In It For the Long Haul: How One Writer Forges a Career

by Lesléa Newman

1. QUIT YOUR DAY JOB: If you have something to fall back on, you will fall back on it. If you have to be successful at your writing in order to eat, believe me, you will find a way to make that happen. Barbra Streisand never learned to type, because she figured if she did, she would wind up typing instead of singing. Dump Plan B and stick to Plan A!

2. B.I.C. (Butt In Chair): This is the only cure for writer’s block. You have to put in your time. You never know what’s going to happen when you put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard. But you do know what will happen if you don’t put in your time: nothing!

3. SHOW UP: If you are going to live a literary life, live a literary life. Go to readings, workshops, conferences, seminars. Join –or start—a writers group. Become a member of a writers organization (Romance Writers of America, Mystery Writers of America, etc.) Create your own network of people who will support your literary career.

4. READ, READ, READ. Read everything and anything you can get your hands on. Every book you read will teach you something, even the terrible ones. Especially the terrible ones. Study how other writers handle dialogue, description, character development, action, setting, plot. Every once in a while, read something you don’t ordinarily read (if you always read fiction, try nonfiction; if you always read poetry, try some prose). Think of all the people who said, “I never read fantasy” and then picked up Harry Potter.

5. BE DIVERSE: Just as you read many different forms (see above) write in many different forms. I started out my literary life as a poet, then wrote my first novel, GOOD ENOUGH TO EAT, then my first collection of short stories A LETTER TO HARVEY MILK, then returned to poetry, SWEET DARK PLACES, and then wrote my first children’s book, HEATHER HAS TWO MOMMIES. Perhaps it’s because I get bored easily, but nevertheless, I learn something from every form in which I write. Writing poetry has helped me add sensory detail to my prose; writing fiction has helped me write poetry with a narrative arc. And being versed in different forms has helped me create something new: my most recent book, OCTOBER MOURNING: A SONG FOR MATTHEW SHEPARD explores the impact of Matthew Shepard’s murder in a cycle of 68 poems which add up to a historical novel written in verse.

6. REVISE, REVISE, REVISE: Writing is rewriting. Someone famous said, there are two ways to do something, the quick way and the right way. Take your time to get it right, whether that’s writing seven drafts or twenty-seven drafts. Show your work to people you trust and listen to what they have to say. Consider their suggestions and try them. When I do this, very often something else entirely appears on the page that wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t been willing to at least consider someone else’s suggestions. Don’t get too attached to what you’ve created. I find that the sentence/paragraph/chapter I’m most attached to is usually the one that has to go. I recently wrote a chapter book for young readers which consisted of 10 short chapters (30 pages). My editor thought it would make a better picture book, so I shortened it to 5 pages. Ouch! So much of my brilliant writing landing on the cutting room floor! But in the end, I had to admit that my editor (who ultimately bought the book) was right.

7. KNOW THE MARKET: Writing is a creative act; publishing is a business. Do your homework and research publishing houses to find the best home for your work. Sometimes it’s obvious (sending my novelTHE RELUCTANT DAUGHTER to Bold Strokes Books was a no-brainer). Sometimes it takes a while for a book to find its home. In the words of Winston Churchill, “Never give up.” As a friend of mine likes to say, sometimes the editor who will fall in love with your manuscript hasn’t even been born yet. She was kidding (sort of) but the point is, be persistent. Another friend of mine says, “Never co-habitate with a manuscript.” If you offer (not submit) your manuscript to a publisher and it is declined (not rejected) turn it around and offer it to someone else.

8. SUPPORT OTHER WRITERS: I firmly believe that when one of us succeeds, all of us succeed. Go to readings. Tell friends about books you love. Use your social networks to sing the praises of your writing friends and colleagues. Share their success stories. Plug their books. Cheer them on. This is a tough business. We writers need to stick together!

9. BELIEVE IN YOURSELF: If you don’t believe in yourself, no one else will believe in you. Which isn’t to say that everything you put on paper (or screen) is brilliant. (See #6). It means that you know your work is important and you will make a commitment to give it the time, energy, and effort it deserves. Find others who believe in you, too. And I can’t stress this enough: make sure you choose wisely when it comes to love. Your beloved has to understand how important your writing is to you. If you wind up with someone who doesn’t take you seriously as a writer, there’s going to be trouble.

10. BE KIND TO YOURSELF: This, above all, is the most important gift you can give yourself. Writers seem to be good at beating ourselves up (myself included). My writing isn’t good enough, I don’t do it often enough, I’m not writing in the right form, my work isn’t important, I’m a hack, etc etc. Sound familiar? Try to get the critic in your head to shut up. See if you can find a nurturing voice (the Goddess? your best friend? your mother?) to replace the critic and praise you daily. Write yourself a pep talk, a love letter, a positive review. Tuck it in an envelope and give it to a friend to mail to you at some point in the future as a surprise. Look in the mirror every morning and say, “I am a writer” to your gorgeous reflection. Pat yourself on the back for being brave enough to create something out of nothing. It’s your letter to the world, as Emily Dickinson said. And those of us lucky enough to read your work are all the richer for it.

