Category Archives: Writing

As part of the current blogversation on synopses, Justine Larbalestier writes on her experience with synopses and why it’s easier to do them before you write the book (my emphasis).

This is the part where I die laughing. Not a planner, me.
I guess I wrote a synopsis of the theater book before I wrote it: it was 50,000 words and took a month, and the book isn’t following it very closely.

Arcaedia asks about the difference between the terms “pre-published” and “unpublished”. Pre-published, to me, sounds like someone is trying too hard to distance themselves from the unpublished masses.

In the comments, some people say they dislike “aspiring”, which is the term I usually use. Not sure why I use it. I suppose it’s my occasional habit of being overly correct, even though in the phrase “unpublished fantasy novelist”, it’s clear enough that “unpublished” applies only to fantasy novels.

Sartorias on on learning to write etc

Matociquala posted on How to become a mid-list writer. It’s a good post, even for those of us who don’t need to be worred about that stage of career yet. Thought the advice to keep writing while finished books are in submission is good for anyone.

Over on rec.arts.sf.composition, a poster wondered whether his book is ready to publish. Patricia C. Wrede wrote:

So: What you *want* is somebody to tell you whether or not this thing you have written is publishable. What you *need* is a way of deciding for yourself whether it is time to send it out. This is how I have done it, right from the beginning: and she lists a series of questions for deciding whether something is ready or not

The four questions involve thinking about a) whether you can actually solve the problems with the book, b) how long solving the problems would take, and c) whether solving the problems would make the book better.

This is a way of thinking about editing that I found very helpful, because I know my current book has problems, but I don’t know how to fix all of them yet. Some things (emotions) will take me a lot of practice – probably a whole nother book – to learn how to do better. I could spend the time and fix this book, but it probably would take too long, and that time would be better spent rewriting the next book.

So I’ve divided up the fixes into mental categories:
1. Stuff I can safely leave un-fixed, because it’s minor and I’m not quite sure what to do about it anyway, like the occasional odd word choice.
2. Stuff that needs to be fixed and I know how to do it – that ranges from typos to the Trust Issue.
3. Stuff that I don’t know what to do about yet – a lot of that is aspects of the overall big picture. Voice, setting.

Category 2 is the biggest. Yay. Category 1 will get ignored. Category 3, well, I can practice on the next book. And then come back and fix this one again later, assuming I’ll get that chance because no one will buy it as is. And if they do buy it, then it didn’t need fixed after all.

The idea of sending something out that has problems that I can identify still gives me the creeps, though.

has an excellent post on conscious incompetence and the perceived suckiness of writing and plateaus et al.

What newly-published authors find out and you want to know
Wiscon Panel #42
Saturday, 10 a.m.

Panelists: John M. Scalzi [an excellent moderator], Barth Anderson, Kelly D. Link, Virginia “Ginny” G. McMorrow

[Relatively short report – I only took only two pages of notes.]

Publicity / Blogging:

One of the topics discussed was the importance of blogging and having an internet presence as a form of networking and publicity. Somehow I think that has worked better for John Scalzi than for most of the rest of us.

[But then I do this for fun and to learn about writing, and networking done for fun is probably a better kind of networking.]

One of the best forms of publicity is keeping a blog, Link said.
Scalzi added that getting your book mentioned on blogs with a large audience helps.
Anderson said the internet is great for networking. He has a blog, but said that if he has to make a choice between blogging and writing, he usually writes. [Good plan.]

Someone, I missed who, said it’s important to comment intelligently on other people’s blogs. Then, other bloggers and blog-readers will follow your link back to your own blog and/or website. That’s how commenting creates publicity for you.

Other Publicity:

Scalzi sold his books after putting them on his website, which leads to a debate on whether giving away your writing helps.

Scalzi said it’s hard to do publicity in the traditional sense, because there are so many new authors, so each gets lost in the shuffle.

Business:

One possible frustration is that new authors will get no say in things like their cover art. Scalzi says there’s a certain publisher he refuses to sell to, because their covers are embarrassing. [He wouldn’t name it. Feel free to guess.]

On agents: Lots of places don’t take unagented work; the agents handle the paperwork so writers can write; and there are a lot of bad agents out there, so do your research.

And keep writing while stuff’s in submission, of course.