On the road again: Part IV of the road to publishing

This is part IV of All Roads Lead to Publishing (maybe). Part I, Part II, and Part III

There I was, part of the blog hop that felt like winning the lottery just to get on the ticket. Everyone was twitterpated about the contest, and by that I mean all the judges were on twitter. I joined twitter on the spot, following their every tweet, but that wasn’t enough to quell my obsession of Who Was Going To Be Picked. I read through every tweet hint, then I read through them all again. Then I read every entry on the whole list, all 200 of them.

When people tell me they have a hard time with writing queries, I tell them to go read as many query contest entries as possible. It definitely helps you get a feel for query writing. The good ones are clear and have a sort of pep to them. The bad ones are awkward and hard to read. I only mention this as part of my road to publishing because this moment, more than any other, was a major marker in my writing. I learned so much just by reading through all the other queries.

But, as had always happened to me, up until that point, other people were getting picked. I quietly sat on the sidelines encouraging my friends, but it was looking pretty grim. I made peace with not getting picked: I had already won because I'd learned so much, and I knew there was a ton of work left on my novel.

Then the unthinkable happened: my story was picked as an alternate by Monica!

I jumped and did the happy dance and laughed because someone else finally said they had seen something in my writing, something that was worthwhile. It was amazing to hear that from someone who wasn't my mother. As part of the contest, she edited my first page and it was a miracle. It was amazing. I'd already learned so much from that contest, and now I had personalized feedback on my writing. Hint: good editing makes you sound more like you. Bad editing makes you sound more like your editor. In the case of Monica, she was a great editor. Her suggestions helped me get the writing out of the way of the story, a gift of craft I have carried through every novel since.

Things went live, and... crickets. I did get a lonely partial request, but nothing like the other amazing writers who were making everything look flawless and amazing. (bonus hint: Don’t compare your journey to anyone else’s; your journey is as unique as you are so don’t get caught up in the “I GOT AN AGENT IN TWO DAYS” hype).

So I started querying the old fashioned way. I got requests here and there, more than previously, but they all ended in no. Sorry, but no. Your writing is great, but it’s me. The story isn’t quite what’s selling now, or my personal favorite “Your pages made me laugh a couple times, but ultimately the story didn’t grab me.” I took all of those rejections and I gave them a home in my heart next to where this novel lived, and―sad to be sure―I moved on to the next story, because I’m a writer and that’s what you do. It’s not about one book. It’s about all the books. It’s the next book. It’s the book after that, and if this wasn’t going to be The One, then I was going to put my best foot forward with my next book.

That’s right, I gave up on this novel not once but twice. On the other hand, I still had a lot to learn. And I’ll be talking about that next time.

All Roads might lead to publishing: part III

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...

Getting what we wished for

Ah, here we are, the holidays**! It’s the time for wishing and hoping and dreaming. And I know what a ton of writers are wishing for: you want to have your books sell like *insert famous author here.* And sometimes we aren’t very good at paying attention to what that wish means.

I’ll admit, this is something I’ve wished for. More than once―okay, I’m human, I wish for this just about every time I pay the bills. But there’s something else that comes with it that is completely glossed over when it comes to writing success. With every person who loves the book, there’s someone else who hates it, and possibly vocally.

There’s a surprising amount of hate in the world of book reviews, and I toggle back and forth about whether it’s a good thing or not, and now we will talk about Twilight. I know about half of you just rolled your eyes. Twilight is a perfect example of a divisive book series. Either you love Twilight, or you hate it. Oddly, I suspect that most of the people who hate it actually hate other things about it than the book itself, but it has, for whatever reason, spawned a large pile of hatred aimed at the book. These come in the guise of book reviews and newspaper articles. These come as ed op pieces decrying the downfall of teenage girls. This hate trickles down and we all sort of shrug and say that it’s normal for a book to have its detractors.

After reading some of the reviews, I wish I could give Stephanie Myers a hug. People are vicious. And when it’s someone big like Twilight, everyone says rude things like “it doesn’t matter because she gets to cry into her bags of money when she goes to sleep at night.”

