June 6, 2015 by sarahcotchaleovitch

To-Done!

If you read my post last week, you know that I had great hopes for this week. My to-do list needed to get a lot shorter, and guess what? I am happy to report that my first full week of summer break has been a success.

On Sunday, I finally finished Christopher Paolini’s Inheritance Cycle, the last book of which I’d been waiting for read for four years. I have to say, whatever my complaints about Paolini’s style in his early books, the last one more than made up for it. The only problem, of course, was that I was sad to be finished.

With my recreational reading done, I plunged into work on Monday. And I even involved the kids. They sat at their table and had work time while I cleaned the kitchen. I have to tell you this because a day during which I clean an entire room (actually more than that because I cleaned the laundry room and one bathroom, too) is a day for the record books. (Please tell me I’m not crazy to be proud of this.)

I also spent my younger son’s entire naptime working on my biggest freelance project, a memoir that I’ve been working on for a year now. Thank goodness my client isn’t in a hurry. Although she still has some copy to turn in to me, my hope was to finish arranging and editing the material she’s given me so far and return it to her by the end of the week. I must have spent anywhere from three to six hours on this project every day this week, and although Microsoft Word had me practically pulling my hair out by the end, I did finally get a draft to her. (I would give details, but just know it had to do with pagination – if I try to be any more specific, I’ll most likely be reduced to gibberish and &%*!@ in order to keep this a family friendly blog.)

With one project out of the way (at least until that client gets back with me), I have one last freelance project (a much simpler one) to finish before our family vacation. I understand that I will come home from our vacation with work still to do, but my clients will have that time to decide what changes they would like for me to make, and I will only have to worry about finishing touches.

And then I will be done. As of this week, I am no longer offering my freelance writing services. And it’s not just Word that’s made me fed up enough to quit. Although I won’t go into details now, I am going to join the work force again soon, and if I’ve learned anything in life, it’s that I can make myself and my loved ones very miserable if my plate is too full. So while I will be glad to help friends with blogs or editing projects that don’t have critical deadlines, I am no longer pursuing freelance work.

It’s a relief, actually. Anyone who is self-employed understands the pressures of finding enough work to pay the bills. Last summer, I was able to land enough steady projects to earn a paycheck while I wasn’t substitute teaching, but it meant that when I was at home with my kids, we weren’t able to do much fun stuff; I was stuck at my computer working very hard for very little monetary compensation. This summer, I will be able to spend more time with them, and the time that I do spend at the computer will mostly be writing my own fiction.

Speaking of my fiction, now that I have one freelance project behind me, I have time to concentrate on editing last year’s NaNoWriMo book. I am determined to get my two free copies from CreateSpace. Beta readers, I will be reaching out to you sometime in July, so get ready!

Lastly, while I am reducing the stresses in my life, one of them will be this blog. No, I’m not quitting! Believe me, I still have a lot to say, but I won’t be pushing myself to reach my own personal deadline (which is once a week) anymore. Many weeks, I get to Sunday and panic because I don’t know what to write about. Or I have a lot to say but am too brain dead to arrange much of a coherent thought.

I have a friend who used to blog weekly, and she made the announcement earlier this year that she will now only post when she feels inspired to do so. At the time, I was saddened because I loved reading her blogs, but I could certainly understand – and I kept her idea in the back of my mind. To remove another stress that I put on myself sounded like bliss. I told myself that if I ever went back to work, changing from a weekly blog post to a “when I’m inspired to write” blog post would be the way to go.

Don’t worry. Even if you don’t hear from me next week, I still have plenty to say. I’ll likely update my book list sometime soon, and I’m sure I’ll have a lot to say about NaNoWriMo 2015. But when you don’t hear from me, know that I’m enjoying my family or a good book… and, as always, striving make more of my to-do list items to-done.

April 18, 2015 by sarahcotchaleovitch

Don’t Live for Another Day

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I can’t count how many times I’ve heard or read that we should live in the present moment, and being a planner, a goal-oriented person, it can be easy to scoff at such a notion. I’m always preparing for the next thing, which is good, for instance, when I’m crunched for time and I already packed my lunch the night before. But it can also make it easy to ignore what’s going on around me when I’m always focused on the future.

My morning commute is 30 to 40 minutes, time that I use to think about whatever’s next in my personal inbox – doctor’s appointments, writing projects, the household budget, all the activities that I have planned for the day or week. Couple that with the fact that I’m usually very tired, and I make for a poor conversationalist. This, naturally, is when my seven-year-old gets chatty. I’m liable to snap at him (he always pipes up right when I’m trying to listen to the traffic report or extended forecast), only to chastise myself moments later. The very last thing I want is to stifle my child and make him feel like he can’t tell me what’s on his mind – or his heart. One time recently, I nearly bit his head off, and as soon as he heard that the weather report was over, he asked in a quiet voice, “Can I talk now, Mommy?”

It’s during these moments that he opens up to me about his theological quandaries or epiphanies, some of which are very deep, or he’ll tell me about something he’s excited about at school. These are precious conversations, ones that I don’t want to miss. There’s nothing earth-shattering about them. These aren’t Kodak moments that I can post on Facebook, so all my friends can go “ooh” and “ahh” over them. But they’re special, the small moments that mean nothing to anyone except us, and they’re what build our relationship as a family.

That’s not to say that there aren’t other, special times. We all enjoyed our recent trip to Disney World. We looked forward to that trip for weeks, and we’ll always remember it as a great family vacation. Life is made up of these memorable occasions, balanced with hard times – sudden losses and deep sadness. But we can’t forget the moments in between that hold them all together, the conversations in the car, the nights reading books together on the couch, the activities that are so routine that we don’t give them much thought.

