Remembering What You Want

Tree on a Hill

For most of my twenties, thirties and forties I would have to stop and do some quick math whenever anyone asked me how old I was.  Age was just an abstract number that held little importance for me.

Then, two years ago, I hit the last year of my forties.  There was something about being that close to fifty that forced me to pay attention.  All of my grandparents lived well into their seventies and eighties but none of them lived to be one hundred.  And since I was approaching one-half of one hundred, that meant mathematically, my life was already more than half over. 

There was nothing like a little bit of in-my-face mortality to remind me how little I've done with my life. 

One of the things I had wanted to do since I was a kid was to write a book and be a published author.  With the ticking of time running out in my head, I decided to get serious and start writing.  So I wrote.

I never doubted I could write The Book.  In fact, in that first year I wrote a total of four stories featuring an orphaned chimney sweep who becomes an assistant to an eccentric Professor.  When I had finished shaping what had become the first of the stories, I started querying on it.  To my surprise, it got some immediate response from several agents.  In my imagination I thought I might even sign with an agent before that half-century birthday hit.

Well, that didn't happen.  And it didn't happen this year, either.  (Agent #4 and I spoke on Monday about my latest revision.  We appear to have different visions of where my story should go that are likely irreconcilable.)  Alas.

Still.

Many years ago Bonn bought The Boy a framed watercolor image that read, "Discipline is Remembering What You Want."  I'm not sure if I'm going to shelve my chimney sweep and eccentric Professor for a while and work on something else or if I'm going to reel in the revisions and try to take them where I want them and their story to be.   I do know that I'm still going to be writing and revising because it remains one of the things I want.

...

Things I've Learned About Writing (Thus Far)

Bonn in London
Christmas 2006

The following are observations about writing and the writing process that I've said to friends over the past few years.  None of them are especially new or brilliant, and none are things that, had I heard them early on would have prevented me from getting involved in writing The Book.  Still, I think it's helpful to have these sorts of things all in one place to be able to reference every now and then.

Please feel more than free to add your observations about your writing and writing process in the Comments.

Tom's Observations About Writing and the Writing Process 

1. Come up with an estimate as to how long you think it will take you to write a book and get it published.  Then double it.  Then double it again. 
Now you're starting to get close.

2. Writing is 98% revision.
Although that number might be a little low.

3. There will be times when you absolutely love everything about your manuscript -- the characters, the setting, the story, the prose... and there will be times when you cannot stand a single thing about your manuscript.
This is natural.  Just resist the urge to delete/burn every copy of what you've written.

4. Writing a good book and writing a good query are two entirely separate skills.  
Queries are, somehow, even more soul-crushing than writing a book.  Condensing your book into two or three paragraphs, that focus solely on conflict and character) is to leave out all that is special about your story and unique about your writing... unless you're one of those brilliant, gifted query writers who can infuse your query with those elements.  Your job, as a writer, is to do that very thing.

5. Good criticism means saying what does and what doesn't work in a manuscript and why.
Simply saying "it's good" or "I didn't like it" to another writer is as helpful as not saying anything.  In order to be helpful you have to dig into the writing and your reactions and figure out the whys.  The best criticism you can give is the type of criticism you wish someone wonderfully wise and caring would give you about your manuscript.

6. You cannot write well unless you read.
Writers are not created, nor do they thrive in a vacuum.  Surround yourself with books by amazing writers and learn from what they have written.  Read mediocre writers and lousy writers.  Read genres that don't immediately appeal to you.  Take the time to verbalize why you like some writers and don't like other writers.  (See #5 above)

7. You cannot write well if all you do is read.  
At some point you need to put the books down and get to your typewriter/computer/pad of paper.  Then write.  (This goes for researching as well.)

8. First drafts are just that: First Drafts.  
They are meant to be the compost pile from which your more elegant story and prose grows.  Respect that.  (And if the thought of a First Draft scares you as much as it scares me, feel free to do what I do and borrow Cherie Priest's concept of Draft Zero for the first "finished" piece of work you do before slicing and dicing with your editing scalpel.)

9. When in doubt as to where your story should go, trust your characters.
It's easy to have your ego wrapped up in your story and your characters and think you're in charge of creating conflicts and getting your characters out of them.  When you get stuck, though, step out of the way and let your characters take over for a while.  You'll likely be very happily surprised.

