2014 Resolution: Become an Author, One Month at a Time

As many of you know, I'm an aspiring author. My goal has always been to get published, get a teaching job and spend the rest of my days writing and teaching. I've now been graduated with my MFA in Creative Writing for a year and a half, and I still have a ways to go even on just the first part of that plan.

So I decided that for 2014, I'd give myself a little bit of structure. I'm starting the year off with a few Next Step oriented goals (not results oriented, like GET AN AGENT! because that has the same problems as having poker goals that are results-oriented). At the end of every month, I'll assess where I am with everything and decide what I need to do in the next month to get me closer to published.

I'll start the year off with:

-Get my current draft of my cover letter for my novel (Utility) to a point that I feel comfortable sending it to agents
-Finish redrafting my short non-fiction piece ("The Was") to a point that I feel comfortable sending it to publications (then, send to at least 2 publications)
-Write at least one complete scene for my short fiction piece ("Predisposed")

More detail on each of these below.

What's gone is gone

{edited by a500lbgorilla}

I'm not a writer of any sort....

1st Paragraph:
1) 'added up' and 'compute' mean the same thing so it sounds redundant.
2) deploreablemen - one word? I'm also not crazy about the phrase 'optimally deplorable' because that also seems redundant.
3) Why say 'modern-day New York'? Do you have no other way to establish the time period? If so, you could just say 'men of New York'.
4) 'without ever coming in contact with his victims' is a simplistic way to express the thought.

2nd Paragraph:
1) 'As flashy as that sounds' lets the agent know that you meant to sound flashy. Is that what you want?
2 'a“normal”' is two words...needs a space.
3) 'the religious opium' - First of all, what is religious opium? Secondly, if you leave out the word 'the', it reads better.
4) Also, you say 'He's obsessively tried to' which is a switch to past-tense and doesn't sound cohesive. Could you say,'He obsessively rationalizes skating by......economic pie.' Leave this bit out entirely, '—but he just can't. And I mean, ' and pick up with a new sentence starting with 'Surely his beliefs are worth....'

OK, that's all I've got for now except for this. Do you know that eV is the abbreviation for electron-volt? Will the agent know what you're talking about? Also, you may want to put the info about yourself as an introduction, at the beginning, and maybe leave out the 'online' part of being a professional player. She may not understand how legit online poker is and you could always reveal that info later.

Cheers and good luck,
PlayToWin

January Goal #2 - Final Draft of "The Was"

Since I haven't been making too many edits on Utility lately, now's a good time to work on my other short pieces that I think are strong enough for publishing consideration. "The Was" is a completed story about my the week leading up to my Uncle passing. I'm currently doing an overhaul of a 2-year-old draft I had in the drawer, and I'm feeling very good about it. Of course, it has to be very good to find its way to the top of the mountainous slush pile of non-fiction pieces about death, so we'll see.

As of a few seconds ago, I actually have this goal very close to done. I just need to do some semi-final and final touchups. I'll probably have a semi-final draft done by tomorrow. So good on me for working on this every day since the new year.

Hit me up if you're interested in seeing what I have. (dscicala [at] gmail [dot] com)

January Goal #3 - First Draft of at Least One Scene from "Predisposed"

This goal is kinda fluff just because I thought that only redrafting a cover letter and redrafting a 2k word story I'd already written is pretty weak for a month. "Predisposed" is a short fiction work I've been concepting and outlining for a while. It's about a 14-year-old living in the near future who has been flagged at birth as having all of the genetic markers that predispose someone toward psychopathy. I actually have 4 story ideas surrounding this character and am hopeful this could turn into a novel, but for now I'm focusing on one, cohesive ~10k-word piece I have about the boy meeting his mother for the first time (they were separated once the boy was flagged because she was deemed at-risk for abuse).

I'm very big on outlining, and I have all of the scenes lined up for this one with thorough notes for what happens/key details/etc, in each one, but I haven't been able to find the voice for it. I've been spending the last 6 months getting in touch with my inner 14-year-old, and I feel like I'm getting close on being able to put pen-to-paper on this one. I almost see this goal as kind of results-oriented, though, so if I send queries to 40 agents and get "The Was" polished and sent to 10 publications, then I'll feel satisfied with not getting started on this piece.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PlayToWin

Cheers and good luck,
PlayToWin

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Thanks PTW! Some of those errors with spacings were due to FTR forum being glitchy. I fixed a lot of the copy paste errors in my first edit, but some slipped by me.

I've struggled with the phrase "without coming in contact with his victims" for sure. For a long time, it was something along the lines "without ever touching the scene of the crime," but never much liked that. I think the fact that he has a plan that's clever enough to keep him completely removed from the murder itself is enticing, but I'm not sure how well I'm doing it ("remote assassinations" is especially abstract). Could you clarify what you mean when you say it's simplistic?

The religious opium thing is meant to be a reference to Marx's "Religion is the opiate of the masses." I'm not shocked that the phrasing gives pause. I think enough readers have been okay with it for me to keep it for now, but yeah, I'd love to find a better way to word it.

