Daryl Sedore

Contracts are being written at this very minute while wine glasses are filled. People are being published as bottles empty. Booksellers are getting books and placing them on shelves. All this happens while other writers are getting lost. There’s much ado about writing out there. I’ll break it down into three categories of A.D.O.;

Advice; There’s an abundance of advice on how to write. Thousands of books cover the topic of writing from Stephen King’s “On Writing” to Donald Maass’ “Fire in Fiction”. There are websites, blogs and conferences where you can do seminars to learn the craft. There’s as much advice on how to write as there is air to breathe.

As a writer you need to get to a place where you combine it with practice. When the writing day is over, make sure you’ve scribed something because one of the best schools of writing is writing. It has been said you need to write over a million words before you consider being published. (Then you can crack open that Shiraz or pinot noir and celebrate).

Dawdle; Writer’s procrastinate. It’s as common as breast feeding, just not as good. You can’t dawdle around and expect to have the next best-seller. Read what advice you want; then write. Come up with reasons to do this or that; then write. People with excuses don’t have book deals and people with book deals don’t have excuses.

If you find you have trouble getting into it, set some time goals. Between 11:00am and 1:00pm, I’ll read, study, take notes and ruminate, but at 1:00pm, I start writing.

Odds; We’ve all heard the odds of getting published. They’re against a novice writer. Literary agencies tell us that queries mount into the thousands per year. Hundreds upon hundreds of unsolicited queries hit an agency weekly. And that’s just one agency. There is a phalanx of agencies in New York alone. I’ve read agents who have said they took on two new clients this year. That’s two out of thousands of queries. Wow, you’d have a better chance of bumping into President Obama in self-help section in the Barnes and Noble booksellers on Fifth Avenue.

With that in mind, it doesn’t matter. That’s right, you read it right. It doesn’t matter. (Note to self: get wine ready) It doesn’t matter if you wrote something unique. It doesn’t matter if your voice is unheard of, your style a dream and your story telling ability a number one stunner. The odds don’t matter when you’re good.

So take some advice and don’t dawdle. Avoid thinking about how hard it is to break in to the industry. Just write a damn good story. Write. Make it original. If you knock people out of their chairs with your work, you have a better chance against those odds than if you just knock their socks off. Don’t dawdle, write. Avoid spending too much time with much A.D.O. about writing and get your story on paper.

After all, you’re a storyteller, right?

So write.

Rejection letters are great because that means you sent your material out. It means you’re ready (hopefully) to take your work to the next level. You see, here’s the thing; what if someone told you that the 37^th agent you query would get you a book deal? You would be so excited every time another rejection letter arrived because you’re one closer to that deal. That’s why they’re awesome. Keep querying. Just change the way you think about it.

Years ago I worked as a door to door salesperson doing cold calls. We’d go knocking on doors all over the neighbourhood and eventually get in. Sometimes it took ten minutes, sometimes an hour. Once in a while it took all day. I learned quickly that it was just a matter of knocking on doors before I got in. What I mean is, the more doors I covered, the faster I got in a house to do a presentation and possibly make a sale. So I ran. That’s right, I ran from door to door. It kept me energized and fired up so when I finally got in, I was ready to present and sell. I outsold my team month after month. The rest of the salespeople got depressed when a door slammed in their face. Not me, I loved it, because I was one closer to the door that would welcome me in.

There was this guy who was quite interested in a beautiful house a few blocks from the Chicago airport. Prior to moving in he saw the runways weren’t directly over his house so he bought it. Years go by. The airport’s getting busier. Planes are getting larger. They need to build more runways. Planes now take off and land directly above his house. Housing values plummet in the area. The man can’t sell. He goes to see a psychiatrist as this situation is now making him crazy. Doctor tells him to change the way he looks at it. So he goes home and paints, “Welcome to Los Angeles”, on the roof of his house. Almost every time he hears a plane overhead he laughs.

