I'm still reaching out for beta readers on my most recent project and waiting (impatiently) to hear back from the agents and publishers holding onto copies of my first manuscript. I'm going a little crazy with all the waiting both those activities entail.
Obviously, it's time to start a new manuscript! My son is home for the rest of the summer, and my daughter is going through a clingy phase, not to mention social obligations picking up, so I don't really have the time to draft a manuscript, but when it comes to something I love, I make time.
At first I thought about doing a story with a fantasy bend, because my idea is planted firmly in the 'speculative' realm. But, so far, I'm really loving the science fiction and near future worlds I've been writing in, and decided to stick with that. I might one day do an urban fantasy story, but for right now, I feel it's best to stick with a genre while I'm starting to build a readership.
So instead of fay creatures, my manuscript will feature aliens. Instead of being firmly planted on soil, the action will take place on a space ship. Partially because the protaganist is losing his grip on reality, so when he starts messing with the things around him, stakes need to be pretty high. As I brought out the crayons and coloring books for my daughter to play with, I grabbed a blank piece of paper for myself and started charting out the solar system my story will be set in. With crayons. Because that's how I roll.
My writing process is maybe a little different than that of other writers. Using George R.R. Martin's gardener and architect metaphor, I'd say I start as a gardener and finish as an architect. At least for the past three manuscripts I've drafted, I start with an idea and a protaganist and hit the keyboard. With only an inkling of where I'm going and a fervor for getting my idea down, I can't quell my excitement by stepping back and charting a story board. I need to just write.
Once I'm a few chapter in, I've got a great setting, a cast of characters, an inciting event for some cool plot lines, and a serious need for direction. I won't say at this point that I've lost motivation. On the contrary, there are so many cool directions I could explore, if I want my manuscript to be it's best, I need to sit down and plot out the rest of my novel. Yes, there are aliens, and we're already on course to find them, but are they good aliens? What will their motivation be? Perhaps it's just the one alien. At this point, word count isn't really wracking up, but the foundation is laid, and the framework for the rest of the story has to up.
Nothing like having a nice outline to really motivate me to get back to pounding on the keyboard. The bulk of the manuscript comes pretty quickly, and even if I make small deviations, I know what the ending's going to look like, which makes it that much easier to actually get there.
On my newest manuscript, which I'm calling Lola for now, at least until a cool title comes to me, I've gotten a few chapters in and now need to step back from writing and build the architecture. Looking at my process, I'm amazed I stay motivated somehow throughout. Drafting is hard. Putting down 60,000+ words on a single story is a daunting prospect for anyone. But like any journey, it starts with a single step.
July 23, 2016
July 21, 2016
My history with MS Word
I read this article about MS Word earlier today, and it really got my thinking about my software choices for writing.
I don't recall learning the ropes of a word processor ever being easy. We had computer classes at school, but most of my computer learning was at home with my father who's an engineer. I remember him showing my how to make an outline with points and sub points and navigating between levels, and that with a push of a button, MS Word would attempt to translate my outline into paragraphs and text. Why were we making outlines on word processors? Because it was fun.
In high school in the early 2000's, all I needed was 1" margins and double spaced 12 pt Times New Roman. Then in college, after getting my two English classes out of the way, all my writing got sent in emails as body text, no attachments. As a student, I got a free (to me) license for the whole MS office suite, so it sat on my laptop, mostly unused. As a math person, LaTeX did such a beautiful job formatting my math heavy writings, I only needed to use an open source editor to make beautifully formatted documents.
Once I was an adult, thrown out into the real world, I wasn't going to need to write papers. Since my MS software had expired, I wrote my resumé using LaTeX. I think it turned out even better that way. I've always done some form of writing, and at this time it was in the form of blog posts and journal entries. I didn't need any fancy formatting, and MS Word created huge bloated documents, so even after purchasing a license through my job for a whole $9.99, I still used the plain text editor that came with my OS. Later, my husband got another MS Word license through his job, and that copy still sits on the laptop I use now.
When I decided to write my first novel, I opened up TextEdit and started writing. I already knew MS Word took a long time to start up, and even longer to load a huge document. TextEdit wasn't particularly fast at loading documents either, so I saved each scene as a separate RTF file.
