There's No Such Thing as a Game Plan

My agent search has been all over the place. I started out slow with only two queries, and waited months. Then I sent out a big bunch, and got a request for a full. That was over a month ago and that's the last I did.

The agent did not ask for an exclusive (she was specific about that) but I sort of gave her one anyway. I had my own reasons for this. I really liked the agent, and I needed a break from the novel to have mental space to work on the next one. I just didn't want to deal with querying for a while.

Lately, I've been thinking about how damned disappointed I'm going to be if I get rejected, and hey, let's face it, statistics are not in my favour. So I decided to head off the disappointment by querying again, because as long as your stuff is out there somewhere, then something could happen.

This is probably an ass-backwards way of doing it; I was probably supposed to keep querying for the last month, or query widely from day one, or whatever. There are as many theories about querying as there are writers out there, and everyone is trying to give everyone else advice. Advice is good for fending off nitwittery, but some things just aren't quantifiable. I don't think there is any one rule to how querying should be done.

I've got eleven more agents picked out, and I'm drafting up their various query requirements (if you've never queried your work before, carve out a good chunk of time; it takes hours and hours to put everything together and double-check it all.) I'll probably start sending soon, response or no response. This could backfire only if more than one agent is interested, ha ha. Otherwise I think it's the best idea.

That, and working on the next book.

The only game plan I use is to keep my stuff out there, somewhere, all the time. Don't let your kite just fall to the ground and lie there; keep it in the air. Kites are for flying, after all, and life is more fun that way.

Abby

Where Am I?

Hey, I've been busy writing.

I write longhand, so I've been taking my notebook with me and writing on my morning commute every day. I have a prologue and a first chapter written. I get weird looks from my fellow riders, and it's quite possible the writing sucks, of course, but it's there.

A lot of people tell you to write every day, even if it's a paragraph, or a sentence, or some notes - write every day. It's like the advice that says to give up potato chips: Everyone says to do it, and no one really does, even the people who say it.

It works.

No, really. You should do it.

I've been writing every day and the stuff is good, the style is consistent, and I don't have to reread to jump-start my thoughts. And, like, maybe this thing will get done before I'm too old to do an author photograph. Hmm, what other good advice have I been ignoring?

I am going to post this for posterity so I can look back on it after I've lapsed the habit and am kicking myself.

DEAR SELF: This is how good it feels to write every day. Remember? Don't you want to feel like this all the time? Get off your ass and get writing, and do it every day, like you were doing in the beginning. I MEAN IT. Go!

Oh, and put down those potato chips!

Signed,

SELF

Good Stuff to Read

I just finished Pat Shipman's To the Heart of the Nile.




I am an explorer fanatic, and this was a really good read. Most history books about the exploration of the Nile in the 19th century refer to "Samuel Baker and his wife Florence" as part of the story. This book steps back and says, "hey - wait a minute. What kind of woman goes exploring in Africa?"

Florence had very shady origins, that she didn't talk about until very late in life - only her husband really knew, and he never said either. The result is that Shipman has to do a lot of guesswork to figure out where she came from. But it's believed she actually was a harem slave that Baker picked up (bought? stole? who knows?) somewhere in the Ottoman Empire.

In any case, they were, incredibly, a love match, and were utterly devoted to each other for the next thirty-odd years. The snippets from Baker's letters about Florence ("To her I have done my duty, and for her I would sacrifice position, wealth, life - everything...") are as romantic as any novel. There was a lot of censure on Baker because of his "nobody" wife, all of which he happily withstood for her sake. And when England got too stuffy for them, they went to Africa.

The politics of African exploration are as interesting as the adventure stories. It's easy to think of snooty white people descending to "civilize" the natives and ruin everything, but it is never quite that simple. The Bakers, for example, nearly died trying to eradicate the slave trade; their naivite sprang from the fact that slavery was so ingrained in the economy that no one was interested in getting rid of it, and there was no infrastructure to educate, medicate, or employ any of the freed slaves.

My only problem with this book - and it nearly turned me off at first - is the novelistic style Shipman uses. She recreates dialogue, and even interior monologue, all of which she claims to be extrapolating from the Bakers' journals and letters. It's not a very believable device, as Shipman is not a gifted dialogue writer:

"Where the truth lies in this detestable country it is hard to say," Sam confided to Florence.

"We travel amongst liars and thieves," Florence responded. "I suppose we must judge only by what we know or have seen ourselves."

