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This is a recurring column called “7 Things I’ve Learned So Far,” where writers at any stage of their careers can talk about writing advice and instruction — by sharing seven things they’ve learned along their writing journeys that they wish they knew at the beginning. This is installment is from Eric Smith, author of The Geek’s Guide to Dating and the young adult novel, Inked.

1. Editing? Cut the Parts You Find Yourself Skipping. When I’m finished writing something, and it doesn’t matter what it is, a chapter in a book, a new essay, a blog post, whatever… I like reading and re-reading it, often times, reading out loud. And almost always the same thing happens. I find myself skipping over parts because I’m a.) way too excited to get to the next paragraph or b.) find that I’m tired of that particular section.

Usually, that means it’s time to make some cuts.

If you can’t even get excited about a bit of writing you’re working on, if you’re tired of that passage already… there’s a solid chance your reader will be too. You should be excited about everything you’re hammering down on the page. Leave no room for skipping. Unless, of course, it’s a victory skip in your backyard. Then, by all means, go forth and frolic. You earned it.

2. It’s Okay to Take a Break. When I wrapped up the rough manuscript of Inked, I immediately dove into working on a sequel idea while researching agents. Immediately. I got lucky, signed with a fantastic agent (hi Dawn!), and shortly after, the opportunity to work on The Geek’s Guide to Dating came up at my publisher. I worked on that book, and when that was done, went back to the sequel concept, worked on some essays, and started adfjdfgdfgsdfkl CRASH.
Burned. The. Hell. Out.

With one manuscript being shopped around and another on its way to publication, I took a breath. I went on a vacation. Not any place special. A little place called Tamriel. Lush wilderness, rushing streams, and tons of dragons. Oh, Tamriel is a place in a video game called Skyrim. I was on my couch. It was great.

Listen: It’s okay to take a break. Whether you’ve got something on submission, a book on its way to publication, or you’re just working on a bunch of fun ideas and drafts. Don’t burn yourself out. You’re no good for anyone like that. Plus, you need your energy for all that dragon slaying, Dovohkiin.

3. Save Your Darlings. I say this a lot, but when you’re busy editing and cutting, whether you’re making cuts on your own, with your peers, with your editor… save those darlings. Avoid that “kill your darlings” cliché, and open up a Word .doc, and stash those little gems off to the side.
Look, you might never use them. They might be the bits you cut out because they were boring you (remember #1?). Those couple of pages you sliced out of that manuscript, you probably cut them out for a good reason. Your agent, your editor, your writer friends… they’re a smart bunch, otherwise you wouldn’t be working with them, right? But down the line, when you’re working on a new story or idea, click on over. See what’s in the scraps. You might find something that sparks an idea, which you might have otherwise deleted.

And if not, whatever. How much space does a Word document take up? Like, a gig? Maybe? Who cares how many gigs? You have lots of gigs.

4. If You Must Read the Reviews, Learn From Them. I have a sign on my desk at work and at home that says “Don’t Read the Comments” in big bold letters. I bought it on Etsy in a fancy frame, because in my mind, an artisanal frame made out of reclaimed wood would make it work.

I never listen to it. No one does.

Look, if you’re going to read the reviews (you’re gonna), don’t lash out, don’t get upset, don’t get angry. Instead, see what you can learn from them. I love book bloggers. Love them. I follow tons of them on Twitter, read a lot of their blogs, and go out of my way to say hi to my favorites at conventions at BEA.

Because they are book lovers. They are my people.

And yes, when they write about my books, I read their reviews, the good and the bad. Why? Because these are the smartest consumers of books out there, and you can actually read what they think about your book! Your book! And if they care enough about your book to talk about it, that’s freaking awesome.

Reading reviews isn’t for everyone. Even I’m aware that I shouldn’t do it. I KNOW I shouldn’t do it. But I do. And when I do, I see what there is to learn. And I’m grateful that someone took the time to actually read my wild button mashing in the first place.

5. Find Your Soundtrack. I have a lot of friends who go running and hit the gym, and when they are busy doing this thing called exercising, they often rock out to music that gets them in the mood. Pumps them up. Gets them excited for the work they are about to do. Because hey, working out? That’s work. And so is writing. It’s just a different kind of work, with an equal amount of tears.

Writing at home? Find your soundtrack. For me, it depends on the kind of work I’m doing. Fussing over a Young Adult novel idea? I turn on the music of my youth, lots of pop-punk, power chords, and acoustic guitars, music by New Found Glory, Fall Out Boy, Punchline, Something Corporate, Saves the Day. An essay? Something that’ll calm me down. The Fray, Dashboard Confessional, Sherwood, Gin Blossoms.

Please note, I listen to my pop punk and emo on a regular basis too. Sing it, Motion City Soundtrack!

6. Find Your Peers Online As Well As Off. Thanks to the magic of Twitter, I’ve met more authors I admire and adore than… well I’m not quite sure how to finish that sentence. I’ve met so many. And the great thing about the online literary community (or “bookernet”), is that everyone supports one another. Be genuine, be kind, be excited. Find the authors who write books you deeply care for, find the writers you yourself admire. Connect with them on Twitter. Celebrate their success. You’ll learn so much from them. I absolutely have, and wish I’d been more active in seeking out writerly peers earlier on.

