Finding Your Voice

I recently got a note from a writer saying she felt creatively drained.  She said, “My book is good.  How can I convince others?” Reading between the lines, I figured she’d written a book she felt was excellent but agents/editors were rejecting it, and that was making her feel a lot like not writing any more books, and also that she wished she could figure out how to get an agent’s (or publisher’s) attention.

I will be the first to admit that beating your head against a wall is way more fun than querying agents and editors, and that the more rejections you get, the harder it can be to feel like doing it all over again.

I also know that making creativity your work — the thing that pays the bills — is a good way to want to shovel ditches for a living.

Basically, we have two connected questions: “How can I succeed in the commercial arena of publishing?” and “How can I, at the same time, renew and feed my creative energies?”

You really do have to separate the act of creation from the act of publishing.  The act of creation is something to be nurtured and protected, even on the days when you don’t feel like it.  The act of publishing is a business transaction, period.  They are two very different creatures, although of course we’re bound to conflate them, being human and wanting to see our hard work rewarded.

Protecting your creativity — renewing it, feeding it, keeping it from shutting down when you get five more rejection letters this week — requires a couple of important habits:

1.  Protect the time.  Even if you’re just drawing doodles on a sketchpad, keep your creative time free from other encumbrances.  My first two hours of every day are for The Work, even though sometimes they actually consist of talking to friends at the coffee shop. 

2.  Remember that sheer financial terror impedes creativity.  Putting the entire burden of your financial health on the capricious whims of the publishing industry requires nerves of steel.  You can spend more time worrying than working.  Not worth it.  I just wrote a blog post for the Renegade Writer on the importance of diversifying your client base as a freelancer; this is just as important for people working on fiction or other creative endeavors.  Have different work to serve different purposes.  It’s not selling out: you’re buying the time to do The Work.

3. The Work is sufficient in and of itself.  Yes, it’s nice to be recognized for your talent, but it’s not required.  There are ways to share your work beyond traditional publishing, if it comes to that.

4.  Keep more than one project going.  Have new work you’re conceptualizing while you edit the old work and send out the older.  Keep your focus on your work and not on the publishing business.

To the in some ways more difficult question of succeeding in commercial publishing:

1. Create a network.  The hardest thing in writing is feeling like you’re talking to yourself.  Have other writers, readers, colleagues, who can give feedback and offer resources.

2. Learn to sell your book.  It’s easier to write a blurb about someone else’s book.  So either pretend you’re writing your query about someone else’s book or trade with a friend: write a query for someone else’s book and have them write one for yours.  See if that helps you nail your query.

3. Don’t invest everything in one project.  Especially these days.  Times are tough in publishing. You can love your book but you also need to Let. It. Go.  Maybe it will be published, maybe it won’t.  Like a child, you do your best by it but beyond that, you don’t have a lot of say in how it turns out. Get to work on the next book.

4. Invest in getting better.  Yes, this book is good.  Focus on how the next one is going to be better.  Read, attend conferences, join writers’ groups.  Immerse yourself in understanding the craft and the publishing process.  Experiment.  Fail.  Fail a lot.  Learn something.  Fail some more.  Write the book no one can turn down (then sell the secret for one million dollars).  That’ll keep you too busy to focus on the inadequacies of the agents and editors who are rejecting your book.

5.  Recognize what you can control and what you can’t.  Writing the best book you can?  Completely under your control.  Convincing other people it’s the cat’s meow?  Not so much.

Oh!  I almost forgot.  Starting today, my “Freelance Editing 101″ class through the Rengade Writers.  More here.

An online writers’ group I belong to recently had a discussion about saying no — how to do it, how to mean it, how to deal with people who try to negotiate after you’ve already said no, and so on.

That got me thinking about the other side of the coin — when people say no to us, or at least say no to our queries and proposals and manuscripts.  There’s a right way to deal with those, too, and keeping in mind the process that goes through your mind when you say no helps ease the sting.

For example, when someone asks me to help with a school fundraiser, I may very well see the value of it, but simply not have the time to participate.  I have other priorities that take precedence.  Turn this around: when someone says no to my idea, it’s not always because my idea sucks or because I do, but rather that the agent already has a house full of clients or the editor already has something similiar in the lineup.  In other words, it isn’t about me personally.

When I say no to someone, I don’t want them to argue with me about it or find reasons to overcome my objections, unless I’m clearly inviting them to do so.  “No, I can’t help at the fundraiser” is different from “I’d like to help at the fundraiser, but it’s being held on a day I’m out of town.”  The first means I’m not able to help; the second means I may be willing to do something as long as you don’t expect me to show up on the day of the event.

