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I am willing to bet that many of you were passionate blithering idiots when you first started writing. Some of you are right now. By that I mean that writing was all that mattered. Attention to husband and kids sometimes took a back seat.
Housework? Forget it! The hungry dog? Open a bag of dog food and just set it on the floor and let the family pet have at it. Hungry kids? Have them throw some TV dinners in the oven or open a package of lunch meat and a loaf of bread. It’s Christmas? Oh, yeah, guess I’ll throw some tinsel on a fake tree when I take a break between chapters.
I like to joke that I’ve written 57 books and have thus had 57 affairs! I have fallen passionately in love with every hero I’ve ever written about – and about four of them have stayed with me, in my thoughts, in my heart, even in my bed for years! But thank god I have an understanding husband who knows it’s just the stories inside of me. He understands how attached I get to my characters. He’s always been a big supporter of my writing, and caring about each other’s dreams is the basic reason we’ve been together for nearly 47 years.
When I write my stories, I become the heroine, and most of the things she does and the decisions she makes are based on what I would do in that particular situation. So as a side thought, apart from my theme of passion here, remember that a primary ingredient of writing believable characters is to be those characters. Write from the inside-out – not from the outside looking in.
You have all heard that one primary rule for writing a good story is - show, don’t tell. Writing from the inside will help you do that. I could teach an entire workshop on that subject, but I’ll save that for next time. Let’s get back to passion and how it can help your writing.
In my early days of writing – wow. I was a complete maniac. I was 34 years old and I’d read a book called The Proud Breed by Celeste De Blasis, a fabulous love story set in early California. I had always read historicals, most of them about pioneers and Indians, and for some reason that particular book finally put a burr in my butt and made me sit down and write a similar story. The actual desire to write a book about pioneers probably really started at the age of around 14, when I read A Lantern In Her Hand by Bess Streeter Aldrich. What an impressive, touching, memorable story that was. But I was young and didn’t believe I could really write a book, and I had a lot of living to do – got married at 20 – worked full time and had two babies by 25, two boys just one year apart. “life” took over, but I still read … and dreamed.
By the time I was 34 the boys were old enough to not need constant watching, and as I said – something about The Proud Breed finally stirred that passion in me to write, and off I went! We had purchased 29 acres of wooded property that needed a tremendous amount of work, and I was working full time on top of that, drove close to a half hour each way to work and back (I was an administrative secretary to the manager of a nuclear power plant) – had a son who needed to go to the doctor every week for an allergy shot and with whom I spent many nights sleeping sitting up in a chair holding him because if he laid down he couldn’t breathe – and well, here’s how my day usually went:
Up at 5:00 a.m. – pack lunches (back then my husband carried a lunch to work and my sons ate sack lunches at school) – got my husband up and off to work – got myself ready for work – got the boys up and ready for school – made them breakfast - drove them to school – drove to work – put in an 8 hour day – drove home – did grocery shopping – one afternoon a week took the son for his allergy shot – made supper – did dishes – did whatever cleaning needed done – did laundry one or two days a week – helped my husband stack logs and pull brush on the property we were clearing – painted and helped maintain two rental cottages on the property – did a lot of the mowing and helped with a 40-acre asparagus farm – yet I almost always did some writing in the evening in a very small living room where the boys would be playing and wrestling and the husband would be watching TV five feet away. I would often write whole chapters in one sitting late into the night, sometimes until 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning, and then fall asleep with my head on the typewriter while everybody else slept – then up at 5:00 am to do it all over again. Even at work I often read or wrote on my lunch hour. I sure didn’t sleep much back then!
I don’t know how I did it – I just did it. I was incredibly passionate about my stories, my subject and my characters. Amid all of this I managed to read probably hundreds of research books about the American West. I have a huge personal library of research books, and I’ve read them all.
Today we have the internet, but not back then. I took notes – volumes and volumes of notes. I still have a four-drawer file full of hand-written notes and magazine articles I saved to use for story ideas. In those files are hundreds of manilla folders labeled “cities” “rivers” “buffalo” “civil war” “ranching” “western women” “Denver’s history” “stagecoaches” “the pony express” “forts” “Custer” “Cheyenne” “Sioux” “Comanche” “mountain men” - on and on and on. You name the subject from the 1800’s old west, and I have a folder full of notes on it as well as several research books. When I first started writing, the internet was a distant dream. I had to hunt down my information through books.
Most of my research books came from the University of Oklahoma and the University of Nebraska – great libraries filled with books you can order that cover everything you would ever want to know about the American West, Native Americans, the Civil War – whatever you want to know about America’s history and Native Americans, and you can order books from them on-line. And to this day one of my most-used resources are the 26 volume Time-Life books about the Old West that were published about 30 years ago. Time Life also has a set of books about the Civil War and also about pirate ships and the history of shipping in general.
