Writing as reward for writing

Like those with multiple personalities, I reserve the right to change my mind.

In both our Novelist's Boot Camp workshops and in the book Novelist's Boot Camp, we stress that email, blogging, Facebook updates, and so on can be serious diversions from doing the hard work of inventing, developing, drafting, revising and editing your novel. No matter how small your goals are -- and we also stress making those goals readily and easily achievable -- writing a book-length work of fiction is still hard work. 

It may be pleasant hard work, but it is nonetheless hard work. So previously we've stressed eliminating the distractions of blogging, Tweeting, and so on in the name of progress.

Now, I'm not saying I was mistaken; I am simply saying I have reconsidered my position in the light of new information.

If you have a book-length project, you're number one writing priority must be that project, otherwise you will have that book as a project forever. At the same time, the more you challenge yourself to write in different forms, the better your writing becomes. In the same way that I once taught poetry to creative writing students as a vehicle to write better scenes for their novels, blogging pushes you to write tighter, and a Tweet or Facebook update forces you to get to the point in a hard-limited number of characters.

Practicing what I'm preaching, you can find Tweets on the writing life, the motorcycling life, the corporate communications life, and life in general at twitter.com\toddwrites, along with a Novelist's Boot Camp page on MySpace and Facebook. If you're interested in what the Novelist's Boot Camp author and presenter does for a day job, you can find a profile on LinkedIn. You're welcome to follow or "friend," as the case may be.

But the novel still comes first. I enjoy social media and have found that Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and Twitter are fun, they drive me to write more, and they help counteract the sense of isolation that comes from spending hours at a keyboard. Every now and then I have the privilege of helping someone make a connection, find a resource, or just exchanging pleasantries with friends. Some are writers, some bikers, some professional communicators, and some just friends. I like that and I think you will too. 

The social networks are addictive, of course. To help myself keep focus, I've taken to putting my work in my PC's startup folder so that I begin the day not by sorting through email but by making progress on my writing goals. I don't even open my browser until those goals are achieved--well, most days I don't (here's another rule--you get to be human)!

So write your novel--invent it, develop it, draft it, revise, edit, and proofread it--but also enjoy the wealth of opportunities present on the web and elsewhere to write.

Writing as a reward for writing--writers will understand.

Achieving Dreams vs Selling Shoes

When I present the Novelist’s Boot Camp Workshops around the country or discuss the book Novelist’s Boot Camp (from Writers Digest Books), I’m often asked about the best ways to market, promote, and sell novels.

My response usually begins with “first finish your draft and revise and edit it carefully.” I then say move on to your second work—get well into the “Invention” stage of your next work before you begin the marketing process of identifying target markets (publishers or literary agents), sending out queries, and so on.

This is advice gained from the great NY agent and multi-published author Evan Marshall. It’s great advice because it highlights a fundamental truth about writing book-length fiction that many aspiring authors—and quite a few published ones—fail to understand. And failing to understand this fundamental truth can lead to disappointment, unhappiness, dejection, and failure of an author’s career.

Creating—inventing, developing, drafting, revising, and editing and proofreading a book-length work of fiction is challenging but rewarding creative work. If you follow the strategy, process, and techniques in Novelist’s Boot Camp (the book or the workshop), each stage will have you taking what you’ve created in a previous phase, building on it, and making it better. At the end of the process you will have achieved a dream of a lifetime. Even if you toss the completed manuscript under your bed and never show it to anyone, you’ve accomplished something that few people in life ever even dream about, and no one on this earth can take that creative accomplishment from you.

Selling your novel is completely different and requires a radical change in mindset; you’re no longer building a dream, you’re selling shoes. You’re seeing, by way of research on publishers and agents, who might buy your book. You’re sending out queries. You’re amassing rejections. You’re smiling through pitch sessions at conferences. You’re waiting every day at the mailbox or email inbox. And when you do get the contract, you are just one more author with one more book and you start the process over again at book signings and conferences and wherever you can convince a potential reader to see if your size and color shoe—your book—fits.

This is because selling a book—whether it be to an agent or editor or a published book to a potential reader—is not a creative process, it is a business process. If I’ve painted this business process in bleak colors, just remember that business suits are normally gray. There’s a reason.

But we are authors because we are authors, and authors must see their work published, so we enter this gray business world and sell our manuscript as if it were a pair of shoes, noting how stylish, or classic, or sparkly, unique, or cute they are, and just how well they would fit an agent or publisher or how great they would be for a reader. Selling shoes is sometimes enjoyable—as long as you wash your hands afterwards.

