I can't tell you how giddy we are here at WITS.  We've been sitting on an announcement, dying to blab, but having to sit on it until today (well, okay, maybe that was just me-I stink at secrets.)   You ready? 

We have a new crit partner, and full time WITS author/blogger!

Orly Konig Lopez!

You might know her from the RWA-WF or Chick Lit chapters. You might know her from Washington Romance writers or Backspace, Savvy Authors, or SCWBI. You might know her from prison . . . okay, I made that last part up. But we're already loving her sense of humor, and we think  you will too. She's going to be around the blog a lot, so I hope you all will show her some comment-love. 

Have at it, Orly!

Not long after my son was born, I made the decision to quit my corporate job and take up freelance editing, and marketing communications. At first the idea scared the crap out of me, and not necessarily just the obvious, “will I be able to make it” question.

What was going to become of me at home all day, alone, just me, alone, without the daily interaction I was so used to, alone?

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’ve never had a problem being on my own. I’m an only child, so I’m used to entertaining myself. When I was young, I had imaginary friends (the Ghost of Scotland was my partner in crime when I was six and living in the UK—he had a bad habit of breaking things though, and wasn’t allowed to stay long.) I’m perfectly happy curled up in a toasty corner with a book.

But you know what I discovered? I liked being alone. Maybe I actually liked it too much. I was becoming a happy little troll in my solitary cave.

And writing fit the new me perfectly. All I needed was my laptop and my kitty companions (and a functioning espresso machine.) Because, really, what else do you need? You read craft books and then you write, write, write.

Until someone recommended I join RWA. Ummm, an Association? That meant interacting with people, right? No need for panic, little troll, the chapter I joined was an online one. I could lurk on Yahoo loops, sponge information from the wise members, then write, write, write. I could do this.

Then I pushed the comfort zone a bit more, and joined an online critique group. The idea of sharing my work with someone other than anonymous contest judges made the troll sweat. But after that first scary step, I realized it wasn’t so bad. Okay, it was pretty darn great actually.

Hey, we were on a roll. I joined a local chapter and, tossing that comfort pillow around like I was big troll on campus, then looked at the next thing on my “Oh please don’t make me do this” list—pitching an agent. Live. In person. Not an email query. See the troll cowering in the corner?

But, hey can’t stop now. So in March, when my local chapter had their retreat, I signed up for not one, but two pitch sessions. I wrote the pitch, I practiced, I even put on lipstick. And you know what? The troll survived. I even got two requests out of the experience.

I was kicking some comfort zone booty, people.

And I learned something important. There’s nothing wrong with having the cushy safe zone. Sometimes it’s perfectly okay to roll the boulder in front of the cave and hide. But leave a tiny crack. You never know when a big hairy opportunity will stroll by.

For me, the scary, hairy comfort challenge is in putting myself out there. I’m doing that bit by bit—querying, pitching, becoming active with the RWA chapters., And now, my latest; blogging with this amazing group of ladies. My lipstick may not always be on straight, and I still prefer the safety of my cave, but hello world!

So, what scares you? And who helped you pick out your most flattering color of lipstick?

NOTE: Orly lives on the East Coast and is dealing with Hurricane Sandy at the moment. She's safe, but hit and miss in her electricity. She will respond to comments, but it might be "hit and miss" for the next day or so.

About Orly:

After years of pushing the creativity boundary in corporate communications, Orly decided it was time for a new challenge. Three women's fiction manuscripts later (plus a handful of picture books), she's found her creative outlet. Her manuscripts have finaled in the Wisconsin Romance Writers Fab Five Contest, the TARA contest, Stiletto Contest, First Coast Romance Writers Unpublished Beacon Contest, Novel Rocket Launch Pad contest, and the Greater Seattle Romance Writers of America's Emerald City Opener Contest.

When not writing fiction, she's still pushing the creativity barriers for her marketing communications clients and trying to hide from her family long enough to read "just one more page."

You are in for a treat, because we enticed a stellar new author to WITS today. I read Sharla Lovelace's debut novel, The Reason is You, after the RWA National Conference. I read. A lot. And Sharla's book is the best I've read this year. You're getting in on a Pre-NYT Bestseller here. I'm not kidding, remember you read it here first.

Read on, you'll see what I mean. Take it away, Sharla!

Hello everyone and thank you for having me!

I’m going to start this out with a shocking confession.  I don’t follow rules.  I just do it.

