Guide to Literary Agents - 7 Things I've Learned So Far

7 Things I’ve Learned So Far, by Victoria Ceretto-Slotto

Chuck — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 17:20:47 GMT

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 Victoria Ceretto-Slotto.

Victoria Ceretto-Slotto is a Nevada-based
writer whose first novel is currently being
shopped by her agent. See Victoria's blog here.

1. Cultivate Beginner’s Mind. Whether you are a newbie or a seasoned writer, approach your work as though you were a novice. Read good writing in many genres. Subscribe to magazines such as Writer’s Digest. Devour books about the practice of writing. Reread classics and explore contemporary work. Give a book 50 pages then, if it isn’t working for you, put it aside. Never, ever become complacent. The day you believe you have arrived, you will cease to develop.

2. Refute the Myth of Writer’s Block. There are days when the last thing you want to do is face the ominous blank page—and sometimes that’s okay. But when one writing-free day leads to another and another, you are at risk of slipping into writer’s entropy. Devise a treatment plan that will free your creative muse from its self-imposed exile. Brainstorm with a friend; write a poem; revise a short story you’ve previously abandoned; take a walk in nature; pick random words from the dictionary and use all of them in a paragraph, poem or short, short story. Find a remedy that works for you.

3. Listen to Others, but Be True to Your Vision. Participation in critique groups and workshops is of immense value. Objective, balanced advice from fellow writers helps you develop your skills and improve your manuscript. Learn to listen to suggestions with an open mind and hone your ability to give feedback that is both constructive and encouraging. Take notes while your work is being reviewed. Soon after the session, correct typos, grammatical errors and spelling mistakes, but defer making changes related to plot or character until you have completed your first draft. Hold onto the reins of your story: the plot, story arc and characters belong to you at this point. Don’t do radical surgery until you are know it will improve the prognosis of your story.

4. Embrace the Process of Revision but Keep on Writing. I wrote my first novel in a little over a year and revised for eight years before it was accepted by an agent. Don’t be afraid of the hard work of writing. Take a break after you’ve completed the first draft—let your manuscript gestate. Be creative in the process of revising and editing: read your novel aloud; read it backwards, beginning with the last chapter, to discover unresolved story lines and inconsistencies in characters; read it with a focus on grammar, on active verbs, on tightening the narrative, eliminating unnecessary adverbs and adjectives; look for word echoes—you get the idea. But, in the meantime, move forward. Outline your next novel or book proposal. Write in a different genre. Try to balance your time between the new and the old. Finally, know when it’s time to give birth.

5. Query with Care. You will save yourself some of the heartbreak of rejection if you attend well to the process of submitting your work. Ask other writers for feedback on your query letter, synopsis and outline. Make them as succinct and compelling as possible and tailor your presentation to the agents or publishers to whom you are submitting. Do a thorough review of their websites to assure that you are meeting their requirements and that your masterpiece matches the type of work that they represent. Don’t send more than they request. And when you’ve accumulated your fair share of rejections, keep on trying—don’t give up. If you’re lucky enough to receive a personalized note of rejection, consider any advice that’s been offered and if necessary, be willing to take another look at your manuscript and, if needed, initiate CPR.

6. Manage Your Time and Organize Your Space. The creative process can be messy, even chaotic. Disorganization, however, can take over our lives and waste time. How can you maximize efficiency? Develop processes that work for you such as computer files, folders for research and document back-up systems. Decide whether you will work from an outline or if you prefer to let your characters lead the way. Before beginning to write, consider fleshing out character profiles and detailed setting descriptions. Avoid or limit time-busters such as computer games, surfing the Internet and other writing-avoidance gimmicks that have inched their way into your routine. Finally, design or discover a sacred space that invites you to unleash your creativity.

7. Adjust Your Definition of Success. Ask a writer how they define success. You will hear responses ranging from winning a Pulitzer to multiple weeks on the NYT Bestseller List. While I couldn’t argue with those answers, I’d like to think that, along the way, we achieve many smaller successes. From my agented-but-not-yet-published place on the continuum, I’d like to focus on some of the other achievements that have had meaning in my writing life: making the effort to show up at the blank page, publishing my first short stories and poems in small literary journals, completing those first drafts, finding the perfect word that expresses what I want to say, experiencing the zone outside myself when the writing just happens guided by the creative Spirit, receiving a complimentary rejection, knowing at the end of the day I’ve worked toward what I’m here on earth to accomplish. Celebrate success!

Need to sharpen the beginning of your novel?
Check out the great resource Hooked, which is
all about writing an excellent Chapter 1.

Want more tips and posts?

Query letter tips.

Five signs a literary is a good match for you.

What are the BEST writers' conferences in the country?

Confused about formatting? Check out Formatting & Submitting Your Manuscript.

Read about What Agents Hate: Chapter 1 Pet Peeves.

Want the most complete database of agents and what genres they're looking for? Buy the 2011 Guide to Literary Agents today!

7 Things I've Learned So Far, by Hollis Gillespie

Chuck — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 23:01:13 GMT

Hollis Gillespie is an award-winning humor
and travel columnist, with her column appearing
every month on Atlanta magazine's coveted
back page. She is also a best-selling memoirist,
NPR commentator, professional speaker,
comedian and guest on the Tonight Show
with Jay Leno. She runs Shocking Real Life,
the largest writing school in Atlanta, which
offers workshops on blogging and social media.
These days she gets most of her exercise
running to catch flights.

1. Social and digital media are now essential as well as inescapable. As a writer, if you don't update your skills so they include social and digital media then you might as well lumber off to your secret lair to languish with the other old elephants. If writing is your craft, these tools are now necessary for you to continue it. Other professions are subject to updating—you don't see doctors who cure fevers by blood-letting anymore—and writers are not exempt.

2. There is no such thing as a "finish line." When you sell a book, you are creating a new job for yourself, one that will hopefully replace your old one. It almost doesn't matter how successful you become, you still never feel relaxed enough to rest on your accolades. There have been times as recently as, like, yesterday, when I've told myself that if the restaurant where I waited tables in college knocked on my door right now offering me my apron back, I'd jump at it.

3. Literary agents have very, very specific needs when it comes to material. When you pitch an agent, you have to make sure your material is perfectly in line with the genres she represents. Most likely, that agent has cultivated relationships with publishers that specialize in a very particular line of books. When considering an agent to pitch, at the very minimum make sure there is a book in her client list that strongly compares to your own manuscript.

4. No one is going to steal your memoir idea. Stop worrying about that.

5. No one is going to sue you for how you portrayed them in your memoir. Stop worrying about that. They might not like what you said about them, but since when is it illegal to have a low opinion of someone? I usually put it to my students this way, "If someone in your life has behaved like a volcanic @sshole, you're not legally liable just because you noticed."

6. Fear is the most creatively corrosive element that writers have to face each day, and it comes disguised as so many things. The one I see encountered most often has a lot to do with #5 above. I can't count how many times I've heard a student recount the most fascinating—and marketable—life story, only to insist they can't write about it because they're afraid of how it will be taken.

7. It helps to write your story as though no one will read it. That goes a long way toward solving #5 and #6 above.

Writing a memoir or life story? A great
resource is Writing Life Stories.

Want more on this subject?

Tips on writing memoir.

An author's tale of how his memoir came to be.

"7 Things I've Learned So Far," by a memoir writer.

Confused about formatting? Check out Formatting & Submitting Your Manuscript.

Read about What Agents Hate: Chapter 1 Pet Peeves.

Want the most complete database of agents and what genres they're looking for? Buy the 2011 Guide to Literary Agents today!

7 Things I've Learned So Far, by Kim Wright

Chuck — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 14:24:22 GMT

Kim Wright's novel Love in Mid Air (March 2010)
received a starred review from Publishers Weekly.
Kim has been writing about travel, food, and wine
for more than 25 years and is a two-time recipient
of the Lowell Thomas Award for Travel Writing.
See her website here.

1. Your agent needs to be a good editor. I think most aspiring novelists know that agents are the gatekeepers—if they’re not impressed with your work as is, they’re unlikely to take you on as a client. But what I didn’t know two years ago is that many agents—like my own—come from an editorial background and are very qualified to help you get your manuscript in even better shape before sending it out to editors. My agent is now my first reader.

2. Your editor needs to know how to sell. If you’re with a big publisher, they release dozens of books each season, all in competition with each other for resources and attention within the house. If your editor is a strong advocate for your book, he or she can sell its merits to the people in publicity and sales, and make sure your book get the budget and manpower it deserves.

3. Don’t show your work to everyone. Most of the professional writers I know are very selective about getting feedback in the early stages. I’d say a circle of 2-5 trusted readers is perfect. Beyond that, you’ll either get confused by contradictory advice or your book will sound like it’s been edited by committee.

4. The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas. I think Walt Disney said that and if he didn’t, he should’ve. It seems like a long career in writing hinges on your ability to keep coming up with new possibilities. Editors and agents want to know you’re not just a one-trick pony and you need to know that your whole life isn’t riding on a single project.

5. Once you’ve sold the book, you’ve sold the book. It took me a while to figure out what selling a book is like selling a house—i.e., you don’t own it any more. You can’t drive by six months later and stop and ask them “Why the heck did you paint the front door orange?” It’s their house now. Publishers might listen to your opinion about titles, covers, etc. but the final decisions rest with them.

6. Accept that publicity and marketing are part of your job. This is tough because you’ve probably just been alone and terribly focused on one thing for years. But after you sell the book you morph from the writer—who stumbles around in her bathrobe until noon, muttering—into the author, who is expected to be articulate, outgoing, perfectly dressed and media ready. It feels so weird and scary you might be tempted to crawl under the bed and leave everything to your publicist, but the truth is, if you want your book to be successful, this is part of the process.

7. Savor the sweet moments. Publishing is a wild ride and you’re always going to feel you should be doing more and doing better. Try to pause in the middle of hourly checks on your Amazon ranking and attempts to put a curse on Kathryn Stockett and enjoy the little triumphs. A review from someone in Minnesota who understands exactly what you were going for … a kind note from a fellow writer ... a good day’s work on book two.

How much can you accomplish in 30 days?
Book in a Month can help you get that
first draft down on paper.

Want more on this subject?

5 lies unpublished writers tell themselves.

A day in the life of a querier.

Confused about formatting? Check out Formatting & Submitting Your Manuscript.

Read about What Agents Hate: Chapter 1 Pet Peeves.

Want the most complete database of agents and what genres they're looking for? Buy the 2011 Guide to Literary Agents today!

7 Things I've Learned So Far, by Olivia Sharpnack (better known as Lydia Sharp)

Chuck — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 18:11:01 GMT

Lydia Sharp is an author of science fiction,
fantasy, women's fiction, and young adult
romance. Her short story, "The Keeper of Secrets,"
is featured in the anthology Shadows & Light:
Tales of Lost Kingdoms (Pill Hill Press, 2009).
She co-blogs with her husband, Joe Sharp, at
The Sharp Angle. Lydia is also a featured
member of the Writer's Digest Community
and a semi-annual contributor to Writer Unboxed.

1. It's both what you know and who you know. Those two go hand in hand. You can learn a lot from the "nobodies" and "somebodies" in this business, and both can provide opportunities. Pay attention to the little cracks that might be the sign of an open door.

2. Bestselling authors are people, too. Everyone started small, unpublished, and struggled in some way to achieve their current success. Deep down, all writers like to be recognized for a job well done, even in a small way. Whenever I post a review on The Book Book, I contact the author and let them know about it. So far, I've never received an unfavorable response, and it's a simple way to make a connection with someone already established in the business.

3. It's easier to make enemies than friends. This is especially true online, where an innocent question or statement can be perceived as a threat or an insult. As writers, we should know better than to use words carelessly. Not saying I'm perfect because, yes, I've put my foot in my mouth more times than I care to relate, and have deleted more posts and comments than I care to admit, but I've also learned from my mistakes. Before you hit that final "submit" make double and triple sure the words on your screen are the words you really want the public to see. And if you're not sure what the public is seeing, Google yourself. The results might surprise you.

4. Find a platform that works for you and stick with it. For me, it's blogging. I have not signed up for Twitter, Facebook, and whatever else is out there for fear it will take up all my free writing time. With a blog, I'm able to focus on what I feel is important: writing, and everything that goes along with that. It's also an effective way to stay in touch with others in the business and promote my work. For someone else, blogging may not be the best choice, but give it at least six months of dedicated effort before you nix it. Most blogs fail because people got bored with it, didn't realize how much work is truly involved, or felt they should have had a bigger response from readers. No matter what platform you choose, it's going to take time to establish.

5. A pen name does not equal a fake persona. My reasons for using a pen name never included "because I don't want people to know who I am." To me, that's just silly. People are going to figure you out sooner or later. I chose a pen name that is similar to my real name, but easier to say and remember, for the sake of marketability. Fiction is funny like that. And now that I'm venturing into nonfiction, my real name is going to get out there, too, which is fine. They're both me.

6. Enter as many contests as possible. First off, there's no harm in entering. If you don't enter, you're sure to lose, but if you do enter, there's a chance you'll win. Second, don't take yourself too seriously with these, especially if there is no prize for winning other than recognition. I've seen people get bent out of shape over not placing in a "for fun" contest, and honestly, I'm embarrassed for them (someone has to be). Third, contests are an excellent way to discipline your writing. Most of the time you're given a prompt of some sort or a theme that you must stick to, and there is always a deadline. If you've never done this before, you might be surprised how creative you can get when you force it. Last of all, you never know where it might lead you. My first published short story had originally been written for a contest. Less than a year later, the story was in print and I had a check in my hand.

7. Don't confine yourself to a single type of writing. Keep stretching and trying new things. My first love is novels, and my favorite thing to write is science fiction. If you'd told me two years ago that my first publication would be a fantasy short story, I would have looked at you like you'd sprouted another head. And if you'd told me a year ago that I'd be writing how-to articles and essays now in addition to fiction, I would have said, "Um … why?" And don't even get me started on how odd it is that I also write contemporary women's fiction, and just finished my first YA romance novel. But this is something I've learned and now embrace: whenever you try something new, or focus on a different technique, you improve overall. Growth is good. The only alternative is to be static or shrink back. Who wants that?

If you are looking for a critique of your
work, come to see WD editors personally
at the next Editors Intensive (Cincinnati,
Sept. 11-12, 2010).

Want more on this subject?

5 articles on making the most of a writers conference.

How to pitch an agent at a conference.

The next Writer's Digest Editors Intensive event is Sept. 11-12, 2010. All attendees receive a critique of 50 pages of their work.

Confused about formatting? Check out Formatting & Submitting Your Manuscript.

Read about What Agents Hate: Chapter 1 Pet Peeves.

Want the most complete database of agents and what genres they're looking for? Buy the 2011 Guide to Literary Agents today!

7 Things I've Learned So Far (a satire), by Patricia Volonakis Davis

Chuck — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 13:59:32 GMT

Many writers who wish to become bestselling authors behave as though they already are bestselling authors. The strategy of “if you believe it’s true, it will become true” has been made popular by—fittingly enough—the bestselling book, The Secret. It’s a strategy that can work. That is, if you know how bestselling authors conduct themselves; and many new writers and newly published authors seem to think they do. Here are the seven things I’ve learned so far about how to become a bestselling author:

1. First and foremost, bestselling authors never need editors. The very idea is insulting. Think about it—how can an editor help you make your work better? You should be able to tell whether it has any flaws in it. Do you think Dan Brown needs to listen to an editor’s advice? Certainly not.

2. Bestselling authors demand the attention of other published authors. Whether it’s a blurb you want, a free reading of your manuscript, or dozens of questions answered, don’t be shy—be assertive. Issuing commands puts you in a position of authority. For example, I had one future bestselling author come up to me at a conference and say, “I wanted to attend your session, but there’s another one at the same time that might be better for me, so I’d like to sit with you at lunch and have you tell me what you’re going to say.” It takes a great deal of self-esteem to walk up to a stranger and insist on your rights as a future bestseller. She didn’t even offer to buy my book first. That’s confidence.

3. Bestselling authors ignore unpublished writers. Conversely, with everything you’ll have to do once your books start selling madly, you’ll barely have time for family, let alone friends. So to avoid making new ones, don’t waste time helping colleagues who can’t help further your career. Don’t be squeamish about taking this stand—it’s not uncouth, it’s just good business. With the steady and fixed way the publishing industry operates, it’ll be years before they’ll be able to repay you, if ever. Therefore, don’t write any online reviews for anyone, do not—heaven forbid—try to help anyone get a publisher; and most of all, if they do manage to get a book published, definitely don’t buy it, because The Law of Physics dictates that every book they don’t sell is one more you will sell.

