit, I began to embrace the excitement of movies in a whole new way. I loved going to movies on opening night, sharing the experience with total strangers, and somehow always having the experience enhanced as a result.

I told Steven then what the agent had said, and he was totally for it. He had read my stuff beforehand and thought I was talented enough to pull it off, even when I wasn’t so sure. For the next few years, until I wrote my first screenplay in 2002, he was a constant voice in my ear telling me not only could I do it, but that I totally should.

Unbeknownst to him, he was the first person to shatter some of the illusions I harbored about being a professional writer.

He was the one who told me that even if I sold a script to Hollywood, there was a pretty good chance that they would change it from what I wanted. A screenplay is one part of a bigger collaboration, where directors and actors use what is on the page as a guide to the story they want to tell.

In other words, someone else wanted to play with my Barbies, and I wasn’t entirely sure I was comfortable with that. Would they take my beloved characters, like MJ from CHASING THUNDER, and make her some bimbo, when she was supposed to be an icon of feminine badassery?

Hence why it took so long to write my first spec script. There are two basic types of scripts; those you are hired to write and those you write because you have a brilliant story to tell. If you're writing on “spec,” you aren't going to get paid unless you can find someone willing to invest to bring it to life. The odds of selling one are not in your favor. Even a conservative estimate of 50,000 spec scripts written a year only yields a success rate of 50 or so selling each year, and of those, the number shrinks even more how many actually are filmed, much less make it to a theater.

Most screenwriters use their spec scripts as calling cards to get hired for jobs, where producers already have an idea they think is worth investing in, they just need to find the one hungry writer who is willing to work efficiently and well to give them that initial blueprint to follow.

Indeed, this is how it happened for me. By 2005, I had written four spec scripts, one of which would eventually turn into my novel, MY IMMORTAL. I was told by another screenwriter that a director he knew wanted a vampire story they could set in Romania, where this particular director was from. Since I had used a fictional place in my story, I figured we could easily adapt it if need be, so I sent it over. The producer wasn’t that turned on by the Gothic landscape for my tragic love story, but he really loved my main character, a reincarnated vampire who was born with psychic ability.

He asked me instead to write something more urban, something that could be set in Romania, with a similar character. He pitched the idea to me as “Se7en” meets “Interview with a Vampire,” and explained he already had a producer and a studio interested. It was a low-budget affair, but I didn’t care. This was my big break to actually get paid for what I wrote.

I began my research into Romania, Bucharest and vampire lore. Within a relatively short period of time, I had a first draft for this new project, TASTE OF BLOOD, where some tabloid reporters head to Romania to “investigate” (i.e., exploit,) a serial killer who drains his or her victims of blood, to simulate a vampire kill.

Since my research indicated that Romania had been known to wake up psychic abilities, thanks to where it sits on the planet, I decided to make my heroine, Reese Mackenzie, clairvoyant. And I decided to kick that up a few thousand notches the minute she stepped off the plane.

The director loved it. The producer loved it. Even the studios loved it. I was on my way!

Or… so I thought.

In writing this screenplay, I got a crash course on what it means to write for a living. If someone is paying you money for what you write, you kinda have to let them play around with your Barbies, even if they are doing something completely unexpected with them.

The first lesson? Budget restraints. You don’t really factor that in when you’re writing a spec script. You create the world you want to portray and just assume the Powers That Be will make all these scenes happen. But when you’re writing a small-budget screenplay, you have to keep that in the forefront of your mind.

For instance, I crafted a pretty intense scene in the subway only to be told that adding a subway scene in the movie would rack up the cost, since it comes with very specific shooting challenges. Out that scene went. Same with one of the fire scenes and the car chase. I had to pick and choose which scenes would be worth the cost paid to bring them to life, which teaches you all you need to know about efficient storytelling. I had to cut all extraneous characters from the script, because every speaking role is another actor you have to pay, which adds to the bill. If a character says anything, it has to mean everything.

And I was expected to roll with these punches, producing new drafts very quickly, while the interest was hot in the project. Whenever the studio wanted to cut cost and reduce the budget, I had to amend the screenplay yet again. Overall I wrote five drafts in as many months, which may explain why the breakneck pace of Nanowrimo has never really intimidated me.

Ultimately that story, though optioned, was shelved when the studio decided to pull the funding. Despite all that work I did, virtually for free, I was no closer to adding “professional” to my resume than I was before. (I ended up writing TASTE OF BLOOD as a novel, during the 2010 Nano ironically enough. I published it in 2011, because girlfriend is gonna get paid. Trust.)

The wealth of information I learned from the experience, however, was priceless.

In 2010, after a chronic illness left me unable to work a traditional 9-5 job in a brick-and-mortar business, I had a life-changing conversation with a friend of mine who just so happens to be a writer herself.

I met her in 1996 or thereabouts, when we both worked for the same company. She became my steadfast cheerleader, who encouraged me to write more, write a lot, try to sell it, even tackle screenplays. She believed I could do it.

By 2010, she had carved herself a writing career by writing non-fiction, which is a hustle all its own. But the hustle was necessary. Like me, she couldn’t work a traditional 9-5 job. Her son needed intensive medical care, which meant she had to be around for him as much as possible. This became her impetus to become a professional writer: she had no choice. There was no plan B.

“No Plan B” stayed with me for the next few months. When the opportunity to apply to become a freelance writer passed my way in June of that year, I took it. I was even more jazzed when I was accepted. At long last I could get paid to write.

Granted it was non-fiction. I didn’t really get to play around in the sandbox. But I got to write and I got paid for it, which was the first step in the right direction.

Freelance work was much like working in the film industry. I was expected to produce complete projects quickly. Whenever I selected an article to write, I had five days to produce a finished product, which would then go to an editor. If they found nothing wrong with it, it was published immediately and I got paid. If they found errors or wanted to tweak it to make it publication worthy, I got two passes before the article was released back into the pool for another writer to grab. If that happened, I got paid bupkis.

Thus created the real need to get it right the first time, and as quick as I could. As a new writer for this company, I was allowed to pull ten articles at a time, which meant I could virtually write my own paycheck if I was willing to put in the work.

After years and years of writing for free, I was so willing to put in the work.

And it was work. I pumped out articles, some without even having any interest at all in the topic. When you have bills to pay, you don’t get to choose. And you most certainly don’t get to play. I finally got to write for a living only to realize that it really was work. It was a job just like any other job. When I worked at an insurance company, I was expected to work overtime, processing as many claims as possible as quickly and correctly as possible. The better I did this, the more I got paid with bonuses, OT pay, and raises. It was all about quality and volume.

This would suit me well when I decided to self-publish in 2011, where I took all these lessons with me.

Let me be the first to tell you that there is no hustle like that of a self-publisher. You’re not just a mere writer anymore. You wear two hats now. You’re also a publisher, which means what you do is a business. This has nothing to do with being greedy or opportunistic or – that dreaded four-letter-word – a hack. You have your eye on the bottom line because you have to. The buck stops with you, literally. That’s your job. And if you’re successful, you can bring in an income. You just have to be ready to hustle along every other publisher selling their books in the same convoluted market.

Not too long ago, a writer published a piece, offering some advice for new indies, suggesting that you have to publish four books a year to stay relevant. There are thousands upon thousands of books released every year, and for many genres, like the romance genre, a lot of unknowns get a big bump around the time of the release, only to get buried under more successful authors who have already run the gauntlet and cultivated a staunch, devoted fan base. To compete with them, you need to publish new material. Fans of romance won’t wait around for you. There are too many books to be excited about, to gush and swoon over, and if you want to keep up, you better werk. *Snap*

Another author found this advice distressing. This author, whose primary income does NOT come from her writing, suggested what so many often do: that quick writing is crap, and, essentially, you’d be better of writing nothing at all than write a “bad book.”

If you really want to take the process seriously, anyway.

I already took issue with this in previous entries, so I won’t rehash why I think that’s complete and total bullshit. All I will say is that this author doesn’t understand the profession of writing, and most certainly doesn’t understand the business of publishing. When you claim to be a self-published writer, you’re not just some romantic vision of creative brilliance, waiting oh so longingly for your Muse to hand-deliver your next masterpiece on her schedule. You’re a publisher. You have your own schedule. And while there is room for creative genius, there are also more practical concerns, like keeping up with an ever-changing industry where the only rule that counts is that what worked last year won’t work this year.

You’re constantly changing and adapting, and, if you’re making any money at all doing it, you’re writing. All. The. Time.

