Zoe Winters, Paranormal Romance Writer

For some reason I didn’t post this when I wrote it. I must have accidentally clicked “save” instead of “publish”

For my next book I went back and picked up from the beginning of the Stephanie Plum series to catch book 1. Book 1 of course shows how it all began. How Stephanie comes to be a bounty hunter. And of course the first big job she gets is Joseph Morelli (yum), who she’ll get $10,000 for bringing in. She runs into him about 4 or 5 different times without being able to bring him in. If the other bounty hunter found Joe that easy, he’d be behind bars. But Stephanie is a little wet behind the ears, and Morelli keeps rescuing her from stuff. Between you and me, even though he’s a skirt chaser, I think he’s got a little soft spot for her. They used to play train together in his basement when they were little kids. (And no, I’m not going to go into the finer details of what that is here.)

And then of course there was the time when they were teenagers when they had sex on the floor of a bakery behind the eclair case. hehe. I know Spy loves Ranger, and I know I haven’t seen a lot of him in action yet…but I really have a soft spot for Morelli. And at this point I really want her with Morelli. He’s gonna have to do something really stupid like Bill in the Sookie series, for me to change my mind. Of course in the Sookie series I always preferred Eric even when Bill wasn’t being an ass, but I digress. I think I’m having some Sookie withdrawal…next book comes out next month.

I’m having vampire, werewolf withdrawal period. I got an LKH book and started trying to read it the other day but it was darker than what I wanted to read at the moment, so I picked up the stephanie plum book to read.

Back to Stephanie Plum. Anyway it’s a really good book. I’m glad I got to read book 1 before I got too much farther in the series. It was interesting though to see where she and Morelli are in book 2. Spy has really good taste in heroes, and likes Ranger, but I’m just not seeing it yet. Of course I’m told the Ranger storyline doesn’t really heat up until much later. We shall see. I guess Morelli could screw it up by getting into her pants again and treating it like just another conquest. That would strike him out of the running.

He’s got a prior history of that. But he’s just so charming and so…Italian. Yum.

The other day someone on a message board private messaged me to tell me that she thought I should be a writer. She felt that I expressed myself well and had a “way with words.” I’ve had many people tell me this in many venues, from message boards to fanfic sites. I don’t say this to toot my own horn.

I understand that there are many people who are far better writers than me. The point here isn’t to go “see how great I am.” The point is…over the past several years, in fact most of my life, various people from teachers to family to friends, to complete strangers have approached me and said: “You should be a writer.”

I think there is something to that. Again, not that I’m “great,” but that someone else recognizes in me the potential to be a “writer” in the “getting paid” sense.

Yet its one of those things where it’s easy for someone else to say and far harder for me to do. I feel like I’m spinning my wheels. I’m so close to having KEPT ready to go out the door but I’ve been stalling on it for weeks. Just letting it sit there. I feel like the hare from the fable. I can see the finish line so for some reason I’ve decided to sit down and have a lemonade. Meanwhile I’m getting passed by a bunch of turtles.

I’ve got to get it in gear. On the other hand, it’s not really so much a “lazy” issue. I’ve had a lot of stuff going on personally. While I may seem very open on this blog, there is a lot of stuff about myself personally that I don’t share with others. Still, there is no real reason not to make SOME forward momentum each day.

I’ve got all these big goals, wanting to write full time in the sense of putting that much time and energy into it. But maybe I should start smaller. I know with other big things I’ve attempted I’ve found that slow and steady wins the race. So I’m thinking, what if I were to spend this week working for just 30 minutes a day. Sure that’s next to nothing, but it’s more than I worked last week and it’s consistent.

When I can work 30 minutes a day every day, then I can ramp it up to 45 minutes or an hour. And keep going until I find my groove and the amount of work I can reasonably do daily without burning out. It’s late now and I’m going to have to go to bed soon, but I think this week I’m going to work 30 minutes a day. Because it’s so very little but it still moves me forward, even if it’s at a turtle pace.

If I can do this, then next week I’ll go for 45 minutes. And keep that up for awhile. Of course if I get into a groove I’m not going to watch the clock the whole time and go: “Well, it’s been 30 minutes, time to quit.” It’s possible I might work for an hour or more if I get into a groove. But if I don’t, then I can work 30 minutes and have done more than if I hadn’t done anything at all.

The thing to remember is…the turtle may have been slow, but in the end he won.

