New Beginnings Come with a Price

New beginnings are exciting because there's full potential and no mistakes have been made yet. That's why everyone loves a new year, a new manuscript, new new new. But I'm going to be that person who stirs the magic Beginnings Brew and warns, "It comes with a price, my dear..."

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But because I'm nice, I'll give you two choices for your price.

Price number one: All your new beginnings mixed with everything else on your plate will stretch you thin and leave you tired and overwhelmed.

Price number two: Some of your old darlings will die to make room for your new darlings. Circle of life.

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You know what? I'm feeling extra nice today, so I'll even tell you which option is better because it's not super obvious, right? Better to say goodbye to some old darlings, darling. I know, I know. It's hard because you love those things or have an obligation to them. So if you don't want to let go, I understand. Price number one for you. Let me know how that works.

But for me? I choose price number two. I hardly worked on any fiction in 2016 because I had a new baby to enjoy. But in 2017, I'm getting back to writing fiction. I'm working on a first draft and totally revising a book I've queried and revised since 2011 (because with time and space from the manuscript, I finally know what's wrong with it!). But here's the thing...I don't magically have more time for writing in 2017. So this past week, I said goodbye to some things I've loved being a part of. I just had to ask myself what I want most in life, and what it'll take to get me there. The things I let go of are great, but don't help me go where I want to go. The goodbyes are bittersweet, but it'll be worth it to move forward and not be stretched too thin.

Ask yourself what you need to let go of. Because that's the price you have to pay for a new beginning. That's the price every successful writer has to pay. What will you let go of for your new beginning?

Jessie Mullins is wife to her middle/high school sweetheart and has embarrassing, love-struck diaries from back in the day she can use for YA fuel. Together, they have a son who just so happens to be the sweetest boy in the world. During naps times, Jessie blogs on YAtopia and her personal mommy blog, Her Arms Are Strong. She writes and adores YA. Her husband makes fun of her for liking stuff that's made for teenagers, and if he doesn't stop the teasing, she's going to write in her diary about it. 

Getting Swept Away by New Beginnings

Hi fabulous readers of YAtopia! I’m Rosanne, a YA author and scriptwriter who loves writing about new worlds or unfathomable situations. I’m really excited to be contributing to YAtopia, and you can expect posts about querying, editing and staying in love with your writing from me for the next year.

Since Jan 1^st, I’ve been excited about all the new beginnings I promised for myself back in 2016: New gym routine; revised writing routine; creating time for ‘me’; hitting my day-job goals, etc., which is ace. But with all this concentration on new beginnings, I started losing love for the writing projects I had already started.

Getting swept away with new writing ideas isn’t a bad thing, but it can be damaging if, like me, you do it all the time. Stored away in my mental WIP folder I currently have 60k words of a YA historical, 20k words of a YA sci-fi, and 0 words for a sparkly new idea… guess which one I want to write about?

The new one.

Yet that only makes me happy for so long, because in the back of my mind I have those other MSs staring at me, sulking that they haven’t been chosen to come out and play. So, in the face of all these beginnings, here’s some tips on how to fall back in love with your (older) beginnings…

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•  Re-read the opening, concentrating on the way you felt when you first started writing the MS.
•  Look over your notes and think about how far you’ve come since you started with just a grain of an idea.
•  List all the reasons you wanted to write that story in the first place. Cross off any ones that no longer apply, add new ones, and see if what you have left is enough to carry you through to the end.
•  Make an aesthetics board to reflect the mood/characters/theme of your novel - there are lots of collage apps that let you do this, just make sure your images are copyright free if you want to share them on social media.
•  Ask yourself: will your characters ever leave you alone if you don’t finish their story? WILL YOU HEAR THEIR VOICES BEFORE YOU GO TO SLEEP?! (Really hoping this last one isn’t just me…)
•  Research agents or publishers who you think would be a good fit for you and your story – this always gets me excited about finishing and submitting something.
•  In a similar vein to above: research any competitions you’d like to compete in once you’ve finished – I’d recommend Brenda Drake’s website for this.
•  Set yourself writing rewards: do another 10k words on your old WIP, then allow yourself to start your new idea! After this, even if you haven’t fallen back in love with your old WIP, at least you know you gave it a go.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with using a WIP as a stepping stone to the story you are REALLY meant to write, so if it’s not working, break up with it and move on to your true heart’s desire (until something shinier takes its place!)

