11.8.16 - 40 Things To Take Your Mind Off the Election

Unsettled, are we? It’s only natural when the entire universe is watching, waiting to see what direction we as a country, and as a world, will take moving forward.

Instead of fretting today, Amy and I offer to you a list of activities to occupy your thoughts:

1. Adopt a cat or dog from your local shelter
2. Eat ice cream
3. Handwrite those thank-you notes that have been stacking up
4. Start on your holiday cards
5. Read a book
6. Buy a book!
7. Gift a book!
8. Make friendship bracelets
9. Add "refollow all my friends" to your To Do list
10. Pour a glass of wine before you refollow all your friends
11. Reorganize your bookshelf
12. Clean your closet
13. Go on a Christmas present-buying rampage
14. Fill that Goodwill giveaway box that you’ve been neglecting
15. Get a manicure and pedicure
16. Rake your neighbor’s leaves
17. Jump in said pile of leaves
18. Check the batteries in your smoke detectors
19. Double check you’ve set all your clocks correctly
20. Laundry. Always laundry
21. Learn Morse code
22. Get a Ham radio (not saying there’s an impending apocalypse…)
23. Binge-watch that show you’ve been waiting for
24. Go for a walk
25. Go to a museum
26. Drink some Limoncello
27. Drink some water
28. Take a quick online Italian lesson and practice on someone
29. French kiss
30. Stare at the sunset. If it’s raining, pretend.
31. Use the word whom properly
32. Learn who Edward Hopper is
33. Look up the names in the Acknowledgements of your favorite author’s latest book
34. Buy all that author's books
35. Go to the library
36. Read "The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe aloud in a fake Italian accent. Because why not?
37. Donate $5 to your favorite charity, more if you can
38. Make some coffee, tea, or cocoa in your favorite mug. Shut off the computer, turn off your phone, and enjoy
39. Remember that the world will continue to spin no matter what happens
40. Vote! (ok, so this might have something to do with the election, but we didn't tell you what to vote for—maybe you're judging a Cutest Kitten Contest, because that would be awesome)

It's all going to be okay. Pinkie swear.

Love,
JT and Amy

(P.S. this list was compiled by both of us, one of whom may have had a taste of Limoncello—you wondered about all the Italian references, didn't you?)

On Creative Satisfaction and Book News

I interview writers. I do it here on the Tao, I do it on television. I’m not a professional by any means, I’m just a writer who’s curious about other writer’s process and mindsets. 

One of my favorite questions: Are you creatively satisfied?

People interpret the question in different ways, and the answers vary widely.

My own answer has been very elusive for the past few years. I love the work I do. I love my characters. I love being with them, spending time in their heads.

And yet… There’s been something hanging over me. Something holding me back. 

I’ve never truly been able to put a finger on it. And I’ve thought about it a lot lately. 

For the longest time, I chalked it up to good old-fashioned envy—seeing other authors write stories that look effortless, look like fun. I’ve read outside my genre almost exclusively for the past few years. Fantasy worlds, books that are truly creative and have no basis in actual reality, but are worlds unto themselves, with rules inherent to the culture. Dystopian stories of reluctant heroes. Young adult coming-of-age tales (I especially like ones set in boarding schools. The kids always seem inches away from morphing into Lord of the Flies.)

Crime fiction isn’t what people would call fun. It’s dark and brooding, tears apart the soul in many ways. To examine how and why people do terrible things to one another isn’t a recipe for unicorns and rainbows. After I stopped the Taylor series, and moved away from the darkness, I felt better, but, ironically, that’s when this lingering dissatisfaction started. 

Interesting, right? 

The Sam series has been incredibly hard for me. I always thought I was much more like Taylor than I am Sam, because Sam’s books were so much harder to write. Turns out, I poured a lot of my heart into Sam, and it was very cathartic for me. I finally did find a stride, and Sam is a woman I am proud to write about, a woman I think readers can truly identify with. 

But I’m a writer with a LOT of ideas. And I have still had that sense of wanting to try something new and different. NO ONE KNOWS was a product of this desire. I love that book. It took forever to write, and I just kept plugging away at it for years, and it finally saw the light of day. I’m proud of it, and I’ve been proud of myself for committing to it and letting it out in the world. 

So when I had the option to write another standalone, I jumped at it. I’d been playing with an idea last summer, then had to put it on hold to write Sam and a new Nick and Mike book. Once I finished, I came back to it and sold LIE TO ME in June. It had about 30,000 words, most of which needed major reworking. I’ve been writing like mad all summer to get it finished.

And it is dark. Probably as dark as anything I’ve ever written. But it’s not dark in a macabre or bloody way. It’s about betrayal. Which is really the darkest crime of all, don’t you think?

