First novel finished? Celebrate!
by Anne R. Allen
You finished your first novel! Break out the bubbly. Order a cake. Buy some really good chocolate. Time for a major celebration.
Only about 3% of people who start novels actually finish, so you’re a major winner right there. You’ve done something spectacular. Savor the moment!
Finishing a First Novel is a Triumph
It took six years to write. And now the magnum opus is done! You stole shreds of writing time between classes…nighttime baby feedings…chemo treatments…caregiving your aging parent…or those ten minute intervals on the subway going to your miserable job where you were tormented by the boss from hell.
The book went through three revisions with two critique groups and that beta reader who—you can say this now—was bats*** crazy. The fact she wore Jane Austen bonnets with combat boots should have been a clue. But you were so eager for feedback, you would have accepted fashion tips from the Incredible Hulk.
And you barely survived that writer’s conference workshop run by the vicious old guy you’re sure began his career with the Spanish Inquisition.
Then you lost the second draft when your laptop died after your roommate’s new kitten mistook it for the litter box, so you had to copy-type the whole thing from the crumpled remains of the first draft you fished out of the garbage dumpster.
And there was the so-called “editor” from hell. We won’t even talk about her. Not without refilling the prescription for Ativan.
Ditto the year on the query-go-round and the 42 rejections from agents who all said vampire chick lit was totally over but they’d love to see some teen dystopian steampunk. (Oh, yeah, I’ll just knock some of that out in a spare afternoon…)
But finally you found a critique partner who gave you some intelligent ideas for cuts and revisions. You’re so grateful she got you to see that maybe 250K words was a little long for chick lit. Plus she helped you cut a lot of exposition from that 50-page first chapter.
Those rewrites she gave you took nearly a year.
But finally, you’re DONE…what now?
Should You Self-Publish that First Novel?
You’re thinking about self-publishing. That querying stuff was so demoralizing. People say agents and big publishers are all crooked anyway.
The neighbor’s girl is in art school. She could design a cover. And your English teacher friend could edit.
Or maybe you’ll go to the subsidized press with all the online ads and let them handle everything. They say you’ll make lots of money if you buy their deluxe publicity package…
And you’ve already chosen your outfit for the launch party. The local library will let you rent a room. That new bakery will cater and they do the cutest cupcakes that look like little bats.
But a weird feeling is holding you back…
Hmmm.
Could it be common sense?
Here’s the thing: every author has a first novel. Occasionally it ends up published to enthusiastic acclaim.
But pretty much never immediately after the author types “the end.”
That only happens in movies—because the stuff that happens between typing that final page and publication makes really boring cinema.
In real life, rushing to publish a first-ever novel without a few more in the hopper isn’t a good idea.
- Once you publish, you’ll have less time to write. Whether you’re self-publishing or going for a traditional contract, actually selling a published book requires a huge amount of marketing and promotional work. Your “just writing” days will be over.
- It’s incredibly difficult to promote a singleton title by an unknown author. None of the standard marketing plans work for a single title. BookBub does nothing for authors with only one book.
- Even if your book is published by a Big 5 house and ends up on the NYT bestseller list for 3 years, you can get a massive case of writer’s block. I know authors this has happened to.
- It’s probably not your best work. With an amateur cover and edits, it will likely die and stop your career before it starts. You’ll be a better writer later and can make it a better book.
- Or not. Maybe it never will see the light of day. That’s okay too.
First Novel Infatuation
Sob! 🙁 It’s not true! Not YOUR book. Yours is different. It’s wonderful. Everyone will love it.
We know exactly how you feel.
But the truth is that almost every working author has a first novel nobody will ever read.
And we’re grateful for that.
We were once as madly in love with our novels as you are with yours. We knew they were perfect…PERFECT. They were life-changing, world-shaking literary masterpieces. Everybody who read them was going to be transformed forever by their magnificent storytelling and insight.
But somehow nobody who read them seemed to get it.
Our moms said, “That’s nice, dear. Your spelling is excellent…”
The BFF said, “I got kind of confused in the part where the lizard people from Betelgeuse showed up in chapter twelve. I thought it was a cozy mystery.”
Relatives said, “Why is there so much sex? Can’t you write more like Jane Austen?”
342 agents said, “This project is not right for our list at this time.”
Then we put it in a drawer and wrote another novel.
And it’s still there, gathering dust. Every few years we pull it out, read one of those scenes we remember as being pretty good, try to work it into a story or something that might slip into the WIP, and end up tossing it back into the drawer.
We feel lucky it all happened before the self-publishing revolution.
Fight the Pressure to Publish Too Soon.
Self-publishing is a major gift to writers, and I believe most writers will be self-published or “hybrid”-published sometime in the near future.
But easy self-publishing is not always a boon to new writers. The pressure to publish fast doesn’t allow writers to grow and learn. You can get stuck in a writing pattern or even a genre that doesn’t properly use your talents.
I constantly see new writers pressured to “run out and publish now!”—like you’re in an old Mission Impossible show and “you must upload this book to Amazon in 3-2-1 seconds… poof! You’re never going to be a published author.”
I know your friends and family see books and courses that promise “Kindle ebook riches” and newspaper stories about “overnight self-publishing millionaires” and those high-pressure ads from vanity publishers all the time. That seriously ratchets up the pressure on you.