4. Bestselling authors ignore their readership. In the same vein, as members of the literati, authors are elevated from the common person. Therefore, knowing who our readers are who enjoy our work, tell their friends about it, and even purchase additional copies to give as gifts, is unimportant. Your writing is too time-consuming for social networking.

5. Unless they give you a bad review. Bestselling authors do not ignore flamers or old high school enemies who anonymously leave 'one star reviews' on their amazon.com book page. Nor do they try to learn anything about their writing from a reader who takes the time to sincerely critique it. Bestselling authors announce on Facebook how offended they are that someone who paid for their book had the nerve to say what they thought of it.

6. Bestselling authors let the in-house publicist do all their marketing for them. This is a no-brainer. You’ve been assigned your own publicist, so let her do her job. Leave it exclusively to her to get the word of your new book out there. There are over 350 thousand books published in the U.S. annually, but your publicist has only about 300 of those new books and authors to work with each year. You know she’ll put yours in her 'Top Five,' because yours is going to be a bestseller!

7. Bestselling authors don’t let retail bookshops push them around. Would a bookshop be a bookshop without books—specifically—your book? Of course not. So once again, be persistent, especially with your local independent bookshop. They should be championing you, for sure. Expect that they’ll keep a spot open on their shelves for you always, even if new stock is coming in. If they do agree to a book event, assume they’ll do all the promotion for it; and then if it’s poorly attended, let them know you’re not pleased. If you’re a self-published author, be sure to haggle with your retailer over sales percentages. They’ll complain that they have overhead such as rent, utilities, and salaries to keep their doors open, and that online sellers are draining their blood, blah, blah, blah. Pay no heed, because if they don’t like the deal, you can just take your event to another bookshop, can’t you?

Writing a novel? Agent/writer Donald Maass
is a fiction writing expert, and his book
Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook
can guide you on your journey.

Want more on this subject?

Want to pen a guest column? Write me at literaryagent@fwmedia.com

Confused about formatting? Check out Formatting & Submitting Your Manuscript.

Read about What Agents Hate: Chapter 1 Pet Peeves.

Want the most complete database of agents and what genres they're looking for? Buy the 2011 Guide to Literary Agents today!

7 Things I've Learned So Far, by Macie Smith

Chuck — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 18:30:05 GMT

Macie Smith is a contributing writer for
seveneightfive magazine (www.seveneightfive.com).
She also writes young adult fiction, poetry, and
dabbles in short stories. You can learn more
about her at www.maciesmith.com

1. Participate in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). NaNoWriMo challenges you to write a 50,000-word story in one month. You can’t look back; you must move forward. For writers at any level, it’s an intense challenge that builds discipline and fuels passion. Even when the Muses stop granting inspiration, you dig deep and write. Crossing the 50,000 word finish line never felt so good. The event takes place in November. Learn more at www.nanowrimo.org.

2. Words matter. They are precious jewels in the building of a palace. You must labor over each one. Make every word count. Avoid adverbs (those nasty boogers that end in –ly) wherever possible. How does a person stand angrily? Do they jut out a hip, cross their arms, or stomp a foot. It’s your job to show the reader. And for heaven’s sake, find another way to say a character “walked.” Walking is boring. Meandering, slinking, sashaying, or dashing about all make a scene come to life.

3. Edit other people’s work. It’s much easier to see the mistakes other writers make than to see your own, but chances are, you’re making the same ones. After you’ve spent time editing someone else’s piece, it’ll be easier to see where you need growth.

4. Remove yourself from your work before you edit. More editing advice? You bet ya! I can’t overemphasize editing because it’s where the rubber meets the road. Editing is where your idea is refined to gold. Put away your work. Give it at least a week or two before you look at it again, but a month is better, maybe even several months. You’ve drowned in words during the creative process and your piece will seem like a masterpiece, but after some space, you’ll see its true nature. Furthermore, don’t treat your work like its your baby, especially when you share personal events. They may be intimate and special, but they may not further your piece’s overall message. Giving yourself that space makes it easier to cut unnecessary details and hear other people’s critiques.

5. Become a name in your local writing community. Join a writers group for un-biased feedback (yes, your family and friends always think your work is fabulous). Write for local publications. Enter local contests. See if your local college has a literary journal/magazine. You may not get paid, but you’ll grow as a writer and build credentials. You’ll meet people who share your passion for writing. Plus, when you still aren’t published nationally, it feels nice to have some local recognition.

6. Connect to the larger writing community via the interwebs. This will give you perspective on the large size of the writing world, but it’s also a great resource. I’ve accumulated a vast wealth of knowledge by reading agent and writer blogs and following agents, authors, writers, and publishers on Twitter. But here’s the key: I followed their advice. You don’t know better then those who’ve been there. When agents say too many stories start with a dream sequence, I make sure I don’t use one. When authors share advice on writing techniques, I use them. My writing has only improved. If you want published, you need flawless writing, but you also need a grasp of the publishing industry. Staying connected and listening will take you a long way.

7. Persevere. In the words of Amy Grant (words we hope aren’t immortalized), “it takes a little time sometime.” But in this case, it takes a lot of time. Be patient. You won’t get it done overnight, in fact, you’re doing good to have it done in a year. Creating, writing, recreating, waiting, editing, getting feedback, editing, and reediting are lengthy processes. Add to that time spent composing query letters and waiting for a response. And you can’t stop there. Even when one piece/novel is complete write another. Writing is a process and a journey. It takes monumental effort, but to the writer, it is joy.

Writing a novel. Agent/writer Donald Maass
is a fiction writing expert, and his book
Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook
can guide you on your journey.

Want more on this subject?

Want to pen a guest column? Write me at literaryagent@fwmedia.com

Confused about formatting? Check out Formatting & Submitting Your Manuscript.

Read about What Agents Hate: Chapter 1 Pet Peeves.

Want the most complete database of agents and what genres they're looking for? Buy the 2011 Guide to Literary Agents today!

7 Things I've Learned So Far, by Jan Underwood

Chuck — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 14:10:26 GMT

Jan Underwood teaches and writes in Portland,
Ore. Her novel, Day Shift Werewolf, winner of
the 2005 International Three Day Novel Contest,
was published by 3DayBooks in 2006. When she's
not seeking a home for her next novel, she can
be found at www.blogatrix.org and
www.janunderwoodwriter.com.

1. The best cure for writer’s block is writing. Write anything. Get some prompts and write outside your genre. Write something that has no stakes for you. If you’re really stuck on a big project, write in your journal. There’s no purgative like a long, bitter, ranting, self-pitying journal entry; it’s kind of like a cleanse, but without all the trips to the bathroom.

2. The second best cure for writer’s block is other creative endeavors. Most writers I know are accomplished in other arts as well. I used to think it was “cheating” to draw or dance when I “should” be writing. Now I understand: The arts all nourish one another.

3. Don’t let anyone convince you there’s only one way to work. Some writers use outlines; some don’t. Some write an entire draft and then edit; others edit as they go. I was stymied for years by a throw-away bit of advice that you shouldn’t try to write a novel until you’d written short stories. I didn’t especially want to write short stories, and now, several finished novels later, I still don’t feel the need. But it took the sage advice of another trusted writer to get me unstuck. He told me to write whatever the hell I wanted to.

4. Don’t write in isolation. For one thing, you need the feedback; the collective smarts of the group are greater than those of the smartest individual member. For another, pretty much everything you need to know has already been figured out by someone else, so don’t reinvent the cliché. Finally, a writing group will help keep you accountable. Writing resembles exercise in this way: you’re more likely to roll out of bed and go running if you know your buddy’s waiting for you at the door, especially if his spandex is as awkward as yours.
Know that writing groups don’t all look the same. My current crew is a not a critique group, per se, but rather a half-dozen women who keep a weekly six-hour writing date. We read only when moved and give feedback only when asked, and we gather because the synergy of the group is a tremendous boon to the work of each member. I’ve also belonged to groups of creatives who do their work off-stage but meet regularly to talk about their process, set goals, and keep one another on task.
Know, though, that at some point you are going to need to seek editing. Support is not a substitute, but a complement, to critical feedback. Which leads me to my next point:

5. Don’t kill the messenger. Sometimes the messenger is a jackass. But sometimes he or she has a point. The novel I just finished was made enormously stronger by some advice I didn’t want to hear and that was delivered in a most unskillful way. It took me six months to recover. But it turned out that what the critic had to tell me was spot-on.

6. On the other hand … Good critiquing is a practice that has to be learned like any other. Some people who are willing to comment on your manuscript may have underdeveloped critiquing skills. Some may even want to take you down a notch. Try to surround yourself with capable critics who are rooting for you and your writing.

7. The best thing you can do for your writing is keep showing up to it. Less experienced writers tend to have bursts of inspiration followed by drought and by stretches when they long to write but are “too busy.” Make a regular writing date—once a week at a minimum—and keep it.

Writing a novel. Agent/writer Donald Maass
is a fiction writing expert, and his book
Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook
can guide you on your journey.

Want more on this subject?

Want to pen a guest column? Write me at literaryagent@fwmedia.com

Confused about formatting? Check out Formatting & Submitting Your Manuscript.

Read about What Agents Hate: Chapter 1 Pet Peeves.

Want the most complete database of agents and what genres they're looking for? Buy the 2011 Guide to Literary Agents today!

7 Things I've Learned So Far, by Marybeth Whalen

Chuck — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 17:47:24 GMT

Marybeth Whalen's first novel, The Mailbox, came
out in June 2010. Marybeth is a member of the
Proverbs 31 Ministries speaker team and has
served as general editor of For The Write Reason
and The Reason We Speak. She and her husband
co-authored Learning To Live Financially Free.
Additionally, she serves as director of She Reads
(Proverbs 31 Ministries' fiction division).
See her website here.

1. The people I've spent years investing in through my community, my blog, and other avenues of life were well worth it. I didn't do it so that someday I could cash in on our relationship, but now that I have a book coming out it is so nice to have people cheering me along and helping to spread the word.

2. I will never arrive. As I write this, I am finishing my second novel to turn into my publisher. In some ways I feel more confident than I did with my first, but in some ways I am painfully aware of how much I still have to learn. I will always be learning, going to conferences, reading books on the craft. I hope I never stop.

3. Social media really does work. It's not a waste of time to invest in Twitter and Facebook and blogging and all those other things that "they" tell you you should do. Build your tribe and you will be thankful later. Just make sure you strike a balance between internet time and writing time.

4. It's good to know who you are and what you write. That way, when you get asked about your style by interviewers like I have been recently, you won't sit there dumbfounded with no answer whatsoever. Are you funny? Serious? Do you write contemporary? Historical? Fantasy? Is your audience women, YA or children? Boil it all down into some sort of descriptive statement that people can latch onto. I am, incidentally, still working on that.

5. Style, voice and command of the language are very necessary but a unique hook or angle can also go a long way to getting you published. Look around for the unique way you can package that theme or issue you want to write about so that it will grab readers. I am not foolish enough to think that my novel got picked up because of the excellent writing (See #2 above) but I did something unique in crafting a love story around a little-known real NC landmark. We can all look around for those elements in our lives—people, professions or places we know about that others perhaps do not—that add something unique to what we have to share.

6. Editors are really, really necessary. It hurt to have my novel shredded by my editor. I may have hated her momentarily. But what she created from those shreds is what makes the book good now. When people tell me they like the book or they couldn't put it down, I send the compliments on to her. My name might be on the cover but the credit largely belongs to her.

7. You have to have family support to make it. Without the full-fledged support of my family—especially my husband—I could not have seen this challenge through. If you have a supportive spouse and children, that's something to be thankful for. I know I am.

I will leave you with this excellent—and very true—quote from Sidney Sheldon, "A blank piece of paper is God's way of telling us how hard it is to be God."

Writing a novel? Agent/writer Donald Maass
is a fiction writing expert, and his book
Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook
can guide you on your journey.

Want more on this subject?

Want to pen a guest column? Write me at literaryagent@fwmedia.com

Confused about formatting? Check out Formatting & Submitting Your Manuscript.

Read about What Agents Hate: Chapter 1 Pet Peeves.

Want the most complete database of agents and what genres they're looking for? Buy the 2011 Guide to Literary Agents today!

7 Things I've Learned So Far, by Alan Orloff

Chuck — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 13:49:51 GMT

Alan Orloff's debut mystery, Diamonds for the Dead,
was published in April 2010 by Midnight Ink.
He also has a new mystery series coming
in 2011. Visit his website here or see
his blog here.

1. Things move slowly in the publishing world. Be prepared to wait. A lot. For your critique group to get through your manuscript. For your queries to be answered (if you're lucky). For your partials and fulls to be read. For editors to weigh your submissions. For your book to wend its way through the production process as it heads toward the bookstore shelf. Best advice: Have some other projects to work on while you wait!

2. Getting help really helps. Critique groups can help you with your writing. An agent can help polish your submission and will know where to send it. An editor can help massage your manuscript into its optimal form. Ignore these "helpers" at your own peril. Getting published really is a village effort (so make sure you have plenty of food on hand).

3. You need a thick skin. Rejections are the norm—don't let them "spin you out." Otherwise, you'll never get any writing done. Persistence and perseverance are key.

4. Your book doesn't "belong" to only you anymore. While you were writing your manuscript, it was your baby. You could feed it what you wanted, dress it how you wanted, play with it whenever you wanted. Now, you have to share and listen to other people's "baby-raising" advice. Once you sign a contract, your book gets slotted into a release date and tossed onto the production conveyor belt. Flap copy, cover design, titles, internal and external sales pitches, copyediting, publicity, sales. It all gets done on schedule, without emotion and (mostly) without you. Get used to it.

5. Online promotion takes a lot more time than you think. Website, blog, Google Reader, Facebook, Twitter, listservs, Yahoo groups, nings, and a kajillion other social sites lure you in and won't let go. These connections are valuable, but you need to exercise discipline or you'll look up and four hours will have elapsed with nothing to show for your "writing" time except a few Mafia War hits.

6. Other writers are extremely generous. I've found other writers (published, unpublished, bloggers, Twitterers, etc.) to be very helpful with their advice, comments, and time. The sense of community among writers is unbelievably amazing!

7. Take time to enjoy every bumpy, thrilling, uncertain, joyous, nail-biting, wonderful, anxious minute. No sense getting stressed about stuff you can't control (and that encompasses a lot!). Getting your first book published is a very exciting time—be sure to stop and smell the ARCs!

Writing a mystery like Alan? Writing and
Selling Your Mystery Novel (by the very
talented Hallie Ephron) shows writers
how to build their story.

Want more on this subject?

Want to pen a guest column? Write me at literaryagent@fwmedia.com

Confused about formatting? Check out Formatting & Submitting Your Manuscript.

Read about What Agents Hate: Chapter 1 Pet Peeves.

Want the most complete database of agents and what genres they're looking for? Buy the 2011 Guide to Literary Agents today!

7 Things I've Learned So Far, by Holly Schindler

Chuck — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 13:41:07 GMT

Holly Schindler's debut YA novel, A Blue So Dark,
received a starred review from Booklist and
was released in May 2010 (Flux). Holly has
two more novels set for publication in 2011.
See her website here.

1. Know who you’re writing for. This is especially important in the YA genre. Don’t think that you can write a contemporary YA novel based on what you remember of contemporary YA novels written twenty years ago. The YA genre has changed drastically in recent years—as has teen culture! Read as much current YA as you can. And check out the YA book blogging community to find out which current books teens are loving and connecting with—many YA book blogs are often written by teens!

2. Shortcuts do not exist. Writing takes time. There’s no way around that. Most YA novels are around 55,000-60,000 words. And once you’ve written 60,000 words, you’ve got to rewrite your draft. And edit that. And then find a publisher who loves it (which often takes as long—or longer—than writing and editing the book). And after you ink the deal? Count on eighteen to twenty-four months before it hits the shelves. The path to publication is a long and winding road … no way around it. Prepare yourself for a bumpy marathon—but I can tell you that it’s absolutely worth it!

3. A writing degree’s nice, but that alone won’t get you published. I graduated from college with a Master’s degree in English (emphasis in creative writing). I excelled in all things literary at my university—edited the literary journal, was chosen for student readings, etc. But it still took seven and a half years after obtaining my MA to snare that first book deal. (There were days I swore my diploma was just a really, really expensive piece of art to hang on my office wall!) But just as you would never expect taking a class about business administration to automatically lead to a position as CEO of a Fortune 500 company, taking a class in writing (or earning a degree in it) doesn’t automatically lead to publication of the Great American Novel. What it will allow you to do is learn how to write under deadline, how to revise, and how to deal with others critiquing your work.