And that brings me to the second sentence of the second paragraph ... siiiiiiigh. This sentence is my fucking Everest. So yes, I'm very open to recommendations. The reservation I have with your suggested wording ("He obsessively rationalizes skating by on a "normal" life with his lovely girlfriend--toking on the religious opium and snagging his piece of the economic pie. Surely his beliefs are worth living by ... ") is that I'm basically trying to say that He really really really wants to rationalize that life, and just settle with making a living with {insert worthless job} and find his purpose in {insert unfounded faith principles} but he just fucking can't. His aberrant rationalism won't let him; he can't find a single reason-based angle where that's tenable.

By the way, I'm not trying to shoot you down; just the opposite. Thanks so much for doing this. Often, when I try to explain with a sentence I'm having trouble wording, the explanation itself is a sentence. Maybe something like, "He would soooo love to just skate by on a "normal" life with his lovely girlfriend--believe that toking on the religious opium or snagging his piece of the economic pie constitutes as a purpose--but he just fucking can't find a rational support for it. And surely his beliefs are worth living by, even if they don't involve an invisible sky wizard?

This incessant brand of reasoning is the norm for spoony, and it pisses off everyone around him."

I don't know. Often the answer is just to blow up the whole thing instead of putting bandaids on an ailing sentence.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by surviva316

Could you clarify what you mean when you say it's simplistic?

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By simplistic, I meant that the phrasing is what I would expect 'average Joe' to come up with. It says what you want to convey but I would hold a publishable author to a higher standard. It should hold more mystery or intrigue or relay that this character has mack-daddy skillz, lol. Sorry, I'm just being brutally honest, as I'm sure the agent will be. But, I could be wrong.

Quote:

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The religious opium thing is meant to be a reference to Marx's "Religion is the opiate of the masses." I'm not shocked that the phrasing gives pause. I think enough readers have been okay with it for me to keep it for now, but yeah, I'd love to find a better way to word it.

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Okay, now I get it. I think I would have understood it the first time if it had read 'toking on the opium of religion.' or actually 'opiate' is more correct. Is that too close to quoting Marx? That's a great quote, btw. So true.

Quote:

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And that brings me to the second sentence of the second paragraph ...

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I see what you're saying. Just keep working with it.

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You should probably read this, even if you're not a fan of HST's books. It's his autobiography and details his struggles learning to be a writer and to become published. I think it would be a great read for any aspiring writer. It made me want to become one (in my fantasies lol); not necessarily become one, but it made me respect and admire them.

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1..._Proud_Highway

Read some of the reviews to get a better idea about it.

I'd recommend the hard-cover which you can find used on Amazon for about $10.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listi...qid=1389067576

Later!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PlayToWin

Sorry, I'm just being brutally honest, as I'm sure the agent will be. But, I could be wrong.

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Nah man, that's totally what I look for in feedback, especially for query letter because agents, by their own admission, read the slush pile with the most jaded, sardonic eye they have. What you're doing is much better than scanning it over and being like, "Nope, I don't see any comma splices. You're golden!"

I'll look into the Hunter S Thompson book. I read Norman Mailer's "what it's like to be a writer before you get to be as big and famous as I am" book, but that was before I'd read any Mailer, and the dude's opinions on anything aren't to be taken seriously, so I'm due for another one of those.

I would NOT say this in your letter: 'I am a graduate of CCNY's MFA program, and this is my first novel. I played online poker professionally for two years.'

I know you want to show your qualifications, but I think when you come from this position it's almost like a position of weakness and you are placing the agent as a higher power in your mind. If the agent is interested in the actual story, they will probably ask more about you. I think this frames the situation better for you. In your head you probably think people aren't going to take your story seriously since it's a little bizarre, but good books are not 'normal' aka boring. By leaving your qualifications out of the letter, you actually show tremendous confidence that this story will sell - and that's the outcome the agent wants. Leave them to ask 'who the fuck is this guy?' - which will be a damn likely question given the story you tell here. Then the ball is in your court.

And if you feel you must put your qualifcations in there, don't say it's your first novel. Act like you turn out novels by the dozen. Fake it till you make it.

Also the goal 'become an author' is silly. You ARE an author. We are a manifestation of what we think we are. If you think you are an alcoholic you'll be(come) one. If you think you are an A student you'll be(come) one. If you continue to think you are an aspiring author, you'll be aspiring for the rest of your life and never actually produce shit.

Anyway that's just one perspective to consider. Good luck man.

Thanks for the encouragement, M2M. Maybe I should just replace my letter with this macro: http://memegenerator.net/instance/44...TimeSpan=Today.

Fwiw, I am no doubt a writer, as in someone who writes stuff. An author is someone who has an author credit. If you were to tell someone at a party, "I'm an author," the natural reply would be, "What have you written?"

Progress update on different goals:

#1: I've been tinkering, and I think it's fine enough to send to an agent here and an agent there, which I've been doing. I'll sit on this one for a bit, and see if I hate it when I come back to it next.

#2: There's one scene I'm stuck on. I'm writing way more content for it than I need, but I'm not at the point yet where I feel I can tie it all into a neat little package and call it a scene. So I'm semi-draft-ish with the entire story except for that one nagging scene, in which case I'd say I'm in the early-editing phases.

