Guest Post: No Idea Is Wasted: Nicola Morgan

I am a big smug show-off because I have lots of writer-friends. But I almost never ask my friends to discuss their own books on my blog because it gets embarrassing when I don't like their books.

There's no danger of that happening today. When the wonderful Nicola Morgan (who we all know, right?) asked me if I'd host one of the stops on her blog tour I was pleased to say yes because I knew it would be a good book; now I've read Wasted, I know that it's a fabulous one. Wasted is one of the best books I've read all year and if you feel even slightly put off by the idea of reading a book for young adults, don't be: if ever there was a crossover title, Wasted is it.

Right. Nicola now owes me at least a tenner. Over to her.


First, thanks so much to Jane for letting me visit her blog! [I should hope so too! -J] I've never done a blog tour and it feels like a lot of fun. Since Jane's blog is about publishing and how it works, I thought I'd say something about ideas and how they work before publication - and if any of you writers are at that horrible stage of feeling that your idea just isn't going to work or isn't going to be published, I hope you'll take heart from what I'm about to tell you.

***

In theory, I don't believe that "everything has a purpose". In practice, I make damned sure it does.

It was a simple chance event on a London underground station that got me thinking about luck, chance and randomness and led many years later to my new novel, Wasted. It wasn't an earth-shattering event but it got me thinking. Obsessively. So, I began a novel for adults - I'd two unpublished ones languishing already - about chance, quantum mechanics, and unpredictability, involving repeated multiple possibilities. The idea was that if there is a god - which I know there isn't - he will either play dice or at least have a lot of fun observing. But halfway through, a completely different idea hit me, this time for teenagers. I abandoned god and quantum
physics.

That new idea became my first published novel, Mondays are Red. And then came others and suddenly I was a YA novelist and left the adult stuff behind. The other book lay half-written somewhere. But ideas are never wasted. They become other things. They strengthen the foundations of our writing lives. Sometimes, later, they seek sunlight. So, after 15 years, thedormant seed sown randomly in a London underground station began to grow and I began to write it. I didn't look at the first version because this one would be different. I was different by then, though still fascinated by chance and luck.

A bit of my heart is in all my books, naturally, but Wasted has all of me. When I started it this second time, I didn't care about publication. I decided not to show my editor and or get my agent to ask for a contract. It was a case of, "If you like it, you can have it; if you don't, I'm writing it anyway and sod anyone else." This was my story and no one could stop me writing it.

She loved it, as did my agent. It was a wonderful feeling: writing the book I always wanted to write. And although I want some people, enough people, any people, to love it too, the odd thing is that I slightly don't care if lots of people don't. Obviously, I hope readers don't say horrible things...

I guess you want to know about the incident, the random event on a London Underground station? I had travelled from Edinburgh, where I live, to London for my first ever business-trip, first public-speaking event. (I was a dyslexia specialist then.) I'd done the event and my head was spinning; I was high on adrenaline and seeing things in a brighter light. For some reason which I will never understand, I decided to take a different underground route from the obvious one. So, I was on an escalator at Charing Cross station, when I should have been at Victoria.

What happened was trivial really, the sort of thing that happens all the time: you see someone you know, somewhere they shouldn't be. So, I saw a friend from Edinburgh, on the same escalator. We were both shocked, laughed, and had that "fancy meeting you here, 350 miles from home" conversation. Nothing happened - we didn't have an affair or even a drink!

Now, maybe it was my heightened adrenaline, something getting the creativity going, but I had a light-bulb moment, a kind of "thought experiment" which has absolutely obsessed me ever since. It was: "What if there was something like a god, who could observe every human and know everything about them; and what if he could see everyone passing and meeting and mostly not meeting and weaving unpredictably from place to place, NEVER aware how narrowly they had just missed an important encounter with someone they knew or someone who might influence their lives? What if humans could be tracked like radioactive particles, bobbing around in a kind of Brownian motion, in patterns, and that the god was sitting there cackling at the powerlessness of these poor humans as they went down that street or took that turning or missed that train or smiled at that person or had this thought caused by that sight or sound or breath of air on their face? What if he could show us all that, and we could observe the almost happenings, the near-misses, and if we could, just by observing, change the tiniest things that affect lives invisibly? And what if we could then tell the story of some of those things, show the inner workings of our world?"

And that, essentially, is the idea behind Wasted. And if it hadn't been for that trivial coincidence on a London escalator, in my state of heightened adrenaline, I would never have written it.

To all writers: when you have to give up an idea - if it wasn't working, didn't get published, whatever - it's not wasted. One day, you might see how to write it entirely differently, and better. If not, the seed can lie dormant for as long as it's needed, and when the right time comes you will find a way to grow it. Or if you don't, it will still strengthen you. So, never view an idea as wasted.

Nicola Morgan


Wasted is Nicola Morgan's new young adult novel, published today. She has created a special blog for the book, with competitions and stacks of background information, ideas, snippets and fascinating discussions about chance, risk and luck. Do visit it for some really interesting fun!

Five Things Phishing And Literary Scams Have In Common

Today we hear once again from my online writer-friend Marian Perera, who has supported How Publishing Really Works ever since it first appeared, and runs an excellent blog of her own. Her debut novel, Before the Storm, is a fantasy that combines steam engines and a steamier romance. You can read an extract of it here.



A few days ago, I received a message that I thought came from my bank’s security department. The email asked me to verify my account information so that my service would not be interrupted. It provided a link which I could click to enter a few details.

The return email address seemed like my bank’s. I looked closely at the logo in the email, and it was identical to my bank’s.

1. They imitate the real thing.

That reminded me of some literary scams which pass themselves off as legitimate. Fake agents may take kickbacks from vanity presses to make it appear that they have sales, or they claim to have “worked with” commercial publishers. Many vanity presses will say they’re not by any means vanity presses – they’re co-publishers, subsidy publishers, traditional publishers, etc.

2. They rely on social compliance.

Society trains people not to question authority. Hustlers exploit this “suspension of suspiciousness” to make you do what they want.

From a presenter of The Real Hustle (1)

I don’t understand a great deal about banking, so I trust whatever my bank tells me. If they say there’s a security problem, I’ll believe them and do whatever’s necessary to have it fixed.

Many writers do the same thing with people or companies whom they perceive to be in a position of authority over them. Literary scammers play on that. They know that many writers find publishing complex at best, and trust their publishers and agents to deal with the intricacies of the business on their behalf. So they’re likely to comply even when faced with requests for money, as this writer did:

…soon after I signed the contract, they called me home and wanted me to pay with my credit card the sum of $49 saying it was necessary to cover the cost for priority production.

3. They cast their nets far, wide and indiscriminately.

I read through the email a second time (it was pretty short) and noticed that it wasn’t addressed to me.

Oh, it began with “Dear my-email-address”, but that’s not my name. Could whoever sent it have just used a mail merge program and a database of email addresses?

There are phishing scams which target specific victims (spear phishing), but many of them will send out such mass, impersonal emails. It provides the maximum return for the minimum effort. The same thing applies to author mills, which rely on churning out content for the least amount of work… on their part, not on the writers’ part. So they accept almost anything, and their correspondence tends to be form-letters or copy-and-paste.

4. They make it easy for you to comply.

To verify my account’s security measures the hard way, I would have had to look up my bank’s phone number, call them and then wait on the line for someone to answer. On the other hand, there was a convenient, clickable link in the body of the email…

If you want a real agent or a real publisher, you may need to spend years honing your skills and more time undergoing the grueling process of submissions and rejections. It can be difficult and disheartening. And even after the book is accepted, the work is by no means over. I spent most of my Christmas break struggling with edits.

But a fake agent or publisher will be more than happy to accept your manuscript as-is, and will do so quickly. They’re unlikely to ask for edits or changes. They will make it very easy for you to be maneuvered into a situation where you end up paying them.

5. They can be defeated with a little research.

I don’t remember where I first read of phishing scams, but I was pretty sure that banks don’t ask you to provide details of your accounts in emails, just as legitimate agents and publishers don’t ask you for money.

