Practical Meerkat’s 52 Bits of Useful Info for Young (and Old) Writers

Laura Anne Gilman

Copyright © 2012 Laura Anne Gilman

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book in any form.

Cover design by Pati Nagle

Cover photo by Laura Anne Gilman

ISBN: 978-1-61138-151-1

Published by Book View Cafe

www.bookviewcafe.com

Introduction

By Chuck Wendig

I’ve long felt that most advice geared toward aspiring meerkat owners has leaned, shall we say, toward the artistic side of meerkat operations. Surely by now all meerkat keepers recognize that owning such a wee beastie offers up a host of creative and imaginative benefits, but where are the books about the practical details of meerkat custodianship? Where do we learn about their sleeping habits, their mating peccadilloes, their fastidious attention to eating beetles or their undying addiction to collecting Pokémon cards and drinking bad Canadian whiskey?

And so it is with great pleasure that I come today to provide the introduction for a book we’ve all been seeking, a book about the pragmatic perils of owning and keeping a—

(Chuck, this is not a book about meerkat ownership.)

Wait. What?

(The meerkat is a metaphor. This is a book about writing.)

Oh. Ohhh. That makes a lot more sense.

(It should. This is, after all, a book written after your own heart. It’s a book that eschews all the wonky wifty hoity-toity nuggets of navel-gazing and focuses instead on, well, practical aspects of the writer’s career. The ins and outs of when rubber meets road. It strives to illuminate both the craft and the business side of being a writer.)

The nitty-gritty, then.

(The nitty-gritty, indeed.)

That’s the kind of advice I like. That’s the kind of advice writers need.

You know how in high school nobody teaches you about all the important things? Sure, they teach you about the endocrine system of a seagull or how to find the cosine of a sine divided by the radius of the diameter? And yet, nobody tells you about… how to pay your taxes or balance a budget or communicate to other human beings. I’ve long said that writers need that kind of advice first. Sure, the talk about blah blah blah The Muse and blah blah blah Higher Calling is all well and good, but do writers know how to really TALK to their agents and editors about things? Or check a contract for clauses that force them to give up crucial parts of their penmonkey anatomy? Or when they should and should not endeavor to drink bad Canadian whiskey - and how to apologize the morning after?

(That’s what this book strives to do.)

Then I like this book a lot. Who wrote it?

(Laura Anne Gilman.)

Oh. Hey! I know her.

(Yes, that’s… that’s why she asked you to do this.)

She’s Practical Meerkat! Ok, this makes so much sense.

(It should. Why are you talking to yourself, anyway?)

I like the company.

(Fair enough.)

Chuck Wendig is the author of the novels DOUBLE DEAD and BLACKBIRDS, and dispenses his own brand of dubious writing wisdom at terribleminds.com.

Who The Hell is Practical Meerkat?

>raises hand< That would be me. Yes, “meerkat” really is my nickname. Practical Meerkat is the name of my blog, and it’s also the way I look at publishing – and how I hope, through these essays, to teach you to look at it, as well.

And who the hell am I, to be talking about publishing?

Way back in 1989, I started in publishing as an editorial assistant, working for Neil Nyren (the guy who brought Tom Clancy, among others, to fame). I worked my way up the food chain at Putnam, at Berkley, and Penguin USA. At Penguin, I headed the Roc SF/F imprint for seven years, until I left in 2003 to become a full-time writer.

I’ve sold 20+ novels and nearly 30 short stories, co-edited three anthologies, and edited hundreds of writers, from no-name newbies to NYT bestsellers and award-winners. Through all of that, I’ve learned a lot about writing, and publishing, and Living in the Arts.

Thankfully, some of those things have stuck in my brain, keeping me from losing my shit, killing anyone who doesn’t deserve it, or otherwise making the same mistake twice. As my cohorts at Book View Cafe pointed out, I made mistakes and I’ve seen mistakes - so you don’t have to.

The following essays are not going to be Deep Truth about Art. This is all practical stuff – the career management tools you may not have thought of yet but will need, either tomorrow or down the road. Nor will they progress in any particular “How to Write” scheme. Practical Meerkat isn’t your writing instructor. I’m your business survival coach.

1: The Full Stop

You’re not really a writer until certain things happen to you. Your first rejection. Your first sale. Your first revision letter. Your first eviscerating review. And your first panic attack….

One of the things new writers worry about is also one of the things that stresses more experienced writers, too. I’m talking about that dread yet inevitable experience: the Full Stop.

Sometimes, while writing, you come to a point where you don’t know what the next line is supposed to be. You have an outline, you have A Plan, you may even have a deadline… but it’s not happening. You’re stuck.

Panic! Cold sweats! Frantic twitching and raids on the chocolate!

Some people call this writer’s block, and come up with all sorts of ways to “unblock” themselves. Others insist that it doesn’t exist, that a block is…well, they have a lot of theories that doesn’t account for the fact that sometimes… we hit a wall.

I don’t believe in writer’s block as A Thing. But I do believe that this particular blockage is very real. It’s also nothing to panic – or even worry – over.

Yes, that’s what I said. That “OH MY GOD I’M STUCK” feeling? Listen to it, but don’t panic.

What a full-stop generally means is that – despite all your notes, your outlines, and your expectations, things have changed, and you’re not entirely sure where the story is going, right then. When it throws up that wall, your brain is telling you “stop and think about this, before we go in the wrong direction.”

That’s a good writer-brain, doing its job. Give it a cookie, and calm down, and think about it. If talking works, grab a friend, or your critique partner, your agent or even your kid, if you can trap them in the car long enough. You’re the boss of your story – get it to work again.

(Aside: yes, I believe in the presence/importance of the muse. I also believe that the muse has nothing to do with getting the work done.)

I’ve walked enough writers through this process – and faced it myself – to determine that the best solution is to go back to where the writing last flowed freely, the last time you were deep in the groove. Go back, and start again. In knitting, I’m told, that this is called frogging – for “rippit” – rip it out.

If that means before “Once upon a time,” then so be it.

You know what? That’s okay. It doesn’t mean you suck, it doesn’t mean the story sucks and should be tossed in the heap. It doesn’t mean anything other than that you thought you knew where the story was going, and you were wrong. So what?

Here’s one of the great secrets about writing: There’s nobody looking over your shoulder, scoring you on style points. Take another start. Slip, fall, get back up, change your mind, scribble something, draw a swooping arrow from one paragraph to another, yank entire sections and write entire scenes that you know won’t make it into the final draft until the words flow again. In many cases, you need only back up a page or two – and yes, you’ll know it when you find it. Trust yourself; you knew what wasn’t working, you’ll remember what did. As soon as you back away from the wall, it will disappear.

And, although you will probably never reach a point where the full stop/wall is not a possibility, the more alert you are to the signs of a recalcitrant story, the swifter the recovery. If you listen to your gut, back up rather than trying to charge forward, the story will get written.

2: Not Screwing Up (The Things You Can Avoid)

A lot of advice to writers – very good advice – involves taking an active role in your career, standing up for what you want, and not letting anyone else put you in the corner.

This isn’t that advice.

It is not overstating the fact to say that one of the most invaluable assets to your career is knowing when to sit down and shut up.

(Necessary disclaimer: when I told one of my editors the topic of today’s post, she, um, smirked. I say again: let my mistakes be your classroom.)

This post was triggered by seeing writers bitching about their career path in public, in each instance making assumptions that I knew were wrong. And even as I empathized with their frustration, all I could think was “oh, no. Just…no.”

The nature of publishing – the writer working on their own, and then handing the results over to a team of (mostly) faceless individuals identified only by their function (“production,” “sales,” “store buyers,” “readers”) – can lead to both a sense of frustrating helplessness and, occasionally, to ire directed against the individuals that we can identify: our editors.

And that is a mistake.

Don’t get me wrong: your publisher is going to do things (or not do things) that will make you fume. It’s inevitable, and griping to our peers and loved ones about such things is a time-honored tradition.

However. And yes, there is always a “however.” Blaming your editor for these things in public is risky, to say the least. Why?

Because the nature of publishing is also that the writer is protected from much of the daily scrum of the business. No matter how we educate ourselves on the process (and I strongly recommend that), we aren’t there on the front lines, hearing the daily battles.

And that’s how it should be. Trust me. No writer should be privy to the daily crap and conversations that tear us down to our basic sales elements. What happens in the pub meetings, the sales presentations and the post-mortems, is brutal and callous and necessary for the machine to function. And that’s true if you’re published by a megacorp, or by your neighborhood small press.

Is that fair? Oh hell no. That’s why we have an editor. Yeah, s/he is the one who gives you the bad news, the target when shit goes wrong, disappointments cluster, and you are filled with a sense of WTF at the world. S/he is the also the person who stands up for you, raising their voice to get you a larger slice of the pie, a better cover, a second chance at the promotion dollar, a second or third chance at the brass ring.

The point is – we’re not there when s/he does any of that. We don’t see it. We don’t know. And most of us, all too often, don’t think to ask, or, often, don’t want to know.

I had a moment recently when I thought “okay, is the situation bad, or was it really bad and my people kept it from getting worse?” And I did not ask, because in that instance, knowing would not have helped me stay sane.

So my advice, which is meant for writers but should be gospel for anyone who relies on anyone else to cover their back: don’t ever publicly bitch about/blame your editor. Because it’s entirely possible that things that went wrong might have gone worse, if s/he hadn’t been in there fighting on your behalf, and just not told you about it because, hey, it’s their job to fight for you, and let you keep on with your job, unruffled by doubt.

And we should never make them sorry they did so.

3: How I Stopped Worrying And Learned To Love My Synopsis

We all love writing. Creating, manipulating, molding stories, getting them from start to finish…. But we don’t all love all the writing. It’s time to learn how to Love Your Synopsis.

Over the years, I’ve discovered that if you start a group of writers talking about our jobs, sooner or later someone will say, “Oh god, I hate writing a synopsis.” And “me too” will echo, sometimes sheepishly, sometimes with vigor, sometimes with a sense of “oh god, it’s not just me, then?”

This isn’t a newbie fear, either – people with a dozen or more books under their belt will still approach the synopsis phase like a five year old being forced into the bath: they know they have to do it (the Parent/Editor Says So) but they’d rather being doing the fun “getting messy” part of writing-the-book, instead.

The synopsis is often confused with the outline, but the two are quite different. The outline is your roadmap from Start to Finish, something that You The Writer uses to navigate the story. Most people don’t hate writing outlines – some people like nailing down every detail, and some don’t even use outlines, except in the briefest, most glancing way possible. But “hate” doesn’t usually come into play.

Many writers really hate writing synopsis.

A synopsis isn’t a roadmap, it’s a snapshot: the condensed, comprehensive version of your story, a brief (relatively speaking) summation of everything you want to say, used to sell a publisher on a project. And yeah, the thought of trying to get 100,000 (or more) words into a clearly stated and yet enticing package of around 1,000 words is…challenging. * Not to mention that, if you’re one of those people for whom once the story is told, it’s done, the thought of writing a synopsis can give you brain freeze.

Don’t panic. Don’t stress.

Here is a truth, and I want you to repeat it out loud to yourself: “My editor does not expect the book to adhere to the absolute detail of the synopsis or outline.”

Yes, your synopsis is an important selling tool, and it should be as complete and detailed as you can make it. But the book you think of may not be the book you finally sell. The book you begin writing may not be (exactly) the book you finish and hand in. Stories change and grow in the making. This is normal, and your editor and publisher know this. Short of telling an entirely different story, odds are good that minor or even largeish deviations from the original proposal won’t be noticed**

So don’t feel that whatever you write at the beginning must be detail-perfect, or that any deviation will be punished (or even noticed). Nor is it necessary that a synopsis follow a particular form or style (I once had a panicked writer tell me the story over the phone, while I typed the details up, to meet contract requirement for “detailed synopsis”).

So relax and, instead of worrying, have fun with it. Put into it all the enthusiasm that you feel for the project, the same excitement you feel about the story, the characters, the setting. Give a sense of what is exciting and engaging about this story, where it will take them and what emotions they will experience in the reading.

That is all your editor will remember, when the book is handed in.

*disclaimer: I am among the few who actually enjoy it. This may be due to my years in marketing, or I may just be a mutant

**if they are writing copy from the proposal, however, you may encounter problems. It is a kindness to everyone to keep your editor informed of major name, gender, or plot changes

4: Signings, Booksellers, And Ego-Bruising

You hear, all the time, about author signings – they’re a mark of having arrived, of being in the public eye, of getting to strut your stuff in a bookstore. Heck, we’ve all seen Castle; we know what it’s like, right? Ask any writer with a few books under their belt, and they’ll tell you the truth: book signings can be hell.

My first signing was a group event, at some convention or another. I had, I think, two stories out at the time, in anthologies.

The signing was arranged alphabetically. Look at the genre shelf, and see if you can guess who I, the total newbie, was seated next to.

Go ahead, I’ll wait.

Right. Neil Gaiman.

It was a painful – if funny – and useful lesson. Not just “remember thou art mortal, especially when sitting next to Neil,” but also that signings (and really, any public appearance) are about more than moving books, or getting egoboo because people not-related-to-you showed up.

They’re about establishing yourself as a professional both in the eyes of readers, and the people running the event.

Of course you want a packed house. You want to sell a hundred books, and have the bookstore owner delirious with joy and begging you to come back.

The truth is, until you’re either a cult favorite or a bestseller (and not even then) you run the risk of crickets chirping any time you do any kind of public appearance, be it a convention panel or a highly-hyped bookstore reading. There are too many variables that you can’t control – extreme weather, event competition, the President coming to town and everyone running around getting their errands done before the Secret Service shut down the roads*. Some ego-bruising is inevitable – but no matter what happens, don’t let yourself consider it a failure!

Because, in the end, it’s less about the books you might sell on that particular day than the relationship you build with that store (and any stores they might talk to). If you sell a hundred books, fabulous! If you sell one, and manage to make the staff think you’re just an utter delight, then they will be more likely to hand-sell your book – and your next book, and the book after that.

Mind you, no signing’s perfect. Sometimes that two-hour period can seem like seven years in Hell. Sometimes you could do everything right, and the staff doesn’t want to give you the time of day. Sometimes all you can think about is the time and money you spent, getting this set up, only to have a disappointing turnout.

That is also why I don’t always recommend that writers go out and set up as many signings as possible when a new book hits the shelves, especially if it’s your first/only book. Pick your shots. Learn what works for you, and what you enjoy.

I can’t emphasize that enough. If you hate signings, if you think sitting at a table for two hours when the only person who walks up to you wants to know where the bathroom is** or if you have accepted Jesus as your personal savior*** then don’t push yourself. Your career, for the most part, will do fine without it. Certainly it will do better than if your unhappiness manifests itself during the signing, and the booksellers walk away with a negative impression.

If you do enjoy it? Think of ways to add more bang for the store’s buck. Look for other writers who have new books out as well, and band together with them. If you’re shy, find someone who has no fear of talking to strangers. If you write fantasy, find someone who writes romance, and cross-pitch each others’ books, as there’s crossover among the readers. I belong to a group called the Magnificent Genre Seven, who can make any signing into a full store Event.

The trick is, make it fun, but keep it professional. Arrive early; stay as long as you’re scheduled for. If you set something up, take it down (don’t leave it for the store to deal with). If you bring treats to lure people to your table, offer some to the staff as well. Above all, interact with the staff the way you would anyone who is doing you a much-appreciated favor. That way, even if you sell only one book, the staff will remember you – and your books – with fondness, not annoyance.

And that signing sitting next to Neil Gaiman? I got people asking for my signature simply because they felt sorry for me, sitting there…and I managed to sell a few copies, too.

…

*all of these have happened to me at least once.

**this happens all the time.

***twice. Both times in Arizona. I’m just sayin’….

5: Know Why You Write

There is a theory, popular among many, that says that writers are writers because they have to write, driven to it by irresistible urges (not, interestingly enough, unlike the claims made by some serial killers. Hrm). That may be true. And yet… It may not.

Some people write to ease the pressure of the stories in their heads. Some people write because they love the flow of words, the interplay and possibilities of meanings. Some people write to instruct, or to f*ck with people’s expectations or assumptions. And some people write because they love the feeling of having written*.

In truth, most of us write for a combination of all the above reasons. Is one of them the “right” reason? No. Does one (or several) of them create a “better” book?

Well… maybe. I am strongly of the storyteller class; I think that the drive to create worlds for other people’s (and my own) entertainment is the only reason to wake up every morning and do this incredibly frustrating job. But does that make me a better writer than the person who writes for the accomplishment of a finished book, or the person who writes for the sheer love of the language?

(A long pause, a thoughtful stare….)

No. And no matter what your preference, don’t let anyone tell you that you are somehow a ‘lesser’ writer for why you do it.

Not so long as you make use of all those things – the love of language, the energy of the story, the desire to f*ck with your readers’ heads a little (because otherwise, the story has no resonance), and the joy of having a completed story to present to the world.

There is no “best” reason to write. It’s important, though, for you to know why you do it. Not to justify yourself in a bar-room discussion (although it’s best to be armed for such things), and not even because there will be mornings when you wake up/evenings when you fall asleep, and say “why the HELL am I doing this, again?”

You need to know because without that knowing, you will fail.

Oh, bullshit, someone out there is scoffing. All you need are the tools and the desire, not navel-gazing about why. I not-so-respectfully – after watching a great many writers stumble, and only some of them get up – disagree.

Motivation and desire are essential to any career in the arts, especially when you must be a businessperson as well. The publishing world will throw endless distractions at you, people will list the things you SHOULD do or SHOULD want or SHOULD accomplish.

If you listen to that noise, you will get lost in it.

Self-awareness isn’t just about why you write, but what you need out of it. Being able to hear that one true voice in the midst of all the noise, to understand what satisfies your need, will allow you to turn down the noise, and get back to work.

And that’s what makes a better writer.

*some people write for the glory, or instant wealth. We will, for the purposes of defining “writer” in this instance, merely point and laugh.

6: You Can Say No

I’m about to tell you that it’s okay to channel your inner five-year-old. Okay, not really (your agent and editor would kill me). But sometimes, it’s good to remember how to put down your foot and say NO.

There is a tiny voice inside every writer’s head – fiction and nonfiction writers alike – that says “don’t ever say no. If you tell them you can’t, or turn down a project, you’ll never eat lunch on an expense account again.”

In most instances, this is good advice for a freelancer. Except when it’s not. There are, in my experience, five times you should absolutely say no.

1. If your editor is trying to set a deadline that you know you can’t make.

When an editor suggests delivery dates… remember that they are looking at THEIR schedule. You need to look at YOURS. And be realistic: if you don’t know exactly how long it will take you to finish writing a project, estimate on the long side. Turning it in early is far better than turning it in late/having to scramble for an extension. If their date isn’t one you can make: say no. Then offer your preferred schedule.

This is the time to make use of your agent. Hopefully s/he has a pretty good idea of what you’re capable of, and what your schedule looks like. And, also hopefully, s/he is comfortable saying “are you really sure you want to do that?”

(There is no truth to the rumor that my agent has “are you out of your mind?” recorded to play at-need for several of her clients. Okay, there may be some truth in it).

Saying no here can save you from a lot of pain, later.

2. If Production gives you a turnaround date you know you can’t manage.

Between finishing your final draft and publication there are many times where you will be handed material – a copyedit, cover copy, page proofs – and told “have it back by x date.” Generally, writers take a deep breath, say “okay!” cheerfully, and then have a nervous breakdown in a corner before hauling off and getting it done. But sometimes, there’s just not enough time. Some people can turn around page proofs in three days. Some people can knock off revisions in two weeks. Some can’t. And sometimes those who can, know they can’t this time – that’s the week of the family vacation, or dental surgery, or you’re in the grip of the Cold from Hell.

Odds are very good – in fact, I’d say odds are 9-1 in your favor – that the date they’ve given you has wiggle room (the difference between the due date and the drop-dead date was established by Production to keep actual disasters from happening.) If you say “No, I’m sorry, I can’t, I need x more days…” so long as “x” is a reasonable request, you’ll get it.