10. Don't get caught up with writing analogies.
Do you want to know what writing is really like?  A box of chocolates?  Driving cross-country? Hiking the Appalachian Trail?

No.  Writing is like writing.  Period.


Have some others to add?  Let me know in the Comments!

World Book Night 2012

World Book Night 2012

A month or so ago I first read about World Book Night.  It's an amazing idea: allow book lovers to give books to people for free. 

Or, as the World Book Night website says:

"What is World Book Night?
World Book Night is an annual celebration designed to spread a love of reading and books. To be held in the U.S. as well as the U.K. and Ireland on April 23, 2012. It will see tens of thousands of people go out into their communities to spread the joy and love of reading by giving out free World Book Night paperbacks.

World Book Night, through social media and traditional publicity, will also promote the value of reading, of printed books, and of bookstores and libraries to everyone year-round."

The list of books they had chosen was impressive and included some of my favorites.  As part of the application process you had to choose your top three choices and include a brief paragraph on why you wanted to give away your top choice.  My top choice was Because of Winn-Dixie, a book by one of the authors I most respect, Kate DiCamillo.  It's a story of quietly deep characters told simply and with a clear, distinct voice.  Listening to the audio book, I was blown away by how elegant DiCamillo's writing was and how much restrained emotion it carried.

Last week I heard back from the World Book Night people saying I had been selected to be a book giver.  This means on April 23rd I'll be going to one of my local book stores and picking up 20 copies of a book.  My task then is to find 20 people to give them away to that night.

The interesting thing is that I don't know for certain what book I'll be getting (they've said they can't guarantee you'll get any of your top choices).  That means I won't be sure where I'll be going to give them away until that night. 

The 23rd of April is going to be a fun night.  My wife is just as excited as I am. 


-- Tom

On the Bus

Taz Lynx, an old and wise lynx who has seen a lot

"Are you grading papers?"

I looked up to see a young college student sitting perpendicular to me on the bus.  A large, wheeled suitcase was in front of him and a hand-crocheted quilt sat in his lap.  He was clearly heading home for the holidays.

Strewn across my lap were two versions of the first chapter to my manuscript.  One was the version with Agent #4's extensive notes in the margins and my scrawled responses, revisions and placement arrows obliterating much of the white space on the page.  The other was a somewhat cleaner version of the subsequent revised text.  And while fewer scrawling notes and arrows covered those pages, it isn't  hard to tell I'm still not entirely happy with what I've written.

"No," I responded.  "It's my blankety-blankety-blank* manuscript."

"Oh, what are you writing?"

"It's a fantasy, steampunkish kids book set in Victorian London," I said.  Then, giving in to the feeling of having to explain why, as a middle-aged guy, I'm writing a book for kids, I added, "I used to be a children's librarian."  And then, because I really didn't want to talk about my blankety-blankety-blank manuscript I told him the somewhat amusing story of when I decided I was going to become a published author.  (If nothing else, I do try to be entertaining.)

"The thing is," I said, "writing is a heckuva lot harder than it seems.  In fact, I think writing is about 10% writing and 90% editing, revising, re-revising and re-re-revising."

"But you must enjoy it?" he asked, pointing to the piles of printed imagination and effort in my lap.

I sighed.

"I used to," I said.  "I spent six months working with an agent and I really did enjoy revising the story because I knew I was making it better.  Now I'm working with another agent who uncovered such a fundamental flaw in the storytelling that I have to completely rewrite everything."

He raised an eyebrow, wanting the dirt on my story.

"She pointed out that my main character is only my main character for the first few pages," I said, deciding to share my annoyance with my own spectacular lack of craft.  "After I introduce the eccentric, charismatic professor character and the stoic butler, my main character quickly moves into the background.  That's not what a main character is supposed to do."

He nodded.  "Doesn't sound like a quick fix," he said, echoing one of my beta readers and oldest friends who had first pointed this out to me months ago.

"Thanks.  Like I couldn't figure that bit of FAIL out for myself," I thought, not for the twentieth time.

"At this point, I'd really just like it all to be over with," I admitted.

The bus stopped alongside Wolfpack University and he collected his things.  "Well, good luck," he said.

"Thanks."

