Transitions from Thanksgiving To Christmas - Cleaning House

Yes, it is that time when I get to bring in all of the boxes and we transition between two holidays. 

It is cleaning time as well.

I wanted to give you your writing task for today. Yes, this is one of those that will not require writing, but please, do not stop me if you have a really good idea. 

Clean up your work space. Spruce it up. Make it a great place to write. This way, when you sit down next, you will be ready to really craft the best story of your life!

Have a Wonderful Thanksgiving!

Remember. I always say to do at least one thing for your craft EVERY day? And yes, you are thinking, "But Scott, this is Thanksgiving (in the US), Waaaaaaaahhhhh!" I, don't care. Here is your task.

Here is what I want you to do today! It is nice and simple. 

Look at what you just wrote. Don't criticize it. Just look at it and be thankful.

That is so many more words you wrote toward those two words you are shooting for "THE END"

Now, go enjoy the day! 

Where Do I Think Contemporary Romance Is Going?

OK, time to break out the Magic 8 Ball and take some guesses. 

And as you know, guessing trends in this business is something I believe we all wish we can do. It is that one question we are asked over and over again at conferences by all of you authors. "So what do you see as the next trend?" At that point, we all look at each other and pretty much squirm thinking, "There is no way I'm going to take that question."

Well, I'm going out on a limb here today. Let's talk about contemporary romance today. 

We have now had a ton of romantic comedies. We had a resurgence of what we used to call "chick lit" but now we thought we would just call it rom-con so we didn't make ourselves look old. OK, people kind of liked that because it was fun, light and certainly took our minds off of a lot of bad and negative things going on around us in the world. We sort of extended our "summer beach reads" to a full year long habit. 

Then that transformed into sports romances. People were all into the hot athletic guys. It wasn't about the sports. It was more about the fact that after the game, they had to take off those sweaty uniforms and the readers got to see their abs. Whew! And we still made these stories fun and light. Keep the rom-con feel and keep the fast beach read feel. 

And editor bought up these books like crazy. 

Now, here is where my prediction is coming into play. Editors bought and bought and bought, and now the readers out there are going to the bookstore, looking at the shelves and saying "these all look alike." Even worse, they have now turned all of the book covers (including historical romances) into those trade paperback cartoon covers so now literally EVERYTHING looks alike. 

And readers are seeing it. I went into my local Barnes and Noble and in the romance section I heard several readers say "there is nothing new" even though there were new debut authors. 

Editors are just trying to get these books out of their warehouses. 

So, where do I think things are going. I personally believe we are going to swing the pendulum a bit more to some more realistic romances. No, I am not talking about non-fiction stories where we just changed the names. I think we are going to see more stories that have people we could easily find as neighbors. Give them a good strong conflict to deal with (not just a cliche new neighbor storyline) but not something so over-the-top, but a good romance we could just get into.

And, by the way, we are going to dump all of the insanely heavy baggage stories where the heroine in the story is dealing with EVERY emotional drama of the 21st century and needs an entire hospital of psychologists to solve her problems. 

And I do think the covers are going to change too! (Oh please!!!!!)

Checking In - It's Been A While But The Computer Did Not Look Fun

Yes, I know. I tell you always to keep you social media going and then I do this. I can make a lot of excuses but you know what? I'm not!

Did life get busy around here? Yes. But, did I just procrastinate? Yes to that too! 

In all honesty, on  the top of my to do list I have "BLOG!" There is even the exclamation point there to stress the point so there should be no excuse. But when I would get ready to move to that task, I had already been on the computer for a ton of other business things that day, and frankly, one more task was just not doing it for me. 

I needed a break. 

But I do want to turn this around a bit for those of you who are professional writers. Now, when I say professional writers, it means that you are actually doing this not as a hobby, but you are under contract with a publisher and you have deadlines. Maybe you are just starting with a publisher and getting ready to set up those deadlines. 

I recently finished reading A.J. Wolfe's fantastic book, DISNEY ADULTS: Exploring (And Fall In Love With) A Magical Subculture. For those of you who are not familiar with A.J. she is the head of Disney Food Blog on Social Media. Now, along with justifying my obsessive habit of all things Disney with everyone else, there were times in the book when she talked about why some of the people went to the parks for "me time." We just "needed a break."

If you are a professional writer, you DO NEED TO CONTINUE TO PRODUCE. Yes, I put that in bold print. In today's publishing world, one book a year or two is not going to make you successful. Even two books a year is really tough to make it in this competitive market. Those who are doing it well are often putting out 4 books a year. And I should note, these are "high quality books." They aren't just cranking something out, running it through their spellchecker and grammar checker, slapping a cover they created on Canva and slapping it on KDP. These people are often going through those traditional publishing routes. I know, this sounds tough. But, with a schedule like this, even they take breaks. 

Do they do something with their craft 6-7 days a week? Sure. Sometimes it is simply reading and thinking about it. But yes, they do step away from the computer. They walk away from their computers to say, "not now."

Are they there if the editor needs them? You better believe it. 

So, I have now gotten a lot of projects cleared off my desk. It is time for me to get back into the swing of things.

Let me know some things you would like to hear about!!!!