Signing one contract does not mean you will be published for evermore.

When Kensington told me to get lost and didn’t renew my contract I went back to Harlequin where I started out. I asked if the editor I knew and loved there would take a look at my work. Sure, she said. Great idea.

But Harlequin is heavy, somber, angsty and not in love with mysteries or humor, the things I do best. I now hated writing. I dreaded sitting down to my computer and writing each day. It was torture but, I wanted to be published and this was my best shot. I lit candles, made novenas and promised works for charity for the next ten years if I’d sell. I still got rejected.

I decided I could be unemployed writing what I loved as easily as I could be unemployed writing what I hated. I love Sherlock Holmes and that TV show Castle.

I did the leap of faith thing and ditched fifteen years of writing romance and started over in cozy mysteries. It took me three months to write a proposal and sell it to Berkley Prime Crime for a three book deal! I am now Duffy Brown. The series is Consignment: Murder.

If you’ve got enough reject letters to paper your office maybe you should rethink what you’re writing. Instead of that erotic romance maybe a thriller, a cozy, a children’s book, YA, a cookbook!

You like to read romance and watch romantic movies but what else do you read or watch for a break? Of course you have to keep an eye on the market. See what else is selling right now. Is it time to put away that romance manuscript you’ve reworked five times and start something new…really new?

I’m not a believer in the do or die routine. I’m more of If this isn’t working then give something else a try.

If you didn’t write romance what else would you write? What other movies and TV shows spark your interest? Is there another story lucking in the recesses of your brain?

Are you ready to try something new?!

***

Have you ever had to make a major career change? How did it work for you?

Happy Independence Day! RU celebrates the 4th of July with C. J. Redwine and, hopefully, you!

***

Bio:

Duffy Brown loves anything with a mystery. While others girls dreamed of dating Brad Pitt, Duffy longed to take Sherlock Holmes to the prom. She has two cats, Spooky and Dr. Watson, and conjures up who-done-it stories of her very own for Berkley Prime Crime.

Iced Chiffon, out October, 2012, is the first book in the Consignment: Murder series. Duffy writes romance as Dianne Castell, is a USA Today bestselling author, won Romantic Times Reviewers Choice Award, HOLT-Medallion Award, has been on the cover of Romantic Times Magazine and the Waldenbooks Bestseller list.

We’re delighted to host Jessica Barksdale Inclan’s return to RU! Jessica is not only a genre fiction writer, but also pens poetry, short stories and more. She’s here today to talk about how we can use different writing techniques to overcome blocks in our creative processes.

Welcome, Jessica!

Writer’s block is very dramatic, a painfully romantic way to think about the intensity of the creative process.  There the writer is, sitting slumped at her desk, a bottle of (add in liquor of choice) at her side.  It’s clear she’s written before and perhaps well (her published books near her desk), but no longer.   Life as she knows it is over.  She’s blocked.  She has nothing to say at all.  The violin, harp, and cello wax and swell, the writer swoons some more.  End scene.

As much as it would be nice to believe in writer’s block, I don’t.  I believe in not being able to write something very good—happens all the time.  I believe in having a bad idea that is going to die and wither on the vine about page 75 (happens all the time, too).  I believe in fear—the notion of being scared to write because 1) no one will like it or 2) you won’t like it.

All of the above are common problems for writers.  But I don’t believe that a writer is blocked.  That the writer’s head is completely empty, that her fingers won’t move, that she has nothing to say.

Bottom line is that she just doesn’t want to say it.  Not now, at least.  And in an attempt to explain the non-writing, she says, “I have writer’s block.”

Everyone nods and understands, and the writer goes ahead and cleans the sink instead.

There is use for a fallow period in writing (most people who work take breaks from said work), but sometimes this fallow period lasts so long that the writer forgets to write.  Not writing certainly is easier than writing.  Cleaning  the sink—while useful and necessary—is not going to get a novel published.

So when I feel the urge for the Comet and sponge, I remember a few useful tips that have kept me from a dramatic swoon and writing.  Maybe what I’ve written hasn’t be published or been read, but that “bad” writing has kept the chain of writing alive and something later has been liked and read—by me and others.