Since I was in sort of a hurry to get it done by the end of summer, while I was writing it, I started to take chances. Strange voices came out of the woodwork of my mind. I began utilizing POVs I’ve never tried before in long-form fiction, new settings, new topics. Even so, I saw the wall looming. The wall I approach time and time again, fearing that at the last second, I might flinch, and turn away, instead of crashing into and through it.  

Now, I don’t flinch in my work. I go for it, always. Some of the themes and storylines in my Taylor books and Sam books are truly intense. But sometimes I feel like I could do better with the story, better with the resolutions, better with the characters. What I realized is I’ve been approaching all of this intellectually rather than… I don’t even know what the right word is. Spiritually? Organically? Some combination of them both?

When I realized I was holding myself back on this new book, and the wall loomed bigger and thicker than ever before, I made myself a note in my To Do list, and kept it front and center, for the last month of writing. It said: 

Be willing to take one more step with LTM. 

It’s simple advice. Logical advice. And powerful in ways you can’t imagine. 

I discarded everything I knew about writing. All the rules I normally follow, all the little sequences I normally use. I discarded advice from trusted sources. I reshaped the concept, moving away from the proposal. I just went for it. And the result is a book that’s totally and completely different than anything I’ve ever done. New style, new format, new language and pace, everything. It feels very avant garde for me. Very fresh and exciting.  

I know nothing’s truly original, and everything’s been done before, blah, blah, blah. Voice is going to make a story your own, yes. But genres have conventions. They have formulas. The stories that seem to be rewarded aren’t necessarily deviating from those tropes, only finding new ways to approach the path. Writers spend a lot of time writing to the market, to the idea of success. It’s a natural thing. Someone writes a kick-ass vampire story, and suddenly, the market is glutted with vampires. Someone writes a kick-ass domestic suspense, and the market becomes a feeding frenzy of people trying to glom on.

I’ve fallen into this thinking, though happily I feel like the stories I’ve told up to now haven’t fallen into convention entirely.

But this one… it feels different to me. I took an extra step. It wasn’t immediately after I typed The End, but when I finished, really finished, I experienced something I haven’t in a very long time.

I realized I was creatively satisfied.

So no matter how it does, how readers feel about it, how sales go… I have that feeling in my gut, the expansiveness and satisfaction of knowing I created something unique unto me. And that’s refilled my well in ways nothing has for years. 

And I want the well to stay full. So I’m going to try and do it again. I have another book due in mid-April. I’ve decided it will be another standalone. Sam and Taylor will stay on vacation for the time being, while I run with this new creative flow that I’ve found. Don’t worry, I swear on all that’s holy they will be back. But I’ve started another standalone crime fiction story, and I hope it will bring me the kind of joy LIE TO ME has.

Thank you for standing by me, and indulging me. Your support makes this possible. I truly, truly appreciate you!

P.S. for my writer friends: I strongly suggest trying this. Do something totally alien to your style, and see what happens!

8.17.16 - Save Time & Be More Productive with Workflows

Want to save time? Find yourself constantly scrambling and forgetting things?

Workflows have changed the way I run my business and my life. 

I wrote a post for RT Book Reviews on how my team and I do it. I hope it helps you add some structure to your day!
 

6.23.16 - On Tours, Fear, and Everything in Between

Tonight I will return home after ten days on the road. There is one more airport to conquer, one more flight to take, and then I can collapse. I’ve been in Colorado for the past few days, finishing up the FIELD OF GRAVES tours, seeing my family, hanging with some friends. It’s been a nice mini-break, though I’ve worked every day. And though there have been times of silence and contemplation, I can’t seem to truly relax. 

Something is bothering me.

Well, many things are bothering me. I’m furious and heartbroken over Orlando. I’ve had to stay off social media for the most part because seeing my friends yell at each other upsets me. From the vagaries of presidential politics to the excess of cilantro in guacamole, everything is up for debate now, for judgement, for all-out shout-fests and insults. It makes me lose faith in humanity. 

I went out on the road the day after the attack. Was I nervous? Yes. But the moment I stepped through the doors of my airport, something shifted in me. It shifted in everyone, I think. Everyone who stepped away from their screens and actually interacted with the world.

People were quieter than normal, but the smiles were genuine. The airport is always a frenetic, intense place (one I love, but I’m odd) and this was no different… and yet it was. The people who were looking out for our safety, TSA and the police, seemed more engaged. The travelers were more patient. There was kindness: offers to help with bags, pleasant small talk, compliments, no complaining or bitching. 

For a moment, I thought, Wow, everyone’s on their best behavior. And then I realized, no, that’s not it. 

We are standing together.
 

We are standing together.
 

