Four “Comforting” Things People Say to Pre-Published Writers (That are NOT)

4. You finished a book! Most people will never manage that!

Yeah, okay. I finished a book. Yay me! It is a big accomplishment, but it’s also one that I hit for the first time when I was 13. I’ve written almost SIX books now. It is hard to see writing additional books as anything but a failure—as in, I’ve written six fucking books that I can’t sell. I’m just piling up rubbish manuscripts, and that doesn’t feel like an accomplishment at all.

3. But writing is its own reward! Don’t think about getting published!

Writing is hard goddamn work. Which doesn’t mean that it can’t be its own reward, but it isn’t something that fills my life with rainbows and sunshine. I do derive great pleasure from perfecting a turn of phrase or making a plot come together just so. Obviously I must enjoy it for its own sake on some level or I wouldn’t still be doing it. And for some people, just writing is their goal. That’s great! But for me, I want to share my writing. And while I do that in various forms already, the biggest way that writers share their work is by publishing. That is my goal.

2. Well, I’ve read your stuff, and it’s so good!

I know, complaining about praise seems churlish. And I do love getting feedback of all kinds on my writing (seriously, I crave it, harsh or kind), and positive feedback can make me feel like a thousand bucks. But in the context of publishing, it’s disheartening. Because if I’m so good, then I don’t know what I’m doing wrong, which means I can’t fix it. And I’ll spend another 14 years doing whatever I’m doing and not getting anywhere with it. And even if I really am good (doubtful), then it just makes it feel unfair (ha, I know, that word) that I haven’t had any luck at all wading through the slush.

1. Yes, agents get tons of queries, but 90% of them are pure crap—can’t follow guidelines, can’t string together a sentence, can’t even spell check! The odds aren’t actually that bad for the good ones.

On first blush, this should be a good thing. I do research agents and their guidelines and requests extensively, and I do spend a lot of time and effort perfecting my query letter. I proofread and edit and still have not ever accidentally sent out one with the wrong name. So I should be ahead of the game! Except I’m not. Which means—oh gods, I must be the 90%. I must not be good at all. Worse, I am one of those delusional people who thinks she is doing okay. But I can’t even beat out the half-trained monkeys sending “To Whom It May Concern” queries about their sparkly teenage vampires. Fuck.

Anyway, I know this is all very complainypants, but I’m in a complainypants space right now. I may or may not have cried myself to sleep last night, as my queries for novel 7 draw to a close and novel 8 continues to refuse to come together. I’m feeling discouraged, and I want to feel uplifted, but it seems that every “inspiring” quote or post is just making me feel worse. I think maybe I need to disconnect from the writing community for a little while, do what I can for this first draft of novel 8, and remember that I do love writing for what it is—and right now, it definitely not is getting read.

Critique Blog Hop!

So as I recently finished up novel 7, I've been getting into the exciting/nerve-wracking stage of submitting it! Oh, the joys of querying. Anyway, I've had zero success in two contests now and so far no positive responses from the first batch of queries. It's enough to make a writer want to crawl into a hole and say "Sorry for bothering." But that's not me! So instead I am joining the Critique Blog Hop hosted as a follow-on to the Sun vs. Snow contest. If you would like to participate, follow the link--you submit your entry and crit 10 other entries. Or if you would just like to offer any feedback to me here, I am always looking for ways to improve! And with no further ado, I present to you my novel 7!

 

Short pitch:
 

A jaded god has to beat his ennui in order to save his family, his people, and his home from a roving gang of displaced gods.

 

Query:
 

Being a god is a decent gig, but Vassyr can only spend so many centuries seducing mortal women and antagonizing his older sister. So when he discovers a way off their world, he doesn't stop for half a second to listen to her objections. Sure, she says he owes the mortals something and should be doing more, but Vassyr knows she loves doing it all herself. He simply can't listen to one more prayer from some farmer's son dying to become a hero.

In the face of an alluring array of new worlds to explore, it's easy to forget about the tedious responsibilities and family he abandoned. But although Vassyr is four thousand years old, he's no better than a naïve mortal out in the wider universe. When he carelessly insults a roving gang of displaced gods, he becomes a casualty of their desperate search for a new home. Worse, he reveals the location of his world.

Vassyr's home may have seemed stifling to him, but to these gods, it is a target ripe for annexation—and they don't care who is killed in the process. As his world is ravaged in the battle between his family and the interlopers, Vassyr realizes that being a god comes with some real responsibilities after all. He has to find a way to protect the mortals, convince his sister to trust him again, and send the trespassers packing while there is still a home left to save.

