Exploration (or: How I Got Published, Part 10)

If you’re writing in the science fiction/fantasy genre, then conferences, conventions, and symposiums (hereafter referred to simply as “cons,” because I don’t want to write all that out) are a must.* I’ve been going for about eight years, and I love it. At first, they were my way of exploring the genre—expanding what I knew, and how I wrote. While they still serve that function, they also help me in other ways, now , namely networking, getting my name out there, and meeting new people.

Basically, cons are important. Let me get right down to it and tell you why you should be attending them:

• To meet people! Other authors, agents, editors, reviewers, and—most importantly—fans (current or potential). Much of this counts as networking, which I’ll talk more about next week, but a great deal of it is just making friends (which is really what good networking comes down to anyway, I think). I’ve met many people at cons, a fair number of whom have become good friends. These people might be able to help my writing career someday, and they might not, but the truth is that’s not what’s important. (Contrary to what I though when I first attended cons—I thought I should only find and associate with people who could further my career, and I couldn’t have been more wrong. I wasted a lot of time at cons, psyched myself out of meeting a lot of cool people, and I generated more than a few awkward moments because of this mentality.) So go forth and meet folks—turns out they’re actually pretty cool.
• To learn things! Most cons offer a plethora of panels and presentations on just about anything you can imagine, from the craft of writing to Battlestar Galactica to how to find/speak to agents and editors (and how not to, incidentally, which might be even more important) and more.
• To see how professionals act at cons! If you’re an aspiring author, you’re also an aspiring participant on panels, readings, and signings. Get used to that, it’s an important part of the business—and a fun part, too! By watching professionals speak on panels, read their work, and interact with fans (and with other pros, for that matter), you can get an idea of how to act now. Ain’t nothing wrong with acting like a professional now, by the way—it’ll just make you more prepared for things down the road when you get invited to participate in cons.**
• To get out of your own head! Writing is a solitary thing, and I actually think that’s a big reason why many of us choose to pursue it. But no one is an island, and just because I’m an introvert doesn’t mean that I can survive on my own—I can’t. I need people, I need interaction, and at cons I can interact with my people. It’s a good thing.

If you’re an aspiring writer, you probably already know how important they are. So let’s get practical. Here are some tips on how to attend cons:

• Be nice—to everyone. Whether you’re interacting with a pro (another author, an agent, an editor, etc.), a fan, or someone in between, kindness is the best strategy. If we can find a way to do this simply because it’s something we want to do, that’s ideal. But, if you need real motivation, just consider the fact that literally anyone you meet at cons could one day be a pro, and could one day have a say in your career. If you were kind to them when they were a wide-eyed fan, they’ll remember it. If you weren’t, well, they’ll remember that too, if you get my meaning.
• Go with someone, or in a group, if possible. I didn’t do this, and I regret it. I wish I’d had the gumption to be a bit more outgoing at those early conventions, to ask folks I knew and friends I had if they’d be willing to share the cost of a hotel room or go talk to agents together or something. I didn’t, and I think things might’ve been a bit easier—or at least a bit more fun—if I had. If you don’t have friends that go to cons (I didn’t really, at least not at first), don’t panic. As I’ve said before, you can make friends there. Be nice, reach out to others. It’s scary, but it’s rewarding.
• Soak up the panels and presentations. There’s a lot of information to be had, and I still try to absorb as much of it as I can. However, don’t focus too much on the panels. I did that in the beginning because I felt awkward walking alone outside of them. Panels were safe to me, so I filled my schedule from dawn to dusk. I learned a lot, but I think my time would’ve been better spent—and happier—if I’d focused more on connecting with other people.
• Along those lines, TALK TO PEOPLE. Whether it’s in hallways between panels, in the dealer’s room, and especially at the bar in the evenings. If a group invites you out to a meal with them, go ahead and skip that “Networking” panel (or whatever) that you were going to attend and go to lunch with them! Doing is better than thinking about doing 100% of the time. (That said, don’t invite yourself to go along with a group to lunch—if you get an invite, be gracious and happy about it. If you don’t, no worries—you will.)
• Be as professional as possible. You don’t have to a suit or anything, or even business casual for that matter—I usually wear Buffy t-shirts and a jacket of some kind (because they usually keep temps low at these cons)—but you should look nice. (Of course, that might have different connotations depending on your personal style, and that’s okay—cons are a wonderful place to be exactly who you are. Although I will say, if you’re trying to network, it might be a good idea to hold off on the cosplay, as fun as that can be.) Shower daily and wear deodorant (you don’t think I’d have to say this, but trust me, I do). Brush your teeth. Carry mints around. First impressions are a big deal; be conscious of yours.
• Take advantage of free/cheap opportunities. There are a lot of them at cons, mostly in the forms of kaffeeklatsches, workshops, pitch sessions, and of course panels. Free things are the best—if you can get into a conversation with an author and ten other people (a kaffeeklatsch), go for it! But you find an opportunity to have your work critiqued by a couple pros and it costs twenty bucks or so, I suggest you take it. I did that a few years ago, and it was more than worth it—one of the pros who critiqued my work even gave me a shout out (sort of) in one of the panels she was on! It was awesome, and a great opportunity to meet other writers.***
• Don’t be a pitching robot. It isn’t cool to go around to everyone you meet and immediately pitch your book or whatever. Chill out! Almost everyone will eventually ask why you’re there, anyway. Let it come up naturally. (There is some exception to this when talking to agents and editors—there isn’t always time to get to know someone—but that’s a subject for another post.)
• After you’ve attended a few cons, think about attending one or two outside your genre. I’ve attended AWP and the Symposium on Books for Young Readers. While neither experience was particularly my cup of tea, it was helpful to see how things worked outside of my own genre.
• Have fun! That’s what cons are for—they’re for people who love all things SF/F to come together, talk about what they love, and get to know one another. Soak it up, enjoy it, and be a part of the experience.

More and more, I’m learning to let go and really focus on that last thing, and it’s been fantastic. Cons are, by nature, inclusive. I've attended a fair number of them by now, and I intend to explore a whole lot more. Come be a part of it!

* I kind of think they’re important in pretty much any genre, too—but, of course, being a fantasy writer, I’ll talk about what I know :-).

