I'm a $3.10 Author

When I used to teach in the Emergency Services department at our local tech school, one of the first things the lead instructor and I would ask incoming class fresh-faced EMT-wannabes, is why they wanted to have a career in emergency medical services. I can tell you with utmost sincerity that the one answer we rarely heard was, “to make money.”

It’s a well known fact among EMTs, Paramedics and those in EMS, that the profession is one of the most seriously underpaid in the nation. Most students coming into the program know this upfront, and those that don’t, usually drop out when they figure it out. I work 32-40+ hours a week, on 8 and 16 hour night shifts, as an EMT for the city, and I make less than (you’d better sit down for this) $8,000 a year. That’s just about $600 per month, before taxes, to pull people out of cars, restart dead hearts, push medications and deal with drunken idiots, every day. Every week. Every month of every year.  A relative of mine is a paramedic, and literally, she’d make more working full time at McDonalds than she does as a hospital-based medic. 

I’ve done this job for fourteen years and I’m required to go through countless hours of training every year, hold several certifications and am held to a very intimidating care standard by the state, all for barely enough to cover my grocery bill every month.

So why the hell do I do it? Let’s be honest—that’s what you’re wondering. 

There are three reasons people get into this field: 

#1: They are an adrenaline junkie

#2: They genuinely feel called to help people

#3: Both of the above. 

That’s me, #3. I do feel like it’s a calling to do this job and my responsibility as a human being to provide care to others. When I first started writing fiction seriously, I realized that I was in for a similar financial ride that I’ve taken as an EMT—lots of hours and hard work, with probably very little financial payback to show for it. 

Considering my first royalty check was $3.10, I’d say I was right about that. But, just like EMS, I think there’s a calling—a passion-- in your heart to either be an author and pursue it seriously, or not. It’s what separates the writers who ‘think about it’ and those that simply go for it, financial gain, or no financial gain. The passion for creativity is what keeps you going, even after you see sales numbers that look like they’ve been run over by a semi a time or two—flat and non-existent. Even after receiving a $3.10 royalty check that you’ll never, ever cash because it’s not worth the gas to drive to the bank. 

Here’s the thing: As I come up on release day for my second book. TEMPTING THE COWBOY, I’m going into it with no real expectations except to have fun, just like I’ll keep getting covered in other people’s blood for the sake of the job, and maybe saving a life. It’s what I do. I’ve recently taken on a second full-time job as a care provider, working in the mornings before I run off to the night shift. It’s all I know, and it’s what I’ll continue to do--just like I’ll keep writing new words, creating new worlds and crafting new characters for you to fall in love with. 

If the passion is there, right? 

The next time someone asks you why you became an author, if you answer, “for the money,” I’m going to kick you out of my class. Wrong answer, sweetheart.  

Happy writing!

Homemade Medicine Keeps Me Writing!

Yeah, it's true. I've kind of got the crazy, "new age" thing going on. Sometimes I walk barefoot through the meadow and play in trees...I make daisy chains with my girls. I've, uh, been known to hug a tree, or two--literally--and I save baby bunnies and feed stray cats (seriously, all the pregnant cats on my country mile say, "Hey, go pop your kittens out at that human's house. She'll make you a warm bed and feed you and stuff.")

Sometimes, me. Sadly, without Flynn.













I grew up with naturalist parents. My mother had an admirable interest in and knowledge of medicinal herbs. This was something we loved to read about--and practice--together, and grew lots of helpful herbs in our vegetable garden. Because I'm a slacker, I haven't increased my knowledge much since my mother's death, but I do know this--

The settlers and Native Americans were onto something, man!

It's crazy to me that we're just now beginning to really, really understand the properties of plants that make them kick-ass medicine. I guess it's easier to pop a few chemical pills made from horse urine and nuclear waste, right?

 
 Heh. Ok, Ok, I'm all for modern medicine, of course--but I avoid it when possible. 

Cold and Flu Remedy from Simple Green Smoothies

Well, it's flu season. Colds. Ugh, strep throat. Pneumonia. They all suck. Because I want to be healthy enough to keep writing for you, and because I want you to be healthy enough to keep reading what I write, here's a wonderful recipe for an immunity-boosting, throat soothing "medicine" that I keep all year long. But especially in the fall/winter. I originally found this lovely recipe on Pinterest, and have modified it a little.