It is these in-between moments that make up our lives, even if they don’t stand out. They are the background that can be easily ignored. Unfortunately, many people allow the foreground to get so crowded with mountaintops and valleys that they leave no room for anything else.

I notice this in people who trudge through their weeks, hardly able to stomach the normal routine, living completely for the distant promise of a two-week break from it all, only to become depressed at the end of the vacation with the knowledge that an unsatisfactory “real life” awaits upon their return.

I met a woman some years ago, who shared the story of the hopes and dreams she and her husband had for after his retirement. His retirement came, along with a diagnosis of terminal cancer. They spent his last weeks laughing at the dark joke of it all – he struggled and worked hard for 30 years, only to die before he was able to enjoy the fruits of decades of labor.

I’m not advocating that we throw responsibility to the wind and do whatever makes us happy right now. Nor am I saying that we should give up on long-term plans. Rather, we need to find a balance between the two, but more importantly, we need to learn to be grateful and satisfied with what we have, even as we strive for better.

To put this in perspective, a dear friend of mine recently decided that she’s done battling cancer, and she’s now under Hospice care. This friend has been on disability and unable to hold a job for a number of years, but that hasn’t kept her from making her life a blessing to others. While her means aren’t great, her heart is. She embodies the ideal of a Christian servant, yet shies from receiving service for herself. Even in great pain and with ever-waning strength, she has never ceased being faithful, thoughtful, and an inspiration, even from her hospital bed. She could easily choose to let her situation weigh her down and fill her with despair, but she refuses.

How does she do it? How must it feel to know that there may be some good days, some bad, but there will never be a recovery? Her life is in that hospital room… yet her influence still extends beyond it and into the lives of her friends and loved ones. I have a lot to learn from my friend, not the least of which is that my complaints are pretty trivial.

I will never give up creating goals for myself or trying to improve my skills or situation. I want the world for my kids, and I look forward to our vacations and special times together, like any normal person. I understand there will be disappointments and stretches of days when I’m too tired to eek much joy from the moment, but that’s not going to stop me from trying. Who was it that said it’s the not the destination but the journey? (The answer is that lots of people have said it, and it’s only because it continues to be true.) So even though the destination may be wonderful when I get there, I’m going to be more conscious of the road I take to get there and the people traveling with me.

April 12, 2015 by sarahcotchaleovitch

Procrastination (I’m Writing This When I Should Be Writing Something Else)

Anne Tyler might just have a point. Take this post, for instance: I’ve been thinking about writing about procrastination for a while. And what’s the best way to do this? Well, to procrastinate, of course. (I find it’s often helpful to write about things that I’ve experienced first-hand.) Granted, I did have other topics to cover first, which I did. Then I even sat down and wrote a few paragraphs. Which I let sit for five days. Then I came back and erased them all.

Sometimes I don’t write because I have other things to do. I am a very structured person, and as such, I cannot allow myself to write a blog post or edit my novel or read for pleasure when I need to pack my son’s lunch or send an important e-mail or wash a load of laundry. But sometimes I don’t write because… well, maybe I’m just wasting time on Facebook. Granted, I don’t do that too often – and I even got rid of all the games on my phone to eliminate those distractions – but there are still plenty of times when I should be writing, but I do things that could easily wait until later instead.

If such a self-disciplined person as me has a hard time staying on task, what hope is there for writers who aren’t nearly as structured to ever start the writing process?

I have a two-part answer, and the first part is that I think it’s a me thing, separate from being self-disciplined.

This isn’t something that’s just happened to me since having kids. It’s something that’s gone on as long as I’ve written. I remember spending afternoons at my parents’ business, pacing through the same four rooms, building scenes in my mind, sometimes even muttering the lines. I would hash over those same scenes ad infinitum. I still do this, although nowadays, I’m not a teenager with a bunch of free time but a mom who squeezes all of her creative thinking into stolen moments in the shower or car or while folding laundry.

The second part of my answer is that thinking is a part of the writing process – or any creative process. Now, the problem is that if you don’t ever move beyond thinking – to the actual doing part – you are not a writer or a painter or an inventor (or whatever) but merely someone who aspires to be one of those things.

Thank you for making my point, Mr. Pullman. And my problem is that I don’t always take my ideas to my “desk.”

Sometimes I’ll think over a scene so much that I just assume I’ve written it. And then, as often happens, I’ll move onto something else. Months or even years later, I may look for that scene, only to discover that it was only ever in my head. Other times, I do sit down to write, but the words that were perfected in my mind have all but evaporated. Or they just don’t ring true anymore. Something has changed between the initial thinking and the writing.

Well said, Ms. L’Engle – and the same thing can apply to blogs. But I don’t think it’s a totally bad thing. I think internalizing a scene or some dialogue or just an idea is all a part of the writing process. As long as I do eventually sit down and write (like I’m doing right now), it adds up to the creative whole.

Earlier this week, I discovered an incongruity in my novel. A scene hinged on my protagonist having an opinion based on a conversation she overheard. Unfortunately, I realized this conversation happened when she was three or four and would have been way over her head at the time (if she’d even been paying attention). I had to re-work the scene, keeping the content but changing how it happened. I couldn’t move on until I’d fixed the scene, and I had to think it through first. For several days.