Your friends don’t know the “Become a Kindle Millionaire with Ebooks” stuff is seven years out of date and aimed at nonfiction authors. Or that those “overnight Kindle millionaires” had lots of books written before they hit “publish,” and they were often well-known traditionally published authors before they went indie. And that vanity “subsidized” presses are heartbreaking ripoffs.
All they see is how easy it’s supposed to be. They think you fear success.
They don’t understand you’d probably lose your shirt and self-esteem and derail your career.
I hate to see other indie authors adding to the pressure, saying stuff like “every day you’re not published, you’re not making money.”
Or worse, “that review wasn’t fair. Maybe the book was bad, but what if it was the author’s first novel? People have to cut newbies some slack.”
No. They don’t.
If the book was that bad, what was it doing in the marketplace?
If you bought a sweater online and it had only one sleeve, would you give it a nice review because maybe it was the garment worker’s first day on the job?
I didn’t think so.
What Should You Do After you’ve Finished Your First Novel? Some Do’s and Don’ts
DON’T:
- (Just in case I didn’t make myself clear.) Rushing to publish is not a good idea.
- Especially with a vanity press.
- Don’t contact somebody like Ruth or me and say, “everybody in publishing is a crook, so drop everything you’re doing to spend a week critiquing my book for free and tell me where to send it so they’ll say I’m a genius and give me a million dollars. (Don’t laugh. This happens.)
- Forget about rewriting it again or hiring an expensive editor. Not right now. Let it rest.
- Push it on everybody you meet and beg them to tell you “what they really think.” They just might.
DO:
- If you don’t have a blog or a website yet, start one. Blogging raises your profile, is great writing practice, and you may meet your future agent, reviewer or co-author there.
- Network with other authors on social media and learn about the business. There’s lots to learn.
- Talk with both trad-pubbed and self-pubbed authors. Don’t take any one person or group’s word that one path is right for you. Some genres do much better than others in indie publishing. If you write literary fiction or children’s fiction, your road will be a lot harder going the indie route than if you write romance, mystery, or thrillers.
- If you don’t have any short stories, creative essays, or poetry published, write some.
- Start sending the short pieces out to contests, anthologies and journals. (You didn’t expect that one, did you? But that will help a whole lot whether you go the trad. route or self-publish.)
And most important of all:
- Start writing your next novel!
Keep Your Eye on the Big Picture
Writing long form narrative takes most of us a long time to learn. You don’t want to put in all that work learning to write in order to publish only one book, any more than you’d want spend time learning to knit to make one sweater, or take lessons to learn to play one round of golf or one piano piece.
We’re in this for the long haul, so make sure you keep an eye on the big picture. The big picture involves your next book, and your next.
And remember you’re going to be way better ten years from now than you are now. Trust me on this.
I’d completed five novels before I finally saw one in print. (And I’d written bits of dozens more) Some have been lost in the dust of time. Others have been reincarnated as short stories and others are still gathering dust. I’m not sure why I keep them. I should have a bonfire one of these days.
Confession Time
The first novel I finished was a coming of age novel called Midnight with no Pain. My title came from a line in Keats’ “Ode to a Nightingale.”
“Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
To cease upon the midnight with no pain,”
It’s amazing how pretentious we can be at 22. And how miserable. I scribbled my opus in little Italian notebooks on trains and cafes and youth hostels as I traveled around Europe during my post-college quest to find myself. It was, not surprisingly, about a depressed 20-something young woman traveling around Europe on a post-college quest to find herself.
The notebooks disappeared in one of my many moves, but I think I held onto them for at least a decade. There was no plot to the novel, as I remember. But lots of sex. And of course mass quantities of drugs and rock and roll. It was the 1970s.
See why I’m grateful there was no self-publishing then?
How about you? It would be fun if readers wanted to add some confessions about your “dust-gathering” novel in the comments. 🙂
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by Anne R. Allen @annerallen August 21, 2016
This week I’m a guest at Bowker’s new website, The Self-Published Author, talking about Author Etiquette, and why it’s important to know the rules and stay safe. On my book blog, I’m continuing my poison series with a post on Polonium 210.
What about you, scriveners: are you brave enough to tell us about your practice novel? Were you able to use parts of it for another book or story? How long did you shop it around before you realized it probably wasn’t going to work? Or are you one of the lucky one-in-a-million authors who made a success of your fledgling opus?
BOOK OF THE WEEK
This week we’re featuring Sherwood Ltd. The ebook is only $2.99!
This is the second in the series, but can be read as a stand-alone. It’s a satire about an unorthodox small press in the English Midlands, about a couple of writers who should have done a lot more homework about the industry before they tried to publish.
SHERWOOD, LTD
Camilla Randall Mystery #2
Suddenly-homeless American manners expert Camilla Randall becomes a 21st century Maid Marian—living rough near the real Sherwood Forest with a band of outlaw English erotica publishers—led by a charming, self-styled Robin Hood who unfortunately may intend to kill her.
When Camilla is invited to publish a book of her columns with UK publisher Peter Sherwood, she lands in a gritty criminal world—far from the Merrie Olde England she envisions. The staff are ex-cons and the erotica is kinky. Hungry and penniless, she camps in a Wendy House built from pallets of porn while battling an epic flood, a mendacious American Renfaire wench, and the mysterious killer who may be Peter himself.
