Staying True to Your Author Brand and JK Rowling

I recently read a blog post that made me think.

David Farland’s Daily Kick in the Pants—Defining Yourself

“It’s always good before you begin to write to really understand who your audience is and that they’re needs are, so that you can better meet those needs. But it’s also important to understand who you are as an author, and what it is that you want to achieve.”

“For example, Dan Wells mentioned that he wanted to be the “Stephen King of young adult fiction.” When his first novel, I AM NOT A SERIAL KILLER came out, it earned him huge advances overseas and led to the start of a brilliant career.” http://www.davidfarland.com/writing_tips/?a=142

I want to be “A contemporary Mary Stewart, writing suspenseful women’s fiction with a touch of romance and magic.” I loved her books when I was a kid and I still do. And I think that's important, too--that teenagers and grandmas can read my books without flinching. I love the exotic locals, the mystery, suspense, romance and the touch of magic.

 I also love Debbie Macomber's small town series and I've tried to emulate her, too. Small town in the Pacific Northwest and a cast of characters who interact with each other. Of course, I hope that once a reader reads one book, she'll want to read another, even though the stories are stand-alones and independent. Can I create a Mary Stewart/Debbie Macomber hybrid? I already have.

And just like I think it's important to have an author's brand, I think it's even more important to have a moral code that anyone that knows you will recognize and respect--because they know and love you. They trust you to be the same person, today and tomorrow and in any given situation.

I think that's why the world is so disappointed with JK Rowling. And no, I didn't read her book. I really, really wanted to until I read the reviews. And I'm probably being wildly presumptuous to speak in behalf of the world--but honestly, is there anyone not disappointed? I haven't heard one kind word about her book, unless it was from her. And maybe I'm being unfair by criticizing a book I didn't read, but I'm not interested in " swearwords, rape, racism, pornography, self-harm, suicide, domestic violence, heroin and marijuana use, a character who contemplates child abuse, and graphic descriptions of sex." I'm just not. It doesn't matter how much I loved Harry, I won't pick up A Casual Vancancy, because it sounds too much like it's title--vacant.

And I know that an author isn't her characters and she doesn't live her character's circumstances, but I wonder-- do the differences in Rowling's first Harry Potter book and her latest in anyway reflect the differences in her life experiences? What, other than the fame and money, has changed in her life that prompted such a radical deviation? Of course, only she can answer that. At this point I could rant about the dangers of wealth, abundance and fame, but I won't. Back on track--

As a Harry reader and fan, I feel betrayed. I expected something from Rowling and she delivered something else entirely. It was like getting on a plane to France and being detoured to Death Valley.

And so as I navigate my own authorship and life, I need to remember the lesson I learned from a book I never read, the lesson I'm sure Rowling never meant to teach--stay in touch with who you really are, whether you are writing a book or buying a head of lettuce. Anything else will be nothing but a big fat disappointment.

Catfish Campaign, Day 22, Newsletters

Newsletters. Subscribe to others and create your own. Recently I subscribed to All Mystery E- Newsletter http://allmysteryenewsletter.com/ because I’m so excited about my soon to be released mystery, THE RHYME’S LIBRARY.

 And because I tried to pattern my books after Debbie Macomber, I subscribe to her newsletter. It was in her 20^th of March newsletter that I read the knock my socks off news that Ms. Macomber was beginning the Rose Harbor series. Here’s the blurb that sent me into hyperventilation.

My Dear Friends,
I'm blessed with an abundance of good news— The first tidbit is that I've just had my first peek at the lovely cover Random House has designed for my launch book with them, The Inn at Rose Harbor, which goes on sale under the Ballantine imprint on August 14. Their talented art department did a stellar job capturing the essence of this story, which launches my new Rose Harbor Inn series.

For those who don’t know, I published A GHOST OF A SECOND CHANCE, the first in my Rose Arbor series, which like Ms. Macomber's series is set in a small town in the state of Washington, on March 7, 2012. If Ms. Macomber had published her newsletter a month earlier, I would have changed the name of my series, even though I mention the town of Rose Arbor in my 2011 published novel, STEALING MERCY and I have two more partially completed Rose Arbor books.