 In the same way, “No, I’m afraid I can’t take you on as a client” is different from “I really like this book idea, but I don’t think it can reach a big enough audience as you currently envision it.”  Understanding how to differentiate between these kinds of responses is crucial for writers.  One is an opportunity to show your creativity and ability to respond positively to criticism; the other is an opportunity to move along.

One of the most important things I learned to do as a writer was to make a plan before I ever started submitting a project.   So if I was going to submit a manuscript to agents, I didn’t just pick the top three or four I really wanted to work with.  I researched fifty or seventy-five, then sent letters to my top ten.  As soon as I got a rejection from one, I sent the pitch to another (always pausing to ask myself if the pitch needed to be reworked). 

The other thing I learned to do was detach from outcomes.  All I could control was the writing and submitting part of the process.  Once I had the submission plan in place for a particular project, I moved along to the next project.   Moving along to the next project is the most important part of dealing with rejection.  I know some people will say, “But you have to be committed to this project!  You have to do everything you can for this project!”  And while that’s true to some extent, the six months it takes between starting to pitch a project and finding a home for it cannot be solely devoted to that project, unless that project is your life goal.  I don’t let any one project be my life goal.  My life goal — to make my living as a writer until they pry the keyboard from my cold, dead hands — requires that I move along until I find the project that hits the sweetspot: I love it, an editor loves it, and an audience loves it.

And sometimes it takes a lot of rejection to get there.

“I am finishing my first novel, but I am not sure of the next steps when it comes to looking for an agent. Would an agent expect me to hire a professional editor to polish my work before I send it to her?  Or would the agent be primarily interested in the story and overlook small errors such as punctuation (writing friends say I need to use my comma button more!) Thanks for any insight you can give me.”

First, no one expects you to hire an editor for any reason before you submit your manuscript.  Freelance editors (that you hire and pay out of pocket) may be able to help you reach a certain level of professionalism, but so can reading great books, attending writers’ conferences, taking writing classes, joining a good critique group, paying careful attention to your own work, and so on.  In fact I would say the latter (reading books, etc.) is far more important than the former (hiring an editor).  Being a writer isn’t something you do in a vacuum, and the more you’re around other members of the writing/publishing community, the more you will learn (if you’re open to it).

Some people do learn a lot from working with a freelance editor on their manuscript.  But you have to remember that even if you’re paying the person, all you’re getting is an opinion, and it may or may not be right for you, or accurately reflect the expectations of the market.  I always say that you should do your best to polish your work before submitting it, including getting feedback from other readers and writers, and only if you get form rejections with no explanation should you consider going to a freelance editor for help (in other words, a freelance editor may be able to help if no one likes your work and you can’t figure out why). 

Second, story/content always trumps a few typos (for me, anyway).  However, sometimes people think they have “a few typos” when in fact they lack the basic ability to write well in the language.   I’m by no means saying this is true of Sally in Boulder, but her letter brings up a point I want to make: Writers, especially at the beginning of their careers, often think they know more about writing than they do, or think that they don’t need to know that much about grammar and punctuation to be good writers.  That’s not true. 

The “rules” of grammar and punctuation allow for a certain fluidity of interpretation (just ask the Chicago Manual of Style), and within that fluidity you’ll find your own personal writing style.  But the rules are there for a reason, and it’s not just because a bunch of academics got together one day and decided to inflict pain on the world.

To sum up: Yes, your work needs to be as professional and polished as possible before you submit to agents, but getting it to that point does not require paying a freelance editor, although it can.

In my inbox: The feedback I have received over the last couple of years from publishers is the following: Your book needs some editing but not much so just send us between $6000.00 and $20,000.00 to do a full edit of your book and begin publishing, marketing and printing.  What I am looking for is someone to actually read the book and let me know the truth — Is it worth publishing?

I’m asked some version of the “How do I get feedback?” question quite a lot, but this particular version seemed worth its own blog post, because the writer mentions that publishers are steering him/her toward ediorial/publishing services that cost many thousands of dollars.  This is plain wrong.  No reputable publisher would do this.  (An editor at a reputable publishing house might say your work needs editing, but would not ask for money, nor would he/she recommend a specific service.)  Self-publishing is another story, but then the question wouldn’t be “Is it worth publishing?” but “How do I self-publish this book?” 

If you’re getting these kinds of responses from publishers, you need to spend a little more time educating yourself on the publication process and how real publishing works.   One good place to start is your local library, which should have a shelf full of book on the publishing process.  Online, try places such as the forums at Absolute Write.

Beyond that, consider joining a local writers’ group for the purpose of getting critiques of your work (in exchange, you’ll critique the work of your fellow writers.)  Take a writing class at a local community college, art center or continuing education program. 

But in the end, the way you find out whether something is worth publishing is by sending query letters to agents and to reputable publishers that accept unagented work, and seeing what happens.   As simple (and as difficult) as that.