What Are Your Priorities?

by Greg Herren

I don’t know how many times people have said the following to me, but if I  w as given a quarter each and every time, I’d be living on an island sipping a cocktail right now: “I would write if I only had the time.”

Ah, time. I personally am frequently amused by the excuses I will think up not to sit in front of the computer and do my work. “I can’t write with dirty dishes in the sink. I can’t write when I have all this laundry to do. I can’t write with the house a mess. I can’t write when I have all these errands to run. I can’t write because I am just fried from everything I did today. I can’t write with Hezbollah bombing Israel. I can’t write while George Bush is in the White House.”

Pretty much any excuse will work, really. That’s the beauty of writing; we do it usually in the privacy of our home where no one is watching, no one is standing over our shoulder with whip in hand forcing us to do it. And if we don’t have the pressure of a deadline looming—and sometimes even then—all bets are off. (In fact, right now I am trying to think of a reason—any reason— not to write this column.)

But in order to publish, you have to write. Even if its crap. Even if it’s something that no one else will ever see. (Trust me, I have written a lot of stuff that no one will ever see. Ever. Under any circumstance.) Even when you don’t want to do it, you have to sit your ass down at the computer and open a new document and do the goddamned work.

If you want to be a writer, you have to look at it as a job. Whether it’s a part time job or a full time job, if you want to make it, if you want to get published, you need to view it that way. There are so many times you really have to force yourself to do it. Skip Desperate Housewives or whatever the big hit TV show of the moment is and turn on your computer and just do it. How many hours a week do you waste in front of your television set? Cancel two of your TV nights and spend the evening writing instead. There are any number of things you can probably give up to write.

The question is, do you want to?

How badly do you want to be published?

If you don’t want it bad enough to give something up in order to make it happen, then it’s very likely that you won’t. I wanted to be a writer for many years, but was too busy thinking up excuses not to take it seriously rather than coming up with reasons to write. And finally, one day I decided, “this is never going to happen unless I change the way I look at it.”

It stopped being a fantasy and became a reality.

Within a year I published my first story.

Take your writing seriously, and take yourself seriously as a writer.

It’s amazing what a difference that can make.

Earthquakes, Hurricanes and Anniversaries

Earthquakes and hurricanes be damned! The Bold Strokes Books Authors’ Blog is celebrating its first anniversary on Monday. We will kick off the week with Lee Lynch’s Amazon Trails. We may also hear from a few other BSB authors- even some we haven’t heard from yet.

We hope you’ve enjoyed this past year of blogging. In appreciation for all of your support, BSB will be giving away a book a day beginning Monday  August 29 and ending Friday September 2. All you have to do to enter is comment. Please stop by and tell us what you’ve enjoyed this past year and also let us know what you want the authors to blog about in the coming year.

Writing Outside the Ring

Accomplished Bold Strokes Books author and editor Greg Herren shows me some moves. Some literary. Some not.

It’s Work, People, Not A Hobby

By Greg Herren

Nothing drives me crazier than the mentality people have that because I work at home I have nothing but free time.

“Oh Greg, I need you to do this favor for me” and so on and so forth–because you know, when you make your living as a writer and work at home, everyone just seems to assume that you really spend most of the day with your thumb up your ass, sitting on the couch eating bon-bons and watching Oprah. I know part of this is my own fault; my inability to say no to people and put my foot down and say, “Um, do I ever ask you to take time off from work to do something for me?” I think it is enormously frustrating, to say the least, the way the vast majority of people never take ‘writer’ seriously as work. I think it has something to do with the mentality that every single person out there who can either read or write the English language thinks they, too, can write a book, if they only had the time–little do they realize that once you do decide to take the time to write a book, everyone in the world thinks you’re now available to do errands for them–or to do this or do that, or just sit around bullshitting on the phone.

It is enormously frustrating, as I am sure you can imagine, because writing actually is work. It requires time, focus, and discipline—and it is endlessly annoying to have people act like it’s a hobby.

When people now say to me, “Oh, I have always wanted to write a book,” whereas before I would smile and say ‘that’s nice’–now I say, “so why don’t you?” And then, as they offer up a thousand and one reasons as to why they don’t, I just smile and say, “Then I guess you don’t REALLY want to write one.”

When I work on the one of my series novels, which are told in the first person, I have to go inside Chanse’s (or Scotty’s) head and write from his point of view; not mine. I have to think like he does, I have to see the world the way he does, I have to make sure that everything that he says is his, and not mine. I have to remember everything that has happened, not only in the manuscript so far, but in the previous books. (Because people are more than happy to point out continuity errors.) I have to figure out where the story is going, and take it there.

And when I have to go weeks (or days) between working on it, I then have to go back and reread everything I have written so far, otherwise there will be massive continuity errors. This requires focus, and yes, discipline, so then to have someone get pissy because I don’t want to talk on the telephone in the middle of this process, or drop everything and run to the store, or whatever, it makes me want to just take a baseball bat and then beat them to death.