See, the amazing Laura Drake invited me to talk about my writing strength today, and was very kind to say that she felt that strength was in how I portray relationships.  So I thought, “Cool.  I can do that.”  Others have told me that.  It’s actually one of the things that my agent likes the most about my work.  So, no problem.

Except that what I found is that all I can say about it is “Thank you,” as I bow and sit back down.  Because I have no idea how it comes to me.

I’m one of those frightening “pantser” people that don’t plot ahead of time, don’t map out arcs or make charts, don’t plan my word choices, and I have no earthly idea what a participle or a gerund is.  (Sorry, Margie!)

I got through high school English sentence structure by ear.  In the same way that I have a natural ear for music, I also have it for the English language.  I know what sounds right.  I know how things are supposed to flow and when something is out of whack.  But don’t ask me to explain why.

I write my stories in the same way.  I mix up short and long sentences not out of design, but because that’s what I want to hear.  I create families that talk like I talk—like most people talk, I would think.  Using conversational dialogue that feels real.  I talk it out loud to hear the rhythm and the banter, sometimes doing it wrong on purpose because—well—sometimes that’s how we interact with each other in real life.  I’ve never lived in Mayberry or whatever town the Cleaver’s lived in, so my people are not June and Ward.  They’re Luke and Lorelai from The Gilmore Girls.  Or Amy and her mother and brothers with baggage in Judging Amy.

While I hear the good…I hear the bad as well.  I know when it’s lacking, or when something feels forced or flat.  When the emotion isn’t there or when it sounds like you’re talking to a vacuum cleaner salesman instead of your love interest.   When this happens, I close my eyes and walk through the scene.  Is there a special bonding between a grandfather and his granddaughter, like a little growl he does when he hugs her that he’s done all her life? (Nathaniel and Riley in THE REASON IS YOU)

Or let’s do a new one.  What do I see?  What’s on the walls?  What’s on the floor?  Is the rug old?  Was it there when the main character was a child?  Did she used to have blanket tent forts over it, and was there a Kool-Aid stain she tried to cover up by moving a chair?  Was her sister with her?  Her brother?  Did she lie for them?  Did her mother know all along?

Could any of this be a casual conversation around a dinner table with lively banter as the rolls are passed and her grown brother throws one at her, nearly spilling her glass of wine?  A family, being a family.  Someone showing up late to the monthly get-together with excuses ready, while eyes meet all around the table.

Then, I open my eyes and start coloring all that into the cracks.

Here’s an excerpt from my upcoming release, BEFORE AND EVER SINCE.

I just closed my eyes and mentally switched gears.  The current ones were going in circles.  I pulled my phone out again and read as I spoke, asking the question I could ask in my sleep.  “Okay, Mom, how does the contract read?  Please tell me there’s a contingency on you finding a home first?”

“I’m not getting another home.”

You could have heard crickets in that silence.  Holly and I both stopped breathing as we stared at the woman we once thought so wise.  I wondered if Holly’s panic journey included what room she’d have to give up in her house.  I, for one, saw my messy office go up in a frenzy of silk flowers, craft glue, and Tandy’s bean bag chair.  Aside from that, the fleeting seed of doubt about her state of mind was skipping around in there, too.

“I think I need some rum in my tea, too,” Holly said quietly.

Mom pulled the bottle from a box in the pantry, since the alcohol was evidently already packed.  She poured some in both their glasses, and then held it out for me.  Not having a glass was beside the point. 

“That’s okay, I think I need to be sober for this,” I said, holding up a finger.

“All right,” Holly said, gulping down her happy tea and sucking in a deep breath like that would prepare her for war.  “Explain.”

Mom gave each of us a look and began, “Your Aunt Bernie has that big Winnebago—”

“Oh dear God, tell me no—” Holly started.

“Mom, please say you’re not selling this house to live on the road with Aunt Bernie,” I said, finishing the thought. 

Any sentence that began with Your Aunt Bernie was a preface to some kind of lunacy.  Mom’s sister, Bernice, had been widowed for ten years and had done the very same thing.  Sold her three-bedroom house with a pool and lived out of a powder blue Winnebago, traveling the states and landing wherever the whim struck her.  When it struck her to visit home, she’d take up half the street and you could almost hear the neighbors groan.

“Why not?” she asked.

