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This is a recurring column I’m calling “7 Things I’ve Learned So Far,” where writers at any stage of their career can talk about seven things they’ve learned along their writing journey that they wish they knew at the beginning. This installment is from novelist Nina Benneton.
GIVEAWAY: Nina is excited to give away a free copy of her novel to a random commenter. Comment within 2 weeks; winners must live in Canada/US to receive the book by mail. You can win a blog contest even if you’ve won before.
Nina Benneton was on her way to win a Nobel prize in
something, anything, when a wonderful husband and the
requisite number of beautiful children interrupted her plans.
She turned to writing. COMPULSIVELY MR. DARCY (Feb. 2012
Sourcebooks) is her debut novel. Publishers Weekly said of
the book, “Die-hard fans of everything Austen will enjoy this
update of her classic tale.” Visit Nina at www.NinaBenneton.com
and follow her on Twitter.
1. Be kind to yourself. As a non-native English writer, I have a secret, shameful flaw: sometimes I cannot tell the singular from the plural. First assignment in an advanced, professional writing class: my character glanced behind to check out her butts. (I see two when I look behind me, don’t you?). The teacher’s mouth frothed; the class giggled. Did I slink away in shame? No. I chose to be kind to myself. Laugh. Clarify with native speakers about singularity and plurality of various body parts. Note to self: two cheeks, one butt. Move on to make other mistakes to entertain teacher and classmates.
Writers are very self-critical people. We berate ourselves for the little flaws and the big flaws. But, if we don’t have self-acceptance and self-love about our writing, we don’t feel safe. If we don’t feel safe, we cannot see our weaknesses with a clear-eye and, most importantly, with compassion. Without compassion, the process to improve our craft will be fraught with needless self-flagellation. Stop. Be kind to yourself.
2. Don’t reject yourself. Let others reject you. Many writers I know resist finishing their manuscripts. Or, if they’ve finished, will not submit their manuscripts. They’d rather reject themselves than take a chance and receive a rejection. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather let a professional reject me than amateur-me reject myself. An editor tells me she usually requests many more submissions than she has time to read at conferences because only a small percentage of writers will send in the requested submissions. Writers reject themselves before they get to her.
Celebrate your rejections. Rejections mean you’
This is a recurring column I’m calling “7 Things I’ve Learned So Far,” where writers at any stage of their career can talk about seven things they’ve learned along their writing journey that they wish they knew at the beginning. This installment is from historical fiction writer Kate Quinn.
GIVEAWAY: Kate is excited to give away a free copy of her novel to a random commenter. Comment within 2 weeks; winners must live in Canada/US to receive the book by mail. You can win a blog contest even if you’ve won before.
Kate Quinn is a native of southern California. She wrote her first book
during her freshman year in college, retreating from a Boston winter into
ancient Rome, and it was later published as MISTRESS OF ROME. A prequel
followed, titled DAUGHTERS OF ROME, and then a sequel written while her
husband was deployed to the Middle East. Kate is currently working on
her fourth novel, set in the Italian Renaissance. She also has succumbed
to the blogging bug, and keeps a blog filled with trivia, pet peeves, and
interesting facts about historical fiction. Kate’s latest book (April 2012)
is EMPRESS OF THE SEVEN HILLS, which Publishers Weekly called an
“epic, sexy romp” in a starred review.
1. Be patient. Everything in the publishing world moves at the speed of glacier, so a good supply of patience will save your sanity. It took me about seven years of (on and off) searching just to find a literary agent; then another four months to find a publisher, who then assigned my book a publication date 18 months away. Don’t let all the waiting kill you – get to work on a new project while waiting for progress on the old.
2. Learn to produce on a deadline. The one thing in the publishing world that doesn’t move slowly is your deadline when it gets closer and closer. Maybe you took three years to write your first book, and had another three years to tinker with it while you tried to get it published. Why not; you had the time. But when the publisher signs you for a second book, well, after you’ve had a chance to celebrate your good fortune, you should realize you do not have another six years to finish Book 2. You might have a year; you might only have a few months – so get used to the idea of putting your butt in that chair day after day, and producing words un
This is a recurring column I’m calling “7 Things I’ve Learned So Far,” where writers at any stage of their career can talk about seven things they’ve learned along their writing journey that they wish they knew at the beginning. This installment is from mystery writer Chuck Greaves.
Chuck Greaves spent 25 years as an L.A. trial lawyer before turning
his talents to fiction. HUSH MONEY, his debut novel (May 2012, Minotaur),
received starred reviewed from Publishers Weekly and Library Journal. The
story also won the grand-prize Storyteller Award in the Southwest Writers
international writing contest, and is the first installment in a series of legal
mysteries from St. Martin’s Minotaur. Visit www.chuckgreaves.com for more.
1. Nobody Knows Anything. It’s an article of faith in Hollywood that nobody knows anything. Which is to say that even the sharpest producers, the most talented directors, and the biggest A-list stars will invariably attach themselves, at some point in their careers, to a real stink-bomb. Or will, conversely, pass on what proves to be a nine-figure box office smash. What I didn’t realize was that the same holds true for publishing.
Case in point. Before Harper Lee sold To Kill a Mockingbird – arguably the greatest novel in American letters – to Lippencott, she first received over a dozen publisher rejections. To Kill a Mockingbird! From this we know that agents, editors, and publishers are not infallible arbiters of literary quality. Like most authors I know, I received a slew of agent rejections before finding a home for my first novel, Hush Money, which would then go on to win an international writing contest, a multi-book publishing contract, and starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Library Journal.
2. Publishing is Slow. How slow? I finalized a deal memo with my publisher in April of 2011. I received the formal contract from the publisher’s lawyers in April of 2012. There were extenuating circumstances, but still . . . if you want to work in an industry where things get done yesterday, choose Wall Street, or Silicon Valley. Because: Publishing. Is. Slow.