And the best source for Eastern history about the Eastern Indians, the revolution, the French and Indian War, the War of 1812 and all the amazing history of how this country was born and grew can be found in books by Alan Eckert, stories like That Dark and Bloody River. No one tells it better – real history written like a novel, with real characters and dialogue. When you are finished with an Alan Eckert book, you are left in awe of the courage and stamina our pioneers showed in the early growth of this country.
Through all the things I mentioned I also did my own advertising, I attended numerous conferences, conducted workshops and gave speeches at clubs and other organizations, anything to publicize my writing. At first I mailed out manuscripts like a mad man, doing multiple submissions with the hope that if book “x” didn’t sell there, maybe the next publishing house would pick it up, and maybe that first publisher would buy book “y.” I made sure publishers knew I was here to stay and that I was capable of writing more than one or two books. I went through nearly 100 rejections and wrote nine books before I finally sold that ninth book in 1982 to Kensington Publishing – Sweet Prairie Passion – the first book of what turned out to be a 7-book series called Savage Destiny.
To this day Savage Destiny remains popular. To this day I still get letters and e-mails about those books. And soon Amazon will reissue all the Savage Destiny books as e-books for Kindle … after almost 30 years. What does that tell you about those stories – and me? I was passionate.
Those books and many of my other stories – many of which won awards and which are to this day being reissued – remain popular because of the passion that went into writing them – the passion that made me sit down to a manual typewriter and type my first books using carbon paper and using white-out to correct mistakes. The passion that through all the “business” of life made me write, write, write – three to five books a year – and not short stories these were 400 to 600 page books. Back then big fat books were acceptable. I wish they still were today because the fatter the book, the more tempted I am to read it because I know that most likely the writer was able to truly flesh out his or her characters and delve into a truly multi-dimensional story with multi-dimensional characters.
Watch this blog for Part III of my workshop, The Power of Passion.
The following is the first segment of a workshop I conducted at the Romantic Times conference in Chicago in April 2012 …
Passion … the word is used in so many ways by romance writers and the industry as a whole – in our titles, our blurbs, our dialogue, our love scenes, our plots … and it is the basis of our dream to write – a passion for the art of writing, for our particular genre, and for our characters.
The word Passion holds power. And the power of passion can lead to terrible things … or to good things. Passion is the basic driving force in our lives…a passion for mommy and daddy and playfulness when we are little … a passion for certain hobbies and friends and teachers and school and sports as we grow … perhaps a passion for a high school crush in our teen years or for a rock star or movie star … for dancing and dreaming.
Often in our younger years we hold a passion for changing the world and finding ways to make a difference or be important and recognized. Sometimes later on that passion becomes directed at whomever we choose to marry, followed by a passion to become a mother, or instead perhaps a passion for a certain career. Later in life we feel passionate love for our grandchildren. However we turn out, passion in all its various forms usually plays a role in all our decisions. It is something to remember when plotting your stories, because passion is vital to the reason for decisions your characters make.
Though we are romance writers, passion is not all about romance and sex. It covers all aspects of life, and is the food for plot after plot. Passion can be the source of hatred and crime, crimes as devastating as assault and murder, even the murder of a loved one - or maybe for a loved one.
Passion can be the source of greed and again – the crimes that springs from greed – like theft, embezzlement, break-ins, and of course – and again – assault and murder, lies and betrayal.
Passion often leads to jealousy, gossip, and deliberate slander and misunderstandings, to cheating and adultery. Passion can also lead to loyalty and undying love, sometimes for people who don’t love us back. It can give us drive and energy, a purpose to life itself.
Passion has led to phenomenal historical events, like the American civil war, brought on by men and women who were passionate about a cause and their political beliefs. Just think of the kind of passionate devotion to a political cause it would take to fight against and alienate your own brother or father, or your closest friend. Along with that, it is easy to understand then that passion also leads to courageous decisions that can change our lives forever.
The physical passion between Anthony and Cleopatra left behind a story told and re-told for centuries. It was passion that brought about a revolution in this country in which people risked life and limb to be free from tyranny and ended up founding the most successful and richest country in the world.
Man’s passion to constantly go beyond the limits of the known world led to world exploration and eventually to numerous trips to the moon. The passion to help end diseases and find ways to lead longer lives led to the polio vaccine and thousands of other miracles in the world of medicine
The passion to make man’s life better in general led to untold inventions that continue to change the world and our personal lives in phenomenal ways.
There are people with a passion for war, just because they believe the whole world should live as they do, worship as they do, be under their control. And thank god there are people with a passion for peace, people who will go to the extent of risking their lives to help others far less fortunate, to help end wars, to do what they can to make others understand that it’s all right to share and accept our diverse cultures and religions.