** A caveat, here: not all professionals are worth emulating. Most of them certainly are, but some aren’t. Please be aware of who is treating others with kindness and courtesy—not only respecting people’s time and space, but their ideas and opinions as well—and who isn’t. Try to be like the former group of people.

*** Another caveat: don’t get ripped off. Like I said, if this kind of thing costs you twenty bucks or so, go for it! You might as well try it, and if it’s a good experience, wonderful, if not, you at least know it isn’t worth it. But if things start getting pricey, don’t feel bad about not jumping at those opportunities. They aren’t necessary, trust me.

Expectations (or: How I Got Published, Part 9)

I’m a perfectionist.

To be clear, I actually don’t think perfectionism is that great of a personal quality. Hard work, tenacity, time management—now those are attributes worth having, especially if you’re an artist/writer. But perfectionism, well…it just makes things tedious.

But the worst thing about perfectionism, I think, is that it makes me want to make my stories perfect (whodathunk?) before I let anyone else see them. And let’s be honest, folks, that just ain’t possible. So what do I do when the unstoppable force of reality meets the immovable object of my perfectionism? Well, it’s easy.

I tell my perfectionism to GET OUT THE WAY.

Perfectionism manifests itself the most when I start thinking about showing my work to others—especially an agent or an editor. “I just need to change that setting element first,” I tell myself, or “Not until I revise this character arc.” And, in my defense, those things may need fixing, and fixing them is good. Fixing all I can before I start circulating my work is important. But there comes a point where the effort to fix something—or the effort needed to find something else to fix—exceeds the anxiety of submitting a flawed manuscript.

And that’s the thing: a manuscript is going to be flawed, no matter how much work I put into it. I had to realize that my manuscript was never going to be perfect. Published manuscripts aren’t even perfect, for crying out loud. Typos slip through, the passive voice and adverbs somehow seem to meddle their way into things, continuity errors pop up every once in a while. That’s just the truth of things.

So for me to think that I’d have a perfect manuscript before I even sent it out to professionals (i.e. agents and editors) was an impossibility. Fortunately, I had a few smart people tell me this while I was revising, and when Duskfall was finally ready enough for me to query people, it was still far from perfect. But it was a good manuscript. It was as good as I could have made it at that time. If I had taken a few more months—a few more years—tried some other revision methods, read more about the writing process, etc. etc., would I have been able to make it even better? Probably. But diminishing returns applies here, too. There’s a certain point where I see diminishing returns from the effort I’m putting into a manuscript, and an important part of self-discovery as a writer was learning where those diminishing returns began, and when to quit and just send out the damn thing.

Manage your expectations. Learn to let go. Put the hard work in. Be tenacious. Manage your time. Before you’ll know it, you’ll have a ready—not finished—manuscript.

And ready is the more important thing.

Education (or: How I Got Published, Part 8)

Whew. Well, I’m back! To say I’m caught up wouldn’t be entirely accurate, but I think I’m at least back on track.

Continuing my “how I got published” series, today I’m going to talk about education. To over-simplify things, there are two types of writing education: formal (MFA programs, paid writing workshops with professionals, etc.*) and informal (just about everything else).

Informal education is the most important, and that’s pretty nice because—guess what—it’s free! For me, my informal writing education consists of the following:

1. Writing (about 90% of it, actually) - to learn it I’ve got to do it.
2. Reading (around 9% of my “informal” writing education) - to learn it I’ve got to study it.
3. Everything else: community classes, podcasts, writing groups, panels and workshops at conferences and conventions, etc. (1%).

And, honestly, that’s about all I’ll say about that, because people seem to agree pretty unanimously that those things are important. What I’m going to focus on is formal education—I got an MFA in Creative Writing from Brigham Young University, so I’m qualified enough to at least throw my two cents into the ring.

To make this easy, I’m going to break it down to a simple Pros/Cons list. Let’s do the Pros of my MFA program first:

• I learned a lot about the craft. I studied a lot of theory during my degree, and it was all helpful. They say you need to learn the rules before you break them—a saying I absolutely agree with—and I learned a lot of the rules in my MFA program. You can learn “the rules” in other ways, of course, but this was a structures, mentored, accelerated way to do it, and I’m ver glad I did.
• I did a lot of reading—a lot of it was theory, yes, but even more of it was just other authors, from classics to contemporaries and everything in between. Again, I could read stuff anytime, but this was guided, directed, mentored reading, and in my opinion that really does make a difference.
• I learned how to read (better). I wasn’t too shabby of a reader before, but my ability to critique and analyze definitely increased. This also carries over to my ability to participate in writing workshops and groups—I can give much more effective critiques now than I did before my MFA program.
• I taught writing—and not just freshman comp., but creative writing courses, too. I’m not sure if that’s something every MFA program offers—I know a lot of them do—but mine did, and it was a fantastic opportunity. Teaching required me to take things I’d learned and regurgitate them in a way that would be helpful to others, and that, of course, only helped me learn the concepts better.
• I met cool and interesting people, including professors I worked with, visiting writers, and students alongside whom I learned. We workshopped one another’s writing, went on retreats together, played a game of inner-tube water polo or two, and overall had a grand old time.
• I learned about genres outside my own. I took a creative nonfiction class and a Young Adult lit. class. I mentored under a phenomenal poetry professor who helped me understand the importance of words and meaning in poetry. I’m a big advocate of reaching outside of myself for different experiences, and my MFA program helped me do that. Each one of them was valuable to me.

