Tag: writing

  • Tue Cent Twosday: The Three Answers

    In publishing, (I suppose I should clarify that to be in traditional publishing and not self-publishing), there are three answers one can receive when one submits one\’s book for publication:  Yes, No, and Maybe.  Here\’s my thoughts on each of them, based on questions folks have asked me over the years.

    1.  \”Yes.\”

    Ask yourself if you really want to work with this house, though you probably should have already decided that before you submitted to them.  But if you\’ve got simultaneous submissions out, is this your preferred house?

    Read the contract!  For Heaven\’s sake, don\’t just swoon, say something equivalent to, \”They want me! They really want me!\” and sign away your project.  Chances are, this novel, novella, or other book-length manuscript took a large chunk of your life energy to write – some folks labor for a year or more on theirs, especially in the beginning.

    The contract is in legal language, since it\’s a legal contract.  While it\’s not required, it\’s recommended that you have an attorney or your agent review the contract with you.  Failing that, you should talk to others who are familiar with contracts and get their input.  Keep in mind, you\’re signing a binding legal agreement to which you will be subject for a period of time.  You want to make sure that you don\’t regret it down the line, to the best of your current ability.

    2.  \”No.\”

    Don\’t just delete the email!  The \”No\’s\” can be instructive.  If it\’s a form letter, then perhaps not, but if it\’s a letter from a real, live, human being you may be able to find out why they rejected it.  Remember:  they\’re rejecting the BOOK, not YOU.  If you\’re very lucky, their letter will say why they rejected it:  they just published something similar, or it\’s not a good fit for their house, or the plot isn\’t tight enough.  Whatever the reason, digest it and think hard about it.  Do you agree with the criticism?  Is there something you can do to improve the manuscript?

    3.  \”Maybe.\”

    In the publishing world, a \”Maybe\” is known by its letters, \”R&R,\” and doesn\’t mean \”rest and relaxation.\”  It stands for \”Revise and Resubmit.\”  This is not the end of the road, not at all, and can work out in your favor if you are careful.

    In an R&R, what the editor is telling you is, they like the project.  Pay attention to what they say they like.  It might be the voice, or the plot, or something else that caught their eye and made them want to spend their valuable time offering you the chance to fix it.

    They will also tell you what they want you to revise before they see it again.

    Stop and think for a second here.  You don\’t want to just blindly rush off and do the equivalent of \”Yes, sir, No sir.\”  Do you agree with their changes?  Will the changes make the project stronger?

    I know it\’s tough to contemplate changing your project.  You\’ve labored long and hard and it\’s how you like it.  Here\’s the thing, though:  publishers are in the business of selling books.  They know their market, and they know what their market wants.  If you agree with their changes, it will mean a book that will appeal to their market, readers whom you, presumably, want to reach.

    That said, if you don\’t like the suggestions, then you don\’t have to take them.  You can always take your project and submit somewhere else.  Maybe the changes will make it weaker, in your mind, or you just don\’t want to take the project in that direction.  Be very careful here that you\’re letting your Best Self and not your Ego drive here – with humility, you might find yourself with a fantastic editor at the house of your dreams.

    If you do like the suggestions, then by all means make the changes.  Many times, the editor will clarify things for you as you work so that you can hit the bullseye.

    Note – if you decide not to accept the R&R, by all means thank the editor for their time.  This person clearly saw something in you, enough to take time and offer suggestions to improve your project so that they could work with you.  Respect that professionally.  Editors talk to each other.  Snubbing someone because your ego got its feelings hurt is rarely a smart move for your writing career.

  • Aunt Noony\’s Blog Bus

    Want something to read?  Of course you do!

    Join me today at the Writer\’s Retreat Blog for \”Ways of Seeing.\”  Then, over at LGBT Fantasy Fans and Writers, I have \”Training the Eye.\” I\’m in an artistic mood today.

    Enjoy!

  • Aunt Noony\’s Blog Bus

    Want something to read?  Of course you do!

