Self-publishing disappointment
http://accrispin.blogspot.com/2011/03/why-your-self-publishing-service.html
Writer Beware (a group that exposes those who are scamming innocent/ignorant writers) often hears from self-published authors who are convinced they’re being ripped off by their self-publishing services–but it’s more likely that their expectations were unrealistic.
Kids, major publishers aren’t out to gleefully reject you – they WANT to publish good books. They’re just aware that the market is lacking. Self-publishing is certainly not going to change that fact.
And here’s a picture of a cat, as per usual – but with a bonus baby and CJ, as our family gets used to one another:
Contractions, Clients, and Concerts
I’m still having contractions. It’s been more than four days. I predicted that I’d ride the high of ,”Yay! Something is happening!” for three days, and that’s about right. Now I’m back in the zone familiar to all late-term pregnant women, where it seems that the pregnancy has lasted and will last forever and ever amen. The hours of helpless nausea and fatigue crawl by.
On the up side, my sister arrives in town tomorrow: the last member of the labour A-Team.
Things one shouldn’t say to a pregnant woman in her eighth month:
1. Get some rest now – you’ll need it
Not only is this actually a fancy way of saying, “Things are about to get much, much worse” it’s also stupid. Thanks to the miracle of pregnancy, it’s already been months since I slept more than four months at a time. Right now it’s 4am and I’m being punished with insomnia (right at the hour hunger – and thus nausea – kicks in due to the pregnant metabolism) because of daring to have a one-hour nap this afternoon, when hormones had me so tired I could barely sit up or keep my eyes open. As far as my body is concerned, that level of tiredness is now normal and must be endured rather than dealt with.
2. Speaking of labour, let me tell you MY horrifically traumatic labour/early parenthood experience.
Take your issues to a professional.
—————————————————————————————————
Today’s article has some charming tales of clients from USA agent Kristin Nelson.
PS If you live in Canberra, check out this series of free orchestral performances happening between the 14th and the 21st of this month (take a gold coin so you can make a donation at the door if you want to make some kind of contribution).
How good are your chances?
I’m a big fan of US agent Kristin Nelson’s blog, and one of the things I love is her transparency. If you look here and here, you can get a good idea of how many queries, samples, and full manuscripts get to the next stage at her agency. She is a successful agent with a strong web presence, so I imagine she gets more queries than the norm – but I also think she has the capacity to accept more books than a tiny agency. Therefore, I think the rate of these statistics gives a good general idea of how difficult it is to get an agent in the USA.
Getting an agent is not at all the same thing as getting published, but I think your chances of getting published with an agent are about 80% – more for someone of Kristin’s calibre. Which is a huge amount compared to the 1 in 10,000 shot of the average unpublished novel.
The Foldaway Office
I’ve linked to Brass Bolts before. It always has the most gorgeous pictures. The most recent article is on the steampunk office. My personal favourite is this one, for reasons that I think are perfectly obvious:
Conflict
Lynn Price of the Behler Blog wrote a great article on conflict, beginning with: “Day in and day out, I reject queries because they have no discernible conflict. Conflict is what keeps readers turning the pages.”
She then went on to talk about writers who think they’ve got conflict – but don’t. Read the article and get better at writing.
Or just gaze at a sleeping cat*. Whatever.
*Which is, technically, how I’m spending my weekend. But CJ and I are both sick, so we have an excuse.
National Novel Writing Month (PG mild swearing)
National Novel Writing Month (generally called NaNoWriMo – and of course it’s international, not national) happens in November each year. It is a heady and caffeinated time when thousands of writers around the world attempt to write an entire novel (or at least the first 50,000 words) in one month. That requires an average rate of over 1600 words a day.
I’ve done it myself, more than once – successfully, I might add – and I don’t think the resulting novels were any worse than the rest of my books (make of that what you will). But it is important to note that the massive emotional high of the winners (if you complete your 50,000 words, you win) has led to many headaches for agents and publishers around the world.
Kids, do NaNoWriMo. It’s awesome. But for the love of all that is pure and good in the world, don’t send it anywhere in December. Or January. Or February. Maybe by March (especially if you do National Novel Editing Month – fifty hours of editing in the month of March each year) it will be okay. MAYBE.
Never forget: Your odds of publishing your finished book with a reputable publisher are about 1 in 10,000. Don’t be such a moron that you think finishing a first draft means you’re some kind of genius and can defy the odds without any more work. NaNoWriMo is mostly good for giving you a sense of how long 50,000 words is (NB: a lot shorter than most books, unless it’s for children) – so you have a better sense of what you’re doing next time. It happens to work well for me, because I already spend 90% of my writing time editing. THINK about how many hours that 90% is, and you’ll have an idea of how unfinished your “finished” book is on December 1st.
Here‘s an article by the M-rated Chuck Wendig (who has a wicked way with words). And here’s the bit that I think is the most important:
The one flaw in NaNoWriMo (and why it sometimes earns the ire of professional writers) is that it kind of floods the marketplace a little bit. November 30th rolls around and suddenly you have a world with thousands of new novels birthed screaming into an unkind world, and while that remains a truly sublime act of creation, it also means that you have a lot of writers who don’t have the sense of a tree grub, and these writers decide to abdicate their own sense of work and responsibility by throwing their unformed fetal drafts into the world. They choke the inboxes of agents and editors with their protoplasmic snot-waffle novels and they think, “Gee golly gosh, I’m a real writer now!” Except, they’re not. They’re rosy-cheeked, empty-eyed shitheads. Don’t be that shithead. Don’t just loose your garbage onto an unsuspecting world (which creates more work for agents and editors who already have a hard time finding diamonds in a sewage tank). Take time. Polish your work. Give it six months. Give it a year. Give the novel the air it needs to breathe. Give yourself, as a self-serious novelist, time to realize when this book is ready to roll or (a bigger and more mature revelation) that this book just isn’t “the one” — and that it’s time to write another better book, a book that doesn’t beg to be written only from November 1st to November 30th, a book that can be written whenever your fluttering wordmonkey heart so desires.