You might be thinking, “That all sounds great! Sign me up!” And, well, it wouldn’t be a terrible idea. But before you do anything rash, let me tell you about the Cons:

• We didn’t talk much about the writing business. I took two classes that were exceptions to this, thankfully. In the YA lit class I mentioned earlier, the professor did make an effort to include some very helpful aspects of the writing business. Also, I took Brandon Sanderson’s writing course, and while it was technically an undergrad course I finagled the system in such a way that they counted it, anyway, and that course definitely spoke to the business side of writing. But, unfortunately, I think those two classes are exceptions rather than the rule. I could have easily gotten through my MFA program without picking up a lick of knowledge on the writing business. MFA programs are about craft and preparing people to teach writing more than anything; their primary purpose doesn’t seem to be to produce people who plan on writing in order to make a living. And that’s fine—just be sure you understand what an MFA program is offering before you get into one.
• Genre fiction is not generally what faculty expect or want MFA students to produce. There are exceptions to this, too (Seton Hill, most notably, has a low-residency Popular Fiction program), but the rule remains. BYU, given the types of popular writers who have come out of that university (Brandon Sanderson, Brandon Mull, and Stephanie Meyer to name only a few), was more lenient than other universities on this, but a sense a sense of mild disdain still lingered whenever popular genre fiction came up. People read it, but the idea of writing the stuff seemed to be the issue. To be fair, I think I should have been a bit more up front about my own predilection toward fantasy fiction. If I had, I honestly don’t think most people would have cared (my professors might have, but certainly not my peers). But there was a cultural, almost subliminal reaction against genre writing, and I fell into that way of thinking—or at least felt trapped by it, at any rate. At some point I even questioned whether I really wanted to write fantasy fiction in the first place—a phase I’m happy to say I overcame. And, well here I am.
• All that I learned about craft and all the reading I did, I probably could have brought about on my own—or at least without paying for and attending an MFA program. This isn’t much of a con, because I do think it would have taken years and years longer to absorb that information, but I’m certain I could have eventually discovered what I learned in less formal ways.
• They can be very competitive. Getting into an MFA program isn’t easy—I applied to thirteen programs and was accepted to two. 
• It costs money—a hard fact. There are a number of programs that will offer very fine stipends, scholarships, and paid teaching opportunities, but the more money they throw at you, the more competitive their acceptance rate.

So, while an MFA program is absolutely not necessary to “make it as a writer,” it may be a good idea. There are pros and cons, but for me, the pros certainly came out ahead.

That said, what certainly is necessary to “make it as a writer” is education in general. That education’s level of formality matters far less than whether it exists in the first place. Writing is a craft that can be learned like anything else, but learning is the active word, there. Writing and reading take priority over everything. Beyond that, the question is: what kind of education should you pursue to become a better writer? In the end, nothing else matters.

* I don’t have much experience with professional writing workshops and/or retreats. (I’m not talking about conferences or conventions, where these things usually have a minimal cost—I mean the big ones, usually on location somewhere, with some big names brought in or running the thing that usually cost $1,000+.) I’m sure there are pros and cons to these events—I’ve heard many wonderful things about them, and a few horror stories, too. Like everything, the way to approach them seems to be with lots of research, to discern whether they’re right for you.

Weekend Adventures (or: Taking a Week Off from #HIGP posts)

Yeah...no How I Got Published Post today, sorry folks! I was gone all weekend and I've had a lot to catch up on this week, including working on a new revision for Duskfall. But more on that later.

What was I up to this weekend, you ask? Let me tell you.

Raych and I ventured down to St. George for a friend's birthday, where we ate delicious food, went to an (outdoor, as you can see) concert, and stayed at a mediocre hotel. It was, all in all, a very fun weekend. The relaxation was much needed.

We also spent some time in Snow Canyon State Park, which was fun. Also, Raych is pregnant.*

Southern Utah has a very unique landscape. It's pretty cool to adventure around these parts.

Just keepin' it real.

So those are things I've been doing lately. But I'm not messing around when I say there's some stuff I need to get caught up on, so...back to work.


* ISN'T THAT AMAZING?! I am so excited about it. I suppose I'll have to tell you more about the whole preggo thing--I'll get to that once I'm caught up!

Alpha Readers, Beta Readers, and Writing Groups (or: How I Got Published, Part 7)

Happy Tuesday ya’ll! It’s time for another #HIGP post, and this one’s all about getting outside help.

I mentioned last week that an essential part of my revision process is getting input from other people. “What people?” you may ask. Well, lemme tell you. Today I’m going to talk about the three main types of readers I’ve had for my stuff, and Duskfall in particular: Alpha Readers, Beta Readers, and Writing Groups.

Alpha Readers

Alpha Readers are, basically, the very first people who will look at my manuscript besides yours truly. Personally, I like Alpha Readers to point out global issues about my manuscript: are there gaping holes in the plot? do character motivations, actions, and decisions make sense? does the magic system make sense, or is it over/underexplained? do characters change drastically halfway through the novel? did you see the twists coming, or did they seem completely out of the blue (in a bad way)? These are the sorts of questions I prep my ARs with, because, if I don’t, I tend to get feedback that focuses more on grammar and typos than actual story issues.

Because I’m looking for specific issues with story and craft, I generally have a few requirements for ARs:

1. Some experience in story/plot/characters is essential. This does not mean, however, that they have to be fellow writers. They can be phenomenal readers, not have written a scrap, and still be very effective at helping me recognize where my manuscript is going wrong.
2. They have to be able to give honest feedback. Family members, for the most part, do not perform very well as ARs.* Professionals, or people very experienced at giving writing feedback, are usually ideal in this scenario, but they aren’t the only people who can give honest feedback. You may have a close friend, someone in your writing group, a classmate, or someone you’ve met online whose honest opinion you respect. That’s what you’re looking for.
3. Variety. If I have an epic fantasy manuscript, I don’t necessarily want three epic fantasy authors to be my ARs. I find it helps far more to have maybe one epic fantasy person as an AR, and to look in other genres, or even look for non-writers (keeping in mind #1, of course), to fill some of the other slots.

I think between 3-5 ARs is kind of the ideal number for me. More than that and the feedback gets a bit overwhelming, and less than that doesn’t seem quite diverse enough.

I mentioned in my last post that I actually don’t pay attention to a large percentage of the feedback I receive (I usually only take from 10-50% of the feedback, depending on the source), and that is as true for ARs as it is for anyone else. I take their feedback a bit more seriously, so I think for ARs the percentage is closer to 30-50%, but I still need to be judicious about what I do and do not consider. It’s still my story, after all.

