Category: Writing Tips

Loving Life, Loving the Story

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A friend of mine from high school came to visit me recently for a weekend. She is a wonderfully thoughtful person and an incredible artist, whose name you will all know someday from her work and I will get to say, “I knew her when.” Over the course of the weekend, we spoke about everything from jobs to family to writing to religion and all the stuff in between, catching up from when we’d last seen each other (actually only a month before), recounting the little moments of our lives rom when we’d graduated high school together till now.

One of the things she told me about was a line from a play that she’d seen that had struck and stayed with her and now has struck and stayed with me. I do not know the play’s name, and I am definitely misquoting the line – it’s my memory of what she said from her memory of the play. But this is the line that struck me:

“It’s not your job to love your job. It’s not your job to love your spouse. It’s not your job to love your children or your friends or your family. Your only job is to love your life.”

Initially, this felt like semantics to me. How could I love my life without loving my family or my friends or my job? What does it mean that my job is only to love the whole of my life and not the parts of my life? But on further consideration, I realized this idea of only having to love your life gives you the space to not love everything and to actively choose what to love.

I think we all would love to love our day-to-day jobs, but this idea says it is okay if you don’t. It’s not your job to love your job. It’s your job to do it, but that doesn’t mean you have to love it.

I struggled more with the concept of not having to love your family, but that’s probably because I do love my family, I’m lucky to be a member of a lovable and loving family, so of course I love them. But I know there are many people who aren’t as lucky, so being told that it’s not your job to always love them, or love them at all, could very easily release the burden and pressure of being forced to feel love for people who may not be lovable.

There is an allowance to not have everything be perfect and pristine.

This also means that when you do love something, like your job, or your family, or whatever it is that you love, it’s an active choice, not a given. You are free to give your love to whatever or whomever you so choose, no one but yourself telling you to do so.

There is freedom in this concept.

Your only job is to love your life. Love the life you are leading, love the life you are striving for.

If you only love parts of your life, then when those parts start breaking down or going through rough patches, what will happen to you? What if everything falls apart at once, because the world and life is messy and icky like that? What will you be left with, if all you love is parts and not the whole?

But consider the inverse – if you love the whole (and, because you love the whole, you are more likely to love many of the parts of your life that make it up), then when some of the parts break down, the whole will still be there to sustain you. Sure, you hate your job today, but you love the life you’re living. Sure, you had a fight with your friend, but you love the life you’re building for yourself.

While I think this is a concept to consider periodically in your life, checking in to take to stock of where you are and truly asking if you love it, I feel like this is a concept that can also be applied to writing.

Your only job with writing is to love the story you are telling. You don’t have to love the process. You don’t have the love the characters. You don’t have to the love the sentence structures. You don’t have to love the words you use.

Should you love all of these things? Yes, it makes it so much easier to write and a more enjoyable time if you do. But what if you don’t? Or what if you don’t love them all the time? It’s all right. That’s not your job. Your job is to just love the story you are telling, the overarching whole that you are striving for.

No amount of great characters and perfect sentences and lovely word choices and minutes spent typing will make up for a story you are tired of and can’t stand to tell. Because there are days when everything breaks down. You can’t get the words to come, the sentences are horrible, the characters are messy, and it looks like there is no end in sight. But if I love the story I am telling, I can push through those bad days, weeks even, holding on for the story that, because I love it.

It’s a gift to love all the parts of your life and all the parts of your story. But that’s not your job, it’s not what you have to do. Your job, the only thing you must do, is to love your life and the story you are telling.

A Perfect Writing Recipe: Finding Out How You Write Best

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I started my first novel the summer after sixth grade. I was twelve years old. By the time summer ended, I was roughly halfway through the book. I think I wrote one chapter during seventh grade, if that. I don’t recall really touching it while I was in school. But during the summer after seventh grade, I finished it. I was thirteen and I had finished a real, full-length novel. The following summer was the first agent attempt, but that’s a different story.