I’ll admit, I was a little intimidated by it. When you realize that you’ve created a problem that you have to write your way out of, sometimes the easy way out is just to give up – set the manuscript aside. And I’ve done that before, but I can’t with this one because I’m shopping literary agents. I had to tackle that scene, and after letting it simmer and then reading a few scenes around it, I figured out a solution.

Yet again, I feel like Madeleine L’Engle is talking to me. I am that woman with children and another job – a woman who wants to write, who needs to. After all, I can only procrastinate so long before the creative dam breaks. I have legitimate distractions, but I also have stories to tell. So I will continue to fight myself but understand that sometimes it’s okay to just think – as long as I do carve out that time to take my ideas to my desk-slash-laptop.

Speaking of which, I think it’s about time to wrap this up so I can get back to it.

February 26, 2015 by sarahcotchaleovitch

How’s Your Writing Going?



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When I was 25, I met a friend for coffee on one of her infrequent visits home. After being inseparable as kids, we eventually drifted into our different lives. Hers seemed glamorous to me: she’s a debutante who attended an Ivy League school, then traveled abroad to pursue other degrees. She drives the most expensive sports cars and vacations all over the world. When she called and told me she was in town, I couldn’t turn down the chance to catch up with her.

I knew we wouldn’t be able to meet long because my 11-month-old son would be up from his nap soon. I was so happy to see her – and impressed with myself for losing all my baby weight and then some – that I never thought how plain I would look in my jeans and t-shirt next to her designer outfit. I never thought she’d care to know what I’d been up to. What was there to say? I’m a mom. After catching her up on baby news (which doesn’t take long when you’re talking to someone who doesn’t have kids), she asked about my writing.

Writing? What writing? Oh, wait, you mean how I thought getting a degree in English would set me on the path to bestseller-dom? While I kept up with my daily journal, my fiction had gone the way of the dinosaur. I wouldn’t call it a slump. It was just that I was busy and happy not writing. After I missed the “published author” mile marker on the highway of my life, I moved on to “starting a family” and didn’t look back. Yes, I still wrote, but it wasn’t the kind of writing that kept me up at night.

And that was so not how I had envisioned my life – to be unpublished and happy. By the time I was 13, I knew that I wanted to make a living writing novels. I had no inclination to get a regular job and write after hours. I wanted to provide for my family through my books. And I was naive enough to think that I could go to college and get an English degree, and somehow, I would be in that perfect position to fulfill my dream.

Here’s what I often imagined: a home office overlooking a fenced-in backyard, where my future, well-adjusted children would run around and play, allowing me to work in peace. And then we would go out for ice cream and a movie, and we would take vacations whenever we wanted, and if my husband decided to get a job, it would just be because he wanted to, not because we were dependent on his salary.

Obviously, I had no idea what being a parent or an adult is really like, much less how the publishing world works.

But by 25, I was well aware of the perils of the publishing world. I’d already received rejections from literary agents. I’d even gone through a period when I thought maybe I couldn’t write. Maybe I would just be an editor, but I got over that when I realized that I simply hadn’t found my voice yet. After I did, I found joy in writing again. But I still had nothing to show for it, other than the title of “Editor-in-Chief” for a fledgling literary journal.

My entire writing “career” has been full of these ups and downs. I do actually make money as a writer, but it’s certainly not enough to buy us the house with the big yard and to keep my husband from having to work. It’s my lack of steady employment that makes him have to work so hard to pick up my slack. Part of me wishes that I’d gone to work for a newspaper or local magazine or even a small publisher. I would be able to carry more of the financial load, although that’s not at all the kind of writing that feeds my soul.

Yet despite being married to a starving artist, my husband believes in me. That doesn’t mean he thinks I’ll make millions, but he’s always my first reader, and even though he protests that he never knows what to say, I can always trust him for an honest opinion. The book that I’m shopping around right now is the best thing I’ve ever written, but just because it’s the best thing I’ve produced to this point doesn’t mean it’s perfect – or anywhere close to the best thing out there.

Amidst editing and querying and doing a whole lot of work that could amount to a lot of nothing, I finally asked him if I should even bother. I’d been gearing myself up to ask for several days. He loves me, but he’s not afraid to give me the painful truth. He told me it’s a good story, and he wants me to get recognition for it (although that in no way guarantees anything about getting it published).

Then he asked me if I would quit writing, even if it wasn’t any good.

While I would certainly quit wasting both my and the literary agents’ time by querying, I would never quit writing because it’s my outlet.

I still have that dream of making a living as a novelist. I still want to have a positive answer when I meet with a friend for coffee. If she were to ask me this week how my writing is going, my answer is that it’s great. I’m editing a story I love and that I know has potential. It still needs work, but maybe someday…

Here’s a quote from Sylvia Plath that I found earlier this week:

And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.

I have the guts and the imagination, but I also have self-doubt. It’s what made me ask my husband if all this was worth the effort. It’s what makes me cringe when someone looks at me expectantly, like, “Well, you wrote a novel, why isn’t it in bookstores yet?” I think self-doubt is healthy because it makes us look honestly at ourselves. It’s only harmful when it turns into a loss of confidence; then it’s apparent in your writing and your outlook and can turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy. What self-doubt should do is help us re-evaluate our goals and adjust them to be realistic.

I think the enemy of creativity is really regret. Getting to a certain point and wishing you hadn’t done what you’d done. While I sometimes wish I’d done something to augment my position, I certainly have never regretted writing. If my stories never see the light of day, at least I was happy creating them.

***

Before you go away thinking that my sweet friend didn’t understand me at all and didn’t care about my life, let me tell you her response to my lack of stellar news. She said, “But you’re a mom.”