3. If you’re being asked to write something you’re utterly unenthusiastic about.

There are times you will be tempted to take on a project “for the money,” even though you’re not enthusiastic about the project itself. Unless that paycheck is all that stands between you and going hungry/being homeless, saying no may be the best thing you can do for your career. Otherwise, you’re not only locked into something that will make you unhappy, it might keep you from the project that you could get excited about. This is especially true if you’re working non-fiction, and projects are more time-sensitive.

This also applies to promotional appearances, or side gigs (lecturing, etc). If you enjoy doing it, do so. If you don’t… say no. It’s taking away from your writing time, and if you’re not enthusiastic, you’ll be not only off-schedule, but resentful. That benefits nobody.

4. If the money isn’t good enough, for the estimated time/energy required.

Sometimes, even if you think a project sounds interesting, the amount of work required outweighs the benefits, either in terms of money or career building. You need to know what your time is worth, and hold to that. If you say no, they may come back with a better offer (this is called “negotiation” and it takes nerves and Tums to do it right. If you can hand it off to your agent and hide under the bed until they’re done, do so. Nobody will judge.)

Also, nobody except you (with input from your agent) can determine what your time is worth. Be ready to walk away, and never second-guess the decision.

5. If your gut tells you it’s a bad idea.

It’s not all about dollars and cents. Sometimes, there’s just something “off” about a project. Maybe it’s the idea, or the timing, or the people involved. Don’t dismiss that feeling, don’t tell yourself to “get over it.” Find out more about the project, the people, and the history behind it. And if you still feel uncertain: say no. A toxic situation can derail you, writing-wise, for far longer than the duration of that particular project. It’s not worth it.

7: Writing And The Art Of Zen Revision

Writers are weird. This isn’t a news flash. But the weirdness isn’t a thing we choose…it’s part of what makes us write. And, as such, we need to treat it the same way we do anything else in our toolbox – by learning how best to use it.

One of the problems – and traps – of giving advice is that everyone writes differently. Our brains are different, our thought processes and approaches to the world are all different, so why should our writing process be the same? Some folk like to hash the entire story out in their brains beforehand, or talk it out, while yet others let it grow on the keyboard, following where the twists lead. And some of us shift between those aspects, depending on the story.

No matter how you get there, what matters is that you get there.

But once the story is done, and we’ve passed it off to our editor, there comes a Very Special Time in the writer’s life: revisions.

I jokingly referred to this post as being “Writing and the Art of Zen Revisions,” mainly because for so many of us, revisions are done under an intense deadline, often while working on another project, balancing other demands on our time, forced to go back and look at something that we had thought (hoped) we were done with. All that tends to equal stress.

Stress is good. Stress gets us energized and off our backsides. But it also makes us hyper-focus. And that’s not good for revisions.

As I write this, I have pages of a manuscript – and my revision letter, marked up in several different colors of highlighter – scattered across my desk. I’m taking apart the manuscript, guided by my editor’s comments, and putting it back together, bit by bit.

And in the doing so, I’m discovering something interesting. I had no idea what I was actually writing about.

This isn’t a new revelation: every time I start a book, I have a picture in mind of what that book is. When I finish the book, the picture usually has changed, either slightly or massively, depending on what happened during the writing (see earlier entry about writing your synopsis. But it’s not until I walk away from the book for a while, start doing something else and let my brain relax its death-grip on the now-told story, that I actually understand what I’ve written.

That is, inside the story I was intentionally telling, there’s stuff I wasn’t aware of, filling in the cracks and making the story more three-dimensional, more meaningful. Sometimes it’s small details, sometimes it’s “okay I didn’t see that theme at all, before, that’s interesting…”

From talking to other writers, and the response to a number of editorial letters sent over the years, this seems to be relatively widespread phenomena. Not that we don’t know what we’ve written, but that we often don’t see the implications or undertones of our own work, caught up in the intensity of the writing. Not because we lost control, but because we gave control up to the part of us that delves into our brain and gathers the material we need to tell stories in the first place. I call it the lizard brain, some refer to it as the undermind, writer Jay Lake calls his “Fred…” named or not, that part of our brain is – when the writing is going really well and we’re rocking it – in control.

The logical brain just comes in later to clean up.

This is why I think that revisions are so important – and why a writer should never, ever rush through them, but rather take time to breathe, to let what was done come to them before they change anything. By not looking at them, in effect, we see them in a different light.

All this came into focus a bit more for me last week while at the Cézanne exhibit, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC. I was walking through the display, which showed all the studies in pencil and paint the artist had done to create three different full-sized paintings. I was fascinated by what it said about the artist’s process, focusing on how many subtly different poses he did, how many changes he made in placement and light and expression…and then I looked at one of the full paintings, and suddenly I felt what he had been going for, the full range of expressions and emotions that had nothing to do with the individual parts, and everything to do with how they came together. Not when I was thinking about the work, but when I was letting it affect me.

Revisions are like that. Yes, you’re looking at the broken bits, sentence by sentence, chapter by chapter. But it’s also the chance to see the larger picture, sense the impact of the whole – not only on the characters, but on the readers. In the quiet “oh” of understanding, you will understand what your story brings, and in that, understand how to bring those elements forward better, making the whole story stronger.

And you can’t do that if you’re too tightly wound.

8: Writers’ Aids. No, Not Those Kind Of Aids (Beta Readers Vs Groups)

Writers write. But they also critique. And they can find your weaknesses faster than a 5th grade bully – ideally, with more useful results. This is part one of a two-part discussion about getting help from your peers (as opposed to an editor or agent).

Writers work alone. Unless you have a co-writer, the actual writing of a story involves your brain, your notebook, and your keyboard, and that’s it. Which means, depending on the shape of your id and ego, you’re either supremely confident that you’ve nailed it, or convinced that what you’ve written is utter dreck and should never be allowed off your hard drive.

Or, more likely, you waver somewhere between those places, depending on the project, the phase of the moon, and if you remembered to eat that day.

The answer to this inevitable wavering is getting (useful) feedback. That can come either when the story is finished, or while you’re in the process of writing it (a “WiP,” or work in progress). Those are two very different types of support, and some writers need one or the other, while some enjoy both – and some find either a distraction.

Figuring out which – if any – is right for you is the first step. No, I don’t have a handy dandy quiz or personality chart. But I can give you the rundown on what each offers.

Writers’ Group:

I’ve belonged to a number of these in my time, from small, tight-knit groups to larger, classroom style gatherings, and on-line organizations. Generally a group meets at a specific time, at specific intervals (every few weeks, once a month, etc), and certain rules are enforced, most often “no rebuttal to critique until everyone is done.” That forces you to listen to what people are saying, rather than marshaling your defensiveness. Sometimes everyone gets a chance, sometimes – if the group is large – only a few people per meeting are critiqued. Ideally, you have a range of levels, and people who write different sorts of work, although you might want to focus on an all-fiction or all-nonfiction group, so that everyone’s working on the same assumptions. The best group I was in deliberately looked for people writing all sorts of commercial fiction, so that we got general, mainstream feedback as well as genre-specific reactions.

Groups like this are excellent for short fiction, slightly more problematic if you’re writing a novel (unless you know without fail they will meet regularly and respond quickly) and horrible if you’re writing on an intense schedule, and can’t wait a few weeks or longer between sections.

Beta Readers:

A beta reader is publisher’s adaptation of technology’s “beta testers,” who take a product for a trial run and report back on bugs or flaws. A beta reader does exactly that, only for fiction. Some will read along as you write, on a chapter by chapter basis, while others may wait for a completed project, but they read and respond individually, rather than in a group. This takes care of the “can’t wait” problem and is excellent for the writer who uses feedback to keep him or herself motivated and energized. It also takes care of the “OMG it is teh suck!” fear, because you know right away if it does or not. When you’re working on a tight deadline, beta readers are a great resource.

The downside to a beta reader is the difficulty of finding one (or more) who can be the critical-yet-supportive reader your work needs. It’s not a job for the casual reader, who may love your work but not be able – or willing – to clarify what they don’t think works, and why. A good beta-reader does not have to be another writer – but s/he must be a thoughtful, detail-oriented reader willing (for a novel) to go the long haul.

A third option for those who are looking for a more immediate feedback is the workroom:

This is a relatively new phenomena; writers gathering online in a chatroom – either public or private – to work on their own projects in a communal setting. This is not a critique setting, as such: most times everyone is actively writing. But it does allow you the chance to run an idea off other people, test-drive a line you think is either good or bad, and pick at the gathered knowledge to solve a problem. It’s also excellent for heading off the “teh suck!” before it has a chance to really get a grip. I belong to one that spans several different time zones, so no matter when you’re working, odds are there’s someone else ready to join in.

Any one, or a combination, of these options might be exactly what you need. The trick is to look not only at how you write, but how you take feedback, and what sort of support you respond best to. Be utterly honest – nobody is judging you on this, and a “popular” answer is not going to help you at all if it’s not true.

Of course, sometimes the answer isn’t found in feedback at all. And that brings us to a fourth option:

Going Solo:

For some people, the intrusion of someone else’s opinions into their work, especially at the critical formation stage, is a bad thing. They need to keep focused, working from beginning to end and then polishing on their own. It’s not my way, particularly (I am a firm believer in the External Eye) but it works for some folk. For them – and for you, possibly – working solo is the only thing that will work. If you try to go to a group, or wait on beta-readers, you’ll probably find yourself disgruntled with the entire project before you’re done. The lesson there is, don’t force yourself if it doesn’t work for you. Whatever benefits you might get would be outweighed by the negatives.

So consider your options, consider your personality and your needs, and then go out and find (or start) what you need!

Useful link: How to Choose a Writer’s Group

9: Conferences Vs. Retreats Vs. A Degree Program

Sometimes you need an intervention. Sometimes, you need a kick in the ass. As a follow-up to the previous essay on writers’ groups, here I’m going to talk about conferences vs. retreats vs. a degree program

To recap: Writers work alone. Unless you have a co-writer, the actual writing of a story involves your brain, your notebook, and your keyboard, and that’s it. Sometimes, while you’re working on a particular project, you need feedback.

But sometimes you need more than that. Sometimes you need to learn.

I will preface all this by saying that my experience – and the experience of everyone I spoke to while writing this – was hedged by saying “well, it depends. It depends on the program, it depends on the teacher, it depends.”

Make your own Depends joke here.

Conferences:

Every month, in every city, there are writer’s conferences. Genre, mainstream, nonfiction, and often a mix of all of the above. “So And So Big Name lectures there!” “So and So Big Name Agent will be there!” “So and So Publisher will be there!” And so they will. And many times, this is an excellent place to hear the bits of advice – very practical, useful advice – that you can’t get anywhere else. You may also get to do hands-on writing exercises that will open up entire lines of thought or understanding about your own projects, writing habits, or blind spots. I liken conferences to going to the doctor, for your writing life: you’ll either get an “all clear, keep doing what you’re doing” or you’ll be handed a wake-up call about what you need to change, drastically, in order to get/stay healthy.

The problem with conferences is that they tend to change from year to year depending on the faculty, and you’ll never be certain what you’ll get from it, for your money. Do your homework before signing up for anything; listen to people who have gone before, and especially see if people go back more than once.

At the same time, and I can’t emphasize this enough, beware of the conferences where people talk about it with too much reverence, or return too many times. This is meant to be a learning experience, not a comfortable habit or teacher-worship scenario. A conference junkie isn’t getting her book written.

Retreats:

There are two kinds of retreats. Recently there was a flurry of Tweets from Big Name Genre Authors talking about going off to exotic locations to do nothing but write (and eat food and drink and talk and have fun, but mainly and mostly to write). The truth is that while it’s lovely to go someone that will entice and inspire your senses, a retreat needs only the following requirements: a lack of obligations other than writing (no ferrying of kids, answering of phones, or cooking of meals, etc), a comfortable bed where you can actually get a decent dose of sleep, and a sense of security that, at the end, you will come home to nobody dead, on fire, or severely traumatized.

The downsides to a personal retreat are probably obvious to anyone: it could be far too easy to turn it into a vacation, or week-long bull session. You have to be self-directed and focused; otherwise the time is not used to its full potential. It’s also probably not practical as a regular routine, but best saved as the once-a year punch in the arm.

The other kind of retreat is a once-in-a-career sort of thing, led by a Name Writer, and you are there to spend the week learning what they can teach you. Clarion (North, South, and West). Odyssey. Hedgebrook. Yaddo. Whatever your genre or style, there’s a retreat that will offer you the right combination of isolation/ integration/ leadership to push you to the next level. I’ve heard these some of these workshop retreats described as “book boot camp” and that’s pretty much it: the whole point is to take you OUT of your comfort zone, not keep you in it.

What you should learn during a retreat of any sort is how much writing you are actually capable of, given a directed burst of energy. You will also discover ways that other writers work, which may a) work for you or b) give you ideas on how to improve your own routine. You will also form connections that may last your entire writing career, both social and networking ties that you couldn’t get anywhere else.

My one concern and caution about retreat workshops is that many of them have a very specific style and focus. If that style works for you, that’s great. If it doesn’t… I’ve known some very talented writers go off to a long-term retreat and come home, never to write again. They are so filled with doubt about their own process that they can’t get over it. And that can be devastating. So, again, do your research. Learn about the particular retreat, and be honest about how it will fit with what you do.

Degree programs:

I’ll be blunt. I think that – for a writer of fiction, and especially a writer of genre fiction, most writing degree programs are useless. Not because you won’t learn anything, but because I’m not sure that you will learn the right things. Far too often a MFA program is designed to create writing teachers, not working writers, and some of them (especially the non-residency ones) are outright cash cows for their host facility. That said, a good program can be like the very best of a retreat and a conference combined, pushing you out of your comfort zone to learn new styles and approaches while also exposing you to different professional experiences and outlooks. The best of such programs give you the tools needed, not only to become a better writer than you were, but also to continue building yourself into the writer you want to become.

As with the above examples, a lot depends on who is teaching the program. Again, and I really can’t repeat this enough: Do your homework before you sign up for anything. Make sure that they are open to the sort of work you create (anti-genre snobbery is no writer’s friend). I had the great fortune to go to work with a professional writer who, while knowing nothing about the genre* was able to give me solid core writing advice, as well as some of the best professional advice I’ve ever gotten: “if you love it, and think you can make a living at it, do it. Don’t let anyone, not even me, tell you that you can’t or shouldn’t.”

That alone was worth the tuition.

*he later went on to win a World Fantasy Award. Also a Pulitzer. Not for the same work, though

10: How Much Research Is Enough?

Are you a junkie? Do your hands shake, when you can’t get enough? Or do you fear the stuff, would only touch it under duress? How do you know when you’ve got a problem?

Ah, research, both the bonus and the bane of a writer’s life.

Sometimes, a story rises out of our own, immediate experiences. Everything needed is already in your head, ready at your fingertips. The other 99.9% of the time, getting a story right requires research. Occasionally you need the big stuff: “what would my character encounter during the summer of 1977 in NYC?” (answer: Son of Sam panic, a massive blackout & related looting). Sometimes it’s more specific: “what sort of shoe would a 15th century adult male farmer in western Europe wear on an average, non-festival day?” Some writers adore the process. Others avoid it as much as possible. Most of us fall somewhere in the middle.

You have options. You can get your facts and get out. Or, in the interests of worldbuilding (and some natural curiosity) you can dig deeper, piling on the notecards and databases until you know your subject well enough to really recreate the scene (or, conversely, write a PhD thesis on it).

Often – as many of us know all too well – you can start with one book on a topic, and resurface a week later with a bad case of research bends and a dawning realization of how much there is to learn, to get the scene/place/time/character right. This is especially true for those of us who write outside of our immediate comfort zone (a different time period, a location or culture not our own, that Other People (readers) know better than we do).

That’s when the panic hits: how do you know when you have enough information to do a story justice? When is enough research, enough?

Unfortunately, it’s not like cooking a turkey: no little button will pop out and tell you you’re done. In fact, you could research for a year or more, for a full-length novel (*coughs, looks guiltily at the research library I built up for The Vineart War trilogy*). But it’s important to recognize that unless you have a very tolerant – and well-paying – publisher, or are just noodling along as a hobby, there’s not an infinite amount of time to devote to research: eventually you have to settle down and write the story.

(Using research as a way to avoid writing is another topic – and essay – entirely.)

But how will I know, you wail, looking at the piles of research tomes, the countless tabs open on your browser, aware of the many essential bits of information you’ve overlooked, or not yet found. What if I screw something up, because I didn’t know A or B or Z?

Take a deep breath. Close the tabs. Put the research books back on the shelf (or return them to the library already, someone else needs to use them!). Close your notebooks and stack your notecards, and let the information settle into your brain. Because information doesn’t exist in a vacuum, not when you’re a writer. It binds itself to what’s already in your head, the story taking shape, and it will tell you when you’re ready.

The advice I follow, and I gave to my writers for years, was to treat it the way you would a meal. When you’re reaching the point of being comfortably full, when your body says “we’re done,” then put down your fork and stop eating.

(True research junkies, like chronic overeaters, may have trouble with this. For you, I recommend an intervention, where all your reference tomes are removed from your writing space until you’ve finished the rough draft.)

Storytelling is not research. Fiction is not 100% accurate. Often we worry so much about getting the facts right, we forget that we’re also making it all up as we go along.

Listen to what you’re writing. When you add one detail to a character, do two more evolve naturally out of what’s already there? When you describe a scene, do new details attach themselves, not out of your notes, but an organic sense of what is needed, what ‘fits?” Does the landscape begin to move and breathe on its own?

Once that starts to happen, stop worrying about your research: you’re done.

11: How To Handle – And Not Handle – Packaging Disasters

Close the door, turn off the internet, and let it out. Scream a little. Snarl at the cat. Eat chocolate, and practice your best five-year-old pout. It’s okay. We understand. We’ve all been there. The Bad Cover.

It should be one of the best days of the year: when you first see the cover for your new book. The package that people have been working on for months, just out of view, to make sure that your story gets the best possible advantage on the shelf, designed to woo Your Reader over and entice them to lay on hands (and lay out cash).

And then it comes and you open the envelope, or click the file and you think…

”Oh my God the cover is AWFUL! And dear God, who wrote this copy? The copy is ALL WRONG!”

What then?

Sometimes – in fact, most times – it’s really not that bad. It may not be the way you envisioned the character (Jerzy, in FLESH AND FIRE, was supposed to be a scrawny Low Steppes redhead, but the artist didn’t like to paint redheads. Or apparently, scrawny kids), but that alone doesn’t make it a bad cover.

Or, more to the point, it doesn’t make it a useless cover. Some of the most commercially viable covers have been ones I personally disliked… but sold the book effectively.

Therefore, my first piece of advice – my most important piece of advice – is that you remember the cover is a sales piece, not an illustration. So put aside whatever you had hoped for, and look at the cover as dispassionately as you can.

1. Does the cover catch the eye?

2. Is the image clear to the reader, so that the type of book (romance, SF, historical) is apparent?

3. Is it technically accurate? (the right number of limbs on the characters, the correct type of weaponry or backdrop, not smaller details like hair color or specific clothing)

4. Does the copy convey the feel of the book, without giving away plot details or spoilers?

5. Is your name spelled right?

If those five things are met, stand down a little. It may not be the cover you wanted, but you don’t have enough ammo to storm the publisher’s office (not and win, anyway)

If, on the other hand, your Epic Fantasy Hero is holding a weapon that is clearly of the wrong era/style, your PI is a white male instead of an Asian, your romance heroine has three arms* or the copy gives away the whodunit in the first line- then it’s time to contact your editor.

However, here is where you need to remember three things.

1. The package is NOT your book.

2. Your editor is on your side.

3. This is a business relationship.

The right way to handle this – the way that is likely to get any possible changes made – is to call directly, and say “yeah, I got it, x and y are great, but is there time to make a couple of changes? Because….”

If you’re looking at a cover flat, it’s highly unlikely that the art can be changed significantly. Copy, however, can still be fixed without much fuss.

