Writing In The Real World - A Recipe For Success

As a professional writer, it is important to spend time EVERY day to work on your craft. This might be writing, editing, reviewing, reading or researching. And yet, I often hear a lot of authors complaining that this is impossible. I do have to say, however, that, althought the real world does indeed get in the way sometimes, the two can indeed coexist.

As many of you know, my life is pretty darn busy. With 3 kids, a dog, a horse, a turtle, and so forth, I tend to be pretty busy. Add in dealing with submissions, prepping for presentations, working with current authors, judging finals for writing contests (yes, I am actually judging 2 categories in an upcoming contest since another judge had to back out), and writing this blog. I AM BUSY. I have to say, this is one reason why I love going to conferences since I can have a "vacation" every now and then. But I can get through this material. Why? Not because of coffee or lack of sleep. It comes down to some basic critical thinking skills. I do believe many of you can use these skills to help out your career.

FLEXIBILITY - This is a big one for me. Although we would all want time to write every day, sometimes the actual writing cannot happen at the computer. So, what do you do? Add in some flexibility. If you cannot take the computer with you, pull out that old legal pad and work on it the old fashioned way. Even if you are sitting at an activity for the kids, you can still bang out a few scenes to keep you on track. What you may have wanted to do that morning might not be possible by the afternoon. Don't throw the whole thing out. Adapt and do something else, or a tweak of that original project.

PRE-PLANNING - The simple truth is that planning does work. Knowing what you have to get done, the priority level and so forth will allow you the time to get more things done. If you only have an hour to work, you can either do 3 smaller projects or 1 big one and not finish it. Deciding what task to do comes down to that pre-planning. Knowing what you have on the horizon will make your life a lot easier. This is especially true when it comes to writing deadlines. If you know your editor will be sending a round of edits shortly, you certainly don't want to start a new project right in the middle of it. Work on those smaller things.

MULTI-TASKING - This is espcially important for all of you "stay at home" people. At the moment I am writing this blog, I have the dishwasher going, one load of laundry in the washer, one in the dryer, the dog is taking his afternoon (I will explain the time delay in just a second) nap, my son is sitting next to me working on his history studies... I think you get the idea. You can take this to the same level with all of those other activities we talked about in the flexiblity section. Why can't you work on your edits while the kids are at their soccer game?

Now, in terms of the "time delay" issue I mentioned. I will be very honest. This week, I am AMAZINGLY busy, but on Sunday (which is the day I wrote this blog) I had some time. I guess this is what I love about Blogger. We can time delay the starts of your writing. In all honesty, if you are not doing this, you are missing out on a great feature.

Look, the deal is you CAN mix the real world with your writing. A lot of authors do this. We have seen a lot of strategies even some such as the infamous "treadmill work stations". Thee people found ways to make it work.

What are your methods?

Scott

PS. Now here is a helpful tip for cooking that might help with that writing success.

My family loves those roasted chickens that many of the stores are now doing. We pick those up on a busy day when cooking might be tough to deal with. But I don't just stop with that meal.... Thus, Scott's Chicken Noodle Soup.

1. Immediatly after dinner with that roast chicken, take the entire carcass and put it into a large pot (I have one of those 10 quart pots). Toss in everything - bones, skin, bacon, drippings etc.

2. Add cold water to just cover the carcass.

3. Add chopped carrots, celery and onion if you want.

4. Get it to a boil, turn it to simmer and let the magic begin.

Once the stock gets to a nice dark golden brown, turn off the heat, put a lid on it and let it sit overnight.

5. The next morning, strain it. Toss out all of the bones, carrots, celery, and onion. Pick off the good pieces of meat still on the carcass.

6. Return the stock to the pot again.

7. On the way home from work that day, pick up a bag of the frozen, pre-cooked chicken breasts and a couple bags of the frozen egg noodles. Feel free to pick up more vegis if you want to. My family isn't big on this so I leave these out.