#3: No progress on this. Whenever I'm stuck on the other stuff, I go through the scenes in this story in my head and kinda test myself to see how ready I am to be in the characters' head, and I still don't feel there.

Soooo, I guess the only thing that's really budging right now is sending more stuff to agents. Off I go!

Some swell updates:

#1: Sent a slightly tinkered version of the above letter off to 5 agents last week. 2 replied already; both were form rejections :( Better luck to me on the other 3. If they all end up being form rejections/no replies, then I'll likely make some kinda drastic changes to something. Even just getting a personal rejection is a big deal (I'd gotten my first few on the last round of letters after my first 40 or so were form rejection/no reply).

#2: Got my semi-final draft done yesterday, w00t! Had my first beta reader (my fiance; she's actually quite tough please), and she gave her feedback. The revisions necessary were actually pretty considerable, but I guess I was in the mood for being awesome or something because I've already got my draft together and ready to rock, w00t w00t! Next step would be to find another small group of beta readers before sending it to publications, but I don't really know whom to approach next, *hint hint*. Just kidding ... unless ya gone do it. Extra, extra, spread the news, etc.

#3: No progress here still. I'm a fan of Brian Eno's Oblique Strategies and have been using one a day for the last week-or-so, but I've made very meager progress on feeling anymore ready to write a scene. I'm patient with these sorts of things though, especially while I'm making progress on other projects.

That is all.

I'm pretty sure there's no way I can regret doing this: "The Was" in Google Doc form. Not like anyone's likely to care either.

I assume mods will be cool about deleting this for me if there comes to be good reason for it.

I wrote a flash fiction piece last week and have gotten it to the point where I'll want to send it to publications. I think it has a fair-to-good chance of publication.

While I was at it, I dug up an old flash nonfiction piece I'd written years ago and made a working draft out of it. I personally like it, but it's not like anything I've really seen get published in the flash nonfiction genre before, which could be good but most likely is a sign that it's not what editors are looking for. I'm gonna send it around because why not.

I'm also going to start sending "The Was" to publications this week. So yeah, I have a fun week ahead of me.

Still waiting to see how my latest query letter fares with the 3 agents I'm pending response from before I do anything with UTILITY.

I'm leaving "Predisposed" on the backburner for now, which is fine by me. The point of these goals wasn't to rigorously hold me to specific objectives; it's just to keep me constantly vigilant of where I am, so I can stay focused on moving forward. Seems pretty clear I'm taking forward steps; now I just have to hope these stories don't suck.

Awesome idea for an operation Surviva, I really wish you reach your goal. GL

GOGOGOGOGOGOGO

Good luck 'viva!

What tools do you use? As in, do you write with notepad, word, etc?

I prefer to do any writing on the iPad, using a combination of Drafts and IA Writer. The only problem is getting a proper keyboard to do any real writing. Has to be bluetooth. Something like this http://www.amazon.com/Matias-Laptop-...words=keyboard because I can't seem to find an ergonomic bluetooth one worth a damn.

Editing can also be a pain on the iPad. However, for letting the words flow, iPad is king. It is completely distraction free by design. You can let the words rain from anywhere as well. But if you use an app like IA Writer, you can sync back to IA on the desktop to do the editing there. Extensive copy editing is a must, capiche?

Also, backup, backup, backup!

Thanks everybody! I use Open Office on a MacBook Air. I preferred Word for a lot of little reasons, but for all intents and purposes, my life hasn't changed a whole lot since switching. I originally thought of changing over to Pages, especially back in my more ambitious days when I thought I would make UTILITY into the first great digital novel, but I've since realized that seeing as how I'm no exceptional talent at graphic anything, doing any DIY stuff is not going to make my work any more appealing to anyone. There are plenty of distinctive things I've been doing with UTILITY that make it digital-friendly that are perfectly doable in Word/Open Office.

After reading your post, I just went ahead and backed up all of my writing files again, haha. I used to use a Maxtor external harddrive, which is supposed to be compatible with Mac, but it has a bug in it that makes your laptop basically unusable when you have it installed. For now, I zip my document folders and put them on Google Drive, which isn't the perfect solution, but as far as I can tell, it works just fine until I run out of space (up to 86% now).

ONTO THE UPDATES!

#1: I literally had a dream that an agent sat down and workshopped the letter with me. So of course I sat around in bed for an hour thinking of why it sucks at making my awesome novel sound awesome and how to make it better. I just sat down and started a new draft from scratch, but I have the previous one so close to memory that it's still much of the same. I don't know, I think it's better? Whatever, I'm gonna send it to a few agents.

Oh, and I've also been collecting enough things I want to do with the manuscript itself that I might go in and start tinkering.

#2: Sent "The Was" to 6 publications. They take 3+ months to respond, so I'm just gonna keep blasting a bunch of publications, and if no one bites by the summer, then I'll blast to a bunch of second tier publications where I have an advantage (Philadelphia Stories, health-related lit mags, etc). If that fails, then I guess I'll just assume it's not a very good story. So the process will be pretty different from querying agents.

