Rachelle Gardner writes an excellent blog and you should be reading it regularly. She delves into her email box today to answer one of the questions we hear a lot.
She buries a nugget of absolute wisdom in her reply: You’re not going to get free writing advice
By free she doesn't mean you have to pay with money. But you'll have to pay with either time or money. You either hire an editor OR you invest time in finding and participating in a good critique group or attending classes and conferences. One or the other, maybe both, but not NONE of them.
The deafening silence from agents to whom you send queries is actually saying something: you're not close. If you look at those year end stats of mine, you'll see there are those who hear from me even if I'm not saying yes. If you aren't hearing that, you're not in the ballgame.
Rachelle Gardner is a smart agent. Listen to her.
Wednesday, January 06, 2010
Monday, January 04, 2010
word hooligans
I looked at those daunting stats for 2009 and realized I read a LOT of mss, maybe too many. Then I see Jennifer Jackson's (a fiercely talented agent and one of the Maass-keteers) blog post about her 2009 stats.
She read a LOT fewer than I did, and signed MORE clients. Harrumph!
Ok, I'm resolved: I'm holding firm; I'm toeing the line; I'm resolute. By GODIVA I will request LESS!
I brace myself at the e-query mailbox. I drape myself in righteousness. I hum a martial tune. I gird my - whatever you gird these days - for battle. I am READY.
I read a query. I read another. I say no with diligence. I march on, certain of my resolution, noble in my intent.
And then, from the tall grass, you pounce. You POUNCE! On ME!
Whatever girding there was falls to the wayside.
The martial tune breaks off.
My resolve isn't so much resolved as dissolved.
How am I supposed to resist good pages?? I ask you, how am I to fend off your siren song of prose.
I drape myself across the keyboard and feebly tap out: SEND FULL.
You pouncing prosers are word hooligans of the worst sort. You lie in wait for us unsuspecting readers. You disarm us with your stories, arrest us with your similes, defeat us with your diction.
You take no prisoners, you vanquish us with your verbiage.
I surrender.
It was a good resolution while it lasted-- about as long as it took to read this blog post.
I slink off to read.
You can buy the octopus I shamelessly stole.
of course I'll be requesting pages!
Dear Literary Agent:
What would happen if Frodo Baggins was inspired by the Eat This Not That series of books? You would have my debut novel, LORD OF THE RING DINGS, an ambitious fusion of the Fantasy-Adventure genre with a Healthy Diet book!
It all begins when the Evil Sourbun bakes up a host of evil delights to fatten his enemies to the point where they are incapable of defending themselves. Now, Middle Girth stands helpless before the lumbering armies of Morebun as they sing:
Three Cupcakes for the Fairy Pigs in their sty,
Seven Twinkies for the Couch-Potatoes lazy to the bone,
Nine Devil Dogs for Junkfood Junkies doomed to die,
One Ring Ding for the Beefy Lord on his beefy throne
In the Land of Lardor where tasty cakes lie.
Wouldn't you?
What would happen if Frodo Baggins was inspired by the Eat This Not That series of books? You would have my debut novel, LORD OF THE RING DINGS, an ambitious fusion of the Fantasy-Adventure genre with a Healthy Diet book!
It all begins when the Evil Sourbun bakes up a host of evil delights to fatten his enemies to the point where they are incapable of defending themselves. Now, Middle Girth stands helpless before the lumbering armies of Morebun as they sing:
Three Cupcakes for the Fairy Pigs in their sty,
Seven Twinkies for the Couch-Potatoes lazy to the bone,
Nine Devil Dogs for Junkfood Junkies doomed to die,
One Ring Ding for the Beefy Lord on his beefy throne
In the Land of Lardor where tasty cakes lie.
Wouldn't you?
Sunday, January 03, 2010
What we are thinking about when we're thinking about your book
The complete list of TEN TOP QUESTIONS DUTTON EDITORS ASK is an illuminating list of what editors and agents are thinking about when they're thinking about your book. Here are some of the questions:
Does this story surprise me and take me to places I didn’t expect?
Is this a main character I care about?
Am I personally moved by this story or situation?
Has this been done a million times before?
Is the voice/character authentic and real?
We can fix a lot of things (grammar, syntax and structure) but we can't fix these. These have to be right before we say yes.
