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Well Fed 2, by Melissa Joulwan, is the grand-prize winning book in the 22nd Annual Writer’s Digest Self-Published Book Awards, besting more than 2,800 other entries across nine categories. A cookbook geared towards the paleo diet (in which meals are prepared without grains, legumes, starches, processed sugar, dairy or alcohol), Joulwan’s entry came out of the reference category. For complete coverage of this year’s awards, check out the March/April 2015 issue of Writer’s Digest. Click here for a complete list of winners from this year’s awards.

Melissa Joulwan, 46, is a full-time cookbook author and blogger. She grew up in eastern Pennsylvania, and lived in San Francisco, CA, and Austin, TX. Right now, she’s calling White River Junction, VT, home while her husband gets his Master’s degree in cartooning at the Center for Cartoon Studies. After, they’re moving to Prague.

Joulwan has done a lot of magazine writing over the years, primarily in fitness publications and music magazines. Back in the day (1996), she had a website about women’s sports called “Go, girl!” Now, she has a blog called The Clothes Make The Girl, where she writes about her failures and triumphs in the gym, in the kitchen, and in life. She also writes a recipe column in every issue of Paleo Magazine.

Can you describe Well Fed 2 for us?

Well Fed 2: More Paleo Recipes For People Who Love To Eat is the follow-up to my first cookbook Well Fed. The recipes follow the Paleo template, which means that they’re made without grains, legumes, soy, sugar, dairy, and alcohol. I know that probably sounds like they’re no fun, but the recipes are really delicious and don’t taste like boring, sad “health food.”

In addition to the 200 recipes and meal ideas, the book opens with information to help readers manage their relationship with food, including ways to identify emotional appetite versus true hunger, 30 reasons to do a Whole30, tips for socializing while keeping good habits, and a call to action to develop the best version of themselves.

Eating Paleo is usually defined by what must be given up, but it’s really about gaining good health, boundless energy, and a happy outlook.

Describe your writing process for this book.

My husband and I are a team. I develop the recipes and write all the content. We collaborate on the props and food styling, then Dave takes all of the photos and draws the illustrations. After the success of Well Fed, we knew we wanted to do another cookbook, and the first step was defining the theme. We didn’t want to have a classic sophomore slump! We had several ideas we liked and conducted a survey of my blog readers to find out what they wanted. The overwhelming response was “more of the same.”

My next step was to narrow the list of more than 300 recipes I’d been collecting to a more manageable number. We photograph every recipe, so we try to keep the count to around 100. I like to have a wide variety of ingredients and international influences in my recipes, so when I have a list I like, I put the titles on index cards and divide them into piles to see what’s what — just to make sure I don’t have twice as many Turkish recipes as Chinese, or 20 chicken and only two beef. Once I’ve got my draft list of recipes, I work on the outline: the editorial content that will be in the beginning of the book, the sections for the recipes, support content in the back of the book. All of that work is done in a combination of very messy notebooks — Mead composition books with college ruled paper are my favorite — and Google docs so I can share with Dave. Eventually, I make a spreadsheet that I use to track the content through first draft, final, recipe testing, and photos. I’m an extensive list-maker and note-taker, and the piles of papers and books on my desk during this part of the process are epic.

When it’s time for recipe testing, I’m on my feet in the kitchen, cooking and making notes. I usually make each recipe at least four times before I consider it final: once to try it, a second to refine, a third to finalize it, and a fourth to take the photo. Development and testing usually lasts about six months.

Recipes begin as handwritten notes in my notebook; I have a shorthand that only makes sense to me but I can write it very quickly. After the third time making a recipe, I type it in language that’s as close to final as possible. This allows me to use the printout to make the food for the photo and minimizes re-writing. I develop all of the recipes before we begin principle photography, and we shoot about three to five photos per day so principle photography takes about one month. At the end of each shooting day, while Dave is editing the photos, I try to make final adjustments to the recipes and draft the head notes.

We have a clearly defined design for the Well Fed series, so along the way, we communicate with the designers about unusual content so they can factor it into the design system. All of the photos and recipes are finished at the same time, and we deliver the content to the designers for layout. When the first draft of the manuscript is ready, Dave and I give it a once-over and provide feedback to the design team. We then hand it off to a copy editor and she works her magic. I make corrections, and it goes through proofreading. Then it’s off to the printer!

Because we’re self publishing, we’re also working with our printer and distributor throughout production to make sure the business side is in place. About six months before the book’s publication date, our distributor needs to start talking to retailers, so we make what’s called a BLAD (Basic Layout and Design): a PDF of the cover, table of contents, and sample pages the sales team can use to generate excitement and sales of the book. That’s always a fun time because the book starts to seem more real.

Describe the process of publishing this book.

We found a wonderful printer and distributor with our first book, and they’ve been solid partners for us since. Bang Printing prints our books. They also warehouse the books and handle fulfillment. For distribution, we work with Greenleaf Book Group; they represent us with retail bookstores offline and online, as well as big box stores that sell books.

Why did you choose to self-publish?

My first book Rollergirl: Totally True Tales From The Track was published by a major publisher, and I didn’t enjoy the experience. All of the people I met at the publisher were good people, but I never felt like they cared about my book as much as I did. How could they? To them, it was a day job — to me, it was my life.

When we decided to write our first book Well Fed, we chose to self publish because we wanted to do everything our way. My husband and I had both spent two decades working in agencies where your excellent, initial idea was watered down by executive decision making. We love punk rock music and admire people who go their own way, so we decided to try that approach ourselves. Our primary goal was to create a book we would enjoy making and that would make us feel proud.

The other big driver was the financial side. If you write a book for a traditional publisher, and it’s successful, you make some money and they make a lot of money. If you self publish and you’re successful, you make a lot of money. Yes, the publisher is providing services for the revenue they keep, but once we understood all the steps of publishing, we didn’t think it was worth it to pay the publisher 90% of the profit.

What are the biggest challenges you’ve faced self-publishing?

The hardest aspect of self publishing for me is managing my ego. The tasks associated with publishing are neither mysterious nor difficult. It’s a lot of details and staying on top of the business, but it’s manageable. The emotional side is harder. Most days, I’m very proud to have self published our books, but every once in a while — usually when it feels like I have to defend the decision to self publish — I wonder if we should work with a traditional publisher. Several publishers have approached us over the years, but when we dig into the details of the deals, they can’t compete with the marketing and financial benefits of doing it ourselves.

When Well Fed 2 was released, I turned to Dave and said, “Man! If we had a publisher, they probably would have sent us a bottle of champagne or something.” He looked at me for a minute and said, “I’ll go buy us some champagne, and it won’t cost us 90% of our profits.” Smart guy, my husband.

What are the most important benefits of self-publishing?

Self publishing literally changed our lives. I was working a full-time, corporate job while we were writing and publishing Well Fed. By the time the book had been out for three months, it was earning enough that I could quit my job to focus on blogging and promoting the book full time. Dave, too, was able to quit his full-time job as a computer programmer. Now, almost 4 years later, he’s attending grad school, and I’m working on our third cookbook. Self publishing gave us the financial freedom to focus on building our small business. It also boosted our confidence in our abilities and has made us more fearless is pursuing other creative pursuits and business partnerships.

The value of creative freedom can’t be underestimated. I’ve learned to trust my instincts. When I create things I like, taking into account what my audience has told me they need, we’re successful. We don’t need “experts” at a publisher to guide us because we’re experienced enough to put out good work — and daring enough to figure out the things we don’t know. We also have a really wonderful circle of creative, professional friends on whom we can rely for opinions, advice, and shoptalk.

