The joy of flying by the seat of your pants!

One of my favorite lines from any movie is Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman when she says, "I'm more of a fly by the seat of your pants kind of gal.  You know moment to moment."  Yep that's me.

You might imagine that with 5 young boys and 4 jobs this is exactly how my life rolls.  I'd like to say that I adapt to change well, but I think that might be a lie.  I write out a list everyday of my life.  There are things that HAVE to be done and some things I just like to see get done.  Some days the list is all crossed off by the time I got to bed.  Other days that list carries over to the next day and the day after that.  But I'm doing what I want to be doing and that is chasing my dreams and along side me I have my family.

This could easily be looked at in a different way.  Fly by the seat of your pants easily translates into the multi-tasker, which also could be classified as the person who can't keep their attention on one thing at a time.  (There is a reason I have 4 jobs.)  I find that, as my dad says, I like to put out fires.  The moment I sit down to tackle a task there is something else that could use my attention.  By the end of the day I have efficiently started a million different projects, but my mind won't focus on one long enough to finish it all the way through.

I once went to a Life Coach to learn to achieve the goals I'd set out to achieve.  I wanted to know how people did this.  Step one: write out your goals.  Well I'm great at that.  Step two: make a plan.  Another list!  I can do this.  Step three: focus on one step at a time.  Well Crap!

Each week she would give me a "homework" assignment.  I was able to do this, but when I'd go back to her and tell her I'd made all my contacts for the week and I'd scheduled all the meetings I'd needed and while I did that I typed up a proposal and I cleaned my house while on a phone call... she quickly realized I can't function the way I wanted to.  I needed to function like I liked to make myself happy.

Hmmmm... so I'm a multi-tasker flying by the seat of my pants.  I'm a hair stylist with a clientele I fit in between my many other jobs.  I'm the mother of five active kids who forever need me in 5 different places at 5 different times.  I'm a publisher who has, at any given time, five manuscripts, five authors, and a multitude of emails and edits to attend to.  I'm a writer with a list of twenty-six story ideas, of which twelve have been penned, to attend to.  Not to mention the edits my editor sent me last week and the publicity I'm doing for the current books I have out.  Then there is they paying job I try to attend to each day at my family's business.  My husband would like to have a few moments of my time as well, (sadly I push him aside more than most.) And I have a 2nd degree black belt I'm training for that needs my attention to.

Okay... writing it all out just made me tired!

In every day there is a part of that to do list that gets crossed off because its just not important.  Some days, those edits are set aside to accommodate another author's dream because I know how it feels to get that first book out.  Some days it's to color my mother's hair and spend an hour with her.  There are times karate is side tracked so I can spend a moment at home with my kids.  And every once in awhile my office hours are canceled so I can lay in bed with my hubby and watch an NCIS marathon.

Yep... I fly by the seat of my pants.  And sometimes they rip.  But sometimes they swing me in just the right direction of where I need to go, even if I don't know it.

Happy Swinging by the Seat of Your Pants!
Bernadette Marie

What Would Nora Do?

I think many writers fall into this category called Oh-My-God-My-Parents-Are-Going-To-Read-This-Book!  You know, you've written this bestseller (because that's what we all write) and you either edit out anything questionable OR you hide it from people you think might look at you with that sideways glance, you know the one.

I am a huge fan of Nora Roberts!  Love her!  I love that, even though parts of her stories either gross me out, freak me out, or piss me off, she wrote them.  They are graphic.  They are sensual. They are are emotionally gripping!  And I sit back and think, WOW!  If I could write like that!

Truth is, I can!  The hard part was letting go of that demon inside of me that said "You can't curse or write about sex!"

So I had this discussion with my editor, way back when we were editing my first book.  (Which by the way on the scale of 1-Hot...is maybe a 4...maybe.)  Do I remove the few curses?  Do I elude to everything that happens behind closed doors? Or do I say screw it...and write it?  We thought (and even made a sign that said), "What would Nora do?"

Obviously, somewhere Nora has decided to go forth with the "questionable" writing that we all possess inside of us.  She put graphic sex or murder on the page.  She created villains that scare the hell out of you and sexy men you'd leave your husband for.  (Not me.  I can't believe I even wrote it...but I know some of you are thinking it.)  I don't think it hindered her career any!

So I left it!  I had to deal with the few awkward comments at first.  "Oh, wow.  I couldn't believe my (insert relation) was writing that." "Who taught you that?" "I skipped over those pages." People cuss.  People have sex. People make bad decisions.  People fall in love and that is all included in life.  I like it a little edgy.  OK I'm not writing AMAZING stories with erotic details like Megan Hart! I'm not Debbie Macomber with her amazing gift to walk the line between popular and what a woman of faith would write!  I have my own voice and I have embraced it!  I can write with or without curses, depends on the people.  I can even write it without a bedroom scene and its just as good.  I just choose (in some stories) not to omit those little gems.

The sign that reads: W.W.N.D. What Would Nora Do has been filed somewhere among old contracts.  New contracts have been written along with some very amazing stories (well in my opinion anyway.)

I no longer worry about what "someone" will say about my writing or what I did or did not include.  Now I ask myself, What Would Bernadette Do? Well... she'd write the best damn book she possibly could and continue to hope her mother would just skim over those pages and pretend like she didn't write them.  But deeply hopes everyone else in the world would read them and enjoy them!  :)

Happy Reading (or skimming)
Bernadette Marie!

Are you in one of my books?

I was very careful the first time I wrote a book not to include anyone I knew in it.  There were no common names.  No likenesses or characteristics either.  I have to say... I didn't know those characters at all.

