CHANGING BLOG ADDRESS

IMPORTANT NOTE TO ALL READERS:

I HAVE MOVED!

I have moved the whole blog to a new address. Please join me over there as no new posts are being added here and I have removed key info from this old version ...


PLEASE GO TO THE NEW ADDRESS:
www.helpineedapublisher.blogspot.com


When you get there, PLEASE rejoin as a "follower" - changing addresses means I lose my 230 lovely friends!



NB also - all comments are intact on the new version.


Tuesday 18 August 2009

POINTY THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: 4

Today I'm mostly going to be stressed. In a good way. I'm writing a week in advance of posting it but when you read this it will be the day of my very last AGM of the Soc of Authors in Scotland, and also our party for 200 which I've been organising with military precision. (Last email document to the committee was headed "The Micro-Manager Strikes Again"). The sun will be shining and I will be welcoming well-known faces to the glorious tent that is the Party Pavilion. I'll post you some pics if I remember to get my camera out of my bag.

Anyway, that is so irrelevant to this post. On the other hand, bearing in mind that this post is about being irrelevant, that is perhaps relevant in itself.

Pointy Thought 4 is: Do not tell your potential agent/editor how much you love writing. It is so not relevant to her / him, though it is to you.

Fabulous blogger Rachelle Gardner prompted this thought. See her post from last week here. It's also very relevant to the conversations (here and here)I've been having with you on covering letters and will be mentioned in my post on Aug 22nd when you get the results of that exercise while I am doing the accompanying workshop in the book festival.

She's absolutely right. The fact that you just love writing and have been indulging your passion since you were two is the sort of detail you can keep for your memoirs or for a talk you do to the Women's Guild. In other words, AFTER you've been successfully published.

When, as an unpublished writer, you tell a writing professional that you've always loved writing, you are prompting all sorts of reactions in the professional's mind:
  • loser alert
  • where's the emergency exit?
  • tell me your name so that I can remember not to read anything you ever send me
  • another one for the wood-burning-stove
Well-known fact: all agents and editors have wood-burning stoves for exactly this purpose.