3. Write Now, Edit Later. I’m something of a perfectionist, which means that I have great difficulty starting on Chapter 2 when Chapter 1 isn’t quite – what’s the word? – perfect. As a consequence, I spent a great deal of time when writing Hush Money polishing and re-polishing prose that, in the final edit, wound up on the cutting room floor. The lesson here is that, when it comes to your first draft, okay is good enough. Use your subsequent drafts to achieve perfection. The editing will hurt less, and the writing will go a heck of a lo
This is a recurring column I’m calling “7 Things I’ve Learned So Far,” where writers at any stage of their career can talk about seven things they’ve learned along their writing journey that they wish they knew at the beginning. This installment is from crime writer Kirk Russell.
Kirk Russell is the author of six crime fiction novels. He lives in
Berkeley, California with his wife Judy Rodgers, chef-co-owner of
San Francisco’s Zuni Café. More at kirkrussellbooks.com
1. With my first novels I wrote my way to the beginning of the story, which is say I wrote stuff that led up to the beginning but wasn’t where the really novel started. Leads to a lot of rewriting. Now I hang onto an idea longer before starting a novel. I’ll drive around with it. I’ll turn it in my head. I’ll think about it and with the crime fiction I’m writing a lot of life has already happened to the characters, so it’s an awful lot about stepping into the action at the right moment. That moment has to have weight and charisma and connection to everything that comes next.
2. No matter how small the character’s role in what’s happening, try to get their voice in your head. So if you met them you could walk down the street with them and talk. That’s not easy because invariably you’re drawing on yourself plenty as you write, but it’s a big deal, it makes it much easier if you get all the characters’ voices. If you know how they sound and move everything goes together more naturally.
3. I still tend to overpopulate my novels but I’ve learned its dangers. Each time you invite someone new into the boat it sits a little lower in the water. It takes more of a forward rush of energy and narrative drive as you add people. There’s probably a mathematical formula in there somewhere. New characters can appear as a plot turns but they shouldn’t be the crutch you lean on to make it turn.
One of Kirk Russell’s earlier crime novels,
SHELL GAMES: A JOHN MARQUEZ CRIME NOVEL,
has been selected by Amazon for promotion in its Kindle
Daily Deal on Wednesday, April 25, 2012. For one day
only, this ebook will be priced at just $1.99.
4. If you’re two thirds in and the novel stalls, the problem is more likely behind you than ahead of you. I’ve learned to go back and find the things that are not quite right or dead wrong, and many times that will clear the
This is a recurring column I’m calling “7 Things I’ve Learned So Far,” where writers at any stage of their career can talk about seven things they’ve learned along their writing journey that they wish they knew at the beginning. This installment is from YA writer Miranda Kenneally.
GIVEAWAY: Miranda is excited to give away a free copy of her book to a random commenter. Comment within one week; winners must live in Canada/US to receive the book by mail. You can win a blog contest even if you’ve won before. Read more
1. If your manuscript doesn’t sell and you’ve done all the editing you believe you are capable of doing, set the manuscript aside and begin another. My first two books, Before You Were Here, Mi Amor (Viking, 2009, illustrated by Santiago Cohen) and The Cazuela That The Farm Maiden Stirred (Charlesbridge, 2011, illustrated by Rafael López) were each written years before they sold to their respective publishing houses.
GIVEAWAY: Samantha is excited to give away a free copy of her book to a random commenter. Comment within one week; you MUST leave your e-mail with the comment or else we will not be able to contact you; winners must live in Canada/US to receive the book by mail. You can win a blog contest even if you’ve won before. Read more
This is a recurring column I’m calling “7 Things I’ve Learned So Far,” where writers at any stage of their career can talk about seven things they’ve learned along their writing journey that they wish they knew at the beginning. This installment is from writer Trevor Shane.
1. Query in tiers. My most practical advice is to query in tiers. Everyone (myself included) will tell you to be careful to choose the right agent for your work. The problem is, when you’re trying to get your first book published, it’s really hard to turn down any agent who wants to represent you. The simplest solution is to query in tiers. Identify your top five dream agents. Send your initial queries to them and then wait (the waiting, as they say, is the hardest part). Only move on to tier two when you’ve exhausted tier one. Then rinse and repeat. Read more
This is a recurring column I’m calling “7 Things I’ve Learned So Far,” where writers at any stage of their career can talk about seven things they’ve learned along their writing journey that they wish they knew at the beginning. This installment is from YA writer Heather McCorkle.
GIVEAWAY: Heather is excited to give away a free copy of her book to a random commenter. Comment within one week; you MUST leave your e-mail in the comment somewhere or else we will not be able to contact you; winners must live in Canada/US to receive the book by mail; international winners will receive an e-book. You can win a blog contest even if you’ve won before. Read more
This is a recurring column I'm calling "7 Things I've Learned
So Far," where writers at any
stage of their career can talk about seven things they've learned along their writing
journey that they wish they knew at the beginning. This installment is from YA writer Sarah
Alderson.
Sarah Alderson’s debut young adult
novel, Hunting
Lila,
was published by Simon & Schuster on August 4, 2011.
A second novel, Fated, is due for release in January 2012.
See
her author website here.
1. Trust your instincts. My brother taught me to trust my instincts. Actually
my mother tried to drill this into me too when I was a kid, telling me a story about
hitchhiking aged 18 in France, which ended with the lesson: Always listen to the voice
in your head or you might get killed by a serial killer. But it’s not just relevant
for hitchhiking, it’s also important for writing. Listening to your instincts (or
some might call it intuition) is probably the best advice I can give.
