How to Find an Agent

Now, this is a hard proposition. With agents having rejection stats of 90%-99.9%, you have to catch their attention. This is harder to do than you might think. Like everything else, it depends on a number of factors.

1. Timing- Just because something is current today, will it be current two years from now...on average that's the amount of time it takes to publish a book. Understand that agents have their own time table.Do your homework. Make a list of possible agents who represent your work.

2. Complete you story. Let the agent have something finished he/she can hold in their hands to show a publisher. After that is his/her job...to sell your story. Perfect your story. Polish it until it shines like the sun. Even so the agent has probably seen a dozen just like it.

3. Write an outstanding query letter. One that will peak the interest of the agent to want him/her to see more. This in itself is a difficult proposition. The slush pile is HUGE even for solicited material.

4. Frequent workshops and conferences. Make personal contact with agents you target. Get their card, find something unique in your conversation with them to add to your query letter that will jog their memory. Most likely an agent will request a synposis with a query from everyone they meet because it's easier. Understand on average an agent will meet hundreds of authors at these events and may have several in a row before going back to their offices.

5. Don't give up. So what if fifteen agents rejected your work and you are tired of rejection letters. I'm the queen of rejections according to one of the writer's forums I frequent. To date I have a file of 263 rejection form letters in a file...yes, I keep them all. Of course this is for more than one work and I'm a published author! Take a look at the rejection. Yes, there are different types of rejections. It's probably because...

• They don't handle what you've written...look closer at who you are submitting to.
  
  
• They can't sell it...this is very bad. You may want to rewrite or rethink your approach.
  
  
• Poor writing...this you can fix.
  
  
• They are not taking on new clients...this is probably the best type of rejection.
  
  Good Luck!

Ideas & More Ideas

So many people ask me where I get my ideas from to write about. The answer is complicated and simple at the same time. It comes from your imagination, your life experiences, and your dreams.

If you do not have an imagination, give up writing fiction and stick to nonfiction. Writing fiction is all about imagination. If you can't tell a story, joke without botching the punch line, or don't have a rhythm...then writing fiction is going to be rough for you. But then, you would not have come here if you didn't want to be a better writer.

How would you describe pain, if you had never been in pain. The same is true for happiness, sadness, and all the emotions. Job one is experience life. By experiencing life, you grow as a person. You dream, you feel emotions, and that's what comes across on paper. If you are writing nonfiction a lot of this will not apply to you.

My ideas come from innocent and not so innocent sources. Growing up I lived in some pretty desperate countries. I've experienced bombing, shootings, and people otherwise trying to kill me. My father worked in intelligence, my mother was recruited by the pre-CIA. So for me it was only natural to write espionage stories...I lived bits and pieces of it my whole life.

I was out shopping with my grandchildren and they wanted candy. I started looking at the names of the candy...BOOM! A children's story with candy as characters. With names like mr. Goodbar, Whatchacallit, Baby Ruth, Reeses Pieces...who could resist?

Sometimes, you write a writing exercise and the character just won't shut up. They have a story to tell. They keep chatting away until you get tired of hearing their voices in your head...so you keep writing. I love when that happens. I guess you could call me lucky. I've lived a full life fulfilling my goals, dreams and desires in the name of experience. Even when Murphy's Law hits, it's grist for the writing mill. I never know when that experience will come in handy.

I mentioned dreams. Yes, those run of the mill dreams. Have you ever had a dream so twisted and vivid that it woke you up? What did you do? Did you grab your pen and pad, by the bed and jot it down? Or did you just roll over and go back to sleep? I always keep a pad by my bed. In several cases, the answer to dialog or scenes I struggled over while awake solved themselves in my dreams. Open you mind. Keep your eyes open and let the juices flow. And above all...Write On!

Down Time~Well Sort of...

It's been a few days since I've posted. From previous posts, you know I've been tripping the light fantastic over at the Southeastern Writers Association Conference. I picked up a few things that I had not thought about before. As usual, the queue for the "fifteen minutes of fame" otherwise known as the agent interviews were long.

I had lunch with the agent although I didn't know he was the agent at the time. A couple of author friends of mine were having lunch and he was at the table. We were discussing my new children's series of books. Jimmy, a fellow author, asked me if getting trademark infringement rights waived took a long time. I told him it took about as much time as an agent takes reviewing your query or partial. This received a laugh from fellow authors and a tap on the shoulder from the agent who was sitting on my left. Yes, I actually had my back turned to him instead of hanging on his every word. I guess it could have been an open-mouth-inset-foot moment, but he looked at me quizzically then laughed when he realized I wouldn't be hitting him up as an agent.

