Tip o' the Day: Part 4 of 4

My fourth and final installment in this miniseries, mes auteurs, has to do with (à mon avis) the most difficult aspect of the writing life: dealing with rejection.

As I've said before, a rejection of your work—no matter how strongly you identify with it or believe it to be an extension of yourself—is just that: a rejection of your work. It's not an indictment of your character, it's not a dismissal of your accomplishments or promise as an artist, it's not a personal attack. All it means is that the agent or editor in question doesn't want to represent you or pay you based on the work you've created. That's it.

That said: rejection still sucks. Nobody wants to be told something he/she created isn't wanted, especially if he/she spent years crafting it. It can be especially upsetting if one gets relentless form rejections, or (though slightly more encouraging) receives a few partial requests but no invitations to submit the full ms.

The truth is, however, that just as discipline and talent are necessary (though not sufficient) conditions for success as a writer, so, too, is perseverance. Refusing to quit in and of itself won't necessarily get your work published, but without it, you'll be steamrolled over by the inevitable rejections and will never get your writing to the right agent or editor.

Be prepared to get rejected hundreds—if not thousands—of times. Understand that this business is exceptionally susceptible to bias and subjective/individual taste, meaning that simply because your work is rejected, that doesn't mean it isn't good. Remember that a lot of people who are/were much better writers than you were/have been rejected a lot more than you have been. Finally, keep in mind that there are some people who for whatever reason—celebrity, better connections, more money, &c—will have a leg up on you that has nothing to do with their (or your) writing, and you need to be writing as well as possible and submitting your work as persistently as you can in order to partially offset this imbalance.

Stupid? Yes. But, to quote Bender "Bending" Rodriguez, the truth is often stupid.

If anyone has any particularly good methods for dealing with rejection, please post them in the comments—as for me, I find that pinning up the personalized/tiered rejections is encouraging, and the form rejections can make pretty good art projects. In all seriousness, though, I read the rejection, have a snack/drink/nap, and get right back to writing and submitting. What else is there to do?

Tip o' the Day: Part 3 of 4

In a perfect world, mes auteurs, the writing business (like all businesses, enterprises, systems, &c) would be entirely meritocratic: everyone would get a fair shake, the best writing would be selected for publication, and talent, discipline, and hard work would pay off regardless of extraneous factors like luck, emotion, nepotism, and social status.

Alas, dear friends, we do not live in a perfect world.

Because of this, you have to do something besides read great books and write great books if you want to increase your odds of getting published: you have to network. And, as the name might imply, networking is... well, work. Details? Why, sure, if you insist.

1. Networking is necessary. While some of you may have a strong negative—yea, perhaps even visceral—reaction to the prospect of spending any of your writerly energies doing anything apart from reading and writing, you need to understand that networking is a necessary part of the writer's life.

Think of it this way: if you're interviewing two candidates who are more or less identical on paper and equally impress you in person, are you going to go with the candidate who was initially recommended to you by your Most Trusted Bro, or the guy who walked in because he saw your ad on Monster.com? Exactly. And, unsurprisingly, agents think the same way. This goes back to what I was saying two weeks ago about who you know: there's a certain amount of prerequsite what (read: good writing) you've got to have, and after that, it's all who.

This is absolutely not to say that you must know someone in the industry in order to get published. All I'm saying is that the more people you know, the more doors you'll open to opportunities that you might otherwise have missed by being an unknown quantity.

2. Chances are, you know someone. Think about the people you might have a connection to in the industry. Does your best friend have an agent? Is your fraternity brother working in the industry? Do you have friends of friends in mfa programs, literary agencies, independent book stores? Is your aunt a book conference junkie? &c &c. Make a list of the people who you could reasonably ask about the industry, representation, getting your foot in the door, and so on. I'm willing to bet you'll come up with more than you might at first expect.

3. If it turns out you know no one, don't despair. Okay, let's say I'm wrong and you know absolutely no one in the industry (worse, you don't even know of anyone who might even be related to the industry in the most tangential way). You're not doomed if you query agents to whom you haven't been recommended or haven't met at conferences, so long as you follow their guidelines and send them a well-crafted query. In fact, if you get a "close, but no thanks" e-mail from one of them, you can refer to this if and when you query them with a different project down the line.

In the meantime—and if you can afford it—consider attending conferences, readings, workshops, and other literary events, and do your best to meet industry insiders (authors, agents, editors, librarians, sales(ahem)people, &c) and develop strong professional relationships with them. The publishing industry isn't really as impossibly huge as you might think, and any given person who's been in it for a few years will have a lot of connections that might come in handy when you're trying to sell your book.

