{"id":26106,"date":"2015-02-12T00:01:58","date_gmt":"2015-02-12T05:01:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/?p=26106"},"modified":"2015-02-11T13:57:20","modified_gmt":"2015-02-11T18:57:20","slug":"emmie-mears-five-things-i-learned-writing-storm-in-a-teacup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/2015\/02\/12\/emmie-mears-five-things-i-learned-writing-storm-in-a-teacup\/","title":{"rendered":"Emmie Mears: Five Things I Learned Writing Storm In A Teacup"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Mediator Ayala Storme kills demons by night and handles PR by day. She avoids Mediator luncheons and a fellow Mediator who\u2019s been trying to get in her pants for years. She does her job. She keeps her sword clean and her body count high. But when a rash of disappearances leads her to discover that Nashville\u2019s hellkin are spawning a new race of monster on human hosts, Ayala will be the first line of defense against these day-walking killers. That is, until one of them saves her life. Dodging the Mediators and the demons alike, Ayala\u2019s new knowledge of the hybrids\u2019 free will challenges everything she\u2019s ever known about her job. Racing the clock and trying to outrun her comrades and enemies alike, she\u2019s not sure who will catch her first\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

Lesson the First: It\u2019s Okay to Play God<\/h2>\n

When I first started writing, I was a die-hard pantser. I wrote two and a half books you will never ever ever see, and I did it resting in the soaring butt-ress of my trouser bottoms. (#butts)<\/p>\n

Some people can keep on that way and their work flows and molds itself into the elegant forms of a glass sculpture that started out a vase and turned into this platter of perfection.<\/p>\n

Hahaha, not me.<\/p>\n

Those first 2.5 books started out like books and grew into Cthulu-esque page monsters with plots dangling from every orifice. I tried to query one of them. I\u2019ll sit here and eat popcorn while you imagine how that went.<\/p>\n

Yep.<\/p>\n

When I went back to STORM after a long hiatus, the central feature of the book had to go. I\u2019d learned that from a blunt literary agent at a conference who wasn\u2019t even talking about that book. For the first time, I looked at my book and told it that it needed to be what I wanted it to be instead of what it\u2019d slimed all over the page — and lo and behold, the dangling plots retracted, the drips of ink coagulated into words, and when I was done I had the strongest book I\u2019d written at that point.<\/p>\n

Through that, I learned that I could be god in my fictional worlds. (Maybe in this one too. YOU\u2019RE NOT MY MOM.)<\/p>\n

Lesson the Second: You\u2019re the Only One on the Racetrack<\/h2>\n

I\u2019ve got a lot of really successful friends.<\/p>\n

(Hi, Chuck.)<\/p>\n

Like…even present host-face excluded? I have a self-published author friend whose books are perpetually at least eight out of the top twenty books in her category on Amazon. She just owns that list. Always. She just hangs out there and kicks her feet back and watches editors not buy urban fantasy knowing her readers are just slavering for her next book.<\/p>\n

I know a lot of authors who are just…everywhere. Doin\u2019 their thing and doing it WELL.<\/p>\n

On release day, STORM cracked the 10,000th rank on Amazon, and I cried because I was so excited and happy and overwhelmed. My trad published book didn\u2019t do that when it came out last year, even though I\u2019d put together a 40 stop blog tour and basically was wearing my rib cage as a hat by the end of it.<\/p>\n

I had this…moment after I shared a screencap of my book at #9388 on Amazon\u2019s paid Best Seller rank where I thought, \u201cThere are 9387 people ahead of me. Most of my friends\u2019 books LAUGH at numbers like this as they go speeding by. I look like a fool.\u201d<\/p>\n

But then I took a deep breath and looked back to December where over 80 people, some friends and some strangers, literally saved me from losing my car and probably my home. Those names are listed in the back of STORM. All 80 of those people got an ARC of Storm and almost half of them bought the book anyway.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re the only one on the track, and the only bunny you\u2019re chasing is the one you put there for yourself. That\u2019s the only one that matters. You chase that bunny, keep your eyes on it, and never forget that for the people who seem to be ahead of you, there\u2019s someone who seems to be ahead of them. We\u2019re all chasing our own bunnies, and art is not a zero sum game.<\/p>\n

Lesson the Third: It\u2019s Okay to Walk Away<\/h2>\n

STORM was offered a publishing deal.<\/p>\n

It was with a small press that had a stellar reputation. They told me and my agent that it\u2019d be published in print and ebook, and we felt great about it. But then the terms changed very suddenly, and we decided to back out.<\/p>\n

Had I not had a conversation with an author friend at Capclave the week before about just that, I don\u2019t know that I would have had it in me to walk away, even though it was the right thing to do for my book.<\/p>\n

What he told me, sitting on a couch on the last day of a long, grueling weekend where he\u2019d had some serious ups and downs, was that it\u2019s okay to walk away. That they should want you as much as they want them. So often in publishing we turn to the relationship metaphors, but it\u2019s really true. If you want the sweet romantic footrubs and tuna melts in bed with The Bachelor blasting on the TV but their idea of romance is a mud pie and a beatific smile? The metaphor kind of fits. Ain\u2019t nobody got time for that.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s okay to walk away if you don\u2019t think someone will be good to you. It\u2019s also okay to walk away if they\u2019re just not right for you.<\/p>\n