Once I was finished working on my first book, I went back to write another. My head was teeming with ideas, as only a teenage mind can, and so when I had an idea that felt formed enough to get started, I would sit down to write and…nothing. Absolutely nothing. I wrote a page, maybe two, three if I was really lucky. But I couldn’t really get off the ground. I was a plane with fuel but no ignition. And then a new story idea would come around and I would try with that one. Wash, rinse, repeat, no luck.

I have distinct memories of worrying whether the novel I had written in middle school would be the one and only novel I would ever write. How could I have really peaked at age thirteen? I knew I wanted to be a writer. How could I be a writer if I didn’t write? I am sure I was a joy to be around during these moments, something my parents could attest to.

Then the summer after freshman year of high school came and I attended a summer writing program for a week at Sarah Lawrence College. I was part of Group 5, a bunch of teenagers from all around the country (despite being in NYC Tri-State area, we had someone from California and Michigan). I remember having so much fun with them for the week and laughing like never before. We stayed in touch after the program, which was a blessing to me, because that October, one of them asked if anyone was participating in NaNoWriMo.

NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month, is the challenge to anyone insane enough (raises hand proudly in the air) to write 50,000 words in the thirty days of November. It’s a free “competition,” run by the National Novel Writing Month charity, which promotes literacy and writing. I say “competition” because you are only competing against yourself. If you write the 50,000 words, you’ve won. So has your neighbor, your best friend, your frenemie, and that stranger on the other side of the world, as long as they each wrote the 50,000 words. Winners do get prizes, generally in the form of eternal bragging rights and discounts on writing software and other writing materials.

I decided to try this my sophomore year of high school. And what do you know, I wrote a novel in November (during which my computer had to be fixed, a nightmare on its own and again a different story). I had actually written another novel. I remember being so excited and relieved at the same time. Because here was a system that got me to commit to a story and write it.

Since that November, I have figured out that I write best under the following conditions: with a deadline and accountability.

Deadlines for me are when there is a hard stop for when something is due. The NaNoWriMo deadline has gotten me to write whole chunks, if not entire novels in the thirty days. Even if I have completed NaNo, but not finished the book, I have had enough written to keep going. Other deadlines, like my thesis deadline, have similarly helped to get me to sit down and write.

Accountability for me is when someone else is expecting work from me. I told my thesis advisor I work well with deadlines. He said, prove it, I want a chapter at the end of every week. He got a chapter at the end of every week and I went home for winter break of my senior year with a complete first draft of my thesis novella. I have now enlisted my sister to pose as a similar accountability enforcer. She gets to call me every weekend and demand that I send her what I have written the past week. Woe to me if I have nothing to send to her.

I sometimes wonder what advice I would give writers just starting and it’s this: find out how you write best. What conditions will get you to write? Is it a deadline? Is it writing a little bit every day? Is it prompts? Is it having someone holding you accountable? Is it a writing group? Try out different things until you figure out whatever it is that gets you sit down and put words on paper.

This also goes for the environment in which you write. Do you write at home? At a local coffee shop? In an office? At the library? Do you write with other people around? Do you write where no one can see you? Do you play music? Do you write in silence? Do you have a special playlist for each project? Do you have snacks at hand? Do you have your favorite tea steeping by your computer? Do you have a special sweater you need to wear? A blanket on your lap? A stuffed animal you get to cuddle or strangle depending on how the writing is going?

For the life of me, I don’t know how I wrote my first novel, how a story sustained me for over a year to completion. All I can say is that I was in love with it, so I wrote it. But sometimes you fall out of love with your stories or even if you love them, life gets in the way. What do you do then?

Knowing how you write best is a great set of tools to fall back on. It won’t always work. Sometimes the tricks just are not clicking, and you need to try something new. I recently started writing in ice cream parlors, because I wasn’t being productive at home anymore. My writing and my stomach are very happy. It’s much easier to try something new if you already know what’s old.

Ultimately, love of the story and the art will carry most writers across the finish line. Up until that last sprint though, when the end and victory is in sight, every writer could use the perfect recipe to keep us going.

