Kelsey: Welcome, Jeannie! Could you give a quick overview of your business and the number of hours per week you spend interacting with clients and designing websites?

Jeannie:  Thank you for having me, Kelsey!  (waving to Adrienne and Tracey.)  My business is called Will Design For Chocolate (and yes, I do…twice a year, my husband selects a project # assigned to a client and that client gets their work done for a box of chocolates…which my husband will then most likely eat.) 

I have been in design and marketing for fifteen years, working for a variety of companies ranging from start ups to Fortune 500.  Eventually, I decided to take my two loves – design and books—and combine them. My clients are mostly writers and authors, which I love – not only because it’s a joy to work with them, but because I believe I’m in a strong position to help them succeed in their marketing goals.  I cover the gamut of marketing design, from websites to bookmarks, print and online advertising.  You name it, I can probably design it.  And if I don’t know what’s needed, I’m just curious and stubborn enough that I’ll take the time to find out.  In fact, last year I worked on a client’s first cyber Christmas Party. We threw it in the game Second Life. I knew nothing about it to start, but delved in …and we had a wonderful time.

The number of hours a week I have scheduled to work on clients and graphic needs is twenty-four, but the weeks those twenty-four end up being the only hours spent on clients are…well, actually, I don’t believe I’ve ever had one. (Just ask my husband.)  I love my clients, so saying no to something they need is difficult.  And saying no to a project that excitements me or knowing that I might lose that project because my schedule is full for two months is really difficult, but I have to be realistic when I accept jobs.  It’s only fair to my clients to know what to expect and to my family to get the time they deserve.

Kelsey: You also write for Wild Rose Press so how do you schedule your business projects without compromising your writing projects?

Jeannie:  To be truthful, at times my writing does take a backseat (is my editor reading this?). At the core, it’s the job that pays the bills. But I also feel a very strong loyalty to my clients. They trust me with their needs, and I feel I have to honor that trust.  It’s the luxury I have right now working with a small press, my deadlines are more flexible and I can control more of my time. 

The difficulty for me is that both of my jobs – the writing and the design – are creative.  They pull from the same portion of my brain, and after a long day of design work, it’s like wringing a dry sponge to pull any creative writing out of me.  So at times, I’m forcing myself to just get words on the page.  I can and will go back and revise, sharpen and polish them later… but finishing that first draft is often the hardest step for me.  Editing is easier when I’m the middle of design projects. When I start editing, my right-side brain breathes a sigh of relief. I start with a checklist of things to edit for – repetitious words, my weakness, and other things—so for me, at least, it’s more analytical and more a left-brained activity.  

Kelsey: How do you manage multiple projects, both design and writing related? How do you structure your days?

Jeannie: I am constantly looking for the best way to do just that.  When I started getting busier, I just worked…and worked.  Ultimately, I worked a lot – day and night, to try and do as much as I could.  It was normal to be up until 3am many nights….and up by 7 with my son.  And that would be an example of how NOT the way to find balance in anything. J  Everything suffers when you aren’t more careful with your time. 

The only way I can function with so many projects is to compartmentalize as much as possible.  Separate days for different projects—including emails, etc–and following a strict To Do list of items that I focus on until they are finished.  Because this isn’t always my strong suit, my husband helped me a lot during this time and he’s taking on some aspects of my business (like billing lol) that I’m not always good at.  He’s a godsend.

Kelsey: Do you have regular childcare for your son? If so, do you ever feel guilt about time (not) spent with him?

Yes to both questions.  My son is with his daycare provider, Robyn, three days a week now.  Since I started my design business, I’ve slowly ramped up those hours in accordance with the work coming in.  I went from one day to two …now to three.  And during Brenda’s auction, he was with Robyn four days a week.

I am lucky to say he adores her.  He has friends his age that he plays with, and he loves his time there (and often doesn’t want to leave).  

I do feel guilty about the time I miss, even as I know he’s well taken care of.   I wouldn’t be able to accomplish the work if he were here every day, but I also wouldn’t be able to get anything done if I didn’t believe 100% that my son loves the person who watches him, or that she loves and protects him.

I also never forget that I am blessed to spend half the week with him.  I never take the time I have with him for granted.  The days he is with me, I try my hardest to just be in those moments, since I know how fleeting they will be.  Back to the compartmentalization of my time.  The biggest struggle in juggling multiple elements is letting go of one to focus on the other.  It’s something I work on, and try to find ways to handle every day.  Sometimes I force myself to let go.  Others, I realize that I have to make a list, or jot down notes or something, so I can let it go. 

