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As promised, we are following up last week’s Teacher Book Club: Episode 1 with observations from our two wonderful teachers Lori Howard and Linda Null. We’re very excited that both classrooms were so engaged with Smelly Bill by Daniel Postgate. It’s clear that kids are the same everywhere and that great teachers enjoy learning from each other. Thanks Lori and Linda!
We’ll definitely be doing a Teacher Book Club in the new year — maybe a chapter book this time. We’d love to add another classroom or two, so please let us know if you’re interested.
And now to our teachers…
Lori Howard teaches first grade at Central Elementary School in Okeechobee, FL. She team teaches in a bilingual program, so she has two groups of students – one in the morning and one in the afternoon. The kids alternate into a Spanish-only classroom for the other half day. Central Elementary School is a public school with 500 students in grades K-4. The city of Okeechobee has approximately 6,000 residents and an additional 34,000 people live in Okeechobee county.
Lesson Update:
Last week I sent the Smelly Bill books home with the students to go over the vocabulary words from the story with their parents. I also had the students bring the books back to school each day. After reading Mrs. Null’s blog I liked the idea of looking for other types of words within the pages of the book. She mentioned looking for 5 nouns. I also thought about making a list of the adjectives, verbs and rhyming words. We used the book to practice reading the rhyming words and talk about our “new” big vocabulary words so now we can begin looking for other types of words as well. Great idea Linda!
I noticed a difference between Linda’s approach and my approach to the book. When I first read the book I saw all these wonderful, huge, vocabulary concepts that I knew my students didn’t know. I thought of all the things I could do with the story to help my students learn these concepts. I admired Linda for seeing a multitude of different things to pull from the story.
During one of our activities last week I had the students discuss with their partners things that they would like to tell the author. Blake said, “I think he should make the book a real smelly book like garbage”. Jasmine said, “I would like Smelly Bill to be in a Christmas smelly book with good smells like cookies, and pine trees”. Morgan and Markayla wanted the author to write more stories about Great Aunt Bleach. I think “smells” are a great learning opportunity for first graders. I’m expanding the “smelly” adventure this week as we each write a page in our class book about the smelliest things in the world.
I loved the way Linda was able to use the book and make connections through the content areas. She incorporated her math, English, reading
Guest Blogger: James Scott Bell
Back when I started in this business, the summer of 1995, the world was a much simpler place. Bill Clinton was in Ireland talking about peace, and Monica Lewinsky was just another White House intern. Toy Story was the most popular movie in the land. Justin Bieber was only one year old.
And agents were little known oddities in the Christian book world. You could count them on the toes of one foot. Since I wore shoes most of the time, I did not consider seeking one out. At the time I didn't have to. I got published by personal contact. A year earlier I'd gone to my first CBA convention where an author whose books I knew introduced me around. A publisher asked to see my manuscript. Three weeks later I was offered a contract.
So I entered into my own deals and negotiations. But in the relatively close world of CBA, I personally knew a lot of editors because I taught at writers conferences and went to CBA each year, arranging meetings. I was doing the things an agent would do: networking with the right people and getting proposals to them.
As my career grew, so did the number of agents in CBA. I didn't feel the need to work with one because I was contracted up and working with the houses I wanted to work with. I didn't see a reason to give up 15%. Each year at CBA I'd see Janet Grant and say, "Hey, I'll give you 7.5%." And she'd say, "That's not going to work for me." And we'd laugh at our little joke and move on.
So while it might be possible to get a contract without an agent—and it worked for me 15 years ago—I can't advise going solo. Sure, you could hire a lawyer to look over your contract, but it better be a lawyer who knows publishing and what's current in the business, especially with these electronic rights issues. Such lawyers aren't easy to find.
I was a lawyer but not a specialist in publishing law, and a decade ago no one had any idea there would be e-readers and the like. Publishers were scurrying to protect themselves with unclear language in contracts. Those old contracts wouldn't stand up to scrutiny today, and do not cover what we currently view as "electronic rights." Ambiguous terms do not an agreement make, and those were certainly ambiguous days. But I digress. My point is that it really isn't possible for 99.9% of the writers out there to be up on everything they need to know.
When I decided to take my work into the vast neon and concrete jungle of New York, I knew I could not go it alone. Not by a long shot. So I began working with Donald Maass. I immediately discovered the joy of working with a great agent, one who patiently works with me on proposals and whose eye for fiction is amazing. When our first deal was struck, I was so glad I had him on my side. With all the new stuff going on, e-book rights and so on, negotiations were tough and took several months. I spent that time writing, not worrying about all the minutiae.
So a good agent is essential. And they do more than negotiate a contract. They help shape your material and guide your c
Today we have a special treat. We'll hear from a guest blogger who has made skilled use of white space in her recent nonfiction picture book Born to Be Giants. of the technique in her own work.
Welcome, Lita Judge!
When I first set out to create Born to be Giants, I didn’t plan to illustrate the dinosaurs against white space. My previous nonfiction books were historical and I thought the settings and background of each illustration was as important to telling the story as the main characters. But I quickly realized when creating this book that I needed to re-think the design for this topic.
My first challenge was that I wanted to show the scale of baby dinosaurs to their parents. The world of dinosaurs is filled with extremes, where parents are often thousand of times heavier than their babies. How could I show this if I painted them within a scene? The tiny babies would be lost next to their parents. I realized, with the use of white space, I could tackle this problem in exciting ways. I could show just how extraordinarily large a parent Argentinosaurus was by drawing one alongside 17 elephants. Then in another illustration, show how tiny the baby was in comparison to its parent’s foot. With the use of white space, I have a visually unified page spread and can create multiple illustrations that communicate more information than if I had just set the dinosaurs into a single background scene.
