Things I've Learned Along the Way


When Mary assigned this topic, my first thought was: Wait, me telling someone else what I've learned? I know nothing!  Then I thought about my experiences over the last three years and it dawned on me that I have learned a few lessons along the way, only some of which pertain to the writing craft, but all of them were valuable in becoming a better, happier, writer.

When I finally sat down in the summer of 2012 and wrote that crappy first draft, it was after a lot of years kicking myself around mentally for not doing it sooner. Remember when you measured your success by your age? "I need to do _______ by the time I'm _____." Well, as far as writing an actual book, that didn't come for me "as soon as I finish finals" or "by the time I'm thirty" or "by the end of maternity leave." And each year and every milestone that went by, the crummier I felt about the piles of notebooks I stuffed in the nightstand drawer filled with scraps of dialogue, post-it notes and unfinished stories. When you start off early in life (third grade to be exact) proclaiming to the world that you're going to write a book someday, blowing out forty candles, then forty-five, on your birthday cake seems like an admission of defeat instead of a celebration of everything else you've accomplished.

But here's the thing. Everyone finds their voice at a different time in life. Yes, I always wrote. I wrote quite well in my career, which is not in a terribly creative field, but one that forced me to make every word count, which became a useful skill. By my mid-forties, I'd won a few, lost a few, and eaten crow more than I cared to admit. I softened up on some issues (just let the idiot in the wrong lane merge in front of you), and got tougher about others (no, it's not okay to tell a random woman on the street she should smile and I will call you out on it). And while I lived and collected life experiences, that nagging story I'd started scribbling about decades before bubbled back up in my mind. But while it simmered, I wrote the first draft of a book for teens. By then I had a teenager of my own who will bankrupt me if I let her loose at the bookstore. And she told me I should write that book since I always said I would someday. So I dug out my notebooks and started writing.

That summer, while she was in camp, and I had an empty house at night, I wrote. It was a total "seat of your pants"style authorship. And this time, I finished it. I learned a whole lot over the next several months about querying, publishing and how to critically edit your own work. That's when I discovered all the great folks at QT and found that the writing community is unlike any other as far as writers supporting each other.

But, still, that story from over two decades ago was still thumping around, so I sat down to finish it, figuring, Hey I'm a pantser, let's do this! Turned out, not so much. This book, an offbeat thriller set in a fictional town I'd thought up in 1990, wouldn't write itself like the first one. I outlined, wrote scene summaries on index cards, cut characters, added characters, changed the order of scenes, gave one character's dialogue to someone else, and re wrote it about three times. I ended up doing even more revisions when I finally made it to the querying stage, where I made fewer, and different, mistakes.

So back to the "What I've learned."It's pretty simple.

Stop beating yourself up about not writing sooner or not yet hitting whatever success milestone you've envisioned for yourself. Everyone blooms at a different time in their creative life. Grandma Moses didn't paint until she was a senior citizen. Maybe you have your voice when you're nineteen but probably not. (If you're nineteen and have already bloomed, I hate you, but mostly because you probably don't need a knee replacement) Maybe you won't be hailed as a genius in your lifetime. Write anyway. My first book had modest sales, but when a little girl at a middle school I visited asked me to "please hurry up and write the next one," it was better than a starred review in the New York Times.

With the second book, I've hit the milestone of obtaining representation and trying to think up a different author name for the adult genre. This book took twenty-five years to birth, but I had to live it before I could write it, just like having a teenager made writing for a teenager click. Instead of mourning our publishing failures, we should celebrate the things in life that inspire us to write in the first place.

Cheers to all those great books out there that are still being born. See you soon.

Taking Care of Business: The Author Biography

When you’re an as-yet-unpublished writer, one of the most intimidating things you’ll face is your own author biography.

You’ve read countless bios of successful authors, with their lists of titles and bestselling charts and accolades. Then, there’s you, manuscript in hand, wondering how you can possibly get the attention of your dream agent when you don’t have what the others have.

You already know that the hook and blurb is vital to getting an agent to finish reading your query…so how do you keep their attention long enough to hit “reply”? What if they see your empty, unenthusiastic bio? Won’t they pass because no one wants to take a chance on an unaccomplished unknown?

Stop that right this instant. You’ll defeat yourself before you even get started.

You do have a bio inside you, even if you’re querying your first book. You are an accomplished writer who obviously has what it takes to go pro—because the act of querying is proof that you are ready to make this manuscript into a product. You are seeking a career. You are worthy of
publication.

You simply need to find the bio that’s waiting to be written.

Building a Bio

“This is my first novel.” Clean and simple. This statement is not a death wish. It’s simply the truth. Think of all the successful debut novels you’ve seen over the years. They were all first books. If you have nothing else to add, just leave it at that. Agents appreciate brevity. (And... just in case you have a trunk full of unsold manuscripts: nobody needs to know you have a pile of gone-nowhere projects. Just say it's your first novel.)

“I belong to a writer’s group.” This shows that you are already networking with other professionals and shows you have commitment to the craft. Join a local writers group at the public library. Join a state-wide group like Pennwriters (who have members worldwide). Join a national group, such as Romance Writers of America if you write romance.

“I have a platform.” Platform is such a lofty word, isn’t it? It doesn’t have to be. Platform doesn’t mean pedestal. Platform is simply the legs on which you stand. What experience do you have in real life that has inspired or supports your book? Writing about animals because you’re a vet or work for animal rescue? Bam—platform. Writing about Greek gods in contemporary settings because you’re a curator in a museum or have travelled to ancient archeologic attractions? Bam—platform. Writing a vampire love story because you are the Slayer and have been fighting the forces of the undead since you were a high school freshman and honestly believe that Slayers need love, too? Bam, bam, stake through the heart and bam—platform (as long as you can prove it.) Which brings up the warning—don’t make stuff up. Save that for your novels.

“I have previous work published.” Novels aren’t the only things that get published. So do poetry, short stories, and articles. Do you contribute to an established blog with wide readership? Have you been featured in ezines or print journals? If not, don’t despair—because those are things that you can start doing right now. You’re a writer. Publishing in smaller venues gets your name out there and builds a readership. And if there is one thing that agents love, it’s a writer that comes with an established audience.

“I’ve won a writing contest.” This is another thing you can start doing right now. Contests are perpetually being held, from local to online to national to worldwide. Just do a quick search and start picking which ones you’re eligible to enter. Since many contests charge fees, you’ll have to be choosy. Winning a contest or simply making finals is great for publicity and often a nifty prize. Personally, I value the blurb more than anything else. Calling my first book BLEEDING HEARTS a “Six-Time RWA Chapter Contest Finalist” is a huge deal for me…and that blurb went a long way to sell that book.


Chances are you already have an impressive bio inside you, just waiting to be written. If a job, an experience, an association, an accomplishment, or a skill is pertinent to you as an author or to your book, it may be bio fodder. Just be sure to state it succinctly and professionally—you don’t want to blow your honed-to-perfection hook with an inflated, irrelevant bio.

And remember…if you’re in doubt, just go with the clean and simple “This is my first novel”. If you’ve hooked the agent with your story, that’s all they need to know.

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. She's the author of the urban fantasy trilogy The Books of the Demimonde as well as WORDS THAT BIND. She also writes for YA and NA audiences under the pen name AJ Krafton. THE HEARTBEAT THIEF, her Victorian dark fantasy inspired by Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death”, is now available.