Betsy Horvath

Author: Betsy Horvath

  • Back Again

    Hello, my dears!  My, but it’s been a long time since I’ve posted, hasn’t it?  Sorry about that.  One reason I’ve been delayed is that I keep thinking I’ll write a funny little story-post with the Muse and Harry and Skipper and all the rest.  Then time slips away and I don’t do it.  This week I decided to give up on the grand schemes and just write something.

    But don’t worry!  Harry shall return.

    It has been a strange, strange summer.  As you may know from one of my last posts, my day job was eliminated in May, but I was fortunate enough to be given the opportunity to keep working at my company for a while.  Subsequent events proved that the company itself was going through upheaval, and now nothing is certain.

    But nothing is ever certain, is it?

    Anyway, I spent a great deal of mental energy this summer dealing with the situation and trying to decide what the best way was for me to respond to it.  In the midst of all that I also had to write resumes, get on LinkedIn, and do the multitudes of mundane work associated with uncertainty.  It took time and energy and maybe I’ve been a wee bit anxious, which kills creativity and wrecks sleep patterns.

    After stewing and stewing, I began to work out the best solution for me, which has been a great weight off my mind.  It may not be your plan, it may not be a good plan, but it is a plan.  Plans can’t be overestimated in my opinion.

    Getting that weight off my mind bumped my writing back into high(er) gear.  I’m proud to say that I kept working on my latest book through it all, but progress was slower than I wanted it to be, thanks to upheaval and stewing and resume-making.  There were also some other things thrown in there for good measure–like finding out one of my cats has cancer and trying to deal with my credit reports.  (The cat is doing well so far, the credit reports are frustrating).

    Making a decision on how I wanted to proceed day-job-wise let me put focus back on finishing my book.  I’m pleased that as of this writing I am about 85% finished with the next Hardy Falls book.  Although I’m at the phase in the proceedings where I doubt everything I do, I am soldiering on.  After I finish, I have to run it through a grammar program and then it will be ready to go to the editor, assuming the editor can take it (considering it’s about three months late).

    The Hardy Falls novella coming after this is already written and needs to be finalized.  Since it’s half the length of the book I’m working on now, and not quite as complicated, I’m hoping I’ll be able to knock it out more quickly.  But I don’t want to jinx myself.

    More info on the book, including title and cover, to come.  Right now I’m just focused on getting the bloody thing finished.

    Regarding this blog.  I’ve gotten comments from people saying that they thought I had stopped writing it.  That is not the case – I just got derailed for a bit.  I expect there will be regular (or at least semi-regular) blog posts now that I’ve gotten going again.  So much mental angst to expose to the world!

    The newsletter, too, has been derailed.  If you’ve signed up for it and have noticed the monthly newsletter has been conspicuously absent for the last couple of months, I do apologize.  I’m going to get one out this week, and then get back on a regular routine with that as well.  I’m contemplating sharing an unedited excerpt from the book I’m working on in this month’s edition, so stay tuned!

    And I wanted to thank everyone for their support and good wishes and patience during this time.  Sometimes you’re the windshield, sometimes you’re the bug.  I got a little splattered over the last couple of months, but I’m pulling myself back together.  One inch at a time.

     

     

     

     

     

  • Trust And Production

    I have trust issues.

    I also usually have issues when I’m editing a book.

    These two things are not unrelated.

    I’ve realized that I always get hung up in the editing process of a book because I don’t trust myself, which in turn makes me doubt my work. In the past, this has meant I rewrite the same book over and over again just because I doubt that it’s good enough.

    You do need to work with first drafts, of course.  At the very least, there are usually problems that need to be addressed or a lack of clarity that needs to be resolved.  Not many people can spit out the first draft of a novel that’s good as it is.  But this rewriting, tweaking, and problem-solving has to be done with a cool head, not one that’s screaming it’s all crap and needs to change.

    For better or worse, the first draft is the underlying structure of what the story will be.  If you make massive changes to this structure, you are basically writing another story.  And if that’s what has to happen, most of the time you’d be better off scrapping it and starting over, rather than taking the time to bend and twist what you have into a radically different vision.

    Sometimes you do need to scrap the story.

