It’s funny, I don’t really think of myself as being “inside publishing,” or inside the ebook publishing industry, but since I have a book out with a major digital-first press I suppose to others that I might be considered at least “published,” if not on the “inside track.”
So how’s the view from here?
The more I know, the more I learn that I need to know. As much as I know about writing (active voice, action tags, story craft), I find I still have more to practice. Each time I go through a manuscript to edit, I think, “This is the time, it’ll be so clean I won’t have to touch a thing.”
I’m wrong. Routinely.
Humbling experience, that.
Each time I think I “know about the ebook publishing industry,” someone will mention a new-to-me publisher that’s been in business for years. It’s not that they’re so small I’ve never heard of them, it’s that I’m not well versed enough on the businesses playing in the industry yet.
So here’s what I do know:
Concentrate on the basics and on what you can control.
1. Write daily or as often as you can. There are many prompts available on the internet (type “writing prompts” into Google and poke around). Experiment with a new one every day for a month. Write with a pen and write on the computer, see how the different mechanics work with your creative process.
2. Practice your writing skills. Get a book on grammar from the library or buy yourself a copy of Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss. Wrestle with comma usage and the dreaded semicolon; become an expert in verb tenses. Learn about the “story arc” and the seven traditional plots. Get yourself a copy of Fiction Writers Workshop by Josip Novakovich or take a fiction class through a local writing group.
3. Meet other writers. Find writing friends online through magazines like Writer’s Digest or The Writer, and make local connections using your local newspaper or Meetup. Exposure to others working on the same things you are is helpful for the learning process and can also inspire you to try new things.
4. Attend regional writing conferences or even a national one. My own writing organization, Evanston Writers Workshop, holds our annual conference very year during the third weekend of August. We bring in authors, publishers, agents, and have an awesome time learning and playing with words for three days. There's a lot you can learn about traditional publishing and the ebook publishing industry, and how the interrelate and augment each other from the authors' perspective. It's no longer enough to ignore ebooks; we as authors need to understand it because that's how a lot of newer authors are being published.
5. Stay humble. No matter how much you know or learn, remember there’s always someone out there that can teach you something. Be teachable.
6. Keep writing. Through it all, remember to keep writing. This is surprisingly easy to forget, in fact. I meet writers through Evanston Writers Workshop who have all sorts of dearly-held opinions about publishing and writing, but when asked what they’re working on, the answers “oh, this manuscript I’ve been writing for twenty years.” One manuscript for twenty years is not a good track record for knowing the publishing industry. One of our speakers, author Jody Lynn Nye, has published over forty books and over a hundred short stories. I think THAT is the track record of someone who knows the publishing industry, don't you? Everyone has opinions, and it’s easy to forget that our job description is “writer,” not “pontificator” or “prognosticator.” If you have the urge to do either of the latter two things, DO IT ON THE PAGE! Whatever you do, write.
Lots.
Write on!
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Showing posts with label writing conferences. Show all posts
Showing posts with label writing conferences. Show all posts
19 January 2012
15 November 2011
How to Hook a Narrative Hook – a workshop with Jody Lynn Nye
Some years ago, someone told me that the author Louis L’Amour told good stories. Being young and dumb, and therefore convinced I knew everything, I went to the library to prove them wrong. I found a startlingly large collection of beautifully-bound leather books, the collected works of Mr. L’Amour. Undaunted, I pulled one grumpily off the shelf and sat down at a nearby table to prove that he couldn’t “hook” me as a reader.
When I came up for air, I was on page twenty-two.
What happened?
The “narrative hook” is what happened. When you induce the reader to turn the page, because they just have to find out what happens next, then you have successfully crafted a narrative hook. It’s that “certain something” writers can do, and do on purpose, that makes their work memorable and compelling. Jody Lynn Nye is one such author.