She said it with admiration and almost reverence. Yeah, I’m a mom. And quite often a writer mom. Like I said, no regrets.

January 31, 2015 by sarahcotchaleovitch

Maybe I Am Meant for This Line of Work

My Books!

This week I had two wonderful opportunities to talk to kids about my books and being an author. In all my dreams of making it big and whatnot (ha), I have never really thought much about interacting with my audiences. If I ever think about it at all, it’s usually about book signings and how miserable they are if no one shows up to buy the books.

Despite not having a household name or a bestseller under my belt, I was chosen to speak at two schools. One was a preschool, the other a junior high school – quite a difference. It just so happens that I write for both age groups.

Pre-school, I figured, would be easy. I’m most comfortable with this age because 1. they’re a lot smaller than me; 2. they’re still huggable; and 3. I teach that age all the time. I knew pretty much what to expect when walking in. They might be unruly, and I may not be able to understand everything they say, but at the end of the day, they think people who write books are cool. Plus, I did this event with my co-author and friend Karen Saltmarsh, and we ad-libbed a very over-the-top version of the moment we decided to write a book together. Even the adults loved it.

Karen and I wrote a non-fiction book for ages K through 12. It’s not a sit-down-and-read-it-during-circle-time kind of book; it’s all about encouraging the creative writing spark to thrive and spread. And even though I wasn’t sure if the older preschoolers would get it, the four- and five-year-olds we visited wanted to write their own books right then and there. Then I read my book to them, and they were the perfect audience. Even the little three-year-olds listened and interacted with me. I left feeling energized and wondering why I don’t do more of this kind of thing.

As for the junior high, it was their literacy week. They had a book fair and everything, and I was the guest author. Kids who were interested in talking to me spent their lunch period in the library, listening to this nothing author talk about books and the writing/publishing process. I’d had it on my calendar for a couple months, and every time I thought about it, I reminded myself that there was no reason to worry yet. Just save that for the night before, and go about life as normal.

Of course, I was still nervous. Not incapacitated or sick to my stomach, but it was the kind of thing I couldn’t dwell on much because then it would make me sick. Despite writing for this age, I don’t spend all that much time with 12- to 14-year-olds. To be honest, when I was that age, I didn’t want to be that age. I interact with them from afar, usually from the pages of adolescent fiction.

I couldn’t have been more pleasantly surprised when the kids were very receptive to what I had to say. They loved it when I talked to them about how they can publish books on-demand (and without waiting for a major publishing house to discover them). And when we talked about the books (and books-made-movies) that we like to read, I had a wonderful moment of wow-we-actually-get-each-other. They were even polite enough to listen to me read my children’s book, although the reactions (as expected) were much different than what I get from little kids.

There weren’t many silences at all – and when there were, it was because the kids were nervous about talking to me. Afterward, when we had some one-on-one time, several kids hung around long enough that they were late to their next class; we could’ve talked all day. In fact, I wished that they didn’t have to go so soon.

Two completely different groups of kids, two completely different situations, two great experiences. I still don’t know if my books will ever attract the interest of a so-called “real” publisher or any of those lists that seem to matter so much. And I would be lying if I said I didn’t care. But still, what I found was respect and joy – and gratitude for myself that I haven’t given up, that I keep writing when publishing and promotion are so difficult. I’m doing what I love, and it turns out that part of what this introverted author loves is spending time with her audiences.

Check out my children’s book Hero here.

December 13, 2014 by sarahcotchaleovitch

Could You Use 20 Minutes of Stillness?

Man thinking on a train journey. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I probably use this blog to harp on about my busy life a little too much. We’re all busy, right? You don’t have time to read about someone else’s busy-ness. But that’s my life, which I’ve had to accept. At least I can say that I never get bored. December seems even more crammed with obligations than November – or maybe that’s how it always feels when you’re living in the middle of it.

There are times when I am so busy that I don’t realize how much my kids are growing. Then someone points it out, and I realize that they are big. What happened? How did I miss it? I have to remind myself that I need to slow down and be with them. No, I don’t really want to line up all of our toy cars and count them, but my three-year-old does, and as long as he still wants me to sit with him, I should take advantage of it instead of throwing this opportunity away.

Still, there are many nights when I have the best intentions only to realize that it’s past their bedtimes, and we still haven’t read or done something fun together. If only I could just slow down and be present for a while, then maybe it wouldn’t feel like I’m living with they’re-growing-up-too-fast-itis.

This past week, I was forced to slow down when I had my first acupuncture session. My doctor kept up a steady dialogue while she was placing the needles, I suppose to keep me from focusing on what she was doing. She asked for advice on finding the perfect home-baked something to give to her two very different neighbors. We talked a lot about our dietary lifestyles, which have a lot to do with treating the hypothyroidism from which we both suffer. I was settling in to enjoy a nice conversation.

But with all the needles in place, she turned off the lights, gave me a bell to ring if I needed anything, and told me she would be back in 20 minutes or so.

My first reaction was to wonder what in the world I would do for 20-or-so minutes. And I had no way to track the time; I wasn’t wearing my watch because there were needles in my wrist, nor did I have my phone. All I had was me and some needles on this cushioned table in a little room. What in the world was I supposed to do?

If I had been at home instead of on that table, there’s no way I would have just lain down with no stimulation except for the darkened room around me and outside noises. I would have gotten up every couple of minutes to do something or other. My parents should have named me Martha.

Instead, when I had no choice but to be still, my body grew calm and comfortable – a gift that I very much needed in the middle of a very hectic month.

