to write or not to write

Formula for Sucess

2005-10-23T11:10:00.000-07:00

"I cannot give you the formula for success," says Herbert Barnyard Swope, quoted in Techinques of the Selling Writer by Dwight V. Swain on page 13 (excellent book by the way) "but I can give you the formula for failure: Try to please everybody."

Ain't it the truth? And it brings us back to the original thought of write what pleases you. Write what's in your heart.

Just write. Boldly write.

On Writing Contests and too Many Comments

2005-10-16T15:25:00.000-07:00

A word of warning about entering writing contests: You may be wasting your time and money.

I entered two stories in at least seven contests this year. The same story scored a near-perfect 99 out of 100 in one contest and a measly 65 out of 100 in another.

Judging, like an editor or agent’s opinion, is subjective. And judges, like the general public, come with many different preconceived ideas – not all of them based on actual knowledge. For example, one judge said I should have the female main character in my story – a reporter – wear pants, not a skirt, “because,” the judge scribbled on my manuscript, “reporters usually wear pants.” Mmmm, is that so? I used to be a reporter. Three or four days out of five, I wore skirts, about the same percentage as the other women reporters in our newsroom.

Case closed.

Some judges are just plain ignorant. One penned at the end of my first chapter, “You should try writing this in first person, it might read better.”
My rebuttal is, HELLO, I wrote it in first person. The opening hook is: “I pull up to the crime scene, step down from my rusty yellow truck, readjust my thong, and curse my best friend, July, for talking me into buying the damn underwear.” Can’t get much more first person than that, now can we?

Then there are the nit-picky judges. The ones who seem to tear apart every word and phrase the writer chooses to use. Such as the one judge(the only one out of about a dozen who judged the same story) who had issue with the word “rusty” in rusty yellow truck. “Is the truck rusted?” she asked, “Or is it a rusty yellow color?”

Sigh.

My advice? Go ahead and enter contests, especially if you don’t belong to a critique group and are looking for comments. I complain here, but I did get some useful gems out of the comments too.

I have several good critique partners, so the comments are not the main reasons I enter contests. Oh heavens, no. I enter the contests, and fork out the $20 bucks or so, in hopes of winning and getting my story before the eyes of an agent or editor who I’m interested in working with. You know, the one who will look at my manuscript, voraciously read it from start to finish without so much as pausing to sip her cooling latte, wipe a tear from the corner of her eye as she finishes, and exclaim, “Who is this writer? I must have her book.”

So, I'm off to write out that next $20 check and pop another try in the mail.

Wish me rusty-yellow-first-person luck.

Some Very Good Writing Advice

2005-10-15T14:51:00.000-07:00

This morning I was talking to an old friend. I told her about a recent rejection I’d received on my book.
“Now what?” she asked.
“I’ll send it out again,” I said. “Never give up, right?”
“You should just write exactly what you want to write, exactly the way you want to write it,” she said. “I like reading inspired authors.”
And you know, there’s more than a grain of wisdom in that chunk of advice.
It’s almost the same thing my fiancé said a couple weeks ago.
To make a short story longer: I’ve published work in newspapers, off and on, for more than 25 years (started with poetry at age 14). I wrote a gardening column – free gratis – for six years or so. Then started writing feature stories freelance, and taking photographs – for pay – which led to getting hired on staff as a part time, then as a full-time reporter. By choice, I’ve gone back to self-employment, and now write full time from my home. For the past two years I’ve concentrated on writing novels. Recently the journalism bug bit me again. So, I wrote two stories, took some photos and sold the works to a small, local newspaper.
The bad news? Small papers are struggling these days to make a profit. This particular paper can’t afford to purchase anymore freelance pieces.