Change the way you look at it. If your writing is sound, then your only task is to get it out there.

“No one can hurt you without your consent” -Eleanor Roosevelt

Remember that you are going to query agents that may like the story idea, but don’t love it. You need to keep going until you find one that loves it. Each rejection letter is one step closer to the right match.

People with book deals have no excuses and people with excuses have no book deals.

Zig Ziglar said that failure is an event, not a person. You may have failed with that rejection letter but you are not a failure. You wrote a novel. The more failure you saw when growing up makes success harder to believe in. But yet you miss out on 100% of all literary agents that you don’t query. So rejection letters are your confirmation that you’re out there, you’re querying, you’re moving forward. That’s right, moving forward, even when you’re getting a rejection letter.

“Things come to those who wait, but only things left by those who hustled” -Abraham Lincoln

Besides, what’s the worse that can happen? You’re at the same spot as you are now when someone sends you a rejection letter. Send out multiple submissions. Make sure you send queries to the right people at the right agencies. Just make sure you do it.

Two men were hiking through Northern British Columbia. A bear approached from behind looking ready to attack as it eased ever closer. The one man dropped to the ground and yanked off his backpack. He reached in and retrieved a new pair of running shoes. The other man who was still standing asked, “What are you doing? Come on, let’s go. What do you think, you can outrun a bear?”

“No. I just have to outrun you.”

That’s what I’m talking about. Send more queries than the other guy. Don’t focus on the problem. Think prosperous thoughts. Allow prosperity to find you. Get past being stuck. Don’t quit, no matter what. Promise a lot and deliver even more. Be assertive in your actions. Take action. Submit your work. Enjoy rejections because you’re one closer to a book deal.

Enjoy rejections. Change the way you think about them. Read each and every one like it’s an honour badge. Save them all so one day when you’re a famous, published author you can go back and tell people how many you collected until you got the right agent for you. Rejections pile up, and yet, all they are is ammunition for author speeches.

Enjoy rejection. Stand tall. Brush off your shoulders and keep moving forward. Remember that you are one rejection letter closer to a deal.

“They cannot take away our self-respect if we do not give it to them.”

-Gandhi

Even Harry Potter got rejections.

Guest post by Brenda Sedore

It took me a long time to find my voice. I didn’t start writing with serious intention until I was in my mid twenties. Even then I had no idea of the type of writing I wanted to do or what I was good at. Haven’t we all been at that place? So, I started what I now realize was a seriously ambitious project; a Medieval novel.

I worked at it for a while. It wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t my best work either. I then started the first draft of my current novel. After writing at least two drafts, I put it aside and began a completely different style of book. It was more of a chick-lit novel, which was popular at the time. It wasn’t horrible either, in fact there are many parts that are excellent. But, it still wasn’t my voice and the passion wasn’t there for me.
I began another novel, this one more in the vein of my second novel and it was excellent right from the start. This one was in my voice. I realized that I couldn’t work on a second novel until my first one was complete. I know, it sounds like I was going crazy. What I was doing was exploring my writing. I was figuring out what inspired me. What type of writing did I enjoy?

I went back to The Ties that Wound, my second novel that I’d written a couple of drafts of. I hired an editor to help me shape up the book. She advised me to rewrite it. So, I began rewriting. I got about 40,000 words in and then my life fell apart. My husband and I got a divorce. So, the writing was shelved again for almost 2 years.

During that time I got together with a wonderful man, who is also a writer, and the owner of this blog. We worked through the things life threw at us and then we both began writing again. By the time I got back into it, everything had changed for me.

I spent twenty years with a man who kept me from being myself. It’s a long story, but it wasn’t until I left that I was able to expand into everything I am as a person. This, of course, affected my writing. I had to take some time to re-evaluate and get comfortable with my new style. The important thing to remember is that our writing will evolve as we do.