 

I Wrote a Novel. Yay! Now What? One Writer’s Querying Experience, Perhaps with Some Tricks to Help Another

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How do I get published? I wrote this novel. Now what? What do I do next?

These are the common questions I hear from friends and writers alike. And the general answer is: querying. I first tried to get a literary agent the summer after seventh grade. (I was a really ambitious and somewhat silly fourteen-year-old.) Over several years, I went through the literary agent search on three different projects. One project had three different rounds of query letters. It wasn’t until the fifth attempt at the query process, on the third project I’d sent out, when I was twenty-three, that I finally signed with my agent.

Having gone through this process in several iterations, I thought it might be worth sharing my experience and the advice I have received over the years that truly helped me get my agent. Hopefully it will help someone else out there find theirs.

  1. Write the Novel

This seems obvious, but you still need to write and finish the novel. It has to be complete. Non-fiction can sell on proposal, I believe, and I’ve heard established authors sell novels to publishers on proposal, but for first time authors of fiction, the book has to be done. This means this is not the first draft of the book, it has been edited and revised many times over and should have been read by someone (or many someones) else. Writers go page blind. We stop seeing our own errors. We need outside critique to see what’s working and what’s not. We need fresh eyes. When you’re ready to query, the manuscript needs to be publish ready, so no typos, no plot-holes, no unintended loose ends.

That’s not to say it won’t get edited once you sign with a literary agent or with a publisher, but you need to have it as close to finished as you could possibly make it on your own.

  1. Be Ready

This is about your own mental space. Your work is going to be rejected. It’s inevitable. Is it possible your first query letter will be accepted by an agent? Absolutely. Likely? Not really. So you need to be ready for your novel, your baby that you love so much, to be rejected over and over and over again.

And the rejections are going to hurt, sometimes a bit, sometimes a lot. There were days the rejections just rolled off of me and I trudged along just fine, and there were days when I burst into tears, crying on the phone with my mother, why didn’t they like my book? (Something my mother really appreciated, I’m sure.)

So how do you know if you’re mentally ready? Ask yourself if being told “no” will make you stop writing. If being rejected will make you give up on your work and yourself as a writer, don’t query yet. Spend more time with yourself before opening up to those inevitable rejections. You have something worth saying and nothing should stop you from doing that, especially being rejected.

So if getting rejected will not make you quit, on your writing or on yourself, then you are ready for this.

  1. Lists, Lists, Research, and More Lists

Keeping a list was the best way for me to organize all the information I was gathering about literary agents. Who was accepting queries, who was interested in my genre, what they wanted to see, and how they wanted to see it. When I was ready to send out my query letters, this list became invaluable.

There are many ways to find out which literary agents are out there. There are websites like Query Tracker* and Publishers Marketplace that can help you get started. I personally never used these websites directly – I didn’t want to pay for them. This meant more work for me, but such is life sometimes. I generated my list of agents through Google searches. I used terms like “literary agent,” “literary agency,” and then those words in combination with the genre I was working in. Nonfiction agents aren’t interested in fiction works. One agent who takes fiction may not like YA fantasy, and so on. When names started to repeat, I knew I was closing in on everyone on the scene.

I also looked at the acknowledgement sections of some of my favorite books, particularly the ones that were in the genre I was writing. Most authors give a shout-out to their agent. Find those names and look them up. Clearly, they’ve had some success if one of their clients’ books is in your hands.

When I found a new name, I added it to my list and then dug deeper. Was this person open for submission was a column on my list. What genres they represented – a column. How they wanted to be contacted – some have specific emails, some have forms – a column. What they wanted to see – just the query letter, the first chapter, the first five pages (not to be confused with the first chapter), ten pages, three chapters, and so on – another column. How long it generally took them to respond – a column. For every possible bit of useful information related to the agent, there was a column on my spreadsheet.

Some agencies ask you to query one person from their agency and that’s it. If it’s not the right fit for that agent, they will pass it on to their colleague. Make sure you are picking the best available agent in that agency. Some agencies ask you to query one person at a time from their agency. So if the first agent passes, you can then query another agent at the same agency. Find out all the possible available agents and then pick which one you’ll query first, generally the one you think you have the best chances.