It’s the voice in your head that says no, edit that, or
no that’s not working. Most clearly I can describe it as a gasp of butterflies
in my stomach when I hit on something—a
new idea—and I know instantly
I’m onto something. If that feeling doesn’t come I drop the idea and keep meandering
through my thoughts until that feeling does come. And it’s never failed me yet.
2. Write what you want to write. I wanted to write a book. My publisher told
me it probably wasn’t a good idea because paranormal was "on the way out." And it
was at that point, as I was umming and arring about whether to write it or to focus
on something more dystopian / set in space / about zombies (maybe combining all three)
that I was given advice by someone who works in the video games industry.
He told me of that many times he was warned not to invest
in creating a new game because "that idea’s been done to death." He always went ahead
and did what he wanted, just making sure it was the best game in that genre that had
ever been made. "So write that book," he told me. So I did. You need to write what
you need to write.
3. If you want to get published, you do need to think commercially. Having
said number all that, if you really are desperate to get published, if that’s your
be all and end all, thinking commercially is important, and this might require you
to think twice about writing what you want to write. I wrote what I wanted to write
partly because I needed to write it but also because I weighed it and thought it a
worthwhile use of my time. It only took me one month to write it for starters, not
a year or a decade and secondly, I think I will be able to sell that book because
I’ve already sold the first one in the series.
I’m an author. I need to make a
This is a recurring column I'm calling "7 Things I've Learned
So Far," where writers at any
stage of their career can talk about seven things they've learned along their writing
journey that they wish they knew at the beginning. This installment is from kids writer Sydney
Salter.
Sydney is excited to give away a free copy of her
book to a random commenter. Comment within one week; winners must live in Canada/US
to receive the book by mail. You can win a blog contest even if you've won before.
1. It’s not always about you. When my first novel hit the shelves, I came across
a surprisingly violent review: a blogger, upset with a particular passage, threw my
book against her wall! Shocked and dismayed, I showed my mother, a psychologist, the
review. She simply nodded and said, “Wow. That sure says a lot about her.” Oh, right.
Readers filter stories through their own experiences, values, and expectations. Sometimes
our work simply won’t connect—with anything other than a wall.
2. Don’t hold grudges. That editor rejected three of my manuscripts; this agent
sent me a form letter; that reader gave me a harsh critique; this author
slammed my novel on Goodreads. That’s all okay. The writing community is small. At
conferences I often see editors and agents who’ve rejected my work. I regularly run
into colleagues who could’ve, let’s say, been a little more encouraging. But holding
onto hurt feelings doesn’t accomplish anything—it only makes situations awkward. My
policy: forgive, don’t fret, and move on.
3. Say yes! Knowing that public speaking is an important part of building a
writing career, I accept most invitations to present. I love preparing new talks,
meeting new people, sharing what I’ve learned, and encouraging others. I also say
yes to sending review copies to young bloggers. Today’s teen with just a few followers
might be tomorrow’s online book diva; okay, so maybe I’m just impressed with teens
who write well-worded emails to authors when I have trouble getting my own daughter
to pick her clothes up off the floor.
4. Say no. I’ve learned to guard my writing time. I rarely help out at classroom
parties (although I’m still begging to chaperone a junior high dance—oh, the story
possibilities!). I turn down lunch dates that interfere with my writing time. I don’t
chat on the phone or goof around online (much). And I allow my house to stay messy.
People think I write qui
This is a recurring column I'm calling "7 Things I've Learned
So Far," where writers at any
stage of their career can talk about seven things they've learned along their writing
journey that they wish they knew at the beginning. This installment is from writer Suzanne
Hayes.
Suzanne Hayes is a sociologist
by profession.
Her essays have been published in Full of Crow
magazine's On the Wing edition, as well as an
upcoming publication in the May/June issue of
Life Learning Magazine.
She lives by the ocean
with her husband and three daughters. Suzanne
is represented by Anne Bohner or Pen and Ink
Literary. See
her blog here. She also tweets.
1. All that advice that's everywhere and every published author reiterates? DO
IT. No whining. Really. I learned that everyone in the business agrees on the
basics and that no one really gets away with cheating. This is a slow process.
And, by the way, my first two manuscripts are under my bed. Try telling me that one
when I was starting out!
2. If you have a family, even a supportive one, they will tire of your writing. When
I'm writing, everything around me fades to black. I am in the story. Now, I've learned
to write when my kids are asleep or away so that I don't say "Yes" to things like
candy for breakfast and bike riding in snow storms.
3. If you are a parent, your child's teacher may want to strangle you. Really.
Because besides number 2 above, I can't remember to sign anything, send anything to
school or even to dress my kids in Green when it's Greenday (wasn't that a band???).
4. Other writers want to help you—so ask them for help! Right now I have an e-mail
from a famous my inbox. In my INBOX. Two actually. Ahem.
5. Don't give up. I didn't even consider this ... but I've seen other writers
I started out with either go the way of vanity publishing or simply vanish into the
netherworld of nothing. (That's my way of saying they closed their blogs and deactivated
their e-mail accounts.) Why? I've learned that it's much easier to persist. I've also
learned I'm stubborn.
6. Learning to accept criticism is the key to getting published. Good or bad.
Constructive or mean. If you want to be a published author, you must learn to take
what any one has to say with grace and dignity. I've watched too many of my
friends get all worked up about this. Your story is for the world, not you.
If you don't want anyone to say anything that isn't wonderful (or even constructive)
about your work, keep a journal ... in a safe deposit box.
7. Create an online presence. This one may be obvious. I learned too late to
create an online presence. It took me a year to figure out I needed to blog and tweet
and Facebook. I still don't love it. (Well, OK ... I do love my blog),
but we all have to network.
This is a recurring column I'm calling "7 Things I've Learned
So Far," where writers at any
stage of their career can talk about seven things they've learned along their writing
journey that they wish they knew at the beginning. This installment is from writer Lisa
Lawmaster Hess.