With more than 40 books and over 100 short stories to her credit, not to mention collaborating with legends like Robert Asprin, Anne McCaffrey, and many others, Ms. Nye in a perfect position to teach us about writing in general and narrative hooks in particular. Evanston Writers Workshop is pleased to announce that Ms. Nye will be presenting for us on Saturday, December 10th, at the Wilmette Public Library just north of Chicago, Illinois. If you are nearby, we invite you to join us. Dues-Paid Evanston Writers Workshop members are only $20 (membership has its privileges and we'd love you to join us!). (Your contribution will offset the cost for the space and an honorarium). Non-Members are only $35.00.
To register, please visit our Events page on our main website.
To whet your appetite, I’d like to share a wonderful interview with Ms. Nye crafted by my fellow Beyond the Veil author Jean Marie Ward. Jean Marie has a long career interviewing some of fiction’s brightest starts and is an accomplished author herself. If you like what you see in the interview, consider coming on the 10th to meet Ms. Nye in person. If it’s not within reach, do please stop by Jean Marie’s interview and let her know we sent you.
And when you have a moment, check out Louis L’Amour. You’ll be glad you did. I promise.
When I came up for air, I was on page twenty-two.
What happened?
The “narrative hook” is what happened. When you induce the reader to turn the page, because they just have to find out what happens next, then you have successfully crafted a narrative hook. It’s that “certain something” writers can do, and do on purpose, that makes their work memorable and compelling. Jody Lynn Nye is one such author.
With more than 40 books and over 100 short stories to her credit, not to mention collaborating with legends like Robert Asprin, Anne McCaffrey, and many others, Ms. Nye in a perfect position to teach us about writing in general and narrative hooks in particular. Evanston Writers Workshop is pleased to announce that Ms. Nye will be presenting for us on Saturday, December 10th, at the Wilmette Public Library just north of Chicago, Illinois. If you are nearby, we invite you to join us. Dues-Paid Evanston Writers Workshop members are only $20 (membership has its privileges and we'd love you to join us!). (Your contribution will offset the cost for the space and an honorarium). Non-Members are only $35.00.
To register, please visit our Events page on our main website.
To whet your appetite, I’d like to share a wonderful interview with Ms. Nye crafted by my fellow Beyond the Veil author Jean Marie Ward. Jean Marie has a long career interviewing some of fiction’s brightest starts and is an accomplished author herself. If you like what you see in the interview, consider coming on the 10th to meet Ms. Nye in person. If it’s not within reach, do please stop by Jean Marie’s interview and let her know we sent you.
And when you have a moment, check out Louis L’Amour. You’ll be glad you did. I promise.
23 May 2011
This Is What A Romantic Novelist Looks Like
Alleged journalist Claudia Connell of the Daily Mail apparently had on her granny goggles when she recently attended a RNA conference in London to report on it for the paper. All she could see, when she looked around at a room full of women of varied ages and appearances, was grannies, grannies, everywhere. "All around me," she remarks in the article, "are middle-aged and elderly women in their pearls and support tights."
Other attendees of the same conference were a little baffled by Ms. Connell's characterization. Like author Kate Johnson, age 20-something, who was also at that RNA conference, wearing a tiara and gold high heels, which Ms. Connell's granny goggles kindly re-envisioned for her so as to retain the article's wonky stereotype.
Ms. Connell went on to refer to RNA attendees as "sex-obsessed pensioners", while confessing that she found herself kind of liking them -- although she'd really rather HER mum take up a traditional old-lady pastime of gardening.
Interesting question: if Ms. Connell had attended a conference of mostly male writers and worn grandpa goggles, do you think she'd have been as snide about their careers and their talents, or would she have noted that it must be a tough field, this genre writing thing, since the average age of the attendees spoke of years to one's hone skills and business savvy? Or would she have eschewed the grandpa goggles entirely and looked around her to see the vast assortment of faces, bodies and ages that exists at every writer's conference I've ever attended?
After further contemplation of the article, author Johnson decided to follow up her original post with a social media campaign to show the Daily Mail what a romantic novelist looks like.
http://etaknosnhoj.blogspot.com/2011/05/this-is-what-romantic-novelist-looks_23.html
You can find the Twitter hashtag of participants here: http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23thisiswhataromanticnovelistlookslike
And you can find some pictures of romantic novelists below from various members of Beyond the Veil. Let's start with me since I have that photo ready to go:
I TOTALLY fit the stereotype, right? Never mind that I was dressed as Mary Poppins for a rather vigorous tap recital I was in. I have pearls on (in my ears), a daffy hat, and "support hose" (aka dance tights). Alas, my hair has no blue rinse and that's not exactly a twinset. But close enough.
