I am NOT an expert

I think I've proven that.

Back when I started this journal, I wanted to record my experience writing a book and maybe seeing it published. The first book sucked and I shelved it. The second book was good but it needs a lot of attention to really make great. The third book is where I'm at now. Up to now, the journal has been recording my process surrounding the writing of a book. Now I can start blogging about maybe publishing one.

The Deathday Letter found representation. Right now DDL is in the revision phase, getting tweaks and touch-ups before it's sent out into the big, scary world. So I wanted to write about what I've learned up to this point. Some of it might not be right, some of it might not be right for everyone, but it's what I've learned.

1. Don't worry about who you're writing for - Seriously, writing's difficult enough without trying to envision your potential audience. Just write the best book you can, and worry about the rest later. That's what revisions are for.

2. Don't be afraid to look critically at something you've written and decide it's not good enough - That's how I feel with Jak and the Giants right now. I love the story, love the characters, but I'm not 100% behind it yet. With DDL, I pretty much couldn't wait to throw it at anyone who would read it. Even published authors write books that suck.

3. Research. Research publishers, agents, genres, everything. Start reading agent's blogs, and editor's blogs, and the websites that list good agents and bad agents. Make lists of the agents you think would really get your work. If you're writing fantasy, don't target agents who mostly handle mystery.

4. Don't EVER send your queries out until your book is as good as you can make it. Don't count on them taking six weeks to answer. Until you've read the book a thousand times and can find nothing in it you want to change, don't send out a single query.

5. Learn how to write a query letter. Really write one. The query letter is that short note that's going to make an agent drool to get your book. It's got to make them want nothing more than to read your book. That means you have to be able to distill your novel's plot into two paragraphs, a couple of sentences. It's way tougher than it looks.

6. Make sure that when you choose an agent, you choose someone who is at LEAST as enthusiastic as you are about your book. Accept nothing less. This is your career. You wouldn't take a job in an office that only sort of wants you, would you? No. You want to be somewhere where they track you down on the other side of the country to get ten minutes of you time, because they're that excited about your book.

7. Write, write, write. And read. Lots.

8. Don't forget to work out a lot. Trust me. My thirty pounds was a lot easier to put on than it's been to get off.

9. Don't give up hope or sell yourself short. Rejection is part of the game. Get used to it. Don't get angry about it. If you get a rejection letter, send a very short, polite thank you. You never know when you might speak to that person again. Maybe they don't like your first book, but they might love your second.

10. I'm not an expert. I'm a newbie muddling my way through this sloggy mess called publishing. Don't listen to anything I have to say.

I don't know how much I can talk about DDL. It's finished. I wrote it. I went on my European vacation and signed with an agency. We're doing revisions. Hopefully soon we'll sell it. I think that I'll write another entry later or tomorrow about how it all came about.

Zoom F'ing Zoom

So Europe. I got tickets on an airline called Zoom. I did my research and it got good marks, had been around a while, and they were a great price. Last Friday they went under. They suspended all flights and all tickets became worthless. I just about flipped out. Luckily I managed to find ticket leaving out of Miami (instead of Ft. Lauderdale) on Virgin Atlantic and the credit card (Go Visa) is reversing the charges to Zoom. But still way harrowing.

Now I’m just praying that Hannah, Ike, or Josephine aren’t in collusion to screw up my trip somehow. I mean seriously: 3 storms out there all at once? WTF man W.T.F?

Watched this wicked show from England called Skins. It was really neat. They did two seasons of it (ten episodes each) and then dumped the whole cast. Let me tell you why this is genius. The show is about a group of British teens in Bristol (ages 16ish to 19ish) and their lives. It’s very dramatic, but it follows them through their A-levels (college I think but somehow different from university). Each episode focuses on a different main character (which is genius in and of itself) but there are on-going plots. It got a lot of flack because of how frankly and in your face it dealt with drugs and drinking and sex (there’s a lot of frontal nudity and a lot of men’s asses you don’t want to see), but the cool thing is that by using a different character as the focus each episode, the larger arcs and the other characters get to be filtered through that one. So the super stud may come across as the hero in his episode, but when see through his ex-girlfriend’s eyes, he’s a real douche. I think it’s a fantastic way to get a well-rounded view of every character from every angle.

The brilliance of dumping the cast is that at the end of the second series (season) they all find out if they’re going off to university. As a general rule most shows don’t transfer well from highschool to college. So they chose to end it and move on to a new set of teens (they kept one characters little sister as the link between the two series). And they chose to let almost every storyline and relationship stay up in the air. You never know whether Tony and Michelle get back together or if Sid finds Cassie in NY or if Jal goes to music school. A lot of people complained about them deciding not to resolved every story line, but I love it because it’s how real life is. Storylines are NEVER tied up in real life. When you graduate HS, you don’t know what happens to the 300 people you hung around with. In fact, you probably don’t even know much about the dozen people you were close with. I only really kept in touch with one person from HS. So I think it was brilliant and ballsy that they chose to simply let that set of teens fade into life. Bloody brilliant.

I also read Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist (which I adored) and Looking for Alaska (which I adored much less) in preparation to write The Things We Leave Behind. I started working on it but I’m experimenting with POV’s which is fun. I won’t start working on it in ernest until I return from the vacation.

Getting Caught Up (and not getting caught)

I’m behind on all my projects. My short stories are behind, but I put the Shambles of Love into a critique group so I’m okay with holding off on any more shorts until I get some feedback on that. My current project ddl is going well but slowly.

Writing first person is difficult. DDL is first person and it’s tough to keep my narrator in line, to keep him from running away with my story. I think first person is maybe the hardest narrative form I’ve ever written. I’ve never done it for more than a short story and those were never good. So this is a challenge, hence taking it slowly.

I’ve put Plain Jane on hold. I discovered that writing a comic, not easy. It’s freaking hard as a matter of fact, and something that when I do needs my undivided attention.

I’m still editing Jak and that’s going okay.

Mostly I’m getting nervous about my trip to Europe. I’m a planner and I need to be planning things, but all the stuff that can be planned has been. It’s not like I can pack a month in advance, because believe me, if I could, I’d already be packed.

I have come up with a couple more short story ideas. I think when DDL is done I’m going to spend a couple of months doing nothing but writing short stories. Then I think I’ve already come up with my next project (unless Jak gets picked up in which case I’ll be writing two more books of him). The idea involves the Dead Letter Office in a post office and all the things my MC finds there.

I think I’ve said it before: Having too many ideas is a problem I’m glad to have!