But if we are wise, we’ll follow the advice in Novelist’s Boot Camp’s ending Drill (chapter) and ensure that after we send off the last query letter of the day or make our pitch to the last reader at the book signing, we have a creative project calling us back to do what we need to do to be who we are.

On criticism

It's said that there are two kinds of authors: those who cry in public over criticism of their work, and those who cry in private

In my own view criticism is not only a fact of life that we writers and authors live with, but also a potentially very valuable tool for improving the written piece and the skill of the writer. 

There is emphasis on the word "potentially."  While much has been written on the ill effects of destructive, acid criticism and the danger of responding to ill-informed, ill-advised criticism, the writer can do much to mitigate these effects and this danger by becoming their work's first critic.

To do so effectively first requires a change of mind set--it requires one to view their work as a piece of work.  There is a certain amount of emotional detachment necessary, but rather than detach completely from the work, the writer has to attach himself or herself to it in a different way. 

To be an effective first critic also requires an understanding of where the work is in the writing process (and so understanding the process itself), what are the appropriate questions to ask, and how best to ask those questions to identify areas for development or improvement. 

When writers become their own first critics, they have tremendous power and influence over their writing. The key, as written above, is to become an effective first critic--one who's criticism leads to a more empowered writer and a more powerful piece of writing.

The right view of marketing

This blog is dedicated to Thomas Joseph Hennessy, PhD.
September 23, 1926--November 27, 2008.

This blog has multiple purposes and serpentine logic--as usual.

In the Novelist's Boot Camp Workshops (not to be confused with a recent imitation "bootcamp for novelists"--sigh, if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then I'm flattered--and considering legal action), I'm often asked about how best to market a book.

My usual response is that the focus of the workshops is writing the best book you can write while doing it faster, better, and having more confidence, control, and fun. Marketing and promotion are topics that deserve a separate space, and for the overwhelming majority who attend our workshops their first priority needs to be completing a fully revised, edited, and proofread manuscript.

But there's more to the story.

That a completed manuscript is necessary before one enters the market is obviously true. Marketing--the novelist's first customer being an agent or acquisition editor--can't happen unless the novelist has something to market, the "thing" being a completed manuscript. After the "sale" to the agent and editor comes the second part of marketing, often called promotion. Again, the novelist needs product, although much can and should be done before the actual publication date.

But the Novelist's Boot Camp workshops normally don't specifically address either of these.

And the "why not?" has much to do with being true to one's self--which has much to do with Tom Hennessy.

Tom Hennessy died on 27 November 2008, following a tough battle with Alzheimer's Disease and Dementia. He loved and served his wife, his children, his family, and the students and institution of Indiana University loyally, faithfully, and successfully. He was a mentor, role model, coach, counselor, and friend to many. I consider myself exceptionally privileged to have had Tom in my life, and while the physical body of the old Irishman is gone, the gifts he gave me and many, many others will be passed on. Young men or women looking for a role model would be well advised to look to Tom Hennessy.

Tom Hennessy was many things, but above all he was sincere. He understood what was important and what was not, and his time, heart, soul, and energy went into the important things.

Time. Heart. Soul. Energy. These resources are finite. In the Novelist's Boot Camp workshops we understand this point, and we understand that things which matter most should not be sacrificed for things which matter least. What matters most for novelists, we feel, is the sincere and creative act of writing a book-length work of fiction. The workshops and book offer strategies, tactics, techniques, and advice on how to better engage the novelist's creative spirit and how to produce, from that spirit, a work in which the novelist can take pride.

All novelists, one can safely say, wish for commercial success. Yet commercial success is perhaps the most fleeting of all types. I'm sure Tom Hennessy wished for a better salary.

Tom Hennessy was sincere in his focus on what was important. He was true to himself, and in that he made himself a rich man. Those who knew him are richer for the relationship.

Be true to yourself. Nurture, exercise, and grow that creative spirit that is the sincere part of being a novelist and that manifests itself in the act of producing a book-length work of fiction: your novel. The marketing and whatever riches it might bring will pale in comparison to the reward you create for yourself.

Thank you, Mr. Hennessy.

The more"Aha!'s" the better

Every writer loves those "aha!" moments--those unexpected, out of the blue moments of pure clarity when the way forward in your manuscript suddenly becomes perfectly, obviously, right-there-in-front-of-you-all-the-time clear.  Those are wonderful moments and we authors live for them, whether it be suddenly understanding exactly what a character must do or say in a given scene or something more strategic and structural, such as the need for the author to put a face on her protagonist's opposition.