Basically, Alpha Readers are my first line of defense for my manuscript. They are people I trust, who have experience in story and character, and who can be honest with me.**

Beta Readers

Beta Readers, at least for me, perform a very different role than Alpha Readers. Beta Readers are the second group of people to whom I send my manuscript for feedback, and my goals with them are different. While I ask many of the same questions I asked my Alpha Readers, I make things a bit more specific here, particularly regarding the magic system, setting, prose, pacing, etc. I’m also a bit more open to grammatical/typographical stuff at this stage, although it still isn’t super helpful to me.***

My requirements for Beta Readers are a lot less stringent, too. While having a couple people who are very experienced is writing, plot, character, etc. is still helpful, my main objective is variety. I view Beta Readers as more of a focus group, a sampling of different types of people who can give me different perspectives on my manuscript. I usually draw on a number of different friends for BRs, and I have significantly more BRs than I do ARs—anywhere from five to twenty. Family members are more kosher here, too; their potential bias is less dangerous at this stage, and can sometimes even be helpful, even for just a slight ego boost :-).

Because the sampling is so much wider, I usually take less feedback from my Beta Readers seriously, percentage-wise—around 0-30% (yes, sometimes I don't take any of someone's feedback, and that's totally fine), again depending on the person.

Writing Groups

While Alpha and Beta Readers are related—two different stages in a similar process—Writing Groups are an entirely different thing. A Writing Group, basically, is a group of writers who get together periodically to critique one another’s work. I’ve been involved in four or five writing groups, more than that if you count the critique groups I had during my MFA program, so I’ve got some experience on a number of levels in this area.

For some people, WGs are fantastic. They’re motivational (you basically have “deadlines” you need to keep, and that peer pressure can force some great productivity), they’re helpful (they are, in one sense, a group of Alpha Readers giving you feedback), and they’re a great way to network.

All of this is true for me, especially in the beginning. My first writing group was a part of Brandon Sanderson’s SF/F writing course at BYU, and having a deadline was probably the single most helpful thing that writing group did for me. A close second were the people I met in the group—I’m still friends with most of them, and still hang out with a few of them at writing conferences and conventions (and one of them in particular was instrumental in getting my agent to look at Duskfall—but more about that in a later post).

That first writing group taught me some other things, too: that I’m a discovery writer, for one, and that discovery writing doesn’t always go super well with submitting work to a writing group, or at least not in the way I submitted it that first time around. Because of the whole deadline thing, many people who participate in writing groups submit stuff they have just wrote, often without revising it at all (or at least that’s how I did it that first time). That’s not as much an issue for outliners, because they already have their story planned out. For discovery writers like me, however, that can be problematic; I’m already making up the story as I go along, and the feedback I get from WGs can often make me want to change my writing in mid-manuscript, which isn’t the best strategy for me to write my novel.

I’ve also tried submitting work to a WG that’s on it’s second revision (where I’ve fixed a lot of the holes I knew were there): I’ve already written the first draft, and I’ll revise the portion I’m submitting before I give it to the group. That works infinitely better for me—it lets me get out the kinks in the first draft and get a better idea of where I want the story to go, so I’m not so malleable and easily distracted when I get critiques.

So, some tips for writing groups, based on my experience:

1. The person being critiqued should not defend their work. In fact, it’s best if they not speak at all while being critiqued, and instead just focus on taking notes. If someone didn’t get something about your work, there’s no point in explaining it—they didn’t get it. That means take their input, think about how you can write it better, and go do that thing!
2. People should generally be courteous about giving their feedback—if they are insulting you as a person or as a writer, they don’t belong in a writing group. If they’re insulting your writing, that’s less problematic—their critiques can still be helpful—but still uncool on their part. If they’re giving you harsh and honest feedback, that’s fantastic, and you should accept it with gratitude that someone is willing to be honest with you. Trust me, we all need harsh feedback every once in a while.
3. Depending on whether you’re a discovery writer or an outliner, I’d suggest you think seriously about what you’ll be submitting to your group, whether it’s first-draft stuff or revised stuff (if even slightly revised).
4. Diversify your writing group—again, if everyone’s a straight white single dude from 23-29 years old writing space opera, your critiques won’t be as, um, holistic as they could be. So it’s good to include different types of people and different types of writers, if possible, to maximize the experience.

If you’d like more tips on Writing Groups, check out the Writing Excuses Podcast. I’ll link to a couple great episodes here, but they actually have a lot of great episodes on just about everything I’m talking about here and then some, so if you want more information, that’s the first place I’d send you.

Season 2, Episode 5: Writing Groups

Season 9, Episode 37: Training a Critique Group

So What About Duskfall?

I actually tried all three of these things at some point in the process as I wrote DF.

The very very first draft of DF was my project for Brandon Sanderson’s class, so that went through that first writing group as well as one or two others. Some of those writing group experiences were better than others. That first one was great because, as I mentioned earlier, it taught me about deadlines and introduced me to some really cool people that became fast friends. Later groups were helpful in teaching me how I wrote (mainly that I’m a discovery writer), helping me define what I wanted to do with later drafts of DF, and of course helping me retain friendships as well as make new ones.

I had a professional thriller writer, a creative nonfiction writer, and my wife as Alpha Readers for DF after I’d finished my second first draft (I never finished that first first draft that went through the writing groups). Their feedback was phenomenal, and I’m really happy with the draft that emerged because of their suggestions.

A few months later I sent DF out to some Beta Readers consisting of some close family members and about a dozen of my friends. Each one of them had something unique to contribute, and helped DF develop in their own way.

-

Here’s what’s important for me: I need outside feedback in order for my writing to progress. If I want to be better, I need people to tell me what I’m doing wrong, because I can rarely catch that stuff on my own. Alpha Readers, Beta Readers, and Writing Groups are the best ways I’ve found to do that, and I definitely think I’m a better writer because of it. I plan to continue using them, and to continue getting better—hopefully!

Oh, and next week I’m going to talk about something a bit different in this series: education, and why it is (and isn’t) important in the process of getting published. So, there’s that to look forward to :-).

* Of course, there are exceptions to this, my wife being one of them. My wife has a reputation for being brutally honest, at work, in life in general, and in our marriage, too—that’s one of the things I love about her. She was one of my Alpha Readers for DF, and she was extremely effective. That said, however, I personally would never have any family member other than my wife as an AR—and certainly no more than one family member as an AR at any given time.