If you’ve been sent a preliminary sketch, there’s still time for errors to be corrected. But be polite, and remember that your editor is your ally, not your adversary. Give her the best argument you can come up with why it should be changed, so that she in turn can walk it down to the hall to the publisher and make the argument to the person who has to okay the expense. Because it is an expense, and that’s how the publisher will see it.

If they make the changes, remember to say thank you not only to your editor, but also to the folk who made it happen. If it isn’t changed, or you’re still not happy, say so, in writing, to your agent and editor, and request that you be allowed to see the preliminary sketches earlier next time, to ensure that this doesn’t happen again**. If you’ve established that you can retain a professional tone, they are that much more likely to agree.

And during your next contract negotiation, try for cover consult. “Consult” doesn’t mean that they’ll listen – but you will get a say.

*yes, that happened once. Apparently the artist’s model changed positions and the sketched-in arm didn’t get entirely erased. VERY embarrassing for all concerned

**if you’re not already seeing the copy before it’s finalized: ask. Generally that’s the easiest thing to get a finger on

12: Refilling The (Creative/ Emotional/ Physical) Well

Have you ever seen a young child, carrying only a stick, racing about having a splendid time? S/he is carrying a lightsaber, a sword, an airplane, a dinosaur, a magic wand. Anything is possible, because they have an infinite well of imagination to draw on. Writers are like that, our entire lives. But, unlike the 6-year-old, we have adult worries and cares that drain the well dry… and that’s not good.

Have you ever heard the term “refilling the well?” If not, it may be time that you did. Because what you don’t know can hurt you.

Writers spend most of their time – intentionally or not – creating. Even when we’re not actively writing, when we think we’re going about our daily chores, we’re still processing things in the back of our heads.

But logic, and process, is only part of the story. The ability to create – to synthesize a new, meaningful reality – doesn’t appear out of thin air. It’s the pooling of everything we think and feel and experience, the observations that we’re not even aware we’re making. All that goes into the well, that deep space inside you, where it sits for days or sometimes even years, blending everything into the Stuff we make stories from.

The well, though, is a finite thing. It cannot create experiences; only hold them. And while a ‘bucket’ of experiences can be used over and over again, recombining to create something new, eventually the well can go stale, or run dry.

What happens if the well goes dry? You know. You feel cranky, irritable, restless. You may find yourself with something to say but no sense of how to say it, or the story stutters and stops mid-page. The thought of having to create is exhausting. Often, your loved ones will say “you need a vacation*.”

And they’re right.

Not a writers’ retreat (as discussed in earlier PMs), but an actual leave-work-at-home outing. Close the laptop. Put away the pen and paper. Leave your too-familiar surroundings and go Do Something Else. Ideally, something you’re never done, somewhere you’ve never gone, or are not familiar with. It doesn’t have to be exotic; it doesn’t have to be expensive. You’re looking for new experiences, both small (the taste of a new food, or a style of music you’re not familiar with) and large (learning that yes, you CAN (or can’t), jump off a bridge with nothing but a bungee cord to protect you, and all the emotions that come with that).

I’m not talking about ditching everything for a week or more – that isn’t practical for most of us, especially if we’re on a deadline. But even the most intense and killer deadline has room for an hour or three.

During this break, don’t push yourself to write. Don’t think about what you may or may not be learning. Don’t allow yourself to fall into the trap of “I’m not working, therefore the time is wasted.” Soak in the moments, quiet and loud, beautiful and annoying, the frustrations and the insights. Wallow in it, your senses as wide open as you can crank them.

That, drop by drop, sensation by sensation, refills the well. You will wake up, and the restlessness and irritation will have been replaced by the more familiar – and enjoyable – urgency of Something needing to get Out.

And next time, don’t wait until you’re dry. Make a point of refilling the well on a regular basis, every chance you get.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to take my own advice.

*or something less kind. You may feel the urge to develop that into a fight. Resist. They’re probably right.

13: Submit In Haste, Repent In Leisure…

How do I submit?” “Read the guidelines.” “But what if I do it wrong? “You won’t, if you read the guidelines.” “But what if I miss something! “Read them again. “But what if…” “Your honor, that’s when I shot him.”

Submitting your work is something new writers tend to obsess over – it was one of the most requested topics for Practical Meerkat, in fact. But while more experienced writers focus most of our thinking – as it should be – on the writing end of things, the truth is that we, too, have to undergo the submissions process.

Even the most experienced writer with a track record has to submit a proposal to sell a project – and in today’s market, that proposal has to be as strong and tight as humanly possible.

We’ve already discussed how to stop worrying and love your synopsis. But the very idea of putting your Best Shot in front of an editor can make even a jaded pro break into a cold sweat.

In a best-case scenario, you know your editor well enough, and she knows you, that the “how” isn’t a question: you can focus on selling the sizzle, as marketing folk say. But if you’re new, or submitting to an unknown editor? Oh, the panic that can set in…..

And this is where everyone starts looking for the Perfect Guide to Creating the Killer Submission.

The problem is, there isn’t one. Because there is no One Perfect Submission Format.

We know how many ways there are to trip up in this process, so we want at least one thing to be simple, to be easy, to be clear-cut. Surely, “how long should a query letter be?” is an easy enough thing. Or “how long/detailed should the synopsis be?”

But then the answers come back, and each one is just slightly different from the other – enough to make us break into a panic of second-guessing and revising, until the submission takes on a greater weight than the project itself.

Stop. Breathe. Keep breathing.

Yes, there are basic rules. If you’ve done your research you know them already.

More, each outlet, be it magazine or book publisher or agent, tells you specifically what they want to see. Look at their guidelines, and pay attention. Don’t make any stupid mistakes – send the right material, don’t print it in green ink, use the proper format, be it print or electronic, make sure you spell names correctly.

If you’re still worried, ask a brutally honest friend (or a total stranger) if they’d pick the book up to read, off your pitch. Keep revising until they would. Remember that less is more, in this instance – you want the editor to want to read the manuscript, not decide off the synopsis.

It all sounds impossible, but you’ve already done the really impossible part – you’ve written – started and finished and polished – an entire book! That’s the thing 90% of would-be writers stumble on.

Even if your submission letter or synopsis isn’t perfect, if you intrigue the editor into taking a closer look, you did it right.

So relax. Double-check your submission for typos and obvious errors (the wrong name on the letterhead is the most common; ‘merge letter’ is not always your friend.). Make sure that you have the right postage on the SASE, if requested. Be sure you’re sending everything asked for, and nothing more. Then have someone else double-check it for you.

Then hand it to the postal worker/hit send. And pour yourself a drink.

14: Don’t Get Too Comfortable

One of the first pieces of advice I ever got, when I went full-time as a writer, was “don’t ever let comfort get in the way of your fear. Fear is more useful.”

The comfort zone is a dangerous place. At best, it can be thought of as your area of competence. You know you can handle things that are within the zone; they may take work, but your ability is equal to the challenge. You’re humming along, happy and productive, getting your work done, the story written, making readers happy.

Sometimes, though, you think “to tell that story properly, to really do it justice, I need to X.” And “often, X” is something you aren’t sure you can do. Something you haven’t tried. A technique you haven’t learned, a topic totally out of your existing knowledge/experience base. A leap out of your comfort zone, and into the wild haven’t-a-clue blue.

And, having once thought about X, you will never be able to unthink it. You may choose not to follow through, but the what-if will always be there. If I had tried, if I had stretched… would it have been a better story? Would it have been The Story, the one where you level up into another class of writer, when you hit everything out of the ballpark, when you finally manage that grail of perfection, the story that does exactly what you’d hoped it would when you first thought of it, reaches people the way you’d intended, and lives on long after its first appearance in print?

So why wouldn’t you try?

Because, well, getting out of the comfort zone is hard. And scary. And the odds are far greater that you’ll fail horribly, that you won’t have the ability to get there, that you’ll have spent the time and effort and stress and gotten nothing. And failure like that, in a word, sucks.

In more words: it scares the hell out of us, and starts us down the “I suck” death spiral.

So much easier to keep doing what we know we can do – which is often quite good indeed. There is no shame in staying steady on the course, after all. That’s what careers are made of.

But…

The truth is that our brain/inspiration/muse rarely gives us a challenge without a reason. We may not be ready to write that story yet, we may not have the chops to pull it off – but it’s the trying that teaches us.

Not a class, not reading someone else’s work (although those things certainly aid the process). Not thinking about how you might do it, someday.

Get out of your comfort zone. Stretch. Possibly, yes, fail. Next time, fail better.

You may never be able to complete the thought, achieve the story. But everything you learn in the stretching isn’t abandoned by the road when you’re done: you pack it into your bags and bring it home with you. And the next thing, the thing after that, you write? May be the level-up you were looking for.

15: Who Are You, Really?

You call a group of editors a revision, a group of agents a percentage, a group of writers…. A bar tab. Like most jokes, it’s funny because it’s so often true.

One of the things that we are all told, in genre publishing, is that we need to get out and meet our peers – that more business and useful networking is done in the bar at a convention than in any “official” workshop or seminar.

The truth is, that bit of advice… is utterly true.

It is also true that sitting in a bar, late at night, with your peers and fellow professionals has damaged at least two careers that I know of (no, I’m not going to name names).

Never has the phrase “drink responsibly” resonated so deeply as it does during a convention, where there is a sense of “we’re all buddies together” but everything you do/say can be industry gossip by morning*.

So the first thing you need to do, before you walk into that bar, is run through your checklist. Have I eaten a decent meal recently? Have I hydrated? Am I aware of the fact that this is a business occasion, despite the fact that many of these people are also my friends?

If the answer to all of those things is yes, proceed. Carefully. All the usual rules of “don’t be a shit” apply, and then some, because everyone really does know everyone else, within a 2 degree turn. Know that there will be times when the conversation just gets NSFW, and that’s okay, so long as you’re willing to own everything you say (and that you’re not the only one talking).

But this isn’t a post about drinking. It’s about not drinking. Or, more to the point, about how to work the bar without letting the bar work you.

There’s no way to avoid it: When you’re a professional at a conference or convention, be it romance, mystery or SF, you’re ON. Professional, chipper, friendly and approachable to readers, while still trying to look as informed and interesting as possible to your peers. It’s exhausting. So, when there’s down-time, we head for the bar. And not only because we need a drink, after all that. There’s convenience: the bar tends to be a centrally located place where we can go after panels or meetings, and before scattering for dinner/after meals. And while fans can and will use the bar as well, there is a level of assumed privacy here they does not exist in the convention/conference floor itself.

And so we gather together, and, inevitably networking gets done. Friends, fellow professionals, and utter strangers, bound together only by our industry, mingle freely. Business cards are exchanged. Ideas are proposed and “call/email me on Monday” is often said. Agents meet with their clients, writers introduce other writers to their editors, anthology ideas are hatched and breaking news is passed around faster than even the Internet can manage.

And there’s often a sense among “new kids” that if you’re not drinking, you can’t play.

Not so.

Yes, there is a lot of drinking happening, and some of us have been known to overindulge on occasion. But alcohol is not required, and you will not be mocked if you order a soda, tea, or just go for a glass of water (if you order a glass of milk, however, you will be mocked. For decades). Yes, you might gain points with some folk if you drink something interesting, or match their preferences… but you’re not going to lose anything if you don’t.

I repeat: you don’t have to drink alcohol to be part of what we sometimes call “barcon.” In fact, there are often times when an entire table will be huddled over…. pots of tea.

The important thing in this social-professional setting is not the alcohol, but the act. Connecting is easier when you are sharing a drink; a libation has less obligation to it than a meal, yet opens up the conversation and gives you a shared starting point: you are both engaged in a similar social action – trying to get the bartender’s attention. “What’re you drinking?” is a socially acceptable question to ask a stranger or known-of-but-not-known peer, giving you the opportunity to then introduce yourself. The answer could be “a chocolate martini,” or “scotch, neat,” or “ginger ale with lime,” and it doesn’t matter: the conversation’s begun.

After that, just follow the checklist/rules I stated above, and have a good time.

*usually without any intent to harm. We just can’t resist a good story.

16: In Publishing, Nobody Knows You’re A Dog (Or A Boy, Or A Girl, Or A Grandmother…)

Once upon a time, writing novels was not considered a ‘proper’ form of employment, and so people wrote under other names, to avoid the shame. Occasionally today, we think they might have had the right idea….

Most writers can’t wait to see their name on the byline or cover page. “That’s me! I wrote that!” It’s a confirmation of all the work and worry we put into this biz, and it’s totally justified (editors don’t send cover flats so you can use them in promotion, really. They know damn well you’re dancing around the house crooning “my precious.”)

But for some writers, the name on the cover isn’t theirs. Or, it is, but it’s not the one their family uses.

Pseudonyms. I get a lot of questions about why anyone would choose to use one. Isn’t it a BAD thing, used only as a last resort, or to jumpstart a failed career?

Yes, writing under another name is one option when your sales are disappointing, to avoid the so-called “death spiral” of bookstores ordering fewer and fewer copies of each successive book. There is nothing shameful about this: It’s a useful tool, and shows that the publisher still has faith in your ability to tell a good story/win readers. However, it’s far from the only reason why a book might be marketed under a different name.

It is also – sadly – sometimes used when the gender of the writer is thought to be “off-putting’ to readers. As an editor I didn’t recommend this, but there is some marketing support for it (especially for men writing romance).

A pseudonym might also be used by someone who writes so fast that they might glut the market (a more common fear back when the average length of a novel was 75,000 words!). It is also used when the writer’s name is too similar to one already established: “Ellis Peters” was actually Edith Pargeter – but medieval mystery writer Peter Ellis, who started publishing later, had to write under the name Peter Tremayne, to avoid reader (or bookstore) confusion.

Along that same practical note, writers often choose to write under a pseudonym if they work in a field where even minor celebrity could be detrimental to that career (law, education, etc), or if they’re not certain how the two careers will interact.

These days, branding is also a common reason to use a pseudonym. One of the better-known genre examples of this is Nora Roberts, who writes futuristic romantic suspense under the name JD Robb. That was a “tight” secret until the branding took off, and then the writer behind the name was revealed. The trick there was not to ‘fool’ anyone, but allow the name to gain its own momentum, without putting the established brand at risk. This way, readers know what they’re getting under each name, and the sales of one ‘style’ won’t impact the other negatively.

Choosing a ‘nym is a personal matter: you can use a family name, or choose one to make sure your book hits a certain place on the shelves. The only advice here is that you be careful with the name you choose: keep it realistic, and don’t try to be cute or trendy (or punny, unless you’re writing humor). Obviously fake names are the kiss of death for many would-be readers.

There are also different ways to handle a pseudonym, once published. In some cases, the pseudonym is kept a close-guarded secret, often to the point where the author will appear in public as that persona, and keep their real name private, or at least, reserved for non-publishing friends and family. I know of at least five writers who have done this successfully, over the long-term (long-term here meaning more than five years). With an “open” pseudonym, your legal name may be on the copyright page, and all the books may be listed on your website/promotional materials.

So, in response to the reader’s original question: a pseudonym might be used for a range of reasons, and none of them are “bad.” There’s no wrong way to go about it: just the way that works for you.

17: You Are Not What You Write (Even If Other People Insist You Are)

Sometimes, it’s not enough to be yourself. You have to play roles for other folk. But you need to choose when you’ll play those roles – and when enough it enough.

I was planning on talking about the need to deal with the way readers tend to assume that we write about ourselves, or that we put ourselves in every story, intentional or otherwise. And then, as I was writing this column, romance writer Judy Mays was “outed” by a local paper who went the full “oh noes an erotica writer teaching our young!” Never mind that she had been teaching for 25 years, and never mixed the two careers in any way (including using a pseudonym to write under – the topic of last week’s post, ironically enough). From the way this paper carried on, you’d think she’d been hooking out the back door of a strip club.

The writer for the newspaper (I hesitate to call her a reporter) seemed to think that anyone who wrote erotica must, of course, be a lewd and immoral creature, not the sort of person who should be allowed near children, and found a few people who were willing to be quoted to back this up. Thankfully, there was then a full-blown storm of support for Ms. Mays, from students, former students and parents alike.

But this dovetails interestingly with the original topic of this week’s post.

A writer writes about and from things deep within them, their experiences, their observations, their thoughts and dreams and traumas and all the junk and clutter that in a normal person gets stored in a room marked “for therapy.”

We write what we are, in a very deep and true sense.

However, we are not what we write. Not entirely. Because a good writer, a writer who is true to the things they observe and return, picks things up off the street, out of other peoples’ plates, out of other peoples’ lives. It is how a male writer can learn to write the female voice, the person of one culture recreate an echo of another, the straight writer share the heartaches and joys of a gay character, the compassionate writer describe the fearful hate of a bigot. We are not those things; we do not live those lives.

This gives many people – writers and readers – pause. The fear that you will write that character wrong, or have their words mistaken for your own, or draw down some firefight on your head because of what someone else saw in your work… it dogs us, and makes us, occasionally, hesitant to delve in a yard other than our own.

Don’t let that fear win.

You may screw it up. You may get people saying that you did it wrong, or howling about what they think you meant, or they think that you thought. You may, in fact, offend people. There may be people claiming that you espouse a particular view or belief displayed by a character (or, if you happen to teach AND write erotica, that you are letching after the young boys in your classroom. Or the young girls, for that matter.)

The reader will bring their own lunch to this picnic: you can’t frisk them at the gate. But if you’re worrying about what Someone Might Think, that will influence your writing, and make it weaker, less emphatic. And from that, readers might take away the belief that you are a lesser writer.

And that will do more damage – to you, to your career – than any misapplied critique.

18: What To Expect When You’re Expecting (Your First Book, Or Your 30th)

This is the essay that is utterly, aggressively impractical, about being practical. Or it’s practical about being impractical.

My advice to would-be writers is always: keep working. My advice to about-to-be-published writers?

Dream.

Until you sell a book, everything is aimed at SELLING THE BOOK. And then the moment you sell it, once the euphoria and the shock and the Happy Author Chair Dances are over, it seems as though your life becomes this incredible slalom course down to the goal of Publication Day. There’s so much to do that you hadn’t thought about – even if the book’s already written, there are revisions, and then copyedits, and page proofs, and the small insane details that nobody thought to warn you about. I could tell you everything you’re going to face, and it will STILL come as a shock, how much work goes into making a book out of a manuscript.

But that’s the practical part, the stuff you can get advice on, talk about. There’s going to be something else happening, too.

You’re going to be dreaming.

From contract to publication date, those are the weeks and months when anything is possible. You’ll get the perfect cover, the best possible reviews, when there’s no reason to not think (hope, dream) that you’ll have an award-winning best-seller on your hands.

Treasure those moment. They’re insane, and they’re lovely, and you’ll never feel anything quite like it again.

Oh, you’re always going to get excited about a new book, even when (as will happen) publication day sneaks up on you. And you’re always going to have the wishfulness: maybe this will be the breakout? Maybe this will be the best-seller? Maybe this will be the one that wins me critical acclaim and award nominations?

(Even writers with all these things have the quiet hope that THIS BOOK will jump them to the next level. The urge to do better is always there, because THIS is the best book you’ve written yet.)

But this? This is the moment that anything is possible. And it’s a lovely dream, especially when your friends and family all want to know when the book’s going to be out, what you’re going to put on the cover (as if you had any control over that).

And then, slowly, you start to consider the actual details of Book Day, and the panic starts:

What do I do? Do I schedule a lot of readings? Signings? What if nobody comes? What if stores say “we’ve never heard of you/we didn’t buy your book/we don’t want you?” Oh god, what if I do a signing and nobody shows up because who the hell am I to think I’m any kind of draw? What if even my parents/spouse/siblings don’t show up? Do I still have to go to Thanksgiving dinner, or can I disown them all? And if one more person asks if a) there’s going to be a movie or b) if I’m going to be on the bestseller list or c) if they can have a free copy, can I hit them?

Congratulations, the dream is over. Welcome to the Life.

