Tag Archives: writing advice

Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, Writing

Professional Wednesday: What Holds Me Back, part III — Imposter Syndrome and Other Insecurities

Continuing my series of posts on “What Holds Me Back,” I turn today to more difficult issues. In my experience, the greatest challenges creators face are emotional ones, and I have struggled with such things throughout my career. This is a complex subject, and not one that’s easy to cover in a single post, though I intend to try. The problem is, the emotional obstacles we face are varied and at times debilitating. Imposter syndrome, lack of self-confidence (which is different), excessive comparison of our own achievements and disappointments with those of others — these things and more can keep us from accomplishing all we hope to.

I’m not going to hold back in this post. My own experiences will only be helpful for the rest of you if I’m completely honest, so that’s my intent.

Let me begin with the obvious: I have been a professional writer for close to thirty years and in my calmer, more rational moments, I feel pretty good about my abilities and also about what I have done over my decades in the business. While I’ve never been a huge name in the field, I have been publishing long and short fiction continuously for my entire career. I consistently get good reviews, I have won several awards, and I enjoy the respect of my peers. In short, I have no reason to be anything but proud of what I have achieved as a writer.

And yet . . . .

That is, as I say, the rational view of my professional life. The thing about all the emotions I mentioned in the opening paragraph is that they’re not rational. They’re anything but. Yet they are persistent and pervasive, and they can be utterly crippling.

I have written before about imposter syndrome. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term, it is self-explanatory: Imposter syndrome is the unfounded belief that, despite our qualifications and successes, we are undeserving of our status and whatever accolades we might have received. I recall years ago talking about imposter syndrome with a friend, someone who was at the time far more established in the field than I, and who had enjoyed some serious commercial success. I asked this person when I could expect my imposter syndrome to go away. My friend laughed. “When you find out, let me know.”

Based on conversations I’ve had and on reading I’ve done, I sense that imposter syndrome is fairly common across the creative arts, affecting visual artists and writers, movie stars and rock ’n roll icons. (It also happens to be common among academics, so it seems I was destined to deal with it no matter which career path I followed.)

It may seem that lacking self-confidence is the same as suffering from imposter syndrome. And certainly a case can be made that a shortage of confidence contributes to what I’ve just described. But really they are separate phenomena. As I have said, imposter syndrome is a real problem for me personally, lack of self-confidence less so. Still, I have dealt with it off and on, and I have seen the impact a profound lack of confidence can have on talented writers. It can make them question their ideas, it can keep them from moving forward with manuscripts because they constantly retreat into rewrites of perfectly good stories in order to fix imagined problems, and worst of all, it can prevent them from sending out stories and books for consideration. That same lack of self-assurance can bring with it social anxieties that prevent writers from taking advantage of convention and workshop situations. As I said before, it can be debilitating.

And finally, I mentioned early in the post our tendency to compare ourselves excessively with our peers and colleagues. Another friend of mine once referred to this as Locus Syndrome, Locus being the newsletter of the science fiction and fantasy fields, where many in the industry announce awards, new contracts, sales of secondary rights, and other career milestones. I no longer subscribe to Locus because the arrival of each issue set off my worst comparison tendencies. Why is that publisher taking so-and-so’s novel when they passed on mine? Why did that person receive that award; why didn’t I? Why did my publisher take out a full-page ad for writer “x” when they merely included my book in a group advertisement?

No, I’m not kidding. I really did stuff like this to myself. More, I was hardly alone in this regard. And I can tell you, just as jealousy in a relationship can undermine love and trust, envy in one’s professional life destroys everything it touches. Many of the people I envied I also considered friends, and my jealousy of their triumphs kept me from being fully happy for them, as I should have been. It placed a strain on our relationships.

Imposter syndrome, lack of confidence, envy directed at colleagues — all of these have held me back at one time or another over the course of my career. And I would argue that all are exacerbated by a simple truth about the writing industry and the arts in general: the markers we use to chart our progress and our achievements, all tend to be external. Reviews and awards, story or book sales and new contracts, Amazon rankings and royalty statements. Not only do these forms of feedback come from outside, they all lie well beyond our control. Sure, we can publicize our work and hope that will impact our numbers. And yes, we can write our books well, and so influence reviews. But really our reach in terms of sales and reviews is quite limited.

And this is why I often return to the idea of self-defining our successes. There are a lot of authors out there these days, and they’re producing a lot of books. There’s no guarantee that our book is going to be noticed or reviewed. There is no guarantee it will sell. Which means one of two things — either the lack of attention is going to make us jealous of more successful writers and cause us to question our talent, our imagination, the quality of our work, OR we are going to take satisfaction in our own achievements regardless of the feedback we get externally.

I’m not naïve. Like I said, I’ve been in the business for thirty years. I’ve seen a lot, experienced a lot, had my share of both triumphs and disappointments. I know better than most how publishing works. Obviously, we need good sales to further our careers. Obviously, we want good reviews to help us gain recognition for our work. I would never claim otherwise. What I’m saying is this: NOT getting those things does not mean our work is unworthy. It does not mean we don’t belong in the profession. It should not cause us to question all. And to be honest, I am saying these things — again — as much for myself as for you. We all need to hear it.

Keep writing.

Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, Writing

Professional Wednesday: What Holds Me Back, part II — Building a Platform

Last week, I started my newest series for the Professional Wednesday feature: “What Holds Me Back.” My first entry was on life in general, and the ways in which we learn to cope with life’s intrusions on our creative output.