** I imagine that from this point on my Alpha Readers will actually just consist of my agent, my editor, and perhaps my wife and/or one other trusted friend. They’re exactly the type of people whose feedback I’m looking for, and they do it professionally, so it should work out pretty well.

*** Actually, what I usually do is have sort of two stages of Beta Readers (I guess you could call them “Beta Readers” and “Delta” or “Gamma Readers” or something, but I don’t. Just Beta Readers.): the first is the stage I describe above, but the second is a lot more focused on sentence-level stuff: grammar, typos, spelling, etc.

Updates!

ICYMI, I changed the layout of the blog pretty significantly a few weeks back, and I'm digging it so far. Also, I've got two new pages up:

"Appearances," where you can check out some cool places I'll be and when, and

"How I Got Published," which is just a dedicated page for the ongoing series I'm writing on, well, exactly that. (You can find the first post here.)

Also, you'll notice I've changed the names of my pages from my "Yeahbuwha," "Yeahbuwho," etc. to more professional-y things. No comment.

Finally, you may also see that the progress bar for Dark Immolation is getting miiiiighty close to 100%. I think I am actually very close to finishing the book, just a few weeks out, perhaps. The progress bar may be a bit deceiving, though, because it tracks my progress towards my word count goal of 225K words--and I think I'm going to overshoot that by just a bit. (My original word count goal for DI was 150K. Yikes.) But I'm getting very close, and I'm very happy about that.

Of course, once I finish the first draft, I'm going to need to take another pass at it before I send it out, but all things in due time, my friends.

I'll also need to get one more draft of Duskfall hammered out before my deadline (hey! I have a deadline!), but that shouldn't be too difficult. Just some minor changes, fixing some language issues, etc. on that front.

So that's what's going on lately! Should be another #HIGP post up tomorrow. Until then, folks!

Revision (or: How I Got Published, Part 6)

As always, a quick rundown on what I’m doing, here: I’ve begun a little blog series that’s basically my story in a nutshell—the good, the bad, the ugly, and the beautiful about my journey to publication.

What I’ve talked about so far:

• The importance of desire
• Starting a novel (commitment)
• Writing and finishing a novel (consistency)
• How patience is a necessary thing

Today I’m going to jump into revision.

(For the record, I wrote a post about my revision process a few years ago—I’m giving an updated version of that now, but a lot of this info is lifted, with editorial marks, from that post.)

I’ve mentioned it before, and I’m sure I’ll mention it many times from now, but I’m a discovery writer.* Writing organically without the constraint of any real outline is fun, freeing, and allows my mind to explore a lot more, but it has some drawbacks. Namely, my first drafts are complete crap. “Shitty first drafts” is a common adage in the writing world, but mine are downright bad. They would make no sense to anybody except me, because I often cut (or add) characters halfway through, change locations, pursue tangential ideas for a bit until I find my way back to the main plot, etc. Basically, my first draft ends up being one long, glorified outline, written in prose.

Thus, for me, my first revision always happens with the door closed**.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. I want to talk about my revision process with Duskfall specifically because, well, that’s the novel that got me published!

I started*** with the first draft (Duskfall 1.0), where I got the story onto paper (or my computer, as it were). Nothing fancy, just getting the story down. Even back then I’d decided to “write with the door closed”—I wanted to get my idea for the story completely out of my head and onto the page before I allowed anyone else to give me their input.

I then took some time off, did an MFA program, and did not get around to the first revision (DF 2.0) of the novel for a couple years. That time off was important for my process, I think (although I’m sure I did not need to take two years off, it just kind of happened that way—a month or two is more than enough time, in reality). Again, for this first revision, I wrote with the door closed. In Duskfall, characters that were there in the beginning suddenly disappeared halfway through the story, while other characters appeared out of nowhere because I suddenly decided they should. Settings changed in my head, but I didn't change them on paper. Plot twists developed out of nowhere and needed some retroactive foreshadowing. I knew that before I showed DF to outside eyes, there was a lot I needed to fix, and that’s why that first revision was all me. I knew there were things I needed to fix, so I was sure to fix as many of them as I could before I showed the project to anyone else; that way I didn't have people wasting their time (and mine) by telling me things I already knew I needed to change, or things that were going in an opposite direction for the plan I already had for the book.

After that first revision, I finally gave the story to some outside readers. For Duskfall, my wife and two close writer friends had the graciousness to give me that first round of feedback (and now that I’m writing in a more official capacity I imagine this “alpha reader” group might just be my agent and editor). They read the book, gave me basic feedback—not a lot about the grammar or writing on the sentence level, that stuff just wasn’t very useful to me yet, but rather on the more global issues regarding plot and character development, etc. This would be a good place for a note of caution: I was definitely tempted, at this stage, to make the prose as beautiful, concise, and grammatically correct as I could, but I resisted that urge. If you’re like me, you might want to do the same. There was just too much that was going to change in future drafts, and revising on the micro level that early, while surely tempting, seemed like it might be a waste of time. I’m definitely glad I didn’t open that can of worms; focusing on global issues was definitely what I needed to do at that point in time.

So, after receiving this feedback, I jumped into my second major revision (version 3.0). I took the suggestions and feedback that I’d received seriously, but I also took them all with a grain of salt. That, I’ve realized, is one of the most important mentalities I can have in revision: while some people are certainly better at giving feedback than others, I found that even from the best readers I ended up only taking action on maybe a third of their suggestions. And that’s ok, preferable even. It’s my story, after all, and I need to be judgy about which suggestions I take to heart and which I dismiss. I’ll talk more about this next week, but I realized early on, thankfully, that it was really okay if I basically ignored quite a bit of feedback offhand.

At this point I did a more micro-level revision (version 3.n, I cant remember exactly, it depends on how many times I’d read through DF during that second major revision) in which I finally focused on some of the writing itself--using active verbs, eliminating unnecessary words, etc. I knew that I wanted to start sending it out to agents at this point, so I figured I should start paying at least some attention to the language.

I did, indeed, find an agent around this point, and he (along with a number of other gracious folks at JABberwocky) began contributing input to DF, too. Basically, it was the same process as the previous two revisions, only a bit more formal and I ended up taking into consideration a lot more of their suggestions (they are professionals, after all). The third, fourth, and fifth major revisions (DF 4.0, 5.0, and 6.0) came through interactions with my agency and a few other choice readers to whom I sent my manuscript.

