Oh boy, it’s been so long since I’ve written a proper blog. You all know how much I love lists. And cats. So let’s do this thing!
 
Sadly, I lost two cats to illness last year. While I cannot replace my lovelies who crossed the rainbow bridge too soon, we were able to adopt more. So let’s introduce you to the most recent family of shelter cats.

 
Fluffy – Pretty plus and absurdly hirsute, her main hobbies include judging others and hissing. And snacks. Lots of snacks. Preferably brought to her by her human slaves.

"I'm sitting in mah chair, shedding large quantities of hair, while I judge you."


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"Mumsies, you did not specifically tell me NOT to climb up here."



​Fred – With his sister, Wilma, was rescued from a hoarding situation where he had no attention and not a lot of care. Current hobbies: rubbing his cheeks against his mommy’s face, purring loudly, getting into trouble, and begging for goldfish (crackers).
 

"I was given to understand that dinner would be served promptly at 6pm."




Wilma – A petite girl with a big meow. Sister to Fred. Hobbies include burrowing under my blankets right at 3am every morning, running back and forth in the house like she’s lost her mind, and posturing in a threatening manner at the birds outside the living room window.
 


​These three devils -- er, angels -- provide hours of entertainment. But sometimes, these little fur balls are just plain … jerks. Here’s a sampling of why:

​"Mumsies, we cannot help but notice that you've been eating too many donuts lately..."

 
Recently, I was cleaning out my email in-box and ran across contest entries, emails, and queries that I sent, way back when the world was good and pure, and the possibilities for becoming an author were endless. One thing became super clear: I didn’t have a single clue what I was doing.
 
Now? Still learning, but I do have a better grasp on what I am supposed to be doing and what seems to work in my little nook of the universe.
 
#1) Time management = everything. Especially for those of us working full-time jobs. A day or a week off is GOLD. Give me a few post-it sheets for my to-do list and I will set the world on fire. (Not literally. That would be super bad.)
 
#2) Let editors know your time frames. Because of my weird work schedule, I am on call for 7-10 days at a time. During that time, my writing brain pretty much shuts down and I live in on-call doctor mode. It’s not in anyone’s best interest for me to have deadlines or interviews or projects due during that period. I do my best to let folks know this information in advance, or will try to pre-emptively complete projects early when I know these blocks are coming. I’ve been caught out a few times where I didn’t give enough lead-time on my time limitations. Like many professional areas, I need to work more on time transparency.
 
#3) Marketing still kind of stinks. There’s no magic bullet. There’s no one thing to do that will make a book visible. And social media will eat up all of my time, if I’m not careful. Over time, I’ve cultivated some marketing sites that seem to work for me. For right now. Things change constantly.
 
#4) Things change constantly. This fact also stinks. In medicine, I get pretty torqued off about how outside forces keep moving the #$^&@ cheese. Turns out, this happens in writing, too. What works in marketing one month won’t work the next. Publishers and agents change, fold, merge. Some genres work better at certain times, and there may be no rhyme or reason to that shift. Nothing like having unstable footing underneath our feet.
 
#5) Don’t stop reading. I read at least an article and a few pages of a novel daily. Even on those crazy call blocks, I can generally get a little bit done. Like, I have a list for what I can do in little snippets of time for those blocks. Maybe it’s emailing a few reviewers or setting up a blog tour. Easy. Brief. If I get called, it won’t mess up any creative “flow”.
 
#6) Don’t write every day. Yes, this is a heretical statement. I get it. This is what works for me. Might not work for other folks. But sometimes when I’ve been up all night with one of my vampire babies who took their sweet time blasting into the world, I don’t have it in my tank to do much more than see patients in the office, go home, and try to get some sleep. That’s okay. I’ve stopped beating myself up about this fact and have adjusted production/creative time to fit the schedule.
 
#7) Don’t forget to exercise. This is me putting on the doctor hat now. It’s easy to get in the mode of sitting and writing and reading, etc. Too easy. At some point, lack of activity will catch up with each and every one of us. MOVE daily, even if it’s 10 minutes of walking. Something is better than nothing. Makes the brain work better, too. (improved blood flow!)
 
#8) Become okay with writing crappy stuff. When I started fastdrafting the first version of manuscripts, my OCD perfectionist tendencies got left in the dust. All that mattered was getting the ideas on paper. Once it’s on paper, it can be fixed.
 
