Nancy Gideon: Sustaining the writer’s dream

Tomorrow on bookstores shelves near you:

A mysterious death begins a dangerous chain of events, forcing choices that mean no turning back as Max’s past catches up to him.  But as the unexpected discovery of a family thought lost to him threatens the existence of Max’s paranormal world, his awakening senses strain the bond he shares with Detective Charlotte Caissie.

Driven by instincts he can’t control, Max fights the need to claim his human mate. How can he protect her when she’s not safe with him? She’s strong enough to keep his secrets, but can she survive the test of his love?

Separating business from pleasure just got more difficult. To have Max, Cee Cee must face her greatest fears by accepting who and what he is . . . someone deadly, unnatural and outside the law she serves. Loving Max Savoie isn’t easy, but holding onto him could prove fatal.

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When I was little, I didn’t want to be a princess or a ballerina, I wanted to be a Storyteller. I remember countless nights, lying in the dark in the bedroom I shared with one of my sisters, making up tales about friends and family and heroes from TV (in black and white with three channels back then so it took some imagination!).  When I saw my name in print under a fractured fairytale published in my elementary school newspaper, that dream had a new focus.  I wanted to be a Writer.

Throughout my formative years, I was the consummate day dreamer (they hadn’t invented the term ADD yet!).  You could always find me hunched over a notebook, scribbling down romantic tales involving sigh-worthy idols from the Beatles (it was John) to the Monkees (it was Davey) to Quinton Collins from Dark Shadows.  When other girls were reading Little Women, I was nose deep in Allister McLean, Ian Fleming and Isaac Asimov and my plots evolved from Girl-meets-Boy to Hero-Saves-World.  I read constantly.  I haunted the library and bookstores. I read everything from Jackie Collins to my dad’s pulp westerns, comic books to cereal boxes. And I fell in love with the written word.

My mom insisted I go to college.  I told her I was going to be a writer.  She told me be a writer with a college education, and those were wonderful years, soaking up information and filing it away to fuel future flights of imagination.  Then came the 9-to-5, the husband and first child, and though the dream didn’t disappear, it had faded away until I was selling stuffed animals at a craft fair where one of my former English professors recognized me and drawled, “So THIS is what you’re doing with your college education.”  I told her that I was a writer, too.  “That’s nice,” she amended contemptuously and walked away.  I was stunned.  Then I was furious.  I WAS a writer, and I would prove it.  I went home and pulled out my plot notebook.  I was jonesing on Chuck Norris at the time so I would write about a martial artist…in China! And I wrote that 600 page marvel and sent it out. I even got a request for the complete and had to type it up (on a manual) from my pages of penciled prose.  And my dream was dimmed by its first obstacle.  Rejection (and rightfully so!)

I continued to write in my notebooks between diaper changes and naps, charging ahead from page one to page end until I had four completed manuscripts.  I was still a happy writer, but my dream had changed once more.  I wanted to be an Author. And that meant picking one of the four historical romances and sending it out on a wing and a prayer into the great New York unknown.  At the time, I didn’t know another writer lived in Michigan and got all my information out of a Writers Market at the library.  I was so ignorant regarding my craft that it was a miracle when I got THE CALL. Zebra wanted to buy my book and they wanted to see anything else I had.  I ended up selling them two of the four completes and went on for the next two decades, blissfully content, whipping through projects at light speed (at one time selling eleven books and anthologies and writing seven of them in one year!).  Mixing it up with three pseudonyms, writing historicals, contemporaries and paranormals, satisfied my “Oh shiny!” ADD need for variety, and for over 45 books, I was rarely without a contract.  But something was missing. My dream was shifting again.  It wasn’t enough to jump at every offer, to pound out chapters in a rush to get to the next deadline, to say yes to every suggestion to keep that momentum going. I was a writer.  I was an author.  I was tired.  I wanted to write something big.  Something different.  Something for me.

I went for over two years without any writing income—a devastating circumstance since I was now on my own and depended upon that extra coming in—to concentrate on a story, that like a new lover,  I couldn’t wait to get back to.  Through one book, two, three and into four.  It wasn’t going to be salable, agents told me when I met with them.  You can’t have a paranormal romance where the same hero and heroine continue through several books.  My current editor told me they would buy the first book if I’d radically change my hero.  That’s when I learned something about dreams.  Sometimes you have to reeeeeally believe in them in order to make them happen. I didn’t listen to the agents.  I said “No” to the offer at a time when I was rolling change to pay bills.  And my dream didn’t let me down.

The first three books of my BY MOONLIGHT series are on the stands through Pocket Books with fabulous covers and great reviews.  Three more are in the wings.  I’m loving what I’m doing in pursuit of that dream . . . being a successful writer.

Because I’m OCD as well as ADD, I live by lists and I wouldn’t have realized so many of my dreams without them.  Here’s the one I’ve followed:

• Embrace your dream even though it seems impossible.
• Share your dream with those who’ll support you and cheer you on (Thanks Mom, Bev and Linda and my phenomenal critique group!)
• Update your dream.  Just like hairstyles and hemlines, dreams change to fit needs and situation.
• Accept the reality that not all dreams come true. (I’m never going to be a size 3 and have long legs…ain’t gonna happen). Unattainable dreams are the stuff of fairytales: enjoyable but not realistic.  Focus on a dream that is possible. Note, I didn’t say easy.
• Actively pursue your dream.  Dream it AND do it!
• Realize your dream . . . then dream BIGGER!

What are some of your dreams and what have you done to make them a reality?  Comment below for a chance to win a copy of Captured by Moonlight.

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Thank you for visiting Novel Thoughts, Ms Gideon!

To learn more about the By Moonlight novels, visit Ms Gideon’s website.