I did pick up a couple of new books at the bookstore. "Port to Nowhere" is an anthology of science fiction short stories...ISBN-0-9752542-2-7, published by Mystic Toad Press. Several stories are written by the SWA webmaster. A great read for those who have a little time to read in. I also picked up a copy of "The Dreaded Synopsis" by Elizabeth Sinclair...ISBN 1-892718-25-1, published by R. Smith Publishing. I can always use another reference book. This one is small but packed with information. A whirlwind of a conference!

Then I packed my bags and drove to Warm Springs, Georgia. I had two reasons for going. One for a public appearance and two to take my daughter up there for school. There is no easy way to get there. It's all back country roads. There's not much to that little town except the warm spring, the rehabilitation center, and a quaint, little town. One of the biggest draws is the "Little White House," FDR days.

Five hours of driving would not have been such a big thing except for the rain and twenty-one miles of road construction. Those miles felt like a thousand! Along the way around Baxley, my darling spouse complained of chest pains and shortness of breath. So it was a mad shuffle to find his nitroglycerin, aspirin, inhalers, his oxygen, etc. before we dash to the local emergency room. He is fine. My five-hour jaunt to my public appearance turned into a fifteen hour trip. This is one the main reasons I don't do too many public appearances these days, and settle for emails and blogging. Unfortunately, my cell phone and my wireless Internet would not work up in the mountains so I'm playing catch-up now. The return trip was uneventful other than rain again and logging trucks trying to take up the same space I was occupying on the road. You can't say my life is dull!

I'll post some more on writing techniques after I take my husband to his cardiologist and rest up a bit. This old body and mind just doesn't spring back as quickly as it once did.

Point of View & Shifts

1. According to Wikipedia- "Point of view (literature), the perspective of the narrative voice; the pronoun used in narration."
   
   Here in the States, shifting point of view or POV shifts is a big deal when writing. It's also known as head hopping. It's when you write in one person's point of view...what that person hears, sees, feels, smells and switching it to another person's. I'm not saying multiple points of view is bad. It's just difficult to write and worse to read. After a while you don't know who's thoughts are who's and you end up lost.
   

An example of POV shift...

Johnny and Cathy were having a huge argument. Cathy was in tears. She felt like her world was coming to an end. It seemed like the only thing they could agree on was divorce. Johnny felt like he was losing his mind. He didn't want a divorce. Cathy had to be crazy. He must think I'm crazy. He's crazy too if he thinks I think I want a divorce.

Okay, this a fast example of a switch. As you read the above did your mind go...who's on first, what's on second...I dunno where is. The problem with writing is you as the writer knows what is going on in every character's head and you tend to write it that way.

The easiest way to write is in one point of view. What one person thinks, feels, smells, touches, etc.

Cathy felt like she was losing her mind as she and Johnny fought. The fight itself was insignificant in the beginning but blew out of proportion as it continued. She wiped a warm tear away as it made its downward trail along her cheek. I don't want a divorce.

This way it's almost like a one-sided argument. You know she''s upset. You know a lot of things about Cathy. Who's point of view is your story written in. Who's telling your story? Who's your main character? That's the point of view you want to stay in.

In point of view you also first person. Same example, but written in first person... I, me, my etc.

I felt like I was losing my mind as Johnny and I fought. The fight itself was insignificant in the beginning but blew out of proportion as it continued. I wiped a warm tear away as it made its downward trail along my cheek. I don't really want a divorce.

Same example in third person is the first way I wrote it above without the POV shift...he, she, they, hers, his, etc

Omnipotent point of view is probably the hardest to right. That's when you have a narrator who is not a character, but the narrator knows all. The narrator is godlike.

Cathy and Johnny were fighting again. Their fight started insignificantly, but soon blew out of proportion. She wiped a tear which traveled down her cheek away. Neither one of them wanted a divorce, but neither knew how each other felt.

Sound complicated? It can be. If you must change POV in your story here's a fix...

1. Start a new chapter in the new POV.

2. Push "enter" twice to indicate a POV shift. By double double spacing, it reads as a break in the scene.

Pick up any book you've read recently and look at how POV shifts are handled by the writer. Sometimes the shift is so subtle it is overlooked. This is where careful proof reading comes into play.

I'm off to my evening critique session. On the agenda tonight is murder by the numbers. A lot of technical discussions, but the role playing is fun...Y'all Write On!

5 Steps to Tighter Writing

So all of you writers have started writing your story, the "Great American Novel," or "My Life According to Me." You may have even completed the first draft. Congrats! You've done something many people who start a novel do not...complete a first draft. It's time to pat yourself on the back, party and celebrate, but not too much. The first draft is only your base line. More work is needed.

The second draft is waiting. Never consider your first draft a publishable work. It rarely is even if you made each line perfect before you went on to the next. You may have edited your story into so many versions you can't remember what the first version looked like...been there, done that...still doing that.

1. Take a look at your manuscript on the screen. If you used MS Word to write it, does it have those red or green squiggly lines on it? If so the grammar program you are using has found an exception in grammar (green) or misspellings (red). Correct those first. This is the easy step. The almost no-brainer thanks to computer programming.