It’s like people feel it’s okay to be mean and rude because of her success. And this happens to all books.

When you put a book out into the world, you lose a certain ownership of it. You give it to the world with a big bow that basically says “Go ahead world, send me your worst―I dare you.” And the world sends back a smorgasbord of responses. Worst? Yup. Best? Present and accounted for. In the middle? Sure you can have that too. And if you’re the writer, all of it is right in your face. Good, bad, ugly. And the only response you can have is to grin and bear it. Sit back, thank the world in general, and pretend the mean reviews didn’t hurt your feelings. It’s nothing personal. Welcome to publishing! Everyone gets bad reviews.

So, maybe you’re sitting at home, wishing your books could be published, or maybe you’re wishing your books could sell like Stephen King, or Nora Roberts, or Stephanie Myers. Just keep in mind that you should always be careful of what you wish for. Also, get back out there and write! Your next book isn’t going to magically write itself!

Oh, and enjoy the holidays!

**Wait, is this an attack on Christmas? Nope! I know there's more than one super important holiday right about now and it takes too long to list all of them at the beginning of a post! Happy Kwanzaa, Merry Christmas, Blessed Yule, Happy Hanukkah, Happy New Years, Merry Krishna! And that's not even close to representative of all the holidays people celebrate this time of year (that doesn't even cover the sampling from the readers of this blog alone), which is so amazing! Feel free to send me whichever holiday greetings are appropriate for the holiday you celebrate!

Something we don't talk about: publishing is more business than dreaming

Hey writers, you know that dream you have? You know the one. It's that one where you sell your book and it magically goes from manuscript to book and everyone buys it, and in the mean time you write your next masterpiece without so much as a care about the rest of the world? Yeah, that's a lie.

I know I'm not the first,  but I sort of feel like it should be mentioned that there's a reason most people only put out a book a year and it has nothing to do with all the time it takes to write a book. It's because of everything else. There's the writing--of course--then there's the editing. Then there's the crafting a pitch (long, medium, short, and super short), the author bio (I hope you've been working on that cause there's nothing more nerve wracking than explaining yourself in third person to complete strangers), marketing material, editing, editing, editing, proof reading (both the MS and the Galley), then there's the promotion, the chasing down leads, the helping other people because if you don't have friends and support, how are you going to get the word out there when it's your book's turn?

And that takes a lot of time. I mean a lot of time.

 I had hoped to be up to drafting my shiny new idea by now, but suddenly, there's a big line in front of it. It's stuff like "read manuscript One. Last. Time." and "Write Bio." and "Do I write the acknowledgement now or later?" (pro tip, if you have to ask, now is the time; you can always edit it later!) Then there's the "prep manuscript for submission," task and the "prep other manuscript for querying based off of recent feedback."

These things all take time, and not one of them is in the "write and edit the original book" category.

And the funny thing is that so many writers talk about this, but until you're in the midst of it, you can't see it. I remember reading about Shannon Messanger talking about this stuff. Beth Revis talked about it, too. I really looked up to them, but when they went on about the business side, I sort of wrote that off under the "must be nice" category.

And it is.

But I haven't written a new word in months, and that's not healthy for me or my writing. My goals all along were to get back to writing by the end of June. Do you know what month it is? Do you know what it's not looking good for?

Admittedly, most of my last 18 days of crazy stem from tearing out floors, walls and ceilings (vlog to follow soon, I hope), but it's still a real thing. I'm still not up to writing the next book. 

A wise person would set aside the writing, finish working on the house, and get back to writing when the house is in a livable state.

Let us be clear, my friends: I am not a wise person. I'm also not superwoman, so it's time to adjust some goals, and maybe recognize that the drafting isn't going to happen. (or maybe I can find a way to sneak in some minutes on my lunch break... Yeah, that's healthy, work ten hour shifts and spend my thirty minute lunch writing a novel, that's totally reasonable!)



And what about you all? How do you handle the crazies that come with the business side? How do you balance the "simple" things like having a family and writing?!