From the Ashes

Being an author is hard. The publishing industry is tricky to navigate at the best of times, and with the current climate in small publishing, it can feel utterly impossible to succeed.

I check in with my author groups, and another friend has lost their publisher. A small press has closed, and their whole catalogue of books needs new homes. Less than a month ago, an online book distributor closed and offered to settle all their accounts for ten cents on the dollar.

Those heartbreaks and setbacks can seem insurmountable. Great writers pack it in and choose not to publish anymore because they can’t stand the heartache and seemingly futile struggle. And honestly I can’t blame them. One of my books will soon have been through three publishers. Three times I’ve gleefully accepted a contract; three times I’ve had my heart broken. Part of me wishes I had the temperament to be able to quit. But I don’t. I’m too stubborn. So I’ll push forward and find another way to have that series out there and be grateful I have other projects with other publishers available to keep me from feeling like a complete imposter.

The theme on the blog this month is meant to be “new beginnings.” And I am starting right back from the beginning. I’m not trying to be depressing or to discourage anyone from following her dream of publishing, because it’s not depressing. It’s just the reality in which we find ourselves. It’s culling the herd. Those of us who are left—the ones who have fought through publishers closing, missing royalties, and a seemingly impenetrable market—are phoenixes. We rise from the ashes again and again. Fighting for the next contract and even the next sale with everything we have. And when the world caves in and our dreams again crumble to ash, we rebuild, hoping for something bigger, hoping for something more lasting and productive.

I wish I could say that I think the days of authors being shirked of their royalties and of publishers closing with little more than a Facebook post are over. That I won’t find anymore author friends heartbroken over their newly-homeless books, but I doubt that’s true. Give it a month, and someone else will be fighting their way back up from the bottom.  Some will quit, some will press on, starting from the beginning. Rewriting their blurbs and sending them out with nothing more than hope to keep them moving forward.

The new beginning has been forced upon us, but from the ashes we will continue to rise. Chasing a dream we can’t help but to follow.

What is a New Beginning?

There are many ways people can describe a New Beginning. Some think of it as shrugging off the past and starting completely afresh. Some think of it as totting up their information from the year before and finding a new point to build off it. Others look at new ways to tackle writing and life problems - they experiment and try new things. For me, New Beginnings are all of those things.

As writers, I believe we can sometimes fall into the trap of getting to a New Beginning with a promise of writing more, harder, querying until our fingers bleed, getting our blood pumping. And while those are all great things, I think that some things are sadly left behind. One of those is reading. We can forget to read for the pure pleasure of the written word, so focused on the achievements we want in our own writing. Forgetting to sit down and read something that's not for editing and not for studying can actually make our New Beginning not so new after all.

I also believe that many of use forget about our writer's life. I'm not just talking about our new goals or our shiny new desk space. These are certainly awesome parts of our writer's life, and I wouldn't give them up for the work (well, I could negotiate on the desk page if I really needed to). What I'm talking about is diving into the rest of our life. Have we put into our New Beginnings something to try outside of writing our book? What about a new class? Pottery? Dancing? Wine tasting? Something totally unrelated to your book. Ah, but Fiona, it's not that easy. I don't have the time for that. Agreed, time can be hard to find. But how about all that time you waste on the internet, chatting on social media. How about that time when your kids are doing their homework without you for once? How about that commute to work - audio book if you need to on a new hobby or interest. At the moment, mine is learning more Greek. For me, to those who can, putting life into your writer's life is just as important as putting in the writer.

So there you have it. Those are my thoughts on New Beginnings, and I have many more that are my passions. Books I want to read just for fun this month - The Peculiar & The What Not, Cress & Winter, How to Hang a Witch - all of which sit on my bookshelf waiting for me. And there are a whole lot of books waiting on Amazon for me to order. And then there's the life I want to include into my writer's life - learning more Greek (an eternal process!), improving my horse riding, swimming in the summer in the beautiful Mediterranean Sea, planning my wedding, travelling to Rome, trying another creative art...will I achieve all of these? Maybe, maybe not, but I'm going to try my damn best to!

What are you going to read? What are you going to live? What will be your New Beginning in your writer's life?