YOUR WIP IS DEAD - LONG LIVE YOUR WIP!

After my last post (excuse the pun), you all shared so much about your dead / dying / comatose books (and I loved Donna's image of divorcing her WIP, citing irreconcilable differences!) that I thought I'd reply in a separate post and pick up your points.

First, though, Bookmaven - thank you for your flattering suggestion that I turn the blog into a book. I have sometimes thought about it a bit but have pretty much decided that I love the blog format. (Shame I can't earn any money through it ...) Penny Dolan made the point too. Thing is, I feel that this blog is more than just my words or voice - if this blog is any good at all it's all your voices that have helped make it that way. I think the quality of commenting on this blog is outstanding. I'm delighted to have well-known authors such as yourself (Bookmaven, for those who don't know, is the very successful Mary Hoffman), as well as editors and agents, and a fabulous standard of unpublished authors who seem to be doing all the right things to propel themselves towards publication. I think that blogs sometimes have the edge over books - the sacrilege! - because they are moveable and malleable and mutual. More like a guided group sharing thoughts and knowledge than a figure on a stage lecturing and then disappearing without taking questions.

(Candy - of course I need your comments, and not like a hole in the head! And yes, I know I haven't replied to your email - I'm on the case. Thank you!)

So, no plans for a book (though I wouldn't turn down a fabulous offer ...) but I am thinking of doing some talks around the country. I'd be happy to hear from anyone who'd like to set something up. Crabbit Old Bat on Tour? Crabbit Old Bat Comes to a Town Hall Near You? (Note to self - could be an excuse for serious investment in shoes. Definitely tax-deductible. Note to Penny Dolan - jealousy is an occupational hazard of a writer so if you're only jealous of shoes, you've getting off lightly).

Meanwhile, your excellent comments on 222ing books.

I am in awe of how you've all taken positivity from rejection. (As Caroline said, rejection is information. I like that.) Your thoughts are worth quoting from. And literally everyone was positive.

So, Ebony McKenna (recently published - yay!):

"I finished six manuscripts (and didn't finish others) before I found my groove with Ondine. Two of those manuscripts *might* be fixable, but if they never see the light of day, that's fine with me. They were not a waste of time because I learned so much in the process." Exactly!

Juliet Boyd:

"I find the best way to deal with it [rejection] is to quickly open the envelope and see reject. Then put it away for a week to let yourself accept the rejection. After that, you can go back and read the feedback given with a rational mind and if you're honest with yourself, you will often agree with what is said." Juliet, If you can put it away for a week, you're a stronger woman than I am ...

Iain Broome said...

"I've been lucky so far and managed to get an agent at the fourth or fifth attempt, but I know plenty of people who have struggled and struggled with their novel. I think it's made all the more difficult because our work came out of our time on a Masters programme (Sheffield Hallam), so the investment, in a sense, has been financial as well as emotional, time-related etc." Iain, I wonder if it's not so much the financial aspect but the fact that going on an MA course is a fairly public statement that "I am going to be a Writer" so any "failure" to achieve that is a more public failure. When I was struggling to get published, I didn't tell many people so the anguish was more private.

Donna expresses it perfectly, even though she hasn't got to the point of submitting, let alone rejection! Great attitude, Donna. She says:

"... I do understand the reality that maybe, just maybe, this best book that's ever been written in the history of the world may not ever be published. Do I have the strength to sign a DNR form? Probably not. But I think I could bring myself to sign divorce papers (citing irreconcilable differences, or course). That way, I can officially move on... but I can entertain the dream that maybe a long way down the road we can reunite. It's a slim-to-none chance, but I'm the kind of person that needs the "slim."

The important part of Andy Duggan's experience is highlighted in red:

"I've been through all this as well, but maybe I can give some figures that might help: I've got a collection of approx 50 rejections from agents and publishers. In spite of this, my novel 'Scars Beneath The Skin' was eventually published by Flambard Press. There was a major rewrite somewhere amongst those 50 rejections, though - prompted by constructive criticism from a writing group."

