NaNoWriMo For The Rest of Us

I have a confession to make: I’ve NaNo’d. And I’ve NaNo’d badly.

I know the rules for National Novel Writing Month. It’s all about the word count. The aim is to bar all excuses and get that first draft down. Goal is 50,000 words in the thirty days of November, during which you mark your progress in your NaNo profile.

For the past three years, I’ve used NaNo to plump up the word counts of my side projects while working on my Demimonde series. But I’ve never hit my 50k goal. Not once.

The biggest obstacle to getting my first draft down isn’t writer’s block or inspiration or ambition. Plain and simple, it’s time. I work full-time outside the home (as well as inside the home, thanks to my wonderfully over-active family life). My writing time is at a premium: solitary mornings between school bus and work, waiting time while kids are at judo, a few hours on my days off.

I’m willing to try any system that forces me to sit down and write. This summer, I participated in a Fast Draft with a group of writers, during which we wrote in sprints with support from each other. I had a major deadline to meet and the week-long event fueled my drive to meet it. (For more on my experience with Fast Draft, read this.)

The annual NaNo is another tool I try to use, but I always feel like I join in with a handicap.

Think thirty days is too short a time to write a novel draft? Try ten. That’s all the time I have to participate. I suppose if I could write 5k a day on each of those ten days, I’d have it made. Although I have never actually managed that, it does provide me with a theoretically plausible goal. That’s why I NaNo each year—there’s always hope.


NaNo: The Winners

I envy those writers who win their NaNo. I see their proclamations and their nifty I WON badges all over the place and I invariably end up scolding myself for not trying harder. But I don’t scold very hard or very long because, while I was never a definitive winner, I usually got good work done.

And NaNo’ing isn’t just designed to give writers an exercise in endurance or inspiration to get those latent stories written. Our WriMo books aren’t always meant to hide away in drawers and on hard drives. I’ve read accounts where writers went on to finish the books and get them published. You can see the lists of books that NaNo participants have published, many by traditional houses.
 
Stuff like that is inspirational. More so, it's intimidating for the rest of us.

Sure, there are loads of NaNo winners, and heaps of success stories for the books that made it to the light of day. But I was never one of them. I’ve never hit 50k in a month. I’ve never ended up with a first draft by November 30th. That’s why I feel like a bad NaNo’er.

My project in 2011 fared pretty well, with just over 30K for the month. I might have actually written a little more, but I was doing final edits on the first Demimonde novel, which came out the following March. NaNo 2012 was completely abysmal by comparison; I simply wasn’t committed to the project because I was busy promoting the first Demimonde book while editing the second, which was due out in six months. I think I spent more time revamping my NaNo profile than I did writing.

This past November, my edits on the third Demimonde book had been submitted early and I was between projects. I had space to breathe and think about an unfinished project that had been brewing in the back of my head. Although I only spent six days on NaNo 2013, I managed 15k words, plus a synopsis. (I think the synopsis impressed me more than anything because books are easy, by comparison.)

Three years, three projects, and none of them “winners”.


The Rest Of Us

But I didn’t lose. Not by a long shot. Despite my shortcomings, I think there may be hope for me yet because I decided NaNoWriting doesn’t have to be limited to a single “Mo”.

The project from 2011 didn’t just evaporate in the ether. I pulled it out this past summer and read through the unfinished book. I still loved the idea of the story and decided those 30k words were too much to let languish. In August, I resurrected the file and enlisted the help of a professional reference/fellow author/good friend and began investigating the details of the psychology in the story. I went on to finish the first draft in early October and revised over the next two months. Bugged a few beta readers, entered a few contests, revised some more…and today it’s ready for the eyes of an editor.

It took two years, but my NaNo ’11 book got written, got edited, and got submitted. Hopefully, it’ll get published, too.

Two years to a complete first draft. Not thirty days. And I don’t feel bad about it.


The True Spirit of NaNoWriMo

In the meantime, I carry a bit of NaNo around in my writer’s soul every day. I look forward to the NaNo emails that arrive throughout the year.

Right now we are in the "I Wrote a Novel, Now What?" months. A recent email addressed helpful topics for all writers, including tips on editing, participation in writers’ communities, and an invitation to a program on the subject of self-publishing.