There are detailed reference notes on all of it, but, you know. If you relax your history hangups and let the story flow, though, it'll keep you riveted; don't let the style cause you to miss a good book.

Abby

The Land of Blank Pages

I haven't been here in a while - the Land of Blank Pages.

This is the land you live in while you're writing your first draft, and it is so harsh that only the few survive. Most of the people who think they would "like to write a novel someday" turn back early on. The Land of Blank Pages is not for the faint of heart, and many do not make it.

I've come to the realization that revising is easy because of a simple visual fact: the page you're looking at is full of black and white. It's only a matter of taking the black bits and rearranging them in various ways. But they're there, at least.

But the pure white page - oh, man.

It's terrifying.

The fear can be overcome. Just remember: 1) hey, it's fun to make up stuff and 2) the alternative is to never, ever write anything again. To me, that idea is so insupportable that I just keep going. You put one word after another, one sentence after another, the same way you walk up a hill. It's nice to stand at the bottom and wish you had a ride, but wishing isn't getting you up the hill any faster.

When writers misbehave, they go to Hell and Hell is just blank pages, thousands and thousands of them, and they haunt you and never go away. That's why writers are well-behaved people. We don't want to go there. We're scared.

Abby

The Archives

One of the frustrating things about blogs, as a reader, is their short shelf life. Their electronic throw-away quality. When one finds a great blog, it's overwhelming to see that the person has already been online a year and you want to know what cool stuff they've said already. As a blogger, you know that even the most amazing, brilliant blog entry will eventually get buried in the archives. (Of course you write brilliant blog entries. Why else are you online?)

A month or so ago I discovered MJ Rose's blog. Actually, this should be titled "The Equivalent of A University Course on the Publishing Business With More Stuff Added All The Time." She comes up with constant, non-stop ideas for promoting books and reforming the publishing business, and she thinks out of the box. Just reading this thing is a full-time job; I don't know how she keeps up with it. Every time I read it I come away with my brain buzzing with ideas. It makes me want to get published just so I can start promoting. (Alas, I yet live in the Land of Not Even Remotely Close.)

Same with Paperback Writer's blog. She's prolific, popular, outspoken. There's a lot of stuff to read here, so check it out. God knows how many hits she gets; my stats would probably make her laugh. Of course, my stats are nearly unintelligible to me, so maybe she could just explain them.

I originally started my blog, actually, after reading agent Nadia Cornier's blog. Let me make a disclaimer here, that I don't know Ms. Cornier, have not queried her, don't intend to query her, and thus am not sucking up. I just got reading her blog one day and couldn't stop. It was just so breakneck, breathless, and unselfconscious, and I thought, "I want to do that." This particular entry from the archives is one of my favourite blog entries I've ever read:

There are a lot of writers who will never be able to live off their books, without the help of a supportive significant other or a fabulous trust fund. Now - do I consider these writers failures? Fuck no (pardon my verbiage), but FUCK no. Ok. Wanna chat stats? 95% of Americans talk about wanting to write a book. 95%!!!! That's a whole lot of people. only 30-something % actually start a book. ONLY 3% finish a book. Out of that 3% there is an equally small percentage of people who ever get published.

Now - this is a really weird number to grasp. The fact that if you are published - you amongst the elite. Shit - if you've FINISHED writing a novel you are amongst the elite!!! You ARE NOT A FAILURE IF YOU CANNOT LIVE OFF YOUR BOOKS. You only fail by NOT TRYING (aka, get your ass back in your chair and stop reading this stupid blog).

Reading this was a big relief. Also this:

What else do I think (now that I went on this entire rant?) -- I think that this is the MOST AMAZING BUSINESS EVER... THIS IS AMAZING. Making movies, music, art is amazing -- but this is MORE amazing because it's done entirely with words... Like -- that's so freakin' cool. If you ever start feeling like it's NOT cool - GET ANOTHER JOB. I repeat, GET ANOTHER JOB. When you lose your love for writing. When you lose your NEED to sit down and create a story - GET. ANOTHER. JOB.

Such a cool blog entry. I don't have any that cool yet, but I'm working on it. She's slowed down a little bit lately, which doesn't surprise me, since whenever she outlines her workload I feel ill. Does she even sleep?

Later,
Abby

Nerds Only

I just found this amazingly cool article on Writer Unboxed about the Lord of the Rings films and the storytelling choices made by the filmmakers.