That’s what it means to be a professional writer. This is a job. If you’re self-published, it’s two. If you’re talented, dedicated and lucky, you can break into that top 20% of writers who make over a grand a year. You can even sustain yourself, like I was very fortunate to do for several years. But this is fundamentally a sales job, where it is feast or famine. You have to be willing to hustle. You have to embrace it. You have to work hard, long hours for which you will never be truly compensated. When you hit publish on your new book, it’s going to take a lot of sales to compensate you after the fact for all the work you put into it, and whether you do or don’t is a crap shoot even if you’ve been successful in the past.

I mentioned the film business earlier. I watched a documentary many years ago that really drove the idea home that show business is still a business. And, much like publishing, it is one that fails more often than it succeeds. Per this documentary, out of every ten movies, only four make any money, and only one is a blockbuster.

That means that half of your darts will miss the bull's eye, no matter how finely you sharpen them.

This is why publishing and show business is a numbers game. Whether your release is successful or flops hard, you don't have time either to rest on your laurels or bask in the praise and success, or wallow in the pity. You need to turn your attention to your next project, so you can keep the momentum going - or recoup the losses.

I’m pretty sure you can see now why I happened to bring this topic up in relation to Nanowrimo. Like we discussed yesterday, Nano gets a lot of flak for setting up “unrealistic” expectations for writers, one that you can write a book at all in a month, and two, that it would be worth the time and effort it took to write it.

Honestly, if you want to be a working writer, I think there’s nothing that prepares you better for the hustle ahead, particularly if you need to sell your work to a publisher. You’re going to get edits and input from people who will virtually withhold your paycheck until you concede a little creative control. You’re going to be expected to roll with those changes and produce subsequent drafts, and you’re not going to be given a whole lot of time to do it. When there’s money on the line, nobody has the time to wait for you to pull a lightning bolt out of your keister. You may have to confer directly with the gods to channel your brilliance, but they have deadlines.

If you want to get paid, you’re going to have to meet them.

My advice? Write like you’re getting paid for it, even when you’re not.

I’ve known many bloggers who have dipped their toes in the self-publishing pool. To my mind, they are better prepared than anyone to turn their “hobby” into a career. Many readers are frustrated writers deep down, and bloggers find their own way to express themselves, constantly on crazy deadlines where they have to read dozens of books just to keep themselves relevant. They read quick. They write quick. They move on to the next project. This, in a nutshell, is what it means to be a working writer.

They likely get paid peanuts to do so, too, if anything at all. Many writers find themselves in the same boat, advised to blog and build community within their fan base so that they can sell more books. And we fit it in wherever we can, even when we have paid writing to do. That's what it means to be a working writer. You write to work, and you work All. The. Time. This is whether you're paid or not or whether you feel like it or not. Deadlines are deadlines and your integrity to meet them is part of your brand. Your fans believe in you, they have faith in you, and you have to deliver your best every single time you sit down to write for them.

It. Is. A. Job. There's a lot of hard work involved, and some of it actually feels like work. When you're first starting out, all of it does.

If you really want to make this your career, you gotta cowboy up. There are far too many hungry writers fighting for every single dollar. (Actually, that’s a generous description… they’re fighting for every penny.) When that producer tells you that he wants a draft within a week, you say “No problem,” and you deliver. You have to, because if you don’t, someone else will. Someone down in the mines, all dirty, grungy and starving, who knows that in order to get anywhere they don’t wait around for “goodness” to happen or lightning to strike. They reach for a hammer and call lightning from the sky, because they have to.

Because they can.

This is your chance to dress for the job you want, not the job you have. Embrace the whole of the experience, not just the good bits where you’re sitting on some beach somewhere sipping a Mai Tai. (At least, if the ads on Facebook to become a best-selling author are to be believed anyway.)

Learning how to work with deadlines gets you ever closer to making your dream to become a professional writer come true. Setting time apart in your day to write, and giving yourself a set goal to get to, teaches you the discipline you’re going to need to turn a hobby into a career, one that weeds out the meek and the timid just by virtue of the gauntlet you must run in order to earn your place at a very crowded table.

Only career-minded folks will cross that finish line November 30. Hobbyists have the luxury of waiting for inspiration to strike. They write for the sheer joy, and there's nothing at all wrong with that. Some people don't want to pervert their art by turning into something as base as mundane as a commercial product. They want to play in the sandbox, on their terms.

Nano is not really built for them. Nano is all about crossing that definitive finish line with a finished product in your hand, which trains you, ultimately, to produce content on a deadline. There’s nothing all that joyful about a looming deadline where you’re expected to produce a lot of content really quickly. It's stressful and daunting and frustrating and exhausting.

It's also totally worth it. There is value in seeing how far you can push yourself, and just how much you can accomplish.

If you want to take this and make it work for you, you absolutely can. A first draft in a month isn’t some miraculous feat. Good books can and have been written in short periods of time. Since it's been done before, this means it can be done again. If your livelihood depends on a solid, completed project, you will make it so, whether it’s a blog, a 100-page screenplay, a 2500-word article or a 50,000k-book. This is business as usual for most people who are lucky enough to claim that they do this for a living. Remember: the key words there are “for a living." That means it’s not your hobby. It’s not some random windfall you occasionally enjoy. It means you have bills to pay and the wolf is at the door, so you better plant your ass in the seat and write like your life depends on it.

Because it kinda does.

This is your training ground for that.

Pick up your hammer. Call down the thunder. Make it so.

Started First Draft: November 3, 2015 8:38am PST
Completed First draft: November 3, 2015 10:16am PST
Word Count of first draft: 3,493
Completed revisions: November 3, 2015 11:21am PST
Updated WC: 4,156/9,356

#NaNoWriMo Day Two: Great Expectations

One of the biggest challenges I’ve faced when it comes to Nanowrimo has nothing to do with producing a 50,000-word novel in thirty days. I’m not saying that to be pompous, by the way. Each writer is different, some take longer than others and I’m blessed to be one of those who can produce content quickly. One, I’m a fast typist. Two, my brain operates at accelerated speeds on a good day, much less when I’m creating. Three, I’m a tad obsessive-compulsive when it comes to reaching specific daily goals. I’m a bit like Dr. Sheldon Cooper when I can’t “finish” something. It just tickles my brain until I have to get it done so I can check it off.



I'm the kind of writer who will obsessively sit at a computer for twelve hours straight, typing until my hands curl, never stopping to eat, barely stopping to use the bathroom, to race my way towards the finish line, a caffeine-riddled, delirious mess. There have been days my family hasn't even seen me until I emerge from the bedroom/office, a bleary-eyed zombie with half her brain oozing from her ears.



I accept the time it takes to do the task. And I know that the only way I can get things done is by taking that time and just doing the work. None of that has ever, really, been the issue.

What bothers me most about Nano is that people who know nothing about the process hijack it in order to shame writers for employing different tactics to do the very same work. Most of the time the shamers aren’t even novelists, which makes the criticism even more unfair. It really chaps my hide when people who don’t really do anything criticize those brave souls who dare to do anything.

Therefore a necessary chapter in this Nano experiment has to address the expectations we all bring to the table. You need to know what Nano is every bit as much as you need to know what it isn’t.

Like I said yesterday, Nanowrimo has drawn quite a bit of criticism over the years by those who believe that a great book simply cannot be written in a short period of time. It's just impossible. Each precious word we brilliant writers write must be hand-delivered to us from the gods, transcribed with a magical golden pen that only seems to spit out a handful or so perfect words per day, if that.

Per the detractors, the evidence doesn't lie.

“Harper Lee’s entire career was based on one masterpiece, not some prolific churning out of inferior material. One beautiful book is worth so much more than dozens of mediocre ones. What’s WRONG with you?”

Okay, I'm exaggerating (kinda.) But it doesn't matter anyway because like most blanket statements, this ridiculous assumption basically judges all writers and their content in the same way, as if we were all the same, which we’re not. We’re not supposed to be. To create a wealth of interesting, diverse, beautifully individualistic works of art, we all need to be interesting, diverse, beautifully individualistic people. Such assertions always try to color us with the same brush. Like all stereotypes, this is as inaccurate as it is unfair.

The only truth that can be said about a great book is that it is written one word at a time, kind of like every other book that has ever been written… even the bad ones. Some writers are so afraid of writing a bad book that they never write anything at all, which is one of the reasons that Nano exists. You have to be willing to wade through the crap in order to discover the brilliance.