Show and Tell
One of the best pieces of writing advice is “Show, don’t tell”. For a tiny example, here is telling:
Bob was sad.
And showing:
Bob swallowed hard, but the tears spilled over all the same.
The second shows character (he is trying to resist crying, and failing) and is unique to Bob. That makes it more interesting. It also draws in the reader with sensory detail (we see the tears).
The same principle applies on a much grander scale. Some examples of bad writing include:
Bob was tough. (No! Show him being tough with an entire scene. And then again whenever a situation is likely to bring out his toughness.)
Bob grew up poor. (Generally this is best shown by his actions – does he always carefully count and recount his change? Does he wear his Armani suits until they literally wear out?)
And so on.
You’ll notice “show, don’t tell” ups your word count by a huge amount (it’s very much something you fix in editing, rather than stopping every three seconds in your first draft to ask, “But HOW is he sad?”)
It IS possible, however, to show too much. It’s unlikely anyone cares exactly what colour your heroine’s hair is (you can say “mousy” instead of “brown” if you like – or leave the hair colour to the imagination), especially if you’ve just spent a paragraph each on the exact shade of her eyes and the exact shade of her dress. It’s very unlikely anyone cares about the history of the taxi driver who takes her to the airport (unless he’s integral to the plot, interesting, AND the taxi conversation shows the heroine’s character or brings up a central conflict).
Today’s article link is to Lynn Price at the Behler blog, who writes:
The biggest problem I see is authors who don’t know when and how to use show. There are plenty of times when a character can simply cross a room without it taking up five paragraphs. Same for the piece of cake. The trick is to utilize show at the right time…when the scene allows for it.
Punishing Publishers
I say it over and over, but it’s worth repeating: Publishers are not mighty conglomerates run by white men getting fat off authors and laughing gleefully as they reject new work. They’re businesses that rely on an extremely unpredictable market, and sometimes even the giants fall. Also, they’re run mainly by women.
So please, let go of the myth of the major publisher as a baddie. That just makes new writers more vulnerable to scams and foolish decisions.
Some readers also try to punish publishers by boycotting certain books. John Scalzi says please don’t.
Versatile Blogger Award
I am, according to General Happenings in my House, hereby awarded a Versatile Blogger award! Thank you 🙂
My duties, upon receiving this much-coveted honour, are as follows:
1) Thank the awarder by linking back to their blog;
2) Pass on this award to 15 recently discovered blogs and let them know I have done so;
3) List 7 things about myself.
Here are some great blogs (in no particular order):
1) Ripping Ozzie Reads – an accomplished group of Australian specfic writers (including Richard Harland, Rowena Cory Daniells, and Margo Lanagan) share their know-how.
2) Pub Rants – pub as in “publishing”. This is the blog of a US agent – again, lots of great advice.
3) KT Literary blog – another US agent (in fact, she is friends with # 2).
4) Nathan Bransford – US ex-agent and children’s author (again with the advice). He also runs great forums.
5) The Intern – this time it’s a US ex-intern, but her advice is still excellent (more on writing, less on the industry).
6) Behler Blog – this time it’s a US editorial director giving free industry help.
7) Writer Beware – there are a LOT of scams out there designed to prey on writers. This blog investigates, then tells the horrible truth.
8) Call My Agent! – more industry advice, but this time from an anonymous Sydney agent.
9) Terrible Minds – advice, interviews, and very rude rants from author Chuck Wendig.
10) Slushpile Hell – when a writer needs a little more sarcasm in their day.
11) Brass Bolts – a steampunk writer blogs about steampunk (the pics are especially good).
12) Trial by Steam – steampunk articles and events.
13) Multiculturalism for Steampunk – a seriously excellent and well-researched steampunk niche blog.
14) Antipodean Steampunk Adventures – an Australian steampunk who actually builds his own stuff.
15) Blue Milk – a feminist blog on motherhood (not always safe for work).
Well! That list certainly answers the question, “So, Louise, what do you do all day?”
Now for seven things about myself:
1) Umm. . . I attempted my first novel when I was seven years old (it was about a family of cats – naturally).
2) My mum read the Narnia series in hospital after giving birth to me (I’m re-reading it at the moment).
3) I speak semi-fluent Indonesian, and once considered marrying an Indonesian man I was close to.
4) I leave the curtains open until dark most nights in case the sunset is pretty.
5) Only one of my grandparents is still alive, and he is not well.
6) I can juggle.
7) I have pre-ordered “Goliath” by Scott Westerfeld; the third book in his brilliant YA steampunk trilogy (“Leviathan” is the name of the first book).
Thank you and good evening!
Kill your darlings, and maim your friends
“Kill your darlings” is a great piece of writing advice from various people (including William Faulkner and Stephen King) recommending that you edit out all your most precious turns of phrase, and leave your work stronger.
“Maim your friends” is my personal advice on causing the maximum pain (and, just as importantly, danger of more pain) for your characters. (Sidebar: A couple of writers, like Robin Hobb, take it too far for me to ever re-read them. Most don’t take it far enough.) It hurts to do horrible things to characters you love – but it’s necessary. Plus, it pretty much comes along with the “godlike powers” thing that us writers like so much.
Here‘s one of Chuck Wendig’s delightfully rude and abrasive articles – this time on hurting your precious characters.
And here’s someone who’s an expert at killing and maiming:
Felicity Banks 