Slow Down Please

Founders Less Than Three
by Halley Suitt Tucker

My purse is littered with receipts, business cards, brochures, bookmarks, boarding passes and matchbooks from restaurants 3000 miles from here this morning. I'm tossing things and straightening out what I mean to keep. I've been going here, there and everywhere promoting my new book, inviting people to take a bookmark so they'll recognize the title and cover art next time they need to read a new book.  I hope they'll buy my book, but I really hope they'll find time to read it. 

But the go-go-go-everywhere blah-blah-blah side of me is at war with the SLOW DOWN PLEASE side and I know who wins this Civil War. The slow down part of me is the reader and the writer and always wins out in the end. I'm a binge reader. I read like it's a dirty little habit, sneaking the time when no one is looking and I don't care who walks in on me while I'm in the act. Just can't help myself. I've been reading like crazy since I finished writing this book. But I've got that itchy finger feeling about wanting to start writing the next book too. 

All of that requires silence and endless hours going nowhere in the world and everywhere in the world in my head. It's about slowing down and taking the time. Some people can write anywhere, but I find it best to be firmly planted at my desk in my house. 

As for my "readers" I am wondering if they have the same crazy need to read that I do. When people show genuine interest and even buy the book, I know it may take them a while to actually read my book. I know many will buy it, but not read it. I suppose I should be fine with that, but I'm not. It seems a little sad for them, not me. I'd much rather have someone read it and not like it, than not read it at all. 

Sometimes I imagine my characters on a bench like a little baseball team, all ready to take the field. But they can't even get on the scoreboard unless a stranger -- a new reader -- slows down enough to read about them. They are so pumped when that happens, lining up proudly in their mismatched uniforms, ready to "PLAY BALL!"

Meanwhile, they just hang around the dugout with nothing to do, wishing they could take the field to bat one out of the park. Please don't make them linger too long.  I know the the alpha male characters will end up in a fight, showing off in front of the alpha females, or end up bullying the background characters to stand up and fight like a leading man! I can hear them slamming empty lockers in the locker room and that means trouble. Give these guys a chance to show off their stuff. 

[The book:  Founders Less Than Three -- right HERE on Amazon.]

My new book, Founders Less Than Three is done!

The ebook is done!* Check it out on Amazon. 

The Boston Globe says it's a great beach read and the best way to read at the beach is using the Kindle of course! 

What's it about?  Startups and sex. (That's the short version.) 

The longer version:  Founders Less Than Three is a funny, sexy novel about 10 start-ups with 5 CEO girls, 5 CEO guys and their race for funding and fun.

A quotation from the Boston Globe piece, when asked about the entrepreneurs who inhabit the startup world I invented in my novel: 

The startup world can feel very exclusive – like it happens exclusively in Silicon Valley in California and only young white males need apply. My startup world has lots of women, LGBT entrepreneurs, geeks of color – all colors – and is a very inclusive world. I want anyone reading it to know that great ideas have no gender, race, age or sexual preference. 

I also believe Boston will be increasingly important as a place for breakthrough ideas, since we have the best talent in the world right here in Boston when it comes to mobile technology, biotechnology and educational innovation, to name only a few areas of our expertise.

Here's the link to my successful Kickstarter crowdfunding program.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/181348442/founders-less-than-three

*The paper book is coming soon. 

Need to get in touch -- I'm @halley on Twitter.

Warm Up

In the morning before I jump back into writing and editing my novel, I do a warm-up exercise of sorts, a writing warm-up, but also have a few other warm-up activities.

First, we have two thermostats -- one for the first floor and one for the second floor -- so at night we leave the downstairs at around 55 degrees,  even in winter and keep the upstairs fairly cool too.  We are NEW ENGLANDERS for God's sake and have quite the selection of blankets, duvets, you name it.

My book: Founders Less Than 3

I write on the first floor, so it's cold when I start and the first warm-up is putting on the tea kettle and cranking up the heat.  I almost always pull on a wool hat to start my early morning writing too.  Don't you? I favor the Peruvian with ear flaps lately. "What?  You want to talk to me?  Sorry, can't hear you!"

A little bending and stretching is good too, a small physical warm-up, but I find if I put my exercise before my writing, it's so easy NOT to get the writing done.  If you're someone who puts their exercise before everything in their day, you know what I mean.  I would rather exercise first, but as I'm finally getting near the end of this book, I can't risk it.  A B C D E F G ... Z come first.

That said, I start by writing something unrelated to anything.  Not part of the book, not part of a story, not part of anything, I open a file and just start scribbling.  Sometimes I pull out a fountain pen and start scribbling on paper. Either method works, just to get the words flowing.

The house is warming up.  The tea is warming me up.  The hat always warms me up.  And now here come the words. Sound the bugles! 

Kickstarter LIVE!

So here goes! I'm kicking off my Kickstarter project today, with a little help from my friends. It's called Founders Less Than Three and you can support it right here!

It's a novel all about entrepreneurs -- five CEO guys and five CEO girls and their teams are building new companies from scratch and racing to get funding.  Boston is the best place in the world to found a start-up and my enterprenerds come from all over the world.

It's early here in Boston and I am thinking about my characters getting up, washing their faces, getting ready for the day. It's 5:30am, so a bunch of them have been working all night at their offices at Kendall Square. It's just one of those things, you figure you'll grab the T in time to get home late and then you just keep working through the night instead.

If you haven't tried Kickstarter, this is a great time to join. You can support my project for as little as a $1.00 and there's no complicated sign-up process and all that. Have you ever bought anything from Amazon? If so, then that's all you do with Kickstarter -- it all runs through Amazon and you don't even pay for a month (and only if my project gets fully funded.) So try it out and be sure to peruse the other amazing creative projects over at Kickstarter as well.