I continued to fall in the love with a design based on white space because it gave me the opportunity to illustrate every clue in the book. I wanted young readers to have visual information for each clue as well as text. Some of the concepts in the book can be challenging for young children, but knowing how enthusiastic my readers are for this topic, I wanted illustrations to guide and enhance their understanding. The use of white space around each of the spot illustrations helps focus the reader’s attention and
By Kathleen Spale
When most people think of summer vacation, they think of time spent on beaches in the sun with sand and water spreading endlessly around them. So when I heard about an opportunity to sit in a small, fluorescent-lit room surrounded by 22 bins of 1621 dusty, old books for my summer vacation, you can imagine what I said…..
You bet!
As a librarian, illustrator, and longtime lover of children’s books and history, to me, creating an Albert Whitman archive was the summer adventure of a lifetime. Books since 1919…..never knowing what each one holds…..It was like the warehouse at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark…..crate after crate of new surprises…..
Would I find the ark of the covenant?
Well, not quite, but, as Wendy has highlighted on this blog on many Fridays, I was able to unearth many gems…..some funny, some strange, almost always interesting.
I know that on occasion, out of my room full of bins and books, the staff at Albert Whitman probably heard a gasp or a giggle. I couldn’t help myself. On one hand, I found first editions of books illustrated by Randolph Caldecott, Crockett Johnson, James Montgomery Flagg, J. C. Leyendecker, Maj Lindmann, and Kurt Wiese and 1940s editions of The Gingerbread Man, The Tale of Peter Rabbit, and Pecos Bill while on the other hand, I found the trio of Mother Goose Etiquette Rhymes, Mother Goose Health Rhymes, and Mother Goose Safety Rhymes, which made certain to illustrate the consequences of a little boy touching a live wire!
Every week, I felt like Marty McFly in the movie Back to the Future, entering a time machine, strapping on a safety belt, and launching into a time long ago and not so long ago. One week, I was in World War II. The next week, I was in the Wild West. Some books even dared to glimpse into the future. Would the year 2000 bring flying cars and use of a new invention called plastic? Would libraries of the future have reading rooms and lists of books to facilitate child development?
But as with all good things, as the clock winds down, the books lay still, and the bins remain empty, my great adventure through history is ending. And as I slowly depart my time machine here at Albert Whitman, I am amazed that while so many aspects of children’s books have changed since 1919, like word count, color replication, and story subtlety, some things haven’t changed at all.
Throughout the Albert Whitman archives, one series that I continually found was called “Just Right Books,” and this name made me think. Isn’t that concept still so true? Aren’t we all as children and adults still looking for the just right book? When we are gloomy, when we are cheerful, when we are bored, we are always looking for the one book out there that is just right for each of us in our particular place and time. And I, for one, am grateful to report that after some months here at Albert Whitman, it is clear that Albert Whitman still has a dedicated staff who devote so much time and energy trying to find these “just right books” for everyone.
As I leave these archives too, I can’t help but ponder, what will people in the future say about the archives o
When we started this blog, one of our first ideas was a teacher book club. We’d ask teachers in the same grade from around the country – each in a different size and type of community — to use the same book in their classrooms and report back. They would then see each other’s responses and have the opportunity to share again. So, now we begin.
Two wonderful teachers agreed to be our first bloggers: Lori Howard (Okeechobee, Florida) and Linda Null (St. Louis, Missouri). We sent them copies of Smelly Bill by Daniel Postgate. Below are their initial reports. Next week, we’ll follow-up with both Lori and Linda for their reactions to each other’s experiences and to see if the kids had anything to say after taking their books home.
Lori Howard teaches first grade at Central Elementary School in Okeechobee, FL. She team teaches in a bilingual program, so she has two groups of students – one in the morning and one in the afternoon. The kids alternate into a Spanish-only classroom for the other half day. Central Elementary School is a public school with 500 students in grades K-4. The city of Okeechobee has approximately 6,000 residents and an additional 34,000 people live in Okeechobee county.
The Lesson: We began the story by reading and discussing the title. The student’s responses were mostly about a dog that smells. I asked the students if they ever noticed something smelly. Then, the response was much different. Everyone, raised their hand and wanted to talk about smells! When I turned the page and showed them the picture under the title and asked what this picture was about, several students were able to tell me that the tracks are what the dog makes when he’s dirty. I asked how many students had a dog and only 2 students raised their hands. We discussed good smells that were like a fragrance and bad smells that “reeked.”
We began reading the story. Every time an unfamiliar word came up I stopped and asked questions about it. Only 1 or 2 students had ever heard of the words or knew what they meant. The vocabulary words we pulled out of the story included: rubbish, snout, scent, bleach, abolished, reeking, compost, stink, and stank. We spent several minutes discussing each word as we read the story. Once the children understood the vocabulary words then I reread the page to them. When we got to the page of “Great Aunt Bleach,” I questioned the student’s about her suitcase and her white bag with a duster inside. They decided she must be a cleaning lady. Our discussion about bleach led to the discovery of one student who explained that her mom puts bleach inside their dishwasher. The twist at the end of the story where Great Aunt Bleach becomes dirty confused some of the students. One asked why she gets dirty and the dog got clean. I asked the students if they would change the end of the story. One of the students said Great Aunt Bleach needed a shower on the last page. The compost bin got mixed reactions from the students. Many had never heard of putting scraps of food into dirt with worms to digest. One of the students asked how he could make one for his house. That’s a wonderful opportunity to tie into recycling and earth day in the spring.
Teacher Notes: There are many great things about using this book. The vocabulary within the text is my favorite part. I love to teach first graders “BIG” words. They seem to remember them and get excited when they use them out loud. It is especially hard to find good books to teach vocabulary from.
This book also had great illustrations. It allowed us to talk about the vocabulary as we looked at the pictures. The pictures of Great Aunt Bleach
Guest blogger: Mary DeMuth
There’s a familiar Old Testament story about David and Saul that struck me recently. David is ready to face the giant Goliath, so he slips on the much-larger Saul’s armor. It didn’t fit. In fact, it hindered his ability to move.
David took off the armor, picked up his slingshot, and gathered five smooth stones from the stream. He was ready.