“Jesus, this is ludicrous,” I said under my breath, turning around to find some normalcy in the pictures next to the TV.  They weren’t packed yet.  They still sat in the same place they’d always sat, nestled together on the table I’d tried to paint with watercolors when I was five.  It still had a green spot at the bottom of one leg where the grain absorbed the pigment.

“Seriously?” Holly asked.  “You need reasons why you need a real home?  Not one with wheels and a port-a-potty?”

My mom grabbed a cookie from the tin and broke it in two, then halved those as well before popping a bite into her mouth and holding one down for Tandy who suddenly sprang to life again at the potential for a snack.

“You know what?” she asked around the cookie.  “I’ve been puttering around this house by myself for a long time.”

“We know, Mom,” I said.

“I’m still talking,” she said with a look that I knew too well and could instantly make me feel eight.  “Now—I’m a grown damn woman.  My kids are grown, hell, my grandkids are grown.  I have no reason to lie around this house, baking cookies or planting flowers and waiting to die.  And if I want to ride around in a big ugly tank eating Cheetos with my sister, then I can damn well do it.  I don’t need you two little mother hens telling me what I can and can’t do.”
That’s how I do it.  No formulas.  No rules.  Just filling in the colors.  It’s not for everyone!  LOL.  But it works for me in the end.

Thank you for letting me share my ramblings!

Sharla

Sharla Lovelace is the National Bestselling Author of THE REASON IS YOU, JUST ONE DAY, and the upcoming BEFORE AND EVER SINCE, which is due out in November 2012.  Being a Texas girl through and through, she is proud to say that she lives in Southeast Texas with her family, an old lady dog, and an aviary full of cockatiels.  

You can follow her as @sharlalovelace on Twitter, Facebook, and Goodreads.

By Laura Drake

Here at WITS, we've discussed dealing with fear before - most notably, our Throwdown, which explored The Fear of Success, and The Fear of Never Succeeding.

Today, I thought I'd share with you my latest goal - To Live Without Fear.

Yeah, I know, it's ambitious, but you have to admit, it's a good thing to shoot for! Follow me here, and see if you're game to try it!

Twenty-six years ago, when I met Alpha Dog, we spent a lot of time on his motorcycle. I hadn’t ridden one before, and I found it exhilarating. And terrifying. The world rushed by, faster than I was able to take it in. As hard as I tried to capture the details, many flew past, unnoticed. But what if they were critical things? Essential things, keeping me safe?

Trust me, you’ll never feel as powerless as when you’re perched on a motorcycle in L.A. traffic, clinging to the broad back in front of you, having no control over your fate. You realize how fragile your body is when you’re surrounded by huge hunks of metal, whizzing within inches of you at seventy miles an hour.

I spent most of those first months in a frantic state of hyper-awareness, muscles locked, my shoulders pulled up to my ears.

But, then there were the other moments:

• In the badlands of Utah, the delicate multicolored striations in the crumbling cliffs alongside the road made me wish I knew how to dye cloth to be able to recreate the patterns on fabric.
• Coming around a bend in a highway to a black and white paint horse standing in a green meadow, silhouetted against a backdrop of black thunderclouds, his mane and tail whipping in the wind.
• Held up in  small town, in the middle of Nowhere, Wyoming, while they shut down the Main Street for a Fourth of July parade, bunting-festooned hay wagons carrying the local beauty queens

Both sides of that motorcycle experience taught me a lot about life. You know the term, “Pushing the Envelope?” My odd brain somehow fashioned that into a philosophical picture in my head.

Imagine that every way we can experience life fits in a rectangle, like an envelope. We can choose where you want to be on that envelope. You can hang on the very edge of the back part, afraid of change coming at you. Or, you can 'hang ten' on the windward edge, bugs in your teeth, laughing into the future.

I think what happens to you in life is going to happen, no matter where you are on the envelope. And if that's true, why not meet it head on – actually looking forward to the next thing?

NO FEAR. That’s my new mantra. I’ve lived too long, and seen too much to live in fear. I’m giving it up – letting it go.

Since July, I've slid into the next chapter in my life: Retirement. I have everything to look forward to. Instead of doing what I have to do to make money, I’m going to be doing what I’d do even if they didn’t pay me – write.

Oh, don’t get me wrong, I have my moments. But that’s all I’ll the time I’ll allow fear to steal from me – moments.

So if you see some old lady flash by you on a bright yellow motorcycle, laughing maniacally, that’s just me, flying on the edge of my envelope.

What do you think? Where are you on the envelope? Are you ready to give up the fear?