Writing stuff

So today I read this post (go check it out - I think Maureen got more visitors in three days of blogging than I got in six months), sighed, wrote two more query letters, and sent them out. Something about that little essay got me moving again with the querying, made me pick myself up and keep on. I checked my tally today and I'm at nine rejections - which I'm gonna say is half-full, because I'm not at ten yet!

Two good tips I've discovered today about query letters:

1. I lost the e-copy of my old one, and I didn't have a hard copy handy, so I rewrote my query letter from scratch. My plot description is completely rearranged. It's a painful exercise, but it's useful. I think this letter is better than my old one, even though it's basically the same words, in different order. (If you're ever doubtful about how powerful the rearranging of a word or two can be, read a book on ad copywriting. I've tried ad copywriting, and it's hard. But that's a post for another day.)
2. Another writer asked me to critique her query letter, so I sent her a little analysis of how she could improve. It was filled with solid advice. Then I looked at my own letter and said, "Oh.. yeah." And rewrote it.

The next book is coming along, slowly. I got a good idea for it the other day - a really good idea. I think this is going to be a good book. But I'm having a little anxiety of the writing not being worthy of the ideas, though, so I'm taking it slowly, making sure I know what I'm doing, or sort of. It's hard to explain. This book is so different from writing the last one - it feels like a more mature experience. Instead of the work pouring in and taking over, like a river of water, I feel more equal to this one, and I'm trying to direct it, wrestle it, shape it. Who knows what the end result will be - but I'm enjoying the struggle.

Abby

The Contest Boggle

Karen Templeton wrote a recent post about contests that brought up some fascinating points.

Since I'm new to all this, I have yet to fully understand the mystery that is the RWA writing contest. It goes like this: Each chapter holds a contest, in which entrants send in their first three chapters. These get judged by chapter members - anyone. The high scorers go to the next round where they get read by agents and editors who have volunteered for the job.

You could, like, win.

That's it.

Here are the negatives:

1. It costs money.
2. You don't win anything, especially money.
3. Agents and editors regularly admit that they almost never sign anyone from a contest. The dreck is so bad that Anna Genoese once referred to contest judging as "picking the best of the worst." (And yet, they still judge them. Are they optimists?)
4. There are no criteria for being a judge, so your work could lose out if your judge is an idiot.
5. The politics are hopeless and indecipherable. The judge could hate your genre, your punctuation, or heroes with blond hair. The judge could have a bad day. The judge could also skew your marks so that her friends score higher than you.
6. Every contest is only about the first three chapters, so you could lose to someone who has spent a year on the same three chapters and written "All work and no play makes Johnny a dull boy" for the other 250 pages.
7. Winning is meaningless, because there are a hundred of these contests, and agents and editors all say not to bother putting a win on your query letter.

Here are the positives:

1. You could get valuable, intelligent feedback on your work.
2. An agent or editor could fall in love with your writing and rescue you from obscurity.
3. ???

Ms. Templeton writes from the POV of a judge, which seems equally pointless as any negative feedback is treated with hysterical defensiveness from the writer and the judges have to curb their honesty.

Am I the only one who thinks that all of this is weird?

Then there are the Rita and the Golden Heart, the "big" yearly contests for published and unpublished works, respectively. At least this contest is about a full manuscript, but still, it costs money and the politics are out of control. Oh, and the winner doesn't win anything.

In the end, you're really only entering contests for your own amusement, as Ms. Templeton points out the unpleasant fact that good writing won't necessarily get you published anyway. Which is similar to a point I made once here, that everyone says your work must be utterly original and superior even to be considered - yet dreck still gets published anyway, only no one will own up to it.

I'm open-minded, so I've entered exactly one contest, the results of which should come out in the fall. I duly sent in my vaunted three chapters and paid my fee. I'll try anything once.

Maybe I'll get rescued from obscurity, but it's unlikely. I think I'll be hanging out here for a while.

A Little Dignity

So I joined the PRO email group, and got over 100 emails in the first day. I guess I need to switch to Digest.

The first thing that popped into my inbox was a disheartening conversation in which writers worried and wrung thier hands about whether or not to name names when talking about agents. Dude, this is a Yahoo group - completely closed, with all applications screened by a moderator. Agents aren't allowed to join. Why we'd worry about saying names in a group where we're supposed to be networking and giving each other advice about getting published is mystifying to me.