2. Then comes the harder part. What I like to do is print off my novel chapter by chapter. Read each, and redline the daylights out of it. What am I looking for?

• You want to check for continuity. Not sure what that is? It means certain things stay the same from beginning to end...like hair and eye color, dialog is consistent with your character, etc.
  
  
• Take a look at all the words like "that," "to be or to (verb)," and endings like "-ing" and "ly." I circle these words in the text. They are the easy finds. Figure out how to replace these words and delete them. They are considered fluff words...they fill in spaces rather than you actively searching for more complex or descriptive words.

3. Make your changes onto your computer version and I print it out again. I use the back side of the previously printed chapter for this phase of the first draft editing. I draw a diagonal line through the old print so I can easily see which is the text I'm supposed to be reading. I'm a tactile type person, but cheap...I don't buy more paper unless I HAVE to. My friends working for Georgia Pulp and Paper may not agree with my tactics, but even money is made out of paper and I won't waste that either.

4. Read the story again. This time aloud... Word for word with colored pen in hand. I make tick marks where I stumble in reading. For me, having the pages in my hand is easier than doing this on the computer screen.

5. Cutting is not a fun thing to do...matter of fact, I hate it. But just doing these simple things, the writing flows better, it's tighter without additional words tripping you up. Now, look at the story while you are reading it. Does the action seem to bog down in places? You have a fast paced action scene and you fell back into retrospective, flashback, or back story...eight out of ten times this is the reason for lag in your story. Is there another way you could piece meal this in dialog discussion? Can you cut this out without affecting base the story? Is there any other way to present it? You get the idea.

I've said before that my first novel was over 1,000 pages. By the time I followed these five steps, my novel was down to 800 pages. By the time I completed my third editing pass, I was down to 550 double spaced pages...respectable for a novel.

I'm off to the cliche pillow fight. What is a cliche pillow fight? It's when we read each other's excerpt and when we run across a cliche, the author gets hit with a pillow.Y'all Write On...

Wohooo! Internet!

I arrived, checked in and found some of my writer friends. It didn't take long. If y'all have never been to St. Simons Island, Georgia before, I have to tell you it's gorgeous!

Low and behold, this old plantation has wi-fi! Lucky me. The conference starts at 3PM. I can hardly wait. I decided to try Windows Live Writer while here to see how it works.

My fellow authors decided to go out to Cheers, a local bar, for drinks. For once I wasn't asked to help someone write something. After all, we are seasoned veterans in the writing game. We got busy on the catch-up from last year. Poor old Verne and Jack were outnumbered and surrounded by a rowdy bunch of females who had not seen each other in a year.

We are already planning a pillow fight at ten paces for later tomorrow night after the night's activities finish. I know Mary, my partner in crime, will want to know things like the feasibility of things like killing a man with stiletto heels or some such.

More later, I've got a nice buzz on and want to curl up with my copy of "Eragon" by Christopher Paolini. I finally bought a copy. Just another way to play hookie until the work starts tomorrow.

The rest of you...write on! I'm reading.

Juvenile Writing Contest

Goodnight Moon's 60th Anniversary Bedtime Story Contest.
http://bedtimeclassics.com/bedtimeclassics/submit.jsp
$1,000 Grand Prize plus publication (HarperCollins)
Co-sponsored by Johnson and Johnson
Unfortunately only open to US residents
1,500 words max.
Readership - 0 -4 years.

I just ran across this in one of the forums I belong to, in case anyone is interested.I'm outta here for a few days. Have a great one and write on!

Writing & Networking

As I've said in a previous post, I am the master juggler. I leave tomorrow for a four out of seven day Southeastern Writer's Association Conference. It's all about networking. Then after the pit stop at the conference, I have to take my youngest daughter to college in north Georgia, and do a personal appearance. If I can find a wi-fi connection, I'll blog, if not I'll be gone until the 22nd of June. Will ya miss me?

So now, I'm doing laundry, washing my dishes from dinner, packing my clothes and toiletries, getting my notes, business cards, extra blank Cd's and assorted other things together. Oh darn, forgot to pack a ream of paper in the crate. Be right back.

Why am I doing this you may ask. There are several reasons.

1. Because no matter how much you know you can bet there is someone out there who knows more. I used to use "Death is the absence of learning" as a tag line on all my emails. This is true. Sometimes you have to get into the thick of things before you can write with experience. In your life, you never stop learning, adjusting and adapting.

2. No matter how BIG cyberspace is, you still have to get out and meet people. It's a personal networking thing. It allows people to attach a person with the book and vice-versa. I email a few dozen other authors throughout the year, but we look forward to at least once a year getting together in person. It's not all work or maybe not what most people consider work. There are all night how's-that-dones and who-dunits. One author friend brings water pistols, we order pizza, bring coolers of soft drinks (alcohol is not allowed in the Methodist Center where this is held each year). Of course we also bring our works in progress (WIP). We critique each other's works, have water pistol murders to see which way bodies will fall, and crazy stuff like that.