Well, I’m almost halfway through the challenge. And it’s not even the end of April yet. I just finished the third book of the Stephanie Plum series. I miss my vampires and werewolves but I do really enjoy this series. I like that Stephanie and Morelli have something going on, though I’m still open to a potential Ranger romance. Ranger is getting incrementally cooler in each book. I mean the guy is like a super hero, doesn’t exactly operate completely within the letter of the law, he drives a batmobile, and nobody knows where he lives. Plus you have to kind of like him for the way he helps Stephanie who is just now starting to become a slightly less clueless bounty hunter. But he doesn’t bitch about helping her, and I think it’s sweet. I think he likes her as more than a bounty hunter. And oh my god, I can’t believe how third grade that sounded.

Tonight, Ali won the biggest loser. It was broadcast live and I screamed when she won. I was sitting there on the edge of the couch going “please win, please win, please win.” And she did. I don’t know why it was so important to me. Maybe because it was so important to her. I think she compelled people to root for her. This is the first time a woman has won the biggest loser. And out of the three finalists two of them were women.

Of course once I knew how much Ali needed to have lost total to win, I knew she’d won before she even stepped on the scale just by looking at the difference in how she looked in the live finale and in the previous episode. I think she did too. As soon as she knew how much she needed to have lost to beat Roger and be the biggest loser, she got a little bit of a smile on her face. She knew.

I wanted to write a little about goals and mindset. Kelly and Ali both worked incredibly hard. They were both underdogs in many ways. They both REALLY wanted it. Both of them had a single minded obsession with being the first girl biggest loser. At the end of the day though I think one thing made Ali rise above Kelly. I suppose we could say that Kelly had a back problem and it held her back. That may or may not be true. But Ali binged on frozen yogurt so they both had their setbacks and problems.

What made the difference, IMO was mindset. Kelly wanted it badly. She always said: “I really want to be the first girl biggest loser.” “I have a shot at being the first girl biggest loser.” But she never fully claimed it as hers.

About midway through the season Ali stood up and said to a room full of her competitors, “I’m going to be the biggest loser.” She didn’t say: “I really want to be” She said “I am going to be.” She almost never said “want” or “have a shot at.” She said it as if it were already true. Even to the last moment tonight before weigh ins she said she was going to be the first girl biggest loser. She knew from early on that confetti was going to rain down on her head and she was going to take home the money.

I think sometimes we say things like “I really want to be published” “I have a shot at being published” but we rarely say “I am going to be published” (unless you’ve already been published, then pick something bigger to insert there.) I think writers being a generally superstitious lot are afraid of jinxing it or something. Or appearing to be vain.

But the power is in the full proclamation followed by action. Ali could have said it all she wanted but not put forth the effort and not won. She also could have worked hard like Kelly did, but not fully believed in it and claimed it as hers, and that might have made a difference.

When we go for goals, its important to say: “I am going to” not “I really want to.”

So I was having a discussion with my husband the other night. We were talking about what constitutes cheating in a committed relationship and whether or not a kiss was considered “Full blown cheating.” I argued that it was still cheating, it was just: “micro-cheating.” This caused me to feel compelled to share my new word with the world, so I entered it at the urban dictionary:

Entry for micro-cheating.

I feel I have made my literary contribution for the day. You may all be enlightened now.

In India a baby was born with two faces, http://illseed.wordpress.com/2008/04/09/baby-born-with-two-faces/

They’re worshipping her as the reincarnation of a Hindu Goddess. When I heard this story I couldn’t help thinking how lucky she was to be born in India. In America she’d be viewed with pity or treated like a freak. In India she is revered as a goddess. Pretty cool thing to come out of this.

“Getting Rid of Bradley” by Jennifer Crusie was my 22nd book. I’ve seen this name a million times and I swear I must be mildly dyslexic because I saw it as “Jennifer Cruise” forever. It wasn’t until the other day after I was halfway through the book that I realized it was Crusie. (Unless it’s Cruise and I’m just NOW experiencing a mild dyslexia.)

Lucy is getting rid of Bradley. She just divorced him for cheating on her. Though really I think she was looking for an excuse to get out of a loveless marriage. She finds herself attracted to a guy who definitely looks like a bad boy. And she thinks she’s right when he mugs her in an alley. Only he doesn’t mug her because she beats him over the head with her bag (which is filled with heavy physics books). Only later he shows up at her door. Because he’s not a mugger. He’s a cop and he was trying to protect her from being shot.