4. Hamburger tastes every bit as good as steak. I doubt anybody goes into writing for the love of money—we do it for our love of literature. But especially during that rough pre-publication period, you’ll be surprised at the things you’ll wind up giving up, doing without, to make ends meet. But so what? You’re chasing your dream! Stuff is just stuff … new cars and fancy cell phones and designer clothes are nowhere near as important as time spent at your computer with your characters.

5. Not everyone is going to understand why you chose writing. Even some of your best friends are going to look at you like you’ve absolutely lost it once you begin writing and submitting, chasing that often elusive first book deal. As time goes on, that look explodes. While it can be hard to shoulder, just remember that the author of every book in your local library got that look at one time or another, in their own pre-published days.

6. Go ahead—get emotional about rejection! But then you’ve got to get over it. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with feeling horrible about a rejection. You wrote the book—you’re emotionally invested—it’s going to hurt when an editor or agent returns your love with a few brutal comments. So go ahead—cry. Scream. Let it out. But if you stay angry or hurt, you will never get published. Period. Every author revises. Every. Single. Author. So after you’ve vented, look open-mindedly at what the editor or agent is saying. And think objectively and critically about your project.

7. A rejection is not always a closed door. OK, so you were just rejected. But the rejection didn’t come with a form letter—it came instead as a personalized letter with glowing remarks about your work, and the willingness to read your work again should you revise. This is huge. By recognizing it as an enormous opportunity—and revising and resubmitting—the very next letter you receive may very well be a formal offer of representation—or better yet, publication!

Writing YA? Check out author K.L. Going's
resource Writing & Selling the YA Novel

Want more on this subject?

Want to pen a guest column? Write me at literaryagent@fwmedia.com

Confused about formatting? Check out Formatting & Submitting Your Manuscript.

Read about What Agents Hate: Chapter 1 Pet Peeves.

Want the most complete database of agents and what genres they're looking for? Buy the 2011 Guide to Literary Agents today!

7 Things I’ve Learned So Far, by Lara Ehrlich

Chuck — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 13:35:47 GMT

Lara Ehrlich is currently finishing revisions to
her first novel, The Hero. When she’s not writing,
she works as the publications coordinator at
Goodman Theatre in Chicago. Lara is a graduate
of Boston University and the University of Chicago.
Visit Lara online at LaraEhrlich.com.

1. We can learn from writers at all stages, not just from published authors, editors, and agents. I have learned the most about my own writing from participating in a critique group with my fellow unpublished writer friends. Amazingly enough, almost everyone stumbles over the very same issues. After helping your friends work through their sticky spots, you’ll be able to spot these same problems in your own work, and you’ll know how to fix them. Which leads directly into #2…

2. Make friends. Sure, the actual process of writing is solitary, but the profession doesn’t have to be. Go out there and meet other writers. Form critique groups, take classes, e-mail authors whose work you admire. It’s so incredibly helpful and uplifting to have a group of people who are going through the same issues you are, and who can relate to your work, your angst, and your obsession.

3. Write a complete first draft before revising, and for the love of God, don’t show anyone your rough first chapters! Readers are so helpful once you have a first draft and you know your story. But when you’ve only got 20 pages and a hazy idea for a plot, your book could still go in any direction. It could become something completely different, and you won’t know what it is until you get there. So get there, then share.

4. It’s OK to follow tangents. I’m a firm believer in tight plots and flabby first drafts. For that first draft (the one we’ve agreed you won’t share), feel free to follow any plot twist that seems interesting and let your characters have free reign. You never know where they might take you—a single twist in the plot or line of dialogue might change the course of the entire novel! Once you’ve got the whole first draft down, you can go back and trim the fat.

5. Work at your own pace. Some books take a month to write, some books take twelve months, and some take twelve years! There’s no standard and there are no rules. We’ve all uttered the desperate wail, “Why is this taking so long?”—especially if we know other writers who are querying agents or reviewing jacket art. When you begin to despair that you’ll never reach the end, step back and remember why you want to be a writer in the first place. You love writing, right? So enjoy it!

6. Breaks are good! We writers can often been pretty militant by nature. We must write an hour a day. We must forge ahead even when we don’t feel like writing. We must set goals and stick to them. These are good “musts” to follow, but we must also be nice to ourselves. If you’re frustrated and down, take a break. Take a day off, a week off, a month off your book–but not from writing. Work on something completely different. If you’re writing a high-fantasy novel about fairies, shoot off some essays on modern technology. If you’re writing an investigative biography of Jim Perdue, give slam poetry a shot. Get some distance, then come back to your book refreshed and excited to get to work.

7. Start a blog. A blog is great for networking (hello, agents!) and provides instant gratification. If your book is taking forever (see #5 above), you can develop a readership by writing witty and entertaining blog posts. And if you’re a perfectionist who has trouble letting go of your work, blogging will help you muster the courage to get your writing out there.

If you're writing fiction and want to
make your prose sizzle, check out
The Fire in Fiction by agent Donald Maass.

Want more on this subject?

Want to pen a guest column? Write me at literaryagent@fwmedia.com

Confused about formatting? Check out Formatting & Submitting Your Manuscript.

Read about What Agents Hate: Chapter 1 Pet Peeves.

Want the most complete database of agents and what genres they're looking for? Buy the 2011 Guide to Literary Agents today!

7 Things I've Learned So Far, by Jane Makuch

Chuck — Sun, 23 May 2010 00:11:06 GMT

Jane Makuch writes young adult, middle
grade and women's fiction. She blogs about
all of it, and is also active on Twitter.

Years ago when I decided to make a true effort as a full-time writer I felt very alone. It took courage to stand up and say: “My name is Jane and I am an out of the closet writer.” I instantly felt overwhelmed by my complete lack of “top-secret-insider-stuff” and incredibly brash for thinking I deserved to know. Now, after years of researching, I’m happy to say, I’ve found out the really important things aren’t actually “top-secret-insider-stuff.”

1. Believe in yourself. If you don’t think you can be a success, how will you convince respected agents and editors?

2. Pros in the industry are here to help. Successful writers, editors, and agents like to help new writers who work hard, listen, and use their valuable advice.

3. Never give up. The top writers are passionate and never stop working hard.

4. Research what clients say about their agents. A lot of hindsight is out there on twitter, blogs, and author websites. You will find certain agents may be a better “fit” for you then others.

5. Knowing your market requires reading as well as writing. Read books in your genre. You need to know what the buyers are currently reading.

6. Understand the business side. If you write for the sake of writing, that’s one thing. If you write with the idea of selling books, you need to be ready to talk about:
     a. Your pitch
     b. Your manuscript
     c. Your author platform

7. Make sure your work is polished before submitting. It’s been said a million times before and once again here: You only get one shot at making a first impression.

With that said, it’s important to realize there aren’t many industries where you can jump in headfirst and find dozens of powerful people willing to help. But I found that’s exactly what happened when I threw my insecurities aside and signed up for an Editor’s Intensive with Writer’s Digest. I didn’t have anyone to go with so I put my big-girl pants on and went all by myself. Afterward, I took every bit of advice handed to me, used it and am still amazed at how valuable the weekend was.

Also, since I write young adult and middle grade books, I attended an SCBWI conference. On my own I may have thought about going, or dreamed about going, but it would have probably ended there. Yet with a prominent editor looking me in the eye at the editor’s intensive saying, “You have to go,” I knew I couldn’t just think about it, I had to actually go. The SCBWI conference made it clear there was nothing to fear, but much to celebrate. I walked away reminding myself to spend lots of time writing (you have to start with lots of writing), and later lots of rewriting. Then, good stuff will follow.

The Writer's Digest Editors Intensives Jane
speaks of happen twice a year at the WD
headquarters in Cincinnati. Everyone who attends
gets their work critiqued by an editor. The next
intensive is Sept. 11-12, 2010, so learn more and sign up here!

Want more on this subject?

Want to pen a guest column? Write me at literaryagent@fwmedia.com

Confused about formatting? Check out Formatting & Submitting Your Manuscript.

Read about What Agents Hate: Chapter 1 Pet Peeves.

Want the most complete database of agents and what genres they're looking for? Buy the 2011 Guide to Literary Agents today!

7 Things I've Learned So Far, by Tim Stretton

Chuck — Fri, 14 May 2010 04:12:25 GMT

Tim Stretton's fantasy, The Dog of
the North, was published by TOR, prior
to which he self-published two novels.
You can learn more about his projects
and the craft of writing on his blog.

1. Be omnivorous. This is a metaphorical omnivorousness: I'm not suggesting vegetarians will never make it into print (who better to write A Universal History of Tofu?). Regardless of what you want to write, omnivorous reading is the place to start. If you are a genre writer, read outside your field. So you want to write horror? Read crime novels—if nothing else, they'll teach you the importance of rigorous plotting. Read romances—you'll learn about character dynamics. I've argued that writers are born and not made, but the kind of writer you are depends on what you read. Why not read a bit of everything?

2. Write. There’s no getting away from this one: If you want to be a writer, you have to write. No excuses. Just keep plugging away. In my experience, persistence is a more accurate predictor than talent of whether a writer will ever be published. The only way to improve any craft is to practice.

3. There’s no “one right way.” If you’ve taken creative writing classes, or searched around the Internet, you’ll have found all kinds of advice on how to succeed in writing a novel. So far, so good. Much of that advice will be contradictory—somewhat less good. In the end, what works for you depends on the kind of writer and the kind of personality you are. I don’t like to outline in too much detail: I need to know the beginning, the end and two or three intermediate stages; I need a sense of three or four main characters. And I need to take a lot of walks. I know that approach works for me; sadly I can’t guarantee that it will do the same for you. But somewhere there is a method that fits the way your creativity works. Experiment until you find it.

4. Don’t personalise rejection. There are a lot of writers out there in today’s marketplace, and sooner rather than later, your submission is going to be rejected. Fact. It’s important to understand what rejection means. It’s not saying you’re unworthy as a person; it’s not even saying you’re unworthy as a writer, or that your book is valueless. Rejection means that a particular publisher or agent, at a particular time, doesn’t feel that your book will make them money. It really is that simple. Take it on the chin, submit your work somewhere else, and carry on with whatever you’re writing now.

5. Don’t chase the market. Vampires are big at the moment, but that doesn’t mean you should be writing vampire stories (unless that’s what you wanted to do anyway). If you decide to start writing the Great Vampire Novel today, you’re looking at two years before you see it on the shelves—and by then the moment will have passed. In two years, everyone will be wanting to read about midget trolls, or pink dinosaurs (you heard it here first). Write what fires your imagination, not what you think will sell: If it’s good enough, the market will come to you.

6. Decide what success looks like. How will you know whether you’ve done a good job on your novel? Are you looking for sales volumes and monetary reward? To find a commercial publisher? Just to finish the damn thing? Again, there’s no right answer—it depends on your values, and what you expect to gain from writing a novel. It’s worth taking a while before you start to address the question, though.
My advice, for what it’s worth, is not to make your idea of success dependent on anything you can’t control: whether you land an agent, or a publishing deal, for instance. I set out to write the best novel I can. I know it will never be perfect, and it’s not down to me if it gets published. But if I’ve had the best crack at the idea I can, then regardless of what happens afterwards, then I feel entitled to a bit of satisfaction.

7. Get a good accountant. As a beginning novelist, you probably won’t earn a whole lot of royalties; but what an accountant will save you in tax allowances will pay for his fees several times over. Unless you’re a person who finds tax really exciting, you’re better off paying for expert advice.

If you're writing fiction and want to
make your prose sizzle, check out
The Fire in Fiction by agent Donald Maass.

Want more on this subject?

Want to pen a guest column? Write me at literaryagent@fwmedia.com

Confused about formatting? Check out Formatting & Submitting Your Manuscript.

Read about What Agents Hate: Chapter 1 Pet Peeves.

Want the most complete database of agents and what genres they're looking for? Buy the 2011 Guide to Literary Agents today!

7 Things I've Learned So Far: Kate Rockland

Chuck — Fri, 07 May 2010 02:45:12 GMT

Kate Rockland is the author of Falling is Like This,
her debut novel. She is a frequent contributor
to the New York Times Style section and has
also written for Playboy, Rolling Stone, Us Weekly,
Time Out New York, and Spin. She now lives in
Hoboken, NJ, with a ridiculously large CD
collection. See her website here.

1. A quick laugh goes a long way. If you’re going to bug your agent by e-mail, be sure to include a funny story along with it. Such as, “Hey, have you heard from publishers? Now, let me tell you this great story about when I tried to potty train my cat...” They like that.

2. Skip the small accolades. When sending out query letters for potential placement of your book in the press, don’t mention that first place medal you won in second grade for spelling “serendipitous” correctly. That way you won’t be crushed when they say they don’t care.

3. Wear a funny T-shirt when you do a book reading. It gets people talking, and perhaps even pointing at you. My favorite is “I don’t like Bon Jovi: I love him.”

4. Read your working manuscript only to your cats. I made the mistake of asking my father to read it, and he asked if I really had to keep in the sex scenes. Yes, Dad, I do. Also the scenes where the character gets drunk and then has sex. When reading to your cats, notice the look of complete rapture and bliss on their furry faces, until you realize it's because you have a kibble treat stuck in your hair.

5. Do not include “Walking in Times Square in a bathing suit, handing out flyers” as a publicity idea to your publisher. I did, and received some strange looks at the board meeting.

6. You never know who's going to help you. Do not be afraid to ask your great aunt Shelly for her next-door neighbor’s cousin’s phone number. You know, the one who works at Vogue as a mail clerk? I was afraid of sounding annoying when asking for help or publicity, until I realized I’m annoying anyway, so I sent e-mails to everyone I’ve ever known remotely related to publishing, even if they got laid off from their magazine job and now they can tuna in Alaska. I repeat: When trying to get PR for your book, contact everyone. You just never know.

7. Get your hair professionally done for your author photo. It's worth the money. I did mine after running across town to catch a bus and ended up looking like a ferret.

If you're writing fiction and want to
make your prose sizzle, check out
The Fire in Fiction by agent Donald Maass.

Want more on this subject?

Want to pen a guest column? Write me at literaryagent@fwmedia.com

Confused about formatting? Check out Formatting & Submitting Your Manuscript.

Read about What Agents Hate: Chapter 1 Pet Peeves.

Want the most complete database of agents and what genres they're looking for? Buy the 2011 Guide to Literary Agents today!

7 Things I've Learned So Far, by Christine Fonseca

Chuck — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 13:39:47 GMT

School psychologist by day and lover of books
by night, Christine Fonseca started writing
as a way to blend the two. Her upcoming books include
Emotional Intensity in Gifted Students: Helping Kids
Cope with Explosive Feelings (Prufrock Press 2010) and
The Ultimate Guide for Gifted Kids (Prufrock Press, 2011).
She also writes teen fiction. See her website here.

1. It’s all just words. Authors are funny—we get so attached to the words we write. So much so, that we occasionally get hung up on the changes we need to make; changes suggested by critique partners, agents, and editors. We forget that it’s all just words. If something isn’t right, we can change it by simply rearranging the words. For me, figuring out that I didn’t need to feel permanently attached to my words was the most liberating moment I’ve felt over the last 18 months.

2. Authenticity is everything. An authentic voice is what makes our characters believable and our stories resonate with truth. It is also what makes us approachable and “real” online. Being authentic is not always easy. We sometimes get lost in the “noise” of the business aspects of this profession—the trends, the rejection, and the pressures. For me, figuring out my authentic voice as an author has enabled me to figure out how to begin to brand myself as an author. This is something vital in today’s market. Likewise, learning how to be authentic with my characters gives me the ability to bring different voices to each story. And that keeps them fresh.

3. Forge your own path. This has been said before, but there really are many paths towards publication. It is as unique a journey as the person taking it. Comparing yourself to anyone else will only make you distrust your own path. Now, I’m not saying you shouldn’t learn from the road other’s travel—you should. But be sure to tailor what has worked for them to your own journey—without comparisons or self-deprecation. This really is a case where the journey means more than the destination. It is the journey that will shape your future as a writer.

4. This really is that hard. Yep, writing is absolutely the hardest thing I have ever done—by far. And trust me, I have tackled some pretty difficult things in my lifetime. I think it is so hard because it is so personal. We pour a little piece of ourselves into everything we write. Then we hold it up to impossible scrutiny as our critique partners, agents, and editors rip it apart and help us find the best story within our words. Over and over we repeat this process. Over and over we deal with rejection, criticism, and our own personal demons. So, the next time you're angsting over something related to this business, remind yourself that it really is that hard, and give yourself a little break.