What surprised you about the self-publishing process?

The most surprising thing was that it’s not that hard. It’s a lot of details. It requires discipline and a leap of faith, but the tasks are not difficult or confusing. It’s a giant checklist that must be methodically checked off, but it’s doable.

What are the biggest misconceptions about self-publishing?

I think the majority of people have an out-of-date idea of what self publishing means. In the past, if a book was self published, it was probably fairly low quality. To be fair, I’ve seen my share of poorly written and poorly-printed books that were self published, but I’ve also read some really crappy books put out by major publishers. The most important thing when self publishing is to go through all of the steps that a traditional publisher would. Work with an experienced designer. Hire a real copyeditor and proofreader; you should only have your cousin proofread your book if she’s an actual proofreader. Make a marketing plan. Learn about the printing process, choose quality paper, and go to the press check. A self-published book can and should look and feel as good (if not better!) than a book from a traditional publisher.

What’s your advice to other self-publishing authors?

To be successful, you need to be honest with yourself about your goals. If it’s your lifelong dream to have your book published by a particular publisher, you probably won’t be satisfied with self publishing, even if you make wheelbarrows full of money. If you’re a non-fiction author, the clout and perceived credibility of a big publisher may be beneficial for your career. Self publishing success can turn writing into a full-time business that requires bookkeeping, marketing, boring admin work, and overseeing the details of printing and distribution; if all you want to do is sit by yourself and write, self publishing might not be the right path for you. If it’s your heart’s desire to hold a book in your hands with your name on the spine, either path will work for you.

I knew I wanted to make writing my full-time job, I wanted creative control, and I wanted to reap as many of the financial rewards of our books as possible — self-publishing was the only way to reach those goals.

What’s the worst mistake that self-publishing authors can make?

As much as I’ve been highlighting the awesomeness of complete creative control, that doesn’t mean self-published authors should do everything themselves. It’s important to find talented, motivated people with the skills you don’t have. Whether you pay them outright, work in trade, offer them profit sharing, or somehow get their work for free, you need to rely on others to do the work you don’t do well. For us, that meant hiring a fantastic graphic designer, copy editor, and proofreader for production, and relying on Greenleaf for distribution. These are not big expenditures, but they’re important.

Another potential pitfall is thinking that you’re “only a writer.” Once you self publish, you move beyond author to publisher and promoter. I’ve had to learn how to compartmentalize my thinking: “Today I’m ignoring social media and writing all day, but on Thursday, I can’t write because I have to pay attention to the business.”

If you were to self-publish again, what is one thing you’d do differently? The one thing you’d do the same?

For both books, we made the production schedule tight but manageable. For our next cookbook, I’d like to build a little breathing room into the schedule to allow room for days the writing just isn’t going well or when the photography magic isn’t happening. I’m also trying to figure out how we might use an external project manager to guide production. I loathe the project management aspects of the project — setting and managing the schedule, tracking assets, keeping all the moving parts on deadline — and would love to have a real project manager join our team.

We have a tradition of going on a vacation after we’ve handed off all of the content to the designer. While the design team is doing the first draft of the layout, we’re recharging our batteries so we’re energized for the last phase of production and promoting the book after publication. It’s really fun to deliver all the raw materials and come home from vacation to an almost-there manuscript.

Who and what has inspired you—in your writing and otherwise?

There were always books floating around in our house. My dad was a big reader, and I used to get up early to say goodbye to him when he left for work and to read a little bit in bed before school. Both my mom and my favorite aunt were writers at different points in their lives. I always liked playing with words, and I was — and continue to be — inspired by the idea that if I put my thoughts into words on paper, they might affect other people in some way.

How long have you been writing? How did you start?

My dad had my first story, written in kindergarten, hanging in his office, and I have memories of making my little brother play library with me. I think I’ve been interested in writing since I learned how to write the alphabet. There’s a big, flat storage box under my bed stuffed with grade school poetry projects, research papers, samples from my early advertising jobs, and a novel I wrote during NaNoWriMo in 2003. I’ve always been a serious word nerd.

What are the challenges of writing a cookbook?

A cookbook is a combination of storytelling and technical writing. I try to inject enough personal detail and voice in the recipes to help readers feel a connection to me. One Amazon reviewer said, “The author’s personality is all over every page, and her personality is unbearable.” Happily, most other people seem to like my voice, and that negative comment actually made me feel like I was doing a good job of being me in print. On the instructional side, I think it’s a mistake to assume readers have extensive cooking experience, so I try to find the balance of explaining technique with details to help novices without boring or annoying veteran cooks. Juggling all of that can be a challenge. To be a successful, self-published cookbook author, I need to be a good cook, to write clear instructions, to craft inspiring supporting copy, to develop a narrative line throughout the whole book, and to determine the best way to visually represent the recipes.

Do you write anything else?

I have a blog called The Clothes Make The Girl. I started it in 2008, long before I ever thought of writing a cookbook, and the content evolved as my interests in fitness, nutrition, and cooking grew. These days, the majority of posts are recipes, but I also write pieces on motivation, meditation, managing health issues, and other things that interest me, like books, art, music, and travel. My blog is the online version of conversations we’d have in my kitchen, over a cup of Earl Grey rooibos tea. I keep very detailed journals when I travel, but I don’t journal on a daily basis at home. My blog has become the place where I work through what’s on my mind, and it’s a really lovely way to connect with my audience on a personal level.

I also contribute a recipe column to every issue of Paleo Magazine. I research the history of a traditional recipe, then adapt the recipe to fit into the paleo template. Knowing the history of a dish makes me feel connected to cooks I’ll never meet, and I love showing people that eating paleo can be playful and exotic. It’s so more than grilled meat and steamed vegetables.

I’ve also written a few other books. In 2007, my first book Rollergirl: Totally True Tales From The Track was published. It’s a memoir of my transformation from bookish, piano-playing non-athlete to Rollergirl (still bookish but also surprisingly tough on wheels). I’m also the co-author of Living Paleo For Dummies, published by Wiley in 2012 — and I wrote the meal plan in the New York Times best-selling book It Starts With Food by Melissa and Dallas Hartwig.

What advice has had the biggest impact on your success in life and as an author?

I think one of the things that’s helped me the most in my writing life is recognizing that it’s OK to write absolutely terrible, embarrassingly awful sentences during first (and second and third) drafts. No one but me will ever see them! I give myself the freedom to let my writing completely suck as it flows from mind to page. Writing is re-writing, and you can always clean it up.

Also: Ass in Chair. That’s what we call it when there’s a lot of writing to be done and a deadline ahead. There’s no more whining or procrastinating or bargaining. It’s Ass in Chair time, and you just get it done.

I learned a lot of skills doing endurance sports and roller derby that have served me well as a writer. There are times when it’s just going to be uncomfortable. Maybe I’m not inspired, or the writing is so bad I cringe when I read it, or there doesn’t seem to be enough time to get it all done, or I’m just overwhelmed by the sheer volume of words it takes to share my ideas. When it’s most uncomfortable is when I have to surrender to the discomfort. Once I stop fighting the uncomfortableness of a situation, I feel free.

What’s the one thing you can’t live without in your writing life?

I’m going to cheat! Two things: Earl Grey Rooibos tea and the kundalini exercise “breath of fire.”

What does a typical day look like for you?

