Save the date for tomorrow: Wednesday, June 28, at 4-6 pm EST, I'll be on web radio with a host Dellani Oakes (an author) and two other authors, Alfred Jendrasik and Jerry Pociask.
We'll be talking about books and reading excerpts and talking about how we got into what we love to do, write books.
Check it out! (And, if you can't make it, you can always listen to it later.)
Red River Radio
So, I'm at this SF and Fantasy virtual Faire today (lots of fun and I'll be hosting an hour tomorrow [3/16/2017], 11:30am CST) and Author Gibson pulls up a blog post where he has a placard of reasons not to read his book. It's brilliant. It's so brilliant I immediately by his book (sold me when it said it had math and science in it). There are three other books with different authors that did the same thing (already had two of those books or I'd been tempted to buy more and I'll probably get the third one for completeness).
I am not only the sort of person who would shamelessly steal this idea and make up placards for every freaking one of my books, I'd brag about doing it (and will tomorrow at the faire). And here now. But showing is so much better than telling, don't you know...
I do not write like many other writers. Many people are advocates for the write-every-day-no-matter-what method and more power to them. I can't do that. It's not laziness on my part, though, of course, I am lazy. I literally cannot write like that because my brain works differently than normal people. While I go through my day to day reading and workin' and blogging and reading blogs, and otakuing, and watching kids and stuff, my subconscious takes everything I'm exposed to and plays with it, tweaks it, fillets it, combining it with work I started but that petered out or was going in the wrong direction, and ideas I've had that I haven't quite figured out what to do with.
Then, most likely when I'm desperately busy with something, it will push out the new story and say, "Write this, write this now" and I'll be filling every free minute (and not so free minute) with writing and crafting and putting down dialog and refining a few details my subconscious left so my conscious mind wouldn't feel useless. The good news is that it will come out (based on the last four works) pretty clean, with perhaps a little rearranging and a bit of polishing but really not requiring a serious overhaul. And, as I write it, I'll love it like I'm my own fan, tickled at my own jokes and falling in love with this or that character. It's sadly narcissistic but there you have it.
It's, in fact, very gratifying to write that way...except, in between these sessions where I'm all but hemorrhaging fiction, I have nothing to write and feel a bit useless. This is compounded by the realization that my subconscious is clearly working on something but, and this is the kicker, I have no idea what it might be. It could be something I started that needs to be finished. It could be the next sequel in my Bete novel series. It could be my husband's novel he's been wanting me to finish for some bloody time now (though that's partially his fault - we've written nearly 200,000 words on it, but we have to keep starting over as his idea grows up). It could be a couple of the ideas I've been kicking around that I think have promise.
Or it could be something completely different, something I hadn't even thought of. So that all the work I have languishing will continue to languish as I gush over something completely unexpected (which happened last time). Pity really. I like much of the stuff that's languishing, but I'm afraid to tackle it without my subconscious (which does the GREAT writing) in case it gets all uppity and refuses to help at all. Which it is prone to do. Sigh.
It could just be that my subconscious wants me to start actively marketing the work it's already done. Which is actually a good idea.
Sigh again.
For those of you wondering what I'm up to, well, I've been going over the Bete novels again. I'm going to try to find an agent and/or publisher for them.
Only problem is, I can't seem to write a query to save my life. Or rather, I can't write a good query to save my life. I mean it seems like a good query when I'm writing it, but the more I read it, the more I have others read it, the more and more it seems "meh."
I read Query Shark religiously. I know intellectually what needs to go in it, but I also know the voice is the key. I can get voice is a hopeless mishmash that confuses and dazes. I can get the formula though it reads as dry as a Pentagon briefing. Despite my best intentions, my queries stink to high heaven.
My husband says I'm not a salesman. He does not mistake the case. I'm the sort of salesperson who could keep people from buying what they came to get. I stink. Part of it is that they are books about characters with the plot largely incidental, so the formula is less than effective. The characters are the selling points, in my opinion.
I also don't do lots of other things that engenders getting published. My first paragraphs are not stellar - I grew up reading classics where you might not even meet the main characters until a third of the way through the book, where character development was everything. It's what I like, but also, apparently, passe. It's not how you get noticed.
Perhaps, and it's a real possibility, my writing isn't really notably better than my sales pitch. Hard to be objective. Perhaps I'll never be published because I can't promote my work properly, even if it is good. Sobering thought, that. But plausible.