1)    Write every day.  When I was a writing student, one of my teachers Anne Lamott famously said “Write 300 words a day.  In a year, you have a novel.”  Maybe that “novel” will be an ugly first draft, but 300 x 365 is 109,500 words.  That’s a little overlong for some novels, even.  There are a few thousand words to cut!  And writing 300 words isn’t too scary.  It’s barely a page and a half.  The truth is that once you start, you likely won’t stop at 300.  But 300 is ALL you have to do.  I promise.

2)     Try to back off the judgment.  More than likely, you will not be the next Nora Roberts or (fill in the latest NYT bestselling author).  Sorry, I have to say it.  But you might be the next—well—you, and you have things to say.  Don’t worry about the 300 words as you write them.  Now that getting them out is fabulous, and then know that you will have all the time you need to make them better.  Stop feeling that you are wasting your time and just put down the ideas.  Let the character roam.  Let the themes play out.  Since you are in control, you can later take all the time you need to make your story “perfect.”  But for now?  Lay off yourself, please.

3)    If a scene won’t start and you are sitting there about to develop a full blown case of fake writer’s block, start with dialogue.  In fact, make sure that you always write down  a provocative line that you hear in the grocery store, at a restaurant, at a coffee date.

One of my friends told me a story recently about her son’s first kiss.  He was telling my friend about it—a sweet summer vacation kiss by a lake—and my friend told me that after his first short kiss, her son turned to the girl and said, “That first kiss was so short, I have to ask for another.”

Hello!  What a line.  If I were blocked write now, I’d take that line and just go.  Do they kiss?  Does she say no?  Where are the parents of these almost 13-year-olds?  Is it sunrise or sunset?  Or 12 midnight?  Maybe the scene would go nowhere, but I’d have a nice little bit to use at some point.  And more importantly, I’d have opened the dam and let the words pour out.  As we know, broken dams are hard to fix.

4)     Get a good book on writing, one with exercises.  There is nothing like a prompt.  my favorite textbooks on writing are Janet Burroway’s Writing Fiction and Sandra Scofield’s The Scene Book.  If you really don’t know what to do, open the book and grab and exercise and do it.  Again, the above dam metaphor.

5)     Take a class.  There is nothing like peer pressure to get you going.  For my current sabbatical at the college where I teach at full-time, I am focusing on short story writing.  I am in a class, and even though I was in Barcelona on my honeymoon, I had homework to do!  So I wrote my story.  Is it groundbreaking?  I’m pretty sure not, but I know that I will get good feedback from my teacher and my fellow classmates, and I wrote a 17-page story.  Any threat of writer’s block was cured by the syllabus.

The bottom line is that if you want to write, you will write.  I think that’s the hardest thing to admit to yourself.   If you really wanted to tell a story, you’d be telling it.  Often for would-be writers, it’s easier to just sit back and let other parts of life take over.  And that’s not a bad thing.  Being a writer is often hard, unpaid work.  But for many, the fear of rejection and judgment keep them from sitting down and doing what they really dream of doing.

My advice:  do it, regardless of success.  Write because it’s fun and amazing.  And lord knows, you can clean the sink later.

Good luck.

***

RU Crew, how do you keep your creative process healthy and flowing? Have you tried techniques that absolutely do not work for you? Take a minute to share in the comments.

We have a treat on Friday when debut author B.A. Binns explains how a woman writes in a teenage boy’s point of view.

