Becoming a Better Writer

In a previous post, I wrote about those self-doubts I get when I worry I'm wasting so much of my time writing when really I'm no good at it.  As mentioned many times before, a good writer is a good reader.  You learn a great deal by reading others' works.  I also wrote how sometimes I can't simply enjoy a novel because now I look too much at the writing and fail to get lost in the story.  As related to all of the above, I want to talk today about how sometimes when I read a really good author, I'm talking here about the best, I actually get a little blue.

Don't get me wrong.  I'm not blue because I don't enjoy their writing.  I get blue because I love their writing.  I stop and think I'll never be this good, ever.  It's this thought that gets to me the most.  It's really hard to believe in yourself, especially when you're just starting out and nobody's really reading your work.

I've been writing, a lot, but I haven't given anything to someone to read and sample in a really long time.  My ideas have been a bit frenetic of late.  I get one I really love and work on it for weeks.  Suddenly, I lose interest.  Then, I have another lightbulb moment and start from scratch.  I probably have 5 to 10 unfinished manuscripts languishing on my computer.  When I say unfinished, I'm not talking about 10,000 words or so.  No, I'm talking 60,000 to 70,000 words.  I don't know what's holding me back other than I'm holding myself back.  This is a new problem of mine.  Even in the beginning, I finished my first manuscript, start to finish, in a matter of months.  I didn't feel like I had to get any other ideas on paper.  I simply focused on the one story.  I'm having a hard time with that lately.  Narrowing my focus.  It's like I want to write four novels at once, but I can't do that and possibly keep track of my plots and characters.  Ugh, but it's becoming quite frustrating!

This too is one more lesson, I'm sure.  It's another step in the process of becoming a better writer.  Maybe someday, I'll get past those self doubts and feel comfortable with my work.  Maybe someday, I'll have 10 finished manuscripts and they'll all be published.  Maybe someday.  It seems to be my mantra of late.  Sigh.

Song I'm enjoying lately:  Overjoyed by Matchbox Twenty.  Such a sweet love song! 

The Odds of Getting Published

1 in 175,000,000=the odds of winning the lottery.  1 in 1,000,000=the odds of being struck by lightning.  1 in 1000=the odds of getting published by an established New York publishing house.

The numbers mentioned above are not exact and are likely ever changing but still, you get the idea.  They are difficult odds.  One might even say insurmountable odds.  Why would I even point this statistic out to you?  Because, individuals get struck by lightning and others win the lottery.  It happens people.  Even better, the odds of getting published are much better than either of those two statistics.  If it was easy, everybody would be doing it.  Every Tom, Dick and Harry would try their hand at the Great American Novel.

Anything important is not supposed to be easy.  That way, when it does happen it makes it all the more sweeter.  I have to believe I can be the 1 in a 1000 as I write each and every novel.  It makes me work even harder and makes me polish each work to the best of my ability.  I have to believe people will eventually get to read my work.  I have to believe.  Just like all those people buying Powerball tickets today.  They believe and I do too.  You should as well.

Writing is not only about the desire to be published some day.  It's about pouring out my heart in the written word.  It's about taking a chance.  It's about doing something I love and enjoy.

Writing Outside Your Box

I'm trying something dangerous and new and, dare I say, I like it;-)  Get your mind out of the gutter, people!  What I meant was, I'm trying a different approach with my writing.  My day job and the ins and outs of my everyday life as a wife and mother kept me from writing much the last few weeks.  Work, the Flu, basketball and gymnastics all consumed my time but the ideas were still whirring about in my head like a persistent little bumble bee.

As the one or two of you reading my blog on a regular basis know, I'd gone back to a previously written manuscript I'd shelved.  Immediately, I saw all the things I did wrong and tried to re-work it chapter by chapter.  Only, I just couldn't get excited about it.  I didn't lie awake at night in bed thinking of new plot lines.  I didn't obsess about the characters.  I just wasn't feeling it.  When that happens, I have to stop.  If I'm not excited about what I'm writing, why would I expect anyone else to be.

So, I tried something completely new and different for me and unexpected.  I...wait for it...tried first person point of view.  Wow!  Can you believe it?  I know, big deal, right.  For me, it is a really big deal.  I've thus far always used third person because I wanted to be able to see the characters from the outside.  What they looked like, how they reacted.  With first person though, I finally feel like I'm finding my voice because it is my voice.  The character is a woman in her thirties originally from a small town.  A situation draws her unexpectedly back there.  That's where the similarities end but I'm able to relate to what this would be like for her and I'm easily able to put myself in her head.  So far, it's really working for me and I'm excited to do it.  It may not work.  It may go down in flames tragically but for now, I like it.  My writing is exciting me again and that's all I can ask for.  :-)

Oh yeah!  Song of the day:  Stay by Rihanna and Mikky Ekko, hauntingly beautiful and her voice never sounded better!

Music and Writing

I've been MIA for the last several days and I apologize:-(  A personal commitment kept me from writing the entire week and a half, and I can tell.  My fingers were practically on fire to get hold of my computer.  My nerves have been on edge and I've been just a little blue.  Writing is my saving grace and I'm finally back <big smile>.

One of the events keeping me away from my beloved MacBook Air was a night out with the girls at a P!nk concert.  Fabulous!  Boy, does she put on a show.  As I'm standing among tens of thousands of people singing to the top of my lungs while she twirls high in the air, a thought strikes me.  Music has been such an instrumental and inspirational key in my writing.  The perfect song for the moment makes me write even better.  It will even spark new ideas for me.  P!nk and many other awesome performers have inspired many a scene idea for me.  I'm sure I'm not alone.