A week or so after I’d sold the stories, my fiancé and I were driving down a country road and came upon an old-fashioned covered wagon being driven by a grizzly, cowboy-looking guy, pulled by a matching team. Mountains stood green in the background. The lighting was perfect.
“I wish I had my camera. I’d take a picture for the paper. Ask that guy a bunch of questions, write a story. Not that they’d be able to buy it,” I said.
“Why don’t you just write the stories anyway?” my fiancé asked. “For yourself.”
Write newspaper stories for myself? Hmmmm…never thought about that before. Maybe I could write a bunch of them and publish them in a book…

And so today, after talking with my friend, and getting basically the same advice again, I think I;ll listen. It’s an old saying, “Write what’s in your heart,” or “Write the book of your heart.”
Some people may argue that authors have to write “commercial fiction” or they’ll never sell. I say pish-posh. Or at least I would say that, if I ever used the phrase.
Today, I’ve decided to write what is inside me roaring to come out, and I’ll put it down just the way it’s roaring.
Naysayers, here’s a big wet Willy in your ear.

Query Letter Sample

2005-10-14T15:37:00.000-07:00

I'm still not published in book length fiction, but I've had good luck with requests for partials and fulls with the following basic query letter. Thought I'd share with any other wanna-be writers out there. Best of luck to you!

D A N I T A S H A T T U C K
00000 Writer Lane, Anywhere, OR, USA
phone here, and email addy

January 24, 2005

Jayne Smyth, Editor or Agent
Best Literary House
123 Woo-Hoo Street
New York, NY 10000

Dear Ms. Smyth:

Best-selling author, Elizabeth Boyle, recently taught at a workshop I attended. She compared my writing style to Janet Evanovich’s. Red Moon Rising, an 84,000-word, chick-lit thriller, is like a Stephanie Plum novel on chilled espresso. It involves best friends, fine male asses, and standing up for what is right – even if it gets you killed.

Along the way to solving a double-death riddle, feisty crime reporter, Toni McBride (to her dismay) finds herself physically attracted to her girl friend. Attracted that is, until her best friend (or should we make that ex-best friend?) starts dating the man whose also piqued Toni’s interest. It takes a hot-air balloon crash, getting fired from her job, and a couple of perilously close calls with a crazed killer before Toni unravels the riddle, sets things straight with her best pal, and realizes that the real Mr. Right Now, is right beside her.

Writing credits: I am a member of RWA, the Chick Lit and Mid-Willamette Valley RWA chapters, and an online critique group. A freelance writer, and past crime reporter, I stay involved with law enforcement as a volunteer with the local sheriff’s mounted search and rescue team. Red Moon Rising is my second novel and the first in the Toni McBride series.

To give you a sense of my writing style, I have included the first six pages. May I send you a partial or a full manuscript? Please note, a requested full of Red Moon Rising is under consideration at Blah-Blah Publishing House. Enclosed is a SASE for your reply. Please feel free to recycle the pages.

Thank you for your time,

Danita Shattuck

Sidenote on the Fabulous Girly Whirlie thing

2005-10-10T18:23:00.000-07:00

Okay, so if you are interested in checking out the Girly Whirlie sight, it's at :

fabulouswriters.blogspot.com.

Thanks for your interest.

Fabulous Girly Whirlies

2005-10-10T18:00:00.000-07:00

Just a little shameless self promotion here:

A sub group of Chick Lit Writers of America, RWA online chapter, branched off to form a Month to Write online group in which we push each other to crank out a novel in a month. We don't, any of us, actually crank out a novel each month, but we set goals, we complain about not making them, and at times about life in general, we wet noodle flog one another and we have a lot of fun. The best part? In the process of all the whining and flogging, we do get quite a lot of pages cranked out.

But excuse my digresion...what I started out to tell you is that the branch-off of the branched-off group has branched off yet again, into a small, cozy group of women writer friends and we now have a group blog of our own.

We call ourselves the "Fabulous Girly Whirlies" and it's here on blogspot for your reading enjoyment. Please check it out.

Now, so far I am the only one to journal in it...but I have my arm drawn back and a wet noodle at the ready, so don't be put off.....SHCMACKKKKK.....I forsee entries from others in the near future.