This week I would like to shift my focus a bit to more writing-specific obstacles that can hold us back in one way or another. As it happens, there are a lot of them, so it may be this series will stick around for a while. But let’s begin with all those things that fall under the heading of “building our platform.”

Children of Amarid, by David B. Coe (jacket art by Romas Kukalis)I’ll preface this discussion with the obvious: I’m old. I’ve been in this business for a long time — it’s been nearly three decades since I signed my first contract. When I got started in the business, publishers were just beginning to expect that writers would maintain websites. Websites! Facebook and Twitter and the rest didn’t even exist. And when we signed contracts, writers could rightfully expect that our publishers would handle the bulk of the necessary publicity, which consisted mainly of taking out ads in journals, sending review copies to print magazines (kids, ask your parents) and other critical venues, setting up newspaper, radio, and television interviews, and arranging signing tours and individual store events.

My point being that the days of publisher-centric publicity have long since passed. Our jobs as writers have become far, far more demanding in so many ways. In the age of self-publishing, many of us are now required to get our own jacket artwork, to arrange for our own editing, to typeset our own books. But in today’s marketplace, ALL of us are responsible for creating audiences for our books. We are the ones who advertise our releases, who set up events, who make our marketing decisions. And social media gives us the opportunity to interact with and get to know our fans in ways I never would have dreamed possible at the outset of my career.

More than ever, we are not just writers. We are publicists and advertisers. We maintain our social media presence, and many of us also create additional content for blogs. All of these things can be time-sinks, and therein lies the danger. I know of many writers who, at the outsets of their careers, become so obsessed with “building a platform” or “establishing a fan base” or “finding their readership” that they leave themselves no time to do the one crucial thing all writers have to do to be successful: write their stories.

Yes, I am aware of the irony. Here I am blogging about the perils of spending too much time on one’s blog (among other things). But the danger is real, and it can become a trap for many. After so many years as a professional writer, I have gotten to the point where I can be productive on demand. I can turn out two one-thousand-word blog posts in a day and still have time left over to edit a couple of story manuscripts for the anthology, or I can get a couple of thousand words written on a work-in-progress and then write a thousand words more for the blog. I couldn’t have done this early in my career; writing in volume and switching gears among various professional tasks are skills I have developed over years. I think if I had started my career ten or fifteen years later, I would have struggled mightily to build my audience and simultaneously write my novels.

I have managed to maintain the regular Monday and Wednesday features of this blog, to turn out material on a regular basis, by making blogging a habit. I devote one day a week — usually the same day each week — to getting the posts written. Yes, I am sorry to blow-up such a carefully maintained illusion, but I DON’T write my blog posts on the days they go up. Sometimes, when I know I’ll be traveling during a given week, I will have posts, particularly the Professional Wednesday entries, scheduled a week or two in advance. I try not to allow post deadlines to loom. Why? Because currently I enjoy maintaining this blog and I don’t want it to become A Thing I Dread. And more to the point, I don’t want it ever to get in the way of work I have to do.

The Chalice War-Stone, by David B. CoeBlogging and social media are extras. Yes, in this day and age, they are important extras. Crucial, some might say. We have to publicize our books, or no one will buy them or read them. But as vital as this part of the job might seem, I would once again turn the previous phrase on its head: We have to publicize in order to be read? Yes, we do. But more important by far is this: We have to write the books in order for any of that publicity to be worth a damn.

Writers write. As I said earlier, the single most important thing we can do to further our careers, to build our audiences, to draw the notice of the industry, is write our fiction (or non-fiction, if that’s your thing). If you can maintain your output while also spending time each day blogging and feeding the social media beast, good for you. You’re more accomplished than I am. But if you find that you’re not getting as much done on your stories and books as you would like, check to see if maybe you’re spending too much time on the other stuff. And if you are, make the adjustment.

Platforms are great. But if you don’t have books to sell from them, all you’ve got is a flat expanse of wood.

Keep writing.

Blogging, Case Files of Justis Fearsson, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, LonTobyn Chronicle, Writing

Professional Wednesday: My Best Mistakes, Part III — Reviews, Damn Reviews, and More Reviews

Continuing the “My Best Mistakes” series of blog posts . . . .

Children of Amarid, by David B. Coe (jacket art by Romas Kukalis)Very early in my career, when my first book, Children of Amarid, was the only one I had out, I responded publicly to a online review from a less-than-delighted reader. Amazon was still a novelty (no pun intended) as was the notion of online reader reviews. (Hard to imagine, right? That the idea of readers offering reviews of the books they’d read should have been new and different and even a bit odd?) I don’t remember what the reader in question objected to about the book, nor do I remember what I said in my public response. The original book is out of print now — only the 2016 reissues are available on the site, so our exchange is lost to the ages. All I know is that someone criticized the book, I didn’t take the criticism well, and I took it upon myself to write a reply and post it to the Children of Amarid Amazon page.

But that’s not quite what this post is about.

SPELL BLIND, by David B. Coe (Jacket art by Alan Pollack)Some years later, soon after the release of Spell Blind, the first book in The Case Files of Justis Fearsson, another Amazon reviewer panned the book because my book was “a blatant rip-off” of Jim Butcher’s Harry Dresden books, “a ludicrous case of copycatting.” For the record, I didn’t copy Dresden at all. I had only read the first two books of the series, and the “copycatting” the reviewer claimed I’d done amounted to using tropes of the genre, not elements of Butcher’s work. And so I responded to the review, wanting to set the record straight.

But that’s not quite what this post is about.

