More notes on "the best writing advice…"

Diana Crosby wrote to say, "At a conference, Nora Roberts said, 'Give yourself permission to write crap. You can edit crap, but you can't edit a blank page.'"

Shirley Brosius noted, "The best writing advice I received came in the form of the book HOW TO WRITE FAST WHILE WRITING WELL, by David A. Fryxell. The way I apply his teaching as a newspaper writer is to mark topics in the margins while reading over notes from an interview. At the same time I look for a theme for the piece and a catchy lead. Then I create an outline. By the time I am ready to type the piece, I know in what order I will present the material. No need to keep rereading notes. I just write until finished, then polish. It is a great time saver."

And college writing prof Philip Patterson sent this: "Write what you know. I’ve been published in Christian self-help books, journalism textbooks (8 editions), devotional books, a 365 day Bible with applications for each day, and every time I was in my comfort zone. I am out of my element in novels, for instance, and my forays into that genre have only been exercises in frustration. I still try, because I believe in stretching as a writer, but all of us have a 'sweet spot' and the unpublished author should find it and stay in it until he or she gets a name doing that and then move one to other genres."

Thanks, everyone, for participating. Happy new year!

I've had several people write to share the best writing advice they've ever received. 

Vince Zandri, who has done numerous novels and sold more than a quarter million books, wrote to me and said, "The best writing advice I ever got came from Ernest Hemingway in the form of his memoir, A Moveable Feast. If writers are worried about one thing, it's the ability to keep a story moving from day to day. To avoid the 'block,' as some people call it. Papa wrote slowly and methodically in the early morning hours, and trained himself to stop at a point where he knew what was going to happen next. That way he could be sure of getting started the next day — and it left him the afternoons to play, exercise, fish, drink, or do whatever he wanted." 

Successful nonfiction writer Mel Lawrenz wrote to say, "The best advice? Take the long view. See the long process of publishing as an advantage — the stages of writing, editing, rewriting, and revising make for a more refined end product. Don't miss the opportunity to rethink what you originally wrote." 

Harlequin author Dana Mentink sent this: "The best writing advice I got as a pre-pubbed author was that I should act like a professional. My mentor encouraged me to treat my writing like a business, not a hobby. Put in the hours, describe yourself to others as a writer, and really put yourself into the mindset of a professional. She explained to me that there's a big difference between 'I want to write a book' and 'I want to be an author.' The latter requires professional dedication." 

Children's author Kayleen Reusser noted, "Believe in yourself, even if no one else does. At my beginning I was the only one who believed I could write and get published. Even my mother told me I could not write — no money, no time, three small children to care for. But I swore I would die trying. (Thank goodness it has not come to that.)"

And novelist Dianne Price wrote to say, "Know your characters. LIve with them. Talk to them. Listen to their words and the cadence of their speech. Make them your constant companions. Argue with them. Commiserate with them. Ask them questions. You must know them to make them believable."

What about you? What's the best writing advice you've ever heard?

“Writing a first draft requires from the writer a peculiar internal state which ordinary life does not induce.”  ~Annie Dillard (The Writing Life)

Back in 2001, I attended the Blue Ridge Mountains Writers’ Conference in Ridgecrest, North Carolina. Up until that time, I’d been writing and writing and writing for years. I’d even majored in creative writing (and hated it) many years before that. At the conference, I took the Fiction 101 track, taught by author T. Davis Bunn. It was pretty early on in the first day’s workshop that I heard the piece of advice that had the most profound influence on my writing career of anything I’ve learned since: “Above all else: FINISH YOUR FIRST DRAFT.”

It seems like a pretty simple thing, doesn’t it? Almost too simple to have to be said aloud, right? But how many people out there are like I was: content to just “play” with our characters by either revising/rewriting existing stuff we’ve already written or writing scenes/vignettes that don’t necessarily tie together into a story, but that’s okay, because we’re writing and entertaining ourselves, without ever having a story that has, as Meg Cabot explains, a beginning, middle, and end.

I think this is probably a bigger trap for those of us who’re character driven than for those who’re plot driven. Those of us who start writing because we’ve fallen in love with a couple of characters really are writing to spend time with those characters. If we don’t have a clear idea of a story for them, we can write stuff about them for years without ever “finishing” anything. Take it from me and my 200,000-word unfinished opus that I spent ten years playing with.

