My parents swore that I was born with my nose in a book. My mother had her college degree in Library Science and encouraged me to read. She would drag me to the library and I would sit there for hours, lost in a story. When I was six years old, I told her I was going to be an author. What a concept, right?

At twelve, I discovered the piano and all thoughts of being an author were dashed. I was going to be a rock star. I played the piano and guitar for hours on end, making up songs that I would sing onstage with my pretend band. Granted, I still received excellent grades in English and composition, my heart was elsewhere.

When college time came, I decided to major in Music. My parents were disappointed but they stood behind my decision. I had started late and my technique was behind other students but the teachers were impressed with my dedication and effort with my studies. In my senior year, the professors “encouraged” me to go into teaching (there went my dream of being a rock star) because of the passion I could share with children. I went ahead and received a Master’s of Science in Music Education.

My family had moved back to the Chicago area and I went to live with them. It was rough to find a job because at that time, the economy was in bad shape and lots of schools were cutting their music program. I had friends who accepted jobs in Alaska and Washington State but I didn’t want to leave Chicago. I had friends, family and a life. I put my big girl pants on and landed my first job as a Claim Supervisor at a healthcare company.

Since I am a detailed person, I documented (writing) every aspect of the job and what it entailed. It was titled The Lifecycle of a Health Insurance Claim. Interesting stuff, right? It was published because the company was converting to a new Claims Payment System and it was used as a business document.

Life then threw me into computers. I programmed, did quality assurance and writing business documentation. I was very happy, married and had a beautiful daughter. Then the proverbial shoe dropped. My husband lost his job and he took a job offer in rural Pennsylvania. I was not a happy camper. I always remembered Pennsylvania as this long state to drive through in order to see our relatives back in New York. I had to quit my job and start all over.

I tried to find work but when I mentioned I did computer based work, the response was always, “How fast can you type?” I went from one low paying job to the next thoroughly discouraged. My husband loved his job and travelled extensively. Fortunately, I made lots of good friends.

My daughter began showing signs of interest in writing and asked me for help during her high school years. We were getting A’s on most of her work. Making her grandmother very proud, she decided to major in journalism and communications and went on to get her master’s degree. I still helped her with her papers until one of her professors pulled me aside. I had been caught and she suggested I start writing.

I did. I sat down and poured my heart into this book. I even had the sequel all planned out. I had my Technical Writer friends read it and comment on how to improve it. They were too nice.

When I submitted the four hundred thousand word manuscript, I couldn’t even get my foot in the door. Rejection after rejection came pouring in when finally someone said, “It sounds great but you need to cut at least three hundred thousand words. I was devastated! I did the sequel and kept it under one hundred thousand words but the first one has to go first. I pared it down to one hundred and twenty thousand words but it needs work. I put both of the manuscripts in a drawer.

I was working again at my husband’s company being the Help Desk assistant. I was happy because I met fellow author Barbara Huffert and we would talk about our writing careers. I was so excited when her first book was published. But, my parent’s health was failing and since I was Power of Attorney, I flew back and forth from Philadelphia to Chicago constantly to settle matters. The last time I saw my mother, she asked if she could read my book. I didn’t have the heart to tell her I had stopped writing.

Life is always changing for me. My husband’s company had been bought out and in order to save his job, we agreed to move to Dallas. This move, I looked forward to because I have always been infatuated with the state of Texas. We had two days to find a house and found what we thought was the perfect house.

This beautiful house has turned out to be a money pit. I started documenting everything that had gone wrong in the one year we lived here. One night, our cousin who had flown in for business, dropped by to take us out to dinner. I showed him the documentation and he said, “Lo? This is your next book.” I didn’t realize how many people were disappointed I had stopped writing.

I sat down and When the Runway Went South was born. I had my daughter read it and she was not nice at all which I appreciated. When I felt comfortable with her suggestions, I submitted it to an agency who wanted work. They told me it wasn’t the genre they represented but it was a good story and to keep trying to get it published.

I chose LazyDay Publishing because they wanted the entire manuscript and I liked the authors they were representing. I could have hugged Staci when she replied to me. She had read the manuscript and she told me how to fix it if I was interested. Of course I would do it! What great suggestions. All I wanted was an honest critique. I took my time and rewrote it from a passive voice to an active voice. I watched my head hopping. I resubmitted it in September and then started writing another manuscript feeling confident because now I knew what to look for.

January of this year, I was driving and my phone beeped because of an incoming email. I had my daughter open up the email from Staci where she offered me a contract. I’m surprised I didn’t get into an accident I was so excited.

The process has been an amazing and fast. I signed the contract and couldn’t sleep for at least a week. I had to remind myself to take deep breaths. When I got my first set of edits, I took them with me on vacation. I would sit at the pool with my laptop and so many people were interested in what I was doing. I don’t know how many times I was asked how I could write a book. I told them once you get started, it’s not that hard.