Writing a novel isn’t a dash. It’s more like a relay race, and your novel is the baton. The first leg of the race is the first draft. Then, you pass the baton on to the edits and revisions, which make several more laps. The race still doesn’t end there; you hand the baton off to critique partners or beta readers. Perhaps you’ll pass it to an agent or the editor of a small press. Then the edits and revisions do a few more laps before reaching the finish line, where your readers await.

Does it sound like a lot of running in circles? Sure it does.  But never for one moment think you aren’t going anywhere. Even a spring can be straightened into a straight line—and the length of it may surprise you.

Some writers can get the first lap done in thirty days, during NaNoWriMo. I’m not one of them. But I do encourage every writer to participate. Don’t miss out on a fabulous program just because you can’t write for thirty days or because you’re sure you can’t get that word count down. You may not make the 50k goal and you may not earn a Winner’s badge, but you’ll have a new reason to sit and write, a source of encouragement and support, and access to helpful resources throughout the year.

In the long run, you just might finish that book, and edit it, and publish it. To me, that’s a huge win.



Ash Krafton is a speculative fiction writer who, despite having a Time Turner under her couch and three different sonic screwdrivers in her purse, still encounters difficulty with time management. Visit Ash at www.ashkrafton.com for news on her urban fantasy series The Books of the Demimonde (Pink Narcissus Press) or stop by the Demimonde Blog at www.ash-krafton.blogspot.com .

Chaptering: Those Magical Last Lines

As a novelist, it has never occurred to me to write a book that wasn’t broken into chapters.

I seem to read more articles on writing than actually writing, it seems. For instance, I’ve read many articles on writing that first chapter. I’ve even read articles on the art of writing the second chapter, and the third and fourth. I’ve even read essays on writing the last chapter. However, I’ve read hardly a paragraph advocating the writing of a novel without a single chapter break.

We need chapter breaks. Sometimes we need a moment to pause and reflect on the previous scene, to absorb the impact. Sometimes, we need to switch to a different character’s point of view.

Sometimes, we just want a place to put a bookmark so we can close the book.

There is a specific science that goes into the design of a chapter: the alchemy of the first line, the balance of scene-and-sequence, the length of the chapter itself. We can spend weeks discussing the anatomy of a chapter but, truthfully, there is one part that, to me, is far more important than all the rest put together: the very last line.

While novels, on average, contain thirty to forty chapters and are usually eighty to ninety-five thousand words long, it is not enough to do a little math and come up with the proper number of words that should be in each chapter. Why? Because it’s a story, not a list that you can simply hack off at the proper line. A chapter can only be ended at one, single spot—and that is the absolute perfect spot.

That’s where the tricky part comes in—finding that perfect spot.

For me, the perfect spot to end a chapter is the perfect place to compel a reader to keep reading. I have a flashing neon light in my head when I write, and it blinks the words PAGE TURNER. That’s my goal when I write: to create a page turner that a reader has a hard time putting down.

The “page turner” mantra was instilled deep into my psyche long before I began professional writing—as a reader, I developed a fondness for the way certain authors (Laurell K. Hamilton immediately comes to mind) had a way of keeping me reading long past my bedtime.

“One more chapter,” I’d mutter. “I have to see what happens next.” And the next thing I knew, I was hugging the handrail on the bus the next morning, struggling to remain upright and feeling like a zombie (not the fun kind) on three hours of sleep.

When I started writing novel-length fiction, it was something that I knew I had to do, just as sure as having chapters. It was a given. The chapter had to end as well as—if not better than—it started. That was part of a book's magic.

How can you do that? Here are some tricks I picked up along the way.

• IN THE MIDDLE OF ACTION

At times, we may be tempted to end a chapter simply because it has gone on too long. (On the contrary, you cannot fault a chapter for being too short as long as it does its fair share of work.) I’ve split up long scenes into chapters for the sake of chapter flow but, when I do, I try to end it in the middle of action. That way, no one is tempted to put a bookmark down.

Sometimes we’re tempted to look at chapters as mini-novels, with beginnings and middles and ends. I’ve found it doesn’t always work like that for me. In fact, I distinctly remember one chapter that I wrote as such—beginning, middle, end—and the chapter ended with the heroine saying good-bye and leaving the room.

Even I’d stick a book mark in there.