Workdays always start with a workout. I have a really great gym with programming that combines heavy weight lifting with interval training, so it’s a thorough and intense workout. On the way home in the car, I eat a post-workout snack (sweet potato and chicken, usually) and eat a full breakfast when I get home. I usually do the newspaper crossword while I eat, or flip through a cookbook for inspiration. I try to get dressed in real clothes (rather than workout clothes) at least three days a week, so after primping a little, I clean up my email inbox and usually do some social media work. I try to post to Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at least once a day, just to check in with my audience. I really like Twitter, so I’m likely to tweet throughout the day.

At lunch, I usually read a novel, then I spend the afternoon writing blog posts or dealing with other business stuff. One of the things that’s been surprising is how much time I spend on little marketing activities: sharing recipes with other web sites, answering Q&As for other bloggers, managing the non-writing projects associated with our business. At 5:00, I try to either go for a walk or do kundalini yoga at home. Then I check email again, clean up my inbox, and start working on diner.

When we’re actively working on a cookbook, the email and social media stuff is replaced with recipe testing and writing, but I try not to let the online interactions drop too much because they’re so integral to staying in touch with the people who will eventually buy our books.

Describe your typical writing routine.

When it’s Ass in Chair time, I usually do a big cookup once a week to prepare. I stock the fridge with food that’s easy to eat on-the-go or that can be reheated quickly: chili, salad stuff, hunks of meat in the slow cooker. I keep my workout routine because that physical exertion helps me think clearly. When it’s time to sit and start typing, I make a cup of tea and set a timer for an hour so that I remember to get up every hour and move around. I do squats or lunges, walk up and down the stairs, lie on the floor and stretch out my back, or use a lacrosse ball to roll the knots out of my chest and shoulders. When I know I’m going to be writing all day, I make a schedule on the whiteboard behind my desk of the exercises I’ll do every hour. As the day goes on, I also add meditation to the list. I almost always write my first drafts in BBEdit because there’s no formatting nonsense to get in the way, but then I paste my text into Word to add formatting to help direct the designers. I’m convinced there’s not efficient way to write well; it’s just a matter of finding the tricks that work for you and making it feel as comfortable as possible. There are days when I can write quickly and crank out a lot of work, but overall, the creative process is not about efficiency, it’s about creating something awesome.

What do you think are the biggest benefits and challenges of writing nonfiction?

I enjoy writing nonfiction because it helps me process my experience with the world and, if I do it well, my stories resonate with other people and are a catalyst for their own emotional reactions. That’s heady, satisfying stuff!

My blog started in 2008 as a place for me to amuse myself. I think I had about six readers, including my mom, my husband, and my 6:00 a.m. Crossfit class. Now I have about 200,000 people reading it every month. That’s presented me with the challenge of learning how to share enough that people feel a connection to me, without crossing over into being too personal. I still cover the same topics, but the way I write about them has changed slightly. I’m less likely to divulge very personal information, but I still like to open my heart as much as possible. It’s tricky, and I’m always learning where my boundaries lie — and my readers’ boundaries are.

Why do you write?

Because my head would explode if I didn’t.

What do you do for a day job?

I’m very fortunate and grateful that writing cookbooks, magazine articles, and my blog has become my day job. Because we self published our books, they’ve become a significant and steady source of income. My web site generates revenue through affiliate relationships like Amazon and some Paleo food retailers, but I don’t sell advertising.

What do you feel are your strengths as a writer? How have you developed these qualities?

In person, I’m very in touch with my emotions, and I don’t hold back when I’m writing. I think my biggest strength is that I’m willing to be pretty vulnerable in my writing. It takes a lot to embarrass me, and if relating a story about a time I was sad, happy, confused, triumphant, or angry makes someone else feel less alone? That’s just about the best thing that can happen for a writer. I also write the way I speak: I cuss like a sailor sometimes and sometimes get so worked up when I’m ranting about something that tears burst out of my eyes — I try to share all of that in my blog and in my cookbooks.

What are some aspects of writing you’ve struggled with? How have you worked to strengthen yourself in these areas?

I love to read the kind of fiction that takes you to another world and introduces you to people you’d never meet on your own. Some of my favorites are The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova, all of the Dick Francis mysteries and Lee Child thrillers. But I’m really awful at writing fiction. All of my characters sound like me, and as willing as I am to kind of let myself be ugly in some of my blog posts, I can’t allow my characters to do terrible things, though some of them must! Maybe some day the mystery novel I’ve been writing inside my head will make it to the page.

What’s your proudest moment as a writer?

It’s really lovely when I meet people who’ve read my cookbooks and they describe how the information and recipes have made their lives better. I’ve heard so many wonderful stories of people learning to cook for themselves for the first time, or how they’ve turned their health around and feel better than ever. That’s really rewarding and makes the world feel smaller and friendlier.

What are your goals as a writer?

I want to keep doing what I’m doing; I love it so much. But… my ego pushes me to learn to write about food like Peter King (MMQB column in Sports Illustrated) writes about football. His descriptions flirt with hyperbole, but never cross the line, so the football players seem, simultaneously, like superheroes and wholly human. He’s knowledgeable, inspiring, sometimes biting, and always entertaining.

Any final thoughts or advice?

Ass. In. Chair. (And don’t forget to take quick movement and meditation breaks.)

Writer’s Digest would like to congratulate the 46 winners of the 22nd Annual Writer’s Digest Self-Published Book Awards. For full coverage of the awards, please check out the March/April 2015 issue of Writer’s Digest.

Grand Prize

Well Fed 2 by Melissa Joulwan ($24.95). Smudge Publishing. theclothesmakethegirl.com.

Children’s Picture Books

First Place

Rocko Rocket: Rocko’s Big Launch by Yolande Clark-Jackson and R. Jackson (illustrator) ($19.99). rockorocket.com.

Honorable Mentions

Commonplace Mouse by Karima Cammell ($15.00). Dromedary Press. blog.castleintheair.biz.

The Wonderful (Magical, Super-Fantastical) Musical Animals by Damon Robinson ($24.95). Dog Ear Publishing.

Genre Fiction

First Place

Glory Be! by Martha B. Hook ($16.99). Xulon Press.

Honorable Mentions

The Fig Orchard by Layla Fiske ($14.95). Rancho Publishing, LLC. laylafiske.net.

Lessons I Learned From Nick Nack by Padgett Gerler ($16.95). CreateSpace. padgettgerler.com.

Once Upon a Mulberry Field by C.L. Hoang ($15.95). Willow Stream Publishing. mulberryfieldsforever.com.

Blood on the Tracks by Steve Liskow ($15.00). CreateSpace. steveliskow.com.

To Murder a Saint by Nicole Loughan ($5.99). Little Spot for Stories. littlespotforstories.com.

One Eyed Jack by Christopher J. Lynch ($10.99). CreateSpace. christopherjlynch.com.

Finding Out by Sheryn MacMunn ($11.99). Joy Inked. sherynmacmunn.com.

By Water and Blood by Melanie Rose ($13.95). CreateSpace. melanieroseauthor.com.

Inspirational

First Place

Cora Pooler by Dottie Rexford ($19.95). WestBow Press.

Honorable Mentions

Winter Always Turns to Spring by Sachiko Takata Bailey, as told to Akemi Bailey Haynie ($15.99). Friesen Press.

Inside/Outside by Jenny Hayworth ($14.99). CreateSpace. jennyhayworth.com.

A Middle Way by Duke Robinson ($15.50). CreateSpace.

Steps Out of Time by Katharine B. Soper ($16.95). Stellaire Press.

Life Stories

First Place

Breakfast with the Pope by Susan Vigilante ($19.95). Richard Vigilante Books. desperateirishhousewife.blogspot.com.