Jessica Barksdale Inclán’s debut novel Her Daughter’s Eyes, published in 2001, was the premier novel published under New American Library’s new imprint Accent. Her Daughter’s Eyes was a final nominee for the YALSA Award for the best books of 2001 and best paperbacks for 2001 and has been published in both Dutch and Spanish. Her next novel The Matter of Grace was published in May 2002. Her third, When You Go Away, came out April 1, 2003. Her fourth, One Small Thing, was published April 2004, and was translated into in Dutch and Spanish. Walking With Her Daughter, was published in April 2005, and her sixth, The Instant When Everything is Perfect in February 2006. Starting in June 2006, she published the first in a trilogy from Kensington Books, When You Believe. Reason to Believe, and Believe in Me. Her next trilogy began with Being With Him and Intimate Beings. The mass market version of Being with Him was released in September. She is a 2002 recipient of the CAC Artist’s Fellowship in Literature. Inclán teaches composition, creative writing, mythology, and women’s literature at Diablo Valley College in Pleasant Hill, California, and on-line and on-land creative writing courses for UCLA extension. She has studied with Sharon Olds, Anne Lamott, Kate Braverman, Grace Paley, Marjorie Sandor, and Cristina Garcia. Her short stories and poems have appeared in Rockhurst Review, Hotwired, The Salt Hill Journal, Free Lunch, The West Wind Review, The Prairie Star, Gargoyle and many other journals and newspapers. Her short story Open Eyes was given first prize by Sandra Cisneros for El Andar magazine’s 2000 writing contest. She co-edited a women’s literature/studies textbook Diverse Voices of Women (Mayfield Publishing, 1995). Ms. Inclán has degrees in sociology and English literature from CSU Stanislaus and a Master’s degree in English literature from SFSU. Ms. Inclán lives in Oakland, California and is currently at work on a contemporary novel and a book of essays and another romance.

Following their interview, Kris has provided a wonderful lecture on what’s the worst thing that could happen in your story. Be sure to check out. Kris and Barbara will check in throughout the day to answer your questions.

Take it away, ladies!

Tracey: How would you define the historical/medieval subgenre?

Barbara: Um, High Necklines and Low morals.
(Okay, that one was just to make you laugh. I don’t want to answer that, I mean come on, the answer is in the question.)

Kris: Fortunately, yes, this one is an easy one.

Tracey: What is your opinion of the state of this subgenre today?

Barbara: The historical romance? Well it is definitely alive and well. There are indications that it has peaked but then there always seems to follow another swell in demand. As far as medievals in particular, I do hear people struggling to place them, but good writing is good writing. If the content and execution are phenomenal, the book will sell.

Kris: I am guessing too, that some of it a toss of the dice.  How many books of a certain, small subgenre does a certain editor or publisher already have?  There’s only so much space in publishers’ release schedules, and if they already have some great medievals, it being a smaller market, they might turn it down.

And since this is nothing you have control over, I think if you and your Muse *have* to write a medieval, then you’d better write a medieval. We need more great ones!  And then, Barbara can help find the right home for it.

Tracey: Do you think it’s hot right now?  Why or Why not?

Barbara: (I kind of answered this above)

Kris: I have no idea how to answer this, in part because it doesn’t really matter.   Anything I’d say would be a ‘trend,’ and since there’s no way to know if a trend is a trend, or a new strong subgenre, we writers can’t really follow that either.  Our course direction has to be to follow where our writing is strongest.

That being said, if you have it in you to write a unique paranormal, say,  as well as a medieval, I’m going to guess you’d have more marketing options with the paranormal.

Tracey: Do you see any trends writers should avoid? Move toward? Any advice for writers wanting to break into this subgenre?

Barbara: Our agency represents Linda Lael Miller who, as far as I am concerned, is the single best historical western romance writer out there, so my bar is set very, very high, but still I always shoot my mouth off saying I am looking for a western historical. The reality of it is, it would need to be spectacular for me to place it as Westerns aren’t as popular as the Regency or even Scottish as of late. If you are looking into breaking in I would stick with Regency England Historicals BUT I would research research research. Those readers are extremely well versed in the times and will nail an author to the wall if there is some question of plot or demeanor or even dress plausibility.

Kris: Whatever she says.

Tracey: Why do you represent this subgenre?  What else do you represent? Do you see any cross-over, any similairites?

Barbara: For whatever reason, my super powers extend pretty much only to historical romance. I seem to have a 6th sense for placing them with the right house. I am hideous at contemporary romance; I just don’t have a refined enough palate to have a sense for the good stuff in that one. I can do some paranormal, though. So that leads me to believe it is all about the world building. The attention to craft, technique and detail in both historicals and paranormals is so important and I can thrive within that.

Tracey: Do you have any insight in “historical-friendly” agents and editors?