    Join me today at the Writer\’s Retreat Blog for \”Ways of Seeing.\”  Then, over at LGBT Fantasy Fans and Writers, I have \”Training the Eye.\” I\’m in an artistic mood today.

    Enjoy!

  • Brainstorming!

    Join me today for my thoughts on brainstorming, in the form of a little fairy tale called \”The Magic Number.\”  Enjoy!

  • Writer Wednesday: Why Blogs Are Good For Writers

    Join me today at the Writer\’s Retreat for my thoughts on Why Blogs Are Good for Writers, and let me know your thoughts.  See you there!

  • Tue Cent Twosday – In Defense of Learning to Type

    If you’ve been reading my recent series on writing by hand and the pen vs. the keyboard, you may get the impression that I’m against typing or using a computer to write. Nothing could be further from the truth. I’ve been employed since the age of seventeen in some form of office work, all of which involve typing – with the possible exception of the job I had as a gardener, though I did do some freelancing for my client when he needed some office work done on the fly.

    I love typing. I learned to type in my freshman year of high school on a manual typewriter, then graduated to the Selectric typewriter (a fancy electronic typewriter) and then onto the word processor. In fact, a bit of trivia that no one except my mom cares about anymore: in tenth grade, I was California state champion in keyboarding and won $500 from Bank of America for college. I even got a special certificate bound in leather when I graduated high school.

    I didn’t want to be a secretary, though. I knew I’d need typing because of college, and had quite a chip on my shoulder about all the vocational training my high school offered. In hindsight, it was a very good thing they had it, since the first five or ten years of my working life involved skills I learned not at university, but in those vocational training classes. Since then, I’ve observed that others have also had a chip on their shoulders about not wanting to “waste time learning to type.”

    This is silly, folks. If you’re one of the folks who doesn’t want to take the time, then put on your big girl or boy pants and sit down. You need to learn to type. You can’t afford not to.

    Look. The internet is not going away. Keyboards are not going away. Maybe in twenty years, we’ll start to have more widespread voice-activated systems. But twenty years ago, they predicted that today we’d have paperless offices. How many of you actually have a paperless office? In the meantime, much time is wasted not knowing how to be efficient with the keyboard.

    If you have no clue where to go to get better, check out the Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing program.  You can also do it the old school way and get a typing book out of the library. Here’s a useful website that talks about typing and learning to do it.

    In short, you can become a better writer if you know your tools better, and any practice with typing will serve you well.

    Next time: “How To Use the Pen More Effectively – Suggestions”.

    Looking for more reading material? Stop by Taurus and Taurus for Tasty Tuesday.  Find out how the romance is in the mayonnaise.

  • Tue Cent Twosday – In Defense of the Pen

    Diarists know what many of us have forgotten – people have been chronicling their own stories in diaries and journals for more than a thousand years. In order to better know themselves, or to express their own truth in the face of a public reality, or just for the fun of it, people have been writing for longer than some civilizations have been around.

    All that changed in the last 30 years with the advent, first, of the personal computer and then of the internet. We are seeing the first generation in the history of our planet that does not need to use the written word as it’s traditionally meant. In another generation, it will be unthinkable that some folks don’t know how to type – and it will, some predict, create a huge culture gap between those who have access to the internet and those who do not.

    But that’s not my purpose today. No, today I have a humbler calling. I simply wish to defend the simple, humble, pedestrian pen. Once known to by mightier than the sword, it is now relegated to the place next to the buggy whip: a beautiful piece of craftsmanship, but obsolete.

    But is it?

    I argue it is not. When we write, we connect ourselves to our physical or kinesthetic truth. The study of penmanship, or graphology, can tell us quite a bit about a person and, it follows, the practice of writing can therefore tell us a lot about ourselves. We cannot get a feel for the emotion of a typist unless it is through their word choices and syntax. Yet we can know at a glance the emotional state of a writer by whether the letters are calm and even or erratic and out of control. Did the writer tear the paper with their emotion? Are there teardrops on it? Lipstick? Did the writer press hard on the paper and leave ridges on the back, or did they leave barely an impression of themselves behind?