So, yeah. I think newsletters are important.

Rose Arbor Rose Harbor Connection

I've ignored my blog because I’ve been writing my hinny off. Don’t know what a hinny is? According to Wikipedia:

The word hinny is a term of endearment used in North East England (home to my ancestors) equivalent to honey. A hinny is also domestic equine hybrid that is the offspring of a male horse and a female donkey (called a jenny). Kind of makes you rethink the name Jennifer.

Here’s why I’ve been writing my hinny off. (This is a long, rather unbelievable story, so you might want to stop reading or go and get something to drink before I start.) More than a year ago I finished writing a young adult novel that I really loved. I had every intention of making it into a trilogy. I loved my idea, loved the concept, but the problem was every time I sat down to write the second book I lost my enthusiasm. I didn’t want to write young adult fiction. Don’t get me wrong, I love teenagers. I have lived in what I call a house of hormones for more than fifteen years, meaning that I’ve parented teenagers for more than fifteen years.

And what have I learned?

I’m not hip.

I don’t want to be hip and I don’t want to try and be hip. Oh sure, I sometimes wear my daughter’s clothes, but that’s strictly a vanity thing, or a laundry thing. So, I was in a quandary. Since this was before I had decided to self publish, I thought I had to brand myself as genre specific author and I knew I didn’t want to write Romance, Mystery, Fantasy, Young Adult or Literary. What to do? I knew I wanted to write and that’s about all I knew. So I did what all Mormons have been taught to do.

I went to the temple fasting while there I got the distinct impression I needed to write like Debbie Macomber. A very clear answer to my prayer, but I wasn’t very happy.

I’ve heard Debbie Macomber speak twice. She’s an amazing, inspiring speaker, but I hadn’t read one of her bazillion books since high school. Debbie was one of the Harlequin authors that my mother read. Before my mother’s death she kept a large box of romance novels beside her bed and she didn’t know it, but I read all the books in that box, including Debbie Macomber’s. I hadn’t picked up a Debbie Macomber novel in years, but on my way home from the temple I stopped by Walmart and picked up two of her books. After reading them I decided that maybe God really had heard and answered my prayer.

So, like Debbie Macomber’s Blossom Street or Cedar Cover series, I created a small Pacific Northwestern  series that I patterned after my own home town of Arlington, Washington. I named my series and the town Rose Arbor. Although my contemporary character Bette in STEALING MERCY (published July 2011) lived in Rose Arbor, my first official Rose Arbor book is A GHOST OF A SECOND CHANCE because the bulk of STEALING MERCY (published March 2012) takes place in 1889 Seattle, about 30 years before the town of Rose Arbor, AKA Arlington, was established. While I was drafting A GHOST OF A SECOND CHANCE I was simultaneously rewriting a novel I began in 2004, THE RHYME’S LIBRARY, my soon to be second Rose Arbor book. I threw in some of my Rose Arbor characters and life was good. I began drafting my third Rose Arbor novel LOSING PENNY shortly after I published A GHOST OF A SECOND CHANCE and I loved it because I got to reform bad boyfriend Drake. And since THE RHYME’S LIBRARY has a sequel I had started and never finished, I have five finished or nearly finished Rose Arbor books.

And writing-wise, everything was beyond peachy until I read the Debbie Macomber newsletter announcing her new Rose Harbor series. Her first Rose Harbor book will be available mid August. The difference in our series titles is one letter. Literally shaking, I called my husband with the devastating news.

Well, it’s not like her stories take place in a small Washington town, he said.

Oh, but they do. They do, I told him.

The thought of rewriting and making new covers for my books overwhelms me so I’m not going to do it. I can’t. If I wasn’t so far along in my series I would have, but now my simple goal is to have three Rose Arbor books published before Debbie Macomber has even published one.

Today I sent THE RHYME’S LIBRARY to the editor. Soon I hope to have LOSING PENNY ready for beta readers. Which means that very soon I can stop writing  and start sitting on my hinny.