Summertime Blues

Posted By: Lisa Hendrix

Currently Celebrating: Release of IMMORTAL OUTLAW

Mood: Overheated

I'm happy, really. IMMORTAL OUTLAW is out and doing well, everyone in the family's healthy, it's all good. And yet, there they are. The Summertime Blues. To quote Eddie Cochrane:

I'm gonna raise a fuss, I'm gonna raise a holler

About a workin' all summer just to try to earn a dollar

I'm with Eddie. In my mind, summer is not for work. I was raised by parents who believed that summers were for sleeping in late, spending afternoons in a hammock under a tree with a large iced tea, and passing the evenings in a cool, still house with friends so good that no one has to talk, listening to the crickets.

Somehow writing doesn't fit into that idyllic scenario. It's hard to write in a hammock. The angle's wrong, and the heat from a laptop makes you want to throw yourself into an ice bucket. Writing is brain work, and summer is a season that relaxes a brain so much as to make it useless. I know this, I plan every year to have my ducks lined up in nice, tidy rows so that I can have the summer free, and still I once more find myself working my tuchas off (tuchas, that's Yiddish for "ever-expanding rear"), polishing off a proposal I should have had in ages ago, and setting myself up to have to work seriously all summer long.

And it's not just writing that lines up to steal my summer: I just completed a blog tour and with all the other promotion I've been trying to squeeze in, summer is a third over and I have yet to enjoy more than five minutes of it. Latter parts of the summer will involve repeated trips to Portland and Seattle for signings—like the this Saturday's NW Book Festival—and to do college stuff for my son. [Speaking of which, which of the Jesuit Fathers of Seattle U decided it was smart to force families to waste money and time to travel to Seattle in the middle of July for a 2-day freshman orientation instead of just having them show up 2-days early in September? May I watch while he scourges himself for idiocy, please? Pretty please?]

Worst of all is the knowledge that it my own blasted spring fever procrastination that put my in this fix, and that is going to force me to dig deep for enough discipline to stay in and get the writing done. No summer for Lisa. //Whine//

All is not midnight darkness, however. There are a few rays of hope. The 4th of July is coming up, and that's a guaranteed break complete with fireworks and watermelon. Then there will be the occasional weekend at my mother-in-law's. She has a house in the Hood River Valley that comes complete with cherry orchard, that hammock I crave, and a porch swing that looks out toward Mt. Hood from like, 3 ft away.

Very cool. And one of those trips to Portland will include at least a few hours at the Oregon Zoo, and I may work in Woodland Park or Point Defiance, too, while I'm in Seattle. Zoos are one of my favorite summertime indulgences, and have been for years: I've been to 12 major zoos in the US (13 if you count Disney World's Animal Kingdom), plus the Ueno Park Zoo in Tokyo. Toss all those beasts together with the Norwegian fisheries prof I worked for, and you'll find a good deal of the basis for the Immortal Brotherhood series. Zoos have enabled me to see and hear lions in full morning roar, twice--quite useful when I needed to describe what Marian heard during the nights, when Steinarr never seemed to be around...

Somewhere in the midst of summer, we'll also work in a long weekend at the beach. Nothing refreshes, relaxes, utterly re-sets me like ocean air and sandy socks and those long, amazing Oregon beaches. And each time I return from one of these summer interludes, I'll be that much more ready to make myself sit down. Once I'm down, of course, its fun, just like it is in the winter. It's just a matter of getting the tuchas down in the seat.

So yes, I'll get the writing done, and I'll love it, and with any luck, so will my editor.

I just had to whine a little first, but I'm all better now. See, there is a cure for the Summertime Blues.