    But sometimes you’re bending and twisting it just because you doubt the underlying thing that’s already there.

    Doesn’t that sound a lot like life?  Sometimes you’re laying groundwork, and you have to scrap it.  But sometimes you’re throwing away what’s there simply because you doubt it.

    When I’m finished with the first draft of a novel, I tend to get stuck, and that’s going to have to change.  I can’t get hung up in editing for years because I doubt the story I’ve written is worthwhile.  If it’s that bad, I need to start over, not groom it like a mama chimp looking for fleas on her young.

    I get stuck in editing because I don’t trust my first draft to identify the story.  I don’t trust myself to have expressed the story.  And so I keep thinking I need to change it to make it better, more perfect.  Then most of the time I have to change it back.

    On the other hand, when I write a blog post or a newsletter, I don’t second guess myself nearly as much.  I edit, but I rarely pick them apart.   This gives me confidence, even though writing a novel is a much more complicated process.

    I’m coming up some ideas of how to streamline my editing process, which I’ll share after I see the results.  But more importantly, here are my first steps to move beyond the trap of my own insecurities when it comes to editing a novel-

    Trust the planning I did before I started the first draft

    Trust the first draft to have roughed out that planning

    Trust that I am able to tell an entertaining story.

    Trust that even if this is not the best story in the world, or even a very good one, it won’t be the last one I tell.

    Evaluate the existing first draft with a cool head.

    And move forward.

     

     

     

  • Writing In The Midst Of Difficult Times

    Every once in a while, something happens that pulls back the veil of the illusion of your life and shows you what’s really going on.  You’re moving along, you’re comfortable, you think you’ve got it all under control, and then – boom.  Life bitch slaps you.

    You get the legs knocked right out from under you.  Something changes with no warning and you’re left trying to figure out what to do.

    Last week, the employer I work for in my day job, announced a major change in direction impacting a good portion of the workforce.  Including me.

    Boom.

    I am fortunate in that I’ve been given a little time before I’ll be officially let go, but my job is not “my job” anymore.  No matter how long it lasts, now it’s a temporary job I happen to do.

    Change.

    Difficult times.

    The biggest concern for me as a writer and creative person (other than “how will I pay all of my bills”) is not letting this major setback derail me from my goals.  The day job is definitely important, but my writing goals are also important.  And meeting my writing goals is how I am building towards my future, which makes them doubly valuable.

    Forgetting about writing would be easy.  I can easily get paralyzed by fear and uncertainty.  I can spend my time on social media or surfing the internet or watching TV to try and escape the situation.  Or I can get so wrapped up in looking for another day job and trying to make money that I just stop everything else.

    The fact is, I do need another day job. Finding one is vital.

    But I have to keep writing, too.  I have to keep going.

    Working on a creative pursuit in the midst of difficult times is tough. It’s hard to put yourself in the right mindset to create when you are obsessing over Linkd In and writing a resume.  When my mind is running like a hamster on a wheel, sinking into the book I’m working on is hard.  Forcing myself to sit down and work on it is harder.

    Fortunately, earlier this month, before I knew my life would be changing, I set some extremely aggressive writing goals and have been working diligently to meet them.  That’s very helpful because I’m invested in them – I don’t want the goals to fall away now.  It’s also helpful to know that I NEED to meet them to stay on track with this book – they are not optional.

    Then there’s the fact that when I sit down to write, I feel myself settle.  This, writing, is my thing.  This is under my control.  My life seems a little out of control at the moment, the future is a little bit up in the air, but this pursuit is mine.  I am in control of it and can make it or break it.  Nobody else can tell me what to do in this arena. I hold power over my own life here.

    And the real truth is, I always have power over my own life.  I am always the one who can make or break it.  When the veil of illusion gets ripped away, there is uncertainty, and there is fear, but there is also a reminder of that.

    For me, writing in spite of, and in the midst of, the difficult times helps me to remember. I have the power to stop.  But I also have the power to keep going.  The choice is mine.