One significant revision to note was what I think ended up being DF 5.0. It was, essentially, a line edit in which I cut about 17% of the entire book. I believe that good writing is, in large part, saying the most with the fewest words possible, and because I tend to be a bit of a windbag to begin with, I usually have quite a few words that I end up cutting from my later drafts, so this aspect of revision has become a staple for all of my stories and novels: I like to have an entire revision in which my only goal is to cut at least 10% of the word count. It works for me. It’s also a nice interruption from the more mind-intensive story-revisions.

Incidentally, Duskfall will have one more round of revision before it goes through the gauntlet of publication. Just some minor language things, making the prose as pretty as possible, and a few other marks from my editor. I think I’ll be doing that in the next month or so (basically as soon as I finish Dark Immolation 1.0), and that will mark version 7.0 of Duskfall.

I imagine my revision process for Dark Immolation and for my other future novels will be very similar; the first two drafts of my work still need to be written with the proverbial door closed. I need to work out all the kinks I can on my own, make sure the story is doing what I want it to do, before I send it out to others. But, once I get those first two drafts done, it’s open season, and anyone with a brain has the potential to give me some great, story-altering feedback (although, at this point, most of that will come from my agent and editors).

Another side note: some writers may be opposed to getting feedback on their writing—maybe they think it’ll muddy their process or something. I’m pretty sure I used to have that outlook. Now, I don’t. I’ll talk more about why that is next week.

So: revision for me is a pattern of sending a work out, getting feedback, selectively and judiciously revising, and repeating that process until I (and my agent and editor) feel the work ready, in which case I do move on to the more micro level stuff. Let me offer a few tips in summary:

1. Don’t sweat the small stuff, at least in the beginning—grammar, conciseness, and language-oriented edits can wait until later revisions. Focus on the big stuff, character development and plot coherence, first (and tell your readers to do the same).
2. Seek outside feedback! Again, I’ll talk more about this next week, but it has become an indispensable part of my process.
3. Be judicious and selective about said feedback. You may give your story to a bunch of smart people, but they don’t know your story like you do. Take what you like, and leave the rest.
4. Your novel is your own—keep it that way.

That’s how revision worked (and continues to work) for me! Stay tuned for a discussion next week on alpha readers, beta readers, and writing groups.

* That means I prefer not to work from an outline. I start with an idea and/or some characters, put them all together, and see where they take me. This method is also known as “seat-of-your-pants” writing, so I’m aka a “pantser.” Aka “gardener.” You get the picture.

** You’ll hear me talk about “writing with the door closed” and “revising with the door open” a lot in this and the subsequent HIGP post—that’s an idea lifted from Stephen King, specifically from his fantastic memoir, On Writing.

*** It may or may not be helpful to compare these revisions to the timeline I posted last week—just saying.

Patience 1.0* (or: How I Got Published, Part 5)

The professional arms himself with patience, not only to give the stars time to align in his career, but to keep himself from flaming out in each individual work. He knows that any job, whether it’s a novel or a kitchen remodel, takes twice as long as he thinks and costs twice as much. He accepts that. He recognizes it as reality. (Stephen Pressfield, The War of Art)

For those of you late to the party, I’ve been working on a series of blog posts detailing how I got published—how the process went in general, what I did right, wrong, what might’ve gone better or worse, etc. The idea is that this sort of information might be helpful to other aspiring writers out there. The general process of how things worked was a mystery to me for a lot of the time I spent trying to get published, so why not get some of this stuff out there?

I began with a post on desire and how important that is to begin writing in the first place. I then talked about commitment and beginning a novel, and then consistency and finishing a novel.

Today, the topic is patience.

What do I mean by patience, you ask? Well, two things come to mind.

Thing 1: The long game.

On one hand, there’s the long-term idea of patience in this business. I didn’t know this when I finished my first novel, but patience was a virtue I had yet to learn. Let me put things into perspective for you with a little timeline.

Jan. 2010 Began Duskfall 1.0.

June 2010 Finished DF 1.0.

Sept 2010 Attempted to revise DF. Failed miserably (thanks grad program).

Aug. 2012 Began revising DF (again).

Feb. 2013 Finished DF 2.0.

May 2013 Began new DF revision.

Aug 2013 Finished DF 3.0. Started talks with my agent.

Oct. 2013 Began new DF revision.

Dec. 2013 Finished DF 4.0.

Jan. 2014 Began new DF revision.

Feb. 2014 Finished DF 5.0. Signed with agent. Agent began sending DF to        publishers.

March 2014 Began new DF revision.

June 2014 Finished DF 6.0.

Sept. 2014 Began talks with publisher.

March 2015 Officially signed with publisher.

Since I finished Duskfall in 2010, it has been about a five-year process to get it published—and it still won’t hit shelves until 2016.** And, from what I’ve heard, my story is kind of on the speedier side. (There are speedier, though—if someone manages to produce a dazzling, near-perfect manuscript on their first or second draft, well, things will go a lot more quickly for them. If you are one of those people, congratulations! You probably don’t need to be reading this.) So, if you’re a writer looking to get published, that’s one of the first things you need to know: stuff take a long time in this business. That’s just how it is.

That doesn’t mean you should get discouraged, though. Because here’s what’s important: that you get things done while you’re waiting. That, however, is a subject for a later post. So, let’s move on to…

Thing 2: Pacing.

There’s another aspect to patience, perhaps best described as pacing.

I’m a runner. I ran track when I was young (Okay, okay, when I was in middle school—I thought about trying out for track in High School, but the idea of doing all that running sounded awful to me, so I didn’t. Thus all of this comes from my middle-school track experience, which, while fun, was, well, in middle-school…so take it for what it’s worth.), and I loved running sprints—the 100-200M distances were the ones I enjoyed most, largely because I could run all-out for those entire races without having to think about pacing. That strategy didn’t work out so well for me in the 400M, however. If anyone has run a 400M race, you know that it’s basically as fun as getting felt up by rhinoceros in studded armor . But, being the ignorant and head-strong kid I was, I figured I would sprint the whole race, because what else would I do? Well, around the 300M mark, something strange happened. My legs turned to rubber. My lungs caught fire. My vision blurred. I finished that first 400M race, but just barely, and if I didn’t throw up at the end (I can’t quite remember), I know that I wanted to, and felt like I was going to die either way.