Honorable Mentions

An American’s Resurrection by Eric C. Arauz ($17.95). Treehouse Publishing. ericarauz.com.

Flight Through Fire by Carol Fiore ($17.99). Flying Kea Press. carolfiore.com.

A Garland for Ashes by Hanna Zack Miley ($19.95). Outskirts Press. georgeandhannamiley.com.

Mainstream Fiction

First Place

The Life & Times of Persimmon Wilson by Nancy Peacock ($16.00). Lystra Books. nancypeacockbooks.com.

Honorable Mentions

Stuck by Stacey D. Atkinson ($17.95). Mirror Image Publishing. staceydatkinson.com.

The Lady of the Lake by R.E. Braczyk ($12.95). iUniverse.

Lenin Lives Next Door by Jennifer Eremeeva ($24.95). Small Batch Books. russialite.com.

The Rummy Club by Anoop Ahuja Judge ($16.95). Daggerhorn Publishing. therummyclub-anovel.com.

A Place in the World by Cinda Crabbe MacKinnon ($14.99). Multicultural Press. cindamackinnon.wordpress.com.

The Unheralded King of Preston Plains Middle by Jedah Mayberry ($14.95). River Grove Books. jmberryfictionwriter.tumblr.com.

The Legacy Letters by Carew Papritz ($21.95). King Northern Publishing. thelegacyletters.com.

Eleven Sundays by Alonna Shaw ($12.95). CreateSpace. alonnashaw.com.

Middle-Grade/Young Adult

First Place

Eleven by Tom Rogers ($8.95). Alto Nido Press. eleventhebook.com.

Honorable Mentions

Forever Thirteen by Crissi Langwell ($14.95). crissilangwell.com.

Nyx by D.M. Livingston ($16.95). Some Peril Publications. nyxthebook.com.

The Adventures of Pearley Monroe by Marci Seither ($7.99). Sawmill Press. marciseither.com.

Starved by Michael Somers ($12.00). Rundy Hill Press. michaelsomers.com.

Nonfiction

First Place

The Twible by Jana Riess ($19.99). Paraclete Press. janariess.com.

Honorable Mentions

Back to Vietnam by R. Bruce Logan and Elaine Head ($22.95). JOTH Press. backtovietnam.com.

Deaf Dogs by Melissa McDaniel ($55.00). The Photo Book Projects. thephotobooks.com.

The New Art of Dying by Diane Burnside Murdock ($14.95). The Murdocks, LLC. dianemurdock.com.

Poetry

First Place

South From Istanbul by Ken Hebson. Green River Press.

Honorable Mentions

The Death of the Human Soul by James Karis ($11.95). Alvalini. univesta.tripod.com/jameskaris/index.htm.

A New Orchid Myth by Helene Pilibosian ($13.95). CreateSpace. home.comcast.net/~hsarkiss.

Reference

First Place

10 Steps to Publish & Succeed by Jill Ronsley ($12.95). Blue Star Press, Inc. suneditwrite.com.

Honorable Mention

Your Guide to the National Parks by Michael Joseph Oswald ($25.00). Stone Road Press. stoneroadpress.com.

If you’re a history buff, you might know Brad Meltzer from the two History channel shows he’s hosted: “Decoded” (an investigation of unsolved mysteries and conspiracy theories) and “Lost History” (a search for missing artifacts). If you read suspense, perhaps you know him for his legal thrillers (Meltzer has a law degree and was once an intern on Capitol Hill), or for his Culper Ring Series of secrets and symbols in Washington, D.C. (the latest, The President’s Shadow, is due out this June). If you’re a parent, it may be the Ordinary People Change the World picture book series that comes to mind (he released four in 2014, including No. 1 bestseller I Am Amelia Earhart, and his  latest, I Am Jackie Robinson, hit shelves in January), or his inspirational collections Heroes for My Son and Heroes for My Daughter. Or perhaps you’re a fan of his comics, inspiring TED Talks, the old WB teen drama “Jack & Bobby” he co-created, or even just his popular Twitter feed.

But no matter what you know Brad Meltzer from, if you’ve seen any of his work, you know Brad Meltzer. It’s his passion that’s the calling card of everything he writes, and he pours himself into his work with geek-level enthusiasm, an unassuming likability and good humor.

In the March/April 2015 Writer’s Digest, Meltzer talked with WD about jumping fences to greener pastures, keeping yourself hungry and never letting anyone tell you no. Here, in these online exclusive outtakes, find out more about how he adds authentic details to his stories, and what can be learned from his favorite character of all time.

You’re known for your meticulous, on-scene research. When you go on those sorts of fact-finding missions, how do you soak in that experience—what’s your method? I’m assuming if access is limited you don’t want to have to email someone and say, “Wait, was that door on the left, or on the right?”
I don’t mind [following up] for the tiny, tiny details. In fact, today I emailed someone at the National Archives and said, “I forget, does your hallway have that marble wainscoting on it or not?” And it’s such a dumb little detail, but to me it’s the most vital little detail, because you don’t want to get that one wrong.

I think I’m very good at the full-on experience of how it feels there. I just have a really good memory for what I see. I will jot down things like carpet color and paint color and things that strike me, but it’s hard to describe [what I’m really looking for]. It’s like the Supreme Court definition of pornography: I know it when I see it. And when I’m researching, I just know it when I see it. Most of the time I don’t even know what I’m looking for.

If I knew what I was looking for, I’d know before I got there. But so many times, you go for a world that interests you, and then you find something else that makes you go, Oh, that’s interesting. I think the better use of research is getting to know people and talking to people where they develop a trust and tell you their greatest story. If you go in there and you’re the only one and you know what you want to write and you just want to write it, then why bother them? But you’re there and taking their time because they have something amazing to share with you, and as a writer, all you’re doing is trying to look through someone else’s eyes. So stop and take a look. You can ask them later about how the door opens and closes.

I remember for [my first novel], we were on the final final edits, and I called [the Supreme Court administration] and said, “Key question,” and they were like, “Yes!” and I was like, “On Page 1 of my very first published novel: Does the front door of the Supreme Court push open or pull out?” So yes, I’ll go do that, but that to me is not the use of [on-site research] time. Especially today with Google and things like that you can get half the things you want. People just post everything about their workplace these days.

Is there anything you’ve really wanted to do research-wise that you haven’t been able to crack yet?
No—there’s nothing I’ve gone after that I haven’t been able to … Well, that’s not true. The only place I physically couldn’t get into is Camp David, but I wound up getting a couple of amazing never-to-be-named sources who walked me through it. And I feel like if you put me in it today, I could walk around like I knew the place. But it’s all done through people’s descriptions. I was never able to physically get in there.

But I’ll tell you the hardest one of all was Disney World. I [wrote about] the secret tunnels under Disney World. And I’ve researched the White House, and the Supreme Court, and the United States Capital, but Disney World keeps its secrets better than all of those combined.

I don’t know what that says about America …
I’ll tell you why. It’s because people in the government are there for a short amount of time and then they leave. Disney people are there for life. And they are not ruining their life. It’s pretty amazing when you think about it, and scary.

I love the interactive format of your “Lost History” show, the idea of inviting the audience in. Do you ever foresee being able to do something like that with a book?
It’s funny, in a strange way I already do. If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, sometimes I’ll just say, “OK, people, what’s the best kiss you ever had taste like?” To me that’s just a fascinating way to kind of ask your friends—because the community that is there, I know this group, and they know my sense of humor and they’ll be sending me stuff all day.

