A Familiar Ring

Well, here are with the holiday season upon us again. I have to confess with as busy as I've been with preparing for the upcoming holiday, as well as the sixteenth birthday of my firstborn, I haven't had much time to write lately. Until a few hours ago, I'd even forgotten I needed a topic for my weekly blog. As I contemplated this, I came to a somewhat sobering realization.

I've been writing this blog for more than a year now. If you've read it since the beginning, you know it was the encouragement of friend and fellow author Patrick Hester that motivated me to do so. That alone isn't the sobering thought. The more sobering thought is that a year has passed and I nearly wrote the same topic today that I wrote this time last year.

At this time last year, I was wishing for one thing. I wanted a literary agent to extend an offer of representation or a publisher to agree to publish my latest novel. I didn't get what I wanted last year, and it appears I won't get it this year.  I have only a few queries outstanding, and this is the time of year when most literary operations slow down.

Thinking about this makes me realize, I'm about to enter my sixth year in the professional writing industry, and I've yet to break mainstream's glass ceiling. The industry has also changed a great deal from the time I started.When I first started out, the e-book was still an innovation of the future. Now there are fewer brick and mortar bookstores as more authors go strictly digital. Case in point, my friend and fellow author Erica Stanciu just had her first novel Electrify Me released last week, and it's digital only. As a purist, I'm a bit sad to see books going the way of the VHS and beta tapes, but I understand. I understand and I digress.

Let me make one thing clear. While I'm sad not to have mainstream publication, I'm grateful for the success I've found on my favorite online site. Still, as the years pass, it feels a bit like my dream slips further away. So, I have to make a choice. I can either allow my dream to evolve with the changing of technology, or I can lament about what I think will never be.

Whatever choice I make, one thing is still true. I want the same thing for Christmas this year that I wanted last year. Hence, the familiar ring, which seems appropriate for this time of year.

I am not Alone

Last week, I wrote about a contest I'm planning to enter. The deadline is this week, and I'm in the final stages of polishing my entry so I'm feeling good.  It seems I'd no sooner posted last week's blog than a new contest presented itself.  This contest is one I'm most excited about because of its rules.

The contest is being sponsored by an Australian publisher and is open to young adult writers world wide. The entry must be in English, which is standard for a lot of contests.  Even better, the entry cannot be a fantasy novel. It must be a young adult novel that addresses issues being faced by teens and can include swearing and sexual content provided it's not gratuitous. The publisher sponsoring the contest feels the young adult market is overrun with fantasy novels and it's time to give teens characters they can relate to.

Finally! Someone else feels the way I do. For those of you who know me personally or have had a chance to follow this blog or check out my web site, you know what my dream was when I started writing young adult novels. I wanted to have a line of books that featured disabled teens in leading, romantic roles. I believed (and still do) that it was an area being largely overlooked by authors and publishers. Most agents and publishers I approached with my first offering didn't think the concept would sell.  One agent took a chance on me only to be told fantasy novels were the next big thing and I should write a vampire novel.

You know what? I wrote that vampire novel. I wrote a sappy, sentimental four book series that follows the new formula of vampire boy falls for human girl. When my agent started pitching it, publishers said it wasn't sturdy enough to compete with the likes of Twilight or True Blood.  They agreed I had talent and suggested I try an original fantasy concept.  I not only took their advice, I took it to the extreme.  I penned a trilogy that features the son of Satan as a leading and sympathetic character.

Given the boldness of the concept, I had some reservations about how it would be received by readers. Imagine my surprise to learn they love the story. They've embraced the characters and are clamoring for more each week.  They're open minded enough to realize it's only a story and by no means an expression of my actual belief system. With the support of a fan base that's more than sixteen hundred strong and growing every day, I've developed a real love for writing this genre.  I've even started a new novel and have another concept ready to go as I know I've mentioned before.

