Organization for Authors: Finding what works

Not my actual workspace….but it could be…

This post is a spin-off of last month’s post, “So many spinning plates! An Author’s Life“. You don’t have to have read that post – I’ll recap the high points here – but if you want to jump over to it, I’ll be here when you get back. 🙂

Here’s the deal. I had a book release on September 4th and I’ll have another one September 23rd. I’m helping organize the Emerald City Writers’ Conference in October, and I’ve also stepped in as president of the Rainbow Romance Writers chapter of RWA. (And tbh, I believe in what the the organization is trying to do, but right now supporting RWA is exhausting.)

Also, also, I’m trying to plot the next book in the Soulmates series, and I’ve got research to do – like, two books to read, for starters – for The Pirate’s Vampire (sequel to The Vampire’s Pirate that released last week). And any day now Irene will be sending me the next scene for Benedictus, Book 3 in our Hours of the Night series.

That’s…a lot. (If you have read last month’s post, you might notice I haven’t mentioned the 1950s murder mystery I had on my list. I’ve decided to keep it on the back burner in the interest of honing in on my brand – vampires/paranormal – which is in itself a good subject for a blog post. Maybe I’ll do branding next month.)

You might be wondering how I’m keeping up with it all. Heh. I’m wondering that, myself. There are probably as many ways to stay organized as there are writers, you know? The way I see it, though, a successful approach has to include both the big picture and the daily work in a way that makes sense.

I’ve tried a couple different strategies that didn’t work particularly well. For years, every January I’d come up with a list of goals. I’d use Word or Excel and try to block out what I wanted to get done when.

And then I’d ignore those lists and spend most of the year jumping from thing to thing.

Then 3-ish years ago, I joined a Facebook group dedicated to the use of planners for authors. I bought a pretty, spiral bound notebook planner and actually used it, more or less. I liked that I could make weekly to-do lists, but it still didn’t give me a fluid way of connecting my annual goals to what was happening on a week-to-week basis.

I’m pretty sure that someone in that Facebook group first mentioned Trello. It’s a project management app, and while I probably use about 1/10th of its functionality, that 1/10th is exactly what I need. There are a kajillion different templates for all kinds of business and educational applications, but I use a series of very simple boards.

This is my board for 2021. The far left column is my goals for the year, and I made a column for each month where I broke down those major goals into smaller bites. Scrolling to the right, I can easily see what I’ve accomplished every month and what’s coming up.

I also made a board for each quarter, using the monthly columns in the 2021 plan to come up with the to-do list. I *LOVE* moving cards from the “Doing” column to the “Done” column!

The cards are key! I’ve managed to discipline myself to take time every weekend to come up with a to-do list for the week, breaking up my big goals into smaller and smaller bites.

I don’t know why Trello works for me. Maybe it’s the pretty pictures or the way I can change things with a couple of clicks, but I’ve been more successful using it than any other organization tool I’ve come across. For sure, the phone app makes it easy for me to add to my to-do list when I remember something random and to check things off when I’m not at my laptop. Trello is the easiest way I’ve found to translate goals into action, and I’m pretty danged proud of what I’ve accomplished this year.

If you’ve got a cool organizational tool, leave me a comment. I’m still open to learning something new!

I’m a Biographer, Weeeeee!!!!

(Yes, the title is a Hamilton reference.)

Several years ago I came across the name Virginia Minor when researching my historical novel, Madame Presidentess, which is about Victoria Woodhull, the first woman to run for President in the U.S. in 1872. Because Virginia wasn’t who I was writing about at the time, I noted her as an interesting figure (she is the one from whom Victoria got the idea that the 14th amendment already gave women the right to vote) and moved on.

Virginia Minor

But Virginia wouldn’t let me go. I kept thinking about her and wondering how a woman could come up with such an intelligent and unorthodox theory during a time when college-level education was reserved for men (and a few rich women.) I started researching her and found a few profiles and the more I learned the more I wanted to know. But there was no biography for her.

Well, in 2023 there will be!

I am so thrilled to be sharing her “forgotten” story with the world. The biography is really a dual biography of her and her husband, Francis, because they were “partners in crime” on the subject of suffrage–and equal in all things (which was unusual for their time). However, there is far more information available on Virginia, but I was able to reconstruct a good portion of Francis’ career as a lawyer, as well as his suffrage work.

