What are You Saying?

Due to the hard work of Rebecca Talley and a slue of other authors at Cedar Fort, we've started a new blog. Today was my day and I introduced myself- going on far too long. Oh well. If you want to check it out its called The Writer's Fortress.

I also blog on ANWA every other Saturday. I thought I was sooo clever because I asked for the alternate Saturday so I'd blog every Friday night, switching from one to the other. Well, so like me I got the dates mixed up and now do them both on the same Saturday. There I talked about rejection. I seem to be a real expert on that subject lately. Here is the ANWA blog.

Have a great day. Now I'm going to plant the flowers I bought two weeks ago and have been eking onto life, waiting for me to get in gear. See ya!

WaHoo, a Contract! What a Blessing

I got an unexpected email today from Jennifer Fielding, the acquisitions editor for CFI. For Enrichment Meeting a few weeks ago I wrote a fun little poem about a stressed out Mom who has an angel appear to her and ask if she can take over his job for one day. Since I was emailing Jennifer about another project, I decided to include the poem.

Well, she emailed back and said they would like to use it for a small gift book around Mother's day. I say "Awesome." See, good things come from accepting new callings even if they won't release you from cub scouts and you're given a board the size of a small town to manage. I think that's called blessings.

Amazon, Rejection and Editing

So I entered the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. I wrote my entire entry in less than a month, because I had a plot bouncing around in my head that was fun and would need little research. When I entered it, I knew it was a little rough but it was a great story and turned out really well.

If you don't know already, I was kicked out during the first round. Ugh. Yesterday I got the reviews and was surprised. Apparently, they liked the story too. The problem was that it wasn't clean copy. So guess what I'm doing this summer. Working on editing, line by line.

I don't know if there is any other way. With my last submission I put it through two writers groups, read it at least ten times and still missed a comma or two. That is something I really need to take more seriously because I know clean copy makes a huge difference.

If your interested, here's what the reviewers said:


Reviewer #1-

I feel like this could be a good story. The plot is interesting, and the pacing is good. I don't feel bogged down with descriptions or a big set-up that just goes on and on.

However, the writing isn't fantastic. There are a few odd word choices - "straddled" where I think the author means "saddled" and a "that" where I think it needs to be a "who", and several places that I would change the sentence structure to feel more natural. There are many unclear antecedents. Several sentences need either another word or a comma, or need to be split up. I mention this only because a well-written story is much easier to stay "lost in." Bad grammar and odd word structure pulls me out, as I start editing rather than reading.

Aside from the errors, it all just feels like it needed one more read-through to polish it up before it was submitted. There's a slight stilted feel to some of the conversations; a need for more contractions or a feel for how people really speak.

I would imagine that some of this could be fixed with a good editor, but I also feel that submissions should be as good as can be if someone's trying to win an award.

With some grammatical help, though, I think the story could be a good one. It's interesting, moves well, and has potential.



Reviewer #2-

This seems to be the beginning of a political/legal thriller. The writer has established some interesting characters, given them some background through the use of a prologue and gotten the action and mystery off to a good start in this brief excerpt. There has been so much action in these few pages that it is a bit confusing at this point but that will most likely be resolved in the next few pages.

The writer has done a very good job with these beginning pages, if the rest of the novel continues in this vein this should be a very exciting novel.

10,000 Hours of Practice

Dr. Daniel Levitin has figure out that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert. That's 20 hours a week for ten years. I figure I only started writing seriously two years ago but I've spent far more than twenty hours many weeks and completed at least first drafts on three more projects in the last six months.

One of these was The Amazon Break-Through Novel Award. It had come and gone, and I was eliminated. Bummer. A few people I know made it to the next round, but I can take solace in the fact that it may have just been a bad synopsis and excerpt and not the book in general.

Speaking of synopses (plural for synopsises) I have been working on one for my rejected manuscript of "An Angel in the Family." I'm preparing it for a pitch with Deseret as we speak. Cross fingers. I've got a few more weeks to get it in and then the rest of this month to get the manuscripts squeaky clean before I sit before the great Editor and try to sell it face to face.

Lipstick Wars is still waning in cyberspace, on vacation from thought but not forgotten. If only I had more time or perhaps used the time I had more efficiently. Good things are in the future so I guess I'll just keep chipping away at that ten thousand hours and eventually I'll get there or at least enjoy the journey.

Why Do Bad Things Come in Threes... or Fours

Yesterday was an awful day. It just was. Our house was supposed to sell and the buyers backed out last minute. I got an email telling me that my next book was rejected from church headquarters for copyright and that I have to bring 44 quotes down to 10-- its killing me!!! And I was supposed to go to a baptism with a teenager who was investigating the gospel, but we walked in as they were closing the font doors and the missionaries looked like they wanted to kill me- well, maybe only beat me up really badly. It was a bad day.