Does this work for every writer? Of course not. It’s not supposed to. This is why I don’t go around telling people that they should do Nano. If they want to, then great. My motto has always been to find what works for you and just go for it, no hesitation - no apology.

Only you get to decide what type of writer you want to be. (And that's a good thing.)

Yes, Harper Lee had one or two books in her soul to publish, which she likely mined thoughtfully to build her brick wall slowly, carefully, to stand the test of time. Or, that's the accepted wisdom, anyway. Because she dared only to publish the one book, clearly it must have been gold from the get-go. Yet oddly, when it first fell into the hands of an editor, it was considered unfit for publication, despite the sparks of brilliance they could see peaking from behind every line.

It’s a romantic notion to believe that she knew every single word was gold as she wrote them, chosen purposefully for that reason. I would imagine that she had no idea her book would go on to win a Pulitzer, regarded as a classic through the ages. She simply had a story to tell and she decided to tell it. Like every other book, even the greats still have to be crafted and molded to turn them into the masterpieces we ultimately revere.

"Well, that's just the point, Ginger. She needed time to process, to cultivate. She couldn't produce a great book quickly. Again. What is WRONG with you?"

Absolutely nothing at all. I understand the difference between writing a book and publishing a book, since I kinda happen to do both. I have never once uploaded a first draft, even in blog posts, which often go through a dozen revisions before I ever publish them for the world to see.

One thing I've noticed: Nobody gives a flying fig how long it takes me to complete a first draft, as long as the end product is good. Nano never promised to give you a polished, publishable draft after 30 days. I think most writers understand this, particularly if we're not new to it. To assume we don't, that we're all somehow new and clueless because we can do it faster, is ridiculous.

The only thing you can expect from Nano is to produce the first draft of a book, which you will learn is done one word at a time, just like any other book. Putting a time limit on the first draft only means that there is a time limit on the first draft. Prolific writers who have more books to write complete this process a little faster than other writers. It doesn’t mean they’re better. It doesn’t mean they’re worse. It just means they feel they can get it done within a specific time frame. That's all.

Who the hell can determine one is better than the other unless they actually read the books once they've been made fit for publication? And if the readers enjoy it… who gets to tell them otherwise?

Yes, it ticks me off. Unfair things usually do.

It’s also unfair to assume just because someone writes a book in 30 days that they’re going to immediately upload said first draft for the masses and contribute to the overwhelming glut of material already available, which grows by the day. This is both short-sighted and ridiculous, and honestly I find it insulting.

They assume, also unfairly, that just because a book is written quickly that it is somehow easier to write than a book that took years to produce, which automatically makes any of us who do it cheaters and hacks who don't fully honor the process. Remember, the process of putting each word on the page is pretty much the same for every single writer. To force or wedge those words out of your soul on a regular basis doesn’t mean it comes any easier for the prolific writer than it does the writer who decides only to write nothing but pure gold from the start – as if there are any writers out there that make that decision.

The thing about brilliance is that it happens like a lightning strike. Have you ever tried to take a photo of a lightning strike? Next time you’re in a thunderstorm, I suggest you give it a shot. Sit there in the safety of your home or car as you wait out both good timing and instinct to capture this elusive photograph. Try to anticipate when it will come. What you’ll find instead is that you’re going to take a lot of “fail” shots way before you “accidentally” land upon the perfect shot, and you wouldn’t catch it at all if you weren’t snapping away all duds.

Show me the person who uploads every single selfie they take, without going through and “editing” the ones that make them look the best.

You really think we treat our books, our babies, any differently?

We’re waiting for the lightning, same as you.

I’ll go you one further. I’ll bet if you attempt to take lightning photos more than once, you’ll get a lot better at anticipating when that strike might actually come, so that you can anticipate how to use your particular camera to capture it.

See, that’s the thing about instinct. It is a skill you can hone through repetition, like muscle memory.

The more you try to capture that lightning strike, the more successful you’ll inevitably be. You master something by doing something, and for writers, this means planting your butt in the seat and writing one little ol’ word after the other. Nano simply provides incentive for writers to do that, so I’m not entirely sure why the process is so derided.

If you want to write a book, and you think you can produce 50,000 words in a month, I say more power to you. I’m not going to stand in your way. A writer writes. I’d much rather you participate in the craziness of Nano and actually produce a book than tell me for years on end about your precious masterpiece that is no closer to done years after you started it. Remember, a writer writes. The only true hacks I've ever seen are the ones who get off on just talking about it.

And I say that generally with no judgment. You do you. Each writer is different so their process is different, and I’m not one to judge the process. Like I already told you, I began my career much in the same way as the critics of Nano did. I waited on perfection to somehow strike. Without having done the hard work to make it so, I expected to be skilled enough to shoot lightning out of my ass somehow – though I never really made a true habit of writing and producing.

I depended on chance so much that I might has well have been playing the lottery. To succeed at anything you have to risk failure. You have to be ready and willing to face plant every once and a while.

I'll give you an example.

In the summer of 1979, when I was nine years old, there was one thing I wanted above all else. I wanted to learn how to ride a bicycle. My sister’s old discarded Schwinn sat in the garage, pretty, purple and unused, which I personally considered a sin. At nine, that bike looked like a ticket to freedom. I had seen all the other kids in the neighborhood cruising around on their bikes, free as little birds to explore, to discover, to be independent.

I wanted this.

Unfortunately for me, there were a couple of barriers in my way. One, my mother had never learned to ride a bike, so she would be unable to teach me. She also worked a full-time job to support the family, so even if she had known how to, it wouldn’t have benefited me much.

Likewise my dad, who was much older than my mom, was retired and on disability, so he wasn’t able to teach me either.

Never one to accept such limitations, I finally took that bike out back to our alley, where I could teach my own darn self how to ride it. I decided at the grand ol’ age of nine that waiting for independence was about the stupidest thing ever. So I didn’t.

I got on that bike and I stayed on until I could figure out how to ride it, without the benefit of training wheels. I don’t remember everything about those training sessions, but I think it’s safe to assume I didn’t just hop on and mosey down the road with the perfect skill that comes only by learning what not to do first. I think it’s fair to say that I fell. A lot.

Funny how I don't remember that part. The one part that we're all afraid of, of failing, of looking like a fool, of being anything less than perfect, doesn't even jog my memory at all. Instead I treated those imperfections like the stair steps they were. I learned from that failure, and by the end of the summer of 1979, I was tooling all over the neighborhood on my sister’s old purple bike, independent, free… successful.

To succeed greatly, you have to be willing to risk greatly. Because of this, there will be many people who will tell you that what you’re doing is insanity, and that you can’t do it, or you shouldn’t. The way I see it, if you really, truly want to do anything, you should do it even if people try to stand in your way. (This, of course, excludes criminal or hurtful behavior.) But if you want to write a book, write the dang book. If you want to capture lightning in a photograph, snap away. Do what they tell you cannot be done, because their bogus rules were meant to be challenged. It’s called human ingenuity, which is the root of all progress. It’s a pretty great thing.

Can you write a book in 30 days? Yes. You can. Should you? YES! You should! Why? Because that is just one more attempt to capture brilliance the same way you photograph lightning. You have to be willing to do the work.

You'll never write a brilliant book unless you're actually writing.

This is what Nano is there to show you. It’s not teaching you how to be a best-selling success; like I told you before, there’s no one can promise you that. It’s teaching you how to be a working writer by producing content and lots of it on a deadline, and that’s a helluva lot harder. One is outside of your control. The other is completely within it. That means there’s nothing stopping you but you.

It’s a scary thing to kick off the training wheels of excuses and accept full responsibility of what you can do. By no coincidence, it’s also the most liberating.

This challenge helps you hone that skill, whether you successfully complete it or not. You’re still learning to place one word after the other. The more you do this, the better at this you will get. It’s inevitable. This is your training ground. This is where you go to grow. This is where, “I want to be a writer,” or “I want to write a book,” turns into, “I freaking am a writer,” and, “Look at this book. I wrote this!”

Again, why people deride the process is beyond me.

Talent can take you far as a writer, but the rubber doesn’t meet the road until you apply skill and sheer will. There’s nothing to it but to do it. As mystical and magical as we writers make the process sound, writing is no different than anything else. You master it by doing it. Not thinking about it. Not wishing for it. Not waiting around for your Muse like a powerless conduit. You can sink a basketball on the first shot, but that doesn’t make you an athlete. To repeat that magic trick, you have to train.