Available in ebook from:
All Amazons iTunes GooglePlay Scribd Inktera Kobo Nook Smashwords
Available in paper from:
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Please note: I try to vet all the contests and opportunities I list here, but I may miss something, so always read the fine print, especially when it comes to copyright. Don’t enter a contest that takes rights for non-winning submissions, or asks for ALL rights, rather than first rights. More on this at Writer Beware.…Anne
OPPORTUNITY ALERTS
“Dear Lucky Agent” Contest FREE! Judge is Andrea Morrison of Writers House, Category: contemporary or literary YA. Submit your first page. 3 winners get a critique of their first 10 pages. Deadline August 24th.
THE SUNDAY TIMES SHORT STORY AWARD NO ENTRY FEE Any story under 6,000 words. Five shortlisted runners-up get £1,000. First prize worth £30,000. The Society of Authors is the sponsor. Author must have previous publications in the UK or Eire. Deadline September 29, 2016.
Bartleby Snopes Dialogue-Only Story Contest. $10 FEE for unlimited entries. Write a story under 2000 words, using only dialogue–no tags. No other restrictions. Prize: minimum of $300, more with more entries. All fees go into the prize pot. Deadline September 15th.
Call for anthology submissions! Wising Up Press is accepting submissions of poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction for their “Kindness of Strangers” anthology. Prose: 5,000 words or fewer. Poets may submit up to five poems. They accept simultaneous submissions and previously published work. Deadline Sept. 1st
Verbolatry Laugh-a-Riot Contest 2016 Win £50 and publication, no fee. Seeking Humorous essays and cartoons about writing/publishing. Two categories, free and paid. (Pay £5, win £100) Judged by Moira Allen, Leigh Anne Jasheway and Geoff Tristram. Sponsored by Anam Cara Writer’s and Artist’s Retreat. Deadline 31 August 2016.
MYSTERY AUTHORS! We found a list of 15 small presses that specialize in mysteries and do not require an agent for submissions. It’s compiled by Authors Publish Newsletter.
ROMANCE AUTHORS! Here’s a list of 31 small presses that specialize in romance and do not require an agent for submissions. Also compiled by the Authors Publish Newsletter.
25 PUBLISHERS YOU CAN SUBMIT TO WITHOUT AN AGENT. These are respected, mostly independent publishing houses–vetted by the great people at Authors Publish. Do check out their newsletter
Sane and sensible advice! I’ve written several first novels. A few paperback Gothic Romances back when Gothics were hot. After that, another “first novel” that the would-be editor loved. First person, funny, sexy for its time. Her boss, the publisher loved it! Told me I’d be rich & famous. Literally. Then he took the ms home and his wife read it. She did NOT love it. Ooops. Back to poor and invisible. Several more “first novels” that went nowhere. Finally, Decades, published in hard cover by Simon & Schuster and in paperback by NAL. So….lots of times a first novel isn’t even first. Depends how you count. 😉
Ruth–I tried to write a gothic once! How hard could it be, I asked myself. Ha! Really hard! I only got to chapter five, I think. I couldn’t think of any more words for creaking floorboards and bumps in the night. I figured all Gothics were essentially fake Bronte novels the way all Regency romances were fake Jane Austen. I thought they’d be easy to copy, but I was so wrong….
That must have been heartbreaking with the first-person funny novel though. Who knew the editor’s wife could put the kibosh on a fledgling career? Thank goodness Decades made it to the big time!
Ha! Several years ago I determined that my first novel-length manuscript belongs in the category, “fabulous writing exercise that should never see the light of day”. I learned heaps while writing it & I still find the premise intriguing. I should probably be writing apology notes to all the editors & agents I asked to read it before I realized what its true purpose was. On the other hand, editors & agents have too much to read, so apology notes are probably a bad idea.
Thanks for another fine post.
CS–I cringe when I think of all the awful queries and synopses I inflicted on agents and editors, even for good books. It took me such a long time to get a handle on those things. I used to try to squeeze 350 words into a one-page query by using a smaller font. Like I was fooling anybody. Ha. We have much to atone for. But you’re right: written apologies would not help. 🙂
Mine was a novel that has never seen the light of day. It was a psychological thriller called Remember No Evil. I kept hitting that 1/3 point in the novel and getting royally stuck, so I figured revising would help and went back to the beginning and revised. Got stuck in the same place every time. The 1/3 point is a common place to have a lot of fear, because suddenly the novel is taking a shift and the momentum of the beginning disappears. No writing books talk about that problem, so I always thought there was something wrong with me or the way I was writing.
I also had trouble that that time coming up with ideas (I was also associating idea as the story), so all I had was this book. We do not discuss how long I spent stuck on that book. Another writer and I decided to co-write, and we used his story. I decided to set aside RNE for the time being and return to it later. When we did finish that next book, I realized that I’d spent so long revising the book that I’d grown out of it. I was no longer the person who started it. So the book is permanently trunked. Even the subject is not something I would enjoy writing about now. The cowritten book did get shopped around, but as they say at work, it was overcome by events. Cowriter got fear of getting published so bad he sabotaged everything as we got closer to submission. The only reason it went into submission was that I pushed it, and our relationship fell apart while it was in submission. That story is also dead.
Linda–You bring up a lot of great points in your comment!
1) That 1/3 point in the novel when you realize you’ve got a beast you need to either wrestle to the ground or let loose into the wild. I’ve abandoned so many novels at that point. And you’re right that I haven’t seen much written about that. I’m going to look into that.
2) Scarcity of ideas. We have this idea and we think it’s the only one we’ll ever have and we don’t realize ideas are everywhere.