At this point, you might have sensed that I have a problem. There are writers out there, I know, who couldn’t care less about bad reviews of any sort. Clearly I am not one of them. It’s not that I’m thin-skinned. Well, not really. If people don’t like my books, so be it. I write for me, because I understand that we can never please every reader. Even if ninety-nine readers out of a hundred love our book, there will always be that one reader for whom something just doesn’t work — the characters or the setting or the magic or the prose. Something.

My problem, and I know I am not alone in this regard, is that I can get all those nice reviews, but the one on which I’ll fixate, the one I’ll remember, is the lone bad one. I think it’s tied to imposter syndrome, and to every other insecurity I have as a writer. And as I say, I know I’m not the only professional who is like this. Certainly, when I see a review that misrepresents my work, or impugns my professional integrity, I can’t help but obsess over it a little. That’s what happened with both of the examples I’ve already cited.

That’s what happened with another book in another series, which was reviewed in a fairly high profile publication. As it happens, this third review was mostly positive. The reviewer liked the book. But they also said something about the book, a mild criticism, that I felt was simply untrue. I didn’t respond publicly. I sent the author of the review a private message, thanking them for their kind words about the book, but pointing out that they had gotten it wrong in this one regard.

Why did I do this?

Because I’m an idiot. Because despite my protestations before, I AM thin-skinned about my books. I take editorial feedback really well, but I respond terribly to public criticisms that I feel are unjust or inaccurate. To my mind, reviewers — professional reviewers, those who merely comment on bookseller sites, and all in between — ought to keep in mind that their words can have an impact on people’s livelihoods. If they have legitimate criticisms, so be it. But they need to take care to get their facts straight. Okay, off my soap-box.

Where was I? Oh, right. I sent a private message to the reviewer. I never heard back from this person. But they reviewed my next book, and they took their revenge. Publicly. Brutally. Cruelly. Their review of that next book was one of the most humiliating things that has ever happened to me in my career. It was unfair. It was relentless. It misrepresented the book. The review left me heartbroken, because I loved the book. Still do. And I am certain this review came about as a direct result of that message I sent after the first review. It was my fault. True, the reviewer didn’t have to take their revenge in the way they did, but still, I should have known better.

Because writers are told again and again never to respond to reviews. Most people will tell writers that they shouldn’t even read their reviews. Clearly, I have struggled throughout my career to follow both these bits of advice. In fairness, I have finally gotten better about all of this. I do not respond to reviews anymore. I rarely read them. But as mistakes go, this was a big one, and it is one I’ve made too often.

Don’t do what I did. Write your book and move on to the next. Promote the hell out of every publication. Pay attention to your sales numbers. Don’t worry about your reviews. Don’t go to your Amazon pages and scroll through the ratings. If you have to read your journal reviews, so be it. Who am I to criticize? But don’t obsess over them. Don’t fixate on the negative phrases. And for God’s sake, don’t respond to them.

And if you can do all that, you’re a better person than I am.

Keep writing.

Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, Writing

Professional Wednesday: My Best Mistakes, Part II — A Bad Contract Is Worse Than No Contract

Last week, I kicked off the latest Professional Wednesday blog post series, “My Best Mistakes,” with a humorous story about my behavior at a convention early in my career. I hope you enjoyed it.

This week, I turn to more serious matters, because the fact is certain mistakes can have serious consequences for our careers. Before I begin, let me reiterate something I wrote in last week’s post: Some of the stories I tell in this series of posts will include other people in the business and/or will touch upon published works of mine that I am still seeking to market. In the interest of discretion, I will be keeping some details purposefully vague.

The events I’m going to describe took place many years ago, as I was putting the finishing touches on one of my early epic fantasy series, and I was looking forward to my next project or projects. This is common for writers even today. We are often a book or two ahead of the publishing schedule, particularly if we publish traditionally. And so as we are waiting for the last book or two of a series to wend its/their way through the production process, we are usually turning to the new shiny. And this was especially the case back in the years I’m talking about here, when self-publishing was not yet a Thing, and big-house traditional publishing was excruciatingly slow.

I had recently met a small press publisher at a convention, and this person expressed interest in publishing my next work. This publisher was ambitious, articulate, charming, and seemed to know the business. Put another way, they talked a good game. They had some big name authors writing for them already and they made it very clear they wanted to add me to that mix. It was flattering really, and they probably knew it.

To that point in my career, I had only written for Tor Books. Tor was and is a great house. Their reputation is global, as is their marketing reach. They brought me out in hardcover with all of my early books, as they did almost all their writers. They put out a beautiful product, they took out big, glossy ads in Locus and the Science Fiction Chronicle. They hosted THE big party at WorldCon each year. There was, in short, a certain cachet that came with being a Tor author. And I liked that. On the other hand, even as my star was rising early in my career, I remained a small fish in the big pond that was Tor.

And so, being a relatively big fish in the pond of this small publisher had some appeal. Add to that the fact that this publisher offered to match or beat the numbers in my most recent contracts with Tor, which had been generous, and I was eager to give working with this person a try. Never mind that all of it sounded too good to be true. I wanted in.

I signed a contract for several books. And if the publisher needed a little extra time to come up with the promised advance . . . well, it was a small press after all. It was understandable, right?

No, not right. That was our first warning that all was not as it should be, although it shouldn’t have been.

So far, I have made it seem the only problem with the contract I signed was that the small press publisher couldn’t do all they promised financially. But there was more to this episode than that. The books I sold them weren’t ready either. The concept needed a ton of work, something I didn’t realize at the time, didn’t WANT to realize at the time. But it’s true. I would later publish a much-changed iteration of this concept with a different publisher, but back in the mid-2000s, when all of this took place, the books were a shadow of what they could and should have been. The publisher’s failure to see the flaws in the original concept should have been a warning as well.