Here’s my theory about authors and marketing: I think we’re guilty of not exercising the wisdom of David. We’re drawn to flashy, “proven” marketing strategies. We see them as the answer to our fear, our upcoming battle to win bookbuyers. But we fail to see that those strategies might not fit us. In fact they may hinder more than they’ll help.
Your job as a marketer is to know yourself. To be like David and be comfortable in your abilities. David knew his slingshot. It had been with him as he tended sheep under starry skies. It was familiar to him. The slingshot fit beautifully in his hand, and he wielded it well. My question for you is this: What fits you? What is your slingshot?
Have you been trying to put on Facebook like Saul’s awkward armor? Have you been blogging with your teeth clenched, hating every minute of it? Have you gritted your way through booksignings? Maybe you’re putting on clunky armor not intended for you. Maybe it’s okay to look yourself in the mirror, assess your personal strengths and live within them. I give you permission right now to discover your slingshot and wield it.
I’ve made this mistake so many times. I’ve run to things an expert or two told me I had to do to promote my book, only to take away precious time from my work and my family. Honest truth: I’ve spent thousands of dollars on things that weren’t me and didn’t even work. Oh the regret! In the process, I’ve realized I’m really good at social media, and it’s a joy to me. It might be dreadful for you, so please don’t do it. Don’t settle for Saul’s clunky armor. Find your slingshot, then don’t apologize for using it. Then focus most of your efforts in what you’re good at, and what delights you.
Of course we all need to risk, try new things and experiment a bit, but not at the expense of the way we’re made. Not at the expense of how we’re designed.
Q4U: How have you slipped on Saul’s armor? And what is your slingshot - your you-shaped marketing strength?)
Mary DeMuth is an author and speaker who loves blogging at http://www.marydemuth.com.
Twitter: @MaryDeMuth
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/authormarydemuth
An Interview with Everyone's Favorite (Former) Agent
No, you haven't landed on the wrong blog. Today I'm featuring a brief interview with Nathan Bransford, who as everybody knows, left agenting a couple of weeks ago, leaving thousands wondering, whuh...? Nathan's still blogging over here, but I wanted to dig out some details for you. You're welcome.
Q: So Nathan, you've left publishing for the tech world. What exactly is CNET anyway, and what are you doing there?
Nathan says: CNET is a tech news and reviews site with all the latest info about new products, tech news, downloads, and very entertaining videos and demos. You should check it out, it's a great site! I'm helping to coordinate social media strategy and CNET's presence in that arena.
Q: How does your new job at CNET use the skills you've built in publishing?
Nathan says: Mainly I'll be using what I've learned in the social media sphere while building my blog, Twitter, and Facebook presence, although I'll definitely be bringing over the extensive follow-up systems I used to keep track of book projects as I try to manage all of the different projects I'll be responsible for.
Q: What happened to all your Curtis Brown clients?
Nathan says: My clients are staying with Curtis Brown, and I tried to make it as a smooth a transition as possible.
Q: Why did you make such a sudden transition?
Nathan says: I was just really excited about the opportunity with CNET and about social media in general. I've been a big fan of CNET for over a decade now and I love new technology. Right now in 2010 I think a lot of the world is kind of trying to figure out how social media is going to be a part of our lives and how we can use the Internet to connect with people and find the books and movies and information we want to read and watch. Being in the middle of the tech world and trying to figure out what that future is going to be in this area is something I am just extremely, extremely thrilled about. This transition has way more to do with being very excited about the new job and CNET and about social media and technology than anything else.
Q: Many people seem to think you left publishing for the tech world because the book world is crumbling. Yet you said on your blog last Tuesday that you still believe the future of books is bright. If so, then why did you leave?
Nathan says: I really do think the book world will be fine and that publishers and agents will be around in the new era. Now, that's not to say that I didn't share some of frustrations that many people in the business have at the moment; it's been a pretty disruptive and challenging time. But at the end of the day, as long as there are people reading books there will be publishers to publish them, authors to write them, and agents trying to get the authors the best deal possible.
Q: What do you see as the very best change that has happened in the book world lately? The worst change?
Nathan says: I'm very glad to see that the publishing industry is now embracing social media like never before
Guest Blogger: Erin MacPherson
I had always been under the impression that once I got a book deal, I'd have months to write, polish and pizzazz my book before my editor got his or her hands on it. It seemed reasonable for a non-fiction writer - after all, the book was contracted on the basis of a proposal and three sample chapters.
I was wrong.
I got my book deal on February 10th, 2010—and my publisher wanted to see a complete manuscript by May 1st, 2010. I'm sure you can do the math, but just to make it easy on you, that's two-and-a-half months. Eleven weeks. 79 days. Certainly not the read-and-re-read, carefully-analyze-every-word situation I was expecting. But it meant my book could be released sooner, only 13 months after I got the offer. That's a good thing, right?
So I said yes. No problem. I'd already written a few chapters, so I could easily get my entire sixteen-chapter, 85,000 word book finished by then.
And, of course, I was lying. Writing a whole book in 79 days is a nearly impossible feat. I had a part-time job. And two kids. And a life. And I was a first-time author. But I knew that getting a book deal was the opportunity of a lifetime—and I couldn't let it pass just because I was on a tight deadline.
I confess: it was probably the most stressful, most exhausting and most frustrating 79 days of my life. But on May 1, 2010, I turned in a complete manuscript to my editor. And, since tight deadlines seem to be popping up all over of the publishing industry these days, I thought I'd share a few things I learned along the way.
My Tips for Writing Under a Deadline:
1. Get out of the house. I cannot write at home. Between my two preschoolers (who seem to innately understand when I'm under a deadline and choose those times to go through one of those tantrum-every-five-minute-phases) and the lure of laundry (did I mention I have young kids?) there is absolutely no way I can manage to get a single thought on paper. Desperate times call for desperate measures—so when I was writing my book, I literally checked myself into the good 'ole Holiday Inn every Friday night. I brought my instant cappuccino, my chips and salsa and my favorite sweats and wrote all weekend long.