5. Perfection is a myth. Have you ever finished your nine millionth revision of your current book only to feel like you have a million more revisions to go? Yeah, me too. I think we get wrapped up in the “myth” of perfection and begin to think we are striving for absolute perfection with our stories before we can pronounce them done. Rather than perfection, I have learned that I am striving for the best story I can write right now. My support system—critique partners, agent, and editors—will tell me what isn’t working, where the story breaks down. And I will fix the problems. But sooner or later, you have to trust that the story is the best it can be and let it go.

6. Critique partners are as essential as air. I wish I had learned this one earlier in my writing career. It would have saved me from a couple of shelved novels. My critique partners are experts at helping me pull out the best story (as discussed above). They speak my language, are brutally honest and offer great suggestions. It took me a long time to find one or two critique partners that “got” what I was going for with my writing. And let me tell you, it has made all the difference in the world. I really can’t imagine sending off my manuscript to my agent or editor without having gone through my partners first.

7. This is a business—treat it as such. Being a writer is a creative endeavor. But being a published author is a business—and should be treated as such. Like any business, my job is to produce a great product and sell it to others. To do this, I must continually hone my craft, learn the marketing aspect of the job, have my finger on the pulse of my customer (in this case the reader) and react in a timely manner to changes in my particular market. Doing these things, treating it is a professional manner, will help ensure a long life in a tough business.

If you don't have an awesome circle of
critique partners like Christine, try James
Scott Bell's Revision and Self-Editing
for help with revisions and rewriting.

Want more on this subject?

Want to pen a guest column? Write me at literaryagent@fwmedia.com

Confused about formatting? Check out Formatting & Submitting Your Manuscript.

Read about What Agents Hate: Chapter 1 Pet Peeves.

Want the most complete database of agents and what genres they're looking for? Buy the 2011 Guide to Literary Agents today!

7 Things I've Learned So Far, by Traci Borum

Chuck — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 13:55:44 GMT

Traci Borum teaches Creative Writing at
the college level. She's written for Today's
Christian Woman magazine, as well as the
New Texas Journal. Currently, she's working
on a women's fiction series and
also runs a writing blog.

1. Never give up. Rejection is gut-wrenching—we all know that. The odds against unpublished authors are staggering. I read somewhere that literary agents can receive upwards of 400 query letters per week. Then why even try? Because the odds decrease to 0% if you don’t. If I don’t submit query letters, it’s a guarantee: I have zero chance of getting published. So, be tenacious. Let nothing stop you. Keep writing, and put yourself out there.

2. Know Your Weaknesses. Even best-selling authors have trouble with verb tenses or wordy prose. In order to improve as writers, it’s a must that we learn to recognize our individual weaknesses. Years ago, my creative writing teacher took the time to circle all the passive verbs in my story. Until that moment, I had no idea that passive voice was a weakness of mine. But when I recognized it, the light bulb came on, and I set my mind to correcting that weakness. Sure, I still gravitate toward too much passive voice. But now, I can recognize it and correct it.

3. "Just Do It." That classic phrase from 80s Nike commercials has been turned into an eye-rolling cliche. But it so perfectly describes the self-disciplined mentality writers must have. No excuses; just do it. Jack London once said: "You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club." I’ve found three particular "clubs" that help me: 1) set specific writing goals and stick to them; 2) browse over yesterday’s work to get re-inspired; 3) give myself a reward as incentive. Whatever it takes. Just do it.

4. Don’t be a one-hit wonder. For me, a specific sort of panic sets in each time I finish a novel. It's the irrational feeling that I'll never write another book again. One powerful antidote to counteract that sort of panic is to have an ongoing brainstorming "file"—a rich reserve of ideas, plots, characters. Whether kept on your hard drive or in a notebook, every writer should have one. That way, the well won't ever run dry.

5. Realize that not everyone will "get it"—and that’s OK. Over the years, I’ve come to realize that only a select few people seem to “get” my passion for writing. Everyone else‘s eyes seem to glaze over with disinterest. Or, worse, they look upon me with judgment, and wonder why I would devote so many hours to a silly hobby. But I’ve learned to shrug my shoulders and not allow them to bring me down. In fact, quite the opposite. I press on in spite of them. Many times, their lack of support has given me just the incentive I needed to finish a novel, or to get more queries out there. And, thankfully, I have plenty of people in my life who do “get it.” And they’re all the support system I need.

6. "A sentence must earn the right to live." That quote came from an editor (unknown) who lectured at a writers’ conference I attended years ago. It’s one of the most valuable pieces of advice I’ve ever heard.

7. If you’re bored, the reader will be, too. Sometimes when I’m writing a scene, I try too hard. I force a scene to work when I know it won‘t. For example, in my last novel, I wanted something important to occur at a birthday party. It was a child's party, and I had the cake, the party games, even a clown. But I was bored stiff as I wrote it. There was no spark, no energy. So, I listened to my "inner editor" and kept working on it until it was no longer boring. Mission accomplished!

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7 Things I’ve Learned So Far, by Mary Potter Kenyon

Chuck — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 14:58:44 GMT

Mary Potter Kenyon has had more than 100
essays published in magazines such as Home
Education and Woman’s World, and in the
anthologies Chicken Soup for the Mother’s
Soul and Voices of Caregiving. Her first book,
Homeschooling From Scratch, was published
by Gazelle Publications in 1996. She is currently
searching for a publisher for her book chronicling
the journey of a couple through cancer, a true love
story. Mary also blogs about writing and mothering.

1. The hardest part is getting started. Whether it is a book, an article, or an essay you want to write, stop talking about it and start doing it. There have been too many times in my life that I have spent more time reading about writing and talking about it than actually writing. Bottom line, at some point you have to sit down and start typing. Do it sooner, rather than later.

2. Your first draft is probably crap. But don’t let that stop you from writing it. When I first began writing, I’d sit down at my desk and quickly crank out an essay or article, then immediately submit it,with very little revision. I should have been editing and revising. Now, when I read my early writing, I’m embarrassed. Some of those pieces are not very good.

3. When you think you’ve completed something, wait before submitting it. You might not be finished with it. I always set what I have been working on aside overnight to look at with fresh eyes the next morning. Often, I’ll be surprised to discover what seems like a very obvious error.

4. Have someone else look your work over before you submit. No, I don’t mean your mother or your husband, unless they, too, are writers or an editor. Whether it is a writers' group, a writing friend, or an obliging English instructor, it helps to have someone else critique your writing. The first time I had my friend Mary, also a writer, take a look at something I’d written, I was dismayed when it was returned with complete sentences crossed off, words circled and little notes in the margins. When I got over the initial shock and took a good long look at her comments, I made some changes and my article was better for it.

5. When something comes back, rejected, immediately submit it elsewhere. But first, take a look at it to see if you can improve it. Print out a fresh copy. Never use the original wrinkled version that was returned. With e-mail submissions, do the same thing; print it out and look it over again. Then send it out with any revisions. Have things out constantly, working for you. Right now I have 22 things out for consideration. This helps keep me from playing the waiting game, too. If I have several things out instead of just one or two then I’m not just sitting around, waiting for an answer on those two items. Instead, I am keeping busy with more writing and submitting, upping my chances for acceptance.

6. Rejections mean you are submitting. The only true way to avoid rejections is to not submit anything. Realize, too, that there are bad rejections and good rejections. The good rejections come with a personal note and maybe some feedback. Those are the rejections to aim for. If you are getting good rejections you know you are on the right track.

7. Don’t wait to write until the children are older or you have an empty nest. Write right now. Get up early before the kids are awake or stay up late after they are in bed. Write while you wait in the doctor’s office. Pull over to the curb and write when the baby falls asleep in the car seat. Sit on the lid of the toilet and write when the kids are taking baths. I’ve done all those things. I’ve been mothering eight children for a total of 30 years and writing for 20 of those. My youngest is just six years old. If I’d waited to write until my children were gone, I’d still be waiting!

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7 Things I've Learned So Far, by Tom Bentley

Chuck — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 13:57:30 GMT

Tom Bentley has run a writing and editing
business for more than 10 years. He’s published
many freelance pieces—ranging from first-person
essays to travel pieces to more journalistic subjects
—in newspapers, magazines, and online. He’s also
a published fiction writer. See his lurid website
confessions (and the range of his writing
services) on his website.

1. Submit the project and move on. Whether it's a personal essay, flash fiction or a tone-poem rewrite of Finnegan's Wake, endless dithering over whether there's too much passive voice or too little interior dialog means the work is endless too. Ship it.

2. You're only as good as your next sentence. Resting on your post-published laurels is much like resting on your hind end. Comfortable, but it won't keep the hounds of "what have you done for me lately" at bay. By the way, thinking that something you've done is "good enough" might mean it isn't—but being paranoid is really the province of serial killers and tax assessors, so keep that keyboard warm.

3. Fifteen minutes of work on something is 100 times better than thinking about working on something. Heck, write it by hand, write it after a crisp martini, write it on one of those diver's slates for writing underwater. Write for 15 and you might write for 15 more. Tolstoy only did a half-hour a day, and look where he went. (Note: this is a lie, but I like to think of it as a “writing prompt.”)

4. Reading writing blogs, publishing news, and/or cleaning up your submissions spreadsheet is not writing. Sure, all those things need doing, and in good time. But not in the good time that you could be spending writing. Writers write (though you can forgive yourself for imagining the publishing party and that killer black dress you'll wear).

5. Trust your voice, even if you occasionally hear all your favorite authors and your mother among them. You do have a voice, don't you?

6. If you're not fearless, fake it. Do you know that info about people "fake smiling," and it having a positive effect on their moods? Fake your fearlessness: Write about things that make you uncomfortable, that are edgy, that sting. You’ll fear them less and less after you brush their hideous fangs up close and personal.

7. Don't worry about two editors or publishers or agents hand-wringingly wanting your book at the same time (through simultaneous submissions); this is like expecting to win the lottery, get that first elusive kiss, and bake a perfect lemon chiffon pie the first time out. Worry about wrinkles or the demotion of Pluto instead.

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7 Things I've Learned So Far, by David Blockley

Chuck — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 02:26:51 GMT

I have spent a lifetime as a structural engineer, which is another way to say I make buildings, bridges and dams stand up. Like other structural engineers, I get somewhat dismayed when others say engineering is dull, boring, narrow and "techy." (What does that even mean?) So I set out to write a book describing the intellectual and practical excitement of engineering and how it is an integral part of being human. I chose bridges as my topic since not only are physical bridges an obvious part of our infrastructure, they can be beautiful, they can be ugly, and they can be neglected. I have written four previous books but all technical and aimed at other engineers--this one was to be aimed at the general intelligent but non-technical reader. I had to learn a completely new way of writing.

David Blockley is a professor at the University
of Bristol in the UK. His book is called Bridges,
and is available here. Check out David's
website here.

I wrote a proposal and sent it off to publishers and agents. At my 20th attempt, I got a pleasant e-mail from the editor asking me to edit my proposal and resubmit, which I did. The result is Bridges: The Science and Art of the World’s Most Inspiring Structures, published by Oxford University Press, March 2010. The whole experience has taught me some valuable lessons, which I happily share below:

1. Persevere. And to do so, be passionate in your belief that what you are writing about is worthwhile.

2. Pay close attention to feedback--but be robust and try not to take offense. Most criticism has some substance but you have to interpret it in the light of your own view.

3. Find the narrative. This is hard for us technical writers used to writing scientific papers and books aimed at specialists.

4. Find an angle. Mine is: You can learn to read a bridge like a book.

5. Be careful not to sound as though you are talking down to the reader, even if you are trying hard not to. You have to be careful with jargon.

6. If need be, find a non-technical friend who will read and be completely brutal and honest in providing some thoughts on the work.

7. Write and rewrite. Cut down the text to the barest essential flow of the narrative. Always have a potential reader in mind and write for them--trying to connect with how they see a world quite different from your own. Best of luck!

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7 Things I’ve Learned So Far, by Patricia Stoltey

Chuck — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 13:50:52 GMT

Patricia Stoltey is the author of two
mysteries, The Prairie Grass Murders and
The Desert Hedge Murders. She
focuses on the writing life at her blog.

1. That first novel is probably not as good as you think it is. No matter how hard you’ve worked at your revisions and no matter how many times you’ve gone through your manuscript to self-edit before writing your query letters, your manuscript can be improved with the help of a good editor. This is one of the reasons why most published authors (including me) recommend critique groups. We need that critical eye to help us improve our craft and to toughen our hides before we’re exposed to tough editors and tougher reviewers.

2. You cannot be just a writer. You must also be a publicist, a public speaker, an administrative assistant, a salesman, a bookkeeper, and more. You will be shocked at the amount of time you spend promoting yourself and your book.

3. Networking is the most important reason to attend writers’ conferences. Volunteer to help with registration, moderate a panel, conduct a workshop in your area of expertise, or stuff goodie bags. Make friends. Also hang out with the authors, editors, and agents during cocktail hour. Don’t be afraid to talk to them. They (at least most of them) won’t bite.

4. Approach social media with caution. It’s addictive and time-consuming. It’s also an important networking and promotional tool. Once you have a website and a blog, you can experiment with other sites to see what works best for you. Facebook, Twitter, and others are called “social” media for a reason. Engage followers and friends. Ask questions. Forward interesting communications. Visit blogs and leave comments. Be professional and discreet, but be open and friendly.

5. Watch what you say and write. Every word you speak at a presentation may be captured by someone’s flip video camera or phone camera and uploaded to the Internet. Every comment you leave on someone else’s blog could show up when someone initiates a Google search on your name. Set Google Alerts for your author name, the names of your published books, and your blog name if different from your author name. You need to know when and where you’re getting exposure (or getting exposed).

6. Don’t try to follow someone else’s rules. There is no one correct way to write, to get published, or to promote your book. Educate yourself so you know all the options, and then do it your way. Your way should include a critique group (in my humble opinion).

7. Never give up. No matter how talented you are, and no matter how excellent your agent, luck still plays a roll in whether your book succeeds. Do you snag a big publisher with a big advertising budget? Do you get reviewed by one or more of the reviewers consulted by acquisition librarians and chain bookstores? Does your book strike a chord with readers, resulting in the buzz that can sell more books than a dozen celebrity blurbs and starred reviews? If none of these things happen, be prepared to move on. Write a new book. Don’t be afraid of rejection. It’s part of the learning process. Keep going. Nothing good can happen if you quit.

ORDER The Desert ORDER The Prairie
Hedge Murders Grass Murders

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7 Things I've Learned So Far, by James Dashner

Chuck — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 18:23:48 GMT

Guest blogger James Dashner's latest
YA book is The Maze Runner.

1. Not every agent is right for you. I’ve had quite the interesting journey with my book, The Maze Runner. I actually wrote the first draft of it almost five years ago, and it’s been through many ups and downs since. One of those stops included signing with my first agent. Although she was great and got my manuscript in front of some top editors, I think she should have recognized that my work wasn’t good enough yet, and pushed me to make it better. We also had major communication problems and ended up going our separate ways. Later, after many revisions of Maze and the publication of The 13th Reality, I signed with a new agent (Michael Bourret of Dystel & Goderich) and we sold Maze to Random House three weeks later.

2. Networking is key. Almost every author I know—and certainly myself included—can trace their publishing success back to someone they met at a writers conference. If you want to get published, I can’t think of any better advice. Attend every conference you can find and afford. Not only will you find editors and agents (and you can’t overstate the value of face-to-face meetings), but you’ll also meet other authors and aspiring writers who can help your journey. My two biggest breaks: meeting an editor from the publisher of The 13th Reality, and becoming friends with an author who later recommended me to her agent.

3. Differentiate your characters. In my early writing, all of my characters were exactly the same person. They all spoke the same, made the same types of jokes, reacted the same, etc. I think they were all just me in disguise. Something I’ve worked on really hard over the last few years is making them stand out from each other. Different backgrounds, thought processes, ways of speaking, emotional reactions, senses of humor (or lack thereof), etc. Ironically, this was very difficult for The Maze Runner because none of the characters remember their previous lives, and memories and background are very useful tools for character development. But I did the best I could!

4. Immerse your reader in the story with depth. Another thing I’ve worked hard to improve. In the beginning, I wrote my stories much in the way you’d tell a quick bedtime story. This happened, then this happened, then this happened, etc. I’ve learned patience. Give internal thoughts of the characters—show us what they’re thinking and feeling. Use the five senses when describing setting. Patiently develop scenes, building them to their climax or revelation. It’s a fine line—you don’t want your reader to get bored. But you also don’t want them to feel like you’re just rushing from one cool scene to the next.

5. Don’t make your hero or villain two-dimensional. This is so important on both sides of the coin. A villain is so much more compelling if they’re not just purely evil. When you’ve made your reader feel empathy for the bad guy, you’ve won. Two great examples are Severus Snape and Darth Vader. By the same token, you don’t want the protagonist to be Mr. or Mrs. Perfect. Give them flaws and weaknesses. Make them do things that cause the reader to doubt whether or not that person is worthy of the title, hero. Then you’ll have created characters they’ll never forget.