Passion can be the source of endless story plots because of all the dramatic results of its power.
Passion can help our careers – the passion we all share for writing can bolster us when our careers begin to sag; it can bring new perspective to our work and our purpose; and it can carry us through dark times and keep us at the computer when writing is sometimes the last thing we want to do.
Watch this blog for Section II of my workshop, The Power of Passion.
I was just e-mailing my two sisters about getting together this spring and already everybody is so busy it will be at least the end of June before we can have a “sister” day. It made me realize how, in spite of all the conveniences we have today, people seem to be busier than ever. Back in the “old days,” when men and women both did so many more chores by hand, and when we had to sit down and write letters rather than send quick texts or e-mails, and when we had to travel to visit someone rather than blog or twitter or visit on Facebook – we were so “physically” busy – and yet there was time for friends and family. There were more get-togethers, neighbors visiting neighbors, and families sitting down to a table together for their meals. There was “human contact,” as opposed to sending pictures out on Facebook or on an i-phone.
The internet world has intruded on life, as has the world as a whole, barging its way into our nation, our state, our cities, our small communities, our businesses, our jobs, our schools, our families and our homes. Neighbors don’t even know their neighbors any more, people stand in the aisle at the grocery store not looking or speaking to each other, people become enraged on the highway because they are always in a hurry, family members quickly visit through texting or Facebook, no one rides together in the car any more. Most children old enough to drive have their own cars, dad has his own car, mom has her own car, and everyone is so busy running all over the place that families end up passing each other in the night as they walk down the hallway to use the bathroom. There is no such thing as everyone sitting down to breakfast together because everybody has a different place to go and a different time they have to be there.
It’s the same in the evening – everyone getting home at different times, often each member making their own meal in a microwave or picking up take-out and eating it on a tray in front of the TV, yet another instrument that interrupts normal family life. No one talks any more, and we plan our calendars so far ahead that we are always living for “tomorrow” or “next week” or even “next fall” or “next year.”
What about TODAY? In reality, today is all we have, and even that could be taken from us at any time and at any age. How sad that more people don’t stop to think about that. How many times do people weep over someone’s death because they feel so guilty that they didn’t spend more time with them, or cry over the death of a family member whom they realize they didn’t even truly know because they seldom talked? How many days go by without us truly hearing the birds or smelling the flowers or playing outside with our children or grandchildren or just sitting down together and TALKING? How many times do we ignore the plea of a small child to “play with me” or “take me fishing?” Our answer too often is, “Maybe tomorrow.”
We don’t know if we even have tomorrow. That’s not our decision to make.
Something has been lost in this busy world of ours. I don’t have the answers for how to get it back. Maybe it’s simply taking one day a week in which the family decides there will be no TV, that cell phones and computers will be turned off, and everyone will sit down to a meal and share their thoughts and concerns. It sounds like a good idea, but then again, just try finding a day when everyone is able to get together at the same time. I can hear it now – “I can’t do it Tuesday – maybe Wednesday.” “But I can’t do it Wednesday. Monday would work better for me.” “But Monday is your dad’s golf day. What about Thursday?” “No way! Thursday is football practice.” “Well, Friday is certainly out. That’s mom and dad’s night out.” “The weekend? Impossible! There is yard work and the kids are going to the movies. Sundays are our day to either go to church or lie around all day watching movies and reading the Sunday paper.”
And so it never happens. It can only happen if we really TRY and make a commitment to what is really important in life. Oh, but all those “other” things are so important. And how are we supposed to get through the day without the computer and our cell phones?
There was a time when people DID get by without those things, and they were often happier and healthier and closer than most families are today.
Stop and listen to the birds. Smell the flowers. Think about all your blessings and remember that you are here only at God’s mercy. Enjoy your time on earth, and enjoy your family and the sunshine and the fact that you are breathing at all … and that you can function just fine without the world at your doorstep via the internet. And try figuring out why, in today’s time when everything is so quick and convenient, we still don’t have “time” for what’s most important in our lives.
I wish the whole world would just take a deep breath and relax, that the whole world would pick one day a week when no one can get on the internet or their cell phones, when there is no disturbing news on TV about another horrible shooting spree or a mother suing her own son or someone telling us we can’t pledge to our own flag or worship our own way. I want the world to stay out of my life and the lives of my family, but that can never happen now. There is no going back, so we have to make time ourselves for what is important and do what we can to keep families and neighbors close and learn to enjoy our very short time here on earth. Don’t let it slip past you. Fifty years ago can seem like only a couple of years ago, even a couple of weeks ago. That’s how fast it goes. Grab on and slow it down any way you can.