However, I usually look a lot more like this:
I had taken off my maroon steampunk jacket since it was kind of warm at the booksigning, but that is a sweater vest. That's kind of like a twinset, right?
Now let's take BTVer Carolan Ivey. She's got several splits in her romantic novelist personality as well. Sometimes she rides a Harley:
But sometimes she goes to Rennaissance Faires:
Just depends on which side of the bed she wakes up on, I guess--whether she dons the leather and chaps or the brocade and bodice. I left out the picture of her with her dogs because they're probably on both sides of the bed. Now let's have a gander at author JM Ward:
JM is on the left with the blonde hair, which she sometimes ripples with some red flame dye (sorry, no blue rinse!). Wouldn't you love a granny like that? She was busy hanging out with her friend Jen Jawidzik, keyboardist for the Cruxshadows, backstage and stuff.
Next let's peep at author Kimberly Troutte.
She's got to be, I don't know, a great grandmother with that face...a great grandmother of ideas that birth ideas that birth ideas. She probably has twenty idea grandbabies running around in her head at any time, waiting for their stories to make it to paper.
To be fair, I know a bunch of authors who are grandmothers, who have lovely grey or white hair, who can maybe afford a nice strand of pearls, and who appreciate the massaging benefits of support socks (probably not so much with the support hose since those are too much like Spanx). Some of them have been publishing for years, so their career longevity is to be worshipped -- not mocked -- while some are newer to publishing. Nobody ever said a person can't follow her dreams later in life, or earlier!
The fact is, I know a lot of romantic novelists -- and readers -- of all ages and appearances and colors, living in all parts of the world, with jobs and hobbies and families and senses of self that make every one of them unique. It would take some mighty powerful granny goggles to boil them all into a single stereotype, but Ms. Connell managed it. Perhaps the Daily Mail hands out stereotype goggles to its writers as a matter of course? After all, if you don't do much research because everything you see looks the same, you can avoid pesky things like "facts" and "truth" and instead save on money and time.
So, what do you think a romantic novelist looks like?
Jody W.
www.jodywallace.com * www.meankitty.com
Other attendees of the same conference were a little baffled by Ms. Connell's characterization. Like author Kate Johnson, age 20-something, who was also at that RNA conference, wearing a tiara and gold high heels, which Ms. Connell's granny goggles kindly re-envisioned for her so as to retain the article's wonky stereotype.
Ms. Connell went on to refer to RNA attendees as "sex-obsessed pensioners", while confessing that she found herself kind of liking them -- although she'd really rather HER mum take up a traditional old-lady pastime of gardening.
Interesting question: if Ms. Connell had attended a conference of mostly male writers and worn grandpa goggles, do you think she'd have been as snide about their careers and their talents, or would she have noted that it must be a tough field, this genre writing thing, since the average age of the attendees spoke of years to one's hone skills and business savvy? Or would she have eschewed the grandpa goggles entirely and looked around her to see the vast assortment of faces, bodies and ages that exists at every writer's conference I've ever attended?
After further contemplation of the article, author Johnson decided to follow up her original post with a social media campaign to show the Daily Mail what a romantic novelist looks like.
http://etaknosnhoj.blogspot.com/2011/05/this-is-what-romantic-novelist-looks_23.html
You can find the Twitter hashtag of participants here: http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23thisiswhataromanticnovelistlookslike
And you can find some pictures of romantic novelists below from various members of Beyond the Veil. Let's start with me since I have that photo ready to go:
I TOTALLY fit the stereotype, right? Never mind that I was dressed as Mary Poppins for a rather vigorous tap recital I was in. I have pearls on (in my ears), a daffy hat, and "support hose" (aka dance tights). Alas, my hair has no blue rinse and that's not exactly a twinset. But close enough.