I don’t think you can ever focus group a book, I don’t believe in that. There’s this famous story, I think it was in The New York Times years ago, and it said they tried to focus group art. And they asked people what kind of art they liked, and people said they liked beautiful sunsets, and they put a sunset in, and they said they liked famous people, so they put George Washington in, and they said they liked animals, so they put him on a horse, and by the focus group that should be the greatest piece of art ever, and of course it’s just like Elvis on velvet. So you can’t focus group art, you have to tell your own story. But I think the closest we come now is just when you’re looking for that detail.

You hinted that your next book will be a stand-alone.
Yeah, but I do want to do another series—I got the series bug! I’ve realized …

My favorite character in all of fiction is Batman. To me Batman is the best character because he’s thousands upon thousands of pages have been spent by writers and artists honing him into this finely tuned character that you know exactly what he is supposed to do on every page. If someone said, “Batman lifted up his mask and had a big smile on his face and was so happy,” you’d say, “That’s not Batman.” You’d know he would never do that. And it took me a long time to realize that the only reason that happens—this is so obvious, but I’m just not that smart—is because people took that time to keep filing away. He’s not that person in the first story, but the pieces are there. It’s just a matter of someone taking the time [through the series] and figuring them all out in the same direction. And when you do I just think the reward is so great, and you can get into that character in a way that you can’t with a character that you’ve only met for a year. It’s like comparing the first year of dating someone with year 10. There’s great plusses and great minuses but the depth is so much deeper if you take your time.

For the complete WD Interview with Brad Meltzer, don’t miss the March/April 2015 Writer’s Digest, available for instant download or preorder in the Writer’s Digest Shop.

In the February 2015 Writer’s Digest feature article, “Get in Good With Goodreads,” fan favorite Goodreads Author Michael J. Sullivan shows you how to make the most of this popular online reader hub. For authors needing even more detailed technical assistance setting up their profiles, he’s created a free PDF download.

In the February 2015 Writer’s Digest, digital media expert Jane Friedman lays out the best website options for different writers and their needs in “Your Author Website 101.” If you choose the self-hosted route, don’t miss her free 10-minute video tutorial.

Garth Stein has never been a stranger to small audiences. He’s stage managed “theater at sea” on cruise ships. He’s written stage plays produced by community theaters. He’s made documentary films. He’s written well-reviewed novels published by independent presses. Put it all together, and he’s done the very thing so many people aspire to do but so few accomplish: simply make a living by making art.

And then, he did what some might imagine to be the equivalent of literary suicide: He wrote a book from the point of view of a dog.

It was called The Art of Racing in the Rain. And the unique perspective of its canine narrator, Enzo, who longs to be a human race car driver, had so much heart that that 2008 release did find a slightly bigger audience—to the tune of more than 4 million copies sold and over three years on The New York Times bestseller list.

Where do you go from there?

Well, if you’re Garth Stein, you buckle in for the ride of your life. You go on tour. You sell movie rights. You create a special edition for teen readers (Racing in the Rain: My Life as a Dog) and a picture book adaptation (Enzo Races in the Rain!). You pay it forward, joining forces with other published writers to create a successful and growing nonprofit, Seattle7Writers. (“We should be marshaling our energy for the greater good,” Stein tells WD, describing the organization
as a “win-win-win” for author-members, local bookstores and libraries, and the reading and writing public.)

And eventually, of course, you write something new.

A Sudden Light, centered on the descendants of lumber barons and the fate of their crumbling mansion, is part coming-of-age story, part ghost story, part reminder of the price nature has paid for man-made fortunes. In October, a few weeks after its hardcover release, it made a brief appearance on The New York Times bestsellers list. And then …

Well, the next chapter has yet to be written. Can lightning strike twice for the same author? In the February 2015 Writer’s Digest, Stein spoke with WD about what it takes to write a book you truly believe in. Here, in these bonus online exclusive outtakes, he talks more about the founding of Seattle7Writers, and why every writer should have another writer friend.

What inspired you to co-found Seattle7Writers?
What happened was, there are a bunch of writers in Seattle and we’d get together and complain about agents and marketing budgets and all that kind of stuff—things you can’t complain about to civilians, because they’d be like, “But you have an agent! You have a marketing budget!” So we needed to complain amongst ourselves because we understood the nuance.

Then The Art of Racing in the Rain took off. I was in Phoenix doing some events, and there’s a racing school [nearby], Bob Bondurant [School of High Performance Driving], and Bob Bondurant was a big fan of the book—he has a dog, Rusty, who drives around with him in a Corvette and all kinds of stuff. So he [invited me out] and I did a couple things at the track. And he said to me, “I have this nonprofit that I like to support, Gideon’s Angels—it’s therapy dogs for teens who are victims of abuse. I’d like to do something that raises money for them. What could we do?” So we worked it out with Changing Hands Bookstore where we did an event at a shopping mall, and Changing Hands did the book support, and there was a global coffee shop giving away free copies but selling pastries, and Bob was there, and I was there signing books, and the supporters of this organization came, and bought the books, got them signed, and Changing Hands donated a percent of the proceeds to the organization. So, my publisher was thrilled—they’re selling 300 books. I loved talking to people and signing books, the organization loved getting the support, and Changing Hands was like, “We just moved a lot of books!” It was a win-win-win situation.

So I went back to our group of complaining writers—we started as seven of us, by then there it was 10 or 11—and I said, “We should be doing this. We should be marshaling our energy for the greater good—to energize the reading and writing public, to support local bookstores, to support libraries, to make sure readers have books.”

[Seattle7Writers was born, and now] we have all these different programs. It became very successful and people started to join in, and now we’re up to 73 traditionally published writers. When a new writer comes in, their publisher donates copies of one of their books to us, the author signs them, and we put together these book bags that we then donate to educational programs to use as raffle items or as auction items at fundraisers. Another win-win-win. The publisher gets to promote their author among other notable authors in the Northwest, the organization gets to raise money, and whoever buys the bag gets autographed editions of these books.

That’s how we sort of started—now we do all sorts of things. Our pocket library program has really taken off. We get donations of books from individuals as well as from publishers and bookstores, and then we re-hone them into places where they have need but they don’t have a budget for a library—halfway houses, shelters for battered women, shelters for runaway teens, correctional facilities. And we donate to food banks, which is highly successful, because people are coming to get food to feed their families, and now here they have a bookshelf: Take ’em. Bring ’em back if you’d like. It’s an honor system.

What we believe in our group is that you can take away someone’s job and you can take away their house and you can take away their car but you can’t take away their imagination. And so we want to make sure people, just because the situation might be unfortunate for them right now, we want to make sure that they have access to reading material.

Reading is really so fundamental to promoting empathy, to sharing experiences from outside of ourselves. It’s how we learn about the world around us. We can’t be everywhere all the time, but by reading we can see that people in different circumstances have the same sort of issues that we have, and we can see how these people handle their difficulties or accomplish their goals, and then we can decide: Do we emulate that? Would we have done something different? And by doing so, then we increase our empathy. And by increasing our empathy, we become more compassionate, and better members of our communities.

We have a ton of programs—it’s unwieldy to talk about, really. We teach writing workshops to both students and adults; we raise money for other literacy organizations; we do a book sale every fall.

Also, we do a thing called Write Here Write Now. It’s a one-day writing intensive in January or February, and we believe that writer’s conferences are great, but what do you do at a writer’s conference? You talk a lot about writing, but you don’t actually do very much writing.

