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I just took a look at the overall annual statistics for this website, which went live at the beginning of 2009 and has now been up for two years. I’m very pleased at the 50% growth in both unique visitors and overall visits this year. There were 30,316 visits this year (up from 20,691 in 2009). Since each month starts again with zero unique visitors, a visitor who checked in once a month would count twelve times, making it impossible to know how many of the 15,793 unique visitors (up from 10,392) were indeed unique. Still, it’s interesting to note that most people must have visited multiple times, and that the typical day sees more than 100 visits with an average of 3 pages a visit. In my best month (November) 1544 unique visitors made 3596 visits.

Not exactly superstar numbers, but very encouraging to an author still trying to build a base of support. If you are one of those returning visitors, thanks for your interest and encouragement. If this is your first visit, welcome! Check out the photos of my research trips for starters, as well as the section about my third novel, FINDING EMILIE (April 2011) and my newly completed but not yet marketed fourth novel, THE SHAPE OF THE WORLD. You also might be interested in my first trade book, UNTIL OUR LAST BREATH, which can be found under the non-fiction tab.

If you are interested in more frequent updates about my writing, please “like” my Laurel Corona, Author Facebook page. I post something every day or two about my thoughts, worries, and progress on my writing. Since I am still in the early planning stages for novel number 5, you can follow the whole process start to finish, or scroll back to see how THE SHAPE OF THE WORLD evolved. If you aren’t a writer yourself, this will give you an idea of what the life of a working author is like.

Again, THANK YOU, from the bottom of my heart, for being behind me and my work. You are the best!

My friend Christy English recently posted on Facebook to tell friends that she was finishing up her review of the proofs for her new novel, To Be Queen, out in April 2011. “These proofs will never end,” she says. Of course, I don’t want them to, I guess. I love seeing my books in print, but I love that time when it is just me and my characters. Am I nuts or what?”

For those of you unfamiliar with the lingo, the proof pages are photocopies of the book the way it will appear in the galleys. These are bound preview copies that usually come out 5-6 months before the pub date and are used for advance publicity and marketing. There are usually still some minor errors to correct in the proof pages, and authors are pretty anal about going through them, because we will have to live with any remaining typos or other problems.

In a follow-up post Christy added, “I’ve definitely got the crazy portion of the program covered.” This made me laugh, although I realize now I probably misunderstood her meaning. She was answering her rhetorical question about whether she was nuts, but I took it another way, that correcting proofs is the crazy-making thing she was now getting covered.

It’s all crazy making, really, every last bit of imagining, planning, writing, revising, editing, and reediting that goes into a historical novel. I’ll use myself as a case in point. In the last few months I have been most negligent about posting to this diary, but here’s my excuse:

THE FOUR SEASONS: Not much work anymore on my first novel, out since fall 2008, except to wrap up a couple of commitments made earlier. A book club won a silent auction item that was an autographed copy and a personal visit to their book club, and it just hadn’t gotten scheduled until this fall. Very strange to go back and revisit a book I hadn’t given much thought to for quite a while.

PENELOPE’S DAUGHTER: Published about 10 weeks ago. Huge amounts of effort are part of the picture for authors in my category, who don’t get big publicity budgets from their publishers. I guest blogged more places than I can remember, and made more than a dozen appearances here and there in less than two months.

FINDING EMILIE: Huge amounts of work for my next novel, coming out in April, right around the same time as Christy’s, so our lives are running parallel right now. Some glitches in the process of copyediting the manuscript created a disaster in which huge numbers of errors were introduced into the book at that late date. It took herculean effort by the editor and me to get it back on track, and even the proof pages had way more problems that normal. Presumably it is all fixed, but I will receive another set of proofs to check, so I’ll have crazy time again soon. I have a short break at that point before I will need to start the blitz of effort required to have a strong launch at publication time.