I *promise* that this "medicine" tastes better than radioactive horse pee. Promise!

I'm sharing the original recipe, which I found on Simple Green Smoothies.Click on their beautiful website for the recipe. You won't regret it. Their site is beautiful.




Here's what I do. I use the ingredients called for, lemons, honey and ginger. I only use local honey because I want to be exposed to all the local pollen I can get--it helps my seasonal allergies. Then, I brew three bags of green tea in a small amount of water (like 1 1/2 cups for 3 bags) so it becomes like a concentrate. In a quart mason jar, I mix a batch of the honey, lemon and ginger and then add hot tea concentrate over the top. Shake a little and set in your fridge. When you want hot tea, simply pour some in a glass and add hot tap water to taste. All the goodness is there, in a simple, easy step.

Even better--as long as  your lemons are covered with honey or tea, they won't spoil, so you can keep this remedy on hand for weeks at a time. I always make more so we're never without.

Enjoy and hey, wash your hands and cover your cough. PLEASE!

Happy cold and flu season. :)

Tempting the Cowboy Cover Reveal & A GIVEAWAY!

It's Here!

Toss the confetti, pour some wine and grab a handful of  hot Wrangler butt.

 

WHY? Because it's time to show you the super hot and sexy cover for my cowboy book, TEMPTING THE COWBOY! The book just went live for pre-order, which means, I have the go-ahead to share all the joy and smexiness that are Cole Haywood and Rylan Fredrickson on the cover.

 

 

But wait! What's TEMPTING THE COWBOY all about?

After taking a job on a quiet Montana dude ranch, ex-cop Rylan Frederickson finds herself surrounded by unbelievably sexy cowboys. Too bad the one she wants is her boss...and the single dad of a four-year-old. It doesn’t matter anyway, because after a recent tragedy, there’s simply no more room in her heart. 

Letting a new woman into their life is the last thing Cole Haywood wants for him and his daughter, Birdie. But as Rylan’s presence at Paint River Ranch breathes new life into his family he can’t ignore his growing attraction. 

 When the sparks between them turn into fireworks in bed, Rylan’s torn between the family she’s lost and the one she may have found. Now she must decide if something that feels this good is worth the risk.

ADD TO GOODREADS

Without further A-do:

 *Swoon* I'm swooning. Are you swooning? ARE YOU??  Well, hold on to your balance, because there's more. In honor of this first Paint River Ranch book, I'm giving away a gorgeous, custom made, river stone bracelet. Beautiful, polished river stones and brass clappers are strung on a one-size cord. Why river stone? There's a very special place at Paint River Ranch, and if you want to find out why the river stones are important.....

You'll have to read the book! 

(Come on, you had to see that one coming)

 

Enter with my friend, Rafflecopter!

 a Rafflecopter giveaway

You can find TEMPTING THE COWBOY (Official release, October 14th, 2013) on pre-order here:

 

AMAZON

Writing is a lot like Saving a Life!

It’s no secret that I’m an Emergency Medical Technician in my day job. It’s a gritty profession much of the time. Most of this time, this is me on 911 call:

 

However, many times, this job is one that takes my stress level through the roof and then makes me come crashing down like you wouldn’t believe. While I’m riding the high that precedes the crash-and-burn, I might be trying to save a life, or doing something as mundane as holding a bucket while my patient throws up. This, strangely, is the same set of feelings I get when I’m writing. 

The heart-pounding rush of typing at Superman speeds while the words just come pouring out, and then I’ve said all the things, and my characters have done ALL THE THINGS, and then, and then…I sleep for, like, a week because, oh, the crash-and-burn! Oh, the crash and burn. 

(Trust me. I wrote 15,000 words in 4 days recently, and I still haven’t recovered).

 

See, the thing is, writing is a lot like saving lives. 

 

The ambulance service I work for is also a training facility. We take in those so-shiny-you-need-to-wear-shades new EMT students and show them the ropes. In 14 years, I’ve done a lot of new-EMT hand holding, prodding, encouraging, discouraging, cringing and shaking my head. Some of my students have a natural ability to master the skills needed to save someone’s life. For others, it will takes months to years before they are fully capable. This is OK. This is expected. Why?

