Jen's Writing Journey

We all know that there is no magic formula for success. It comes down to hard work and good timing. You can’t control timing, but you can control how hard–and smart–you work.

1. Research
If you want to write for a particular magazine, subscribe to it and visit the local library to catch up on some back issues. You’ll get a sense for which topics are cyclical and which are one-offs. It will also give you a feel for the tone–mirror that tone in your query letter to make it clear to the editor that you understand his or her magazine. And reading the magazine regularly will make sure you know who to send your query to because you will become familiar with who is in charge of each section and topic.

If you want to write books, read that genre of books so that you know what works and what doesn’t. This will also help you make sure you put an original spin on your idea. When I started my current WIP, I had all of these great ideas that I thought were so original for the vampire genre. Then I read some more books, and I realized that Sherrilyn Kenyon had already thought of them. So I reshaped my concept to better play on my own strengths and put my own spin on a well-travelled mythical character.

2. Focus on Your Skill Level
Good ideas and good research won’t get you anywhere unless you have the writing chops to back them up. I would guess that most book and article queries are rejected not because the idea is poor but because the execution is weak.

Read writing books. Write a lot. Use writing prompts to broaden your range as a writer. Work with an editor to get a better handle on correct grammar and usage. Practice proofreading and editing other people’s work–photocopy a few pages of a book you like and go over it with a fine-tooth comb. Then print your own writing and go over it with that same attitude. Look for repeated words, awkward phrasing, common typos. See what your personal weaknesses are and address them.

3. Connect with Other Writers
Both virtual and face-to-face connections are equally valuable.

I use Twitter to connect with other freelancers and romance writers and readers, and I follow a lot of blogs written by agents and fellow writers in various stages of their careers.

I also found a critique partner through the Harlequin forums–we’re both working on paranormal romances, and it has been very instructive to see how she is crafting her story and to hear her feedback on mine.

I joined my local writers’ organization, Willamette Writers, and I attend the meetings on a semi-regular basis. I will be volunteering at the conference next month. I also attend Christina Katz’s Northwest Author Series presentations when the topic speaks to me. I have also attended ED2010 meetings in the local area, although I haven’t seen any of those in quite a while.

I get solid information that helps me write better, I get ideas that help me query better, but most important, I get personal interaction that helps keep me on track and focused on building my career.

If you are a Twitter user, find one author in your field to follow. Or add their blog to your RSS reader or bookmarks and sign up for their newsletter. See how they conduct their personal and professional conversations online, and see what you can learn from that.

4. Take Yourself Out of the Equation
Writing is an intensely personal experience, especially fiction writing. You pour your innermost thoughts and dreams on the page and hope that someone else will be moved by them. Because of that, it can be so hard to take criticism–it feels as if the reader is criticizing you. But once those words are put onto paper, they are a separate entity. They are no longer you.

Once you can remove that emotion from your written work, you will be able to better handle criticism and rejection. You will be able to learn from those experiences and use them to make yourself a better writer.

When I was in college, I took a course called The Magazine Editor. One of our assignments was to create a magazine from scratch and escribe it fully, from audience to subscription model. My magazine was called Now!, and it was heavily informed by Sassy! (I loved Sassy! when I was a teen. Jane Pratt was my hero.) When my teacher, Tom Wheeler, returned my paper, it was so marked up I could barely read it. But I still got an A-. That was the first time I remember not being upset at being heavily edited. The marks were all questions and comments that would make my proposal much stronger, and they were not a rejection of my idea or of me. As I moved into my job writing for the magazine I used to work for, I got very used to seeing red, blue, and green marks on my articles. (We used a different ink color for each editor–I was purple.) Because of those experiences, it doesn’t hurt my feelings when people critique my fiction. I was afraid it would kill me, but thankfully, my nonfiction experience helped me better prepare for fiction writing.

What are you doing to ensure that your work will be well received by the agents or editors of your choosing? Are you taking a class? Hiring an editor? Reading agent blogs?

Related Posts:

• Writing Roundup, July 22
• Writing Roundup, June 24
• Writing Roundup, June 10
• Writing Roundup, May 9
• Writing Roundup, May Day-ish Edition

I hope you are all having as productive a month as you would like it to be. This seems like such a good time to take a breather and go light on the writing projects. Not me, I always seem to have big deadlines in the summer. Maybe next year, I will schedule things differently…

The Business of Writing

How Blogs Changed Everything
Scott Rosenberg looks at the heavy influence blogs had on our desire to engage in two-way communication with our media. I will admit that in the early days of blogging, I thought it was quite narcissistic to think that anyone would want to read what amounted to an online diary. I am glad to see that blogs have grown into truly useful tools for conversation and information dissemination.

A Writer’s Guide to Social Networking
The only thing not covered in this piece is how to make the time for it! Great overview of the tools out there to connect you to the editors and agents you need to meet. After you read this piece, visit Q4U: Social Networking Anyone? and share your experiences with online networking tools.