THE SHAPE OF THE WORLD: This is the working title of my latest novel. I started work on it last December and I have just finished it. When I am writing a novel I have essentially a second 40-hour-a-week job, and in the summer, the novel is a job and a half on its own. I’ve already written here about how I monitored my time to keep “the crazies” at bay this time, but a novel is such intense work, it is difficult to let it go, and then difficult to recover emotionally (and even physically) when you finally say, “I’m done.”

I’m done. The photo here is of my last appearance, a great time with a friend’s writing group. Now there will be a hiatus on everything. I have a few things lined up early next year, but my calendar is pretty clear. There will be nothing to do on THE SHAPE OF THE WORLD except incorporate a few revisions from early readers with specific expertise in various aspects of the book. It won’t even be marketed until later this spring, so the book can sit tight without needing care and feeding. Eventually, around March, I will start preparing guest blogs and lining up appearances for FINDING EMILIE, but there’s nothing to do now. PENELOPE’S DAUGHTER and THE FOUR SEASONS have left home and are managing on their own.

And, for the first time, I don’t have a clue about who or what I will write my next novel about. I’ve researched at least a dozen ideas and have decided that none of them are the one that’s going to pick me up by the scruff of the neck and sit me down at the computer. It’s a good thing, for I have never not been writing for about seven years now, and I have five books to show for it. A break is a good (although weird) thing for me.

No, you’re not nuts, Christy. You are just blessed with the passion for writing. Me too. Lucky thing, because the crazy portion is part of the bargain.

Last June, when I filed my grades, I had the astonishing prospect of eight months of unstructured time ahead. First, there would be the usual three months of summer, followed by a sabbatical semester, and then the winter break, so I wouldn’t be going back to my routine until the end of January.

Though I was thrilled by the opportunity to take the semester off, and I was excited by my sabbatical project, I admit I had a few misgivings. I think most people benefit from structure in their lives, and I had just lost mine. I knew I would need to create a routine that would enable me to remain productive, healthy, and satisfied.

I blogged about this back in July, in a post called “‘Healthy Author’ is Not an Oxymoron.” Here’s what I said:

“This summer I am telling myself that writing is only one of several good uses of my time, and it is inappropriate to be writing when I should be doing something else. I have a sign near my computer that has a list of 5 things:

• Writing
• Book Promotion
• Exercise
• Life Maintenance
• R&R

Every one of those things is a valid and necessary part of my day.  I plan every day around ensuring that I put in at least an hour on each. Then I fill up the rest of my time with a mix of all of them, in whatever way works that day.

I’m not talking about the 8-hour standard workday, but the whole 12 hours from the time I get up (around 6AM) to the time I call a halt to everything but an evening with my sweetheart (around 6PM). On most days the majority of my time overall is taken up with writing, but as I get more invested in the other things on the list,  I often spend more than the minimum on them, and I still have a lot of time to write.

I ask myself a couple of times each day whether I’m doing a good mix of the 5 types of things, and if I’m not, I tell myself “it’s not writing time now.”

Haven’t exercised?  Do it!  Haven’t taken a shower or gone to the store? Do it. Haven’t stopped just to do something fun? Do it!

I’m having a great summer, and interestingly, I don’t think my writing productivity has dropped overall.  I’m still on track to finish novel #4 this fall, and I think I could have finished it only a few weeks earlier at most if I had done nothing else. And I feel great–not at all like that stringy-haired, unwashed, antisocial creature with a backache I vaguely remember from summers past.

So here’s the report from the still washed and sociable creature who wrote those words four months ago: IT’S WORKING! I have gotten more exercise than I have in years. I have missed only two days since I started this plan, and both times I made it up the following day. I can run an hour with ease, do more crunches and lift more weight than I thought possible at my age. I’m feeling great, and best yet, despite all the time I am parked at my computer, I am still not straining to button my jeans.