There are so many people I know who push themselves past the limit, especially this time of year. On the one hand, many of them have to because of their particular jobs, but on the other, staying so busy and so stressed eventually takes its toll. Last year, my mother’s body succumbed to a vicious virus right after Christmas because her body gave up when it finally had the chance to slow down.

Sometimes, the only way our bodies can grab our attentions is to force us to stop. The busy-ness… well, it can wait.

And I guess waiting is hard for people like me because we want to stay active. We always want to move forward, to do something. Slowing down isn’t just a luxury but almost a sin.

Except that the stillness is healing, reinvigorating. As painful as it may seem at the time (especially if you’ve never tried to do anything like meditation or even failed miserably at it), the results are positive.

That day on the table was still busy; I had no time to write. But I spent a long time thinking about my novel and what should come next. I prayed for several dear friends, finally with the time to reflect on their particular situations. And I just laid there doing nothing. Imagine that.

My challenge – which I extend to myself, as well – is to choose to be still from time to time, to choose to watch and listen. To relax at what seems an inconvenient time and recharge. To be present. I can’t slow time or my boys’ growth spurts, but I can use that time to its fullest.

Which sometimes means leaving it empty.

September 15, 2014 by sarahcotchaleovitch

Does the Genre Really Matter?

All seven books in the Harry Potter series. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Wanted: Good fiction.

To be more specific, fiction that draws me in right from the start. Fiction in which the characters are believable, in which I can hear the dialogue in my mind. Fiction that makes me think, raises tough questions, makes me cry, makes me emote. Fiction that makes me want to talk to someone else about it. Fiction that saddens me when it’s over.

I like to think that if I were a literary agent, that’s what I would list under my “interests.” Because, try as I might, I can’t pin down a favorite style or genre. Now, there are certain things that I definitely don’t like. Mediocre writing, inconsistency, lack of craft. Like I said, I want the characters to be believable. If the debutante protagonist has never scrambled an egg in her life, I won’t believe it when she whips a six-course meal out of thin air. (Unless she’s magic, of course – and if she is, I better have a hint of it first.) I don’t want adverbs trying to tell me how desperately someone says something. Show me the desperation with a sweaty brow and shaking hands. I don’t want plots that are so insubstantial they can be knocked over by a sneeze. I don’t want endings that are unrealistically happy or tragedies that are unnecessary, the only point being to make the reader cry.

I really just want a good story, one in which I can forget that I’m reading at all.

This is why labels kind of bother me. Romances, for instance. Label it like that, and I don’t want to read it. Why? Because all the romance novels I saw growing up had half-naked men massaging busty women’s shoulders on their front covers, and I really don’t want to read a novel that’s connected by one sex scene after another. So I was shocked to discover a truly excellent book that is sold in the romance section. Although the story revolves around a love story (or stories, really), it’s so much more than that. I’m speaking of Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander.

Or take the case of my friend who told me that he could not stand to read fantasy. Wouldn’t give Harry Potter the time of day because of how it’s categorized. I’ve known other people who won’t read these wonderful books, not because of the fantasy and magic, but because they’re so-called “kids’ stuff.” Well, if kids’ stuff comes with a side of good beating the crap out of evil, I’m on board with it.

How about Stephen King? He’s known as the king of horror, yet while he started that way, his more recent books (and my favorites) are much more sci-fi, fantasy, and I-don’t-know-what. They’re just good stories. Not to mention that the guy knows how to write and how to instruct writers how to write. Chances are, if you call him a hack, you haven’t read much beyond Cujo or Pet Sematary.

When I looked for beta readers for my novel RIP, I decided to go the vague route. People asked, “What’s it about?” or “What genre is it?” I told them that it was young adult, and fortunately, my beta readers were kind enough to read because they know me. One actually told me he wouldn’t have usually read that kind of book, but he was glad that he did. Good thing I kept my mouth shut, right?

But, as I posted a couple weeks ago, I was able to workshop a portion of my novel with an agent, and in my introduction, I told her it was young adult. It was almost as if, by giving that tiny bit of a description, it put blinders on her. My book was much too long. She was unwilling to consider almost anything about the content until I addressed the length. Young adult novels generally have a word count, and mine exceeded it by double. (Nevermind that books like Twilight are half again as long as mine.) Now, she is right: there are many thousands of words that I can cut, but shouldn’t she be trying to sell a story, not a word count? (That’s an issue for another blog.)

This whole issue has gotten me thinking: does labeling novels with a genre help or hinder? If I had just told the agent: here’s the beginning of my novel, would she have judged me for not nailing down a genre?

I don’t go through bookstores and read book jackets or first pages until I find something I think I want, but many other people find their books by following this practice. (Or if not in a bookstore, online.) What about someone who only picks books from the Christian lit shelves? This person might never consider reading Veronica Roth’s Divergent series because it’s sold as young adult and dystopian – would completely miss the way that Roth’s Christianity colors her novels.

While talking books with a friend recently, we got onto young adult lit, specifically John Green‘s books (which are awesome, by the way – do yourself a favor, and read them). My friend said, in a semi-surprised tone, that he’d gone on a young adult lit binge lately. And he’s in his forties with no kids. I find this wonderful – that a book written “for” an audience in their teens can speak to such a wider audience.

Of course, I totally get that if there were no classifications, I could very well mistakenly shop my novel with agents who are only interested in political thrillers or erotica. And marketing is another issue. No matter what, there are people who will refuse to read anything except X, even though they would really enjoy Y, if only they would give it a chance.

