Still sitting at the kids' table...

2009 has been a weird writing year for me. I've greatly increased the amount of paid assignments I've been taking on; so far this year I've invoiced almost 20 pieces, which is double the number of invoices I've issued in the last three years combined. (Unfortunately, this is not double the revenue, as many of the pieces are shorter and don't pay as well as the one project I worked for those years.) Of course, the other side of more paid work is that I've had very little time for my own writing. Over the last eight months I think I've managed a few chapters (and chapters is a generous term) in the middle grade novel I'm writing. I've only sent out four query letters on my three finished projects, and all four of those were rejected. (Although my picture book manuscript did get a champagne rejection, and one editor did request the full manuscript of a novel before sending a form rejection.)

On the other hand, I did get a very nice "maybe" from an agent I wrote to last year. After holding on to my novel for a few months, he finally wrote and said he was intrigued, but thought the manuscript needed work before he could represent it. He said he'd be willing to consider a revision, or another piece of mine. This was very exciting news, but it's left me in a kind of limbo. He wasn't specific about what revisions he was looking for, so I'm not ready to drop everything else and start rewriting. In the meantime, I'm hesitant to send out anything else to an editor or another agent, in case this does pan out. I'm going to a writers' conference in a couple of weeks, and I didn't try to sign up for any critiques—partly because I'm still in limbo, and partly because I've already had most of my stuff critiqued at other events.

This whole pursuit of publication and the upcoming conference reminds me of when I was a little kid at family gatherings and I would watch the older generation play cards. It looked like fun; I wanted to join in; but I was told, "your nose is too short." I knew this meant I wasn't old enough, or didn't know how to play well enough, but when when when would I get to play with the grownups? (Eventually I discovered the truth: when they were desperate for a fourth for euchre.) This is how I feel at these conferences: I see the writers who are already published, and they are encouraging, but when when when will my book get to play with the publishers?

I know each query, rejected or not, is making progress. I can see the progress: from form rejections, to personal comments, to this "maybe." It's still very frustrating, and combined with the focus on paid writing it's making it very hard to get back into writing fiction. So I've decided I'm going to participate in National Novel Writing Month, aka NaNoWriMo. In November I'm going to write an entire 50,000 word novel from scratch. I'm giving myself permission not to worry about plot or language or making it to the big kids' table; I'm just going to write. I've got six weeks to think a little bit about what to write; I have a germ of an idea—a character and a narrative device, really—and we'll just see what ensues.

The aspiring writer's glossary

Earlier this week I put the following on my Facebook status update: "Diane got a champagne rejection today, so she's feeling pretty good." I got quite a few questions as a result (I guess that was my intention, to get attention), mainly, "what's a champagne rejection"? When you've been pursuing publication as long as I have (at least 5.5 years), you forget that not everyone is privy to all the fun code words and acronyms that you know.* So I thought I'd create a short glossary for those of my friends who may wonder what the heck I'm doing. And rather than be boring and alphabetical, I'm going to list my definitions in a kind of chronological order, following the path of a manuscript.

query/query letter: in which you have a couple of paragraphs to describe your work and pique an editor/agent's interest.

SASE: self-addressed stamped envelope; what you usually send with your snail mail query, except now some publishers don't even bother to reply if they're not interested. And what makes your heart sink when you find it in your mailbox, because it means "rejected" (and it looks like you sent a letter to yourself, which is even more pathetic).

unsolicited manuscript: a piece which the editor/house has not requested. Many publishing houses no longer accept unsolicited/unagented manuscripts, which means you must either have an agent, or meet the editor at a conference somewhere.

slush/slush pile: the stack (and I do mean stack, read the link) of unsolicited manuscripts that editors have to wade through before finding/overlooking your gem. Oh, and agents, too. You can avoid the slush by getting an agent to send out your work, but you have to make it through their slush pile first....

form rejection: an impersonal form letter. Particularly soul-crushing.

champagne rejection: a personal rejection with kind words; ie, the editor/agent rejects your material, usually because "it's not quite right for us," but says something nice about your writing or invites you to submit something else.

partial/full request: the editor/agent was intrigued by your query and wants to see sample chapters (partial) or the whole thing. I've had full requests on one novel by one editor (who eventually rejected it, "not enthusiastic enough") and one agent (still waiting to hear the outcome).

acceptance/offer: I'm still waiting to find out what this one means.

That's all I can think of right now. If any of my writer friends think of one I've missed, please put it in the comments section.

*I lie. You don't forget, especially when you see novice writers making silly mistakes. Then you laugh at them and try not to remember you were that clueless once. It may be mean, but when you've been suffering rejections for 5.5 years, you need something to make you feel you're not the worst of the worst.

Link: The best blog post title, ever!

Not only does this blog post have the best title ever (if you're a Jane Austen fan), it shows how things haven't changed that much when it comes to getting your book published:

Editorial Ass: It Is a Truth Universally Acknowledged That an Individual in Possession of a Word Processor Must Be in Want of a Book Deal (or, What Would Jane Do?)