From this list, I was able to narrow down the agents most likely to be interested in my work. I still queried every possible person, even the longshots, but I knew who those longshots were and whom I had better chances with.

  1. The Query Letter Itself

Looking back now, I know my first query letters were garbage. I was fourteen, what can you really expect? The success of my query letters I have to lay at the feet of one of my professors in college, who graciously reviewed a query of mine and told me everything I was doing wrong and how to do it better, which turned out to be just right. Before speaking with my professor, I got more form letter rejections than ever. Afterwards, I got rejections that were more personalized. They were still rejections, but someone had sat up to take notice of my query and my work – a huge step forward for me. So thank you, Bret Johnston, I owe you one. Here’s the advice he gave me:

 

A. The Hook

The first paragraph of your query should mirror the back jacket of a book, the teaser

trailer of the plot of your book. You want to give the agent a sense of what your book is without giving everything away. Tease them just enough to read the pages you are providing with interest and hopefully leave them wanting more.

This should be no more than one paragraph and medium in length, at the longest. The shorter this is, the more space you have for the rest of your query.

B. The Nuts and Bolts

The next couple of paragraphs is where you talk about the nuts and bolts of your

work. How long is it, in pages and words, what genre is it, what kind of audience would it appeal to (if you like X and Y, you’ll like this), what kind of books are its competitors. This is where you show the agent that you know your work, your genre, and the market. Some markets are constantly changing. Do your research. What is selling now and why and how does your book fit into that picture? Agents want to represent books that will sell. No one will be a better advocate for your book than you. Prove to the agent that you know the market and how to sell your book in it.

C. The Bio

This one is all about you. Who you are, what you do, why you are the best person

to have written this book. If you’ve taken any classes, mention them and who taught them. If you’ve published anywhere, definitely mention that.

It’s definitely not the be all and end all if you don’t have any credits to your name. When I met with my professor, he encouraged me to include my age in my bio. I was worried it would turn agents off, knowing how young I was (19 at the time), but it gave agents something to notice and to know about me. A young writer has their whole career ahead of them, which might work in your favor. An older writer has their whole life’s experience to work in their favor. It just depends on how you spin it.

 

The query letter should be no more than a page long. This is a business letter. Be as professional as possible, while still showing your passion for your work. But ultimately, the work has to speak for itself, so let’s get that agent through the query as quickly as possible and onto the book itself.

  1. Hit Send

Next step is to hit send. Go back to your list of agents and format your submissions the way each of them want it. This can sometimes feel so annoying, why can’t they all take a query the same way and why can’t they all take the same amount of pages, etc. But this is the game and the way it’s played. Literary agents have so many other things to occupy their time. When they have a chance to look at query letters, it makes it easier for them if the letter is the way they want it. Your query letter is your first impression, so make a good one.

My professor also gave me some good advice as to when is the best time to send out query letters – mid-January and mid-September. The logic is the agents are just getting settled after coming back from vacation and are fresh and ready to go. That is not to say you cannot query at any other time of the year. You absolutely should. Agents are reading all year round. But if you’re getting ready to query mid-December, you may find you’ll have more success if you wait the extra month before hitting send.

Hitting send takes a lot of courage. You’re pushing your baby chick out of the nest and hoping and praying it will fly. Even when the chick crashes to the ground, again and again, know that it can and will fly someday. Maybe not today, or tomorrow, or next month, or next year, but someday. You’ve made it this far and that is an accomplishment.

  1. Wait

This is the hardest part, waiting for the responses to roll in. This was where my list came in so handy. I kept track of when I sent my query to a particular agent and what their response time was. That meant I could keep an eye on my calendar and when I was likely to hear back from people. Needless to say, there were weeks when seeing I had a new email in my inbox would make my heart pound.

