Either Agents are Liars or You Are Not Ready

Okay, so maybe "liar" is a strong word. Exaggerators? Maybe.

As you know, I am editing my novel which is going well, but definitely more work than I thought. (I forgot that I attempted to use Dragon Naturally Speaking to write a few chapters. They will have to be completely re-written.) And it's kind of boring. I don't like it. So, in order to keep my spirits up, I allow myself to research agents after I finish a block of editing. It's like a reward. Yes, I find the research fun. It gets my hopes up and makes me feel like I am closer to realizing my dream.

Of course, part of that research entails finding out what the agents want to see and what they don't. I get the query letter. Having some business experience, I understand the reason for it and the need for it's brevity. I am comfortable with the format. It is, simply, a business letter. I get it. What I don't get, and honestly find hard to believe, is the number of reports by agents of receiving anything other than even a semi-professional letter. Every book, blog, and interview I have read talks about agents receiving queries on colored paper, hand-written queries, printed in crazy inks and fonts, and formatted in unusual ways. Even on things such as Post-It notes. They make out like they get them all of the time. Really? All the time? I can understand the occasional oddity, but on a consistent basis?

Either agents are exaggerating the number and frequency of these, or there are a lot of people who are just not ready to be professional writers.

Yes, I said you are not ready. If you send an agent anything other than a well-written, printed query then you are just. not. ready. Like I said, nearly EVERYTHING I have read about landing an agent warns against this, so even a half-assed search should stop you from sending your query on lime green paper, printed in purple ink, and sprayed with grandma's perfume. You wouldn't send out a resume or a legal document out that way. (I hope.)

 It's just hard for me to believe that we live in a world where "Mike the Situation" is one of the highest ranked Google searches, but you didn't even bother to Google "How to get an agent?" before you sent out your query? How did you even know where to send it? You must not have put that much effort into your research. Unless, you think the rules don't apply to you. Either way, you are not ready to write professionally. And if your not in it to be a professional, then why bother with an agent in the first place?

So, which one is it? Deep down I hope the agents are telling the truth. (It would cut my competition.) I am not an agent, though,  and don't have one to ask. This is just what I think. Any agent, or writer who had a query like that work for them, is welcome and encouraged to comment.

My First Guest Post

Okay, so, you remember the website I told you about? The one with all of the cool info on landing an agent and other writerly stuff? Yes, the one I won the 2012 Guide to Literary Agents from, The Agent Challenge.  (On it's way and will probably be in my grubby paws by the time you read this!) Well, I was perusing over there this morning and what do I find? ME. (Yay!) My first guest post! Go check it out, I'll wait. The Agent Challenge: Death by Editing.

Being my first time, I was understandably nervous. I stressed and second guessed myself the whole way, which come to think of it, is not really that unusual. It turned out to be a really cool experience, and I had fun. Deidre was gentle and the process was smooth. I did, however, send her the post with a title that was way too wordy, but we (okay, she) turned it around and it is now infinitely better. Lesson learned. Put more thought into your title. And since I am trying to come up with a title for my novel, it was a lesson learned at just the right time.

Serendipity. Again. If things keep going this way, I'll start to think there might be something to this "positive thinking" thing. Now, go.  Get back to work.  I've got a lot more editing to do.

Thank You!

First of all, let me thank all of you who purchased and reviewed Just Enough. There was an overwhelmingly positive response and I am so glad that you all enjoyed it. Also, thanks to everyone who contacted me with ideas for the blog. I have already decided that I will be incorporating some of them shortly.

Some of the questions I received were good, and I will be posting my answers here on the blog. So, if you emailed me a question and haven't heard back from me yet, stay tuned, your question will likely be the subject of a future blog post.

The most common question I received has been "When will your next story be available?" I am so honoured that you all liked the first one and are anxious for more. Rest assured that I am currently working on it in addition to the novel, and I will publish it as soon as it is finished and let you know when it is available.

Thank you, again, for all of your comments, questions and reviews. Keep them coming!

Testing the Water and a Cry for Help

As you know, I am nearing the completion of my novel. (Which I have decided to rename, but don't know to what quite yet.) I still haven't decided whether I will self-publish or go the traditional route, as there are pros and cons to each. So, as an experiment I put a short story up on Amazon's Kindle store as well as on Smashwords, mainly to see what the process would be like and how difficult it would be. I will save my evaluation of the process for another post, but it was definitely a learning experience.

For one thing, there are various rules you have to abide by for each company and different formats that they will accept. Some of it is pretty straight forward, others are a bit more complicated, but overall it's not that hard once you wade through all of the information. I put it up for .99¢. I went back and forth whether to offer it for free or not, but in the end, because of some of the rules involved, I decided to put it up for the lowest price allowed. I really don't think that it's too much for just a short story, even though some entire novels are the same price or free, but I guess we will see.