2. Force yourself to write. Even if your dog chewed up your favorite boots and your kid is failing kindergarten math and your husband is stressed at work-- you need to put everything out of your mind for a certain amount of time each day and just write. For me, my goal was to write ten pages every day. Those pages didn't have to be edited or perfect or funny or anything...just written. I made a rule that I couldn't go to bed until I had ten pages on paper. I admit there were days that I was up until 1 in the morning getting those ten pages on paper. And, there were mornings I woke up and tossed all ten pages in the trash because they were worthless. But, I wrote ten pages every day.
3. Give yourself a sugar high. Aside from the occasional Dove chocolate and an all-too-powerful addiction to caffeine, I generally eat pretty healthily. But, when I was writing my book, I allowed myself a few (okay, quite a few) treats. Why? Because I'm so much wittier on paper when I have a sugar high. Any drink that involves a combination of coffee and sugar (say, a double venti caramel Frappucino with whip) is a guaranteed tonic for writer's block or (worse!) boring writing.
4. Do whatever it takes to get some help. When I started writing my book, I knew that
Guest blogger: Mary DeMuth
I’ve long been enamored by books. They are glamorous to me, amorous even. They're physical (at least the non-Kindle versions) tangible representations of hard work, sweat, and toil. So I’ve always viewed them as publishing nirvana.
I’d heard, in the beginning of my career, that I’d reach more folks with magazine articles or newspaper columns. And I’ve written both. But still, I adored and heralded books.
But my perspective is changing. Perhaps finding one of my books discounted to one dollar the other day helped hasten this new perspective. Hard to say.
While I still believe in the power of books, particularly their pass-along potential, I’m looking beyond the reading bases of magazines and newspapers to the Internet. I have far more chance of reaching a wider, larger, international audience on my blog than I do as simply a writer of books. A perfect example is Rachelle’s blog here. She's reaching thousands of people with her advice for writers. She didn’t (yet) write a book about being an agent, and yet her influence in this circle is huge. Have you learned a lot? Is it valuable? Do you tell your writer friends about this place?
If your goal is to reach people with stories or invitational writing, why not look beyond paper pages? Why not view the Internet as a viable, potentially-explosive avenue to share your heart?
Recently I found a blog I adore. As an amateur decorator, I particularly loved The Inspired Room. Since the author and I have several friends in common, I emailed her and asked her some questions. I learned that what started for her as a simple way to share with people her philosophy of decorating (use what you have, repurpose, etc.) ended up becoming her income. She makes a living by blogging. She’s doing what she loves, sharing her passion on the page (albeit an electronic one), and gets paid to do so.
For those of us who can’t afford for writing to be simply a hobby, this is exciting and encouraging. As writers, we should all be looking beyond books. Look beyond physical print. Write your passion. But don’t limit your audience to those who hold pages in their hands.
Q4U: How are you using the Internet to showcase your writing?
Mary DeMuth writes books, nine of them to date, including her most recent: Life in Defiance and Thin Places: A Memoir. Mary mentors writers toward publication at The Writing Spa. She blogs about life and healing at
Guest Blogger: Chuck Sambuchino
You ever see Superman IV? You may have blocked it from your memory because the whole movie is just a drive down Awful Street. But as awful as it is, I think it has a connection to the world of writing. One fascinating thing about the movie is that Christopher Reeve wasn't interested in making another Superman film (because knew it would suck—and suck it did). So if he knew Superman IV would suck and didn't want to do it in the first place, how on Earth did that movie ever get made? Two words: Street Smart.
Street Smart was a tight little drama script that Reeve had been trying to get off the ground for years. Some Hollywood producers told Reeve they would bankroll any picture of his choosing in exchange for doing Superman IV. He couldn't resist, and he signed the papers. Street Smart was released in 1987 and Morgan Freeman got his first Oscar nomination for the film.
The point is: Like Christopher Reeve in the mid-80s, we writers will sometimes do things for love and we will sometimes we do things for money.This is normal; it’s perfectly healthy. Think like an actor. You do the safe picture, then you can do the arthouse picture.
See, most of things we write for love—i.e., usually our fiction—doesn’t have a guaranteed financial payoff, and even if it does, it’s minimal. From my experience writing fiction (in my case, mostly scripts), I can tell you that even with having several stage plays produced and commissioned, there is very little money to be made in playwriting. (Also, I have yet to see dollar one for the screenplays I have composed—but here’s to hoping.)
Don't Put All Your Eggs in One Basket
David Morrell, the thriller writer who brought John Rambo to life, once told me that only 250 people in the country make their living soling writing fiction. All the other writers must do other writerly tasks to bring in money. They teach online courses; they draft up press releases for local businesses; they freelance edit manuscripts; they pen magazine articles. In other words, they do a variety of tasks to make a decent income.
One of my common pieces of advice that I give writers is this: Do not put all your eggs in one basket. In other words, diversify yourself. If you are just writing one picture book or one novel or one memoir, you are setting yourself up for disappointment. The truth is: A lot of first books don’t sell.
You have to keep writing. Give yourself the best chance for success by having multiple projects to sell over time. If the wonderful day ever comes when a literary agent calls you on the phone to discuss representation, the first two questions out of their mouth, guaranteed, will be: 1) “How’s your day?” and 2) “What else are you writing?” They want to make sure you’re a career client, not some one-book wonder—so for that reason alone you have to write multiple things to be an attractive client to an agent.
Find a Healthy Balance
So don’t just write one thing; write lots of things. My advice is to take this “Diversify yourself” advice a step further. I say write long, write short, write fiction, write nonfiction. Stick your toe in different waters. And as you seek to diversify yourself and tackle different projects, you will take on some projects for love and passion—projects that might fail. And you’ll also find yourself taking on assignments just to pay the bills. And this is okay. Just find a healthy balance.