Lisa Lawmaster Hess is a Jersey
girl, school counselor
and the author of two books: Acting
Assertively and
Diverse
Divorce, both inspired by her interactions with
her students. Lisa's articles have appeared regionally,
nationally and online in publications ranging from Wee
Teach to Mature Lifestyles. She is currently going
through the dreaded revision process on her middle
grade novel, and happily creating new chapters for a
novel for the Christian market. See
her website here.
1. Writers are generous people. You'd think that in an industry as competitive
as publishing, people would be cutthroat and selfish. Perhaps there are writers like
that out there, but if so, I haven't met any of them. To a person, the writers I've
met have been gracious, sharing their time, resources and wisdom with those who are
traveling on the same path, and willing to serve as mentors to those who are serious
about improving their craft. Though the writing itself is a solitary pursuit—or
perhaps because of this—writers
themselves are quick to form a community.
2. Agents are people, too. They have good days and bad days ... but no magic
wands. In my experience, most are as gracious as the aforementioned writers, and when
you meet an agent who loves your work as much as you do, it's truly gratifying. That
encounter, however, comes with no guarantees, and means—even
if you sign a contract—that
the work must go on. In fact, signing that contract may mean that the hard work is
just beginning.
3. Critique groups are irreplaceable. No one else knows what you're going through
in quite the same way, and without them, our writing can become pretentious, or worse
yet, stagnant. They yank us off our high horses, and expect us to do the same for
them, as well as forcing us to go one step further to make the words do things we
never knew they could. And sometimes, if we're really lucky, these people become our
friends, too.
4. Never submit anything without sleeping on it. Unless you will miss a deadline,
always let your final draft sim
This is a recurring column I'm calling "7 Things I've Learned
So Far," where writers at any
stage of their career can talk about seven things they've learned along their writing
journey that they wish they knew at the beginning. This installment is from writer Rebecca
Serle.
Bill is excited to give away a free copy of his book to a
random commenter. Comment within one week; winners must live in Canada/US to receive
the book by mail. You can win a blog contest even if you've won before.
Bill Peschel is the author of Writers
Gone Wild, a
collection of true stories about authors published by
Perigee Books. Book reviewer and novelist Claudia
Leavitt (Pictures of You)
called it a "hilarious and witty
compendium of writers acting badly. (What? We act
badly?)" and Malena Lotta at Bookgasm called it "a great
read for writers and lit-lovers alike." Bill can be
contacted via his website and
on Twitter.
1. Get the words down, no matter what. Take this essay. You'll never see the first
draft, because—as my kids
would tell me—it blows.
It read like it was written by someone for whom English was barely their first language.
Or more accurately, someone with a flu so bad he could have auditioned for “The Walking
Dead” zombie corps. In addition to a cramping stomach, a throbbing vein in the eye
and neural pathways stuffed with cotton (metaphorically, I hope), my thoughts were
jumping among lashing this article together, my cold cup of coffee, an earworm caused
by a “Smells Like Teen Spirit” / “Rockin’ Robin” mashup, and worry about my website’s
developer inability to do any work for which she’s already been paid. The urge to
find something, anything, to do is powerful, but Stephen King taught us that the first
draft is best done behind a closed door. Even if it's the worst garbage in the history
of the printed word, it's better to get it on the page—where
it can be operated on, or put to sleep with a shovel—than
to play Frisbee golf on Wii Sports Resort until the right moment comes along.
2. I’m competing with myself. I used to think that writing professionally was
like playing baseball. To win, you gotta beat the other guy. There’s only so many
slots per year at the publishing houses. They have to pick and choose. So it must
be competitive, right? Wrong. Writing is more like golf. Everybody's shooting for
the same goal, but their performance doesn’t necessar
This is a recurring column I'm calling "7 Things I've Learned
So Far," where writers at any
stage of their career can talk about seven things they've learned along their writing
journey that they wish they knew at the beginning. This installment is from writer Rebecca
Serle.
Rebecca Serle received her MFA
in creative
writing from The New School and her BA in
English from The University of Southern
California. ROSALINE,
due out May 2012, is
her first book. Rebecca grew
up in Hawaii,
went to college in California, and now lives
in New York. She has been gradually moving
eastward over the course of many years.
Next stop, the Atlantic ocean. Or perhaps
London. Learn more at rebeccaserle.com.
1. You don’t write a book. You write a sentence and then a paragraph and then a page
and then a chapter. Looking at writing 400 plus pages or seventy thousand odd
words is incredibly daunting, but if you just focus on the immediate picture—say,
500 words—it’s not so overwhelming. And the remarkable thing is that 500 words every
day will yield a manuscript of 70,000 words in less than five months.
2. Every writer, no matter published, unpublished, award-winning or bestselling,
faces insecurity. It crops up everywhere, and, in my personal experience, nearly
every day. It’s just a part of the process. The funny thing about being a writer is
that you often have to ignore your intuition in order to do a good day’s work.
If you listen to every voice in your head nothing will get done. You have to push
through the self- doubt and just do it. It’s been my experience that I generally know
when I’m doing really great writing, but I rarely if ever know when I’m doing good
writing or bad writing. I confuse the two constantly.
3. Writer’s block is not a viable excuse. Honestly, I’m not even sure, specifically,
what writer’s block is. I’m fairly certain I experience it every single day. It goes
like this: I sit down. I’m not sure what to do or how to do it. An old college professor
of mine once said the following: “writing is ten percent talent and ninety percent
commitment.” I live by this. Do I think that ten perfect is crucial? Absolutely, and
it’s what gets me through many a rough patch, but what I rely on daily is that ninety.
It’s just committing to getting it done. That’s about it.
