Category: Writer

Today, the perfect day: Up at 6, brisk hour-long walk, home for a healthy breakfast and a quick shower. Coffee, brief glance at the markets and email, and straight into writing.

The crazy part is that I took the time (and I always do this) to style my hair and put on makeup even though I work at home and no one will see me all day. Is this some psychological advantage, treating my solitary occupation like a “real” job? Or, is it habit? Or, am I that vain? [Again, these are rhetorical questions! Please keep your answers to yourself!]

All I know is that I am mad passionate about my new book, Left On Blue. I love this part of writing, when my characters invade my dreams, invade my showers, invade my dinner conversations with my patient husband. He’s learned to NOT laugh (out loud) when I talk about my characters as if they were real people ~ because he knows they’re real to me.

AND, I signed up for a workshop (a writer’s workshop, not Tony Robbins). In a few weeks I’ll be traveling to Cincinnati to talk to editors and agents about getting my first book, That Changes Everything, published. Somewhere out there is an agent who will be mad passionate about my work, too. I just have to find him/her/it/them.

For now, in my head, it’s springtime in 1955, and the lavender sun is coming up over the majestic Tetons. My perfect day is calling.

In retrospect, my last entry seems a bit pathetic, desperate, even. It’s hard work, Karolyn, perseverance, that pays off. You know that.

Yes, I do. In fact, my favorite motivational quote is by Calvin Coolidge about perseverance above all. (It’s a long quote, but worthy of looking up if you need a little motivation.) (Or, email me and I’ll type it out for you.) From my last entry, I’d say I’d temporarily misplaced my motivation. Happy to report it’s back.

Today is a perfect day ~ so far (I never take a single day for granted). A good work out, a good breakfast, a good shower… Sunshine, coffee, quiet, quiet, and more quiet. And, most importantly, Danny needs me. Daniel King, my protagonist from That Changes Everything, and the de facto protagonist from Left On Blue. He’s made his way from Brooklyn, New York to Jackson, Wyoming, and he’s drunk, in a bar, late at night. Boy howdy does he need me.

So, wish me luck. We all know that bad news is just a phone call away, and you don’t win the lottery if you don’t play. Today, I’m playing the lottery, but not answering the phone.

Back at the daily grind… which is a complete misnomer because I LOVE sitting in my brand new writing studio and typing away for hours, working on my third novel, Left On Blue. The only daily grind is my coffee. The problem, as my sage father recently pointed out when I said I was starting a new book, is that I haven’t sold my first two books yet. Well, loyal readers, here’s the true emotion behind an unpublished author’s daily life: frustrated determination.

But I have a plan. Write each day on the new book, send out three new queries every week for That Changes Everything. It will sell; I have every confidence about that. Turns out, for me at least, the hardest part of writing a 300-page book is the one-page query letter to describe it in a way that someone wants to see it NOW.

I had just decided that instead of calling my book Commercial Fiction in my query letters, which is nothing but generic, I would call it Romantic Suspense. It is suspenseful, and there’s definitely a love story involved in the plot. But in my research for Left On Blue, I came across another author’s web site who calls herself a Romantic Suspense Author. Well, judging her books by their covers, That Changes Everything is NOT a Romantic Suspense novel. Hers look like Romance novels. Mine is not that.

That Changes Everything is suspenseful, but not a mystery in a who-done-it sort of way. It has a heart-felt love story, but it’s not a romance. It is tragic, but not like a Russian novel. It’s a Twenty-first century drama, plain and simple. Think: Wall Street meets Love Story.

Ok, ok. This is my job. If I can write the book, I can write the query letter. No more whining. No more procrastinating.

I’m off to see the Wizard. You have a good day now.

I know what you’re thinking. What’s a Midwestern mom doing writing about a male hedge fund manager who lives in Brooklyn with a dysfunctional young artist?

Maybe I’m not who you think I am… (ooh, foreshadowing of Left on Blue… but I digress).

Let me ask you this: Have you ever noticed how some people don’t ever act their age? There are men and women whom I know, who absolutely never act their age ~ some act older, some act younger (even MUCH younger). I call it a person’s “Emotional Age.” Do you know what I’m talking about? Some call it being “an old soul,” or “young at heart.” My husband, for instance, whom everyone loves, I could swear his emotional age is about 16. Don’t get me wrong, he’s wise and intelligent and successful and kind, but he always lives in the moment and he’s kinda goofy. And I have a friend who’s nearing 50, but she acts like a fun-loving 28-year old. Then there’s me. I’m 47, but I think I’ve been 35 for about the last 30 years. Even when I was in college, I never behaved like a college kid.

