Archive for July, 2009

Celebrating the small things

Thursday, July 30th, 2009

The other day my daughter and I were in the car headed down the two-lane county road that leads from the big town to our small town when I noticed a new caution sign.  So I slowed down.  Half a mile or so later, I discovered that an intersection was being repaired, and a somewhat confusing scramble through orange barrels ensued.  It wasn’t a big deal, and the only reason I remark on it is that when I came out the other end of the luge (as one of my friends calls it), my daughter exclaimed, “You made it through, Mama!”  Like I was possibly the most genius individual ever.  (My daughter is still young enough to be occasionally impressed by the things I can do.)

 

Anyway, it made me feel ridiculously happy to be appreciated for this, and I realized how often I overlook things to celebrate, even if they are small (I made it through the confusing orange barrels!) and concentrate instead on all of the things that are less wonderful, annoying, or just unfinished.

 

In writing and in publishing, the less wonderful, annoying and just unfinished things are always going to overwhelm the gigantic fantastic news (like a three-book deal, a six-figure advance, a movie option).  So you have to appreciate the small things, like an encouraging word from an editor, pizza and some Mike’s Hard Lemonade with a new friend, a colleague who helps you puzzle out a solution to a thorny problem, a check in the mail (even if it’s only three figures), and lunch with your agent (hi, Neil!), who makes you feel brilliant and capable even if no one has said yes to your new book proposal (yet).

 

Not a small thing at all: today is my daughter’s birthday.  If not another good thing ever happened in my life, having her would be enough.

 

What’s your good news for the day?

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Posted in Mindfulness, Smiles | 4 Comments »

Doing the work

Tuesday, July 28th, 2009

On any given day, a couple of people write to me about what they’re working on and when I express interest, they promise a proposal or sample chapters that never hit my inbox.  I’ve already written about these “pre-queries” (main message: don’t do them), and won’t repeat myself here, but I’ve been thinking about it a lot.  I know that one of the reasons writers do this is to be sure there’s interest in their idea before they go to the work of putting together a proposal or polishing those manuscript pages, and while I think that’s not the best plan you ever had, I can understand it.

 

But I also think a lot of people discover they aren’t interested in doing the work.  They think they are, but when it comes time to put their butts into their chairs and get to it, there’s always something else they’d rather do.  They want to have published a book, in other words, but they don’t want to have to sit down and write it.  They want to “be” book authors, but they don’t want to do the work involved.  It is a lot of work, with no guarantee of reward, and I, for one, wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t bother.  I’m not being sarcastic when I say that you know what?  You don’t have to write a book, any book, ever.  You just don’t.  Give yourself permission to do something else instead.  You’ll save yourself (and other people) a lot of frustration if you give yourself permission to not write that book.

   

Here’s the thing about work: it’s work.  We’ve all had the experience of feeling inspired, when the words just flow from our pens (or keyboards) and form into sentences and paragraphs on the page without a lot of input from our conscious selves.  But those moments are few and far between, and you have to hook them together with a lot of sweat and time and effort.

 

Doing the work means writing that crappy first draft, and revising it until you can say, “Well, it’s not as crappy as it was.”  Then twiddling with that until it becomes largely competent.  Then revising that until it becomes downright mediocre.  At some point it will reach the dazzling heights of pretty darned good, and you’re still not done.

 

So, yeah, doing the work is a lot of work.  Go get started.  I’ll be here when you get back. 

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Posted in The Warrior Mindset, The Writing Craft | No Comments »

Meditation on book proposals

Thursday, July 23rd, 2009

If you want to write a non-fiction book, you need a book proposal to convince agents to represent your book and to convince editors to publish it.  As a writer, I’ve found that the process of writing the proposal helps me wrestle with the prospect of spending the next year with this project.  Do I love it enough to work my butt off to get the proposal right?  Or is it one of those cases where I think the idea might sell, but I don’t really want to put that much effort into it?  With the industry in the state it’s in, I only work (as a writer) on those projects that I love enough to write a killer proposal for, even if it takes me three months and fifteen drafts.  The other ideas are gathering dust on my hard drive.