But it seems, in the effort to makes genres more attractive to more people, sub-genres have to be added. You ought to check out this list from Writer’s Digest. And it’s not even complete! I just heard of a new genre called New Adult. Each genre and sub-genre has its own little specifications, and if you hope to publish, you have to try to fit the mold. Well, what if I don’t want to? What if I just want to write or read a good book? What if I want to mull it over afterward and then say, “I think I just read a really good Western. Who knew? I never thought I would enjoy a book like that.”

All I’m asking for is a little bit more of an open mind. From agents, publishers, and readers, alike. Hey, I’ll try to have one, too.

I suppose this is why I’m not a big publishing executive. The bottom line is important, I know. Believe me, I want to make a living in this business, too. But at the end of the day, piles of money aren’t going to captivate me. But a great story will every time.

August 16, 2014 by sarahcotchaleovitch

My Own Gratitude Blog

I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of the clothes.

– Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Earlier this week, I read an interesting post on Facebook, entitled “Give Me Gratitude or Give Me Debt.” It’s from Glennon Doyle Melton’s blog Momastery. I even borrowed the above epigraph from this post because it really struck a chord with me.

Although I recommend you read Melton’s original post, I can boil it down to this: one of her posts included a picture of herself in her kitchen. While Melton thought little of this, her readers began messaging her with tips and advice on updating her kitchen. Melton’s response? An outpouring of gratitude for her shamelessly outdated kitchen and all the wonders it provides for her family.

Melton’s “Gratitude” blog was a great reminder. I don’t think often enough about how grateful I should be for what I have. Sometimes it’s all too easy to get caught up in wanting to “have” because someone else already does. It’s easy to fall into the entitlement mentality.

Just last week, for instance, I wrote about how happy I was that we finally have a lawn guy. Wow, how fortunate are we? We can afford to pay someone else to make our lawn look nice. What kind of a luxury is that? And I grumble about the house’s interior, too, and get onto my kids when their toys are all over the place, but I have to remember a time, not too long ago, when we didn’t have a house to mess up or a big lawn to mow.

Years ago, my husband and I got caught up in the idea that home ownership was the end-all-be-all. We simply wouldn’t be anyone if we remained renters. Well, maybe I shouldn’t drag Thomas into this, but I know that I certainly felt that way. When we were first married, we lived in a tiny apartment. It was literally smaller than my bedroom where I grew up (although, admittedly, that bedroom was huge). We tried to entertain family for a surprise birthday party for my mom and then for Christmas, and to say that it was tight would be a gross understatement. Sure, we were happy and have some great memories of our first place together, but our time there was tainted with the idea that we wanted more.

Why? Why couldn’t we just enjoy what we had and stay? But no. We wanted that fabled “starter” home. Too bad we bought in 2006. On the budget of a couple 23-year-olds, we could either afford a shabby house on a not-so-great side of town, or we could afford a condo in a developing neighborhood at pre-construction prices. We were sold on the idea that lots of shops were coming in. Thomas and I loved to walk everywhere, and we envisioned ourselves walking to the Starbucks next door whenever the mood struck.

Except that the housing market crash happened, and no Starbucks was ever built. The condo that we thought we would sell for a great profit after three years – max – became our home for almost seven years. We had two babies there, and they shared the same bedroom. If you’d told us that in 2006, we would have turned and run. We would have let them keep our $4000 deposit. But we didn’t know, and so we made the best we could out of it.

You know what? Despite complaining about the condo (our running joke was that every time Thomas met someone he hadn’t seen in a while, he’d say, “Want to buy a condo?”), I reminded myself from time to time that we did have a roof over our heads. We did have a huge closet. We never had to worry about taking care of the lawn or the roof or the paint job. We were on the ground floor and surrounded by trees, so our electricity bill was super low.

But we also had some of our bedroom furniture in the dining room because it wouldn’t fit in our room. Our exercise bike was right there in the living room. If you weren’t careful when you came in at night, you’d run right over my sons’ Little Tikes workbench. The carpet had spots in it when we moved in – and we were the first people to live there. That only became more pronounced with a cat and two kids.

About a year-and-a-half ago, we finally left the condo years behind us. One thing we knew for sure: we didn’t want to get stuck again, so we found a rental house, knowing that if it was horrible, we could get out at any time.

So we now have a huge lawn, where the kids can play. We have a garage, where we can store things like the exercise bike and all the stuff we kept in storage – and even a car. We have a bedroom for each kid. Our furniture is all where it belongs.

We also have a tile floor that’s awful in different ways than our old, spotty carpet. We only have one tree, and it doesn’t provide any shade for the house, so the A/C runs constantly in the summer. Plus no ceiling fan in our room. The kids have fans – why can’t we? The house is older, so our kitchen (like Melton’s) is outdated. Our fridge is smaller and doesn’t have an ice maker. I mean, I have to fill ice trays and put them in the freezer myself – we’re talking prehistoric, here.

My lovely fridge.

But you know what? I kind of like our fridge. It has pictures of our family all over it. It displays my six-year-old’s latest artwork. It’s covered in magnetic letters that my two-year-old identifies every time he gets a Gogurt.

Our grass is thick and green, even in winter, and we’ve had two beautiful hawks visit our backyard, plus dozens of smaller birds, squirrels, and even a little snake that keeps us rodent-free. Wildlife is not something my kids got to enjoy at the condo. And the lizards – oh my gosh, you’d think that my cat was in heaven. She sits by the sliding glass door and tracks them all day long.