Also the drawing has taken a step back, partially because of a crowded work schedule recently and partially because stepping out with new poses and Tander's features didn't work so well. I'll have to go back and regroup and try again.
And I will. I may end up 83 years old and unpublished, but it won't be because I gave up.
But a couple of the days in between are bound to be disheartening.
Sorry to everyone who might have wondered if I had fallen off the face of the earth. I haven't but I wouldn't blame you for thinking that because I have been twenty shades of overbusy the past week or so.
First I was disheartened with that feeling that most if not all unpublished wannabe writers gets at some point. You know the one, where you wonder if you're one of the clueless know-nothings who think they really can write but are just deluding themselves horribly.
I'm not saying I'm necessarily entirely cured, but I have reached a compromise ont he one novel and moved on. Slowly, since it involved an appreciable rewrite and sucked away my rather impressive momentum.
However, last week, on Friday, a friend pointed me to a romance editor (publishing house) who was critiquing "pitches" and suggested (since it's well established my marketing skills are pathetic) I try pitching something. Since my third novel, the one I wrote in a white heat last year, is the closest thing I have to a romance, I pitched it. The editor found it sufficiently intriguing that she asked for a synopsis and the entire book. Which means that the novel I'd had in a surprisingly-good-for-a-first draft form needs to be clean and polished, um, now. The editor has vowed to address all the pitches by 9/3, so I'm setting that as my deadline.
So, this weekend, I needed to work twenty-four hours of overtime (from home), handle a teenage birthday/sleepover AND a seven year old birthday AND finish the chapter I was working on for Cat's Paw and COMPLETELY do a first level polish edit on Tarot Queen.
For the record, I did all that - and that's with my husband conking out at six during the teenage-a-thon (which might be why I got so much editing done after I was through with day job work).
But, that's also why I haven't been visiting commenting on blogs and writing any myself. And, since I still need to do my Tarot Queen run through with Lee this week (and I have a few more extra hours at work to put in), it will be a bit longer before I'm at my blogging best.
Try to bear with me.
Well, I thought I'd found a happy medium between voice and formula, but it's not apparently successful either. Any of you want to help me figure out why? If I can figure out my marketing mistakes (and I'll be the first to say, I'm no marketer), perhaps I can carry that thinking elsewhere.
Tander was afraid those carefree days where he was master of his own destiny and comfortable with his own abilities were gone for good. First, his wife, Layla, told him she was pregnant, as she was rescuing him from his own folly..Any ideas? Read more...
Then, he discovered he was no longer just the extraordinary swordsman he always wanted to be. Apparently he's also some sort of powerful magical prodigy though he has no idea how to use his powers. He does have an unprecedented six tiny kitten familiars with more magical know-how than Tander will likely ever have, and who aren't shy about pointing out Tander's shortcomings.
All of which faded to nothing when Layla and other women of the Jenri tribe were abducted, leaving a dozen husbands left for dead, including Tander. Tander knows nothing about the kidnappers except that they have nefarious plans, phenomenal magic powers, and are hidden in the midst of frozen mountains so cold Tander might shatter if he stumbles one more time.
To save them he'll have to lead a band of angry sorcerers, cutthroats and Jenri warriors, all just as anxious over the safety of their loved ones as he is. Tander has to lead them to the right place quickly, while learning what magic he can, so they can save the stolen Jenri, if his impatient rescue party doesn't kill him first.
He didn't want these powers or a flock of noisy but helpful kittens, but he'll need them. He'll need all the skills and talents he and all his companions possess to succeed. Because he has something more important than his life to lose: Layla.
Curse of the Jenri is a fantasy novel of about 116,000 words.
More than the mechanics of writing, the breathing of life into characters, the slogging through syntax and grammar, the effective description, the clever weaving of plot, the coalescence of atmosphere, writing, in my opinion, should do one more thing: it should be worth taking up someone's time.
As I've read hundreds of queries (and, for that matter, hundreds of published books), one thing's struck me time and time again. So frequently, the book or the query letter is like an engineering problem: insert values into the formula, note down the results. Books slog forward with the formula, using cardboard caricatures, to reach utterly predictable outcomes, fight interchangeable bad guys, save inconsequential heroines or other victims, which could be fine if you could add *something* special to make it good. No, no, I'm wrong. You have to change something in that formula, I believe, to make that good. You might make a sale. You might be successful and successfully published, but you won't make it good unless you stir up at least one (preferably more) of those elements.