     

     

     

  • Putting Coffee In The Friendzone

    As we join Betsy, she is sitting behind her desk in her office in her brain, waiting. She’s known that she needed to have this conversation for weeks, but she kept putting it off, hoping against hope she wouldn’t have to go there. After all, how can she friendzone someone she loves so very much? How can she walk away from him? How can she intentionally distance herself from him? Her heart feels heavy in her chest.

    On the other hand, her heart is also beating pretty rapidly. Which isn’t exactly…good. And she can’t seem to settle. In fact, she’s fidgeting restlessly in her chair and her mind is racing. Maybe she shouldn’t have spent so much time with her loved one earlier that morning.

    She fiddles with some papers on her desk, her knee bouncing. She tries to calm that leg and the other one starts.

    Yes, this conversation is definitely overdue.

    Let’s see what happens…

     

    The door to Betsy’s office opens and Coffee, the Beverage of Champions, strolls into the room.

    “Ah, my dear. It iz zo good to see you, n’est pas?” Coffee smirks, confident of his welcome.

    “Thanks for coming,” Betsy says, her whole body starting to jitter in his presence. “Um, nice French Roast accent.”

    “Zank you.” Reaching behind his back, he pulls out a mug. “Shall I pour?”

    “No.”

    Coffee pauses and bubbles a bit.

    “No?” For the first time, there is uncertainty in his deep brown gaze.  “But I brought the half-and-half.”

    “No.” Betsy grips her desk. She needs to be strong. But, oh, the temptation. The scent of him, the strength of him… No! She won’t think about that now!

    “Please sit down. I need to talk to you.”

    “Oh. Okay.” The accent gone, Coffee sloshes on the edge of the visitor’s chair. “What’s up?”

    Betsy fiddles with the papers again. “Um, I, uh, think we…geez this hard.”

    “What’s hard?” Coffee looks even more puzzled.

    Betsy draws in a deep breath. Draws in the enticing aroma of him.

    “I think we need to back off,” she says quickly before she loses her nerve. “I don’t think we should be so intense anymore.  I think we should be…friends.”

    Coffee blinks wide, dark eyes. “Excuse me?”

    “It’s not you, it’s me. It’s totally me.”

    “But we’ve been spending so much time together lately.” Coffee sounds confused. “Long lazy mornings. Dawdling together all through the day. I’ve been with you every moment, your constant companion. We’re closer than we’ve ever been.”

    “I know.” Betsy reaches across the desk to him, then pulls back her hand and drops it to her side. She looks away. “It’s too much, Coffee. Just too much.”

    “But—”

    “You’re more than I can handle, Coffee. You overwhelm me. I can’t sleep. My stomach hurts. And my blood sugar—”

    Coffee smiles. “But you’ve talked like this before. Lots of times. And you always come back.”

    “I know.”

    “It’s because we’re meant to be together.”

    “No.” Betsy reaches for him again. Again, she draws back her hand. “I love you, but no.”

    “No.” Coffee scowls. “What do you mean, no?”

    “I mean no! I’m not saying we’ll never see each other. I want to be friends. Pals. I still want to hang out with you. But we can’t be exclusive anymore. We just… can’t.”

    Coffee percolates ominously. “You’re dropping me?”

    “No!” Betsy pleads with him to understand. “Of course not. How can I? We’ll still have the mornings. A hot cup…”

    “Or two?” Coffee asks hopefully.

    “Maybe.” Betsy concedes. “But no more than that! I mean it. I’m going spend more time with Decaf. Or, maybe even Herbal Tea, even though it tends to taste like grass. But I want to get to know both of them better.”

    “Herbal tea?” Coffee looks disgusted. “Decaf? Those are just poor substitutions for what you really want, baby.”

    “I know.” Betsy wipes her tear-filled eyes. “But I have to try. You…you’re too strong. You take over and…I need to make my way by myself without heart palpitations and insomnia.”

    Coffee thinks. “Well, I don’t know my own strength sometimes,” he admits. “We’ll still hang out?”

    “Yes.”

    “And you’ll still come to me when you’ve got problems?”

    “Oh, I’m sure I will.”

    Coffee is silent for another moment. Then shrugs. “Okay.”

    “Good.” Betsy settles back with a sigh.

    “Right.” Coffee smiles. It’s just a little evil. “Tell you what.  Let’s drink to it.”