6. Set goals and work to achieve them. True story: In August of 2003, I set a goal to become a full-time author within five years. I told a bunch of my friends so I’d have witnesses and people to push me. Well, funny enough, I quit my old job as an accountant (bleck, retch, puke) in August of 2008, exactly five years later. I know the goal helped me. I also set daily writing goals (words per day) when I’m in first draft writing mode, and that really helps keep me on task. You don’t have to get all Stephen Covey crazy about it, but goals do work.

7. It’s all about the story. You will and should do everything in your power to improve your actual writing skills. You’ll work hard to create characters that are compelling and unforgettable. But in the end, it’s the story that matters. Don’t ever let the other stuff get in the way of your inherent skills as a kick-butt storyteller. Move the reader, make them happy and sad and excited and scared. Make them stare into space after they’ve put the book down, thinking about the tale that’s become a part of them. Be unpredictable, be real, be interesting. Tell a good story.

James Dashner is the author of
The Maze Runner as well as
The 13th Reality series (all YA books).
See his author website here.

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7 Things I've Learned So Far (Using Songs), by Jessica Lee Anderson

Chuck — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 13:48:40 GMT

Jessica Lee Anderson is the author of Trudy,
which won the 2005 Milkweed Prize for Children’s
Literature, as well as Border Crossing. She’s
published two nonfiction readers, as well as
fiction and nonfiction for a variety of magazines
including Highlights for Children. See her
website and her blog.

1. “You’ve Got a Friend” by James Taylor. In this business, sometimes the north wind of rejection blows, an agent might desert you, or reviews seem like they’re taking your soul. There is nothing like having a network of friends that are willing to support you through it all!

2. “Lean on Me” by Bill Withers. I’ve leaned on the advice of my critique partners to strengthen my writing. I’ve also sought out the counsel from my mentors when I’ve needed a hand making important career decisions.

3. “With a Little Help from My Friends” by Joe Cocker. I’ve discovered there is definitely power in group marketing, and getting by with each other’s help. Jo Whittemore, P.J. Hoover, and I recently started a group called The Texas Sweethearts for this very reason.

4. “On the Road Again” by Willie Nelson. The life I love is writing, and I’ve learned that I need to hit the road to make new connections by attending conferences (local, national, and international), book festivals, assemblies, book clubs, etc.

5. “Patience” by Guns N’ Roses. I’ve made some progress over time by trying not to focus on the things I can’t control (like how long it takes to get a response), and I try to focus on staying productive instead.

6. “Taking Chances” by Celine Dion. What do I say about taking chances? I’m all for it, especially since my first novel, Trudy, was pulled from the slush pile. I felt like I’d jumped off the edge when I wrote about schizophrenia in my second novel, Border Crossing. What I do say about taking chances? Go for it!

7. “Don’t Stop” by Fleetwood Mac. Yesterday is gone, and even though there are many things I didn’t get accomplished, tomorrow will be here soon. I can only hope it will be even better than before!

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7 Things I've Learned So Far, by Libby Gleeson

Chuck — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:07:36 GMT

Two of Libby Gleeson's most recent
juvenile books are Mahtab's Story and
Clancy & Millie and the Very Fine House

1. The publisher who accepts your first work is not necessarily beginning a lifelong affair. You may decide the experience is not completely positive and decide to try some other publishing house. You may discover that your book doesn’t sell well and your publisher loses interest in you. Your publisher may be gobbled up by a bigger company that sacks your editor and wants to discard you along with the stock in the warehouse. Don’t take it too personally. It happens to all of us.

2. Publishing a book doesn’t mean the second one will come easily. It won’t. Each book brings its own problems which need unique solutions. There are times in your career where you may decide to change genre or to vary your style. To stay interested in writing, you need to grow and change and try new directions. Believe me, I’m currently struggling with number thirty five and I feel almost as vulnerable as I was with number one.

3. Don’t wait till your book is published until you start the next one. The lag between acceptance and publication is rarely less than twelve months—frequently more. You can waste a lot of time basking in the glow of anticipated publication.

4. Nothing comes easy. The brilliant idea you have had for a story now needs developing and crafting and laboring through many drafts before it will be ready for submission. And then there’s editing.

5. One publisher saying no doesn’t mean they all will. My first novel (Eleanor, Elizabeth, 1984) was rejected by the first publisher it was sent to. They listed five or six points they felt were flaws in the story and its structure. The next publisher who saw it accepted it and when told of the first publisher’s verdict said the points raised were the very strengths they liked about the book.

6. Don’t accept writer’s block. Writing becomes stalled for any one of a number of reasons. Maybe the idea just isn’t strong enough to sustain the kind of story you envisaged. Maybe you can see problems emerging in the story and you don’t want to deal with them. Maybe something else in your life is demanding your time and energy. Find solutions. In my case, a long solitary walk or a time spent reading really good writing often works. There is a power in good prose.

7. Join your professional association. Writing is a solitary pursuit and, at times, you have to deal with complex issues such as contracts, co-authorship and copyright law. You need assistance, and there are writers before your time who have banded together to help you sort out your relationship with your agent and your publisher. How else are you going to work out what exactly the Google Book Settlement means and how you should position yourself?

Kids writer Libby Gleeson lives in New
Zealand and has written more than thirty
books for children, including picture
books and kids novels.

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7 Things I've Learned So Far, by F. Gerard Jefferson

Chuck — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 00:44:22 GMT

This is a new 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 nonfiction writer F. Gerard Jefferson, who edits The Weekly Vista blog.

1. It’s not me; it’s the revision. (Or sometimes, it’s the shoes.) Yeah, you’ve heard about this revision thing before, and you’ve probably also heard that anyone—yes, even you!—can become a better writer. But I don’t necessarily agree with this world view. Here’s what I think. I think I’m the same writer I was seven years ago. I’m a better writer not because of anything I’ve written, but because of everything I’ve erased. You can become a better writer, too, but it’ll take some time, maybe even years, to become a better self-editor. The good thing about it is, as a wannabe writer, time is on your side.

2. That egg you see? It’s yours, and it’s all over your face. You’re going to make mistakes. Know that from the beginning. In your manuscript. In your formal requests for a prom date. In response to all the “Ewww! I’m not going with you!” rejections you’re going to get. Some mistakes will be minor. Others might get you reported to your Internet service provider, or ridiculed on the blog of some famously anonymous literary agent/editor. But it’s okay. You can survive. Take that egg and whip yourself up an omelet, and while you’re at it, fix me some, too. Hunger is the perfect equalizer for embarrassment.

3. Continuing with the prom theme, while you’re at home working on your moves, don’t forget the writer’s anthem: Back that thang up! I’ll be the first to admit it: Redundant, as a word, sounds suspiciously close to dunce. But how do you think I felt when my Quantex computer died in 2004 and I didn’t have redundant copies of all my work? Now I’m somewhat of a Napoleon about backup systems with three tiers of tyrannical protection, but I sleep easy at night. Or, at least, I try to.

4. Writing your book is just the beginning. I remember when I finished my first novel a few years ago. I thought the majority of the work was done. If I could go back in time, I’d slap myself. Hard.

5. Short stories are harder to write than novels. If you’ve been paying attention, you know airplane pilots have been all over the news lately, not for well they take-off, but how well they land. As a writer, your job is to land that big, hulking idea you’ve got, and make sure as few people as possible get injured in the process, or that your name doesn’t get associated with negligence. As one pilot to another: Just know it’s easier to do this when there’s a lot of runway to play with.

6. However long you think it’s going to take, add five years. There are two things in life you never do: Never ask a woman her age; and never ask a writer how long they’ve been unpublished. If you decide to break this rule, and the woman/writer asks you to guess, always underestimate.

7. Temper your expectations. It’s okay to dream, but that deadline for finding a perfect New York agent that I’m sure you have? In my humble opinion, you should throw it out the window.

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7 Things I've Learned So Far, by Colette Martin

Chuck — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 14:50:36 GMT

Following a career as a marketing executive,
Colette Martin is embarking on a second act
as a nonfiction writer. She writes about food
allergy solutions, corporate culture, working
women’s issues, blogging and social media. She
is the author of the When Fridays Were Fridays blog ,
where she shares her views on life in Corporate America.

During my tenure in Corporate America, I was responsible for developing and marketing products and services. On the surface this may sound very different than the career I am now pursuing as a writer, but I am still developing and marketing a "product," and I am finding that many lessons I learned in Corporate America do indeed carry over into the writing and publishing world. Seven key things I learned are:

1. It’s not personal, it’s business. We hear a lot about employees in Corporate America who are unsatisfied with their performance ratings, or who didn’t get a raise or promotion. In the writing business, we hear a lot about rejection—writers who can’t get the book deal, and fear of agents and publishers. At a recent pitch slam I could feel the tension as the writers lined up to talk to the agents. But guess what? The agents were pleasant, easy to talk to, and just plain nice. They don’t want to reject your work any more than a manager wants to tell an employee they need to do a better job. There was no yelling and throwing of books. The truth is (are you ready to hear this?) not everyone can rise to the top. Just like bosses in Corporate America who need to hire the best talent for the job, agents and publishers look for the best product they can find so they can optimize their success.

2. It helps if you follow the rules. Let’s face it. Nobody wants to work with difficult people. There is always the exception of the employee who is so brilliant that management looks the other way, and if you are the next James Patterson then more power to you. For everyone else, just play nice. If an agent asks for a particular process or format, give it to them.

3. There is always something new to learn. The world changes fast. Technology changes. And yet it’s too easy to get stuck in the same old rut. The quickest way to rejuvenate your thinking and your work is to attend a conference, take a class, or just step out of your comfort zone and explore something new.

4. Keep your competition close. Uh-oh! Someone used your idea—they beat you to it! Or did they? As a product marketing manager, keeping a pulse on what the competition was doing was critical. But being first isn’t usually what counts, being better is. Watch what others are doing—closely—and do it better.

5. If someone else is succeeding at it, there is a market. Just because there are a handful of books already published on your topic doesn’t mean the market is saturated. If those books are selling well, that’s a sign that there is a market for what you have to offer. Use that as leverage to demonstrate you have an audience.

6. Everyone sees things differently depending on where they sit. There’s a term we use in the marketing world called the "value chain," which describes who the stakeholders are, what they get out of the deal, and how they make money. Let’s take the publishing process, for example. The writer, the agent, the publisher, the distributor, the bookseller—each see the process very differently based on what they get out of it. Get inside their heads. Understanding how each of these players views the world is a huge advantage for the person producing the product (in this case that’s you—the writer). And here’s a hint—they each care most about how they are measured and rewarded.

7. There is no one right path to success. I admit it. I’m an information junkie. So as I set out on this new path, I went in search of the how-to’s. It seems that every successful writer has written a book, or a blog, or an article on how to do exactly what he or she did. There is so much (often conflicting) advice thrown at us that it can be hard to get off the roller coaster. But I learned in business that while we can have role models and mentors, by the time it’s your turn to take that path the path will have changed. Everyone’s journey will be different, and we each have to go with our gut and do what feels right for us!

Want more on this subject?

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Read about What Agents Hate: Chapter 1 Pet Peeves.

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7 Things I've Learned So Far, by Tia Nevitt

Chuck — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 14:52:21 GMT

Guest columnist Tia Nevitt has a book review blog
at Debuts & Reviews, and her reviews appear at
Fantasy Literature. She is a published freelancer
now working on novels.

1. Write another novel. Once you've finished that first novel, spend some well-deserved time celebrating, but then take an honest look at it. Is it really good enough? Don't do what I did. I spent years trying to make my first novel good enough. When I finally thought it was ready, I sent it to a single agent, who rejected it, after which I stopped trying. Deep down, I knew my writing wasn't ready. Find readers for critiques. Don't go to family and friends. They'll tell you what you want to hear, which is never satisfying, or even helpful.

2. Cut with impunity. Often, you have to write a lot of words just to figure out which words you need to keep. And this isn't a bad thing—it's necessary. Want proof? Go grab a DVD of your favorite movie and select the Deleted Scenes from the Bonus Features section. Listen to the director describe the scene. He'll say something like, "We realized we just didn't need it." Writers need to do the same thing. You had to write it, but it doesn't have to stay in the story. Be grateful you didn't spend six figures filming that scene. Just cut it out and paste it into a "Deleted Scene" folder in case you need it later.

3. When you think it's final, print it out. Yes, I know. It seems like such a waste of paper. But you really need to see it on the printed page. It is so easy to gloss over problems on a computer screen. It will astonish you how many problems you will see, especially when you also . . .

4. Read it aloud. Yes, the whole thing. Armed with a red pen—or some other color that stands out—take that printout you created above, put it on a clipboard, and read the entire novel out loud. Even if you're all alone. You engage different areas of the brain when you read aloud, and you will hear problems you didn't see when you read it on the computer.

5. Writer's block is a warning. When I get writer's block, I try to rethink the scene I'm writing. I ask: Am I heading in the right direction here? Often, the answer is no. My muse is warning me that something is wrong. At this point, I often set it aside and work on another project. Usually I can come back to it with a fresh approach or renewed enthusiasm—and the answer to my problem.

6. Probe character motivations. If you have to convince yourself that your character's motivations make sense, they probably won't make sense to a reader. I'm brutal about this, both as a reviewer and as a beta reader. Your characters need good reasons for doing what they do. Don't have them do stupid things just to make the plot work, unless you're going for humor. Your readers will want to tear pages out in frustration.

7. After you write the ending, rethink the beginning. We all spend a lot of time thinking about that perfect opening. But leave that for later. Just get it started, get going, and get to the end. Odds are, you'll end up with plot threads that you'll have to weave back into the beginning anyway. Once the entire story is down, it's easier to figure out the point where the actual story begins. One of my agented critique partners ended up trashing her opening and rewriting it, and that was the novel that got her an agent.

Want more on this subject?

Want to pen a guest column? Write me at literaryagent@fwmedia.com

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Read about What Agents Hate: Chapter 1 Pet Peeves.

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7 Things I've Learned So Far, by Valerie Geary

Chuck — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 23:14:49 GMT

Valerie Geary is a fiction writer and
helms the blog, Something to Write About.

1. Read widely. Read everything. Fiction and nonfiction. Short stories, novellas, and classics. Read in a style or genre different from your own. Read an author you’ve avoided because he/she is too popular. Read an author whose name is so obscure you probably won’t remember it later. And go deeper than simply reading: Learn something from each piece. You will come out on the other side a much stronger writer. I know I have.

2. Excuses are a waste of time and creativity. If you want to write ... Write. There is no better point in your life than now. There is no better place in the world than here. The kids will never stop needing things from you. The bills will not stop showing up in your mailbox. The kitchen will just be dirty again tomorrow. Stop. Breathe. Write.

3. Take long walks. Not only is it good for the body, it’s good for the mind. I have found that some of my most exciting story ideas and biggest writing revelations have come when my muscles are moving, my blood is pumping and I’m breathing fresh air. Plus it keeps my dog happy. And a happy dog = hours of uninterrupted writing time.

4. Always carry a piece of paper and a pen. Always. My Muse comes around at the most inconvenient times. Never when I’m working at my desk. It can be very disheartening to watch brilliance disappear into the cracks of your brain.

5. If you can’t write a concise synopsis, your novel’s not ready. Once upon a time I wrote a novel. I tried writing a synopsis to send along with my query letters, but I had a difficult time with it and I never finished. At first, I thought: Who cares? What’s so important about a synopsis anyway? It’s the story that counts. So I queried only agents who didn’t require a synopsis. Know what happened? Nothing. Form rejections. It seems so obvious to me now, but what I didn’t understand back then was that the synopsis is the story. If you are having trouble writing a synopsis, step back and take another look at the story you’re trying to tell. Are there pieces missing? Did you start it in the right place? Is your arc arched enough? Is your ending satisfying? When the story is ready, writing the synopsis should be easy-breezy-lemon-peezy.

6. Writing is art; publishing is business. When I write, I write first for myself. I experiment and try to keep my creative mind open to extraordinary surprises. But when I prepare to send a piece out for publication, I have to remember that there are other people involved now. Businesses that want to buy, sell, and make a profit from my words. Readers who want to understand and connect with my stories. Reviewers who will offer their opinions whether or not I ask them to. If you are not able, or willing, to allow other people into your writing life don’t publish. But if you are ready, remember to conduct yourself with unflinching professionalism especially in public forums.