All of that said, I eventually did get my initial advance, and I eventually turned in the first book. When I got it back from the publisher, who was now also my editor, the manuscript was very nearly unmarked. “Looks great. Found a few typos and phrases that don’t quite work. Get the revisions back to me as soon as possible.” That’s a paraphrasing of the feedback I received, but it’s an accurate one and it set off alarm bells in my mind. I knew the book needed more. I didn’t yet know how much work it needed, but I knew it wasn’t essentially publication-ready. As it turned out, this was another sign that my publisher’s resources — financial, yes, but also in terms of time and human resources — were spread way too thin.

Within eighteen months of my signing the contract, the small press was on the brink of bankruptcy. We managed to get back the rights to the series, but only because my agent and I acted quickly and decisively. The series could have gotten caught up in the bankruptcy proceedings and then we might never have been able to sell the later iteration of the books to a different publisher. The publishing company folded not too much later. As far as I know, the publisher/editor I worked with briefly is no longer connected to the publishing world.

So, what are the lessons here? Let me start by saying that the lesson is NOT to avoid working with small presses. I have worked with several in recent years and, with one other notable exception, have had great experiences. Small presses are, to my mind, the future of the industry and a wonderful option for writers of every experience level.

No, the lessons are these:

1) If the promises made to you by a publisher (or, for that matter, by an agent) sound too good, too optimistic, too perfect, take a long, close look at the contract and at all the information you can find about the enterprise. Talk to other authors who have worked with them. Learn all you can. We all like to be told what we want to hear. We all want to feel wanted by our publishers. But flattery and rosy scenarios are no substitute for solid information. Because the old adage holds true: If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.

2) Don’t rush into anything. Don’t rush to get that first contract signed, unless you’re truly confident you’re a good match for the publisher. Don’t rush to bring a book or series to press unless you’re certain it’s ready. Don’t hurry into any publishing arrangement because you need the money quickly. Actually, that’s probably good advice for any business venture in any field. But it’s particularly important when we’re peddling our intellectual and creative property. If we rush into selling, say, a car, we might not get as much as we should. But if we rush into a publishing contract we can lose access to our artistic creation. If my agent and I had waited another month or two, that’s what would have happened with this series of books. Better to be patient. Better to delay the realization of our ambitions than to destroy any chance of realizing them.

And 3) Beware, beware, beware. The vast majority of the people I know in the publishing industry — writers, editors, agents, publishers — are honest and hardworking. They are in the business because they’re passionate about books and stories, and they want to do good by the people with whom they work. But there are a few — yes, I could drop names; I won’t — who are in it to make a buck, and don’t care who they hurt along the way. There are others who through malign intent or sheer incompetence seem to turn to shit everything they touch. Before you sign to work with anyone, make certain you know what category they fall into.

Keep writing!

 

Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, Writing

Monday Musings: What Matters, Part IV — Money

Say you don’t need no diamond rings,
And I’ll be satisfied;
Tell me that you want the kind of things,
That money just can’t buy.
— John Lennon and Paul McCartney

We were bound to get to money eventually, right? For weeks now, I’ve been writing about the things that matter and those that don’t. It seemed inevitable that I would come to financial issues before long. And here we are.

Let me start with a spoiler. I am not going to tell you that money is unimportant, that what matters is what’s in your heart, what brings you joy. I’m not going to tell you to throw off the bonds of our Capitalist mindset and devote yourself entirely to your art. Money matters. You can’t eat what’s in your heart. You can’t use your art to keep warm and dry and safe. You can’t retire on dreams and professional contentment. Call it a necessary evil. Call it a source of comfort and pleasure. Call it whatever the hell you want. But don’t kid yourself: In this world, we all need money to get by.

My father struggled early in his professional life, at a time when my older siblings were kids, and he worried about finances quite a bit. Those worries contributed to an authoritarian streak in his parenting. Later, by the time I was growing up, he had established himself in the world of finance and was earning a healthy living. We weren’t truly wealthy — we had family friends who were, so we saw the lifestyle of the rich up close — but we were comfortably upper-middle-class. In my memory, we never worried about money. My dad was far more easy-going in those later years. When unexpected expenses arose, he would shrug and say, “It’s only money.” Which, of course, is an attitude born of privilege.

My brother Jim tells of going with my father to his office in lower Manhattan when Jim was just a kid. My father showed Jim where he worked and said something along the lines of, “I could have been one of those guys with a corner office and a lot of money, but I chose to be a husband and father instead.” That’s a paraphrasing, but a close one, and it is indicative of my dad’s priorities. Again, though, it’s also something one can only say from a place of comfort.

I’ve been rich, oh baby, I’ve been poor;
Been in love a couple of times before.
If I had to choose, you know, between the two,
I’d take both rich and in love; I ain’t no fool.
— Paul Barrere, Little Feat

My father’s example has guided me for much of my life. Yes, I want my books to sell. I want to make money as a writer, and I take advantage of opportunities as they come my way. But when my daughters were younger, I tried to prioritize family in choices between home life and profession. And I have always worked hard to make my books as clean and polished as possible, even when I’ve known that I might make more if I took less time on each project and squeezed out more publications every year.

As a result, I have enjoyed more critical success than commercial success, and at times, my sales performance has bothered me. Once, when I was lamenting another well-reviewed book that hadn’t sold very well, Nancy asked me, “Would you want it to be the other way around?”

The question brought me up short. “What?”