You have to write a lot to learn how to write well. Doing the work, putting in the time, honing your skill, training your mind… these are the things that will make you a writer, and – if we treated writing like any other occupation on planet earth – it would suggest that you’re a damned good one, too. If I’m going to have brain surgery, I’m going to want the one who has had some experience, not just the first guy out of medical school.

Though they will try to tell you otherwise, chasing impossible deadlines doesn’t mean you value the process any less. You treat writing like a job. If you really want to make it your job, that’s a good thing.

It’s a necessary thing.

Now, these critics do have a point about new writers who, excited now that they have actually completed a book, publish books before they’re ready. This phenomenon is not exclusive to Nanowrimo, but they like to use it as a scapegoat regardless. Again, it’s because for some reason, treating writing like a job shades you in the minds of many as a “hack,” or someone who simply wants to get rich quick by publishing a book.

Anyone who thinks you will get rich quick simply by writing a book quick and publishing it even quicker is sadly, sadly mistaken. And deluded.

I'm not here to blow sunshine up your butt. I'll tell you the truth, even if it's not pretty. Of independently published writers, 80% make $1000 annually or less. (Note: that's about the same number of Nanowrimoers who don't complete the task yearly.) Of traditionally published writers, about half make $1000 annually or less. Any “overnight” success stories that you see are always, always, always the exception and not the norm. And of those rare success stories, I would gather very few did so on their very first book.

Not even cracking that list are the ones who did it on the unedited first draft of their first book.

I don’t consider these folks my “competition,” and neither should you. I’m not aiming to hang among the lowest fruit on the tree, which is why honing my skill is so freaking important to me.

This is the true merit of Nano, not some launch pad into instant fame and glory. If that’s what you’re looking for, then Nano is probably not the challenge for you. Suffice it to say, anyone who thinks writing and publishing a bestseller is an “easy way to get rich,” likely won’t be around at the end anyway.

As anyone who has actually participated will tell you, there’s nothing easy about it. Which is kind of the best Nanowrimo lesson of all. A lot of people want to write, as evidenced by the hundreds of thousands of eager participants that sign up for Nanowrimo. But, on average, only around 20% or less of participants actually complete the challenge.

Of those, I would think that the number of starry-eyed newbies and the opportunistic hacks would be exceptionally low in number.

Anyone who thinks Nano teaches you some sort of shortcut to the process has clearly never done it, though I would definitely encourage them to try. Maybe then they wouldn’t rain all over our parade like they had any right to do so.

So it’s Day Two. We’re all a little starry-eyed and optimistic at this point, because the possibilities are endless, which is what I love most about Nanowrimo.

But here’s what you can truly expect for the rest of the month. You’re going to work hard. You’re going to get frustrated. You’re going to run up against all kinds of obstacles to complete the task, the main one being, “Did I really think I could write a book in a month?”

The good news is that you can do it, even if – especially if – it hurts. The bad news is it probably won’t make you rich and famous. You won’t be able to publish your newborn baby on December 1st and be a millionaire by Christmas. In fact, all you’ll really have to show for your November is a completed first draft. This may or may not turn into a published book, which some snobs won't even touch because it's tainted with Nanowrimo anyway.

Spoiler alert: It’s still worth it.

Now let’s do this.

Started First Draft: November 2, 2015 10:00am PST
Completed First draft: November 1, 2015 11:26am PST
Word Count of first draft: 2,701
Completed revisions: November 2, 2015 12:56pm
Updated WC: 3,349/5,111

It's November 1, which can only mean one thing... #NaNoWriMo

Good morning, kids, and welcome to November 1! For many writers, this date is a pretty exciting one, because they’re about to embark on their own hero’s journey, where they turn “I wish,” into “I did.”

This is the magic of National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo, as it’s more affectionately dubbed.

Why we share such affection for this crazy month is a mystery. To pull off such a remarkable feat, we must complete a book, from scratch, in the limited time frame of 30 days. That it comes smack dab in the middle of a holiday month and, for me at least, a birthday month, means that most of us will cram whatever writing we can wherever we can, amidst all the real-world distractions.

The objective for NaNoWriMo sounds simple enough. Write a 50,000-word novel in 30 days. Broken down, that’s about 1667 words per day towards your goal. For writers like Stephen King, who recommend a set number of words we should be writing daily anyway, this pace isn’t all that break-neck… until you actually have to sit down at your computer and write the words. Some days the words don’t come. Some days, you have to carve them out with a dull butter knife just to form a coherent sentence. Some days, it’s daunting enough to write a grocery list. So what sounds like a simple thing, adding a few hours to your day to write 1667 words, often is quite the struggle.

Of the hundreds of thousands of intrepid writers who begin this journey, only a small percentage ever “win,” which is to say they finished at least 50,000 words by November’s end. Per Wikipedia, in 2014, 325,142 people participated in the event, but only 58,917 completed it, which is a little over 18%.

This is not a journey for the fainthearted.

I have participated in NaNoWriMo since 2004, where I wrote my novel via my MySpace blog, just to see if I could pull it off. I did, which was a huge accomplishment for me. Back then, when I wasn’t writing full-time, I had only written about four full-length novels over the course of thirteen years, thanks to full-time jobs, raising a family, falling in and out of love, and managing life in general.

This is the way a lot of people think it should work. They think that novels must simmer and percolate, each word chosen carefully by the steadfast wordsmith who would never, in her wildest dreams or worst nightmares, dare write the sheer and utter crap that must be mined in order to complete a book on such a breakneck deadline.

But the truth is that nothing prepared me for my career as a full-time writer quite like Nanowrimo.

The truth is, when you’re an author who depends on what you write to live, to survive… to eat… you learn how to write per the seemingly outrageous deadlines given to you by people who don’t have to sit down at that computer and carve each carefully chosen word out of their arse with a dull butter knife. Editors, publishers, producers and fans all want the same thing – a completed project in their hand.

If you’re one of the 18% who can pull it off, Nanowrimo teaches you how to get from the starting gate to the finish line.

Over the past eleven years, I have participated in Nanowrimo nine times. I “won” eight times. The only time I didn’t cross the finish line was when the book I was writing ended five thousand words before the cut-off. (It was middle-grade book.) Thanks to Nanowrimo, I no longer waited for a wild hair to start a book; I hit the ground running with a definite goal and a battle plan to make it happen. We’re hard-wired to want to win things, which is why the way Nano works is so genius. Because what it takes to win is so simple, that’s even more genius.

Simply write 1667 words a day. That’s it. That’s all you have to do.

No matter what process a writer uses to complete a book, the basic work to do so is rather universal. Just put one word in front of the other. We’re building a brick wall, essentially, and every word is a brick to use. If you give yourself a goal of how many bricks you’re going to lay per day, eventually, when enough time has elapsed, you’re going to be able to stand back and see the bigger picture. For Nano, this is a book with your name on it.

It’s going to take some work; I am not going to lie. There are going to be some days when you’re exhausted and everything in the world that can go wrong in your life will, but your incomplete manuscript will whisper in your ear all month long, “We can do this. Just sit down and write.” Whether you will or are even able to answer that call remains to be seen. But having that deadline looming on November 30 like a bright neon Vegas sign that can be seen from outer space often forces you to make those harder decisions just to get the job done.

This is an amazing education of what will be expected of you when you become a full-time, professional writer. If that’s your ultimate goal, I really can think of no better training ground.

Now, there are those who disparage this writing marathon, who believe that a few hundred thousand writers typing like crazy to meet such a deadline only adds to the pile of sludge we all have to navigate since the birth of self-publishing (which, let’s be honest, was a tricky minefield even before self-publishing became the “norm.”) These people miss the point entirely. If you think you’re going to have a marketable book within thirty days, you’re deluding yourself, particularly if you’re a brand new writer.

All Nano sets out to show you is that you can complete a writing goal. This is only the very first little baby step to get you on your way.

But it is a very necessary baby step. You’re never going to launch your career as a writer if you can’t finish a book. You can have ideas for days on what kinds of stories you’d tell, but until you actually do what it takes to tell them, you’re nothing but someone with a bunch of ideas.

To be a writer, you must write. To be a professional author, you must have completed books to sell. Otherwise you’re just paid to talk about how you’d like to be a writer, and that’s not the same thing, no matter what some authors might try to do to circumvent the process. (Looking at you, James Frey.)

So here we are, November 1st, the starting gate. You have an idea. You’ve always wanted to write a book, and 50,000 words isn’t all that daunting when you consider that most mainstream novels are 80,000 words or more.