So I called my bank and spoke to a nice customer service agent who confirmed that the email was a scam and suggested I forward it to the bank’s actual security department. He also persuaded me to open another account with them, the smooth talker. But on the whole, this story has a happy ending and I hope any writer faced with a literary scam will also deal appropriately with the scammer.



1. Stajano F, Wilson P. Understanding scam victims: seven principles for systems security. 2009 (retrieved April 3, 2010). University of Cambridge. Available at: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/techreports/UCAM-CL-TR-754.pdf

Guest Review: The Anatomy Of Prose, By Marjorie Boulton

The Anatomy of Prose is a rigorous 1950s analysis of prose, seeking to classify different elements of prose as you would classify insects or flowers. From the broad divisions of types of prose (narrative, argumentative, dramatic, informative, contemplative), Boulton proceeds to smaller divisions and sub-divisions, for example listing and defining 36 different rhetorical devices. Despite the intense detail, it was an easy read—the writing, as you’d expect from an anatomist of prose, was quite stylish and always very clear.

The part I found most interesting and useful was the chapter on prose rhythm. Boulton explains how to scan prose in the same way as poetry, breaking it down into “feet” and then analysing where the stress falls within each foot. For example “become” is an iambic foot, because the stress falls on the second syllable, whereas “outcome” is a spondee, because both syllables are stressed. There’s a great listing of all possible combinations up to the five-syllable dochmiac, and then examples of passages scanned for rhythm. For example in a Bible passage (Psalm 90, v1-9), she shows how the rhythm builds up to climaxes such as the molossus (three syllables, all stressed)—“Thou art God”. Important parts like this are surrounded by weaker stresses to highlight them. When the passage speaks of man’s weakness, the rhythm is faltering, using weaker paeons (four syllables with only one syllable stressed). The rhythm, in other words, reflects and amplifies the content.

I don’t think I’ll spend much time analysing the rhythm of my prose, or anyone else’s, in that much detail, but it’s wonderful to have that knowledge in the back of my head, as a way of understanding why a particular passage may or may not work.

The explanations throughout are clear and well illustrated with examples, mostly from older literature like the Bible and 18th century writers, but also some more contemporary (for 1954) writers like Hemingway, Steinbeck and Woolf. I’ve never seen writing analysed so scientifically before. I’ve noticed that a sentence can sound immeasurably better when the order is altered a little or a word is taken out, but never knew why. This book helped me to understand it much better, and I think it will make me a better writer and reader.

Andrew Blackman's debut novel, On The Holloway Road, won the Luke Bitmead Writer's Bursary and was shortlisted for the Dundee International Book Prize. He recently moved back to the UK after living for six years in New York, where he worked as a staff reporter for the Wall Street Journal.

How I Got Published: Karen Schwabach

Today Karen Schwaback explains how a combination of her membership of a professional writers' association and a very sensible sister led to her eventual publication despite her efforts to scupper her own success.

My middle-grades historical fiction manuscript, A Pickpocket's Tale, won the Sydney Taylor Manuscript contest, which is open only to unpublished writers and is free to enter. There's a nice prize, but it doesn't include publication.

Then I joined SCBWI (Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators). They have a bimonthly journal which lists market updates at the end—often the contact information for editors who are reading. In one 2002 issue, a young editor at Random House was listed as interested in middle-grades historical fiction, so I sent her Pickpocket.

It was a year before she contacted me—via my yahoo email address, because by that time I'd moved from Alaska to North Carolina and had completely forgotten having submitted to her. She said she liked the story but wanted to see revisions. When I sent those, she sent them back with what I now recognize was an editorial letter (a detailed request for revisions)—but at the time I thought it was a rejection. Now I wonder how many writers receive such letters and go off in a huff as I almost did.

Fortunately my sister talked sense into me, I did the revisions, and they made an offer for A Pickpocket's Tale, which was published in 2006, and was followed by The Hope Chest two years later. I definitely had no connections, but did have two important assets that I recommend to anyone trying to break in:

1. Join your genre's professional organization if there is one, so that you can get constant market updates

2. Enter contests, including those open only to unpublished writers, so that you can get credentials

Good luck!

How I Got Published: Lesley Cookman

Today we hear how Lesley Cookman got herself into print while not really trying, and realise how working at our craft can bring far bigger results than expected.

When I was young, I had a vision of how and where a lady writer would work. In a dark panelled room, with french windows hung with yellow patterned chintz and a desk, unaccountably in the middle of the room, with, naturally, not even a typewriter, let alone a computer (a what?). This owed a great deal to dear Dr Brewster’s surgery in a grand Edwardian house, where I was taken for the usual childhood ailments after the passing of even dearer Dr Patel, with his tiny shopfront surgery in Trinity Road. Gosh, we were ahead of our time.

Of course, I eventually learnt that this was not How Publishing Really Works. Or even writing. I scribbled away as a young person, mainly pony stories, in brown covered Woolworth’s exercise books, narrow-feint (lines close together, in case you didn’t know). Then I grew up, realised that writing was not what I could do as a living and embarked on a varied, if not variegated, career, encompassing modelling, acting, DJ-ing, being a cabin crew member with BA and, after marriage, a personnel consultant (Brook Street Bureau) and lowly minion at The Observer.

Then I had two children. At this stage of my life my late husband was still a professional musician and we were very poor, a state to which I have become accustomed. When he gave up the business – or rather, it gave him up – he returned to the career for which he was trained and became an art director with a magazine publishing company. One day, when I was pregnant with our third child, he came home with a very large cardboard box and said “There you are. Open it, put it together and write an article on it.” It was one of the very first personal desktop computers, and I did as I was told. The subsequent article was a commission from Which Computer and it started me on a new career.

Over the next twenty years I wrote pieces on science parks, computers for the disabled, computers for the classroom and new water sports. I edited Poultry Farmers’ Weekly. I wrote pantomimes, (luckily still performed across the British Isles, and, occasionally, The World) and a commissioned book on how to do it: How To Write A Pantomime, now in its third edition. A friend at a conference pressed a copy of her new book on how to write twist in the tail short stories into my hands and, having had no previous interest in weekly magazines or, indeed, short stories, I wrote one. Hey Presto! Another string to the writing bow. I was now that familiar thing, a writing whore.

Then, for no other reason than I wanted to prove something to myself, I decided to do an MA in Creative Writing in Wales. These were still newish, in that there weren’t many of them. Now you can find one on every corner above the newsagents. It turned out that I knew far more about the publishing world than any of the tutors, and even gave the class a lecture on the Romantic Novelists’ Association, of which they had never heard (!) and of which I had been a member for some years. However, at the end of the course, a fellow course member had the idea of producing a book of short stories in aid of Breast Cancer. This too was still a newish idea, and we did the whole thing between us. It was called Sexy Shorts for Christmas, and the company was called Accent Press. I asked all my friends in the RNA to contribute a story, and bless them, they did. My husband designed the cover and we had a fabulous launch at The Groucho, followed by a mini-tour of venues in Wales, including the National Library in Aberystwyth.

I then sank into obscurity once more until, shortly after the death of my husband, my friend from college asked me if I had done any more to the mystery novel of which the first twenty thousand words had been my dissertation. She had seen and liked it. I hadn’t done any more, of course, but I hastened to do so, and after another few thousand words, she offered for it. And so Libby Sarjeant and her less-than-believable adventures was born, with the publication of Murder in Steeple Martin.

Libby is about to appear in her sixth adventure (Murder in the Green will be published in early April), with her seventh, Murder Imperfect, in October and her eighth next year. Accent Press, under the aegis of my friend Hazel Cushion, has gone from strength to strength, I’m glad to say: so, in a way, that MA in Wales did us both some good.