However, I usually look a lot more like this:
I had taken off my maroon steampunk jacket since it was kind of warm at the booksigning, but that is a sweater vest. That's kind of like a twinset, right?
Now let's take BTVer Carolan Ivey. She's got several splits in her romantic novelist personality as well. Sometimes she rides a Harley:
But sometimes she goes to Rennaissance Faires:
Just depends on which side of the bed she wakes up on, I guess--whether she dons the leather and chaps or the brocade and bodice. I left out the picture of her with her dogs because they're probably on both sides of the bed. Now let's have a gander at author JM Ward:
JM is on the left with the blonde hair, which she sometimes ripples with some red flame dye (sorry, no blue rinse!). Wouldn't you love a granny like that? She was busy hanging out with her friend Jen Jawidzik, keyboardist for the Cruxshadows, backstage and stuff.
Next let's peep at author Kimberly Troutte.
She's got to be, I don't know, a great grandmother with that face...a great grandmother of ideas that birth ideas that birth ideas. She probably has twenty idea grandbabies running around in her head at any time, waiting for their stories to make it to paper.
To be fair, I know a bunch of authors who are grandmothers, who have lovely grey or white hair, who can maybe afford a nice strand of pearls, and who appreciate the massaging benefits of support socks (probably not so much with the support hose since those are too much like Spanx). Some of them have been publishing for years, so their career longevity is to be worshipped -- not mocked -- while some are newer to publishing. Nobody ever said a person can't follow her dreams later in life, or earlier!
The fact is, I know a lot of romantic novelists -- and readers -- of all ages and appearances and colors, living in all parts of the world, with jobs and hobbies and families and senses of self that make every one of them unique. It would take some mighty powerful granny goggles to boil them all into a single stereotype, but Ms. Connell managed it. Perhaps the Daily Mail hands out stereotype goggles to its writers as a matter of course? After all, if you don't do much research because everything you see looks the same, you can avoid pesky things like "facts" and "truth" and instead save on money and time.
So, what do you think a romantic novelist looks like?
Jody W.
www.jodywallace.com * www.meankitty.com
26 July 2010
Going to Disney World, Baby.
Okay, I'm a little bit excited.
It's THAT time of the year again...the Romance Writers of America Annual (RWA) Conference.
Squeeeee!!! For four jam-packed days, I will be immersed in all things writerly. From workshops on craft, the publishing industry, and how to tame that pesky muse, I will be glued to my chair. I will be surrounded by people who are, well, writerly too (agents, editors, multi-published authors, some of the biggest names in the industry). I am getting chills just thinking about it.
During the year, I sit all alone at my desk creating worlds, lives, loves. At RWA I get to sit with thousands of others just like me with the same hopes, dreams, goals, and desires. I don't know most of them, but I KNOW them. It's amazing.
It can also be a little daunting.
I'll never forget my first conference in 2003. It wasn't sponsored by RWA, because frankly, I hadn't heard of RWA at that time. I was a clueless, young, closet-writer. I wrote lots, but worried that I stunk big-time (which, thinking back now, I probably did.) I couldn't utter the words, "I am a writer." for fear that a burly guard might boot me out of the conference for writer-impersonation.
But I went. Why? Because I knew I stunk big-time, but this was my dream--to become published. I wanted someone to teach me. I wanted to know what I didn't know (which, looking back on it was a ton!). I wanted inspiration and hope and acceptance. I had never been in one place with so many writers before. This was awesome.
And rip the guts out of your body terrifying.
During orientation it was announced that we were supposed to bring the first five pages of our manuscript to workshops lead by multi-published authors, stand up and read those five pages aloud, so that the entire class could critique them while you, or really I, crawled under the nearest table and died a thousand deaths. (No the last part wasn't mandatory, but I could see it coming in all the gory details). I was beyond myself with terror. Remember, I couldn't even mouth the words, "I am a writer." and here we were going to prove it in front of God and all those strangers!
My heart in my throat, I turned to the person sitting next to me and said something like, "Aaagggk!"
It was the last intelligible sound I made for three days. I kid you not. I developed psychosomatic laryngitis. I could not speak above a whisper for almost the entire conference!