7. Remember to pause and catch your breath in the shade. Don’t feel guilty about taking a break. Writing is hard work. I despise the adage: “Write every day”. This is a good way exhaust both your energy and your creativity. I am not, however, advocating that you write only when you feel like it, because nothing would ever get done. Make a schedule. Stick to it for several months, a year even. Then take a vacation. Pull back from the computer for a day, a week, a month. Go camping. Travel. Read. Hang out with friends. Enjoy life for a while. You will be properly rested and ready to take on the world.

Want more on this subject?

Want to pen a guest column? Write me at literaryagent@fwmedia.com

Confused about formatting? Check out Formatting & Submitting Your Manuscript.

Read about What Agents Hate: Chapter 1 Pet Peeves.

Want the most complete database of agents and what genres they're looking for? Buy the 2011 Guide to Literary Agents today!

7 Things I’ve Learned So Far, by Chantal Panozzo

Chuck — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 15:46:53 GMT

This is a new 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 Chantal Panozzo, award-winning freelancer and aspiring memoirist.

Chantal Panozzo is a writer and copywriter
based in Zurich, Switzerland. Her essays have
appeared everywhere from The Christian
Science Monitor and National Geographic
Glimpse to the Swiss News. She is also at
work on Hausfrau: The Memoir, a story about
looking for an identity in a country where the
bells still ring at 11 a.m. to remind all women
to get home and cook their husbands lunch.

1. Make business cards. Lawyers have them and they feel important. You can, too. Plus it just makes you look like you take your writing seriously.

2. Live abroad. Think of it as an MFA, except you’ll differentiate yourself with more than a piece of paper. You’ll be able to write about things from a unique viewpoint. And you’ll find ideas for stories that you never could have imagined before. For example, if your Swiss neighbor wants clean your gutter until it’s so shiny you could drink out of it, let her. And then go write about it.

3. Tell the truth. I try to (sorry, Dad). But then again, I’ve got to make up for my career as an advertising copywriter somehow. So I write stories about the people I know, the places I live, and the things that have happened to me. As Garrison Keillor one said, if it’s something people are ashamed of, it’s probably worth writing about. And in my experience, this is true. For example, I was able to sell a story about being laid off in Switzerland to a radio station, a magazine, and a best-selling anthology series. People love when your life sucks more than theirs. And having to keep working for three months under the same boss that fired you qualifies for the ultimate in life suckiness.

4. Read books. There’s no excuse for not reading, even if, like me, you live in a country where paperbacks cost the equivalent of $30. To keep from going broke, I buy 50 books at a time when I’m in the U.S., and stuff them in my suitcase. Writers read. Some of us just have to deal with more back pain because of it.

5. Fight more. Assume the writing contract could be better because a lawyer wrote it and most people know that good English does not read like Sanskrit. So only use contracts as starting points. It doesn’t hurt to ask for more money or ask to retain more rights. Remember, when one writer prevails, we all do.

6. Read your stuff out loud. Good writing is usually about good listening.

7. Use the Internet to your advantage. This is especially important if you live in a remote location that makes networking in person difficult. I started the blog Writer Abroad so I could connect with other writers around the world and find out how they worked. I’m always looking for new writers to feature, so please get in touch if you’re interested.

Want more on this topic?

Want to pen a guest column? Write me at literaryagent@fwmedia.com.

Free tips on writing book-length memoirs.

A great resource for memoir writing is Writing Life Stories.

Confused about formatting? Check out Formatting & Submitting Your Manuscript.

Read about What Agents Hate: Chapter 1 Pet Peeves.

Want the most complete database of agents and what genres they're looking for? Buy the 2011 Guide to Literary Agents today!

7 Things I've Learned So Far, by Robert Lewis

Chuck — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 00:01:40 GMT

Robert Lewis writes crime fiction
and runs the NeedleCity blog.

Right now, I have the good fortune to be represented by the Irene Goodman Literary Agency, and my book, Unseen Damage, is being shopped to editors this very moment. I wanted to write a column from my unique situation - from the vantage point of a writer who has an agent and is now trying to 1) build a platform and 2) sell the book. Here are seven things I now know that I hope can help you:

1. Getting an agent is only the beginning. When we start out writing and dreaming of finding an agent and getting published, we, of course, focus on getting the agent. This is natural. It makes sense. In reality, however, it’s only the end of the first phase. The next phase, getting published, is where even more work awaits.

2. Every writer/agent relationship is different. This is probably one of the hardest things an aspiring writer has to learn. It was certainly hard for me. I’ve spoken with many writers who jump at the first agent who offers representation. This may not be the best move. The writer/agent relationship is first and foremost a business relationship, and in business people succeed best when they are well-suited to work together. Ask a lot of questions when you’re on the phone with this prospective agent. See if you can work together. Do you “click”? Always remember: If one agent wants to sign you, there will be others.

3. Landing a rep does not necessarily lead to publication of your book. Sad but true. Just “mind the gap” and keep working on the next project while your agent sends out your manuscript. Let your agent do his or her job while you keep churning out the golden prose.

4. It’s going to take time. No way around this. It took 4-5 months from the time I signed with my agent to the time she began to send my novel out to publishers. I’ve heard of it taking eight to twelve months or even longer before an agent felt a manuscript was ready to go out into the world. And once it goes out, it will take even more time. Again, just keep your head down, and always remember to breathe.

5. Building your author platform will be one of the most vital parts of the process. Once my book began to go out, my agent felt it was a good time to begin building my platform. Twitter, Facebook, blogging, Myspace, website, etc. This takes a lot of time and energy. Your platform is one of the major ways that people will hear about you and your book. I imagined myself at my desk, writing furiously, sending out my manuscripts to my editor for publication while my publicist did all the advertising. Ha! I was so naïve! These days it’s up to the author to sell his or her self, and their work.

6. It isn’t really done until the book is in print. One of the first things you’ll probably do after you sign with your agent is go back and rewrite your book. Maybe a little, maybe a lot. The revising I did on my novel took three months. Fairly deep revision it was, too, as I had to take a character that had been killed and bring them back to life. It was an incredible learning experience.

7. Just relax. Writing to land an agent can take years. It took me about four years of intense writing and two manuscripts to finally sign with a reputable agency. I took off about two weeks after I signed the agency agreement to read some novels my agent suggested I read before I tackled the rewrite. After all the work to get to where I am today, I’m beginning to realize just how important it is to not write. To regroup, reassess, and recharge. Writing will hopefully be your career for many, many years. You need to arrive at the gates with enough strength to walk through.

Want more on this topic?

Want to pen a guest column? Write me at literaryagent@fwmedia.com.

Free tips on writing book-length memoirs.

A great resource for memoir writing is Writing Life Stories.

Confused about formatting? Check out Formatting & Submitting Your Manuscript.

Read about What Agents Hate: Chapter 1 Pet Peeves.

Want the most complete database of agents and what genres they're looking for? Buy the 2011 Guide to Literary Agents today!

7 Things I've Learned So Far, by Alexis Grant

Chuck — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 15:08:31 GMT

Alexis Grant is a journalist writing her
first book, a travel memoir about backpacking
solo through Africa. See her website here.

1. No story’s about the author. A memoir revolves around the author’s experiences and ideas—and so can fiction and nonfiction. But the story is never really about the author. It’s about something larger than one person, a theme readers can relate to, one that makes them reflect on their own life. My memoir, for example, is my story of backpacking through French-speaking Africa. What’s it really about? Why each of us should take a leap in life, and the value of traveling solo. I’m an important piece of that. But the story’s not solely about me.

2. Artist’s colonies are worth jumping into. I consider myself a journalist, not an artist. But during my first artist’s residency this year, when I spent five weeks in the woods of northern Georgia, I learned that I really do write more and better in a quiet setting with no distractions. I also met other creative types who opened my eyes to new ideas and fed my writing fire. Finding the time—and sometimes the money—to go to a colony can be difficult, but you’ll be glad you did.

3. Writing a memoir is a lot like writing fiction. It’s nonfiction, of course. All my stories are true. But they have to be told with dialogue, description, scene-setting, pace, characters—the same tools I’d use to write a novel. (These skills do not come naturally to someone who has used direct quotes and right-to-the-point leads for most of her writing career.) Writing this way takes practice. It helps sometimes to remind myself that my true story should read like a novel.

4. Exercise has more than physical benefits. Stuck on a scene? Sick of a chapter? Taking a break to go for a run or walk the dog isn’t wasted time. It’s a chance to think about the story without the pressure of having to put words on paper. Your brain is still working but in a different way, which may benefit you and your story in the long run (pun intended). I do my best thinking when I don’t mean to—while running.

5. A problem can be solved by writing through it. Not sure where the story’s going or whether there’s a bigger lesson behind a scene? You’ll never know if you don’t start writing. Put words to paper—any words—and sometimes the muse works her magic, bringing the story to a place you didn’t expect. Other times that scene should go right into the trash. But even knowing where the story’s not going can help. And often the best way to figure that out is to write through it.

6. My favorite parts aren’t necessarily important to the story. I loved watching the sun set over the Niger River—but that memory, however important to me, might not help my book. For every scene, we must ask ourselves: What’s the reason for including it? Does it propel the story forward? How does it benefit the reader? When it comes to your favorite parts, ask yourself these questions twice. Just because it’s good for you doesn’t mean it’s good for the story.

7. If it’s embarrassing, it’s probably a keeper. Details that feel the most revealing tend to be the ones that let the reader into my head and help them understand me as a person—and that’s what memoir is all about. Whenever I’m tempted to cut an embarrassing paragraph,* I remind myself that those are usually the parts my readers enjoy most. Of course, this rule of thumb can be taken too far—a memoir is not, after all, a diary. But most of our face-reddening habits or thoughts serve a vital purpose in our stories: they make us more human. If it helps the reader relate to you, it’s worth keeping.

Want more on this topic?

Want to pen a guest column? Write me at literaryagent@fwmedia.com.

Free tips on writing book-length memoirs.

A great resource for memoir writing is Writing Life Stories.

Confused about formatting? Check out Formatting & Submitting Your Manuscript.

Read about What Agents Hate: Chapter 1 Pet Peeves.

Want the most complete database of agents and what genres they're looking for? Buy the 2011 Guide to Literary Agents today!

7 Things I've Learned So Far, by Bonnie Trenga

Chuck — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 15:24:17 GMT

This is a new 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 Bonnie Trenga, nonfiction author and grammar expert.

Bonnie Trenga is the author of
The Curious Case of the Misplaced Modifier.
She is also a freelance writer,
copy editor, and blogger.

I collect Criminal Sentences, real sentences where something is amiss. Laugh at some of the best ones of 2009 and improve your writing at the same time.

1. Remember to use Spell Checker, but don’t rely on it to find every mistake. Avoid something like Criminal Sentence 235: “That releaves a lot of stress.” Use Spell Checker, but don’t expect it to catch word-usage errors, like these—Criminal Sentence 164: “a raised medium” (is Whoopi Goldberg from “Ghost” floating around?); and Criminal Sentence 215: “If the infection builds up, the eardrum may rupture to allow the puss to flow out” (how did a kitty get into the eardrum?).

2. Learn what misplaced modifiers are and then avoid writing them. Misplaced modifiers often make writers—even New York Times-bestselling authors—look ridiculous. Category A: misplaced modifiers at the beginning of a sentence—Criminal Sentence 243: “As First Lady, the agents acted as my protectors” (the agents cannot be the First Lady). Category B: misplaced modifiers involving a “that” or “who” clause—Criminal Sentence 150: “Soon after, he grew a swelling in his foot and in his groin that had to be lanced” (ouch; the swelling, not the groin area, had to be lanced). Category C: misplaced modifiers involving prepositional phrases—Criminal Sentence 225: “The man watched him and the girl with slow eyes” (the man watched the girl slowly; the girl does not have slow eyes).

3. Try not to be so wordy. Don’t follow the example of Criminal Sentence 312: “Several actions have been taken with great success including (but not limited to)...” This blather is vague, repetitive (“include” means you’re giving a partial list), and passive (why not say who did what exactly?). You can do better.

4. Become familiar with the kinds of mistakes you tend to make and then check for them. Some writers have problems with apostrophes. Others confuse similar-sounding words. Figure out what you need to work on and then do so. These three Criminal Sentences illustrate common problems—Criminal Sentence 195: “hand’s down” (careful with your apostrophe’s!); Criminal Sentence 248: “I hear lots of people complaining about the economy and how it’s effecting them” (watch your “affect” and “effect”); and Criminal Sentence 255: “All parents must make sure there kids are taking the right shoes” (“there,” “they’re,” and “their” sound alike but mean different things).

5. Be precise. Your thoughts swim around in your head, and it’s your job to make sure those thoughts come out onto the page in the way you intended. Criminal Sentence 156 misfired: “My goal is to tell anglers where to start fishing and how to catch them.” The writer seems to want to catch anglers, not fish, since “anglers” is the only plural noun that could go with “them.” Make sure your pronouns refer back to nouns as intended! (And if you state you have one goal, be sure to list only one; this sentence lists two goals.) Criminal Sentence 256 displays an alarming amount of imprecision. A reporter told us, “The missing fetus was discovered during an autopsy.” This is ridiculous. The sentence was supposed to say that during the autopsy, the medical examiner discovered there had been a fetus and it was now missing. The baby was found unharmed, but one reporter was harmed during the explanation of this sentence.

6. Remember your basic grammar. Problems with parallelism and subject-verb agreement crop up often. Check out Criminal Sentence 201: “He was smart, decisive and had sound judgment.” The parts don’t fit together correctly: adjective (“smart”), adjective (“decisive”), verb (“had”). As a copy editor, I can understand how this mistake occurs; it’s just carelessness. Avoid this problem by reviewing your sentence and making sure all parts go together smoothly. On the other hand, I cannot excuse Criminal Sentence 158: “The meaning of these words aren’t known.” Apparently, the meaning of grammar aren’t known either. Omit the prepositional phrase and you’ll see the mistake: “The meaning ... aren’t….” Pesky prepositional phrases often get in the way of stellar subject-verb agreement, so be vigilant.

7. Your first draft shouldn’t be your final draft. Sadly, what first comes out of our heads isn’t always brilliant, and we all make mistakes. Of course, you don’t want important thoughts to evaporate, so scribble away while your ideas are fresh; you’ll shape your sentences during subsequent drafts. Once you’ve been away from your piece for a while, you can catch your own Criminal Sentences—or maybe I will. Become more suspicious of yourself (assume you’re imperfect), and don’t become attached to any particular sentence. You can probably make it better.

Buy "The Curious Case of
The Misplaced Modifier"

Want more on this subject?

Want to pen a guest column? Write me at literaryagent@fwmedia.com

See a successful nonfiction query here.

Nonfiction words of wisdom from agent Ted Weinstein.

Confused about formatting? Check out Formatting & Submitting Your Manuscript.

Read about What Agents Hate: Chapter 1 Pet Peeves.

Want the most complete database of agents and what genres they're looking for? Buy the 2011 Guide to Literary Agents today!

7 Things I’ve Learned So Far, by Donna Gambale

Chuck — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 15:36:47 GMT

This is a new 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 Donna Gambale, nonfiction book author and aspiring YA writer.

Donna Gambale blogs at the First Novels
Club and is the author of a mini kit,
Magnetic Kama Sutra. She’s currently
revising her young adult novel, Multiple Choice.

1. Writing is like acting. Always be yourself? I don’t think so. In 2008, when Running Press asked me to write a book for their upcoming mini kit, Magnetic Kama Sutra, I couldn’t refuse a publishing credit to my name … despite the topic! Writing about sex—even in a playful manner—intimidated me. But the somewhat hilarious process made me grow as a writer, and I’m much less afraid to take those risks in my fiction and write the unfamiliar.

2. You, too, can become addicted to blogging. I once had zero interest in blogging. In April 2009, my critique group and I wanted to chronicle our writing journey, and the First Novels Club blog was born. By September, I was hooked. I became passionate about creating unique content that readers would find useful and entertaining—and the blog grew. I love the instant gratification of comments. And I “follow” a long list of other bloggers whom I’ve come to know, respect, and banter with on a daily basis. The sense of community and knowledge I’ve gained are invaluable.

3. Surround yourself with people who speak your language. Face it, no matter how supportive family and friends may be, they usually don’t “get it.” And on the rough side, more than a few people will be patronizing or discouraging when you tell them you’re writing a book. That’s why it’s so important to connect with people who have interests and goals similar to yours. If I didn’t have my critique group, I can say for certain that I wouldn’t have gotten past chapter five in my novel, and sharing in the struggles and successes of other bloggers has inspired me to accomplish even more.

4. Challenge yourself. The beginning’s the easy part. Your shiny new idea keeps you up at night with its untold glory, begging to be written. So you write with fervor … for about a week. And then you find the plot holes. And the weak characters. And the contrived dialogue. Oops. No novel is easy! Set manageable goals, tackle one issue at a time, and push yourself to write better/faster/smarter than you ever thought you could.

