That Can't-Breathe Feeling: Anticipation

Source: Eleesha.com, Original inspirations

I've been excited lately, rather a lot. It's not that everything is working out perfectly for me. Far from it. It's just that I'm anticipating a lot of things.

I'm in the middle of my first project as an editorial assistant for Month9Books. As soon as I finish, they're going to send me another awesome pre-published book to pore through. In short, I'm loving this new job, at the same time I am terrified that I'll mess up and lose the opportunity. This results in that can't-breathe feeling, or what many authors have described as waiting with bated breath.

There are other areas of my life that give me that feeling, too. Of course, being a writer, I feel that way all the time about one project or another. Will this plot hole be resolved to the betterment of the book? Will my betas like the pages I sent? Will that agent ask for a partial, or a full? Will this finally be the one? Since I'm working on three writing projects simultaneously, I end up feeling the full emotional impact of these questions in triplicate.

Then there's the anticipation a parent feels for a child each time he shows his potential. I get that in triplicate, too. Hee hee. Three boys, triple the awesome, triple the mess.

Last but not least, it's been a long road with my husband's career and trying to end up where we want to be when we put down roots, finally get out of apartments, and decide to stay. We've moved 7 times and been married for 7 years. We just moved last November for the seventh time, and this isn't a permanent residence for us, either. As much as I may have loved being a rolling stone in my early twenties, that feeling is going away pretty fast as I near July and my thirtieth birthday. The feeling that's replaced it is...

anticipation.

It's not hope. It's not fear. It's just that in-between anxiousness that promises either/or. It's potential. It's almost promise.

Do you know this feeling? What has you feeling this way?

When Rejection Makes Me Laugh

The obligatory picture of cute kids laughing over a symbol of the publishing industry

No, this is not one of those "You might be a writer if..." jokes.

This is much funnier than that (well, to me; courtesy laughter welcome). :)

This morning, I had a good laugh over a rejection letter.

See, I've been writing my whole life, but only seriously since about 2008, really seriously (with a critique group and deadlines) since July 2010.

In Winter 2008, I typed The End on my third book, a Nano novel that never had a beta reader or deep revision. (I've since realized it didn't really have an ending either.)

Like all newbie writers, I eagerly snail-mail queried five agents and e-submitted to one publisher, certain that one of these would like my novel idea enough to help me publish it. (Ah, sweet naivety!)

The agents all got back to me within the month with their polite no's, some more quickly than others. Really, I was spoiled and didn't know it, since in 2010, only half those agents would have responded at all. That's right, two and a half would now return my carefully crafted letter with silence. (hmm, The Half Agent... I feel a middle grade novel coming on.)

Amid my being spoiled by speedy rejection, I had a nine-pound baby. I mean, I had a whole pregnancy, potty-trained my older son, and then had the second baby. This year, at this moment, that second baby is fourteen months old. He walks, runs, and climbs on the kitchen table when I'm not looking. I've written two more books. I've run a marathon. My oldest son can write his name. My family moved to California, then moved again. I've read over fifty books. I've seen the first three Twilight movies.

This morning I opened my email and found a rejection from the 2008 publisher.

And that's how slow publishing is.

The end.

What? That didn't make you laugh? Maybe it's just me. (links to Natalie Whipple's inspiring post)

Moral of the story: Work hard. Live your life. Cast your nets, but don't wait for your miracle. Time is precious but unforgiving. Most of all, just keep swimming. 

TBR pile running dry? No? Well, check out Kelly's Best of 2010 for some middle grade goodness, anyway. You know you can't let that To-Be-Read stack dwindle below three feet!

And Krista at Mother. Write. Repeat. has an interview with the one and only Kathleen Ortiz, who is running a fabulous pre-Christmas contest, so check that out in your "spare time."

Happy Thursday, my friends. Friday is coming. I promise.

Just for funsies, what's the longest you've had to wait for a response from an agent or editor (either positive or negative)?

Save Publishing? I'd Like to See an Easy Transition is all.

ShelfAwareness posted an article this morning called Hashtags Could Save Publishing.

At the bottom, they include some of these increasingly popular twitter hashtags:

Other tags on reading and the book industry, some more (ahem) playful than others:

• #askagent, in which agents field questions from writers and readers
• #bookrageous, chronicling some of the outlandish things readers and booksellers are doing in honor of their favorite books
• #bookstorebingo, which tracks some of the crazier things customers say to booksellers
• #followreader, featuring weekly conversations exploring the evolution of publishing as an industry
• #fridayreads, which encourages Twitter users to exchange notes about what they're reading on a given Friday
• #pantyworthy, the book version of throwing panties at your favorite band
• #pubQT, in which publishing veterans Ron Hogan and Ed Nawotka answer questions and encourage conversation about the future of publishing.--Jenn Northington

The one that got me going all yesterday afternoon is the one that started their article: #dearpublisher

It's like Dear High School Self (#gimmeacall), except that publishers were actually tracking the conversation, and your high school self was completely oblivious to your well-intentioned advice.

