It's summer

by: Joelle Charbonneau

Summer means time for barbeques and fun in the sun. It’s the time of year for pool parties and weddings and all sorts of frolicking. Of course, if you’re like me, you find yourself having to work hard to sit down at the computer, ignore the sunshine and get yourself writing.

However, despite the lure of fun in the sun, I admit that this is my favorite time of year to write and set goals. And there’s a reason why. While the publishing industry gets work done in the summer, it is at a much slower pace. Sure, there are still deals being made. James Patterson just sold the next bazillon books for a bazillion more dollars. But really, the pace of the sales and the pace of the business slows down a great deal. Editors take vacations. Editorial boards don’t always have everyone present to have an acquisitions meeting. Agents take vacations. They close off to submissions in order to catch up on their work loads and start fresh in the fall. The pace of publishing slows down as summer heats up. Once Labor Day hits, the wheels will begin to spin at a faster (well, faster for publishing) pace.

Which means this is a great time to forget about the business of writing and just write.

So here’s the deal. I want you all to list your writing goals below in the comments. Do you have a book you are trying to finish? Are you going to write 100 words a day? Do you need to create a query letter to wow those agents and editors when they come back from vacation? What are the writing goals you want to hit before September smacks you in the face? List them here and when Labor Day arrives, I’ll check back in and see how everyone did with their goals. If you hit them, I’ll put your name in the hat to win a really cool prize. What is that prize you ask? I haven’t the slightest idea. Could be gift certificate to Barnes and Nobel or another cool bookstore. Could be a copy of SKATING OVER THE LINE – if I get my author copies in time. Could be a rubber chicken. The point isn’t the prize (although I promise it’ll be something fun). The point is that this is the time to set your goal and get to work knowing that everyone else signing up for the challenge is right there with you.

So –who’s with me?

CHALLENGGGEEEEE

It's a challenge.

Deep down writing is a challenge. To have the discipline to sit down every day and write is a challenge to begin with.

But what good writers do is challenge themselves everyday. Tonight I attended a signing for Jason Pinter's newest The Fury and Reed Farrel Coleman's (with Ken Bruen) Tower. At the signing both talked about challenge themselves as they sat down to write these novels. To do something different.

As a writer, I respect that. One of the things that's always been important to me is doing something different each time out. To find at least one thing to focus on that was something I hadn't done before. With When One Man Dies I just wanted to complete and publish a novel. With The Evil that Men Do the challenge was to tell a story that had two linear narratives and amp up the speed and action.

Now I'm working on two novels. And each time out, I'm challenging myself more. The novel I've almost completed is a standalone. All the characters in it are brand new. I had to think differently about how to tell a story, who's eyes I'm telling it through. I had to make everything up from scratch. It was a pain in the butt, but I think I'm getting there.

Next I'm challenging myself by making the setting smaller, new characters, smaller stakes, but just as compelling. It's difficult to think about, and even harder to get down on paper. And you know something, that's just the way I like it.

I don't want to tell the same story twice. Each time I sit down to write I want to do something new. I want to come up with ideas and characters no one has seen before. It may not always work, but that's fine. I'd rather fall from the highest heights, that stand on the ground not even looking up.

Try Dennis Lehane. He challenged himself by telling new and different series novels for a while. Then he BLEW IT UP and wrote huge, gut wrenching standalones. And now the rumor is he's going back to the series. That's got to be a challenge, going back to characters nearly ten years later. I'm interested to see what he comes up with.

But what do you as the reader want to see? More of the same or something brandy dandy new?