Musing from the Monkey Bars by Rhenna Morgan

You know the expression, “Time flies?”  Sometimes, it’s a gross understatement.  Sometimes, “Time ripped past me at Mach thirty digging a deep, dark trench in its wake” is more accurate.

I was driving to my day job a few days ago and tried to remember, “how far back did I join RWA?” 

My aging, mental historian wrinkled up her forehead like it might force things into better focus and scratched her head.  “I thiiiink it was March.”

“Yeah, but March of what year?” I asked.

She flayed me with an irritated expression that said she hadn’t had as much coffee as I had.  “I dunno.  This one.  I think.”

Wow!  Only eight months?

I almost wrecked.  Downtown Tulsa is nowhere near as crazy as the infamous streets of New York or LA, but even here it’s a bad idea to slam on the brakes and jerk your steering wheel during rush hour.

It feels like years since I started pursuing publication, a process I lovingly refer to as swinging from the Monkey Bars.  (Don’t ask me where it came from, I’m just weird that way.)  It doesn’t feel like years because of drudgery or disappointment—though I’ve had my share of wine and chocolate—but because of the learning I’ve crammed into every minute.  The writers I’ve met through RWA, my local group, and in FF&P have deluged me with a wealth of knowledge and advice…and it’s been euphoric. 

Still, if I had it to do over again, there are a few things I’d share with fellow newbies…and to old-timers as bits of nostalgia.

1)     Find a pack.  You will always need them.  Trust me.  When something works right and you need to sing about it, they’ll listen.  When your spouse looks at you like you’ve grown three new heads, they’ll remind you, “that’s normal.”  When you get another rejection letter, they’ll pat you on the back and bring you Haagen-Dazs.  A few of mine will sit at the bar with me at happy hour and observe/appreciate/ogle the male clientele in the spirit of research…but that’s a different blog.

2)     Nothing beats a good critique group.  What do I mean by good?  For me it means working with people who:

a.       Get my genre.  Critiquing with writers who have a hard time envisioning folks flying through the sky will probably end up a downer for you.

b.      Write what I enjoy.  Critiquing is a two-way street.  If you can’t appreciate what they write, you probably won’t value their critiques…and giving them a helpful critique will be rough.

c.       Don’t just blow smoke up my bo-hiney.  No matter how good we are, we can always be better.  Your critique partner(s) are the equivalent of people who won’t let you walk out of the restroom with your dress wedged in the waist of your panties.

3)     Write.  Since I don’t have a deadline (yet), it doesn’t matter what it is, so long as I do it.  We have to practice for those deadlines….

4)     Sit with any new information for a while.  This is more about savoring what we’re taught.  Think of it as letting a sip of wine rest on your tongue before you gulp it down.  If we discard a suggestion we’re given too quickly, we might end up throwing away a gem.  If we take advice as gospel and rearrange our whole manuscript, our unique voice may be eradicated.  Our lessons need time to breath and grow so they become our own.

There is one more, but it deserves its own paragraph, not just a bullet point.  Those of you who’ve been around awhile have heard it countless times. 

Don’t give up.

Keep your fingers wrapped around the monkey bar no matter how bad they ache.  Watch for those emails zinging through the loop that tout, “I did it!” and know it can happen to you.  Pause a moment after closing a book by your favorite author to re-read one of your own chapters.  Slide your fingers against the cool page, close your eyes…and believe.

BIO: 

Rhenna Morgan writes what she loves to read—paranormal and cotemporary romance.  A confessed triple-A personality type, Rhenna’s background includes a degree in Radio/TV/Film, radio DJ, promotion director, skip tracer, collection agent, real estate sales, singer/songwriter, business analyst and IT Application Manager. 

A closet writer for the majority of her life, Rhenna began the publication gauntlet after completing her first, bucket-list induced manuscript in February of 2012.  Since then she’s become actively involved in RWA, the Fantasy, Futuristic and Paranormal Special Interest Chapter of RWA and Smart Women Writers of Tulsa and hopes (soon) to find a publication home.

Rhenna Morgan

rhenna@rhennamorgan.com

www.rhennamorgan.com

 Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/rhennamorgan

Twitter - @rhennamorgan

 

RESPECT! We deserve it. We owe it to ourselves by Mona Karel

***You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe deserve your love and affection." Buddha***

            Recently I was speaking with a person I consider one of the best Arabian Horse artists in the world.  She had just returned from the Arabian Horse Nationals, and she commented how much she loved going to events since she could concentrate on her art and the people who appreciate it. She gets a lot of work done while sitting in her booth, or in her motel room at night. Once she’s home, she’s generally too busy being a wife, a homeowner, and someone with far too much responsibility. 

            I had one of those epiphany moments that do come to me once in a while when I realized I was hearing from her what I’ve said to myself so many times in the past.  I just never seem to have enough time to get anything finished since I’m doing so many other things at once.  So I dash from emergency to emergency, and somehow the last thing on my schedule is what I should have attacked first, my writing. As though I am seeing everything else as more important than what should be the most important. 

            I’ve learned some great tricks lately to get the most use from the limited number of hours available to us. One is the digital timer suggestion I learned from Susan Elizabeth Phillips. She sets her timer for two hours, and writes for that period of time. If she leaves the keyboard, she turns off the time. For me it works a bit differently. I set the clock for an hour, and write for that hour.  Instead of thinking I must write a full hour, my takes seems to be I have only an hour to write, and getting to the last fifteen minutes the words pour onto the page.

            But for that hour, I am writing. Period.  Not fixing a cup of coffee, not answering the phone and not not not checking my e-mail, Facebook, or Twitter. Not.  Well, sort of not. When I do I lie to myself about how I just need to check, to be very sure the world hasn’t come to an end while I was creating great works of fiction. When in fact I’m allowing my mind to wander into the realm of “I’m not really a writer, how dare I think this hour of writing is more important than the outside world.”

            And we get back to the crux of the matter, and the topic of my phone conversation.  Whenever I let the doubts slide in, whenever I lose respect for what I’m doing, then I’ve let the doubting side of me overcome the creating side of me.  We can call it left brain/right brain, or give it any fancy title we want.  Fact is, when we lose respect for ourselves and our craft, we give permission to others not to have that same respect.  And they will take advantage of our lack.  Not necessarily with malice, maybe they think it’s for our own good since obviously we don’t really think we’re writers if we aren’t fighting for time to create.

            My friend has taken the timer pledge, and I’m going to indulge myself in a few days to ensure she stays on the path to self respect.  She’s too darned good to fall off road.  So am I. And so are all of us.

About Mona

Mona Karel is the writing alter ego of Monica Stoner, who wrote Beatles fan fiction and terribly earnest (read just not very good) Gothics in her teen years. She set aside writing while working with horses and dogs all over the US, until she discovered used book stores and Silhouette Romances. Shortly after that she also discovered jobs that paid her for more than her ability to do a good scissors finish on a terrier, and moved into the “real” working world. Right around then she wrote her first full length book. It only took her twenty seven years to be published. She writes looking out the window at the high plains of New Mexico, with her Saluki dogs sprawled at her feet. Distraction much? ? Sometimes these silly dogs take over her life, but there is always room for one more set of characters in one more book

http://mona-karel.com/