“Would you be happier if your sales were great, but your reviews were bad?”

It took me all of three seconds to answer. “No, I wouldn’t.”

“Then stop complaining.”

Wise woman.

At this point, you might be saying, “You know, for a guy who said he wouldn’t tell us money is unimportant, you sure seem to be telling us just that.”

To which I say, “Well, yes and no.”

Money matters, no doubt. I would like to be making more as a writer, and I’ve felt that way for much of my career. But money is not all that matters. Not by a long shot. For each of us there exists a balance — things we will do for a paycheck and things we won’t. I have the luxury of making choices that are similar to those my father made. Nancy earns a good living and she wants me to write with joy, with satisfaction in my work, and with respect for the boundaries we have placed between our professional lives and our private life. An approach born of privilege? Absolutely. And so I would never judge anyone who makes different choices, who emphasizes the commercial end of the profession. We all have to do what is right for ourselves, for our loved ones, for our goals and desires.

This is a Monday Musings post, but these closing graphs have the feel of a Professional Wednesday essay, and so allow me to offer a few bits of business advice. First, do not rush into any contract or business arrangement. Most of the people I have encountered in publishing are honest and care deeply about the written word. Most, but not all. Read your contracts before you sign, and ask questions, not just of the person you’re signing with, but of friends who know the law and the business. If you have any doubts about any provisions, don’t sign until those questions have been answered to your satisfaction.

Second, don’t give up your day job until you’re absolutely certain you can. I gave mine up many years ago, and so I am not really in a position to give such advice. The fact is, though, had I know as much then about the vicissitudes of the market as I know now, I might have followed a different course. This despite the fact that Nancy and I have never really wanted for much or had to worry about finances.

And third, remember that once your words are out there, there’s no taking them back. Take pride in your books and stories. Make them as good as can be. Long after the money from a specific book or story sale has been spent, the work itself will still be available for readers. In my opinion, you want those words to represent the best you have to offer at the moment you published them.

They toss around your latest golden egg,
Speculation — well, who’s to know,
If the next one in the nest,
Will glitter for them so.
— Joni Mitchell

Have a great week.

Bell Bridge Books, Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, The Chalice War, Winds of the Forelands, Writing

Professional Wednesday: What Matters In Your Work? Part I

On Monday, I began what will be a series of posts on the things that matter to us, and the ways in which we can make them central to our lives. Not surprisingly, I think about this a great deal with respect to my writing. And I believe all of us, no matter where we are in our careers, can benefit from this sort of thinking.

As with the broader topic, I expect that the question “What matters?” will inform the next few Professional Wednesday posts. Today, I want to take on the question in its broadest sense.

At the start of each year, I spend some time mapping out the coming months, trying to make certain that I schedule my work for the year to come, the various projects I hope to complete, in a way that will maximize my productivity without setting myself up for failure by giving myself unrealistic deadlines or overly ambitious timetables for the completion of manuscripts. It’s a process I’ve written about a couple of times in the past month or so. (Find other posts here and here.)

Creating a work calendar for the year is about more than time management, though. It is also about prioritizing. It is about answering the question “What matters?”

We all have projects we care about and goals that stir our passions. For some, “what matters” is that novel we’ve been trying for years to finish. For others, “what matters” is finally getting that first professional sale, either of a book or a short story. And for others still, “what matters” may simply be finally making writing a daily or weekly habit — getting started on a road that may not reach its final destination this year, but that at least begins here and now.

Whatever your “what matters” might be, it should inform your planning for the coming year.

The Chalice War-Stone, by David B. CoeWhat matters to me? Professionally, for this coming year, a few things. I have a series debuting in February. I want to promote the hell out of it. I want to feel at the end of the release windows — the weeks immediately preceding and following the releases of the three books — that I have done all I could to make the series successful. I also have an old series that I want to re-release. I’ve been talking about doing this for several years now, and each year I have found other projects to take up my time and energy. But this series, Winds of the Forelands, is one about which I am passionate. This is the year I bring it out again. It matters to me. And I want to start something new, a series that will take me in a new direction, I have resisted starting it for a couple of years, I believe because I am intimidated by the magnitude of what I’m taking on. It’s time to get over my hesitation.

Jacket art for Bonds of Vengeance, book III in Winds of the Forelands, by David B. Coe (Jacket art by Romas Kukalis)What about you? I’m not merely asking what you wish to accomplish, though obviously that’s part of the equation. I’m asking as well what you care about. Sure, maybe you want to be published — or at least contracted — by year’s end. That’s a laudable goal. But what project will get you there? What story is burning brightest inside you? What work will bring you joy? What project is most likely to tap into your greatest creative passion? That ought to be part of the equation as well.

Our professional pursuits are not just about what ambitions we’ll realize. They’re also about what matters most to us as artists. Writing, like all acts of creation, is about more than sales and “success,” however we might define that word. Writing is an act of love. This business is too hard, too fickle, too cruel, to be approached solely as a bottom-line endeavor. Often, the truest satisfaction we can hope to draw from our work is the self-recognition of our own achievement. And ultimately, I would argue, our own pride and sense of accomplishment ought to be what matters most.

So as you begin 2023 — and I hope it is a year of accomplishment and satisfaction for all of you — ask yourself “What matters?” Because I guarantee you, if the work — the concept, the narrative, the characters, the settings — matters to you, that emotional connection to the project will show up in your writing. “What matters” is not just about warm and fuzzy feelings. Answering the question will point you toward the most powerful expression of your creative vision.

Keep writing.

Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, editing, Writing, Zombies Need Brains

Professional Wednesday: Three Ways To Help Your Short Fiction Submission, and Three Ways To Doom It

The deadline for submissions to Artifice and Craft, the anthology I’m co-editing with Edmund Schubert for Zombies Need Brains, is ten days away. December 31. As of this writing, we are closing in on 400 submissions. The anthology will have a total of fourteen stories, seven of them from anchor authors. Meaning we can accept seven stories from all those submissions. We will likely wind up with about 500 subs — maybe more. They just pour in during the last week.

Noir, edited by David B. Coe and John Zakour, an anthology from Zombies Need BrainsSo far, we have received some very good stories. We have also received far, far more that won’t make the first cut. And so I thought I would go over again, briefly, the things that can make or break a story submission, at least for this editor.

To start, here are three things an author can do that might well doom their chances of having their story accepted.

1) Fail to follow the guidelines. I have said this before and will continue to say it until I’m blue in the face, because it sometimes seems I’m shouting into the wind. Every market for stories (and novels, too) has guidelines — GLs for short — that they want authors to follow. These are basics: acceptable fonts, line spacing, margins, etc., as well as presentation instructions, such as what information should appear on the first page and what a cover letter ought to say. Following GLs could not be easier. All one has to do is read them and then follow them. That’s it. And yet, you would be amazed at the number of submissions that don’t do this.

GALACTIC STEW, edited by David B. Coe and Joshua PalmatierWill I reject a story simply because it is single-spaced instead of double-spaced? No, I’m not quite that mean. But when reading a story, knowing I have literally dozens more waiting in the queue, I will only tolerate so many flaws before I reject it. Remember, I have 500 stories to choose from. I can and will find what I’m looking for. No story is ever perfect, so ask yourself, do you want to expend one of your flaws on formatting? Or do you want to present your story correctly so that I can judge it on its artistic merits? The answer seems self-evident to me.

2) Fail to write a story that’s on theme. Again, this would seem so obvious as to be silly. And yet . . . . ZNB anthologies are themed. All of them. And those themes are not suggestions, they’re requirements. The anthology’s theme is written out plainly in the call for submissions (along with the GLs). And yes, if a story isn’t right on theme I WILL reject it. It can be the best story ever, but if it’s not on theme, it will not be in the anthology. Period. Full stop.

3) Fail to write a full story. This one is a little less self-evident. The word limit for each submission is 7,500 words. The GLs don’t give a word minimum. But this is my fifth time editing an anthology and never have I given a top rating to any story that was shorter than, say, 2,500 to 3,000 words. It’s not that I’m imposing a minimum of my own. It’s just that these anthologies are not venues for flash fiction. That upper word limit of 7,500 words is sort of a hint telling you that we want to see story depth, character development and arc, narrative complexity. We want to see excellent ideas that are fully realized, and it is very hard to do that with flash fiction. Over the past couple of months, I have read too many pieces of fiction that offered great ideas, but didn’t do nearly enough with them.

Okay, so what three things can authors do to give themselves the best chance of having a story accepted?

DERELICT, edited by David B. Coe and Joshua Palmatier1) I abhor the cliché, but think outside the box. As Joshua Palmatier, owner and publisher of Zombies Need Brains, has said, don’t assume your first idea is your best idea. The most obvious ideas often come to us first, and if they’re obvious to us, they’re likely to be obvious to everyone. Make your story stand out by exploring the second or third idea, by looking for an idea that isn’t obvious but is rich with narrative possibility.

2) Write with emotion and passion. Too many of the stories I’ve read consist of dialogue and almost nothing else. Others take a kind of epistolary approach, by telling the story in the form of documents — court transcripts or product descriptions or something similar. Clever, but devoid of character development, and, as such, often devoid of emotion and tension as well. Stories need to touch our hearts. Clever is fun, but in the absence of passion, it’s probably not enough to gain acceptance to such a selective anthology. Delve into the emotions of your characters, because that is how you will reach the emotions of your readers.

3) Give us a twist or two. Just as your first idea might not be the most original, your most obvious narrative path might not be the most fruitful. Beware writing the pat ending, the contrived plot, the convenient “surprise.” Take your story in directions that make sense without being predictable. Yes, that can take work, but no one ever said this was going to be easy.

Best of luck with your submissions! And keep writing!

Baen Books, Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, Writing

Professional Wednesday: Special Guest Joelle Presby

Joelle PresbyI first met Joelle Presby several years back at a convention, and I was struck straight off by a number of things. 1) She’s just plain nice. That’s certainly not unheard of in the publishing world, but it’s also not routine. Many people are in the game for themselves. Others pretend to me something other than what they are. Not Joelle. She is genuine, kind, funny. 2) She is also crazy smart. Read her bio. Read her post. She is SMART. And 3) Everyone I talked to at that convention who  was familiar with her work had come to the same conclusion: She was a rising star. A few years later, she continues to dazzle with the release of her first solo novel.

Please welcome to the blog Joelle Presby. [Cue wild applause.]

*****

Professional Wednesday: On Hope

By Joelle Presby

There are a number of ways storytellers transition from folks who write because they have to into folks who write because they have to and also have deadlines and readers buying their work. Like many writers, I think of my transition as special and unique.

I was solidly on the path to never being published, when I stumbled into an opportunity. I was writing my seventh rough draft novel with every intention of finishing it and immediately setting it aside to begin an eighth never-to-be-revised novel. Editing is a lot of work. And I’d let my hopes shrivel too much to sustain me through the grind of reviewing an entire novel’s flaws with a clear eye and rewriting it to make the words on the page fully match the story in my mind.