4. A book is not something you build, but something you uncover. I’m just going
to take a moment to say buy Stephen King’s On Writing. It has some of the best
advice on craft you’ll ever come by. One of the things King stresses is that a book
is like a fossil. It’s the writer’s job to excavate it with as little damage as possible.
I believe this whole-heartedly. Your book will naturally have all the elements it
needs to be complete. You don’t need to worry about purposefully injecting theme or
motif
This is a recurring column I'm calling "7 Things I've Learned
So Far," where writers at any
stage of their career can talk about seven things they've learned along their writing
journey that they wish they knew at the beginning. This installment is from writer Tom
Leveen.
Tom Leveen is the author of Party,
a young adult
novel published by Random House Children’s Books,
now available in paperback. School Library Journal
called it "a quick and entertaining read." His second
YA novel, ZERO, is due in Spring 2012. Tom can be
contacted via his website, www.tomleveen.com,
on
Facebook, and at Twitter @tomleveen.
1. Adore booksellers. Most aspiring novelists don’t grasp how instrumental
hand-selling at brick and mortar bookstores is to their career. Booksellers, if they
like your book, will push it at checkout. They are asked their opinions all day by
people coming to the store for one purpose: to buy books. Treat booksellers—from
district managers to cashiers—like emissaries of the One True God, because as far
as your career goes, they just might be. Don’t kiss up or be a boor (or bore); be
yourself, but be your best self. And buy from their stores and urge others to do so.
2. Make appearances. For free. Hand in hand with publishing YA and MG novels
are school and library appearances. Accept every opportunity to present your book
or teach a class. For free. Many authors disagree with me on this, and they are right
to an extent. The argument goes like this: Every hour you spend not writing is potentially
lost income. Make an English teacher happy, however, and you’ve earned a lifetime
fan, with potential “little” fans coming in each year. Word of mouth may be more valuable
than an appearance honorarium. I think getting paid for school visits is something
that comes during the middle part of a career. For a first novel, it’s free
advertising and PR. Books two, three, or four may be another story.
Local bookstores can arrange school visits, and have a set
amount of books the school must purchase; say, 10 to 25 copies. You may not walk away
with cash in hand, but you just sold ten or more copies, and many potential fans—who
blog and tweet about books and authors—just met you face to face. You can’t top that.
3. Calm down. Nothing moves more slowly than waiting to hear from an agent
or editor. I lost many hours my first year in being overwrought, overdramatic, and
overwhelmed by the fact that I controlled next to nothing. My advice: Suck it up.
Move on to the next project. Sooner or later your agent/editor will get back to you.
There is nothing wrong, however, with a polite email to ask how things are going.
Underscore polite.
4. Pimp your novel. Wanna sell a million copies of your novel?! Here’s the
secret: Tell people it exists. Selling your bo
This is a recurring column I'm calling "7 Things I've Learned
So Far," where writers at any
stage of their career can talk about seven things they've learned along their writing
journey that they wish they knew at the beginning. This installment is from memoirist Rachel
Friedman.
Rachel is excited to give away a free copy of her
book to a random commenter. Comment within one week; winners must live in Canada/US
to receive the book by mail. You can win a blog contest even if you've won before.
1. You simply can’t write all day long. At least, I can’t. When I gave up my
job as an editor to finish my first book, I was absolutely thrilled. Now I’m a real
writer, I thought. I’ll put words on paper all day long, day after day. Now
that I’ve finally got the time, I said to myself, writing will be easy. Wrong. The
first issue with having endless hours to write is that it’s very easy to put off the
actual writing. A leisurely cup of morning tea? Don’t mind if I do. An early morning
walk in the park? Yes sir. Mid-morning Internet searches of strange diseases on the
Internet I think I might have? Well, now we’re getting a bit personal. But you
get the idea. I found that without any structure to my day, I just drifted along,
not getting very much writing done at all. Teaching a couple literature courses at
a local college was the best thing I could do for my writing life. It gave me a reason
to get out of the apartment, a little bit of steady income, and an environment to
interact with others in what was otherwise a pretty isolated day. Over time, I’ve
discovered I only have 3 or 4 truly productive writing hours in me, usually first
thing in the morning. After that, I turn to editing or research or teaching preparation.
2. Sign a contract with yourself. Most people report to a boss. Writers, especially
before we have book contracts or magazine article deadlines, report to ourselves.
We might be a mean boss to ourselves (though I don’t recommend this) or a cheerleader-type
boss (you can do it!) or a somewhat negligent boss who prefers to sneak out early
for a round of golf rather than deal with his employees. No matter what type of boss
you are, it’s difficult to self-discipline. A friend once recommended typin
This is a recurring column I'm calling "7 Things I've Learned
So Far," where writers at any
stage of their career can talk about seven things they've learned along their writing
journey that they wish they knew at the beginning. This installment is from novelist Sara
Sue Hoklotubbe.
Sara Sue is excited to give away a free copy of his
latest novel to a random commenter. Comment within one week; winners must live in
Canada/US to receive the book by mail. You can win a blog contest even if you've won
before.
Sara Sue Hoklotubbe is the author
of the Sadie Walela
Mystery Series. Her new release, The
American Café
(April 2011, University of Arizona Press),
has been
described by Library Journal as
“a good pick for
Tony Hillerman fans.” Sara is a
Cherokee tribal
citizen who grew up in northeastern
Oklahoma,
and uses that location as the setting
for her
mystery novels. See
her website here.
1. The first step is the hardest. When I started writing, I had no idea what
I was doing. Finding myself in a new state with few job opportunities, my husband
encouraged me to do something I’d always wanted to do—write.
I took his advice and at the age of 44, I bravely enrolled in a six-week writing class
at a local community college. The instructor changed my life the first night of class
when, unable to pronounce my name, he held the roster in the air and said, “That’s
a great name for the front of a book.” The subliminal message stuck. I was on my way
to being a writer.