4. Relationships require upkeep. A quick note on the above: all relationships require work, and professional relationships (especially in this industry) are no exception. If your friend lands your dream agent, don't let jealousy consume you: foster your relationship with that friend, ask about him or her, trade work, and hopefully down the line he or she will be able to help you get representation via recommendation to his/her agent, getting you in touch with an agent or editor who may be interested in your work, and so on.

The flip side of this issue is: don't be creepy. Don't reply to form rejections from agents in an attempt to be Super Best Bros. Don't pitch your MS to agents or editors at/in inappropriate times/places (e.g. the bathroom at T.G.I. Friday's). Don't corner your friend of a friend's girlfriend's brother's former roommate at a party because he once worked at a publishing house after college. You get the idea.

That's all I've got for today, bros and she-bros. If you have any comments/questions/epiphanies/ideas/vitriol/profound insights/divine revelations, you know where to go.

Tip o' the Day: Part 2 of 4

Today's tip is a piece of advice I once received from a college professor, and it may be the best aphorism on the creative process I've ever heard: "There is no thinking except in the writing. There is no writing except in the rewriting."

Revision is essential to the writer's work, at least insofar as doing so is a an actual re-visioning of the author's original intent—a method of getting closer to what he or she meant and desired to communicate in the initial draft. The first words, mes auteurs, are not always the best words, and if you want to be published someday, you've got to know (or learn) to revise.

Some writers prefer to revise as they go along, writing passages or chapters, revising/editing them, and moving on; others prefer to write the entire novel before going through for a second pass. I fall more into the former group than the latter, but I don't think either approach is superior to the other. My theory is: do whatever works for you.

Unless! (And here's the caveat you knew was coming): unless what "works for you" is not revising. There may—although I personally doubt it—be an argument for this in the realm of poetry, but I don't think it's ever a good idea to send unrevised (un-re-visioned, un-revisited, &c) fiction or nonfiction out into the world for potential publication (or, heaven forbid, self-publication). As mentioned above, the first draft is where the thinking takes place; the second (and subsequent) drafts are where the writing takes place, the correct words are chosen, the plot is tightened up, the craft is honed, the characters made flesh.

All this to say: you're going to be writing more than one draft, and if you're convinced you're a one-draft wonder, you're almost certainly wrong. Again, I'm not aiming this advice at the one-in-ten-million outlier. I'm aiming it at you.

That said, meine Autoren: what's your process for drafting new work? Do you edit as you go along, or once the entire draft is complete? Do you cut passages apart with scissors? Reorder chapters? Do you go through two drafts? Two dozen? Two hundred? Do you tend to revise on your own at first, or do you immediately enlist the help of others for your second (and subsequent) drafts?

To the comments!

Tip o' the Day: Part 1 of 4

And now for something a little different!

This week I'll be focusing on the best writing advice I've heard/seen/received, mes auteurs, and I'll be kicking it off with some thoughts on what I think is the most crucial ingredient necessary to a writer's successful career: discipline.

As I've said before: even more than talent, a successful writer needs discipline. A modestly talented, disciplined writer can have a solid career with luck and hard work; an undisciplined writer of immense talent probably won't, since he or she will never actually finish anything, write regularly, or develop the kinds of relationships and connections that, generally speaking, grease the wheels of the Great Publishing Machine.

I'm going to preface this with the admission that, yes, there are exceptions to every rule, and I'm sure anyone could come up with a list of at least a dozen writers who were immensely talented, terribly undisciplined, and either had successful commercial careers, were widely recognized as geniuses after their deaths, or both. This advice isn't aimed at the one-in-ten-million outlier. It's aimed at you.

In patented, battle-tested Bullet-O-Vision™:

· Set and keep a writing schedule. Write regularly, if not daily. Do not wait to be inspired; writing is work. Even if you can only spare an hour a day three days a week, set that time aside and don't give it up for anything except a real emergency. Try to write at the same time of day each time you write, and be sure to select a time that works for you. Don't get up at 4:30 in the morning if you're not a morning person, because your writing will reflect this.

· Write the scenes you want to write when you want to write them. This isn't to say you should wait to be inspired, because (as mentioned above) you shouldn't. What I'm saying is: if you get to your daily hour of writing and are really excited to write the scene where your protagonist escapes from the robot Nazis, write that scene, even if isn't chronologically next in your plot. You have to stay excited and enthused, mes auteurs.