__________________ . . . __________________

The thing is, I've spent the past three or four months wallowing in self-pity about the so-called writing "talent" that went into producing such a majorly flawed story and growing increasingly tired of the tantrums being thrown in my head over the scope of the changes that need to be written into my manuscript.

With my self-imposed deadline of "by the end of the year" to have something presentable, I finally decided to take it in manageable segments: five pages a day.  Surely, I can do five friggin' pages a day, right?  And considering I only have to get the first 50 pages back to Agent #4, that's only ten days of work.  Can't I stop whining long enough to do that one, small thing?

As it turns out, I can.  More or less.  Events conspire to run interference with those five pages (there is this Christmas thing coming up, you know) but I think I finally have a working first chapter that I'm happy with -- as long as I don't think about the opening paragraphs, that is.

So, while I'm not to the point of enjoying the process of making my story even stronger, I am begrudgingly happy with the progress that I've been making.  And while I truly would like this all to be over with, I wholeheartedly acknowledge that this is something that I'm going to have to earn.  And while I may be annoyed with myself and parts of the process, I'm willing to do the work to earn it.


--- Tom

__________________________________________

* Yes, I actually said "blankety-blankety-blank" rather than a potentially more colorful choice of words.  I didn't know this guy and I was on a public bus.

Writing Away the Idea of Instant Perfection

Even my favorite bobcat in the entire world, Robert de Fargo, gets tired 
of hearing me drone on and on about my writing insecurities.

"Practice makes perfect, but nobody's perfect, so why practice?"

George Carlin

"Practice, practice makes perfect.  Perfect is a fault and fault lines change..."

R.E.M. (from I Believe)

When I was a kid I believed a writer sitting down and wrote, in one sitting, exactly the words I was reading.  A book was such a perfect thing, the words each just so and working so effortlessly together, that of course the process of creating such a written work must be just as effortless.  Writing, to my mind, must be as simple and as weightless a thing as breathing.

My first attempts at writing a book showed some flaws in this thinking but, then again, I wasn't a real writer then, was I?  I was just a kid.  Surely there must be some all-but-magical rite of initiation a real writer went through to be given the power of producing exquisite prose with each stroke of his fountain pen.

It wasn't until many years later that I found Anne Lamott's essential guide for writers, Bird by Bird.  One of the Great Truths of Writing she provides there is to give yourself permission to write what she refers to as "$h*††¥ first drafts".  Here's a quote from the book:

"Now, practically even better news than that of short assignments is the idea of sh*tty first drafts. All good writers write them. This is how they end up with good second drafts and terrific third drafts. People tend to look at successful writers who are getting their books published and maybe even doing well financially and think that they sit down at their desks every morning feeling like a million dollars, feeling great about who they are and how much talent they have and what a great story they have to tell; that they take in a few deep breaths, push back their sleeves, roll their necks a few times to get all the cricks out, and dive in, typing fully formed passages as fast as a court reporter. But this is just the fantasy of the uninitiated. I know some very great writers, writers you love who write beautifully and have made a great deal of money, and not one of them sits down routinely feeling wildly enthusiastic and confident. Not one of them writes elegant first drafts. All right, one of them does, but we do not like her very much. We do not think that she has a rich inner life or that God likes her or can even stand her."

I have come to realize that writing is about 10% writing and 90% re-writing, revising, editing and re-writing some more.  Unfortunately, I find it very easy to forget to give myself permission to write $h*††¥ drafts at every stage of that re-writing process, wherever it's necessary.  Instead, lately, I've spent weeks staring at my opening paragraphs with a mixture of self-loathing, fear, and immobilizing panic that has not only stifled any thoughts of creativity but has dug deep into my self-confidence about being able to write.

Fun, huh?

To make matters in my head worse, I keep reading blog entries by successful authors who have new books coming out -- a dream that seems to only get further and further out of my reach.  (Thank God for Kate Dicamillo's Facebook page where she admits to the same kind of fears and insecurities I have.  Considering she is someone whose prose seems so effortlessly mixed with poetry, I have to admit to a quiet sense of relief every time I read one of her posts.)

Today on the bus I decided to give up on the ideal of opening paragraph perfection to the point of skipping over them altogether.  I moved straight on to Page Two and gave it a hyper-critical eye.  And decided it wasn't nearly as bad as I had thought it was.  It's still in need of extensive re-writes, but it's not unsalvageable, utter garbage.