Although there were times that I thought I would somehow be fulfilled if we got a bigger place – and I do appreciate that aspect of where we live now – it took moving out to appreciate the positive attributes of each of our previous homes. Just because we lived in a little condo through most of our 20s doesn’t mean our 20s were somehow lesser because of it.

As I look around my house, much as Melton looked around her kitchen, I see that we not only have enough, but we have more than enough to live and to thrive. Sure, I still dream about another house. Nothing specific, just bigger than what we have now – but do you know why? Not because I want to have one of those HGTV dream kitchens or an in-house theatre or any of that. I would love a bigger kitchen, where we can cook and bake without tripping over each other. And an extra bedroom or two would be nice, so we can host our out-of-town family. And bookshelves, of course. I would love to have a place for our books, where someone can see all the titles and say, “This is a great book!” or “Can I borrow this one?”

We do NOT live here 🙂 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

But you know what? Say that dream home never happens. Say that we are “stuck” here for seven, ten, twenty years…

Although not ideal, if this is the last place I live, I don’t think I’m going to go to my grave feeling cheated. Because it’s not a new fridge or a bonus room that will make me happy at the end of the day. I hope that I’ll be able to look back on my life and remember the relationships and the silliness and the joy rather than the headaches and stress that come with always trying to upgrade, to keep up, to become whatever it is that the commercials and TV shows would have you believe gives true happiness.

If I’m not happy as I am now, it’s the me that needs to change, not the accessories that come with the me.

As for Robin Williams – if I’m ever going to mention him, it might as well be this week – after getting over the initial shock, my next thought was, But he had it all. Of course, only he knew what it was like to be in his head, to feel what he felt. Depression is nothing to mess around with, and I’m speaking from experience – the terrible, postpartum kind that steals joy from moments that should be precious and forever cherished.

Of course, depression is a different thing entirely, although it certainly can come along with the feeling of never having enough, never being enough, never being fulfilled. But the point is that if a famous man, a wealthy man, a man with supposedly “everything” a person could want still didn’t have “it” (that lasting joy, that sense of being fulfilled in life), then who can? Will any of the things or ideals that we as people chase ever be more than a disappointment?

Now, before you get your panties in a wad, I’m not putting down celebrities or people who want to remodel their houses. But many of the “haves” are notoriously unhappy – along with many of the “have nots” who concentrate all their energies on attaining the lifestyle of the “haves,” thinking that’s where life can finally start. If you’re chasing something that you think you must have – be it a new car, a trendier wardrobe, a $1000 handbag, an Ivy League education, a set of initials behind your name – remember that these things do not a fulfilled person make. They are fancy dressings, so much fluff that often masks a great vacuum beneath.

If today were my last day to live, I wouldn’t die thinking, Well, I didn’t get my dream home. I never had my fifteen minutes of fame. I just wasted my life. Nor would having those things make my death easier to cope with for my husband and children. I would hate to die with the regret that I spent so much time going after things or ideals that I missed out on watching my kids be their goofy selves and cooking with my husband in our outdated kitchen.

If I wake up tomorrow, I’ll play with my kids some more, and we’ll spend some more time in the kitchen. My life is pretty simple but full, and for that I am forever grateful. The cake – the substance – has already been measured and mixed and baked to perfection.

The rest is icing – unnecessary but sweet if savored in small doses.

Photo credit: Wikipedia

August 9, 2014 by sarahcotchaleovitch

Mommy’s Summer Break

Flagler Beach (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This summer, I’ve been more aware of the passage of time than ever before. I think part of that is due to updating the calendar with my six-year-old every day. It’s something he did in kindergarten and will continue to do in the first grade, and I figured it was an easy way to sneak in a little learning all summer long.

So when we turned to August, and I saw that the first day of school was less than three weeks away, I felt like our summer break had evaporated without me taking much notice. Then Peter asked me how many days were left, and I turned it into a quick math lesson. We counted the days of summer break up to that point, then counted the remaining days until school started, and we added them up for the total number of days.

Eighty-one. From the day after he finished kindergarten to the day before he starts first grade are 81 days. Not even three full months. I have to admit that I feel a little cheated. When I was a kid, we were out at the beginning of June and didn’t go back until the day after Labor Day.

A little past the mid-point of July, we were invited to a play date at the beach. I was talking to another mom, whom I hadn’t seen since early June, and she asked me about our summer. I was at a bit of a loss and had to admit that standing on the beach with her and our children was the first “summery” thing I’d done. Yes, my kids had occasional play dates and day camps or classes, but I hadn’t taken them to do anything that smacked of summer.

Before I had kids, I was rarely asked the “What have you done this summer?” question. After all, if you don’t have kids, you’re not in school yourself, or you’re not a teacher, summer is merely a hotter time of year. And when you live in Florida, it’s hot about eleven-and-a-half months, anyway, so it all kind of runs together.

But this summer, I’ve encountered this question a lot, and I’ve finally resorted to the, “It’s been very busy” answer. If you’re a regular reader, you know that I have completed three big projects since the end of the school year, but for every one of these projects, I’ve picked up at least one more. So my busy-ness has just shifted into other areas.

I’m not complaining. I love freelance writing and the flexibility of being able to go to the store when I need and to be available to take my sons to their various activities. Even being busy isn’t all that bad, except that I’ve had to utilize to-do lists more than ever in my life the last couple months because, otherwise, I might forget to brush my teeth or something.