This is absolutely true of novels. The question is, is it true of queries? Do you have to be one of the herd, even if your book isn't, in order to get the attention or an agent or publisher?
I won't say I have the answer. I am not omniscient, but this question struck me as I saw a response to what is a very accurate reflection of my novel's voice, of Tander's view. A reader commented that I hadn't followed the formula (though, I had in a previous post, but that's neither here nor there) and seemed concerned that I didn't know the formula or couldn't use it.
I know the formula. I can use it (even if I haven't yet perfected the technique). Thanks for worrying. The question is, should I?
If Query Test is any indication, neither is very successful (which argues that, at least, either my usage of the formula is flawed or it's insufficient to give a real sense of a non-formula novel). My formula query has only 2 successes out of 11 readings. The unconventional query is 0 for 7. Hard to argue that the unconventional method has been less than successful.
But it calls to mind a dilemma. If we take as somewhat a given that many of the books published yearly are comfortably formulaic, the kind of books one can pick up at the airport when one wants to read a boilerplate book, a standard romance or cozy mystery. Formulaic queries for publishers and agents looking for an easy sell/easy sale will likely do quite well if the writer has any sense of the mechanics and a decent set of writing skills. There's nothing wrong with that.
But, if one has written something *different*, something that falls out of formula with insane plot devices or complex multi-faceted characters (or both), that manages to be touching and thrilling and funny as hell all at the same time, how would an agent know, how would a publisher know?
I guess my real question is, is it better to pander to the common denominator, find an agent willing to read it even if it's not reflective of the actual book? Or, is it better to infuse your query with a voice as distinctive as the book itself? Consider it understood that nine out of ten agents or publishers will be frustrated by the off-kilter format or nonstandard structure, but what if it might entice the *right* agent, the *right* publisher, make them a believer. Someone who will go to bat for the book because they believe in it.
I'm not expecting to hear the answers. I'm not sure there is just ONE answer.
I know, if I can get one, I want the agent who believes my book is special, is in love with it. I'm just not sure if I have entirely figured out how to get his or her attention. I don't think straight formula will work for me.
I expect I'll be doing a bit more experimenting.
I'm an idiot. Back a year or so ago, my good friend helped me with a query by making it far different than my normal type. After reading Query Shark, I was so certain I had it nailed and knew what I "really" wanted, that I left this behind.
Except, I just read it again. What was I thinking? This is great. THIS is what my book is about.
It wasn’t enough that women from Tander’s tribe had been stolen, including his wife, Layla, or that those who had stolen them had nefarious plans. And phenomenal magic powers. And could escape in seconds. And an underground fortress in the midst of frozen mountains so cold Tander was afraid he’d shatter if he stumbled one more time. It wasn’t enough that he was surrounded by angry husbands worried about their wives and willing to take their tempers out on him if he was leading them in the wrong direction. It wasn’t enough that he was also surrounded by the remaining women from his tribe who were equally angry and more than capable of kicking his butt.Damn. I should have just left well enough alone. Read more...
No, on top of all those little issues, he discovered he's no longer “just” an extraordinary swordsman, but also a great and powerful sorcerer with absolutely no idea how to use his powers. He was not just any sorcerer, either, but one chosen by six tiny kitten familiars who do know how to use his powers and who have no problem telling him. All the time. While they demand to carried all over his person, purring and taking inopportune naps. He didn’t want these powers or a flock of noisy but helpful kittens, but he'll need them. He'll need all the skills and talents he and his companions possess in order to save their women—and Layla.
But we love you, Tander! Solace insisted, purring and licking his neck.
Things have got to get better soon.
I''m sold on Query Test. Not because they love my query. Au contraire. Because they were kind enough to tell me why they didn't love it. Four out of five readers wouldn't want my novel. Three gave reasons:
I saw this website in a comment on Query Shark (and Query Shark is one of those wonderful tools that keep on giving). It's called Query Test and it's an opportunity to get what a writer and/or reader's take on your query without waiting indefinitely or getting nothing but rejections. Although you may only get a thumbs up/down, there is a potential for at least a few comments on why it didn't work.
And you get to read others and learn from them - what works, what doesn't. What you like, what you don't and why. You submit a query and then read other queries, providing at least a reject/accept, to building up the points to submit new or revised queries.
It's too early in the day for me to have an opinion on it's long term viability, but I've found it an interesting exercise so far. Feel free to give it a try.
No ads. No income. Just a tool someone was kind enough to provide.