The re-birth of hope was all my husband Andy’s fault.

Debare Snake Launcher, by Joelle PresbyDebare Snake Launcher, by Joelle Presby (back cover)We were both naval officers in the nuclear power pipeline, trained in engineering and managing complex technical projects, but my degrees were in math and his were in physics and spacecraft design. I got sick (nothing terminal) and had to accept a medical discharge. But my next job required fewer hours, so I could write more. And we could attend science fiction conventions and meet up with authors as long as I did the arranging and accepted that Andy might be at sea. Conventions were a lot more fun when Andy came too. Science fiction authors tend to be significantly more interested in chatting with folks who have space craft engineering backgrounds than talking to another would-be writer who happens to have only a math and engineering background.

But my hope was shriveled, not gone.

When Andy Presby had regular meetings with David Weber to provide Honorverse tech continuity support, I came along. Mostly, I sat in a corner working on a new first draft, but it was fun to eavesdrop on some of the detailed discussions around revising nearly-finished drafts with an eye to incorporating newly postulated science and also not breaking the story world. I began to think just a little about editing my own work. I did and it was hard. So, mostly I wrote first drafts again. But my hope was growing.

Andy and eight friends formed the company BuNine in order to sign a contract with Baen Books to produce a fictional nonfiction encyclopedia of the Honorverse to be released on the twentieth anniversary of the first publication of ON BASILISK’S STATION (Honorverse book 1). The group started strong with Andy agreeing to a leadership role and a primary technical role for the many planned space craft articles. Then the US Navy sent Andy to a new job. He had almost no time. The work wasn’t getting done. I started getting calls. I knew how to be a project manager and I could write. My husband and our friends had made this commitment. I didn’t want them to fail. I didn’t want them to fail David Weber or Baen Books. I wrote bad articles and good ones. I poked Andy to get from him the ship specifications we absolutely needed. I revised the drafts and took editorial correction and revised again. It was hard, but not that hard. I did a lot of nonfiction writing for work, and for a day job, you don’t get to only do rough drafts. Besides, I told myself, this didn’t count. It wasn’t real writing.

But my confidence, my hope, my willingness to dare and try grew anyway.

I heard that Toni Weisskopf was interested in a short story to be published on Baen.com during the month that our project, now titled HOUSE OF STEEL: THE HONORVERSE COMPANION, released. My hope wasn’t big enough to send anything to Baen, but it was enough for me to write a very small Honorverse short story, revise it, and share it with my husband. He gave it to our friends who, without asking me, gave it to Sharon Rice-Weber who, without asking me, gave it to David Weber who, without asking me, gave it to Toni Weisskopf who wanted to buy it if… I would revise it.

The Baen.com story was well received by Honorverse fans. It led to an invite to write for the BEGINNINGS (Worlds of Honor 6) anthology. That success led to having my first published novel be a collaboration with David Weber: THE ROAD TO HELL (Multiverse #3). And then Baen gave me a contract to write a solo novel, which I had to revise. A lot. And it was worth it.

The revised version of my ninth rough draft novel a.k.a. my first published solo novel, THE DABARE SNAKE LAUNCHER, comes out November 1, 2022.

I still go to science fiction conventions and talk to writers, and I’ve learned I’m not as unique as I first thought. If you want to stay on the path to never publishing, it’s dangerous to keep writing.

Though if anyone has access to a time machine, please tell younger me that there is joy in getting the revisions right, and the satisfaction of reaching the last page on the final polish far, far exceeds typing “The End” for a mere rough draft.

Beware. Opportunity might be just around the corner. May you have enough hope to make the attempt.

And, as David B. Coe says, keep writing.

*****

Joelle Presby is a former U.S. Navy nuclear engineering officer and recovering corporate consultant who grew up in West Africa. Her first reader husband works for NASA, but he has yet to build her a space elevator. She does not admit to arranging a book deal through a quid pro quo arrangement with Mami-Wata.
 
Joelle began her writing career publishing in David Weber’s Honorverse and joined him as a cowriter for the Multiverse series with the novel, The Road To Hell. Over a dozen short stories later, she is releasing her first solo novel, , in November 2022.
 
She lives in Ohio with her husband and two children.
Blogging, Case Files of Justis Fearsson, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, editing, Radiants, Thieftaker Chronicles, Winds of the Forelands, Writing

Professional Wednesday: An Alternative to NaNoWriMo

First off, many thanks to those who offered feedback on last week’s post, in which I asked for input regarding what I might work on next. I appreciate your thoughts. The general consensus appears to be that there is no general consensus. Several people did express enthusiasm for more Thieftaker and more Justis Fearsson. A number were also interested in reading more in the Radiants supernatural thriller series, and a few fans from way back were excited to see an edited reissue of the Winds of the Forelands books. Others liked the idea of a new writing How-To as well as the space opera concept. Which is to say, there was at least some support for pretty much everything I’m currently considering, and that’s reassuring.

We are nearing the end of October, which means Halloween is almost here, elections are right around the corner, and NaNoWriMo is about to start. For those unfamiliar with the term, National Novel Writing Month began in November 1999 as a challenge to writers to write 50,000 words in thirty days. The challenge has grown in popularity each year, and now engages literally hundreds of thousands of writers, including kids, in creative writing. NaNoWriMo is also a non-profit that promotes literacy and creativity.