7. Surround Yourself With Supportive Friends. Team! Team, team, team, team, team. I even love saying the word, “team.” Having an awesome team backing you up is so very important, and I’m not just talking about professionally. Close friends that can network you, will blast your message out there… those friends are awesome, don’t get me wrong. But friends that will give that crappy rough manuscript a looks over, who will join you for coffee and listen to you ramble about an idea you haven’t quite thought out yet, friends that will look over your under-construction author website full of Geocities era animated .gifs… those are the supportive friends you need around you at all times.

Real friends. The friends that will give you a kick in the pants when you’re down and troll you a little bit when you’re doing too well. Who will keep you level. Surround yourself with those kind of friends, and it’ll certainly help your writing career.

Good luck!

Eric Smith is the author of The Geek’s Guide to Dating (December 2013), which was an Amazon Best Book of the Year in Humor and has sold into five languages. His debut young adult novel, Inked, comes out January 2015 with Bloomsbury’s digital imprint, Bloomsbury Spark. He is represented by Dawn Frederick of Red Sofa Literary. He can be found blogging for BookRiot and The Huffington Post, and when he isn’t busy writing, he can be found tweeting and marketing at Quirk Books. Visit Eric’s website to learn more, and follow him on Twitter (@ericsmithrocks).

Author Eric Smith and designer Jenny Zemanek revealed the cover for Smith’s book, Inked, on the Publishing Crawl blog. We’ve embedded the full image above—what do you think?

Both Smith and Zemanek sat for a chat to talk about the creative process for this jacket; click here to read the interview. Bloomsbury Spark will release the book on January 20, 2015.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

by Adam Silvera

Mondays are awesome when you get to reveal an awesome book cover for an awesome author/person. I’m a huge fan of Eric Smith and his book, THE GEEK’S GUIDE TO DATING, and it’s an honor to be revealing the cover for his debut novel, INKED, due out from Bloomsbury Spark on January 20th, 2015. Eric’s cover designer, Jenny Zemanek, is here today to tell us about the design process before a Q&A with the author himself:

JENNY: It’s such a pleasure to be here today to talk a little bit about the design of INKED’s cover, it was a truly collaborative process with the Bloomsbury Spark team and I’m excited to see it revealed to the world today!

The design for INKED started first and foremost with the type. Often times the concept for a cover takes a great deal of time and research, hunting for the right visual or visuals that perfectly communicate the details of the story in an arresting way, but with INKED we had a solid visual from the beginning in the tattoos. I knew I wanted the title to be a focal point, so once I found a typeface that had the feel I was going for, I built the rest of the floral scrollwork tattoo around it.

We wanted INKED to be immediately identified as a fantasy novel, so in addition to the tattoo elements, we hoped to incorporate a landscape that would read as fantastical in nature. What you see below is our first comp.

While it was agreed that the title treatment worked really well, there was a feeling of disconnect between the very graphic style of the tattoo and the photographic quality of the castle. In the second round of proofs, I tried to reconcile those two elements by eliminating the photograph altogether and moving forward with a fully illustrated cover. Meredith at Bloomsbury also asked if I could create a sense of movement within the image, incorporating bolts of lightning as they play a prominent role in the story.

The movement created by the lightning was a hit, but without the castle and the human element implied by its presence, the cover wasn’t quite communicating everything we wanted it to. We decided to return to the visual of a castle as seen in the initial comp, but wanted to make it more of a stylized silhouette to better complement the title treatment. The lightning was incorporated as well, and with a few additional revisions to the blue glow around the title (another important element of the story) and the overall color, we reached our final cover.

Eric: Thanks! And yes, I did. Early on in the process, Meredith Rich over at Bloomsbury Spark sent me a little survey asking me about my favorite YA book covers. What did I like about them, what did I hope to see in my cover, things like that. I had a lot of thoughts and opinions, and sent over a bunch of favorites.I probably had too many ideas, as I’m sure every excited author does. I ramble a lot. I wanted something that focused on a tattooed part of the body, like an arm or a hand, or maybe just two of the main characters in a fantasy-esque setting. CODE NAME VERITY, SOMETHING STRANGE AND DEADLY, and UNDER THE NEVER SKY were some examples I emailed over. And then I got something very different, and I absolutely love it! So they definitely went the route of wow and surprise. Very surprise. Such wow. Etc.

Adam: This sounds so awesome and has me itching for another tattoo. Speaking of getting inked, have you gotten your book cover inked on your face yet? If not, what are you waiting for?

Eric: Hah! Not yet. Waiting until after my wedding. Perhaps I’ll get it someplace else though. We’ll see.

Thanks for revealing your cover on Pub Crawl, Eric! And thanks to Jenny at Bloomsbury for giving our readers some scope into her process. You can add INKED on your “To Read” shelf on Goodreads and pre-order it on Barnes & Noble and/or Amazon. Let us know what you think about the cover and its process in the comments below!

Adam was born and raised in New York and is tall for no reason. In the past he worked as a marketing assistant for a literary development company. He’s currently a children’s bookseller and reviews children’s and young adult novels for Shelf Awareness. His debut novel, More Happy Than Not, about a boy who wants to undergo a memory-alteration procedure to forget he’s gay, will be coming out on June 16th, 2015 from Soho Teen. Go say stuff to him on Twitter.