Focus on the red high-lighted parts of Suzie F's comment, too. This is what I mean by the quality of comments. Her point about self-doubting voices is crucial - these are the voices we have to learn to listen to. They so often speak sense. (Except that she had doubts about whether to write at all - the more important doubts are the ones about THIS book, Suzie. Always continue writing if you love it enough - though if you're not good enough, you may not be published ...) Suzie says:

"Today's post hit home with me as I'm currently facing the fact that my current WIP isn't going anywhere. Well, maybe somewhere, like a deep, dark desk drawer. This is actually the second time - my first attempt at a novel was dropped at approx. 10,000 words but I was heading into NaNoWriMo with a fresh idea. ... I was infatuated with my two MCs but got myself into a plot jam. I've been stuck ever since. Then the self-doubting voices began whispering in my ear and I struggled with whether or not I should continue writing at all. Instead, I decided to use this WIP as a learning experience. Editing, rewriting, tightening, researching and reading a ton of books in my genre (MG and YA). I love the process so much and am starting to develop two new ideas." Hooray and triple hooray!

David Griffin gives an insight into the anguish of the writer, and many of us will identify:

"I had the services of an agent for just over a year, quite a while back now. And because the agency were unable to place my novels, we parted company. ... Since then I've tried only a handful of agents over the years, in a sort of half-hearted fashion, really. (i.e if one reputable and well-known London agency didn't want to represent me anymore, why would any other? Silly, I know, but it's taken a long time to get over that thought)." David, silly but understandable - thing is, you are probably a better writer now, writing different things - perhaps you are more publishable now. You have to try.

"So in a way, lacking confidence and motivation in trying other agents, I've attempted to "smother my children" by simply not getting them out there." God, we're into murder now! Eeek, what did I start?

"I'm developing habits of a writer who is committed to writing now, writing every day .... I'm going to try agents with determination and give it up to maybe 20 rejections. Only then will I occasionally read from the POD versions of my novels, with the odd sigh, knowing that not many other people will read them; and try the third one (when it's finished). "Grief, who would be a writer? (Millions of us, I know)."

Indeed ...

DanielB said...

"I have had to "slap a 222" on a novel in the past when the publisher who I thought would be "my publisher" (a reasonable assumption, as they'd published two of my novels) turned it down. ... It's still in cryogenic suspension, awaiting that revolution in medical science. Parts of it have been siphoned off and used for stem cell research to grow bits of other novels." So, not wasted at all. Excellent! And I'm partly including your comment because it's interesting for people to see that even successful writers like you can have temporary probs with publishing and [see next para] with writing ... "That's the second situation Nicola mentions - and I am a little worried that I may also now be facing the first as well! Damn it, I'm supposed to be one of those "experienced writers". It isn't meant to happen to us..." Ah, yes, unfortunately it does, but I am confident that you've spotted it earlier and stopped yourself sooner than if this was your first. For info of others, the second situation Daniel refers to is when you're halfway through a book and you become aware that it's going towards a dead-end fast.

Sue Hyams and Rebecca Knight seem delightfully happy at declaring the deaths of their beloved works. They say, respectively:

"Oh, how timely! Just yesterday I decided that 222 was the only way forward - only I didn't have a name for it then - for the novel I've been working and working and working on for the past 18 months. The decision had been whacking me on the back of the head for some time but I tried to ignore it. Now, it almost feels like a relief. Almost. Great post - thank you!" And:

"This is a fantastic post ... I've had to do this with my book, and it was all for the best :). I received two rejections that got me thinking, stopped querying immediately, and got to work! I can safely say that what I have now is 10 times better than my previous book, and all because of the criticism I received. Thank God for rejection!"

To be honest, I'd say thanks to the writers who take rejection so constructively and leave God out of it, but I know what you mean ...

I want to finish by referring to Catherine Hughes' comment. I'm not putting it in full here because this post is already long enough. Do go back to it on the post below this and see what you think because she's asking you all a question. My instinct is that she should be writing another book, because she has been told she can definitely write, but this vampire book (even if it is really really really different from other vampire books) has not been taken. I think we deserve better than another vampire book and I think Catherine can do it!

However, I also want you to notice that Catherine discovered (from the rejections and feedback) that she has a fatal flaw in her writing: not knowing at which point of the action to start the story.

I have two things to say to that:

1. I'm going to do a post about starting stories. (Catherine, you will have discovered from your search that I haven't talked about this yet). It's a great idea for a topic.
2. I have good news for the patient: this is not a fatal flaw. There is a cure! Hooray for illnesses with cures!
   

Catherine (and others who may be tempted) - you want to revoke your 222. I suggest you don't, at least yet, but I do suggest you take DanielB's suggestion and opt for cryogenic suspension. You may still eventually decide to turn off the life-support but on the other hand a) you may find the cure in time and b) vampires may be back once more. Yes, I do think the agent is referring to you writing something else, but yes you should also hang on very tightly to those words of praise. They don't come often or easily.