2. Prepare. I followed that short writing course with two more, soaking up
every ounce of instruction like a sponge. I read everything I could get my hands on
about writing. I subscribed to Writers Digest and every other writing magazine
I could find. I joined a writing group and found a critique partner. We met regularly
to read and discuss our work. With every step, I grew as a writer.
3. Practice. It sounds like a tired slogan, but the old adage about repetition
proved to be true. The more I wrote, the better my writing became. I learned to use
active instead of passive verbs. Choosing random words from a dictionary, the leader
of our writing group challenged us to produce a coherent story in three to five minute
This is a recurring column I'm calling "7 Things I've Learned
So Far," where writers at any
stage of their career can talk about seven things they've learned along their writing
journey that they wish they knew at the beginning. This installment is from novelist Simon
Morden.
Simon is excited to give away a free copy of his latest
novel to a random commenter. Comment within one week; winners must live in Canada/US
to receive the book by mail. You can win a blog contest even if you've won before.
Dr. Simon Morden is a bona fide
rocket scientist,
having degrees in geology and planetary geophysics.
He's a writer of multiple books—most
recently the
mass market Samuil Petrovitch series, with the first
in the trilogy, Equations
of Life (March 2011; Orbit)
called "engrossing ... with a fresh and engaging
character" by Publishers Weekly. His books combine
the
categories of action and sci-fi. See
his website here.
1. Write what you love. I know the usual adage for fiction writers is "Write what
you know," but writing what you know will only carry you so far. If you’ve lived an
incredibly adventurous life, experienced amazing things and lived to tell the tale—that
may be enough to sustain your career. For the rest of us, we have to start making
stuff up at some point: sooner rather than later if, like me, you write speculative
fiction. So write what you love—write
what engages and excites you. Write what you’d like to read yourself. Life’s too short
to do anything else.
2. Nothing is ever wasted. That pile of manuscripts you’ve got turning into
coal in the bottom drawer of your desk? You didn’t waste your time writing those unpublished
and possibly unpublishable stories anymore than an athlete wasted their time getting
up at six to go training, or a cabinet maker did when they practiced making mortice
joints that never saw the inside of a chest of drawers. It’s your apprenticeship.
The lessons you learned then are the lessons you’re applying now. Don’t be worried
about mining those old manuscripts for goodies, either: a plot, a character, even
a phrase you like. You created it, so why not use it?
3. Do your research. If I had a penny every time I’ve heard, “I’m writing fantasy
so I don’t have to do research,” I’d have a seriously big pile of pennies. Every story,
whether it’s set now in your neighborhood, five hundred years ago in Renaissance Venice
or five hundred years in the future on a city-ship between stars—needs
a solid s
This is a recurring column I'm calling "7 Things I've Learned
So Far," where writers at any
stage of their career can talk about seven things they've learned along their writing
journey that they wish they knew at the beginning. This installment is from novelist
Stephen Graham Jones.
Stephen is excited to give away a free copy of his
novel to a random commenter. Comment within one week; winners must live in Canada/US
to receive the print book by mail. You can win a blog contest even if you've won before.
1. Characters are most interesting when they lie. It’s when they’re the most naked,
the most vulnerable, the most perplexing—the most like us. Stories need stupid decisions
that, at the time, seem absolutely rational and necessary. Without stupid decisions,
the world isn’t thrown out of balance, and so there’s no need for a "rest of the story"
to balance it back.
2. If you keep having to dip into the story’s past to explain the present, then
there’s a good chance your real story’s in the past, and you’re just using the present
as a vehicle to deliver us there. However, we cue into that charade extremely
fast, and move on to another story, another book.
3. Don’t run down every single rabbit hole. Yes, your twenty-five-year old
character has endless Kool-Aid stands and dances and family reunions behind her, all
of which add texture to who she is. But, please, we don’t need to know about each
and every one of them. If it doesn’t contribute directly to the end, then it doesn’t
belong.
4. If the main character’s not in jeopardy—physical, psychological, emotional,
whatever—then you don’t have any tension, and you don’t have a story. There’s
no reason for us to turn the page, as what you’re delivering us is simply a recounting
of these events that happened, none of which matter, as nothing’s at stake at the
character level. The story is the ups and downs, though, the near misses, the impossible
obstacles, the unlikely saves, the sacrifices, the victories, the accidents.
5. If you haven’t manipulated us such that we’re invested in either one outcome
or another, then we’re not engaged with what’s happening on the page—again, you don’t
have a story. At the end of any piece of
This is a recurring column I'm calling "7 Things I've Learned
So Far," where writers at any
stage of their career can talk about seven things they've learned along their writing
journey that they wish they knew at the beginning. This installment is from novelist Alexander
Yates.
Alexander is excited to give away a free copy of his
novel to a random commenter. Comment within one week; winners must live in Canada/US
to receive the print book by mail. You can win a blog contest even if you've won before.
Alexander Yates grew up in Haiti,
Mexico, Bolivia and
the Philippines. His first novel, Moondogs,
(Doubleday;
March 2011) was given a starred review by Kirkus,
which called it “accomplished ... unusually involving.”
His other work has appeared in American Fiction,
FiveChapters.com and the Kenyon Review Online.
Alex has a website and
is on Twitter.
1. Revision is important, but finishing your draft is more important. I learned
this the hard way. It took me five years to finish writing my novel, but in retrospect
two of those years were wasted (or at least used very ineffectively) on obsessive
over-revision. I wrote my first few chapters and, realizing they weren’t very good,
I began rewriting. And rewriting. What I didn’t realize at the time is that first
chapters are supposed to stink. How could they not? By the time Moondogs was
finally picked up for publication I’d deleted virtually all the early material I’d
agonized over for years. Just because I’d been reluctant to hold my nose and push
through to the end of the book.