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by Michelle Edwards
My three daughters, Meera, Flory, and Lelia, are close in age. Often during their early years, we snuggled together on our old beige corduroy couch and worked our way through piles of picture books. Before they went to sleep, my husband, Rody, and I read to them. And sometimes, when they were a bit older and he was away, I read aloud in the hall between all their rooms, camp style.
In those happy golden years of our shared reading, we would inevitably hit upon a part of a book that made us collectively take pause—later I dubbed this the “aha” moment. That’s when we discovered Madeline, Babar, and even Harry Potter celebrated Christmas. And being Jewish, we didn’t.
This started me writing about a character who later became Gabi Greenberg. In my book The Hanukkah Trike, Gabi lights the menorah, eats latkes, and helps tell the story of the Maccabee army’s miraculous victory. The next day, after falling off her new trike—a Hanukkah gift—her spunk and determination get her back in the saddle again. Remembering the story of the Maccabees, Gabi musters her courage, and with a skinned knee and a pebble-studded hand, she pushes those pedals again and again, until she takes off down the street.
The Hanukkah Trike is a quiet little story for young children. It could be any child’s story of perseverance.
Each one of my daughters helped me create Gabi. Each one gave me reason to write The Hanukkah Trike. And our years of reading together made me want a spirited character like them. Presenting Gabi Greenberg, lover of latkes and all things Hanukkah. Brave like the Maccabees.
The last time we chatted (see my 9/14 I.N.K. entry) I had followed my inner voice -- that muse inside my head who guides me through the writing process by asking questions, making endless comments and suggestions, and nagging me constantly about this thing and that -- and wound up with a 311 page text about George Washington's first six months as commander of the Continental army. For kids 8 to 12 years old!
*
This would never do, of course. Not only was the text wildly long for the majority of my intended readers, it was 200 pages over the contracted page limit. Yes, I had known the text would come in long for many, many months, but I'd continued pushing the text forward to work out the book's themes and overall structure. Besides the writing was going smoothly and I wanted to see where it would lead, especially with regards to the dramatic action sequences. So it was all my own fault -- and don't think my inner voice didn't let me know. Every so often, it would suddenly blurt out, "Just be ready to delete a lot of this stuff, Murphy."
*
When I finished I wasn't in a panic. Well, not a big one anyway. I knew I had a great deal of work to do and knew it would take time to accomplish. So I took a deep breathe and launched into the revision.
*
At this point my # 1 priority was to cut as much of the text as possible without completely destroying the narrative story line and flow. I did what every writer does: I read each sentence carefully and analyzed it to see what needed to stay and what could go, cutting a word or phrase here, a paragraph there. Some of this was quite easy. There is always excess fat that needs to be trimmed. Some deletions were more problematic. I might slash a paragraph and feel fine about the decision, only to realize later that the paragraph set up a crucial scene and needed to be restored. After going through the entire text once, I went back for another try at it, ax in hand and ready to chop. When the dust finally cleared, I sat back to look at the text and was shocked by what I found. After weeks of work I had managed to cut the text by a measily 7 1/2 pages!
*
Now the panic set in for real. I had focused on cutting the text and had pushed the delete key hundreds and hundreds of times. I thought I'd been brutal on my writing, had attacked it with single-minded purpose. But the manuscript was still over 300 pages long. What had gone wrong? It took several days, but the answer finally came to me. I had fallen into a common writer's trap. During the initial writing phase, I had lived with the text for months on end, had read over and massaged every word, every line, and every paragraph numerous times to get the text just right -- and I'd fallen in love with what I'd written. I couldn't see the flaws, so I couldn't devise a solution. Didn't want to really because I thought I'd already worked out all the problems. In effect, my inner voice -- that ever present critic I counted on to help me make the text as perfect as possible -- had followed me down this path as well and couldn't really point out the problems or a solution either.
*
What to do now, aside from panicking completely. Here a more rational and calm voice finally chimmed in. Clearly, I had lost the ability to view my text with perspective; logic suggested that the best way to get my perspective back was to put as much distance between me and the text as possible. I needed a vacation from my words, and not just one that lasted a few hours or even days. I needed to get as far away from the manuascript for as long as possible.
By Dori Hillestad Butler
A few years ago, I wrote The Truth About Truman School, a novel that deals with cyberbullying. In the book, a girl named Lilly Clarke is harassed online—on a website the whole school reads, an anonymous classmate posts photos and accuses her of being gay.
She starts to avoid school, and then one day, she disappears altogether. The book is also the story of her classmates who witness the bullying and don’t know how to respond.
You may have heard that it’s Bullying Prevention Week—or Month. This year the National Center for Bullying Prevention has expanded the event to cover the whole month of October.
It’s a strangely timely decision, considering all the recent stories about bullying-related tragedies. Special reports on bullying are appearing on the websites for CNN.com, Cartoon Network and People magazine this week. Some of the stories will break your heart. You wonder what you can do—if you can do anything at all.
I want to tell you about a school visit I did last spring. I spoke to 4th and 5th graders, and after one of my presentations, this girl came up to me. She waited until all the other kids were lining up to go back to their classrooms and I was getting set up for the next presentation. She said, “Can I tell you something?”
I said, “Sure.”
She looked around, then leaned in close and whispered, “I’m being cyberbullied.”
At first I just stood there. I expected her teacher to call her over any second. But when that didn’t happen, I said, “do you want to tell me about it?”
Her eyes filled with tears. Then she said, “my friend is spreading rumors about me. She has a website and she uses it to write mean things about people, just like in your book. Now no one will talk to me. Everyone in this whole school hates me.”
She told me she and that girl had been friends since they were four. Their moms were friends, too. But now because the girls weren’t getting along, neither were the moms.
I ached for this girl.
I wondered whether she had told anyone at school about what was happening. Her teacher? A counselor? She said, “they won’t do anything because my friend’s mom helps at school a lot.”
I found it interesting that this girl kept referring to the other girl as her “friend.” She didn’t sound like much of a friend to me. She sounded like a manipulative little—okay, I probably shouldn’t say that when I’m a guest on my publisher’s blog.