3) Idea vs. story. My first novel had an idea but no story. I didn’t understand then that they aren’t the same thing.
4) Fear of publication. That is definitely a thing. I hope this post doesn’t give people with that issue an excuse. I should probably address that in another post. I know people who refuse to learn how to write a query, or how to format a manuscript or always phone agents even though it’s forbidden and then say “nobody will publish me.” And they refuse to self publish because “All self-published books are terrible” when they’ve never read one. Maybe that’s an idea for a post…. Hmm.
Thanks for all the great ideas!
My cowriter was fine while we were creating and revising. As we got closer to finishing, the fear showed up. I was pretty confused about what was going on at the time, but it felt like he was sabotaging the story. I’d push forward to get to the end, he’d fuss about revising the first chapter. I was open to fix problems, so I was, “What’s wrong with it?” Him: “I don’t know! But it needs to be fixed!” I wouldn’t do that, because you can’t fix if you don’t know what to fix, and you can break a whole lot.
When that didn’t work, he started on personal attacks, making it about him. If I suggested something to try in the story or piggybacked off one of his ideas, I was trampling on his ideas. I didn’t understand it, because it was such a change in personality for him, but my instincts were not to back down. I kept pushing to get the story done, and also to come up with ideas for a new book. Those he all shot down, untested, as unsellable. Then he told me how I got ideas was completely wrong–“what is” was the correct way.
I ended up doing the query, the synopsis, and submission to agents while he dragged his feet. The more I pushed to get it into submission, the nastier he got. We’d be at lunch, I’d say something, and next thing I know he’s yelling at me, and I’m going, “What did I do?” The book was in submission, and we had a full out. We went to the ITW conference, and he bid in auction for a critique of the book–a clear sign he wanted to pull the book back. The book, thankfully, got rejected by the agent, and by the time we came back, we were done as co-writers. I ended up walking away from the book, which was very hard and painful. I wished I’d seen the signs earlier because I did get warning twinges early on that I ignored. My own fault in this was that I thought writing with him would help me fix my problems and not addressing the issues when I started seeing them.
Six months later, he asked me if I wanted to cowrite again. He’d tried doing it on his own and didn’t get any traction. I turned him down. Last I heard, he was still trying to write novels, but as far as I can tell, he’s never finished any.
Always so good, Anne- funny and encouraging, sober and supportive. Really, it’s go-and-stop at the same time isn’t it? A balancing act- keep writing but be selective about publishing.
I’ve always resisted the assurances of others that I would someday write romance, or horror or any other genre. The world I see is big enough to encompass all those things, and recently I’ve become convinced that I will only ever tell one story (I’m living the “Leaf by Niggle” experience!). After eight years I have tales published that were on my mind thirty years ago, some snippets of which were written near the beginning, most quite a bit later. Still plenty to tell and discovering new facets all the time.
I believe there’s no mistake you can make about publishing that’s worse than the idea of not writing! Ever onward, and let the writing make you happy, say I. Publishing? That can lie in the lap of the gods.
Will–Every writer is different. Some people know their genre from the first time they pick up a crayon, but others just want to “write” and never quite figure out their genre. Think of Neil Gaiman, whose work always straddles three or four genres.
But you’re definitely an epic fantasy guy. It’s cool that the world that has always been in your head has finally come to life in books and is reaching readers.
And you’re right that even though publishing requires the right timing, the time is always right for writing.
Well said! Couldn’t agree more.
We do improve as writers. My first book isn’t as good as the later ones. But letting it sit or pushing it aside for a long time while working on something else really helps. (Mine sat in a drawer for thirty years and the rewrite still wasn’t perfect. Imagine if I’d tossed it out into the world in the beginning?)
I will say, your opening of all the hell that author went through rather scares me. I wouldn’t have made it past rewriting by hand the second draft. (Probably because I’d be in prison for killing my roommate and the cat.)
Alex–Thirty years!! Now I’m not telling people to let their books sit that long. 🙂
I hear a lot of amazing tales of woe from writers, but I have to admit I may have exaggerated just a tad with that one.
I’m glad you see my point here, which is that we do get better. Much better. So this is really a very positive post, although it might not feel that way to the brand new writer.
Excellent advice again as always! Thank so much for sharing your wisdom with us!
Barb–Thanks a bunch! And thanks so much for fixing all our little glitches!
Great advice, as always, Anne! I wrote my first novel about five years ago, picked at it a while, then set it aside. Then I wrote my second novel and some short stories. I finished one of the short stories and sent it out about a month ago (it takes me so long to write and edit). Last year I began picking at the first novel again, sent it out to an editor (http://www.bluesquarewriters.com/editing) who gave me some great advice (this is after I sent it to one previous editor who wasn’t so good). I rewrote it and set it aside. Then I decided to write an introductory short story for the first novel, so I’m working on that now. I will probably return to the first novel next week and finish it up. I’ll return to the second novel a week or two after and see if I still like it as much as I did when I finished it. Well, anyway, as you can see, I agree with you. It takes a long time and lots of practice to write something that ‘sings.’ I’m hoping one of my projects will begin humming soon. Otherwise, back to the keyboard. Thanks again for your great advice!
Jan–Writing those short stories in between really helps, doesn’t it. It really exercises those muscles, and it can help us see what that first novel might need.
I think most of us also have a story of that editor who “wasn’t so good”. Sometimes they just don’t get our genre or don’t get our style or whatever. It can be a real disaster.