#3: Lol, yeah "Predisposed" is soooooo on the backburner right now. Let's replace my 3rd goal with all of this stuff with my flash pieces:

So remember when I said I wrote a 200-word flash fiction piece? Well, I've actually drafted a couple of related flash fiction pieces, and I think I want to tie them together and make a flash fiction triptych. What's that, you ask? Well I just made it up. It's two very short pieces (<500 words) to open and close it, with a "centerfold" piece (~800 words broken into 4 parts) in the middle. I think it's gonna be pretty awesome, but we'll see. I think it'd be ambitious to think that I'll have something ready to send by the end of the month, but as a writer, having too many next steps to work on is a good thing!

I'm still working on polishing the flash nonfiction piece I dug out of the drawer, but as much as it amuses me, it's not nearly as good as anything else I'm working on now, so that'll probably hit the backburner too.

Look at me, having stuff to do and doing it. Maybe this Op was a good idea.

It's that time of month to deem my Jan goals success or failure and make goals for February:

January Goal #1 - Final Draft of Utility Query

Status: SUCCESS! Reworked my original draft and sent to 6 agents (3 form rejections, 3 yet to reply, 0 Personalized Rejections, 0 Manuscript Requests). Then, I rewrote the whole thing and sent that (hopefully) improved draft to 2 agents (neither has replied).

January Goal #2 - Final Draft of "The Was"

Status: SUCCESS! I have a final manuscript that I've sent to 6 literary journals thus far.

January Goal #3 - First Draft of at Least One Scene from "Predisposed"

Status: Revised. This was a bit of a filler goal, and so I took it in another direction and worked on several flash fiction pieces. I have a flash fiction "triptych" almost completely drafted and have a flash nonfiction piece drafted but not completely polished yet.


February Goals

Goal #1a: Send 3-5 more of my current query letter draft for Utility. If I get any success, then send 5-7 more. If not, then reassess, revise, etc.

1b: I have enough ideas for improvements that it's about that time to go through the draft and make adjustments. Implement ALL of these ideas.

1c: Read through Part 2 and reassess, rewrite, etc (I already did this with Part 1 a few months ago).

Goal #2: Get through the alphabet on the directory of places to send "The Was." I am currently in the early Ds. Response times are so long that I'm going to send to every single high-profile journal that I think is a good fit. If it's July and I haven't been accepted, then I'll start sending to all of my backup plans (places with a lower profile, but where I have advantage, either because it's a magazine specifically geared toward health and sickness or Delaware Valley-area writers, etc).

Goal #3: Get a publishable draft of Wake (the flash fiction triptych) together by MID-FEBRUARY. A lot of reading periods end around there, so I don't want to miss out on any opportunities. It's pretty niche and experimental so I'm just gonna send it to every publication I think is a good fit. My research for Goal 2 is preparing me well for good places to send it, I just have to finish writing it then edit.


GOGO ME!

February's goin' fast.

UPDATES:

Goal #1a: Send 3-5 Queries for Utility - I sent like 2-3 more, and have since redrafted. I'm going back to an updated version of an old draft that I like more and that got my only "nice" rejections to-date; I sent it out with an old, faaaaaaar inferior version of a 5-page sample, so I feel pretty decent about it. Once I get 1b and 1c done, I'll send it out to a few people, including some agency that I like.

#1b: Implement revision ideas - I've done most of this, but I have to apply a lot of polish.

#1c: Do a full read and review of Part 2 - I just barely started this today.

Goal #2: Get through the alphabet on the Literary directory - I'm almost through "S", so I'm doing perfectly fine on this.

Goal #3: Get a draft together of Wake - I've gotten a lot of work done on this, but I'm stuck in one or two places, so I don't think I'm gonna make my mid-month deadline. I have this whole week to do it, though, so we'll see if I have any breakthroughs.

Wildcard- So I'd mostly given up on "Predisposed" for the time being, but I outlined a scene that I think will do an excellent job of setting up the voice. So yeah, that's a pretty awesome breakthrough, and I'm feeling better about being able to start this project in the near future.

So yeah, I've been busy busy and getting a lot done, but still so much left to do!

Hey everyone. Just to give the obligatory monthly update, based on how exactly I worded Goals 1a-1c, I did technically get them all done. I had done so many revisions, that I didn't feel totally confident that I could get it all greased up and clicking on all cylinders quite yet, and a review I did on the last day of February made me feel a bit overwhelmed by much work was still to be done to get it all perfect. I think I have to put it down for a while and revisit later. So, sigh, yeah things didn't end on the awesome note I was hoping with me sending my manuscript around to a bunch of places, but the point of this whole exercise is to make sure I'm getting ever-closer with every passing month, so I can't be too disappointed by a month where I got a buttfuck of adding, deleting, rearranging and rewording done.

Goal #2 went perfectly fine. In all, I sent 11 manuscripts out and have received 4 rejections thus far. All of the rejections came in a 1-week span, and at this point the rest of mine have been up there for ~1.5 months, so I'm hopeful that several of the other 7 survived the first reading and have at least been passed along to the next round of eliminations. I'm gonna wait for a few more rejections before I panic and spray out a bunch to my second-rate choices, and seeing as how that's the next step, I guess I can put down the action items on "The Was" for now.