19: Survivor’s Guilt

The thing about publishing is that it’s a game you play only with yourself. But you’re playing it at the same time as countless other individuals, all in plain sight of each other. Everyone wants to get to the next level. But once you’re there, you’re playing another game, too. And it can screw you up.

One of the interesting observations I’ve made over the years is that there’s a peculiar and particular kind of guilt that afflicts a certain percentage of writers, once they hit a basic level of success.

Everyone in this industry wants the bestseller, book-a-year-for-life career, the one that means you will never have to work retail again. Most of us, if we’re very lucky, will instead be scrambling for the rest of our careers, often writing several books a year to make a living, never knowing how long the run will last, or if readers (and publishers) will abandon us overnight. It’s a hard, emotionally draining, financially irresponsible way to make a living.

And we’re the lucky ones. That’s the crazy thing. We got past the initial hurdles to publication, we survived the second book’s almost inevitable sales slump, we gained our publisher’s faith to the point that they bought more books. Even if you’re not making a living off your writing, even if you’re – to your mind – barely scraping along the edges – you still got there, and managed to stay there, at least for now.

But along with the worry and scrambling, keeping company with the joys and triumphs, there’s also a strange, furtive guilt. It’s an odd variant of survivor’s guilt that says you shouldn’t complain on the bad days, that you shouldn’t exult too much about good news. Because there are writers – often damn good writers, often your friends, people you know from writers’ groups, conventions – who didn’t make it.

The conflicting desires – to crow and to be kind – can do a number on your head.

Wise and well-meaning people – and maybe even your own brain – will tell you that it’s not your fault, that you didn’t do anything to “steal” a chance from them, that publishing isn’t a zero sum game and one person’s success does not cause someone else’s lack of success. And yet…

And yet. You stop, mid-rant, and wonder if you’re being an asshole, if you’re rubbing salt into the wound, or sounding like an ingrate or a braggart. You feel awkward, uncomfortable, and so you shut up, and shut down.

This is where finding a peer group – two or more people at the roughly same career-point – is essential for your emotional health. It could be a once-a-month coffeeklatch, or an on-line mailing list, or even members of your writing group. They may not be your close friends, they may not be the people you want most to hold your hand on bad days, or toast the good news. But they’re the ones who understand where you are, the ups and downs… and they can handle hearing your worries, because they’re in the same place.

This isn’t an indulgence, and you’re not dissing or abandoning your friends by talking to your peer group about things you don’t feel comfortable mentioning to anyone else. It’s a question of maintaining your mental balance, of sounding out problems and figuring out what’s real, what’s a legitimate problem, and what’s just a bad day.

And knowing the difference can be what gets you through. Without guilt.

20: The Good, The Bad, And The Copyedit

As those of you who follow me on Twitter or Facebook know, I recently had to deal with what I called, unapologetically, the “copyedit from hell.” There was a lot of muttering, and occasional ranting, as I tried to fix what the CE had broken in his/her desire to change my words into his/her words.

And every now and again, as people commiserated and shuddered and swore they’d never let THAT happen to their manuscript, I felt the need to say “guys, this isn’t the norm. I am more apt to praise copyeditors than to bury them.”

I’m not sure people were listening.

Let me tell you the terrible truth about copyedits.

We – writers – curse a lot during the production of our books, and most of all when confronted with a copyedited manuscript. There it is, all your weaknesses and plot-missteps laid bare and marked up by someone more detail-oriented (and impartial) than you. In red pencil, yet.*

Unlike your editor, you probably won’t know your CE. You don’t get to choose them – and neither does your editor; there’s a managing editor whose job it is to deal with production matters. A copyeditor is a trained freelancer, assigned – ideally – because of their knowledge base and familiarity with the genre as well as their availability. So you hope and you pray and you sacrifice chicken (wings) that you’ll get a good one.

And sometimes, the Publishing Gods snicker.

Best-case scenario, the inevitable cursing is tempered by occasional embarrassment (“how’d I miss that?”) and a quiet but very real gratitude. Your CE, like your editor, is your ally. Their job is to keep you from looking like an idiot. Because you will. No matter how carefully you do your research, or how well you know your gerunds and verbiage, there will be something – probably many somethings – that slip by. A good copyeditor will sift through the manuscript, letting your voice and style slide through, and catch all the somethings, querying the ones that are story-related and correcting the ones that are easily correctable.**

This is all part of the process. We may not like someone else’s fingers in our work, but we say thank you – and mean it.

But sometimes… yeah, sometimes it goes wrong. Sometimes you get a CE who doesn’t understand the genre, or doesn’t agree with your style-choices, or sometimes just doesn’t like your work. And sometimes, God help us, we get a CE who wanted to write their own book, but will settle for rewriting yours.

You have two choices, then: send the CEM (copy-edited manuscript) back and demand a re-do (unless you’re a Big Name Author, I do not recommend this, as they may simply send the CEM to production, citing no budget/no time to redo it) or you grit your teeth and you go through with a fine tooth comb and a STET stamp dripping in red ink, a stiff drink and plenty of chocolate to-hand. And yes, you lodge a complaint with your editor.

In the end, it’s your name on the cover, and your final say on how a book should read, so stand your ground.

But don’t go in assuming that the CE is your enemy.

*or red phosphor, if your publisher has gone digital

** I really wanted to get a professional CE to mark up this essay, to show you what I mean. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get the marks to show up…

21: Book Expo America

Book Expo America, or BEA, is the yearly publishing trade fair held in New York City. For several days, publishers and bookstore buyers, librarians, reviewers, book-bloggers, writers and industry pundits gather to promote new releases, and take the pulse of the industry as a whole.

It’s Mecca. It’s also Hell.

Not every writer will go to BEA. In fact, most won’t. Nor is it, honestly, any kind of career must-do. However, if your publisher asks if you would like to do a signing there, say yes. Big Names get long lines and prime placement, but even a newbie writer whose book isn’t out yet sees an amazing sales-promotion and ego boost by having a giveaway signing via your publisher.

If a signing isn’t planned, and you have the opportunity (on your own, or via your writers’ organization) to attend anyway, my advice is: go. The show is a rolling buffet of networking and promotional possibilities on its own – and the free swag is mind-blowing.

(If you walk out of the show with fewer than three new galleys and no publisher-branded tote bags, you’re a far stronger soul than I)

So, let’s assume you’ve been invited, or ponied up the $75 or so for a day pass, and hied yourself to EnWhySee. What now?

1. Make appointments.

Publishing goes a little crazy this week, trying to cram everything in. Make sure you have a scheduled time to meet with your editor and/or agent. See if they can introduce you to members of the sales force, or foreign rights agents – or foreign language publishers. Don’t assume you’ll “run into people.” You might, but they’ll be on their way to meetings.

2. Interact

Don’t be so overwhelmed with the things you’re seeing that you forget to meet the people. Look at nametags. Introduce yourself. Have business cards ready to hand to people. You’re not there to pitch your project – this is a chance to network, one industry pro to another. If you get asked about your projects, bonus! Also, the fair is a hotspot of librarians. Be Nice. Tell them they rock (they do).

3. Research

Who is being promoted – and how are they doing it? What’s the hot ticket galley or giveaway? What organizations have tables – get their info! How about the production side – check out the electronic production booths, and see what new tech is being pushed/promoted. What publishers have busy booths, and who is sitting quietly? This is a master class in publishing , and the entire fair is your classroom/textbook.

4. Attend the Seminars

BEA is more than the main floor. The entire week there are interviews and seminars and side events. Some of them need advance registration, some don’t. Plan ahead to make sure you catch the items of interest.

5. Socialize

Not all after-show parties are ‘open,’ but many of them are – and some of them you can get into by tagging along with a friend who knows someone. Tweet-up to meet folks for drinks after the show, or to escape for lunch together, and compare notes. And keep in touch with these people after BEA ends! They’re your new peer group….

Some Important Survival Tips

1. Wear comfortable shoes. The Javits Center floor is a crime against podiatry.

2. Hydrate. The air in the center is dry, and you’re going to be walking a LOT. Also, every year it seems BEA happens during our first heat wave of the season. Carry a water bottle with you, and refill it several times during the day (also: make note of the bathroom locations!)

3. Eat at least two meals every day. Try to do it outside the convention center – Javits redefines highway robbery with what they charge for food. In recent years, a number of decent options have sprung up in the neighborhood. None of it’s fancy, but you can get a sandwich or soup without killing your budget.

4. Comfortable shoes.

5. And did I mention comfortable shoes?

(After-the-show survival tip: there is usually a Spa-run massage station set up somewhere on the main floor. They do a booming business for a reason.)

The More You Know: as per the BEAn blog, total attendance in 2011 was 23,067 compared to 21,919 in 2010. http://is.gd/RZfJKH

22: How To Get Your Reading Groove Back

This essay has nothing whatsoever to do with publishing. Or writing. Or storytelling. And everything to do with publishing, writing, and storytelling. It’s about reading.

Publishing, I have long held, takes people who love to read and makes them too tired/burnt out to read.

It’s a risk, when a hobby (or obsession) becomes your job. Editors get it, too. Often, we spend so much time looking at what the market is doing, researching trends and tropes, that our brains anticipate a new book as research rather than pleasure. The TBR pile grows higher – because you can’t stop WANTING books – but you find yourself doing other things, instead.

And then one day it seems too much effort, too dispiriting to pick up another book, even one by a beloved author or an exciting-sounding newcomer. You’ve lost your reading groove.

For a writer, this is deadly: we take our inspiration from the world around us, but we feed our abilities by the act of reading (both what we admire, and what we don’t). Reading for pleasure is to the writer what muscles stretches are to the athlete: if you don’t, you’re going to hurt yourself.

It may never happen to you. But it’s a risk that increases the longer you’re at this crazy-making job. So be prepared to deal with it, with these 5 simple steps.

1. Don’t Panic. It’s temporary. Really. I promise.

2. Read to someone else. It could be your best-beloved, or your goldfish or your teddy bear. It doesn’t even matter what you read, only that you do it out loud. We spend so much time looking at words, we sometimes forget we first fell in love with the way they sound.

3. Experiment. Read outside your comfort zone. Read poetry, or kids’ books, or some genre you’ve never even thought to pick up. Give yourself permission to not finish it. Nobody’s going to judge.

4. Don’t read. Yes, really. Spend a week, or a month, catching up on old movies, or new tv shows. Get outside and learn a new sport. Take up a craft. Do anything you want, in the time you used to read, and don’t feel guilty.

5. Let yourself not write. That last may seem heretical, or impossible. But if the joy-in-words has dried up so much that even your own work seems impossible…that’s okay, too. Poke at the paper and pen a little while every day, but don’t beat yourself up. This isn’t “writer’s block” and it’s not the end of your career. It’s just word-exhaustion. The only cure for that is rest.

And there will come that day – I promise – when you need to read again. And that moment will feel so very, very good.

23: Did You Work Today?

A writer writes. This may be one of the most useful – and the most dangerous – phrases we tell each other.

Did you work today? Are you sure?

There is a trend among many writers, fostered by nifty word-count bars and graphics, to post metrics of daily word count. This is a useful tool. It forces accountability and many of us – lazy writers that we are – need that public accountability to get shit done.

However, the trend is also a dangerous one, because it leads to the feeling that unless you have nailed a certain word count you haven’t actually “done” anything.

We’re all guilty of it – “I did X and Y but I only wrote 500 words so the day’s a failure.”

Let me respond to that as pithily as I know how.

Bullshit.

A story isn’t words. Words are what convey the story. The stronger and more effective your conveyance, the better people respond. That’s the goal. But there is more to “writing” than the actual act of crafting sentences.

There is research, and planning, and thinking. Note-taking and chasing down facts, and considering about how it all connects. It may not feel like writing, and it’s not always as much fun as writing (except to the few, the proud, the research junkies), but it feeds the writing. It creates a deeper, more layered and thoughtful story. More, research triggers ideas, and the ideas trigger thoughts, and those thoughts move the story in ways we-the-writer might not have anticipated or planned.

So how can that process be any less “writing a story” than the actual choosing/typing of words?

Idea + Plotting + Research + Word choice + Editing/revising = Writing.

Post your word counts if it works for you. If it doesn’t, if it makes you feel stressed out or unhappy because it highlights the fact that you spent the day ears-deep in research or inputting editorial corrections rather than laying down new words? Don’t. Deep-six the word meter and wallow in the fact that you were doing some damned heavy lifting.

Don’t allow yourself – or anyone else – to discount everything that comes before (or after) the laying down of words as “not writing.” Because you ARE. From inspiration to perspiration to polish. And you should give yourself credit for the whole damned difficult process.

24: Drop Dead Dates And You

Being a writer requires us to have the ability to lie, fluently and well. Often, we are lying to ourselves, as well. Mostly, that’s part of the game. But there are places where absolute honesty is required,

Do you know the term “drop dead date?”

In legal terms, the DDD is the point at which, if certain obligations are not met, consequences will follow (canceling the contract, filing suit, etc). In publishing, the DDD is the point at which, if certain things have not occurred (I,e. You haven’t delivered the manuscript), the book will be yanked out of schedule.

You do not want this to happen. Ever. Not only does it mean you no longer have a scheduled publication slot – and risk being placed in a less advantageous spot later on – but it annoys your editor and publisher, and that hurts your career, long-term.

(Yes, editors remember. More, the production staff remembers. They like working with people who hand their material in on time and in good condition. They appreciate those people, and are more likely to go the extra step for them.)

But unless your publisher has the faith of a child and the cynicism of a puppy (that is to say, much and none), the delivery date established by your contract isn’t the drop-dead date. Because, despite what many people say/think about the publishing industry, it’s not run by idiots. They know Things Happen. They build some slack into the schedules.

Not much, mind you, but some. The difference between your delivery date, the editorial deadline and the drop dead date is there to prevent disasters.

But this isn’t about your publisher. It’s about you. Your career – and your life.

When you lay out your work commitments, have you built a reasonable amount of slack into your schedule*? Or when your editor says “the absolute latest we can have it in by…” does your mind reset to make that your deadline?

If that latter, rethink your strategy. The drop dead date, although it seems like a useful thing to know, is not your friend.

Let’s be honest: “If I do X words in Y days I’ll hit deadline” is probably written into the writerly DNA. We all tell those comforting lies to ourselves – and then have at least two instances where we must do X+X in one day, just to keep afloat. Things Happen. We all have lives, or at least responsibilities, and they can’t all be packed up and put aside until the book is done, much as we try. And knowing the DDD gives you a sense that you know the worst-case scenario, you can shove everything into the work before then and everything will be fine. Right?

Wrong.

Because Things Happen. Kids get sick. Partners need your time/energy. Parents need your time/energy. Hurricanes wipe out your entire power grid. If you’ve established the mindset of relying on the goad of your DDD to get things done, you’re removing the built-in slack, and hanging yourself not only with your editor – but with the other people in your life, the ones who need you to be there, to be around, and not shoving everything into the last possible moment before deadline.

Don’t be that writer. It may work once, it may work thrice… but you’ll lose, in the end.

*see PM#6 on “Saying No” for how to establish ground rules about deadlines.

25: How To Evolve

If this entry into Practical Meerkat’s Bits of Useful Info had a logo, it would be a Darwin Fish, poking at a keyboard. Because writers, of a certainty, evolve or die.

When you were born, your feet and hands were small, but your eyes were adult-sized. It took a while for the rest of your body to grow into them (and, in some cases, our ears. But never mind my trauma). The point and the metaphor here is that we see with large eyes (bigger than our stomach, as the saying goes) and WANT.

But at first, we can’t manage it. We can’t ride a bike, we can’t play with the big kids, we can’t eat that entire plate of food, no matter how good it looks.

Writing’s like that, too. The idea in our head sounds delicious; we’re going to have so much fun writing it, everything will be…

Horrible. Because we start work on the project, whatever it is, and the words… aren’t there. Or rather, the words are, but the spark isn’t, the thing we dreamed of, the idea we had…

Flat. Insipid. Stupid.

Sometimes, the story just isn’t All That. It happens to everyone. False starts are part of the process, and as you go along you’ll learn how to recognize the signs – and how to salvage what is good, and let the rest go.

But sometimes… the idea’s good. You know it. But you just. Can’t. Make. It. Work. Talking it over doesn’t help – it just makes you more frustrated. The more you look at it, the more it unnerves you, asking way more than you can manage, demanding more skills than you have.

Stop swearing, and don’t step away from the keyboard just yet. That’s a GOOD thing. Frustrating, yes, and it may drive you into a short course of the OMGISUCKs, but still: a good thing. Because it means you’re reaching. Your brain, and your instincts, are challenging your skills, pushing them to the next level.

“Challenge” does not mean that every project has to be something different. You can write a single series for your entire career, stay within the same genre borders, and evolve as a writer. Or you can move from genre to genre, voice to voice. The difference isn’t style, or voice. It’s not even intent. Evolution comes in the actual writing, the mental and emotional stretch.

Are you asking something new? Are you asking the same thing in a different way? Are you looking at the question itself differently? Are you challenging what you did before? Does the challenge – the possibility of failing utterly and completely – scare the piss out of you?

Good.

The first rule of writing is “keep writing.” The second rule is “finish what you start.” The third rule is “if it scares you, do it.” Because that’s how your writing grows. That’s how your writing evolves. That’s how your writing stays interesting.

Here’s the trick, though. Most times? You aren’t even aware that you’re doing it, the stretchy-scary thing. You know when it’s not working, of course. But evolution’s not a conscious process. You push yourself through the frustration, and you take the fear and treat it like a challenge, and you finish (maybe on the first go, maybe the fifth or sixth) – and only then do you look back over what you’ve written. And then, deep inside you a little voice says “ok, yeah. I rocked that.”

So take that fear, and that worry, and that OMGISUCK, and rock it.

26: How Many Revisions Until You’re Revised?

Brace yourself, I’m going to talk about revisions. And that old but useful cliche, writing-as-parenthood.

There is often a flurry of discussion – usually set off by someone saying “I’ve just finished xth draft” of a project – on how many drafts it takes to get a work into shape.

When discussing the pre-editorial version, there is no one ‘right’ answer. You do whatever it takes, however many tries it takes. Like a child, you bring it up though the colic-y nights of infancy, potty training and the Terrible Twos, and the years when it’s constantly dashing off in all directions on unsteady legs, all the way into the stubbornly “I’m done” stage of adolescence, in all its gawky glory. Draft Zero, I call it. At that point, the bones are good and strong, the skin splotchy, its fashions sense regrettable and oh god, let’s not talk about its table manners.

You could hand that draft in to your editor, yes: but could you show your face in public for the shame, when someone else sees how it behaves? For some, the answer is sure – your editor understands that teenagers are sometimes teenagers. But that’s asking a lot of your editor, who after all has many visiting teenagers hanging out on her desk. So you run it though another draft or two, or three (or four), straightening the teeth and clearing up the skin, teaching it a fashion sense appropriate to its body type, and end up with a respectable – perhaps even presentable – manuscript that you can trot out at neighborhood gatherings and family reunions without wincing.

And here, you think “I’m done.” Submission Draft. Send it off to college (the editor) and let someone else knock the rough edges off. Except that, if you’re a responsible writer, you’re not done, of course.

Unless your manuscript is desperate to hit the streets and get to work (a crash publication schedule, which is not a thing you wish on anyone), odds are that your baby will come home twice more, once for the copyedit (continuing the analogy, this would be sophomore year, when they discover they don’t know everything, and are flagged for errors) and that last summer between junior and senior year (those page proofs, almost an adult and aren’t you so proud and nervous?)

Each time, you revise. You tweak and shape, smooth and polish. At first you seem to be working on everything, and then less each time, more subtly, trying not to disturb what’s already been done, until it’s ready to stand on its own.

And then you’re done.

Except, deep inside, you’re not, of course. Because no matter how proud you are of how it turned out, no matter how well you think you understand that the story need to stand on its own now, you still have this urge to fix, to fiddle, to tell it to stand up straight, to revise that one last detail….*

And here’s the thing: It’s okay to think this. It’s normal to think this. You’ve poured so much time and energy into a project that even when you have days that you’re heartily sick of it, you still think you should do One. More. Pass.

