Learning To Write Betterer!

Apologies for the lack of blogging again recently!  It doesn’t mean nothing’s been happening on my writing journey.  Quite the opposite, in fact – I’ve taken some sizeable steps along it.

Kinda bizarrely for an unpaid “job”, I’ve been really busy writing in the last few weeks to meet certain deadlines.  The first was for a competition at a writing conference I’m going to in June.  Despite the fact that there were a couple of competitions I could have entered B4 (kids’ book codename) into, it was the Feature Article one that caught my eye – “Never Give Up!  Never Surrender!  How to keep writing in the face of rejection!” 

Yay, I could put last year’s agent rejections to good use, I thought :-)  A coherent theme for the article popped into my head and off I went.  I’ll find out how I did at the end of June, but it reminded me how much I love writing factual stuff and I’ll be looking for future opportunities to do that too.

The other deadline was for agent submissions for the same conference (Winchester Writers’ Festival).  As well as the fact there’s gonna be three-days worth of amazing talks and workshops, as part of the package you also get five 15-minute appointments with agents and authors.  A-ma-zing!  Usually when you submit your work to agents, you get zilcho feedback.  Criticism and insight from 5 different voices in the publishing world would have been worth the course fee alone.

Mostly the agents I chose wanted the first 2,000 words of a manuscript, plus covering letter and synopsis.  I didn’t fancy submitting CAF (YA story codename) to all 5, especially as there’s likely to be some overlap with their comments, so I got B4 out of the drawer, dusted it off and tweaked the opening chapters.  Simples!

Less simple was preparing the first chapter of CAF.  First chapters are notoriously difficult to write and most writers make significant changes to them once they’ve finished drafting the whole book, or often even cut them altogether, starting further into the story or completely re-writing the beginning.

As I haven’t finished a full first draft yet, this was a big challenge, but ended up being fantastic for my editing skills and the plotting for the whole story.  It forced me to carefully consider what the most important aspects of the story were.  I also had to more thoroughly develop the backstory, so that what we first experience of the characters and where they are at the opening moment is consistent with what’s happened to them previously. 

As a unpublished writer, there are rarely any deadlines, so this was an unusual time for me.  Having to polish your work to competition and submission standard – especially when realistically you’re mid vomit draft with your writing – was a big gear change, but a hugely productive and useful one.  I’ll let you know how I get on in a few weeks’ time when I go face-to-face with these scary lions of the publishing industry!!

The conference itself is something I’ll definitely be blogging about when it happens, but it has been an integral part of important decision making about the future of my writing journey in the last few months. 

Conferences and courses for writers always seemed a strange thing to me.  I used to think that you were either a good writer or you weren’t.  Most people can put one word after another, and some just do it better than others.  Can you learn to write betterer?  ;-)  Plus, I believed (and still do) that while great writing must be well constructed and plotted, it also has an extra spark that you just can’t be taught how to create. 

I was gobsmacked to first discover that you could do a MA in Creative Writing.  MAs were for serious academic study, surely, not just learning how to put words on a page more efficiently.  And how on earth could they teach you how to include that essential (to me anyway) spark?  I've come to appreciate that there is a huge amount to learn about the craft of writing and recognise that MAs are well respected by many in the publishing industry.  So I started to consider doing one.

“We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.”  Ernest Hemingway

I went along to the University’s post-grad open evening and it sounded great, but I always weigh up the cost benefit of everything (and my husband is even worse!).  At £6,000 it wasn’t cheap (!), but would it be worth it?  Would it develop my work so that I stood the best chance of getting published? 

It was the Arvon course I did last year and the prospect of the Winchester conference that nailed my decision.

I knew the MA, most importantly, would give me kudos with certain people and possibly open some doors that wouldn’t otherwise be opened to me.  I also knew that I would learn tons and make lots of good contacts.  However, compared to what I could learn, and the contacts I could make, at the number of other courses and conferences I could attend for the same money, it was a poor pay-off.  Could it provide the same benefit as nearly 8 Arvon courses or 20 Winchester conferences?  I don’t think so.