    Uh oh…

     

    To be continued…

     

     

  • I Get Knocked Down, I Get Up Again

    When last we heard from Betsy, she was sounding very determined.  And then she vanished from the face of the earth for several weeks.  If you know anything about Betsy, you know that this is definitely not a good sign.  Why it’s almost as if she was trying to ignore flaws and cracks and crevices that were widening and becoming catastrophic and then it all exploded in her face!

    Uh oh.  We’d better see what’s going on….

     

    Betsy is sitting in the soft grass beside the lake in her mind. The wind is blowing gently. Everything is saturated with color and seems to be more in focus than it has been as of late.

    She leans back on her hands, looking at the range of mountains in the distance, the field of grass, the leaves on the trees rustling gently in the warm breeze. The sun is full and bright, the grass and leaves dark green with life, the lake deep blue and peaceful. Even a week ago, the landscape was gray and intangible. Even a week ago, everything was transparent, like the thinnest of papers.  Like a ghost.

    Like Betsy.

    She feels the softness of the ground beneath her palms, feels the weight of her spirit and her body. Even a week ago, everything was insubstantial.

    She looks at the lake, sees the depths of the blue water, the way it laps the shore. The surface is calm, with just a few ripples. Even a week ago, the lake was almost empty, and what water remained was muddy and agitated.

    “You’re back.”

    Betsy looks up to see the Muse standing beside her. The Muse looks out at the grass, the trees, the lake, and then turns to Betsy and considers her.

    “I feel better,” Betsy tells her.

    “Good.” The Muse sits next to her, gracefully tucks her legs up under the folds of her gown. “Do you understand what happened?”

    “I became disheartened.” Betsy straightens. “I did my taxes and saw the expenses and the income. I thought about how little I had accomplished and was accomplishing. I started second-guessing myself and my decisions. And I became disheartened.”

    “Sometimes you have to keep moving even when you are not seeing the results.”

    Betsy looks down. “It’s hard.”

    The Muse shrugs. “Of course. Who said it wouldn’t be? Who said that something worthwhile wouldn’t be a struggle?”

    “I know.” Betsy sighs and pulls out a blade of grass, twirling it in her fingers. “But it’s hard sometimes and I was disheartened.”

    “You almost quit. You were right on the verge of changing everything.”

    “I wasn’t writing. I said that I was dedicated to it, but I didn’t feel like I had any creativity inside me. There was nothing inside me. So why not quit? Why keep struggling? Why keep giving it lip service? Why not get a regular second job to pay off debt, save for the future, do the things we’re all supposed to do? That would have been smarter, definitely more logical. Why keep wasting my time?”

    The Muse nods. “And then…”

    Betsy gestures around her. “Everything went gray and lifeless. I felt like I was transparent, just a dead leaf tumbling in the wind. And I thought that I shouldn’t quit if this was the way I was going to feel because it was horrible.”

    The Muse settles back. “But you’re writing now. You’re making headway now. Did the creativity come back when you made the decision to keep going?”

    “It wasn’t that easy. At first, I had decided not to quit, but I couldn’t actually write either.  There still wasn’t any creativity inside me. So I looked at some other things I could do first. I started changing the way I’ve been eating so it would be better for my diabetes. Then I tried to go to bed earlier to get more sleep, and to get up with the alarm so I could take control of my mornings. All of that gave me the groundwork I needed to be able to write again. Once I started writing, I finally felt like myself.”

    “And what have you learned?”

    Betsy thinks for a moment. “That the right food and the right sleep and the right motivation are just as important as sitting at the computer because that’s what the creativity is built on.”

    “Go on.”

    “And that you have to have faith. Faith that it will work out. Faith that it’s worth it. Faith that you’re doing the right thing. Faith even when you are being given an opportunity to doubt yourself. Because if you lose faith in what you’re doing, you lose everything. I had been losing it for a while, and the last couple of weeks were just the result.”

    The Muse leans forward and takes Betsy’s hand. “And I will tell you something else. You have to throw away your timelines. There are no expiration dates on your dreams as long as you are alive and willing to fight for them. But you do have to fight sometimes.”