But you can’t. It’s out of your hands and into final book form. And now, finally, you’re done.

Let it go.

*and my beta reader, the parent of two, interjected here “and pray they don’t come home to live in your basement because they couldn’t find a job.”

27: A Rose By Any Other Name… Is An Iris

Recently – okay, last week – I spent the day working with teenaged writers on their worldbuilding skills. We spent a lot of time talking about the structure of the world, and the details that fill in that structure… and then I hit them with cultural conventions.

I shouldn’t have been surprised they had trouble with it. A lot of adults seem to, too.

A story – a good story, one that pulls you in and keeps you until the last page, is one that’s believable. If you’re writing literary fiction, or a mystery, or a romance, you’re working with a world that people already know. The reader knows, more or less, what a gunshot wound does to someone, or what it feels like to get a love letter, or to lose a friend, or have a fight with their parents. It’s all real, within their day to day experiences (ok, maybe not the gunshot!)

But there’s one thing that can kill a story – especially F/SF – faster than almost anything else. Not the science. Not the plot. Not the dialogue.

The names.

Many years ago (how many? The date started with “nineteen-ninety…”) my boss laid down a few basic rules (which were pretty damn funny and I wish I could find that list again) for evaluating slush manuscripts. And right after “character breaks into song within the first three pages” as a demerit, there was “any name with an apostrophe smack in the middle.”

It’s funny, but like so much, it’s funny because it’s true. Fantasy and SF are often rife with names that seem to have been chosen merely to look ‘exotic’ and instead read as “idiotic.” Even without an apostrophe.

So when you’re writing… look at your characters names. No, really look at them. Not for their meaning, or their sound, but how they fit into everything else around them.

(a classic example of apostrophes that work: Anne McCaffrey’s “Dragonrider” books, where the change in name indicates a very specific change in rank)

Names are culture-specific, both place and family names, and naming conventions are a wonderful tool for the alert writer. Properly used, they allow you to show a great deal about a culture without being overt or obvious, sliding it into the background for the reader to absorb unconsciously as they go. So ask yourself: why did you choose those names? What naming convention did you use? Do all members of a generation share an identifying aspect (middle name, etc)? Is there a different styling for females than males? Is there a distinction between ‘formal’ names and those used in daily conversation? All of these things are subtle but oh so important bits of worldbuilding, no matter what sort of world you’re building (just ask any Regency reader!)

And, please, are you consistent? If you have “George, Fred and G’neshk” as character names without an explanation of why one of these is not like the others, your readers will laugh themselves out of the book rather than settling in for the ride.

28: Circling The Wagons And Sharing The Ammo…

Practical Meerkat has a deeply Romantic side. She totally buys into the trappings of this life, the traditions and the legends that grow up among Famous Writers, and even the darker side of the traditions of less-successful careers, even when she knows they’re maybe not so smart. How else do you explain why she considers procrastination such a fine art? But there are limits….

Writers are a solitary lot, and while there’s a lot of camaraderie in the bars and the chatrooms, once we start to work – and once we start to get published – that hail-writer-well-met attitude comes to an abrupt halt. Especially when it comes to the matter of What’s in Your Contract. We are jealous of our advances, protective of our terms, and always worried that someone else is Doing Better.

That’s the myth, anyway.

It may, in fact, once have been true; I don’t know. And I’m sure that even today there are people who guard the details of their career, projecting an aura of unflappable and unchangeable success, hoping that nobody will see through to the cracks and pits that are inevitable in any career lasting more than six months.

They’re idiots.

This is a crazy business, and everyone – even the most successful of us – will have downs to match our ups. More, we each face situations that could be made better, more ‘up’ if we only had…. What? Something new? Something better? Something more?

More information.

Smart writers talk to each other. Not about craft, although there’s that, too, but business. Really smart writers – and by that I mean, writers who treat this job as a job, the business as a business, who survive the bad times and thrive when things are good – open up the door of their personal caves and gather in the common space, offering up what tidbits they know and listening to what is offered, putting together a larger, more detailed picture of the situation.

And I don’t mean just listening at the feet of an older writer, getting Wisdom Received. I mean an active pooling of knowledge in real-time. So when a publisher changes terms for one writer – the rest of us know, and can take advantage. Or when another publisher is having significant problems – payments late, or editors quitting in droves, or a steady run of mistakes being made – then we are able to protect ourselves, rather than discovering a problem farther down the road (also known as “helping your agent help you”).

Sometimes this happens in person, during scheduled meetings. Often, today, it’s happening in impromptu video chat (Google+ is already proving itself useful in that regard). But most often it’s the old-school mailing list that allows us to circle our troops and create a unified wall, to share the ammo rather than shooting at each other, to hang together so we don’t all hang separately, choose your preferred metaphor and run with it.

However it happens, whatever form you choose, the important thing is to be part of it, not left standing outside. Why?

Because when you get that image in mind of the writer as a solitary beast, keyboard-plonking away in her garret and called back to the real world only reluctantly, ask yourself – is that oh-so-Romantic image benefiting you? Or the publisher?

29: Let My Agent Go

Sometimes, it seems as though you just can’t get through. You’re talking at each other, not with, or maybe they’re tuning you out entirely. They don’t return calls, or evade giving straight answers. You think maybe they’re just not interested any more – or they’re no longer meeting your needs.

The end of a relationship? Yes, but not like you think.

It’s much, much worse.

Yes, comparing the agent/writer relationship to a romantic relationship is clichéd. But it also has enough parallels that ignoring that comparison would just be making extra work. And it’s too hot today in NYC (95 degrees as I type) to work harder than I have to.

Let me start off by saying that I am of the firm belief that most writers – and by most I mean 90% – are better off with a competent agent than without. (100% are better off without an incompetent agent.) Note that I use “competent” rather than “good” or “bad” because – just like in romantic relationships – what one person needs from their partner/agent is not what the next person will need, and what would drive me batshit may be exactly your wishlist, and vice versa.

Whatever your requirements, the relationship starts intense , and with luck grows into a strong, long-term partnership of mutual trust and respect. But sometimes, what started well can devolve. Or you realize that you hooked up for the wrong reasons. Or you start to wonder – am I really best-served by this relationship?

And often, you feel like crap – like disloyal, over-demanding crap – for thinking that. Because your agent took you on, worked for you, believed in you when nobody else did. But – and I can’t emphasize this enough – you need to listen to your gut. Even if it’s not as bad as you think, there’s something bothering you.

The first thing to remember is that your agent is not – alas – a mind-reader. So if you’re uncomfortable, or feeling unheard, or wondering what the hell is going on, anyway… talk to them. Pick up the phone, or send an email, or corner them at a conference and say “we need to talk.”

A competent agent will say “absolutely. What’s up?”

And then you have to say what’s on your mind. Never mind who works for who – you’re both in harness together to pull your career, and that’s how you need to approach this. Most times – and I speak from experience here – a frank discussion solves the problem, or at least leads to further useful discussions and an on-going, mutually satisfying relationship.

But sometimes…. It doesn’t. Sometimes your gut feeling is right: the spark is gone, the interest is lacking, your paths have diverged or – rarely – there’s something hinky going on. Sometimes, your agent says “I’m sorry, I just don’t see a future here.”

And at that point, you have to do one of the hardest things imaginable. You have to end it, and start again. Armed with a better sense of yourself, your career, and where you want to go, you can approach agents who better suit your needs.

Don’t let anyone tell you it’s “just business,” then. Because it’s gonna hurt. Even if you’re the one making the decision. And it’s not always a clean break, either: if your agent sold work for you, they’re still agent-of-record. You’re going to have to deal with them, for as long as that work remains with the publisher. Sometimes that’s not a problem. Sometimes… it can get sticky.

The only comfort I can give is that staying would have been worse.

30: When It’s Time To Leave Your Publisher – The Long Goodbye

Last essay, I discussed how to know when it’s time to end a relationship with your agent. That – although emotionally wrenching – was the easy part. When it comes time to part ways with your publisher, things get more complicated.

But wait, I hear some of you saying. Isn’t it usually the publisher who – for whatever reason – dumps the writer? Yes… and no.

Yes, usually a writer stays with one publisher for as long as the publisher wants them to keep publishing there – after all, why abandon someone who likes (and pays) you, for the Great Unknown.

But sometimes… writers walk. Or, as I call it, take The Long Goodbye.

Occasionally, they’ve been wooed away by another house, either by a larger advance or what could be called ‘additional inducements’ – better royalties, marketing, or some sort of control on the writer’s end not granted at the other house. Sometimes, it’s because a beloved editor has changed houses, and the new publisher wants their list as well as their skills.

Those are the good leave-takings (well, good for us-the-author, anyway).

Sometimes, just as with an agent, it’s because the relationship that started so well has gone sour. Publishers change, editors leave, contract boilerplates become unacceptable…

Most of the time, we suck it up and make the best of the situation. Being orphaned – having your editor leave, and being assigned to someone who may or may not love your work – happens to just about everyone at some point in their career. Publishers come and go, marketing plans rise and fall, imprints change personalities and all the countless ailments this industry is prone to can change the relationships as well.

You don’t leave your publisher on a whim, or because of a snit. Making this move may not involve the same emotional pain as ending an agency agreement, but it’s never done lightly, either. There’s money involved, and you’re the one who will lose, if you walk away.

I’m not talking about the advances, either. Over the years, you’ve allowed – encouraged! – a hundred strings tying you to your publisher, because it was in your best interest as well. The two most important, when leaving, are called Option and Backlist.

An option clause means that your publisher has right of first refusal on your next work (a good agent can get the option material narrowed down – never promise them an undefined “next project”). That means that, depending on the specific wording, while you’re planning your exit strategy, you’re not allowed to show your work to any other editor. So much for having that backup contract on-hand when you walked, huh? So if you’re going to walk, either have another source of income (don’t give up that soul-killing corporate job!) or have something else – different enough to not trigger the option clause – already on the rounds. Or, third, be prepared to walk away if your publisher makes an offer, and hope that someone else bites.

And Backlist. Oh, backlist, those titles published a year, two years, twenty years ago. In good times, it’s the source of joy and royalty income. In bad times…well, less so. And when you leave a publisher…

Your backlist doesn’t come with you. They are, by contract, so long as they are in print (for however your contract defines ‘in print) ‘owned’ by the publisher. The publisher decides what happens to them.

Now, most publishers have one thing and only one thing on their mind: money. If they think your backlist will bring in enough cash to cover the cost of keeping it in print, they WILL. They don’t care how you behaved (seriously – no publisher ever said ‘screw the money we could make, Joe Writer is a turncoat and we won’t sell his books.” In fact, if you leave and Make Good at another publisher, your old publisher will gleefully jump on the bandwagon with your backlist, selling as many copies as they can crank out.

(this is what is known as “Letting Publisher B Do All The Work”)

And if you don’t do well? The backlist will languish, not selling gangbusters but probably not ever formally going OOP, either. And once it does… well, then it’s another waiting period while you jump through the hoops to get a reversion of rights.

Either way, you aren’t going to control your backlist destiny for years. And – just as with an agency breakup – you’re not going to be able to walk away clean.

The lesson in all this? No, it’s not “stay, no matter how bad it gets.” It’s not even “don’t burn bridges.”

It’s “play the long game.”

And that’s a topic for later.

31: Playing The Long Game Vs Book-By-Book

If publishing is a game (a rigged game with low stakes, but a game nonetheless), there are two ways to play it – the long game, and the short game. Ideally, you will master both. But always, always be working your long game.

There is no one set and true career path that suits all writers.

Let me repeat that: there is no one set and true career path for writers. That’s even more true now than it was five years ago, when options were limited as to how you could be published (traditional or vanity).

However, the one thing that remains – unless you’re a “gonna write a book and get rich-and famous” delusionist – is the desire to have that career last. Not only that people are still reading the books that you wrote five years ago, but are also waiting for the ones that you’re going to write next year. That money – your paycheck – continues to come in, no matter what various revenue streams you’re tapping.

This is called playing the long game. Not the desire to become a Big Name Author (although we never say no if fame comes calling, there’s very little writer-control over that) but to be a consistent producer. In Hollywood terms, to be a character actor rather than the “It Face” of the year.* To earn longevity.

How?

The short-game focuses in on a particular book, a particular contract. Or, as (I believe) award-winning writer Joe Haldeman said, “I don’t have a career, I have a book at a time.” This is a good, focused plan that will keep you sane – while you’re writing. But in today’s market, particularly, that sort of short focus alone is going to hurt you.

Playing the long game means looking at your career both in close-up (this book right now) and distance (backlist + books yet to be written).

In the Long Ago Days, you could count on readers flocking to the bookstore and seeing everything that was new on the shelf. Today? Not so much. Too many titles, too many outlets, and not everyone’s carrying the same inventory, or there’s too much to sort through, digitally, – and people only have so much time to shop.

Playing the long game means that you need to consider not only the Day-of-Release, but the other 364 days of the year, too. That doesn’t mean promote! every day, but rather than throwing all of your energy (and resources) into one hard push, think more about keeping the signal going in the background. Some people pre-order. Some put books on their wishlist. Some forget, and need to be reminded later that yes, they did want to read that book.

Talk about your new book, but don’t fetishize it. Don’t demand other people fetishize it, either. And keep the simmer on, year-round – not just on the new book, but on everything.

Because playing the long game means that you need to think about every book and story you write as being “live.” Not every reader finds a book when it first comes out. In fact, the odds are good that someone who finds you in a bookstore, or on a recommendation, may not know that you’ve ever written a book before (or short stories, or graphic novels, or…)

The long game requires that you maintain that backlist, so new readers can find it easily. In ebooks, that means clickable links. In print editions, listing everything that’s available, and/or excerpts at the back. On your website, making sure there’s enough info to intrigue the random browser – and an easily clickable way to buy the book.

Playing the long game means keeping yourself – and your books – relevant and interesting to new readers. Yes, this means getting out into at least one social network, and making yourself available to fans. It also means maintaining a website with updated and useful (and easily-found) information. It also requires that you know when to shut up and sit down, and let reader word-of-mouth do its thing.

And the long game requires that you keep writing, keeping to whatever game plan you’ve decided works for you. Write to sell, write to satisfy. Write to win. Because the real prize for a working writer … is to keep working.

*of COURSE we all want to be the It Voice. But – as any publisher or reputable publicist will tell you – hitting it big has very little to do with how hard you’re pushed, and everything to do with how hard you hit. And the only people who control the hit are the readers. Sometimes they flock to the Next New Thing. Sometimes they create the Next New Thing. All you can do is give them Your Thing, and go back to work.

32: A Launch, A Launch, My Kingdom For A Launch?

There seem to be three times a writer is shown in the media – at a book signing, at a launch party, or huddled at their desk, weeping tears of blood. The first and the last are pretty regular events in our lives… the middle one, though, comes along less often. Why is that? Why don’t we have more parties? And should I be throwing one?

In my time, I’ve been to a lot of “pub” or launch parties for new books. I’ve even thrown a few (both for my writers, and for myself). Some of them have been huge, glam affairs, and some of them have been low-key gatherings. The one thing I’ve discovered, over those years, is that they rarely have any significant effect on sales.

Yes, having a pub party is, in some ways, a mark of success – people come to celebrate you (and your book). They’re exciting because launch parties are about buzz. They’re about ego. They’re about showing that yes, among all the many books out there, YOU have presence. YOU have content. And YOU should have reader attention. But the truth is that by the time a book launch happens, the book’s already been ordered. It’s already been reviewed. It’s already on shelves. And your readers aren’t going to be the ones, in most cases, to attend your book party.

So, should you not throw a party?

Yes, and no.

No, you shouldn’t, if money is scarce on the ground, and nobody else is offering to foot the bill (if your publisher comes in with a checkbook, all bets are off, say thank you ma’am, and choose your outfit for the evening). You shouldn’t if the thought of hosting a party makes you weep from exhaustion, or you live in a town of 500 people, 480 of whom don’t read Your Kind of Book and the other 19 will be out of town that week. Be practical. Be realistic. Can you spend the time and money and energy in more useful ways?

But if the budget is there, you feel like throwing a party, and you either live somewhere that such a thing would be appreciated OR will be attending a conference or convention that month where such things are appreciated – then my advice is go for it!

But do it smart.

1. Band together

If you know another writer who has a book coming out the same week/month, share the party and split the costs. You not only save money and reduce the stress, but increase the chance that someone who has never read your work will “come over” from your party-partner’s side. Also, 2+ authors are more press-noteworthy than 1 alone.

2. Don’t be trendy

Pick an off night (cheaper) and stay away from the hot-spot locations in favor of a favorite restaurant or bar, or your back yard (advisable only in warmer weather and dryer climates), or a (willing) friend’s awesome house. Keep the décor simple and the catering likewise. For most of us fiction-writing folk, nobody’s going to think better of your book because you went all-out on hors d’oeuvres or had a bartender making fancy drinks (ok, the drinks might help).

Likewise, entertainment isn’t needful, unless a) your publisher is picking up the tab or b) you know someone who will work cheap. I once asked one of our authors – who played the harp – if he would perform during a party for our imprint, with the understanding that he’d be featured in any press we got (and so he was). But a cd playing soft music in the background does the same job.

3. Call in Favors

In addition to the friend with the great party space, or the sibling who loves to make desserts, or the cousin who bartends, now is when you call your friend the reporter (no matter what they actually report on) and say “remember when I picked you up at 3am in the rainstorm?” Likewise the friend who is a wiz at photography, or the one who is willing to work the party while you’re being Writer of the Hour.

4. Make it Count

However you’re doing this, it’s costing you. So do what you can to maximize the promotional impact. Have books available, either as a giveaway or for sale, to make sure everyone gets their hands on one, at least briefly. Make sure that nobody leaves without some form of advertising, from a simple flyer or a sample chapter, so the next week they remember that they wanted to get a copy of the book (or share it with someone else). Do you know someone who has good videography skills? Get a clip of the party up on YouTube! (especially if something funny/embarrassing happens) People don’t remember something they see or hear once, but when you start to layer the reminders, it takes hold.

5. Don’t expect anything except a party

Have fun. Celebrate. Wave the book around in a gleeful, hopeful haze. Writing – the entire publishing game – is damn hard work. Let the stress go, for one night.

If you’re lucky, your party may get mentioned somewhere, and raise the book’s profile to a useful (selling) degree. If you’re very lucky, someone in a position to help your career (Hollywood, foreign publishers) hears about it, and follows up. But the most likely result is that you’ll wake up the next morning with a serious case of exhaustion, and the satisfaction of a hard job well-celebrated.

And that’s what a book launch should be.

(note: if you are a celebrity, slept with a celebrity, or are someone who creates celebrities, the above advise does not apply to you. But you knew that already)

33: Doubt Comes Naturally; A Subtle Ego, Less So

This is not a rant about behavior. Nor is it meant to slam any side in the ongoing pointless self- vs corporate publishing debate*. However, I am going to use a few scary words in conjunction with each other: Professionalism. Gate-keepers. Egos. Rejection. Reality.

Stop now if you’re easily offended.

All too often at the Big NYC Publisher’s Office, after rejecting a work – especially if it was a) slush and b) got our standard slush reject letter, which was polite but clear that it wasn’t something we were interested in- we’d get a response from the submitter.

Now, professionals know that, unless you are specifically invited into an exchange, you don’t respond to a rejection. You take it, you consider what’s worth considering, and you move on. That exchange is over.

Sometimes, the response would be to ask for more details. Time-crunches didn’t allow us to do that, but it was an acceptable if frustrating response.

More often, though, we got a response along the lines of “My work is utter genius, and you’re too blinded by (fill in the blank) to see it! But you’ll be sorry!”

In one notable case, we got a response back – hand-written on the corner of the rejection letter – that said “you don’t know anything. I just sold this for (large sum of money) to one of your competitors who has better taste than you.”

For the hell of it, we called up our competitors (since NYC editors know each other, especially in genre) and checked. Nope. Nobody had bought anything out of slush recently, and especially not for (large sum of money).

And that, patient readers, was only the most extreme example of Author Ego Done Wrong.