I do not work in a panelled room, I stare at a blank wall and I write straight onto a Mac G5. My hair, as once I had envisaged, is not in a neat and classy French pleat, my clothes not beautifully tailored Chanel. I am a scruffy, slapdash individual who never ceases, not for a day, not for a moment, to be glad and grateful that I have this new career at a time of my life when other people are beginning to think about the funeral plan and the bus pass.

And this is not How Publishing Really Works for everybody. But it was for me, and if Libby’s first book hadn’t been received well by a certain section of the reading public, then there would never have been any more, so all the honing of the craft over the previous twenty-odd years was necessary. It always is. Good luck!

Guest Review: Bird By Bird, By Anne Lamott

The final semester of my senior year had come, and one thing stood between me and a Bachelor of Arts in English—the dreaded capstone course. Part thesis, part professor’s pet project, the capstone centred on a theme such as “The Role of the Fool in Shakespeare” or “Archetypal Literary Theory.” Sometimes it proved interested; often it did not. I ended up with one of the latter, a nebulously named course titled “Life Writing” that was helmed by a professor who refused to define the topic (“Life Writing is whatever you want it to be”), had more ambition than sense (“If you don’t read every word of the twenty-three assigned books, you cannot expect a good grade”), and possessed an ego to match (“I am the god of this class”). Not exactly enjoyable. But somewhere in the middle of it, I found something that was: Anne Lamott’s delightfully messy writing manual Bird by Bird: Instructions on Writing and Life.

If it sounds strange to have read a book about writing narratives in a course that dealt with autobiography, well, join the club. But Bird By Bird fit the bill in that it intersperses Lamott’s literary dictums with bits about her own life. Well, more than just bits, really. Lamott lays on the personal detail pretty thick. Page after page can pass before she breaks away from discussing the execrable psychological short story she penned as a child or how she trained her toddler to recite anti-war chants on cue or her cancer-stricken friend Pammy’s final days and gets back to the practical stuff.

This will annoy those who want technical details on the finer points of plotting or easily avoided grammatical errors. Two things, though, keep the book from becoming an exercise in self-indulgence, the first being that the stories usually relate quite well to whatever Lamott wants to expound. Take the chapter “Short Assignments,” for example. To illustrate how writers need to tackle tiny tasks, she relates how her then-ten-year-old brother was trying to complete a humongous report on birds in a single evening. Panic threatened, but her father sat down, “put his arm around my brother’s shoulder, and said, ‘Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.’”
The second is Lamott’s delightfully screwball sense of humor. “The very first thing I tell my new students on the first day of a workshop is that good writing is about telling the truth,” she says. “We are a species that needs and wants to understand who we are. Sheep lice do not seem to share this longing, which is one reason they write very little.” Rare is the volume on writing that can wring a smile from you. Bird By Bird squeezes out belly laughs, and in doing so, reminds us that writing involves more than toil and tedium. It contains joy, too.

My thanks to Loren Eaton for his review: this is of one of my favourite writing books. There is also an audio version of the book called Word by Word, a pun which doesn't quite work for me but which fills me with delight, nevertheless.

Fiona Robyn's Blogsplash!

Ruth's diary is the new novel by Fiona Robyn, called Thaw. She has decided to blog the novel in its entirety over the next few months, so you can read it for free.

Ruth's first entry is below, and you can continue reading tomorrow here.

*

These hands are ninety-three years old. They belong to Charlotte Marie Bradley Miller. She was so frail that her grand-daughter had to carry her onto the set to take this photo. It’s a close-up. Her emaciated arms emerge from the top corners of the photo and the background is black, maybe velvet, as if we’re being protected from seeing the strings. One wrist rests on the other, and her fingers hang loose, close together, a pair of folded wings. And you can see her insides.

The bones of her knuckles bulge out of the skin, which sags like plastic that has melted in the sun and is dripping off her, wrinkling and folding. Her veins look as though they’re stuck to the outside of her hands. They’re a colour that’s difficult to describe: blue, but also silver, green; her blood runs through them, close to the surface. The book says she died shortly after they took this picture. Did she even get to see it? Maybe it was the last beautiful thing she left in the world.

I’m trying to decide whether or not I want to carry on living. I’m giving myself three months of this journal to decide. You might think that sounds melodramatic, but I don’t think I’m alone in wondering whether it’s all worth it. I’ve seen the look in people’s eyes. Stiff suits travelling to work, morning after morning, on the cramped and humid tube. Tarted-up girls and gangs of boys reeking of aftershave, reeling on the pavements on a Friday night, trying to mop up the dreariness of their week with one desperate, fake-happy night. I’ve heard the weary grief in my dad’s voice.

So where do I start with all this? What do you want to know about me? I’m Ruth White, thirty-two years old, going on a hundred. I live alone with no boyfriend and no cat in a tiny flat in central London. In fact, I had a non-relationship with a man at work, Dan, for seven years. I’m sitting in my bedroom-cum-living room right now, looking up every so often at the thin rain slanting across a flat grey sky. I work in a city hospital lab as a microbiologist. My dad is an accountant and lives with his sensible second wife Julie, in a sensible second home. Mother finished dying when I was fourteen, three years after her first diagnosis. What else? What else is there?

Charlotte Marie Bradley Miller. I looked at her hands for twelve minutes. It was odd describing what I was seeing in words. Usually the picture just sits inside my head and I swish it around like tasting wine. I have huge books all over my flat; books you have to take in both hands to lift. I’ve had the photo habit for years. Mother bought me my first book, black and white landscapes by Ansel Adams. When she got really ill, I used to take it to bed with me and look at it for hours, concentrating on the huge trees, the still water, the never-ending skies. I suppose it helped me think about something other than what was happening. I learned to focus on one photo at a time rather than flicking from scene to scene in search of something to hold me. If I concentrate, then everything stands still. Although I use them to escape the world, I also think they bring me closer to it. I’ve still got that book. When I take it out, I handle the pages as though they might flake into dust.

Mother used to write a journal. When I was small, I sat by her bed in the early mornings on a hard chair and looked at her face as her pen spat out sentences in short bursts. I imagined what she might have been writing about; princesses dressed in star-patterned silk, talking horses, adventures with pirates. More likely she was writing about what she was going to cook for dinner and how irritating Dad’s snoring was.

I’ve always wanted to write my own journal, and this is my chance. Maybe my last chance. The idea is that every night for three months, I’ll take one of these heavy sheets of pure white paper, rough under my fingertips, and fill it up on both sides. If my suicide note is nearly a hundred pages long, then no-one can accuse me of not thinking it through. No-one can say; ‘It makes no sense; she was a polite, cheerful girl, had everything to live for’, before adding that I did keep myself to myself. It’ll all be here. I’m using a silver fountain pen with purple ink. A bit flamboyant for me, I know. I need these idiosyncratic rituals; they hold things in place. Like the way I make tea, squeezing the tea-bag three times, the exact amount of milk, seven stirs. My writing is small and neat; I’m striping the paper. I’m near the bottom of the page now. Only ninety-one more days to go before I’m allowed to make my decision. That’s it for today. It’s begun.

Continue reading tomorrow here...

Guest Review: The Writer's Essential Tackle Box, by Lynn Price

We all know the lovely Lynn Price of Behler Publications, and her fantastically useful and funny blog: now you can get your hands on a great big chunk of her advice in this beautiful and fascinating book, The Writer's Essential Tackle Box: Getting a Hook on the Publishing Industry. This review, from Lyndsey R. Davis, is for the American edition of the book: but in May a UK edition is going to appear from prizewinning independent publisher, Snowbooks (who, regular readers will know, happen to be one of my absolute favourite publishers). Watch out for it!


With the abundance of ‘how to write’ blogs and books on the market, Lynn Price, of Behler Publications, tackles the issue from a fresh perspective in The Writer’s Essential Tackle Box. It’s not a fishy story. She deals with issues that others do not cover.

For a published author re-entering the game, or the newbie bursting with story ideas, the process can be daunting. Ms. Price gives an insider’s view of the industry using a Question and Answer format, interviewing the Who’s Who of the publishing world; her pithy remarks clarify while engaging the reader. Many books present an author’s single point of view how something should be done; Ms. Price’s experts corroborate—in their own words—what works.

