by Nikki Amare | Feb 14, 2021 | Musings
Valentine’s Day isn’t a holiday Hubby and I really celebrate. In fact, it’s a little after four here and I just realized it was February the fourteenth. You’d think as a romance writer and reader I would be all about the holiday.
Hubby and I have been together nearly twenty years. In the beginning he did the whole flowers and cards and things. He bought me jewelry and took me to fancy restaurants. He did those things until I told him to stop. I don’t need the big expensive gestures. I don’t need more ridiculously expensive cards that will be read and then put in a shoebox somewhere and forgotten about. I appreciate the sentiment behind them, really I do, but to me it’s just a waste of money.
See, here’s the thing, Hubby tells me he loves in a million little ways every day. He tells me when he makes sure the tea kettle is filled up so I can just hit the button first thing in the morning when I go to make my tea. He shows me when he cooks my favorite meal or stops whatever he’s doing to come and wash my back when I’m in the shower. Those things might seem silly, but they’re his love notes to me. Things he doesn’t have to do, but does because he knows I appreciate them, or because it makes my life easier.
He does other things too. Like I hate pumping gas, always have. I don’t like the smell and I hate standing out in the elements waiting for it to fill up. When we had two cars Hubby would always check my gas gauge to make sure I had gas in case I wanted to go somewhere. If I didn’t, he’d drive my car up to the gas station and fill it up, often without even telling he he’d done it. Since I rarely leave the house I sold my car a few years ago, so that’s no longer an issue, but knowing he’d do the same today means a lot.
When I told him how much I missed having a porch with a swing like I’d had growing up, he built me a back porch and got me a swing. It’s not fancy, but it’s sturdy and something I’ve enjoyed a great deal over the years.
It’s not diamonds, big bouquets of flowers, expensive chocolates, or cards. It’s not all the things they tell you you should want.
Nope. It’s none of those things.
It’s the little things. The important things. To me, those little things mean so much more than all the rest combined.
So on this Valentine’s, I wish you all the little things.
by Nikki Amare | Jan 29, 2021 | Musings
Here we are with only a few days left in January. I’m around thirty thousand words into the first book of a new series. This is a series I’ve had floating around in my head for a few years now and in late December I decided to focus on it and put my other books/series aside.
When I started this pen name, I did so with the intent to write fantasy and paranormal romance. I love those genres and probably about eighty percent of what are read falls into those two categories. For the last few years I’ve struggled to write and I finally had to admit it’s because, while I love fantasy and paranormal romance, my writing style doesn’t work well with those genres.
I’m an organic writer. If you want to know more about that you can check out my earlier blog posts about my writing process. (You can find them HERE, HERE, and HERE) It typically takes me between three and six months to write a first draft. That’s if I’m writing contemporary romance. Writing fantasy or paranormal romance it is averaging somewhere around six to eighteen months.
The reason being, I don’t plan out things in advanced. For me the not knowing what’s going to happen and the journey is what makes writing fun. If it’s not fun, then why do bother. Writing is a job and something I take very seriously. Some might say too seriously. I’m a bit of a perfectionist. I have ten or twelve first drafts at the moment. Ranging from fifty thousand words to a hundred and fifty thousand words. Of those ten or so drafts there is one I might publish, but even that one will need heavy edits and rewrites. No one will ever be a bigger critic of my writing than me. But it’s still something I enjoy doing almost more than anything else. It’s that enjoyment that keeps me coming back time and time again, even when it’s hard. It’s my motivation for continuing on even when I know I’m not likely to be successful at this.
Fantasy and paranormal romance requires keeping a lot of information in your head about the world and the rules you’ve set out. It means making sure there aren’t plot holes in the story that will paint you into a corner later in the series, or the book. Which is why most of the first drafts I currently have are unlikely to be read by anyone other than me. I will write something in chapter one and then by the time I get to chapter seven I’ve forgotten about it and so I write something else and then by the time I get to chapter twenty I’ve forgotten both of those things and so I end up writing a third thing. This has happened more than once. It’s usually something little I don’t think is going to be a big deal and it always ends up effecting more of the story than I realize. Which in some cases would mean rewriting a third of the book or more. It’s often easier to start over than to rewrite a book. At least that’s what I’ve found to be the case in the past.
I’m not saying I will never publish a fantasy or paranormal romance book or series. I might and I hope someday I will be able to write a book or series I’m proud to put my name on. Until that time I can’t keep prioritizing those books, no matter how much I want to write them. From now on they will have to be my passion project. That book or series I work on in my spare time after I’ve met my other commitments.
At times, being a rational adult really sucks. This would be one of those times.
With that in mind, I’ll also be redesigning my website in the near future as I work on rebranding myself.
The path from dreams to success does exist. May you have the vision to find it, the courage to get on to it, and the perseverance to follow it.
Kalpana Chawla
by Nikki Amare | Jan 1, 2021 | Musings
Happy New Year!
Well… we survived 2020! It wasn’t as an easy year, but if you’re reading this then you survived. That’s something to be thankful for and celebrate. Far too many weren’t so lucky.
I’m not one to make resolutions or set goals for the new year. This year is no different.
Instead I like to look back at the previous year and I really try to appreciate the lessons it taught me so I can take those into the new year, and years beyond. I think 2020 taught me the importance of less.
Less distractions. Less unnecessary spending.
It also taught me the importance of saying, “I love you.” Of making sure those in my life know how much I love and care for them. Because tomorrow is never guaranteed. It also made me work harder to build the life I want and apologize less.