I've always loved music, even though I don't have a musically talented bone in my body.  I'm the type of person who listens to music while I work.  I use it to concentrate.  I use it to make me happy.  Hell, I even use it to give me a good cry every now and again.  In a moment of writer's block, I put in my ear buds and turn on my favorite playlist.  Soon, I find the ideas begin to flow and form in my crowded brain.  It relaxes and soothes me and clears the way for inspiration.

A lot of authors have taken to releasing their inspirational playlists after writing a best seller.  I think I'll borrow from others and list an inspiring song for me occasionally here.

Inspirational song of the week:  Who Knew, one of my favorite songs by P!nk.  Girl, you certainly know how to rock!

Submission Time

You've finished your manuscript and edited it.  You've written an attention-getting query and the dreaded synopsis is polished.  Now what?

You try to find an agent-that's what.  Or at least this is my ideal method.  There are other options.  Some publishers will take your submissions directly and that's a path you can take.  You can also upload your work directly onto a site like Amazon and try to sell it yourself.  As I've said before, I want an agent.  If you do indeed become a successful writer, you'll likely need one eventually anyway.  I would like someone with me every step of the way.  Maybe that's just me.

All that aside, you will probably proceed with a submission, in fact several of them.  You will just as likely get rejected.  An entire post could be reserved for rejections, and maybe I'll do that later.  This is now the time to pour over sites listing the particular agents out there and their preferences.  Query tracker and AgentQuery are examples of these sites.  You can narrow by your genre and find a great deal of info about the agent or agency.  This information should be cross-referenced with the agent's own website, Publisher's Marketplace and Preditors and Editors.  The agent's own website will give you the most current information.  Is that agent currently accepting submissions?  Has the agent narrowed their focus to only upmarket women's fiction vs romance?  Has the agent shifted their submissions to only email?  All important information only their website will tell you.  Publisher's Marketplace will give you stats for that particular agent.  Recent and previous sales can both be found here as well as how many agencies the particular agent has been with.  Finally, Preditors and Editors (among others) will tell you if the agent has complaints against him/her or maybe they're highly recommended, even better.

I recommend dotting all your i's and crossing all your t's before you push send on your email.  You learn so much and you'll be prepared and professional.  This may not seem important, but it is.  A professional submission will get your foot in the door better than an unprofessional one.  Also, nothing is worse than to waste your time submitting to an agent who isn't taking unsolicited submissions anymore or has changed their interests.  Focus your time and energy on the ones who have a greater likelihood of wanting your novel.  Do your research.  You won't regret it.

Writing Expert, Not!

As I looked back over my last few posts, I started to think I was sounding too much like someone who fancied herself an expert.  I am most definitely not an expert.  I'm not even published.  Having said that, I have discovered a lot along the way and I hope to share some of it with you.

When I started this blog, I thought of it as helping someone just like me-as I was three years ago when I was just beginning.  I didn't know what a synopsis was or a query.  I hadn't heard of Publisher's Marketplace or Preditors and Editors.  I knew nothing about finding an agent and how to submit.  I just put pen to paper and started to write.  It was the most liberating and exciting thing I've ever done but scary at the same time.  Luckily not the impulsive type, I poured over the internet for months and months trying to find out as much as I could about the process.  I'm still learning too and I'll share all of that in my entries too.

If I can pass on anything to help you along your path, I'll have done what I set out to do here.  Maybe, I'll have made it a little easier for you.  I hope.

Synopsis

The dreaded synopsis.  Even literary agents refer to it as this.  Almost everyone in the business seems to think it is a necessary evil of the submission process.  I propose here and now to do away with this most terrible of hoops we all must jump through!

Having said that, I know it is necessary for a few reasons.  First, it shows the agent or publisher you have a story with a beginning and end.  Secondly, it shows them you can plot and have a conflict for your protagonist.  There are likely other reasons for the synopsis, but these are the most important.

Why is the synopsis so difficult?  Because for those of us who write primarily in third person past tense or even those who write in first person, it is difficult to shift your style to third person present tense.  It feels unnatural.  Most people like to tease their stories.  They hate to give away the ending as they never want to know the ending of a novel before they read it.  In the synopsis, you tell your story from beginning to end and you give away the ending.  No matter how much it doesn't feel right to do, it is necessary for the agent or publisher to know you will bring your story to conclusion in a satisfying and exciting way.  Probably the hardest part for me is knowing which info to include in my synopsis and what to leave out.  As I've said in previous posts, I like to write ensemble, multi-POV pieces.  When drafting a synopsis, my tendency is to want to outline all their stories.  I finally realized I only needed to focus on the primary characters and in a sentence or two discuss there are sideline stories about the other characters.

You've narrowed your story down and you've outlined it.  Now, add some of your voice and story-telling skills.  Argh!

It's not easy to boil your 80,000 word or more novel down to three pages but it's necessary.  Think of it like this:  If you just so happened to get on an elevator with an agent who said tell me about your novel, you'd need to be able to do it quickly and succinctly.  This is why the synopsis is important.  So, go ahead.  Write it.  It'll ultimately be good for you!  At least that's what I tell myself:-)

I'm not expert (for sure!) and other people have said this better.  I just read a blog entry by author, Janice Hardy, that gives excellent information and just about every agent blog out there talks at length about it.  Also, a shout out to those agents who say don't bother with a synopsis.  Suzie Townsend, I'm talking to you!