Now, while I certainly would love it if you would all go purchase it and leave me a glowing review exalting my abilities as a wordsmith, I just wouldn't feel right about that. Not for the ten of you who actually read this blog. (Something I hope to change, which we will talk about in a moment.) So, if you would like to read Just Enough, let me know and I will send you a link where you can download it for free from Smashwords (Something that I can't do with Amazon and one of their definite cons) or I will just send it to you if you don't want to sign up with Smashwords. Although, if you read ebooks, it's a pretty good site. You can download in several different formats if you don't have a Kindle.

So, send me a message (ljstep749 at gmail)or go to Amazon or Smashwords.
[EDIT: Okay, on second thought, responding to too many emails will enable me to procrastinate and not get any work done, so I will just post the coupon code for Smashwords here. At checkout enter: TU43K
Reviews are very welcome.]

Now, on to the next topic: this blog. I eventually hope for this blog to grow to have a large following of rabid fans, but I would like to see it be a little more interactive. First of all, being a writer is a lonely job and I could use the interaction. Second, I realize that in order to build the number of blog followers that I envision, I will need to take this blog in a direction that will appeal to more people. And I would like your help. I know that all of you are very talented in different areas. I won't call you out by name, but I know that several of you are writers, poets, songwriters, photographers, and painters. If you would like to showcase any of your work, (Yes, you do.) or even do a guest post, send it to me. (I will post it anonymously, if your too shy.)

Okay, now that we have all of that to think about, I will leave you to get back to work. As always, if you have any comments, criticisms, questions, complaints or ideas, I would love to hear them. Seriously.

Emerging From the Cave

Okay, so I'm back out of my cave and my eyes have adjusted to the light. (Sort of.) But I got a tremendous amount of work done, for me anyway.

My loving wife, seeing that I was in need of some "cave time", graciously arranged for the children to go to grandma's for the weekend, leaving me to do absolutely nothing but write, write, write, drink coffee, and write. Okay, I did read a little bit. (Shotgun Gravy By: Chuck Wendig ,if you're curious. And, yes, I recommend it)

As soon as everyone left the house I check the e-mail one last time then turned off the internet and TV and left it off until they got home. Three and a half days of nothing but writing. Can you imagine? (Yes, the animals survived, geez!) I accomplished several chapters of the novel and a 9500 word short that I hope to have edited and available by the beginning of next week.

All in all it was a great weekend, aside from missing everyone about 2 hours in and then there was an unfortunate mishap with some of my daughter's pink hair dye. (Don't ask.) I built up quite a bit of steam on the novel, and I hope to move on to the editing phase soon. I hope everyone had a great President's day weekend, or at least a decent one. Now, get back to work!

Supposably, I Am an Ass

Okay people, say this with me: SUP-POS-ED-LY. Great. You did it. Was that so hard? I don't know why this angers me so much. I just can't stand hearing someone say "supposably." This goes double for other writers. When I hear someone put a "b" (or worse, a "v") in supposedly, I immediately cringe and my respect for the person speaking drops several notches. Yes, yes, I realize that "supposably" is actually a real word, but I have yet to hear it used correctly in a conversation and probably never will.

I usually keep my mouth shut and suffer in silence, but yesterday I made the mistake of attempting to correct a friend who says it often. The only reason I corrected him is that I know that he is an intelligent person and I thought that he would be more open to constructive criticism of his speech. Possibly even welcome it. I was wrong. VERY wrong. I guess some people are just not equipped to handle criticism of any type. And this guy is a fellow writer! Too bad spell check doesn't work on your mouth.

Am I alone in this? Do you have any pet peeves with other people's speech? Do you correct them or do you let them go on in ignorance? I think this will be the last time that I attempt it even if they are a friend.

Following the Crowd

It has been said many times that a writer should not write based on current trends. The recent zombie/vampire craze for example. Yes, novels, movies and even TV shows dealing with these types of characters are very much in fashion and the general public gobbles them up like they are the last books on the subject that will ever be written. Of course, any writer will tell you that if you write on a subject merely for it's saleability factor, then by the time your book actually gets published the fad will be long over and all of your hard work will have been for naught.

But, should we really tell new writers that popular genres or subjects should be off limits just because it has already been done to death? It seems to me that every time I think there couldn't possibly be another zombie book that is any better than the rest, a new one comes along that puts just enough of a twist on the old clichés to make it worth while to read.