    Betsy looks at the Muse and grips her hand. “And sometimes it’s hard.”

    The Muse nods. “Sometimes it is. But no one ever said it wouldn’t be.”

     

    To be continued…

    Author’s note – the song in the youtube clip below probably doesn’t have the slightest thing to do with this blog post, but it kept running around in my head as I wrote this, so I thought I’d share the earworm.  You’re welcome.  😀

    [tube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2H5uWRjFsGc[/tube]

  • Simplifying Objectives

    As I’ve mentioned before, one can have a production schedule. One can have the best darned production schedule in the history of production schedules. One can have dreams and aspirations. One can have goals.

    But if one gets what was either the Head Cold From Hell or a sinus infection, one is not going to be either creative or productive for a long time, and one’s production schedule will flit away like dust in the wind.  Maybe that’s not such a bad thing.  Now that The Sickness has finally returned to the pit that spawned it and I’m feeling better, I can decide how I want to proceed.

    Obviously, I did not meet my original goals for the first two months of the year. I did manage to get a few things done before I was taken out, but not much.  On the other hand, once my teeth stopped aching, lying around on the sofa gave me time to think.

    One thing I realized was that my plans were getting way too complicated. I have a tendency to do that “if this is good, more will be better!” thing.  All it usually does is get me off track, leaving me distracted and confused.

    That’s especially true in an area like this.  Writing is important to me, but I don’t have a lot of confidence that I know what I’m doing, especially when it comes to the publishing/marketing side of things. So when people who DO seem to know what they’re doing give extremely good advice, I assume that I must follow it. They are right, and I am wrong, and I must do what they say to do because of course that is the right thing to do.

    But in the end, the pursuit of writing is a creative endeavor, not something that can be analyzed and quantified. There is no “right” way to do it. There are things you probably should do – like tell a good story and use good grammar – but there is no one path to pursuing success. So even though everyone says that THIS is the way to be successful, in the end it doesn’t matter a whole lot.  Ultimately, there is only you and the blank page and your desire to tell stories.

    Besides, as soon as you start to do what everyone tells you to do, that will be wrong, and they’ll be doing something else.

    Most of the time the advice given by “experts” is well-meaning and undoubtedly true under certain circumstances.  But not everything is true for everyone’s situation.

    Anyway, lying on my sofa, I realized that I, once again, was trying to follow everyone’s advice, and I was trying to follow it all at the same time.  This pulled me in many different directions and distracted me from the only thing that’s important – finishing my next book.

    Which brings me back to my production schedule.  I’ve changed it, and it’s very simple now.  I’m going to finish my next book (”Welcome to Hardy Falls Book 2”) in time so it can come out when I want it to come out. Then I’m going to finish the next book so that it can come out too.  The other projects I had on my schedule – writing and non-writing related–will have to be shelved for now.

    I’m still going to write down tasks and dates–it helps to see it on paper instead of just keeping it in my head. It’s easy to forget what you really want if you don’t see it in front of you. But I’m not going to live by that paper because, as was demonstrated to me so ably in these last few weeks, life happens. My production schedule is more just broad strokes now, instead of specific dates.

    I’m also not going to try to write two blog posts a week like I was because that pulls my focus away from where it needs to be. I’m going to try to do one a week, but only if I can think of something to talk about. Forcing myself to write a blog just because it’s time to write a blog is not my idea of fun–and the blog has to be fun. I will be writing a newsletter once a month because I love learning more about my friends in Hardy Falls, and the stories I write for the newsletter helps me grow the town.

    I’ll definitely be doing some basic marketing – like writing good descriptions and getting good covers, but for now, that’s all I’ll be doing in that area.

    I am well underway with the second draft of “Welcome to Hardy Falls Book 2” (which really does have a title, but I want to think about it before I share it), and I’m pleased with how things are shaking out so far.  My objective now is to become more efficient with my revision process, but I think I’m figuring out some tricks to help speed things along. I’m angry with myself because I feel like I wasted a lot of time between the first and second draft (again), but I was trying to do too many things that seemed like good ideas (again).

    So, here’s my new production schedule– do the first thing. Then do the next.  Keep going and keep it simple.