If only I’d somehow continued the action…it would have felt less like a place to stop and more like a place to catch a breath before flipping the page.

• WITH A CLOSING BEAT

Bill Henderson writes about ending chapters on the “Write A Better Novel” blog. He tells us that readers need some sort of closure at the end of a chapter, and that closure can be achieved with the use of a closing beat.

A closing beat, according to Henderson, is “…almost anything–a thought, an event, a perception, a discovery. It can be as simple as your main character’s musings about tomorrow, as he goes to sleep, exhausted by the day’s events. Or it can a new and provocative piece of information, signaling to the reader that somewhere, somehow, a confrontation is looming.”

That closing beat would give the reader a sense of closure without giving a reason to close the book entirely.

• WITH A CLIFFHANGER

Cliffhangers are more dramatic than closing beats. As a reader, I know I’m a sucker for conflict. I want loads of it—nail-biting, bookmark-shredding conflict just so I can root for resolution. The last line is the perfect place for a little conflict: a surprising reaction, an unexpected arrival, a gnawing sense of foreshadowing. Even the slightest hint that things are going to take a turn for the worse is enough to make me turn the page. (As much as I love conflict, I desperately need to see things work out. I can be such a nervous reader.)

• WITH A GREAT LAST LINE

If you can’t end it in the middle of action or with tension and suspense, you have to end it with a fantastic last line. But what constitutes “fantastic”?

This is a time to let your writer’s voice shine through. You, as a writer, have a particular style of prose and, whether or not you want to admit it, you have a certain way with words of which you’re particularly proud. Use the skills of your craft to hone that last line as only you could—whether you write from a deep POV or tend to make poetic observations.


People have short attention spans. Use your last line to backload the chapter and leave readers with a relevant and articulate memory, one that will color their overall impression of the chapter. (Of course, you still have to make sure it’s a brilliant chapter. As the folks around here are fond of saying, you can’t put a shine on—well, you know.)

The single greatest compliment an editor ever handed me was when one said I really knew how to end a chapter. I didn’t realize I “knew” how to do it—it was just something I picked up from being a reader who’d been spoiled by the masters themselves. As a reader today, it’s something to which I pay careful attention, because it tells me whether or not I want to keep reading or put a book down to do something else.

It used to be a subconscious thing. Now it’s like watching a magician, knowing what sleight-of-hand is, and focusing on the concealment instead of the distraction. It’s still magic, but it feels a bit more mechanical when you know what to look for.

But that’s part of the craft—knowing the tricks behind the act. Ending a chapter well makes for great reading…and great reading feels like magic.

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Ash Krafton is a speculative fiction writer who, despite having a Time Turner under her couch and three different sonic screwdrivers in her purse, still encounters difficulty with time management. Visit Ash's blog at www.ash-krafton.blogspot.com for news on her urban fantasy series The Books of the Demimonde (Pink Narcissus Press), which has continued with the release of Blood Rush (Demimonde #2). Wolf's Bane (Demimonde #3) is expected mid-2014.

At the Scene: The Establishing Shot & Your Novel

Are you a visual writer?

As you sit and write your novel, do you imagine the action unfolding as clearly as if you were watching a movie?

That’s the kind of writer I am. Images and words are inextricably joined, inseparable until The End. I tend to visualize the action, the characters, the scenes, mulling them over and “watching” them interact and unfold, then take mad notes when I “see” something that works. The notes turn into manuscript pages and the pages into chapters.

Although novel-writing and screenwriting are two completely different animals, I have picked up more than one pointer from the film makers. By far, the most useful tip I’ve taken is the use of the establishing shot.

In film, the establishing shot is the opening shot that sets the scene—the location, the time, the spatial relationship between characters, even the concept of the story. Traditionally, this was accomplished through the use of a longshot or extreme longshot, although today’s film makers often skip it in order to get right into the action to establish a quicker pace.

Think about how many times we are chided to start in media res—in the middle of things—so that our first pages hook the reader. Those first 250 words are crucial if we want to catch the attention of an agent or editor. We can’t let readers fall asleep on the first page, can we?

However, that doesn’t mean there is no longer a place for an “establishing shot” in our books. You don’t need a lengthy scene set up to run as long as opening credits to an eighties romantic comedy but you do need a way to anchor the reader in each scene in order for them to become submerged in the story. Even in the case of the more modern action opener, the reader gets a strong sense of who and where when you establish the scene.