Despite the success I've seen with this, I've often thought of my original reason for entering into the young adult genre. In my more melancholy moods, I accuse myself of selling out to sell. I usually let go of that idea pretty fast because I have no right to complain. My fans are supportive and have made me feel good about my work and discover a love of writing again. They remind me writing is more than a business which keeps me writing.

Fan support and success aside, I'm excited for the opportunity this new contest offers. I plan on throwing my hat in the ring and waiting to see what happens. As with most contests of this nature, competition is stiff so chances of winning are slim. Still, it'll be fun to get back to my roots and it's nice to see I'm not alone in thinking the young adult genre is about more than fantasy novels.

Here We Go Again- Part II

I’ve heard it said that contest placements can help boost a writer’s credibility with potential agents and publishers. I don’t know if this is true or not, and I’ve in fact discussed this very issue in a prior post. 

Setting aside whether having a contest win or even modest placement makes a writer more attractive to agents and publishers, there are some contests with rather lucrative prizes. I’m not just speaking in monetary terms either. While some contests do not offer cash prizes to the winners, some offer publication in their magazine or on their web site or both. In lieu of a cash prize, some offer valuable feedback from an agent or editor, which can be instrumental in improving the writer’s chances of publishing that or even another work in the future. There are those organizations with a bigger budget who offer bigger prizes. They offer not only exposure to a larger audience but publication of novels and the cash advances that go along with that.

The size of the contest or the budget of the organization sponsoring it can often determine the amount of the entry fee. Writer’s Digest has rather reasonable entry fees for all of their contests which isn’t surprising considering how well known and respected they are in the industry. For its annual breakthrough novel award contest, Amazon has yet to charge writers an entry fee. Again, this makes sense as they have more capital than the smaller groups who host contests to support writers and gain exposure for them.

It’s often the amount of the entry fee in conjunction with the timing of the contest that drives my ability and willingness to participate. For instance, I always participate in the annual Amazon contest due to its lack of entry fee. That being said, I’m always on the lookout for contests because I’m of the mind that any exposure is better than none.

Last week, on the Amazon discussion boards, I had the good fortune of stumbling across an upcoming contest for young adult writers. Even better, this contest is geared to female authors in the young adult field. As excited as I was to discover this, I was a little leery of participating when I realized the deadline was December 15, 2011. With a deadline so close to the holidays my knee jerk reaction was to say I wouldn’t be participating. After doing a little more research on this contest, I was pleased to discover the entry fee is nominal. Based on this, along with the fact that the winner will have an excerpt of her novel published on their web site and will also gain feedback from three leading agents in the industry, I’ve decided to go for it.

For those of you who don’t know, competitions like these can be stiff.  There are a lot of good writers out there who aren’t getting the recognition they’re due. I like to think I’m one of them, but I won’t know if I don’t try.

So… here we go again! Wish me luck.

The Next Big Thing

Not long ago, I read an article in Writer’s Digest magazine in which the author talked about the hole left in the young adult genre. This was attributed to the ending of both the Harry Potter and Twilight series and asked upcoming authors if they thought they could fill that void.

Let me be the first to say I’m no JK Rowling nor would I ever compare my books to hers. As to Stephanie Myer, I can’t say if I could hold a candle to her work due to my long standing Twilight aversion which I don’t want to go into again. It should be noted here that both of these authors wrote fantasy novels about creatures not confirmed to exist. Until recently, I’ve confined all of my young adult novels to true to life situations in a genre best described as teen lit. It was a former agent who challenged me to step into the fantasy and paranormal genres because that’s what publishers told him the target audience wanted. Though I complied, I’ve been unsuccessful in finding a mainstream following. I have enjoyed a nice online following but that’s a discussion for another time.