Up until recently I felt that I was more inclined to write non-fiction than fiction. I was still struggling to find my voice. It wasn’t until I opened up my half-rewritten novel, The Ties that Wound, that I realized I’d known my voice all the time. It was just that the style of writing I do best is the type that pulls everything out of me. It is scary to reveal that much of myself. Daryl has talked about this before. One of the reasons I was struggling was because of fear. What if I couldn’t deal with the subject matter in a sensitive enough way? Then I realized if it’s my voice, I will do a good job.

I recently read in the book, Finding Your Voice by Les Edgerton, a story about how he was reading letters from these prison inmates and how he found them so interesting and funny. They were imaginative and it caused him to think that he had found a niche. He then asked these inmates to write him a short story. What he got from them shocked him. The stories they wrote were nothing like their letters. They were boring, stilted and not in any way worth publishing. He realized then that as soon as someone tries to write for an audience, they clam up. They try for a certain “voice” rather than just being themselves. You need to write for yourself and no one else. If you “try” to write, it won’t come out right.

“We get so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others that in the end we become disguised to ourselves.”~Francis Duc de La

That’s the key. You are the only person who can “speak” in your voice. No one else can put words together quite like you. Hone your voice. Don’t be afraid to be you in your writing. It’s what will make you stand out among all the other talent out there.

“I need to stop questioning myself…right?” ~unknown

At our recent writers’ group meeting, we all read from our assigned stories. It was a summer memory of 400-500 words. I was amazed at the variety of stories that were shared, all in each unique voice. One assignment, vastly different results. That’s why there can be so many different books in the world. Daryl has written a very good blog post called “Writer’s Block is a Lie“. In it he says that writer’s block can happen when you don’t write in your voice. I have found the same thing for myself. When I write in my voice, the writing flows freely.

How do you find your voice? Start with writing something natural to you, such as a journal or a letter to a good friend. In that letter, tell them a story or relate a funny incident that happened to you. Then open your novel and try to write in the same voice. Let those unique words and ways of putting a sentence together come out in your fiction. It takes practice, but after a while it will become second nature. The only drawback is, you may have to rewrite your novel as you realize most of what you’ve written so far is weak compared to what you’ve written in your voice.

One practice I have, which has helped me the most, is to begin each writing session by writing, freehand, in my journal. This not only gets me into my voice, but also gets the writing muscles stretched and ready for a workout.

Do you have a unique way to begin your writing session? For those of you who have found your voices, what tools, exercises or books helped you along the way?

Photo credit: dbdbrobot

Writers write. That’s it. Simple.

Motivation to write is at an all time high. More people write in 2010 than in any other era. Today, I want to address the people who are writing for publication. What motivates you? What brings you to your work in progress everyday? Do you write everyday?

As a writer, and yes, I call myself one; I’ve noticed that many writers need motivation. Actually, there’s a trend: writers who don’t need motivation are published authors. They’re the ones who have books on the shelves in your local bookstore. They’re the ones who write everyday.

I’m not saying writers with less discipline won’t get published, it’s just they need more of a shove to get their thoughts on paper and I’m looking to find out why that is.

Literature is an occupation in which you have to keep proving your talent to people who have none.

~Jules Renard

Donald Maass, a literary agent in New York, pointed out in his book, Fire in Fiction, that there are two kinds of writers: Status Seekers and Story Tellers.

Are you a status seeker? Do you want to tell everyone you’re a writer? Even if the piece you’ve written isn’t at its best, do you try and try again to get it published? When industry professionals explain why it isn’t ready, do you counter their claims with attitude? After that’s all done, did you go and self-publish? How many sold? To whom? Family and friends?

My point isn’t to berate. I simply want to know, are you a writer, or do you just call yourself one?

For storytellers, the game is different. I consider myself a storyteller. I am currently writing my fourth novel. I’ve written fifty short stories. I’ve been published in two different newspapers and I’ve won a number of contests. Recently, two different Anthologies have accepted three short stories, which will all be published early next year.