There were many valid and interesting comments by readers, authors, agents, and publishers (and it continues today). #dearpublisher has been an industry-wide forum...mostly for complaints. But there have been a few gems, and I was surprised and honored when one of my tweets became the most retweeted comment in the bunch. It's nice to know so many people agree. Here was my request of #dearpublisher(s):

katrinalantznov 

  

#dearpublisher Combine ebooks with hardcovers, but please don't stop printing books ever. The book is not dead. It just had babies.about 17 hours ago via web

• Delete

• Top Tweet
• 71 Retweets

It's not a new idea, and I suppose that's why it resonated with so many people. They've all been thinking it. Bundling ebooks with paper books is a concept plastered all over the web, for people with eyes to look. And now twitter has made it especially easy for publishers to see the demand. 

The second part of that tweet was born out of my frustration with people saying the book is dead. Uber-agent Nathan Bransford wrote eloquently about this in his blog post: Buckle Up! But even as optimistic as he is (God bless him), he's still predicting physical/paper books will wane and bookstores/libraries as we know them will be no more. 

I don't see why this has to be the case. Certainly public demand has shifted to include a new format for receiving books. There are now hard backs, paper backs, ebooks, audio books, and even book apps. But nobody decided, when books on CD became popular, that they should give up printing paper books. It's simply another format. 

A shift in demand calls for a dramatic shift in publisher and bookseller business models. I'm not knowledgeable enough to pontificate about what that change should include. I leave it to the experts. But I steadfastly believe that the culture of bookstores and libraries is one still loved and cultivated by millions. Bookstores are not the ghost-towns we are being led to believe. My husband and I walk around a local bookstore almost every weekend, perusing the new selections and often buying multiple books, in spite of the tough economy. For those of us who read, these places are a sanctuary against outside stresses. We still have to wait in line at the checkout.

So if people are frequenting bookstores, why don't book sales reflect the crowd? 

Conundrum: Booksellers must pair wandering bookstore patrons with the books they're craving.

Answer: Creative marketing, continued market research, and accessible technology coupled with (not replacing) human in-store service.

About marketing: When I log in to facebook, a series of out-of-my-way boxes along the right side of my screen advertise things that actually interest me. Every time I click on one of those links, I'm thinking, This is brilliant marketing. They've really made it easy for me to find stuff I like. Advertisements are only annoying when they're pushing stuff you don't like. So keep looking, booksellers, and find the people who like your stuff. There's probably a huge group of them on goodreads.com or elsewhere just salivating for what you have to offer.

Inside the store: Let there be some sort of kiosk, as in the library, where books can easily be found as soon as you enter the store. But bring back the days, if they ever existed, when bookstore clerks recommended their favorite books based solely on a generic request for historical romance or something scary with spiders in it. That last one wasn't very generic, but you get my drift. Culture in a bookstore does not mean coffee and donuts (though some people will riot at my saying so). Create your own pleasant culture as a store and watch people wander in, fall in love, and tell all their friends. 

There's room for new formats for voracious readers without ousting printed books completely. Those of us still clinging to our bookshelves aren't doing it out of ignorance or intense anti-technology hatred. It's not a "book fetish" as one commenter on Nathan's blog insists. 

Books in print have stood the test of time for centuries. Many, many, many new and brilliant formats have emerged and been embraced. Still, books remain. And unless our society makes a conscious, deliberate decision to do away with them (a poor decision, in my opinion), they will remain for centuries to come. 

We don't need to save publishing. It's populated with friggin' geniuses (seriously, people!) already adapting to the fast-changing demands of its customers. Let's let our voices be heard and help them transition smoothly.

Cooperation benefits us all.

Little Successes: From Straw to Gold (and sometimes back again)

The writing biz is exciting. Nobody can deny that months and months of solitary work followed by months and months of solitary waiting...

Okay, maybe that part is a little dull.

But the publishing biz is an ever-evolving jack-in-the-box of possibility. That's what made me fall in love with publishing, aside from a tenacious desire to see my work on a shelf (weird dream, I know). One day, you might be languishing over a spot of dialogue or a fight scene that just won't sing, and the next, you're winning an online contest or pitching to an agent at a conference (and they like it).

Things can go from crummy to pure YAY in a matter of seconds as you refresh your email inbox over and over and over....

And, unfortunately, at any step of the process they can turn right back around and land you in Crummyville once more.

This is why our spouses, children, and BFFs describe our lives and moods as a roller-coaster ride.