We are standing together.
 

Any lingering nerves disappeared. I felt brave and strong. 

I saw this togetherness all week long. I was in five airports. I spoke in five bookstores. I was in four hotels. And in each place, this vein of kindness, of courage and selflessness, was open and overflowing. I had so much fun being with readers and booksellers. These are my people, yes, but it was a stellar trip on all fronts. 

Fact is, there was something special about being with people this week.

We all know people will say things online they would never say to someone’s face. Likewise, great kindnesses abound. But the perpetual outrage that I see online was blessedly missing from my life as I shook hands, hugged, signed books, accepted drinks and food, keys and pens and soaps. 

Everyone was just a little gentler with their strangers. 

I try very hard to conduct myself online in a manner that’s not confrontational, not alienating. I respect that we all have our own thoughts about pretty much everything, and realize there might be 5 people on this earth that actually agree on all these things. And I rarely, if ever, discuss hot button topics, because as a regular Joe, my opinion on these matters are irrelevant. 

But as an author, I do have a responsibility. And I try to live up to that responsibility in a slightly different way than many. My tool of communication is my novels. My social commentary is through my novels. My job is to tell a story. My job is to make you think, make you wonder, make you happy and sad, and do it in all the right places. My job is to entertain you, to help you escape, to give you a respite from the barrage of reality we’re all faced with, day in and day out. To (hopefully) make you lose sleep because you’re engrossed. To educate, to illuminate, to enrage. My job is to give you something you’ve never seen before, something that will linger with you long after the cover is closed.

I do my best. 

The past few months have been rough, I won’t lie. It’s been a long few months for us all out in the real world, and it’s been a long few months at home, too. Launching two books and doing two tours in the span of three months has taken a lot out of me. I’ve put a lot into these two babies. I haven’t been writing nearly enough. (Though don’t worry, I have been. Without the writing, the tours don’t happen, after all.) But even with the copious amounts of help I receive from Amazing Amy and my husband and my publishers, the juggling of turning an introvert into a temporary extrovert named Author Girl has me pretty much whipped.

And so. Call it a social experiment, call it a battery recharge, call it a finding of oneself, but I’m going to take a small sabbatical from the interwebs. It’s well overdue. Normally I leave for Lent, but because of the release timing for NO ONE KNOWS, I had to come back early, and trust me, the time off that I did have was consumed with PR. And the machine didn’t stop spinning from then on.

But it’s more than wanting a little break from the online world. I’ve been very affected by the interactions I’ve had IRL—in real life—over the past couple of weeks. It reminds me that I spend much too much time staring at my screens, and not enough time in the living world. 

What will I be doing on my enforced break? Well, I found my yoga practice again on the road—thank heavens!—so there will be lots of yoga. There will be some golf. There will be hugging, and drinking, and eating with friends. 

And most importantly, there will be hours upon hours of deep work. 

Amazing Amy will be running things whilst I’m away. Should an emergency occur, I will be reachable. But I won’t be checking in. I encourage you to join me in this summer sabbatical. Because we all need to be alone sometimes. 

5.12.16 - On What Happens If We're Not Perfect (Perfection Series Part II)

 

I struggle with perfection. I don’t think I’m the only one.
 

I’ve discussed before how my pursuit of perfection paralyzes me. Lately, though, I’ve been wondering why, exactly, I’m holding on so tightly to things. I’ve been self-psychoanalyzing this white-knuckle approach to life, and, as always happens, the universe has been giving me what I need to make sense of my thoughts and find new paths to follow. I’ve had some interesting epiphanies lately.

I’d already decided I wasn’t going to have a birthday, because I refused to get a year older.
 

What I didn’t say aloud was I didn’t want to turn another year older and still feel like I don’t have my shit together.

 

I mean really, I’m an adult. I have a job I love, a husband I adore, a fantastic life with wonderful friends, adorable kittens, and a house that (ten years of renovations later) finally seems to be in pretty good shape.
 

But the edges of my life still feel frayed and unkempt.
 

There are still so many things I want to do, so many ways I want to be more intentional. 

So I revolted at the idea of a birthday, proper. Instead, because I’ve learned to trust my subconscious, I did something utterly unique on my special day. I scheduled some me time. Time I could be alone, and do some thinking. Time to process a bunch of really cool insights I’ve had recently.

Have you seen the movie Burnt, starring Bradley Cooper as a tyrannical bad-boy chef? If you haven’t, I highly recommend it. I love stories about food, and this doesn’t disappoint. But more important is the theme of the story. It is clear, and it is hard. 
 

Perfection kills.