Because, like writers, some EMT students have the drive and passion for this job and an immediate ability, while others have the passion and drive, but need more time to stew, simmer and practice, practice, practice. One is not better than the other. Both can equal very good, skilled and reliable EMTs.

And writers!

This is me when one of my students NAILS IT!

 

I always tell my students to keep three things in mind:

• Fluency
• Competency
• Confidence

Fluency is when you know the steps needed to perform a key skill. Like intubating a patient by putting a tube down their throat to help them breathe. You can do it in your sleep; you can go through the motions in the blink of an eye and not falter. 

For writers, fluency is when the words simply flow from thought-based ideas into tangible paragraphs and sentences. The end result might not be what you’re expecting, but you still have the ability to go through the motions and get it done. 

Competency is when you can perform the steps for a skill in a way that gives the patient the utmost chance at a favorable outcome. In other words, it means you know what the hell you’re doing. You know the why, the how and the what-the-fuck to do if something goes wrong. 

For writers, competency is a misnomer. You can never really be competent in writing the story in your head, because, let’s face it—even the jumbled pile of horse crap that appears on your screen after a two a.m. impromptu writing session displays nothing of competency. Writing just is. Competency comes when you know how to take that pile of crap and polish it into a cohesive body of work, with syntax and plot and central conflict and an ending that makes sense. This takes skill, which is born of practice. 

This is me when my students does something really dumb (not at a patient's expense, of course. *shifty eyes*):

 

  
But I would never laugh at you. I promise.

Confidence is a must have for every EMT. If you’re not confident when you’re performing a skill or giving a treatment, you’ve helped no one. You will screw up. You will, likely, someday, kill someone. Confidence is not optional. The most fluent and competent EMT in the world will never be a  SAFE provider if she is not confident in her own ability to provide care. 

Writers, you will never get past the mountain that is writing, revising, revising, revising, critiques, revising, querying, rejection, rejection, rejection, rejection, and then, all of this again once you land an agent and go on house submission, if you are not confident. It must be there, in some small way, so that you can mold and conjure it into a much bigger lump of confidence-clay, to help you succeed. Confidence doesn’t come early and it doesn’t come often, but it must be there. And it must be there when you need it for something crucial, like querying or sending off you manuscript to critique partners. If you don’t believe you have what it takes to do this job, you’re going to kill all those characters in your head. 

In the process, you’ll hinder your ability to ever be fluent and competent. 

Remember your writer CPR:

Confidence

Practice

Repeat.

Or just do this a while. Guaranteed to make you feel better, if nothing else:

 

NOW GO WRITE SOMETHING!

Query Letter Hell

Query Letter Hell

 

We all know it exists. We all know it burns, and makes us crazy, and makes us cry. That damn query letter. Gah!

I wrote several of them before I snagged an agent. It took a lot (read: A LOT) of tries to get one that worked. I had a slight overlap in querying two books at once. That was fun for the old nervous system. Heh. 

Luckily, I have a great critique partner group, and we help each other out with silly things like query letters. The consensus was/is, that your query has to provide enough relevant information and HOOK to make an agent hit the 'I Want You Button.' No easy feat, I know. 

My advice, is to polish your query letter and then write it again. Then, write it again. Have 2-3 versions so if one isn't working, you can try the next and so on. Get advice from other writers. Don't get advice from  your mom, unless she's an author, too. You need writerly eyes on your query. And while I'm not the Queen of writing advice, I do get asked to share my successful query, so I will. 

Originally titled, WHISKEY NOVEMBER, my contemporary romance snagged ten full requests in a week and at the end, two agent offers. IT WAS LUCK, mostly. Maybe the query helped a little bit. 

This book went on to be signed in a 3-book deal with Entangled Publishing, and WHISKEY NOVEMBER, is now TEMPTING THE COWBOY and releases October, 2013. 




Sorry for being crude. Well, no...no, I'm not. They're cowboys. Come on. 