But I submit that the little successes that put us over the moon on our sometimes lonely journey are worth the preceding (and sometimes subsequent) downs.

Agent/author Mandy Hubbard has a motto: "A published author is an amateur who didn't quit. Don't quit."

She's so right (as usual). I don't have much more to say about this, so I'll open it up to my faithful readers (hi guys!). Shout out about your successes. Whisper your failures (these comments can be in all lower-case). Share the roller-coaster ride.

Time for a Serious Post: Slush

Okay, after my epic fangirliness from the past two posts, I think I need to simmer down a bit with a topic of interest to my 17 readers (I love you guys, by the way).

Since we are mostly comprised of writers here, I thought SLUSH would be the perfect topic to bring us back to reality. So here goes...

Slush: an aspiring author's hopes and dreams squeezed into a one-page query letter and dumped into a cyber-stack (sometimes a physical stack, in the case of snail mail) of other aspiring authors' hopes and dreams.

Who reads slush? Depending on the practice of the literary agency or publishing company, your readers will be either interns, agents, or editors.

What are they looking for? Well, after reading several Publishers Marketplace agency summaries, I feel somewhat qualified to answer this (bullet-style, of course):

• Compelling premise
• Tight plot
• Unique/strong voice
• Interesting, well-rounded characters
• Brilliant hook
• Marketability (this isn't usually listed in their literature, but it's a no-brainer)
• No typos, grammatical, spelling, or punctuation problems

Beyond that, there are specific tastes to consider:

• Do they represent children's books or adult novels? Both?
• Do they hate hard science fiction and love paranormal plots? Or do they accept only memoirs?
• Are there formatting considerations? (graphic novels, illustrations, etc.)
• and, perhaps most importantly, what type of query will they accept? Synopsis? First 3-10 pgs?

Before we query, we have to discover all these unique preferences for each and every agent on our WANTED list. Otherwise, we face the risk of an automatic query fail. And nobody wants an automatic fail (take it from somebody who had to take her driver's test three times at age 20).

So the key to breaking out of the slush pile is simple: knowledge.

I said it was simple, but I didn't say it wasn't unendingly difficult, too. Finding all this knowledge, even with the brilliant resources on the web (querytracker.net and agentquery.com, to name two), is extremely time-consuming.

But it is necessary. Besides, as authors, we will have to learn to manage our time to balance writing, editing, promoting, and otherwise living. Might as well start learning that balance now.

There. I promised you a dose of reality and there it is. If you're feeling kind of down, mosey on over to....

SLUSHPILE HELL: a fun little blog making fun of querying writers who we hope aren't us.

Update: Check out Amparo Oritz's 10 Step Program for the Query Wuss for another fun list.

Update: end of March 2010

Still revising Empty Vial, and learning more about the publishing industry and all its little cogs. I now believe that my third book (Empty Vial) is YA fantasy science fiction. Apparently, that's the new word for "soft" science fiction. But if I could specify it to death, I would call it YA neuroscience fiction. It's really the only label that fits 100%. I also now realize why, when somebody convinced me my work must be literary (because it had to do with the mind), agents turned and ran when I labeled my MS as literary science fiction. Apparently, very few agents work with "literary" anything. Good to know. Some of my favorite industry blogs are Nathan Bradford's agent blog, and one he recently linked to: http://www.pimpmynovel.blogspot.com - VERY helpful!

My fourth work (work-in-progress, really) is middle grade fantasy of the superhero/super villain variety. I'd be more specific, but I really like my premise and--although it isn't perfectly original (it was actually inspired by a favorite movie)--I don't wish for the market to become saturated before I finish it. So I'll write about it when it's agented. Count on it.

As for the Empty Vial project, it still needs a lot of work. It's been out for submission before, rejected around 8 times, and I hope it will be out for submission again soon. But I am NOT going to jump the gun this time. I need to get it industry-ready. I have also decided that nanowrimo projects aren't so easy to revise into working novels. I have limited experience, to be sure, but it's been surprisingly difficult with Empty Vial to take my stream of consciousness, first person ramblings and turn them into a tightly plotted story with a clear beginning, middle, and end. It's still not there yet. I have a very supportive group of family and friends reading for me. They are wonderful and usually tell me when something is way off in my work. Of course, it would be nice to have an industry professional reading my stuff, offering advice, etc., but I'm not rich. I don't see us being able to afford a real editor until after my first book is on the shelves for a while, ironically.

I'm off to write chapter 4 of mysterious new project, and revise chapters 8, 9, 10, etc. of the last one. Wish me luck. As Margaret Atwood said, "...there's no free lunch. Writing is work. It's also gambling. You don't get a pension plan. Other people can help you a bit, but essentially you're on your own. Nobody is making you do this: you chose it, so don't whine."