I have blogged daily at Xanthe’s World since mid-August (part of book promotion) and done a pretty substantial number of real and virtual appearances since the release of PENELOPE’S DAUGHTER in October. I finished novel number four, THE SHAPE OF THE WORLD, and am well into the re-re-revision. I taught a mini-course at SDSU (that’s me in the photo) and gave several lectures other places. I’m getting out to lunch from time to time with friends, something I never seem to find time to do the rest of the time.

Oh, and that sabbatical project? The product of my sabbatical is four lectures (with accompanying slide show). I just finished the fourth slide show last week, two months ahead of schedule. For the remaining two months, I will go back through the books and other material I have amassed to see if I’ve missed anything I want to include, but basically, I’m done.

There’s a lot of time in a day. It seems the more I diversify what I do, the more time there is. I know many people have many more demands on their time than I do, but I still think that making a promise to oneself to put some time every day into ALL the things that are important instead of being swamped by one or two will cause a surprising increase in productivity and energy. When I go back to school, I’ll have a sixth category of time, and a slightly different promise to make to myself, but I’m doing it. I am really on to something and I’m sticking with it.

I gave a talk at the La Jolla Writer’s Conference this weekend on one of my favorite subjects, “Writing Scared.” In it I talk about how scary writing is even to those of us who do it all the time and are successful at it, at least to the extent that publication is an indicator.
At some point in the talk, I made a point I often made to my community college classes when I still taught research writing. We generally think in terms of things we want to do, but I think sometimes it works better to cast goals as things we want to have done.

“I want to get a college degree,” someone says, when the more accurate statement might be “I want to have gotten a college degree.” Likewise for many things. How many people want to work out, for example? Don’t most want to move on with their day having finished a workout? Don’t we want a clean house more than we want to clean it? To have a weeded garden more than to weed it? My students wanted to have written their first ten-page research paper far more than they actually wanted to write it. I heard thousands of testimonials to that effect over the years!

This seems like a simple enough point, except I suspect that the people who finish things may be those who have the best ability to remember how good satisfaction feels. Let’s face it–when we are working toward a substantial goal we spend the vast majority of our time in what I once named the “middle muddle,” where the tasks seem endless and the finished product far too distant to offer much light. Keeping going is really an act of faith mixed with a huge amount of imagination.

Can you remember how good it feels to stand up, covered with dirt, or sweat (or their equivalents when the task has been one of the mind) and look at what you have accomplished? Doesn’t the down-and-dirty of it just not matter anymore? Life is so good in those moments. and we can have them only if we’ve done the rest without faintheartedness. “I want to have written a diary entry,” I told myself this morning, and now I have!

I dedicated my newly released novel Penelope’s Daughter to “all the children left behind when fathers and mothers go off to war.” While I was writing the book,I spent a lot of time thinking about the impact of Odysseus’ absence not just on my main character, Xanthe, but on her older brother, Telemachus.

Of the two, I think Telemachus had it the worst.  In those days, gender roles were clearly defined, and most of the schooling a child got was from the parent of the same sex.  Xanthe has Penelope to teach her how to weave, how to worship the gods, and how to be gracious; and she has her surrogate mother, Helen, to teach her how to fulfill herself as a woman.

What does Telemachus have?  He has no real peers. A few men remain on Ithaca who were too old or infirm to go to Troy, and otherwise he is surrounded by a group of young men, perhaps ten to twelve years older than he is.  These young men were too young to go to war, but became adults in the two decades Odysseus is gone.

The young men grew up much as Telemachus did, without strong role models to help shape them into strong, productive, appropriately behaving adults. Anyone who could have done that sailed off with Odysseus. A kingdom whose males are almost all young boys and old men does not bode well for the future, and indeed what happens is that the young men grow up to be either  the bullies or the bullied.

The dedication of the book came about because as I wrote, my country was at war. I thought about how important parents are as teachers, and how every deployment takes that away from a child.  From the time I made the decision to dedicate Penelope’s Daughter in that fashion, I knew I needed to put something behind it so it wouldn’t just be a glib little nicety that meant nothing.