3. Of course, yours truly has a speaking gig as part of the conference. Do I really know more than these people I'm speaking to? Uh huh, no way. But I might have a different way of getting the subject across. It is also a chance to hear other views. It also gives the writer a shot in the arm of excitement, enthusiasm, and writing energy. I try to make two or three conferences a year. Writing is a fairly solitary pursuit. Hours, weeks, and months are spent sitting in front of your computer or laptop. Most times you are surrounded with notes, reference books and assorted other writer tools all encircling you like the old covered wagons traveling west when the Indians attacked. The one I really want to go to is in Canada, but that a fair piece to travel for me...not only clear across the country but in another country.

4. As a writer, never underestimate human contact. Networking is all about the handshake and speaking niceties. You've heard the saying, "Fifteen minutes of Fame?" Well with the publishers, and agents at conferences that's all you get. You make your pitch. Even seasoned writers have something to pitch. There is always a better deal out there, a larger literary agency, or some such. Conferences are filled with would-be writers, published authors, agents, and publishers. If anyone can commiserate with a writer's life...another writer can.

5. Networking is a fancy name for marketing. It is essential. It can make or break a writer. You have to sell yourself. You have to sell your expertise behind your writing. You have to sell your writing. Sell, Sell, Sell... either I'm imitating a stock broker or I'm a telemarketer. Nah, I'm just an author wanting to stay in business.

6. When published, you become a public figure...either adored or hated. You have to have a tough outer skin for criticism...there is a critic around ever corner and everyone has an opinion. Even if they, the critics, did not like your work, they read it.

I have spent so much time in the past three years in front of this computer writing books, articles, and stories promoting myself fell by the wayside until a couple of months ago. I used to be an international marketer expanding US market products overseas until I retired to the more "sedated" life of writng full time four years ago.

I've started looking at self-promotion into the cyberworld. This goes beyond writer's forums which are on my links of favorite places to hang out. Although those places are good to hone your skills and promote some things, I realized I needed to do more. It was brought home to me in spades one evening after a church social, when a fellow church member told me that she didn't know I was a writer. Now, I live in a fairly small town where I thought everyone knew everyone else's business...I was wrong.

My first step, at my children's urging, was to start a myspace site. I never knew so many writers I knew were on there. Then it was this blog, developing my website (which I put off for YEARS), and a second blog here on alternative health information. I always knew how important networking was in business, but forgot that writing was my business also. But even with all this juggling, I still ...write on!

Show vs. Tell and How Much

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Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader. Not the fact that it is raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.

E.L. Doctorow

In writers' circles this is known as show vs tell. It's one of the most difficult thing for new writers to learn. One of the basics of good writing is putting your reader into the middle of the action. This has been a continuing topic in many writer groups. It separates a good writer from a poor one.

TELL

"Ellen was five years old and scared as the plane went by."

Pretty plain, huh? I know everyone can imagine being five years old and being scared. What adult can't, but what does this do for the reader? Are you drawn into what you are reading by the example? Nope, me neither. I have nothing invested by these simple words. This is not necessarily bad when this is not a main character in your book, but if little Ellen is a repeating character the reader needs to get to know her.

In writing adult books, words are important because unlike children's books you don't have pictures to show what's

going on. You have to show your reader what you want them to see. It requires thought on the writer's part. How do you show the reader, creating a picture in his mind, that this young child is scared? Okay, same sentence from a show perspective.

SHOW

"Ellen reached one small hands up grabbing her mother's in a fierce grip while her knees quaked in fear as the plane roared by."

From this second sentence, the reader knows Ellen is young because she has small hands and she has to reach up. Her fierce grip and knees quaking denotes her being scared. The roar of the plane explains why she is scared. By adding the actions you Scan feel, "see" and hear the sentence.

Show involves all the senses and action. Think about fear. It's a strong emotion with plenty of words to describe it. (A no-brainer choice for me to show) You feel fear and words like...stomach knotting, pouring sweat, the urge to run away come first to my mind. Seeing fear, you have words like...quaking, shiver, nostrils flaring, uncertainty in the eyes, ducking in anticipation of a blow... you get the idea.

You want your reader invested in the character. You want the reader inside the action. That's the sign of good writing...to pull the reader out of his ordinary life and put him in the middle of someplace else. Think of your favorite book. What made it your favorite? Did you travel along and experience what the character did? I'll bet you did. It doesn't matter if you are writing nonfiction or fiction, your reader's reaction are tantamount.

HOW MUCH

Originally, when I started writing I over described everything. My first novel ended up being well over 1,000 pages. Talk about an editing nightmare when trying to condense it down to 300-400 pages or about roughly 120,000 words. On average, depending on the font, a page in double spaced is about 250 words. From the cuts I made in the first novel, I wrote or had enough information for three novels! Obviously this is an extreme example of too much.