Barbara: Um, me.

Kris: Um, her.   :-)   And as far as editors, Barbara will know them, and what they want.

Tracey: How do you think this sub-genre has changed in the last five years?

Barbara: I think the envelope is allowed to be pushed a little more each year, some of the love scenes are a little hotter, the heroines are a little feistier. I also think that I have seen the secondary characters become much more fully realized and personally I love that.

Kris: I agree.  Strong secondary characters can tweak out corners of the main protagonists in new ways, making the tapestry of the story world much richer.   Oh, and I’m very pleased by the move towards hotter stories.  I love them hot.

Tracey: What are your predictions for this subgenre in the next one to three years?

Barbara: Wow, well if I had those I would not be answering these questions I would be at the Kate Spade store across the street spending all of the money coming my way in the next one to three years. But here is the thing: if you have the ability to craft a fresh, original take on a concept that works, with an alpha hero and a determined heroine you have a shot and being part of the sub genre. Just make sure to research the era and READ in your genre.

Kris:  Oohh, when you’re at Kate Spade, can you pick me up pair of those red heels, with the black . . . Well, really, any pair will do . . .

It’s hard to keep hearing the same things over and over: write a great story.  Give it a relatable hook so we can know where to put it on a shelf, but . . . be Unique and Original!

It’s like trying to read tea leaves. Which is why . . . I don’t think we should do it.

Agents and editors really mean it when they say those things.  It really is that indefinable.  Good art often is.

Think about it.  Think about the stories you love to read.  Yes, you could probably explain what you loved about them, but that can’t be sufficient explanation, can it?  Because there are other stories out there with those same exact elements, that didn’t grab you.  Why?  Can you explain it in a way that would allow someone else to say, “Oky-doky!  Got it.  I’ll start doing that in my manuscripts from here on out.”

Probably not.  “Strong heroine” could be a thousand different things.  This is just one of those things.   You know it when you see it.

I think we writers should forget trends, forget the indefinables.

I think we should read craft books.  I think we should read books in the genre we want to write in.   Most importantly, I think we should write.  Lots.   Quantity produces quality. The more you do it, the better you will get.   (As long as you’re not banging your head against a wall, ignoring feedback and not evolving.)   It’s *exactly* like playing the piano. The more you play, the better you get.

And we should take risks in our writing.  Once you have the basic craft elements down, don’t be safe. Push your own personal envelope.   (More on one way to do this in my craft-related blog here at RU today, “I Mean Really . . . What’s The Worst That Could Happen?”)

And, if you know that you simply must write, then write.  Worry about writing, not selling.   I think the overwhelming focus on being published can actually be detrimental to us as craftswomen.   I don’t recall it being so strong when I first got involved with RWA, maybe 10 years ago.  Think about Story.   How do I write a great story?

Focus there, be persistent, be smart about it, and forget about trends.  Who knows what might happen?

Thanks so much for having us here!

* * *

Read on for Kris’ fabulous lecture:

I Mean Really . . . What’s The Worst That Could Happen?

A car chase?  The murderer walking in?   A slip of the tongue?  An army marching by and setting up camp beneath the tree where the hero and heroine are hiding and, ahem, engaged in other activities? (THE IRISH WARRIOR, June, ‘10, pg 266 )

Because whatever that ‘worst thing’ is, that’s what we need to do in our fiction.

In the scene you’re writing today, or the one you’re revising, have you really made the characters sweat?  Pushed them to their limits (as they are thus far revealed)?  Have you taken away the person the hero relies on, the quality the heroine depends on, the outcome they expected, and turned it all on its head?

If not, back to the drawing board.

This is part of what keeps readers reading.  And moreover, gets them really engaged and excited about the story.  Creates that feeling inside them of “No WAY!  What’s going to happen next?”   Makes them wave off the husband who comes in to ask about dinner and ignore the ringing phone for just one  . . . more . . . minute.   Unable to resist,  they do what we writers NEED them to do, if we want a career in the publishing world: They Turn The Page.

Voila.  A page-turner.