As the protagonist, Adam Jones says, “If it's not perfect, you throw it away…”

A double-Michelin-starred chef, Adam has a fabulous redemptive journey through the story. He is a perfectionist. He holds himself, and everyone around him, to such completely unattainable heights he is constantly disappointed.

There is a moment, late in the movie, when he’s talking with the therapist tasked with keeping him drug-free and in line so he can get his third Michelin star, that is so powerful I had to stop the movie, sit for a few minutes, and try to process what he’d said. He’s being completely sarcastic in tone, but he means every word. This is the heart of his character, his driving force. 
 

Dr. Rosshilde: Tell me what frightens you.

Adam: Spiders. Death.

Dr. Rosshilde: [chuckles] Well, or maybe the imperfection of human relationships, the imperfection of others, of yourself.

Adam: [sighs]

Dr. Rosshilde: What happens if you get this third star?

Adam: Oh no, not “if.” “When.” 

Dr. Rosshilde: Alright, when you get it.

Adam: Celebration. Fireworks. Sainthood. Immortality.

Dr. Rosshilde: Perfection.

Adam: Mmhmm, sure.

Dr. Rosshilde: What happens if you fail?

Adam: Plague. Pestilence. The seas rise, locusts devour. The four horsemen ride, and darkness descends. 

Dr. Rosshilde: Death.

Adam: Sure.
 

I don’t know if this is how everyone feels, but it’s certainly right in line with my feelings on the subject.
 

There’s perfection, or there is the yawning abyss. There is nothing in between.

 

That’s a pretty rough place to live.
 

When I heard it, out loud, and realized this is where I’ve been dangling myself, I knew I needed to make some changes. 

So I decided to listen to Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic podcast. I love Liz’s voice: She has a certain timbre in her tone that resonates with me—it’s sheer joy. She always sounds like she’s on the verge of bursting out into happy, crazy laughter, which in turn makes me happy and primes me to listen.  

I pulled a ton of nuggets from the shows, but the biggest, most mind-blowing one came from the very last installment, during a conversation she’s had with Brené Brown. 
 

Liz said a therapist once told her that what she was terrified of—essentially the worst thing that could ever happen to your art—has already happened.

 

I had to pull the car over. 

I played it back. I felt the same frisson. 

It started me thinking. What’s the very worst thing that can happen to me as an artist?
 

Someone hates my work. My book gets terrible reviews. My book doesn’t sell. I lose my editor. I lose my gig. My story inspires someone to hurt someone else. My creative muse deserts me and I can’t write.

Yeah. Well. You can see how the negativity that lurks disguises itself as a driving need for perfection. If the art is perfect, none of these things will happen. Right?

Right?

Well guess what. Liz is right. All of these horrible things already have happened. Over the past decade, every one of them (except someone hurting someone else, that I know of). 

NO ONE KNOWS is a great example of this.

When I wrote the book, I KNEW there were people who weren’t going to like it. I knew some wouldn’t care for the writing, the change in genre, the story, or (especially) the ending. Whether they missed the twist, or they didn’t buy into the concept, or they simply hated discovering the narrator is truly unreliable, I KNEW I was going to get dinged. It was truly the first thing I’d ever created that I understood and accepted would piss people off. 

I put it out there anyway.

I got a bunch of great trade reviews (PHEW!) and then the the rest started to come in. The good far outweigh the bad, but there are some BAD reviews. (I particularly enjoyed the one who suggested a lobotomy would be necessary to enjoy the book.)

So when I heard Liz say the worst thing that could happen already has… I realized a number of things, including the realization that yes, the worst already has happened to me, in various ways.
 

If I was brave enough to let NO ONE KNOWS out into the world, knowing full well it was going to garner mixed reviews, what in the HELL am I holding back on anymore?

 

I have been using the goal of perfection to limit myself. Nay, to punish myself. All the while not even realizing that the worst has already happened, and I’ve lived through it virtually unscathed.  

Yes, there’s been a lot of negative self-talk in my brain lately. It’s not because NO ONE KNOWS got some bad reviews—surprisingly, that’s not a big deal to me. People are entitled to their opinions, and not everybody likes everything. It’s something deeper. 

The nasty four letter world we all hate.
 

Fear.

 

Resistance is fear. Trying to attain perfection is fear. 

So yes, the worst thing that could happen to my art already has—there are people who don’t like it and won’t ever buy another book. 

And… the sun is still rising in the mornings. I am still creating. And by God, I am going to trust my gut from here on out, and stop letting this relentless pursuit of perfection get in my way.

Next blog, I’m going to look at some ways I’m reframing all this talk into something productive. Because I’m tired of trying to be perfect. I need to trust myself, trust my art, and trust the process. If I write the words, I will create a book. All the rest is out of my control.
 

What do you think is the worst thing that can happen to your art?