Best books about writing?

My vacation was fun, but not exactly what I had expected. My team (the Boston Bruins) have gone from first to worst. Stanly Cup to bottom of the Eastern Conference. But all good Bostonians know that this is just right and proper. Boston fans have to be in it for the long haul, you have to be in a city that went 89 years without a world series win and 39 without a Stanly Cup. I got to see one win and one loss on my vacation the games were fun.

I only mention that because I write about hockey.

The best book I ever read about writing is a book called “hockey tough” It was written by a sports psychologist who seems to mostly work with NHL and NFL players. I had never thought that sport and writing had a lot in common until I read the book. I think of writing as a solitary pursuit and team sports as – well – team sports. Even though I write about players I’d never really thought of how much time they must spend alone. I knew, intellectually, that most NHL players pretty much spend their afternoons alone, sleeping or playing video games or yoga or what have you. One of my favorite players often does a skating practice in the afternoon, alone.

I guess we all do our important work alone, even when we work in a team.

Hockey Tough talks a lot about persevering and getting yourself through touch spots. It also talks about trusting your support people. And what to do when everything is not going our way.

I’m stuck in the doldrums of the center of my book. The part where it’s not exciting anymore. I don’t really want to work on it anymore. I will, of course, and I will finish this book. I have time, it’s not due to the editor until the beginning of March. Mind you I want to have a first draft done by January 1st to give me time to re-write.

Being in the doldrums makes me think of Hockey Tough. I may do some of the exercises from the book and get back on track.

The best book I’ve ever read about writing has nothing to do with writing at all. How about you? What is the best book you’ve ever read about writing, and was it supposed to be about writing?

does your writing surprise you?

I never meant to write about hockey. I’ve written about all sorts of things, fairies, artists a minister that kills demons, but only my hockey stories have really sold.

I am working on my first novel, one that was contracted on the strength of the first 20K words and today I’m wondering why my hockey stories sell and not my stories set in museums or hospitals.

Did I tap into some upcoming genre that I didn’t know existed when I wrote my first story about a shape shifting hockey player?

Is there really room for someone who writes ‘paranormal sports romance’?

Come to think of it how did I, one of the least romantic people I know, end up writing romances?

I guess part of being a writer is that you get to surprise yourself all the time, and I have certainly surprised myself. The novel I’m working on is not what I have imagined I would write, but that doesn’t make me love it less.

How about you? Has your writing life surprised you in any way?

Sometimes it’s easy

There are some days when the words come easy. My fingers just trip over the keyboard and I love everything that comes out.

Then there are the days when every word is a struggle and I find myself distracted. I know that it is the part of the novel that I am working on. I’ve reached a point where what I am writing is too close. I’ve reached the place where putting it on paper hurts. I hurt for my characters.

So instead of writing I’m watching a hockey game from last season. I’m watching the Stanly Cup finals. I don’t know if I’m hoping that the Bruins will inspire me or if I am procrastinating. The funny thing is I picked a game that my team lost. Well it is what was on.

I still can’t believe the Bruins won the Cup. I was two the last time that happened. One of the players I fell in love with last year is still unsigned and the talk is that the Bruins are shopping him out. I’ll be sad if he goes, but I’ve lost players I’ve loved in the past – it is part of sports. Believe it or not I still follow the guys I like even when they are on teams I hate.

Sometimes the words come easy – like slipping on ice. Sometimes they don’t and then it feels like I’m in waist deep water.

OK I'm pimping

I just wanted to let everyone know where they can get my stories.

In my story “Safely Home”, included in the anthology Spirit Legends (an anthology of stories about gods, ghosts and what have you) a young woman, the girlfriend of a professional hockey player, sees the pagan gods her boyfriend worships at the last game played in an old rink. I haven’t gotten to read the rest of the anthology yet. The link is to buy it is Spirit Ledends

My story “Box of Cows”, an e-book from the publisher bookstogonow, is available in two forms, as a standalone and also in an anthology with 3 other stories. “Box of Cows” involves a fairy dealing with escaped cows and a Fairy Queen. It is set on I-95 in Delaware: Single Story,the anthology

“Rebuilding Year” is the first story in a series about a hockey team made up of bouda, or were-hyena, who are at the end of a rebuilding year. How do you rebuild a team made up of were-animals? ( I think that there will be five stories in this series. One should be coming out this fall) Rebuilding Year

Last but not least, I am working on my first full length novel that will be published. It is due for editing on the 7th of March, so I’m guessing it will be ready for publishing about this time next year.

What is a fandom – what is your fandom?

One of the things that everyone tells you when you start writing (or at the very least when you first publish) is that you should have a ‘writer’s blog’ and on that blog ‘fandom’ is strictly forbidden.  I understand why.  We shouldn’t let our ‘fan fiction’ flag fly.  Publishers just don’t take to writers of fan fiction (or at least they say they don’t) but the question is:

What should, or shouldn’t be in this blog?

I love several television shows, and I even have participated in fan communities.  And, yes, there is fan fiction.  I have been at the edges of fan communities based on books as well and there is a bit of fan fiction there as well. 

But my question is, what makes a fandom a fandom?    

I love hockey.  All but one of my published pieces involve hockey.   I love the Bruins most of all and then the other 29 teams are in my mind in a sort of matrix of teams. 

And, believe it or not there is NHL fan fiction.  Not that I’ve participated in that.  I’ve made my own league, with my own teams and I write my fiction about them.

So the question is; Is being the fan of a sports team being part of a fandom? 

What do you think? 

And what is your fandom?  