On the third day, I wandered into a workshop where the multi-published leader read my pages for me while I held my notebook over my face and blushed like a madwoman. In the end? The members of the class cheered. It was the first time the audience had cheered and the leader recommended my piece for an award. They liked me, they really did.
And not surprisingly, my voice came back that evening.
Jump forward to the year 2010. I can say, "I am a mutli-published author!" And yet, I am nervous to go to conference. I always am. But excited too. I still want to improve my writing and I know I have a ton to learn. I want to be inspired and accepted. I want to be surrounded by people who "get me." I want to meet new friends. Most of all, I want to be that author I always knew I could be.
I hope to see you there.
Kimberley Troutte
www.kimberleytroutte.com
It's THAT time of the year again...the Romance Writers of America Annual (RWA) Conference.
Squeeeee!!! For four jam-packed days, I will be immersed in all things writerly. From workshops on craft, the publishing industry, and how to tame that pesky muse, I will be glued to my chair. I will be surrounded by people who are, well, writerly too (agents, editors, multi-published authors, some of the biggest names in the industry). I am getting chills just thinking about it.
During the year, I sit all alone at my desk creating worlds, lives, loves. At RWA I get to sit with thousands of others just like me with the same hopes, dreams, goals, and desires. I don't know most of them, but I KNOW them. It's amazing.
It can also be a little daunting.
I'll never forget my first conference in 2003. It wasn't sponsored by RWA, because frankly, I hadn't heard of RWA at that time. I was a clueless, young, closet-writer. I wrote lots, but worried that I stunk big-time (which, thinking back now, I probably did.) I couldn't utter the words, "I am a writer." for fear that a burly guard might boot me out of the conference for writer-impersonation.
But I went. Why? Because I knew I stunk big-time, but this was my dream--to become published. I wanted someone to teach me. I wanted to know what I didn't know (which, looking back on it was a ton!). I wanted inspiration and hope and acceptance. I had never been in one place with so many writers before. This was awesome.
And rip the guts out of your body terrifying.
During orientation it was announced that we were supposed to bring the first five pages of our manuscript to workshops lead by multi-published authors, stand up and read those five pages aloud, so that the entire class could critique them while you, or really I, crawled under the nearest table and died a thousand deaths. (No the last part wasn't mandatory, but I could see it coming in all the gory details). I was beyond myself with terror. Remember, I couldn't even mouth the words, "I am a writer." and here we were going to prove it in front of God and all those strangers!
My heart in my throat, I turned to the person sitting next to me and said something like, "Aaagggk!"
It was the last intelligible sound I made for three days. I kid you not. I developed psychosomatic laryngitis. I could not speak above a whisper for almost the entire conference!
On the third day, I wandered into a workshop where the multi-published leader read my pages for me while I held my notebook over my face and blushed like a madwoman. In the end? The members of the class cheered. It was the first time the audience had cheered and the leader recommended my piece for an award. They liked me, they really did.
And not surprisingly, my voice came back that evening.
Jump forward to the year 2010. I can say, "I am a mutli-published author!" And yet, I am nervous to go to conference. I always am. But excited too. I still want to improve my writing and I know I have a ton to learn. I want to be inspired and accepted. I want to be surrounded by people who "get me." I want to meet new friends. Most of all, I want to be that author I always knew I could be.
I hope to see you there.
Kimberley Troutte
www.kimberleytroutte.com
30 June 2010
Writing Conference Recap
So last month I was all excited to be going to the NJSCBWI Annual conference. I'd never been, never been able to afford it. This year was the first year it was at the Hyatt Regency Hotel (which is really nice, if you ever get the chance to go). I had no idea what to expect.
I wish I had gone sooner.
I came back refreshed and newly excited about writing. Not only that, but I met a ton of industry professionals. They are totally real people. Sometimes I think those of us without agents or books at big NYC houses view agents and editors as unapproachable, mean people who want nothing more than to reject our work. But everyone I met was so very nice - I mean, they come to the conference because they WANT to meet writers, right?