If you don't know the breed, let me tell you that you've never seen anyone as terrified as a writer trying to get published. We jump at shadows and assume everyone is talking about us, writing lists, taking names on little notes that say "WENDY WRITER - DO NOT PUBLISH UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES." We're so desperately yearning for that one golden ring, publication, that we can get a little pathetic, like a guy who can't get a date and assumes all the popular girls are talking about him all the time. When the truth is, the popular girls barely know who he is.

Another discussion was about what to do - and I have to paraphrase here because this thought never crossed my mind - if a "publisher doesn't like semicolons." As in, when you go back through your manuscript to take out all the semicolons (which everyone assumes you'll do), do you use commas or brackets or what? And my first thought is, Why the fuck are you taking out all your semicolons?

I'm hardly a fearless person, and I guess being unpublished I really don't have anything (like a career or something) at stake. But I said in a previous post that every writer has her line in the sand, and I'd really have to say that semicolons is it. I can take it if I'm rejected over weak plot, thin characterizations, or flat writing. But if I've hit all these on the head, and the dealbreaker is my semicolons, well, I think ye'll have to go find yerself another writer. No one punctuates me. My semicolons are one of my writing tools, and I'll keep 'em, thanks.

(As an aside, I just can't help but think of some editorial staff on a Friday afternoon, saying "Hey - here's something. Let's see if she'll take out all the semicolons. Five bucks, you're on.")

You have to BS a bit on your way up, I guess, like with any business. You have to kowtow a bit, and you have to watch what you're saying. You have to use common sense. But I can't help but think that you don't really have to sell your soul. Do you have to shut up about your bad experiences? Do you have to refrain from warning others and giving advice? Do you have to let someone else do something so writerly-intimate as punctuate you?

The popular girls have a lot on their minds, and a lot of parties to go to. They vaguely remember you, but not well enough to hate you. You're just another guy asking for a date. If she says no, then maybe she's just not that into you, and it isn't something you said.

Just be you. What else can you do?

Torn

I just remembered that I got my RWA PRO status a month ago. I got a pin, which I put on my jean jacket. Now that summer has started, though, the jean jacket has gone in the closet. So no one will see my pin until October or so. Where else am I supposed to put the thing - my spaghetti strap top?

I felt happy to possess a pin, and then I completely forgot about PRO status. Until I got another rejection yesterday and thought maybe I could use a little support in this whole "you suck" business of writing. Look, I like Diana's Diversions, and I'm glad she's so successful as to quit her day job and endlessly promote her book, but I'm just not in the mood right now. Are there any other losers out there?

Maybe they're hiding in the PRO email lists. I forgot there are PRO lists. So I tried to sign up and realized I've forgotten my RWA password 'cos I've never used it. Several emails later, I'm finally signed up.

Hubby has to work tomorrow, and we have no kids, so I have an entire Sunday to myself. I plan to write, but I'm torn. The old novel needs a rewrite - I have some ideas to make it better. That will take a lot of work. I also have to put together some more queries to go out to agents.

But the new WIP is calling to me, too, and it has to get done. I'm making progress on it, but it's slow due to my time limitations - I write only about 45 minutes a day. At this rate the first draft will be done in 2007. So I need to put a push on.

Not sure yet what I'm going to do tomorrow. I'm thinking of splitting the day evenly in two - half on the old book, half on the new. That is, if all the housework and errands get done today...

Schizophrenic,
Abby

The Curious Writer

Here are the things I've been curious about today.

Every morning I pass an armoured truck unloading money into an ATM. What would it be like to cart boxes of money? Would it be fun? Would you be constantly alert, looking for a robbery? Do robbery attempts happen often, and what would you do? Would it be tempting to take some of the money? What do they do to prevent you?

A cop in Toronto just stepped down from his job in the child-porn unit. He says he can't stand the nightmares anymore. (story here.) What would it be like to do that job? What kind of sould-searching would it take to step down? What caused the final decision-making moment? What was that moment like? Where was he when it happened, and what was he doing?

There used to be a woman on my morning commuter train who wore elaborate, completely-coordinated dresses and hats. I don't see her anymore. Where did she go? Did she move? Change jobs? Get fired?

What would it be like if your sense of smell was permanently hightened? What would you do? The smallest smell would drive you crazy. What could you smell that other people can't? Would it be an advantage or a disadvantage? You'd be a freak... but what if you could smell things, like drugs, the way that dogs do? Would you be a millionaire?

