Please welcome our guest Debra Ullrick

http://debraullrick.com/

WRITER’S BURNOUT

by Debra Ullrick
Recently, I’ve been going through something I didn’t know had a name. It’s called… Writer’s Burnout. How do I know this?
Well, I stumbled across an article that fit me to a Tee and explained exactly what I was going through.
The woman who had written the article had lost three grandparents in a short period of time and a fourth was in the hospital. During this sad time, she had numerous deadlines which she managed to meet even with a broken wrist. But, when she finished the last one, she found no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t write a single word and that was so unlike her. The woman had no idea what was wrong until she discovered she was suffering from Writer’s Burnout. She had no idea what to do. Finally, she mustered up some much needed courage and told her editor and agent what she was going through. Much to her relief, they were very understanding.

What does everything she went through have to do with me?

Well, like her, I had a terrible time writing and had no idea why. Ever since last August something strange has happened inside me. Several mornings, I would wake up thinking… “Oh crud, I woke up.” Not good, and so unlike me. I couldn’t understand why I felt the way I did. All I knew was, stress and depression were taking their physical toll on my body. I soon discovered what the problem was.

This year, a few days before Mother’s Day rolled around, my mother’s death hit me hard. My mom died October 30, 2011. To make matters worse, on Mother’s Day of 2012 my beloved brother-in-law of 44 years passed away. Five months later, my cousin passed away and three months after that my father-in-law died. No wonder I was struggling and depressed. But I didn’t understand or know that until recently.

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You see, I never took the time to grieve for any of them. I was too busy. And lately, I have been missing my mother something awful and wishing I had spent more time with her. I know I can’t go back and change things, but what I can do is learn from her death, and I have. In fact, I learned an invaluable lesson. I might have a deadline, but I can’t neglect those I love because of them. Unfortunately that lesson came too late for me where my mom and brother-in-law are concerned, but it’s not too late for those who are still living.

I’m noticing a change already. I’m allowing myself the time to grieve for those I have lost who were so dear to me. Something I hadn’t done before because I was too busy. I’m not complaining, mind you, as I am very grateful and thankful for every book contract I have received.

I am also stepping back, taking a break, and rejuvenating my creativity again by reading for the pure pleasure of it. I’m also taking time to enjoy the little things of life again, like watching movies, sitting outside in the early mornings listening to the birds and the sounds of summer, and spending time with friends and family who had stopped “bothering” me because I was on a deadline. I now take time and will stop what I am doing to talk with them, to share a meal with them, and to just enjoy their company. Having already started this, I can feel the joy of life and writing rising up in me again. And that’s an awesome, awesome thing. *smiling*

Leave a comment to get your name in the drawing for a copy of The Unintended Groom
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The Unintended Groom
A Perfect PartnershipWhen Abby Bowen's dream of love is dashed, she pursues a new dream: opening a dinner theater in Hot Mineral Springs, Colorado. There's just one hitch: she needs a male business partner. The handsome father of twins who answers Abby's ad is perfect…perhaps too perfect. Working with someone like Harrison Kingsley—without losing her heart—will be harder than Abby anticipated.

It's a good thing Harrison's arrangement with Abby is strictly business. Because with her kind soul, smiling blue eyes and gentle way with his boys, he could easily fall for her. But the longer he works with Abby, the more Harrison realizes that the Lord might have an entirely different partnership planned for them.
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Hi there! I’m Debra Ullrick an award-winning Christian romance author. In addition to multiple full-length novels, my stories have been featured in several novella collections, one of which made the New York Times bestseller’s list. I am happily married to my wonderful, hunky-cowboy husband of thirty-nine years, and I have one married daughter. For over twenty-five years, my husband and I lived and worked on cattle ranches in the Colorado Mountains. A famous movie star and her screenwriter husband are partial owners of the last ranch we lived at. Some of my favorite things are animals, classic cars, mud-bog racing, and monster trucks. When I’m not writing, I’m reading, feeding wild birds, or watching Jane Austen movies, COPS, Bachelor/Bachelorette, or Castle.
 

Write What You Know...or Not by Cheryl St.John and Debra Ullrick

Two Authors, one great book Colorado Courtship. Cheryl St.John and Debra Ullrick tell us how they see the age old advice to writers...

Write What You Know

Cheryl St.John

Write what you know? Where did that advice come from anyway? I tried to find an origin, and even Wikipedia doesn’t know, so there can’t be much merit to the old adage. *g* I did find an Ernest Hemingway quote: “From all things that you know and all those you cannot know, you make something through your invention that is not a representation but a whole new thing truer than anything true and alive.”