It seems our little Bradley might be in trouble with the law, and it seems Lucy might be in some danger. So the cop, Zack ends up moving in to protect her. Of course this isn’t standard procedure but he’s a little taken with her, and thinks she has no survival instinct and is clearly helpless without him.

Lucy has three dogs. One of them is this little mop-like dog that invented a joke. The dog invented a joke. And he tells it over and over and over. Basically anytime he has your attention, he rolls over onto his back and throws his feet up in the air. In order to make him stop you have to say: “Dead dog?” And then he rolls over and hops up like he thinks he fooled you.

Anyway it’s a really cute book.

In about a year my husband and I will be moving to Arizona. I can’t begin to describe how thrilled I am about that. There is no offense intended to anyone living in the south, but I hate the south. There are interesting things about it, and it’s given me a lot of things to write about, but I feel completely out of place here.

I am a decidedly libertarian person. Most people in the south are decidedly conservative. The farther out west you go, the more organic local foods you find. Most places in the south if you say you eat organic or want to start eating organic people look at you like you’ve grown a third head. Yeah, I said third, because this is a look more profound than the one they give you like you’ve grown a second head.

There just isn’t a strong attitude toward spiritual freedom, libertarianism, organic foods and body products, fitness, etc. down here. It may not be true of the ENTIRE south, I can’t speak for the entire south since I haven’t lived everywhere. But where I live, it’s very backwoods and small minded. And it’s not THAT small of a town. These just aren’t my people. I hate it here.

Nevertheless, it’ll be about a year before I can get out of this horrible place and if I remain this negative about it, it’s going to be a harder year. At least I don’t live in a smog filled city. At least I hear the birds chirping every day and there’s a big garden in the backyard (which is organic…but hey, you can’t grow everything.)

Over on Spy’s blog the other day she was talking about motivation, and what motivates each person as a writer. My first impulse of course was to say money. But that’s not entirely true. I am someone who doesn’t believe in hamster wheels. I would almost rather live under a bridge in freedom, than in a beautiful home enslaved to a job I hate.

This was why I didn’t finish college. Because it was hamster wheel training. It would be one thing if everybody went out and got degrees to enrich their personal lives or gain knowledge, but people do it so they can “get a good job.” Why the hell would anyone want that? I mean yeah, the obvious, paying bills and such. But that should be one of those: “I don’t want to live under a bridge” motivations, not a life goal. At least the way I see it.

Freedom to me is of utmost importance. I have steadfastly refused to be imprisoned in the same job in the same building for the same employer day in day out until I retire. So motivation for writing to me is freedom. Writing is something I can do. (Something I can always get better at) And more importantly it’s something I can do from home.

So I can eventually become financially productive without ever running in the hamster wheel. I don’t understand people whose lives are about getting up at the butt crack of dawn, not because they want to, but because they’re a wage slave who has to. They go to work, sit in a cubicle out of the sunlight. They eat packaged foods. They drive home exhausted. They have a few hours to themselves in the evening (after most of the good enjoyable weather is gone) and then they go to bed and lather, rinse, repeat, until insane.

What kind of life is this? Why do so many so willingly sign up for it? I understand if it’s your only option, but why do people go to school so they get to do this? Why are people so willing to give up their freedoms? I suppose a counter argument could be that money buys a different kind of freedom. And that’s true. I guess it depends more on the types of freedom that is important for you.

What’s important for me is not living in a cage, running on a wheel, and eating little food pellets. Which unfortunately looks identical to the lives of many people around me.

People who work from home at their own thing, whether it’s a small business of some sort or writing (also, a small business), have that freedom. They can go enjoy the sunshine when they want. Cook their own foods. Workout on their schedule. Sleep and rise on their schedule. They’re free.

That’s what’s most important to me. To do what I love to do (write) in an environment of freedom.

For my 21st book I read: “A Countess Below Stairs” by: Eva Ibbotson.  It’s basically a retelling of Anastasia.  Anna is a Russian countess, but after the war, she and her family are left impoverished.  She goes to work for an English Earl who she falls in love with.  There is a very horrible fiance that Rupert is about to marry.  She’s really HORRIBLE.  I loved this book.  It was very beautiful.  It had an old-fashioned style to it which the author pulled off wonderfully.  This book felt “old.”  The descriptions and turns of phrases were priceless.  It was a very romantic and very moving book, set up according to the normal fairy tale standards.  I would love it if they made a movie out of this book.