The Establishing Shot and Your Novel

You may only need a few sentences to establish each scene, using vivid imagery and well-crafted showing. Place your characters in the scene, and let the dialog and action take it from there. Establishing your scene at the very beginning allows you to set the stage—and forget it. The story moves forward in the space you’ve created.

And believe me, you must establish the scene before diving into action or dialog. Otherwise, it’s all just too far out there for a reader to grasp. Have you ever read a section, turning pages and having no clue who is speaking, where they are, or anything of a truly grounding nature? Readers crave substance in a story. Settings are part of that substance.

Consider fantasy literature, with its extensive world-building. Because the writer may have to create a setting from the ground up, the establishing shots can get pretty lengthy if not handled properly. One of my favorite set of first lines does brilliant work with its “establishing shot”:

“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.”

- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit (1937)

Tolkien had a lot of work ahead of him, what with the creation of Middle Earth and all. He developed that hobbit-hole, then Hobbiton, then Middle Earth itself little by little as the story unfolded. Pretty soon we were imagining pretty near what Peter Jackson tossed up on the screen. But it was those first lines—that “establishing shot”—that put us there at the very beginning.

(And I love the back-loading he used—the placement of a powerful word at the very end of the sentence. Comfort. It’s a personal word that calls up our own definitions, thereby further investing ourselves in that hobbit-hole.)

Each subsequent scene you write will need its own “establishing shot”, too, even if it’s not quite as brilliant or elaborate as Tolkien’s. Time, location, participants, concept—every scene needs to relay those elements or you risk losing the reader. Good use of “establishing shots” will take your reader from one setting to another without letting them get lost on the way.

Writing Exercise

Open your current manuscript to the first page and read until you reach your “establishing shot”. How close to the beginning is it? Even stories that begin with the full-out action hook need establishing shots in order to anchor the action.

If you do not set the scene up at the very beginning, you need to work thrice as hard to keep readers engaged until you provide them with story legs to stand on. How can you set the scene earlier?

The good news is that you may be a champion “establishing shot” writer without ever having had to think about it very hard. If that’s the case, your work will be to ensure that every scene has its set-up and that you don’t waste pages doing it. Set up a scene in a country mansion in Georgia with a lush establishing shot--then illustrate the details of the party and the wedding cake and the jilted lover one by one as you move the story along. You don’t have to mention the mansion in Georgia over and over because it’s been established.

The plot moves unimpeded by unnecessary words, while the reader always knows where the story is happening. By paying attention to your “establishing shots” you can be sure to keep the reader engaged. Not only will the setting be established but the reader’s involvement in the story will be established, as well.

And that makes for a happy reader.

 

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Ash Krafton is a speculative fiction writer who, despite having a Time Turner under her couch and three different sonic screwdrivers in her purse, still encounters difficulty with time management. Visit Ash's blog at www.ash-krafton.blogspot.com for news on her urban fantasy series The Books of the Demimonde (Pink Narcissus Press); "Blood Rush (Demimonde #2)" was released May 2013. Additionally, her urban fantasy novella "Stranger at the Hell Gate" (The Wild Rose Press) will be available for full release on July 10, 2013.

Why I Use Scrivener

Scrivener is a word processing program for writers of book length work and screenplays. The first time a writer friend told me to try it, I deferred. After all, why would I want to use a strange bit of software when the rest of the world is using Word? The idea seemed to fall into the category of: why buy problems when they’re giving them away for free?

But there was a quote on the Scrivener website which kept niggling at me. “Scrivener is the first and only word processing program designed specifically for the messy, non-linear way writers really work.”

To write a novel is to take an unruly pile of ideas and stretch them into something sleek and linear. And here was a hint from the universe that it was normal to struggle, but that there might be a better weapon for the fight.

To acquaint myself with Scrivener, I watched a single YouTube video by the developer. (The amusing “novel” he uses for his example is worth the price of admission alone. I'll say only that a giant squid figures into the plot.) That gave me enough familiarity to become a novice user.

(Note: I use the Windows version of Scrivener, and the program was originally written for Mac. In fact, the Mac version has a few more features, about which I know nothing.)