True enough, John Grisham is an attorney and writes legal thrillers and Robin Cook is a doctor and writes medical thrillers, oh and forensic anthropologist Kathy Reichs wrote the series of books from which the television show Bones was created. But is that the norm? Here’s a snip from my book Writing With Emotion, Tension & Conflict that will be out from Writers Digest this fall: “One of the most irritating questions we can be asked is if we write from personal experience. Well, of course we write from personal experience. But do we do all the things and feel all the things that our characters experience and feel? Hardly. My answer is always, ‘My life is way too boring to write from personal experience.’

“I doubt anyone has asked Stephanie Meyer if she created a family of vampires from personal experience. Do they think Stephen King had a supernatural encounter in a deserted hotel or that he cut off his arm to see what phantom sensations were like? Seriously, people. We’re writing fiction from our individual worldviews.

“We become these story people, and we imagine what they would feel like—how they would behave, given their background and experiences and the things that are happening to them, because we’re creative and sensitive. We write from our deep creative wells of imagination, and we have lived and felt enough to be able to imagine how someone would feel in a given situation.”

I call it method writing. Becoming the character. “You don’t have to have experienced something to imagine how it would feel. No one who sees an Amber Alert has to question how the parents are feeling. That’s a universal trigger.

One of the many things I do that drives my husband crazy is obsessively watching all the behind-the-scenes clips for movies. I know you’ve seen interviews with actors where they are talking about their character as though it’s a real person. To them it is. They become that person to take on the persona of the role.

It’s method acting. It’s how actors dredge up tears and show drama. They put themselves in that person’s place and experience the scene as though it’s happening to them. You have to know your character inside and out to write like this. Superficial writing will never convey deep emotion.”

On Ted(dot)com Andrew Stanton has a video in which he says, “Stories are affirmations that our lives have meaning.” I loved that. He goes on to say stories are, “confirming some truth that deepens our understanding of who we are as human beings.”

We’re not so different from people who lived a couple of hundred years ago or those who live in other lands. Because our basic needs and desires and dreams are universal, it’s not so strange to think we can know what it would be like for an alien trapped on this planet or how a Hobbit feels.

Writing what we know is writing characters with depth, it’s emotional connections, relationships, love stories, losses, trials and victories. So maybe Hemingway had it right.

Debra Ullrick

What is the real motive behind the saying, Write what you know? What are the people who stress this trying to say? Is it one of those things where someone started it, like those old slice-the-ends-off-of-the-ham thingy? You know the one where the mother sliced the ends off of her ham before she put it in the pan, so the daughter did it for years too until someone asked her why. When she couldn't answer them, she called her mother, and her mother said it was because the pan she had used was too small, so she had to cut the ends off of the ham to make it fit. Is that what ‘writing what you know’ is all about? Did someone write what they didn't know and it didn't work, so they advised someone else not to do because it didn't work for them?

Or is it because someone picked up a book and they knew more about the subject than the author did? If so, what would you say to that author? Would you bash them like some reviewers do when they inform the author that they didn't get all their facts straight?

There will always be naysayers and critics. There has to be balance. We should do research if we’re talking about a specific place, or a specific disease or time period etc. For example, in The Bride Wore Coveralls, I set my story in Alabama. I've never been there, but I love the south, so I wanted to visit it in my story. I called friends who lived there, called the chambers, read stuff online and even had a lady who was born and raised in that area read it over several times to make sure I had it right. Guess what? I still had someone inform me that I didn't get it right.

I say, write what you don’t know, learn what you don’t know, write what you do know, but most importantly listen to that still small voice inside of you and let Him guide you. Let Him tell you whether or not you should listen to what others are saying. Sometimes the answer is no, and sometimes it’s yes.

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for one of TWO copies of Colorado Courtship

Colorado Courtship

Winter of Dreams by Cheryl St.John

If Violet Kristofferson had known that her new employer was the town undertaker, she might never have come to Carson Springs as his cook. Yet she needs a fresh start away from scandal. And Ben Charles's unflinching faith could be her path to something truly precious—a new family.

Find Cheryl online at:

Cheryl's Website

Cheryl's Blog

The Rancher's Sweetheart by Debra Ullrick

The cowboys on her uncle's ranch show Sunny Weston no respect—except for foreman Jed Cooper. A riding and roping contest is Sunny's chance to prove herself. But now that she's falling for Jed, will she find courage to take the biggest risk of all, and trust her heart?

Find Debra online at:

Debra's Website

Welcome Guest Blogger Debra Ullrick

My First Conference and Editor meeting

I’d only been a member of the American Christian Romance Writers (aka ACFW now)for a few months. At that time there were a little over three hundred members. Everyone was talking on the loop about the conference and how they couldn’t wait to go. It sounded like a lot of fun and was being held in Denver, my home state, so I decided to go.