To my mind, this is especially important in genre fiction, because the reader already *knows* how everything’s going to turn out. Hel-LO, it’s a romance. He gets the girl.  She gets the boy.  They live Happily Ever After, or at least with a real hope of it.

And yet, even in genre fiction, one of the things that keeps people reading is the tension that arises from a story question on each page.

You don’t need to have car chases or vampiric attacks on every page (please feel free to do these things, but they’re not required, unless you have vampires who need to attack and such.)  In fact, stories with the most explosions (speaking metaphorically) don’t always sell with the most astonishing results, because there was never any tension in the reader.  What *is* required is a certain level of tension within the reader, a feeling of “There’s  a story question here and I have to see it answered.”

And one of the most fun, effective ways to do it is make bad stuff happen to your characters.

Whhheeee! It’s like being at an amusement park.  No, really.

(And, lest my enthusiasm for Terrible Things Happening To Good People lead you to think I believe it’s the only ingredient  to creating reader involvement, I’ll say right now, I know it’s not.   For instance,  it helps if readers care about your characters.  So you have to write compelling protagonists.  Just as a for instance.  But this blog is about making those compelling protagonists suffer, which is the fun part.  And, not coincidentally, it leads to creating characters readers care about, so it’s a very cool feedback loop.)

Making things bad for our characters can be difficult for us writers.  Without even knowing it, we take it easy on them.  They planned to make it home from work that night, and, lo and behold, they make it home from work that night.

Bo-o-o-ring.  I mean, maybe *sometimes* they can make it home from work.  Like, say, on Tuesdays.

But if you want a page turner, you may want to turn up the heat, throw them some curve balls, do the unexpected, take away whatever they thought they needed, then push them  in the river when they don’t know how to swim.  And oh my goodness, did you say a flash flood is coming??

Whatever expectations you set up at the start of the scene or chapter, try blowing them out of the water, and see what happens.   Whatever goals you had for them, ensure they do not achieve them, and in the most uncomfortable ways imaginable.

A simple test for your current scene:

Are your characters’ scene-by-scene goals being answered with one of the following?

~ Yes, but . . .

~ No.

Or, my favorite,

~ No, and furthermore . . .

Oh, yes!  Yes, yes, yes!  Now, that’s some Story fun.

If your characters are achieving their goals as planned in each scene, you can very likely ramp up the tension and get your readers engaged more deeply by trying this approach.

Again, I’m not talking the literary equivalent of “24”.  Your story can be a very ‘quiet’ one, with two people simply trying to avoid falling in love.  But within that framework, there need to be story questions that keep the reader engaged.

What’s the last thing your heroine successfully accomplished, or that went as planned?   Her alarm clock going off on time?  Her winning the case?  The carriage arriving on time for the ball?   Did she talk to a friend and does she feel better now?   Stop that.

Make her fail.  Put a bigger obstacle in her way, one that has to stop her dead in her track, make her readjust course, into a brick wall. Or better yet, the hero!

And who about him?  What’s he got going on?

Did the boat arrive at the dock as expected?  Is the castle gate open?    Did he plan to wear clothes to work today?  And were they all hanging there in his closet as expected?  Darn.   Was his side-kick a reliable and trustworthy side-kick, with no personal agendas or ulterior motives, not thwarting the hero in any way, even for the best of reasons?

Did they person they went to for help give them help?  Did they get the information they needed?  Did the army about to camp beneath the tree they’re hiding in move on and camp somewhere else?  (In draft versions #1-43 of THE IRISH WARRIOR, they did.  Then, to my surprise, they decided to camp beneath the tree, and holy moley . . . .)

Give it a try with the scene you’re working on today.  Or, if you hit a boring, ho-hum patch in your manuscript, go back about 2 chapters, and make something that went well, go poorly.   Make something that went as planned, go awry.  Make the army camp beneath the tree.  Mix it up.

Push them in the river and don’t teach them how to swim.  That’s why we’re reading.  We want to watch them learn.

* * *

RU Readers, what do you think? Are medievals hot? Will you give Kris’ technique of making something good go bad?

In February, we’ll also highlight we’ll highlight Regency/Edwardian and Victorian periods. Check our lecture schedule for the dates.