Here’s another example: Years after I rejected a manuscript (it was not right for us, it was not right for anyone, the author utterly lacked any concept of character motivation and saw nothing wrong with that) the author touted the book – self-published – as being “too much for mainstream publishing.”

Well, yes. That’s not a compliment.

And these examples (and more) are why, oh patient ones, most publishing professionals are quite and understandably wary around anyone who says “Publishing is bunk, gatekeepers are bunk, they don’t know real quality, I can publish it myself and show them.”

Because so much of the material that gets rejected by these gatekeepers (large or small press alike)? Sucks. No, not the “I could write better than that” kind of meh, I mean shit-on-ice after the ice has melted kind of sucks. Because – and I know this isn’t a popular view, but – there are far more people who want to be writers than can actually tell an entertaining and coherent story. And it’s not only the would-be writers who get rejection.

Writing is a skill. Story-telling is a gift. Getting the two elements together in one package is not the default mode for homo sapiens (that’s why villages had storytellers, not storytellers having villages). Getting the two elements AND the dedication to continually hone them both? Rare. And with all that, we don’t hit it out of the ballpark every time. Often, we don’t even get to first base.

The professional knows and – ruefully – accepts this. The savvy professional takes their lumps when something they thought was ready for prime time is judged not-so-much. The well-seasoned professional takes their lumps, and learns from it (quietly, after licking their wounds and downing a few shots of their personal painkiller).

Now, the editor may in fact be wrong about the viability of that story. Several editors of the same opinion may in fact be wrong. Critics/reviewers are OFTEN wrong (in our opinion). And many of us live in cultures where it’s not only okay but good to argue every detail of a disagreement out in public, be it sex or politics or religion.

But not writing. Not if you’re the author. Not because it’s rude, or tacky, or wrong. But because you’re not going to win, and you’re probably going to lose. Because they’re speaking from their reading-opinion, and you’re not in their head with them when they read. You’re over there, finished for the day.

So sit down, shut up, and take what can be useful from the comments you get. Don’t respond. Don’t explain or correct, cajole or threaten. Go back to work on the next thing. No, this isn’t ‘fair’. But it is professional.

*of which more in a another essay

34: The Truth About “Kill Your Darlings” And Other (Allegedly) Useful Hints

Well. This week in Practical Meerkat Land we had an earthquake, a hurricane (incoming) and a birthday. It’s been busy times around here….

The one thing you – and your loved ones – soon learn is that no matter what other chaos falls into your life, for good and for ill, the writing still goes on. Though rain, snow, sleet and “what the hell, did the building just move?” the writer writes on…. And, inevitably, must juggle the moments of “I wrote that, that’s really good!” with the moments of “oh god I wrote that? That sucks.”

The urge is to keep the things that please us, and jettison the things that make us want to slit our wrists…. and then out of the darkness we may hear the dulcet tones of some long-ago writing professor intoning, “kill your darlings.”

Huh? What? I have to get rid of the things that make me cackle with delight, that prove to me, in the worst moments, that I really am as clever as Mummy told me? No Fair! And yet, hey, the quote originated with William Faulkner, so he had to know something, right?

(Actually, I believe that the full quote is “Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it – whole-heartedly – and delete it before sending your manuscripts to press. Murder your darlings,” and it comes to us via Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, who was a character in his own right.)

I actually hate that quote. Not because it’s untrue, but because it’s too easy.

Like most bits of “writing advice,” especially those repeated ad nauseum by writing courses and how-to books and People Who Know, I’ve found that it’s often more harmful than useful. That is, we as writers spend so much time contemplating how to obey the rule, we forget what it’s actually telling us.

The same applies, in my experience, to ‘show don’t tell,” and “write what you know.” Useful bits of shorthand, but “Write what you know” doesn’t mean write less, but LEARN MORE, and every book needs a careful balance of show and tell, to keep the action moving. Strict obedience to the wording of rules runs the high risk of make a writer less effective in their craft

Rules are helpful, oh yes. They’re incredibly useful. But they’re tools, not masters. Rules should be learned and internalized, not so that you can break them (another bit of oft-touted advice) but so that they become so much a part of your writing muscle that you adapt your work around them as you write.

That writing muscle is part of what I affectionately call the lizard brain, and it’s not something that comes naturally, but develops over time and hard work. If you rely on the rules to guide you, you run the risk of stifling the development of that lizard brain, the good internal editor, the voice that says “yes, this works” or “no this doesn’t” and is painfully, brutally honest.

So no, please, do not go through your manuscript and slaughter every line that makes you gleeful with your own cleverness or skill because that’s what you’re supposed to do. Especially if its only crime is that it is, indeed, an exceptionally fine piece of craft. But DO look at each line and think “is this for me? For my readers? Or is it for the story?”

And if the Good Voice whispers, “The story is not served,” then bring out the knife.

35: “I Can Teach You Everything Except What’s Essential”

There’s a thing that people talk around, at workshops, conferences and in editorial hallways, but it’s rarely addressed in all the How To books and writing courses. “Can you actually teach someone how to write?”

There are two schools – and many subsets – of thought about the writing ‘gift.’ One says that it is a thing that can be learned, and taught, like any other skill. The other claims that all one can do is hone a talent that already exists, and if it doesn’t exist, then all the classes and work in the world won’t create it.

(There is also the school of thought that says it really is a gift – and we’d like to return it. But I digress)

The inborn vs. teachable argument has raged for years before this essay, it will rage on after. My take is simple: a good instructor can teach you everything you need to learn, the structure and the form, the method and the style…except the essential spark that makes it all live.

There are MFA courses, and writing classes, of course, and endless number of How-To books and websites, if that’s your choice. The how-to-write industry has a vested interest in making everyone believe they too, can craft a novel, a short story, a movie script, a sonnet. But the technical skills and desire aren’t enough.

I know of no gentler, less brutal way to say it.

If you have the essential spark, and your skills are lacking, you can improve. An earlier essay spoke of the need for a writer to sit down and shut up and listen to external opinions, to accept when maybe something really isn’t good enough for prime time, yet. This – as so many of us learn the hard way – is the definition of the editorial process. It’s an endless learning process.

More, it’s a process that only intensifies once you’ve started to sell. Beyond courses and workshops, the editorial letter is a Master Class of sorts, a one-on-one tutorial that leads the writer through their own process, using their own words and ideas as a lesson plan. If the writer is paying attention and internalizing the lesson, they learn and bring those lessons forward, writing a better book the next time (and challenging the editor to push them again).

All that, though, depends on what you bring. Not even the best editor can work with something that isn’t there. If the almost-but-not-quite isn’t hiding in the rough draft, the letter can’t draw it out. If the willingness to listen and to learn isn’t there, even the best editor can’t show the way. If the spark – the sense of how a story is put together, and what makes it interesting, isn’t there… the editor can’t show you where to find it.

You have to dig in, deep and hard, and find it in yourself.

Some of you will. Some of you won’t. This is the hardest lesson new writers learn, the way would-be actors and musicians and artists learn. Not everyone had IT. And being a technical master isn’t enough. Not in the face of so much skilled competition.

It’s heartbreaking for editors, too. I wish I could wave a magic wand and give everyone who wanted hard enough the essentials they need. But I can’t. Nobody can.

36: If You've Met Those People....

Have you been asked That Question yet? You know the one I mean. The one that rarely ends well….

It happens to everyone, once you settle the question in your own head. You’re asked by a complete stranger, or friend-of-a-friend, “oh, what do you do?” and you say – with varying degrees of trepidation, “I’m a writer.”

If you’re lucky, they say “oh, cool, what do you write?” and you may have made a new reader, or at least encountered someone who thinks that books are Neat. But the odds are high that you’re more likely to run into one of three types.

1. Mr. Coulda Beena Contender.

2. Ms. Areoua Bestselleryet

3. Mr. Whydon’tchu

The longer you’re in the game, the more you’ll develop strategies for dealing with these people. But for those who’re just starting, or find themselves wound up unpleasantly by these encounters, here’s some advice.

Mr. Contender is an old and unbeloved friend. This is the guy (male or female) who, on hearing that you write, says “oh, I always meant to…” or “maybe when I have time I’ll…” Whether meaning to or not, the immediately dismiss your work as something that anyone (or at least THEY) can do.

There is only one way to respond to Coulda Beena. Smile sweetly and say “of course.” You know damn well that talking about writing has nothing whatsoever to do with actually writing, and having an idea is the easy part. You went past, and DID.

Yes, you are allowed to feel a flush of annoyed superiority. Just don’t let it show too obviously. Likewise if he shows up with his cousin, Igotta Idea, who proposes a 60/40 split (with him keeping the 60%, natch) to have you write up his idea. Tell him it’s a splendid idea, but you think he should do all the writing, and keep 100% of the profits.

Ms. Bestselleryet often means well, or at least has the defense of utter ignorance. She only sees the bestsellers advertised, so of course everyone hits the list. Because there are only a dozen or so people writing what you do, right?

You can explain to Areyoua, either ruefully or regretfully, about the realities of this industry. But you need to accept, first, that odds are high that she doesn’t really want to understand. Advances and royalties are odd even to people who are trying to break into the industry – the concept of sales and returns is too much for most people to care about.

If she does respond to the explanation, lead her gently to the gardens of understanding. Show her the pleasures of figuring out our arcane systems, and bring her to a better understanding of how she too – as a buyer – is part of a healthy sales ecosystem. But you might want to pack a lunch.

And then there’s Mr. Whydon’tchu. Whereas Mr. Contender is simply clueless, and Ms. Bestselleryet is often merely uninformed, Mr. Whydon’tchu is that classic sitcom character – the busybody. He knows – often without any experience himself – what you should do in order to become a MegaSuccess, and will tell you, earnestly and with the best of intentions, how you’re Doin’ It Wrong.

Sometimes, even people who should know better will turn into this person. With the increase in opportunities for legitimate self-publication, everyone has an opinion. However, they often don’t stop to think “has the person I’m expounding to thought of this already? I mean, they’re smart people who may have actually done some research, first, and know how the market works…”

Odds are, Whydon’tchu won’t take a hint. He’s out to prove what he knows, after all, and you need to acknowledge that. So do so, as quickly as you can. Don’t argue, don’t offer your own considerable experience… just nod and say thank you, and then turn back to your drink and your previous conversation. Beat a retreat if need be: there’s no shame in being put to the rout in this instance.

Why do I tell you to turn the other cheek? Because the thing that unites all three types, and their sub-types, is that they really – truly, honestly – don’t care. And that’s the thing that catches most of us on its hook: the idea that people will put their foot into our lives, tell us how this rather convoluted and messy business should work, without any actual experience themselves. The arrogance of it is stunning, but arguing with them is pointless, and trying to educate them is, mostly, worse: they don’t want to hear it, and will not thank you for the effort.

They’ve said their bit and they’re gone. Let them go.

Your blood pressure will thank you.

37: The P Word That Starts Fights Isn’t Politics, But Piracy…

You get warned, as a writer, about all the things you Shouldn’t Say on the Internet. Here’s another.

Dear writers: if you mention the P word in any conversation beyond your inner circle of companions, be assured that you will be attacked, vilified, told you’re failing to grasp some Essential Truth and/or possibly threatened with financial harm.

No, the P word isn’t politics. It’s piracy.

Let me stop right here and say that I am staunchly against digital piracy, the same as I am against going into a bookstore and stealing a physical copy – or against your making a hundred copies of the edition you bought and distributing them to all comers. That’s not “fair use.’ And if you’ve ever paid any attention to the warnings at the start of any movie, you’ll know that it’s considered a Federal crime. However, this isn’t a post about the legal or moral implications of piracy.

It’s about talking about piracy.

A quick survey of about 100 professional writers showed that, when a writer speaks up against piracy, one of five things happens almost immediately.

1. Someone claims that copyright (wherein the person who created the work, owns the rights to that work and all uses thereof) is somehow immoral/wrong/unfair.

2. The writer is accused of being unreasonable, that the idea that people should pay for their work is somehow immoral, or claim that a ‘real’ writer writes for love, not money (yes, I’ve had people tell me that. Presumably people who have trust funds and/or live on rainwater and dandelions).

3. The “you should be grateful people even want to read your work” argument is trotted out.

4. Someone claims writers are somehow supported by some income other than what they earn from their writing (public grants or taxpayer money – this seems to happen more often in the UK and Europe)

5. There will be confusion between freely available work (that the author chooses to make available) and pirated work taken without permission, and why it makes a difference.

Sometimes the discussions stay calm and reasoned, and even if you don’t change anyone’s mind, everyone gets heard. Often someone says “oh, I didn’t understand why…” and discussion and education ensue. That’s great, that’s the ideal. But those who see nothing wrong with pirating digital works often take umbrage at authors who object, and occasionally, that umbrage turns into verbal (written) abuse.

To date, no-one reports physical threats being made, but financial ones certainly have been uttered, both in the intent to continue uploading, and to badmouth authors who stand against piracy with the intent of hurting sales. And being called names for trying to defend your right to a paycheck, or being told you’re lying, when you bring forward facts…. it’s not fun.

This is not to say that you should not take a stance – pro or con – on digital piracy. I’m not one to say “don’t speak of contentious things,” as anyone who reads my blog or Twitterfeed knows. However, if you choose to speak, you also need to be prepared for the possible reactions, especially if you’re just starting out.

Maybe it’s better to stick to politics?

38: Draft Zero, And Zero Ego

If you write your story in one go-and-done, then this entry is not for you. Skip ahead to the next essay.

Still with me? Excellent.

So you’ve done the hard lifting: you’ve gotten from Once Upon A Time to “And then dragons ate them all” – oh sorry, “Happily Ever After.” You have what many of us refer to as “Draft Zero.”

At this point, you have two options.

You may read over it and think “yes, perfect!” If so, in my editorial experience, you’re either lazy or letting your ego run the show to the detriment of the actual performance. But if you’re still reading, you have already gotten past that.

You may read over it and think “oh my god it sucks.” This is something you will hear many, many times from writers (myself included) who should know better.

Please burn this into your brain: It’s a draft. It’s supposed to suck. It might, in fact, suck like a Hoover on steroids. It might be fixable. Then again, you might have to scalpel out the bits that work and toss the rest to the scrap heap.

That doesn’t mean you can’t write. It doesn’t mean the book won’t work. It doesn’t even mean that you went in the wrong direction and need to start again (although you might. Refer back to essay #1: The Full Stop.).

Here’s the painful, oddly reassuring explanation for why we always seem to hit this stage, no matter how long we’ve been at it. You are not – ideally – standing still, as a writer. Every book you write is a new experience, and you are (hopefully) using new skills learned since the last go-round. If you expect to get it all right – while crafting an entirely new story – in the first go-round, it’s time to Let. It. Go.

Recognizing that you didn’t get it right straight out of the gate, and being willing to start again, is one of the places where the line between professionals and amateurs is drawn. A professional knows that their “it sucks” reaction is just part of the process. It’s not fun, but it is familiar.

Repeat after me: There is no room for ego in Draft Zero.

Nothing is sacred. You may think that the words, once on the page, are inviolate. You may believe that the story as you first envisioned it is the only way it can be told. But a story evolves as we tell it. What we come to at the end informs what we said at the beginning, just as the beginning shapes the end (story as Oroborous worm). Your understanding of the story you are telling is not complete until the telling is done.

Words are meant to be erased/deleted/scrawled out with extreme prejudice. This is particularly true in Draft Zero. Nobody is reading over your shoulder making comments about neatness (if they are, give them a sharp elbow in the chest and tell them to go make you a cup of tea). As you ignored the inner editor while writing, now is when it’s time to let him/her in. Listen to the hard truths about the work. Keep the ego outside the door until you’re done. When you hit “final draft” (or as I call it, “my editor gets to see this one” draft) then the ego gets to come out and rightfully strut.

39: Follow No False Gods

Have you thought seriously about retirement?

No, before the old-timers in the audience laugh hysterically, I’m not talking about financial retirement. I’m talking about hanging it up. Letting go. Turning our attention to something else. Retiring a story from the field.

There are stories that a writer just can’t give up on. You know the one I’m talking about. The one that’s gone out, and come back, and gone out again, and come back, and you sent it out again, because someday, damn it, it’s going to sell….

Stubbornness is, for the most part, a very good thing. If you believe in a story, if you think it has something to say, then you should keep with it.

However….

(you knew there was a however, right?)

Not every story will sell.

We don’t want to hear this. We want to think that, eventually, there’s a home for every story. And it’s not as though we’re totally dedicated to the perfection of each iteration - when a reject comes with comments, there always is thought “well, maybe I should take another look at this. Maybe, if I tinker a little, I’ll find the perfect ‘zing’ that will sell it.”

Maybe you will. But at what cost?

There comes a time when an unsold story – short form or long, but especially long (novel) form – becomes a negative force. A vampire, if you will. Each time it comes back, it drains your energy, your brains, and your writing-time – and gives nothing in return. And if you have several of them like this, multiply that drain

Your beloved story might be the best idea, it might have a solid execution… it might just be a matter of time before you find the right editor/market.

Might.

But right now, you need to step back and look at what you’re not doing, in that time you spend sending it out, revising it, and sending it out again. Are there projects that didn’t get the attention they deserved? Are there ideas you put to the side? Is your stress level rising – are you getting so wound up in making this work, that your life is feeling the stress, too?

And more – are you really doing the story a service? If you keep going back and reworking something to make it sell… is that the best thing for the story? You need to step back and look at it objectively – and if you can’t be objective, then this is where a good and trusted agent is worth their weight in rubies.

Not every story sells. And this isn’t a bad thing.

I don’t buy into the “you need to write a million words of crap, first” theory, because good and crap can come at any point in a career. But I do believe that there are some stories that you write just so that you can get to the next level.

And this is where I tell you something that you already know, or should know. In fact, it should be tattooed on your soul, assuming you haven’t sold that already: You are not your work, and a story’s failure is not YOUR failure. You reached, you tried…It’s okay to say “well, that’s not working.” You can trunk it, you can shred it, you can cannibalize the bits and reuse the pieces that breathed in other work. Nothing “has” to sell. Your worth as a writer does not depend on a beloved idea coming to market.

So before you tell yourself “I love this story too much to give up on it”, answer this question honestly: Is it really something that has to get published, or was what you needed from it found in the writing itself?

Is it time to retire that story, and move on?

40: Author Copies: Plague Or Menace?

I jokingly told friends I was going to call this entry “Author Copies: Threat or Menace.” Then I realized it wasn’t really a joke. Or it is, but it’s one we play on ourselves.

The first time you hold that very first copy of your finished book in your hands, it’s an incredible moment. Exhilarating, rewarding, scary as hell – holy shit, people are actually going to be reading this!

And then, when you get the box of contract copies (# to be determined by what your contract says they owe you, be it 5 or 50), you think “Onto the brag shelf/to my parents/best friends/various bloggers you go!” and there is much rejoicing.

So, it’s all good, right? Well. Not always.

Author copies are the cherry to the paycheck sundae, the little extra you get as part of the deal (digital copies, alas, really don’t have that same sense of satisfaction). You aren’t paying for these copies – they’re part of your contract, free, to do with as you please.

All right, you’re not supposed to sell them. But they make great presents/bribes/giveaways.

And then there is the option to buy more copies, at a significant author discount. Those, you can sell. Or give away. Or pile on the floor and stare at lovingly (we all do it. Once. Maybe twice.). And if the book goes out of print (as happens to even the best of books, unless you’re Mark Twain, Shakespeare, or The Bible), you have the chance to buy copies of your book at an even steeper discount.

And therein leads to the question asked on a professional writer’s list about a week ago: “How many should I buy?”

Because yes, there’s a part of us that says “oh, my bookses! Have many copies on hand! Let them go not gentle into that remaindered night, but save them! Store them!

Oh.

Wait.

See, author copies take up space. If you get 5 copies, all well and fine and you may need more after a while. If you get 20, or more… well, that can last you a while, even if you do a lot of month-of-publication contests. And 20+ books? That takes up significant book space.

Think tribbles.