Meanwhile, you and we all simply need to remember the most important point of my orginal post, and one which none of you commented on substantially: that whether our WIP is curable, mildly rheumatic, terminal, comatose or cryogenically suspended (or awaiting divorce proceedings) we should be doing one thing regardless: writing and falling in love again.

Because that's what being a writer is.

MAKING BEAUTY PUBLISHABLE

This post by thoughtful and clever author, Emma Darwin, contains lots of apt stuff for all of us, whether published or trying to be. It also connects with this recent post of mine on pigeon-holes.

I like the way it rather successfully answers that thorny question, "So, you mean I have to sell my soul, sell my art, in order to be published? I have to sell out???" No, you don't. You can if you want to but you don't have to. What you do have to do is not be so self-indulgent, so self-obsessed, that you earn no readers with your unattractive selfishness.

It's a bit like Pointy Thought 1 - that the world doesn't owe you a contract.

I was going to treat you with a photo of the Edinburgh Book Festival DDay minus 1, but I walked all the way up there in the rain and then forgot to take a picture of it. Instead, you can have a picture of my sitting-room four days before the AGM and party which are pretty much all I'm thinking about at the moment (with apologies to all the people who are coming to my events which I should be thinking about - fear not, I'll be perfectly prepared when the time comes.)



And yes, those are Starbucks bags that you see before you. In them are not only 200 bags of coffee but 200 bars of chocolate, I'll have you know. Chocolate that I may not eat. It's killing me.

Oh, I have just remembered that although I forgot to take a pictire of the outside of the book festival and the sign saying One Day To Go, I did take a picture inside the foyer. Doesn't it look calm? You'd never know that this time tomorrow it will be buzzing.

EDIT, EDIT, EDIT. THEN EDIT AGAIN.

I just came across this very interesting piece by Jenny Diski in the Guardian.

In short, she was asked to guest edit a student literary magazine, and then the student editors disagreed with her editorial judgement. They didn't like the fact that she didn't effuse when she didn't think the pieces deserved to be effused over. They appear to have found her attitude of honesty to be at odds with their aim to make the magazine "an encouraging platform for new and developing student writers".

Those of us who want to be good writers, as good as we can possibly be, must be strong enough to allow (in fact welcome) professionals to judge our work. If we don't open ourselves to the notion that our work is not perfect, or is not even as good*** as it could be, then we don't deserve to improve. Or be published. Taking criticism is not easy, and I'm not saying we should always agree with it,. but we have to be open to it.

(*** corrected thanks to BuffyS's superior editing skills - but I'm not paying you BuffyS!!)

In primary school you might expect to be told you're doing brilliantly when you're not (though I question whether that's a good idea either ...) but by the time we're adults we have to face up to our short-comings.

Critique groups and writing groups are also often guilty of over-effusing and under-criticising; partly because when someone delivers negative crits, all hell breaks lose and the fall-out from deflated egos can be ugly to watch. So, if you can't take criticism in public, don't be published, because you'll sure as hell get it once you are. Instead, either find a trusted person and listen to that person's opinions or learn to edit your own work to within an inch of perfection. That inch is as close as any of us can expect to get, but we have to try.

If you remember only one bit of Diski's excellent piece, remember this:

"What surprised me most was how many of the stories felt unfinished, as if I were reading a early draft. Problems with structure, sentences that need to be worked on, far too many easy clichés not rejected - all of this normal for a first draft, even a second. For me writing is the editing. It's where the you make the story your own. Draft, redraft, let the thing sit, and then consider it again, read closely, carefully, cut away everything that you haven't properly thought through, and some things that you have."

It just about sums it up. Accept nothing less from yourself than intended perfection, even if perfection is rarely actually achievable.

STROPPY AUTHOR'S BLOG

I bring you a blog that I like, partly because a "stroppy author" sounds as though she would get on very well with a "crabbit old bat". I feel we could share many glasses of wine and bars of chocolate together and still not finish being stroppy and crabbit.

So, here it is: The Stroppy Author's Guide to Publishing.

Her words of stroppy wisdom are directed at those of you who are either published (but still confused - and this will apply for a very long time after publication, perhaps even for ever) or on the verge of being so (many of you), or keen to know how to deal with it if you were. And that should include all of you, because it is never too early to learn, though it is sometimes too late. Or at least later than it might more happily have been.