Some agents get back super quickly (my record rejection time is three minutes), some never get back at all. Some agents send a form letter to reject, some get a bit more personal. For some,  no response in and of itself means “rejected.” None of this is personal. It’s all business. Agents have to prioritize their current clients over getting new ones, so while it might seem easy to us writers to add someone’s name in an email, to them it’s time away from their clients. I’ve inwardly raged at the silent rejections and form letters before, I am not the first and I know I won’t be the last, but I know it’s nothing personal. This is the way it is.

Most rejections are the end of the road for that agent. You cross them off your list and move on. However, if an agent has given you an opening in their response, made a direct comment about your work, you can respond to them. Ask for their advice on moving forward with the work and making edits. Do not try to convince them that they were wrong to reject you. Their decision is final, you are just trying to get more insight into their process. They might answer your follow-up, they might not. Accept that and move on. Luckily, there is more than one agent out there.

If you can, find a way to celebrate the rejections. It’s an ugly part of the process and it’s inevitable, so you have to find a way to make it better. I remember going out for ice cream with my family to celebrate my first rejection during one of my querying rounds. Treat yourself in little ways – ice cream, movie nights, your favorite tea, a walk around the block, something that brings you joy – so that you can keep on soldiering through this tunnel until you reach the light at the end.

  1. Getting Lucky

If an agent asks to see more of your work, first scream your head off with excitement (perhaps not literally). Once you’ve calmed down, thank the agent and send them what they requested, usually this is a partial or full manuscript. Once you’ve hit sent on that, you wait again, but this time you are guaranteed to get a response from them.

Even if several agents have asked for the full manuscript, you might still only get rejections. This is what happened to me. Several agents had requested the full manuscript and subsequently rejected and most of them for the same reason. One of those rejections was the final straw (I was on my lunch break at my first job when my camel back broke) and I went back to the drawing board and revised my book again. When I had finished that revision, I went back to those agents who had seen the full manuscript and asked if they wanted to see it again. Many said yes. One of those yeses became my agent.

When an agent makes you an offer, leap for joy and do your happy dance (this should be literally). Once you’ve calmed down, talk with the agent about their vision for your writing and how they operate. Your agent is going to be your partner, helping you navigate the publishing world and get the best possible publishing deal for your book. If you can’t work with them, then this partnership fails and your book is the loser for it. Talk with some of their current clients. Make sure you like what you hear from their clients. You may not have the same needs or outcomes as those clients, but this should give you a good sense of who the agent is as an advocate in the publishing world.

Once you’ve gotten an offer, you should inform all other agents that you’ve queried that you’ve received an offer. This is common courtesy, albeit a tedious one. But perhaps knowing an agent is making an offer will light a fire under someone to read your work sooner and make an offer themselves – you never know. If no one else does make an offer, it doesn’t really matter. You’ve won the jackpot – you have an agent!

  1. Wash, Rinse, Repeat, Write

So you’ve gone through the querying process. Maybe you had a few bites, maybe you got an offer, maybe you’ve only gotten rejections. At the very end of the day, it doesn’t really matter because every writer has to ask themselves the same question: Now what? What’s next?

This book’s query road is done. Maybe it’s on its way to being published, maybe it’s being set aside for later. Every writer has that drawer of unpublished manuscripts and ideas that haven’t been written yet. It’s time to take the next project out and begin that. Most writers have more than one great story in them. Just because it might not have worked for this project does not mean it won’t for the next.

As of right now (December 27, 2018), I have a literary agent but not a publishing contract. My agent sent out my book to all the editors she could think of who’d be interested and they all turned it down. So what am I doing now? I’m working on the next book, which happens to be a re-write of something I wrote when I was younger. I’m coming back to it now as an older, more mature, and hopefully better writer. And maybe that one will be my first published work. But even then, I’d still be where I am right now. Because even if I do get published, there would still be the next story to write and the one after that and the one after that. I’m a writer. The work is never done.

And every writer – published veteran, agented beginner, seasoned rejected, or fresh-eyed newbie – starts with the same blank page, waiting for the new story to unfold and fill it up.

So get to it – and good luck, may the writing force be with you!

 

* It has been pointed out to me that aspects of Query Tracker can be used for free.