The reason for this is because I tell stories. I’ve got too many floating around, yearning for the empty page. I started writing the novel I’m currently querying in 2003. I’ve done four revisions with a professional freelance editor out of New York with countless drafts to make sure it’s just right.

Around 2006, in my seventh draft, I decided to hit the delete button and re-write the entire novel in my current voice. I felt each scene would be better served to write it fresh instead of constantly trying to tweak my two-year-old writing.

That’s over seven years of working on the same manuscript. The average writer gets their first deal after eleven years. I’ve still got a ways to go as I want my story told properly.

Are you a storyteller? Do you write because you love it? Are you passionate about it? If you are, then it’s not work. Love what you do and you’ll never work a day in your life.

Tell me your story. How long have you been at it?

What are your successes?

What are your goals?

Are you a storyteller?

Are you a writer?

You can be both. Just don’t be status seekers.

We get so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others that in the end we become disguised to ourselves

~Francois Rochofoucauld

Photo credit: tibchris

This was first posted on Brenda Sedore’s site as a guest post.

To esteem oneself can suck. It seems to be one of the hardest things we humans don’t know how to do. The problem; if you don’t have self-esteem, your life will then suck.

Ask yourself that classic question: What would you do if you know you couldn’t fail? I mean, seriously, what would you actually do? Would you open a book store? Would you compete against Apple’s iphone 4? (Don’t try this – you’d fail). Or would you just go get more beer?

Let’s think about self-esteem in a different way. How do you view yourself? Do you love yourself? I mean really love yourself? Do you love who you are, where you live, how you treat others in your life?

Did you know that in North America there’s only one in every three people with high self-esteem?

The possibilities are endless when you believe in yourself.

Today I will do what others won’t, so tomorrow I can accomplish what others can’t

~Jerry Rice

The problem is that self-esteem leaks into everything you do. You’ve got to truly love yourself before you can truly love someone else. If you can’t and don’t, then how can you give part of yourself to the relationship you’re in? How can you validate, care for, and reassure the person you’re with if you can’t really love in the first place?

There are so many books on this topic. They cover the psychology of conditioning when you were a child to self-help for adults. This post is only a small look at a problem that many people experience on a day to day basis.

The reason I’m bringing it up is because I had a period in my life when my self-esteem was in peril. In my late teens to early twenties I got lost on the road to value. It took years of studying to start to get it. I read “Dare to Win,” by Mark Victor Hansen and Jack Canfield and “Unlimited Power,” by Tony Robbins. I went on to read many books by many authors from the self-help section. Finally in the late 1990’s I started a company and then bought one, ultimately building that one until it became quite profitable.

My point is; I learned to believe in myself and what I could do.

People are rich because they decided to be rich. People are poor because they haven’t yet decided to be rich.’

~Unknown

Rich can be money, but it can also be love, or even health. You have to decide. You have to stand up and change. You are your own life manager. If you don’t like where you are in life, then fire yourself and get a new manager. Stand up, brush off your shoulders and change what you’re doing.

If you want to know your past, look into your present conditions. If you want to know your future, look into your present actions

~Unknown

You’ve got to take charge. Get moving. Where do you want to be one year from now? Then act that way. Today. Even if you just drive to the local book store and buy one book on self-esteem or something on how to better yourself, then you’re on your way.

Be the opposite of stagnant. You are so worth it. If you are breathing and you eat food, then you’re worth it. Maybe people in your life don’t think so. Doesn’t matter now. You’re an adult. You are a somebody. Maybe it’s your friends. Then choose new ones. All that matters is you’re worth it.

Decide.

Today.

Do it.

Be strong and raise your self-esteem.

Fear is a darkroom where negatives develop

~Usman B. Asif

Why Write? Why do it?

I do it because I get to leave.

Seriously.

While writing I get to go somewhere. This place I go is wild, exciting and thrilling. People are being chased, run over and shot at. People die so others can live. People swear and yell out funny but embarrassing comments while on elevators. Sometimes people even get hit by an ambulance.