One of the reasons this book is so important to me is that the way we’re taught about the Suffrage Movement in school is that is was pretty much taken care of by Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and a handful of other women. But that is far from the truth. The movement was actually progressed by thousands of women of all races and class levels. Writing them back into history is so important to a fuller understanding of the movement and its repercussions to us today.

America’s Forgotten Suffragists is a cradle to grave biography because it is the first one ever written about Virginia and Francis. Among the things you’ll learn about them:

• Their early lives, education, courtship and wedding.
• Virginia’s work during the Civil War in the health department and Francis’ work as a war claims agent.
• Virginia’s founding of the Woman’s Suffrage Association of Missouri two years before Susan B. Anthony and Lucy Stone formed their national organizations.
• How Virginia and Francis came up with the New Departure (the 14th amendment theory) and argued it through the court system all the way to the Supreme Court.
• Virginia’s tax revolts (refusing to pay her taxes until women get the vote)
• Her work with Susan B. Anthony to campaign for women’s suffrage in Nebraska
• Virgina’s unorthodox funeral and will.
• Posthumous honors for both

And if you want a little preview, you can visit virgniaminor.com, which is the companion website to the book.

If you had told me four years ago that I would write and publish a biography, I would have told you you were crazy. I didn’t think I was a good enough writer for non-fiction much less that I had research skills to write a biography from scratch. But when an idea seizes you and doesn’t let go, you follow. And this one gave me two amazing people who now feel like grandparents (a few times great) to me. I hope they will to everyone who reads about them, too.

I Love Villains

The other week, I came across this article: It’s OK to be horny for the villain by Lena Barkin. And I am fucking here for it. She talks about the love so many of us female presenting people have for our Lokis, Jareths, Draculas, and more damaged, beautiful villains and the hate and derision we female presenting people get for that love.

I fucking love villains. I have loved them since I first fell in love with the Goblin King when I was a wee tot.

I love a good anti-hero (hello Jessica Jones). And I know that we’ve all been teased and even shamed into being quiet about our love. But you know what? No.

In the article Barkin says, “Fans of complex and morally ambiguous characters are often a sign of a classic work in the making.” Complex and morally ambiguous characters, do you know what I think of when I hear that? Fully formed. Four dimensional. Real.

The article focuses a lot on young women and queer folk and how we’re viewed and treated for what we like. Young women and queer folk are, themselves, complex and more in tuned with emotions and pain and scars–both physical and emotional. Often, when we hate someone, it’s because they show us a mirror, but I think the same can be true when we love someone damaged and dangerous. How many of us are damaged and therefore dangerous? Can you see your pain and anger in the face of your favorite villain? Can you hear the same song you heart sings in their voice when they launch into their world-domination soliloquy?

It’s fine to love Captain America or to root for the genuine Good Guy in the story. After all, we need Good Guys in the world and Cap is genuinely a good guy, not a monster in sheep’s clothing. We want people like them to exist because we are so often let down by that guy in real life. So often they’re actually judgmental, controlling, or just a goddamn let down. So often That Guy is just wearing a mask and when it slips, we’re disappointed at best, devastated and hurt at worst.

But a villain in a story? He’s honest about who he is once you know who he is. Maybe he’s trying to be better, but he doesn’t hide his backstory, he doesn’t promise you forever, and he doesn’t judge you for your demons. If anything, Dracula embraces them, Loki revels in them, Jareth grants those wishes without judgement. Maybe we all love the villain because he can love the darkest parts of us and doesn’t make us shove them down into a box we keep locked in the darkest corner of our hearts. We get to be complex and morally ambiguous. Hell, we get to be fucking human, unashamedly, unabashedly, completely whole with the villain.

And I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t sound wholly toxic and unhealthy to me. Sure, we can debate about trying to be better people, but how can we be better people if we can’t love all of ourselves first? How can we accept others if we don’t accept ourselves? Villains are often looking for their own happy ending, just like the good guys, they’re just also dragging a tragic backstory along with them, trying to heal from it, while being judged and punished for it.

Sound a little familiar?

I love a villain. I love writing them. I just wrote a book and the MC is probably more villain than hero and it was refreshing to have that freedom and write from her perspective. It was fun to write her love interest who was even more broken than she. They accept each other and want to rule the kingdom together.

So I say it’s okay to love the villain too. Love that complex, morally ambiguous character and do it proudly.