Goal #3 was ambitious. I've kinda moved past the honeymoon phase with Wake and it's become quite apparent that there's work yet to be done. The third part of it really isn't even remotely working, and though the pieces could technically work as independent submissions, I'm much more excited about the triptych.

I don't really know what my goals should be moving forward this month. I think I'm gonna kinda let things passively tumble in my head for a bit and promise myself to revisit this every week until I get some momentum on something. That's a copout, but hey, I went a solid 2 months before I got stuck like this, so that's cool at least.

Despite the infrequent updates, the process crawls along.

Utility has been undergoing a ton of edits. I haven't done any workshopping or anything since the last draft; I just have had a wave of ideas for making just about every chapter/secondary character/etc more polished.

I'm a little frustrated by the slow-goingness of the edits because I want to get things out to agents (I have yet another query letter I'd like to try on for size), I'm considering giving up on agents and just sending to indie presses, etc etc. I'm back to being frustrated with the publishing process. It almost feels like making my novel good is a distraction because what I should really be worrying about is poring over agency directories, making connections at conferences, rewriting my query letter, reading QueryShark, posting on critiques forums so that i can get up to the minimum post limit at which I can start requesting critiques on my own query (50 is a fucking huge number, ugh), etc etc etc. I feel like becoming a novelist should be predominantly about, you know, working on my novel. Welcome to the real world, Jeremy, etc.

Still waiting to hear back from several places on "The Was." I'm considering starting to send to my second wave of options, but see the first paragraph for why I'm not doing that.

I wrote the opening scenes for Predisposed which feels good. I feel like I've got a pretty good feel for the 14-year-old's voice at this point, but my Beta writers weren't all that thrilled by the scenes themselves. I'd be doing the whole creative process thing right now, but that involves becoming pretty absorbed with the project, and given paragraph 1, I'm feeling a little frugal renting out headspace.

What I'd give for a week-long sabbatical from my day job right now.

Etcetcetcetcetcetcetcetcetcetc ...

Excuse the plagiarism but thought the following may be beneficial for you.

Despite the fact there are many books for authors on how to submit manuscripts to publishers and agents, a condensed primer of good advice is needed. Here are some valuable tips to help you get your book published.
1.You must have a "completed" manuscript ready for publication. If all you have is a great idea for a book and no product to sell you are wasting time and effort. Few publishers will accept such submissions from unknown writers. Best advice? Write the book then submit the manuscript to publishers and agents. Send the manuscript in separate unbound sheets, unless otherwise instructed. However, if you are an experienced writer, you may submit a book "proposal."

2.Read books similar to what you plan to write so you have an idea of how the writer communicated the subject matter. You could likely do better. That's what you'll have to do in order to compete with other books much like yours in the marketplace! Read about the publishing industry. Learn how it functions. Read publishing law books. Publishing contracts are complex and intimidating to the new writer. Be prepared so you can act quickly if a publisher decides to publish your book. Publishers will not wait long for you to evaluate the contract due to ever changing market conditions. You could lose a publishing opportunity by not being prepared.

3.Do not mention the word “proposal” in a query letter unless it is a book proposal. Novice writers often write, “I propose to send my manuscript to your firm…” and the publisher thinks the query is a proposal and not a finished manuscript leading to a rejection for the unknown author.

4.Purchase The Writer’s Market published by Writer’s Digest. This book lists publishers and agents. The book will allow you to target your market. Writers often make the mistake of sending query letters to publishers and agents that do not specialize in the genre. A waste of time and money for the author and asking for a rejection.

5.Send a query letter to any publisher or agent you want - even if they are not open for submissions. It is not illegal to send them mail. Often, if the query is compelling to read agents and publishers will request your manuscript, even if closed to writers who have no representation. Every publisher and agent is looking for a bestseller, so send your query letter. Yes, many will automatically reject your query, but you only need one to say yes. It is not very expensive if you only submit a query letter with SASE.

6.Send your query first class mail. E-mail queries are not very effective. Always enclose the SASE. Do not use cute and fancy stationery or colorful postage stamps. Editors see this and will place your query in the “other file” to be read someday or never. Use a plain white envelope and a business American flag stamp (if you have access to American postage stamps). Publishers and agents have a filtering process and these a few to identify amateur submissions. Professional submissions actually appear unprofessional to those not familiar with industry standards.

7.Some publishers and agents require a synopsis or sample chapter. You can bypass this hassle and just send a query letter. On the other hand, if you want to do it right you can follow their submission procedures to the dime. Try the query first because there are a many publishers and agents and it will be much easier and less expensive trying to comply with all the submission procedures each will place upon you. This is one rule you can bend. Just make sure you have a strong query letter to perk their interest.

8.Your query letter should be only one page. Don’t send a multiple page query letter. It will not be read. Agents and editors are very busy people and will not read long queries. Do not rely on the software spell-checker. They can't tell the difference between; there, their, they're. Print your query and manuscript on paper and read it. Mysteriously, your eyes will miss many errors using the computer monitor!