I have to be honest in saying that in the last year, I’ve actually enjoyed writing something different. I’ve also been fortunate that it's been met with a warm welcome from my online audience. As I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, writing is this genre has also applied the pressure to me. Once you establish yourself in a certain niche that’s what fans expect to see from you. What many people don’t realize is that several authors enjoy writing in multiple genres and do so rather well. The problem is fans don’t want to see Stephen King write a romance or Nicholas Sparks pen a horror novel. Of course, as with everything there are exceptions to every rule. James Patterson writes both intriguing suspense novels and heartwarming romance novels. Judy Blume has written in middle grade, young adult and chic lit. It can be done and done well, but it's rare. 

For those of us who can't crossover and are looking to break into the young adult genre, I'm here to tell you paranormal romance and fantasies are the next big thing. How do I know? I've seen the demand first hand. While looking for a book in Barnes and Noble this weekend, I was blown away to see an entire section of shelves devoted to teen paranormal romance. I can't even recall such a thing existing when I was a teenager. Does that make me sound old? I've also seen what's climbing up the on line rankings of the writer's site I belong to. Not to toot my own horn too much, but fans are clamoring for more of paranormal young adult romance and asking me why they aren't published. 

I don't know why I'm not published, but I tell you what. I'm ready to be the next big thing. My paranormal young adult romance trilogy is complete and I'm working on a new novel in the genre and already have a solid premise for the next one. 

Are you paying attention literary agents and publishers? I have an established following and am prepared to contribute to the exhaustive marketing of my work and am thinking beyond the completion of my sure to be popular breakout series. Your next big thing is here. Just drop me an email!

Think this shameless plea will work? Me either, but you never know.

Shame on Me

“Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”

I’m sure you’ve heard this phrase before in some form or another. The gist of it is that you can give everyone a chance at least once. You can believe what they say once. If they do or say the opposite of what you were first led to believe, the fault lies with them. You didn’t know they’d let you down. Now, if they let you down and you give them another chance only to be let down again, the fault lies with you. After the first letdown, you should’ve had an insight into their character.

After what happened to me this weekend, I think this quote can be more liberally applied. I’m ashamed to say it wasn’t another person letting me down. It was my own carelessness that let me down. It goes a little something like this…

With the three day holiday weekend ahead, I was looking forward to the opportunity to have a chance to write. For the last few months, I’ve been investing most of my free writing time in a new story. Initially the story was slow to get off the ground. Of late, it’d gained quite a bit of momentum, and I had the sense I was nearing the end. If you don’t recall from prior posts, I never really know how my stories are going to end. This isn’t something I plan in advance. Instead, I let the characters dictate how the story will take shape. That being said, this isn’t how I let myself down.

Given the upswing the new story was on, I’ve been very excited about it lately. In fact, I’ve been so excited that I’ve been working on it during my lunch hour at the day job. I want to clearly state that I do not take my employer’s time to pursue my writing. I have a strong work ethic, and I take my day job seriously. However, lunch is my time and I can often be found banging out a new passage of my latest creation during my lunch hour. This was the case on Thursday afternoon. I spent about a half-hour working on a new scene and then saved and closed the file. Then I removed the flash drive from the PC and went on about my business.

I’m sure you can imagine my horror when I plugged the drive into my lap top on Thursday night and received an error message whose basic point was that the file was corrupted and couldn’t be opened. I needed to complete text recovery. On first seeing this, I wasn’t actually too panicked. This was partly due to the extreme case of denial I was already suffering from. The other reason I wasn’t panicked is that I have a computer genius for a husband, and he’s recovered lost files for me before. I thought he could probably get most if not all of it back.

Now is where I must make the shameful confession. I’ve lost one of my files before. I didn’t just lose any old file then. I lost the entire third story in my trilogy, the entire third and almost completed story. After much crying, begging and hair pulling on my part and a lot of painstaking effort on my husband’s part, he managed to get back all but fifty pages of that story. That hurt, but at least it wasn’t the four hundred fifty I was first faced with losing.