It’s all about balance

I have two short e-books published by Books To Go Now  and two upcoming short stories, one in a hold it in your hand anthology and another one with B2GN.  I know that when you are with a small publisher your number of sales is dependent on how much you can market yourself. 

The thing is I’m not good at marketing myself. 

I mean I try.  I got a blog under my real name, I have a twitter and a facebook and my live journal.  The thing is I never seem to be able to update them; or at least not with the regularity that I would like.  I feel like I should be saying something interesting or funny.  I often feel like I should be exceptional before I even try to have anyone even look at it. 

I guess that’s not how I should be looking at it.,  If I don’t put myself out there I’ll never get anywhere. 

The other problem I have is time.  I work three jobs (admittedly one job I only do once a month or so) so time is an issue.  And I do like to spend time with people and write from time to time.  I am not near a computer from 8am to 8pm most nights.

Anyway this is the long way of saying that for the next month I am going to start working on getting my stuff together.  I’m going to start working on blogging and really pushing my stories.  Not to the exclusion of everything else, of course, but hopefully enough for me to get on a roll with it.  I am hoping to find a balance of life, writing and social media. 

long time no post

Wow, my last post was April second. 

Since then my second story has been publish with Books to Go Now.  The story is called ‘Rebuilding Year’ and it follows a group of Hyena shape shifters as they add to their team.  It may become a series or it may not.  I enjoy working with the characters in that story because everything is light.  Nothing is earth shattering. 

I can be funny. 

Actually, I’ve discovered I can’t help but be funny.  Even when I don’t intend to. I start off writing a serious erotic romance and then one of the characters says that a love potion was produced by Baba Yaga, the conversation ends with someone saying “How does one get out of the eating children business and into the love potion business”

I just can’t help it.  I can’t be totally serious, even when I want to be.  Maybe that’s why I like shape shifters so much.  In myth Tricksters are normally shape shifters.  And when things get bad the Trickster is normally the guy who can tell a bad joke and lighten the mood. 

On our way to Boston the other week I regaled my husband with bad jokes about the various provinces of Canada.  We were both tired and irritated and were driving 14 hours, up and back, to go to a parade.  I work hard at being the responsible one, but I don’t always succeed, and I know it goes against my basic nature. 

In my writing I can let that changeable, irresponsible nature take over.  Then I can re-enter the world the stable, supportive person I always am. 

If my humor makes my stories hard to place in the market?  Well, I guess that’s alright.

By the way the parade was totally worth it.  And you might be from Newfoundland if you’ve ever lost your snow blower on your roof.          

And the poor old dog was drowned

What inspires you? I think everyone who writes gets asked this at one time or another and I never know what to say.  I’m betting that most people don’t. 

I also get asked if I would rather be deaf or blind often enough and one day a few weeks ago I got asked both question on the same day.  And it lead me to an answer. 

Sound inspires me. 

I was going to say music, but that isn’t entirely true. I do love music and it does inspire me, but other sounds work just as well.  Anything from the cat pacing around the room reminding me I haven’t fed her or the traffic out side or the background noise of the TV turned down low and tuned to a reality show. 

For the past year I have been writing pieces that have ice hockey players as heroes, so the sound of skates on ice and the roar of the crowd have inspired me. 

And right now it’s the combination of the two.  The title of this post is from a the song ‘the Irish rover’ the song that was on my MP3 player before the hockey game I watched this afternoon.  I hope it brings me inspiration.

So what about you?  What gives you inspiration?

So my normal word output a week, while writing fiction is between one thousand and two thousand words. 

Yeah I’m pretty slow.  I figure it is alright for me to be slow between the amount of time I have to put into writing (between three jobs and wanting to read and sleep) it can be hard for me to set aside any real writing time. 

Sometime around March 4^th I started a new story.  It was something that has been haunting me for a bit.  I had planned on the story taking about 5K to tell.  I am now almost 13K into it in the past 20 days.

That’s about twice the amount of words as I do in good times. 

The story isn’t going to be done in 6K.  It’s looking like it may be a novel. 

But we will see.  This story has really taken me over though, so I may be able to finish it.    

A Bit About Me

My name is Elizabeth Inglee-Richards and I write urban and sub-urban fantasy.  My works mostly have legendary beings or creatures interacting with the real world.  I have loved the tension caused by the magical world rubbing shoulders with the day to day world since I was small and my parents read me the “Fairy Books” collected by Andrew Lang.  I would also trace my love of horror back to that early exposure to traditional folk tales, because let’s be honest, Freddy Kruger has nothing on Mr. Fox and his house of horrors. 

My tastes in reading mostly fall in the Mythic Fiction category anything from light and romantic to dark and horror filled but they all include at least one magical element.  That said I’m not a huge fan of Vampires as romantic leads (I make an exception for the House of Night series by PC and Kristin Cast) and I believe two things about fantasy very strongly. 

1)      If you have rules in your Universe, you need to stick to them.

2)      Magic always has a cost.

I have recently made my first ‘big’ sale of short fiction (by big I mean more than a contributors copy and enough money to get it to me) and I am super excited about it.  There is something really strange about seeing yourself on Amazon. 

Most of what I write is either set in Delaware or in and around the city of Boston.  I’ve spent most of my life between those two places and I feel like you need to know the places you write about.  Most of my writing that is set in Boston involves a fictitious Ice Hockey team; the Nahant Nor’easters.  Or, from time to time, the Hampton County Hyena.  Sometimes both. 

The funny thing is I’ve been warned away from writing about sports.  You see, stories that deal with sports almost never sell, and stories about Ice Hockey only sell in Canada.  But you have to write what you love and this is one thing that I love enough to work on exclusively for any length of time.