All you have to do to “win” Nano is to write 50,000. That’s 1667 words a day.

I’ll make a bold claim here. I think you can do it. I don’t know you. I don’t know your particular skill or where you are as a writer. I don’t know what your idea is for a book, or what your life looks like in order to carve out the time to write it. All of that is irrelevant. The fact of the matter is that if you put one word in front of the other, with a goal of 1667 words a day, you can “win” this challenge. I believe in you so much that I have decided to use my entire November to write a book on how to navigate the murky, treacherous waters of Nanowrimo and come out the other side, a little battered and sleep-deprived maybe, but a winner nonetheless.

You won’t be a winner because you’ll write a masterpiece in thirty days, one that will immediately launch your epic, enviable career as a best-selling writer. No one can promise you that, and you should regard anyone suspiciously who tells you otherwise.

But I can tell you how to finish a book. Since my first Nano in 2004, I’ve written 27 full-length novels. As a self-publisher, I impose my own deadlines, and I’m a bit of a sadist. Unfortunately I have to be, as I am a slave to book sales as much as any other full-time writer. This is my job and I approach it as such.

Thanks to Nano, I got off to a roaring start. I’m pretty sure that I’m not the only one.

So here’s how the month is going to go. I will write installments daily or semi-daily, allowing for life and all that, to complete my first non-fiction book, “NaNoWriMo: A Passion, A Vision, A Cautionary Tale,” where I will share what I’ve learned over the years on how to take an idea to a completed project. I will give you a starting time, an ending time, my word count, etc, so you can see the nuts and bolts it takes to complete a project.

To honor my first Nano, I’ll be doing it right here in the blog, right before your very eyes. I ain’t scared.

This is a first draft, so it will not be fastidiously edited. This book will emphasize progress over perfection. You will have time to bathe and dress your baby for the world to see. But Nano is almost exactly like giving birth. Your “baby” will come out all covered with goo, not yet ready for the world yet, and that’s okay. In fact that’s necessary.

It’s also a topic for another day.

Normally I go into Nano with an outline, with a lot of my prep work already done. I find this the most expedient way to get from point A to point B, but unfortunately, thanks once again to life, I was unable to do a lot of that beforehand. We’ll get into that later, too.

Right now, I’m just diving right in because I can’t imagine a November without Nanowrimo. Once you start, you can’t stop, especially if you’re obsessive-compulsive like me and like to check things off in the “completed” column. This year we’re going to do that together, one little ol’ word at a time.

Welcome to the mad house.

Welcome to November 1.

This is Nanowrimo.

Started: November 1, 2015 11:30am PST
Completed: November 1, 2015 12:19pm PST
Word Count: 1,762

Two guys have turned my world upside down for months. Lemme tell you about them.

Many of you are already familiar with the origin of my new Masters Saga, the story about a young woman and the escort she hires to fulfill every last naughty desire. This unconventional romance, a sort of "Pretty Woman" in reverse, started simply with a thought-provoking question from my bestie, which is also a little how my story MY IMMORTAL came to life, but we'll talk about that in a sec.

First, I need to tell you about Devlin Masters and Caz Bixby.

Many of you have already met Devlin. He's that sexy lil morsel who gets paid $400 an hour to fulfill the lascivious fantasies of those women who have the means to pay him. He was a LOT of fun to write... a blank slate if you will. Like Coralie, I could mold him into anything I wanted him to be.

Well, in the first book anyway. As it so happens, that rascal had a personality all his own, and he was determined to tell ME who he was, starting with the moment he sat down to play the piano. That's when I realized there was a lot more depth, and potential, to this gun for hire.

See, the thing is... I wrote Masters as sort of a... protest if you will. My bestie asked me if I would ever hire an escort, sort of a hypothetical question to test my boundaries about sex. The more I thought about it, the more value I saw in hiring a guy for sex.

Crazy, right? Absolutely scandalous. But I'm being completely sincere.

I found it both titillating and empowering to write a story where a man is committed to the idea of feminine pleasure, since, unfortunately, in our culture such things are usually prohibited. If a woman exhibits any kind of sexual liberation, like a man, she is regarded as a slut, one whose value diminishes the more liberties she takes.

I have a problem with this, so much so that I live my life in such a way that it is almost absolutely impossible to slut-shame me. I'm quite open about how I feel about sex. I mean, obviously, right? That's how I make my living. I seek to empower women to embrace their own sexuality without shame.



To say that I have a problem with how our society treats women and sex is putting it mildly. I could (and kind of have) written a book on most of the topics that I want to challenge, such as the whole "virgin/purity = value," myth, the "physical perfection = beauty = happiness" myth. In MASTERS, I go after female fulfillment in almost all its forms, using sex as the driving force mostly because that is where we are most discouraged from being empowered and fulfilled.

I'm not writing sex just to write sex. I never do. Ever. There's a point. There's a reason. And the reason in MASTERS is one of empowerment, even when it would seem that my character is powerless. Sometimes you have to learn how much you will bend to know where all those boundaries are. These are important to learn, which is why sexual exploration is such a vital part of the human experience - for both sexes.

Yet sadly, particularly in heterosexual sex, that exploration is often discouraged if you're female.

The statistics say only 40% of women in reach orgasm as the result of casual, heterosexual hookups, as compared to the 75% or higher that men and lesbian women average. I talked a bit about it on Facebook yesterday, where I posted a link about the sexual myths that we need to stop teaching our young girls, chief among them is that when it comes to sex, women are here solely for the pleasure of men. Our pleasure is an afterthought, because we don't care about it as much.

Needless to say, the Masters saga turned into a tale of sexual awakening that dares to defy convention AND permission. And there are just no men on this planet more suited to teach this lesson than Devlin Masters and Caz Bixby.

You haven't met Caz yet, he's in Book Two, MASTERS FOR LIFE, available NOW.

This is not your traditional GV triangle. In fact, I really didn't know what Caz had up his sleeve when he sauntered onto the scene in Book Two. He's arrogant. He's an unapologetic douche bag. He's openly opportunistic. He doesn't promise wine and roses, just dirty sex and lots of it. In the beginning, it isn't even sexual desire that puts Coralie on his radar. Theirs is a painfully honest relationship from the jump.

Well, as painfully honest as one can be when one is an unapologetic, cocky, opportunistic douche bag.

As Coralie peels back the layers on Devlin, Caz is right there to cast doubt on every romantic dream that Dev tries to make come true for her. He's the one who puts a time limit on her happiness, predicting that everything she wants will fall apart before the book's end.

Whether he's right or whether he's wrong... you'll either have to read the book or have someone who did spoil it for you. I shan't.

What I can tell you is that the book was a painful turn for me in many ways, kind of forcing me out of my own comfort zone regarding sex, relationships, fidelity and true intimacy.

Suffice it to say, MASTERS FOR HIRE was the fairy tale. MASTERS FOR LIFE is much more brutally honest and realistic. As realistic as I get anyway. It is one of my angstiest books by a MILE.

This angst is necessary to get you to Book Three, MASTERS FOREVER, which has now been released for pre-order. There's a reason for this, which you will discover when you hit the last page of MASTERS FOR LIFE, ready to throttle me with how it ends. Honestly I have never been more nervous for a book series to publish - and I'm not just talking about Book Two. The entire thing could either propel me forward or drop me on my ass. My stakes are every bit as high as Coralie's herself.

Again, that's your only warning.

"The author has written a very powerful and angst-filled book that I honestly have never seen from her. This feels like new territory for her and I couldn't be happier. There are so many layers and so much at stake for our heroine, I'm beyond cautious as to how it will all conclude." - Amazon review from MJLovestoRead

Indeed, it is all brand new territory. I take the liberties given to me by the Erotic Romance genre all the way to the end, mostly because I really didn't have any choice. Devlin in particular kept me twisted into knots the entire duration of writing this story. Many people who don't write don't understand how these characters often take on a life of their own. They do and say stuff to surprise you on a regular basis, even when you know - ultimately - where they're going. All the little details, and a few big ones, often don't make themselves known until you've breathed a little life into them, allowing them to whisper their words into your ear and tickle your brain with all the possibilities of what could be.

Well, Devlin was indeed Devlish the whole way through. And then Caz showed up, and I was knocked about like a pinball, as dizzy and confused as Coralie herself. They tested what I believe about sex and gratification and feminine empowerment all the while trying to take it away at every turn. Yes... it's that kind of story. Coralie has to fight for that very thing she wanted from page one of Book One: to live life on her terms.