Never again, I swore. I was never going to lose a story again. I’d learned my lesson and was going to be more vigilant about making back up copies. My husband pitched in to help. He set up the MS Word program to auto save every ten minutes and to always make a back up copy. He backed up everything on my flash drive onto his PC hard drive as well as my lap top hard drive. And every week, I would dangle my flash drive in front of him and ask that he back up its contents on his hard drive. And every week, he would without fail.

Then it happened. A virus hit my lap top and wiped it out beyond recovery. No problem. I had all my stories backed up. With just a little bitterness, but no concern, I bought a new lap top and my husband plugged it in and I went back to work. There’s a big but here, and no I’m not talking about mine! But I went back to work without setting the auto save and requesting a back up always be made. With the sting of my loss having faded, I grew lazy and complacent. There was always another day or time for me to back it all up.

Wrong! The file corrupted before that time came. The only back up copy we retained was one hundred four pages in length. I’d already gotten to page two hundred thirty four. That was more than half my story lost in an abyss of corrupted files. Again, I begged and cried, but this was different. Something happened to the text in the story. It pulled in text from a different story and read that as belonging to the new story. Don’t ask me why or how. I don’t know enough about computers to tell you, and I really don’t care. All I care about is the fact that I’ve lost half of a story I can’t get back. Yes, I spent my weekend attempting to reconstruct it and have managed to pen fifty pages, but I can’t get out of my head. I keep thinking the other version was better and this is terrible. I keep asking myself how and why I’d let this happen again.

I can’t answer that question. All I can say is shame on me! Don’t let it happen again.

Accuracy is Important, Even for the Fiction Writer

 If you ask me how long I’ve been a writer, you get two different numbers.  I’ve been a writer since I learned to put the words to paper, but I’ve been what you’d call a professional writer since 2006.  To see the latter number in print shocks me a bit since it feels like I’ve been in this business much longer.

When I decided to make the leap from writing for fun to writing as a profession, I ran out and bought numerous books on the subject. While I purchased the typical books on how to snag an agent and writing the perfect synopsis and query letter, I also picked up several selections on the process of writing. One of my favorite is a skinny volume from Jack M. Bickham titled The 38 Most Common Mistakes Fiction Writers Make. To this day, Bickam’s book remains one of the favorite in my library.

In his book, Bickham often takes a tongue in cheek approach to assisting writers in seeing the error of their ways. One such chapter is devoted to showing writers the importance of making sure their stories are accurate and their descriptions reflect that. To illustrate his point, he tells of an instance in one of his western novels in which one of his characters used a gun that hadn’t even been manufactured in the year the novel was set. An astute reader picked up on this and fired off an email to Bickham which pointed out the mistake.

This may sound like the reader is being too critical, but the fault lies with Bickham for failing to do his research.

Too often, fiction writers take the approach that accuracy isn’t as important because it’s a story and not a work of non-fiction. As much as it pains me to admit it, I too have recently fallen into this trap. I could go on the defensive and concoct some excuses for the oversight, but the fault is mine. I should’ve been a better editor, and the readers have caught me red handed. In my case, the problem wasn’t with research. My novel is pure fantasy and conjecture and has no root in reality at all. My mistake was failing to keep track of what I wrote so that critical details weren’t changed. The most glaring example I can recall had to do with the introduction of a new character. Character A was introducing Character B to his brother and explained his acquaintance to her by saying they shared a class together. The problem with this was that earlier in the story I told readers that Character A was in all of the same classes as his brother. Therefore, the brother should’ve already known Character B and known how she and Character A met. This is a perfect example of Bickham’s point and my own point that editing is more than correct grammar, punctuation and spelling. Editing also means getting the facts right and keeping your details straight.

Readers become emotionally invested in your characters. This is a good thing. It’s what you want. It means they’re going to keep reading. The flip side of this is that they’re so enamored with the story, they often recall what you the writer would think are minute details. While the readers may point out the inconsistencies, it’s not their job to do so. It’s our job as writers to get it right so that we don’t interfere with their reading experience.