That's a start.


-- Tom

Thanks. Giving.

Maggie, Who Knows Better

The US version of Thanksgiving is tomorrow. Traditionalists like to think this is the day when we all gather to give thanks for the things we have in this life.  They fail to remember that the original Thanksgiving ended with the pilgrims giving the indians a thanks-for-coming gift of all of their old, smallpox-infested blankets, thereby wiping out the friendly native people without whom they all would have died in their first winter in the new world.

Oh, and the turkey?  Think deer, lobsters, eels, swans and the like.  And forget anything sweet -- the pilgrims had long run out of sugar by the time their three-day feast took place.

That's not what I came here to talk about today.  I came to talk about the draft (sorry, wrong Thanksgiving story) the need to remind myself that I should be thankful and not be such a huge whiny brat when it comes to my writing and, in particular, The Book.

Thanks to Agent #4 (see? I'm being thankful already!) I have a good idea of the major flaws in The Book.  Knowing this, I can now see that The Book needs such a thorough revision as to all but scrap the last year's worth of revisions, strip the story down to the bare framework and restart from there. It's another Learning and Growth Opportunity in my Chosen Career as a Writer.

Only I'm so annoyed with the process and stuck as to how to go about it that I've been all but paralyzed where writing is concerned for the past, oh, four months? 

In my last email exchange with Agent #4 I said I would have something to her by the end of December.  Thankfully, (see, still thankful here!) I still have just over a month to get back to writing. 

Enjoy the holiday.  Stay safe and nap regularly. 


-- Tom

My Choice in Publishing

Ra Lion, glaring at me at Conservators' Center

A few weeks back a writer friend of mine brought me into an email thread she had started.  With all of the publishing options available, she wanted to know what we each thought about the choices and which one we would choose and why.

After some very interesting responses, I suggested we pool our opinions and blogs to collectively blog about this topic, all on the same day.  Thus, the "My Choice in Publishing" Blogday was born.  (as was the #MyChoiceInPublishing hashtag)

After you finish reading my take on the subject there's a list of other writers who are blogging today with their opinions and reasons for their choice.  Please read along and join in the conversation!

______________________________________

 When I was a kid I was in a book discussion group at the largest library in town.  I spent a lot of time both in that library and the one that was walking distance from my parent's house.  Even though I had my favorite sections of those libraries, I'd still spent time just wandering through the shelves, looking at row after row of spines, reading the titles and seeing which ones might catch my imagination.  I clearly remember being about ten or eleven and scanning the shelves in the children's section and thinking that getting a book published must be one of the best things life has to offer.

Once, this meant having your book accepted by a publisher who liked what you had written.  Eventually, that changed and to reach the biggest publishers you need an agent to help you find the right editor at the right publishing house.  Now, there's the additional option of being able to publish your book yourself with many built-in channels of distribution available to get your book in front of the book buying public. 

With so many choices, what's a writer to do?

This writer has thought about all three options and decided to go the Traditional Publishing route.  For me, that means finding an agent for my book who try to sell it to a big publishing house for a cut of my payments from said publisher.  Here's why:

Here's my perspective on things from the writer's side of things:

* I believe traditional publishing is still seen as a gatekeeper for some degree of quality. I believe most of the book-buying public wants to know my writing and my story have been vetted by people knowledgable with the craft.

In order for a no-name, first-time author like me to get published by the bigger publishing houses, my manuscript is going to be currently being heavily edited by an agent before s/he starts shopping it around to editors.  Even when my manuscript gets sold to an editor, that editor is going to want to put his/her mark on my manuscript with some editing 'suggestions' as well.  In short: my published story is going to be as good as an agent and a well-experienced editor believes it can be before it hits the shelves.


* An agent typically earns a 15% commission on the books they sell.  In exchange for that 15% I get an expert in the publishing business who will match my manuscript with the right publishing house and the right editor; I'll get an advocate in the contract negotiation process, someone who knows the ins & outs of contract language, what to expect and what clauses need to be added removed and will fight for me to get the best financial deal possible; I'll get someone who will manage the course of my book while I get back to the business of writing; I'll also get someone who will help me with career guidance and advice, someone who is a advocate for me and my writing career.

