Frogs

I wrote my first novel almost two years ago during NaNoWriMo. The novel is titled "Kissing Frogs" and it's sitting on my desk, staring at me. There are some days when it croaks loudly at me and begs to be handled. Other days, it is content to just lay there in it's cool, dark hiding place.

I feel two things when I look at it: 1) proud of myself for FINALLY following through and writing a complete novel, and 2) a strange mix of anxiety, fear and sadness.

The first feeling probably makes sense to most people; the second one may not. The anxiety stems from the overwhelmingly daunting task of editing and revising. I know that there is a lot of correcting that needs to be done. Hell, I don't even have it broken down into chapters, that's how rough the draft is. Hemingway said that the first draft of anything is shit. If that's the case, mine is more like diarrhea. No, really, it's that bad and stinky.

My logical mind knows that it's a rough draft and that I shouldn't expect it to be perfect. I'm afraid that even after I've done some revising, it still won't be good enough for people outside of my special inner circle to read.

When I see "Frogs" sitting in front of me, I feel sad. It's my first novel (unless you count the one I wrote long-hand in a 200 page Mead notebook when I was a kid). It's special and I'm sentimentally attached. There may be other novels and stories in me but none will ever replace the feeling I had when I finished "Frogs." And I know that I will miss that feeling.

Maybe with some love, "Frogs" will magically turn into a gorgeous hunk of writing and we will live happily ever after in Barnes & Noble and Amazon.com. A girl can dream, can't she?

Smiling on the inside,

~Valeka

Why?

A few months ago, during a conversation with my father, he asked me if I get paid to blog. I said "not always." His response, which I wholly expected, was "then why bother doing it?' I will admit, after years of my dad poo-poo'ing my writing, I did get a wee bit defensive. I presented my side of why and hoped that it convinced him (me??) that it was the right thing for me to do with my life.

I returned home and after a few weeks passed, I found myself feeling frustrated and asking myself the same question - why bother doing it?

The best answer I could come up with was this :

I love it. I feel incomplete if I go for a day without writing something as simple as a journal entry. It's such a part of me, always has been, that I know I would be a sad, depressed person if I was forced to stop again.

Am I getting rich from writing? Hell no but that doesn't matter to me. I'd be lying if I said that I didn't want Stephen King's career but I don't need to have that. As long as I love what I write, enjoy doing it and it touches those that read it, then that's enough for me....but I'm still shooting for the New York Times best-seller list.

Smiling,

~Valeka

The Anti-Romance Romance Novel

Last week I was having a masochistic moment and decided to browse through the romance novel section at Barnes & Noble. Since my novel is considered to be a 'romance', I thought it would be a good idea to take a look at my book's potential shelf mates.

How bad could it be?

It was bad. I found myself surrounded by covers of tan men with greased up pec muscles bursting through their shirts and fair maidens with long, windblown hair looking completely unaware that their enormous boobs were on the verge of busting out of their bodices. It was nearly impossible for me to visualize my glasses-wearing, book nerd heroine sitting next to those visions of romantic perfection. Heck, my character would roll her eyes and snort out a laugh at the Fabio wannabes on either side of her.

I'm not one to poo-poo another author's creation (as authors, we should be respectful and constructive when critiquing each other's work) but, to be honest - I don't like romance novels.

Standing among those books made me want to scrap my novel or shelve it indefinitely in an effort to save it from sitting alongside them.

I like to think of the book I'm writing as the 'anti-romance romance novel.' It's about quirky, goofy, self-effacing characters that are trying to navigate their way through the murkiness of life and love. One of my best friends told me that I was the "right kind of weird." If that is true, I've passed that weirdness along to my characters.

The stories I write are for people that don't get carried off into the sunset on a white stallion to live in a castle far, far away. For people like me, romance means getting coffee in a cafe, sending love messages through social media and cheap dates at food trucks. Yeah, okay, I admit that I do miss the days that my Grandmother spoke of when people dressed up for dates, received flowers for no reason and sipped martinis in dimly lit supper clubs while listening to crooners. But let's be realistic, those days are long gone and not likely to return (such a shame).

I write for the ordinary gal and guy that are hoping for someone special to come into their lives. They want someone they can be themselves with. They want to play video games, browse bookstores, go on hikes, watch horror movies while snuggling on the couch with a blanket and a giant bowl of popcorn, cook dinner together and not care that it's served on mismatched plates, drive around town listening to 80's hair band music and yell at the TV together while watching baseball or football games. That's the perfectly imperfect world we live in right now.

An escape from daily life is nice and I know that is where the bodice-ripper novels come in but there is something to be said for identifying with characters and the situations they are put in. Relating to those two things can make us feel like we aren't alone in the world and that someone wrote a book just for us (Wow! That sounds just like ME!).

That's pretty special.

Smiling,

~ Valeka

In The Beginning...

One of the most difficult things to contend with is to feel passion for something and yet have one of the most influential and important people in one's life show complete disinterest.  That has been the sort of relationship I have had for most of my life with my father.  It's been that way for as long as I can remember and it hurts as much today as it did when I was eight and had my heart set on being an author.

 
I use to write books when I was a child.  Not stories but books complete with tables of content.  I would spend endless hours sitting at my off-white French Provencial-style desk writing in notebooks that I would buy at the local five and dime.  I would write in pen, pencil, marker - whatever writing instrument I could find.  I clearly remember one summer evening when I was in my bedroom scribbling out a story and my father entered my room to check up on me.  He asked what I was doing and I proudly said that I was writing a book.  He asked me why and I told him that I wanted to be an author.  He laughed.  And when he finished laughing he said "do you know how hard it is to be a published author?  It's not likely to happen".  He said that I should stop writing and go play with my brother.  So I did because our parents are supposed to know what is best, right?  I believed him.

The writing continued but it became more secretive.  I pretended that I was working on a school project or on a report for school.  A few years passed and we started to discuss future plans for me.  He asked me what field I wanted to pursue.  I said once again that I wanted to be an author.  His reaction was similar to the last except this time there was the addition of the phrases "you still haven't gotten over that idea?  What did I tell you about that?"  But this time, things were different.  I became so upset that I gathered up all of my journals, notebooks, scraps of paper in binders and tossed them in the garbage bin outside.  My bedroom bookshelf was virtually empty with the exception of a few books from "published" authors.  How could my dad possibly be wrong?  I stopped writing for many years after that.  I enjoyed writing research papers, poetry, creative writing for classes when it was necessary but beyond that, I pushed any thoughts of writing aside. 

Several years passed before I even entertained the idea of writing again (although I used to have recurring dreams of winning a Nobel or Pulitzer Prize for literature and my father FINALLY realizing that he was wrong).  In fact, I was in my early twenties before I considered the idea again.  I made the decision to move to Austin and perhaps dabble in screenwriting.  My mother was supportive of my decision and continues to be one of my strongest supporters (she managed to rescue some of my early writings from the trash collectors).  My father on the other hand, was less than enthused but I moved anyway.  And I have been writing ever since. 
 

My writing has taken on many different incarnations since moving to Austin - screenplays, book manuscript, blogs, journal entries - but I love them all for different reasons.  My father knows that I am writing again and that I am involved in many writing groups in my city.  He thinks it's a waste of time, doesn't take an active interest in it and has never read a single blog or script page I have written.  And I'm fine with that.  It still hurts and probably always will.  I may never win a Pulitzer but that's okay.  I'm doing what I love and that is what matters.  Knowing that my words touch SOMEONE out there makes me happy.  And that is the most important thing to me.  

Smiling,

V~