I decided to create a blog called Xanthe’s World, and dedicate it to all the children left behind by our current wars. I have posted every day since August. I don’t know how many people are aware that only 2 percent of American families are directly impacted by this war.  I am in the other 98 percent, as are most of the viewers of this website. I hope you will take the time to check out Xanthe’s World, and mark it as a favorite, so you can explore the world of  military children with me.

I’ve been off in medieval Spain for a few weeks now, and I am just now coming back t o 2010.

It’s not very often that an author finishes writing a novel, and I am just about there.

I finished the first draft some time back and took a break to work on other things for a while. Completing a first draft is a huge milestone, but really, putting the first major revision in order is in many ways a bigger one.

THE SHAPE OF THE WORLD is now “done” to my satisfaction, or at least it will be in a day or two.That’s not to say I won’t revise it again and again.  I am in the middle of a sabbatical where I am studying in depth the history of fifteenth-century Iberia, where the novel is set, and as I learn new things, I will figure out ways to work them into the book.

But that’s the glaze on the roast, the frosting on the cake, the nuts on the sundae, or whatever analogy you prefer. Early next week, my agent will get my novel and soon it will go out to editors at the major publishing houses. It is either going to grab them or not, and revising further will not make the difference between sale or no sale.

I think one of the best things experience teaches us is when to know that something is good enough.  Another thing it teaches us is to decide which “good enough” things are really finished and which are not.  This is not like windows that are almost streakless in bright sunlight, or pot bottoms that are almost free of black, or pasta that is one minute off from perfectly al dente.   Good enough is good enough on those, although I suppose some might beg to differ about the pasta!

The kind of “good enough” that this novel is right now is the “best I can make it, but not as good as I want it to be” type.  I won’t be able to keep my hands off the manuscript for long because it will never be 100 percent as good as I can make it. PENELOPE’S DAUGHTER came out less than two weeks ago, and what I wouldn’t give for one more chance to edit!

Still, it’s time to breathe, time to let it go and let other things fill my days with curiosity, joy, awe, and meaning.  I am a writer, and this is what we do.  We grow the flower and then hope its pollen comes to rest somewhere.

It’s fun to get dressed up and go off and be “the author” at the various events I get invited to, but I do have to laugh at the rather glamorous view a lot of people have about  a published author’s life.

Most don’t ask how much money authors make, though I suspect some are dying to. When I explain how little the royalty is on an original paperback, after the agent fee and taxes are taken out, they are always disappointed, because it’s easy to see you have to sell a lot of books to make a eye-popping or even a quit-the-day-job amount of money.  “By the hour, you’re far better off babysitting,”I tell people who really want to know, but of course it isn’t only about money, and I know that. People hold authors in great esteem, and that doesn’t vary that much, I imagine, by the size of the royalty statement.

I’m not sure what people picture when they imagine writers at work (maybe something inspirational, like the image here?) but my guess is it has a least a touch of class. I can speak for myself at least, and say that if I look halfway decent at the keyboard it’s because I’ve either been or am about to go somewhere.  Many times, I look up and see its 6PM and I am still in my running clothes from that morning (though at least the sweat is dried) and I have barely enough time to take a quick shower before my sweetheart comes through the door.  I can picture the look on his face as he thinks “wet hair again, huh?” although all he says is “it must have been a good day.”

I am thinking about this today because PENELOPE’S DAUGHTER is coming out in less than a week, and everyone is commenting on how excited I must be.  Those who are authors themselves might be more inclined to say they know how exhausted I must be.  Yes, it’s very exciting, although less so than for the first book where I was waiting to become a published author, and one day would throw the switch from “no” to “yes.”

This last few weeks has been grunt-hard work, with guest blogs and Q&As to write, links to make with other writers on line, requests for interviews, requests for appearances, emails I have to send and answer, and just one thing after another for days on end.  Sure, it will pass. I’ll get back to my regular rather overworked normal, and then, after a few months to breathe, it will start up again for FINDING EMILIE, out in May 2011.