Didn’t have a clue what to expect or how to act or anything. My friend told me she’d been to quite a few, so I asked her a ton of questions. What does one do when meeting with an editor? What about these one liners I’d heard about? Can you talk to other editors? That one she said yes, but cautioned me about talking to them while they were in a bathroom stall. My first thought was, someone must have done that or she wouldn’t have mentioned it. That person must have memorized every detail of that particular editor’s shoes or stalked them. Not sure which one, but either scenario didn’t tempt me. Uh uh. Not one little bit.

Anyway, then our conversation turned to Meet-n-Greet night. Living on a cattle ranch at the time, my wardrobe was limited, so I asked her what every one wore to them. She said people wore slippers, various hats, etc and to wear something that gave people a clue about who I am or what I love or what I do. Didn’t think my cowboy boots with lawn fertilizer on them would be appropriate, so I went for the Monster Mutt cap. I love monster trucks, but I didn’t want to drag my large remote control Grave Digger truck with me, so I borrowed my husband’s Monster Mutt cap. Now, you have to picture this, okay? The cap resembles a dog, complete with floppy ears, wide cartoonish eyes, and its tongue sticking out at whoever looks at me.

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When I entered the room that Thursday night, I was met with wide eyes, double takes, stares, and whispers. Some laughed and inquired about my cap. (Bless their little pea-pickin’ hearts. SMOOCH) Some fled. Probably didn’t want that dog licking them or slobbering on their clothes or anything. Can’t blame them. Most of them were dressed in nice gowns, or comfortable, yet classy attire, or suit dresses. Not Monster Mutt hats. My friend had tricked me, I was sure of it. Oh well, even if she did, I was going to be myself and have fun. I did too. After people got over the initial shock, they accepted not only me, but my cap.

When it was time to eat, my friend led me to a table at the front. Just what I wanted, to sit up front of all those people with my Monster Mutt cap. I sat down beside this really nice lady, and we chatted and chatted like we’d known each other for years.

Fifteen or so minutes later, my friend leaned over and said, “You do know that that’s Francine Rivers, right?”

“Francine Rivers!” I squealed, and about got whiplash spinning my head (Floating body part, alert!) Francine’s direction. “Oh my gosh. You’re Francine Rivers!” I belted out as if she didn’t know who she was. She laughed, and so did I until I remembered my cap. The one with its tongue sticking out directly at Francine Rivers.

Debra's husband Rick, Francine Rivers and Debra

To make matters worse, I didn’t feel too good. Thought it was a case of the nerves. Was I ever wrong. That night, I spent the whole night throwing up. I had the flu. Not only was I worried about my friend/roommate getting it, although it would have served her right, hehe, my first editor’s meeting and my first paid critique meeting with Linda Windsor were on Friday, the next day. Thank God, I felt better the next morning and was able to keep my meetings, and no one seemed to notice The Walking Zombie Woman.

On Saturday, I met Jim Peterson, acquiring editor at that time for Heartsong Presents. Because he was standing amongst a group of women and not headed to the bathroom or anything like that, I asked my friend if it would be okay if I pitched my book idea to him. She said it would be fine, so I did. He loved my Ford/Chevy, mud-bog racing rivals and asked to see the whole manuscript when I got it finished and even gave me his card. His card! With is contact information! Wow! Talk about mind blowing. Hmmm that must have been where I left my mind. I’ve been wondering where I left it all these years. *smiling* I still have that card. My first published novel, The Bride Wore Coveralls, came as a result of that first conference and that meeting with Jim.

Francine Rivers and Debra and Hat :)

I will never forget that conference. If any of you ever get a chance to go to one, do. A word of advice though… if anyone tells you that people wear fuzzy slippers or weird hats or anything else strange to Meet-n-Greet night, run! And if you do decide to wear something peculiar, make sure you know who you’re talking to. It might very well may be Francine Rivers.

Please leave a comment to get your name in the drawing for one of THREE copies of my  latest release, The Unlikely Wife.
Find me online at http://www.debraullrick.com/

Back Cover Blurb:

The arrival of Michael Bowen’s bride, married sight unseen by proxy, sends the rancher reeling. With her trousers, cowboy hat and rifle, she looks like a female outlaw—not the genteel lady he corresponded with for months. He’s been hoodwinked into marriage with the wrong woman!

Selina Farleigh Bowen loved Michael’s letters, even if she couldn’t read them herself. A friend read them to her, and wrote her replies—but apparently that “friend” left things out, like Michael’s dream of a wife who was nothing like her. Selina won’t change who she is, not even for the man she loves. Yet time might show Michael the true value of his unlikely wife.