One of the questions I’ve seen most often in the interviews I’ve been doing recently is what advice would I give to “aspiring” writers. My response is this: Just like someone cannot one day pick up a stethoscope and scalpel and “become” a doctor, one cannot just pick up a pen and notebook (or start up a computer) and “become” a writer. Writing fiction is as much about learning and studying as it is about composing and creating.

I’ve heard it said that no one can consider himself a “real” writer until he has written at least one million words. I’m not sure it takes quite that many. I would revise that to say that it’s really hard to truly learn how to write well without having written at least two or three complete manuscripts, attended a few writing conference or workshops/classes, and read many writing-craft books and/or websites.

To all aspiring writers: get your manuscripts finished! STAND IN GROOM was my fourth complete novel and the first I’ve ever completely revised, and it was an almost three year process from beginning to end. With each manuscript I wrote and completed, I learned more and more about the craft of writing. So instead of just concentrating on polishing and repolishing those first three chapters for contests or submissions, get the whole book written and revised, then start on the next one while you’re in the process of submitting.

Am I suggesting that no writer is ever going to get their very first manuscript published? Absolutely not. But I’ve talked to a plethora of writers who did get one of their first finished manuscripts published—and now they cannot abide to even split the covers of that book because they’re embarrassed by the lack of quality in the writing.

By writing a story through to completion, you’ll learn more about yourself as a writer than you will from any seminar, workshop, conference, mentor, or critique partner. You’ll learn how long it takes you to write something to the end. You’ll learn what your natural rhythm for pacing and character development. You’ll find out that you have a tendency to write chapters of a certain length (which can change, based on what genre you write in if you write multiple genres). You may find out that you’re really better suited to romantic suspense rather than romantic comedy or to women’s fiction rather than chick lit.

But more important than any of that, you will feel a sense of accomplishment and confidence in yourself and your calling as a writer when you write those two most glorious words: THE END. Nothing else in the writer’s life can compare with writing the ending of a story—whether it’s a happy ending, bittersweet, melancholy, or tragic. Forget trying to make it perfect as you’re writing it. Just write. Turn off the internal editor. Ignore the analytical side of your brain. Don’t worry about rules and finding the perfect descriptive verb. Don’t write for anyone but YOU. As Stephen King told us in On Writing: you write the first draft with the door closed, you revise with the door open.

Every time someone announces winners of writing contests—whether it’s online at ACFW or in the back of the RWA magazine—I always read them, because I know I’m going to see familiar names and want to congratulate friends and acquaintances. However, there are some people I worry about—their names regularly appear on finalists’ lists for multiple contests, and have been there every year for five or six or more years. A few I’m close enough with that I’ve talked to them about this phenomenon and I’ve come to discover that there are certain writers out there who have what many of us call “contest addiction.” They spend most of their writing life revising and implementing suggested changes on the first ten, fifteen, twenty-five, or fifty pages of their stories—but never really go past that. Either they never finish the story, they just keep entering those few pages into contests, hoping the editor/agent judge will miraculously offer them a publishing contract, or, when they do get a request for a submission, the rest of their manuscript has suffered from severe neglect and can’t live up to the quality of the opening pages.

I’m a big proponent of writing contests. Entering the Noble Theme three times helped me overcome my fear of letting others read and comment upon my writing. And it was entering Stand-In Groom in the Genesis contest in 2006 and being a finalist that gave me the confidence to approach two agents and ask if I could submit it to them. But do you see the difference? I took the comments and feedback that I received from those early contest entries and applied the feedback I received to all of my writing—and I moved on, kept writing, kept finishing manuscripts, kept building my confidence.

–Excellent advice, Kaye! Thanks for participating in the discussion. You can read more from Kaye over at her own website, www.kayedacus.com 

Denise wrote in to ask, "What's the best writing advice you've received? Can you sum up the big picture for us?"

I can try…in ten lessons:

1. There are very few great books, but every great book begins with a great idea.

2. A great idea does not constitute a great book. Having a great story to tell doesn't mean you're going to have a great book. It takes hard work to turn even a fabulous idea into a reasonable book.

3. Therefore, keep refining your craft. Take whatever steps you can to improve your writing. Don't settle for what you are. If you're really good, you'll get discovered. "Greatness will out," to borrow an old phrase.

4. Books aren't written, they are re-written. That means you're going to have to write, revise, review, and restructure. Don't think you can create a good book without hard work — you can't.

5. Read widely and write regularly. The two go hand in hand.

6. Establish a plan for your writing life. Have a time and a place to write. Write toward something. Establish writing goals. Few people move forward in the business side of any craft without some sort of plan.