Be sure to stop back on Monday to chat with 2009 RWA Bookseller of the Year Rosemary Potter. She’ll tell us what draws her to a book and how authors can make their books stand out.

Kris’ Bio:
Kris Kennedy writes sexy, adventure-filled medieval romances for Kensington and Pocket Books.  Her debut book, THE CONQUEROR, came out May ‘09.  Her second, THE IRISH WARRIOR, was the winner of RWA’s 2008 Golden Heart ® Award for Best Historical Romance, and releases June ‘10.   Kris loves hearing from readers–stop by her website  http://www.kriskennedy.net/, sign up for her newsletter, and say Hi!

Barbara’s Bio:
Barbara Poelle began her publishing career as a freelance copywriter and editor before joining the Irene Goodman Agency in 2007, but feels as if she truly prepared for the industry during her brief stint as a stand-up comic in Los Angeles. She has found success placing thrillers, literary suspense, historical romances, humorous/platform driven non-fiction, and upmarket fiction and is actively seeking her next great client in those genres, but is passionate about anything with a unique voice. Barbara has a very hands on approach with the craft and editorial details of the books she represents, and loves working with her clients to take their writing to the next level.

Jessica, thanks for taking the time to visit with our Romance University readers!

Kelsey: What genre(s) were you published in prior to publishing a romance?

Jessica: Hi, Kelsey and Romance University readers!

I actually started out my writing career as a poet.  I was very literary and very serious (I am an English professor, after all!).  The classes I took were focused on poetry, so the study and my writing were about figurative language, description, detail, metaphor, and symbol.  This focus still serves me well, as I think that I am able to bring those skills to my storytelling.  I later moved into short story writing and then novel writing.  My first six novels are considered literary/contemporary novels, and as I moved into that writing and then into romance writing, I feel I’m just carting around a bigger set of tools.  I have a huge tool box!  I’ve also dabbled in screenplay writing, though, truly, I don’t do that very well.  I need another few classes, many ten or twenty.  And I’m now turning my attention toward non-fiction, and grabbing more tools as I take classes and revise my essays.

Kelsey: When and why did you decide to write a romance novel?

Jessica: I write quickly, and my agent suggested that I try my hand at a genre that would allow me to publish more than once a year.  I really can’t “not” write, so it felt good to be productive.  I had to “learn” romance, so I studied and read about 100 romances one summer.  Then I set about writing my first romance novel, When You Believe, and my agent was able to sell it to Kensington.  I really got the “bug” for writing romances, and my sixth with them–The Beautiful Being–will be out October 2009.

Kelsey: Do you find different writing skills are needed to become published in the romance genre? Different PR skills?

Jessica: There is a format to a romance, and that is a blessing and a curse.  The blessing is that it provides a framework, the very basic one being:  boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back.  The curse is that you get a wild hair and want boy to find another, better girl and then die at the end, the romance reading population is likely not going to be very happy about it.  The HEA is very important, and woe to the writer who steps out of bounds.  The blogsphere will take her (or him) to task.

I think that good writing is good writing.  All writers need to do the heavy lifting.  I am of the opinion that some romance writers could help us all out by not relying on some very tired and overused phrases, especially related to sex scenes.  Just because it has worked 5,607 times does not mean we have to write “her heart beat wildly against her ribs” one more time.  I would like to start a mandate that forbids any writer from using more than three clichés per novel (we all need to have at least three because a cliché is often based on truth and sometimes nothing else will work).  Any more than that, and the writer has to go back and take a poetry class.

Romance writers do more PR than any other type of writer, though, sadly, with the market the way it is, I see all writers trying to market and promote themselves.  When I first published, there wasn’t this Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, contest wildness.  But now it’s what all writers (even poets!) do.

Kelsey: Tell us about the challenge of writing in more than one genre at a time.

Jessica: The challenge is in remembering the audience.  Literary audiences want theme and character more than plot.  Genre readers often want plot and character more than theme.  Poetry readers want to think and feel and not be told.  Short story readers want the package to be perfect and meaningful with snappy, clear dialogue.  And essay readers want to relate, be amazed, laugh, cry and empathize with the writer.  Keeping all that in mind can be a bit exhausting.