Navigating the book is easy. The four sections have subheadings which direct the reader to specific topics—no need to use the index. However, the latter avails a quick search.

Section 1: The Interviews offers over two hundred pages packed with pragmatic approaches. Agents such as Andrea Brown, Rita Rosenkranz, Peter Cox and Laurie McLean elaborate on procuring representation. Wilda Williams of Library Journal, Jim Cox of Midwest Book Review, and Lauren Roberts of BiblioBuffet suggest ways to use their services in expanding a book’s exposure. Jerry D. Simmons clarifies the murky waters of publishing: the pros and cons of big and small houses, explaining the complex system of book sales and returns. Amy Collins and Sharon Goldinger detail what a Book Shepherd does for those who elect to self-publish, and how they are distinct from vanity presses. Writing on tours and bookstore signings, Gayle Shanks adds to Ms Price’s tips for the prepared author. George Foster illustrates the secrets of cover design. Greg Snider answers questions about distribution, while Ingram and Lightning Source disclose warehousing facts, information excluded from most ‘how-to’ books for writers. Mike Sirota promotes the independent editor’s role in producing a polished work. Victoria Strauss and Peter Cox shed light on how to connect with the cyber world and internet resources. Anita Halton and Annie Jennings spell out why authors need publicists and public relations specialists. Website creation is no longer the elusive fish with Cathy Scott’s design. Ms. Price hooks the reader with her introductions and simplifies with her summaries.

Section 2: “Forget the bait, pass me the Maalox”: The Submission Process provides the prospective author with a step-by-step, hilarious approach to the often painful journey. Here, the pragmatic lessons begin: busting the myths that are foisted on anxious writers, enumerating instructions on The Log Line, the Pitch, the Author’s Bio, query letters, synopses, and the fateful rejection. However, this section ends on a high note with the Promotion plan.

Section 3: “Chumming the Waters” distinguishes between commercial publishers, vanity presses, and print on demand, and adds to Jerry Simmon’s interview on publishing. Ms. Price itemizes the nitty-gritty issues in succinct nibbles: cash flow, print runs, pricing, reviews, marketing, sales force, disclosure and more. With this information, the aspiring author can recognize the pitfalls and make informed choices.

Section 4: “The Writer’s Survival Style Guide” is packed, like sardines, with the ‘worst and best examples’ of writing. Ms. Price updates the standard that was set by Strunk and White’s Elements of Style with this lexicon of contemporary editing because it’s more readable and humorous. In this text, a writer learns to recognize a ‘sick’ submission and give it a proper four-part autopsy. However, a worthy submission may emerge after the surgery on the Fluffitis, Backstoryosis, Dialog Tagococcal, and Pointofviewicemia and overloaded descriptions with a heavy emphasis on telling instead of showing. Though she doesn’t state a resurrection is possible, her examples offer hope that rewrites will distill the essence of a good story and if mixed with a balance of description and dialog, it may be possible to recover from a case of Dullitis.

Ms. Price anticipates questions that a reader, unfamiliar with the industry, might have. She presents a lexicon that includes more than a glossary of terms. Her clear examples show how it should be done, and complex definitions become understandable. Though this book serves a new writer well, the savvy author will enjoy the sage reminders, profound insights, and recommendations, to say nothing of reveling in her wit.

Some books lend themselves to becoming dog-eared—no doubt supported by the margarita-making beagle. Thumbed pages and bent corners reflect its usefulness. This book meets that criterion because it satisfies a need in every writer. Unfortunately, for those who claim they can only afford a single comprehensive reference on writing, Ms. Price has removed any excuse for someone not to tackle the writing and editing of a piece.


Lyndsey Davis writes fiction and non-fiction, since retiring as a US Navy Chaplain. She has published non-fiction articles for newspapers, magazines, websites and co-authored two books: Daily Devotions for Advent and Christmas, Daily Devotions for Lent and Easter. An irregular blogger, she twitters and writes articles, devotionals and stories for several online services and publications, while juggling several Works in Progress. Of course, the real balancing act is saved for home life, with a husband, two sons, four cats, one dog, twenty fish and a turtle.

How I Got Published: Vivian Swift

I think that Vivian Swift is being just a little too self-deprecating when she places all of her success on leverage: from what I've seen of her book, she has a remarkable talent and a welcoming style which probably played a far bigger part in her success than she realises. Here's her view of her rather original path to publication, which just shows that sometimes things work out just fine when you ignore all the rules!


I've since learned that the word "quirky" is publishing-world code for "unpublishable", but when my quirky book was published by BloomsburyUSA in 2008 I thought it was because my illustrated travel memoir about staying put was JUST what editors the world over crave: a really different kind of reading experience. Turns out that no, that's NOT why I got published (did I mention that I've learned that editors loathe "quirky" books?): I got published because, as a complete and total nobody in the publishing world, I wisely leveraged a single teeny bit of biographical research into a golden "in" with my FIRST choice of powerhouse agent who got my manuscript read by all the best houses in New York City.

The total time from the day I first mailed my query letter (to my one and only agent choice) to the day I got a publishing deal was three and a half months—which includes the delays caused by my bad timing; my new agent had to send my manuscript proposal out during the Christmas holidays.

Here’s my story: I was a fifty-year old unemployed gemologist who had spent two years putting together the first three chapters of a book I had long fantasized about writing, a modern version of The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady. If you don’t remember that book, that must mean that you weren’t alive in 1977 when it became a publishing phenomenon (to date, five million copies have been sold). Not that I expected to out-do The Edwardian Lady; I just wanted to write my own homage to a book that I had greatly admired since I was twenty years old.

The manuscript of my first three chapters was fifty-three pages long, and it was entirely hand-lettered. I bound it into an eight-inch-square booklet, illustrated with over one hundred small watercolour paintings. It was exactly the kind of manuscript that one is forbidden to toss over the transom. But I didn’t know that at the time; I had never taken a writing class, attended a writing workshop, read a publishing industry blog, or had face-to-face contact with anyone remotely connected to the book publishing business. Only from reading my local newspaper years earlier had I learned about the one “insider” guide I used to prepare myself for becoming an author: Forest for the Trees by Betsy Lerner, a former top editor in New York City. The reason I read about Betsy Lerner in my local newspaper was because she was a famous local author: Betsy and I happened to be living in the same small town on the shore of the Long Island Sound at the time. That article in the local paper also mentioned that Betsy had recently become a literary agent. Good to know, I remember thinking; if I ever get around to writing that book I’ve always wanted to write….

So, half a dozen years later, I have this fifty-three-page hand-lettered illustrated manuscript and I have only one agent on my mailing list. I had done a little follow-up research on Betsy Lerner and found out that she had a stellar reputation representing hip, urban, literary writers; yet I was still sure I wanted only her to read my cozy, suburban, un-literary manuscript. She represented Neil deGrasse Tyson! My hero! The coolest astrophysicist ever! So like any starry-eyed wanna-be writer doofus, I sent her my query letter with my home-made manuscript attached.

But I’m not a complete doofus: I made sure to mention, in my query letter to the formidable Ms. Betsy Lerner, that she and I had a connection: we had once lived in the same small village on the Long Island Sound.

Leverage, my friends; I was looking for leverage. I was dumb enough to think that name-dropping a town with just seven thousand households in it was leverage. And the funny thing is, it was.

Less than a week after I’d sent her my manuscript I got a voice mail from Betsy Lerner herself (which, by the way, is the single most validating moment of my entire writing life, even now, a year after my first book is published). Quaking, I dialled her phone number. She picked up after two rings. I was speaking to Betsy Lerner in person.

“How did you know that I used to live in [small town on the shore of the Long Island Sound]? was the first question she asked me.

And then she said that she liked my manuscript but, she warned me, my book was very odd and she wasn’t at all sure she could sell it, but she wanted to give it a try. That was in November, 2006.