Does this story surprise me and take me to places I didn’t expect?
Is this a main character I care about?
Am I personally moved by this story or situation?
Has this been done a million times before?
Is the voice/character authentic and real?
We can fix a lot of things (grammar, syntax and structure) but we can't fix these. These have to be right before we say yes.
I found this on Kathy Temean's very useful blog.
Saturday, January 02, 2010
Two percent
The title of the post echoes a plaintive wail from the comment column on my year end stats for full novels.
It's actually more like 1.6% (2:124) but you're in the ballpark.
But I don't think of the 122 novels I did NOT sign as failures.
For starters, 9 of them just weren't right for me but got a referral. If you think of that as failure, we've got a very different perspective on what failure is.
9 got sent back with detailed notes and an invite to resubmit. That sure as heck isn't failure!
1 got "not this, but the next one", and that's sure as heck also not failure.
But more important than the numbers, it's what you do with them.
There are two ways to look at these results: you, the writer, made progress toward your goal, or you didn't. If you didn't, you use the information you learned in the process to figure out what to change so you'll make progress the next time. If you define failure as not achieving your goal, even good progress is defined as failure, and that's just a recipe for total frigging insanity.
If I were a writer looking at those stats, the first thing I'd want to make sure is that I'm writing something fresh and new. So, how do you know that? You don't just write something and assume its fresh and new cause you've never seen it used. Nope.
What you do is what Joe Finder did when he started his writing career. He read 200 thrillers. He researched what his genre looked like. Lee Child did the exact same thing. He had a very measured, thoughtful approach to creating Jack Reacher, from his name to his background. And Lee Child continues his voracious reading to this day. I purposely stalk him in the dealer room at Bouchercon to hear what he has to say about authors: he's an excellent writer, but he's a GREAT reader.
If I were a writer looking at those stats, I'd make sure I had fierce beta critics on my team. Fierce critics who would make me want to bathe in medicinal scotch at the end of their critique, but critics who would identify structural problems or voice problems, or plot problems.
If I were a writer looking at those stats, I'd say "Good. Now I know what the challenges are." And then I'd make my 2010 resolution: Get Fierce.
It's actually more like 1.6% (2:124) but you're in the ballpark.
But I don't think of the 122 novels I did NOT sign as failures.
For starters, 9 of them just weren't right for me but got a referral. If you think of that as failure, we've got a very different perspective on what failure is.
9 got sent back with detailed notes and an invite to resubmit. That sure as heck isn't failure!
1 got "not this, but the next one", and that's sure as heck also not failure.
But more important than the numbers, it's what you do with them.
There are two ways to look at these results: you, the writer, made progress toward your goal, or you didn't. If you didn't, you use the information you learned in the process to figure out what to change so you'll make progress the next time. If you define failure as not achieving your goal, even good progress is defined as failure, and that's just a recipe for total frigging insanity.
If I were a writer looking at those stats, the first thing I'd want to make sure is that I'm writing something fresh and new. So, how do you know that? You don't just write something and assume its fresh and new cause you've never seen it used. Nope.
What you do is what Joe Finder did when he started his writing career. He read 200 thrillers. He researched what his genre looked like. Lee Child did the exact same thing. He had a very measured, thoughtful approach to creating Jack Reacher, from his name to his background. And Lee Child continues his voracious reading to this day. I purposely stalk him in the dealer room at Bouchercon to hear what he has to say about authors: he's an excellent writer, but he's a GREAT reader.
If I were a writer looking at those stats, I'd make sure I had fierce beta critics on my team. Fierce critics who would make me want to bathe in medicinal scotch at the end of their critique, but critics who would identify structural problems or voice problems, or plot problems.
If I were a writer looking at those stats, I'd say "Good. Now I know what the challenges are." And then I'd make my 2010 resolution: Get Fierce.
Twitter skills
Mignon Fogerty poses the question Is Your Stuff Worth a Retweet over at Behind The Grammar (the blog with one of the great subtitles of all time: To Infinitives and Beyond)
Whether it's worth a retweet is up to you, but it's definitely worth reading.
Whether it's worth a retweet is up to you, but it's definitely worth reading.
Friday, January 01, 2010
What ho, 2010!
Patrick Lee is welcomed by the Pens Fatales blog today and talks about being a Serial Resolver!
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