Think about your actual available space. Think about what else could go in that space (other peoples’ books to read. Clothes. Food. Your loved one’s Stuff).

And that’s just one edition of one book. Look down the road. Say, in your career, you write ten books. If they’re in hardcover or trade, there might be a mass market edition, too. Or a book club edition. And hey, what about foreign language editions! You want at least one copy of those, for your shelf.

You may be beginning to see the problem, here.

Unless you have an Infinite Library, or a lot of room in your garage or basement… eventually, you’re going to have a lot of author copies. Even if you only save one copy from each edition – over a career, that can add up.

And there are only so many bookcases that can, by the laws of physics and feng shui, fit into one house.

But you’re managing – you might have a room for nothing but bookcases, store boxes in your closet, your basement, your mom’s garage… and it’s cool. You’re in control. You even have room for the books that will arrive next. And then you get that letter I mentioned earlier, the one that says “this edition is going out of print: do you want to buy copies before they’re remaindered?”

Oh god, yes. Absolutely. Don’t remainder my baby!

Stop. Think.

Think hard.

How much room do you have? How much need do you have, for these books? Can you really store an extra 20 copies? 40? 100? 500?

If your storage space is already tight? Forget about it. Keep five for yourself, five for your posterity, make sure a digital edition is in safekeeping somewhere, and let the remainders go.

Your loved ones (who have Things of their own, after all) will thank you.

41: Psssst. Wanna Buy A Book?

Last essay, I discussed the lures and dangers of author copies – the desire to keep them on-hand versus the reality of storage. It’s like the publishing version of Hoarders…

For most people, maintaining their author-copy library is a constant game of evaluating need versus availability. If you know that you can order more copies if you suddenly need them, you can let your shelf go down to one or two copies (and, if you’re like me, keep a set of first editions somewhere with a “do not use!” post-it on them)

But then, as I briefly mentioned last week, there’s the letter that comes into every writer’s life: news that your books are being remaindered. The remaining editions will either be sold off at a fraction of their original cost, or destroyed. But first, you the author have the chance to order copies!

And the hand of panic clutches at you. If you don’t order copies, they’ll become $1.99 fodder for the remainder tables, or turned into ferret cage linings!

So yes, you want to order copies, especially if your personal stock has run low. If you have an empty storage area, and the cash on hand to buy them, then yeah, go ahead. Better you hang onto your copies than someone else.

But how many copies will you need? Realistically, what will you be doing with them? Ten copies is reasonable for maintaining a resource library/personal use. Thirty or forty, if you have the space, will probably set you for the next decade of promotion or production use.

But they might be offering you 100 copies. Or more. And the temptation will be great to say “I’ll take them all.” After all, you can still sell them – and make some money that the publisher can’t take a cut from. Right?

As I said last week: Stop. Think.

Some folk think that they will be able to sell copies directly – at conventions, via an website storefront, through a local independent bookseller who will take them on commission, or even out of the back of your car. After all, you DO have readers, and as you go forward people might be interested in the backlist (and not want to order a digital copy, assuming it’s available).

Yes. It’s done, and often successfully. But not easily. How many will you sell? How long will it take you to go through those copies? How much effort (read: non-writing time) will it take you?

A quick survey turned up this disheartening fact: writers with active storefronts (either virtual or physical) reported being able to move copies – but not as many as they’d hoped. Sadly, a book goes OP for a reason, in most cases, and while you may be able to maintain the trickle of sales, it probably isn’t going to become a flood. Without a storefront, or a friendly local bookseller to front for you? Selling books out of the back of your car is harder (and far more time-consuming) than it looks.

So before you grab all available copies, think like a businessperson. Consider your long-term needs, your available resources, and the fact that those copies, be it 20 or 200 – can easily become an albatross hanging around your neck, something beautiful and treasured now dragging you into damnation….

42: Considering The Clock

I once admitted to a fellow writer that I got a great deal of satisfaction in waking up and accomplishing things before the sun rose.

I think that an admission of gleeful cannibalism would have been received better, and with more understanding.

Many writers turn to the dark side… that is to say, they are nocturnal workers. For some, it is the result of maintaining a day job; for others, it is the only time they get to themselves. And some simply work better in the relative stillness of the night.

But there are a number of writers who – like the majority of the working population – get up every morning and put in their time while the sun’s doing its thing, knocking off at dinner time.

You will hear writers discussing their preferences, sometimes with vehemence, sometimes with a sort of sheepish deniability better suited to the aforementioned admission of cannibalism.

Neither is ‘better,’ and neither is ‘more appropriate.’ Yeah, even if you’re a horror writer. Or an erotica writer. Much has to do with the schedule of those around you. If you have children, their needs factor in (factor x10, in fact). If you have a spouse who works a specific shift, that will factor in. If you have other obligations – outside job, parents, hobbies -- all of that needs to be factored in.

Plus, if you are working with agents or editors in another time zone, you need to keep that in mind for administrative communication – although the blessing of email has reduced some of that strain. The days of having to wait for someone to be in the office before you can tell them something are, thankfully, long gone. Ditto having to get to the post office during the hours they are open, to send a manuscript…

But the truth is that – no matter what outside needs push us – there are certain times we find that we work better. When the creative mind takes control, pushes everything else to the back, and hits the groove. And it’s different for everyone.

Some of us wake up, and we’re ready to write. The hours between 5am and 10am are prime creative territory, and once the afternoon hits, your brain shifts into other patterns. Some of us can’t get it cranking until 10pm. And some lucky folk can create at any time of day or night. Yes, you can (and will) train yourself to work in the time available… but if you can adjust your schedule to take advantage of that ‘hard-wired preference,’ you’ve got a half-step start.

But what time is best for you is not something you’re going to figure out – you should pardon the expression -- overnight. And it may not be immediately obvious.

Even if you’ve been in this gig for years, try tracking your hours. Note not only when you’re most productive, but when you feel best while writing. When do you produce work that sticks to the page? Note the patterns over a week, or even a month.

And, just as importantly, when do you find your brain turns to other tasks? Are you able to juggle administrative details or external stressors better in the morning or afternoon?

Take all that data, and hold it up against your schedule. Is there something that can be adjusted? If so, do it. You may be amazed, not only how much better you work, but how much better you feel.

43: Weighing In On The Great Debate (Nanowrimo)

All right, yes. Like everyone else this month, I’m going to give you my take on NaNoWriMo.

Ah, NaNoWriMo, scorned and adored writer-worldwide. I’ve never actually taken part in it officially (we had Finish Your Damn Novel Month, instead), but I think it’s a f**king brilliant idea

Yeah, I know the arguments against it: that it results in churned-out messes of 40-60,000 words of unpublishable crap. That people treat it like a game, and thereby undermine the real work being done by people taking their writing seriously. That people flail in with a vague idea of a plot, and expect somehow, miraculously, to end up with a coherent story. That December results in a flood of aforementioned crap, clogging submission piles for agents and publishers alike.

That’s all true. But all that? Happens the other eleven months of the year, too.

(Trust me, the slush piles are pretty ugly in March and September, too. And January? January used to make us quake in fear.)

But NaNoWriMo doesn’t start there, and it doesn’t stop there.

It starts with the idea: if you sit down, every day, and write, at the end of the month you’ll have something. Maybe not a GOOD something, maybe not even a FINISHED something… but there will be words on the page. Fifty thousand words, if you “win.”

Fifty thousand words is a lot of writing. It takes focus, and determination, and more than a little bit of craziness. Most folk won’t do it. Of those who try, many realize halfway through that it’s not for them, that they don’t really have the gut-fire, they don’t have the willingness to give up other things to feed the page.

More people fail than win at NaNoWriMo. And they walk away saying “wow, that was hard.” Yes. Yes, it is.

Some of them never try again – once was enough. Some of them try it again the next year, with a better plan, a more realistic idea of what’s needed to win.

And some of them…try it again in December.

And that’s where NaNoWriMo stops. When it stops being WriMo and becomes WriEvMo. When a participant says “that was hard…” and keeps going. When someone realizes that writing every day, no matter what, satisfies something inside them, scratches the itch in a way nothing else can.

When someone takes what they wrote in November, and revises it in December. And January. And then writes more, a little bit or a lot, every day

When NaNoWriMo becomes, as many of us are calling it, FiMyDaNoMo.

NaNoWriMo is a game, a lark, a project, a training ground. It is a sifter, separating the wannabees from the needtobees, shaking away all the excuses and distractions, giving writers a taste of what this writing thing’s really like: not the fun bouncy social part, but the gritty, painful, gleeful meditation on your keyboard. You. The words. The story.

NaNoWriMo teaches you that in order to win, you’ve got to go all in.

As an editor, as a writer, I think that’s f**king fabulous.

44: Shut Up, Calm Down, And Mellow The Hell Out

Practical Meerkat has very little patience with schoolyard gang rumbles. She doesn’t care if you prefer Mac or PC, if you use Scrivner or go old-school and write from a blank screen, if you’re entirely digital or still need your hardcopy edits. She cares about you doing what works best for your career. And so should you.

You’d have to be living under a rock that’s under a rock not to know that there’s some massive change going on in the publishing industry. The technological advances in e-book development and distribution have taken “self-published” from an insult (poor quality in prose and production) to a viable business alternative.

Along the way, many people have been choosing up sides between “self-published” or “traditional” publishing. And the language thrown between the two is getting fierce, with both sides attacked for their perceived failures, including the recent “house slaves” comments from Michael Stackpole and Barry Eisler, and the resulting counterpunches and flamewars*.

May I be a voice of disgustingly calm (meerkattish) practicality?

Sit down, shut up, and cool off.

If you’re so busy yelling that Your Way is the One True Way, you’re missing the really amazing thing that’s happening.

First, let’s look at the basics.

There is much to be said for self-publishing your work. You control how it’s presented, you control how it’s priced (assuming you’re in accord with Amazon’s plans, anyway), and you get 100% of the profits. For writers long abused by the chain of publishing economics, those are very tempting things.

But it requires certain skill sets beyond the ability to write a good story. That means you either need to acquire those skills yourself, have friends who have them (well-meaning amateurs will make your books look like the work of amateurs), or hire professionals. The first will cost you a copious amount of time, the second will cost you money – well before you’ve earned a penny.

And that’s before you try and sell your work, either digitally (say hello to the pirates,) or hardcopy (see previous essay on selling author copies). And if you sell through a third-party, as you will want to…well, then you’re probably going to run into the same problem publishers are facing: the first distribution may be free, but then the distributor wants to make their cut, too.

Traditional publishing – going through a house, be it micro or major – is reviled as being out of touch, of not listening to the author or taking enough risks with new and exciting projects, of not sharing the profits equitably or being transparent with their bookkeeping. And much of that is undeniably true. Publishers have always looked to their bottom line, with the writer trying to make the best deal they can, to take advantage of what the publisher offers.

And yet, mainstream publishing houses do still offer a number of significant advantages to a writer. They pay advances, a guaranteed sum before the book hits the market. And they have trained editors. Despite the claim that ‘editors don’t edit any more” (something I heard when I first got into the industry in 1989!), many certainly do, and a good editor can not only save a bad book, she can kick a good book up into fabulous.

Publishers also have production departments, an entire team of people whose sole job it is to make sure that your book is proofread, copyedited, typeset, designed, and bound properly – and the digital equivalent, as well. And then there’s sales & distribution. Yes, we love to rag on the sales force. But until you’ve tried to get your books into stores on your own, or had to haul boxes to and from conferences to hand-sell, don’t dismiss their value.

And it’s not just the ALL or NOTHING scenario – there are small press publishers, too, from micro-presses to companies that can compete with imprints of some of the major houses for quality and distribution. Small Press publishing tends to pay, at most, a small advance, or you will be offered a shared-royalty deal instead. However, a small press has the same advantage to a writer as the larger presses, in that the production work is done for you, by people who know what they are doing. This frees us up to do what most of us do best: write more. And let someone else handle the back-room paperworking.

My point? Just as earlier in the year I warned you against following any one “guru” when planning your career, I truly believe that there is no one “perfect, author-friendly” system of publishing. In fact, if you plan on having a long and viable career, you’re best off following not an ‘either/or’ philosophy, but rather “all, at different times.” This? Is an amazing opportunity. Instead of your publishing options being a set menu, with no substitutions, it’s now a la carte.

Today, the smart writer ignores the shouting and the ranting, looks at each option and asks not “what’s better?” but “what’s the best way, the most productive and profitable way, to publish this particular project?”

* If you are trying to convince people as to the rightness of their path, insulting and condescending to people is probably not the best way to go. Nor is telling people, in effect, that they’re being mentally manipulated – especially when you’re in the process of trying to mentally manipulate them to YOUR point of view.

45: Almost But Not Quite

Ah, promotion. That thing we all know we have to do – and yet most of us, even if we know what, can never quite figure out best how.

When you’ve got your first book out, or about-to-be-out, everyone tells you that you need to grab the readers of “books like yours.” While in some ways it’s a holdover from the world of mass marketing, it’s even more relevant in today’s digital world, where fewer and fewer bookstores are curated. And of all the marketing ploys ever tried, it’s still one of the most obviously successful: piggyback on the audience of a best-selling writer, and convince those readers to try you, too.

To that end, we solicit useful (and hopefully catchy) quotes from those writers (or the next tier down, usually), ask them to promote us in their blogs, or retweet news of our book to their followers. Even 10% of a bestseller’s audience will give a newcomer a comfortable lift, after all.

It’s a good plan. It might even be a brilliant plan. If it worked. The problem is that the readers of Bestseller Writer already have BW. They don’t need another BW. They probably don’t WANT another BW. They want like-BW-but-different.

This is what I call the “almost-but-not-quite” rule of promotion. Don’t ever sell your self as (for example) “the next JK Rowling.” Beside the fact that odds are really high you’re not, you could be and nobody would care. JKR is still being JKR. But if you can get someone to say “what I’m reading while waiting for the next JKR,” then you’ve got something.

By that same token, while things like blog tours and guest blogging are great ways to get your name known to new readers… it’s best to choose your sites carefully. Someone who writes the exact same type of book you do may not be the best choice for a sponsor, especially after your first book is already out, and you’re trying to expand your base. Look instead for the writer who is almost-but-not-quite. If you write UF with a heavily romantic base, look for a romance writer with a strong supernatural element in her work. If you have an SF novel with a mystery at its core, try to hook up with someone who writes mysteries of the same deductive tone. Got an epic fantasy? Check in with someone who writes epic fantasy with a different feel or setting.

Or find a bunch of people who all write in the same genre (military SF or UF or swords-n-sorcery or etc) but do it differently, and set up your own place to talk. Groups like Fangs Fur & Fey did that. So did Magical Words, Plotmonkeys, YA Outside the Lines, and many others. Casual or formally organized doesn’t matter – what does is that you draw in readers who can then be shown a different, equally interesting book they have a pre-existing connection to (trying to sell romance to milSF fans can be done, but your conversion ratio will probably be low)

And while you’re at it – don’t do the same thing each time. A recent spate of blog tours by several writers made the mistake of using the same “interview-and-excerpt” format, and the complaint was that after a reader had seen it once or twice in their social media, they became turned off by the “shouting.” It’s the same philosophy of almost-but-not-quite…give them something familiar-context but different in content, so they’ll read and be intrigued, not turned off by repetition!

We as readers are always looking for something new to read. I don’t mean new just as in “I haven’t read it before,” but “huh, I hadn’t thought to go there before, but it sounds too good to resist.”

It’s not a guarantee – but it’s better shot than trying to be more-of-the-same.

46: Roll Out The Role Models

Who do you want to be when you grow up?

You may have noticed by now that the one thing we as writers don’t lack for is advice. Advice for writers wanting to break into publishing? Check. There’s advice for writers wanting to expand their craft, change genres, figure out if their publisher just isn’t that into you, or anything specific you might need. Some of it’s useful, some of it’s awful, but it’s all there for the taking.

But there’s one piece of advice that I don’t think is given – or thought about – enough: advice on choosing a role model.

A role model is different from a mentor. A mentor is someone who is taking an interest in your a career. A role model is someone you look at and say “I wanna be them.”

Already have one, you say? Take another look. The most important role model you could chose… may not be who you think.

Most writers want to emulate the most successful writer they know. The one who made it right out of the gate, the one with the movie deal and the personal assistant and the full-time publicist. The one who has fans who kvell in public, who create SRO signings and readings, who hang in the writer’s every crafted word.

And hey, yeah, me too. I’ve got a best-seller in my scopes, and you better believe I’ve been taking notes.

But as much fun – and as hope-making – it may be to take a best-seller as your role model, those people may not be your best choice. Or they may be – but you’re missing the reason why. And by going for the bright and shiny, you may be overlooking the person you should be emulating.

I’m going to deviate from my usual pattern here, in naming names, and giving specifics from my own life. Aside from my usual “I wanna be X when I grow up,” I have two role models, two people I look to and say “these people. I learn from them.”

The first is Rachel Caine. Many, many people know Rachel. She’s a New York Times bestseller. Her fans flock to her, her books sell like the proverbial hotcakes, she’s an in-demand and very gracious lady (in the old-fashioned sense of the word, too). But she’s not someone I consider a role model for those reasons.

Rachel is my role model because when I’m sitting at my desk, depressed and cranky, pretty sure that I’ve done something to kill my career and I’ll never work again… I think, “Gilman, did RC give up? When her first books didn’t sell, when she had to write under another name, when her health was so bad and things probably looked so craptastic that she was ready to give it up and focus on her day job, did she give up? The hell she did. And neither will you.”

My second role model is Charles Grant. We lost Charlie a number of years ago, and unless you’re a horror reader, you may never have heard his name – which is a damn shame, because he was an excellent writer and anthologist. And, not incidentally, a lovely cantankerous SOB of a teddy bear. But he was also, by his own admission, a terrible businessman. If there was a wrong decision to make, regarding the direction his career should take, or how to handle financial decisions, odds were Charlie made it.

Him? He’s a role model, you’re asking? Yes. Because when he realized, many years ago, that I wasn’t going to be talked out of this business, he took me aside and in his best SOB Uncle way, said “Gilman, look at my career. Don’t do a damn thing I did.”

I laughed. But I looked. And I listened. Still am.

This is a damned hard life, publishing. Success is not only elusive, it’s often fleeting. Both Charlie and Rachel knew/know this. They faced career disaster – often more than once. And they faced it down, and learned from it – and kept going.

You want to survive, long-term? Remember that for all of us, it’s a ride of ups and downs. Even the bestsellers don’t knock it out of the ballpark with every book, sales or acclaim-wise. Everyone hits downspikes, everyone has off years. Dry spells come, and occasionally you have to reinvent yourself, to stay alive.

So here’s my advice: forget about following the shiny. Look for more. Find someone who was tested and survived, who came out the other end without giving up.

That’s a role model for a life in publishing, right there.

47: Rabbit Is Always Late

The Practical Meerkat prefers to give advice that you can use, actions that you can integrate into your daily writing routine, to make your work stronger, and your stress levels lower.

Sometimes, though, the best, most practical advice I can give is… don’t do anything.

There are things that are popular, trendy. You hear people – writers, agents, editors – talking about them all the time. “This is what’s hot. This is what’s selling really well right now. This is what publishers/agents/readers/Hollywood wants.”

Sometimes you think “yay, I’ve got that!” and you and your agent are zooming. Sometimes you think “oh god, I can’t write that.” It’s a bittersweet realization, and you mutter about markets, and you slog on with what you do write.

And sometimes you think “I could write that… but it’s not what I’m writing now. I need to put everything aside and write that!”

Cue the White Rabbit, wringing its paws and checking the time, and so utterly flustered that he’s running behind…

“Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late!”

Yeah, you might. So what?

Here’s the bitter part: while “don’t chase the market” is advice that’s handed out freely, at the same time, we’re told by example and inference that if you want to make Real Money, you have to hit the hot markets.

And the hard truth is – hitting something hot IS how you make Real Money. That’s the Hollywood deal, the bestseller run, the significant uptick in your next contract, if you play it right.