Lisa

--------

Lisa Hendrix

IMMORTAL OUTLAW (June 2009)

4-1/2 Stars, Top Pick and K.I.S.S. Hero Award from RT

Buy Immortal Outlaw at Amazon

Trend, Schmend

Posted by: Lisa Hendrix

Currently working on:  IMMORTAL CHAMPION

Mood: Waxing philosophical (because it's better than waxing the floor)

Trend-setting in fashion has never been my thing. For that matter, neither has trend-following, at least not in a timely manner. Back in my HS and college days, if I started wearing something, you could be pretty sure the trend was already over. I was fortunate enough to make a friend or two along the way who could point me in the right direction 

and keep me from looking like a total dufus, but through most of my life I've avoided the whole problem by keeping to classic styles: blazers, skirt or pants, turtlenecks or oxford shirts. Toss in the occasional tailored dress—when I can find one with a waist that falls somewhere near mine instead of 5 inches too high—and you've got my closet.  [Wishing I look like The Hepburn...]

And yet in books, I've too often found myself trend-watching. I think the tendency comes out of my first sale. I was finishing up a medieval just as the bottom fell out of the medieval market. Then I had a chance at an editor appointment. The house had just launched a new line of western-set historicals, and I realized that the idea I had for a second medieval would work just as well in the American west. So I pitched that one and ended up selling it to that editor. I wrote another western, then faded away just as that particular trend (and my editor) did.

When I came back, my new editor was looking for contemporaries and paranormals. I had a couple of ideas floating around in the back of my head, so I wrote one of the latter (paranormal light, really) and then a couple of the former. And then I had family issues that took me away from writing again.

And came back to another new editor.

This time, I had an idea—a dream, really— that had nothing to do with what anyone was looking for. I LOVED this idea and the even bigger idea that grew out of it, and that's what I pitched, and the stars or the Muses or something were with me—or perhaps it was just my clear enthusiasm—and my editor loved it too.  As it happens, the idea touched on a trend that was current (paranormal) and on one that was due to come back and now has actually started to burgeon (historicals/medievals) to come 

up with a "paranormal historical romance." And for once I was out ahead of a trend.  Not setting it, perhaps, but not tagging along like your little sister, either.  At any rate, I wasn't trend-hunting, 'cause if I had been, I would undoubtedly have been the last onboard, just as I was the last girl in high school to put on hot pants. (Stop snickering, ladies.  I only weighed 120 pounds back then...)  [Anyone recognize Jo Ann Pflug, aka Lt. Dish from *M*A*S*H*?]

So what do you take away from this?  I don't know.  It wouldn't be "Write to trend." That first sale (Hostage Heart) came from an idea that I already had, and I merely tailored it to the trend. And it's not like a forced myself to write something I didn't like. I read westerns and still do, and the next one came to me easily (Drifter's Moon). 

But it also wouldn't be "Never write to trend." I generated the ideas for the next books (Razzle Dazzle, To Marry an Irish Rogue, and Runaway Bay) specifically because my editor was looking for those kinds of book. That doesn't mean I didn't enjoy writing them.  Those ideas came to me just as easily and flowed with just as much joy as that very first unsold medieval.  I always have a dozen or more sets of characters rolling around in my skull anyway, so it's easy to coax one or two up to the front to meet a need. Right now, I could easily drift off course on my Immortal Brotherhood series and write something utterly different. But I won't.

I guess the message is "Write the book you WANT to write." If your idea is unique and "weird" and a "tough sell" but you love it and can't imagine writing anything else, write it.  You probably have equal shots at being the one to set the trend or nose diving into the tank of anonymity. That's the risk you take. On the other hand, if you have a a couple of ideas that are equally attractive and one just happens to suit the trending market and you want to have a better chance at selling...well, why not write that one?  Just don't write a book you have no desire to write solely because it's a trend.  Unless, of course, you need the money and already have the sure sale.  Or if... 

Oh, what the heck.  Be bold. Write what you want, for whatever reason you want. Plenty of people have supported their families by writing a combination of books of the moment and books of their heart.  Just ask Charles Dickens and Mark Twain.

It's your life and your business. You get to run it how you want. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

[Think these Harajuku Girls worry about trends? Or do they just want to have fun?]

—————

BTW, the result of that dream I mentioned is The Immortal Brotherhood series, Book 2 of which, IMMORTAL OUTLAW, is coming out in about 5 weeks.  Excerpt goes up today at lisahendrix.com. Pop on over for a peek.