The workshops were awesome as well. I went to a Master Class with Catharine Gilbert Murdock, author of Princess Ben. If you don't follow YA lit, then you might know her sister, Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love. Catharine was totally adorbable and gave a terrific class on using scriptwriting techniques for book plotting. Which I actually had started doing before, but she gave more in-depth advice, like writing out the subtext (what your characters are really saying) for difficult scenes, to make sure what your actual text is doing what it's supposed to.
I also went to two presentations with Kristin Clark Venuti, author of Leaving the Bellweathers. Which is a really adorable book, sort of like modern day Roald Dahl. She and her editor from Egmont USA, and her agent, all did a panel on the process of getting an agent and publishing. Then Kristin did a bit on author promotions, most of which I pretty much knew, but she was so funny it was worth listening.
At the end of it all, I left with new friends (yay!), editors' cards in my pocket, and a head full of ideas and inspiration. Probably one of the biggest advantages to this conference was that you got a bunch of stickers that said you attended the conference, suitable for slapping onto your submission envelopes. Those babies get you moved to the top of the slush pile. But as most places take email subs now, putting that you were at the conference in your subject line was the alternate way to go.
I've submitted my latest book, the historical fantasy/fairy-tale adaptation, to two editors that otherwise would have been closed to me. One instantly (after reading the query letter) requested the full manuscript. From her iPhone. While she was at ALA this week. LOL. I also got up the courage to submit to an agent, not from the conference, but she also requested the full. (This is the book that I workshopped at the NJSCBWI Mentoring Workshop, where an NYC editor went over the first 30 pages and critiqued it. ) For the first time ever, I have full manuscripts with agents and editors. I've been writing for nine years.
I feel like I've stepped into a brave new world. And I wonder why I never did this before. Well, before I couldn't afford it and there is no way my old car would have made it. If you have a genre writing organization, and they have conferences like this, GO. Don't wait. They are so worth the money.
And I am SO going back to the conference next year!
I wish I had gone sooner.
I came back refreshed and newly excited about writing. Not only that, but I met a ton of industry professionals. They are totally real people. Sometimes I think those of us without agents or books at big NYC houses view agents and editors as unapproachable, mean people who want nothing more than to reject our work. But everyone I met was so very nice - I mean, they come to the conference because they WANT to meet writers, right?
The workshops were awesome as well. I went to a Master Class with Catharine Gilbert Murdock, author of Princess Ben. If you don't follow YA lit, then you might know her sister, Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love. Catharine was totally adorbable and gave a terrific class on using scriptwriting techniques for book plotting. Which I actually had started doing before, but she gave more in-depth advice, like writing out the subtext (what your characters are really saying) for difficult scenes, to make sure what your actual text is doing what it's supposed to.
I also went to two presentations with Kristin Clark Venuti, author of Leaving the Bellweathers. Which is a really adorable book, sort of like modern day Roald Dahl. She and her editor from Egmont USA, and her agent, all did a panel on the process of getting an agent and publishing. Then Kristin did a bit on author promotions, most of which I pretty much knew, but she was so funny it was worth listening.
At the end of it all, I left with new friends (yay!), editors' cards in my pocket, and a head full of ideas and inspiration. Probably one of the biggest advantages to this conference was that you got a bunch of stickers that said you attended the conference, suitable for slapping onto your submission envelopes. Those babies get you moved to the top of the slush pile. But as most places take email subs now, putting that you were at the conference in your subject line was the alternate way to go.
I've submitted my latest book, the historical fantasy/fairy-tale adaptation, to two editors that otherwise would have been closed to me. One instantly (after reading the query letter) requested the full manuscript. From her iPhone. While she was at ALA this week. LOL. I also got up the courage to submit to an agent, not from the conference, but she also requested the full. (This is the book that I workshopped at the NJSCBWI Mentoring Workshop, where an NYC editor went over the first 30 pages and critiqued it. ) For the first time ever, I have full manuscripts with agents and editors. I've been writing for nine years.
I feel like I've stepped into a brave new world. And I wonder why I never did this before. Well, before I couldn't afford it and there is no way my old car would have made it. If you have a genre writing organization, and they have conferences like this, GO. Don't wait. They are so worth the money.
And I am SO going back to the conference next year!
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