I asked her whether it would be okay if I told her librarian what she’d just told me.
She wiped her eyes and said, “Just forget it. It doesn’t matter. Nobody ever does anything anyway.” Then she ran off to join her class.
I did say something to that librarian. All I could do was describe the girl since I didn’t get her name. But the librarian thought she knew who I was talking about. She said “That girl has quite an imagination. I’m sure she read your book and made up that story just so she’d have something to say to you. I don’t believe any of it is true.”
I was stunned. Those tears weren’t real?
Of course the librarian knows the girl and I don’t. She could be absolutely right.
But what if she was wrong?
It’s hard to believe some kids are bullies, but sometimes it’s hard to know when a kid is a victim, too. Which is all the more reason why it’s important to take bullying seriously—in every instance.
Yes—it would’ve bothered me to find out the girl was playing me. But it would bother me a lot more to see this girl’s picture in the news.
I hope it never comes to that.
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Guest Blogger: Richard Mabry
It’s right there on Amazon, buried in the fine print about a book, along with the name of the publisher, number of pages, and all the stuff most people don’t notice: the Amazon rank. Chances are that when you are looking for a book to purchase, you pay no attention at all to it. But if you’re a published author, and it’s your book, it’s a whole different ball game. You might check the rank frequently, sometimes every day. But what does it mean?
Amazon is particularly tight-lipped about sales figures, and even their information about rankings is sparse. They will admit that their ranking of bestsellers, reflecting both recent and historical sales of every item sold on their site, is updated every hour. However, it takes a little digging to find out that not all rankings are adjusted that frequently. Here’s a reasonable guesstimate from Rampant TechPress: #1 to 10,000 are recalculated every hour; #10,001-110,000 are recalculated every day. The rest are recalculated once a month.
So what do the figures mean? They mean that there are that many books with more sales than the one in question. The smaller the number, the better. If your book ranks 10,000, you know that 10,000 books sold more copies than yours. Since Amazon lists an estimated 4,000,000 books on their site, adding more and dropping some each day, a ranking of 10,000 would be good. But it won’t stay there. The rank can change with the purchase of just a few books, either yours or someone else’s.
Is it possible to correlate ranking with sales? Not officially, but there’s some information out there. For example, I found that a major publisher tracked 25 titles over a six-month period, correlating the weekly Amazon sales rank with actual reported sales from Amazon. Ranks down to 750 sold 75 to 275 books per week. From 750 to 3000 had sales of 40 to 75 per week. The sales drop the further down the list you go, and at 10,000 and above—where most of us hang out—the books sold only 1 to 5 copies per week. So you can see that at this level the number could change with the sale of as little as one unit.
If you want to track your book’s Amazon sales, you can use a free utility called TitleZ. I’ve used it for quite a while, and found it useful. It lets you enter the names of one or more books and follow their Amazon rankings, either in tabular or graphic form. Nice, but is it worth it to follow your rankings, or just an invitation to an ulcer?
The first consideration is that Amazon isn’t the only place people buy books. Barnes & Noble and Borders have online as well as brick and mortar stores. There are large chains of Christian bookstores like Mardel, Family Christian Stores, and Lifeway Stores, to name just a few. And don’t forget the independent booksellers.
Bottom line, your Amazon rank is sort of nice to know, but it won’t correlate with your royalty statement (which is a subject for another day). If you’re an author, should you check your Amazon ranking from time to time? It’s allowed. But should you open the champagne when the number is small and look for the bottle of antidepressants when the number rises? Nope. Just keep writing. Because that’s the major driver to sales: producing a good product that readers want. The figures will take
Guest Blogger: Matt Mikalatos
I’m going to spill the secret right up front. The difference between preachy fiction (boo!) and great fiction with a point (yay!) has entirely to do with your ability to entertain the reader. If I’m laughing or desperately turning pages to find out what happens, I can ignore a couple of preachy moments. Here are five tips to minimize preachiness in your fiction:
1. If it doesn’t advance character or plot, ditch it.
Unless your character is a pompous scholastic windbag (I won't mention any names but I'm thinking of a couple) we don’t want long essays disguised as monologues. Don’t waste my time lamenting how global warming has made polar bears cranky unless our hero is about to be trapped in a cage with an angry polar bear. An “aside” designed for you to make a speech removes us from the story. And in fiction, story is king. Two great stories from Flannery O’Connor illustrate how to avoid this: A Good Man Is Hard to Find (in which we learn her theology of the nature of humanity) and Parker’s Back (in which she shows us that religious people are the most likely to miss a spiritual experience).
2. Have worthy opponents.
Don’t allow your hero to have easy wins in arguments with idiots. You should provide better objections to your own beliefs than your reader can. Anytime your reader feels that you aren’t giving the other side of an argument they immediately think you are either preachy or manipulative. See G.K. Chesterton’s The Ball and the Cross to see a clever fight between dueling ideologies.
2) Don’t say what you mean.
Trust your worldview to reveal itself. Stop lecturing us and get back to the story. See Cormac McCarthy’s masterful environmental novel The Road, which never mentions environmentalism and makes you care deeply whether there’s a fish in that nearby river.
3) If you must make a speech, let the skeptic make it.
The best speeches about God from The Brothers Karamazov come from the sensualist brother, Dmitri. Aleksey, a novice in the local monastery, rarely says anything about God. This technique allows the reader to hear the content of the speech with their defenses down. Instead of saying, “Oh, here comes the monk to talk about God, I wonder when it will be over” they say, “Oh, here comes the murderous, licentious, greedy brother to talk about God. I wonder what he’ll say?”
4) Say one thing and do another.
If every speech in your book is about how the earth will never be destroyed by meteorites and in the final page a meteorite smashes a crater into the center of Los Angeles, we’ll figure it out. No need to have a scientist turn to the reader and say, “Well, as it turns out, we were wrong.” Read Percival Everett’s Wounded and compare what people say about dealing with bigotry and what they do about it.
5) You should not be able to say what your book is about without discussing the plot and characters.