And on.. and on. I think that's what most writers are like, most of the time. Like little kids in their "Why?" period. We never quite grow out of that "Why?" period, do we? I know I never did!

Blogging in 2206

Yesterday, Miss Snark quoted John Updike in an article saying this:

"You type in your blog, and some other people read it, and so you create a print society apart from real society and you're getting the gratification of expressing yourself . . . It's a way to develop a public persona, but it's very undiscriminating, and very 'me-minded.' We're all me-minded. We all have egos."

People are pissed that he's looking down his nose at bloggers, and I can see why. It's a ridiculous position. Who cares what other people are writing, anyway? You don't have to read any of it.

But I'm immersed in my work-in-progress right now, so the quote reminded me of something I read in my research the other day:

Regency ladies wrote an enormous number of letters to each other, their friends and their family. Many wrote to their favourite correspondents virtually every day, about love, politics, marriage, money, health and despair, anything and everything.

Two hundred years later, these letters, which the ladies themselves almost certainly saw as worthless, are our window into their society and their lives. We'd be lost without them. So, will historians be reading blogs in 2206, the way we're reading the letters of 1806? If so, yeah, they'll be sifting through a lot of crap. They'll also be reading some really, really good stuff, intelligent commentary, creative ideas, and lively communities.

Who knows, maybe some of us will go down in history as smart, and Updike will look like the ass.

Abby

Wait a minute, this writing thing is hard

There's only one way to recover from rejection, and that's to keep going and stay positive.

So, I sent out two more queries today, and I made a plan. I've given myself a deadline of October 1.

I'm going to keep marketing this novel until October 1. If I haven't found an agent by then, I'll have to retire it (sniff) and concentrate on the next one. No worries, it will simply lay dormant until resurrected in my self-publishing period, a decade from now, in which I eerily remind people of Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard, making everyone uncomfortable with my deluded insistence that it really wasn't my writing, but that the publishing world just never understood me.

I'm kidding, by the way.

In the meantime, I'm going to write the next novel, and the deadline I've set is, yes, October 1. That's the day I quit querying the old book and start all over, querying the new one. Which means the new one has to be ready by then. Really, I can do it. At the same time as marketing the old one. At the same time as-

Working ten hours a day,
Helping run a home-based business,
Building a volunteer website when I know nothing about webistes,
Reading like crazy,
Occasionally remembering my neglected boyfriend,
And trying to have a life.

No, really, I can do it.

Good thing I finally bought a laptop, after all these years. I've named her Betty. She and I are spending Friday night together at the moment, and we'll be spending lots of time together in the next few months.

Good thing she doesn't snore.

Abby

Of Love and Passion

The agent who requested my full manuscript just sent a rejection.

She said nice things about my work. She said I'm a good writer... But she rejected it.

She had two problems with it: The main conflict isn't strong enough, and it doesn't have enough passion "for today's market".

Now, I'm not one to sit and obssessively analyze every word of an agent's letter. But the second point has me thinking. (The first point I'm just going to take as meant and I'm going back to look at my conflict again. Duh.)

Firstly, my story could just have too little passion to be sellable in a marketplace flooded with erotica. Secondly, I could have told my story badly and left the reader just not caring whether these two people get together or not.

Since she specifically mentioned the market, I think it's mostly number one, with number two not ruled out. Which brings me to the question every writer faces at one point or another: What if I have to change my story to make it more marketable?

My story is about Victorians, remember. They're full of passion but I had them repress it for every inch they're worth. I had them wonder what was happening to them, blame themselves for unseemly feelings, divert their passion in unhealthy ways, wonder if they were going crazy, and finally give in. It was fun. But there isn't a lot of touching, and no sex till the end (the giving in part.) So maybe I wrote my way out of being published this time around.

Every writer has her line in the sand. I can go back and check my writing, reassess, and make sure my repressed passion didn't just come out dull. I can heighten my conflict and make it clearer. But I can't add sex where there just isn't any. I can't make my repressed, morality-drilled-into-them-from-birth characters suddenly start experimenting. It won't work.

And if no one wants to publish it, then I'm an unpublished writer. Which I am anyways. Until, oh, maybe 2010 when erotica is the new "dead" genre and I'm cool again.

Maybe?

Abby

Thank A Writer

The surgery is over with. I didn't do as much reading as I thought I might, but I got most of the way through Diane Gaston's A Reformed Rake. It did the job admirably. So, thanks, Diane Gaston.

