Category: On Writing

Finished a New Novel

If you find yourself checking all the hot political websites four or five times a day about now, then you know you’re a political junkie.  Me, I’m glad it’s almost over, since I can then devout all that mental energy to something more germane to my own life.  If things go as the polls currently predict, it’s going to be a big, big day for Democrats tomorrow, but it will also be a sobering reality they inherit.  My big hope is that they don’t overreach, and a lot of that depends on how a President Obama governs.  But as one who’s been following his career since his 2004 convention speech, and having read both his books, I think it’s fair to say he won’t let the most extreme elements of his party run wild — which would then swing the pendulum back in a couple years and usher in another Gingrich-type revolution. 

I never bought into the foolish myth that he’s Jimmy Carter reincarnate or that he’s a pie-in-the sky dreamer.  What’s funny is that my take on him has always been the opposite:  he’s a hardened Chicago politician who, while leaning left in his positions, has a pragmatic approach to government.  I was proven right when I predicted a year ago he would win the nomination, and hopefully I’ll be proven right again.  There’s a lot of work for Democrats to do, as anyone who’s been living through the Bush years can attest, and it’s going to take a hardened Chicago politician with a pragmatic approach to get it done.

Now, onto the writing front . . .

The big news is that I’ve finished a new novel, another middle grade fantasy I’m very excited about (and if you’re wondering what a middle grade fantasy is, think Harry Potter or His Dark Materials).  It’s with the trusted First Reader (aka, the spouse) right now, and after that, I may get the reactions of a couple other readers, and then it’s onto the literary agent for her take.  Fingers crossed.  Although my first sold book, The Last Great Getaway of the Water Balloon Boys, is straight YA, the first book I wrote — or at least the first book I decided was good enough to market — was also a middle grade fantasy.  That book wowed a lot of my first readers, landed me my first literary agent, and ended up with a few nibbles from editors, but, alas, no bites.  I still think that one’s a solid book, but I believe this one is even better, with lots of series potential.  It’s heavy on adventure, suspense, and secrets, which made it a lot of fun to write, and hopefully will make it fun to read as well.  We’ll see what others think.

Of Summer Whirlwinds and a Bit About Blogging

KatThe long days of summer are here, and the family is busy as usual.  Swimming lessons, pony camp, Safety Town camp, fun at the park, running through sprinklers, birthday parties, backyard barbecues, bicycling with our tandem bike and our bike trailer, riding the motorcycle to work, camping in our new tent trailer — between working and everything else, there’s hardly time to take a breath.  The writing productivity is still not quite what I’d like, certainly not what I’d like for where I want to go, but it’s getting there.  Another book coming along soon.  Meanwhile, head over to The First Book and check out some of the new interviews.  In the last few weeks. we’ve profiled Shana Burg’s A Thousand Never Evers, Stephanie Kuehnert’s I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone, Julie Kramer’s Stalking Susan, and Caitlin Kittredge’s Night Life.  The blog continues to be fun, fairly low maintenance, and hopefully proving to be worthwhile for the authors.  (Each interview gets 600-1000 readers the week it comes out, and then more over time.  It’s not in the 600,000 readers a day range that a place like DailyKos gets, but hopefully it’s worth the twenty minutes investment of time the authors put into the interview questions.)

Speaking of blogging, a discussion’s popped up a few times online, and then again in a private listserv I’m on, about the value of doing a blog to a fiction writer with professional aspirations (and by that, I mean a fiction writer who wants to sell their work for money and reach a large audience while doing it). 

Here’s my take:  if you enjoy doing a blog, would do it anyway, and you’re not an idiot lambasting editors who rejected your work, it probably won’t hurt.  In fact, there are a few people (here’s one, here’s another, and here’s one more) who’ve shown it can help your career at least a bit.  If you can do it in a way that is very focused and very limited with your time, as I did with The First Book blog, it can be a good thing, too.  But as a rule, no.  In fact, the vast majority of fiction writers with professional aspirations would be much better off spending that time writing fiction rather than spending it on their blogs. 

However, all blogs are not equal.  The term blog has come to encompass a huge variety of styles and types, everything from the teenager blogging about his problems getting a date to the prom to the freelance journalist writing about Kosovo.  It applies to someone like me, who posts, at most, a couple times a month, to a the hugely popular Gizmodo, where you’ll find at least three or four posts an hour.  It applies to my friend, who blogs beautifully but irregularly about her life and her son’s battle with Autism.  A blog is a tool; how it’s used varies greatly.

Me, I’m never going to be much of a blogger.  It’s just too easy for me to waste time doing it, and I know for a fact that it takes time away from my fiction.  There’s little to no evidence that it will lead to greater sales; most writers with popular blogs work them very hard, and most of them have a platform or presence in their chosen field that gives them as much exposure as their blog, so it’s nearly impossible to qualify exactly how much impact their blog might have on their sales.  So for me, it’s always going to be a very tiny part of my writing output.  And if it wasn’t a least a little fun, I wouldn’t do it at all.