Dev and Caz test how far she's willing to go to get it, which is further than I personally have ever gone with my heroines ... EVER.

Why am I telling you this? Well, because I feel I can. We've gone through a lot together, from the angsty, Kindle-breaking GROUPIE saga, to the bittersweet and emotional FULLERTON FAMILY SAGA. I feel like you'll understand where I'm coming from. Or, you'll need to, the minute you finish Book Two. Through it all, we peel back the colorful, blinding layers of Oz that Dev painted in Book One, to realize that things aren't quite as they appeared to be. You're going to need a friend for this, someone who understands the pain and disappointment you're going to feel.

Basically you're going to need a hug. Every bit as much as I do.

Where these guys came from, I don't even know. But what they had to teach me was eye-opening.

A bold passage from Book Two:

*****

I had made love with several men before him, but none had ever been able to make me come. They inserted Tab A into Slot B and if that was enough to get me there, great. If not, well that’s just how it worked for women. They accepted it. I accepted it.

Not Devlin. I came every single time we had sex. Every. Single. Time. Not just once or twice or randomly like a fluke. It wasn’t some mystery. It was biology. No one would ever think to touch every place on a man’s body but his penis and expect him to “get there.” Devlin knew just where to touch, just how to touch, and what the true objective for partnered sexual contact truly meant. The job simply wasn’t done until I reached the finish line, too.

He taught me to reach it. Expect it. Demand it. Just like a man. And now that I knew that was possible, I knew I’d never go back to settling again.

*****

Not to be outdone, here's some plain talk from Caz.

*****

“You know, you’re not half bad when you behave like a human being. Why do you have to be such a jerk, Caz?”

He huffed and puffed with exertion. “I have a reputation to maintain,” he replied with that shit-eating grin I loathed.

“Being an asshole work that well for you?”

He replaced the weights and sat up to look at me. “Look around you, CC. You tell me.” He grabbed my water bottle from my hand and unscrewed the cap, then guzzled it while his eyes studied my face. He handed it back to me with a grin, as if he knew what kind of intimate liberties he had just taken.

I shook my head. “You just can’t help yourself, can you?”

“Nope,” he announced cheerfully. “Why should I? The way I figure it, we’re all hedonists deep down. We all constantly think about the stuff we’re not supposed to, those things you’d never admit in polite company. But we all have those moments when we pass a stranger on the street and instantly wonder what it would be like to fuck them. We all have those moments where we talk to someone, and suddenly we fixate on their lips, imaging what it would look like on our bodies, or taste like against our mouth. We’ve all had that moment when we wanted to just have fun without consequences, like fucking a stranger you don’t even know, in every raunchy way you could imagine. So why not just do it? Take no prisoners. Make no apologies.”

I didn’t say anything, so he went on. “Sure there are people who, when they think these thoughts, feel like they’re some kind of weirdo. An oddball. A deviant. And a few are. But most of us are just normal human beings, hardwired to enjoy sex for pleasure. We’re supposed to want it. We’re supposed to love it. The problems only arise when we’re told we shouldn’t want it, or that we shouldn’t have it. That there’s something wrong with us if we love it the way that we do. It’s everywhere all the time, yet our society wants to pretend like it doesn’t exist. That it’s improper, or obscene. It’s all bullshit, CC. All this perceived purity? I’ve seen the truth every time someone paid me to fuck them. And the things they want to do,” he crowed with a chuckle. “We’re not pure at all. We just lump lust behind other, more obscene sins like wrath, gluttony, envy or greed, simply because that helps us sleep at night. Like we can forget we’re all animals deep down, happiest when we’re allowed to roar. Look at what happened to you. You can’t honestly tell me that you were happier when you were following all those bogus rules of propriety.”

I didn’t want to admit it, but he was right. “No.”

“There you go. If there’s anything I teach you in these next few months, I hope it’s that. Because that means so much more than how much you weigh or how you look. Some of the best lays of my life have been ugly women who just knew how to take what they wanted.”

I scowled at him. “Way to ruin a moment, Caz. Why do you have to be such a pig?”

He shrugged. “Just being honest, pussycat. But I can see how you might not be used to that.”

*****

So... yeah. That's Caz. Like I said, he's a cocky, unapologetic jerk. It was truly weird having him in my head for months on end. It only helped somewhat that I could use this sexy guy as the inspiration...

But I added equal parts Brian Kinney from Queer as Folks... so - you get what you get.



Are you scared yet?

You should be.

We're going down the rabbit hole with Coralie. There's a lot of symbolism in play to subtly (and not so subtly) wedge Coralie out of that restrictive "Good Girl" archetype where she doesn't belong. NONE of us do, not really, not in the way society has defined it at least. If you're reading naughty books about sex, you've likely been, at the very least, teased about it.



And if I accomplish nothing more than this idea we can be both good and feminine without being confined to being a Good Girl (as in Good Girls Don't) with this series, then that will be a huge win for me, and well worth the time I spent with two of the most frustrating male characters my muse has ever introduced me to.

Frustrating, because I couldn't stay away from them... following wherever they led, even dark places unknown.

I hope at the end of it all, you can regard them as the teachers that they were to me, even when they had a lot to learn themselves.

That's what Book Three is for...

Until then, it's time to embrace a little darkness.



If you're in the mood for something even darker, nay, scary this Halloween weekend, MY IMMORTAL is available for FREE through the 31st. How do you find love when you're a reincarnated vampire?

You don't. It finds you...



Happy Halloween everybody!

MASTERS FOR LIFE. The water is about to boil... **This is your only warning.**

Anyone who has read my series books knows that I don't play around with Book Two. I'm kinda always just getting started with Book Two. Book Two is the ugliest of the trilogy because my three-book storytelling works a lot like a three-act play.

For those not familiar with the traditional three-act structure, it works kinda like this:

ACT I (Setup):

Introduce the characters and the world they inhabit. Give them clearly defined goals that will start them on their journey out of their comfort zone. Introduce the obstacles (including people, including themselves) that stand in the way of reaching those goals, underscoring how they will need to grow/change in order to get what they want.

In the case of WIZARD OF OZ, this was the B&W part of the story, pre-tornado, when all Dorothy wanted was to go somewhere else.



ACT II (Confrontation):

Release the monsters one at a time that prohibit your hero/heroine from getting what they want most. Complications = conflict, which motivates our character into action and keeps the story moving. Keep raising the stakes to the point where the protagonist can't go back to the way he or she was before. They are solidly on this new path, navigating this new world with all the new skills that they learn along the way, usually ending on a "point of no return," that demands the character has to take drastic action to achieve his or her goal.

For Dorothy, her fish-out-of-water story began the minute she got what she wanted - to be "over the rainbow." She stepped out into Oz and was given a brand new goal: To get back home. Along the way she met a slew of new friends in adventures that bring her to her "point of no return;" in order to return home, she has to kill the Wicked Witch.

ACT III (Resolution):

Protagonist faces off against antagonistic forces (whether people or events) in the ultimate showdown (i.e., climax) of the story. Whether the hero/heroine gets what he or she wants, this protagonist will ultimately get what he or she needs, fulfilled by the journey itself.

Flying monkeys. Wicked Witch. "I'm melting," "What a world," yadda yadda yadda. Dorothy does what she is supposed to do, and very nearly gets stuck in Oz with her new friends because as it turns out... that Wiz wasn't that much of a Wiz at all. But because of all she has learned, she is bestowed one final magic spell... that answers one last lingering question: will Dorothy ever make it home?



This is the natural flow of a story, whether a single plot told in one story, or an arc told over multiple installments. In fact, if you do write more than one book in a series, you have to pull off this three-act structure with every single book itself, with clearly defined goals (and conflict) for each and every one. This is what readers expect of you, even if they aren't aware of the specifics. And even if they can't say why, they'll definitely know when you've failed.

Every single story ever told answers certain questions in order of where they might prove most compelling. WHO are these people and WHY should I care? WHAT stands in their way? HOW do they overcome? WHEN those questions, and any new ones introduced along the way, are answered ultimately drives the story, demanding to know WHERE the payoff might be.

In stories executed well, it's the very next page after the one you're reading. This keeps you reading, even when you're forced every bit as much out of your comfort zone as the protagonist themselves.

The reader/audience, much like the protagonist, is basically a frog in a pot of water. We coax you into the pot gently, beguiling - seducing - you into the story, making you feel comfortable and safe until we start to turn up the heat in Act II. By Act III, the water is boiling and - if we're successful in how we have constructed our stories - you won't be able to hop out until you see how it all ends, despite how uncomfortable you are.