Another thing to consider is this: If these new writers take our advice to heart, what happens then? Shitty books, that's what. Trust me, I know. When I set out to write my first novel, I had a billion and one story ideas floating around in my head and yes, most of them were filled with zombies and vampires. Unfortunately for me, I read or heard somewhere that writing another zombie novel would most likely end in failure, so I threw out all of the ideas I previously had and began to write a book that had nothing to do with any of that. I struggled for months to try to come up with a plot that had not been done before. Man, was that a mistake and a HUGE waste of time. I wasn't writing what truly inspired me specifically because I didn't want my novel to be "just another zombie book."

I do agree that one should not write purely for the sake of a trend, but we must also be careful not to  discourage people from writing what they like purely to move away from the trend, either. Luckily, I have a very short attention span and am notoriously bad at following good advice. So I ended up writing the story that I wanted to write and not what I thought people would or wouldn't want to read, and not only was the book better because of this realization, but I had more fun creating it, too.

Those Damn Family Car Decals

No, I don't have a problem with them, really. As a matter of fact, we recently added our own family decals to our little car, but I bet mine are cooler than yours. Don't believe me? Take a look:

Ha, ha! Yup, zombie family. When I saw these, I thought that they were hilarious and had to have them, and as far as I have seen, we are the only family in our area to sport these nifty little decals of our un-dead family members. Anyway, The purpose of this post is not really about the decals, but a conversation that they sparked with a friend of mine when she saw them. It went something like this:

Friend: Oh, my god. How did you convince your wife to let you put those on your car?

Me: Convince her? She's the one that put them on!

Friend: Really? Is she a writer too?

That's what got me. Why would she naturally assume that I had to beg my wife to display these slightly unusual, but extremely funny, stickers on the family car? And then, upon finding out that my wife had no problem with it, assumed that my wife must be just as "weird" as I am.  Then it hit me. Even though this person and I have been friends for years, she still held various beliefs about me, and writers in general, that are not necessarily true. While I have come to expect this from most non-writing people, I didn't expect it from someone who has known me for so long.

We all know the stereotypes associated with writers. They are all reclusive. They're all alcoholics or drug addicts. They all have some sort of mental or emotional problems that prevent them from obtaining "real" employment. They drink coffee by the gallon and chain smoke in dimly lit rooms, bent over keyboards banging out prose that could only emanate from a highly warped, but brilliant mind. (This seems especially true of horror/thriller writers.) What I didn't realize is that, along with the pre-conceived notions that people have about writers, there is an equal amount applied to a writer's spouse. How strong they must be to deal with all of our peculiarities. 

Author Wendy Paine Miller posted a very humorous post on her blog to suggest a "Spouses of Writers" support group (Probably a good idea by the way, and you can read it here), which got me to thinking about all of the trials and tribulations that my wife endures for my work. While I do not fit all of the stereotypes about writers (only most of them), I will admit that my wife sacrifices a lot for my art. I suppose I should express my gratitude a little more often, and THAT is the real point of this post. To thank, not only my wife, but all of the spouses of writers that stand firm and endure everything from our obsession and excitement of that first story idea, to the extreme low when we think that everything we've worked on for months is complete crap, to the elation we feel at finishing the first draft. They faithfully stand beside us, mostly silently, pulling us back from our ego-maniacal certainty that we are the most talented writer since Twain, to the maddening depression that we go through when we realise that we are not so special after all.

So, here is my public "Thank you" to my spouse, as well as yours, or whoever it is that supports you in your work. Without them, the road we walk from idea to finished product would be much harder to navigate.

Here There Won't Be Dragons

Over a year ago, my wife bought me the Dragon NaturallySpeaking software. I will admit that it was after several weeks of hint dropping and finally flat out begging, but that is beside the point. I was convinced that it would help me tremendously with my writing, which it did. Sort of. Let me explain.

For the first few weeks, I happily played with my new toy, training it (you have to teach it to recognize your voice), dictating emails, composing posts on my old blog, and playing with the voice commands to navigate the web. The program worked just as advertised, so I was full of anticipation as I sat down and began with a short story. That's when the problem occurred. Not with the software, mind you, but with me.

It didn't take me long to realize that using Dragon NaturallySpeaking actually dropped my daily word count. All because of  "the groove." You know "the groove," after those first few sentences are out of the way and the words begin to flow in a beautiful torrent until a child or spouse needs something (or you get an incoming message that must be answered because you forgot to disconnect from the internet).  That groove.

The software does exactly what it is supposed to do and types what I speak. The problem is that while the words I use when I speak and when I write are pretty much the same, I just can't get in the groove while I'm talking and the words don't flow like they should. I can use it for non-fiction work fairly well, but if I am writing fiction? Forget about it.