The Four Novels

2005-10-10T17:38:00.000-07:00

Okay, so only one of the four novels is finished -- Red Moon Rising -- a sassy supense with a touch of romance -- but it is completely finished (if an artist can ever say that about any piece of art) and is going through the submission process. The others are in various stages of completion.

One is a sequel to Red Moon, working title, "Once in a Blue Moon". It's also a sassy suspense, with many of the same characters, plus a couple new ones. Writing it is comfortable and feels like home.

The third has a lighter, chick lit feel to it as, a real self-awareness journey, although it is also a suspense. The romance in that one is much more heated and central to the story theme.

And the fourth is a saga that I am aiming at Silhouette's new Epic line. It's also a self-discovery and growth story. It encompasses a woman's life from age nine, when she is sexually assaulted -- also the year she meets the hero -- to age 70 when she is lying beside the hero in their bed, reflecting on her life. Think "Notebook" with more tension and suspense. The working title is "A Dash in Time". Speakng of which, I should jet now myself and dash out a few lines. Ug. Sorry. Bad pun. No biscuit, Danita, no biscuit.

Back in the Saddle

2005-10-09T13:12:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted since May. Not that I haven't been writing, mind you, just that I haven't been blogging. This seems to bother some of my writer friends, such as Piper Lee.... But I have a multitude of excuses, including moving into a new house, doing clean up work around the place, unpacking, yada, yada, yada. I've still been working on the novels -- four in all -- and in the meantime sold a couple stories and some photos to a local newspaper. Feels good to keep my fingers in journalism, and the valedation of a paycheck was satisfying.

Everyday is a new puzzle

2005-05-18T13:46:00.000-07:00

to write or not to write

Don't know what it is, but this new wip (work in progress) is humming right along. Much easier to write than the last ms (manuscript). It's lighter, funnier, a little more naive. Still each day sitting down before the computer is like facing another little puzzle. What will happen next? Why will that happen? What are the factors leading up to that happening? So off I go to work out today's puzzle.

Young Adult Fantasy Novel Comes while Sleeping

2005-05-15T16:32:00.000-07:00

to write or not to write

If you let your mind wander while reading the title of this entry, it might meander straight into the gutter...but that's not where I intended to divert your mind...
I Woke up this morning, my brain brimming over with ideas about a YA fantasy novel that my daughter and I are brewing up. I love it when that happens, when bits of stories play out in my head like miniature movies. So, I got my coffee, headed to the computer and jotted all those thoughts down. My daughter has all the ideas about the fantasy world for this book, my ideas, which came to me while sleeping, are about how the relationships between characters might play out. Maybe the ideas came so easily because I was relaxed, exilerated and exhausted after yesterday's four-hour horseback ride with a girlfriend and my trusty steed, Koko. We went on a poker ride in a horse-friendly state park an hour or so from home. We made some new friends, bumped into some old friends and enjoyed the day with our equine friends through the woods, over bridges and streams, and along meadows. And I got away from my computer and keyboard. As wonderful as living the life of a writer is, it's also important to remember to tear myself away and go be free somewhere else.

Five-hundred words

2005-04-09T21:39:00.000-07:00

Five-hundred words may not seem like a lot. I am not Nora Roberts. At least not yet. But five-hundred words is two pages a day and that, my friends, is two novels in a year.

This is my second book. The first took a year. This one is going smoother, steadier. I have more confidence now. I know I can do it. My critique partners know I can do it. Romance Writer's of America knows I can do it (I have the PRO pin to prove it) and my aunt absolutely loves my first book, Red Moon Rising. And she's older than me, wiser, reads a lot, knows about these things. My mom and grandma, who are also older than me, want to read the book, but I'm afraid it's a little too racy for them. Auntie can handle it, but maybe I should choose a pseudonym before the book sells so I don't have to admit to Mom and Grandma that I wrote about sex and murder and even a slight dalliance with lesbianism. Mom doesn't have the internet, and chances are pretty slim that Grandma will cruise around the web and stumble onto this...

So back to those five-hundred words.