MY QUERY

Dear Superagent (No, really, put an agent's real name here) :) 

Breathe, rest, awaken aren’t just three little words. They are the mantra of emotional healing for a mother after the death of her child. When ex-cop Rylan Fredrickson answered an ad for a housekeeper at the sprawling Montana dude ranch, Paint River, she expected hard work and long hours would help ease the pain from the death of her daughter and husband. Getting stranded in a nowhere town on the way to the ranch with sexy, albeit drunk, cowboy Cole Haywood wasn’t in the plan. When Cole turns out to be her new employer and the single dad of a four-year old, Rylan is unwittingly thrust into a maternal role that acts like sandpaper to her still raw heart.

Cole has secrets of his own to keep. He’s had his share of conniving women and letting a stranger into his life is the last thing he wants. But as life at Paint River starts to unravel and family secrets come to the surface, he has little choice. When his attraction to Rylan grows, he must decide if he’s willing to help her overcome the agony of her past while healing deep wounds of his own. As the Montana landscape creeps into Rylan's soul along with Cole’s promising touch, she is faced with the first real possibility of healing, if she’s not too afraid to grab it.

WHISKEY NOVEMBER is a contemporary romance at 60,000 words with an ‘Eat, Pray, Love’ feel, and has series potential. WHISKEY NOVEMBER has the emotional depth and steamy heat level comparable to I ADDED COMPARABLES HERE. My adult urban fantasy, BLOOD OF ISIS, will be released by Etopia press in spring 2013. Please note this is a simultaneous submission.

Sincerely,

Elizabeth Otto


So, there you have it. Nice and tidy and effective.

Need help with your query? Leave a comment and I'll see if I can help!

The Silver Lining

Sometimes, you have to hold your head up high, right? I mean, this is what we're taught from a young age. Something embarrassing happens, just hold your head up and soldier on through it. People will forget about it. They'll eventually stop talking about how you ripped the butt of your jeans wide open in home room and all the boys saw your Rainbow Brite undies. Right?

Sometimes, in a head-held-high situation, other people might forget what happened to you, but you might not. Somethings are too personal, and you wonder how you'll ever get through it. 

So, that's me. Right now. And this post is about the silver lining that, someday, will hopefully appear around these rain clouds dumping acid tears on my life. 

To help that along a little, I'm featuring really fun, inspiring author success stories to give us all a boost, like the one from USA Today bestselling author, Maisey Yates, below! 

Because, being an author isn't just a goal-achieved for me. It's a new career path that has to be successful. There's a lot riding on whether or not I can pull this story-telling thing off or not.

More than you realize and much more than I feel I can handle, sometimes.

Right now I'm having a hard time looking my children in the eye and I despise that feeling. Right now, uncertainty and a looming, massive life change is just hanging out, waiting to kick us over a cliff. It's coming. It's going to happen. We know it well. We're just waiting for the impact.

But with each new story idea that I have, and each new paragraph that I create, I have hope. I have hope that maybe in the near future, I'll have that one book, or that one series, that can help me look at my kids without guilt and allow my husband to not work 7 days a week from sun up to sun down between two jobs, just to try and get by. 

Maybe one of these books will help us get a vehicle to replace one of the 11 and 14 year old cars that we drive (and break down at least once a month). Maybe it'll help my kids get to college, or hell, the braces they all need.

Maybe, just maybe, we'll be able to build that small little house we have half-enough building materials for, so we have a home. That's the ultimate goal. Until then, we'll get by like we've always done, though it will be a little different this time. A little harder. A little more embarrassing and a hell of a lot harder to hold our heads up from. 

Until then, I'll keep writing, and reading inspiring posts like this one from USA Today Bestselling author, Maisey Yates.

Maisey's story, A Reflective and Thankful Post, really resonated with me, because her situation is SO much like our own. Scarily so. After reading her blog post, I was filled with so much joy for her and her family and was encouraged by her perseverance. It gave me hope.

Enjoy Maisey's story!  Do you have a positive publishing story of your own to share? I'd love to hear all about it. 

When the time comes, I'll share the rest of my story and hope it inspires someone, too! 
 






 

A 20 Year Romance

Me, Matt, Jared, Andie and Hannah, 2010

For once in my life, I get to stand up here and say that I've accomplished something that very few people do. And, I didn't do it alone. No, I had help accomplishing this wonderful something--help from the very person who made this lovely thing possible.


My husband.

Because, you see, today, we have been married 20 years.