How Do You Know?
Agent Jessica Faust explores the author-agent relationship. No matter how much homework we do before even querying an agent, the thought of putting our careers into someone else’s hands to some level can be scary. I think you should do your homework and follow your gut. The relationship will grow and change over the years, and there will be bumps. But you’ll know if it is right.

Dreams
Another compelling question: How do you know when it is time to give up on your dreams? Travis Taylor explores this question and asks for commentary.

Craft

How to Combat Writer’s Block
In this article in Women on Writing, Sue Bradford Edwards shares her recent experiences with writer’s block and how she fought it.

Everything You Need to Know about Writing a Novel
Victoria Mixon shares her writing truths in a guest post on agent Nathan Bransford’s blog. Lots of great information distilled into a nice, concise piece.

Interview with Randy Ingermanson
If you aren’t familiar with Randy Ingermanson’s Advanded Fiction Writing site, please take a moment and visit it right after you read this interview at So You Want to be Published?

Fiction

Scholarly Writers Empower the Romance Genre
You can’t go anywhere without hearing about how the romance genre is now respectable and how much economic clout its readers hold. In this piece, USA Today provides some historical context and shares the experiences of the Smart Bitches.

Where Do You Get Your Ideas?
This post at the fictionistas allows us all to share a bit of our process. Visit the site, post your comment, then direct your readers there to read your and other writers’ responses.

Best First Book Nominee: Private Arrangements
In this interview with Dear Author, Sherry Thomas shares a bit about her book, some of the background of her publishing career, and her writing process.

Freelancing

Freelance Writing in Piss Poor Shape? I Don’t Think So
A lot of us get down about the plethora of low-paying freelance gigs. Truly, it seems as if $1 a word is the American dream of 2009. Jennifer Mattern puts it in perspective and gives advice for what we need to do to ensure that we can make a  living off our writing.

Self-Publishing Books: An Interview with Peter Bowerman
Remember how I like to mention the need for multiple income streams? Peter Bowerman, the author of The Well-Fed Writer, shares his rationale for self-publishing nonfiction books to not only create income but also build your reputation of expertise in your chosen specialty.

Does Working More and Earning Less Hold You Back from Success?
James Chartrand makes an argument for working less and charging more. See what you think.

Related Posts:

• Writing Roundup, October 23
• Writing Roundup, September 11
• Writing Roundup, September 4
• Writing Roundup, August 28
• Writing Roundup, Aug. 14

Write Fiction Faster: A Review of Novel Shortcuts by Laura Whitcomb

When Laura Whitcomb began writing her second young adult novel, The Fetch (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, ISBN 9780618891313), she was under contract with a tight deadline. Her experiences writing that book led her to create various shortcuts to the writing process that made her first draft better so that she didn’t have to revise 10 times before it was ready to submit to the publisher.

During that experience, the idea for Novel Shortcuts (Writer’s Digest Books, ISBN 9781582975672) was born. Whitcomb provides 10 major tips throughout the book, with useful tidbits sandwiched within.

1. Find the Core of Your Novel

Writers need to use a central premise to guide their writing, and Whitcomb provides exercises to help identify the who, what, and why of the story. From writing jacket text to “interviewing” your story, asking it questions and demanding hard answers, Whitcomb’s tips will help ground writers in their story.

2. Decide How to Tell Your Story

A story needs a point of view, and this chapter helps identify the narrator and his or her tone and voice. Whitcomb uses selections from other works to make her points. The gem in this chapter is the discussion of devices (e.g., a journal, travel tips, mock play excerpts) that create a format for the story.

3. Crosshairs Moments

The crosshairs moments are the pivotal scenes in a novel and in each chapter. This chapter provides essential tools for recognizing and building those moments.

4. Shortcut to the Scene

Before entering a difficult scene, Whitcomb suggests pre-writing exercises to help build focus. She writes lists of what will happen, what the characters will say, and how things will look. Keeping those pieces handy, she then enters the scene with an idea of how it will play out.

5. Balance Scene, Summary, and Reflection

Scenes are the action of a novel. Summary and reflection are the moments when the characters react. Whitcomb helps find the balance that works for the story.

6. Plan your Plot

Yes, Whitcomb suggests outlines and other tools to ensure that the novel progresses. She doesn’t mean that all writers have to use straightforward written outlines. Visual tools and concept maps are faster and easier for many writers to assimilate and follow. But the key is to plan so that time isn’t wasted following dead ends.

7. Steal Tricks From the Best

Successful, multi-published writers must be getting something right, and up-and-coming writers can learn from them. Whitcomb suggests reading classics, commercial fiction, and genre pieces, taking note of the devices the authors use to build emotion, explain events, illuminate their characters, and lead the reader through the story.

8. Fast Track to the Deeper Emotion

Whitcomb reminds writers that they need to put themselves into the right emotional frame to write their stories. She suggests using art and music to build the right feel, then writing what feels right.

9. What to do When It Stinks

Sometimes no matter how hard a writer is working, the current project just doesn’t work. Whitcomb believes writers should follow their instincts – if something doesn’t feel quite right, it probably needs to be fixed. Assess the problem and either fix it, delete it, or move on, coming back to it later.