Kelsey: What advice do you have for other writers who work either full or part-time to help them stay healthy and sane? (At least moderately so!)

Jeannie:  After attending Susan Elizabeth Phillip’s workshop at RWA this past July, I can say I’ve embraced her suggestion to give ourselves permission to put garbage on the page. J    When time is of the essence and you don’t have enough of it in a day to accomplish everything you want to accomplish, this thought – this permission – can remind you that what you’re writing doesn’t have to be perfect.  You can and will change it later.   That’s important to me because at times I don’t have a lot of time to write so whatever progress I make is important, no matter how small.

I remember a few weeks that I was particularly busy, and time got away from me.  The next time I looked at my WIP to open it up, I looked at the “last saved” date.  It had been over a month.  That was disheartening… even though I knew I had reasons that stacked a mile high on my desk, if didn’t matter.  I hated feeling so distant from my work.  

That’s when I made the goal for myself – open up my WIP file every single day. 

I do my best to write every day. That isn’t to say that it’s brilliant or even a complete sentence. Sometimes getting two words on the page feels like a major accomplishment, but I am working at building the habit that my writing is a daily part of my life.  I want to know that I met a goal.  Some days, that goal is just to read the last page or two I’ve written.  And sometimes, it may be thinking about my plot or a particular character and working out their motivation in my mind and then jotting down one or two sentences to keep it fresh.

I truly believe finding something that gives you a sense of accomplishment every day as a writer is imperative.  Give yourself permission to make that goal as small as you need it to be, but do something, every single day, that reminds you that you’re a writer. The closer you feel to your writing, the harder it is to push it aside when you’re tired or irritable.

As for the rest, I’ve also learned that setting your schedule so you accomplish something every day is key. Make a To Do list, then break those tasks down as small as you have to so you know that you can finish something in one day.  It’s common for me to be working on five to ten client projects at once… and yet at times, that’s also my downfall because it takes longer for things to come off of my To Do list. 

Being able to check things off that list at the end of a the day leaves you with a sense that you finished something, you accomplished a goal – so you can put that job away and go on to the next part of your day without a nagging feeling. Writers have enough voices in their heads…we don’t need our own in there saying, “don’t forget this…but you didn’t finish that…” 

So overall – Allow yourself to accomplish something, no matter how small, every day.  Compartmentalize your tasks as much as you can.  When you’re done with something, put it aside and give yourself fully to the next task at hand.

Thanks for having me, ladies!!

For our RU crew: Feel free to post a question for Jeannie or share your favorite strategies for maintaining balance in your life!

Jeannie’s Bio: It was a Saturday afternoon when Jeannie Ruesch gave up her illustrious, hours-long ambition of becoming a Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader (after seeing the made for TV movie).  That day, she sat to write her very first story and when she was finished, she knew that pen ..or rather, pencil and collegiate-lined paper was the path for her.  She was six.  She finished her first two books in 7th grade—handwritten on 150 legal size pages and complete with hearts dotting the I’s, of course.

As an adult, however, she discovered the need to…well, pay for things.  In her words, she “paid a lot of money to go to school, get a degree and go beg for work.”  She began her career in marketing and design and continues to this day, with her graphic design and marketing business, Will Design for Chocolate.  She considers herself fortunate that her passion of writing and her other love go hand in hand so nicely.

 In 2008, she sold her first completed novel (as an adult and written on a computer this time) to The Wild Rose Press– a historical romance that has been a labor of love from the start.  “It’s been through four or five revisions, including one complete scrap-it-and-start-over, and has been a wonderful tool for learning how to be a better writer.”

She is also the creator of the WIP Notebook, a writer’s tool to help stay organized while you write.

Now with a few more tools in her author’s tool belt, her first published book, and a drawer full of emergency chocolate, she has a lot more stories to tell.  She lives in Northern California with her husband (who is likely tired of having his brain picked on the ‘male perspective’), their son and her brother, who she thanks every day (since he cooks and she hates to.)

Welcome, Victoria!!

Why do I love reading and writing historical romance?  The answer is really quite simple.  Historical romances transport me to another time and place and immerse me in a love story.  Before I started writing historical romance, I never considered the skillful balance between facts and emotion in these stories, the delicate weave of details within a love story that creates a sense of time and place and brings the plot and the characters to life.  Now, as a writer of historical romance, I know firsthand the challenge of blending facts into a story without creating information overload.

