On Monday, I was exhausted from the conference, so I didn't get a whole lot done, but I still met my new goal of 1000 words per day and I made it to my Monday night writers' group where I spent the evening organizing the second half of Journey to Artemisia. At the moment, the "second half" is a conglomeration of rough draft pages and scenes that I've written here and there, but didn't yet have a place to put them.
Now they're in order. This morning I woke up, mentally revising the beginning of a friend's chapter she read to the group last night. If that doesn't make me a writer, I don't know what does.
I sent her an email, then started working on Journey to Artemisia around 9:00am. Three hours later, I had well over 1000 words and had pieced together and polished 10 single-spaced typed pages.
At this rate I'll have the first draft finished within ten days. With it that close, I can almost taste it. My energy has shifted tremendously since the conference, like exploding and breaking open a dam. I love it!
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Serious Writers Write, Persevere, and Get Published
362 days of the year, I surround myself with writers. I lead creative writing workshops; I take writing workshops; I hang out in cafes with writer-friends; I socialize with writers. But I always feel like I'm the most serious writer I know.
Then I go to a 3-day writers conference and I am surrounded by over four-hundred people who are serious about writing and getting published. I discover that there are lots of people out there who take it more seriously than I do. They actually write 2,500 to 5,000 words per week. That's 500 - 1000 word per day, five days per week.
That might not sound like much, but try it for a year and you'll discover how much commitment and discipline it takes to do that. These are people who write for a living and get published. These are serious writers, career writers, not hobby writers.
So if you want to be a serious writer, which means getting published and eventually earning a living from it, make a commitment, and discipline yourself to write 1000 words per day, at least 5 day a week. That's 2 single-spaced typed pages per day.
So the first lesson I learned this weekend is that serious writers write seriously.
The second lesson I learned is that in order to get published, and eventually earn a living as a freelance writer, you must persevere. During brunch today, I sat next to Kelley Armstrong and I asked her to tell me the time-line of her career. She said, "When I was 22, after graduating from college, I took writers workshops and tried to learn the craft of writing for about 3 years, then got serious about publishing. I got my first publishing contract when I was 30, then it took another year before the book came out. So, it was basically an 8-year apprenticeship, but 9 years before I made any money at it."
My path toward a writing career hasn't been quite that clear-cut. But she suggested that I balance sending out queries and submissions with writing my fourth novel, Journey to Artemisia. That way I keep something floating out there all the time, but don't get obsessed about it.
It's clear from listening to the stories of other published writers that if you write and persevere, you will eventually get published. It's like if you step out your front door and start walking toward San Francisco, you will eventually get there. You can't not get there if you keep moving in that direction.
I wish I would have taken my writing seriously a lot sooner, but it was so pounded into my head how competitive it is. Now I see that competition is not the obstacle to publication. The obstacles to publication are not writing enough and not persevering.
The way I look at it, I KNOW there is no other form of work I want to do other than writing and teaching writing. So I may as well write and persevere. The years are going to pass one way or another, and in five years from now I'll be five years older either way. How lovely it would be to find myself, five years from now, the one standing at the podium giving the keynote speech to 400 hopeful writers, the one signing books, rather than still dreaming about it.
One more lesson I learned this weekend is that commercial and genre fiction are easier to sell than literary or general fiction. Fortunately I'm now half-way through writing a fantasy novel and I think this is probably an excellent move for my career in terms of getting published. If I stick to my goal of 1,000 words per day, I could have the first draft completed in 50 days from now.
I invite you to give yourself a goal and stick with it. The simple act of disciplining yourself to meet your writing goals will make all the difference in the world.
Then I go to a 3-day writers conference and I am surrounded by over four-hundred people who are serious about writing and getting published. I discover that there are lots of people out there who take it more seriously than I do. They actually write 2,500 to 5,000 words per week. That's 500 - 1000 word per day, five days per week.
That might not sound like much, but try it for a year and you'll discover how much commitment and discipline it takes to do that. These are people who write for a living and get published. These are serious writers, career writers, not hobby writers.
So if you want to be a serious writer, which means getting published and eventually earning a living from it, make a commitment, and discipline yourself to write 1000 words per day, at least 5 day a week. That's 2 single-spaced typed pages per day.
So the first lesson I learned this weekend is that serious writers write seriously.
The second lesson I learned is that in order to get published, and eventually earn a living as a freelance writer, you must persevere. During brunch today, I sat next to Kelley Armstrong and I asked her to tell me the time-line of her career. She said, "When I was 22, after graduating from college, I took writers workshops and tried to learn the craft of writing for about 3 years, then got serious about publishing. I got my first publishing contract when I was 30, then it took another year before the book came out. So, it was basically an 8-year apprenticeship, but 9 years before I made any money at it."