On a related note, a new feature coming next month from me: Janespotting, or I read/watch/listen to (almost) everything ever written by/about/adapted from Jane Austen.

Maybe I'm a dingbat, but this is funny:

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Or maybe I've just done one too many typesetting jobs....

You can't go home again...

Okay, so occasionally I like to get paid for my writing. Money is nice, and even better is the sense that someone thinks what I produce is worth something. (Can you tell I've had a few rejections in the past month? Serendipity is so hard to achieve.) Anyway, I'd finished a couple of short biographies for my most regular employer and thought I'd get back to my novel, but I got an e-mail from a former co-worker. They'd turned up short-staffed for a project, and were looking for reliable freelancers to fill in, and would I be interested? It would be writing entries for a project I used to manage. Easy peasy! I used to turn those out in my sleep, practically, so I said lay some of those entries on me.

Well. Things have changed a bit since I first starting working in publishing, some 20 years ago. (20 years! Ack! I can't be that old!) My first year, we compiled entries by cutting and pasting the old ones on a blue sheet of paper and marking them up with updates. Occasionally we used the computer, but there were only three computers for more than 20 people, so we were big on typewriters and proofreaders' marks.

After a couple of years, we all got computers. As we got scanners, we phased out the blue sheets and compiled entries completely on the computer. Great! It's much easier to write an essay on a computer than on a typewriter, even with corrective tape. At first, we'd print out the entries and send them to the typesetter; then we discovered we could save money by sending them electronic files. We used a few codes to indicate italics and subheads, and it was easy to insert them using a find-and-replace program.

Now, by the time I left the company 10 years ago, they had discovered the joys of "leveraging data"—ie, reusing and repackaging it in various products. That meant getting stuff into a database. That meant standardizing formats between products, and giving every single bit of information a coded tag, so we knew what was a birthdate, what was an address, what was a career title, what was a book titles, and so on and so on and so on. When I left, I had actually moved out of the editorial side of the company into technical training, helping editors make the adjustment into using new programs and database structures.

Fun. So what does this have to do with me now? Well, 10 years ago we had freelancers compile the data, but the company did most of the coding. Today, the freelancers (ie, Me), do the coding, too. So in making a list of books, what used to be as simple as:

With One Lousy Free Packet of Seed, Hamish Hamilton, 1994.
Tennyson's Gift, Hamish Hamilton, 1996.
Going Loco, Review, 1999.

now looks like this:

[bibcitation][bibcit.composed][title][emphasis n="1"]With One Lousy Free Packet of Seed,[/emphasis][/title] Hamish Hamilton (London, England), [pubdate][year year="1994"][/pubdate].[/bibcit.composed][/bibcitation]
[bibcitation][bibcit.composed][title][emphasis n="1"]Tennyson's Gift,[/emphasis][/title] Hamish Hamilton (London, England), [pubdate][year year="1996"][/pubdate].[/bibcit.composed][/bibcitation]
[bibcitation][bibcit.composed][title][emphasis n="1"]Going Loco,[/emphasis][/title] Review (London, England), [pubdate][year year="1999"][/pubdate].[/bibcit.composed][/bibcitation]

So much for doing these in my sleep, unless it's a state of unconsciousness brought about by continually banging my head on my desk. It might be a while before I get back to my novel.

Life Lessons from the Lions

[Removes bag from head.] Hi, everyone. My name is Diane, and I'm a Detroit Lions fan. I can't help it; it's how I was raised. It's pretty miserable, being a Lions fan. During my lifetime (42 seasons), the Lions have won exactly one playoff game. (At least it was against the Cowboys.) They've only had 12 winning seasons, and four of those were before I was in kindergarten and knew what football was. Since 2001, the Puddytats have a scintillating record of 31-81, which I believe is the worst in the NFL. Bad coaching, bad draft picks, bad management, bad play—I've seen it all. Even the franchise can't ignore how bad they've been; their current marketing slogan for the season is "Claim a piece of the future" (... because we don't want you to think about the past).

So yes, the Lions suck. And yet, each fall Sunday I turn on the TV to watch. I pay attention to the draft, I read free agent reports in the paper, I believe the players when they say this year will be different. I love football, so why not switch my allegiance to a team with some chance of making the playoffs? Part of it is probably due to stubbornness. But part of it is also due to being a hopeless optimist. Each September, I really do believe that maybe they finally have the right coach/quarterback/defense to finally become a winning team. I often have to give up my delusions by October, but every season I hold out hope for something different.

This stubborn optimism is proving very useful as I seek publication for my creative writing. Here's the latest piece of bad news: a rejection of a picture book manuscript I've been working on for the last five or six years. This isn't what they call a "champagne rejection"—the kind where they turn you down, but praise your writing and invite you to try something different—but it's slightly better than a form letter. The editor made an effort to personalize the rejection, remembering the conference we both attended, and she didn't say the manuscript was unsuitable because it stunk.

So, I'm out of the playoffs for this season. Time to find another editor/publisher, take the field, and see how they like it. I'm a hopeless optimist. I'm a Lions fan, and I'm too stubborn to give up.