Some people hit it by sheer luck and timing. Some people chase and catch the moment. They look at a trend, analyze it, take it apart and put it back together in a way that works for them, and then sit down and write it fast enough that the trend hasn’t already moved on.

Those people? Not common. And the ability to do it WELL is even less common. Most of us are the White Rabbit, and no matter what the White Rabbit did, he was still late.

So here’s some sweetness, to leaven things. Eventually, the probability is high that the trend will turn to something you love. Something that you’re writing. You might even have THAT BOOK coming out just when the trend hits (or better yet, be second out the gate, so you catch the swell perfectly).

But you can’t predict it. You can’t anticipate it. And a book written to catch a trend? Generally, it not only doesn’t sell, but you’ve just taken time out of your life to, basically, do something you don’t love.

If you need the money, working at Macy’s might be less painful, and leave you with the creative space to still write the story that’s in you, waiting to get out.

And that story, the one you pour your passion and excitement into? May not be the Hottest Trend. But it could also be the story that changes everything, for you.

48: Blame The Right Messenger

When I’m not being Practical Meerkat, I do my share of grumping, grousing, bitching and whinging. But over the years, I’ve learned two things. 1. Do it in private, among friends and/or like-minded peers, and 2. Make sure that you’re grumping about the right thing.

There has never, in all the history of the printed word, been a shortage of messengers to blame. From the scribe who misspelled something, to the store manager who ‘forgot’ to take your brand-new books out of the storeroom and put them on the shelf (true story, happening to more than one writer), the one constant in publishing is that something totally out of our control is going to go wrong. And we- the writers – will howl about it.

And that’s good. Howling is the only way you can draw attention to a mistake, and make sure it doesn’t happen again. But be sure, when you start calling for blood, that you’re pointing your knife at the right target.

Last week, a professional writers’ group mailing list I’m on started talking – as we do – about delays. Delays in contracts, delays in payments, delays in reversion requests….always endless delays, and always the writer who takes the hit.

Contracts are negotiated, and yeah, that can take a while, but after that it’s just a matter of printing them out, right? Why is it taking months?

I got the manuscript in to my editor last month – they’re supposed to pay me on delivery and acceptance. Why does it take at least six weeks, or more, to get me my money?

I requested that reversion six months ago! They’re not selling the book any more, so why aren’t they giving me back my rights?

Some publishers – all right, let’s be honest, ALL publishers – drag their heels over things. Sometimes it’s because they really hate giving up anything that might have value someday, even if they’re not using it now (imagine your publishing house as a particular kind of hoarder). Sometimes it’s because they’re understaffed and haven’t been able to get to your request. Sometimes it’s because they’re having cash flow issues, and you’ve been thrown under the bus.

And sometimes, it really does take that long.

Before anyone jumps on me for defending publishers, let me explain.

Publishing has a pipeline. Things – manuscripts, deals, requests – enter at one end, normally the editor, and come out the other with a result (books, contracts, reversions). And along that pipeline, a lot of people have to lay hands on it. A lot. And the higher the value, the higher-up the hands.

You guys are more aware of the manuscript pipeline. The others are just as simple – and diabolical.

The contract request goes through its pipeline (editor to editorial director to contracts manager, signed off on by contracts head, signed off on by publisher) to get back to the agent. Multiply by how many contracts were requested that week, divide by the odds of any of those people not being at their desk the day it lands in their in-box.

The payment request also goes through a pipeline, only this one heads off into the murky waters of accounts payable. That means it’s often sent to another building entirely. For some publishers cough including mine cough it can get sent out of the country. And the number of checks being requested, at all points, is easily three or four times that of contracts. Yes, it’s a simple matter. But occasionally, the pipeline gets clogged (especially if it’s a large enough check that a muckety-muck has to sign it).

And, in response to the comment made by one person on our aforementioned list – no, it really doesn’t matter what genre you’re writing in. The folks in accounts payable? Don’t Know, Don’t Care. You really are just a number to them.

Reversions? Publishers don’t consider every request as it comes in. Instead, every request generates a sales history (and sometimes an editorial report, if there are more books under contract). And then, at a meeting that involves sales and the publisher and sometimes the relevant editorial staff, those reports and requests are discussed. So if you miss that meeting by even one day? You’re in the queue for the next meeting, which might be next week…or next month. Or, for some cases, in six months.

Could it be streamlined? Of course. In the light of all the other issues facing our industry, are they likely to get front of the line for that streamlining? Probably not. And with the number of people cut from the publishing staffs every year, asking them to do more, faster is… well, like asking if you could please turn in your next book in half the time contracted.

I’m not telling you this to excuse delays. Sometimes there is a righteous and justifiable cause for anger, and your agent should be on the phone every day until it’s resolved. Talking to other people is a sure way to find out what’s “normal” for a publisher and what’s extreme.

That way, you’ll know when it’s time to bloody your (metaphorical, please!) knives.

49: Guttering The Candle At Three Ends

You are awesome. But you are not superhuman (really. Put that cape away). You can do amazing things… but you need to understand – and be ready to pay - the cost, too.

One of the ways that you can make a living as a writer is by writing. A lot. And by a lot I mean writing two (or even three) books a year, be it under your own name or a pseudonym, in one genre or many.

This is a tried and true career path, all the way back to the rise of genre publishing. Not because genre books are in any way ‘easier’ to write than literary ones, but because – bluntly – genre readers read more. And faster. Voraciously.

So if you’re able to come up with good, solid ideas that publishers (and readers) like, and are willing to spend 8 hours a day at your keyboard, 50+ weeks a year, you can do it. Having spent several years writing one series, one trilogy, and stand-alones in another genre, three books a year, I am here to say that it’s a hell of a ride.

Much, I am told, like doing a lot of coke. Only you’re earning money rather than blowing it.

But the crash at the end? That’s very much like.

Writing one book a year is an emotional drain. When you’re writing two or more, every 12-18 months, you’re asking for twice that drain. Never mind the pile of cocaine: imagine a candle. Book one lights one end, books two/three lights the other. It burns toward ppft stage twice as fast.

And then, if you’re also trying to maintain some kind of a personal life, or maintaining any other interests… imagine a candle, lit at both ends…and then turn it sideways, and place another flame at mid-section.

Eventually, all that’s left is a puddle of wax.

“Every client I’ve had, who does three books in a year…burns out.” My agent said that to me, a few months ago. She was talking about the stage we come to, when we think “oh god. I’m too tired to do this any more.” And she’s right.

So am I telling you to never try to write more than one book a year? No. As I said, it’s a realistic way to make a living as a writer, if you can manage it. Plus, having your career spread out over several publishing houses and/or indie formats is not a bad idea, even in good times. But be prepared.

You will get sick, and blow a deadline.

You will have days at a time when you simply can’t face the desk.

You will – no matter how well you plan it at contract stage – end up with projects overlapping each other at the worst possible time.

Acknowledge, now, that these things will happen. It doesn’t make you a failure, and it doesn’t have to throw you completely off the cliff, emotionally or physically. And above all, breathe. I can’t emphasize this enough. This is your job, you’re doing it six, maybe eight, sometimes ten hours a day. You have an endless parade of deadlines, and they will crush you under their feet, if you let them.

- Talk to your editor(s). Ideally, have them talk to each other (trust me, the odds are good they know each other). Keep them up-to-date on what’s happening. This is advice I gave you way back when, and it’s even more important when you’ve got more than one production schedule waiting on you.

- Schedule something indulgent on a regular basis. Something that doesn’t depend on you hitting goals or anything specific – just Nice, Now. A thing, or an activity, or an indulgence that makes you slow down and relax, and gives your body and brain both time to recover. I’m a huge fan of a quarterly massage sessions – it has medical, emotional, and creative benefits I feel almost immediately.

- Physical activity. Every day. Get up and walk. Play on the Wii. Turn up the music and dance like a loony person (your pets won’t tell, and your kids PROBABLY won’t post it to YouTube).

- Write every day, even when you really feel you can’t stand it any more. It doesn’t have to be the thing you’re working on – just so long as you keep to the routine for a few hours.

- And most of all, accept that you will, at some point, burn out. Have an exit strategy planned.

50: Will That Be A Book For One, Or Two, This Evening?

You go into a bookstore and see names on covers. You know what that means. But when you see more than one name… co-written? How does that work? And why the hell would anyone want to? Do I want to? Maybe…. And maybe not.

Writers, as a rule, are a solitary breed. When we have a story in our head – no matter if we’re the talk-it-out type or the sort to hoard it until it’s ready to be shared – it’s in OUR head. We don’t want someone else coming in with THEIR IDEAS.

And yet, occasionally, collaborations* happen.

There are three (basic) reasons for this.

1. Jr/Sr writer syndrome

2. Shared workload

3. ‘Wouldn’t it be cool’

The first sort of collaboration is pretty obvious: when one of the names on the cover is far better known, the immediate assumption is that a lesser-known writer has been brought in to “help out” (if the senior writer has died, that’s a different kind of scenario entirely). Often, this is because the senior writer is mentoring the younger. Sometimes, it is because the publisher has put them together (“assignment”).

The second is often a variant of the first, but can occur just as often between peers, and includes shared-world projects. It also, occasionally, involves married/cohabitating couples.

The third is perhaps the most common, often coming after a night in the bar at a convention, where one writer sparks an idea, a second writer says “oh, and…!” and half an hour later there’s a plot and an outline and they’re arguing over whose agent gets to pitch it. Anthologies happen that way, too (if you see more than one editor on an anthologies cover, odds are high that’s exactly how it happened).

Collaborations of this sort have the potential to be one of the best writing experiences of your life, with the energy getting ratcheted up every time you talk, the workload shared and the manic giggles doubled. It could also be a massive clusterfuck with bloody fallout. And there’s little way of knowing which it will be until you’re already well in.

But there are ways to limit the potential damage, and smooth out any rumbles in an otherwise positive experience.

1. Have you hammered out the basics (who does what/how you deal with conflicts) before you begin?

2. Do you actually LIKE this person? Do you RESPECT them?

3. Are you prepared for the relationship (whatever it is) to change during the process?

Often, especially in the Type 3 situation, writers go into a project with good intentions and high energy – and the first time a snarl appears, everything goes pear-shaped not because it’s an actual crisis, but because both parties forgot that everyone works in their own way, and even if you think you have similar styles, they’re…not. And if you work in drastically different styles/methods, you’re going to run into a lot of conflict.

Talk about this before you agree to a project. Agree to certain things that can be hammered out, and decide on an arbiter for the things that will come up during the process (your editor, agent, or a mutually-respected peer are best for this. Or, you can flip a coin.) Think about, not just what you want, but what will make a better result.

Talking about the various ways collaborators handle the actual writing could fill an entire essay on its own, so I’ll say here only that the best way is the way that works best for you both, with minimal yelling and/or bloodshed. It may take a while to shake that out. Expect some yelling, some muttering, and the occasional hurt feeling or sulk. The thing to remember is that in this particular project, you’re not the God Queen of all you survey; here, you’re co-ruler.

And that’s why it’s so important to not only like your collaborator, but to respect them. If they say “I want to do X,” you need to accept that they have a reason for doing X, and be willing to listen to that reason. You may disagree… but if you don’t respect them, you’re not going to even give it a fair chance. Likewise, respect keeps you from dumping the “grunt work” on the other writer – or having it dumped on you.

The truth is, collaboration isn’t “half the work.” It’s all the work, and then some, much of it unrelated to the actual writing. But the end result, ideally, is something neither of you could have created on your own.

Collaboration may not work for you – you may come out of it shaking like a cat dumped in water, hissing and spitting and stalking off to a solitary perch until you calm down again. Or, it may be such a positive experience that the two (or three) of you decide to do it again. And collaborations with different people can end with different results, just as they will end with different books.

But even if you’ve worked through all the possible difficulties and dissensions, and managed not to kill each other, working with someone, like living with them, changes the relationship. It’s inevitable, once you’re in someone’s workspace, and they’re in yours. You share more than you planned, you see more than you might have wanted. At the end, you will know that person – and maybe yourself – better than you did before. This may be a bad thing. It may be a wonderful thing. It will be, assuredly, a different thing. And the relationship will be different, afterward, as well.

No matter how you go in, I strongly advise having a therapist/mutual friend with a sense of humor and discretion on speed-dial. Trust me, it helps.

*“collaborations” in this instance means exactly that. Sharecropping, or hiring someone else to write your plot while you get top billing/majority royalties, is NOT collaboration.

51: When It All Comes Crashing Down

There’s one topic, with all the nattering writers do, that we tend to skirt around. It’s hard to bring up, it’s hard to talk about…but it’s just as essential as anything else. What do you do when it all crashes down?

Remember, a few weeks ago, when I said that every career has its ups and downs? That not even bestsellers hit it out of the park every time? Awards don’t always equal sales, sales aren’t always enough, readers’ tastes change, and so do publishers. Careers rise…and they fall.

Sometimes, it’s obvious. Sometimes it’s not. You might keep working, but at lower advances to match lower sales. Or you might not be able to sell another book, no matter how good, how smart, how interesting the books are.

Like all careers in the arts, you are at the whim of something far beyond what you can control. If you aren’t able to roll with that, if the thought of other, unknown, unaccredited people deciding your fate sends you into DTs… you might want to reconsider your career choice, or at least make sure you have an alternative plan.

For those who stick it out, no matter how prepared you think you are, how many books and accolades you have under your shelf, when a dry spell hits, it’s going to hurt. At that point, you may think “stick a fork in me, I’m done.”

Many writers do – they say screw it, they find a job that pays better, more regularly, and doesn’t make them dance in public to justify their existence. You may find yourself pitying them, you may find yourself envying them. Both reactions are perfectly natural -- having both reactions is perfectly natural. Especially if you’re looking at a year (or more) without any writing income at all.

(That’s why all the advice about going full-time involves staying out of debt, and building fiscal reserves.)

But if you can’t walk away, if you find yourself hitting that brick wall over and over again, unable to stop, remember these two things:

1. Publishing is a cycle.

2. Nobody cares who you were.

This is why I always advise writers to play both the long and the short game.

Readers’ tastes change. They liked you, now they don’t like you as much, or you’ve gotten too familiar… there may come a readership that embraces you again. Taking a break/doing something else long enough for the market to come around to your voice again is a time-tested option. And, four or five years down the road, that book that didn’t do so well? It’s fallen off the sales radar. You need to play the long game.

Yes, that will require an alternative form of income. Don’t get so caught up in the “I am a WRITER!” mindset that you turn up your nose at retail, or going back to an office, or whatever job you can find, to pick up the slack. Having another job makes you no less of a writer. The only thing that makes you not-a-writer is not writing.

For a perfect example of learning to play the long game, I give you Martha Wells’s story. “My Last Year as A Writer” - http://night-bazaar.com/martha-wells-my-last-year.html

But the short game should not be ignored, either. You don’t have to sit and twiddle your thumbs, waiting for the right moment to re-enter the game. As I said above, nobody cares who you were, and writers reinvent themselves all the time. It might be via a pseudonym, or by changing your style or genre – moving from mystery to fantasy, or fantasy to romance, or romance to suspense, or any dance partner combination thereof. You could even go from literary to genre, or genre to literary, if you have interests in that area.

You can see this stretch of your career as a disaster, a sign of failure. Or, you can decide that you’ve been given an opportunity to stretch, to see what else you can do – without any baggage carried along.

How you react will help determine how you survive. Play smart, play well, and play to last.

52: Don’t Listen To Me

This essay originally appeared mid-way through the year. But it seemed like a better ending, after the fact. Because it’s IMPORTANT.

Don’t listen to me. Or Janet Reid, or Agentgame, or Sarah Weinman or Nathan Bransford or Joe Konrath, or MJ Rose or…

Yeah, I follow a lot of them on twitter, and read their blogs, same as anyone. But you shouldn’t listen to them. Or at least, not as much as you might want to.

One of the great things about publishing in the Internet age is that we have access to people with experience. There’s far less floundering about: if you have a question and can get online, you can find an answer.

But there is a danger to that, too. We find someone who is talking what sounds like good sense, or is saying what we want to hear – or who has a lot of followers, and therefore must be Right, or at least Important – and we become their adherents, hanging on their every tweet or post, repeating what they say as though it were the sole gospel.

This? Is a very bad idea. Not because those people are wrong, but because they’re not going to be right every time. Nobody is. Especially, nobody is right about what YOU should do, every time.

Yeah, even me.

Follow a range of people. Read a variety of blogs. Listen not to one voice, but a full spectrum, and take what they all say under consideration. When you find a pattern, make note of it. When you see an outlier, question it. And above all, don’t venerate one person to the point of pop star idolatry.

No, not even the person who is saying exactly what you want to hear, or the things that everyone else seems to be nodding their heads to and retweeting/liking/+1ing.

Publishing in an industry made up of best-guesses and specific cases. The longer you spend in it, the more you understand that for every rule there is an exception, and for every market there is a trend, and it all changes. If you hew to one particular set of experiences, and follow their lead without lifting your head to see what else is happening, you may very well miss out on the hint or tip or advice that will change your career, or give you a deeper understanding of what you want and how to get it.

If you forget everything I’ve said in these pages, remember this: that “write what you know” doesn’t mean write less, but learn more.

Now get the hell out of this book, and go write something.

Acknowledgements

This project would never have been completed - and I would not have survived it - without my faithful beta-reader and butt-kicker, Barbara Caridad Ferrer. Week after week, often at the last minute, she was there to ensure that I was coherent, not too typo-laden, and generally speaking useful shit. As betas go, she's alpha.

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Table of Contents

Introduction

Who The Hell is Practical Meerkat?

1: The Full Stop

2: Not Screwing Up (The Things You Can Avoid)

3: How I Stopped Worrying And Learned To Love My Synopsis

4: Signings, Booksellers, And Ego-Bruising

5: Know Why You Write

6: You Can Say No

7: Writing And The Art Of Zen Revision

8: Writers’ Aids. No, Not Those Kind Of Aids (Beta Readers Vs Groups)

9: Conferences Vs. Retreats Vs. A Degree Program

10: How Much Research Is Enough?

11: How To Handle – And Not Handle – Packaging Disasters

12: Refilling The (Creative/ Emotional/ Physical) Well

13: Submit In Haste, Repent In Leisure…

14: Don’t Get Too Comfortable

15: Who Are You, Really?

16: In Publishing, Nobody Knows You’re A Dog (Or A Boy, Or A Girl, Or A Grandmother…)

17: You Are Not What You Write (Even If Other People Insist You Are)

18: What To Expect When You’re Expecting (Your First Book, Or Your 30th)

19: Survivor’s Guilt

20: The Good, The Bad, And The Copyedit

21: Book Expo America

22: How To Get Your Reading Groove Back

23: Did You Work Today?

24: Drop Dead Dates And You

25: How To Evolve

26: How Many Revisions Until You’re Revised?

27: A Rose By Any Other Name… Is An Iris

28: Circling The Wagons And Sharing The Ammo…

29: Let My Agent Go

30: When It’s Time To Leave Your Publisher – The Long Goodbye

31: Playing The Long Game Vs Book-By-Book

32: A Launch, A Launch, My Kingdom For A Launch?

33: Doubt Comes Naturally; A Subtle Ego, Less So

34: The Truth About “Kill Your Darlings” And Other (Allegedly) Useful Hints

35: “I Can Teach You Everything Except What’s Essential”

36: If You've Met Those People....

37: The P Word That Starts Fights Isn’t Politics, But Piracy…

38: Draft Zero, And Zero Ego

39: Follow No False Gods

40: Author Copies: Plague Or Menace?

41: Psssst. Wanna Buy A Book?

42: Considering The Clock

43: Weighing In On The Great Debate (Nanowrimo)

44: Shut Up, Calm Down, And Mellow The Hell Out

45: Almost But Not Quite

46: Roll Out The Role Models

47: Rabbit Is Always Late

48: Blame The Right Messenger

49: Guttering The Candle At Three Ends

50: Will That Be A Book For One, Or Two, This Evening?

51: When It All Comes Crashing Down

52: Don’t Listen To Me

Acknowledgements

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