Spurred on by the growing pressure from my blog readers (bleeders? breeders?) to impress them with my boots if ever I am spotted in public, I was going to go boot-hunting today, following the tantalising advice of Barb, but it's so sunny that instead I am going to have to expose my legs in the garden. And if that is not a sufficiently frightening thought to keep you all firmly indoors working on your WIP, I don't know what is.

SOME TRUTHS ABOUT PUBLISHING

I was/am halfway through writing a Very Useful Post for you, on the important subject of controlling pace. I know you must be on tenterhooks about this but meanwhile I just came across a Very Useful and Thought-Provoking Post by someone else.

I am going to post that VUTPP here, before my own words of wisdom tomorrow or Wednesday, not because I am derelicting my duty to you, but because amongst many true points in his piece, Joshua Mohr makes one in particular: "I need only concern myself with one thing: the quality of my writing. That isn’t chance at all. I can’t control marketing trends or debutantes, but I can control the amount of energy I put into my revision process. I can take my time and make sure to write the best book I can."

I cannot tell you how right he is and what a wise decision he has made. Well, in fact, I can tell you. And indeed am. Otherwise, why would I be writing this post?

One of my most trenchant beliefs is that too many unpublished writers take up too much time too early trying to find out how to approach publishers/agents, and not enough time early enough accepting that they have to improve their writing first.

Anyway, trust me, it's the writing what counts, and only when we've got that right is it worth approaching a publisher or agent. Before that, it's embarrassing, because one of two things will happen: a) you'll be rejected or b) you'll have your rubbishy writing published and be mortified when the reviews appear. Or don't appear.

Joshua also says: "Turns out, chance is a brutal part of the publishing trade. Good books sometimes vanish without a trace, and obvious, dumbed-down books with clever marketing tricks often become successful. It’s a savage reality of the business, one writers need to be aware of."

Again, spot on. Or "back of the net", as we say over here, which I once had to explain to my transatlantic friends.

So, since chance plays a big part, would any of us make that chance even smaller by not making our writing as good as possible and doing absolutely everything necessary to do so? Only the deluded idiots amongst us. And there are some, but surely they're not still reading this blog? I aimed to frighten them off long ago. Which is good, because one of them won't see what I'm planning to say about her/him in my forthcoming Very Useful Post.

(Edited to add: Sally Zigmond makes the same point over on The Elephant in the Writing-Room about the need to work more on our writing before expecting publication. She is another author who deserves to succeed. I didn't mention this at first because I am still blushing about her kind words about me in it, but I decided that it was more important that I send you over to her blog anyway. She has lots of useful insights. In fact, the very title of her blog makes the point: that the thing that is staring us in the face but which we too often don't talk about enough is the need to write better.)

Meanwhile, there's a lot we can learn from Joshua's blog post and I wish him success with Some Things That Meant The World To Me. I also wish success to Two Dollar Radio, the small independent publisher which is publishing Joshua because they believe in the quality of his writing even if bigger houses didn't think the book would sell enough to satisfy them. Which is not to knock big publishing houses either - big houses have big heating bills - but simply to say that there are plenty of readers out there who want something a bit special and I care that all types of book and reader should be catered for.

Anyway, my point in offering you his wisdom, apart from its obvious truth, is to prepare you for the fact that my next post will really be a writing lesson. Unless something else comes up, of course. I know I should be thinking about book launches, but I've got to have something to take my mind off the Litopia interviews that are going out this week. I don't know what I said - it's all a blur, largely because marauding dogs were running around behind me, dragging heavy chains in quite a threatening way, which is not something I'm used to in the genteel part of Morningside in which I live.

MONEY MATTERS - THE MAD MATHEMATICS OF ROYALTIES

Every now and then laziness overcomes me. Luckily, this usually happens when someone has just done something so clever and useful that the most clever and useful thing I can do is tell you about it and then go back to sleep.

So, if you have ever wondered about the maths (or math, for you over yonder ocean) of royalties and advances and foreign rights and returns and all sorts of other bogglingness, please travel over to Editorial Ass here, for the detailed rundown on what it all means and what you can expect/hope for/dream of/fear when you eventually see your treasured WIP hit the shelves. As you surely will if you keep listening to my advice and acting on it.

It simultaneously answers the question that the unagented among you often ask: Why do I need an agent? Maths/math is why. That and a lot of other things, such as calming pissed-off authors down when stuff happens, as you can be sure it will. Stuff has a habit of doing that.