Nathan Bransford, agent, novelist, blogger, has an interesting exercise on his blog yesterday. He noted that queries (and other venues) would require one condense one's beloved novel into tiny tiny packages as pitches. He also noted it was difficult. (And it is, terribly difficult).
Trying it "his way" seemed to work better, than the way I originally started with (assuming, of course, that the novels are equally thrilling). I'm game. Here are some synopses of my third novel as Bransford suggested: (a) single sentence, (b) single paragraph and (3) two paragraphs.
Novel: Tarot Queen
(a) The world of Roxell, the Tarot Queen, is turned upside down when her fated lover whisks her into adventure to save his soul and her life, and find a way to fulfill the destiny the cards have foretold.You know, I think this is a great exercise, if only to remind me what's most key in my own novels. I almost enjoyed that. :) Read more...
(b) When the 400-year old Tarot Queen, Roxell, finally finds her fated lover, Dante, she is nonplused to realize he is a demon. She must abandon everything she knows to find a way to remove his demon curse while they are chased by the army and Dante can be whisked away at any moment by anyone with his demon name, but consummating the love the cards have foretold could bring her life to an end. She will have to find capabilities and strengths she never suspected within herself if she is to help them find their destiny and the opportunity of a life together.
(c) When the 400-year old Tarot Queen, Roxell, finally finds her fated lover, Dante, he is everything she ever wanted—and a demon. She must abandon everything she knows to find a way to remove his demon curse or forgo her own humanity and accept his demon curse herself. She is ill-prepared for the real world and, though Dante is capable and protective, he can be whisked away at any time by anyone who knows his demon name. And it is apparently very popular.
To save herself and Dante, she will have to develop and use skills she never envisioned, find capabilities and strengths she had not suspected. She will have to be bold, even when it distresses her protective companion. In the end, she will have to save Dante from the army that wishes to control his skills and look within herself for the answers that will allow her to fulfill their joint destiny.
Nathan Bransford, agent, novelist, blogger, has an interesting exercise on his blog yesterday. He noted that queries (and other venues) would require one condense one's beloved novel into tiny tiny packages as pitches. He also noted it was difficult. (And it is, terribly difficult).
I tried it with my first novel yesterday. It's hard to tell how the results panned out. Jeff didn't like them, but I'm not sure he's recovered from the notion that I have kittens as central characters (though they are). Actually, almost as a trademark, I have at least one cat and one dragon (or dragon-like beastie) in every novel. But that's neither here nor there.
I need to try it again with the second novel, which I haven't started trying to market yet. Since I'd had a query on Curse of the Jenri, I had used that as a jumping off point and tried to whittle it down. Today, I'm going to try what Bransford original suggested. Start with (a) the sentence and then expand to (b) one and then (c) two paragraphs.
Novel: Beast Within
(a) When their ship of youthful refugees maroons on a strange and dangerous new planet, Xander and his shapeshifting clan, the Bete, will need to protect the rest of the humans from the planet's dangers, without being discovered by those humans who would treat the Bete as monsters.
(b) When their ship of youthful refugees maroons on a strange and dangerous new planet, Xander has to take charge of his shapeshifting clan, the Bete, and protect the healer they found among the humans on board. Somehow, Xander and his family will have to use all of their knowledge and supernatural skills to protect everyone from the man-eating plants and animals that about without revealing their true natures to the humans who would kill the Bete for being "demons."
(c) When their ship of youthful refugees maroons on a strange and dangerous new planet, Xander has to take charge of his shapeshifting clan, the Bete, to protect the healer, K'Ti, from the humans as well as his own clan. After Xander convinced the captain to let them be the first to set up camp outside, the healer quickly becomes key to survival and Xander defies his clan to let her live when she discovers their secret shapeshifting abilities.
Among humans, shapeshifting is equated with evil and their lives would readily be forfeit if certain fanatical factions discovered their ability. To defend themselves from the vicious predators of the new planet, the Bete are going to need every skill, shred of knowledge and capability they possess. How can they use them, however, without revealing their secret?
Nathan Bransford, agent, novelist, blogger, has an interesting exercise on his blog today. He noted that queries (and other venues) would require one condense one's beloved novel into tiny tiny packages as pitches. He also noted it was difficult. (And it is, terribly difficult).
Just from the work on my query, I know it's true. Since I'm now sitting on three completed novels and need to get cracking on marketing (instead of falling prey the siren's song of "new" writing), I thought I'd try the exercise here. I'm going to need these short versions anyway. The idea is to condense the story into (a) one sentence, (b) one paragraph, and (c) two paragraphs.