#9) Try new things. Whether it’s in life or Day Job or writing – doesn’t matter. I made a promise to myself about 18 months ago that I’d push myself into writing stuff that made me uncomfortable – character types, scenarios, subject matter. Have I gone over the line of what my current publisher wants? Frankly, yes, in a few cases. But that’s what good editors are for. And I’m proud of sticking my proverbial neck out on those books as well as some other works that are in development.
 
#10) Never, ever, ever give up. Ever. Ever. The tallies on my first list of queries for the first awful book that shall never see the light of day? Embarrassing. Or are they? I’d like to think they show a determined author who looked at rejection as an indication to move in a different direction. And now? Things are better. More importantly, though, my skin is much thicker, and I roll with the setbacks.
 
#Bonus) Have friends, whether they are virtual or right down the street. Friends will give the “atta girl” or the “suck it up sunshine” that we need on any given day. They let us know that we’re not laboring in isolated oblivion. They will cheer for the good things and boo with the bad things. And above all else, make sure they are extremely biased toward you. That’s what you need them for!

It’s been 12 years since I wrote that first (awful) manuscript. Wow. Looking back, it’s clear I had no clue about publishing, and very little clue about writing. That’s not to say I didn’t >think< I knew a lot! Ugh.
 
Here’s a mishmash of what I’ve learned. Maybe it will help other writers or writers-to-be. Hopefully it will keep others from making the same mistakes that I’ve made.

Image via despair.com

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#1) Overnight success isn’t overnight. Marketing/social media makes it appear like it’s overnight. Rarely is this true. I don’t know if I can claim the robust definition of “success” yet, but I wrote my first book in 2005. My first published book (which was NOT my first book written, BTW), was printed in 2015. That was a goal achieved, even if a small one.
 
#2) If you’re going to be clueless, at least be pleasant. I didn’t know beans about publishing and etiquette, and thus I kind of Mr. Magoo’d into asking for something. And got it. (Stars and planets had to have aligned that day. No other explanation.) That conversation could have gone either way, and frankly, I got lucky.

​image via womensvoicemagazine.com


#3) Always have SOMETHING in the hopper. At this moment in time I have outlines and genealogy for a paranormal medieval series, two additional books for my current series, an idea for a novella to fit with my first series, and the first two books written in an edgy romantic suspense series. I talk a lot about switching gears. Sometimes switching gears means going from 1 revision that is a struggle to brainstorming a totally different project. And when I pitch a novel to an agent? If they ask “what else do you have?” then I can answer that question well.
 
#4) Take courses, either online or in person. Read craft books. Do not skip this step. Everyone can tell if you skip this step. I initially skipped this step. Everyone could tell.
 
#5) Think that book is ready to submit? Yeah, it’s not. No way. Not even close. Let it sit for an extra month. Have multiple people (not your mom or best friend, either) read it. Pay for a single professional critique. It’s SO worth it.
 
#6) Are you really really ready to submit? No you’re not. Trust me. Repeat item #5.

​#7) Ok, seriously, you’ve had 4+ people read it and give feedback and you had a professional critique done and you’ve improved the manuscript? All right. Submit. But not to large quantities of agents at the same time. Who has two thumbs and sent out 50 queries within a month? Yup. Writer fail. Semi-pro tip: Send out a batch of 4-6 queries. Wait. See what they say. If they give feedback, take it. This will also give time for the manuscript to sit for another month or so. When you look at it again, you’ll cringe. Promise.
 
#8) Don’t tell anyone you’re writing a book until you’ve done it and it’s published. Consider whether/when you want to tell anyone at all. Now, this piece of advice is this one woman’s radical opinion and I’m sure others would totally disagree. Because of Day Job, I try hard to keep my writing world and doctoring world separate from each other. Also, I don’t want anyone from my professional world to feel uncomfortable about the subject matter in the writing. With the way business and professional oversight is right now, frankly, it’s safer to remain separate.
 
#9) Get a website. And pick at least one social media site to use. Do this way early, like a year before you submit a manuscript. I did not do this, and I should have.
 
#10) Keep writing. Never, ever give up. Ever. If you can’t write a book, write a novella. If you can’t write a novella, work on a short story. If not that, then a blog or an article. A brainstorming session for a book idea. Something. Anything. Just keep writing.