 

On the other side of the desk, I’ve been getting book proposals in my inbox at the Salkind Agency that could have used a bit more work — and that’s disappointing because while I want to find projects to represent, I don’t have the time to coach everyone with a viable idea on how to make their proposal sing.  So here are some general tips you may find helpful: 

 

The book proposal is like a business plan for your book.  It “sells” an agent or editor on your book and convinces them to invest in it.  It also helps you create a roadmap for what you will do as you write and promote the book.  Essentially, your book proposal contains these sections:

 

  • The Overview – a narrative section that describes your book and how it will be written, with details such as length, illustrations and special features
  • About the Author – a full description of who you are and why you’re the right person to write this book
  • Marketing/Promotion – a section that defines your audience and outlines your plans for promoting your book, including special marketing hooks/ideas.  This should contain action items that you plan to do (promote the book on your blog, keynote at relevant events) and suggestions for publicity that a publisher wouldn’t automatically know about (in other words, yes, your potential publisher realizes that the New York Times publishes book reviews; it may not know about Your Hobby Monthly, which has fourteen gazillion subscribers and which publishes five book reviews a month.)
  • Competition – a comparison section that describe how your book is similar to – and different from – other books that have already been published.  If there has never been a book like yours, that is a very bad sign.  Include titles that are fairly recent (publishing works in dog years.  If something was published in 1999, it is ancient.)  Comparison titles should be ones that have sold well, so that the agent/editor will think, “Hmm, there’s potential here.”  Not: “Well, we’ll lose our shirt like everyone else who’s published on this topic.” 
  • Chapter Outline – a description of each chapter of your book, usually a couple of paragraphs per chapter.  Use bullet points to get material across quickly. 
  • Sample chapters – one or two full chapters showcasing your writing and the subject about which you’re proposing your book.  Editors are having a hard time getting proposals past committees without really solid sample chapters these days. 

The basics described here are the generally accepted parts of a book proposal.  Some agents and editors may want to see a slightly different presentation, which you can easily accomplish by varying your final format according to their needs, which you can often find on their websites.

    

As you work on your book proposal, remember that it will be seen by agents and editors who have hundreds of other query letters, manuscripts and book proposals stacked on their desks.  They often have assistants screen the pile first.  Your goal should be to hook them – overworked agents and editors and underpaid assistants – with your well-polished, well-thought out proposal.

 

A book proposal book I like to recommend is Michael Larsen’s How to Write a Book Proposal.  Anyone in the audience have others they also like?

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Posted in Book Proposals | 1 Comment »

How to pitch me

Tuesday, July 21st, 2009

I’ve been getting a lot of what other agents are calling “pre-queries,” and am now beginning to understand why I keep reading blog posts about them.  As a writer, it never occurred to me to ask people how I should pitch them, I just looked to see what their guidelines were, then sent them that.  If I couldn’t find guidelines, I sent the best query I could devise and figured if they wanted to hear more from me, they’d be sure to let me know.  Sometimes my pitches resulted in an offer, an assignment or a request for more material (depending), and sometimes they didn’t, but I never added an unnecessary layer of complexity to the process and I never had anyone chew me out for pitching them “wrong.”  I’m surprised to find that other writers do add this unnecessary layer to the process.  So here’s my advice: stop it.

It takes me a lot of time to respond to people who want to know how they should send their material and I can see that in the very near future I’m not going to be able to do it at all.  My general advice on pitching any agent: If you’re not sure about whether an agent takes attachments, or if you should paste your proposal or your sample chapter into the body of an email or what-have-you, and you can’t easily find that out by reading the agent’s blog or other material readily available about that person, then just email your pitch letter.  That’s it.  If the letter gets the agent’s attention, he or she will let you know, and will probably specify how further materials should be received: email attachment, email body of the letter, snail mail, carrier pigeon.

As I’ve said previously here and elsewhere, I’m open to receiving pitches on almost anything, fiction or non-fiction, especially at this early stage where I’m trying to see what’s out there and discovering what I can sell.  Like everyone else in the business, for me to decide whether we’re at the start of a beautiful relationship or not, I need to know what your book idea is and a bit about you (publishing history, credentials for non-fiction).   That’s all.  Send that to me and I’ll respond within a day or two.