Now, I write minimally then add. Well, not totally minimally. Old habits die hard even after all these years. So grab your pens, pencils and tablets or laptop. Pick a scene you have written and show vs tell and above all...write on!

Writing~Baby Step to Flight

"He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying."
– Friedrich Nietzsche

I have met very few people who haven't said that they have a story to tell. Close to 80% of the American public has an idea for or started the "Great American Novel." Less than 10% will finish writing it and of that, maybe 3% will ever see their novel in print. Sounds discouraging, doesn't it? But with every published work, there were steps that had to be followed.

Many publishing hopefuls keep their first novels in a box under their beds, and that's where it should stay. I can hear you now, "Aw, come on! It can't be that bad!" Oh yes, it can be. Ask any published author how bad their first attempts were and they will tell you. Writing starts with baby steps into writing. No one is a born writer. They had to learn how. No matter how famous they are, they didn't wake up one morning and become a published author. They had to learn how to write composition even if it was in grade school, read, edit text, reedit text, seek representation, and deal with publishing and promotion. Name an author who hasn't done extensive research on any given project and I'll show you an author who isn't published. And yes, you can be an author without being "published." Anytime you write, you are an author. These are the baby steps involved with becoming a published author.

Have you ever seen a baby go from the do-nothing-stage to running around terrorizing your house in an instant? I haven't. I'm the mother of four and I've watched the progression with pride of achievement. The first little wobble of the first steps to swaying back and forth to music in their simplified dancing...babies are cute, aren't they? You approach writing the same way. You have to learn to stand and walk before you can dance. Take a creative writing course at your local college, read incessantly, increase your vocabulary, take a refresher in proper grammar, all of it is important in life and writing. Learning is never a waste of time. For an author, writing is a dance that you never tire of.



Now, I'll discuss blogging as a published work. As a blog writer you are being published worldwide. Don't be confused by this, once you open your pages to someone else...you are a published author. No one can write your story as well as you can. This heyday of blogging proves that. I've read numerous blogs over the past few weeks. In writing a blog do you think of spelling, grammar, and punctuation, or do you just write because you can? You have an important point to make, right? Think about what you are blogging about. how distracing to you is mispelings, gramtec erros adn such when u r tryin to read? If you read the previous line and went, huh? Don't laugh, I've read it. You get my point. The point is take pride in what you write and correct (edit) it and use the spell checker offer above your compose screen (it's that little icon with the check mark and "ABC")before you publish it. I have a writer friend who can't put two sentences together without a dictionary and thesaurus, but that's okay. He's attempting to learn and taking baby steps to achieve it.

You, as a blogger, ask in forums to find a readership. You obviously have something to share. Take pride in what you have to say and put your best foot forward. A number of literary agents and publishers frequent blogs. The search for the authors of the future may be somewhere in Bloggers or some such blog. I got my start with a letter to an editor, too many years ago, and a commentary on a little known subject. It could happen to you also. In writing baby steps are important, learning to write well, and flying into publication are all achievable by following the steps. Write on!

Getting Noticed~Being Silly, Insane or Otherwise Normal

"You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm."– Sidonie Gabrielle Colette aka Colette

It's one of those crazy, insane moments for me. I just heard from an agent who liked one of my children's stories and wants to see more.

This wasn't necessarily brought on by a foolish thing, I was desperate to get off the slush pile with one of my new novel ideas. As I have mentioned in other posts, I'm the Queen on Abby Normal...long live the queen. When life is serious most of the time, you need a release or permission to be crazy, impulsive, and not normal. This particular time since one of the main underlying themes was chocolate...I sent two pounds of assortment of mini chocolates along to illustrate my book. I'm NOT recommending this tactic to anyone. It was an insanely stupid thing to do.

I know queries and first chapters can lie in THE PILE for weeks or months. Non monetary type "bribes" would become stale, draw insects, or worse yet smell to high heaven with time. I'm not recommending monetary bribes either. Any ethical agent or publisher (the only ones to work with) would probably reject your work on principle alone. I was hoping the irregular bumpiness might draw some attention. I was extremely lucky Homeland Security didn't pay me a call.

Well, it worked sort of. It was almost two months before I received the call so I'm pretty sure, the chocolate was rotten. All publishers and agents say, "Don't bribe me. Impress me with your writing." I know how to do that. My credentials speak for themselves even when breaking into a new genre. But it's given me some thoughts on how to market my books.

Authors use everything at their disposal to market their books with to the reading public. I have a romance writer friend who passed out match books along with the standard bookmarks for her new book. Saying her book was hot stuff! Another romance writer friend passed out little net baggies with her bookmark, a tea candle, and a trial size bottle of bubble bath and still another hands out red eraser lips. A juvenile writer passed out bookmarks with a small magnifying glass so children could look for the bugs that are in her book.