My path toward a writing career hasn't been quite that clear-cut. But she suggested that I balance sending out queries and submissions with writing my fourth novel, Journey to Artemisia. That way I keep something floating out there all the time, but don't get obsessed about it.
It's clear from listening to the stories of other published writers that if you write and persevere, you will eventually get published. It's like if you step out your front door and start walking toward San Francisco, you will eventually get there. You can't not get there if you keep moving in that direction.
I wish I would have taken my writing seriously a lot sooner, but it was so pounded into my head how competitive it is. Now I see that competition is not the obstacle to publication. The obstacles to publication are not writing enough and not persevering.
The way I look at it, I KNOW there is no other form of work I want to do other than writing and teaching writing. So I may as well write and persevere. The years are going to pass one way or another, and in five years from now I'll be five years older either way. How lovely it would be to find myself, five years from now, the one standing at the podium giving the keynote speech to 400 hopeful writers, the one signing books, rather than still dreaming about it.
One more lesson I learned this weekend is that commercial and genre fiction are easier to sell than literary or general fiction. Fortunately I'm now half-way through writing a fantasy novel and I think this is probably an excellent move for my career in terms of getting published. If I stick to my goal of 1,000 words per day, I could have the first draft completed in 50 days from now.
I invite you to give yourself a goal and stick with it. The simple act of disciplining yourself to meet your writing goals will make all the difference in the world.
Friday, April 23, 2010
Blessed By Jupiter
Well, my luck hasn't been all good today (only got 5 hours of sleep, got stuck in a traffic jam/snow storm for an hour and a half on the highway, missed the first session of the conference, and I'm exhausted), but when it really mattered, Jupiter came through for me.
My original pitch appointment was with Gary Heidt, the one agent who would be least interested in what I've written. I was dying for Scott Hoffman of Folio Literary Management because his literary interests and what he's looking for matches The Diaries of Lilith Fyerider to a T.
The conference handout says, "Scott is looking for literary fiction, spiritual or religious-themed fiction, and fantasy that crosses over into literary fiction, and first novels." That IS The Diaries of Lilith Fyerider.
After the last session of the day, they did a pitch appointment swap. I stood at the desk for a half-hour waiting and when the moment to strike came, I went in for the kill and came out with Scott's first appointment tomorrow morning.
Thank the gods and goddesses! May they bless me tomorrow morning as well!
My original pitch appointment was with Gary Heidt, the one agent who would be least interested in what I've written. I was dying for Scott Hoffman of Folio Literary Management because his literary interests and what he's looking for matches The Diaries of Lilith Fyerider to a T.
The conference handout says, "Scott is looking for literary fiction, spiritual or religious-themed fiction, and fantasy that crosses over into literary fiction, and first novels." That IS The Diaries of Lilith Fyerider.
After the last session of the day, they did a pitch appointment swap. I stood at the desk for a half-hour waiting and when the moment to strike came, I went in for the kill and came out with Scott's first appointment tomorrow morning.
Thank the gods and goddesses! May they bless me tomorrow morning as well!
An Accidental Opportunity
After arriving late, I discovered I missed the first session, but still had time to make my Read & Critique appointment. I read the first two pages of The Diaries of Lilith Fyerider and received some good feedback from author Bob Spiller. Then it was time for lunch.
I stood in line and waited, observing the other workshop participants to see if anyone looked familiar. A woman stood behind me in line and struck up a conversation. "Where are you from?" she asked.
"I'm from Denver. Where are you from?"
"New York."
"How was your flight?"
"It was good."
"So you're from New York? That's, like, the hot bed of publishing, why would you come to Colorado?" I asked, thinking she was a starving writer like myself.
"I'm Betsy Mitchell from Del Rey." For anyone who doesn't know, Del Rey is the fantasy imprint of Random House.
"Oh, wow, then I should definitely be talking to you!" I laughed.
So I had a captive audience while we walked into the banquet hall and sat next to each other for lunch. I told her about The Diaries of Lilith Fyerider and Journey to Artemisia.
I said, "It's so difficult to come up with something new and original in the fantasy genre."
"Well, that sounds new to me," she said about Journey to Artemisia and she clued me in to a few useful bits of information:
1) Del Rey doesn't take young adult fantasy, so if I want to submit to Del Rey, write it as adult fiction, which I think it is anyway.
2) They don't take unagented fiction unless you meet an editor (like Betsy) at a conference.