In grade six I escaped my boring summer vacation by reading the Lord of the Rings for the first time. I remember when they all left the village of Bree, I looked up and most of the day had passed, and I thought, where am I? I've been in love with these books ever since.

Anyway, I'm one of those dorkwads who can watch the movies and say, "That wasn't in the book... that wasn't in the book... that was in the book..." unless I make an effort not to annoy my fellows. I noticed a lot of these storytelling changes, but I had never really thought about the significance of them from a writer's point of view. This is what the article outlines.

It's really good. I think I'll take notes.

Some days, I just really love the blogosphere.

Abby

Not For Me

Things in the world of romance writing that are not up my alley:

Vampires. Ew, these are dead bloodsucking corpses, not sex objects. Vampires make me think of I Am Legend, the dead shambling neighbor yelling, "Come out, come out!" as Neville frantically reinforces his hellish fort. Shudder.

Werewolves. Once again, these are not sex objects - these are dogs. Dogs. Bleah.

Elves, fairies, pixies, whatever - I think the fantasy really boils down to an inhuman mate. What is it about inhuman mates? Is it the fact that it is "more" than a person? Is it the "from two different worlds" plot? I interpret it as the fantasy of not actually having to deal with another person, hence no in-laws, dead-end jobs, socks on the floor, keys locked in the car, trips to the store for tampons, or stupid arguments over putting the ketchup in the fridge.

I like actual people, so this is not for me. No dissing anyone, though, because I'm in the minority these days, and the werewolf stuff is selling like crazy.

Erotica is also huge. I can't read that much sex, but I have to say it's way cool to see these writers doing their thing. Women... writing about sex... and writing about liking it? We love to bitch and complain but do we really appreciate how good we have it? There are places in the world that believe in burqas and clitorectomies and stoning adulteresses to death. Here, we get to write about sex in whatever dirty terms we like, and make careers out of it. The Christian writers and the Erotica writers need to grow up and get along, because we're a sisterhood.

Back to the grind,
Abby

The Best Time

So, I've been working on the plot for my next book. I had (so I thought) the characters ready in my head, and a good idea for the setting. Now, all I needed was the reason these two people would cross paths in the first place, and what would keep them apart. I kept rubbing the sticks together, but I couldn't get any sparks to fly.

On Friday, it came.

I got it.

Pondering my plot while driving, I tried changing the hero's occupation - and, bang. There it was: The key to the hero, his relationship to the heroine, and best of all, the key to the conflict. And I think it's a good one.

This is the best time of the entire writing process: Before one word is down, and the entire story is a wonderful possibility in your head. You just know it's good - you can already hear the amazed gasps of future readers as they read. You can hear the thump as the agents and editors drop everything to read your incredible pages. You're a genius, the greatest writer who has ever lived.

Needless to say, this is because you haven't yet had a chance to actually write the thing and screw it up.

That comes later, and I won't worry about that. For now, I'll just enjoy the fact that I have something really good planned, and forget the hard part. It's like those first few weeks of a new relationship, when it's all about possibility, and the boringness, irritibility, and disillusioning flaws have yet to surface. Yeah, it's kind of like a romance, actually.

So, right now, I'm in love. And tomorrow, I'll pick up my pen and start the relationship.

The Blogging Life

I try to blog pretty frequently, but I also go by the rule that I don't blog if I don't have anything really to say.

It's a hard balance sometimes. Blogs about nothing are frustrating. Even worse, though, is the stranded blog - lost, alone, not updated since January when the writer blogged about her laundry or her next deadline or her hopes and dreams. What happened next, you wonder? Where did she go? Does she ever think of her abandoned blog with a twinge of sadness? Is there anything sadder?

I don't understand the published writers who have never-updated sites. Why would you bother? Why put date-sensitive stuff on there, then walk away, never to look at it again? You could at least put something generic on there, so that no one knows you've officially forgotten about the thing. If you're really not interested, just put it out of its misery.

There was an article recently about why agents shouldn't blog. I'm not sure if there was any debate over this or not - I didn't pay attention - but I am guessing that the blogging agents got a bit of a chuckle out of it. The internet is a vast, unexhaustable resource of marketing and publicity potential. What dolt would decide this is a bad idea? It's only a bad idea if you don't know what you're doing, and if you don't know what you're doing, why are you in the business of selling? Wouldn't you be interested in a venue that brings publicity to you and your clients?

I think I've been on the internet too long. It's Easter weekend, and my brain is tired. I'll be back on Monday. Don't worry, I'm not going far.