When I got to the end of the first draft, I knew I had a problem. I didn't have a manuscript, I had 56 files which needed sequential page numbers, headings, cover page, the works. I tried to put each part together into one document in MS Word and add at least a little bit of formatting. It was a mess. And how would I do revisions? I needed a better way.
At this point I had already found an online writing forum I frequented, so I had heard about Scrivener. I downloaded it and started my 30 day trial. I copied each scene into the program and organized them into chapters. The binder view made it painfully obvious when I had big stretches missing my second point-of-view character, and I could easily select different chapters and see their word counts. My love affair for the software really blossomed when I started drafting my next book. I loved the blank page with no tools or rulers, just text.
The publishing world uses MS Word, probably because it is still the formatting powerhouse. When submitting my first novel, some agents and publishers requested my manuscript (or parts of it) in a DOCX file. No problem. I could compile my work in Scrivener as an RTF, open it in MS Word, then save in the correct format. I open my beautiful manuscript in MS Word and...
My book is a total mess. The entire body is in italics, essentially removing any differentiation between normal and emphasis in the text. I have to go back and forth before I realize it was the font I chose that was the culprit. I still don't know why it did that, but switching to Times New Roman seemed to remedy the issue. But some of the page breaks were wrong. Not all my chapters started on a new page, but some of them followed a blank page.
I went to YouTube and watched some tutorials. Yes, MS Word can do some cool formatting things to make a published novel look really professional, but getting everything to work together requires some, well, serious work.
To the publisher who requested a full in DOCX format, sorry, but you got a PDF. I know it's important to follow guidelines, but it was more important to me that my manuscript looked its best. I could have attached an explanation of why I chose the different format, but I didn't.
The real problem I have with MS Word is that it tries to be good at everything, which detracts from user experience. Since it offers so many styles, it's easier to get one little option wrong, and make a mess of the whole document. When writing a letter, it double spaced my address, but if I use a template, I had a crazy colorful letter with weird graphics and place holders for my corporate logo which I felt made it less professional. So, instead of finishing my letter in MS Word, I opened TextEdit and wrote the plainest looking letter, and it's exactly what I wanted.
I don't recall learning the ropes of a word processor ever being easy. We had computer classes at school, but most of my computer learning was at home with my father who's an engineer. I remember him showing my how to make an outline with points and sub points and navigating between levels, and that with a push of a button, MS Word would attempt to translate my outline into paragraphs and text. Why were we making outlines on word processors? Because it was fun.
In high school in the early 2000's, all I needed was 1" margins and double spaced 12 pt Times New Roman. Then in college, after getting my two English classes out of the way, all my writing got sent in emails as body text, no attachments. As a student, I got a free (to me) license for the whole MS office suite, so it sat on my laptop, mostly unused. As a math person, LaTeX did such a beautiful job formatting my math heavy writings, I only needed to use an open source editor to make beautifully formatted documents.
Once I was an adult, thrown out into the real world, I wasn't going to need to write papers. Since my MS software had expired, I wrote my resumé using LaTeX. I think it turned out even better that way. I've always done some form of writing, and at this time it was in the form of blog posts and journal entries. I didn't need any fancy formatting, and MS Word created huge bloated documents, so even after purchasing a license through my job for a whole $9.99, I still used the plain text editor that came with my OS. Later, my husband got another MS Word license through his job, and that copy still sits on the laptop I use now.
When I decided to write my first novel, I opened up TextEdit and started writing. I already knew MS Word took a long time to start up, and even longer to load a huge document. TextEdit wasn't particularly fast at loading documents either, so I saved each scene as a separate RTF file.
When I got to the end of the first draft, I knew I had a problem. I didn't have a manuscript, I had 56 files which needed sequential page numbers, headings, cover page, the works. I tried to put each part together into one document in MS Word and add at least a little bit of formatting. It was a mess. And how would I do revisions? I needed a better way.
At this point I had already found an online writing forum I frequented, so I had heard about Scrivener. I downloaded it and started my 30 day trial. I copied each scene into the program and organized them into chapters. The binder view made it painfully obvious when I had big stretches missing my second point-of-view character, and I could easily select different chapters and see their word counts. My love affair for the software really blossomed when I started drafting my next book. I loved the blank page with no tools or rulers, just text.