See there we go again with the less. We don’t need as much as we have been lead to believe. We don’t have to keep a full schedule or always be doing something. Downtime is important and for me, financial security is more important than buying that thing I don’t really need.
It also taught me the importance of speaking up. Of being supportive. And how much I still have to learn; about myself and people in general.
But the one thing I’m really greatful for is, 2020 brought Hubby and I closer together. After twenty years together life often gets in the way and it’s all too easy to take one another for granted. This year gave us more uninterrupted time together, more laughs, more dreaming of the future we want, and more working together toward that outcome.
I hope you can look back on 2020 and find at least a few things to be thankful for as well. A few lessons you can carry into the new year.Â
Here’s to a better year in 2021.
by Nikki Amare | Dec 12, 2020 | Musings
Here we are in December of 2020, just a few weeks from Christmas and News Years. It’s been a rough road getting here and there will be rough roads ahead for many.
This holiday season really has me thinking about holidays of past. When I was a kid my family didn’t have a lot of money. I remember making presents with my grandmother every year. We also made ornaments to hang on her tree. I think she might have had two store bought ornaments, the rest were all cobbled together out of pipe cleaners, construction paper, glue, glitter, and whatever crafting supplies were on hand. Every year we would get them out and she would lovingly go through them, careful of the older, more delicate of the bunch. Those always went toward the top to avoid being damaged by grandkids.
In my family the holidays weren’t about the presents. It was about family. It was also about the food. The holidays were the only time we ever had an abundance of food. Not to say we were starving the rest of the year, we just didn’t have big elaborate dinners with tons of leftovers. As a kid it was quite a sight to see all that food laid out at one time. There were always things we only ever had at Thanksgiving, Christmas, or New Years. Honestly, New Years was most leftovers from Christmas with the addition of fondue.
I think 2020 has taught us a lot of things (not all of them good). But I think the one thing it’s really taught me is how important it is to surround yourself with people who love and appreciate you and whom you love and appreciate in return. It’s also shown me more than ever how much people and not things are what is really matters.
I know a lot of people are suffering from pandemic fatigue and miss spending time with family and friends and eating all of those special foods, but by staying home this year you’ll be giving yourself and your loved ones the chance for other holidays together in the future.
For those who are struggling financially, remember, the holidays aren’t about how many presents you get or how expensive those presents are. They are about sharing memories and love with those around us and appreciating what we have and being grateful for the little things.
Stay Safe this Holiday Season.
Wishing you and your loved ones a very Happy Holiday.
by Nikki Amare | Oct 19, 2020 | Musings
You might notice there have been a few changes to my website. If you’re wondering why I mentioned my reasons in a previous blog post for moving my website from Squarespace to a WordPress.org self-hosted website.
In that post I also mentioned how we hoped to be moving in June. Well, here is it October and we’re still in the same here. We did manage to sell one house and are currently doing renovation on this one so we can hopefully have a better chance of selling it quickly. As soon as we put it on the market again we’re leaving. We really want to be out of here before the holidays. We would really like to spend the holiday season in the new location.
At the beginning of October I did something I’ve been wanting to do for years and years. I got surgery to correct my vision. It was scary for me—not the surgery but the going into public—since it was my time going into a public building since February. With my medical condition I’m in the high risk category for Covid-19, so Hubby and I are being extra careful. But my eye doctor has some great safety measures in place and when I expressed my concerns, they were sure to be extra careful with me. So I now have 20/15 vision, something I never thought I’d say. I’ve worn glasses since second grade and contacts since sixth. Even with corrective lens I was never able to see as well as I do now. I really wish I would have gotten it done years ago.
Writing has been hit-and-miss with everything else that’s going on in my life at the moment. I’ve currently got three different books more than halfway written but can’t seem to get past the halfway point with any of them. Part of the trouble is having my attention pulled in a lot of other directions at the moment, less time to write, and just overwhelm from all that’s going on in the world. I’ve been doing a lot more reading than writing lately. I’ve reread some old favorites and found some new-to-me authors I’ve really enjoyed.
For me writing is something I have to be in the right frame of mind to do. Sometimes is super easy to get into the zone. Other times the zone is impossible to even see for all the other things cluttering my mind. Lately it’s been a lot more of the latter than the former. When I have large to-do lists I often feel like taking an hour to two to write is the last thing I should be doing. So even when I do manage to carve out a little time to write, I often find my brain refuses to stop thinking about the million and one things I need to do.
As a writer, finding your own process is importing. Knowing what works and doesn’t work for you is essential to writing book after book. Even if that process changes with each one, knowing when to change is also part of being a writer. Me? I know I need a consistent block of time to allow myself to reread what I’ve written before and fall back into the story. The longer I can ignore the world around me and write, the better. I don’t write every day, but on days I do write I write for anywhere from four to ten hours straight. Some books can be written in a few long, hard writing days, with the words just flowing out of my fingers. Others, they end up being pieced together a few hundred words at a time over months or even years.
I also know I need some sort of routine in order to write. Right now, routine is the last thing I have. Every day is different. Some days what we’re doing depends on the weather. Other days it depends on whether or not we can get what we need from the store or if we have to order it and wait for it to be shipped to us. The lack of any sort of routine isn’t conducive to me getting a lot of writing done. That doesn’t mean I’m not trying to write. This blog post is proof of that.
Some days just writing a paragraph feels like an accomplishment of epic proportions. Other days it’s just a drop in the bucket. I’m learning to celebrate those small victories as well as the big ones.