This is why I also turn down all those wonderful offers from people to write for free…because of course, my time is worth nothing. Sure, when you are first getting started, you should write for everywhere that will let you, regardless of whether they can or will pay you for the work; because its important to get publishing credits, so that other venues that do pay will take you seriously. And once you crossover into the getting paid category, you should never do anything for free again–unless it’s a favor for a friend, or something for a fundraising effort, or something like that–but you are not required to do that, either, and if a friend gets pissy because you won’t write something for them for free, well, then maybe they aren’t as good a friend in the first place as you thought.

No matter what anyone thinks, writing is work, and you need to look at it that way—even when everyone you know in the world acts like it isn’t.

And the next time someone bothers me with something stupid while I am working, I can’t be held responsible.

Just hope they have health insurance.

E-mmediate Gratification

by Radclyffe

 

I’ve become a firm devotee of e-books and e-book readers, mostly because I like to read in bed or have options while I’m traveling. Holding a print book while laying down, frequently with a portable light source attached to the book, is awkward. Plus, packing several print books in a computer bag or carry-on gets to be unwieldy and I often end up not having the book that I want when I want it. Finally, I love to look at all the covers of the books in my “virtual library” while traveling and picking out an old favorite to read or a new one that I’ve been waiting to savor.

Does that mean I don’t care about print books anymore? No, not at all. I still purchase copies of all the print books I want to keep in my “real” LGBTQ library because I know that someday they won’t be available any more. Just yesterday, I was shelving an old pulp fiction work that a reader sent me (you know who you are and thank you very much ). While in the process I pulled out the first edition copy I have of Claire Morgan’s (aka Patricia Highsmith) The Price of Salt, 1952. I hunted this down on the Internet and it’s clear that this copy has never been read. The cover is pristine and the spine has never been creased. I very gingerly opened the cover (the edges are discolored from age and time and having been stored somewhere in the light). I just looked at the title page and then carefully put it back on the shelf along with perhaps five dozen other pulp fiction works from the 1940s and 1950s and 1960s, some of them in very bad shape. Still every single one is precious to me. So, no, I haven’t forsaken reading (or publishing) print books.

But back to e-books. The other big advantage of e-books is immediate gratification. I’ve always been a quick decision maker. I study the pros and cons of a particular purchase (or course of action, like starting a publishing company or opening the belly of a trauma patient), and if I am able to, I act. This is certainly true for my reading habits. If I want to read something, I don’t want wait. In the days before e-books, I have been known to drive around the county from one Borders or Barnes & Noble after another looking for a book that I just must read right now.

E-books not only save me a little bit of money, they save me a lot of time and gas. Occasionally, however, they also create quite a bit of frustration. Case in point.

Just yesterday I had the must exasperating experience. You’re supposed to be able to get an e-book when you want it, right? So, the huge monster retailer in the sky that shall go unnamed sent out an e-mail notice that an e-book of a particular paranormal author I absolutely love was available. The book was Sin Undone by Larissa Ilone (it’s a demon a series with lots of sexy female and male demons, demon hunters, soldiers—some human, some not) and lots of hot sex. So with great excitement I grabbed my iPad to purchase the book and lo and behold discovered that it wasn’t going to be available for a week. I was greatly disappointed, but I get what marketing is all about and that anticipation sometimes creates more sales. However, I discovered upon further investigation that the print book was actually available a week before the e-book. It was out already!

Now I wasn’t excited, I was pissed off. Why was the e-book release being delayed? Granted, some mainstream publishers delay the release of their e-books (called windowing), hoping to up the sales of their print books, but most have gotten away from that. BSB stopped doing that about a year and a half ago (and we didn’t delay the e-book release initially to push print sales, anyhow, but because we didn’t have the support structures in place to release our e-books simultaneously. We have consequently corrected that with a fabulous digital technician who stays on top of all our e-book needs 24 hours a day. And thank you, you know who you are too

So just how important is E-mmediate gratification in terms of buying habits (to say nothing of reader satisfaction)? I recently heard someone say that when she went to buy an e-book, if it wasn’t available she just bought something else and moved on. Is this what we do in the age of E-mmediate gratification? Do we search out a title only to find that it isn’t available and then buy something else in its place, forgetting about the first title, never to return? Or, if it’s not available at the particular online retail store where we go to purchase it, will we seek it out somewhere else?

Should we as publishers be anticipating this kind of “get it now or forget about it” buying pattern? If it’s not there when a reader wants it, they’ll never come back? Do we need to have our books available “everywhere,” as a publisher recently told me at a meeting, or can we count on our readers to search out the titles that they want and buy them where and when they’re available? These are not idle questions for a publisher. As a reader, I will go just about anywhere to get a book I want when I want it. How about the rest of you? What will you do when you want a book and you want it now? An interested publisher would like to know. Thanks! Radclyffe