7. Learn to listen. Get involved with other writers and learn from them. Ask editors for their opinions. Seek out a writing partner or group. Learn how to imitate great writers. Find a mentor. Shut up and listen for a change.

8. Face your fear: You're not the best writer on the planet. You're going to be rejected. Learn to appreciate others as better than yourself. Not writing because of fear is simply a way to protect yourself from potential failure. It's time to grow up.

9. Don't expect non-writers to understand. They won't. Learn to smile and nod a lot.

10. There is value in writing, not just in getting published. We learn about ourselves, about others, and about our world when we write. So there is value in writing something, even if you're the only one who ever sees it. If I help you publish your book, that doesn't validate your life. There are lots of jerks who published books, and lots of beautiful people who never published anything. If you're really a writer, you'll focus first on the beauty of the words.

What about you? What's your best writing advice? 

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St Nicholas soon would be there.

He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, ‘ere he drove out of sight,
"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!"

Lots of stuff to catch up on:

-Today is Amanda Luedeke's birthday — happy birthday, Amanda! Here's hoping you get both birthday AND Christmas gifts this year. (Amanda is a literary agent who works with me here at MacGregor Literary.) 

-If you're interested in knowing more about marketing, Rob Eagar over at Wildfire Marketing is still offering his "Marketing Plan Templates" as well as his "Bestseller Website Tutorial" at www.StartaWildfire.com. If you type the word "Chip" in the discount code box, you'll get $5 off the retail price! (Thanks for doing that, Rob.) The materials he offers are top notch. 

-A fascinating article on the need for publishers can be read here:

www.digitalbookworld.com/2011/leaked-hachette-explains-why-publishers-are-relevant/

-And some workable ideas on how an author can increase the sales of his or her ebooks can be found on the Digital Book World site: http://tinyurl.com/78b4h4l

-Now that I'm done with my marketing series, I plan to get back to questions authors are asking. Feel free to send me your questions, and I'll get to it!

-I LOVE LOVE LOVE my Nook Tablet. Holy cow. The best e-reader I've ever had. Fast, easy to use, does a great job with the books, has a wonderful screen for movies, and isn't as clunky on the internet as the Kindle Fire. A GREAT tool. (And for those who say, "I could never get away from paper books and use a digital reader…" I can only say, "Yes, you can. Try the Nook and you'll see how.")

-And to the person who sent me Guinness glasses for Christmas: Thanks! If I knew who you were, I'd send you a note. But there was nothing in the package to say who it was from…

Merry Christmas to all!

Some people have twenty years of experience. Some people have one year of experience twenty times. The difference? The former keep track of their progress and learn from their mistakes as well as their successes. The latter keep trying something new, and have to re-learn the process every time. 

Make it easy on yourself — mark your trail. Make a point of writing down everything that works and everything that doesn't as you work through your marketing plan. That will help you focus on the good ideas and eliminate the bad ones the next time you're doing marketing for a book. Give yourself some evaluations. Figure out if you could do something better next time, or tweak an unsuccessful effort in order to make it successful. 

If you keep track of everything you do in your marketing plan, you'll discover it moves along much more quickly the next time you need to do it. So make lists of your activities. Keep track of names and emails and phone numbers. Grab contact information to the producers and hosts and editors you're in contact with. Make notes of the ideas you found helped you sell books. Send thank you's to the people who really assisted you along the way. If you don't keep track of your work, the next time you have a book releasing you'll have to do all this stuff over again. 

If possible, talk through the plan with your team — perhaps someone from your publishing house, as well as someone who helped you get the work done. Get their input into the ideas that worked best. By focusing on the best practices, you'll find yourself improving at the marketing side of the business, therefore allowing yourself more time to WRITE in the future. 

That's it — my ten steps to creating a marketing plan. I hope you've found it helpful. 

By the way… Funds are being collected for author Sandi Rog's uninsured cancer treatments — she was diagnosed with stage 4 lymphoma on the same day her debut novel released in November of last year. This is the last week to donate, as the fundraiser will close on Christmas Eve, but there is some big stuff going on these last seven days. First of all, all donors will be entered into a drawing for one of four Amazon.com gift cards, which will be awarded on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday nights. Every $2 you donate gets you one entry into the raffle. Also (many of you writers will want to click over and learn more about this) one donor will be awarded with their registration paid in full for the 2012 ACFW conference this September in Dallas. And just today, a $1000 matching donation was pledged, meaning that all donations between now and Thursday will be matched, up to $1000! Please consider clicking over to donate and bless Sandi and her family (husband and four children) as she fights for her life. It's been a very scary and faith-challenging year for them. You can help make 2012 a year of blessing and health. Thanks.