3) I can query as soon as the first draft is 95% complete. So that tells me I'd better get my butt in gear and finish Journey to Artemisia while she still remembers who I am.
It was wonderful to meet her. She's a very friendly person, which I appreciated because the whole process of meeting agents and editors can be so intimidating for first-time authors. I hope she enjoyed meeting me too. And I hope she will still remember me by the time I get the second half of the novel pounded out.
I stood in line and waited, observing the other workshop participants to see if anyone looked familiar. A woman stood behind me in line and struck up a conversation. "Where are you from?" she asked.
"I'm from Denver. Where are you from?"
"New York."
"How was your flight?"
"It was good."
"So you're from New York? That's, like, the hot bed of publishing, why would you come to Colorado?" I asked, thinking she was a starving writer like myself.
"I'm Betsy Mitchell from Del Rey." For anyone who doesn't know, Del Rey is the fantasy imprint of Random House.
"Oh, wow, then I should definitely be talking to you!" I laughed.
So I had a captive audience while we walked into the banquet hall and sat next to each other for lunch. I told her about The Diaries of Lilith Fyerider and Journey to Artemisia.
I said, "It's so difficult to come up with something new and original in the fantasy genre."
"Well, that sounds new to me," she said about Journey to Artemisia and she clued me in to a few useful bits of information:
1) Del Rey doesn't take young adult fantasy, so if I want to submit to Del Rey, write it as adult fiction, which I think it is anyway.
2) They don't take unagented fiction unless you meet an editor (like Betsy) at a conference.
3) I can query as soon as the first draft is 95% complete. So that tells me I'd better get my butt in gear and finish Journey to Artemisia while she still remembers who I am.
It was wonderful to meet her. She's a very friendly person, which I appreciated because the whole process of meeting agents and editors can be so intimidating for first-time authors. I hope she enjoyed meeting me too. And I hope she will still remember me by the time I get the second half of the novel pounded out.
On the Road to the Conference
It was a lousy beginning. I got up at 5:00am to finish packing and drive down to Colorado Springs for the conference. At 7:30am, before I got to Palmer Lake, it was snowing and the traffic came to a dead stop. I turned off the car and the traffic stood still for an hour and a half, snow continuing to pile up on the sides of the road.
I had to pee so badly I was about to wet my pants. There was no where to go. It was a four-lane highway, separated by a median. No trees, no bushes, thousands of cars lined up bumper-to-bumper for miles. I was dying for a catheter.
Finally, I couldn't take it anymore, so I slipped over to the passenger seat, opened both car doors on the passenger side to create some privacy, like a stall. I squatted between them and peed into the snow drift on the side of the road. It was such a relief I didn't even care who got mooned.
If you happened to be driving south on I-25 to Palmer Lake this morning and wondered who that ballsy chick was... that was me.
Now you may be asking yourself, does this really have anything to do with writing? Sure it does. Everything in life is fodder for writing. If you're parked on the highway in a snowstorm for an hour and a half, why not write?
I had to pee so badly I was about to wet my pants. There was no where to go. It was a four-lane highway, separated by a median. No trees, no bushes, thousands of cars lined up bumper-to-bumper for miles. I was dying for a catheter.
Finally, I couldn't take it anymore, so I slipped over to the passenger seat, opened both car doors on the passenger side to create some privacy, like a stall. I squatted between them and peed into the snow drift on the side of the road. It was such a relief I didn't even care who got mooned.
If you happened to be driving south on I-25 to Palmer Lake this morning and wondered who that ballsy chick was... that was me.
Now you may be asking yourself, does this really have anything to do with writing? Sure it does. Everything in life is fodder for writing. If you're parked on the highway in a snowstorm for an hour and a half, why not write?
Monday, April 19, 2010
Countdown to Pikes Peak Writers Conference
The three-day conference starts on Friday, April 23rd. That's four days from now. I completed The Diaries of Lilith Fyerider so I plan to pitch it while I'm there. I may pitch Journey to Artemisia as well, though I haven't completed the first draft, but I'd like to see what kind of response I get. Pitching is also extremely helpful for getting focused on what the novel is about.
I have several goals I'd like to achieve with this conference, one of them is blogging daily and sharing the experience with my writer-friends and former students who weren't able to attend this year.
One of the things I like about going to a conference is the intensity of production it creates. For those who are interested in learning more about this conference, check out their website at http://ppwcon.org
I have several goals I'd like to achieve with this conference, one of them is blogging daily and sharing the experience with my writer-friends and former students who weren't able to attend this year.
One of the things I like about going to a conference is the intensity of production it creates. For those who are interested in learning more about this conference, check out their website at http://ppwcon.org
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