If you’re a non-fiction writer, you can indeed send your proposal as an attachment even without getting my blessing ahead of time.  That may change but for right now, go ahead and send it to me with your pitch.  If you’re a novelist, send me a chapter or thirty pages of your novel as an attachment (along with your pitch letter).  That, too, may change in time but for right now, I’m happy to take a look at everything.

You can send pitches and attachments to jennifer at studiob dot com.

But please, I’m begging you, save everyone a bit of time and just send the pitch without having to establish contact with me ahead of time.

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Growing in your own backyard

Thursday, July 16th, 2009

The other day, I was reading this Salon piece, where a writer “rejected by the world” isn’t quite sure what to do next.  Reading this it struck me that we have such misconceptions about how people become good writers.  The whole notion that you have to go backpacking across Europe and live as an expatriate in order to write probably has its roots in the fact that twenty-year-olds don’t have a lot to say about the nature of the human condition, and sending them off to find out a bit about the world can only improve them.  But there is actually no relationship between backpacking across Europe and being a writer or improving your craft.

 

I remember coming across the same sort of thinking when I started training in martial arts.  The fact that I learned so much about myself and the world in a strip mall half a mile from home did not impress people, let’s just put it that way.  For my experience to have been valid to them I would have had to trek through Nepal to a remote mountaintop, found a guru who didn’t speak to me for ten years before finally agreeing to take me on as an apprentice, and then, and only then, would the true mysteries of the martial arts been revealed to me.

 

Which is all a bunch of malarkey.  You know how you get good at anything?  You do it.  Whether that’s in your basement, the corner coffee shop, or the park down the street, all that matters is that you do it.

 

 

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When goal setting goes wrong

Tuesday, July 14th, 2009

I love goals.  This is probably because I have an unhealthy craving for external validation, and reaching a goal is something that gets you pats on the back from other people.

 

There’s an entire cottage industry on how to set and achieve goals, and they say things like, “Goals should be SMART: Specific, Measureable, Attainable, whatever the R means because I can’t remember right now, and Timed.”

 

And it actually does work.  It even works for fuzzy things like wanting a better relationship with your kid, because it forces you to think about what that would look like – spending half an hour reading to your kid before bed? Eating meals as a family several times a week?  It also gives you things to do – and so much of accomplishment in life is simply about doing things instead of thinking about them.

 

But I don’t think that goal-setting is always helpful or always gets you where you want to go.  Take a look at me: I’d been trying to figure out what the next part of my career was going to look like for years.  And it was an unexpected lunch with an acquaintance’s friend that brought me my new gig, the one that’s perfect for me.  “Have serendipitous conversation with new mentor at a moment when I’m open to anything” isn’t quite how you set goals, but it’s very often how you get what you want out of life.

 

It is always instructive to me that the people who make “become a black belt” as their goal often don’t make it.  They lose interest, other activities interfere, they go off and do something else instead.  Or they achieve their black belt and never come back to class.  Maybe they’ve gotten their black belt, but I would argue that they’re not martial artists. 

 

I’ve had a lot of years to ponder this conundrum, and what I’ve figured out is that you have to care about the martial arts, not the belt.  Certainly having goals along the way is helpful: setting goals about coming to class X number of times per week, or practicing your new form Y number of times per day, or attending Z number of tournaments this year – all of those can help you become a better martial artist.  But if they’re only in service of getting your black belt, you’re doing the right things for the wrong reason.  Your reason for training (it seems to me) should be to become the best martial artist you can be.

 

There’s a connection to writing and publishing here.  People who set getting published as the goal of their writing very often don’t succeed.  The competition is fierce, and it gets discouraging, and there are other more rewarding things to be doing with your time.  Or these people do succeed in getting published, but lose interest when they don’t immediately get what they think goes along with being published – fame, glory, large royalty checks.

 

Love the writing, and do the writing because you love it. Maybe the rest will follow and maybe the rest won’t, but do the right thing for the right reason, is what I’m saying.