Image via jilltupper.com


#Bonus) Always put the correct agent name on the query letter. Double check it. Twice. Trust me. It's the little things that will hose you. (BTDT) Most recent screw up was when I was doing the query letter at the same time I was answering a phone call about a patient. I hit "send" before double checking. Note to self: do not do work-work at the same time as writing-work. Yeah, I was like >facepalm< "You had one job!" Yup. Author fail.

​​Okay, roll up the sleeves, it’s year two of the judging adventures for RWA’s 2017 RITA awards! Cannot wait for my packet of books to arrive. It’s really like Christmas! I talked about my first experience of judging RWA around this time last year and how, well, not super duper qualified I was to judge the contest.
 
So, from that basement, there's nowhere to go but up this year! How am I going to up my scoring game for this year’s RITA’s? As I described in the March 2016 post, there’s really no consensus explanation of how to score or what the numbers really mean. What does a 6 mean? What does an 8 mean? Is Judge A's 9 the same thing as Judge B's? I don't know. I haven’t even tried to figure out decimals, and therefore, we will work on that later when I arbitrarily award decimal bonuses. Yeah. I said it. Decimal. Bonuses.
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​Well, first of all I’m applying a dose of kindness because…man, after this last year, we all need support and love. In addition, for this year, I'm going to also use the “cast no stones” approach.
 
Because, who am I to judge anyone, anyway?
  
With that preamble/ramble in mind, and in all transparency, I present to you – how I score RITA entries. Updated for 2017!
 
#1) Just like last year, my grading scale will start at 5 and stop at 10. That’s because the world is cruel, and it takes amazing guts to put your book out there. I know that those pages contain the last drop of blood from the innermost chamber of your palpating heart, and then you put all those pages out there to be criticized. That’s right. From a base of 0, I’m awarding an automatic 5 way-to-go points just for entering.

photo courtesy of Flickr commons ydant

#2) Genres I don’t read. Less of an issue this year than last year, since my genre base has expanded widely. And I opted out of the categories I simply never read. (Sorry, Obadiah and Sarah, but no matter how totally awesome your inspirational romance is, I’m not a big fan of that particular genre. Nothing to do with thou.) So no bonus points for genres I don’t read since I’m hoping that issue is not applicable this year.
 
#3) Awesome characters. Real, life, jump-off-the-pages hero/heroine (in whatever combination and number) with complex motivations. Not perfect/gorgeous people. Real people. If you make me think I could run into this person on the street tomorrow and want to talk with them, then I’m awarding 0.5 extra character points.
 
#4) Something new. If you have a new spin on an old tale. If you come up with a story where Cinderella is a dude and he meets Princess Charming… and you freakin’ sell it? Extra 0.5 de novo points right there.
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#5) Awesome cover bonus. This concept hasn’t changed since last year. Don’t do what I wanted to do with my first cover: Minimum of 4 characters, one must be a “floating head”, toss in a few random pets, a vehicle of some sort, and maybe some molten lava. So, the exact opposite of what I had in mind on my first book. In short, if your cover is awesome? Add 0.5 cover-me points.
 
#6) Superb grasp of English language. Also known as: grammar. If you don’t know the difference between “your” and “you’re”, then I will stroke out my frontal lobe. And that doesn’t make me a bad person, it makes me OCD. There’s a big difference, and you bet I know where to go for help. Minus 1.0 points for bad English.
 
#7) Show me the money. If I read this book and now I want to purchase every word this author has written? If it’s that fabulous? Automatic 1.0 extra rock-my-world points.

​#8) World explorer points. If the book truly teaches me something new in a way that’s super entertaining, then that’s 0.5 Encyclopedia Britannica points.
 
#9) Call points. My call comes in 10-day blocks. They sometimes can be brutal and loaded with sleepless nights and frequent interruptions. (Dude, the area nursing homes have my number on speed-dial.) If I’m reading your book during one of these call periods, I’m adding 0.5 bookus interruptus points. Because bad timing on my part does not constitute a lower score on the author’s part.
 
Welp. That’s my scoring scale, and I’m sticking with it. Let me know if you have a method or scale that you use to judge RITA’s.

​Every so often, I talk about how my writing life needs to remain separate from my professional/personal life. It’s not that I don’t want readers to know more about me. Quite the opposite. It’s that, well, for one thing, Big Brother in the workplace is kind of a thing these days. The particular Big Brother corporation I work with is a benevolent yet capricious and sometimes draconian organization, and I cannot be confident that the company would recognize the separation between work and writing.
 