Scrivener works like a very customizable master document (called the “binder”) with sub-documents  Sub-documents can be pieces of your manuscript or notes for your project. And these can be moved, grouped or nested as often as you wish. The pictured example is divided into sections by geographical location. The first section is labeled “Orlando, Florida.” But at any moment, a user can reorder chapters by dragging them around. Clicking on any of the chapters in the list on the left side of the screen will bring up that chapter in the document editor.

This is bulletin board mode. The chapter list is always there on the left. But the bulletin board alternates with a text editor or outline view. The user clicks on one of the choices visible in the upper right corner to toggle among them.

To see the novel as a continuous beast, one merely clicks on “manuscript” at the top, and there it is. But I never do that, because I’ve become enamored with jumping from chapter to chapter. You can see from my screenshot that I’ve given them all names. Scrivener understands that you may want to nickname chapters without those tags appearing in the final document.

The setup saves time in many ways. While writing, say, chapter four, I might include a detail which requires that I change earlier facts. With Scrivener, I don’t have to make a note to myself or lose my place. I can hop back to the earlier fact, fix it, and then click on chapter four again. When I do, I find myself at precisely the same place in the subdocument as I was when I left.

Also, there’s much less cutting and pasting when you can rearrange chapters at will.

When sub-documents are infinitely flexible, you can write text without even guessing where it will end up. I keep a folder called "for later." In that folder there are scenes and mini scenes which I hope to successfully fit into the book's chronology, but haven't yet. Before Scrivener, I would write all my "notes for later" in another computer file or in a notebook, and then often lose them. I don't lose ideas anymore, because everything pertaining to the project is in the binder. (Or it's in the notebook in my glove compartment. Until Scrivener is built into the steering column, that's one bug that won't get fixed.)

Outlining is another boon. The outline overlies the document. At any moment you can switch to outline view. Your chapters populate automatically, and there’s space to write yourself a description. I’ve used this to remind myself of what I’ve already written, or to remind myself of how I want a chapter to shape up. You can also color code scenes or chapters in outline mode (useful for multiple POV works) or label them any way you want. The software suggests “preliminary draft” “final draft” etc. But you can make your own labels.

The third view is bulletin board (shown above). Your outline text will appear there as well.

And I’m no longer afraid of using an unfamiliar file type to store my work, because that’s not what happens. Scrivener stores all of your subdocuments as .rtf (rich text) files, and then stitches them together when you want to see the whole manuscript at once, or when you choose to “compile” it into a document to be read in other software.

Each night when I’m finished working I “compile” my Scrivener manuscript into a new Microsoft Word doc. This takes about three keystrokes, and helps me remember to backup my work.

Learning Curve

It took me awhile to learn to navigate between outlining and text editor modes. And the art of compiling what you see in the text editor into a Word .doc precisely as you wish takes a bit of study. But the documentation is excellent, and the small group of people who work on Scrivener are as helpful as can be.

The retail price of Scrivener is $40. (By the way, I receive no benefit for writing about this product. I'm preaching from the choir loft on this one.) I paid a bit less because I took advantage of the NaNoWriMo discount. The software has a "household" licence, which means that for one price I have the software on both my laptop and our kitchen machine.

I tried the free trial version first. It contains the full program, but expires after thirty days. If it's any clue to how helpful I found the software, you should know that I paid for mine when there were still twenty six days left on my trial.

Happy scrivening!

Sarah Pinneo  is a novelist, food writer and book publicity specialist. Her most recent book is Julia’s Child. Follow her on twitter at @SarahPinneo.

Knitting a Book is Like Writing a Sweater

By Sarah Pinneo | @SarahPinneo

November at my house is all about writing and knitting. The writing bit might be obvious—I’m trying NaNoWriMo again. The knitting is in response to a beautiful crafts fair that my children’s school holds the first week of December. The parents contribute handmade items, we give them all a you-are-shopping-at-a-fundraiser price tags, and the proceeds benefit the school.

In theory this combination of activities should work well. I can think about my NaNo book while I knit. To knit means to take a linear thing—a string—and twist it around and over itself until it becomes a multidimensional piece of art. To write a novel is to do just the opposite. You begin with a beautiful, colorful mess of ideas and emotions, and tease out a linear thing—a string of words in black and white—which best captures its essence.