Getting noticed and remembered is the key. You may wear a funny hat to all your book signings and events that publicize your book. Giving out little freebies, or even the standard bookmark with a little something extra. As I write this blog, I'm preparing for the Southeastern Writers Association Conference starting this Sunday at Epworth by the Sea. I've appeared every year since their 25th anniversary. This year is their 32nd. But I digress... The first conference, I was a budding novelist, because I was only printed in nonfiction at the time. On the first afternoon, it was meet-and-greet, each person in the auditorium was asked to stand up, say their name, and then attach something memorable to it. I thought about it long and hard. Then I decided to play on my heritage. My turn came, I stood up, announced my name, and followed it with, "I have 'made in Japan' stamped on my butt."

It worked. Now when I travel and run into one of those original two hundred authors, they'll point, start laughing and say, "made in Japan, right?" After a few minutes, they will remember my name. This is after seven years! I keep hoping that as we all age they will forget, although I did get noticed and remembered. The challenge for the day is do something full tilt outrageous in your writing and in your life. And above all...write on!

What Writer's Risk

"Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go."– T.S. Eliot

Every writer risks something when writing anything. Time is the biggest since writing a book either nonfiction or fiction is a publishing gamble. A writer can spend hours, days, weeks, months and some even years writing. The gamble is whether an agent or publisher will accept it or not. It's like jumping off a cliff with an air foil. You will either catch the upward flow of air or spin down to a horrible death.

I've never met a good writer who didn't believe in what he was doing and put his whole heart into it. Notice I said good writer. Bad writers are in it for the money and rarely see any. Who wants to read a bad writer...come on now, raise you hands. Ah ha, just what I thought. Nobody. I have critiqued quite a few budding writers whose project needed serious work and thought, but that's not necessarily bad, if they are willing to risk the hard work it takes to make it better. There is a wide gulf between good and bad. There are some writers who straddle the chasm.

This is the second risk...hard work. Writing never comes easily. It takes a concentrated effort of the part of the writer. You take a seed of an idea, expand it, make it creditable...you make it creditable because readers are not naive, they question everything. Don't believe for a second that a writer can make something up to fill in the gaps with erroneous information. I guarantee there is at least one reader out there who will call him on it. It's a difficult task to make sure continuity remains throughout the 300-900 pages of a novel or nonfiction. Just make one slip up by saying your character's eyes are blue when you previously said they were brown and watch the emails and letters fly in. Nitpicking you say, but the reader is particular and can make or break a budding novelist. No sales, high returns and the writer becomes a one-hit-wonder.

Another risk, I do quite frequently is change genres. As a novelist or nonfiction writer you decide you want to write about something else and watch your sales drop. I remember when Tony Hillerman changed from writing his Indian-detective type novels to one about Vietnam a few years ago and kept the same name on both genres. It was a disaster...sales plummeted and the book ended up on the sales table at a highly reduced price. Although I take the risk and write several genres, I use pseudonyms for each change. Although I run the risk of being a "new author," readers and lovers of my espionage stories are not disappointed when I change to nonfiction in a totally different area, or southern fiction. The copyright is still listed under my real name, but not too many people read copyright information in the front of the book. All they really care about is reading a good story and that's what I give them. It's a tightrope at best.

Still for other writers there is a financial risk involved. The simple fact is the chances of becoming published are small. Too many authors and too few printed books. It's a buyers marketplace. Investments in writing can be as small as the purchase of some writing books, paper, envelopes and stamps, and some investments are quite higher. Unpublished writers spend their days creating text in the hopes of being published forsaking standard paying jobs to fulfill their dreams. Others invest hard earned greenbacks in book doctors and scams to still seek their vision of seeing their work in print. With the advent of Print on Demand (POD) publishers, many writers who have received enough rejections letters to wall paper a living room, find their dreams realized at a cost.

Times have changed in the publishing world. An old dinosaur like me remembers a time when editors really edited books. Publishing houses were small and plentiful instead of the huge conglomerates they are now with all the mergers. You could even approach publishers without an agent and if you felt you needed one, the publisher would pick up the telephone and recommend one to you. Now, the writer is stymied by "don't call us, we'll call you." Even literary agents want referrals from other published writers, and a long list of credential. They want to reduce their risks which is understandable...but difficult for the writer who waits and wades through the mire of rejection and indecision.

So is it ultimately worth the risks to become a writer? Do you want to jump off the cliff and take your chances? To me, yes. There is no greater fulfillment for a writer than to see what you wrote in print. Whether you start out small with letters to the editor of your local paper. Catch an updraft into blog writing and soar into being published. There is no greater thrill than seeing what you can accomplish in writing. The sky is the limit and although there may be a downdraft or two, continue to take the risk to achieve new heights. A risk not taking is filed away and sometime in the future can become a regret. Me, I want no regrets so I stretch farther across the abyss. Soar high, my friends and write on...