Maybe I'm too polite, but I'm always tempted to thank writers whose books I enjoyed. I almost never do it, though, so when I'm rich and famous I'm going to institute Thank A Writer Day. On Thank A Writer Day, you think of one book that got you through a hard time, or made you laugh, or improved your vacation, or made you forget about your problems for a while, or inspired you to become a writer yourself. Then you write a note or an email and thank the writer.

Judy Blume would be buried in mail that day. So would Beverly Cleary. If Georgette Heyer were alive, she would be completely shocked. Stephen King would get notes from a few of us, for On Writing alone. J.K. Rowling, of course. I wonder if Strunk and White would get anything but curses?

Think about it. Who would you thank?

Abby

Book in a Box

I came across a site called Writers Store the other day.

It's mostly screenwriting stuff, as the actual store is in Los Angeles, but who knew there was so much writing software out there?

Fiction Master promises to "show how to show a story instead of telling it... test and improve every line of dialogue you have ever written... A senior book editor will help you solve any covered writing problem you can't solve in Fiction Master!" Besides the question of what "senior book editor" has enough time to "solve" everyone's fiction problems (my guess is an unemployed one), this sounds pretty good.

Wait. WritePro promises that it "guides beginning writers step by step in creating rounded characters, suspenseful plots, and sparkling dialogue. It eliminates writer's block, avoids trial and error, and you'll see proof of your progress in minutes."

Wha? These guys have invented the cure for every writing problem - in minutes! At $150 it's $30 cheaper than Fiction Master, too.

Then there's TotallyWrite. It has, um, four modules. Check it: ".. takes the guesswork out of structuring your idea. Providing you with a simple, fill-in-the-blanks form, you can easily take your story from concept to full beat sheet..." (I don't know what a beat sheet is, but it sounds cooler than anything I've ever created.)

"Once you have the form completely filled in, you can then open the WORLDVIEW FORM... Also included in the TotallyWrite Development Paradigm is the Four Questions/Four Archetypes/Formula form... Open up the IDEA SHOEBOX module..."

In the end the only thing I wanted to buy was this:


Ladies and gentlemen, I bring you the Jane Austen action figure.

"Comes with a book and a writing desk and a removable quill pen!"

Her companion piece is this:


The Man Himself - Dickens - comes with quill pen and removable hat.

So nerdy, it's cool.

Maybe.

Stress Reading

Wow, the day that Megan Frampton mentioned me, I got over 100 people at my blog. That's an astronomical record for a page where I'm normally talking to myself. She's got a regular party going on over there!

So, no, it is not Caring and Sharing Hour, but I have a family member going into the hospital next week for major surgery. Which means I will be spending a large amount of time in a hospital waiting room. Which means I need something to read, and it's serious if I pick the wrong thing.

This is what books are made for, what we readers have over all the non-readers. When you're in a hospital waiting room trying not to think about what's going on and how you feel about it, a book takes you right out of there and puts you somewhere else. You don't have to stare at the bad art on the walls or the other uncomfortable people there and you don't have to run out of small talk with your family members. You just dig in and... cease to exist for a while.

I love Stephen King but I can't bring him; too gross and scary for the hospital. A romance could work, but it would have to be a good one to make me feel all positive in that kind of situation; a lousy romance would just lose me on page two and leave me annoyed. I'm thinking of a sweeping historical. An Anya Seton book, maybe. I have a few of those, but I haven't read them yet. The other possibility is a mystery, something that occupies my mind with a whodunit.

Last time (there have been a few) I lucked out. I rifled through my bookshelf and found, of all things, an old yellow copy of Jamaica Inn by Daphne Du Maurier. I hadn't read it in years. It did the job perfectly. I read almost three-quarters of it that day, and it isn't a fast read. The last time I took a long train ride I took a book of Sherlock Holmes stories with me; the time just zipped past before I knew it. Maybe I'll dig it out again.

Thank dog I'm a reader. I'm never without at least one book on me at all times - no exceptions. I can't count the number of times I've found myself unexpectedly waiting for a delayed train, sitting in a waiting room of some kind, waiting for my companion to finish shopping for something that bores me, and hey - out comes the book. I'm always grateful I brought it.

Suggestions are welcome. In the meantime, I'll be digging through my bookshelf for ideas.

Abby