My takeaway: Nothing compares to the perspective that a full
draft (stinky though it may be) will give you. For all you know that scene you are
pouring hours into revising doesn’t even belong in the book.
2. There is no substitute for time at the keys. This, of course, is a cliché.
But it also can’t be overemphasized. Sometimes work needs to simmer away in your head,
but the process of discovery happens much quicker when you’re struggling with your
own raw sentences. Some writers will tell you: “Treat it like a job.” This is maybe
a little extreme—writers like George Saunders and Charles Yu have written brilliant
books while working full time at office jobs. But whether it’s eight hours a day,
or two, you need to make them happen. Time at the keys is no guarantee of success,
but it is a precursor to it.
3. The Internet is not your friend … unless you are way better at time management
than me. But if you’re like me (read: a big and distractible baby) then the Internet
is a major enemy to productive writing time. I got around it by writing my novel on
a 90’s era laptop with busted Ethernet ports and no wireless. Even as I write this,
my modem and router are unplugged. If they weren’t, I
This is a recurring column I'm calling "7 Things I've Learned
So Far," where writers at any
stage of their career can talk about seven things they've learned along their writing
journey that they wish they knew at the beginning. This installment is from writer Erika
Dreisfus.
Erika is excited to give away a free book to one random commenter.
Comment within one week; winners must live in Canada/US48 to receive the print book
by mail. You can win a blog contest even if you've won before.
Erika Dreifus is the author of Quiet
Americans: Stories
(Last Light Studio, Jan. 2011), largely by the
experiences of her paternal grandparents, German
Jews who immigrated to the United States in the
late 1930s. Erika is donating portions of the
proceeds from sales to The Blue Card, which
supports US-based survivors of Nazi persecution.
See Erika's website
here and her Twitter here.
1. You should stock up on Forever stamps. Yes,
it's true that more and more literary journals are taking submissions via e-mail and
through online submissions managers. But for those who still request manuscripts via
"snail mail," SASEs are still required. And given how much time can elapse between
your submitting a story (or essay or batch of poems) and a journal returning a response,
it's entirely possible that postal rates will increase in the interim. Stay safe.
Use Forever stamps!
2. By itself, a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree itself
is unlikely to net you a full-time, tenure-track teaching job in creative writing
in a college or university. In most cases, you'll still need at least one published
(preferably, traditionally-published, and critically-admired) book.
3. Your MFA thesis will not be your first published book—at least, not without
some major revisions.
4. Not every story of yours that gets published will necessarily end up in your
first collection. And that's OK.
5. Agents do not universally welcome short-story collections—especially if
you don't have at least a partially-completed novel to submit to them as well.
6. The above notwithstanding, agents can make major contributions even if they
don't take you on as a client. My own first collection, Quiet
Americans, owes a great deal of whatever strengths it may possess to the especially
generous editorial suggestions of agents Eric Simonoff and Julie Barer.
7. You don't need official permission to quote a line from a Nobel lecture as an
epigraph to your book.
This is a recurring column I'm calling "7 Things I've Learned
So Far," where writers at any
stage of their career can talk about seven things they've learned along their writing
journey that they wish they knew at the beginning. This installment is from romance
writer Delilah Marvelle.
Delilah Marvelle is the author
of The
Perfect Scandal
(Feb. 2011, HQN) as well as four
other romances. She
was a naughty child who was forever torturing her
parents with adventures that they did not deem
respectable. As a child, she discovered the quill
and its amazing power. See
her website here, or
her blog that
explores the naughtier side of history.
1. Practice doesn’t necessarily make perfect. No matter how many books I write,
I feel like I’m never quite where I need to be. And it’s made for countless frustrating
days and nights. I think I’ve lived with the illusion that practice makes perfect,
when in fact, there is no perfect. There’s only the art of honing the craft and praying
that it’s good enough.
2. Being a genre writer comes with a set of boxing gloves. Genre writing, such
as romance, gets very little respect from the public, even though romance makes up
for a little more than 50% of all books sold. If money talks, it’s not talking loud
enough.
3. Hate mail comes with the territory. I got sooooo excited about being a published
author that I totally didn’t think this aspect out. I knew there would people who
wouldn’t like my writing and would post bad reviews, but I was unprepared for those
whackos who decide that bad reviews aren’t enough. They need to personally email me
and tell me all about it as if I were a Nazi in need of a moral lecture.
4. An author is responsible for most, if not all, the promotion. I think this
was the biggest kicker for me. Realizing that a writer doesn’t just write, they
also have to juggle promotion, the readers, signings and everything under the moon.
It makes it difficult to stay focused on writing sometimes. I had this illusion that
once I sold a book, I just had to write. That may have been the case 20 years ago,
but it sure as heck ain’t the case anymore.
5. The term starving artist applies to a writer. No kidding. I knew there wasn’t
much money to be made as a writer starting out and while trying to climb to the top.
But I didn’t realize how little money I made until I put in my hours and counted out
the pay. As of today, I make $1.25 an hour. Mind you, I do put in a lot of hours.
But still. Don’t assume that because you’re published with the big 6, you’re going
to get 6 fi
This is a recurring column I'm calling "7 Things I've Learned
So Far," where writers at any
stage of their career can talk about seven things they've learned along their writing
journey that they wish they knew at the beginning. This installment is from romantic
suspense writer Leslie Tentler.
Leslie is excited to give away a free book to one
random commenter. Comment within one week; winners must live in Canada/US48 to receive
the print book by mail. You can win a blog contest even if you've won before.
Leslie Tentler is the author of Midnight
Caller (Jan.
2011, Mira Books). Publishers Weekly said this of
Leslie's debut novel: "A smooth
prose style and an
authentic Big Easy vibe distinguish Tentler's debut."