“This is so not my thing,” was one Editorial Director’s response when Betsy first sent him my manuscript [translation: It’s too quirky for me]; “I’m going to give it to another editor here who does more of this kind of thing [translation: An editor who likes lost causes].” And then, a few days later, he emailed back: “I can’t get this book out of my mind. I’m keeping it.” And then we knew we had passed extensive internal review about a month later but by then it was almost Christmas, and then it was New Years… I had a signed contract on Valentine’s Day 2007, with my dream publisher, BloomsburyUSA.

There’s only one agent, I am convinced, who could have got such a fabulous publisher to look at such a quirky little book as mine, by dint of her reputation for good taste and keen eye for good writing, which she was willing to squander on my behalf: My agent, Betsy Lerner.

Not that there weren’t struggles, over the cover (I fought to keep Bloomsbury from re-designing it), and the fact that it’s a very quirky book to market in a very a tight economy (An illustrated book for adults? A travel memoir about staying put? With cats?? No wonder Borders put it in their Self Help section.). And of course I’ve had my usual first-time-author indignities: my first book event at Barnes and Noble where I was shuffled off into the Children’s Department to sign books at a knee-high kiddie table under a poster for Captain Underpants was merely a harbinger of things to come.

But now, as a published author, I am invited to speak to audiences of unpublished writers about my experience and the one thing I have to tell them about getting the right agent is leverage. See above. Which may or may not be helpful. Because, usually, stupidity doesn’t get you very far in life, except when it does.

Publication in November 2008 of my first book, When Wanderers Cease to Roam: A Traveler's Journal of Staying Put, has been such a marvellous experience of stupid perseverance and dumb luck that I’m going to try to do it again, with an even quirkier book, one that even Betsy Lerner has doubts about. It’s an illustrated travel memoir about a road trip through France. “A book about France is a hard sell right now,” she tells me.

Wish me luck.

Guest Review: Twelve Short Stories And Their Making

My thanks to Paul Lamb for bringing this lovely little book to my attention, and for letting me reproduce his review of it, which originally appeared on his blog last year.


I’ll confess at the start of this post that I don’t have a high respect for most how-to writing guides. I’m not sure that fiction writing can be taught. Having said that, though, I do think it can be learned. In my experience this is done in two ways: extensive reading and exhaustive writing. We’re on our own for the second part, but occasionally we can find a little help with the first part.

I recently finished reading 12 Short Stories and Their Making, an anthology collected by Paul Mandelbaum and published in 2005 by Persea Books. Within are twelve richly textured short stories followed by interviews with their authors. Among the writers included are familiar names like Sandra Cisneros, Ellen Gilchrist, Gail Godwin, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Tobias Wolff. Each author’s story is presented first, and it is followed by a conversation between Mandelbaum and the author. The conversations provide insight into the varying creative processes of these diverse writers.

This isn’t a book telling you how to write your short story. Rather, it is a book telling you how these authors wrote their short stories. The conversations describe how the stories came to be written the way they were as well as how they couldn’t have been written in any other way. We see what their motivations and intentions were. Sometimes we see what other writing has influenced them or what incidents in their lives found their way into the stories and why. Mandelbaum also manages to tease some technical discussion from each writer. By offering these insights, this book lets all of us see how it might be done and so perhaps plumb our murky depths to find our own motivations. It gives us a sort of permission to venture down new creative roads.

The anthology does not try to be all things to all writers. Rather, it takes a more measured approach, offering two selections for each of the categories: character, plot, point of view/voice, setting, structure, and theme. The stories are arranged by which category they best illustrate. With a breakdown like this, and with the in-depth interviews that follow each story, this book might deserve a place on your reference shelf.

For my part, I always like to read anthologies because I get introduced to writers I have not tried before. Often I find a new favorite among them. Persea Books has several other writer-focused anthologies that might merit your attention as well.

Guest Review: Writer's Café

My thanks to Jo Stafferton for this review of Writer's Café, a computer program which helps writers organise and develop their work. Some very well-regarded writers have praised it: if you don't believe me, just take a look at the Writer’s Café website. You might see a familiar name on its front page.


My current work-in-progress is a children’s novel set in Ancient Egypt, an idea that has been going round in my head for some years. Now, I am no Egyptologist, so as you can imagine, attempting a project like that required a lot of research, a lot of note taking. I started out using notebooks to scrawl down my notes from books, the internet and museum visits and I got myself a giant piece of paper, upon which I printed out and stuck relevant photos from the internet (I don’t have space for a pin board at home). But I found myself overwhelmed by the volume of information, the notebooks got lost and the large piece of paper became crumpled down the back of a bookshelf, all progress in my work-in-progress stopped, for months bordering on years.

Then by chance I discovered Writer’s Café; you are able to download a demonstration version, which is pretty much fully functional with a few limitations (notably in its plot lining function, which is why ultimately I upgraded to the paid version) but it does give a good idea what it can do. I was able to go back to the photos I had found on the internet and place them on a ‘virtual’ pin board alongside notes and ideas for my story. Good websites I had found and wanted to preserve in their entirety, away from the muddle of the rest of my ‘everyday’ bookmarks on my internet browser, were placed in a ‘virtual’ scrapbook. Lengthy notes from my Egyptology textbooks were written in the program’s notebook feature. Everything was basically kept in one, well organised place, which was invaluable to me, as I lack space in the real world to store those things on paper.

What really saved my story though was the program’s Storylines feature, an electronic version of a very long corkboard and some index cards, you would put your plot points on a series of cards and place them in the order you wanted them, dividing them into chapters as you go. Having my stalled storyline out in front of me like that, enabled me to see the holes in my plot and enabled me to plan in a way that I had struggled with before. Consequently my project, which had stalled prior to me discovering Writer’s Café, at approximately 15,000 words, is now, as I type at 34,000 words and unlike before, I am fully confident that I am going to finish it.

There are other features in Writer’s Café to, that I use less frequently if at all; a journal, a names generator, writers’ tips, writers’ prompts and an eBook ‘Fiction: The Facts’, written by Harriet Smart, the published author behind the program.

So, ultimately there’s not much you can do on Writer’s Café that you can’t do in real life with a pen and a piece of paper, but if you’re disorganised and lack a space of your own to store and display your notes and plans as you work on them, Writer’s Café is a big bonus, particularly for any writer who has a large volume of notes and ideas to organise, such as someone writing historical fiction or for anyone having a whole new world to create.

If Self Publishing Really Is The Future....

During last week's outrage over Harlequin Horizons, one comment really caught my attention and remained with me for days. It appeared in the Smart Bitches, Trashy Books blog site but came in part from an earlier blog post. I reproduce it now with permission from its author, the brilliant Stacia Kane.


When self-publishing becomes the only option, only the rich will be able to publish. When publishers can make more money taking cash from aspiring writers than by selling books to the public, writers and readers both suffer. Writers who can’t afford to publish will be lost, or we’ll have to go back to the 18th century model and whore ourselves out to rich “patrons” who might agree to pay for our publishing—not pay us, but pay to produce the books themselves.

Imagine a world where the only books on the shelves are those written by people with enough money to pay to have them published. Very little quality control, no attention paid to whether or not the book is actually worthwhile. How much fun will reading be then?

From my blog:

We’d have books written exclusively by those who could afford it. Much like in the 18th century, when so many books were diaries of some peeress’s trip through Europe with titles like, “My Gleanings.” FUN. I know I can’t wait to read books written exclusively by the wealthy, with no viewpoints other than their own. I’m sick of hearing what baby boomers think already; I can assure you I don’t want to read more of their “Gee, the sixties were sooo great!” back-patting. I know I can’t wait for a world where books written by those from other cultures have no chance to be translated into English and released here, when we become even more ignorant of the lives of those in the world outside because there’s no way to get their books in front of English-speaking audiences. Oh, and of course, given that self-published books tend to be much more expensive, thanks to POD technology, I can’t wait for a world when reading and books are even less available to the poor. When they don’t have the same opportunities thanks to their inability to get hold of books.