If you can say your novel is about global warming, following Jesus, hating Jesus, loving hot dogs or the benefits of vampiric love, then you are writing a preachy book. End of story. Novels are about people doing stuff. Yes, I went to college so I could make up complicated definitions like that. Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe is not an “anti-slavery” novel, it’s the story of a noble slave named Tom. If you can reduce your book to a pro
Guest blogger: Mary DeMuth
I recently received an email from someone who wrote this in the subject line: I NEED you to be my mentor.
The person went on to invite me to be his/her mentor.
It made me remember a very painful time in my life when I approached a lady at church, desperate for a mentor. I was a new mom who grew up in a home I didn’t want to duplicate. I knew I needed help. When I asked the lady to be my mentor, she didn’t respond. Eventually, through her spouse, she said she didn’t feel she could be one, citing her own fear of not living up to my expectations.
Interestingly, a little later a woman entered my life who naturally mentored me, without me having to ask. And I found other ways of learning the craft of motherhood. I read a lot of books and I observed other mothers. I joined a mom’s group too.
It’s the same kind of process for a writer desperate for a mentor. You can go ahead and be bold and ask a published writer to mentor you. Sometimes that may work. But I will say that although I get a lot of requests like this, I seldom take them. Why? Because when I mentor someone, it flows naturally out of my already existing relationship with him/her. Here are five takeaways from my mom mentoring need:
1. Be open to finding a mentor in a natural way. Don’t force the issue, but live expectantly. You never know who will come into your life.
2. Mentors come in all sorts of shapes. Don’t discount someone who hasn’t yet published. He/she may have a lot to teach you.
3. Books and other sources of information (websites on writing) are mentors. Sometimes I think folks just don’t want to do the work. They want me to download everything I’ve ever learned about publishing and writing directly into their minds. But it took me decades to learn this much. In a sense, you have to take ownership of your own learning. Don’t be passive. Aggressively learn the industry. Don’t expect to be hand fed. Look at it as a treasure hunt. Become an investigative reporter on the subject of publishing.
4. We learn by observation, which means you need to read amazing, terrific books. Read great writing. Read inside and outside your genre. Pour through poetry. All this will help you hone your voice and will better your writing.
5. Surround yourself with a writer community. Just as I needed other mommies to help me learn how to mother (and to share my burdens), you need a community of writers around you. Form or join a local face-to-face writers group if you can. There’s something rich and dynamic about an in-the-moment critique. And you can’t beat the encouragement you’ll receive from fellow writers.
If you don’t have a writing mentor, don’t worry. Be proactive and do everything you can right now to better your writing. Who knows, maybe someone you meet at a writers group will walk alongside you as you pursue publication.
Q4U: Do you have a mentor (for writing or anything else) or have you considered one?
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Great post! Q: How do you add micro-tension to your pages without it seeming contrived or forced? (We know Maass is famous for wanting tension in novels.)
Also how do you keep up the suspense yet provide the reader with enough information to know what's going on? Thanks for your insight.
Thanks for sharing your perspective on this. How did you hook up with Maass? Was it from your contacts when you were networking or did you send out queries? I look forward to checking out your book on writing! :)
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Interesting how things have changed so much over the past 15 years! What was once possible without an agent, is nearly impossible now.
We writers have increased responsibilities too--at least I'm finding that my time is full with blogging, responding to emails, social networking, and then, oh yeah, the writing. ;-) I'm glad I can leave the "minutiae" contract work in the hands of my agent.
Rachelle is definitely my champion. And also, many of her other clients have become some of my closest writing friends. Love the way we can encourage and support one another.
Nicely said. I couldn't imagine doing this on my own. . . And you're right when you say, "They want to find you, be excited about your work and help you succeed."
Great post.
Thank you for the links to the books on writing. I am fortunate enough to have recently found an agent but as we go through the revision process, I find myself searching for good books to help keep me centered.
Anon, my take is that if you set up the plot correctly (I call it the LOCK system in my plot book) with the stakes being "death" (death can be physical, professional or psychological) then you can write organic scenes with tension all the way through. Upon revision, you can get rid of what's not tense (Hitchcock's Axiom: A great story is life, with the dull parts taken out).
Robyn, Don Maass and I met at a writers conference years ago and had a great conversation at lunch. We kept in touch. I was already published in CBA. I later took a trip to NY and met with him to discuss my future, and subsequently signed with him. That's why going to conferences is perhaps the best way to begin the agent search.
I look at Rachelle as a champion too, as in someone who takes up for little ol' me in the great big world of publishing. Hoping I'll make her a champion in another way soon--as in winning her a contract with my irresistible book proposal.
Jim, when you and I first met you were still operating without an agent--but you're right. Times have changed. Thanks for sharing your wisdom with us. And Rachelle, thanks for making Jim's advice available to us.
Without a doubt. And so have you, Mr. Bell! From taking your fiction/movies class at Mount Hermon, to your book (one of my fav's!) on the Art of War, you've helped me add invaluable sparks of storytelling to my nonfiction.
Agents helping writers, and writers helping writers . . . and from there, writers helping readers live more hopeful, more fulfilling lives. Cliche, I know, but but we're all in this together.
And I, for one, am so, so grateful.
Great post! And somewhat ironic as I credit three things for my (relatively speedy) path to publication: my critique group, my agent, and James Scott Bell's book "Plot & Structure," which is the best writing guide I've yet to find. Thanks so much for the consistently high-quality writing advice, Mr. Bell!
Great post. I write contemporary romance novels, which made it possible for me to get contracts without an agent. I’m still without an agent, but I’m taking my time. When I do begin the search, I hope I can also find a “champion.”
I'm currently looking for an agent. But I have a question - if your MS gets noticed by a publisher after a conference pitch session and leads to a contract, would an agent automatically want to take you on as a client? I mean, wouldn't it be a sure thing for them - if they liked the author and their work, of course. Does that sort of thing happen often?