I wouldn’t trade this author’s life I’ve made for myself, but sometimes I wish I could scribble myself up a character who would do some of this work for me. Maybe I could ask that pretty lady over there on the upper right of this entry. At least she looks as if she’s had time to brush her hair.

I am reaching a crossroads this week.  As of Friday, when my new novel PENELOPE’S DAUGHTER, is launched in an evening of drama and dance at San Diego City College, I will be the author of two works of historical fiction.  Next May, with the publication of FINDING EMILIE, I will be the author of three.

Until now, as the author of one novel, when I get invitations to appear at events, it’s usually because people are interested in my novel THE FOUR SEASONS, and its subject matter, Vivaldi, Venice, and the famous all-female orchestra and choir of the Pietà. I’ve got a busy calendar this fall with events focusing on PENELOPE’S DAUGHTER and presumably I am headed for the same with FINDING EMILIE next year.

There’s a different focus now for me, though, and I am finding that I want to speak not only about  individual books but about my work as a whole. I mean, of course, as far as the whole has reached to this point, with the completion of novel number four, THE SHAPE OF THE WORLD. I hope for many more to come and indeed the competition in my head among ideas for novel number five is pretty intense right now–but that’s another diary entry!

My sense of myself is evolving from being the author of particular books, to being an author person, by which I mean always fully both when I write.  I’ve learned a lot about myself from writing these novels–what I believe deep down, how I think, how I perceive problems and solutions–because these are expressed in how I develop plots and characters.

People say all fiction is autobiographical, and it is, but not in the way people think.  My books express fundamental things about who I am even though they are not my story. I want to talk about these bigger things now when I address audiences.  What do my books add up to?  What do they have in common?  What do they say about my view of the world?  What do they say that might be of interest about me as a person? Where do they come from?  Why do I write?  Why do I write what I write?  Why do I not write what I don’t write?

It’s hard to do that as the author of one novel, although my one non-fiction trade book, UNTIL OUR LAST BREATH, helped me to develop a sense of myself as an author.  But it’s with fiction that I have found where I want to be when I write, using my imagination and my professorial training to create smart reads, with meaningful messages bound up in great characters and stories.

What does it add up to at this point?  What do I really have to say?  I’ll be exploring that more in future entries here, as I use the words I have put on the pages of my novels as a means to grasp for myself, and for anyone else who is interested, what I think life has to say to me and to us.

I have just started writing the last chapter of THE SHAPE OF THE WORLD, and I recognize the symptoms of meltdown that accompany this milestone.  I played tennis this morning, and almost cried a few times when I played badly, and dropped my racquet (TWICE!) in disgust when I played worse.  I didn’t throw the racquet–more of an “I give up” than court rage, but this is not me. I don’t do those things.  I can take just about anything in stride.

Except, apparently, finishing a novel.

Why is it so hard? In a week or less I will have a completed book on my computer (and external drive, flash drive, and email attachments–yes, I have learned  from experience about backing things up).  Why can’t I just say, “well done!” and make a dinner reservation somewhere?

I suppose it’s a cliche to say it’s like a child leaving home, but it’s true.  I’m not losing anything, really, except a period in life that was taken up with novelrearing. I like raising a novel, especially when it turns out as well as this one has. And it will be back. The good thing is that it won’t ask for money, it will bring some, and it will buy me a pretty nice present on my birthday.  But like parenting, it isn’t done for a long time after that first foray from home, and I will have lots more work before this one is out all by itself in the world of readers.

I have something I call the 60 percent rule: when you’ve finished the first draft of a book you’re about 60 percent done. That comes as kind of a shock to a lot of people, who I suppose have seen movies where a hand writes, “The End,” and the credits roll.  In this case there are revisions and then re-revisions and then re-re-revisions, and that’s all before it’s even sold.  Then there’s more, and more, and more until it’s too late to change anything.   Someone whose name the author probably doesn’t know says at some meeting the author isn’t aware of, “okay, I’m good with this,” and that’s how “The End” really gets written.