 

First 250 words:
 

Vassyr hit the mortal with a thick chunk of air. Not hard—he was just after a bit of fun, not punishment. The mortal rubbed the back of his head and looked around the common room, frowning. Vassyr had to bite on the knuckles of his left hand to stifle a giggle. He could almost hear his sister's scolding that giggles weren't godlike, but he didn't give a shit about that. But if the mortals heard laughter from an apparently empty chair, they'd probably declare the place haunted and take to their heels. Idiots. Not that it wouldn't be amusing, but that wasn't his plan. He used his free hand to send another swat of air sailing through the tavern.

"Who was that?" roared a big beast of a man. He pushed his chair back, spilling his ale in an amber pool.

No one answered, or even dared to meet the man's eye. Trying to save their skins, no doubt—cowards, the lot of them. What else could one expect of mortals? Vassyr bit his lip and made another flick. A man sitting two tables away sprang to his feet, one hand clasping the back of his neck. A dagger was already unsheathed in his other hand.

"What do you mean by that?"

Vassyr flicked again, and now he was able to let his laughter loose. There was more than enough noise to mask it. The big man had picked up an entire bench and was waving it around rather indiscriminately, and the brawl was inevitable from there.

The Frustration of Feedback

As my querying goes south, I've been trying to gather more feedback to figure out where I might be going wrong. Looking for new betas for my manuscripts. Sending my query letter through an intensive critiquing over at Absolute Write. Getting books on revising and editing to warm up for my next revision.

Ah, feedback.

It's a double-edged sword, isn't it? As a writer, I want people to read my work. I don't write for myself (I mean I do, in the general sense, but for me the purpose of any specific work is to be read). Knowing how real, actual readers respond to the work is invaluable. But at this stage, the work isn't perfected, at least as much as any finally released product will be. There's so much wrong with it, and it can be hard to show that to another person. What if they think I'm a bad writer forever? Not to mention that hearing harsh criticisms of something that has been the result of months, even years, of work can be difficult.

I have a pretty thick skin. I definitely fall more on the "all the feedback!" side of the spectrum. I want to know where my manuscript falls down. I need the perspective that I can never have as the author. I have no problem sending my manuscript out there to betas or others.

Then the first response comes in. Sure, there's a lot of problems they've found. But it starts to give me an idea of what I need to work on. The manuscript starts to feel fixable.

Then the second response comes in. And, wtf, it's completely different!

Everyone has different preferences in a story. Some people will identify with characters and some won't. The feedback can be all over the place. It can be enough to make the manuscript seem an irredeemable mess. If everyone finds a different problem, that means there are infinite problems!! 

Okay, deep breath.

The great thing about readers is that they are all different. There is no universally beloved book—no, really, not a single one. Gathering a wide range of feedback is excellent, but a manuscript could be crippled by trying to cater to everyone one of them. Just got to take the advice that resonates, fix the unintentional mistakes, look for common issues. And remember: in the end, it's your book. Take what you can use from the feedback, but write the book you want to write!

This is for the guy whose name is an instant touchstone for "brilliant author." And not by some illiterate schmoe.

(PS, if anyone is interested in reading a YA fantasy or adult SF...)

Shooting for the Moon

Maybe I've set my sights too high. Maybe, instead of getting published, my goal should just be to get a personalized rejection. At least that would represent progress over the past 10 years.

Rejection Collection

I have mentioned before that I have a positive relationship with my rejection letters. I have been submitting things and being rejected for them for years--honestly I do not even remember how long ago my first submission was. Sadly, that letter is lost. The earliest letter that I have saved in my collection is from the summer of 2004. That may not sound so long ago, but at the time I was 16 and preparing to enter my senior year of high school, so it certainly seems ages ago to me!

I am in dead seriousness when I say I have a collection. Proof:

Sure, it's cheesy. (Yes, that is crayon!) But I love it. Even when I receive them by email, I print them out so I can add them to my binder. It reminds me that, however stagnant I might feel, I do produce work. Okay, maybe not work that anyone wants to publish, but so what? No one gets published right away. And someday, when I do get that yes, I will have this as proof that I have worked my butt off.

So today, as I sent off a slew of queries, I am not scared about the rejections I know I'll get back. I'm excited to add to my rejection collection!