So what’s the solution? I’m sorry to say there’s no easy answer. What works for one writer may not work for the other. It could mean making outlines and charts. If you don’t want to go that far, ask a trusted friend or family member to give it a thorough read, but proceed with caution if you make this choice. It’s sometimes been my experience that my family and friends are hesitant to point out mistakes or admit they don’t like my story for fear they’ll hurt my feelings. Ideally, you should hire a professional editor to catch these things, but who can afford that in this economy? Certainly not the fledgling writer.

Whatever you decide, you must face on thing. Even in fiction writing, accuracy and details count. Ignore this and face the consequences!

Taking my own Advice

Since the inception of this blog, I’ve always confined my topics to writing. The intent has been to show the trials and triumphs of the professional aspiring author. The hope is that I can not only educate budding authors of any age, but I can also serve as a source of inspiration.

Though it’s rare, once in a while, I may include a personal note on this blog. However, my Face Book posts and tweets on Twitter are a little more liberal with this type of information. That being said, I’d like to take a moment to address a topic that’s part personal and part professional. After all, regardless of the old adage about leaving your personal problems at the door of your job, you can’t help being professionally influenced by personal factors.

If you recall, a few weeks ago, I was a bit concerned about my third and final installment in a rather popular trilogy I’ve been sharing in an online writer’s community. To recap, fans were clamoring for the story, and I had some reservations about being able to live up to their expectations. While I’m pleased to report they’ve embraced the novel and are giving it rave reviews thus far, I’ve run into a new problem; something I never considered would happen.

Fans are so rabidly enjoying the work that they devour my chapters in short order and quickly ask for more. In the past, I could meet this demand and was good to upload a chapter every few days. As S.E. Hinton pointed out in the title of one of her lesser known novels, that was then, this is now. I don’t have the same luxury of time I had in the past, which I’ve been upfront in sharing with fans each time I post. Still, I get the tongue in cheek threats to discontinue following me if I don’t post faster or the outright refusal to read any more of my work until I’ve uploaded more. Each time this happens, I have the urge to reach out to each of these people to explain the cause of the delays. Seeing as how that could be rather time consuming, I thought I’d do a one size fits all post. So, here goes.

Writing is not my full time career, though I’d love it to be. Instead, it’s a hobby that’s slowly been blossoming into a secondary career. My proverbial day job is a supervisory position with my local government that requires I be there for the standard eight hour a day forty hour week. I wish I could say I run right home from my job and go straight to my computer to bang out my latest literary creation, but I’m lucky to see the computer on weeknights. As the mother of two daughters, both of whom are active in extra curricular activities, I’m often shuttling them to practices. Days that aren’t devoted to practice are dedicated to competitions in their respective sports which I make every effort not to miss. And for the record, I’m not a single parent. I have a husband who takes an active role in our children’s lives, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have parental obligations to fulfill. With a full weekday schedule, you’d think my weekends were my time to pursue my passion for writing. This is true to a small degree. My children have weekend practices and events that my husband and I have to drive them to and then attend in support of them. Weekends are also the time I set aside for grocery shopping, housework, laundry and other domestic tasks.

With this many demands on my time, I’m forced to budget time to write. And you know what they say about the best laid plans. I had a very fine plan to get in a few hours of writing yesterday that was unwittingly sabotaged by a surprise visit from the in laws. Because my time to write is few and far between during this busy season, I guard it greedily. Rather than spend all of my time uploading chapters of a novel that’s already written, I like to work on new offerings as well. After all, when this trilogy comes to an end, fans will be expecting something new that lives up to the standard of this trilogy.

To be fair, I could be in worse predicaments than having my work adored by impatient people. It could be panned by them. Worse, no one could have any interest in it and then my demanding personal life would be moot.

In my day job, I tell my subordinates you can only do what you can only do. That’s advice I need to apply to this situation. I can only do what I can only do. Hopefully my fans will understand.