· Maintain a writing space. Find a place that works for you and write there consistently. It's a little Pavlovian, but it gets results: you'll train yourself to recognize that this time and this space are reserved for writing, and you'll find yourself undistracted and ready to write after a few writing sessions at the same time and in the same place. Again: try to write regularly, if not daily.

· Set deadlines and stick to them. Deadlines will be very real once you sign your first contract, so my advice is to get used to them early. If you can reasonably write 5,000 words a week, make that your goal; if you want to finish a chapter a month, set the 30th/31st as your deadline and stick with it. Reward yourself when you meet or exceed your deadlines and goals!

· Keep a notebook. When you are inspired, you won't necessarily be at your desk or computer. Record anything you think might be useful: images, snippets of overheard conversation, epiphanies, &c. Save the things you cut out of your novel for potential future use. Review them periodically. You'll be surprised how often they come in handy.

· If you fall off the horse, get right back on. Things come up: family drama, extra work at the office, family emergencies, holiday extravaganzas. Some weeks you might not get to your writing. If and when this happens, don't stress out, go into overdrive, or—worst of all—give up. Get back into your writing regimen as soon as you can and don't look back.

That's all for today, meine Autoren. Thoughts? Ideas? Comments? You know what to do.

Automatic Writing

I'm sorry for the lack of round-up yesterday, mes auteurs, and by way of apology I'm offering this PMN Special Saturday Edition™. O joy! O rapture!

The problem of writers' block has been mentioned a handful of times in the comments over the past several months, and I recall at one point being asked (via Twitter, if memory serves) to offer possible remedies/solutions, rather than simply saying that writers can't afford to suffer from it. So: here goes.

First, I'm not sure I believe in writers' block. I certainly believe in writers' laziness, since I've suffered from it a number of times, but I don't think I've ever had any dry spells that I couldn't write my way out of with a little discipline and a few tricks. My favorite trick is automatic writing.

Now, the Wikipedia article on the topic makes the whole thing sound a little mystical and—well, crazy—so let me clarify: when I say "automatic writing," I mean writing without any interruption or editing. No pausing to think, no re-reading what you wrote, no need to pay attention to anything except the next word. (No trances, &c, at least not for me.) Sometimes you end up writing things that don't make any sense. Sometimes you end up writing "I can't think of anything to write" twenty times in a row. The point is, however, that you're writing—and while the product itself generally isn't even close to first-draft quality, I've found that there are usually a few brilliant nuggets that jump-start the more usual, conscious, craft- and plot-oriented writing.

So, if you find yourself stuck in your writing, set aside twenty minutes a day to write without your internal editor looking over your shoulder. Will it be good? Probably not—at least, not most of it. But you'll be writing, you'll be reinforcing good habits and providing structure for your writing life, and you'll almost certainly discover one or two great ideas buried in your subconscious that you might not have had any clue you'd produced.

The Benefit of Experience

Sometimes, meine Autoren, we publishing folk seem to do perplexing things. We tell you the cover image you love won't sell your book and will need to be changed (everything from the color scheme to the imagery to the very title). We tell you the proposed on-sale date is all wrong and we'll actually need to get the book out the door two months earlier. We tell you you'll need to make author appearances in far-flung locations because those regions are where your book (or books like it) sell(s) best.

As much as it might seem otherwise, we generally don't do these things because we want to make you unhappy or are utterly incompetent at our jobs. The reason we ask for these (often annoying and occasionally apparently pointless) changes is because we have (wait for it!) the benefit of experience. We might not know for certain which covers will look best on the display table or what the absolute perfect on-sale date for your book might be, but we certainly know what probably won't work in terms of everything from overall appearance to release date to promotional placement.

We know what the co-op deadlines and promotions are; we know what season your book will compete best in; we know (historically speaking) what covers have worked and which ones have tanked; we know who your audience is and how to target them; we know how much your book should cost and what format it should be; we're starting to get a pretty good handle on this newfangled "e-book" nonsense (electronic sales chez moi are quite excellent; I'm not sure how publishers elsewhere in the industry are faring). Are we perfect? Absolutely not. But we've done this for awhile now, and we are (again, generally speaking) pretty damn good at it.

So rest assured, mes auteurs, that should you one day know the glory of representation, advances, royalties, and the nightmare joys of shepherding a book through the publication process, there will be plenty of industry professionals available to help you (even if, at times, it doesn't quite feel like help).