Best of luck getting that book to sing!
Hi Anne, Yes, the editor who wasn’t so good. What I wanted was an Edit (with a capital ‘E.’ What I got was not so enlightening. The editor from Blue Square was great, tough, but I learned so much from him. I think it’s a ‘feel’ thing, which I know sounds very unhelpful, but I think an author knows deep down when someone is right on about an edit. And everyone is different. An editor that works for me might not work for someone else. Re: short stories: I love writing them. They help me with clarity because I have to communicate effectively in a short space. For me, that’s the biggest benefit of a short story. And they are just fun. Thanks for wishing me luck. I’m not sure the first novel will ever be an opera, but maybe a good folk ditty. Or not. We’ll see. 🙂
Yeah, well, okay. Hmmm….
My 1st 1st novel ultimately violated every single rule that you’d just wrote about. It wasn’t professionally edited; it was a rough 1st draft and done; it got queried as is about dozen times (all rejections, imagine that); met a fellow writer who self-published through ASI (you can see where this is going); destroyed my reputation; pulled it down from ASI, and spent the next three years rehabilitating my writing reputation.
A whole ton o’ lessons learned, and after shooting myself in the other foot with a chapbook published through ASI (two by four upside the head finally did the trick), we finally decided to get serious about writing.
End result was a couple of short stories published, a novel published both the traditional and non-traditional way (Amazon & Smashwords), a novella published non-traditional and two very small short story collections non-traditional.
I also decided to have a professional that I respect do a novella that I had a couple of people beta-read and I wrote two follow-up drafts. The end result is I have a thoroughly edited story complete with lots of comments/suggestions on the manuscript itself, along with a very tidy and professional one and a half page e-mail full of comments, suggestions and explanations to go with it.
Someday, I will force myself to sit down and take a very hard baring of my soul to pump out a final version that I can be proud of.
G. B.–Your younger self is exactly the person I wrote this post for. The writer who is easy pickings for Author Solutions and all those other vanity presses that prey on an first time author’s dreams and, well vanity (we all have it, or we wouldn’t have got that whole book done) and they fall just the way you did. There are thousands just like you. Or these companies wouldn’t be thriving.
Thing is, those books might be great if they had time to sit, get real editors, and be worked on as part of a career strategy.
Best of luck on the new book and the final version to be proud of!
Oh, how I wish I knew back then what I know now! Famous author quote, right? Somehow I decided to hire an editor – BEST thing I ever did in my writing career. The learning curve shot way up after that. Thank you for this post.
Patricia–Getting the right editor can be magic. But sometimes even an editor can’t help. No editor could have salvaged my first effort. You gotta have a plot to have a novel, apparently… sigh. But we learn by our mistakes. Which must mean I am very, very wise. 🙂
Really wonderful advice. Where were you way back when–when I was writing my first short story? 🙂 Yep, that’s how I started. Writing short and dipping my toes little by little into longer work territory. It took a village and years of writing to make it to 45K. But you know what? I published most, if not all, of those short stories over a 15 year+ period. A great learning experience for me and I experienced success that kept me motivated and helped me persevere. Most stories were pubbed in small mags or literary journals but heh, publishing is publishing. Everything adds up. Oh, I wanted to recommend a book my Nancy Kress: “Beginning, Middles, & Ends,” pubbed by Writer’s Digest Books. I’ve used this one quite a bit as a reference, and she has a pretty good section on problems in the middle. Again, great post, Anne.
Paul–You did it exactly right. Turn out those short stories. Send them out. Get them rejected. Write them again. Get them into small journals. Then bigger ones. Then when you finally write that novel (or novella), it’s a winner.
Thanks for the recommendation for “Beginnings, Middles and Ends.” Saggy middles are almost always the toughest part for newbie novelists.
Well. Yes. This is true. But I’m at the point now where, whether people think my writing is bad or not, I’m getting something out there. Something polished, of course, but still. I’ve had my first novels sitting around for 20 years. For me, personally, I’m done. Enough.
There is so much to learn in this business but there does come a point when you just need to write. And write some more. And then, you know, write. I agree about letting that first story sit, just not as long as I did. 🙂 And, really, it doesn’t help that people think it’s easy. This line really hit me: “All they see is how easy it’s supposed to be. They think you fear success.” (Especially when your work sits around for 20 years. Just saying.) Also, this is so important: “Don’t take any one person or group’s word that one path is right for you.” Thanks, Anne!
Sarah–You definitely don’t want to sit on your work for 20 years! I was just talking about that first thing. If you’ve written another, and another, yes! Get it out there. And don’t take one group’s word for what’s “good” or “right.”
A Romance group would probably tear The Great Gatsby to shreds, and some MFA workshop would no doubt lacerate everything James Patterson ever wrote. You need to know your audience and your own goals.
Absolutely brave enough!
My first novel is still in progress. It’s actually a fictionalized biography, but I never met the guy, only heard about him through a friend. His story is so sad, the saddest part being that it is true. Another sad part is that he is not able to tell it himself, due to circumstances.
I hope to write it well, depending on folks like you to keep me humble. 🙂 And I hope to make it the first in a long series of bios written about people who could not have written their autobio, due to circumstances. 😉
P.S. You are the most honest commentor on the ills of conferences that I’ve met! Ha! And the actual cost of writing! Thanks so much for that!