Lesson the Fourth: Sometimes You Need a Bunny<\/h2>\n

Those bunnies. They just keep GOING. And going and going like tired 90s references.<\/p>\n

STORM gave me something to chase again. I took a beating in 2014, and not just because of the aforementioned shenanigans. The decision to put STORM out on my own rejuvenated me in a lot of ways. It was a terrifying decision for me, not unlike sticking a hand into a dark hole on the side of the tree. (PS: I know what\u2019s in those. Spiders. Spiders are what\u2019s in those.)<\/p>\n

I learned a lot of things I didn\u2019t know I was capable of doing. Thank the Scrivener gods for having useful tools, because without them I would have been holding that bunny between two shaking hands and snotting all over it.<\/p>\n

For the last three months of 2014, I felt like the biggest failure in this galaxy. I was stalled on my new manuscript. Broke and about to lose my car and the single room I rent. Going through a divorce. Dealing with [redacted because reasons, gah] and generally feeling like no matter what I did, it would never be enough.<\/p>\n

For eight years now, I\u2019ve worked 80-130 hours a week (I actually clocked a 130+ hour week just two weeks ago) because I want writing to be my career…but I also like eating, and so do my cats. I came to a broken, broken place in December, yo. Things were not good.<\/p>\n

STORM became my bunny. It became my way of fighting back, of chasing this thing I\u2019ve been chasing for so long (far, far longer than these last eight years).<\/p>\n

And funny story? On STORM\u2019s release day, SFWA announced they\u2019re gonna start letting self-published and small press published authors join their club. While not strictly relevant to me at the moment, it felt like a nice indication that doing my thing could dovetail with the other dreams that still stick in my head.<\/p>\n

Lesson the Fifth: Sometimes the Goal is Just Past the Tape<\/h2>\n

A few years ago, if you\u2019d asked me what my writing goals were, I would probably have told you sort of pompously like a jackass that \u201cBOOK ON SHELF BECAUSE SHELF.\u201d<\/p>\n

I wanted to see my books on a shelf. I think to me the shelf was always a metaphor, but I was totes McGotes missing the point.<\/p>\n

The shelf was never really the goal — and when I had this epiphany about eleven days ago, I wanted to put myself on a shelf without any dinner.<\/p>\n

The shelf had been the tape for me at the finish line. This thing by which I would measure success. Each book I\u2019d written from book 1-3 I\u2019d thought it would be The One. Until the epiphany.<\/p>\n

Which was this:<\/p>\n

Readers are the goal. The shelf might be a way to get the book to them, but the shelf is not the ultimate goal. Because if a book\u2019s on a shelf, it\u2019s not open in anyone\u2019s hands. (This also goes for digital shelves.) The readers are the real goal, and to get to them, there usually isn\u2019t just ONE book. Few people write a single book, snag a hefty book deal, and waddle off to the bank to a chorus of adoring, angelic fans pelting them with rose petals and whisky.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s not a THE One. But there are many. There\u2019s the one that you first finish. There\u2019s the one that\u2019ll get you an agent, if that\u2019s what you want. There\u2019s the one that\u2019ll get you a publishing deal. There\u2019s the one that will bring you your first tweet that happened at 4:30 AM, where you wake up to see it and someone\u2019s yelling at you for keeping them up all night because your book was SO DAMN GOOD. There\u2019s the one that will bring your first email from a reader telling you that your book moved them. Changed them. Saved them. There\u2019s the one that breaks 10,000 on Amazon\u2019s rankings for the first time. Or the one that, while you\u2019re signing them in line, someone breaks down in tears and tells you that they wouldn\u2019t be here without those words you wrote.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s the one you\u2019ll write and go back and read and feel real pride at the world you built from nothing. There\u2019s the one people will tattoo onto their skin. There\u2019s the one that will make you a friend you never thought you\u2019d meet. There\u2019s the one that will break you to write, but heal others to read.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s probably not going to be just one book. There isn\u2019t just ONE that will do all those things, most likely.<\/p>\n

But writing just one story was never the bunny, was it?<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

\n
\n
Emmie Mears was born in Austin, Texas, where the Lone Star state promptly spat her out at the tender age of three months. She speaks Polish, enough German to tell you her anteater is sick, about as much Spanish as a native two-year-old, and has a crush on Portuguese and Gaelic. Growing up she yearned to see girls in books doing awesome things, and struggled to find stories in her beloved fantasy genre that showed female heroes saving people and hunting things. She now scribbles her way through the fantasy genre, most loving to pen stories about flawed characters and gritty situations lightened with the occasional quirky humor. Emmie now lives in her eighth US state, still yearning for a return to Scotland. She inhabits a cozy domicile outside DC with two intrepid kitties who fancy themselves lions and tigers. She spends most of her time causing problems and ruining worlds. Emmie is also the editor and Grand Pooh-Bah of Searching for SuperWomen, a geek hub focused on furthering the conversation about the role of women in geekdom and loving awesome things in the process. Emmie may or may not secretly be a car.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Emmie Mears: Website<\/span><\/a> | Twitter<\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Storm in a Teacup: Amazon<\/span><\/a> | B&N<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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