That’s not to say it’s not a good course and right for other people to do!  Everyone’s temperament and way of learning are different.  I’d love to do – and, if I’m honest, to say I have – an MA, but it just won’t progress my writing journey in the way I want it to.  So I’ll just keep carving my own flexible unique path…and document it here for anyone interested in the adventure ;-)

Rejection Reality

I had very little idea when I started on my writing journey, how pertinent a metaphor “journey” was actually going to be.

As I trundle along, I constantly discover twists and turns, as well as the fact that a point which looks kinda close is actually a helluva lot further away than it seems.  Sometimes the road is smooth (like with my writing surge last November) and sometimes it’s bumpy (like with the agent rejections, or the frequent discouraging thoughts that tell me I’m a crap writer and there’s no point bothering).

After posting my last blog, I started wondering how many people would feel sorry for me because of the rejections, or think that I’m obviously not a “good enough” writer to get published (which may be true!). 

A lot of people have the impression that you write a book and then get it published.  That couldn’t be further from the truth.  Writing is a very loooooong path, with a gazillion more hurdles than you would ever imagine.  I’ve blogged about various ones in the past, will undoubtedly blog about more in the future, but for now I just wanted to bring some perspective to my agent rejections.

Being rejected is a completely normal - even expected - experience for a writer. 

The fact that JK Rowling was rejected by TWELVE publishers before one accepted Harry Potter is quite well-known.  Apparently many of them felt that boarding school stories were old hat!  I’ve often wondered how those editors live with themselves!  It’s gotta be pretty gutting to know you passed up on one of the biggest literary phenomena ever :-/

I also found out last week that although Roald Dahl’s “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” was published in America in 1964, it took 3 more years to convince a UK publisher to take it on.  You'd have to be blind or illiterate not to see how amazing that story is, surely?!

A friend of mine was accepted by an agent last year, having had about 8 rejections before that.  The thing that really opened my eyes in this situation was that he knew, or had at least met, all/most of those agents.  I’m sure that with that extra level of knowledge and connection (which I don’t have), he would have first approached the ones he felt would best like his books and be the right fit relationally to work with.  Yet it STILL took several attempts to find the “one”.

Submitting your work to an agent isn’t like applying for a job.  It’s like sending a speculative application to a company you want to work for, without having much of an idea whether or not they’re wanting to take on someone like you at that moment (or ever!).

Taking the right story, at the right time, to the right person, is an incredible hurdle and one that writers are usually not aware of when they first start writing.  There are so many people trying to do it too, that agents are often overwhelmed by manuscripts.

It could be massively off-putting.  Some days it IS massively off-putting.  But it cannot stop me, you or anyone else who dreams of being a writer to stop writing (or not to start).  As I was so fantastically reminded by this timely blog post from Jeff Goins a few weeks ago, writers shouldn't write to be published.  We have to just write for the love of writing.  If we do that, then what comes out of our fingers and imaginations is likely to be worth reading…and therefore publishing.  If we write to be published then we’ll be listening more to the crowd and less to the Muse, and will be constrained by real and imagined factors.  Our work won’t have the spark, vibrancy and originality it should.  And it definitely won’t be a fun experience.

So, I’m gonna keep on writing, just for the sheer enjoyment of it…and no number of rejections are going to stop me.  I might need to develop and improve my writing ability.  I might need to write a different story, in a different genre, for a different audience.  But perhaps one day, just perhaps, I might successfully jump the agent hurdle, negotiate the publisher obstacle, and you’ll be able to read some of the work I’ll have been blogging about for years :-)

Rejection and Re-evaluation

SO sorry for the loooong delay in posting on this blog.  I spent December travelling around Australia and New Zealand which was amazing but very distracting :-)  My lack of blogging is symptomatic of my lack of writing in general, both of which I’m attempting to get back on course now I’ve had to return to “real” life!

I haven’t told you this yet, but I submitted B4 (my kids’ book) to three agents back in October.