Thanks for the good thoughts so far. I'll be out of the office most of the day, so won't be able to respond as much as I'd like.
Jan, to your question, Rachelle surely has some insights, but if you got an offer from a reputable publisher that's going to give you a definite leg up in the agent search. As Grouch Marx would have said, "It couldn't hoit."
Rachelle has been an invaluable source of help to me as my agent. And without her decision to serve as my work's champion, I would never have signed a contract with my dream publisher.
And thank you, Mr. Bell, for The Art of War for Writers! I'm really tired on the writing front today, being knee-deep in a difficult rewrite, and this post is a reminder to me that I need to go pull out The Art of War for Writers and spend some time with it. Whenever I read it, it refreshes and inspires me.
Insightful post! It's good to hear about your journey. Your explanation as to why agents are so very needed in this day and age is helpful. Thanks from a newbie!
Yes, absolutely, my agent has improved my publishing journey. I honestly don't believe I'd be published or where I am today with his careful guidance and advice. He "gets" me, replete with all my idiosyncrasies...and he still wants to represent me! LOL
I've been writing professionally for 10 years. I went solo for some of that time, but having an agent is better by far. Better deals, better projects, a sense of teamwork, having someone in your corner during negotiations--it all comes with having an agent.
James, I loved your book, Art of War, by the way. Thanks for writing that.
Thanks, James. Your books on writing are my favorites, and I buy them whenever you sell them. I do have a question. Are you generally able to find the agents who are more likely to represent you well at conferences, or is it a case of writer beware there as well? It seems logical that most agents who attend would be more likely to be the ones who do care about helping an author develop his career.
I couldn't imagine tackling publication without an agent but have waited a long time before feeling ready to start my search for the right one. Thank you for the conversation we had at the Surrey Conference that helped confirm where I should be looking.
It's encouraging to encounter publishing professionals who genuinely seem to care about others on the journey, and who share their expertise to help make the road a little smoother. Writers and agents who give back to the writing community, as you and Rachelle do, are such a blessing.
Your story to publication is amazing. I had no idea the business had evolved in such a short time! I'm so grateful for the Internet and all of the information out there. Information like this has steered me in the right direction on many occasions and for that I'm grateful.
BTW, I read Try Fear over the summer and enjoyed it! Also really loved The Art of War for Writers.
I had the pleasure of meeting both you and Donald years ago at the L.A. BEA. You are as nice in person as you are online! I still refer to the notes from your workshop.
Great post. I agree that having an agent is crucial to a writing career.
For me, having a good agent makes a huge difference. It is good to have a champion (a great description) while I focus on writing better books.
By the way, I love your book, The Art of War for Writers. I think it's a must for writers to have on their desks. I have read through it more than once.
Jim!
What a pleasant surprise to see you here today. You asked: Has an agent improved your publishing journey?
You know better than anyone else what a godsend Rachelle is to me. :) I don't know what I'd have done without your help and her willingness to take me on as one of her writers.
And if there is anyone out there who doesn't know James Scott Bell you've got to go to conference and attend his workshops. I highly recommend all his writing books AND his fiction will keep you sitting in one position far too long before you remember to stretch. :)
Thanks to this post, I've ordered all three of Mr. Bell's How-To books. I look forward to learning more.
Thank you, Rachelle, for having Mr. Bell as a guest.
Wonderful stuff all around.
I'm totally with you... I'm 99.9% certain that I never would've gotten a publishing contract without my agent, but even if by some chance I had, I'm 100% certain I wouldn't have been able to navigate the publishing process without her. Worth every penny of that 15% (and more!) if you ask me.
In answer to your question, an agent has improved my writing journey. I had the great fortune of hearing Mr. Donald Maass speak twice at a conference this year, and he was inspiring. He has a true passion for the art of writing.
Also, Mr. Bell, thank you for your book about plot and structure. It's invaluable.
Diana
My agent has absolutely been invaluable in steering me in the right direction. She's also become my friend, my cheerleader and at times, I bet she feels like my therapist! I love what Robin said... she's my champion.
Unlike the brilliant James Scott Bell, I do NOT have any law experience and contracts and negotiations aren't my forte! So I thank God for a great agent every single day!
Great post... :)
My 11-year-old daughter was reading over my shoulder and started singing, "Agents DON'T have heart." My immediate response was, "Oh, yes, they do!" She probably thinks this because she only hears of my rejections from agents, yet she doesn't realize how kind those agents have been with their rejections. Although I am still unagented, I can truly say that Agents Got Heart. And one of these days, my manuscript will steal one of those hearts. :-)
So good to see you here, Jim! What an awesome surprise to see you on Rachel's blog.
Great post! I agree with you 100%. When I first started writing I was influenced by others that an agent isn't really needed. Of course these were writers who prefer POD and probably are not serious about their careers as writers. Perhaps just different needs.
Anyhow, the more research I did, the more I was convinced that the RIGHT agent is def something I need in my future.
Like you said: they help shape your material and guide your career. The best ones will fight for you.
That is exactky what I strive for:)
Good to see you!!
My agent is awesome!!! (And, yes, she warrants an excess of exclamation points.) She saw potential in the sophomoric story I sent her, showed me how to distinguish what was worth saving, and supported me through the arduous task of rewriting the rest. She then guided me through the process of preparing a proposal and sent it out into the big wide world. I'd extol her virtues a bit longer, but I don't want her to get embarrassed and delete my comment. =)
My agent is indeed clever. She has none other than JSB himself guest blogging on her site today.
Thanks, Jim, for a great post. You rock!
Thank you Mr. Bell for being a tireless fan of aspiring writers everywhere. Heart is exactly what I am looking for in an agent and you sir have it in spades. Hope to to you again next year at the LA Times Book Festival!
Thanks so much for all the encouraging comments today. Godspeed and keep writing!
This was a great post. I really liked the encouraging feel it had as far as Agents go. They're people too, and if they love their job they should love their clients, and despite that it is a business, it's nice to know the good ones don't let that get in the way of doing a personable job.