Kelsey: Did you face other challenges in making the transition to writing romance?

Jessica: I think some of my writer friends were embarrassed for me.  They thought I was “slumming.”  I was outraged by that because we have a huge literary tradition, we romance writers, starting, perhaps, with Jane Austen.  Pride and Prejudice is truly a romance.  And anyway, who doesn’t love love?  Who did my writer friends think they were?

More people buy romance novels than any other genre–more women read than men.  We are holding down the reading front, we romance writers, and we are writing what people want.

Ultimately, I don’t argue with my snobby friends, and I just keep writing.  I enjoy what I write, I put all my skills into it, and I am proud of what romance writers do.

Kelsey: What do you wish you had known before pursuing this market?

Jessica: That more is usually more.  To not hold back.  To say yes to opportunities and not be picky because sometimes, opportunities only come around once.  To get right on the Internet horse and ride it as far as possible.  I had a web site from the moment I sold my first novel–Her Daughter’s Eyes–a year before it was published, but I was clueless about ways of bringing people to my site.

Now I’ve got it down, but so do 150,000 other writers with books out this year.  I do my best, but I think we learn as we go.

Kelsey: Do you have any other advice for writers who are considering changing genres or writing in more than one genre?

Jessica: Take a class on the genre you wish to write in.  One of my early teachers told me to consider the first ten years of my study as a writer as an apprenticeship.  This work does not come easily, and we have to write and practice and grow and not imagine that it’s going to come “now” just because we want it to.

I teach a day class at UCLA on writing and selling the romance novel, and a woman showed up to one session and told us that she wanted to quit her day job, write a romance, and live off the proceeds.  I nearly fell off my chair (I was standing, so that would have been hard).  She did not like my advice to “not quit her day job” at all.  But think of the hard work you are doing learning this new genre as practice and don’t expect it to all unfold immediately.  Sometimes, miracles happen, but don’t count on them.  Work.  Read.  Study.  And keep writing.

Jessica, we appreciate your honesty on the skills and fortitude it takes to be a writer, whether writing in one or more genres. I guess if the first ten years is an apprenticeship, I have almost eight years to go!

Jessica Barksdale Inclán’s debut novel Her Daughter’s Eyes, published in 2001, was the premier novel published under New American Library’s new imprint Accent. Her Daughter’s Eyes was a final nominee for the YALSA Award for the best books of 2001 and best paperbacks for 2001 and has been published in both Dutch and Spanish. Her next novel The Matter of Grace was published in May 2002. Her third, When You Go Away, came out April 1, 2003. Her fourth, One Small Thing, was published April 2004, and was translated into in Dutch and Spanish. Walking With Her Daughter, was published in April 2005, and her sixth, The Instant When Everything is Perfect in February 2006. Starting in June 2006, she published the first in a trilogy from Kensington Books, When You Believe. Reason to Believe, and Believe in Me. Her next trilogy began with Being With Him and Intimate Beings. The final book in the trilogy–The Beautiful Being– will come out October 2009. She is a 2002 recipient of the CAC Artist’s Fellowship in Literature. Inclán teaches composition, creative writing, mythology, and women’s literature at Diablo Valley College in Pleasant Hill, California, and on-line and on-land creative writing courses for UCLA extension. She has studied with Sharon Olds, Anne Lamott, Kate Braverman, Grace Paley, Marjorie Sandor, and Cristina Garcia. Her short stories and poems have appeared in Rockhurst Review, Hotwired, The Salt Hill Journal, Free Lunch, The West Wind Review, The Prairie Star, Gargoyle and many other journals and newspapers. Her short story Open Eyes was given first prize by Sandra Cisneros for El Andar magazine’s 2000 writing contest. She co-edited a women’s literature/studies textbook Diverse Voices of Women (Mayfield Publishing, 1995). Ms. Inclán has degrees in sociology and English literature from CSU Stanislaus and a Master’s degree in English literature from SFSU. Ms. Inclán lives in Oakland, California and is currently at work on a contemporary novel and a book of essays and another romance.