The easiest thing to do in the world is not write, and the most fun thing to do in the world is to talk about what you’re not writing. I’m not writing right now—I love it, let’s stay on the phone! [Laughs.] So what we do is this writing intensive, where it’s one day, it starts at 8:00 in the morning, and 45 minutes out of every hour are spent writing. Bring your laptop, we have plenty of plugs, and you sit there and write—not emails, not Internet. We’re not going to share it. You need to write, and you need to practice writing and see what you can get done in 45 minutes. And then 10 minutes of every hour is a mini lesson taught by one of our many Seattle7 authors—a lesson about backstory, or about POV. And then at the end of the mini-lesson that author gives a writing prompt in case you want to use it—you don’t have to use it, but if you don’t have a project you’re working on, each author gives a prompt so you can have something for the next 45 minutes. And then 5 minutes of every hour is a bathroom break. And we do this seven or eight times. And then afterwards we have some fun. We crack out the beer and wine and have kind of a funny lightning round where authors have 10 seconds to answer questions asked by the audience in advance, and stuff like that. At the end of the day, people are exhausted, because they just spent 45 minutes out of each of 7 hours writing. But they’re smiling. And I always give the closing remarks, and I get to say to them: Do you see what you’re capable of doing? That’s discipline. You need to have that discipline if you’re going to be a writer. It’s exhausting, and it should be. But look how much you’ve written today. If you start a timer, and you eliminate the distractions, see what you can get done.

What would you say to writers who don’t have those connections to other writers—who feel like they’re writing in a bubble right now?
Certainly every writer has a writer friend, right? So get together once a week. We used to do this—a bunch of people would get together, sometimes four or six or eight people, and we’d spend the morning [sitting side by side, writing, with a timer set], and then go have lunch together.

What it does is it forces you to write because everybody else is tapping away at their keyboards. And you think, I’m just sitting here looking at my screen—I’ve got to type something. The problem that happens with writing I believe is that we have high expectations for ourselves and we want it to be really really good and we for some reason think that everything we write has to be gold. And everything we write isn’t gold—it isn’t. The gold is hidden in the rocks. The expectation that every draft that you write is going to be brilliant genius is just, it’s wrong. Don’t have that expectation for yourself. Understand that writing is a process, and you have to enjoy the process, you have to partake in the process. You can’t just wake up one day and have a finished book that’s going to win the Pulitzer Prize. You’re going to have to work really hard for that, and part of working for it is writing stuff that isn’t correct, and then changing it, modifying it, or throwing it out. And that’s OK.

For the complete WD Interview with Garth Stein, featuring straight talk about what it really takes to get a story right, meeting reader expectations, and much more, check out the February 2015 Writer’s Digest.

Middle-grade author Rachel Renée Russell may be a self-described dork, but it must be pretty cool to be uncool: Since its debut in 2009, her Dork Diaries series has sold more than 15 million copies, spent more than 230 weeks on The New York Times bestsellers list and been translated into almost 30 languages. To top that off, Lionsgate recently acquired the movie rights to the series, with a film set to release in 2016.

If it seems unbelievable that this type of success would burgeon in just over five years, that’s because it didn’t. Russell’s journey to becoming a bestselling author began around the age of 12.

Sometime in middle school in Saint Joseph, Mich., Russell decided to craft her first book for kids. She kept writing through college at Northwestern University. But after receiving harsh criticism from a creative writing professor there, her confidence to pursue the craft as a career waned, and she opted to go into law instead.

Russell knew, though, that the career she settled for was not the career she was meant for. In the late 2000s, after spending 20-plus years as a bankruptcy lawyer, raising two children and going through a divorce, Russell returned to her first love: writing.

The Dork Diaries are the humorous journals of Nikki Maxwell (named after Russell’s younger daughter), a socially awkward 14-year-old who’s adapting to life in a new city and a new school. Each book recounts one month of Nikki’s misadventures in the form of illustrated journal entries, which detail everything from her run-ins with resident snob MacKenzie to her desperate attempts to get her mom to buy her an iPhone—you know, typical middle-grade crises.

“The reason why I was motivated to write Dork Diaries was because of my own daughters,” Russell says. “I was in an upper-middle-class neighborhood with an upper-middle-class public school, and my kids just were weird. Actually, they weren’t weird—they were smart, they did their homework, they were really good kids. But for some reason, both of them got bullied.”

In addition to the regular series, Russell has written two companion books—Dork Diaries 3½: How to Dork Your Diary and Dork Diaries: OMG! All About Me Diary!—which encourage kids to express themselves through journaling.

Russell’s daughters, now adults, have become directly involved with creating the Dork Diaries: Erin contributes to the writing, while Nikki has taken over the illustrating.
The eighth book, Dork Diaries: Tales From a Not-So-Happily Ever After, hit shelves in September, and Book 9 is scheduled for a spring 2015 release.

In the full WD Interview with Russell, the soft-spoken 54-year-old talks about the challenges of writing for a young audience, future plans for her writing, and showing the publishing industry that it’s actually cool to be dorky. In these online exclusive outtakes, Russell discusses how she comes up with ideas, getting an agent, and why it’s important to connect with readers.

You’ve said the Dork Diaries was inspired by your daughters’ lives as middle schoolers. But wow do you come up with ideas for each book? What is your writing process like?

[My daughters and I] come up with a title, and basically the title is the theme of the book. … We’re basically pulling some of the major things that kids either go through in middle school, or their experiences, or things they would consider fun.

We work by chapters. As a matter of fact, we call them vignettes. We say vignettes more than chapters because since this is [protagonist Nikki Maxwell’s] diary, we can put in totally unrelated, crazy stuff. And that is what is really nice and refreshing about the books. We can just go off on a tangent for a chapter.

I can break it down for you: Each Dork Diary book is one month. So, technically, our books have either 30 chapters if there are 30 days in a month, or 31 chapters if there are 31 days. And, of course, there’s February. So when we begin a book, we have to end it by the 28^th day, the 30^th day or the 31^st day, depending on how many days there are in a month. I’d say that that’s [one] challenge [of creating this series], to take whatever Dork Diaries story arc we have and present it in either 28 days, 30 days or 31 days.

What was the most challenging Dork Diaries book to write?

Book 8 [Tales From a Not-So-Happily Ever After]. It was more of a fantasy, because Nikki gets hit in the head with a volleyball and then she ends up going to Fairyland. That was hard! It was not set in middle school anymore; it was set in Fairyland. It’s one thing to write about lunch and gym and tests, because I had done that for seven books. But to take her out of the school environment and have her running around [the mythical] Fairyland was very challenging. Had I not been under contract [with Simon & Schuster], I probably would’ve said, “Forget this book. We’re putting her back in gym class!” But I couldn’t do that.

How did you find your agent?

About March or April [2008], I had put together about 75 pages [of a manuscript], and I sent it off to about a dozen literary agents, and I got responses from six of them. And that’s phenomenal! Usually you don’t get a response from even one, so that just kind of knocked my socks off. This was for the [first] Dork Diaries manuscript. I sent out other drafts, but I didn’t get any [responses]. It was like crickets. But when I sent out the Dork Diaries material, Dan Lazar [of Writers House] emailed me within a day or two. I sent it to him on a Monday, and I had a response from him on Wednesday—which, again, is really, really good to get an agent to respond so quickly. Writers House was my dream, so when he said that he loved it and that he was interested in representing me, I did go with Dan Lazar, though I got offers from several.