Oh, what’s that you say? Oh, right. The internet will provide all of that. Of course. Because I know when I want something to read I’d much rather spend hours and hours slogging around online looking for something decent than just go to a bookstore. I know people who can’t afford books totally have the money for laptops and ereaders and the internet. So in seeking to democratize literature, what you are actually doing is STEALING IT from those less fortunate than you.

We’d also have a lot more unreadable books. I’m sorry, but it’s true. For every excellent work of self-published fiction–and they are out there, make no mistake–and for every one that’s not bad, just not terribly polished or professional or interesting, there are dozens of horrible ones. Really.

Let’s not forget that the way most people learn proper grammar, punctuation, and spelling isn’t through school. I mean, we do learn those things at school, but we develop those skills by reading. So you tell me, how literate will we be as a society when there are no professionally written books? When there are no people to judge if a work is even readable or not before it gets published? When anything goes? Would you like to go back to the middle ages, when words were just spelled however they sounded? Because I wouldn’t.

If you'd like to thank Stacia for this piece, buy her books.

Snowbooks On Tour

Snowbooks has sent five of its authors off on a blog tour and today they visit How Publishing Really Works.


Paula Brackston runs creative writing classes and workshops, is a script reader for a film company, and sells short stories. She lives half way up a Brecon Beacon with her partner and their two children, and is the author of The Book of Shadows, and the forthcoming Nutters and Lamp Black, Wolf Grey.

Andrew Sanger is an award-winning freelance journalist and travel writer. He has also written some thirty travel guides, and his novel The J-Word is published by Snowbooks.

Thomas Emson has been a singer-songwriter, an author, and a journalist. He lives in Kent with a wonderful woman, an elderly cat, and two house rabbits. His debut, Maneater, became a bestseller as did his second novel, Skarlet. He is writing numerous further books for Snowbooks.

Alastair Sim has published stories and playscripts in magazines, anthologies and on the web. The Unbelievers is one of two books which he wrote while on the University of Glasgow's prestigious MPhil Creative Writing course.

Fiona Robyn writes to help herself and other people to pay attention, and because she loves to. She writes a daily blog, a blog about being a writer, and has an excellent collaborative blog. She lives happily in rural Hampshire in the UK with her partner, her cats Silver and Fatty, and her vegetable patch. Her three novels, The Letters, The Blue Handbag and Thaw are all published this year.


Jane: How long did it take you to get published, and how many books did you write in that time?

Alastair: I've written three books, two of which have been published. Of the two published, it took just over two years for each of them to get from what I regarded as a market-ready manuscript to publication.

Andrew: It's worth mentioning first of all that I had had about 30 travel books published already before I wrote The J-Word. After what I'd heard about dealing with fiction publishers, I felt that I couldn't be bothered with them at all! So I planned to publish The J-Word myself, and was all set to go. But I was tempted to send the book to just one small publisher, because I really liked the look of them—it was Snowbooks. As you see, they wrote back that they wanted to publish The J-Word.

Fiona: I've written two books of poetry, one 'self help' book (A Year of Questions: How to Slow Down and Fall in Love with Life) and three novels. I published the first three myself and then Snowbooks said yes to all three of my novels, six years after I'd started to write the first one.

Paula: My non-fiction has been published since 1999, when I wrote a travel book, The Dragon's Trail about my month-long horse trek around Wales. I then started having pieces included in anthologies, and sold my short stories to magazines. But, from first page of first novel to publication of first novel (not the same book!) was nine years. I need to say that again. Nine years. In that time I wrote four novels and two screenplays.

Thomas: My first book was published in 1996 in the Welsh language. It was the first novel I wrote, but the second book—the first was a collection of short stories, which the publisher didn't want. But they asked me if I had a novel. I sort of did—half a novel, really. But I said yes. I quickly finished it, and they liked it. I've been lucky ever since with publishing - in Welsh and English.


Jane: What do you think you changed in order to get published, and how? Your writing, your editing, your attitude, or anything else?

Alastair: I've been lucky that my 2nd published book, Victorian detective novel of ideas 'The Unbelievers' found a very good publisher in Snowbooks (the first, 'Rosslyn Blood', ended up with an unprestigious American publisher who didn't market it). 'Unbelievers' found a better publisher because it's a better book—it reflects the intensive editing and peer-review input of having been developed when I was studying for an MPhil in creative writing, on the University of Glasgow course which has produced over fifty published novels and one Booker shortlisting.

Andrew: I think the real answer to 'What did I change?' is that I became willing to focus on the reader's point of view rather than my own.

Fiona: This might be controversial, but all that changed was my luck. I somehow felt more 'ready' to be published too, so maybe I was sending out different vibes. I do think it's vital that we constantly strive to improve our work, but I'm not convinced that there's always a direct correlation between how 'good' you are and how likely you are to get published.

Paula: During those long pre-published years I did an MA in Creative Writing at Lancaster University, which was sort of a statement of intent: 'I am a writer' kind of thing. I also had my two babies, and I do think that boosted my creativity. More practically, after all those hundreds of thousands of words it is just possible my writing got better.

Thomas: I didn't change anything, really. I've certainly learned with every book. Learned to be a better writer, hopefully. I've been a journalist for more than 20 years, so I'd been in the publishing world, if you like—I knew all about deadlines and getting the job done and working with other people—which you have to do even in a solitary job such as writing


Jane: What was the low point of your search for publication? A story involving humiliation or mortification would be good here!

Alastair: An agent I was keen to work with turned down 'Rosslyn Blood' because she 'couldn't see a market for a contemporary thriller around Knights Templar and the secrets of Rosslyn Chapel'. This was just months before 'The Da Vinci Code' came out....

Andrew: To be honest, I have been lucky. My problem is not with publishers but with agents. I still haven't got an agent and don't know how to get one.

Fiona: Searching for publication is a constant cycle of reaching out and disappointment, followed by a period of recovery. Depending on the disappointment, recovery can take five minutes or five months. I have got better at handling rejection, and this is a vital skill if you want to be a writer. I think we can be harder on ourselves than any publisher could possibly be.

Paula: Low point, you say? Hmm. Which to choose.… Having an agent who failed (in two years) to place any of my work? Being shortlisted for a crime-writing prize (which included publication) but not getting it? Maxing out all my credit cards with no sniff of a publishing contract? Fortunately, all these painful moments fade faster than a British suntan once you get your first book published.

Thomas: Oh dear! I don't have one, I'm afraid. I've been very, very lucky. When I decided to give up full-time work and focus on writing three years ago I did have low moments, thinking: This is never going to come off. Not because my work was being rejected, but because I was aware how difficult it was to get published. But I've got a wonderfully inspiring wife. And she, along with a dose of good luck, got me through.


Jane: What has been the high point of publication so far? And has it changed the way you see your writing career?

Alastair: Seeing 'The Unbelievers' face-out on the shelves at Waterstones, beside writers whom I admire and respect like C J Sansom. It confers a reality on the business of being a writer.

Andrew: The experience of seeing The J-Word in print, seeing people reading it, hearing people discuss it, was intoxicating, a dream come true. It has been exhilarating ever since. Having a novel published has totally transformed my view of my future. Above all, I feel that it's really worth plugging away at the new novel I am writing.

Fiona: Holding my first novel 'The Letters' in my hand, and seeing it in Borders with all the other real life books! And I'm always very happy to hear from satisfied readers. I have changed my ambitions since becoming published. I used to think I wanted glitzy awards and critical acclaim. I realise now that what I'd like more than anything is for 'ordinary readers' (whatever that means) to love my characters and to learn something about themselves from my books.

Paula: Holding my first copy of Book of Shadows in my hands for the first time. Seeing it on the shelves in Waterstone's. Watching its ratings go up (and down, and up!) on Amazon. Doing book-signing events. Finding my son's 'book' that he is now writing (aged 8) to be like Mummy. Giving my daughter (aged 6) a copy to take to school for Show and Tell. Shall I stop now?