So, today, I'll try it with my first novel: Curse of the Jenri.
(a) Tander has no choice but to use his unwanted magical ability, his six obnoxious kittens and a dangerous band of cutthroats, knights and sorcerers to rescue his wife and her sisters from an unknown villain.
(b) When Tander the swordsman is adopted by six kittens who demand he's really a sorcerer, Tander refuses to consider the possibility until his wife and many others from their camp are kidnapped. Now, he has to depend on his magic, his kittens and an angry mob of sorcerers and cutthroats to find her and even to save her. Too bad he has no idea what he's doing.
(c) Still stinging from the humiliation of being rescued by his wife, Tander, the swordsman, is adopted by a litter of demanding familiars who insist Tander is full to bursting with magical ability, as if he wasn't humiliated enough. Tander has no intention of lowering himself by dabbling in magic or spending his life saddled with six critical kittens, but, when his wife (and many of her camp) are kidnapped, he's going to have to depend on his magic to save them.
Tander has no idea who he’ll face or how long he has to get there. He’ll need to embrace the magic he despises, master it well enough that it’s a boon and not a liability. He’ll have to slog through near impassable mountains in winter, fighting fearsome creatures he didn’t even think existed. He’ll do anything he has to to reach Layla before the Jenri are destroyed. And, he'll need to get there before the impatient band of assassins, soldiers, and sorcerers he leads kills him—or each other.
Hmm. It is harder than I like to think. Feel free to give criticism and suggestions. I wish they were funnier. May have to revise and repost later. Any ideas would be welcome.
Seriously, it happened. I was making a list of prospective agents for the querying. For some reason, as I happened across a particular agent, I got a good feeling about it. So, I bumped her up the list for no particular reason.
Then, as I'm gearing myself up for all the agent-specific research needed to tailor each query and/or submission, I'm still wandering about the blogosphere and I happen across an agent's blog I hadn't seen before that I really like. Quel surprise, it's that self-same agent. I bump her up to the second spot on my list and start to feel excited about it.
So, this morning, I jump in so I can read up on submission requirements and what-not and notice, on her blog, her mentioning one of her clients books is coming out. Holy snickers bars! She represents Sharon Lee and Steve Miller (they write as a team)! I love those guys! I love their books! They have all the elements we strive for in our writing!
Now I have to get my query ship shape because I desperately - desperately - want to impress this agent. Wish me luck!
Reposted from Rocket Scientist
I think The Mother might have mentioned this site before, but I hadn't paid enough attention clearly. When I was reading my pal, Project Savior's, post, he noted a terrific site recommended by the agent he'd queried called queryshark.blogspot.com. Project Savior (Darrell B. Nelson) wrote a clever query I think (and so did the agent), but I've learned so much trolling through the blog on queries, my head is spinning. Boy, have I been doing things wrong.
This agent, Janet Reid, (another excellent blog, by the way) fields queries and tells authors what's wrong with them, posting them on the blog with comments. Fantastic! Seriously, if you plan to market your work, you should read through queryshark and her agent blog.
The Mother definitely mentioned another blog called Miss Snark (which hasn't been updated in a few years and is still well worth reading - must find time.
Hope that helps. I know it helped me.
Some added sites from comments:
Nathan Bransford (literary agent)
Publishing Rants
Book Ends Literary Agency
Kaye Dacus' Manuscript 101
Thank you MA Fat Woman and Jeff King.
My husband and I write. Fiction.
Fantasy and science fiction, to be exact, often combining the two.
For those of you who knew me from Rocket Scientist or Ask Me Anything, that's not likely a surprise. Thing is, writing is only part of the battle, part of the job. Sure, I have a day job, but, if I want my (our) writing to ever be more than a way to fill time, if I want to reach people with it, I'm going to have to market it.
That's where this blog comes in. Oh, sure, it's not polished just yet and, of course, there are few posts. OK, none. But I figure this is the best place to talk about writing (which I have a habit of doing on Rocket Scientist) to talk about what I still want to accomplish, to let you know when I actually accomplish something.
Both Lee and I are on here, because we write novels together. However, when it comes to technical papers and marketing and short stories and anything but the novels themselves, it will likely be me. I'll likely transplant a few posts from Rocket Scientist here to get the ball rolling. Look for that over then next few days.
In the meantime, I'll be honing my craft and figuring what steps come next. After all, it's what I do.
