I welcome fellow Indie Chick Katherine Owen to my blog as she shares her inspiring personal story.
One
Fictionista’s Literary Bliss
By: Katherine Owen
I
was anointed a female fictionista by an overzealous Georgia Bulldog fan on
Twitter. I immediately took it for my job description. So, here’s what you should know.
I write. I write a lot. And, when I'm not writing,
I think about writing a lot. You may
think we're having a conversation, but invariably I'm stealing your name,
asking how to spell it, and secretly describing the look on your face in five
words or less in my mind. My writing tends to be dark, moody, and sometimes
funny. Sometimes, it can be a bit lyrical or even literary. It’s often edgy, so
be forewarned. My readers complain they
can't put my books down. Or, just when they think they've figured the story
out, it changes and becomes something else. My stories tend to be dark and comprised of
broken heroines; even the heroes in my books have a few flaws that cause
trouble. It’s true; my characters may disappoint you or surprise you or piss
you off, but I think you’ll understand why they do what they do because of the
way I write them. I strive to reveal the deepest underpinnings about life,
about love, and about human nature, but it’s not for the faint of heart. I’ll
take you through a proverbial emotional ringer before reaching resolution and it’s
never as predictable as you might think. Do I sound like your kind of
fictionista? Come along, darling. This way.
Something else you should know about me is that I’m a huge
George Clooney fan. Maybe, Up In The Air wasn’t
one of his usual gigs, but I loved that movie. And, let’s be frank, I watched ER without him for years, but it was
never the same. Never. Anyway, I
digress. There’s a scene in Up In The Air
where he’s telling this guy to follow his dream after George has told him he’s
been laid off. When I saw that scene, it
was as if George was practically speaking to me because I was there, two years ago, when I was laid off from a high tech
sales job, had always harbored a dream to write full-time, and went for it
after that. Is it a coincidence that Up
In The Air came out about the same time? I think not.
So now, this is what I do. Write. Write all the time. I’ll
admit it was hard at first. It still is—hard, harrowing, humbling. Believe me,
it would be easier to go out and get another high paying sales job than write
for a living because writing causes me to question my mental toughness so much
of the time. Can I do this? Am I good
enough?
Yet, here’s what I’ve learned: you just have to turn off that
voice in your head off or ignore what is being said. Sometimes, all you need to do is stand up for
yourself, stop depending upon the opinions of others, and just go after what
you really want.
For me, that’s writing. For you, it might be anything else,
but just pursue your passion whatever it is.
With this anthology, my debut novel, Seeing Julia is featured. Seeing
Julia is a labor of love and represents a lot of hard work. Truly, this
book has caused me as much grief as it has joy. After I first wrote this novel,
I entered it into a literary contest and promptly forgot about it. I was busy. I was taking classes at The Writer’s Studio, becoming literary
savvy, and writing another novel called Not
To Us.
I remember it was a Monday morning in early June of 2010 when
I received a call from the president of the Pacific Northwest Writers
Association telling me I was a finalist in the romance category with my entry
of Seeing Julia. “What?” She asked me if I planned on attending the conference. “Well, I guess so.”
Lucky for me, I attended the summer conference, bought a new outfit, and won
the Zola Award and first place with Seeing
Julia the night of the awards dinner. It was a surreal moment, when I had
to go up to the front of the room with those seven hundred people watching and
accept my award. But, truly? I was more concerned about navigating all those
tables and chairs on my way up to the podium than actually seizing the moment.
As word spread about my writing award win, self-doubt had already set in. It
was a fluke. It was dumb luck. As high as my emotions soared about winning;
they fell just as fast when literary agents still rejected my work. Yes, the
win opened a number of literary agent doors for me, but I wrote several
different versions of that novel when a number of them took greater interest,
but then wanted to change everything about the story. One agent called me up
and lectured me for forty-five minutes about the book and then promised to take
a look if I made more changes. I sent her the revised manuscript, but she never
called again.
This was a year ago. I was at a crossroads with my writing
and myself. I kept thinking if I did what they said and changed it, yet again, I would get to the next
step—literary bliss. But I wasn’t getting anywhere.
Discouraged, but still determined, I reviewed what the
critiques and feedback about Seeing Julia
had been. Based on those, I sifted through what I thought would need to be
changed and began rewriting the story, working
day and night through most of November. With just getting a few hours of sleep
each night, I kept up the intense pace and by the time the novel was finished; I knew it was. I’m extremely proud of Seeing Julia. During the process of
rewriting it for the last time, I reached an important pinnacle with my
writing: I trusted myself. Confidence entered into the realm. And, along with
it, swift understanding: I had to make my
own literary bliss.
