The Voices in My Head

Don’t worry, I’m a writer: We’re supposed to hear voices. The trouble comes when there are just so many of them. I am to the point of actually plotting out a career path for myself. Sure, luck will have a big say in it, probably a bigger say than even I have, but there are a few decisions I can make. Most notably, what kind of writer do I want to be? What kind of stories do I want to tell? Because really, there are lots of different kinds of stories floating around in my head. My novel, the completed and polished one that has my heart all over its pages, is a fantasy romance. And even that label isn’t sufficient, but labels never are, so that one is close enough. But I also have a straight contemporary romance that is completed but not polished. And there’s a paranormal time travel romance (whew, talk about your layered plot) that won’t get out of my head. So now I am faced with the decision of where to focus. I suppose I could take the approach of just throwing stuff at a wall and seeing what sticks, but my time is limited. Right now, I’m working on the business end of my fantasy romance, which is tentatively titled Star of Prophecy. I’m doing the query, agent and editor research, and proposal work for that one, and that takes a different part of my brain than straight creative work. So even though the business work on Star is my top priority, I have a need to create as well, and have to make time for that. So the big question is … which story do I tell? I suspect lots of writers have this problem, and maybe lots of them write many different kinds of stories. But I also know that readers get used to certain types of stories from authors and get frustrated when authors go off on what readers perceive to be tangents. As a reader, I’m the same way. I want Patricia Cornwell to stick to Scarpeta novels, Janet Evanovich to stay firmly in Stephanie Plum’s head, and I want Diana Gabaldon to be the scribe for Jamie and Claire exclusively. No, this isn’t fair, to expect writers to limit themselves, but hey, life is not fair. So, that leaves me with the question, now what? Do I draw characters from a hat? Try to write a little on everything? Go ahead and have that nervous breakdown I so richly deserve?

Finished-- Again!

How many times now have I gleefully announced that my manuscript is finished? Many, many times. And likely, this isn’t the last time, but once again, hurray! The book is finished! Any excuse for a margarita, right? Honestly, I am so sick of this manuscript this time, I have no desire to go back to tweak story or grammar. It’s all done except for formatting and printing, which I’ll need Michael’s help with and which probably won’t get done until the weekend.
And I’m taking some online advice from published writers and researching editors based on the works of other authors whose books I have really liked and which can sort of be considered to be in a category with my own book. I’m sure I’ll manage to drag this process out well into next year because the whole idea of the business side of writing is just so dreadful a thought to me, but I do have a game plan for how to proceed. That counts for something, right?
So now, I must put in a new Baby Einstein movie and get back to procrastinating.