A short time after I finished reading a wonderful book called The Thirteenth Tale, by Diane Setterfield, I accepted an offer to make my thirteenth sale. Thirteenth novel sale, that is, of a romantic thriller I'm called The Salt Maiden. Strange coincidence or woo-woo moment? I'm not normally superstitious -- I'm about as grounded in reality as one can get -- but for some reason, I was feeling particularly nervous about sale #13.
Many athletes and actors are said to have off-beat superstitions, from lucky socks to ritual meals to you-name-the-oddity. Perhaps we're susceptible as writers, too, because so much that is important to us remains outside the bounds of our control. Maybe that's the reason I feel compelled to read a book with the number fourteen in the title the next time I'm up for contract -- or perhaps J.D. Robb's fourteenth Eve & Roark book would suffice.
Do you have any writing-related superstitions? If so, I'd love to hear about them.
Many athletes and actors are said to have off-beat superstitions, from lucky socks to ritual meals to you-name-the-oddity. Perhaps we're susceptible as writers, too, because so much that is important to us remains outside the bounds of our control. Maybe that's the reason I feel compelled to read a book with the number fourteen in the title the next time I'm up for contract -- or perhaps J.D. Robb's fourteenth Eve & Roark book would suffice.
Do you have any writing-related superstitions? If so, I'd love to hear about them.
Comments
GOOD things always happen to me on Friday the 13th. 13 is a prime number so is always a strong force. So, I am predicting it will be lucky for you and your maiden.
Odd superstitions? Being Scot, I am riddled with them. However, I have one peculiar penchant - hurricanes!! Seriously, while Katrina blew through the Big Easy I was selling A Restless Knight and In Her Bed to Hilary Sares at Kensington.
A couple weeks later, Ophelia was threatening the East Coast, and my agent started negotiations with Chris Keeslar at Dorchester. I laughed because Ophelia sort of wandered around. So did the terms and discussions. Along comes Rita. As it pounded Florida. My agent, Roberta Brown, who lives there, was putting done deal to my sell for The Invasion of Falgannon Isle and Riding the Thunder.
Last year I didn't have any contract talks--not needed--and it was a mild hurricane season.
BEWARE--I will be going into new contract talks with Kensington and Dorchester this summer.....
Second consideration is the proper writing conditions. I can't write unless I have music playing. Further I can't write in an area that is too big. I prefer the linen closet at home. It also keeps out too many characters and allows concentration.
I am particularly superstitious when buying a house. Our first and second homes had a fire hydrant in the front yard and a dead tree in the back. The third and fourth did not and we chose to sell when the neighborhood proved to be less than ideal. Our current home did have a dead tree, but the fire hydrant is in the next yard. Close enough.
Time to return to the writing closet.
In order for a novel to become good, I apparently have to feel really bad about it. (And I mean really, really bad! As in, "boohoo, my poor editor will drop dead when he reads this"-dead.) Should I ever not start to whine about the general badness story after chapter 3, it will certainly be cause for worry!
Cheers,
Sandy,
heading back to her desk to feel bad about her story and worry for her editor *g*
Since writing is such a solitary thing, I'm not sure what rules I have. Maybe I'm more superstitious about the industry--like no news is good news or if I start scanning Bookscan from the top, I'll see my name sooner (instead of starting from the bottom and expecting it to be lower).
Last week I saw this show on Dateline that secretly videotaped men watching football. There was this one guy who wouldn't let his wife get up from the couch because he thought it would jinx the team. I doubt it helped the team, but it made him feel better!
Everybody has such great responses here. Loved the info on the number 13, Deborah. Billie, the house thing makes me nervous...my boyfriend and I are in the process of buying a house.
The unicorn thing is adorable, Sandra, and I have a similar thing to the thinking your book is bad for it to be good...it seems, if I worry about something, it usually turns out to be good, whereas, if I don't worry, something bad happens. (Drives me nuts when people say, "See? You worried for nothing. Everything turned out okay." They just don't get it!
Shana, I didn't see that Dateline. I don't watch them all; I watch those kinds of shows if the description looks interesting, so I either didn't think it looked interesting, or I missed it. But that's so funny, the wife can't get up for the whole football game (guess she uses the bathroom beforehand).
I write the entire manuscript (all 400 pages over 4 months) listening to the same movie soundtrack (every single day so I'd better like it.) I choose soundtracks because they have a good mix of emotional content and usually don't have words, which would be too distracting. It's also useful to get me back into the story when the revisions come and I've moved on to something else. The theme music programs me back into the mindset of the story. For MAIDENSONG, an epic adventurous romance, I listened to Lord of the Rings. Braveheart, with its sad Gaelic melodies, was the theme for ERINSONG, my Irish love story.
Maybe I should do a contest at www.dianagroe.com sometime to see if my readers can guess what music I listened to while writing my next release SILK DREAMS . . .
It's not exactly a superstition, is it?
Here are two examples.
Yesterday:
"A competitor recognizes a shared philosophy and joins you."
So, I thought about that for a bit, and invited an author with whom I blog (although it's stretching the truth to call her a competitor) to join me in a podcast.
Today:
"Your reseach and study pay off..." so I'm putting aside the "Forking Book" (next after Insufficient Mating Material and Forced Mate) and putting together my remarks for a couple of Research workshops that I'll be giving at the RT convention.
In general, if my horoscope looks ugly, I will make a point of not talking to my editor or any other VIPs.
If Lady Luck is supposed to shine, maybe I'll make an extra effort.
You might say, my horoscope is a self-fulfilling prophecy!
Best wishes,