Thomas: When Snowbooks said they wanted to publish Maneater. My first English-language novel. It gave me the confidence to think I could do this as a career. They keep publishing my books and keep making me feel very confident about my stories and my writing.


Jane: What single piece of advice would you give to new writers who are aiming at publication?

Alastair: You've got to combine a bizarre level of self-belief with a willingness to learn and revise, and revise again. Everyone else thinks you're a fantasist for wanting to be a writer—it's up to you to put the effort in which will prove them wrong.

Andrew: Picture a complete stranger reading your book, eagerly turning the pages.

Fiona: Be kind to yourself, and keep on going.

Paula: Don't give up!

Thomas: Write something. Finish something. So many people I speak to say they want to be a writer, but they can't find the time or can't think up a story. Well, without having something written, finished, you've got no chance. Once you've got a completed novel, you've got a chance then. You might need a bit of luck, maybe, getting someone to read it and then like it. But at least you've got something people might read—and like.


My thanks to all five writers for taking part, and to Emma Barnes of Snowbooks for sending them in my direction in the first place (and I do hope you’ve all remembered to subscribe to White Magazine, which is turning out to be a very good thing indeed).

Guest Review: Ron Carlson Writes a Story

I'd not come across this book before Caleb J Ross submitted his review, and it's a real treasure: I strongly recommend it. If you have your own favourite book about writing or publishing do please consider sending me a review, and I'll put it up here as soon as my schedule allows.


Instead of waxing on aspects of craft or grammar as so many instructional writing books do, Ron Carlson’s (author of the collections At the Jim Bridger and A Kind of Flying among many others) Ron Carlson Writes a Story opts for a focus on the process of organically discovering a narrative. Using his story, “The Governor’s Ball,” as the book’s foundation, Carlson takes the reader on his journey from word one to THE END, emphasizing the discovery above the planned technical route that many of us may be used to.

Carlson champions this organic process of discovery, rooted by what he calls a “collision,” which is an idea, event, anything that strikes his attention in a memorable way. This is the seed of a story, pre-outline, pre-pen to paper. In the case of “The Governor’s Ball,” this collision is between the actual event of Mr. Carlson losing a mattress from the back of his truck during a move, and an actual governor’s ball that the author and his wife attended years ago. Now, with this seed, or collision, where does he go?

Carlson dismisses detailed outlines and otherwise structure in favor of the story’s already present inventory. As he says, “I’m constantly looking for things that are going to help me find the next sentence, survive the story”. Simply put, he promotes using every word laid down as an inventory of possibilities for following words, until reaching the end of the story. Seems logical, and it is. But so often forgotten.

Ron Carlson Writes a Story is not a typical Writer’s Digest, prepackaged how-to. This is something useful, something with the potential to truly influence a writer’s storytelling abilities, but beware of control, As Ron Carlson says, “Writing is exploration, it isn’t neat”.

Caleb J Ross has published fiction and non-fiction all over, most recently in Flint Hills Review, Vestal Review, and online in Dogmatika, No Record Press, Word Riot, 3:AM Magazine, and Cherry Bleeds. He is the co-editor of Colored Chalk and a co-editor for the Guild of Outsider Writers. He loves ACID cigars.

Guest Post: Avoiding The Conmen, by Victoria Strauss

The final guest blog post today comes from Victoria Strauss of Writer Beware. She's very well informed about writing and publishing and has been quite ridiculously supportive of me and my blog this year; and she works incredibly hard to educate and protect writers and in so doing, presents herself as a target for a lot of people who occupy the nastier side of publishing. She takes a lot of criticism, rudeness and downright abuse, and never fails to respond with grace and humour. I am profoundly grateful to her for all the support she's given me this year.

This piece isn't even something she wrote as a special post: it's just one of the many helpful posts she makes every week over at Absolute Write. As usual, she's got things bang-on. Thanks, Victoria. I owe you.


It's incredibly easy to avoid the conmen (and women). Query only agents with verifiable track records of commercial book sales (which you should be able to find on their websites. No track record, no query). Approach only publishers whose books you've found on the shelves of bookstores and libraries. If writers would just stick to those two simple rules, most of the conmen (and women) would go out of business.

The reason the conmen (and women) survive is not just because writers are inexperienced, or don't know their names from reading them on a blog somewhere. It's because so many writers assume that all agents and publishers are essentially equal. This makes no sense at all. In the real world, would you hire someone who had no skills that qualified them to do the job you wanted them to do, and could offer you no references? Probably you wouldn't. So why should agents or publishers be any different?

Guest Post: Voicing Concerns, by Dan Holloway

I've been wrestling with a couple of blog posts about voice: what it is, why it's important, and how to get a good one: and along comes the lovely Dan Holloway with this great post, especially for my blog's first birthday. Thank you Dan.


One of the commonest causes of “hands raised in horror” syndrome amongst members of the website Authonomy, is Harper Collins’ (who run the site) failure to publish any of the “beautifully-written” books that reach the site’s upper echelons (the Editor’s Desk). Yet, in the site’s forums, respected literary professionals endlessly repeat (and whenever I ask an “insider” the question, I get the same answer), what the industry looks for above anything else is “a fresh, original voice”.

It occurred to me that the continued prevalence of HRIH syndrome may actually be attributable to the belief that “beautifully written” – or its qualitative synonyms “tightly-plotted”, “exquisitely dialogued”, “masterfully characterised” – MEANS “fresh and original.” It doesn’t.

Let me explain.

After spending too many years studying there (10 – don’t ask), I spent a few more preparing students for Oxford interviews. It’s an infuriating truism that what Oxford looks for in would-be students is indefinable “but you know it when you see it.” I always thought “voice” was the same.

Which is why I was surprised to find it isn’t. I made the discovery whilst at a gig in Southampton a couple of weeks ago (we’d made the considerable journey to see our favourite band, The Boxer Rebellion). My regular readers will be rolling their collective eyeballs (“when he talks about marketing, it’s all music”, “social media and publishing – more music”, “even on sentence construction – it’s arpeggio this and cadenza that”), but music really is the perfect illustration of “voice.”

I’ve been to a good fistful of gigs in recent months. One of the delights of gigs (serendipity being my favourite word) is going to see a headline act and discovering some wonderful support bands (I met my Facebook novel’s “house band”, InLight, that way). It’s always interested me the way the first band comes on and the crowd thinks “great.” Enter main support and it’s “wahey, they’re fantastic!” But then the headline act comes on and everyone else vanishes.

Listening to the opening drums of The Boxer Rebellion’s “walk-on” number, Flashing Red Light Means Go, I realised why that was – and why it explained “voice.”

I’ve seen (checks his website to count links…) lots of support bands this year. They all perform excellently. The songwriting is uniformly exceptional. The frontmen have real charisma. But when you hear one song, then a second, you realise if you heard a third song, in a different context, you’d have a hard time saying whose it was. Any number of people could have written them.

On the other hand, every headline act I’ve seen writes songs that couldn’t have been written by anyone else. Within a bar (a note, even – just the tuning of their guitars is often enough; or if you prefer your music older and more German, think “Tristan chord”) you know exactly whose music you’re listening to.

And that, in a nutshell, is voice.

How do you write voice? Don’t ask me. I don’t have an original voice. Just a loud one.


Dan Holloway is a theologian by training. These days he pushes pens by day and writes by night. Author of several published short stories and two as yet unpublished novels, Dan writes literary fiction about life in modern Europe. Also an academic writer and presenter, on June 12 he will be speaking on "The Ghost at my Shoulder: Literary Reflections on Coming of Age in Post-Communist Hungary" at a conference hosted by the University of East London to mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Dan is writing his current novel, The Man Who Painted Agnieszka's shoes, interactively on Facebook. He blogs regularly on literary futurology, is co-founder of the avant-garde collective Year Zero Writers, and is widely rumoured to have invented both time travel machines and bionic fingers in order to accommdate his schedule.