I will have to say, though, that some things have suffered. Like the house. Because of my husband’s odd work hours, it seems that the only days he’s available to mow the lawn are when it rains. Consequently, our grass grows so thick and so high that we run through lawn mowers like candy. We finally gave in and hired a lawn guy (something I’d been rooting for since last fall), and when he showed up one morning this week and did what would have taken Thomas two days to accomplish, I said that my dreams had come true. Of course, that’s a gross exaggeration. He wasn’t publishing my book, cleaning the house, potty training my toddler, and mowing the lawn, but I’ll take what I can get.

Ick – do we live like this?

As for the interior of the house, it’s been the pits since before spring break, which was in March. People say that trying to clean while you have kids is like trying to shovel snow in a blizzard, which is true, but still. I have a nice little shelf with bins that will hold toys, if only the kids will use it. Then my elder son decided he wanted to sleep on the floor over eight months ago, and he’s slept there ever since. (Really – check out the picture.) So his floor is mostly taken up with a sleeping bag, which never gets picked up. Every once in a while, it gets so messed up that I straighten it, only to find a number of toys that we thought had disappeared.

Sleeping bag… and no more sleeping bag 🙂

With my summer dwindling – and although I’ve been busy, I have more free time now than I will when I start substitute teaching again – I need to take care of my house before it gets even more out of control. So this weekend is my opportunity. My in-laws are taking the kids for a couple days, and although I swore I would clean the last time they kept the kids, I didn’t. But this time, I’m tackling the mess. I’ll tell you, there’s nothing like being able to vacuum at three in the morning and not bother anyone, except for maybe the cat. (And sleep late because no one’s going to yell, “Mommy!” at six A.M.) It’s also nice to be able to pack away toys that my boys will never miss and donate them to children who will actually play with them instead of leaving them in the middle of the foyer.

So my life has come to this: it makes my day to pay someone to mow the lawn and to get rid of my kids long enough to clean up after them. Am I nuts, or what? My mommy-cation is not glamorous, nothing to write home about (although it does make for a convenient blog topic). And after all, my six-year-old gave Thomas and me his blessing to go out and have ice cream, see a movie, and have a romantic dinner. So, who knows? We may take him up on it… and come home to a house that looks like it belongs to civilized people.

The Happy Ending

July 26, 2014 by sarahcotchaleovitch

Adding to My Personal Soundtrack

Quarta gregoriano (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I don’t talk enough about the musical influences in my life. I know it’s all books-this and writing-that, but I really wouldn’t be the well-rounded individual that I am (ha) without the music in my life.

There are times when music surprises me; a song that I’ve heard many times will suddenly awaken a creative something within me. Since I’m a writer, that “something” is usually a scene in a book I’m writing. Sometimes it’s the “aha!” moment I’ve been waiting for. Other times (like what I posted about most recently), a novel almost gets derailed by a new scene that I never would have imagined, were it not for hearing the right song at the right time.

Then there are other times that music doesn’t necessarily evoke a specific image or scene, yet it fulfills some emotional (and I would go as far as to say spiritual) hole and leaves me pleasantly full and happy, even energized.

What brings all this up? Well, I’m kind of riding a high from attending an evening of uplifting, choral music. A boring way to spend a Friday night, right? Well, not if I got chills during the first song (I did) and can’t stop thinking about the sound and the joy on the faces of the singers (I can’t).

You see, that’s how it is in this relationship I have with music. Many songs or musical events become a part of what I think of as the soundtrack of my life. (Don’t worry, as a writer, I sometimes narrate my life, too, but today it’s all about the music.)

Cover of Alanis Morissette

For instance, any time I hear “The Sign” (Ace of Base), I’m overcome with nostalgia – it’s the title song of my first CD. The same goes for Alanis Morisette’s Jagged Little Pill; I bought that CD in the seventh grade, and so did my husband. It’s part of our middle school soundtrack.

And so it continues: musicals I participated in as a teenager, such as Annie and Fiddler on the Roof; Metallica’s S&M CD (one of the best Christmas presents Thomas ever bought); our first System of a Down CD, which we bought and listened to when we drove to a Gator football game; the mix CD Thomas’s brother burned for us a couple days before we got married, so we listened to it everywhere we drove on our honeymoon. And our wedding itself contained a mini-concert. Some people told me it was a long ceremony because of all the music. But we’re musical people. Thomas’s grandfather was in a band. My mom’s mom and dad’s dad were both organists. It’s in our DNA.

Bohemian Rhapsody (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

So I’m raising my kids right, making them listen to “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “Thriller” wherever we go. (Hey, I also downloaded “Let It Go” – don’t worry.) I’m helping them create their own soundtracks.

Most recently, I’ve discovered Rachael Sage; her single “Happiness (Maddie’s Song)” just came out on iTunes. I heard it once and couldn’t stop humming it for a couple days. And then there’s Pentatonix. I love it when someone posts one of their new songs on Facebook – which I’ll watch over and over, to my children’s chagrin. And Bastille – who doesn’t dig a rocker with a cool British accent?

Cover of Rachael Sage

Every new song, every concert, is a possible source for inspiration, but it goes deeper than potential best-selling novel ideas (as nice as they are). Songs are little triggers. I can hear one in the grocery store and be transported back to the fourth grade. Or remember the last concert I attended with a friend before she passed away. They’re pieces that may not always seem to go together – discordant, you might say – yet they make up the puzzle of me. And as strange as it may seem to hum classic rock in the store, listen to folk songs in the car, and spend an evening listening to choral music, I totally dig the big picture.

And it just keeps getting bigger. But I wouldn’t call that a bad thing.

Full-Time Writer Mom

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