I will add this too. I’m not affiliated with it, but Agent Query [agentquery.com] was very, very helpful. Even now when people ask me, “How’d you find a literary agent?” I always point them to Agent Query. That’s how I found Dan Lazar. I went to Agent Query and read all the material and did a search. I searched “middle-grade” and read which agents were accepting [queries and manuscripts] and which ones weren’t. I didn’t want to do the mail thing—you know, [send the manuscript] by U.S. mail—I only wanted email. So Agent Query was really helpful in helping me get the queries out.

The Dork Diaries website is very tween friendly, with a blog “written” by Nikki Maxwell, plus a video diary that features her. Fans can even email you for advice on everything, from school to family to first crushes. How important is it for you to engage with your readers?

It’s very important. We know that we’re getting children who may have challenges with being a dork or not fitting in or being bullied, so we’re trying to offer more interaction more that what we normally would. We feel that we’re attracting kids that can benefit from a website where they can write in about a problem, or read advice—the advice column is once a week—and read about other people’s experiences, and hopefully use the information they receive to help make their own lives better or a little easier.

Do you ever use any of those fan letters in your books?

No. We’re not mining material from fan letters. My daughters had so much drama growing up, so we’re still using material from their lives!

Do you answer, or at least try to answer, all of the fan mail you receive?

We would like to answer every single letter we get. But [my daughters and I] usually read them over, then pick the best one we got for that week. It’s usually a letter that we feel that represents what other kids are probably thinking or wondering or going through.

If you enjoyed these outtakes with bestselling middle-grade author Rachel Renée Russell, be sure to check out the feature-length interview—full of valuable insights about the challenges of crafting a book series, writing out of your comfort zones, and much more—in the January 2015 issue of Writer’s Digest.

In the January 2015 Writer’s Digest, contributing editor and award-winning novelist Elizabeth Sims shares simple and effective techniques for polished character conversations in her article “How to Craft Flawless Dialogue.” Here, in this bonus online exclusive sidebar, she outlines her method for getting it written, then getting it right.

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If you’re the kind of writer who prefers to cut and polish after your first draft is done, here are a few tips to ease you over the uncertainties of dialogue:

• If, as you’re writing, a whole bunch of dialogue spurts from your pen, let it flow, even if you’re worried it’s too much or awful. Let it out; get it down no matter what.

• Opposite that, sometimes you know you need a great bit of dialogue here, but nothing’s coming to you. Just summarize and move on, knowing you’ll get back to it. Nancy tells Levi to buzz off. A sentence like this can serve as a summary of a whole breakup scene; all you need is the gist.

• When it comes time to flesh out that conversation, jot down what needs to be said, scene by scene. Try making mini lists with bullet points:
  • Doug learns from Emily that Jasmine has a long police record.
  • Auto theft? Prostitution?
  • He argues to keep Jasmine in the gang anyway.
  • Outstanding warrants?

• If a whole conversation seems like overkill for what you need to convey in the scene, you can let your narrator summarize, and add a line or two of talk.

When Emily and Doug met for dinner that night, she told him about Jasmine’s rap sheet. It was impressively long, she noted, peering at him over her wineglass, including grand larceny and soliciting. But that didn’t dampen his enthusiasm for keeping Jasmine on the burglary team. They needed her.

“As long as there’s no outstanding warrants against her, we’ll be OK,” he said, stabbing a chunk of steak. “Are there any?”

In the “Revising Out Loud” Inkwell article in the January 2015 Writer’s Digest, author and playwright Joe Stollenwerk offers an interesting alternative to quietly revising your work alone—by having friends and colleagues read your work aloud over food, drink and good company. Here, he shares another method of testing your writing’s mettle.

Reading Published Work
It is tremendously beneficial to read well-written published work aloud. If you are in a writing group, you might select some passages from published novels, nonfiction, poetry, etc., to read aloud and discuss as part of your get-togethers.

I recommend making a selection based on an element of writing that you want to focus on. This might be dialogue, or first chapters, or figurative language. It might be action or romance scenes.

If your writing group decides to take this on, I recommend choosing a selection ahead of time, something that is short enough to be read aloud during part of your group meeting, but long enough to accomplish what you are hoping it will do for the group. Have everyone read it ahead of time so that the reading aloud is not the first time the group has read it.

You might want to designate someone to lead discussion, or at least start it off, with a few pointed questions for the group to reflect on regarding this scene or passage.

If you enjoyed this helpful revision tip, be sure to check out the feature-length article “Revising Out Loud”—full of outside-the-box methods for whipping your WIP into shape—in the January 2015 Writer’s Digest.

What are real secrets to writing successful series novels? We brought together four bestsellers across a spectrum of genres to find out.

The idea of writing a series is tempting. After all, it seems as though half the bestsellers on today’s bookshelves are new installments in popular series—books that are all but guaranteed a readership before they’re even released. But how do you know whether or not your idea has series potential? Or if the work of sustaining a series is something you would even want to devote your career to?

We brought together Joel Goldman, Heather Graham, Brenda Novak and Ian Rankin—four of today’s most successful series novelists across a variety of genres—to discuss the secrets of writing multi-book characters, the perks and drawbacks of unwinding a story thread over the course of many years, and what they might have done differently if they could go back to Book One.

The full discussion with Goldman, Graham, Novak and Rankin appears in the January 2015 Writer’s Digest feature “Installment Plans.” In these online exclusive outtakes, the group talks about using setting as a starting point for a series and why they chose or created their respective series’ locations.

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Why did you select the locations you use for your books?

Rankin: As Rebus gets older he has a different take on life and morality. He can see the end. And at the same time he’s still fascinated by the city as I am, and the politics keep changing, in Scotland and in Edinburgh. You get a financial crash, that’s juice for another story, and Scottish independence is another story, and it’s all filtered through him. He’s very useful to hide behind because he gets to say things I wouldn’t say in public. He gets to be completely politically incorrect. And people love him for it. But when they come to Edinburgh looking for Rebus they’re always disappointed to find me.

Graham: The way you’re talking about Scotland and Edinburgh, how it’s such a part of that. And the way [Joel] and I were talking before about Kansas City, I put an awful lot of stories in New Orleans, which is a favorite place of mine, or in Key West or Salem, where there is a great deal of history that’s dark and fascinating and changing constantly.

Goldman: I’m the same way. All of my books have been set in Kansas City, for many of the same reasons Ian talked about. My roots there run so deep, through four generations, that I really feel like that’s part of my DNA. So I set the books in different parts of the city where there are distinct communities, and then I can put my characters in there.

So each of you in addition to your main characters, you could probably consider your location as a character as well in your series. Is that intentional or an accident of strong world-building?

Novak: For me, it is intentional. Using the location as the peg for a series like I do in [my] Whisky Creek [books] lets me explore many characters from varied and interesting backgrounds without having to devise a new setting or premise each time, by which I mean that this is a place readers have come to know, and these characters exist in that place and readers know the nature of the town, what the people are like, and I can place a whole and interesting character into that setting. But the town itself really does take on a life of its own, you know. It’s a comfortable place and I feel that readers and characters alike can be at home there, and that it’s a place you’d want to live, filled with people you’d want to know. … I don’t do that with every series, but I do think that in a particular kind of series, using setting as that peg that ties the books together is a way to bring readers in and keep it interesting, keep the stories moving, and to leave something open-ended so that I, as the author, can come back and add to it when I have an idea.