Guest Post: Writing Worries, by Michael Malone

This blog post of Michael Malone's catches a good few of my writing worries, so with his permission I'm quoting part of it here. You might also want to take a look at this other blog post of his, which discusses his friendship with Margaret Thomson Davis, a delightful and persistent writer.


70,000 words down on the current work in progress and I’m in the home strait. So I will be concentrating on that for a few days. In fact I need to have a rest from this blogging malarkey. I really enjoy the chance to be a bit irreverent, but it diznae pay the mortgage.This novel is based on fact and set on a prison colony during the middle of the last century. It’s a story of a young man who was sent to the worst prison on the planet. His crime? Being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

If I tell you any more, I’ll have to kill you. With a sharpened teaspoon. While you’re sleeping. You’ll just have to lie very still so I can get some purchase on your jugular. So maybe I’ll tie you up first. With barbed wire. So I might need to waken you up first. And I’ve just taken this too far, haven’t I?

So, thank you for reading my blogging efforts so far and for those who can be arsed commenting, thank you for your comments – I love receiving them, makes me feel less like I’m indulging in a literary form of masturbation. Writing is like sex, much better when there is more than one person involved. To those who don’t leave a message, this is me with my tongue sticking out blowing a raspberry.


Michael Malone's poetry is published by Makar Press. Performance number sixty one was completed last weekend, and he's and currently working on novel number five. Novels three and four (crime) are with an agent and are currently amassing an impressive number of rave rejections from an impressive group of publishers.

Guest Post: Writing – A Definition For Cats

One of my regular commenters, Catdownunder, sent me this little snippet. I'm not sure that she meant me to post it here but I liked it so much I have. So there! You might also like to take a look at this blog post of hers in which she discusses her incredibly serious day-job: I wouldn't know where to start.


Writing – A Definition For Cats.

Writing is a self imposed invasion of your purrrsonal private space.

It is much more difficult than fur scrubbing or catching your dinner. It takes more courage. You bravely present your innermost pawsonal mewsings to a human: they would rather you presented them with a dead mouse.


Publishing – A Definition For Cats.

The reason humans cut down the trees we like to climb.

Guest Post: Being A Writer, by Dave Dittell

Few writers make much money from their writing alone, and most depend on other work to provide them with a living wage. Dave Dittell is one of many writers who amazes me: how can he be as productive as he is with so little writing time available? I offer him my thanks for this contribution to my blog, and my admiration for all that he achieves.


Wake up, shut off alarm, don't snooze. Used to be a snoozer, but now you're not. Now you're a teacher. It seemed a perfect fit for a budding writer, a chance to immerse yourself in the English language. Your day job would be related to your dream job; it felt like cheating.

Yesterday: taught all day, wrote all afternoon, prepared and graded papers into late night. Now it's early. Still dark out. Four hours sleep. More papers to grade. You spend five minutes per paper max, but it's still too much. Can you really help someone become a better writer in under five minutes a day?

Coffee. Bathroom smells like coffee-pee. Spit out showerwater yellow with caffeine. Never spend more time showering than it takes to grade a paper.

Teaching is two jobs. The in-class job and the out-of-class job. Your third job is writing. You need at least four hours of sleep, so writing is only part-time, even though you'd do it all day if you could.

You have meetings, you have projects. Projects move forward, projects fall apart. Class goes well, class falls apart. Every day, inside your class room, you stand before them and provide hope and strength and knowledge. You represent opportunity; you represent it so well that your class has a future fireman, a future astronaut, a future Air Force pilot. And eleven future engineers, which you think is funny. There are no future writers, but then again, you're a future writer.

Should they want this?

Grade papers. Run-on sentence, run-on sentence, fragment, fragment, run-on sentence, past/present inconsistent, run-on sentence. Same mistakes every week, but they're getting it. Some of them could barely write in English when they first walked through the door. Run-on sentence, fragment, fragment, singular/plural inconsistency, run-on sentence. How can you get Jake to try, Sarah to stop thinking about her mom's cancer, Frank to stop disrupting class? Can you really bring yourself to mention ADD to a twelve year-old's parents?

When you write, you think of them.

When you teach, you think about your stories.

Mouth tastes of reheated coffee. You used to drink coffee and not sleep for hours. Now you sip right up until the moment you collapse.

Get to school early and jot a few notes on your lesson plan. Come up with a good line, an important plot point, and tuck it into your back pocket.

Class starts in twenty minutes and it's the only time of the day when you have absolutely nothing to do. No papers to grade, no blank page, no vocabulary words to pretend you didn't look up the night before.

This is the twenty minutes of the day you most look forward to, more than the writing, because, during the writing, all you can think about is how it's still just the part-time job.


Dave Dittell is a 25 year-old screenwriter currently at work adapting a comedic novel for 363 Entertainment. He operates Alphabet Soup Kitchen, a blog dedicated to young and struggling writers, and has volunteered and worked in education throughout the past five years.

Guest Post: Google Wave, by David H Burton

David H Burton writes about a number of things, but focuses primarily on writing and technology, with some leftward politics and other fun stuff thrown in for good measure. My thanks to him for this contribution, which originally appeared on his own blog. I've not been able to check out all the links he includes, as I only have dial-up: so please tell me about them in the comments section!


While those in the writing world were focusing on BEA in New York last weekend, the Google I/O Developer Conference was taking place on the opposite end of the country in San Francisco. These are rather unrelated events, unless you pay attention to what Google Wave will offer when it is released later this year.

"What is Google Wave?", you ask. I'll let their own presentation speak for itself. See below, but heed the warning, it's 1 hour and 20 minutes long. There's also a great post over at Mashable that's worth reading.



If you're not likely to watch the whole thing, let me give you some highlights.

1. Live translation in 40 languages, as you type.
   
2. Search, including Twitter search
   
3. Document Sharing/Word processing
   
4. E-mail
   
5. Instant messaging
   
6. Twitter
   
7. Embedding into blogs
   
8. Social Networks (i.e. Facebook)
   

It's basically a conglomeration of all of your favorite web applications, but on steroids.

So what does this translate to for the publishing industry?

This is where it gets interesting.

Wave will allow people (authors) to collaborate on documents/emails/blogs/microblogging and keep it organized. You break it apart, mash it with other waves, and readers can replay the course of events if they've come in late in the game and want to see what has occurred over time. With the move to an electronic medium for books, novels can now become living documents that authors can update at will.

So what would this book look like?

In electronic form, it could do the following

• It gives authors and readers a direct line of communication. Readers can give feedback/comments on any part of the book. Do they want to know more about a character? Do they absolutely hate how that character died?
  
• Authors can comment on particular sections and/or links/content of interest. And {gasp} authors could make changes to the novel.
  
• Imagine downloading a Wave-based novel onto your Sony Reader or your Kindle (or any other device) and instantly getting those comments/changes seamlessly. NOTE: this also integrates with Android, Google's operating system for mobile devices. And imagine providing your own comments as you read. (Just think of what reviewers and editors could do with this.)
  


• You can insert elements into the Wave. For nonfiction, this has huge implications since authors can update their books as new information/research becomes available. For fiction works, you can draw the readers in with images, videos, links, or for those SF/F fans, games! As an author, if you sell the gaming rights later, you can insert the links or the games themselves into the Wave at a later date without having to be concerned.
  
• Imagine opening yourself up, as a writer, to writing/editing LIVE! an hour a week for your readers to see the process. And you can let them give you feedback as you do it.
  

Does this seem a little overwhelming? Perhaps there will be a new role for publishers as the Digital Concierge for authors, so they can focus on content.

I don't know about you, but I believe there are big changes coming for publishing. I watched a video of Mike Shatzkin speaking at BEA 2009 and I think the man is brilliant and bang on.

So brace yourself, the Wave is coming. It's going to bring together two worlds that I love in new and exciting ways: books and technology. And I intend to surf it for all it's worth.