Weird luck.

You see, I get to go anywhere I want.

I write because of osmosis too. By dictating the story, pruning through edits and finally polishing the polish, I can place the story idea in the readers head.

I feel as most writers do, I’m sure, that my stories are decent. The more readers I have, the happier I am.

I’m a storyteller. Always have been. Even as a wee one. This is what I do. It’s way too exciting on a daily basis to ever contemplate doing something else.

I was in New York a few years back, sitting in a beautiful restaurant having dinner with a wonderful literary agent and my editor. The agent posed a question. He was curious why I would want to become a full-time writer when I already have a thriving business of my own. He went on to explain how much hard work it is to be writer.

I love it too much, I told him. I’ve also got too many stories to tell. I’ve written fifty short stories, two full novels with a third in progress while I’m working on my forth.

I can’t stop. I’m infected. The virus is spreading. Eyes bleary. Fingers dancing, hitting keys at will. Story developing despite the sore back. Computer overheating as the tension mounts…

I think you get it. I’m a writer. I love it. I’m passionate about it. I can’t stop. If publication wasn’t an option, I’d write for my woman. I’d write for my kids. A story of their very own. I’d write for me. If only to get the voices to stop. What’s that? No I couldn’t. Why? Because, I won’t. You do it then.

Oh, sorry. See, they never stop. Even when I’m talking to you, the reader, they insist on being heard. All humour aside, I will not write romance.

That’s what the one voice asks all the time. Romance, romance, romance. You know, just to quell that voice I might add a nice sexy time scene in a police chase gone awry.

But anyway, back to the original point.

I can sum it up in one word;   Love, Passion and Hope.

I know that was more than one word, but that’s the essence of it isn’t it?

I can do what I want.

Now, if only they’d pay me more…

1. Psychologically Revealing:  If you’re male and you write thrillers where women always seem to get beat up and abused, it may tell the reader about your struggle with the opposite sex. What you write is your voice. It comes through quite loud at times. It can reveal what you find appealing and what you find repulsive. What are we seeing between the lines? Although, usually, it’s not obvious. I’m sure there are many readers who get lost in the story and that is as far as it goes for them. But there are also people who look deeper. If you’re not buying what I’m selling here, read Edgar Allen Poe.

2. Fear of Rejection: It’s out there. Once you’ve written something and submitted it, even if it’s in notes on Facebook, it’s out there. People               can now pass judgment. If you fear rejection, this is a tough one. You could always write for yourself. Keep a diary, a journal. Or you could               write and allow others to read it. But if you do, criticism will follow. Not from everyone, but there’s people with big egos who have to knock               what you’ve done, even if it’s great. Then there’s the editor who is putting the story first. They’re the ones to listen to. Get used to critics.                     Embrace it. Learn to love the coach. Even Hemingway edited.

3. Fear of failure: This can stop a writer cold. He can be typing through a scene, start thinking about how this whole business of writing isn’t              going anywhere and just stop. I’ve heard of writers who then go and delete what they have, close their laptop and walk away. That’s how                      serious this fear can be. It’s debilitating. Usually people who experience this fear never get published for obvious reasons. These are people              who aren’t ready for publication. They fear failure so much that their ability to try has been hampered too much. Remember; Success is                      found in cans, failure in can’ts.

People have discussed fears for years. We’ve all heard that fear itself is all we should fear. All I want to say about this topic and how it impacts writers is one of the ways to combat your fears is to flood them.

What you are afraid to do is a clear indicator of the next thing you should do

~Anthony Robbins

Even though you fear failure, keep typing. Shrug it off. So what if it goes nowhere. At least you got to write a great story. Share it with ten people or a hundred, or don’t share it at all, but write. That’s what you’ve got to do; write!