9.If you must send a synopsis, keep it to two pages. Highlight the main story twists in a series of brief four line paragraphs. Make it fast and easy to read. Longer is not better. Learn to condense your writing and get to the point quickly.

10.Never send a manuscript unless specifically requested by an agent or publisher. Break this rule and you are asking for an automatic rejection. It’s a legal issue to prevent a lawsuit. Authors who do this are doomed to fail. Learn all you can about how to market your manuscript and follow the publishing industry standard rules regarding submissions. Be professional and you will absolutely see enhanced results for your efforts!

11.Do not mail manuscripts to publishers and agents using FedEx Air, Airborne or UPS. It does not speed up anything and will only serve to tip off an amateur submission is being delivered. Send the manuscript with the US Postal Service First Class, Special Standard or Priority. Don’t ask for a signed receipt as it portrays an element of distrust. If you want to insure the publisher or agent received your manuscript enclose a Self-Addressed Stamped Post Card.

12.Make sure you use a computer so you can deliver your manuscript on computer disk if the publisher selects to publish your book. Surprisingly, publishers do obtain hand-typed manuscripts and this can ruin a publishing opportunity for you. You can’t go wrong using Microsoft Word (Mac or PC) software to write your book. All publishers can handle that program with ease.

13.When you mail a manuscript it must be on white photocopy grade paper, not computer disk (in most cases). Double-space text is the standard with one inch margins. Fonts can be 12 point New Times Roman, Arial, Courier or similar. Nothing fancy. Do not send an original. Send a photocopy or computer printed copy. Do not use any sort of binding unless otherwise instructed. All pages must be loose and in proper page order with no covers. Just send the manuscript. It’s that simple. Use a laser printer at 300 dots per inch or higher resolution. In the page header print your name or book title. Follow these rules and you’ll have a professionally formatted manuscript.

14.Include a cover letter with your manuscript. In the cover letter just identify the manuscript’s title, your name, address, phone, e-mail address. Don’t try to sell the book in this letter because that is what a query letter does; tease the reader to request your manuscript. The less you say in your cover letter the better off you will be. Let your query letter do the teasing and the manuscript to do the selling. There are books at the bookstore that explain the difference between query letters, synopsis, outlines and cover letters. You should read them!

15.When shipping your manuscript to a publisher or agent use a cardboard box or bubble envelope. For the manuscript S.A.S.E. use a smaller box, Tyvek or corrugated cardboard envelope. Never send those cushion envelopes stuffed with fine paper fibers. When opened they make a terrible mess flinging dust fibers everywhere. Not a nice way to make a good first impression! It upsets all who open them, so don’t use these fiber-cushion envelopes. For a catalog of shipping supplies contact BrownCor 800-327-2278. Using a large bubble envelope to mail the manuscript and using a smaller bubble envelope for the S.A.S.E. is practical. The most economical of all is not to include the manuscript S.A.S.E. Print another manuscript when needed. You'll save money in postage and always be submitting a fresh, clean manuscript.

16.Check the spelling and grammar in all your submission materials. Be professional. Publishers and literary agents take seriously writers who have a "finished " product ready for production. You should always have your manuscript professionally edited before you send it to any agent or publisher. This will absolutely reduce rejections and get your book published! Surprisingly, authors will not employ an editor and then wonder why they can’t get published. You invested time writing your book. Now invest money in editing so you can have your book published. This is the leading cause of rejection and failure.

17.You do not need to be a fabulous writer to be published. You don't need a college degree. What you do need is writing and communication skills to have a great book. You can obtain these skills from reading how-to books. You can hire a professional writer to rewrite your manuscript. Ghostwriters are listed on Web sites and in Writer's Digest Magazine. Many famous authors use the services of ghostwriters. If you hire a professional ghostwriter or editor to rewrite your script and query letter the odds increase dramatically of having your book published. It is an investment in your success and the cost is tax deductible.

18.It takes money to make money. It is near impossible to be published and expect your book to be a bestseller if you do not invest in professional services to bring your manuscript up to industry standards. To save money on editing services is a recipe for absolute failure. Good editors and ghostwriters know more than the technical side of writing; they know how to write a bestseller. They know what sells and what does not sell and they know how to get the job done right the first time. Hire an independent editor or ghostwriter not affiliated with an agent or publisher.

19.Performing professional submissions with a professionally written query letter is your best chance of getting your manuscript requested. Having your manuscript professionally edited will get your book published. These are the two secret keys that open locked doors. Having the best book manuscript in the world is useless if you have an inferior query letter. Do not let your query letter destroy your opportunity to be published. Hire an editor to tighten your query letter. Writers who employ editors succeed. Those who don't, fail.

20.You do not need a literary agent to be published, but they do open markets to reach exclusive publishers. Small press independent publishers should not be discounted. They can give your book longevity on the market and are capable to launch and manage bestsellers by employing subcontracts with larger publishers. Again, the key to success is submitting professional material so the agent or publisher’s editor can see high quality in the writing immediately. Quality sells!