Well, having learned my lesson, you’d think I’d start pacing my 400M races a bit. That’s what my coaches tried to make me understand. That’s what my parents suggested. You’d think I’d take a hint.

But I didn’t. Because I was young, and stupid, and thought I was fast (I was in the seventh grade, after all), and literally did not know how to turn down my sprint dial. For me, it was 100% or nothing. So, every 400M race after that first one (and there were many, because despite my ridiculous pacing strategy, I wasn’t slow), I did the same thing. I wanted to throw up and die after every race in no particular order, and I hated my coaches for “making” me run the 4, but I was too stupid and stubborn to change my strategy and pace myself. That, I think, is a large part of why I chose not to do track in High School—I’d burned myself out, essentially.

So how does this relate to writing, you ask? Well, writing is a lot like running. Closer to distance running, perhaps, but the idea of pacing still applies: if I don’t pace myself while writing, I risk burning myself out. If I write and write and write I risk getting sick of what it is I’m doing, the project I’m working on, the novel, whatever it is.

Runners are fans of “listening to their bodies”—if their body is starting to hurt, they slow down, or take it easy until the next run. If their body is feeling good, perhaps they run farther than they planned. It’s a good strategy, and one that I think applies to writing. Because while there are certainly times in which I binge on writing, when I “smell the blood in the water” of the ending of my story and can’t stop myself from writing it, there are times where that kind of writing overload would have negative side effects. A lot of this comes back to what I was talking about in my previous post about consistency: going at it day after day is what’s important. But I need to pace myself for that to really work. If I’m feeling like I can pump out another thousand words, then I probably should! If I feel like I’m on the verge of spraining my brainpan, it might be a good idea to step away until tomorrow.

And, trust me, this kind of pacing requires patience. Because sometimes I get so excited about a scene that’s far ahead that I want to burn through everything else until I get there—but that won’t be too productive, because I might short change those in-between parts, or I might burn myself out and lose that desire altogether.

So how do I pace myself? Well, again, consistency is important here, but two specific methods come to mind:

1. I take breaks between projects. When I finish a novel or a major revision, I’ll usually take a couple days off from writing. (Not altogether, mind you, I might write in my blog or some personal writing of some kind, but from writing fiction.) My max, I’ve decided, is three days, because ultimately if I take off more time than that, the desire fades and fades, and becomes more and more difficult to get back. So three days is kind of the magic number for me—I can rejuvenate a bit, replenish the well, and be ready to get back into a project when the time is up.
2. Taking a break right after finishing a project is important, but it’s also important for me to spend some time away from that project before I come back to it. When I finish a novel, for example, while my tendency might be to jump right back into it and revise it asap, it’s usually good for me to take some time before I return to it. What that DOES NOT mean is me taking a vacation from writing for a month (believe me, I thought that at one point and it didn’t work out well). What it does mean is me moving on to something else, to another project that I can work on, until my mind is far enough away from my previous project that I can go back to it with fresh eyes.***

So that’s patience, folks. Next week, I’m going to tackle revision.

* PSA: I can pretty much guarantee that this won’t be the only post in this series about patience (hence the 1.0). If there’s one thing I’ve learned about publishing, it’s that things take a looooooooooooooong time in this industry. Patience is key.

** To be fair, DF isn’t the only thing I’ve worked on during these five years—there have been a number of other projects, jobs, an MFA degree, and other things going on—but this is just to give you an idea of how long it took.

*** Of course, having actual editors, agents, and deadlines to adhere to may make this more difficult than it’s been for me in the past, but I suspect the essence of it will remain true. The time I spend away from a project may necessarily become elastic, but the idea of of allowing myself to “refill the well” remains.

Consistency (or: How I Got Published, Part 4)

Last week we talked about writing a novel. This week, let’s talk about finishing one. The two concepts are certainly worlds apart.

Once I made the commitment to finish a novel, things got a bit easier—but the fight wasn’t over. Sitting down and getting words on the page—writing on a relatively consistent schedule—was difficult. I’ve experienced the process of writing a novel (for the most part) twice—with Duskfall in 2010 and now with Dark Immolation (which I haven’t technically finished yet, but I’m getting very, very close). My process through writing both novels has been similar in many ways, but different in others.

My DF process was less disciplined. I did not have a specific time of day in which I wrote, and I did not write every day (although I did write most days, which I find pretty impressive, looking back on it). But here, why don’t you take a look at the following table, first:

DATE	(prose)	(notes)	(revisions)
Jan-Feb 2010	20,000	7,000	5,000
Tue 2 March 2010	2,500	100	2,500
Wed 3 March 2010	3,500	400
Thu 4 March 2010	1,500
Fri 5 March 2010
Sat 6 March 2010
Sun 7 March 2010
Mon 8 March 2010	1,700		2,500
Tue 9 March 2010	3,700
Wed 10 March 2010	2,600	500
Thu 11 March 2010		2,500
Fri 12 March 2010		2,500
Sat 13 March 2010		2,000
Sun 14 March 2010
Mon 15 March 2010	4,500	3,000	3,100
Tue 16 March 2010	3,400	2,900
Wed 17 March 2010
Thu 18 March 2010	3,100
Fri 19 March 2010	1,100
Sat 20 March 2010	2,000
Sun 21 March 2010
Mon 22 March 2010	2,500	200	3,800
Tue 23 March 2010	2,300
Wed 24 March 2010	2,200	300	500
Thu 25 March 2010	900	100
Fri 26 March 2010
Sat 27 March 2010	1,700	1,500	400
Sun 28 March 2010
Mon 29 March 2010	2,100		1,900
Tue 30 March 2010	3,600	150
Wed 31 March 2010	2,700	300
Thu 1 April 2010	2,400	300
Fri 2 April 2010	500	500
Sat 3 April 2010
Sun 4 April 2010
Mon 5 April 2010		200	3,600
Tues 6 April 2010	2,700	400	500
Wed 7 April 2010	4,100
Thu 8 April 2010	2,300
Fri 9 April 2010	4,100		1,100
Sat 10 April 2010	3,300
Sun 11 April 2010
Mon 12 April 2010	2,800	200	2,000
Tue 13 April 2010		400	5,000
Wed 14 April 2010
Thu 15 April 2010
Fri 16 April 2010
Sat 17 April 2010
Sun 18 April 2010
Mon 19 April 2010	1,000	200
Tue 20 April 2010	1,300
Wed 21 April 2010
Thu 22 April 2010	2,800
Fri 23 April 2010	1,000
Sat 24 April 2010
Sun 25 April 2010
Mon 26 April 2010
Tue 27 April 2010	4,400
Wed 28 April 2010	4,400
Thu 29 April 2010	4,200	300
Fri 30 April 2010	3,300	100
Sat 1 May 2010
Sun 2 May 2010
Mon 3 May 2010	3,000	400
Tue 4 May 2010	3,400	150
Wed 5 May 2010	4,100
Thu 6 May 2010	3,100
Fri 7 May 2010	2,800
Sat 8 May 2010
Sun 9 May 2010
Mon 10 May 2010	4,300
Tue 11 May 2010
Wed 12 May 2010
Thu 13 May 2010
Fri 14 May 2010
Sat 15 May 2010
Sun 16 May 2010
Mon 17 May 2010	5,300
Tue 18 May 2010	3,600
Wed 19 May 2010	5,200
Thu 20 May 2010	5,000	600
Fri 21 May 2010	3,100
Sat 22 May 2010
Sun 23 May 2010
Mon 24 May 2010	2,500
Tue 25 May 2010	1,000
Wed 26 May 2010	2,200
Thu 27 May 2010	2,300	700
Fri 28 May 2010
Sat 29 May 2010
Sun 30 May 2010
Mon 31 May 2010
Tue 1 June 2010	2,100	300
Wed 2 June 2010	1,500	200
Thu 3 June 2010	3,000	700
Fri 4 June 2010	14,600	1,000

A brief explanation: the first column is the dates during the six months I worked on DF (you’ll notice that the first row is for the entire months of January and February—that’s because I didn’t record on a daily basis how much I was writing per day until March). The second column is the number of new words I wrote in DF on each day—if the space is blank, that means I wrote nothing that day. The third column tracks how many words’ worth of notes I made in my worldbuilding document/series bible for DF. And the fourth shows how many words I revised that day, if any.

As you can see, DF was pretty inconsistent. I wrote in streaks, sometimes getting words in every weekday, while going more than a week without writing anything at others. My word count for each day varied pretty widely (from as little as 500 to as much as 14,600*), and I did a fair amount of writing in the series bible and revisions. It is interesting to note, however, that my revision writing stopped in April, and I did not revise any further until I finished the novel, which fits more into my current first-draft philosophy.

I won’t include a table for my current progress on Dark Immolation, mainly because it is much more consistent, and thus a bit boring—I write between 2000-2500 words/day (on rare days I get around 3k), 4-5 days/week. I’m not tracking worldbuilding notes or revisions, namely because I’m not doing much of either at the moment. (I write worldbuilding entires in my series bible often enough, but I’ve made a point this time around of never going back to revise anything. It tends to break up my momentum, and I want to get through the story first before I make any significant revisions. Also, if I continually revise, I risk falling back into my “eternal first drafts” mode, and nobody wants that.)

It took me almost exactly six months to write the first draft of DF, while I’ve been writing DI for a little over seven months now and still haven’t finished. I blame that mostly on length, however—the first draft of DF was around 180K, while DI’s current word count is almost 200K, and I still have about seven chapters to go. So I don’t think my speed has increased or decreased all that much, but there's a lot more to writing than speed. Consistency, I've found, is key.

DI has come along so much more easily than DF, and I think that is largely because I am a much more consistent writer. I get up at roughly the same time every day (6:30 or 7), go through the same routine every morning until about 9:30 or 10:00 AM, which is when I start writing. I then write until the point of diminishing returns**, or until I get to 2000K, whichever takes longest. The rest of my day is reserved for worldbuilding, research, reading, blogging, email, and so forth. That consistency has helped a lot. For one thing, I can actually get some writing and the aforementioned stuff done on a daily basis—something I couldn’t do when writing DF. And while I don’t have as many days where my word count spikes (you’ll notice when I wrote DF there were a number of days where I hit in the high 3k, sometimes the 4 or 5k marks), I find it easier to step into the world every morning, to get into the minds of the characters and see what they see, hear what they hear, and understand what they do.

That’s not to say that I had no consistency when writing DF—looking at that schedule, I’m actually impressed that I could be that disciplined given my writing philosophy and mental state at the time. You can still see hints of “binge” writing, but it certainly has traces of consistency, and I think that’s a large reason why I was able to finish the novel at all. But my current experience seems more efficient, relatively painless, and definitely more satisfying.

So if you have the desire, and you’ve made the commitment to write a novel, I suggest you then work on writing consistently to finish it. Find a time of day that works for you, and make that your Writing Time. Maybe it’s every day, maybe it’s once a week, maybe it’s at four in the morning, maybe it’s at two in the afternoon. But make the time, and keep boundaries so you can stick with it. It’s simple logic, really—if I write a bit every day, or every weekday, or every week, or whatever works for me, I am going to finish that novel at some point or another. That’s how writing works—you put the effort in, and you see the results. Those results come a lot easier when the effort is consistent.

* Biggest writing day I’ve had to date, btw—when I finished DF. 14,600 words in roughly ten hours of writing. It was euphoric. And, even today, that’s kind of my exception to my no-writing-binge philosophy; I’ve found that when I get close to the ending of a story, I feel like a shark that gotten its first sniff of blood, and I often go into a writing frenzy until I finish the thing.

** What do I mean by the “point of diminishing returns,” you ask? Simply put, I kind of have a finite amount of writing “energy” in me each day. I write until the point when that natural energy is gone. If I try to push past that point, I become less and less productive, until I’m suddenly spending 9 minutes on Facebook/Twitter/writing email/reading/otherwise dinking around for every 1 minute I’m actually writing. Efficiency is far more important to me than writing myself to death. Figuratively speaking.