But I digress (I guess I really am in denial!).  It’s hard to say goodbye because it’s intense work to write a novel. It takes a sustained commitment to something that is not obligated to turn out well, and often may not seem headed that way. It’s mine.  I birthed it. It turned out!  It feels good to hang onto that for just a while before sharing it.

Beyond that, though, authors leave something of themselves behind when they finish a book, a force they can’t have back, and energy they have permanently spent.  Perhaps I’m in mourning for that.  Perhaps the end of a novel speaks to other finite things, like life itself. And then again, it’s hard to say goodbye when you’re having fun.  More than anything, that’s what being a writer is for me.

Authors get possessive about their work, and it’s very uncomfortable to be told well

into the publishing process that the title of one’s novel has to go.  In a way it feels a bit like someone saying, “we really like your child, except for his/her name.”

A few months back the editor for THE LAWS OF MOTION delivered me just that news. The marketing division representatives didn’t think the title would work.  Too arcane, perhaps, not attention grabbing enough, not evocative enough–whatever it was it was clearly not enough of something the marketers needed it to be.  And marketers, I must add, need to be happy.  They are the ones who pitch the book to retailers, and every author wants and needs their enthusiasm.

I learned many years ago through my YA work with Lucent Books, that publishing is a team process in which the author is very important, but not the only one with a vested interest in the success of a book.  I’ve learned to listen and not think I always have the best idea.  In this case, though, I had to admit I was floored.

Newton’s Laws of Motion, in reduced form are these:

–an object in motion will remain in motion and an object at rest will remain at rest unless an outside force comes along to change that

–momentum equals mass times velocity

–for every action there is an equal, opposite reaction

These are bedrock principles of physics but they are also quite beautiful metaphors. Life illustrates all three quite nicely. As I wrote the book, I thought about the application of each of these laws to the story and built the novel to be an illustration of them.  For me, therefore, this wasn’t just a title, it was THE title.

I’ve had to be flexible about titles before.  In fact THE FOUR SEASONS  wasn’t originally called that.  I completely agree that despite my initial resistance, the title Hyperion came up with is better than mine, which was VIVALDI’S GIRLS. In my mind now, the book simply is THE FOUR SEASONS and the other title sounds very, very strange.  If someone had a better title than PENELOPE’S DAUGHTER for novel number two, I would have taken it in stride, and I feel the same about my work in progress, THE SHAPE OF THE WORLD.

I suffered over the loss of the title THE LAWS OF MOTION, though, and for several months my agent, Meg Ruley, and editor, Kathy Sagan, along with my two biggest supporters, big sister Lynn, and sweet partner Jim, came up with one title after another than I revolted against. I even hated the dozen or so titles I came up with, and felt more and more entrenched that there was one and one title only for this book, and I had already named it that.

Late summer is not a good time to have to make decisions in the publishing world. People are getting in last-minute vacations and trying to finish up old projects before the fall season gets underway.  The book remained without a title for so long I was beginning to worry.  I didn’t know how to talk about it, because calling it the “book formerly known as THE LAWS OF MOTION sounded as strange as–well, something that Prince tried a while back.

Then the breakthrough.  Kathy Sagan suggested FINDING EMILIE, and the rest of the team probably wondered the same thing I did:  why didn’t I think of that?  It’s a great title. Though Emilie du Chatelet is not the main character, she is truly the reason I wrote the book.  She a fabulous, brilliant, charismatic woman I wanted the world to know more about. In the novel the reader discovers her slowly and comes to understand that the main character, Lili, must find Emilie (her dead mother) also, if she is to have a chance to shape the kind of life she wants.

I first “found” Emilie in a casual reference in one of the textbooks I used in the humanities survey I teach. I found her more and more as I dug into her remarkable story.  Now, from the moment they see the cover of the book, readers will be invited to find her too.