I've had a long time to look back on this life we've made and this unity we've accomplished, but to be truthful, I don't spend a lot of time on retrospection. I'm more of a, "what's next" kind of girl. Memories have crept up on me these last few weeks, though, as the big day drew closer. The Universe's way of making sure I'm paying attention, or maybe, remembering what it's taken to get to this point, I think. 

It hasn't been easy.

Pretty much none of it has been easy. But it has been fun. And it has been lively. And there's been very, very few dull moments, and that combined makes up for the difficulty of not only learning to live with another person, but blend your life, your dreams, your passions and your faults into theirs--to learn how to be compatible even when it's clear that you're not--and to learn now to nurture love through it all.

We realized just how not easy this marriage thing was going to be when he asked me to marry him and I said no.

The first time, I said no. 

He went to boot camp and left me home, alone, to ponder why I said no. And the answer was heavy and clear. I was afraid to be a military wife; to move 1,300 miles away. I was afraid of losing myself before I'd even found myself. We were both 19.

After 12 weeks, I drove to Great Lakes, IL for his military graduation. Alone for the first time, we sat in a parking lot staring at each other and he asked again, this time, with much more desperation in his eyes. But there was something more. That little love light reflected back at me? It was stronger, and just then, I knew he meant it more. Separation was a little test. A trial, a taste of what was to come for us. But he meant it more than ever and so did I.

I said yes. 

Our big wedding dreams were squashed when he received his first military orders. He'd be home on leave for one week. One. Week. And then gone, for possibly up to a year. We arranged a fast, simple wedding, married quickly with our best friends at our sides, and a bottle or two of wine for liquid courage. When I saw him in his shiny, bright white Navy uniform, waiting for me at the "altar," all the doubts flew away and I felt grounded in my decision to take this step. The ceremony was quick, the reception long and a week to the day after we said, "I do," he left for 8 months, leaving me at home once again, alone.

Thus began our 20 years.

Starting a marriage as a military member/spouse was both wickedly unfair and the best thing that could have happened to us. The long separations were excruciating; the 'getting to know you again' periods, awkward. Just when you were getting comfortable with each other, he left. Again.

Rinse.

Repeat.

For four long years.

Yet, in that time apart, I learned to be an independent adult. I went to college and tinkered with writing (big dreams of authorhood one day). I made friends and traveled the East coast. I flew home to visit my family. I missed him everyday.

He sent letters that smelled like cologne and once a month, if I was lucky, he'd call at 3 a.m. after waiting in line for hours to use the phone in some foreign port. I cried while he tried to talk and our few minutes of voice time was quickly over. Then he'd hang up and I'd wonder--

Do I have enough trust/love/faith/backbone for this? How do you make a lifetime out of a few blessed moments?

Here's the thing. Back home in the civilian world, days, weeks, months went by in which we still only had a few moments that counted. Between double and triple jobs, college, moving, and life, time came and time went. Bringing with it:

Three beautiful children

Job losses

Job gains

Job losses

No money

Ramen noodles every night for a month

Fights. Arguments. Making up.  

Tears, tears, some laughter and a hell of a lot more tears

Injuries

Near death illnesses

More near misses than I care to count 

Learning to be a person that grows with someone, not a person who shrinks and caves without speaking his/her mind. 

The evolution of best friends that still choose to be a team because they remember that love is what got them into this mess of a life to begin with. 

There is one moment in our 20 years that creeps into my mind every now and then. He'd just come home from a six-month cruise with the Navy and we were walking on the boardwalk on Virginia Beach. Hurricane Felix had gone through a few days earlier and the beach was reopened and packed with tourists. We'd had a fight about something (who knows what) and he stormed off. I sat on the park bench on the boardwalk, digging my toes into the sand as the tourists went by. I wasn't alone, but I felt alone until I remembered that I just needed to talk to my best friend about what happened.

My best friend would understand; would make it better.

Yeah, that best friend. How can I be furious with the only person I wanted to talk to? The very person who made me so damn mad in the first place? How the hell did that work exactly?

It worked because there is no separation between the lover and the friend, and my heart recognized that delineation wasn't possible. And in all the years since, through the good and the ugly, I remember that there is no line that divides us.

We are still a team, and our 20 year romance is still going. Another 20 years? Only time will tell, but I'd say the odds are in our favor.

Wouldn't you?