It wasn't until the third book of my first trilogy that I added a bit of someone, and laughed until I cried.  Dear Trevor drinks down a bottle of water and chucks the empty bottle into the back seat of his car.  I thought I was going to die from the hysterics of this.  Yes, this is my husband!  But what was even funnier was the moment I mentioned it people began saying, "what have you seen my car?"  This was that little bit that made Trevor human and people related to him.

So it began... can you find yourself in one of my books?  I suppose the funnier part is mutual friends might see you there, but you wont.  Then I know I've done my job well.  His eyes dart around the room as she's holding a conversation with him.  Experiences make the atmosphere jump out at the reader.  "What-are-you-doing?  Get-the-puck!"  If you close your eyes and imagine cinder block walls and the cold of an ice rink mixed with sweat and adrenaline, you might understand what my weekends smell like.

I have the occasional name being dropped cousin Anne.  There are quirks I wish I had of my own, she thought as she ran another three miles through town.  But no matter what I began to add, my characters became more real.

I have a best friend.  Her name is Carrie.  I have been able to build from that beautiful 34 year old relationship between her and I and our families for so many of my characters.  I am married to my soul mate who would stand next to me no mater what scars I bare.  I have children that would take care of me if I were sick.  I have a wonderful mother, father, and sister in which I can draw from when I need strong family traits, and yes... I have a few crazy relatives which makes writing the quirky parts about families easy too.

Now, as I sit here thinking about the characters in my books, I can tell you where every trait came from.  I'm a big advocate about writing where you know, well I believe you should write who you know as well.  Perhaps I won't point fingers at the bad habit I put on page 147, but I'm sure someone made me think about it.

If you ask to be in my book you'd better be very specific as to "whom" you want to be.  I do have a black belt in karate and I'm not afraid to use it on your character if I see fit.

Observing the world this way, seeing every detail in every person, has opened my eyes.  To be honest I think I'm a much better person.  In fact, I think I tolerate everyone more.  Maybe it's because I can kill you off in my next novel, or maybe you are just a character.

So, I wonder which traits I'll add to my next new WIP Never Saw it Coming about the Goth and the Geek.  Hmmm, now how far do I need to search for the Geek?  Not far.  I only have to go climb into bed with him and decide how I will incorporate all that perfectness into my next hero.

Happy Reading (and observing)
Bernadette Marie

If You Say It's So...Then It Shall Be

A lifetime ago, it seems, I sold products for a kitchen ware company at home parties.  During one of the training sessions a woman said something that stuck with me forever.  I took that advice and applied it to my life from that day forward. If you say it's so...then it shall be.  Now I've taken liberty with that saying a bit, but what she said was this.  "If you want to be a director, then call yourself a director."  Hmmm.  That made sense.  If you put your thoughts into place you'd eventually be so comfortable you'd be there.

So I set forth to be a director in this company.  I thought like one.  I acted like one.  I worked like one.  And...I became a future director.  Okay, so I missed the mark before I moved on to something else, but it worked.  I thought like a director and I felt like I was on the right track.

Take that same mentality to my martial arts training.  From the moment you step on that floor with a white belt tied around your waist you're instructed to act like a black belt.  If a black belt kicks above the belt, then you need to work at your kicks until you can kick like a black belt.  A black belt has discipline, courtesy, integrity, self worth, and the list goes on.  They list for you all the good qualities that had you signing up to begin with.  With every belt you think more and more like a black belt.  And one day, you receive your black belt and you realize all along you've been a black belt, because you thought like one.

Now, I'm a writer. (Yes... a writer with a black belt!)

So to be a writer I must act like one.  I must take seriously the time that it takes to put together a book.  I must name it.  Carefully construct it.  I must love it.  But above all I must realize that a writer would not argue that they are wasting their time.  An author would say they are working.

I had gotten that part down very well.  I'd been writing since I was 12.  I got my first request at 16.  But until I boarded that plane for San Francisco to attend my first RWA conference, I'd only been dreaming about being a writer.  Until I actually walked the walk among authors, some big, some not.  I hadn't truly convinced myself that I was in fact a writer.  But something happens to you when you sit in a room with Nora Roberts.  When Debbie Macomber walks across the room and introduces yourself to you and shakes your hand, you're IN!  When you're walking down the hall and taking pictures of the line at the signing (which the you eventually get to take part in) and a woman laughs and joins you.  You walk down the hall and she introduces herself and says, " I'm Christina Dodd" you think, this is for real!  I am an author!  Ashley March was one of my writing partners.  Melissa Mayhue knows me by name.  Karen White, whom I met at a table of people I didn't know at the time, laughs when I send her pictures of her books laid on benches under someone's keys and sunglasses.  And in my head I no longer waste my time writing.  This is my career.  I am a writer.

You would have thought it ended there...nope!  There's always more.

Now I'm a publisher!  I'm out of my element and people have decided to join me.  I have 5 authors, besides myself, who depend on me.  I have 3 editors who are anxiously awaiting the next great book to edit and the next author to help prepare for stardom.  I have a deadline calendar.  I have a daily ToDo list.  I have a bank account.  And I have a company name.  All of this is because I thought I was a publisher and I made it so.  Some things come easier.  This decision to be a publisher was easy.  The process of learning continues, but I'm excited.  When I wake up and get dressed I think, "if I were at conference how would I dress as a publisher?" And I act on that.  Because I want to be successful with it, I take it very seriously.

So, what's next?  What shall I say so that it will become?  My karate master gave me the answer the other day.  He said, "When can I start telling people I promoted a New York Times Bestselling Author to black belt?" and I smiled and said, "Say it now.  Because if you say so... then it shall be."

What do you want in your life?  Start putting yourself there and it will come.

Happy Reading!
Bernadette Marie

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