5. But work at your own pace. Every writer works differently. Sure, you hear stories about people who wrote and revised their debut novel in six months, got an agent three weeks later, and a “very nice” deal listed in Publishers Marketplace two months down the road. Ignore them. Don’t compare yourself to anyone else, but make sure you’re always moving forward.

6. Talk to strangers. Readers, authors, agents, editors, booksellers, aspiring writers, bloggers, librarians. Meet them. Put yourself out there. If you attend book signings and conferences and read fifty blogs but don’t talk to people, participate, or comment, you’re missing valuable opportunities to network and learn from people firsthand. But be warned: no one wants to talk to someone whose primary goal is self-promotion.

7. Don’t underestimate yourself. If you told me three years ago I would have a novel written and ready for agents before my twenty-fourth birthday, I would’ve laughed at you. If you’d told me about Magnetic Kama Sutra, I would’ve fallen off my chair. You never know what you can achieve. Call yourself an author. Treat your writing goals seriously. Trust yourself. Embrace the learning process. You’ll get there!

Want more on this subject?

Want to pen a guest column? Write me at literaryagent@fwmedia.com

See a successful nonfiction query here.

Nonfiction words of wisdom from agent Ted Weinstein.

Confused about formatting? Check out Formatting & Submitting Your Manuscript.

Read about What Agents Hate: Chapter 1 Pet Peeves.

Want the most complete database of agents and what genres they're looking for? Buy the 2011 Guide to Literary Agents today!

7 Things I've Learned So Far, by Jody M. Roy

Chuck — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 15:40:59 GMT

Jody's most recent book is Autobiography
of a Recovering Skinhead, the story of Frank
Meeink, a white supremacist who changed his
ways and now speaks on diversity.

1. It’s about your writing, not you! It’s very easy to take editors’ and reviewers’ comments personally; in fact, it’s natural. But if you allow yourself to bog down in emotional reactions to the comments, you won’t grow as a writer. I give myself a set time-frame: no more than 24 hours to fume. Then I set my emotions aside and get to work.

2. Editorial notes are both an immediate to-do list and a long-term lesson plan. I first transform editorial notes into a very specific checklist for my work in the coming hours or, as the case may be, weeks. Then I dive into the work, one tiny to-do at a time, until every single item has been completed. If I stop there, I make my editor happy. However, if I take the process one step farther, I grow as a writer. Once I’ve completed a round of revisions, I cull any editing notes that are not completely unique to the work at hand and rewrite them into guidelines that will inform my future projects. Over time, I internalize the lessons and develop new skills.

3. I am the expert on the content, which means I cannot be the expert on the clarity. Whether I’m writing scholarly arguments or developing characters in creative nonfiction, I know my content intimately. As a result, I know what I mean, and that means at a certain point I am incapable of assessing the clarity of the piece, of knowing what critical information I’m leaving out, of judging the work’s accessibility for my target audience. After years spent inside a topic area or storyline, an author loses the ability to do a “clean” read of their own work because they fill in the gaps automatically. I find that the more experience I gain as a writer, the farther into the revision process I can take myself, but there always comes a point past which I need other people’s feedback, in particular to gauge the clarity issue.

4. If a cut doesn’t hurt, it’s not deep enough. I wish this weren’t true, but it is. A piece is always stronger after a good pruning. If an argument, character, scene, or individual word isn’t necessary, if it doesn’t contribute in some way to the overall purpose of the piece, it needs to go. In revising Autobiography of a Recovering Skinhead: The Frank Meeink Story, 180 pages were sliced (yes, you read that right: pages, not words!) from the original draft. It about killed me, but those cuts streamlined the narrative, focused the characters, and, ultimately, made the book accessible to a wider audience.

5. Save your creativity for the manuscript; the query letter and proposal must conform to industry norms. An agent once commented that a proposal of mine was “fantastic.” I shared with her my “secret”: I bought a copy of Writers’ Market and followed the directions for how to write a proposal. Writing a book is a creative enterprise; presenting a book to agents and publishers is not. Do your homework to learn the conventions for proposals and queries, then submit only what an agent or publisher requests, not one word more.

6. Schedule writing time. Some people work best in short, daily increments. Others need long blocks of time. Know what works for you and then schedule your life around that pattern. If publishing is your goal, writing must become both your priority and your routine. Of course, some days the words simply won’t flow, but that’s no excuse not to work.

7. Create rituals. Some writers are as superstitious as major-league pitchers. I am one of them. I don’t believe my rituals work magical mojo on publishers (I wish!), but I know they help me focus and persevere, so I keep doing them. I have a particular pattern of laying out pages-in-progress while brewing coffee before I get to work in the evenings; that routine signals my brain to switch gears into writing mode. It’s not so much mystical as habitual. Another ritual I swear by is this: When I begin the submission process, I tape a note card to my computer screen that says, “No doesn’t hurt.” Whether I’m trying to place an article or sell a book, that note card does not come down until I sign a contract.

Jody M. Roy, Ph.D., (pictured with Frank Meeink)
serves on the Board of Directors for the National
Association of Students Against Violence
Everywhere. Her publications include Autobiography of a
Recovering Skinhead: The Frank Meeink Story as
well as Love to Hate: America’s Obsession with
Hatred and Violence.

Want more on this subject?

Want to pen a guest column? Write me at literaryagent@fwmedia.com

See a successful nonfiction query here.

Nonfiction words of wisdom from agent Ted Weinstein.

Confused about formatting? Check out Formatting & Submitting Your Manuscript.

Read about What Agents Hate: Chapter 1 Pet Peeves.

Want the most complete database of agents and what genres they're looking for? Buy the 2011 Guide to Literary Agents today!

7 Things I've Learned So Far, by Jessica Monday

Chuck — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 04:06:43 GMT

This is a new 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 Jessica Monday, freelancer and aspiring book writer.

Jessica Monday is a published freelancer

and aspiring book writer. Previously, she

wrote a guest column on
writers conferences.

1. You just have to write. Sit down at the keyboard, pick up the pen, scribble on a napkin; it’s the hardest thing to do and the only one worthwhile. I have a folder where I toss ideas littered on scraps of envelopes and parking tickets. Writing the words out at the moment captures your mood and gives you an entry point to work with later. If you don’t write it, then you don’t have it.

2. Little ideas can always grow bigger. My book started as an idea for a newspaper feature. I was writing for a small town weekly paper in Wyoming and became interested in the story of a strange murder. A pair of writers, Michael and Kathleen Gear, advised me to try for a book, if, of course, I could find enough material. Over the next year I was like a squirrel collecting interviews and hoarding them away. After that year, I knew I’d accumulated the start of what I’d need to do more than a piece for the paper.

3. Writing takes time. I quit the busy newspaper business under the grand auspice of completing my book. That was a year and three months ago. While I know of famous authors who can churn out books in a few months or even weeks, creative nonfiction has evolved differently for me. Altogether I’ve been working on my book for three years and like Santiago in Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea I see myself as having set my hook in a big fish and being dragged out to sea with it until one of us wins the fight. I was extremely naïve about how long the process would take from inception to something marketable. Not only the research, but the writing itself, agonizing over how to compile all of the information and working on the side to make ends. Writing is not for the faint of heart.

4. We must be persistent. Writing is like any form of exercise. You’re better off if you set a discipline and be prepared to pay dues. Make a time to write, even if it’s a half-hour, and treat it like a set appointment. Write it down on your calendar with a specific time and don’t make excuses to skip. Even if you don’t say it to yourself, when you tuck those few sentences or poem away to be finished later, make the time to finish it. If you want to discover your potential as a writer, don’t quit on yourself. Tell yourself working a little bit is better than nothing (because it is).

5. Find the power in your own voice. I had an English professor say it doesn’t matter how many times the sunset has been described in human history, how you describe it will be different. No one else sees the world exactly as you do. Give yourself the freedom to write whatever you think and don’t worry about what other people will think. Keep it to yourself until you’re ready to share; do whatever you have to do, but let those expressions unfold because they are unique to you.

6. Locate an inner mentor. Lately I’ve been hearing Richard Pryor’s voice in my head when I lose confidence in my work. His vulgar brazenness makes me laugh when I hear my meanest voice saying, “Oh this is such crap, why would you show this to anyone?” He also reminds me to finish writing. Find the end of a piece and you’ve begun to find yourself as a writer. That doesn’t mean that draft won’t be crap. Making a gorgeous, polished piece is the next step. But you have to write it all out before you can start revising and editing. So even if it takes years to finish what you start, keep writing and keep starting and use a positive voice to boost your self esteem. Start a million times and eventually you will finish one of them; it becomes so unsatisfying to never know the ending.

7. Write for publication. People often write for themselves in journals (which is proven fantastic for mental health and plain fun), but the ultimate goal of an artist is communication with an audience. I fought writing for publications because I worried it would take away from working on my book. Actually I found the other writing focused me because I was exercising my craft and learning more about writing; how to ask better questions, trying technique, reviewing my work and looking for holes. The added bonus is you’ll earn money for your work, which gives you more time to write other things. Practice your craft and you’ll have the best of luck in all your writing.

Want more on this subject?

Want to pen a guest column? Write me at literaryagent@fwmedia.com

See Jessica's guest column on attending a writers conference.

Read more about the dos and don'ts of pitching agents at conferences.

Confused about formatting? Check out Formatting & Submitting Your Manuscript.

Read about What Agents Hate: Chapter 1 Pet Peeves.

Want the most complete database of agents and what genres they're looking for? Buy the 2011 Guide to Literary Agents today!

7 Things I've Learned So Far, by Debbie Fuhry

Chuck — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 17:37:54 GMT

Debbie Fuhry is a writer of inspirational
fiction. She has a website and runs
the blog Grace is Sufficient.

1. Look before you leap. Don’t immediately sit down and start typing as soon as you realize the story in your head might be turned into a novel. Go ahead and make notes so you don’t lose your train of thought, but then take time to study a few of the books on the art of fiction writing.

2. Don’t be cheap. The old saying is still valid, “You have to spend money to make money.” Be willing to spend money—think of it as an investment—on books, magazine subscriptions, memberships to professional associations, and writers’ conferences.

3. Find a writing group. In addition to joining a professional association, look for a smaller group that meets locally. You will be encouraged by spending time with others who share your goals and interests, and you can often learn a lot, too. Such groups often include critique sessions. You will gain from having your own writing critiqued as well as from listening to the members comment on others’ work.

4. Make the best use of writers’ conferences. Attend a conference with the primary goal of listening and learning. Many writers attend their first conference with purposes of pitching their novel and making contacts. You will miss some of the best opportunities a conference affords that way.

5. Don’t bypass the agent. It’s natural to think, “If I sell directly to a publisher, I won’t have to hand over 15% of my earnings.” Setting aside the fact that plenty of publishers will not accept unsolicited submissions directly from writers, a good agent knows the legal and practical end of the business and most writers do not. Also, an agent can offer a layer of quality control between you and the publisher.

6. Cheer on other writers. It’s easy to be envious of others' success, and if you feel that way, acknowledge it and move on. It’s something else entirely to be resentful about it, and usually indicates that you feel as though another writer’s success somehow diminishes your chances. It doesn’t.

7. Keep your expectations in line with reality. While it’s fine to be able to dream about writing multiple bestsellers, be realistic. Only a tiny percentage of authors are that successful. So keep dreaming and keep working toward your dreams, but don’t quit your day job yet!

Want more on this subject?

Want to pen a guest column? Write me at literaryagent@fwmedia.com

Confused about formatting? Check out Formatting & Submitting Your Manuscript.

Read about What Agents Hate: Chapter 1 Pet Peeves.

Want the most complete database of agents and what genres they're looking for? Buy the 2011 Guide to Literary Agents today!

7 Things I've Learned So Far, by Mare Swallow (The Etiquette Bitch)

Chuck — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 17:40:30 GMT

This is a new 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 "The Etiquette Bitch" Mare Swallow, a writer, performer and keeper of the Etiquette Bitch blog.

Mare Swallow is a writer and performer in Chicago.
She writes the blog Etiquette Bitch and regularly
appears as a guest on WGN Radio in Chicago.
She's also a featured memoirist in the forthcoming
book, "It All Changed in an Instant."

1. Publishing isn't about your "art"—it's a business. After my book (about a really awful real estate experience) was rejected more than 20 times, I moaned to an editor friend of mine, “Why are they dinging my creative pursuits?” She pointed out to me that for a publisher, this isn’t about my “creative pursuit”—it’s a business. They need to make money. If my book won’t help achieve that end, I need to change something on my end.

2. It's okay if people don't like you. The first time I got negative comments on my blog, I took it personally, and worried that people wouldn’t like me. After talking to a colleague who warned me to stay out of the "zone of mediocrity," I realized it's okay if they hate me—they're reading!

3. When you're stuck on your writing, do something else creative, and step away from the keyboard. Dance. Paint. Collage. Take photos. Drink coffee and read a trashy novel. Play music. Ride a horse. Go to a video arcade. (Anyone old enough to know what that is?) Just don't write, and don't think about your writing. You'll come back refreshed.

4. Long breaks are okay—you don't have to write every single day. After multiple rejections, I didn't write for four months, and berated myself. I think there's this romantic notion that writers must have an unbreakable routine and write every day. Hogwash. Zadie Smith, according to her interview on NPR, took years off of writing fiction, so I can skip a few months.

5. Get internet savvy—but don’t forget about the real world. My blog, Etiquette Bitch, got attention (and a new home) from the Chicago Tribune because I met someone at a cocktail party. That led to regular radio appearances on WGN radio.

6. Keep making yourself marketable. Even if you're a killer freelance writer, gigs can be hard to come by. Learn new skills like blogging, video, editing—anything that will make you more marketable in this Facebook-YouTube obsessed world.

7. If I don't get published (traditionally), fine. I've found other creative outlets, including my day job as a workshop leader. But I’m going to keep trying to sell a book. Look out, agents—my query’s coming your way in 2010!

Buy "It All Changed in an Instant"

Want more on this subject?

Want to pen a guest column? Write me at literaryagent@fwmedia.com

Confused about formatting? Check out Formatting & Submitting Your Manuscript.

Read about What Agents Hate: Chapter 1 Pet Peeves.

Want the most complete database of agents and what genres they're looking for? Buy the 2011 Guide to Literary Agents today!

7 Things I've Learned So Far, by Diana R. Jenkins

Chuck — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 15:56:31 GMT

This is a new 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 Diana R. Jenkins, author of hundreds of magazine stories, articles and comic strips for kids/teens as well as several books of plays (order her plays here).

Kids writer and playwright Diana R. Jenkins.
Visit her website here or her blog here.
See her humorous kids plays here.

1. If you’re not sick of what you’re writing, then it’s not finished. You don’t want to hear it and I don’t want to believe it, but this is the sad, sad … oh-so-sad truth about writing. A good piece takes more revising than you think you can stand, but you have to do it anyway. Again and again. Of course, it’s helpful to set your work aside for a while to ferment, but then you’ll need to…

2. Revise again. Sorry! There’s just no way around it.

3. Procrastinate tomorrow. Write now. You may have heard the story (legend?) about the wealthy patron who visited Michelangelo and found him staring at a huge block of marble. Eventually Michelangelo would create the statue of David from the marble, but at the moment he appeared to be accomplishing nothing. The upset patron demanded, “What are you doing?” Michelangelo replied, “I’m working.” The art of writing takes mental preparation, too, but don’t tell yourself you’re Michelangelo when you’re just stalling around. Start chipping away!

4. Don’t waste a word. Back story? We don’t need no stinkin’ back story! Jump right into the action and work in any important information as you go along. Keep description to a minimum—just enough to make the story come alive for your readers and no more! Use powerful verbs and ax the adverbs. And make sure every bit of dialogue reveals something important about character and/or advances the plot.

5. Read your work aloud. Or at least do that whispery thing where you move your lips and pretend you’re reading out loud. That’s one of the best ways to find too-long sentences, awkward phrasing, grammar errors, repetitious word choices, and stilted dialogue. If you have to read something over and over to make it sound smooth, then it probably needs work (see #1 and #2 above).

6. “In writing, you must kill all your darlings.” That good advice comes from William Faulkner. Samuel Johnson said it another way: “Read over your composition and wherever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.” Sometimes you have to look at what you’ve written with a cold eye and a heart of stone. Lovingly crafted scenes, lyrical prose, clever displays of wit, and real-life anecdotes should do more than show off your talent. Painful as it is, you must put the knife to anything that doesn’t also serve the story.