Now that you've done all your research and planning — you've figured out WHAT you need to do, WHERE you need to do it, WHEN you're going to get it done, WHO you're going to be reaching, and WHY you're going to all this trouble — now you need to go do the work. If you created a calendar, this is easy… you simply look at the calendar, figure out what needs to be done, then go get the tasks accomplished. Instead of worrying about what steps you need to take in order to market your book, you can begin working through the plan you've spent weeks creating. No more seat-of-the-pants, no more guessing what activities to do. You've done all the background work; now you need to put it into practice.

Authors tend to come in two types when it comes to marketing… Some will want to take several weeks and just market full-time. They'll set their current writing projects aside, and suddenly become marketers. Others will want to set aside a chunk of time each day for marketing, leaving themselves with a few hours to continue writing. There's no "right" way to plan this — it depends on what you're comfortable doing. 

I'm frequently asked how much time an author should spend on marketing each day or each week, but of course the answer lies in what your plan calls for. If you do the things that are on your plan, the amount of time required will become clear to you. Some authors set aside an hour or two each day to do some marketing. That time can increase as you have a new book come out — so you might find yourself spending half your time on nothing but various marketing activities. If you're focused on a new release, and there are a dozen things to do each day, your marketing efforts could suck up your entire day. 

Again, I realize that, as an author, you signed up for this career because you wanted to do writing, not marketing. I get it… but if you want to succeed and grow your platform, you're going to need to invest some of your time at promoting your name and your works. So just make the decision that this becomes part of your regular job. It may not be the part you love best, but every job has some aspects to it that you're not crazy about. (I get to read contracts regularly. Not my favorite part of the job… but a necessary one if I'm to be successful in my role as an agent.) Besides, you may discover that you actually LIKE doing some marketing. There are plenty of authors who, once they got into blogging or speaking or social media or writing articles, realized they enjoy the marketing aspect of their careers. 

One last thought: You need to figure out what "success" is for yourself. Nobody has every element of their marketing plan go smoothly, or watch every aspect of the plan succeed in a big way. You'll have some hits and some misses. But it will help you if you've decided ahead of time what "success" is for your book. Then go work your plan. Once you've gone through this process, you'll begin to see how you can create a marketing plan for each book you write. 

At this point, you're probably wondering what else there is to do with a marketing plan. Take heart — we're almost to the end of the process…

Once you've written down everything you want to do, you need to tie each activity to a calendar and a budget — or, as I like to say, every activity has a date and a dollar sign. So, for example, if you are planning to send out a bunch of copies to a "big mouth" list in order to get people talking about your book, you pick a day when you're going to write the notes, address the envelopes, and get them in the mail. Then you figure out the cost of envelopes, mailing labels, and postage. If you're planning to write several freelance articles to support your book, you mark down the days you're going to write them, the days you're going to query and send them, and the days you're going to check back on them. If you're going to hire a freelance marketing consultant to help you schedule radio interviews, you pick the days you're going to be available for the interviews, you mark the dates you're going to talk with the consultant, and you write down the costs involved with hiring him or her. 

Again, for EVERY activity, you choose a date and, if applicable, the dollar amount it will cost you. So if you're going to try and schedule a blog tour, you write down on your calendar the dates you plan to fill up with blogging conversations, as well as the dates you plan to contact bloggers in order to schedule those visits. There may not be any dollar amount tied to this activity — that's fine, but you want to make sure to track EVERY date and EVERY dollar, so that you have a record of what you've done to market your book. 

Why write out a calendar and budget? Because this assures you that you'll actually do the work. Lots of authors make plans — most don't follow through. By scheduling a date for each activity, and by keeping track of the costs involved, you put yourself in charge of your marketing plan, rather than waiting for someone else to be in charge. It helps you stay on track, so you can see how much time you're spending on marketing. And it gives you a budget, so you can track the amount of money you're investing in your marketing plan. 

This part is the nitty gritty aspect of marketing. The fact is, you won't want to do it. It may not be fun, but it's necessary. So do it anyway. If you need to, get a friend to hold you accountable, or a fellow writing buddy to do this with you (and commiserate with you). Don't just have marketing plans in your head — have them on your calendar in and in your checkbook. That way you're much more apt to get done all the things you need to get done.