By enhancing the quality and marketability of your query letter and manuscript agents and publishers will be receptive to you. Rejection may still occur, but you will be amazed how many publishing offers you will receive once you invest in editing services. It’s a fact of life in the publishing business. If you shop around on the Internet you can easily negotiate the editing price of $3 to $5 per page down to $1 per page.

Thanks hebridian. The article seems to be pretty dated (most everything's done by email these days), but it's an interesting read.

The website it comes from is even more interesting: http://www.jamesrussellpublishing.biz/20.html. It's a .biz for what is (apparently) a publisher. The websie appears to have been built in the 90s. There's a big flashing animation at the bottom that says "CLICK HERE FOR SHOPPING." When you click for shopping, the top two results are motorcycles and "A $100 money gospel tract that appears to be real, but when picked up the finder gets a very shocking and powerful gospel message (depending on the series, some messages are not as shocking)." On the homepage, it touts itself as "one of the world's largest website." I think I could click around on this thing for hours of entertainment.

Had a good walk with my fiance and dog the other day and talked for an hour about where I am in my career (the obvious to joke to make here is, "Of what condition do you and your fiance suffer that it takes an hour to say the word, 'Nowhere'?"). I sent a long, mopey email last night to my old thesis mentor, who's been truly incredible to me, begging for whatever help he can give that he thinks my project's worthy of (I'm doubting at this point he wants to read my manuscript for what would be the 6th time, and I'm thinking I'm gonna start getting diminished returns even if he does).

So it just kinda feels good to talk things out. I'm just gonna do a full read-through of my manuscript, get it as good as I can get it on my own, and kinda operate on the assumption that someone somewhere will be able to offer me some sort of support.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by hebridian

Excuse the plagiarism but thought the following may be beneficial for you.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by surviva316

Thanks hebridian. The article seems to be pretty dated (most everything's done by email these days), but it's an interesting read.

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Simplest way these days is to stick it on amazon kindle marketplace, self published, and see what happens.
If it takes off then a book deal could follow.

In this post I:

1) Become the first person not named Ezekiel or Jeremaphiacus to seek hope in redeeming my life by going to central Pennsylvania.

2) Finally almost finish what I already had almost finished in the first month of this resolution.

3) Close on a note about astrology, masturbation and platitudes; namely, how the first is worthy of the second, while the third isn't worth dick--not even a waggle on a literal one.

Enjoy ...

I'm going to Amish country tomorrow for a Read and Critique with a group of agents and editors. The panel will be reading and critiquing the first two pages of my manuscript and my query. Seeing as how these are the things that get you past the first gate (the querying stage) and it will be read and critiqued by the gatekeeprs themselves, this could be an immensely useful two hours for me.

I also have my first two chapters out to an editor who gave me a free promotion, and I thiiiiink I'm getting that back soon, so even though I've changed a lot around since then, it can still be a massive boon.

Finally, remember on 1-23-14 when I wrote this: "Oh, and I've also been collecting enough things I want to do with the manuscript itself that I might go in and start tinkering." Um, well I am only just now seeing the light at the end of the tunnel on these edits. Full disclosure, I love editing. You poker players know what it's like to plug a massive leak in your game ("omg, if I make this adjustment to my flatting OOP range, then I can expect a fatter bottom line!"); well that's what editing is like for me. Besides, once I pry the sucker open, I always come up with a ton of new material and suddenly I'm a writer again instead of some unloved administrative assistant.

So yeah, it's been a much wilder few months than I reasonably could have expected back in January, but I can't help but break my arm patting myself on the back when I see how much better the manuscript is.

Finally finally, I also met with my mentor while I was in NYC last week. He brought some really good perspective to where I am right now and how I should be looking at it and where I should be trying to get in the near future.

So I guess a lot of change for the better has been going on. So I guess things are going about as well as they can be going short of there being anything tangible like manuscript requests or anything, HAHA. FML, gotta love this line of work I got myself into.

Let this be a life lesson, kids. If you shoot for the moon, then if you miss, you don't end up in the stars. Even the most basic understanding of astronomy is clear on this point. If you miss the moon, then you end up spinning aimlessly in abyssal space, deciding between conserving the last of your ATP to live just a few more unhappy minutes, or effectively taking your own life by having a good wank at Cassiopeia as she twirls on the other side of your space helmet--seducing you with her brilliant, gaseous nipples from a million miles away.

Saw an email about a short story competition at work this morning and thought of this thread. I'm 99% confident you won't be interested, nor will you be a fan of the submission guidelines, but thought I would link anyway. The person running it is a Publishing Editor at the academic publisher I work for:

http://www.theshortstory.net/

Thanks for the headsup. Good to see I got some people in my corner.

In this post:

I am very excited about finishing my 5th draft of UTILITY. PM me or email me at dscicala [at] gmail [dot] com if you're interested in having a looksy.

Hello everybody,

I haven't necessarily been doing the whole month-by-month goals thing, but believe you me, I've been a good little busy bee. Easily putting in 20+ hours per week on pretty much nothing but UTILITY edits (been submitting to literary journals as well).