The next step was the copy edits which really made me scrutinize my work. Staci and Liz have been so supportive and encouraging that I can’t thank them enough. After the second round of edits, I felt that my story was better written than I thought possible. When the Cover Art came out, I was so pleased. I quickly shared it with my family and friends and they all agreed that the artist and everyone involved had done a tremendous job.

I can’t thank LazyDay Publishing enough for taking a chance with me and having my dream come true. I have to pinch myself to make sure this is real. I have a lot to learn still and look forward to more writing. My head is filled with many stories just waiting to written. As with anything, it takes commitment, perseverance and most of all the will to be flexible.

As for my music, I still play in the confines of my home but I no longer sing with the hairbrush as my microphone.

  I’ve often been asked how I get the motivation to write, or what my routines are when writing.  These two questions can go hand in hand, but I will address them separately.

First off – MOTIVATION.  There really is a simple solution for me in regards to motivation.  I must first and foremost LOVE my characters.  I’ve found out through the years that learning to love my characters is no different than learning to love those in my world in my real life.  The only way to truly appreciate “someone” is by spending time with them and getting to know them.  If I don’t KNOW my characters, I can’t love them (or at least appreciate them for who they are) and I certainly can’t expect my readers to love them either.  By knowing them, I mean that before I ever write one word in a story, I take the time to write down everything there is to know about them.  More than just their name or what they do for a living or even what they look like.  I mean, I must know them all the way down to the way they sleep at night, what their quirks are, their favorite foods, where they grew up, the kind of student they were in school, what fears they have, what turns them on, etc.  I must have an understanding about EVERYTHING in regards to the characters that I feel are important enough to make a story (even if it is information that will never make it into the pages of a book).  The characteristics of my characters must be appealing as well.  It doesn’t mean they are perfect and honestly some of them I have a love/hate relationship with (i.e. Erin…Rowan’s ex-fiancée in A Lifetime to Find Love and Sacred Surrender).   Those characteristics must be appealing enough for me to take the time out of my life to write about them.  So, when it comes to my motivation for writing, it all boils down to my characters, how much time I want to spend with them, and if I know them well enough to share them with the “world.”  If the more time I spend with them draws me to a greater appreciation for them and they are people that I would spend time with in the real world, then I am compelled to write.  If they aren’t, I discard them and move on to another character.  So, KNOW your characters before you try to introduce them to your readers.  Spend time with them before asking someone else to take time out of their lives to jump into your characters world.  Your characters must be so important to you that when others read about them, they emotionally invest in them as much as you have.  As a reader, when I pick up a book, I want to love the characters and when an author has gone the extra mile to make sure I do love them, I appreciate the characters and the author for the relationship they share.  A reader’s time is valuable…show your appreciation for your readers by making sure your characters are lovable, likable, and “people” they can’t live without.

Secondly – ROUTINE.  As with most writers, I’m extremely neurotic when it comes to a routine.  I’ve heard other writers say that they need music (or background noise) to write, some write only during the day, and others will going to a public place (i.e. Starbucks or other coffee shop) to write.  Not so with me.  Although lately my routine has changed somewhat because of my schooling which has caused me to write at any opportune time, I feel as if I do my best writing late at night.  Usually between the hours of 9 pm – 1 am you can find me at my computer desk in my office immersed in a world not my own.  Also, I cannot have background noise (no television, music, kids jabbering away, husband asking questions he already knows the answers to) none whatsoever.  I even most recently bought noise reduction headphones to block out any sound that may creep into my space.  There has to be complete silence.  Even now as I type this the hubby is watching television in the other room and I find myself completely distracted by it.  This short blog post is taking longer to write than it should J.  So for me, while I write, silence is golden.  When I talk to my kids or husband, I expect their undivided attention, so I can do no less than to give my characters my undivided attention.  How can I listen to them when there are outside elements distracting me?  For ME, I cannot (although I know it works for other writers).  And lastly, there are three things I must have while writing….one – I must have my hair in a ponytail.  Weird I know, but if my hair is down, I don’t write as well and I get distracted.  My fingers tend to find their way to the ends of my hair instead of on the keys of my laptop.Second – I need coffee, no matter the time of day or the season (yes even in the heat of summer), I must have coffee.  I’ve actually tried to write without it, but my brain withholds any creative juices until the coffee is in my body.  The last thing – socks!  You read that correctly, no need to go back and re-read.  Socks are a must…there are no special socks, just something to cover my feet and I’m good to go.

So as you can see, there isn’t some set formula to writing as far as a routine goes.  Every writer has their idiosyncrasies when it comes to writing and these are mine.  The best advice to new writers that I can give is to find your own.  What works for one person may not work for you.  It really is all about trial and error.  If you would have asked me five years ago if I needed to have socks on to write, I would have laughed (silently of course) at the question.  Yet, here I am with some strange mannerisms when it comes to writing and they all work for me.