10. Goals and Miracles

A catch-all chapter that addresses the importance of routines and deadlines. But the meat of this chapter is Whitcomb’s focus on success. She suggests play-acting at the success points—getting an email from an agent, attending a book signing, and so on – of a writer’s career. Envisioning how those things will feel can keep a writer’s spirits up so he or she can remain productive.

Novel Shortcuts is a great tool for writers looking to be more productive. It assumes a high level of knowledge of writing terms and techniques, so it is not the best choice for a first writing book. A writer of intermediate knowledge will get the most use out of this guide.

Whitcomb’s major categories have been covered to some extent by other writers, but the hidden gems based on her own experience make the book worth the purchase price.

Related Posts:

• Writing Roundup, July 22
• Writing Roundup, June 24
• Writing Roundup, June 10
• Writing Roundup, May 9
• Writing Roundup, May Day-ish Edition

I need a more portable way to write during the day.

I’m not a longhand kind of gal–I want my words to be electronic from the get-go. So, even though I have notepads, I don’t think they are the best solution for me. I would just have to type in everything I wrote later.

And I have my laptop, but it is big and heavy, so it is not ideal to bring to work.

My dream is a foldable keyboard for my iPod Touch. They used to have some for Palms, and that would be easy to carry in my purse. Sadly, there is no such thing. I could do some weird workaround, but I don’t quite understand how to do it, and it seems like a lot of work for something that may not work.

What do you do? Schlepp the heavy laptop? Use a Netbook? Use paper and pen?

Related Posts:

• More on Writing in the Cloud
• Writing in the Cloud
• Agents to Follow on Twitter
• Freelancers You Should Follow
• I Finally Got My Domain

I decided to post early this week to avoid the holiday run-off. I wish you all a lovely holiday weekend. If, like me, you’ll be spending a good portion of it writing, well then I wish you happy writing.

The Business of Writing

Could Changes in the Copyright Law Save Newspapers?
This article in Editor & Publisher describes the argument that copyright law should be amended to bar aggregation. I think rewriting copy just to avoid infringing on copyright is a violation, but linking to it? If no one links to your content, how will people find it? I’m not sure I’m on board with this one.

Poll Results on E-published Author Earnings per Title
Marianne Lacroix provides some actual data on how much an e-published author may earn. The results were from an anonymous poll, so there could be a large chunk of non-responders or even multiple responders, but it is the first attempt I have seen to quantify earnings for e-publishers. I hope this begins a concerted effort to quantify writers’ earnings so that we can all enter the profession knowing what to expect financially.

Are You There, Amazon? It’s Me, JA
JA Konrath tells us why he doesn’t plan to buy a Kindle and what he would like to see from ebooks and ebook readers in the future.

Should You Self-Publish?
Another great post from JA Konrath. Here he gives some tips on when you should and shouldn’t self-publish.

Waiting By the Phone
The life of a writer isn’t so different from the life of a teenage girl after all. We are hit with horrible bouts of low self-esteem. We have to fight for respect from those around us. And we sit and wait for the phone to ring (or the email to pop up,as the case may be).

Craft

So What Are You?
A little kick in the pants from agent Janet Reid. Don’t spend your time thinking up fun ways to describe yourself; spend it writing.

Pre-Editing
Moonrat discusses the pros and cons of hiring an editor to help you shape up your manuscript for submission to agents and/or editors. It can be great, or it can be a huge money waster. Keep these points in mind when you make the decision of when or whether you need an editor.

Fiction

Normative Heterosexuality and the Alpha Male Hero
An interesting and informative look at the role of the alpha in our culture and in our fantasy.

Charting the Novel Story Arc
An essential component of the self-editing process, ensuring that your novel follows a strong arc, with an appropriate amount of time spent on buildup and release of tension can be time-consuming. Patricia Stoltey gives one way of handling the process.

Freelancing

Freelance Writer Hiring Trends: Credit Checks and Drug Tests??
Michael Stelzner describes a recent experience with a potential freelance client who wanted him to undergo a full background screening, as if he were coming on staff. We can debate the practice of background checks on staff until the cows come home, but I thought part of the reason we wanted to freelance was to be free of the restrictions of full-time office work. This seems a bit over the top to me.

How Not to Hire Freelance Writers and Bloggers
Jennifer Mattern weighs in on some further practices that make the hiring process a bit unwieldy for the average freelancer. In particular, the idea of writing a custom sample can be a bit much. The life of a freelancer is spent on so many different non-writing tasks, that our writing time really needs to be reserved for billable projects, not spec work.

Related Posts:

• Writing Roundup, October 23
• Writing Roundup, September 11
• Writing Roundup, September 4
• Writing Roundup, August 28
• Writing Roundup, Aug. 14

I’m taking a breather this week–I don’t want to be too tired to safely light fireworks this weekend. I’ll have a short roundup tomorrow so that the rest of you who are taking a long weekend won’t miss anything.

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