In practice, I work myself into a lather every November, trying to meet both deadlines. (And both activities make a girl prone to repetitive stress injury. Bummer.) But it turns out that one exercise has given me a lot of perspective on the other. If you’ve never knit before, you should know that any knitting project begins looking awful. The first row of stitches cast on to the needle looks like little more than a snarl of yarn.

Good grief, I always think. How will this ever amount to anything? Maybe I should have chosen a different project. I’ve never seen a less promising start to anything.

A few rows in, things still don’t look better. The only difference is that now I’ve sunk a fair amount of time into something that still underwhelms. All the other knitted toys are going to point and laugh, I imagine. I could just stop now and forget the whole thing.

Veteran knitters learn that any project imprisoned on the needles will always look wrong. It’s only when you spend the time to compose the bulk of an object (or a story) that you can see what you’ve accomplished. And now I understand that NaNoWriMo is trying to teach me the same thing. It isn’t enough to sit admiring the idea for a novel. They all look beautiful when they’re still in your head. You have to grab that wooly pile of inspiration and yank out the beginning of the thread. Chances are you’ll start in the wrong place, and have to rethink that beginning later. (The un-doing of a knitting project is called “frogging.” Nobody has ever been able to tell me why.) This violent beginning will also create more than a couple of knots in your story, and you may not notice them immediately. But at least you will have begun.

This past year I’ve wasted a lot of time trying to figure out which of my many ideas is the most likely to succeed. I’ve made notes for several different projects, falling in love with first one and then another. But that way lies the abyss, because only by knitting well into the heart of things can an idea be given its due.

I had the pleasure of working with an architect on a renovation several years ago. She would often show me a plan, adding “but it still needs to be proved out.” And fiction is just the same. Only by plowing ahead can I nail down the truth. Is there sufficient conflict? Is there enough at stake? Is this character someone that I want to spend fifty or eighty thousand words with?

I will never be the ideal NaNoWriMo writer, because I love to revise as I go. There may be no little “winner!” badge next to my name. But I can still absorb the lessons that NaNo teaches, and feel pleased with my progress. And hey—I made a fish.

Sarah Pinneo  is a novelist, food writer and book publicity specialist. Her most recent book is Julia’s Child. Follow her on twitter at @SarahPinneo.

Waiting on Wednesday...and Thursday...and Friday...

Your novel is complete. Your agent list is compiled. Your queries are sent.

The clock ticks. Tumbleweeds roll past your window. Your email and snail mail boxes remain empty.

So you sit. And wait.

Why are you sitting there, clicking the "send and receive" button? You have work to do!

Write your next novel. You can't pin all your hopes on one project. When your dream agent finally writes back, you want to wow them by having another book in your arsenal. Alternatively, if your current project doesn't get the response you wanted, you need to have a back up plan. Either way--keep writing!

Branch out. There are things other than novel you can be writing: poetry, short stories, articles. Anything. It will help you build a biography and it will keep your creative spark burning. You’ll also gain more practice sending out submissions (and more practice taking bad news—but don’t worry, it’ll only make you stronger.)

Work on a website. You want to have your web presence established so your future audience has a place to call home. Agents will often do a precursory search online if they are interested by your query. A website shows them you are serious about your writing and you are ready to take on a career.

Blog. Write blogs. Read blogs. Comment on blogs. You aren't just fooling around online when you do this "blog work"--you are interacting with other people and building a network. Follow some book review blogs in your genre and join the conversation. One day you'll want to do a virtual book tour...and you'll need friends to help you out. Find those friends now and help them out first by supporting their work--one day they will support yours.

Join a writers association. There is sure to be a group that fits your style. Local groups that meet at a library or a Starbucks in town once a month. State groups like Pennwriters. National groups like Romance Writers of America and Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. All shapes, all sizes, all genres and focii. Join a weekend critique group. Go to a big conference and mingle with the writers and agents. Find the courage to pitch a project. It's all good exercise for any writer.

Improve your craft. Read a book on writing (I think Stephen King can help you with that). Put your manuscript through the rigors of a workbook like Donald Maass' Writing the Breakout Novel. Just because you finished a book doesn't mean you've finished growing as a writer. Get cracking on your homework.



Writing and waiting seem to go hand in hand. The submission process is 2% communicating and 98% waiting for a response--but don't waste those precious minutes waiting for cobwebs to grow on your computer.