Act II is where you're going to get uncomfortable, like most confrontation proves to be. In fact, just by your emotional reaction alone, you can easily pinpoint where Act II begins (and climaxes) simply by your level of discomfort. Where did the characters piss you off? Where did they break your heart? This is where your subconscious realized that the water had started to boil and you had to adjust your *own* expectations accordingly.

You didn't really think it was just the protagonist that had to change, did you?

Act II forces every single one of us to confront our comfort zones. That is its whole purpose for being, and its importance cannot be overstated. There's a reason that a lot of writers are intimidated by Act II, because as the creator, our first instinct is to protect ourselves, our characters and even you, the reader. We're afraid to go too far, even when our stories demand it. We don't want to piss anyone off. We don't want to hurt anyone. Most of us are really nice people deep down. So many writers back off from this challenge, myself included. We envision that line of what we can tolerate and dance right up to it, generally only sticking a toe (or toenail) across it and considering it a "win" when we do. Because fiction = conflict, our stories often suffer because of our timidity. The creation of art is a spiritually violent act, much like giving birth. If it doesn't hurt us, challenge us, change us, motivate US to keep moving forward, then it's never going to work for any of you.

The masters of the craft know this and wield this important storytelling weapon accordingly.

Since I take my craft very seriously I take this responsibility very seriously, especially the more seasoned I get as a writer. I trust you more. I trust me more. I trust my stories more. As a result, Book Two is usually my challenge to take us *all* past our comfort zones for the sake of a story well told. And if you are upset, if you're mad, if you're heartbroken over these fictional characters and crazy stories that started out as mere thoughts and ideas in my fevered brain... that's a story well told. You may give me a one-star rating because you hated my characters and what they did to each other, or what I did to them, but what is hate if not another emotion? I made you feel something - strongly - so I consider this a win. In fact the stronger you feel, the more successful I was at my job. I made you care about what used to be a blank page, as if these things, people and places were real. If my characters zigged when you thought they should have zagged, and you form very strong opinions on it as a result, based on *nothing* more than the way I arrange letters on a screen - thinking, feeling, debating, worrying, anxious about, curious over, heartsick because of kernels of thought born in pure imagination alone -

That.
Is.
Astounding.

Seriously. It's magic. As a reader myself, I love when I can feel something that powerful, especially when all I really wanted was to be entertained. Make me cry, make me angry, make me feel; I'll love you a hundred times more because of it. These are words on a page, and they're making me feel something? How fucking incredible is that?? This is why I have no problem turning up the heat just so that *I* can get the most out of my story. I need to feel it. I need to be consumed by it. Like Garth says, "Life is not tried it's just merely survived if you're standing outside the fire." I jump in both feet.

Make it burn, leave a scar, and people will remember you forever.

This is why my FULLERTON FAMILY SAGA, easily the series with the most #feelz of any of my books, is my most beloved. It sold the most. It's been reviewed the most. And of all the reader feedback, it's the one where I've heard the most amazing stories of connection between the reader, the writer and the characters.

*****5- Heartsick, Broken and Pissed off -Stars***** "Why?! That same question has been on repeat in my head over and over and over since I finished this book. Why?! Ginger, WHY?! I waited a full day after finishing the book before even attempting to write up this review and I'm still not sure how I'm gonna get through it without completely losing my shit. I should have know, I did know, that there was a real good chance this book was going to destroy me-between the blurbs leading up to this final installment and that terrifying little sneak peak at the end of Entangled....I wasn't wrong to be worried, typing this up days later and I'm still in an emotional tailspin. If I could hunt down Ms. Ginger Voight I would hug her, beat her with my pitchfork, then cry on her shoulder. I can't remember the last time a book has affected me like this, so I guess no matter how I feel about how it all went down at the end, there is no denying Ginger Voight is an amazing author for bring such strong emotions out of me through her pen alone." - Bookworm Betties

Because of this, I refuse to pull any punches. If you're going to hate me (or break your Kindle,) it's going to start in Book Two. Never has that been truer than with MASTERS FOR LIFE. It should come with it's own warning label, and that comes from someone who generally shuns all warning labels. A long time ago I took the stance that if anyone needed a warning label to read a book, they should steer far clear of mine. I have no problem tackling ugly topics, as fearlessly as I can muster at the time. You're either going to love me or hate me, or love to hate me, but the minute you finish Book Two, I don't consider it a success unless you absolutely, positively, undeniably need to start Book Three to see how it all resolves, even if - especially if - you're scared absolutely shitless to do it.

I take this to new extremes in MASTERS FOR LIFE. From one of my betas, upon finishing Book Two: "Oh my God it is so awesome. I can't believe how you ended it. I need number 3 like yesterday."

This, in my mind, is a slam dunk. My goal was to write a book so gripping that you HAVE to get all your friends to read it, just so you'll have someone to talk to about it. This is why I have - if you'll pardon the pun - "infected" everyone I know with The Walking Dead. I *need* someone to talk to about this story because it's so freaking good. This is why I tune into The Talking Dead every single week to work through all the feelz with C-Hard, the cast, the creators and the fans. The minute the story hurts a little bit, I'm ready to talk it out with people who understand. It's kinda the best part about it.

But let's be honest. In order to inspire that kind of passion, it's gotta hurt. Happy-go-lucky, sexysexysexy only gets you so far. What people remember is when they got smacked in the face or kicked in the gut.

Whereas MASTERS FOR HIRE was a little more fun, a little sexier, a little more romantic, MASTERS FOR LIFE turns up the heat on our little froggies, Devlin and CC, and all who might love them. (Myself included.) Two virtual strangers are trying to forge a relationship together after two idyllic weeks together, with all the baggage in their past standing in their way. For Devlin Masters, our blank slate, our chameleon, this could (and does) mean anything. A couple of new characters find their way into the story, who definitely make things more... interesting. My main goal throughout Book Two was to keep CC guessing all the way through the book. Who can she trust? Who should she believe? Can she trust herself, even, as she watches herself morph and change into someone she doesn't really know?

In other words, welcome to Oz, my friends.

If you want a story to meander through various versions of a HEA for this couple for the next two books, I ain't yer girl. That shit doesn't interest me. I don't write escapism porn as a rule. You can escape into my books, but you're generally always relieved to make it back out again. My roller coasters shake you around a little bit, and you will need a little time to recover, which I figure is what all those happier books are for, including a few of my own.

For my series books, however, you're locked in for the ride. And I don't mind flipping the switch, taking you backwards, racing you forwards, and keeping you arse over teakettle until we're through... particularly in Book Two.

I'm out to test my couples how much they want to be together, and in doing so pose the ongoing question whether or not they deserve to be together. By the time you get to the resolution of this unusual story I've spent all this time building, I want you to buy Book Three complete with a Costco pallet of tissue and wine just to get to the end. And then we can meet and you can hug me, yell at me, curse me, then hug me again and cry on my shoulder. I will have the utmost empathy for your pain, because I've already done all those things to myself.

Throughout my second edit of MASTERS FOR LIFE, I forced myself to jump way past the line of my own personal comfort. As a result, there are a couple of scenes in this book that crawl all over me like a dozen scorpions. My first impulse is to apologize... to you and to my characters... even though I know this is the way the story has to go down in order to be told well.

If you've read my books in the past, you have an idea of what's coming, and are likely scared shitless as a result (as you should be.) For many of you, it's what you love most about me. For the rest... well, consider this your one and only warning.

I'm turning up the heat. The pot is going to boil. You will curse me, and I will deserve it. In fact, I've set up a brand new discussion forum, GV CORNER, where we can share all the feels.

Welcome to the conflict and chaos of Act II, where the fairy tale I crafted in Book One begins to fray as early as the first chapter in Book Two. Settle in as I finally start to pull back the curtain a little bit on our mysterious hero, Devlin Masters.

**SPOILERS AHEAD**

Excerpt, Chapter One MASTERS FOR LIFE

Devlin already knew how much settling for anything pissed me the hell off. He also had appointed himself as my white knight, ensuring that I would never have to settle for anything again. He studied me for a long minute before he said, “Come on.”

I followed him from the bathroom back into the bedroom. He opened up the door to the huge walk-in closet, heading straight for the chest of drawers that sat right in the middle. On the top was a big cardboard box, where he began pulling out several pieces of clothing.

