This is the third installment of All Roads Lead to Publishing, you can check in with Part I and Part II.
After putting away the book that would become Acne, Asthma, And Other Signs You Might Be Half Dragon, I started writing another book. I wrote the book I wanted. It was to purge my demons. It was everything a book isn't supposed to be. It was superheroes and space and aliens and science. It was the "Well, if publishing is going to spit out my book without even reading it because someone else's book sold poorly, then I'm gonna write whatever I want!"
And I wrote the letters out of that book. I loved it. I rewrote parts of it while in the middle of writing it, and it was, beyond a doubt, a revelation. I wrote without thinking about publishing because publishing had already shown me that it wasn't just about my book. It was about the rest of the market. Publishing is a business. Writing is an art. At that moment in my life, I needed the art (hint, I ALWAYS need the art, the business side and I are only default partners, more on that on another day). That book changed my voice. It showed me what writing could be for me.
But as I was finishing my first draft, I heard about an awesome new writing contest modeled after a singing competition: The Writer's Voice, 2012.
The only problem was, a rough draft is a terrible thing to send out into the world of editors and agents. They can normally smell that stuff from a mile away, so I couldn't enter the contest with my most recent manuscript. So I did what any sane writer would do, I dusted off my previous manuscript--after all, I'd only queried two people with it--and I cleaned it up with my new knowledge of my voice. With shaky fingers I entered the widget for the blog hop portion of the contest and crossed my fingers.
to be continued...
The more I read and think about all that goes into publishing and how far removed it is from the actual writing, the more amazed I am that anything worth reading gets published, as it seems like so much of it is wrapped up in everything but the story.
ReplyDeleteThis is probably just me being cynical, though, as I've read far too many good books to think that the publishing industry isn't doing what it's supposed to do.
I agree that there's a huge difference between writing art and the business, but sometimes, I wish people would focus on the business just a smidge less.
ReplyDeleteHave a wonderful New Year.