    Writing by hand can inform us of our shifting moods the way the tide can inform us of the moon’s gravitational effect on us. Subtle yet powerful, writing by hand connects us to ourselves and to our subconscious. Try writing with your non-dominant hand and you’ll see what I mean.

    There is beauty in writing, even that of an untrained hand. Lovers have known this for centuries. The personal, intimate handwriting of a loved one can bring comfort in dark times, solace to the lonely. When’s the last time you sent a letter through the mail? For less than half a dollar in the U.S., only a little more if you’re sending outside it, you can bring a smile to the face of someone for whom you care. In my group of friends, we call that “Non-Bill Mail.” If you save these letters, over time they become like a scrapbook, reminding you of moments in time encapsulated in an envelope.

    What would you preserve by hand if you had the time?

    Next time: “In Defense of Learning to Type”

  • Okay. It\’s Monday.

    So, I had this plan to write a bunch over the weekend and start my program back up with Monday.

    Yeah.  Three days at conference.

    Not gonna happen.

    Instead, stay tuned for tomorrow when I give you another in my ongoing series on the Pen vs. the Keyboard.  Who will win?  You be the judge.

  • Okay. It\’s Monday.

    So, I had this plan to write a bunch over the weekend and start my program back up with Monday.

    Yeah.  Three days at conference.

    Not gonna happen.

    Instead, stay tuned for tomorrow when I give you another in my ongoing series on the Pen vs. the Keyboard.  Who will win?  You be the judge.

  • Tue Cent Twosday – A Guest Post with Kimberley Troutte

    Speeding Down the Road to Digital Publication

    a Guest Post by Kimberley Troutte

    Thank you for having me here today. Noony asked me to talk about how much digital publishing has changed the publishing industry for romance writers. Boy, where to begin?

    One great place to start is at the top with RWA (the Romance Writers of America). Every summer RWA has a big conference to discuss the industry, network, eat good food…you know, regular stuff. When I went this time I was struck by how different this conference was from the first one I attended in 2006. All because of a little invention called an ebook.

    A mere six years ago, there was a sense that a book not published by the traditional NY Big Six Publishers was somehow inferior. Self-published books were rarely considered by editors. Most writers needed an agent to get to the big houses and finding an agent to represent a new writer was tough. Being a budding romance writer, I dreamed of one day achieving that lofty pinnacle–publication at a big New York house. I thought it was my only road to success.

    And it was a rough road full of bumps, sinkholes and heavily manned gates.

    In those days (gosh, I feel like I\’m talking about the Dark Ages) the journey started when a writer completed a manuscript and sent letters (by snail mail mostly) to agents and editors to try to sell the story. The wait time to hear from one of these professionals was painfully long as the writer trucked pages back and forth and paid a small fortune to the Post Office. If a writer was lucky enough to score a good agent who then sold the work, the wait was a year or two before the book hit the shelves. A year or two.

    That was only six years ago–before Kindle, Nook, Facebook, Twitter, and email submissions. We\’ve come a long way, baby.

    At the 2012 RWA conference, all the buzz was about authors who found success by publishing through small digital-first publishers or on their own. (Fifty Shades of Gray, anyone?) The publishers heard these success stories too and, well, they freaked out a little. Imagine the big New York watching a corner of the publishing market slip through their fingers. Not only that, many already established authors were self-publishing their own works and making , gasp, more money.

    New York houses are now in a rush to catch up to the Digital Age by opening Digital lines. Editors are looking for authors to fill new spots for various genres and story lengths. Some agents troll through ebook lists looking for clients to represent. Publishers look for hot-selling indie books to publish.

    Wow, what a difference six years can make.

    What about those long waiting periods? Well, a writer can self-publish her own book in a matter of days. Days, not years. Publishing houses have had to reduce publishing times in order to compete with Amazon and to woo authors who don\’t want to wait years. In Anaheim, Kensington said that they can publish an ebook in about six months. I heard another house say 10-12 weeks! The rush to ebook publication is on.

    What does this mean to writers?