P. S. I’ve seen some awful things happen at conferences, especially in workshops. That’s a major plot point in my comic mystery Ghostwriters in the Sky. 🙂
Katherine–I love the idea of writing about people who can’t write about themselves “due to circumstances.” My novel The Gatsby Game is a fictionalized biography of a guy I knew in college who imagined himself to be Jay Gatsby, who couldn’t write about it, due to the circumstances of him having died on the set of a Burt Reynolds movie. 🙂
It’s a great idea for a series. Just don’t publish the first one until you write the second. You’ll thank me for that advice. I promise you will!
Hi, Ann,
I had spent YEARS on my first MG fantasy novel. Hundreds of rewrites. After the second year, I started the second in the series. Mid stream, I stopped and started a completely different story, an edgy YA contemporary.
The first I a still hoping for publication. It has been ready by at least 75 critiquers and betas. Everyone feels it has SOMETHING, but none of us are sure how to get it PERFECT. So it remains. I plan to revisit it at some point.
Second novel has had many requests for fulls from agents, but no contract as of yet. SO maybe book 3? Started that ages ago, but haven’t worked on it in a while. I hope to get back to it soon.
I do have a short story being published, so I am excited about that. The release date has been set back a few times, but hopefully I will have a date soon.
I agree… many of our first works are a leaning process. I am certainly a much better writer since then, but our first stories can have “SOMETHING” that may be honed further later on.
Thanks for the GREAT advice!
Michael–It sounds as if all those books will probably be published at some point, but the thing that ties them together may not have been written yet. It may not be until #3 or even #4 that you get whatever big picture you need to see to make them all work. Maybe the protag in the YA contemp is writing the MG fantasy. Or it’s a game he’s playing.
I love the story of Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections, which came out of expanding one chapter of his “practice novel.” You’ll get there. You just don’t know where “there” is yet.
No writing is ever wasted! Best of luck with that story!
My first novel developed my writing muscles. My second one became the first to have an agent (who said “not quite there; send me the next thing you write”.) My third sold to the first hardcover publisher she showed it to, and thus became the first in print.
Nine published books and several decades later, I took a big breath and published another first book — as an indie. Survival as a writer means constant change. Helped by having the hide of an armadillo.
Ruth–That sounds like a pretty typical pattern for writing professionals these days. I think most authors will have some self-published books in the next few years. We need one from column A and one from column B to keep diversified in the ever-changing marketplace.
The armadillo hide is a absolutely required. And it’s another reason NOT to publish that first novel. We need more time to grow callouses on our souls. Shopping one book doesn’t give us time to get toughened up. We need a lot more rejections, dismissive agents, and those slash and burn edits so we can stand up to what we’re going to face out in the big bad marketplace.
Hi, Annie. This hit home in several ways. I started out publishing a number of children’s short stories, and my first novel thankfully stayed in a drawer after a few submissions. My second kept coming out of the drawer and getting re-worked, then put away while I worked on other things and figured out what was wrong with it. More short stories, a good stint of freelance journalism, then back to the book. Finally got it right, and was going to give myself a year of querying agents and trad publishers, but after the first 3 rejections came from my opening batch of 8 queries, I found myself hoping they would say no. So when I realized that, I contacted a cover designer and indie-pubbed.
I really wish someone had told me, or I had realized on my own, how much children’s fiction (middle-grade in particular) is difficult to succeed at when you go the indie route. Yes, it’s in a couple bookstores, and I’ve done a few school visits, but this age group really isn’t into ebooks (yet!) and it’s just plain hard to market. So it’s become a labor of love, not profit.
Book Two of *Through the Shimmer of Time* is finally coming out at the end of September, but the third and final book is just going to sit on hold while I change genres and write some women’s fiction/romance to just have fun. And the goal is to have fun writing, not to drag myself through historical research – even for time travel, I like my hist fic to be accurate, and I never dreamed how much WORK that would take!
I’ll also be a little more savvy on the marketing this time – I plan to put out 3-4 related novellas at the same time, with another 1-2 ready to go. I won’t get the excitement of sending each one out in the world when it’s done, but they might hopefully pay for themselves this way!
Jennifer–Thanks for sharing your story! You brought up a great point I forgot to mention. One of the ways I improved is the road you took: I switched to journalism for a while. That really improved my writing and helped me learn to get to the point already. 🙂
You ran into the BIG hurdle of genre in self-publishing. Children’s literature simply hasn’t made the transition to ebooks. I’m not sure why that is. It may be because libraries and physical bookstores have a much bigger influence on the market. But indies make their money in ebooks and Middle Grade and younger don’t buy ebooks. I think it will happen, but it hasn’t happened yet.
Your next project sounds exciting. Time travel is very big. It does require research, but it’s such fun to read. I do understand wanting to write something contemporary and fun that doesn’t need research. Romance is the biggest ebook/indie market, so if you’re drawn to write it, you should give it a shot. I love writing comic contemporary mysteries set in my home town. Very little research involved.
I wrote my first novel about ten years ago and I gave it to a beta reader about the same time. She told me it was brilliant, but being in it’s first draft, I wasn’t so certain. A few years later I entered a competition using three chapters from this novel and became one of the winners – to a writer’s workshop and festival for an entire weekend (so I might still have a bit of ‘first novel infatuation’). 😉
In the intervening years I have written three other novels, some short stories, poetry (which I’ve had published in a small publication), created a blog and recently made my first attempt at a novella. I’ve sent my short stories out to various competitions without success, and am currently in the process of going over them again to give to new beta readers. One of my greatest downfalls is learning how to ‘ship’, due to a mixture of both fear and perfectionism. I obviously can do it to a degree, but it is a constant struggle.