I could tell immediately that every single piece had been designed by his sister, Darcy. The way they flowed, the material she used; I could tell without even trying them on that they would fit to flatter in a way no other clothes I could find at Cabot’s could.

I didn’t have to ask him where he got them. Instead, I posed another, more curious question. “Why do you have a box full of your sister’s clothes?”

He sighed as he leaned against the drawers. “I fulfill my client’s fantasies, remember?”

I lifted up the sunny yellow top to my torso. “And it’s just a coincidence it’s in my size?”

His eyes never left mine. “No, Coralie. It’s not a coincidence.” I leaned back against the drawers as I waited for him to explain, which he did without on speck of apology. “I had Darcy send me a package of size-14 clothing within an hour of getting your first email.”

My mouth dried up instantly. “What? Why?”

He sighed as he turned back to the box to pull out more clothes. “I told you before. It’s my job to give women what they want most.”

“But how did you know that included clothes?” I persisted.

He flashed me that smirk. “All women love to feel pretty in their clothes, Coralie. You know that.”

“So… wait,” I said as my brain scrambled to compute this startling new data. “You knew who I was when I sent the email?”

He inhaled slowly and exhaled even slower. “I researched you the minute I had a first and last name,” he admitted at last. “I research everyone. It helps to start a few paces ahead. I scope out a potential client’s social media, dig up any relevant articles or information on my more notable clients. I gather all available information before I initiate contact, so I can develop a plan of attack from there.”

I arched an eyebrow. “Interesting choice of words.”

He shrugged. “Like I told you before, a lot is riding on that first date.”

I thought back to how insecure I felt when he had originally drilled me about my dress size, something he now admitted to knowing all along. “Why did you bother asking me my dress size if you already knew it?”

He shrugged. “There was more benefit in my knowing the information than letting you know that I knew it. Women tend to get creeped out if they think they’re being stalked or played. They find it far more romantic if a man instinctively anticipates what they need, but in order to do that, one has to take the time to figure it out. Since I don’t have the luxury of ‘dating,’ I had to find a more efficient way to do that. It’s the same game, just a different delivery. I can be prepared and you can be pleasantly surprised.”

I gulped hard as I realized how masterfully he had played the game. But it was what he said next that really took me by surprise.

“More importantly I wanted to see how you felt about your size, so I’d know which piece of clothing would make you feel the most beautiful.”

The way he said ‘your size,’ hit me like a brick to the face. “Two for two,” I gritted between clenched teeth before I turned away. He grabbed me by the arm and pulled me back.

“This is why I don’t talk about my job, Coralie. It doesn’t matter how we got there.”

“It does to me,” I snapped. “I don’t want a relationship built with smoke and mirrors.”

He released my arm. “Then don’t marry your gigolo.”

I threw the top on the box and spun on my heel to leave the closet, but he closed the distance between us in a heartbeat. He wrapped one strong arm around my waist, lifted me up off the ground and into the unrelenting vice of his embrace. “Let me go!”

“Never,” he said softly. My eyes sought his. Resistance beyond that was futile and I knew it. “I don’t apologize for anything that brought us together, Coralie. Not one damned thing. I love you. And that is worth everything.”

*********

Like Devlin himself, I can't apologize for how we get there. That we get there, together, is worth everything.

Having said that:

**Author Not Responsible for Broken Kindles**

Are you sure you're ready for Book Two?

Gonna entertain ya till ya scream...

Something to read while you bask in the warm afterglow of Devlin Masters

Hey, you know how it's SO ANNOYING to wait a year or better for your series to complete? You find characters you just love, and juicy story that just won't leave you alone, and you have to *wait*? It sucks. And it seems all our best series tend to keep us dangling on the line, making us wait for them.

Ahem.

Believe me I share your pain. It's hard for me to wait, too, which is why I write obsessively for hours at a time to watch my stories unfold. I'm the book's first reader, and I *can't wait* to see how it all comes together. Never has this been truer than with the Masters Saga.

Confession: I couldn't let go of Devlin.

Actually that's not true. Devlin wouldn't let go of me. It was like he was made of magic.

#DefinitelyMagic



That little stinker whispered into my ear day and night, urging - demanding - me to write his story, and I was all too eager to tell it.

Basically I had no choice in the matter. He took me well in hand.

N' I liked it. O_o



Truth be told, I kinda fell in love with him.

If you feel likewise, and are suffering a book hangover and Devlin withdrawals, I have GREAT NEWS...

You get Book Two - MASTERS FOR LIFE - on October 30, 2015!!!

Here's the cover...

Here's the blurb...

DISCLAIMER: This book is part of a series. Spoilers might be contained in the description. For new readers, start your journey with Devlin and Coralie in MASTERS FOR HIRE, now available everywhere!

They were two completely different people from two completely different worlds. Within two weeks they were married, for better or worse.

Their whirlwind romance did nothing to prepare Coralie Masters for what awaited the happy couple back home. Reality crushes the fairytale existence Devlin had created for her in Las Vegas. Ultimately his powerful seductive hold over her cannot protect her from new, powerful forces outside of their marriage that work nonstop to tear them asunder.

There is much more to fear than her family learning the truth of how and why they met, because there’s much more to Dev’s story that she could ever know. The mystery surrounding Devlin Masters quickly undermines their love story.

One thing becomes crystal clear. They may be married, but she doesn’t really know this sexy, alluring stranger at all.

They love each other. They want each other. They can’t stay away from each other.

But will it be enough?

The Groupie Saga titillated you. The Fullerton Family Saga broke your heart. We were only getting started. Book Two of the Masters Saga, MASTERS FOR LIFE, turns up all the Ginger Voight angst, drama and sex like never before.

**Author not responsible for broken Kindles.**

Intended for readers 18+ for graphic sexual content.

As you can see, it's about to get complicated! Dev was easy to love in Book One. He said all the right things and usually did all the right things. But as we return to "real life," Coralie realizes - as do we all - that Dev really was a blank slate in Book One, a chameleon who fit himself neatly into Coralie's fantasies. The truth? Devlin Masters harbors a lot of secrets. Worse, he doesn't appear especially eager to share them. He wants Coralie to trust him, even though he can't bring himself to share with her the dark details of his past.

How does he plan to make her trust him, then? Well, they don't call him a master for nothing. He uses his considerably skill as a lover - and his unbreakable seductive hold on her - to keep her blisscombobulated.

Here's a little taste...

“What are you doing?”

“What does it look like?”

I paused by the side of the bed. “It looks like you think you’re going to tie me to this bed.”

“I don’t think I’m going to tie you to the bed, Coralie,” he said. He turned to face me. “I know I am.”

My stomach dropped. “I don’t think so.”

He rounded the bed to approach me. “Why not? That’s what my good girl has always wanted, isn’t it? A walk on the wild side with an alpha male, who would take her in hand and make her submit.” He stood right in front of me. I could smell the booze on his breath. “A bad boy who would take all her choices away, so she doesn’t bear any responsibility for all her naughtiest desires. You need the baddest of the bad for a job like that, darlin.’ Someone a little…,” he trailed off as he leaned even closer, “unpredictable.”

I shivered in spite of myself. His fingers chased the goose bumps down my arm. “We didn’t cover everything in Vegas, did we? We left a few stones unturned. Let’s turn them over. You know nothing would turn you on more than to be tied to this bed, at my mercy.” Again I shivered. “Devlin.”

“For the rest of the night, until I tell you otherwise, you will call me sir,” he instructed as his eyes met mine. It was a potent look that welcomed no argument.

“Devlin,” I tried again, this time a little sharper. He responded by stepping closer.

“I said,” he repeated slowly, taking my chin in his hand, “you will call me sir.”

My eyes widened as his mouth descended on mine. Despite the light bondage and submission he was suggesting, the kiss was positively gentle. He teased my mouth apart with his lips, probing my mouth just lightly enough to make me melt against him. And he knew what kind of power he had over me the minute I kissed him back.

I was a junkie. And he was my fix.

He wound his hand in my hair and pulled my head back so he could explore my neck. “That’s my girl.”

***********

As you can see, Devlin was pushing me out of my comfort zone. He does that a lot during this series, alternately making making me swoon and breaking my heart. You will love to hate me for what happens next, and this book in particularly will make you curse me. Vanni and the Groupie Saga will seem like a walk in the park in comparison. If you're a fan of my brand of hyper-reality, particularly the way I deliver it, where you love to hate me for the angsty complicated messes I allow my characters to get into, THIS is SO the series for you.

If you think you're up for it... dare to fall in love with the Master...