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… A few weeks back, I was reading a chick-lit sweet Amish story* with lots of police procedural elements. Totally got immersed in the world and believed every detail that author dished out. Why? Because I had zero clue otherwise. My life is the exact polar opposite of “police procedural”. And legal stuff? I can’t tell the difference between “so moved” and “sustained”. Lordie help me if someone wants me to define a tort. (If I’m not mistaken, that’s a lovely lemony treat, right?)
Then in that same novel, something medical happened where stuff like guts or blood or bones or some anatomically gross thing happened. Of course, I’m eating all of that description up like…well, like a yummy torte…because of my Day Job. (I kind of dig blood ‘n’ guts.) But then it happened. The author tripped and fell down. Like, total swing and a miss. This awesome, immersive experience grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and hurled me out of book. Kind of like when in one of the Star Trek episodes they get thrown out of warp and how jarring that was with space-time and atoms splitting and stuff? Like that. 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. 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
#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. Recently, I responded to a series of colleague’s tweets regarding the way an intern was treated. https://twitter.com/CadenceDO/status/823300940895842311 The intern was part of a team that cared for a young adult in the ICU, and they had to withdraw life support. (I know nothing of the situation, but withdrawing life support generally occurs when brain activity is not present.) So, one of the most gut-wrenching events to experience not only for the family members, of course, but also for the medical personnel caring for the patient.
The tweet story went on to explain that once care had finished, the intern asked to step away for a few moments in private and collect himself. (Or herself. Interesting side question: would this story play differently if the intern were male or female?) The intern was then given a negative evaluation comment by the attending physician because the intern displayed emotions. Because there are times when when I get drained and need to recover, this story generated a ton of thoughts and concerns. #1) Are there instructors out there teaching our medical students/residents to “not feel”? Let me be clear: if medical professionals lose their humanity, then health care is no better than being treated by a robot. Quite frankly, I don’t want to be treated by people who have zero emotional response if I live or die. And also, I don’t want to BE a treating physician who has no emotional response to my patients’ situations. #2) Let’s talk burnout. There is a direct correlation with suppressing emotional distress/stress and the development of burnout. There are papers upon papers written on this subject. People have developed freakin’ CURRICULUM about how to “talk through” these stressful times with peers, family, or counselors. Training a doctor to suppress the very thing that makes them human? Cruel. Destructive.
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.
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. ChapStick is magic11/12/2016 With dry, winter weather comes dry, winter lips. Which makes me think of one of my favorite products: ChapStick.
Whoever came up with this stuff is a verifiable genius. Here’s why I love it. It’s possible that I have a medically definable diagnosis relative to this petroleum-based product. #1) Fits in every single pocket of every single pair of pants I own. #2) Stashes easily in purses and desks at work. #3) Comes in different colors that all end up clear on your lips. #4) Saves having to apply lipstick. Lipstick? Yuck. #5) If I have ChapStick in my pocket, my stress level magically drops 10 points. #6) Zipper stuck? Rub some ChapStick into it and the zipper will work again. #7) Survivalists out there? Yeah, you can smear this stuff on any fabric and use it as fire started. (After swiping it one last time over your lips, of course.) #8) Scuffed shoes? You can fix it with ChapStick. Yeah. I said it. Dab or rub the product on the shoes, then buff with a soft cloth. It’s not perfect, but it’ll do in a pinch. Note to self: do not use the ChapStick on your ips after using on the shoes, because....yuck. #9) No sunscreen? No problem. Smear the product on your face. Gets you somewhere from 4-15 SPF, depending on the flavor. #10) Stops bleeding. What? You bet. Of course, it won’t make a lick of difference if you’ve severed your femoral artery. No amount of ChapStick will solve that little conundrum. But if you have, say, a paper cut? Smear a little bit of amazing-ness on it and voila? No more bleeding and sealed from infection. This blog post highlights a unique anthology slated for release in 2017 and spearheaded by Victoria Griffin. It involves stories regarding brain injuries/concussions. The anthology, “Flooded”, will contain selected works from authors who have experienced or observed brain injuries, or who have written about them in a way that makes the experience tangible to a reader.
As a physician, I see the devastating effects of brain injuries in my patients. From teenagers who are no longer allowed to play sports and who now have cognitive challenges, to adults whose brain injury has literally changed their personality, to veterans who have suffered TBI’s (traumatic brain injuries) and struggle to explain why they are disabled when they bear no visible scars – brain injuries can be complex to manage, long-lasting, and the effects can change from day to day. One of the most profound concussion cases I witnessed was in medical school when an internal medicine physician in a rural practice had what anyone would think was a simple concussion. Dr. Smith (name changed) was pulling into his driveway, had his seatbelt off, and another vehicle hit the back of his car. He had a brief loss of consciousness and a headache. Three months later, Dr. Smith still couldn’t function at anywhere close to previous work capacity. His short- and long-term memory suffered. He couldn’t recall patients he had cared for over the past 20 years! What a great evening in Seattle for the Passport2Romance Reader Event put on by the Greater Seattle Romance Writers of America! Thanks to the organizers for putting together a fun and exciting evening.
And huge thanks to the readers for coming out in the storm (thank goodness it wasn't as bad as expected), to meet the authors. The free swag and amazing raffle baskets were off-the-charts awesome this year! As promised, readers who signed up for my newsletter were entered in a drawing. They can choose to receive digital copies of my paranormal romance Hell to Pay series (all 4 books) or an advanced reader's copy of Legacy of Lies, the first book in my new western paranormal romance series! (You'll get the book a month ahead of release date!) Originally I planned on picking 5 readers, but then decided on 10. Because I'm the author, that's why. |
Jillian DavidAuthor, daydreamer, and practitioner of trying very hard to duct tape folks together and help when I can. Archives
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