I wish life was fair, that when you have a really stinky day like that the next day is filled with incredibly happy successes like a publisher from Harper Collins happened to read my little fragment on Hatrack and offered me a million dollar advance to write it or that the last four years of my tax refunds were miscalculated and I really should receive twice as much back-- or maybe just that someone really wants to buy my house.

So today instead of finishing the manuscript and sending it back to church headquarters or finishing the taxes which are still hanging over my head or working on my next manuscript which I really want to have completed within two months to boost my first book sales, I played literi on yahoo for a couple hours and won almost every game! Then I called three of my sisters and four old friends long distance, gabbing happily for hours catching up on the news, our children, and life in general. As the children bounded through the door home from school, each kissed me on the cheek before running outside or upstairs. I have to admit it was a pretty great day to be surrounded by that much love. I know I couldn't possibly afford to spend every day just playing around, but now and then I think everyone needs a day where they simply enjoy life. All the responsibilities will still be there waiting for me tomorrow but for today it was nice to let it all go.

And it almost offset yesterday- almost.

Idealism vs. Pragmatism in the Publishing World

Years ago I heard a story about Abraham Lincoln that has stuck with me. During his early political career as a statesman, Lincoln became frustrated with the unwise decisions of a collegue who had recently been voted as state treasurer. Specifically, the man, a Mr. Shields, I think, made a rule that state taxes would only be accepted in gold or silver and not the paper money issued by the state. The irony of the situation made for easy attack and Lincoln wrote some scathing letters to the local newspaper under a psuedonym. Others added their feelings also incognito and the whole thing snowballed into a vicious attack of the man's character. Sheilds was so offended he demanded of the editor who started it and Abraham Lincoln's name was divulged. The man challenged Lincoln to a duel which was cancelled at the last minute but since that time, Lincoln vowed he would be more careful with his words, realizing their power.

The unsubstantiated part of the story (and if anyone finds out if its really true, I'd appreciate a resource) is that when Lincoln had sensitive things to say he would often write one letter with his true feelings in plain English and keep that copy for himself and then write another gentle, well-crafted letter to send out to the world.

As idealistic, unpaid writers we often live in a world of passion, fantasy or twisted fiction far from the realms of paid technical writers. As we create our prose, we sometimes grow a sweet attachment to the cleverness of our plots but in so doing relegate them to be forever archived or to sit unnoticed on Snippets or some other sites where no one really reads them.

This was me. Then one of my sisters (I have seven) read my manuscript and made a suggestion to make it more marketable i.e. take out the entire plot and make the subplot the book. At first I was offended, how could I destroy my masterpiece? A few months later after thirteen rejections I bent and it sold! What a surprise. I felt excited but shaken at the same time.

A few weeks later one of my past missionary companions from Scotland who I haven't seen in twenty years somehow found the original version on Snippets and loved it. She encouraged me to keep it and I thought of Abraham Lincoln.

Recently I've been doing a lot of research on C. S. Lewis and I found out that he hated writing nonfiction. "Mere Christianity", "The Problem with Pain", "The Great Divorce" were more obligations. While writing the "Screwtape Letters" he confessed that he hated what it did to his soul and would not write a sequel. Even "The Chronicles of Narnia" weren't his favorite work. No, he liked fiction...and perhaps most ironic of all the man who had difficulty with simple math and disliked science as a rule, loved to write science fiction. "Paralandrea" was one of his personal favorites, which very few C. S. Lewis fans have ever read. "Til We have Faces" which was his biggest flop, was the book he claimed to be his very best. There is even some question whether these books would have been published at all if C. S. Lewis hadn't pragmatically bent from his first love of poetry (like Elder Maxwell he wanted to be a poet) and write that which the public was reading.

As writer's we often are driven to write what is in our hearts but sometimes the result is not very marketable. On the other hand, if we stifle that creative muse within us, we can lose the power of our unique voice- the very thing that makes our writing meaningful. Perhaps, Lincoln didn't have a bad idea. Go and write your heart's desire. Do you BIAM. Then turn around and look what is selling. Can you take a current work and shift it into something marketable? If not, can you find a project that fills a hole or enter a contest or write a magazine article. Anything to strenghten your portfolio.

Hopefully, if you balance your writing efforts between the idealistic and the pragmatic you can create a big enough name to release your real dreams on the world like C. S. Lewis did. Even though many didn't read his favorite books, I did and both stories lifted me and opened my eyes. I love "Til We Have Faces" best and if you have self-esteem issues (feel fat or ugly) you've got to read it. It starts out slow but the last chapter is life changing!

I believe, maybe idealistically, that most writers long to be read. That is why we write, it is part of the drive and I hope that those who are willing to pay the price will do what it takes to become part of the "conversation of humanity"- even when the price is bending not morally but perhaps artistically. It isn't unethical to do so, only pragmatic.