Lucky Shoes

Author Rebecca Forster's advice is to get yourself a pair of lucky shoes. She said this once in a presentation I saw her give at a chapter meeting and she told me again when I talked to her at a book signing.

Shoes are wonderful things. They don't care if we are 20lbs. overweight or having a bad hair day. A cute pair of shoes looks cute no matter what. They make you feel good. And that is how writing should make you feel. Oh sure, we have those moments when writing becomes difficult, particularly as we advance in our careers and writing becomes more than a dream. Even the cutest shoes give blisters. But we should be able to look down at our feet and admire them in their lucky shoes and we should feel the same way about our book.

I wrote the sequel to a book that was out in submissions. I knew it wasn't the wise thing but I couldn't help it. The story burst forth and I wrote in in a couple of months. The first book wasn't picked up by any agent ergo the sequel isn't going anywhere either. But it doesn't matter. I love the story and will pull it up to read it just for the pure enjoyment of it. Its like that cute pair of shoes you know you don't need or have anything to wear with, but they give you pleasure just looking at them. This book does the same thing for me.

So get yourself some lucky shoes. Not at Wal Mart or Payless, but at a nice store (the shoes pictured are the ones I'm going to buy at Nordstroms). There is no reason for them except they give you pleasure in some way. And when you look at them, remember why you write. For the joy of it.

My page count yesterday was miserable. Not surprising considering it was Valentine's Day. I wrote 5 pages today. This brings me to 50 pages for my current WIP and the end of the 3rd chapter...enough for a proposal. So tomorrow I'm going to move onto something different. I feel like exploring. I have a historical and another dark fantasy in mind, so I might try those tomorrow.