The book is part of a trilogy of
romantic thrillers
built around a fictional unit of the FBI. Leslie
lives
in Atlanta, and is a proud member of the RWA,
ITW and MWA. See her
website here.
1. Writing is a business. Before writing Midnight
Caller, I worked for years as a PR writer and editor. I’d grown tired of the
business aspect, especially the constant deadlines, and daydreamed about the creative
life of a fiction writer. While achieving my goal of being published has been exciting
and fulfilling, I’ve also learned it’s every bit as much of a “business” as the one
I was in before. There are contracts, marketing expectations and yes, still a lot
of deadlines.
2. At least in the romantic suspense genre, think “series.” Unpublished, the advice
I’d heard was to focus on a single novel, since publishers wouldn’t want to take a
multi-book chance on someone brand new. To my surprise, however, I learned the publisher
interested in Midnight Caller wanted it as part of a three-book, loosely tied-together
series. This sent me into a bit of a scramble, since I hadn’t prepared to spin more
stories around this theme. When I pitch my next book outside of the current series,
I’ll be sure to have multiple follow-on ideas already in mind.
3. Expect to dedicate a lot of hours to marketing. Nothing replaces having
a good story. But beyond that prerequisite, you also have to participate heavily in
building your brand and promoting your books. Fortunately, coming from a PR background,
I understand the benefits of social networking and the fundamentals of building a
promotional campaign. However, I still didn’t fully realize how much time the marketing
aspect would take, even with the help of valued publicists and internal marketing
departments.
4. Don’t
This is a recurring column I'm calling "7 Things I've Learned
So Far," where writers at any
stage of their career can talk about seven things they've learned along their writing
journey that they wish they knew at the beginning. This installment is from novelist Leslie
Jamison.
Leslie is excited to give away a free book to one random
commenter. Comment within one week; winners must live in Canada/US48 to receive the
print book by mail. You can win a blog contest even if you've won before.
Leslie Jamison is the author of The
Gin Closet (2010),
a novel about "three generations of 'wounded women'
in an exquisite blues of a novel," says Booklist. Publishers
Weekly gave the book a starred review. Jamison grew
up in L.A. but currently splits her time between New
Haven and Iowa City. A graduate of Harvard College
and the Iowa Writers' Workshop, she is currently a
PhD candidate in American literature at Yale University.
See her website
here.
1. Remember what brings you joy. Whenever I’ve been stuck on a project, it’s
always brought me solace to the return to books that moved me in the past. It’s a
nice way to get outside my own head; and it brings me back to one of the most important
reasons I write at all: to bring some pleasure to readers, to make them think or feel.
2. Dissect what brings you joy. Coming back to what you love isn’t just an
inspirational venture, it’s a pragmatic one as well. Sometimes I read to lose myself,
but other times I pay attention to the nuts and bolts of the work. How does it create
suspense? When do I start caring about characters and why? Where am I surprised? Some
works I know I don’t want to break open like this. They exist somewhere else for me,
somewhere beyond this kind of probing. But plenty of books I only love more after
I examine them like this. They can re-enchant my own work once it’s gone dead to me.
3. Take time away. After finishing a draft, no matter how rough, I almost always
put it aside for a while. It doesn’t matter if it’s a story or a novel, I find that
when it’s still fresh in my mind I’m either thoroughly sick of its flaws or completely
blind to them. Either way, I’m unable to make substantive edits of any value. Instead
of beating myself up for weeks, feeling like I’m not making progress, I’ll just force
myself not to work on the piece at all—work on something else, or attend to
the non-writing parts of my life (family, cleaning my house) in the interim. Then
I come back to the work with fresh eyes, able to recognize its flaws and virtues more
plainly—to trim those weak sections I hadn’t been able to imagine parting with, and
find myself once more inspired by the strong writing I’d temporarily lost faith i
This is a recurring column I'm calling "7 Things I've Learned
So Far," where writers at any
stage of their career can talk about seven things they've learned along their writing
journey that they wish they knew at the beginning. This installment is from writer Jessica
Anya Blau.
Jessica is excited to give away a free book to one random
commenter. Comment within one week; winners must live in Canada/US48 to receive the
print book by mail. You can win a blog contest even if you've won before.
Jessica Anya Blau's second novel, Drinking
Closer
to
Home (Harper) was released in Jan. 2011. Her
first novel, The
Summer of Naked Swim Parties,
was picked as a Best Summer Book by the Today
Show, the New York Post, and New York Magazine.
Jessica grew up in Southern California where both
her novels are set, and currently lives in Baltimore.
She teaches at Goucher College. See
her website here.
1. Be fearless. It takes courage to write when there’s only a chance that you’ll
be published. It takes courage to be honest in writing, to present a complex inner
life (of yourself or your characters) that is often dark, or unkind, or slightly crazy.
It takes courage to write stuff that would make your mother gasp, your husband roll
his eyes, and your children blush and hide. But if you want to write, you have to
do it in spite of all this. Don’t show your writing to your parents and children,
ignore your spouse, and pretend that no one will ever read what you’re writing.
(This is what I tell myself when I’m feeling hindered by a projected response.) You
are alive now, you have a computer, you can type. Banish the difficult people, including
your publishing-obsessed self, from your psyche and write anyway. Be brave.
2. Be authentic. Here are the paradoxes of “false” writing: When you try to
sound smart you sound dumb. When you try to sound fancy you sound provincial.
When you try to sound sexy, you sound unappealing. Readers can see right through writing
that is contrived and false. They’ll stop reading. And why would you want to spend
your time writing anything wasn’t coming straight from your heart and soul?
3. (And the best way to be authentic is to ... ) Ignore your ego. Your ego
is a nasty, furry, little bugger who will sabotage your writing. Your ego wants to
broadcast facts
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