Listening to Music While Writing

Do you listen to music while you write? Does that music find a way into your article or story or does it distract you to insanity? First let me say I normally like all types of music. Just this past weekend, my family and I were celebrating my daughter's twenty-first birthday. We were out on the dance floor to all types of music which had our daughters and her friends in shock. Although us old fogies cut a rug, we didn't close down the bar like our children did. There are some limits to getting older.

I listen to various types of music while I write different scenes. Not always classical, although I do use classical pieces in this blog. I learned if I listen to vocalists I'm too busy singing to the song rather than focusing on what I'm writing. I like the orchestra type music while writing. There is a wide variety for every mood, or juncture in writing...uplifting, sad, suspenseful, dramatic, cute and if you look at it, it has all the types of writing just to name a few.

For other writer's it may be different, but then, I'm the Abby Normal sort.It can be inspiring. Right now I'm listening to Schubert's #9. It's bright and perky and suits the mood I'm writing in. When I write standard things like backgrounds, filler pieces, or the like, most likely what's coming through my headphones is something melodic and easy listening, like now. I find myself clicking my keyboard to the beat of the music with my head swaying, and my feet thumping in the rhythm.

When I'm writing about death, destruction, mayhem, suspense and impossible odds something more foreboding with tension works well.It raises my senses and allows me to feel the words. Like with the other piece of music my fingers pound the keyboard and my head nods up and down to the music. What I'm hearing interprets into what I'm writing. I sit up right, feel tense, and can't wait for the next words to fly from my brain. An example of this type of music is Holst's Planets, most notably "Mars, Bringer of War." Every note raises expectation so I write the same way. Every word I type lifts the tension in the piece.

Even with sadness, you follow the words and music through the piece. When I'm writing sadness, or depression or lost soul passages, it has to be Mozart's "Requiem" or Beethoven's "Fur Elise." To me there is nothing so downcast or broken. It will bring tears to your eyes. When I look at my writing of these scenes, I want my readers to feel what the character is feeling.

By the end of the piece, because of the length of this type music, I find my productivity increases. Of course this is only during the rough draft stage of any of my writing. At this stage it can be rough around the edges, but still have impact. While listening to Beethoven, my typing speed increases because of the fast tempo of his works. Even the lulls are swift with almost no rests. By writing this way, I tire quickly with so much emotion packed into a short period of time. Imagine typing to Haydn's "Concerto for Flute and Strings"...quick, quick, quick. No, two finger typists could keep up. Luckily, I'm a eight-finger typist...I can't use my left thumb and forget about my right pinky exists while typing.

Have you tried writing to music for inspiration? For impact? For stretching the imagination just one step farther than you were before you started. Try it some time. Put on a piece of music and imagine what the characters are sensing through the music.

Writer's Block or Writer's Blah?

As you can tell from the time of this posting, the day has slipped away from me. Most often, I'm lost in my works in progress. My children used to say, "Don't mind her, she's lost in Sri Lanka, Belize, or London." Those are good days in writing. When you are so involved with the writing that nothing else interferes with the work to be done.

Then there are the days when nothing clicks while writing. Or at least trying to write. Those are the bad days. You try to think of dialogs between characters and you draw a blank. You know some of these characters better than some of your family members. They talk to you. You dream about them. You put them in jeopardy and get them out. You know every thought and deed...but they remain quietly in the background. Not uttering a peep. This is my version of writer's block. Or as this writer "affectionally" calls it, the writer's blah's. You struggle to break through it with every trick in the book.

For some writers it's a simple avoidance issue, or last minute crunch time issues. Way back in the dark ages when you were in school, you might have run into this a lot. An assignment was assigned last week and you waited until the night before it was due to write it. You had better things to do with your time than sit and write, especially if the project came from the hated Miss/Mrs/Mr (insert name here). You know how to fix this one. Don't put off til tomorrow what you can do today. You may not want to but sometimes ya gotta just do it.

Sometimes, it's too many distractions. You long to be left alone and in quiet so you can focus. In this writer's case, this is the normally the reason behind a block. You finally get that one critical piece of writing sorted out, then someone will interrupt you, have to be somewhere, or come over. It's maddening. (Insert your own distraction here). This one is not so easy to fix because it depends on other people cooperating with you. The easiest way this writer found to combat this issue was to schedule writing time when other people are asleep...usually about 2 AM. This is probably not the best solution for all, but it works for me. At other times, you can set an alarm clock and say, "I'll write from X time to X time." The reason for the alarm clock is in case you get lost in (insert writing locale here).