You wanted your hobby to become a job the moment you decided to seek agent representation...so get to work. One day you'll have scant precious time between projects to do all these important and wonderful things.

Waiting time doesn't need to be wasted time.

(Photo courtesy of gunner07)



Ash Krafton is a speculative fiction writer who resides in the heart of the Pennsylvania coal region, where she keeps the book jacket for "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" in a frame over her desk. Visit Ash's blog at www.ash-krafton.blogspot.com for news on her newly released urban fantasy "Bleeding Hearts: Book One of the Demimonde" (Pink Narcissus Press 2012).

The Story Behind The Success: Lisa Amowitz

Query Tracker is a site devoted to helping writers who seek agent representation. In addition to the huge database of agent listings, Query Tracker also has a lively forum, full of writers and authors, each on their own journey toward publication.

There's also a section reserved for success stories.  Each writer who signs with an agent is welcome to share his/her success story. The interviews are quite informative but sometimes they don't quite reflect the emotional details novice writers crave.

Success stories are about success. For many writers, however, the journey is discouraging and writers often feel alone in their struggles. Those stories can be cold comfort to a writer who feels passed over.

Lisa Amowitz was one such writer. She shares her story today because she knows, all too well, how important perseverance is when choosing the path of publication.

From Clueless Wannabe to Soon-to-be Published Author--The Eight-Year Saga of Lisa Amowitz

I got into serious writing pretty late in life. Though I’d always dabbled, I’m an artist and graphic designer by trade. But after reading the first three Harry Potter books to my daughter (in a very tacky British accent—yes—three entire books) something got under my skin.
I think it was a story.

So I wrote that story, hiding my activities like a CIA operative. It was two years before I admitted my now-overwhelming compulsion to write. My characters spoke to me at random moments—I was obsessed with writing that story.

But guess what? That first book was horrible. It has its fans but, plot-wise and premise-wise, it was unsalvageable. Subsequently, I joined an online critique group who really helped me to clean up my writing. But I still couldn’t plot to save my life.Heidi Ayarbe , Lindsay Eland, Christine Johnson and Kate Milford and a bunch of other up and coming writing stars of the future.), and I joined the Query Tracker forum (aka JustWrite—or JW as I became known), which at the time had about twelve members, including Leah Clifford (aka gypsy gurl).

We all became quite close, chatting day and night. I am still very good friends with a few of the originals (Michelle McLean (eknutswife) and Colleen Kosinski (Coll)—two very smart and determined ladies). The next wave, as QT grew brought in people like Jessica Verday, Elana JohnsonBethany Wiggins, and Mary Lindsey.


I’m dropping names here, because you should note that these ladies are all published. We all started together, whining, grasping at straws, dragging each other along. A number of them got lucky early on.
It’s not really luck—it’s just timing. Their time had come. And then, back in 2008, it seemed like my time had finally come, too.

I signed with a big agent for my third book. I thought I had arrived and would soon be ascending the steps to Writer Nirvana. Game over.

Was I wrong. The agent and I did not see eye-to-eye. She hated my revisions but didn’t really seem to know how to explain what she wanted from me. Her vision of my writing did not seem to mesh with the vision I had for myself. She liked my realistic style and characters but hated my fantasy. I started another book (my fourth book), which was not the one she wanted me to write. She preferred my other proposal, which, ironically became the book I eventually sold, my fifth book, BREAKING GLASS.

Yeah, yeah. She actually was right. But that isn’t the point—the point is that she tried to tell me who I was—she imposed her own wishes on me, which totally shut down my muse. I couldn’t write a word.
When she suggested we part in March of 2009, I was actually relieved.  But by summer, I was DESTROYED. Devastated. My QT buddies were signing with agents and landing great deals, one by one—and I'd gone nowhere. I’d hit rock bottom. A shameful has-been.

It was hard. I was depressed and truly discouraged. With the help of my QT buddies and my crit groups, I just kept at it. Kept writing. In the winter of 2010, I submitted the first 150 words of my fourth book, LIFE AND BETH, to a Writer’s Digest contest and forgot about it until I won runner-up for second place out of 400 entries. Best of all, the contest judge--another very well-known but more down-to-earth agent—really liked my book.