Personally, I think that's worth at least 15%.


* By working with a traditional publisher, I will get a professional team to work on making my book look as professional as possible.  My text will be gone over by an actual proof-reader who will make sure words are spelled correctly and my grammer is correct.  Someone in the production department will carefully map out the page layouts.  Someone will be in charge of the design of my book.  A professional artist will be assigned to create the cover art.

In short, the finished work I will hold in my hand and will work to sell will look like a professionally produced book because it is a professionally produced book. 



* Self-publishing, regardless of format, would require me to spend considerably more time selling my book.  In fact, I would likely end up spending more of my time selling myself and my book as I would spend writing my next book.  Sure, traditional publishing requires me to balance writing with selling as well, but the traditional publishing model comes with a publishing house's publicity department behind it.  That publicity department can, at the very least, help me out with some promotional materials, ideas on how and where to promote myself and will work to get my book on bookstore shelves and listed online.

With self-publishing, I would be completely on my own when it comes to marketing your book.

From my years as an elementary school librarian, I know I can put on a good show and entertain people at a book signing.  However, there's a big difference between that and doing all of the sales and publicity work necessary to sell a book in a competitive market.  I know as a first-time author, I will be expected to put forth more effort than a previously-published author, but I should still have some publishing house support behind those promotions.


What are your thoughts on traditional publishing vs self-publishing?  What made you decide one way or the other?  Or, if you are still undecided, what are your thoughts either way?


And, now that you've read my take on this, how about reading what some other writers think?  Below is the list of my fellow writers/bloggers who are posting Their Choice in Publishing today.  Stop by their blogs and read what they have to say!


Heather Kelly: Edited to Within an Inch of My Life
Kristine Asselin Writing. For Real.
Lynn Kelley Lynn Kelley: LynNerd's Random Acts of Writing.
Ansha Kotyk Ansha's Blog - A Writer's View of the World
Tina Laurel Lee Tina Laurel Lee: Watch Me Practice
Anita Laydon Miller Anita Laydon Miller's Middle Grade Blog
Tom M. Franklin Franklin, Ink

-- Tom

Why You Should Write What You Love

Reno Bobcat

"Write what you love" is not only a writerly-advice cliche but it's also one of those no-brainer ideas that makes immediate sense to most people.  After all, why would I want to spend my time writing something I didn't love?

Well, money was my reason.

Here's what happened:  Back when I started writing seriously I read a lot of books about how you should pitch your book to an agent.  Most of these books included sections on both fiction and non-fiction.  Even though I'm a MG fiction writer I was interested in reading  how the other half pitched as well.  And, as I read those sections on non-fiction book proposals, the seeds of an idea started taking hold in my head.

The one thing I read over and over again was (as the Postkeepers detail) the need for a pre-existing platform, or your current way of reaching your audience of potential, future book-buyers.

For 16+ years my wife and I had been doing Arts and Craft Shows, spending many a weekend driving to shows, setting ups, dealing with displays, customers, the weather, credit card machines, wonderfully pleasant/horribly obnoxious neighbors, then breaking down and driving home again.  I had noticed there were no books on getting into the Arts and Craft Show business and with all of my experience, I figured I could be the person to write just such a book to fill that need.

I sat down during a lull in a three-day weekend show and started writing a list of potential topics to write about.  If I could come up with 100 topics, I figured I had something.  I would start writing a blog about doing Arts and Craft Shows to (a) develop my platform and (b) serve as first drafts for the content of the book.

I came up with 120 without working too hard.  So I bought a catchy domain name ("The Art of the Craft Show"), installed WordPress, and started writing blog entries.

At the time,  however, I was completely burned out on doing craft shows.  I was tired of the weekends spent making jewelry, the weekends spent doing shows, the constant worry about the weather, the national economy, the local economy, the dwindling sales, and a host of other factors that were completely out of our control.

In short, I hated craft shows.

I suppose I was the only one who was surprised to find that I also hated writing about craft shows.

Or, that after four months of trying to write even short sections of a book that I had a good chance of actually selling, I gave up on it.  Writing those blog entries became worse than work, worse than even doing craft shows.  They required an enthusiasm and energy that I could not fake.  Despite getting a few regular commenters, within weeks I found I was starting to resent the whole project and actively dreaded the day of the week I had chosen to write/post new articles.