It was one of the most scary things I’ve ever done.  My heart raced for several hours and I felt nauseous.

It was hard work too.  Making sure the first few chapters of the manuscript were as polished as possible was only the first step and that was a long first step!  A manuscript will never feel completely finished and perfect, so deciding when it was good enough and time to stop tweaking was tough.  On top of that I then had to write a synopsis (always easier said than done) and a covering letter. 

For one agent I had to submit a CV as well.  Seriously?!  I haven't updated my CV for years so it took aaaages.  I was suddenly more relieved than I’ve ever been to be able to say that I have a degree in English Lit and Lang - hopefully it gives me a little writerly kudos!

The first agent took just over a week to reply...with a rejection.  Allegedly rejections are a “badge of honour” for writers.  I don’t quite get it.  The only positive thing about a rejection is it shows that I actually managed to complete a manuscript and submit it. It hurts your ego, hopes and dreams for a time.  That’s only natural.

Bizarrely though, I found myself feeling seriously relieved too.  Eh? I thought.  Then it dawned on me that if an agent was interested in B4 and picked it up, I would probably be writing it for the next 3-5 years, as it’s the first of a potential series.  Much as I love Ben and Ned – and I do! – I’m keen to try my hand at other writing too, notably YA fiction and screenwriting.  I realised that I wasn’t ready to get swept up in the rollercoaster of publication for this book and its sequels just yet.

Still I had two more agents to wait to hear back from and I was torn between wanting a yes (for my ego and to further the dream) and a no (so I gained time to write some different stuff before pushing on with B4).

The second rejection came a couple of weeks later.  I was truly relieved about that one, as it was from a big agency that frankly felt too big and impersonal for me.  However, it was a painful rejection and very differently worded to the first one I’d had. They “unfortunately…did not feel enthusiastic enough about it [B4] to take this further.”  Ouch!  That just says “we don’t like your work” or “it’s rubbish”.  Much more personal and critical.  And crushing.

I was fascinated by the difference in rejection messages.  The first rejection had come from the agent who I’d always figured that they’d either be my best bet (coz they represent the writer of another kids series, the one I’d used as a bit of a benchmark for B4) or my worst bet (coz they already had that area on their list covered and didn’t want anyone similar).

Their rejection said that they had “decided it is not quite right for our list but we wish you all the very best in placing elsewhere.”  Nice gentle let down.  As well as massively revelatory about the world of agents.

When you submit to an agent, they are naturally gonna look at whether or not you’re a good writer and can tell a story well.  But there’s way more to it than that.  Agents are business people, looking for clients that will make them money.  They don’t just want any old good writer on their lists, but are looking to specialise in certain areas or fill any gaps in their current list.  Even if you’re a great writer with a fantastic story, you may get rejected many times until you find the agent who really “gets” you and your story, and whose list you’ll fit into.

Without a crystal ball, you just have to keep submitting to agents, stacking up the rejections (sorry, badges of honour) and hope that you find “the right one” one day.

The third rejection – yes, I got three nos – took ages to come, longer than the company’s stated response time.  Perhaps I should have rejected them on that basis?!  By this time I didn’t mind if it was a yes, as I’d already progressed well with my YA writing.  Their let-down was encouraging and kind though – “I did not feel it would be right for my list and therefore I am unable to offer you representation.  I am sorry not to be writing with better news, but I hope this response will not discourage you. I wish you all the best with your writing.” 

Even if that is just what she says to everyone, I definitely preferred receiving it to the second agent’s brush-off.  I’d happily submit future work to this agent (and possibly the first), but I won’t be sending anything to the second agent ever again!

So, what’s the future for B4 now?  I’m putting it aside for the moment - not because I'm demoralised but in order to focus on the other areas of writing I’ve mentioned.  I’m already aware of some revisions I want to do on it though – making it more bouncy and pacey, tweaking a couple of plot details – and I’ll attempt that sometime later this year.  Then I’ll probably submit to more agents and perhaps look to enter it in some competitions.  And toughen myself up in preparation for future rejections...