If I'd wanted to go into Marketing, I wouldn't have been an English major.

I hate Marketing. Don't get me wrong; I love coupons, free samples, "buy one get one free," those Bud Light "dude" commercials.... I'm used to being the target of marketing. I've learned to tune out what I don't want to hear and take advantage of what interests me.

No, it's marketing my own work that makes the business of writing so miserable. I mean, revising Chapter 2 for the umpteenth time can be frustrating, but at least it offers the potential of immediate reward when I find just the right word. (If you're a writer, you know that can be a wonderful feeling--if one that doesn't happen as often as you'd like.) Trying to sell a novel? Well, that has the potential for future reward. More often, though, I wonder whether I'm like of those spammers sending ads for "che@p vi@gr@!" to my in-box--barking up the wrong the tree. (Barking, in fact, down an empty well, confounding the slugs who live there into wondering what the noise is all about.)

When people ask me, "How's the writing going?" I hardly know how to answer. It's easy enough to reply, "Oh, I'm two-thirds finished with my third novel," but what they really want to know is when they're going to see one of these mythical novels in a bookstore. There's no short reply, unless I want to get into the details of what the Marketing Department is up to. And since I find marketing my work boring and frustrating, why should I bother you with it? Well, because now I have a blog and I need to write something in it. So I'm going to give you the long answer, by sharing the history of my attempts at selling my first novel.

I started my fantasy A Mage and His Dog so long ago I can't quite remember when it was, but it's well over 15 years by now. It started out as a novel for adults, with the main character in his early 20s, so my first attempt to sell it was to an adult fantasy imprint. This was around 1995, and although I was only halfway done with the novel, I sent off three chapters to the publisher with a hopeful cover letter. (I rather naively thought that if they did want to see the whole thing, I'd be close to finished, and the request would give me the impetus to finish writing it quickly. Now I laugh at people who think this way.) Anyway, the chapters seemed to have vanished into some alternate dimension, for months went by without getting my SASE (that's a self-addressed stamped envelope) returned. Finally, over a year later, I got a package via UPS. I'd only sent a small SASE for a response, telling them to recycle the manuscript, but they paid to mail the whole thing back to me. It seemed like a lot of effort when they included nothing but a form rejection in the package.

So, a few years went by. I finished the novel in 1998, shortly after going freelance, and around that time I also joined the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, a professional union that sponsors some great conferences. I got a little wiser to the business aspect of fiction publishing, and also rewrote the novel in 2002 for the children's market. (Thanks to Harry Potter, the fantasy children's market remains very hot, although not for me.) Still, I had learned that it wouldn't be easy. A lot of publishers won't look at manuscripts unless an agent submits them. Others will, but those "unsolicited manuscripts" end up in a slush pile that can have hundreds or even thousands of submissions. So I tried a couple of "first novel" contests run by children's imprints, thinking at least they were open to unpublished novelists. The first one was in 2003, and never even sent a rejection; I had to search for the announcement that no one won that year. The second one was in 2004, and they were at least kind enough to send a form rejection after two months.

It helps if you can target a specific editor, and if you attend conferences you can hear them speak and get an idea of whether they might be a good fit. So my next attempt was to one such editor at a new children's imprint. This kind of submission is not quite the same as submitting to the slush pile, since they "invite" you to submit, but there can be 100 other writers who were at that conference, too. So it took five months to get a form rejection from this editor.

Another conference, another editor. And this time ... an invitation to send the whole manuscript! (For novels, you generally only submit the first 2 or 3 chapters, although I suspect most editors only need to read a few pages to decide whether they want to see the whole thing.) This invitation was exciting--I'd made it to the next level! I was willing to wait, give her time to consider it. Editors are busy people, I know this. After six months, I hadn't heard anything, so I sent an e-mail. "I need more time," she told me, so I waited some more. And after six more months, I sent another e-mail. No reply. Still, no news is good news, right? Not necessarily. When I finally followed up again, I got this reply: "Oh, I remember the piece, and I replied quite some time ago. I wasn't quite enthusiastic enough to take it on. My [devastating, heart-crushing] reply must have been lost in the mail."

Aggggh. "Can I just shoot myself now?" I was thinking by now. "Why don't you just get an agent to do the marketing for you?" you may be thinking by now. Well, you have to market to them, too. While Mage was sitting with that one editor, I tried a couple of agents, hoping to tantalize them with the info that an editor was considering the whole manuscript. One such agent turned me down in a quick two months. Another, after saying by e-mail she was willing to look at a sample, never got back to me.

And that's just the history of one of my works. Another novel has bounced through several editors and agents, as has my picture book manuscript. At this point, I might be forgiven if I gave up. After all, can two dozen editors and agents be wrong? Am I only writing crap?

Well, I don't think so. My lovely, helpful critique group doesn't think so. I continue to believe that someday, somehow, I will find that editor or agent who loves my work. It may take a lot more marketing (ick), but it will happen. It's just a matter of serendipity. And there! I now have the short answer for people who ask "how's the writing going?"

I will answer, "I have yet to achieve serendipity, but I'm still trying."