by Janis Patterson

Don’t get me wrong – I love blogging. It’s wonderful to be able to chat with readers and fans and people who get lost on the internet. What I don’t like is schedules. Each time I check my calendar – and every blog and everything else I do is ruthlessly noted on my calendar – I swear this time I will get my next blog done well in time, pre-schedule it and the announcement to be sent in a timely manner and have no worries or last minute rushes.

Then Life happens. You know what I mean. All the writing gurus say that if you are a writer (or want to be a writer) writing should always come before anything other than dangerous illness or death. Well, that makes a good talking point for writing teachers to use to encourage you, but in practical life it’s not much good. Things come up that you didn’t expect. Things that are not life-threatening, but which really do need to be handled. Then there’s laundry, and cooking, and cleaning, and marketing, and…

And your time for writing gets shorter and shorter.

Now there are those who say writing is not done just at the keyboard, that no matter what your hands are doing your brain can still be plotting, so that time spent at the keyboard is really just transcribing. While that is true to a point, it can also be dangerous. Once I was driving from Dallas to Ft. Smith, Arkansas. While I drove I tried to work out a really knotty plotting problem on my work in progress. When I finally had it worked out I had no idea of where I was. Turns out it was Missouri, and I had a lot of backtracking to do. So one does need to be careful when using this technique.
Back to blogs. Blogs are short. Blogs are fairly localized in focus – in my case, a subject that can be wrangled by hook or by crook to the world of writing. The only trouble is, you have to have a reasonably cogent premise, or something informative, or at least interesting to say. Otherwise all you’re doing is stringing words in a line and hoping they say something at least minimally interesting.

Like this post. Well, negative examples can be a teaching tool too!

Before I go I must share that my new anthology (shared with the fabulous Sandy Steen, Penny Richards and James Gaskin) releases on June 14th and is currently available for pre-order on Amazon. It’s called The July Fourth Murders and features four different wars and four murders on the Fourth of July, written by four authors. My part is World War One. It’s a nifty book! Go take a look.

by Janis Patterson

Back years ago when I still worked in the corporate world I had a little placard on my desk. It had a cute cartoon drawing and the legend, “When you are up to your *ss in alligators, it is hard to remember that you were sent to drain the swamp.”

I’ve never forgotten that saying, though – wish I still had the little placard, but some stinking low-life stole it. The premise has stayed with me all these years, though and as my writing career has progressed, however, has become even more true.

Now those of you who have read my many blogs over the years know how strong I come down on the side of professionalism. Published or unpublished, hobby writer or NYT bestseller, if you’re a writer you have to realize – and act – like a professional. That means consistency, dedication and good behavior, i.e., delivering a product contractually promised on time and in good condition, and working well with your editors et al. And for most of us, some hobby writers excepted, that means discipline. You have X number of words to produce and Y amount of time to do it, which means a fairly demanding schedule.

Now I’m going to be contradictory, because I will admit that schedules are fragile things subject to the alarums and buffeting winds of life. Everyone has their own idea of a schedule – some do 1,000 or 2,500 words per day without fail, some work for X amount of time per day – whatever works for them. At least, we try. Unfortunately Life has a mind of its own – which means we do not have to be a slave to an unbending timeline. (Those of us not on a hard deadline, that is.)
A dear friend of mine, an NYT bestseller, had a large multi-generational family and a demanding job. Far too many times her writing had to take a remote third-place in her life and she fell further and further behind in her work. Finally she said “Enough!” and determined that she would write 30 minutes per day without fail. She said no matter how busy life was, she could scrape together 30 minutes. And she did – without fail. I remember her sitting on a gurney in the ER after a leg injury, scribbling away in the notebook she always had with her. Even as well as I knew her I was astonished at her dedication.

The older I get the more I believe that Life is more important than a rigid schedule. What do you do when someone dear to you dies, or a child is ill, or there is a horrible incident requiring your attention – a house fire, an accident or some other trauma? It would take a stronger person than I to ignore it completely just to meet my schedule. That does not, of course, include bridge games or luncheons or other basically frivolous pastimes. Then there are children – or grandchildren. They are young for such a fleeting time – don’t shut them out. And for those of you fortunate enough to still have your parents they must be considered too. There is more to life than writing, no matter how dedicated a writer you are. You can always do your ‘thirty minutes a day’ or whatever after they are asleep.

See? I told you I was being contradictory. We need discipline if we are going to have a career in writing, but we also need to be human. Choose your distractions and exemptions wisely – if you have a choice. Just remember anything can be an alligator!

by Janis Patterson

As most of you know, I just returned from several weeks in Egypt and Jordan. Fascinating… and exhausting, but I’m covering that in the Trip Diary that will be on my website. What I’m going to talk about now is souvenirs. Souvenirs are something to remind you of what you did/saw… or to take home to friends and family so they will know where you went and what you did.

The Husband and I quit the souvenir train a long time ago – mostly. He always buys a few postcards and I usually pick up something small, like a refrigerator magnet. (Though I did buy a spectacular gold-embroidered dress in Cairo – have no idea where I will wear it in the foreseeable future, but I do know I couldn’t have left without out it.)

Back to souvenirs. Whether for us or for others ‘small’ is the operative word. We always try to travel light, especially on a ‘rough’ trip like this one, so space is limited. Plus, one must consider the egregious baggage charges the airlines are extorting from us. No space, no extra charges = small. Very small.

But… as pleasant as little trinkets can be, they are not necessary to life. All they really do is stimulate our memories and feelings of pleasant or adventuresome times, and we can call forth those memories on our own, because what is really important is the memory – not the trinket purchased there, though the trinkets are nice to have.

To drag this post to the business of writing, in a not-too-unusual way a well-crafted story is a souvenir – a memory that you might have not had yet, but once the story is read it stays with you forever. How many of us have favorite scenes, favorite stories, that always evoke a reaction within us? Isn’t that like how a souvenir can in the blink of a memory bring back sights and sounds and actions previously experienced? Just because it is not brightly colored or even physical doesn’t mean that it isn’t a sort of souvenir… an encapsulated memory.

That means I can forget small. I live in a house with four libraries, each simply bulging with books, most of which I have read. I can pick up almost any one of them and suddenly there is a memory, a feeling inspired by something in that book. A souvenir of a life – an event – a something that I might or might not have experienced in the flesh, but which still arouses not only a memory but an emotion in me… just like when I pick up the embroidered shawl my husband bought for me in a small shop in Petra, or the tiny terra cotta Mayan figure I found in Mexico, or… I could go on and on. Like you and probably everyone else on the planet I have more souvenirs and more memories than I can handle.

So… when you are writing your books, remember that you are not only creating a story, you are creating a souvenir of a life the reader never lived.