Along those same lines, I’m not quite ready to share the writing work with all of my friends, family members, coworkers, and patients. The topics/scenes I delve into are quite dark and can be painful and graphic. Readers seem to dig it, and it’s cathartic for me to write this way. And frankly, I don’t know how to water stuff down. As one reviewer wrote, “(Jillian) sure knows how to write torture scenes.” And I’m proud of that fact that the words can make someone feel everything that’s happening to the characters.

photo courtesy of HauntedBoy via Flickr


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​But that much dark, graphic horror and hot sex (not at the same time, don’t worry!) might not fit well with what folks expect from their physician, especially given that I deal with some very sensitive areas of medicine. The content of what I write could make patients uncomfortable, especially if they had no idea of the context of the scenes. Also, I cuss a hell of a lot more with the writing gig. And then there’s a chance that Big Brother would stick its nose into my writing work and might disrupt either the writing job or the day job as a result. (I’ve heard some horror stories from colleagues, so yes, the possibility exists.) If I’m going to get outed, I’d like to be in a better position to professionally adjust.
 
Now, let’s take all of those arguments and balance them against the numerous writing workshops, conferences and seminars that hammer this one point home: Authors should get on Facebook (as well as other social media, of course). So for 3 years, I’ve put off doing Facebook. Why? Because, see here’s the kicker -- you have to have a personal (real human) account first, then create the author page from that. How come? Because Facebook doesn’t like fictional person accounts. Or something like that. There could be more to it. I’m no expert. As we’ll soon see….

So finally, after massive amounts of angst, terror, and a few potentially monumental mistakes, I did the deed. The @authorjilliandavid page on Facebook is indeed live!
 
In the interest of self-deprecation and entertainment, would you like to see how many ways it can go wrong? Let's put them in a tidy list, shall we?
 
#1) Start with a heaping helping of latent paranoia. That’s a hearty base for us to create this recipe of insanity.
 
#2) Decide at 10pm on a night when you’re on call to finally set up the Facebook page. Sure. Nothing could go wrong with that, right? You’ll be super sharp and on your A-game.
 

#3) Reject any profile pictures that have your face on them. Just in case you get mis-tagged by picture bots. Or whatever they use to tag pictures. Because, really, you don’t understand any of this stuff.
 
#4) Google no less than ten websites with the query “Will a Facebook page be visible for people who can see my Facebook account?” Make sure you use every possible permutation of this question, in case a different answer exists somewhere in the corners of the interwebs.

​#5) Forget to put on deodorant. Later, after a particularly bad episode of flop-sweat, realize that you really should have applied deo this evening.
 
#6) Keep “personal Jill” page open in a tab right next to “Jillian author page”. Nothing could go wrong with that idea, right? Oh my gosh, I’m like a monkey doing a math problem at this point.
 
#7) Almost don’t see the little thingy on the bottom left corner of each post that lets you post as “personal Jill” or as “Jillian author page”. Almost post as “personal Jill” on a “Jillian author page” post. Yeah.
 
#8) Surf right on over to a book signing event page and promptly click that “personal Jill” is coming to the signing. Panic. That’s so totally wrong, and now that info is flowing all over your personal Facebook page. Imagine friends and family clicking through and then connecting the dots. Backpedal. Mess it up twice more. Give up. Panic. Try again. Finally figure out how to “like the page as your page”. Oh my dear lordie.
 
#9) Fill out the “About” tab with author info. ON THE WRONG PAGE. Quickly delete and refresh. Shit on shit, people.
 
#10) And, for the coup de gráce, wipe the sleep from your eyes and accidently LIKE YOUR AUTHOR PAGE WITH YOUR PERSONAL JILL PAGE. Holy mother of God.

 
In conclusion, I am thankful for the one personal Facebook friend who knows about the writing gig. She was kind enough to accept a panicked Facebook message (thankfully I managed to do this privately) and went to check out both pages to make sure there weren’t traces of my other half on either. Until the next screw up, so far so good.
 
P.S.: For the, like, 3 people out there who know my Clark Kent identity or those who figure it out, please keep it to yourselves. I’m not ready to be outed just yet. Bless you.

(That gal there, she's "Super Writer". I only hope to be as cool as that author....