The publishing world uses MS Word, probably because it is still the formatting powerhouse. When submitting my first novel, some agents and publishers requested my manuscript (or parts of it) in a DOCX file. No problem. I could compile my work in Scrivener as an RTF, open it in MS Word, then save in the correct format. I open my beautiful manuscript in MS Word and...
My book is a total mess. The entire body is in italics, essentially removing any differentiation between normal and emphasis in the text. I have to go back and forth before I realize it was the font I chose that was the culprit. I still don't know why it did that, but switching to Times New Roman seemed to remedy the issue. But some of the page breaks were wrong. Not all my chapters started on a new page, but some of them followed a blank page.
I went to YouTube and watched some tutorials. Yes, MS Word can do some cool formatting things to make a published novel look really professional, but getting everything to work together requires some, well, serious work.
To the publisher who requested a full in DOCX format, sorry, but you got a PDF. I know it's important to follow guidelines, but it was more important to me that my manuscript looked its best. I could have attached an explanation of why I chose the different format, but I didn't.
The real problem I have with MS Word is that it tries to be good at everything, which detracts from user experience. Since it offers so many styles, it's easier to get one little option wrong, and make a mess of the whole document. When writing a letter, it double spaced my address, but if I use a template, I had a crazy colorful letter with weird graphics and place holders for my corporate logo which I felt made it less professional. So, instead of finishing my letter in MS Word, I opened TextEdit and wrote the plainest looking letter, and it's exactly what I wanted.
July 17, 2016
Beta Reader
I've heard from multiple sources that a potential agent or publisher should not be the first pair of eyes other than the writer to read a manuscript. Now that I've finished the first round of hacking and slashing through my current work in progress, it's time to release it on its own two wobbly feet and see if it can successfully stand.
The best part of getting writer friends to read through my manuscript is that I can reciprocate and read through theirs. It's always exciting diving into a new book, living in a realm of kings, queens, and cut throat pirates through the eyes of a reckless teen princess.
But beta reading is fundamentally different than just picking up a random paperback at the bookstore to enjoy over a hot cup of coffee. When I finish skimming through the light hearted period romance, it's done. The author doesn't want to know that I thought the choice of blue hair for the love interest was silly, I hated how they used the word "well," way too many times, or that I wanted to see more of the quirky sidekick in act II. The novel is how it is. I can certainly interact with the community of fans surrounding that work and discuss the meaning we gleaned from behind the words, but the letters on the page are static and unchanging.
That's the beauty of beta reading. The writer is soliciting my feedback, and in some cases, my thoughts may change the final product. There's a dynamic between the reader and the creator which gives the reader an incredible sense of power over the work they're consuming.
Of course, there are more differences than just that. Usually the manuscript in still fairly rough, and as a reader I have a responsibility to not only react, but also identify parts of the novel that may not be working as well. The author is relying on me to help identify plot holes and missing character development, and I take the job seriously.
I'm taking a well needed break from my current project while others read through it, and in the mean time, I get to ready some really great stuff. It's a real win-win.
The best part of getting writer friends to read through my manuscript is that I can reciprocate and read through theirs. It's always exciting diving into a new book, living in a realm of kings, queens, and cut throat pirates through the eyes of a reckless teen princess.
But beta reading is fundamentally different than just picking up a random paperback at the bookstore to enjoy over a hot cup of coffee. When I finish skimming through the light hearted period romance, it's done. The author doesn't want to know that I thought the choice of blue hair for the love interest was silly, I hated how they used the word "well," way too many times, or that I wanted to see more of the quirky sidekick in act II. The novel is how it is. I can certainly interact with the community of fans surrounding that work and discuss the meaning we gleaned from behind the words, but the letters on the page are static and unchanging.
That's the beauty of beta reading. The writer is soliciting my feedback, and in some cases, my thoughts may change the final product. There's a dynamic between the reader and the creator which gives the reader an incredible sense of power over the work they're consuming.