7. We’re on a journey. And your main character should be, too. Of course, his external journey makes up your plot, but don’t forget the internal journey. If the main character doesn’t have one, then why should readers care about him? And if he doesn’t change in some way by the end of the story, then you don’t actually have a story! Clarify the main character’s personal journey before you even start writing then keep it in mind all through the process. Doing this will help you maintain the focus you need to write something amazing.

Diana's book, Stepping Stones, follows
children who deal with everyday problems
such as bullying, relationships and more.

Want more on this subject?

Want to write a guest column? Write me at literaryagent@fwmedia.com

See a great example of a young adult query that snagged an agent.

New agent seeking kids books: Gwendolyn Heasley of Artists & Artisans.

Confused about formatting? Check out Formatting & Submitting Your Manuscript.

Read about What Agents Hate: Chapter 1 Pet Peeves.

Want the most complete database of agents and what genres they're looking for? Buy the 2011 Guide to Literary Agents today!

7 Things I've Learned So Far, by Sunil Robert

Chuck — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 16:26:12 GMT

This is a new 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 Sunil Robert.

Sunil Robert is the author of
I Will Survive: Comeback Stories
of a Corporate Warrior. See
his website here.

1. Stay Passionate. Over the twenty months leading up to the final day when my book was going into print, I went through euphoric highs and depressing troughs as a first-time writer. Staying passionate kept me going. After all, the very reason I write is to tell my story as a memoir writer. If I don't care enough, why should the publisher, editor, and reader care? Depending on your project timelines, you need the passion and patience of a marathon runner to keep you going.

2. Trade off the occasional small one. I discovered that often when you run into a painfully perfectionist editor or a "we have always done things this way" type of a publicist, be prepared to concede. Not that you have much of a choice, if you are first timer, but gracefully giving into another view point helps the journey enjoyable. Writers, sometimes can be inflexible and stall the progress of the project. Keep the focus on the outcome and hopefully it will be positive.

3. Each book is unique. Often the tendency is to categorize or pigeonhole into a box and treat it accordingly. Stress each time and remind folks that this book is different, even if it broadly falls in a genre or a type. Likewise plead for unique treatment from everyone. Be willing to argue, persuade, make a case.

4. Grab every opportunity. Blogs, Radio shows, Facebook endorsements, any word around the book helps. I particularly like reviews that get blogged and reblogged again elsewhere. Social media made tweeting and retweeting possible. Keep talking to everyone who may be a reviewer, blogger et al. It will finally add to up to what Marketers call "Critical mass."

5. Once published, you no longer own the ideas. I discovered after my memoir hit the stands that different aspects appealed to different people. Often not exactly in the manner i intended, leading me to question my own capability and clarity. Gradually it dawned on me that the reader is also journeying along and they often impose their filters of understanding. I am now enjoying every response as long as it is complimentary. For every sarcastic feedback, I am vowing to avenge through the sequel.

6. Be prepared to live up to enhanced expectations. A civilized society suddenly raises the bar, once a writer gets published. Rightly so, Now that we have completed our part of the discourse, be prepared to engage with the readers at a higher plane. We are uniquely positioned to shape the conversation and offer compelling views. Be prepared to change the world pivoting around the credibility that is established as a writer.

7. Have a response to the inevitable question, What's next? Sometimes the world can be unforgiving, not even offering us the liberty of celebrating the moment. Even before I finished my roadshows, I was asked, "So what's your next book about?" I labored to explain that I write part-time and therefore my next book may be in a distance. But some of sort of a satisfying, even ambiguous answer needs to kept handy.

Buy I Will Survive

Want more on this subject?

Want to write a "7 Things" guest column? Write me at literaryagent@fwmedia.com

Memoir writer Colin Broderick tells how he got his agent.

Confused about formatting? Check out Formatting & Submitting Your Manuscript.

Read about What Agents Hate: Chapter 1 Pet Peeves.

Want the most complete database of agents and what genres they're looking for? Buy the 2011 Guide to Literary Agents today!

7 Things I've Learned So Far, by Lynnda Ell

Chuck — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 19:31:11 GMT

Lynnda Ell is a writer who
runs two blogs: Passionate for the
Glory of God, and Calling All Writers
of Nonfiction Books.

In December, 2008, at the age of 62, I began preparing for a new career. That was not something I had chosen to do. My health collapsed from post-polio syndrome and hurricane Katrina came to town in 2005. My career as an engineer was no longer possible so I thought about plans for a future career as I repaired my home. Since I had written many technical articles, two books, and more reports than I can remember, I decided to become a writer. A year and 1,000 work hours later, I have not changed my mind. Here are seven things I learned this year.

1. I don’t know what I don’t know. Since I read voraciously and can write a technical report clearly, I thought I could learn everything I needed from books on writing and the Internet. Wrong! That method left holes in my education. After nearly a year of trying to climb Mt. McKinley with no help, I finally accepted the inevitable; I needed formal training. I researched the options and decided that The Christian Writers’ Guild had the program that best fit my needs. Working on the lessons and getting feedback from a seasoned professional have been pure joy.

2. Writing in my head is easier than turning my thoughts into written words. Ideas for books and articles are always swimming in my mind. That sounds good! I think. I turn around to write down the thoughts and the words that flew so easily over the express lane of my mind slow down to a crawl in the congestion of exiting that expressway and traveling down the lane that merges onto the page. Idea gridlock then meets instant editor. It’s a wonder I get anything finished.

3. My writing should be so good that readers see how smart they are, not how smart I am. When this light went on over my head, everyone could see me blushing. I spent almost twenty years using my skills in a demanding profession. In all that time, my writing showed how smart I could be, so I was embarrassed to learn that I had gotten that basic idea completely wrong. My readers want to feel smart by understanding what I have to say. Back to the drawing board…

4. Knowing why I write is important. I enjoy writing for the pleasure of it, but that is not why I want to become a professional writer. Writing professionally gives me opportunities to share my passion; I want others to know the spine-tingling, breathless adventure of living a life committed to God. Once I expressed that, I began to see opportunities everywhere: I write articles for SAGE Ministries for Girls; I sold seven devotional essays to Barbour Publishing; and I started a blog, Passionate for the Glory of God. Verbalizing that focus made a difference in the way I work.

5. Readers in our 21st century culture want to be entertained even when reading nonfiction books. The first time I read that idea, I didn’t believe it. I read some nonfiction books from the previous two centuries and they are not very entertaining. The writing styles have changed and evolve over time, however. The today’s readers want to be entertained while they are being informed or inspired. The nonfiction books that I find easy to keep reading and stay longest in my mind with the least amount of effort have been entertaining as well. Now I write to both entertain and inform.

6. Trying to write a book for the commercial market is a high-risk enterprise. Working for a Fortune 500 company where I learned about introducing new products, competition, customer service, budgets and time-to-market helped me understand some to the complexities of publishing when I read popular industry blogs. I quickly learned that trying to publish a book before learning the critical writing skills and gaining a mature understanding of the publishing industry (or getting a great agent!) is a little like someone who cooks meals for their family trying to become a contestant for the Iron Chef competition; you can’t even get into the door.

7. The Internet is a great source of information, but it is skewed heavily toward writers of fiction. That was one reason I was happy to see WritersMarket.com develop a neighborhood for writers of nonfiction books. Rather than complain about the need for more sites devoted to writers of nonfiction, I started a community blog, Calling All Writers of Nonfiction Books. Join us, you might learn something.

Want more on this subject?

Have some questions on your road to landing a literary agent? Ask me! Join me for my "How to Get a Literary Agent" webinar on Thursday, Dec. 17, 2009 - and learn about queries, proposals, synopses, submissions, research and much more.

Want to contribute a guest column like this one? Write to me at literaryagent@fwmedia.com and we'll talk.

Read about What Agents Hate: Chapter 1 Pet Peeves.

Want the most complete database of agents and what genres they're looking for? Buy the 2011 Guide to Literary Agents today!

7 Things I've Learned So Far, by Mike Chen

Chuck — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 18:32:52 GMT

7 Things I've Learned So Far is a recurring column where writers at any stage of their career can talk about seven things they've learned on their writing journey that they wish they knew at the beginning. This installment is from writer Mike Chen.

Mike Chen is a professional copywriter, and
also has his own blog on writing. He loves
hockey and writes for several sites about
it (including FoxSports.com).

1. You don't have to write from beginning to end. I know some writers that start a story at the very beginning and build and build upon it until they hit a wall ... and because they force themselves to write chronologically, the whole thing stops dead in its tracks for months. One of the best pieces of advice I ever got was the idea of mapping a rough outline with key scenes; when you get stuck, grab one of those pivotal moments and write it. You'll be surprised at how the different perspective can get you going again and it might even give you a new perspective on characters and events.

2. Extreme moments define characters. How does your character act when the world is collapsing upon her? Sometimes, we never know because we don't get that far. One lesson that's always stuck with me is that characters are defined by how they act in conflict. When I feel like a character isn’t working, I stop the manuscript. Instead, I throw the character into an extreme circumstance (either related to the plot or not) -- amp up the conflict and see what happens: how they react, how they choose, what their voices sound like. Whenever I start a new project, I do a bunch of these scenes to help me learn about my main characters before I throw them into 90,000 words.

3. Inspiration comes from everywhere. My crowning achievement in college creative writing was a satire on Hollywood and pop culture called How Brad Pitt and I Saved The World. The story came from sitting next to a Fed Ex truck at a red light, and I randomly thought, "Wouldn't it be funny if a celebrity was actually kidnapped in the back of the Fed Ex truck?" (which perhaps shows how twisted I am). Normally, these silly thoughts pass in and out of my head, but I decided to try and run with this one and it became a 20-page story for a class. To this day, I try to gather my random thoughts and apply them to a story whenever possible, even if they seem totally absurd. You never know what will work!

4. Even idiots have some valid points. I was once in a workshop group with the most stubborn, close-minded writer I'd ever met. He was writing historical fiction in a very, er, straightforward style (passive voice, no metaphors or imagery) ... and he wanted every writer in the group to write exactly like he did – even the woman who wrote obtuse literary fiction. I filtered out most of his comments, though he made the occasional interesting point. It took me a while to deconstruct it among all of the crap he threw out, but it pushed my characters in different and unique ways because his thinking was so different from mine. So even the most dense, unimaginative criticism is worth checking out.

5. Keep your influences close. When I hit the block -- and we all do -- one of my tricks is to re-read my primary influences. This isn't reading for pleasure; it's to examine pacing, structure, prose, point of view, all of the things that might open (or re-open) my creative drive. For me, that means keeping a copy of About a Boy and High Fidelity by Nick Hornby within reach and flipping to a random page whenever necessary.

6. Writing can heal the soul. Each of my stories means something different for me, but they've all helped me grow as a person. Sometimes, it's the exploration of wish fulfillment (Local Band explores the musical heights I'll never see, barring a miracle); other times, it can deal with more serious personal issues. In those cases, I find that writing from the perspective opposite of my real-life situation helps me understand the real world better -- and that more well-rounded perspective helps me think more creatively. It's a win-win situation.

7. Get writer friends who respect you enough to be critical. This one's a no-brainer, but I'm surprised at the amount of feedback I got in workshops where people offered a gentle, "I like it, it's good" and not much else. Fortunately, I've built a strong circle of writer friends that can provide criticism in an effective and respectful way. This goes for both fiction and nonfiction essays. I think some writers worry too much about hurting feelings, so they stay on the safer side of criticism. However, when respectfully done, constructive criticism can spark creative thoughts, solve plots points, or flesh out character quirks. It’s incredibly important to have those reliable people that can push you to be better.

Want more on this subject?

Want to write a "7 Things" guest column? Write me at literaryagent@fwmedia.com.

Networking at writers' conferences.

Tips on Query Letters.

Confused about formatting? Check out Formatting & Submitting Your Manuscript.

Read about What Agents Hate: Chapter 1 Pet Peeves.

Want the most complete database of agents and what genres they're looking for? Buy the 2011 Guide to Literary Agents today!

7 Things I've Learned So Far, by Jessica Zelenko

Chuck — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 01:13:02 GMT

Jessica Zelenko is a new writer living
in Jackson Hole, WY, and when she’s not
writing, she’s becoming a badass. See
proof at her Becoming a Badass blog.

1. Take the leap. You already don’t have an agent or oddles of assignments coming in, so there is no reason for you to fear rejection. You have nothing to lose!

2. Start a blog. If you have a blog, you can direct people to examples of your writing. This is especially helpful if you aren’t published. Plus, do not underestimate the motivation that comes from having an audience. Every time someone tells me they enjoy my blog, I get a body buzz and a renewed desire to write. I’ll do almost anything for a body buzz, excluding ~~most~~ hard drugs.

3. We must listen to the experts. We need expert advice on grammar, structure, queries, agents, etc. Look to books, websites, and Chuck Sambuchino. The most important advice I've taken to heart is to have a set writing schedule. Everyone recommends it, and if you aren’t writing regularly, you’re probably barely writing. Admit it. Set a schedule.

4. But we can also blow off the experts. All these great writers like to talk about their desks - like Stephen King in his book On Writing, who makes a desk sound more important than oxygen. I spent months bemoaning my lack of a desk and trying to find one to cram into my tiny room. I felt like a failure. Finally, I realized, I’ve got a lap, a bed, a couch and, gosh darn-it, I’m writing. The details don’t matter; the writing matters.

5. This is supposed to be fun. I write because I enjoy making myself and others giggle. Some people write for catharsis or a love of spreading knowledge. There are a million reasons to write, so acknowledge yours and hold onto the passion. If you just wanted money, you could write living wills or ransom notes. Keep on nurturing your love, and when the rich suits give you a hard time at your high school reunion, just smile smugly, knowing your having a much better time with your life than those drones.

6. Writers' Conferences are worth attending. My first writers' conference was in the middle-of-nowhere Wyoming and I was one of the few people there who didn’t qualify for Social Security. Still, for a flat rate, I got access to a bunch of experts and networked with agents and editors. Go to a conference. You’ll learn and you might make some …

7. ... Writer friends. You can steal all their knowledge over coffee, tea, or whiskey. They will edit for free! They will help keep everything fun, and keep you from ~~the hard drugs~~ procrastinating.

Want more on this subject?

Want to write a "7 Things" guest column? Write me at literaryagent@fwmedia.com.

Live out west? Check out my review of the Wyoming Writers' Conference.

Confused about formatting? Check out Formatting & Submitting Your Manuscript.

Read about What Agents Hate: Chapter 1 Pet Peeves.

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Guest Column: Seven Things I've Learned So Far, In the Middle of My Journey, by Nancy Parish

Chuck — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 18:38:45 GMT

If you follow the blog, you probably know that I've just finished my first middle grade novel. I'm revising it now. One thing you wouldn't know is that at least once a week, I wander over to the desk of Nancy Parish, a co-worker who also writes middle grade. Nancy is querying agents for her first book, and thick into writing her second. Since she's been querying agents for a while, I asked her to write up a small column on what she's learned thus far, being thick in the agent querying process. She agreed.

In lieu of a headshot, Nancy
sent this picture of her
beloved cat, Lucky.

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7 Things I’ve Learned So Far

by Nancy Parish

1. A finished manuscript isn’t necessarily a publishable manuscript. There are manuscripts I’ve written that are simply dreadful and I’m a bit embarrassed to have submitted them back in the day. Each manuscript gets better than the last. I’ve learned a lot just going through the process.

2. Revise, Revise, Revise. Then let the manuscript sit and revise it again.

3. Writing is a solitary endeavor, but trying to get published doesn’t have to be. When there wasn’t an active local chapter of SCBWI in my area, I posted to a SCBWI listserv and started one. That was six years ago and we’re still going strong. Writing groups like this are a great way to network with other writers and get feedback on query letters, manuscripts etc. Just recently I swapped novels with two other writers in the group for a critique.

4. Don’t treat Guide to Literary Agents and Writer’s Market like they are phone books. The market guides are a great starting point to determine which literary agencies accept submissions in certain genres but the research shouldn’t end there. I learned to use sites like Google to find more information about agents I wanted to submit to. I now look for interviews the agent has done and try to find examples of books they’ve sold to determine if my manuscript is a good fit. Often times, I crossed the agent off my list because of what I learned in my research.

5. Sell the Sizzle and the Steak. Once the manuscript is the best I can make it, then I focus on the query letter. I’ve learned that for my queries to be effective, shorter is better. I try to write the pitch like it’s the jacket copy of a book.

6. Finding an agent, is like dating. Some agents “Just aren’t that into you”. I’ve found that even if an agent asks for a full manuscript, it doesn’t necessarily mean they will provide feedback. Some won’t even respond - move on!

7. Rejection sucks but keep going. Randy Pausch in The Last Lecture said it best: “The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people.”