Despite your fear of rejection, find a way to get it to inspire you. For every rejection letter you receive, send out two more submissions. When a fellow reader doesn’t give the expected reaction, brush it off as a personal thing. All I’m saying is try to focus on you and your writing and not on the naysayer. Stay away from the bull-ring as talked about in my previous post.

Below is a list of some of the other fears writers experience. This post would be too long if I were to discuss each one. Take from it what you want and flood the rest.

4. Fear of Commitment

5. Reading my writing to a group

6. Fear of not “knowing” enough (write what you know)

7. Never being published

8. Fear of being published and what that’ll mean to you

9. Fear of writer’s block

10.  Fear of mediocrity

Fear is a darkroom where negatives develop

~Usman B. Asif

Photo Credit: AllyRichelle

As a writer, lingering behind the curtain, waiting for my turn to step on stage and wow the crowd with my novel, there are times when I’m told to stay positive. I have positive all wrapped up in a ball. This is who I am as a person. This is what I am. I couldn’t be any other way.

Eons ago I worked for a door to door sales company doing cold calls. If we weren’t positive we became unemployed rather quickly. Door after door was slammed in my face as I tried to do a sales pitch. You can’t take that stuff personally. I created a thick skin as I ran from house to house knowing that I’m one more closed door away from the one that will open. I talked about that at writetodone.com on my guest post called, Rejection letters are great.

I’m not concerned with the bull ring. I call the people who are negative and who spew negative juice, the bull ring. It stands for “the ring of bullshit”.

There seems to be substantial bull rings available for you in any business. In the business of writing, (that’s why I’m doing this post – for writers), you can jump online and discover a nice bull ring with a little salt. Or drop by Twitter and discover wonderful people having fun spewing negative diatribe to lonely writers.

I’ll start with Slushpile Hell; the nice new website that has a witty way of poking fun at writers. Can you even imagine how many retweet’s this site is getting?

One agent said he worries it encourages the agent-hatred that many agents feel they’re fighting against daily. Yet another agent said, “Tell me you’ve seen Slushpile Hell” and used the hashtag #funny.

Today I saw another tweet: “Deliciously snarky fun along the lines of #queryfail”.

This stuff doesn’t bother me. Seriously, I know what you’re thinking. Why did I spend time to write this if it didn’t bother me? I wanted to go on record to bring this taboo topic up. What makes it taboo? Writers today are intimidated by agents. A few months back an agent belittled a querier in public on Twitter, using his name and quoted his emails. People jumped on board and pasted the guy with feathers. A few writers stood up on blogs and said it was akin to bullying. I wasn’t one of those writers. I’m sorry that I wasn’t. I get what the writer did was uncalled for, even ridiculous, but there are ways to deal with children and acting like one is not the most effective.

Agents are people too. Sometimes they make bad judgements. I met an agent in 2005 at the Willamette Conference in Portland, Oregon. I couldn’t believe how horrible this person was. It is 2010 and I am still scarred by this persons anti-Canada remarks and how far this agent went to be racist at the banquet. Not to mention rude, belligerent and so on. But that’s another story.

There are others who feel things shouldn’t be so negative; people who enjoy the industry and are always striving to make things better. Here are some of their comments.

This was on Twitter yesterday: “I feel very uncomfortable with agents who mock query and submission letters: people have still worked hard on their manuscripts.”

Another agent said, “Of course: we shouldn’t laugh at the source of our industry. No writers = no jobs for agents.”

There are literary agents everywhere standing up for writers. I want to add here: the people involved in laughing at authors are minimal in my opinion. It’s just their reach is large.

Don’t let the bull ring get you down. Keep writing that masterpiece. Work hard on making your manuscript the best that it can be. You’re worth it and so is your artwork.

I do encourage people to take a look at sites like Slushpile Hell, but only for one reason; so you can see what mistakes other people are doing and avoid them yourself.

Life is a grindstone and whether it grinds you down or polishes you up is for you and you alone to decide.

~Cavett Robert

Photo Credit: BossBob50