Of course, there are more differences than just that. Usually the manuscript in still fairly rough, and as a reader I have a responsibility to not only react, but also identify parts of the novel that may not be working as well. The author is relying on me to help identify plot holes and missing character development, and I take the job seriously.
I'm taking a well needed break from my current project while others read through it, and in the mean time, I get to ready some really great stuff. It's a real win-win.
July 13, 2016
Did it Again
I had decided that I was done with Twitter pitch parties for the manuscript I’m submitting right now. I should really focus on revising my current work in progress. All this endless pitching is just a form of procrastination, drawing me away from what I really need to work on.
And then I saw that today was #Pit2Pub, and I figured, what the heck? I’ve already got pitches that have been successful in the past, why not give it a shot? I had mixed feelings as I published the first tweet. I want to hear back from those already holding a copy of my manuscript and am not sure I’m ready for even more rejection. But there’s no real commitment by just putting a tweet out there. Getting a like on a pitch is an invitation to submit, but there’s no expectation either way.
Within a minute I got a retweet. Then another after a couple more. A half hour into the event, I’ve already had three likes by independent publishers, which is what I’m really looking for.
Even though I’ve got a success pitch, I really hope my novel will be successful too. I’ve heard the recommendation of submitting a project for a year before shelving it. I haven’t been at this that long yet. In fact, I’ve got plenty of time before I hit that mile post.
But right now I should get back to work. Revisions have been rough. It’s easier then the first project I revised since I’ve gotten better at drafting. My characters have been a little more consistent this time, but the first draft had a serious lack of setting and world building.
So, enough musing for now. Back to work.
July 9, 2016
Rejections and Moving Forward
Like most people, I am not immune to rejection. Of course I want everyone to love me and accept me, but I also understand that this just isn’t realistic.
I’ve done only a handful of submitting with my first manuscript, and each time a rejection comes in, I can’t help but feel sad. It’s just natural. I’m still human. The nicer rejections are easier to stomach. The form ones, less so. The non-responses are kind of infuriating.
After dealing with a particularly nice rejection immediately followed by two form rejections, I decided to step back and evaluate what I really want for my manuscript. I want to have it published, but not under just any circumstances. Otherwise, it would already be available for download on Amazon with a boring cover made by your truly without getting the professional edit it deserves.
I want my novel to shine and be it’s very best. I want to feel proud when I tell all my friends and family, and every person I’ve ever known and will meet in the future if we’re being honest, to check out my book.
Originally I thought sending a submission to just one (big) publisher would do the job. Obviously they would love my novel and put it on bookshelves across the world. As I kept writing and also researching publishing, I learned how ludicrous this plan was.
Since I plan on continuing to write, I guessed that I had to get an agent who would help guide my career as a writer. Plus, an agent is required to be heard by the big publishers. It’s a win-win. Get a professional for me and a huge publisher for my first book. This was the best fit for my goals, right? My book would get a nice cover and a few passes by professional editors. Sure I would only get a minimal amount of money from each book sale, my agent taking a cut from that, but my book would get exposed to tons and tons of people because it would be in every bookstore nationwide. Right? Right?
In reality, I want to share my book, and with lots of people. I’d like them to be able to read it in ebook, paperback, and audio formats. I’m ready to jump into the nitty gritty of marketing and selling myself while also writing my next (hopefully bestseller) novel.
Obviously this means I should self publish. If I’m willing to get my hands dirty, I should just jump head first into the mire. The obvious pitfall with this plan is that I don’t have a team or the capital to do it right. I would need to find a trustworthy editor and cover artist, labor over formatting, and purchase my own ISBNs. It would be a lot of work and a lot of money for someone who’s never done this before. It’s all too much.
That’s why I originally wanted a partner. A person or group of people could help me navigate the world of publishing to ensure that my novel has the best chance of succeeding. Does this person have to be a literary agent? Not necessarily. There are all kinds of publishers out there other than the big five, and a lot of them are willing or even prefer to work directly with authors.
What I’m trying to say in so many words, is that even though I’ve gotten a few rejections now, I’m still putting myself and my book out there while also considering all the avenues which will help me reach my goal. I really hope to get this book published, but if in the end it doesn’t, my current work in progress will because it’s freaking awesome!