I still re-visit my first novel as I feel there may be something to salvage from it, so I still have some hope for it. The passage of time certainly does help you to see your earlier writing in a whole new light. Thanks for the great advice, as always, Anne. 🙂
Debbie–It sounds to me as if your first novel is a winner that just needs your rested an more mature eyes to give it another look.
As far as the stories that have not met with success–make sure you’re following guidelines as far as formatting and small details. Some contests only use online submission forms, which totally garble something that has been formatted in standard old school submission format. Others insist on the format that was standard in 1952. It often helps to write to the contest directors and ask what they prefer.
Excellent advice! I thought my first novel, A Strangled Rose, would make me a literary superstar at the time. Thank God I didn’t self-publish. But I did send an excerpt to our local newspaper that has tens of thousands subscribers. *face palm* My husband framed the FULL PAGE piece, and I cringe every time I walk by it. Thankfully, the paper has yellowed over time so it’s not that legible anymore. If only we could remain in that state of literary denial. Oh, how much easier this writing gig would be.
Sue–Hi there! *waves* I’m so glad we finally got you subscribed to the new blog. I have one of those. My third or fourth novel was a mystery that was serialized in a local entertainment weekly in 1990 They actually paid me $30 a week. I look back at those yellowed pages now and realize I’m really lucky it was just starting out and didn’t have the circulation it has now. I did have an editor, but he couldn’t do much about story arc or character building. Ha!
The Strangled Rose is a perfect first novel title!
As I often say–it’s amazing what you can accomplish when you don’t know how! 🙂
Oh, Anne––I’m not brave enough to recount the story of my first novel, except to say that you can buy it, if you can find it. I pulled it off the market when I realized… well, that the negative reviewers were right. But I forgot to take it off of one source. I still get checks for $3.87 every once in a while. Someday I’ll rewrite it, possibly on the other side of the grave.
But now I’m writing something I swore I’d never write: a vampire novella. I hate vampire anything. Overdone. Messy. Cloying, to even clotting. I’m having a terrific time with my Euro-trash vampire floozy and her witch friends. I hope readers like it as well. I’ve got it to have it done and formatted by Oct. 1: it’s for a Halloween event. Woohooohooo. Hoo.
Great article, as usual.
Sandra–I love the idea of editing your work from beyond the grave…:-)
I think it’s time for vampires to be funny again. I loved Dark Shadows, which was a hoot. Also the hilarious one with George Hamilton. Then Anne Rice made them serious again, although Interview with the Vampire had a very campy tone. I loved that. But then they got serious And then we got all the teen angst. Not a fan of teen angst.
It’s time to make them silly again. Eurotrash vampires it is! Haha!
I’m only just getting around to subbing my first novel now, some 8 years later, as I’ve been able to go back and write it again as I am now!
Icy–After eight years, I’d say you will have acquired a lot of maturity and skill as a writer. Best of luck with the submissions!
In my youth, I wrote poetry, YA, fantasy, and mystery shorts and sent them out, to rejection. Rejoiced when I got the standard reject from EQ with a short typed message ‘But thank you” because according to Writers Digest, that meant it almost was accepted 🙂 Finally, as a writing exercise, I read a couple of confession mags, wrote a story and it was accepted on the first sub. Published nearly a year later. By then I was in a college publishing program and had no time to write.
Novelwise, I tried writing a teen romance in university (because I’d read a bunch for a paper I wrote called Milkshakes for the Mind: An Examination of Teen Romance Novels and thought easy-peasy; problem was I despised what I was writing, yep a degree and youth can make you pretentious!), a romantic suspense/gothic, a contemporary romance, a medieval fantasy (abandoned when the short story intro was slapped down by an editor who said I hit nearly all the cliches but since I had talent, to try a less crowded genre) a coming of age novel, and two mysteries. One was a sub for a mystery writing course and I heard from another instructor who shared the guy’s office the teacher was impressed with my writing. Alas for me, I just couldn’t finish anything I started, until last year. And that was The War Bride, a historical novel about Alexander the Great’s first wife Rhoxane! Which, BTW, I have held back until either the sequle or the prequel is complete, as per your advice. 🙂
Out of all my stillborn novels, the only ones I revisit from time to time are the mysteries, which I think still hold promise. I’m glad KDP wasn’t around back in the day and I’m also glad I never completed any of the early novels because I spared myself a ton of rejections and false hopes. It was apprentice work. We grow and we learn. Thanks, Anne.
Colleen–I wonder if that editor really did you a favor. Some of those genres thrive on cliche. Without them readers would be awfully disappointed.
I’m speaking in this post to people who have too much confidence in their early work, but some of those writing programs can freeze a muse with too many shoulds. Not to mention literary gamesmanship.MFA programs can be awfully stifling for some writers. But it sounds as if you managed to get through. But I’m sure that kept you from finishing some of those projects.
I’ve always thought Alexander’s wife would make a fantastic heroine! She could use a trilogy. That’s a big undertaking, but worth the wait. You may have had to work to hone your skills this long to take on such a big, important project. Best of luck with it.
I like the term “apprentice work”. We tend to lose sight of the idea of apprenticeship these days, but we all need to put in our time.