Still other times, it's not knowing where to start. This is another easy fix. Write one word on a piece of paper. Does it look lonely to you? Use that word in a sentence. Now use that sentence in a paragraph. Now write another paragraph. Who cares if all the "t"s aren't crossed and "i" aren't dotted. Just write. You can always go back and edit. Don't be so self-critical. No one is going to see the first draft unless you let them see it. Congratulations, you've broken through the block of knowing where to start.

When you throw up your hands and go, "I have no idea where to go next with this story. It's just not working."Now, brainstorm your story or article, write it in bits and pieces, start some place exciting then fill in the rest. You had to have had some reason behind what you are writing. Write something else to get the creative juices flowing...this writer uses this blog for that purpose. This is another tip that this writer uses constantly. Once someting has a general direction you don't have to worry about what the next step is. It's something tangible that you can look to.

You will find that once the juices going it's hard to stop. You keep writing and writing until... you fall down in exhaustion or become physically ill. Neither one helps writer's block. It is important to stop and recharge your batteries. It is difficult writing a flaming romantic scene while you are snuffling and running a different type of fever. (For most normal people romance is the farthest thing on their mind while sick). When your body goes into revolt to get your attention, you're not doing something right. Falling asleep on your keyboard is an indicator that you need to go on to bed and start again in the morning. This writer has been guilty of this from time to time.

So which kind of writer's blahs do you have and how are you going to fix it?

Agents~Rejection, Acceptance and Writing

When you have exhausted all possibilities, remember this — you haven't."– Thomas Edison

The publishing game is a tough business. From the writer's perspective, it can be heart breaking at times. You've poured your heart, soul, and ideas onto paper. You've had months writing, editing, agonizing over just how to put it down on paper. It has become your baby, a part of you. You decided after passing around what you've written to a few friends that your novel is the greatest thing since sliced bread.

So you decide you want to publish this beloved infant. You research some more writing/publishing books. This new set of books is centered on how to get an agent and get published. In your search you find Herman's Writer's Guide to Book Editors, Publishers, and Literary Agents. Eureka! You've found the golden treasure, now getting published will be a piece of cake. That is until, you actually enter the finding an agent phase of getting your baby published. You perfect your query letter and fire it off to the first agent, knowing that once the agent sees your query and sample that you'll get an agent. Your baby is brilliant, shiny and perfect. Beware! It's shark infested waters to the naive and novice author. Very few authors are picked up by agents instantly. It may take weeks or months before you hear from them.


You get your postage added envelop, which you courteously provided the agent, in the mail. You open it with heightened anticipation. You glance at the poorly copied form letter. Rejection, your baby has fallen down and gotten a boo-boo. Okay, you reason, that agent couldn't see the forest for the trees. Dumb on his part, but you try again. I use the male pronoun here for simplicity. I know there are a great number of female agents out there. His loss. He will regret his decision one day when you hit the best seller list with your baby...that'll show him.You thumb through your list of secondary agents, you've had weeks or months to thumb through Herman's book to compile one. Ah ha, this is the better agent and you fire off another query letter.

Time ticks by (mentally hearing the final Jeopardy theme playing). Meanwhile, you read some more about writing and how to get published. You edit and reedit your work. Or in your reading, you read that publishers may want the next book within two years, so you start on a sequel or another novel. Anything to pass the time caused by the agent dragging his feet and not responding promptly. Your baby should sell itself, why can't an agent just jump on it and do it? So what if the agent has a slush pile of 10,000 queries, partials of manuscripts and full manuscripts to go through...yours is the cream of the crop. If only he could read yours, he'd be set for life just on your commission.

Time has passed and you've received rejection after rejection...sometimes several in one day depending on how you send out your queries. Proper protocol is to send them out one at a time, but that's not realistic considering the time involved. You've hedged your bet and sent out a dozen a week for twelve weeks. You've invested so much of your hard earned money in the pulp and paper mills, the US postal service and stamps, you wish you had stock in them. You've been smart and used a query tracker program to keep track of who you've sent what. (I use http://www.querytracker.net/) Remember, an agent during this time may have wanted to see the first chapter or two before making and offer to represent you. One or two may have even requested the whole manuscript.

Finally, you found an agent who will represent you and your baby. Congratulations! You've taken the first major baby step to seeing your pride and joy in print. You are on top of the world. You may have been one of the lucky ones who sent out one query letter and got representation. Unlikely, but possible. The agent may suggest some changes to your manuscript. It's in your best interests to listen and bend. Being stubborn at this point is not a good thing. They know the publishing market place much better than you do. After all, they are in the business to make money and they know what sells and how to sell it. If it wasn't this way, everybody and their brother could be an agent.

Your agent sends you a contract. Read it over thoroughly. There is all kinds of legalese in it. If you don't understand anything...contact your agent or lawyer before you sign it. I know a few authors who were excited about finding and agent or publisher that they didn't care until later. Then it was a big headache to get it straightened out, but most times prior knowledge is power. Foresight beats hindsight any day when dealing with legal issues.

But above all...write on!