Find Your Motivation and Your Routine!

As Always – Happy Reading!

Ava Riley

Shortly after my first book, The Point of it All, was released, I received a 1-star review, after being duped into complacency by a couple of 5-stars. The reviewer went on and on about the spanking element of the book, and then ended on this inspirational note:

“It was misogynistic bullcrap and the author should take some classes on the evils of domestic violence and and maybe a class on normal male female interaction. (sic)”

And then another, which read, in part,

“…what a message to teach/convey/endorse as a female writer! i will never purchase/borrow/recommend a jade cary book again given her bent! how truly disgusting and insulting to all women…particularly those who truly experience the horror of male control to the extent of physical abuse. jade cary should be ashamed of herself! (sic)”

Ouch. Now, I could defend myself, and my writing ‘bent’, by explaining to all who will listen that I, indeed, love women, and that I am not promoting abuse. Truth be told, I did it already. I licked my wounds while my contemporaries came to my defense on Amazon, and then I got involved—something experts and laymen alike advise an author never to do. I did it politely, of course, using rational thought and very clear reasons behind why I wrote what I wrote. I tried to explain myself, tried to defend my writing, tried to change a mind already firm in its path toward righteousness. I did it because the negative comments hurt.

Waaaaaah! It hurt. Waaaaaah!

Yes, they hurt. I’m a big baby, and I’m being petulant. I was hurt by the comments then, and I bristle a bit when I read them now—me, the pro, the expert, the thick-skinned warrior, now that I have TWO books out. Uh huh, yeah. Sure.

I took the comments personally. Every word was a fist to the gut, every accusation of misogyny cut like a knife, every implication that I wasn’t sensitive to abused women brought tears to my eyes. And there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. Oh, I’d done all the right things: I wrote a book that was interesting in subject, and well-written in form, I collaborated with professional people who liked both of those things well enough to offer a publishing contract, I offered up an accurate product blurb with appropriate warnings that the book contained scenes with spanking, and I introduced myself to other writers in the genre, whom I have read and admired for years, wishing to surround myself with like-minded creative types. What I did not do was prepare for the very real fact that some readers would not like the book. It happens. Some can’t get past the idea that the heroine is spanked. Some hate the hero, thinking he’s much too heavy-handed. Others despise the ending. That I was the one who decided on all of those scenarios and ideas makes the criticism that much more personal—no ghostwriter for me. I did this all by myself. It’s beside the point. The reviews are not about me—even when they are. I sounded petulant when I defended myself on my own blog, and I suppose I’m sounding a bit petulant now. I’m human. Any artist who claims to be unaffected by harsh, negative criticism is
lying—or he is Simon Cowell. Is there any defense for authors who feel that a reviewer has treated them in an unethical or abusive manner? Of course. I sent a private message to a reader who reviewed The Point of it All on Goodreads, and gave away the ending. I was very polite, but I questioned her reasoning. She apologized immediately, and removed that portion of the review. Amazon will review any complaint lodged, and remove an abusive or offensive review at their discretion.

Is there recourse for the misunderstood and maligned? Sure. If you’re really curious about how to become a thorn in a bad reviewer’s side, check out the threads on Amazon’s Forum where readers ‘out’ Badly Behaved Authors, and you’ll get an idea of how it’s done. It isn’t pretty, and good luck with your sales after you’ve been blasted in an Amazon Forum. I don’t want to be that person, and so I have had to grow a thicker skin. I’ve had to set my babies free, to stand alone and defend themselves, while I watch proudly from the sidelines and cheer them on. I learned a valuable lesson here, and I’m going to credit Ricky Nelson with the words of wisdom I have now chosen to live by: You can’t please everyone, so ya got to please yourself.

One online blog reviewed my latest book, To Love a Woman, recently:

“…Ms. Cary has given us a neat twist on the whole Mrs. Robinson/cougar scenario by making Marissa initially appalled by the idea of a fling with a younger man. She has also highlighted her family conflicts in a realistic way which will feel familiar to anyone who has ever been in that situation.” (TWOLIPSREVIEWS.COM  http://www.twolipsreviews.com/content/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=7602&Itemid=36)

I liked that the reviewer got something out of it that was somewhat out of the norm. That the reviewer was a dude was icing on the cake. It is reviews like this that I choose to spend my energy thinking about now. I’ve learned my lesson. I have taken the above negative reviewers advice, and I have taken myself to task, not for writing about the banality of a woman getting her ass spanked—and maybe on some level liking it—but for taking it all so seriously. I got into this writing gig for fun. That I get a wee paycheck every now and again is the bomb. That a few people have said they like what I do pleases me most. Defending the undefendable is a fool’s game, and the next time I do it, will someone please spank me?