Two additional things became clear. First, it was essential
for me to have complete control over the publishing of my work; and second, the
publishing industry was in the midst of a perfect storm because of e-books and
I needed to take full advantage. And, so I did.
In late April and early May of this year, I released two
novels: Seeing Julia and Not To Us. These books are available as
e-books as well as print trade paperbacks.
Many wonderful readers have responded to my work. They often
reach out to me and let me know how they love my novels. I love and cherish
their enthusiasm for my work.
This is literary
bliss.
Of course, my
family’s number one complaint is that I write too much and all the time. Now,
add to that the twittering and the facebooking and the wordpressing and now
google plus-ing, and checking Amazon, and taking writing classes; it's a
full-time gig. But, I wouldn’t have it any other way.
The
good news is that with the encouragement of my readers and confidence in my
writing, I’m
working on my third novel, When I See
You, and hope to release this book before the end of this year. And, I already have drafts for two other
novels, Saving Valentines and Finding Amy.
Oh yes,
there are occasions, rare ones, when I'm not writing. That’s when I like to
drink a fine wine, check in with my family, and look at my awesome view which I
can see when I look up long enough from my computer screen in my writing
refuge.
And
so, welcome. Welcome to my little piece of the universe.
I’ll leave you with this—a philosophy I now live by, borrowed
from one of the greatest women tennis players of all time: “You’ve got to take the initiative and play your game. In a decisive
set, confidence is the difference.” Chris
Evert
Oh, Chrissy, you are so
right!
***
This is one story from Indie
Chicks: 25 Women 25 Personal Stories available on Amazon
and Barnes
& Noble. To read all of the stories, buy your copy today. All proceeds
go to the Susan G. Komen Foundation for Breast Cancer.
Also included are sneak
peeks into 25 novels! My novel, Seeing
Julia, is one of the novel excerpts featured. It is available at most
online retailers in trade paperback as well as e-book formats.
Seeing Julia
Smashwords (various
e-book formats for Sony e-book, Kobo, Apple iBooks and Diesel)
For more information about Katherine Owen, visit
these links:
I'm on Tumblr, here: http://katherineowen.tumblr.com/
Other books by Katherine Owen
I published the first Whisperings novel for another reason: Nobody seemed to believe in
my writing. Not friends, relatives, friendly acquaintances. I think they
supposed a 58-year-old with no education in the literary field, who suddenly came
out of the woodwork and decided to publish, must be a “vanity publisher” who
wanted to force poorly-written books on readers. When I said I wrote fiction, I
got blank looks, followed by, “that’s nice. Now, as I was saying. . .” Nobody wanted to read my work, not even my sweet
husband. But he enjoyed urban fantasy and I thought he’d like Tiff Banks. So in a way, I also
published for him.
I published Along Came a Demon in November 2008. It was supposed to be a
stand-alone novella, but readers wanted more and Tiff obliged. Along Came a Demon became book one of
the Whisperings series of paranormal mysteries. I published the sequel, The Demon Hunters, in November 2009. In
2010 I added material to Along Came a
Demon to make it a full-length book and at the same time made small changes
to The Demon Hunters to reflect those
in Along Came a Demon. I published
book three, Dead Demon Walking, in
March 2011. Being a wordsmith, I should be able to express my joy each time a
reader tells me they love my books, but it truly is beyond my powers of
description. Now, when someone asks me what I do for a living, instead of telling
them I am a part-time administrative assistant and adding (hesitantly) “I also
write fiction,” I say I am an author. When I fill out a form that asks for my
occupation, I proudly write “author” in the little box.
Mary Wesley published Jumping the Queue at age 70 and went on to write ten best sellers
until she died twenty years later. 
And
then, this past summer, I tripped. The
Darkness swallowed me. As in one of my
upcoming novels, The Darkness turned me inside out. I couldn't go to work and could barely leave
the house. It pinned me beneath it, and
the more I tried to run, the heavier it got.
Everything I'd run from in life was there: my near-poverty upbringing;
the breaking apart of my family when I was a kid; my struggle with my weight
and social anxiety issues; with finding acceptance at any job; with men and
dysfunctional relationships; the pending financial disaster I'd been building;
fear of failure and ending up as miserable as my parents. I thought I'd suffocate, until the Darkness
spoke to me.
