How do you decide which blogs to follow? What topics do you find useful or entertaining?
Here’s a list of some of the blogs I follow.
A Newbie’s guide to publishing
and of course Sue’s Blog As it comes
They are a mixture of advice, personal journey and informative. When you pick a blog to follow what is it that you look for?
Perry
One of the challenges of being a writer, at least a fiction writer, is that you work alone when you write but you need to be steeped in life for the writing to be great.
It is a common belief that writers are introverts, after all we spend hours sitting at the keyboard, or scratching out words on paper. The expectation is that we like to be alone when we work and we do good work when we are alone.
I know more writers who do their work in coffee shops. We have two writing groups who meet weekly in public to write together. During NaNo last year, we wrote on public transit. Whether you are a solitary or social writer, you need to create believable characters. If you are writing about a world you created, you need to have social, political and religious structures that sound as true as the geographic description.
So, how do we do it?
I can speak for me, and I can tell you what I observe. Writing is not a solitary and introverted pastime. You need to interact with people, you need to understand how the world works and you need to translate the basic truths of reality to your fiction.
Writers find their inspiration in life, and they build vital compelling stories by observing and participating in life. The solitary part is different. Whether I’m at my desk, sitting on the couch with the TV muttering in the background, or sitting with a group in a coffee shop, I write best with focus.
That’s my advice for authors. Rub elbows with life and then write what you learn. The old saying, write what you know, doesn’t mean you have to be a serial killer to write a brutal complex murder mystery. It means learn about why someone would commit the crimes, then translate what you know about people – your family, friends, coworkers, and the couple you watched eating in the food court – and contrast the normality of their behaviour against your killer.
Get to know how people interact, get to know how people react. Then write that truth into your fiction.
Happy writing.
I know it’s not December yet, but we’re all running to the finish line. We’re hitting heights of word count that we never thought we could. So what are we planning for the future of our books?
I know some of us are going to happily shred the work – figuratively or literally. And, some are planning to revise and publish it.
The publishing route isn’t easy. You have to put the manuscript away for long enough to get some distance. You need to look at it with fresh eyes and make some ruthless cuts or build it up until it’s the story you had in your head, not the story that fell on the page.
When you’ve crafted the story, you start on the long journey to publishing. Deciding to find an agent or not. Sending out your submission to multiple publishers. Reading ‘good’ rejections for hints on how to break through to the published side of the world.
When you get the acceptance, the game isn’t over. Now you need to market market market.
In the six months to a year it will take to get your novel ready for publishing, the e-reader world will have grown and the paper publishing industry will have changed.
Remember PaperBox Books when you send your submissions in.
Happy writing,
8 days til the madness ends.
Short post today to let you know we’re open for submissions and not completely locked down with our own word counts.
Perry here. Taking a few minutes out of NaNo 2009 (word count 19,168 as of 2:30 pm) to update you on what’s happening at PaperBox Books.
It’s challenging right now to coordinate our time. We are both doing NaNoWriMo and have our responsibilities to our region (take that New Zealand). We had a fabulous write in at the main library in Vancouver on Thursday (30 writers all focused on their craft – it was magic).
Despite that, we’re meeting with authors and giving out cards to people who might be interested. And reviewing the submissions that come in, we are determined to keep to our commitment of short turnaround.
Hmmm, wonder if I can count these words in my manuscript. No, darn the pretechnical society of my story.
Happy NaNo everyone.
Bonus tip for NaNo participants – to keep your word count up, there’s nothing like a word war.
If you attended the Surrey International Writers’ Conference last weekend or are participating in this year’s NaNoWriMo you might have heard whisperings about PaperBox Books Publishing.
We’re an e-publishing company who focuses on writers.
Yes, you heard that right.
Our philosophy is that there are many writers have excellent novels ready to be published but have been refused by publishers because their stories don’t quite suit the target market. At the SIWC conference we were told that many publishers are pulling back on the number of new authors they sign because of the economic downturn. They’d rather use established writers who are less risky because of their track record.
“So what if… ” I said to Donald Maass, of Donald Maass Literary Agency during a panel discussion, “what if we published these first time authors electronically, so when they came to you they had a solid sales record. Would they have a better shot at getting published?”
His response, “I think you’re on to something.” The other publishers on the panel nodded in agreement.
We’re looking to publish our first titles near the end of November, with plans to release more each month. Our goal is to publish every publishable author who submits material to us. By publishable I mean readable stories with solid plot, sub-plot and character development with correct spelling and grammar. We will not refuse to publish because of genre or marketability. We will however automatically refuse to publish hate literature and flat out porn.
Each author brings with them an audience be-it friends, family, co-workers, Facebook friends or Twitter followers. By networking together we can help each other out and sell our books without having to do all the marketing on our own.
Please visit the ‘How to Submit’ section of our website at
http://paperboxbooks.com/howtosubmit.html