Hi again, Anne and thanks for the response. In retrospect, I think that fantasy editor probably thought the story lacked a twist or something original, to make the cliches less cliche, know what I mean?
I never was in a writing program, other than the mystery writing course I mentioned. Another thing I’m glad I never got into because I agree it can you hold back, esp if your interest is genre fiction. The pubiishing program I took in college was designed for grads to find work in the book and magazine publishing industry. I ended up working in corporate communications as a journalist 🙂 But the basics of what I learned back then still come in handy as my budget is very small. I still have my old typography book 🙂
Interestingly enough,barring a couple of early historical romances, Rhoxane always seems to be portrayed as a virtual nonentity, a jealous murderous wench a la Mary Renault (even Oliver Stone jumped into that depiction), or recently as a scheming prostitute. I beg to differ lol. In my literary view, she is an ordinary girl caught up in extraordinary circumstances. While her father, brothers and betrothed fight the war against Alexander, she fights a war for herself.
That’s an interesting observation you made re skill honing; I never thought of it that way. I just kicked myself for dragging my heels for so long and still wonder if I can pull this trilogy off. Thanks a lot for that. Really appreciate it.
I always felt Mary Renault didn’t give Roxanna enough of the spotlight. (I always spell her name that way,because that was my great, great grandmother’s name. An amazingly powerful, tough woman) I felt exactly the same way.
I think it sounds like a great project. Best of luck with it. Glad to know you didn’t get in the clutches of the MFA people. They can be brutal sometimes.
Best line: Your just writing days will be over! 🙂 Don’t we know it.
Debby–Boy howdy is that true! I’m lucky if i have one day a week to work on my fiction! 🙂
Anne–as always, you provide writers–especially new ones–with unalloyed value in this post.
But it may be the beautiful weather outside that inclines me to dash their hopes. I wrote two novels in my youth. I tried interesting a few agents, and got a couple reads, but struck out. With help from a mentor who soon died, I developed and sold novel three. It came out and did pretty well as a mass market paperback.
But then book four was a dud, and my agent dropped me. Books five and six were picketed up in succession by different agents, but neither one got me a deal. Decrepitude set in, nagging thoughts of mortality, etc., and so I began self-publishing my work. As a person totally unsuited both emotionally and intellectually to the new, author-centered demands of self-promotion and marketing, I have seen next to nothing in terms of sales.
What, then, is the takeaway for a new writer from this gloomy comment? Listen to people like Anne Allen, and make every effort to get an agent. But if that doesn’t work out, or you get an agent who fails and you decide to self-publish, be prepared for a grueling process of self-promotion and marketing. And if you come up with the money to buy marketing help, don’t send money until you know, unequivocally, that you aren’t dealing with a crook.
Have a nice day.
Barry–That is very sound advice. I don’t want to spread doom and gloom either, but there are a lot more people making money FROM self-publishing authors than there are making money FOR self-publishing authors. Marketers are like generals…always fighting the last war (or always using what worked in last year’s market.)
I went through a series of agents too. I think I had five altogether. Some worked very hard for me indeed, but they didn’t have the right connections. With others, my books weren’t right for the market at that moment.
Right now I’m happy to be with a forward-looking small press. That’s what’s working for me.
Thanks, Anne. You are as solid as they come. What I really need isn’t a marketer–throw a stick, hit a marketer. No, what I need is an Author’s Assistant. if you know of any good ones, I would be very grateful to learn their names.
This might give you a chuckle. A pair of standup comedians in L.A. run a humor site called The Higgs Weldon. They published a letter I sent some years ago to Dole Foods. As it appears, it’s essentially the letter I wrote.
http://thehiggsweldon.com/attn-dole-salad-kit-quality-control/
Barry–Your letter is very funny, but how scary! And it doesn’t speak well for my fellow Central Californians. Candy Corn in a Caesar Salad? Ouch! I hope they at least gave you your money back!
I do see people on Twitter who advertise themselves as “author’s assistants”. They usually charge way more than I make, so it doesn’t seem worth it to me, so I don’t know if any are worth it.
Great article! Thanks! I just published my first novel on Kindle and I’ll be thrilled if I can get it to sell 10 copies a week, but I know that even that’s asking a lot. 😉 There’s just too much stuff out there.
Finley–This is the problem new writers are facing right now–whether indie or trad. Nothing goes out of print. Ever. So you’re competing with everything that’s ever been written. More and more every day. And if you only have a single title, without a bunch of titles ready to release in quick succession, you’re not going to get traction until you get to your third or fourth book. Just the way it is. This is a whole new publishing world that has never existed before. So you need patience. And lots of time to write.
Very encouraging post! And, as a first-time novelist, I’ve already taken Anne’s advice and started an author website and blog (https://kathleenjones.org/) First-time novelists who are serious about publishing their work should probably consider hiring substantive and copy editors to polish it before submitting their manuscripts.
Kathleen–Good for you for starting a blog! I think blogging is a great way to improve your writing skills and discipline, get your name into search engines and start networking.
I don’t encourage first novelists to put a lot of money into editing a first novel. I think it’s better to put energy into novel #2. Good editing is very expensive and since first novels generally aren’t publishable, let that sit a while and don’t try to publish #1 until you’ve written #2 and maybe #3..
Don’t put money into a book until you’ve got your skills to the point where you’re ready to launch a full career. I think a lot of beginning writers approach editors too soon. Editors will take the jobs, but they’re basically teaching jobs, not polishing a book for the marketplace.