Abby

Cutting Time

It always chaps me a little bit when writers say that being published is hard because there's no "job security".

If you haven't heard this lament, it goes like this: "Being a published writer is not all it's cracked up to be. I could lose my contract at any time. I'd be out of work just like that!"

Wanna know something? It's layoff time at my day job. We lost a slew last year at this time, and this year it's going to be worse. There are going to be a whole lot of gobsmacked people being escorted to the door. Just like that. Folks, job security is a myth. For everyone.

I'm not a full-time writer. My day job pays the bills and keeps me in RWA memberships. In return, I give them most of my time, and my writing suffers. It's a trade-off. Being a full-time writer is a trade-off, too: Lots of writing time, no biweekly check. But neither one of us has job security, and we really shouldn't be thinking the grass is greener as we look over the fence at each other.

If you lose your contract, go do something else; unless you're seriously helpless for whatever reason, you have options. Copywriting? Teaching? Tutoring? Mowing lawns? Come up with something - be creative. We're supposed to be creative folks. Don't get hung up. Whatever it is, it won't be permanent, either. It's only until you get the next book in the publishing pipeline. Think about it. You published a book, which most people never accomplish in their lifetime because it takes grit, determination, discipline, and talent. The world is your oyster.

And if you lose your job, just know you're not alone. We're all in the same boat, and we just keep rowing.

Abby

Maybe It's Just Me

People seemed to like A Season to be Sinful, so I picked it up and read it.



Sure, it had some complex backstory and some good writing. But I was so bored I could barely keep my eyes open. These are two of the dullest people I have ever seen get together.

The hero is supposed to be "high in the instep", which really just means he uses big words and complex phraseology. The heroine is supposed to be "spirited" but aside from some stuff that happens before the story starts, I never saw it. She recovers politely at the hero's house. She accepts his charity without a qualm. She goes to his country house - probably to be his mistress - without protest. When she wants to leave, they have a civilized conversation in which he asks her to stay and she acquiesces. Are you still reading? Probably not. Try a whole book.

And then there are the children. That's right, three lovable, adorable ne'er-do-well rogues who get up to Hi-Larious hijinks. (They steal tarts! They climb trees!) Three "scoundrels" with twee names who say things like, "'E's a right toff, 'e is!" Dude, this was old when Dickens wrote it a hundred and fifty years ago. In 2006 I wanted to kick their lovable asses as far out of this story as I could. And they're not minor characters, either - they get some serious page time. I think they were supposed to provide comic relief to the relentlessly serious and dull main characters.

Maybe it's just me. Maybe it's the fact that I just watched Brokeback Mountain that made me a) crave a better love story and b) watch in horror as the hero splashed in the bath with three naked ten-year-old boys. Maybe I didn't give this one a fair shake. It's possible.

I just wish someone had warned me about the children.

Abby

Things on the Internet that Puzzle Me

1. GIFs. Oh, how do I hate GIFs, especially the twee animated ones? I cannot count the ways.

2. What is it about Livejournal that gives me nightmares? Is it the stark black-and-white? The cheap font? The fact that the comments are put into ugly black boxes and criss-crossed around the page? The creepy head-and-shoulders icons? The endless time apparently spent by users choosing obscure and unintelligible graphics and quotes for their signatures? (don't people have jobs?) No, I think the scariest thing is the idea of grown-ups "friending" each other. I didn't like age eleven the first time, dude, and I'd rather not revisit it.

3. Internet flame wars. Sorry, but these are just funny. I think the AAR "Nora Roberts is too sexy in her author photo" fiasco has to go down in history as one of the all-time silly wastes of the time and energy of otherwise intelligent people.

4. Blog commenters who are suck-ups. Why?

5. How Alison Kent manages to have so much damned fun on her hot-pink site. Can I be her for a day? That would be cool.

6. How it happened that RWA spent money on a site redesign only to replace "boring" with "identically just as boring." Has no one noticed it's boring?

Sorry, these things were bugging me. I'll go read a book.

Abby

Pay Dirt?

Jennifer Crusie and Bob Mayer have finally released their novel, Don't Look Down.

In case you're lost, Crusie is a well-known romance writer, and Mayer is a well-known thriller writer, and they wrote a book together. What makes this news, really, is the huge, high-energy publicity around this book - book tours, TV commercials, newspaper ads, and a popular blog, written alternately by each author. Both the publisher and the writers seem to have been killing themselves over this. They want this book to be Big.