I am goddamned thrilled to report that I'm finally done those few little tinkers I thought I'd be doing 4.5 months ago! Once the patient was open, I decided to have my way with it in each and all cavities I could find, or however that analogy is meant to go. The manuscript is easily 10 times better now, which it damn-well better be after how much elbow grease I put into it. Oh, and I went to a conference a few weeks back where an agent gave me feedback on my pitch, and I rewrote it and sold a couple of agents on the rewrite less than an hour later. Never heard back from them, but it was encouraging just to spark interest from a 30 second snippet.

Anyway, just wanted to post that update. Maybe now that I have that off my chest, I can go back to my more incremental goals, in which case this Op will get more action again.

Anyway anyway, hit me up by FTR PM or email if you'd like.

Many love and much smooches,
ViV

Hey everyone,

I'm still here and I'm still writing. After the above post, I sent UTILITY around to some beta readers, and their feedback led to a bunch of edits, which I only just recently finished. It's not a full-blown, whole new draft, but I rewrote much of the middle 100 pages of the novel, and what with getting married and honeymooning and all, that took a while.

My opening 4 pages have been getting a lot of positive feedback lately, and after the above experience with the agent pitch session, I'm feeling much better about this next round of submissions. I have two versions of a query letter, one more high-concept sounding, and the other hopefully better suited for literary-bent agents. I'd love to get some feedback on which is better, so I'll put those two in a new post.

"The Was" hasn't been picked up by anyone yet, though some publications have thoroughly considered it. It's still out to a good amount of literary journals, and my luck could change. There are a few more journals still in the chamber, but a recent read-through made me feel like it could probably use some minor re-writes before I exhaust my last options.

I still revisit Wake here and there, but it still needs some work before I can submit it. I wish I could get some critical eyes on it (especially since it's only 1,500 words), but no one I've contacted seems that interested.

I've applied to an adult workshop to help with this. If I were to get in (*crosses fingers* ), then I feel they could help me with Predisposed as well. I've gotten pretty far into the outlining process of a "safer," fringe-YA, anti-coming-of-age story that I'm calling Eventually ..., and the workshop could maybe help with that as-yet nascent work, too.

So have new fear, I'm still putting in the time and effort to not only try and get UTILITY published, but also to pump out new material.

Dish towels and casserole dishes to all of you,
ViV

{and its gone - a500lbgorilla}

Sorry that the formatting is so brutal. These boards have not handled copy and pastes well since the last update.

In this post:

1) I've done what I can with Utility. Wish me luck.

2) Sap-happy sappy crap

3) Poker memoirs?

4) Resurrecting Predisposed

I've sent out 33 queries over the last month. It feels kinda do-or-die at this point. I definitely think there are still ways to improve the novel, but if I can't so much as get a manuscript request from 1/33 agents, then it's probably about that time to consider alternatives.

Frankly, it's getting a bit embarrassing at this point. I feel like you can only go so long after graduation, so many months into a blog, etc without having a single fucking word published anywhere before people start laughing behind your back: "That guy's still calling himself a writer?"

I met with my mentor the other day, and we spent the first 5 minutes talking about how tough of a sell Utility is for someone with no publishing credits, no fellowships, and no connections. Even if it's worth publishing (and he's pretty adamant that it is), I'm going to have a very very hard time getting anyone to read the fucking manuscript, much less reject it, much less ACCEPT it. Then, we talked the whole time about poker, my history with it, and how much easier of a sell it would be than Utility.

I've been writing scenes and keeping notes and stuff for a poker memoir for a long time, but haven't been able to find a compelling narrative arc to the whole damn thing. He was brilliant enough to suggest a fictionalized memoir, based on a true story novel, or (more simply) just a novel (inspired by my life and those of the people I've met in my 5 years in the community). That puts the onus on me to, like, be creative and stuff, but it's a hell of an idea to tumble around the back of my head.

I've also recently sketched some new scenes for Predisposed that make me feel hopeful again about that project. I'd mentioned months earlier that I finally found a satisfactory 14-year-old voice/lens for the narrator, but he felt too passive and rational to set up the whole stakes of "Oh no, I might slit someone's throat." These new scenes should establish a character who tries his best to keep to himself but inexplicably boils over at seemingly mundane things.

I've felt a bit lost and meandering this week, but I think Predisposed is what I should focus on. I have full-length novel aspirations for the project, but Part 1 could be publishable as an excerpt if I can ever just fucking write it.

{who - a500lbgorilla}

Quote:

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Originally Posted by surviva316

As many of you know, I'm an aspiring author. My goal has always been to get published, get a teaching job and spend the rest of my days writing and teaching.

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This would be a sick life.

Hey Surviva, long time buddy. Good luck with your goals!

Thanks, mang. Hope you're crushin' at the tables. How is post-BF life?

So frustrated with anything literary. Seriously, fuck everything and everyone. Haven't even been able to read a novel in months.

Good news for the poker world is that I've diverted all focus to being a part-time poker player again ... with great success so far.

That's all. Just felt obligated to update this op since we're coming up on the end of the year, and this was my 2014 Resolution sort thingy-ma-doo-bob.

I wonder what %age of threads in this sub end with the same exact sentiment of, "Operation was a complete failure, I regret even making this thread." Seems like a lot.