Ok, so the same goes for logistics. I live in Iowa, lived here for 22 years now. But my “Emotional Home,” if you will, is New York City. If you are so inclined, you might think I was reincarnated from a soul who died in NYC at the age of 35. (OOH, creepy… I think I’ve just found my next novel!) Once, several years ago on a trip to NYC to visit my artists (remember I was an art dealer for 8 years), dressed in my typical head-to-toe black, hailing a taxi at LaGuardia, a man asked me, “Feel good to be home?” (Ooh, double creepy: maybe he knew me from my previous life!) Anyway, almost every day for the last 3 or 4 years, I’ve watched CNBC. It’s even on now, as I type. My alter ego lives in New York, probably somewhere in the Village. My husband and I even got married at the Plaza Hotel in NYC.

And writing from a male point of view? Hell, that’s nothing. I have a husband, four sons, a father, a brother, an ex-husband, and even a male dog. I’ve got no problem writing a male POV.  And, the inspiration for this novel hit me like lightning one day when I was on a walk, listening to my iPod, when David Gray came on singing “This Year’s Love.” Know the song? If not, take a listen. My kids don’t appreciate David Gray (yet), but his music is so deep and so raw and so masculine, that I knew I could write an au courant, fact-based, yet deeply emotional novel that would appeal to both men and women. There’s one line from David Gray, “won’t you kiss me, on a midnight street?” that hit me so hard it absolutely inspired a story-line so powerful that I had to write it down immediately. In fact, for most of the past year, the working title for That Changes Everything was Midnight Street. But, true to the title, my characters took over and changed everything, including the title.

Ultimately, the only way you’ll know if I am/was successful with this novel is to read it. I think you’ll find it accurate, compelling, and worthy. And, thank you, David Gray, for the inspiration.

Two weeks home, after two months in Costa Rica. We had to come home, I suppose. Taxes would not wait; our dog missed us; real life was slipping by. Or was it? In the two weeks my husband and I have been home, we’ve asked ourselves thirteen times, “Why are we here?” Not once a day, but close.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Des Moines. Des Moines is a beautiful, friendly city with incredible things happening. We live downtown, in a glass and concrete loft. Above is my view at night (ok, if I go to our rooftop; we actually face the other direction). Des Moines is where our friends are, and where our children call home. We will always live in Des Moines, but Escapism Rules! Life in Costa Rica was without obligation, commitment, baggage, hell, we were practically naked (metaphorically speaking) (and once literally, but that story is none of your business). There’s a freedom that comes with no one knowing your past, and that, dear readers, seemed to be the common thread amongst the ex-pat Americans we met. They only told others what they wanted to; we learned not to ask too many questions. But in a world where language divides people into two overlapping circles (those who speak both English and Spanish having the most friends), we sensed that many (not all) of those who had left America behind for the scorching, siesta-filled days of Central America did so for a reason. Enough with the judgements at home, they say, the oblique glances, the whispers as you pass by. Reinvention is the one-word mission statement of ex-pats. Not a bad idea, I might add. Why is it that people never forget the bad stuff others have done? That’s what “Danny” asks in Left on Blue. So, move to Costa Rica! Or, Nicaragua. Or, San Miguel, Mexico. Or just move across the country. It’s very liberating.

But enough philosophizing, I’m rambling for a reason. People used to twiddle their thumbs, or play solitaire, or drink heavily. I blog. And read. I’ve read fifteen novels in the last 8 weeks, with a stack equally as high trying to tempt me from sleeping. I am waiting impatiently, fighting off anxiety headaches. Trying not to check my email more than twenty times a day, or my cell phone for missed calls from the 212 area code. Yes, I mailed the all-important query letters off for my novel. The real reason I WANTED to come home from our extended stay in Costa Rica. What kind of masochist am I?

J.D. Salinger, I get it! I get you! You are my hero. After writing some of the best works of our time, he got smart, and released himself from the scrutiny of friends, fans, even family who, bless their hearts, can be a bit critical at times. For those of you (bless your hearts, too) who don’t know, J.D. Salinger, who recently passed away, became a recluse after publishing only four books, but he continued to write privately for 50 years. That’s what I’m talking about. Talk about writing for yourself! Bravo. That’s one way to avoid the anxiety of the publishing side of this incredible, passionate career which I have chosen.

Only, I don’t have that luxury yet. Yet. Ah, ever the optimist. I will be published. I feel it in my bones. My words will influence someone’s life. In fact, it’s time to end this post so I can check my cell phone for a missed call. Hasta la vista.