Do aspiring authors get those moments? Sure.  How about more experienced, multi-published, professional authors?  Surely, authors such as those must be able to manufacture many of these moments--surely they can simply becon the Muse and she will sprint to do their bidding?

Maybe--or maybe not.

Not too many days ago, I returned to an arctic Chicagoland after presenting a Novelist's Boot Camp workshop to the Southwest Florida Romance Writers in sunny and warm (at least for part of the time) Ft. Myers, Florida. 

The group was great, the venue wonderful, and Florida's weather a welcome break from the sub-zero chill of the Windy City.  Among the attendees were two great, well-established authors--Linnea Sinclair who writes wonderful SF adventures infused with romance, and Tina Wainscott, who has a string of successful, fascinating romantic suspense novels (and some new stuff coming under a new pen name, as well). Also present was the up-and-coming author Stacy Klemstein. Keep an eye on this one, especially in the Young Adult market.

We--yours truly as the presenter and all the attendees--all worked hard for the entire day.  The Novelist's Boot Camp workshops are interactive and, unlike many other writing workshops, require that attendees use what they've learned to make their own work better, and do so on the spot.

It was from this hard work that the "Aha!'s" came--first from one writer, then another. Some simply raised their heads with that awe-struck "I see--I get it" look, others were louder and bounced around in their seats. Others tore pages out of their notebooks and began scribbling furiously.  Body language changed. 

I've seen this before in other Novelist's Boot Camp workshops and it's always rewarding to me.

The insight I'll share here is the obvious one, but in an art such as crafting book-length works of fiction, it's an insight we often forget.  Success, progress, creative quantum leaps--they all come from the work of writing and the work of not just learning how to write better, but of writing your own work better.  To use a metaphor from the world of athletics, coaching is important, but it's putting that coaching into practice that actually improves performance.

That's true not only for aspiring authors but for those who are on their umpteenth manuscript.

Aha!

It's a natural thing

Can a writer benefit from a conscious analysis of his or her "natural" technique and strategy and making one or more of those better?

The common sense answer is "of course!" Artists, athletes, musicians, chefs, lovers--regardless of the activity, reviewing "what comes naturally" and consciously improving on that technique makes for a better painting, game, music, meal, or well, you know.

Writing a novel has been called part art and part science, and Novelist's Boot Camp is designed to help the novelist be better in both.

But does it work? I'd like to think so--RITA award winning and multi-published author Linnea Sinclair thinks so as well. Linnea is a self-admitted consummate "pantser"--writing by the seat of her pants. She does it exceptionally well too, as her best-selling books and awards testify. In writing, Linnea does what comes to her naturally.

Yet Linnea also recognizes the value of identifying an unconscious technique and refining that technique in order to become a better writer and produce better writing--so much so that shenot only commented on NBC in her blog, she'll be in the audience at the Novelist's Boot Camp workshop this coming week in Ft. Myers, Florida.

You can find out more about Linnea's books here.

She also recognizes that as an author progresses in his or her career, time and energy grow ever more at a premium. If that author wants to be at her most productive, meet the demands of the profession, and keep the fire of the love of writing alive, then the power of creativity has to be more organized, more disciplined, more focused. One of the end results is a better book. Another result is more fun.

And more fun--whether it be in writing, art, music, cooking, competitive athletics, or lovemaking--is good!

Novelist's Boot Camp a Book Examiner's 2008 Top 10 favorite!

I'm very happy and very proud to report that Novelist's Boot Camp has been named one of examiner.com's top 10 favorite books for 2008. 

From the article:

"This may sound like every other writing book on the shelves of your local Large Bookstore, but it differs radically...Novelist’s Boot Camp is definitively one of the
most down and dirty useful writing books on the market today. Where
other writing books give nebulous advice like “Be sure to develop your
characters,”

"The Novelist’s Boot Camp actually leads
you by the hand through the process. While other writing tomes tell you
to be sure to revise your first draft and look for inconsistencies,
Stone details a specific 9 step revision process that is fully
explained, step by step in the fifth section of the book."

You can read the complete article here.

I'm glad this article's writer--and many others as well--found the book helpful enough t recommend it.  For a "how-to" book, usefulness is the essential measure of worth. In other words, how much and how well does it help the reader make progress towards his or her goal? Evidently this "Book Examiner" feels Novelist's Boot Camp does quite a good job of just that.

I receive private recognition--emails, notes, letters, and so on--thanking me for writing Novelist's Boot Camp or presenting the Novelist's Boot Camp workshops. I treasure those, and public recognition such as the above is wonderful as well.

Not a bad holiday gift at all!