Graham: I don’t know if I decided to do it intentionally, but I do know that when I was growing up I read a great number of Gothics. You know the sort—Mary Stuart, Dorothy Eden, Phyllis Whitney. My mom had these books and I read them all, and I loved that I could see it. I could see people riding across the moors and people storming the castles, and to me that was half the pleasure of it. I really felt that I had been transported somewhere. And so I have a tendency to use places I really love a lot and want people to see why they are unique, why they are wonderful. Back to riding across the moors—that sensation of doing something you want to do because it’s so wonderfully alive for you.

Goldman: I started out with Kansas City because I was just a brand-new author. The only fiction I’d written at that point were the bills I sent my clients. And so I was comfortable writing about KC because I knew it, but frankly by the time I’d gotten to this latest Alex Stone book I was growing kind of tired of that. And you know how readers will say, “I’ve got a great idea! Here’s your next book!”? Well, one time I did get a great idea that way. This civil rights attorney reached out to me about Alex Stone and how much he liked the series, and we started emailing back and forth, and he says to me, “You know what you need to do, you need to send Alex to Guantanamo.” And I thought, That is a great idea! And so that’s what I’m doing. I’m doing it that third book, and it’s really sort of liberating to get her out of town. I’m looking forward to seeing what happens with that.

Rankin: Scotland is always changing. In the very early books I tried to fictionalize Edinburgh as much as I could. So I had fictional bars, fictional streets, fictional police stations. And then people in Edinburgh would say, “Well, that’s obviously that police station,” and I thought, Why am I making it hard on myself? So then I started to bring in real areas, real places in the city. I burnt down the fictitious police station; I had Rebus reassigned to the real police station. I mentioned the street he lives on, which is real, I mentioned the place he drinks, which is a real bar, and what that means is that when fans come to Edinbugh now they can say, “We’re walking in Rebus’s footsteps.” The problem with that is—well, there are two problems: (1) If you make any mistakes, everyone will notice, and (2) If you use a part of town where bad things are happening, you don’t want to use those real places because you don’t want to diss people who are living there and doing their damndest to make it out or make it better.

Goldman: I haven’t done that. There are very identifiable areas of both Kansas Cities that have a much higher crime rate, and the demographic features you’d associate with that. And I couldn’t put that someplace else—that’s the east side of Kansas City, Missouri, and it wouldn’t work if I put it in another part of town. So I just do that, and there are some of those areas where that sort of tension is going on that enables me to work it into the books.

Graham: I use Miami every once in a while, and I can tell you that there’s a reason Carl Hiaasen and Dave Barry are so well loved: They report the truth. It is not a normal place. For example—I always think of this—we have the death penalty in Florida and there was this guy, he was a really bad guy, the kind Dexter would have taken care of if the law had not, you know? He went to the electric chair, and I always assumed you were shaven for the electric chair, but he wasn’t. His hair caught fire. And it turned into a debate about humane punishment, and in their coverage, the Miami Herald had a headline that read “Electric Chair Deemed Dangerous.” The city is just not quite all there. It’s hard not to use some of the real events that happen there.

If you enjoyed these outtakes, be sure to check out the feature-length article “Installment Plans”—full of valuable insights about character creation, engaging readers, building a story arc over many books, and much more—in the January 2015 Writer’s Digest.

In the annual agent roundup (October 2014 issue), John Willig of Literary Services Inc. was incorrectly listed as accepting a variety of fiction. Willig specializes in nonfiction. His full and accurate listing is as below.

John Willig
Literary Services, Inc.
literaryservicesinc.com
@JohnWillig

He is seeking: He works primarily in nonfiction (narrative and prescriptive): business, finance, personal growth, health, history, science and technology, psychology, politics and current events are of particular interest but certainly open to fresh presentations in other topic zones. He is also beginning to represent historical fiction—literary and crime/thriller.

How to submit: Send a concise e-mail that addresses two questions: 1) What is going to motivate a buyer/reader to spend $20-25 on your new book given all of their information choices? And by choices, address not just competing/related books but also think WebMD, HBR, HuffPo, blogs etc. This is especially relevant today for prescriptive nonfiction. 2) What is it about yourself and all of your professional activities and network that is going to convince an editor/publisher (and their marketing/PR group) that you will be an active promotion partner helping to reach potential buyers and extend the word of mouth buzz about your book in a very crowded and noisy global marketplace?

Recent sales: Speaking Politics: Decoding the Language of Washington, by Chuck McCutheon and David Mark, Speaking (University Press of New England, nonfiction); A Winner’s Guide to Negotiating, by Molly Fletcher (McGraw-Hill, nonfiction); Self-Care for Therapists, by Ashley Bush Davis (Norton, nonfiction).

Tip for writers: “I note at many writers’ conferences that I’m not just evaluating talent, potential and content but also character. Who I am working with and how they conduct themselves is critical and most experienced editors feel the same way. That being said, I always respect a writer who has done their homework—really focusing on what makes their work unique to a target audience vs. just stating that their book will be of broad appeal and is going to sell as well as all the bestsellers.”

Our sincerest apologies to Mr. Willig, our subscribers and readers. Please visit literaryservicesinc.com for more information.

A couple of months back, I had the pleasure of talking writing over a Guinness with Andre Dubus III, author of House of Sand and Fog, Townie, and other books.

Our profile of Dubus in WD magazine is on its way to subscribers right now, and will hit newsstands June 5. In the meantime, here are some of my favorite unpublished excerpts from the interview—those inspirational writing bits that wouldn’t fit neatly into the piece, and deserve better than to be lost in the jumble of notebooks on my desk.

I’ve also got a new copy of Dubus’ memoir Townie on hand—I’ll give it to one randomly drawn commenter on this post below.

Happy Friday. Here’s Dubus on how to stay true to yourself and your work, and some other tips.

* * *

“If you don’t put 99 percent of yourself into the writing, there will be no publishing career. There’s the writer and there’s the author. The author—you don’t ever think about the author. Just think about the writer. So my advice would be, find a way to not care—easier said than done. Accept that the world may never notice this thing you worked so hard at. And instead, do it for it, find a job, find a way of living that gives you an hour or two or three a day to do it, and then work your ass off sending out, trying to get out there, but do not put the pressure on the work to do something for you. Because then you’re going to be writing dishonestly and for the market instead of for the characters and your story.”

“There are some beautiful books out there. But the ones that leave me cold are the ones where I feel—it’s that postmodern thing—it’s more experimentation with language than it is a deep compassionate falling into another human being’s experience.”

“I really think that if there’s any one enemy to human creativity, especially creative writing, its self-consciousness. And if you have one eye on the mirror to see how you’re doing, you’re not doing it as well as you can. Don’t think about publishing, don’t think about editors, don’t think about marketplace.”

“I think the deeper you go into questions, the deeper or more interesting the questions get. And I think that’s the job of art.”

“One of the things I learned about writing a memoir is you can’t drag the reader through everything. Every human life is worth 20 memoirs.”

“I still have my truck, and I still have my carpentry tools, and if this writing thing dries up on a publishing level—it’s never gonna dry up for me on an artistic level because I’m never going to quit—but if all the sudden I were out in the cold in the publishing world, them I’m gonna build you a kitchen. I’m gonna do your roof. I would rather do that than sell my soul to the publishing devil. I just won’t do it.”

“I think it’s important not to talk about what you’re working on. … It releases that creative tension that can be fuel for your writing. Don’t show anyone what you’re working on. Don’t talk about it. And don’t think about it. Don’t be taking all these furious notes because I think that when we take all these notes when we’re not writing, they’re actually sexy ideas that may be just ideas. If it’s a real direction for the story, it’s gonna show up in the next day anyway. So just push it back.”

“Even a day writing badly for me is 10 times better than a day where I don’t write at all.”

 

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