The developing emotional relationship between the heroine and her hero is the central focus of historical romance, while historical details serve to sweep the reader away to another time and place.  As an author, infusing details throughout the story without sounding like a travel guide to historic places is a challenge.  Research, layering through multiple revisions, and a willingness to cut facts that don’t enhance the story are my keys to achieving balance between historical detail, story flow, and emotional intensity.  

Every author of historical romance develops an individual approach, but research is a given.  Historical inaccuracies pull a reader out of a story. Knowledge of the time and place is crucial to establish the setting.  Essential details about historical events, clothing, food, transportation, communication, occupations, and social structure – this list could go on and on – provide scaffolding for a believable story.

After I become familiar with the essential characteristics of an era, I map out the plot and research more specific aspects of the time period that factor into the story.  What weapons were available?  What historical events and historical figures might have impacted the characters’ lives? What literary and artistic works were prominent during that era?  In my soon-to-be released novel, Destiny, the heroine’s love of tragic romances factors into the plot.  Research to identify popular authors of the heroine’s time provided details that fleshed out the character’s actions and dialogue.

At this point in the writing process, I relax, smugly content that all my research is done.  If you believe that, I’ll sell you a condo in Antarctica.  Actually, as I plunge through my first draft, I continually delve to discover more details about the events, people, and culture of the setting.  I keep a notebook with interesting facts I come across while I’m putting the story in place.  These facts come into play during revision.

When writing the first draft, my main goal is to get my characters moving toward the happily ever after they deserve.  During revisions, historical detail assumes more importance.  I weave details that enrich the setting throughout the draft to create a more vivid experience for the reader.

How much historical detail brings a story to life without bogging it down?  Of course, that depends on the story.  Are historical events plot elements, or does the historical setting provide a context for the story?  Destiny is set against the background of the Civil War, but the plot events are entirely fictional.  Historical details woven throughout the story create a sense of time and place. On the other hand, a story I’m currently developing includes plot events that occur during the burning of Richmond in 1865.  Research to accurately depict this historical event will be crucial.  In this story, the history is a plot point, not a backdrop.

During revisions, I’ve learned to watch for detail overload.  Long, dragging descriptions and an overuse of period terminology bog down the story.  If I note my Civil War era heroine’s fondness for a bolero-like garment known as a Zouave jacket, I’ll avoid an abundance of period terminology to describe the other garments in the scene.  Balancing specific terms with general description avoids slowing the pace and pulling the reader out of the story. 

While revising Destiny, I noticed so many references to Colt and Remington revolvers, it seemed like a product placement scheme.  A character fighting for his life isn’t going to think, I’ll use my Colt revolver to blow a hole in my enemy.  Blessedly honest critique partners pointed out my penchant for dropping weaponry brand names with the fondness of a shopaholic for Coach and Jimmy Choo.  Did I include these descriptions?  Sure, but not so frequently that the reader wonders if I’m getting fees from Colt and Remington to endorse their products.  Likewise, references to historical figures can add to a story, but historical name-dropping can result in detail overload.  Your characters shouldn’t sound like Joan Rivers on a time travel adventure. 

Avoiding the overuse of historical detail is achieved with ruthless revision.  I might really want to impress my reader with fascinating facts about gilded age Manhattan, but I don’t want my story to read like a travel guide or encyclopedia. Use details that make sense from a character’s point of view and set the scene.  Point of view is particularly important when describing clothing.  The hero isn’t going to think about the exquisite styling of the heroine’s French pantalettes.  He may focus on the silky cloth or the way the fabric clings to the heroine’s thighs, but he’s not going to be concerned with French styling.  Think about the men we know today.  My husband has no clue whether I purchase a blouse at Macy’s or an expensive boutique.  He might notice the neckline and the color in general terms…blue, not turquoise…but that’s about it. 

Every author develops a method that works best for him or her.  To me, the keys to engaging historical romance are research, layering details, and revision to eliminate distractions.  Details should enhance the story, not slow the flow.  With research and revision, your historical romance will transport the reader to a love story in another time and place.

Victoria Gray wrote her first story soon after she started elementary school.  When she was in the third grade, her mother bought her a Smith Corona manual typewriter.  She was officially a writer! A certified library media specialist, Victoria uses her research skills to explore other eras in time.  Her interest in research is a perfect fit with her work as a writer of historical romance. 

Victoria lives in Virginia with her own hero, her husband Greg.  The mother of two sons who are used to their mother burning food to a crisp when she runs back to her computer to write ”just a little bit more,” she enjoys cycling, hiking and long walks on the beach when she’s not writing, reading or burning dinner.

www.victoriagrayromance.com

Join us on Monday to hear what editor Danielle Poiesz has to say about writing contests.