The book itself is getting mixed reviews, most of them lukewarm. I find this apt, as the book itself has never interested me. If a lot of us dared to be honest - come on - you'd admit that the book hasn't interested you either. What we're all interested in is watching the authors - watching their process, watching their ups and downs, and, for writers, watching two midlist colleagues pull out all the stops and try for the brass ring, the gold medal, of bestsellerdom. Will they do it? we wonder. Can they keep it up? And, for me, Is this the kind of torture it takes to make a good living as a writer?

I have never seen two people work as hard for success as Crusie and Mayer. They zigzag across the country, giving talks at conferences that they make up on the fly, signing books, giving media interviews, getting their pictures taken, blogging endlessly to thousands of readers, and trying to co-write another book the whole time. They are not always "on" - they have private lives, after all - but it's pretty frequent.

I couldn't do it. I wouldn't last a day. Most of us wouldn't. We're writers - introverts. We define the word introvert. If I had to give a media interview, I would have to sleep for a couple of days to recover. Speaking in front of a crowd? Yowza.

But a lot of us are getting the message. Buck up, suck it up, and learn how to do it, or you'll never make a living. You cannot sit and write books and retreat to glorious privacy like J.D. Salinger or something. Today's writer has gotta hustle, hustle, hustle. It's all part of the media machine, baby.

As part of our denial, we figure we'll just read about it, and that will be good enough. So we read the Crusie/Mayer blog. Every single one of us, waiting in anticipation, to see if they write to say it's worth it.

I'm rooting for them, I am. They deserve every success. And if they succeed, I'll hide in the basement and try not to think of what it means for the rest of us.

Abby

For Word Lovers

If you love words, you'll love this stuff as much as I do.

Proper usage:

kerfuffle (not kafuffle)

saccharin is a noun; saccharine is an adjective.

kick back is a verb; kickback is a noun. Same with cease fire and ceasefire.

a whiteout is caused by snow; Wite-Out is a correction fluid.

Kitty Litter is a proper name. So is Baggies.

the plural of banjo is banjos.

venetian blind is not a proper noun. Seeing Eye dog is a proper noun.

kudos is not plural; it is used the same as pathos. There is no such thing as a kudo.

It's somersault, folks - somersault. It's wacky, not whacky.

I could go on and on... I'm such a dork.
Abby

Ideas for Free

I'm better today. I had a nice relaxing weekend, did some reading, wrote some notes, spent quality time with the man, did some in-depth moisturizing of various body parts, and watched Derailed on video (not very good, but worth it for the single glimpse of of Clive Owen's underwear).

The latest issue of Glamor has an article by a woman seven months pregnant who is on the dating scene. She's in her mid-thirties, her biological clock went off, so she got artificial insemination, but she's still looking for Mr. Right, so she's dating. There were various stories about how men react to her pregnant belly.

That's an idea that's just begging for an author to take it and run, don't you think? Harlequin Next would snap that up in a minute. I can't write it myself, because I've never been pregnant, a fact which any woman would figure out by page 2. So I'm offering it here, a free idea.

Also, I think someone should write a contemporary where the people don't have those glamorous magazine or PR jobs, but have the crappy, bottom-of-the-barrel office jobs, in the cubicle farms or the unlit depths of the shipping/receiving department. It could be sort of an Ally McBeal thing, where they fantasize all the time. That would be cool.

If I ran Harlequin, I would create these lines:

1. Gothic. Apparently, there's a Gothic revival or something, but I ain't seeing it. Bring it on.

2. World War. Why the hell is everyone so petrified to publish stories set in the World Wars? It's not like we're gonna write about the Holocaust or the Bataan Death March or anything. War stories have intensity, suspense, danger, drama, and you can have love conquer all in the end. Am I the only one who would eat this up?

3. International. Please, for the love of God. Give me Japan, India, Thailand, 1930s Panama, the Caribbean, anything. You could make a whole line of exotic locations, and the Regency addicts could stay the hell away.

4. Sci Fi. Has anyone ever written a really good sci fi romance? It could be done without the cheeze of, say, Riker and whatsherface. They never quite knew what to do with Picard, and the result was Picard never got laid. That poor guy. Also, think Scully and Mulder of the X-Files. It could be done, you know.

The genre is too limited. I know there are better ideas out there, but no one would publish them. That's too bad. We could be writing some killer books if they'd let us.

Abby