Yes, you’ll hear the token writers who say “I wouldn’t have a career without my blog because such-and-such editor read my work on my blog and asked for it.”  Yes, it does happen; and yes, it’s as rare as lightning striking someone on the head on a sunny day.  If you hear that comment and think you, too, should be blogging so you can be “discovered,” then you’re not taking the right lesson from it.  What you should be thinking is that these writers weren’t getting their work out in front of enough editors, otherwise they would have had editors knocking down their doors for their work.  Usually, when I press such writers, they admit that they weren’t actively submitting their work, or that they gave up after a handful of rejections.  

Remember, however, that this is all regarding professional fiction writers. If you write for fun, just want to build a little audience for your work and see what happens, there’s nothing wrong with doing a blog.  In fact, there’s lots of reasons to do it — making new friends who share a common interest, networking, etc.  I’m not anti-blog at all.  I’ve read some beautiful writing on blogs.  But if you’re a fiction writer who hopes to someday make a living from your work, and you’ve got this idea put into your head that you really should be doing a blog, that it might be hurting your career if you’re not, that’s pure bunk.  You’re going to develop readers by writing great fiction, not by writing great blog posts.  Believe me, nobody perusing the book stand at your local grocery store is going to care at all whether you blog or not.  Blogging can also be the ultimate time waster and the ultimate writing avoidance tool.  It’s why I don’t have a comments section on my own site.  It would be one more thing I’d obsess about, and I’ve already got too many things to obsess about it as it is.  So you’ve got to know yourself, too, and if you do blog, do it in a way that works for you.

One last point, and one you may think is counter to everything I’ve just said (but really isn’t):  I do think that every fiction writer with professional aspirations should have a regularly updated Web page, just so your readers can find your work.  It’s cheap and easy, so there’s no reason not to do it.  Heck, for $8/month, you’ll get more than you’ll ever need.  I don’t think you’re going to pick up a lot of new readers this way, but it can help the readers you do have find even more of your work, and that’s a good thing. 

Those Who Can, Teach

  • There’s nothing better than listening to an author you enjoy read his or her own work — if that author knows how to read for an audience.   I’m currently listening to Neil Gaiman’s M is for Magic on my MP3 player, and he really does bring his fiction to life.  Gotta love that English accent, too.   
  • If you’re a serious writer who needs help getting your craft to a publishable level, or even a professional writer whose career has stagnated, then you really should check out the workshops taught by Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith here on the Oregon coast.  Every few years, they do a slate of workshops, and they’re in one of those phases now.  They’re pros, having made their living from their writing most of their adult lives, and so you’ll be learning from people who have actually walked the path.  I can’t recommend them enough.  Be forewarned, however:  they’re not for the faint of heart.  You should only consider attending if you’re serious about writing commercial fiction — and by commercial, I mean fiction aimed at reaching the widest audience possible.
  • Check out the The First Book blog.  Sara Hantz is up with her book, The Second Virginity of Suzy Green.  A snippet:  “I’d been writing chick-lit for a couple of years, when in November 2005 I decided to try a teen-lit. After writing 3 chapters I did what you’re not meant to do and started to send it to agents, to test the water. Ooops!!! That’ll teach me. The story seemed to hit the right nerve because straight away five agents asked for the full manuscript and six for partials.”

Minor Changes to The First Book Blog

Ward Cleaver

Up this week on The First Book:  Jenny Gardiner and her debut novel,
SLEEPING WITH WARD CLEAVER.  Go read the interview.  Fun stuff.

The traffic has been steadily increasing on site, which is great for all the authors over there.  There’s no reason to do this unless it’s helping writers.  You may have noticed that I made some changes to the design.  There were some things that bothered me about the old design — the main one being that if you linked to an individual interview, you lost the sidebar.  So I switched over to this design and made a few other improvements, too.  Don’t worry, I don’t plan on being one of those obsessive types who changes the design every few months.  It really was for functional reasons.  When I came up with this idea, I wanted to keep it simple since I don’t have much free time as it is, but I still wanted to do something that would 1) help writers — my way of paying forward, 2) help keep me up to date with what publishers are coming out with these days, and 3) raise my own Internet profile in a way that wasn’t obnoxious.  I think it’s accomplished all three things, while providing interesting information for readers, writers, agents, and editors.

Other stuff:

  • My goal of writing 1000 words every day, no exceptions, has paid off big time; my productivity is back where it was before my Second Child Drop Off.  I wrote a post a while back on the differences between a project writer and a process writer, and it’s clear I’ve got be a process writer right now.  But man, the pages do add up when you’re cranking out three or four every day.  It feels good to be rolling again, and what’s really great is that I think I can even do better. 
  • If you’re a newly pregnant woman or know one who is, consider buying my friend Jodi Neelin’s little book, The Pregnasaurus.  It’s a great little book, funny, charming, and touching at the same time.  Think of it as a children’s book for adults.