Second, I love the DK metaphor. I agree with Joey, I approve!

Years and years ago, my cousin had Donkey Kong Country on Super NES. I don’t remember much about the game, but I do remember there was this one level we could never seem to beat. In it, Diddy and Donkey are in a mine cart, and as the cart rolled forward, there were these obstacles and gaps in the track you had to jump over. Look, I even found it on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mf9AQBmLJss&feature=fvw

Anyway, for some obscure reason unrelated to Donkey Kong or SNES, I’ve always imagined the road to writing a novel–and later, the fork that takes you to publication–as being a lot like that. It’s not a solid track from point A to point B. There are obstacles and gaps that you have to jump over. Sometimes they’re little things you clear on the first try. And sometimes they’re bigger things that, even after years of practice and knowing to anticipate them, you still don’t get right. From reading your blog yesterday, and the post above, I get the feeling you’ve come to a place where you’ve jumped a gap and crossed a checkpoint, and that’s really cool because now, even if you get tripped up on an abandoned mine cart or fall through a hole, you don’t have to start at the very beginning. You’ll just come back to where you are here, now, and try again.

You’re absolutely right that the worst that could happen is no one buys the book. So what. Write another one, a different one, a better one, and try again. The important thing is what you got out of writing it–the experience, the bond between you and your writing partner, and the mental high that comes from using your imagination. Whether it sells or not won’t take any of those things away from you. The same can’t be said for those people who write because they want fame and glory and money and bestseller lists and movie options… Wanting those things is fine, don’t get me wrong, but if it’s your only motivator (and I know tons of people for whom it IS their only motivator), you’ll end up bitter and disappointed (I know tons of these people, too).

As for my blawg, I gave it up when I started working 60 hours a week. I kind of miss it, and am kind of intimidated at starting another one. I think it’s something I want to get back into in 2010, but I want to have a good idea of what I want to do with it before I go creating one all willy-nilly. But don’t worry. I’ll probably be stalking y’all for a while.

Sometimes I think our greatest advantage is that there are two minds to R. J. Spindle. We bounce ideas off each other. The good ones stick and find their way into the story. The not so good ones get discussed and dropped. We’ve done a smart thing in saving everything: AIM conversations, emails, and hundreds of typed pages of notes.

The worst that can happen to us is every publisher in the world turns us down, and our books never go anywhere other than our families eyes. This isn’t a huge fear of ours though. Walk into any grocery store and there’s a myriad of “trash fiction” lining shelves near the cash register. If stuff like that finds it’s way into print, and some make pretty good livings off writing such stories, then we’ll surely be published.

Seriously, the past year in writing has been one of the most transformative for me. Rhiannon and I have been able to explore our friendship in this book. We’ve gotten to answer the question: “What if we grew up together? What if things were always like they are now?” We’re effectively rewriting our past–which is something not many people (even writers) get a chance to do. We’ve faced a lot of fears with our characters, knowing full well they are braver versions of ourselves, but their experiences have helped us nonetheless. Most importantly, though, we’re addicted to imagination … and we want to pass that on to whoever comes after us. That, and writing books are the only way I’m ever going to get my mother to read one.

By-the-by, what’s your blog? Mayhaps we can keep in touch. It’s good to know there’s another appreciator of the process out there!

It’s refreshing to hear someone say they love writing. Too often the world of publishing sucks the fun out of the world of writing and people become so obsessed with writing “what sells” and “what is publishable” that they forget to write what they love. Then writing becomes a chore, the whole world is against them, and no one has suffered like they have suffered. It’s kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy in and of itself, when you think about it, because a book that’s a chore to write is often a chore to read, and who wants to read a book that takes work?

When the writing gets fun (and it was fun in November) it’s really easy to write. The characters do most of the work. My only job as author is to make sure that the plot works. Rory, Ray and Brian (my leads) make all the “important” decisions. Giving over control of the novel to them was the best choice we ever made … especially since they are, essentially, us.

I’m glad you read about WriMo. It’s one of my favorite times of the year. Not only do I get to write alongside a great partner, but I have the whole world fighting the good fight with me.

If you think 80,000 words in a month is intense, LAST November I saw a participant max out at 500,000 words … with no intention to publish–ever! Now there is pure insanity/inspiration.

But enough of that negativity stuff. I spent the better part of the morning reading about your NaNo experience. 80K words in a month? Do y’all run on Energizer?

P.S. My other half might hate this discussion. She’s the reason I read Ms. Evanovich. Maybe (somehow) the author will read this and give us something great next time around. I’m totally on her side. She’s given us great things in the past.

I SO agree with you that Evanovich signed a contract with the readers, and when it comes to the Ranger/Morelli debate, I feel as though she signed two conflicting contracts and now has no intention of honoring either of them for fear it might affect her bottom line. Seeing as how her last two numbered books have fallen below their projected sales, I guess she’s probably right. But then, I stopped buying them because of the sloppy writing, non-existent plots, and (I gag as I write this) excessive use of fart jokes.

As for the Stephanie just marrying Morelli already thing… Maybe I’m in the minority, but I just don’t buy that relationship as a good one. It’s too one-sided, and Morelli often comes across as a huge arse. Even their history–which seems to be a huge selling point among the pro-Morelli folk–is degrading, when you consider the only history they had was a one night stand that he boasted about and she got in trouble for. The way I see it, Evanovich has had ample time–15 years–to flesh out his character, give it some depth, and make him not a pig. Instead, she just makes him worse every year. While I agree with you that she needs to either fish or move away from the pond, I’d much rather she move away from the pond and get back to defining Stephanie as a character independent of her love interests, instead of trying to shove her into the mold of someone’s wife or girlfriend. If she marries Morelli, we’ll never really get to know who Stephanie Plum is, and that’s been my biggest nitpick of the last two books–that there wasn’t enough Stephanie. She was just sort of going through the motions.

Have you read “Plum Spooky?” I SO want to.