Well, that’s not a potentially hot-button title at all, is it?
Disclaimer: In general, I kind of hate politics. But when it comes to healthcare and advocating for my patients and family, then yes, I have opinions. My position is pretty much if a politician is a bastard to human beings, then I don’t support that behavior. That’s quite cursory. I have other opinions, but voting based on whether the politician actually has a soul seems like a good place to start. So, here’s the situation that got me thinking. I was at a writing conference last year, chatting with a nice woman who sat next to me for dinner one evening. We were discussing how the most recent governmental cruel and cold decisions would likely hurt many of my patients and family members. You know – the usual kind of conversation a preoccupied doctor might have in a time of political upheaval. (At least – I hope that most doctors feel outrage about how patients are potentially being hurt by current decision-making.) Anyway, our conversation then turned to the usual conference discussions about what kind of books we wrote and enjoyed reading. She wrote historicals based in Scotland, which I think is pretty cool. (Because … kilts!) I then mentioned that I had a paranormal western series that had started earlier in the year. New Year's Goals12/31/2017 Man, I hate to call them “resolutions” because the word sounds so formal, so big, and so insurmountable. But for the first time in a long time, I feel the need to make a list about the upcoming year, if only to bring focus to the next 365 days. Also, it’s scary to write these things down for all to see – but it’s important to keep doing stuff that scares me. So here goes…
Medical goals: #1) Get better at saying “no” to more call/more duties/more meetings and not feel any guilt when saying “no”. #2) Complete a 4-year longitudinal leadership course to create future non-clinical opportunities. #3) Cease being afraid/too modest to describe my experience, background, and strengths. #4) Focus on patient care, and try to ignore all other BS. If it’s not about patient care, I’m not spending time/energy on it. #5) Seek out leadership opportunities. #6) Champion development of a resident training program at my hospital. This Thanksgiving season, I’m thankful for the opportunity to write books and share them with readers. (And they hopefully enjoy them, too!) Recently, I’ve been thinking about the (dumb) luck that got me to point. Maybe if I remind myself of these mistakes, I can go even further.
#1) Submitted too early. Didn’t know the book wasn’t ready. #2) Submitted too late. Didn’t know when to stop editing and missed an opportunity regarding a timely topic. #3) Queried in bunches of 30. Yes, 30. And yes, that’s embarrassing and thankfully was a long, long time ago with a book that shall never see the light of day. Spoiler alert/no surprise: I did not succeed with this book. Paranormal romance. Free. That is all.10/28/2017 Interested in free Paranormal Romance reads? Or maybe 50 bucks? Either way, feel free to check out this awesome group promo that includes...yours truly. :)
And as always -- happy reading! Recently, I had a great time at Emerald City Writers’ Conference and did a talk on Fastdrafting 101. A few questions came up after this talk that I wanted to address here. I may have answered some of the questions, but honestly, the first 20-30 minutes of that talk was like an out-of-body experience, due to nerves. Also, if I cussed during that time, I'm super sorry... (sometimes I say bad things when I'm super nervous)
As we approach NaNoWriMo, the fastdrafting materials might be helpful for those WriMo-ers out there gearing up for November! Here are my prior fastdrafting blog posts, if you would like a refresher/cautionary tale… Part 1: I've got an idea! Part 2: Bad decision making, for sure, but what could possibly go wrong? Part 3: Uh oh... Some of you know the drill: Whenever I do a reader event or book signing, I have a rule. Any reader who signs up for my newsletter during the event gets entered in a drawing for free books.
As promised, I took the new newsletter subscribers and used a random number generator. (Not hubby this time, either!) The winner of a digital copy of the entire Hell to Pay paranormal romance series is: Tanya P Winners of a digital copy of my first book, Immortal Flame are: Vella M Lee H Colleen M I'll be sending out emails to the winners. Big thanks to all the readers who came by to check out my books and to chat. It was a super fun evening! Thank you again and happy reading! I had the best time in Cedar Falls, Iowa last weekend at the Romance Rendezvous event. If you've ever hung out with me at a reader event or book signing, you know the deal: Anyone who signs up for my newsletter is entered in a drawing to win BOOKS!
Using a random number generator (on the computer -- not hubby this time), the winner of the entire Hell to Pay series is : Nicole M. Winners of my first book, Immortal Flame are: Elva R. Marialee D. I'll email you all this week and get these digital copies right out to you! Thanks again to all the awesome readers who came to Romance Rendezvous. I look forward to seeing you all again at future events! Just had a book signing this last weekend, and anyone who's hung out with me at any book events knows the deal: If readers sign up for my newsletter during the event, they get entered to win free reads from yours truly!
Big thanks to Jackie for a great conference and book signing. It was great meeting lots of new readers and reconnecting with some author buddies I hadn't seen in a long time. As promised, our winner from Rust City Book Con's book signing is: Lisa A!!! Lisa, I'll be emailing you with the information. Feel free to pick out any book I've written, and it's yours in digital format of your choice. Thank you and all of the readers for supporting authors at events like this! Over a week’s vacation from Day Job recently, I had one of my hardest running weeks, probably ever, as I’m training for a trail marathon. In case you didn’t know, trail marathons are just like regular road marathons except muddier, buggier, longer, and nastier than their refined road-based counterparts (which are also no cake walk). During that same week off, I had one of my toughest writing/editing weeks in a very long time. Given that one of the training runs was over four hours long, I had time to think. A lot of time. Too much time.
Seems that marathon training and writing aren’t that much different, after all. Before I leap into the analogy, I need to make myself crystal clear on both topics. Full disclosure. I am in no way a great athlete. This chunky bod is getting dragged 26.2 miles (hopefully) because, well, the challenge is there. I’ve wanted to do a trail marathon for >15 years. Now is my chance, and you bet your left bunion, I’m downing the biggest bag of Cheetos + a Blizzard after I finish/collapse/die as I cross the finish line in dead last place. Also, I will not be setting any land-speed records. In many respects, that’s like my writing career. I’m not a bestselling anything. The writing happens because I need to/want to/enjoy it and I want to always improve. You can bet that writing consumes a huge amount of time and it’s exhausting. Also, Cheetos. You guys, I’m super stoked to be giving two talks at ECWC this October. If you haven’t heard of it, this is a fabulous writer’s conference. I’ve been lucky to attend for the past 4 years now.
The very first talk I attended as a writer – ever – was Cherry Adair’s master class, given at ECWC. The title of her talk escapes me, but her course involved spending several hours learning about character development. It was frankly, life changing relative to my writing process. (If you ever have a chance to hear Cherry speak, don’t ask questions. Just go.) The other (writing)life changing piece was her advice to use medicine as part of my author platform. You see, I’d gone into that first conference thinking that no way would I share with anyone that I’m a physician because #1) writing credibility reduced and #2) privacy. So basically, yes, I was clueless. Cherry took all of ten seconds consideration before saying something to the effect of “Honey, that’s your platform. Use it.” As it turns out, blending medicine and writing? Not so difficult, since there is zero way I can completely separate Dr. Jill from writer Jillian. And once I figured out the privacy piece, I feel a lot better about the blend. But what I did this year with the workshops at ECWC takes that blending to a scary new level. This where I put it all out there, together, and see how it goes… |
Jillian DavidAuthor, daydreamer, and practitioner of trying very hard to duct tape folks together and help when I can. Archives
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