However, I had a revelation. A very major revelation. I had to stop writing for others. I had to stop judging my worth as a writer by my outside success.

I had to write for me.

There it was: February 2010, the moment I came into my own.

I started to submit LIFE AND BETH. I got help from the esteemed Elana Johnson to perfect the best query ever (I designed her blog header in return—best barter I ever made!). And I broke ALL the query rules. You see, I didn’t care—I was going to write, and write, and write—and work on my craft. And NO ONE—no agent, editor, no arbiter of good taste was going to stop me.

I sent out NINETY queries over the span of five days. Yes—I knew my manuscript was polished to the best of my ability. Yes—my query was spot-on.

But 90? All at once? I got a request rate of about 27%.

Then came the phone calls from agents wanting to talk about revisions. At one point I had about fifteen manuscripts out for review. I was getting closer—I could feel it. All because I didn’t care. I was going to write my brains out, even if every agent in North America rejected me. The world of publishing was changing—you could smell it in the air. Indie publishing was growing in popularity and offered a new, attractive option.

During the summer, I got a phone call from the agent who had judged the Writers Digest contest. She gave me amazing tips on what I needed to do to make my book better. I began a major revision in hopes she might sign me.

But that never happened. In July 2010 I got an email from Victoria Marini, who'd requested my manuscript. She had about a hundred pages left to read of my ms and planned to finish the WHOLE thing that night. She did—and emailed requesting a phone call. I was expecting another revision song and dance.

Nope. She offered.

I asked for two weeks to consider the wisdom of signing with an untested novice. After contacting the bazillion other agents who had my full, they all stepped aside, including the contest agent (who was moving at the time and couldn’t read my revision that quickly.)

It took a lot of deliberation (Victoria was young, new—completely unknown) but my gut was screaming: YOU LIKE HER. SHE GETS YOU. SIGN WITH HER. I decided that Victoria, who would inspire me to WRITE and stand by me and cheer me on, was preferable to an agent who just didn’t get me, who made me question my skill as a writer.

Fast forward another year to 2011—Victoria went on to submit LIFE AND BETH with gusto. However, times were hard and it just never gained any traction. We both still love that book and have plans for it.

But here is the most important lesson to be learned: I DIDN’T CARE. I'd found my muse. I had an agent who passionately loved my writing, believed in me, and was going to sell my next book, or the one after that. My time would come.

In record time, I wrote BREAKING GLASS. It was almost a year after signing with Victoria, who in that year built her list and skyrocketed from unknown to a name brand. She’d made a good amount of sales and had networked her brains out. The woman is charming beyond belief and I felt so proud knowing that she was the one who would represent me.

We got very close to a huge deal with BREAKING GLASS. Then came an offer from Spencer Hill Press. They were small. I was skeptical. It felt like a repeat of my agent experience. But that had turned out okay. Better than okay.

So we went with Spencer Hill and I am thrilled with them. Now, not only do I have an agent who believes in me—I have a whole team. They even let me design my own book and trailer and gave me all the help I needed. From the incredible Kate Kaynak who has creative ideas streaming from her pores, to my supportive fellow writers like Kimberly Ann Miller, (TRIANGLES, 2013) to my editor, Vikki Claffone—they rock. They are not a publishing house---they are a family!

Am I rich? No. Will I get rich? Who knows. Do I care? Not at all. Money is not the reason I started writing in the first place. I started writing because I want people to read and love the stories in my head.
Thanks to my supporters, I’m going to write, and write, and write until the bones in my fingers crumble from overuse.

And that, dear people, is what it is all about. Love your craft. Don’t judge yourself against the successes of others. Persevere. Take advice. Understand the marketplace. Change, Grow, be fearless. Be a warrior. Love yourself and someone will eventually love you back.

You will get somewhere. Maybe not where you expected—but remember, it’s not the destination that matters—it’s the journey.

Check out Lisa Amowitz on Facebook, Twitter, and her blog. And check out Breaking Glass on Goodreads and YouTube.

 

Ash Krafton is a speculative fiction writer who resides in the heart of the Pennsylvania coal region, where she keeps the book jacket for "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" in a frame over her desk. Visit Ash's blog at www.ash-krafton.blogspot.com for news on her newly released urban fantasy "Bleeding Hearts: Book One of the Demimonde" (Pink Narcissus Press 2012).