Eventually, any time I sat down to try and write the black cloud that had become The Art of the Craft Show settled over me, all-but dooming my MG fiction work.  Didn't I have an TAotCS blog entry that needed to be written?  Why not try to crank out a couple of them so I'd have a weekly posting backlog to carry me through a month or two?  (Even trying that didn't work.)

As much work as your writing takes, it deserves your full attention, your love and your devotion.  Doing otherwise won't fool anyone, especially yourself and your writing.


-- Tom

Accompanying Photographs

Diego Lynx

I have read several places online about the importance of making sure that any photographs you include in your blog postings should match what you're writing about.  If you're writing about frustrations with the writing process, find a photograph with a frustrated writer or someone beating up their computer.  Writing about chocolate? Show pictures of chocolate.  Writing about the ruins of an English monastery?  Show photographs of the ruins of an English monastery.

To help with this, there are countless sites offering stock photography for you to use.  For the most part, you find the stock image site of your choice, enter a keyword search and you can find a free image you can use to give your blog entry a bit of pizazz.

Here's the thing, though: I find stock images on blog posts to be really annoying.

This is primarily because I'm a photographer.  I decided back when I started blogging that I would only blog provided I posted one of my images along with the writing.  I didn't care if the image had anything to do with the written content, only that I liked the image and thought it was good enough to share publicly.  This got me in the habit of having to carry my camera with me and working on my photography.

The photographs I use with my blog are just another part of me.  They show another part of my life, another part of my creative side.

I know this is my choice and not everyone has the interest in doing this for their own blog.  That's fine.  Part of me, though, still sees the generic photos that accompany many blog posts out there as being akin to a Hallmark greeting card attached to their personally crafted content.


What do you think of generic, stock photographs being used on blogs?  Do you like them?  Do you care one way or the other?


-- Tom

Maintaining Enthusiasm During Yet Another Round of Revisions

Ra Lion in a box.  (Seriously, how cute is that?)

Last week I wrote out drafts for several posts outlining my Adventure with Agents thus far.  It's a multi-part series and one that I'm awaiting The Happy Ending to before posting.

I mention this because I'm back in the Deep End of the Revision Pool.  This time I'm working with a Different Agent who has asked for (surprise!) revisions.   She feels my MC is not only overshadowed by the strong personalities surrounding him, but he also feels a bit under-defined in general.  She's like to see my MC better defined.

In our initial phone conversation she referred to the changes she was requesting as being "deep rooted."  In a way, I suppose they are.  To me, though, bringing out my MC more sounds far less daunting than, say, revising the storyline because the plot doesn't hold together.  I know my MC well enough so writing more of his perspective and reactions shouldn't be too difficult.

The problem, though, is one of restoring the proper enthusiasm for the revision.  Weeks ago I had jumped back into BOOK #2 revising it to bring it to the standards developed over the last set of major revisions.  (Interestingly, most of those revisions were putting the story squarely within my MC's head)  I did this because I had considered BOOK #1 to be done.  Now, to re-open BOOK #1 and start re-re-re-re-tinkering with it yet again feels a bit exhausting.

A large part of this has to do with it all being done, once again, on spec.  The whole Not Really An Agreement Agreement is frustrating.  It's not that I don't understand the reasoning behind it:  Different Agent doesn't know me or the extent of my writing abilities and she doesn't feel the manuscript is at a point now where she can make me an offer of representation.  And, yes, I completely understand that  Different Agent is investing her time and energy without any guarantee as well.  It's just that, from my side of the monitor, I feel like I'm being pushed back onto the tightrope, blindfolded, and about to expend a great deal of effort, not knowing if I'll reach the other side safely or be knocked off by a gust of wind halfway across.

One good sign: Different Agent has responded to a variety of questions from me with the kind of prompt professionalism and encouragement that gives me hope.  She's even handled my overly-cautious-afraid-to-trust-again inquiries and statements without telling me, "Okay, I get it.  Now knock it off."   (To be fair, I did try to head that one off by sending an apologetic, "Honestly, I'm usually not this high maintenance!" email)


What are you working on and where are you with it?  Any surprises along the way?  Do you wish for surprises?


-- Tom