    Opportunity. Faster publication. Getting books into readers hands that have previously languished on a writer\’s harddrive. Possibilities.

    I\’ll tell you what it means to me personally.

    I used to suffer from stress dreams. Sometimes in my nightmares, I’d drive an out-of-control car at top speeds straight downhill. My kids screamed in the back seat while I stomped the useless brakes and tried to steer away from the ocean looming at the bottom of the road. I had that stupid dream five or six times and understood what it meant. My desire to be published was butting heads with gatekeepers who were tough about letting a genre-mixer storyteller like me through the gates. My goal to be published was as out of my control as that darn car was. What could I do?

    One day Carrie Underwood sang \”Jesus, Take the Wheel.\” And I realized that I shouldn’t spend so much time trying to steer that car. Instead, I needed to let go of the things I couldn\’t control and focus on what was important.

    Writing is one of those important things. I stopped worrying about how I was going to get published and focused on writing the best books I can. Learning, growing, digging deeper, I let my passion and love fill the pages. I found pure bliss. My stories were infinitely better.

    And now there are more roads to publication. My car is zipping along and whether I\’ll park at a small press, Amazon, or a big house, who knows? I have more control. One way or another, my beloved stories will be read thanks to all those indie-authors who were brave enough to pave the way and to the awesome readers who buy books.

    No more nightmares, only sweet dreams and well-paved roads from now on.

    Biography

    Kimberley Troutte has been a substitute teacher, caterer, financial analyst for a major defense contractor, aerobics instructor, real-estate broker, freelance writer, homework corrector and caregiver to all the creatures the kids/hubby/dog drag in. She lives with her husband, two sons, one dog and four snakes in Southern California.

  • On Writing Blocks

    Join me at the Writer\’s Retreat for my thoughts on being blocked when you\’re writing.

  • Tue Cent Twosday – The Pen vs. the Keyboard

    In my writing group, I often hear complaints when I suggest we try a written exercise as opposed to one with a laptop or other computer device. I have said it before and I’ll likely say it again: writing by hand is important and valuable to anyone working with their own creativity, be they writers or other artists. In fact, I would argue that writing by hand is useful for everyone, and not just creatives. That does not mean that writing with a keyboard isn’t valuable in its own way too, but that one shouldn’t avoid handwriting altogether.

    Here are the five most common complaints and suggestions on how to address them:

    “I never write by hand.”

    I’m surprised by how many people say this to me. What’s even more surprising is how many of them aren’t Gen Y folks. The stereotype is that Gen Y folks only type, and that Gen X and Boomers are more “old school.” I haven’t seen this stereotype borne out.

    My response to it is simple: give it a try. Even if you only use it for writing exercises, think of them like you do the gym or music drills. The more you do it, the easier it gets.

    “I write too slow, and forget all the things I want to say.”

    This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Our minds become fragmented by technology. I watch people try to have a conversation during writing group, or even just write. Smart phones buzz and people immediately look at them, even mid-sentence, to see what they say. Like coffee-fueled five-year-olds, we have lost the ability to carry one thought in our minds for longer than a few moments before we are distracted, like the dog in the movie “Up.” This isn’t healthy, nor is it good for our intelligence.

    Writing by hand slows us down so that we can catch up with ourselves. Typing on a computer means that we are staring at a clock, are prone to distraction from Facebook, email, and other programs, and that we can go at the speed of hyper instead of the speed of the hand. There is a reality within us that we can only hear when we slow down enough to listen.

    “My hand cramps.”

    This is a reasonable complaint. Like any other physical activity, stretch often and build up your strength. Maybe only write for fifteen minutes the first time, then work your way up to a longer session.

    “I can’t read my own writing, so why bother?”

    It’s like when we were taught to write way back when we were kids. Just practice. You’ll get better with time and attention.

    “It’s more efficient to type.”

    The objective isn’t to be efficient, it’s to see what we have to say. Efficiency is not the most important goal for a writer; clarity is.

    Give it a try. You might be surprised what you learn.

    Next time:  \”In Defense of the Pen\”