8. Return your stock to the stove and get it boilng again.

9. Once it is boiling, dice up the chicken and toss that in. Sometimes I just toss in the breasts as is and then dice it up later.

10. Add the egg noodles and enjoy.

HINT - The soup is always better the next day.

Now think about this. A good meal and you will have time still to keep your writing going.

Sorry To Say This, But Publishing Takes Time

Simply put, publishing is a hurry up and wait business. We have a deadline we push our writers to achieve, and then we sit around and wait for something to happen. Getting you to a published status takes a long time, with or without an agent.

I was working recently with an author who is still new to this game. She's still got some great stories, but from our conversations, the frustrations of not seeing that immediate success is coming through loud and clear. There are many steps we have to go through to get a project ready to hit the book shelves, let alone get ready to be sent out. I was going to say hoops but there is a real negative connotation to this. We're not taking all of this time because we want to make it difficult on you. We want to see the best product available to the readers.

If you are working with an agent, you will often find that the project you sent in the early stages of the acquisition process will change. We know the market and we know what will work and not work. We have an idea of where we want to send this project to. That means tailoring it especially for that publisher. So you write and revise. Then you get feedback from us and maybe you have to go back and do it all again. That's fine. Just don't give up.

Once we get through that revision process, we will now put together proposals and start sending those out to editors. This step alone is time consuming. For example, I spent one full day working on writing proposals for two of my authors. This involved drafting and revising of the proposal letter as well as making initial calls and getting some feedback.

Now it is in the editor's hands and they too have things they have to deal with. Not only do they have to read the whole proposal and decide if they like it, but they have to insure the other members of the editorial team like it and the numbers all work out before they even think about offering to buy the book.

You may have written the book in 3 months or less. Your critique partners may have given you feedback in 48 hours, but that will just not happen on this end.

Just wanted to give you a bit of a reality check.

Scott

Another Question from a Writer

Throughout the past few months, I have continually missed the mark with the work I have submitted to you and to contests. And each time I have suffered a disappointment, I have looked back—six months, one month, a week later!—and seen that I have been living behind a veil. How does this occur? I write, and it sounds normal enough, and then voila! I look again, and it’s as if a veil has been drawn off my face, and I can at last see the work for what it is, which is filled with promising ideas and clueless technique.

These have been rolling in lately so it is time to fill in some gaps.

Anon, what you are feeling right now is common with a lot of writers. It is that simple feeling of hopelessness that comes with writing. Please understand, it is common and there is a cure (sometimes).

This is a depressing business. When you consider the pain and misery you put into your stories. The time and money you spend all for a rejection. When you consider the number of people out there writing and the number of slots open to new writers, it is really enough for anyone to want to jump out a window.

Writing takes time. No, this does not mean that if you "pay your dues" the book deal will show up. This is a huge myth that writers spin. Hey, remember, you are all fiction writers so weaving that tale is easy. But, writing does take time.

During that time, it is up to you to learn from your mistakes. To take those classes, to learn the business and to grow as a writer. Too often, writers just dive into their next story with the beliefe that "this time it will be different" but they have done nothing to fix the problem.

I see this all of the time with writers sending stories to me. Remember that I keep everyone in a database so when I type your name in, the computer tells me you have already submitted. I do check to see what you did in the past. Now, here is the interesting thing. By the time I am this point, I have already read your story and made my decision. The notes have been made on on the outside of the package you sent. 9 out of 10 times (yes this is s cliche phrase but who cares) the writer has made the same mistake as he or she did on the last story.

At the SCWW conference, I had the chan ce to listen to Steve Berry. It was great to hear his story of growth and learning. He wrote for roughly 8 years and many manuscripts (that he noted were beyond good) before landing an agent. Then 12 years later, the book deal finally came in, and even then, there was luck attached to it. He was at the right place at the right time with a story someone wanted. Still, he noted that in those early years, he worked on growing as an author. He learned, he changed. But, he did listen to those critics. He didn't just keep doing the same thing.

So, for you new writers, remember. It takes time, but you need to use that time wisely.

Scott