What Kind of Dog Do I Have?

Well, none, because I'm not a dog person.

But that's not the point, obviously, or it would be both a very short and very non-writing-related post!

So currently my beta reader is my boyfriend, after my other beta readers flaked out and he kept insisting he wanted to read some of my writing. I like letting him read it, but I also know it's not really what I need. Because, you know, even though I make him swear to be honest, at the end of the day he still wants to sleep with me. But he still has some good insights, and he isn't completely sugarcoating it.

The other day he was reading a book I recommended to him (The Lies of Locke Lamora, by Scott Lynch) and he pointed out a paragraph in the scene he was reading. "I'm glad you don't do stuff like this." (I'm a better writer than Scott Lynch! Well maybe not...) What he was referring to was a descriptive paragraph that had nothing to do with the scene. My writing tends to be very action-oriented--my polite way of saying that I hate writing description and have entirely too little of it. So then my boyfriend pointed out to me another paragraph in the scene where the description is integrated into what is actually happening. "I like that," he told me. "And you do that really, really well. But you don't do it enough."

And he's right. Adding description is one of the biggest things I try to do on re-writes, and it's hard. It would be a lot easier to go back and cut unnecessary crap out than try and shoehorn in more. I know my writing is too lean--this WIP is sitting right at about 80k words--and it's frustrating as hell.

So what my boyfriend told me is that some books are like Great Danes. Huge and thick and full of everything. And that maybe my book is a poodle--and no matter how much I feed it, it's never going to be a Great Dane or a German Shepherd.

That shook me pretty deeply. This WIP is the best thing I've got, and now I'm facing the idea that I can mess around with it forever but it will never be good enough. That I need to start over, at 0 words, with another idea. That terrifies me.

I'm not giving up on this WIP. I'm through 12 chapters of my rewrite and going to start shopping it again when I'm finished. But now I'm excited to start something new and see how much better I can do this time around. After all, I did first start working on this WIP when I was 16. Hopefully by now I've got something bigger than a poodle trying to get out.

Wishful Thinking

I haven't updated the blog recently because I was really, really hoping that my next post would be one with good news. I submitted a couple of my short stories to a few different publications back in March, and I had a good feeling about them. Maybe something would come of it, even if just a little nibble in the form of a personalized rejections.

(Rejections, honestly, do not faze me. I've been collecting rejection letters since I was like 12, and it is always the expected outcome. But hey, at least it means I'm trying! I only wish I hadn't lost some of my rejection letters over the years and moves.)

Anyway, here we are now, and it is May and I haven't heard anything. Not a peep. It's been about 5 weeks, which was generally listed as the response time, so I'll either start hearing soon or I'll know it wasn't meant to be this time. It's a little disheartening (give me a rejection letter any day, but sitting around waiting is killer!), but it's not like I've been sitting around twiddling my thumbs. I've been working busily on my rewrite of my novel.

So it's not quite the good news I was hoping to post, but it is good news. I've finished eight chapters--there are only eighteen in all, so I'm almost half done. And now that I'm finished at work for a while, I am getting one or two chapters done every day. I should be finished with this rewrite by the end of next week. And THAT is good fucking news.

Positive Affirmation!

I know that it all must be taken with a grain of salt (lots of big, BIG grains, as a matter of fact), but of the two people who've read my first chapter, both really liked it! I posted it to Scribophile and got my first crit there, and he started out with "I thoroughly enjoyed this chapter. It is the best thing that I have read on this site, so far. You captured my interest, immediately." Trying not to pat myself on the back too much ensues. And what he said pretty much lined up exactly with what Beta 1 (hubby :)) said. One point made in the Scrib crit hit so close to home: "Your writing is very clear and clean (and that is much appreciated - thank you), and your descriptions are wonderful. On the flip side of that, though, is a suggestion is to examine and kill some of your adjectives." It's so true! I love adjectives and adverbs, and no matter how much I know that I shouldn't overuse them, I can't stand to get rid of them! That will be a project for my line editing for sure.

Unfortunately there seems to be an issue with the in-line critique I got, where only the first word of each comment is displayed, so I didn't get to see what specific recommendations/issues the critiquer pointed out. I'm hoping it's just due to my terrible work computer and IE6, so I'll check it again at home tomorrow. Possibly an error in posting though.

With a couple good praises under my belt, I feel a lot better going forward. I'm on duty today, so I should have plenty of time to knock out some good chunks!