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Posted in The Warrior Mindset | 2 Comments »

The secret to success is no secret

Thursday, July 9th, 2009

When I began training in the martial arts, I didn’t exactly know what it took to become a black belt, and I wasn’t sure I could reach that goal anyway.  I just wanted to be the best martial artist I could be.  I remember looking at the blue belts (intermediate students) and thinking if I could be as accomplished as they were, that would be something.

 

So I trained and trained and eventually got to be a blue belt myself.  By then I wanted to be a black belt, and I had started to understand what it required: commitment to mastery, willingness to listen to feedback, and lots of hard practice (and not just any practice, but “perfect practice” – doing the techniques as perfectly as I could every single time I worked out).

 

Eventually I earned my black belt, but of course I *still* wanted to be the best martial artist I could be, so I kept learning and listening and practicing.  And at some point I started teaching other people, and started writing about martial arts and so it goes.

 

There are a lot of people who watch martial artists and think there’s something magical about achieving a black belt, or about being a good martial artist, that there’s something that separates those people from the rest of the world.  But there’s nothing magical about it at all:  it’s just a lot of hard work.  That’s it.  Sure, some people have innate skills and abilities that make it easier for them to do jumping techniques (for example), and some people who are good athletes to begin with don’t have to work so hard, but basically you need to care passionately about the art, you need to hear your teacher’s criticism and you have to do it day after day.  After day.

 

That’s what makes the magic.

 

I often see the same kind of thinking in writers: that there’s something magical about success, and if only they had the secret words to whisper to the right gatekeeper, they’d get in.  But it has been my experience that it’s the same in writing as in martial arts (as in any art): you make the magic through hard work and the determination to be the best that you can be.

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Posted in The Writing Craft | 1 Comment »

Sometimes you’re just lucky: another new client

Tuesday, July 7th, 2009

When it rains, it pours.  I thought I was lucky to sign my first client last week, but as it turns out, that was just the start of an actual trend, because I signed another new client today, and I couldn’t be happier.

 

 

Kate Reilly is one of the most creative teachers I know.  She’s also a writer (and book author).  She’s the kind of person who teaches math facts with “battle cards,” knows how to make balloon animals and can host a tea party based on Roald Dahl’s imaginative foods.  Wouldn’t you love to spend a day in her classroom?

 

She has a blog at www.polkadotsuitcase.com where she shows how to make what could otherwise be painful lessons fun for parents and kids alike.  

 

Her current book project makes me smile every single time I think about it.  I’ll just say it has to do with kids and travel, but with a unique, fun twist. 

 

In her words, Kate “lives in North Carolina with her husband and two children (and one dog, thirty-two Sea Monkeys that just keep reproducing, twelve red crawler worms who compost the veggies the kids don’t eat, and a geriatric guinea pig).”

 

Didn’t I tell you I’m damned lucky lately?

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Posted in The Publishing Business | 3 Comments »

Happy Fourth of July

Friday, July 3rd, 2009

And for those of you not partaking of Independence Day festivities, have a good weekend, too. 

I hope to have another exciting announcement on Monday, but for now it’s a seekrit.

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Signed my first client!

Wednesday, July 1st, 2009

In my major news of the week, I signed my first client as a literary agent for the Salkind Agency (www.salkindagency.com)  I am thrilled that former police officer Carole Moore has agreed to let me represent her true crime narrative on missing persons investigations.   I became acquainted with Carole through a writers’ group we both belong to, and I knew she’d been working on this book proposal for a while, doing tons of research and getting everything just right.  Last week when I officially became an agent, I knew I wanted to work with her and asked her to give me a chance (no, I did not grovel.  I begged.  There’s a difference.)  Fortunately, she decided that she wanted to work with me as well. 

Visit her site at: www.carolemoore.com  If you can read that site and not laugh, there is no hope for you, my friend.

She’s a great writer with a fantastic sense of humor, and I feel honored that she has signed on with me.  I did promise that unlike her patrol days, she’s not required to chase and tackle naked men as part of her book author duties.  But she is absolutely ready for anything else, and rarin’ to go. 

Me, too!  (I’m even willing to tackle the naked men for her, if I have to.)

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Posted in The Publishing Business | 6 Comments »