In many ways, NaNo is a positive force in our industry. It fosters community, by bringing together writers of different backgrounds and abilities in a simultaneous effort to be creative on demand. And as I have said in this space again and again, part of being a professional writer is learning how to produce on demand, without “waiting for the muse,” or some such. I have heard many stories of people finally being motivated to write by NaNo, by the communal aspect of the challenge. Knowing others are making the effort at the same time enables some people to write the story that has been burning inside them for so, so long. I think that’s great.

And yet . . . . From the time NaNo first began, I have had some qualms about the concept and the structure. I have written 50,000 words in a month; I’ve done it a couple of times. I know some professionals who write far more than that in 30 days. It can be done, no doubt. And if the challenge and group dynamics of NaNo get your creative juices flowing, more power to you.

But what I remember about those occasional months during which I churned out 50,000 words is that I was unable to sustain the effort. Each time, during the month that followed, I struggled to write half as much. I was burnt out. I know some people have gone on to publish novels they began during a NaNo November. But I wonder how many NaNo participants still have novel fragments of 50,000 words (or 40,000, or 30,000) on their computers, gathering virtual dust. I wonder how many did NaNo only to find themselves unable to sustain the effort beyond the month in question.

As I said, professionals, myself included, can and do write half a novel in a month’s time, but most of us write slower than that. My brother is a visual artist, a painter. And he will occasionally engage in exercises that force him to paint quickly. There is something freeing about turning off the inner critic and just painting fast, to see how an image turns out. Just as there is something freeing about blocking out our inner editor and writing swiftly and in volume. Most of the time, though, my brother’s process looks nothing like that. And I can promise you my writing process — and that of most of my professional colleagues — bears little or no resemblance to NaNo.

Yes, NaNo can jumpstart the creative process for some people, but I would offer this: If instead of trying to write 50,000 words in thirty days, an aspiring writer were to try to write 500 words a day for 100 days, that writer would wind up with the same volume. Yes, it would take more time, but in the snail’s-pace world of publishing the difference between one month and three isn’t so great. Plus, I guarantee you, the 50,000 word manuscript produced over three months will be far, far cleaner than the NaNo manuscript and will require a good deal less editing, thus narrowing the time gap.

Most importantly, while NaNo will leave many writers exhausted and unprepared to follow up and finish the manuscript in question, the 500-word-a-day writer will have developed a habit, a creative routine that is both manageable and sustainable. More than likely, that writer will be able to increase their production over those three months and beyond.

I’m not looking for a fight here, and again, if NaNo works for you, go for it. Enjoy yourself. But if you have considered NaNo, wondering if you might finally kick off a writing career by trying it, I would encourage you to try the slow-and-steady approach instead. As a model, it is much closer to the professional experience than NaNo will ever be and, to my mind, it is more likely to produce a) clean prose, b) a coherent narrative, and c) a completed manuscript.

Whatever you decide, keep writing!

Belle Books, Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, editing, The Chalice Wars, Writing

Professional Wednesday: Finishing a Book Actually Means More Work

As I mentioned last week, I have recently finished the third book in my new contemporary Celtic urban fantasy, The Chalice Wars. This book, The Chalice Wars: Sword, will be out sometime fairly early in 2023. Book I, The Chalice Wars: Stone, is currently in production, and book II, The Chalice Wars: Cauldron, is with my editor. The art work for the first book should be ready soon. I’ll share it the moment I can. I’m excited about these books. They are filled with tension and suspense, but also with humor, and they are quite different from other work I’ve done. And I am proud to add that when this third volume is published, it will be my 30th book.

For today’s post, though, I want to focus on the mechanics of finishing a book, and precisely what that means for me in terms of work and process.

I know. It seems like finishing a novel should be fairly straightforward. We type “The End” and then we drink whisky. Right?

Turns out it’s not that easy.

First of all, I NEVER type “The End.” If we as authors have to tell our readers when a book has reached its end, we haven’t done a very good job with our ending. Just saying.

More to the point, finishing the first draft of a novel is just one step in a significantly longer process. Yes, it’s an important step, but it certainly does not mean the book is anywhere near “done.”

When I work on a book, I have a separate file open on my computer, which is usually called “[Book Title] Edit Notes.” This is a file filled with reminders to myself of things I need or want to change in the book. While writing my first draft I don’t want anything to stall my forward momentum. The most important thing we can do with a book draft is finish it. Let me say that again. The most important thing we can do with a book draft is finish it. Finishing a book is hard to do, and it is all too easy to retreat into edits and rewrites rather than move on toward those looming scenes we haven’t quite figured out how to write. It is also tempting, upon noticing in earlier chapters imperfections of prose or character or plotting, to fix them immediately, to make the manuscript as perfect as possible.

But here’s the thing: No first draft is ever going to be perfect. In fact, I would argue that no finished novel has ever been or ever will be perfect. That, though, is a conversation for another time. The point is, finish your book. It is much easier to edit a finished manuscript than it is to complete said manuscript in the first place. And so, when I think of changes that need to be made, I jot them down in a different file for later, thus preserving my momentum.

Fast forward to that glorious day when we actually finish the first draft. Well, now we have to deal with that file filled with edit notes. Working through my edits can take anywhere from one day to one week or even more, depending, obviously on how much work I’ve left for myself.

After I finish the edits, I next tackle my crutch words. Crutch words are verbal mannerisms unique to our writing, words or phrases that we tend to overuse or fall back on when in the midst of composing our stories. We all have them — I see them when editing the work of others, and I see them in my own rough drafts. I even see them in the published volumes of colleagues. My crutch words will be different from yours, which will be different from your writing-group buddy’s, which will be different from those of your favorite writer. But as I say, this is something all writers have to watch out for. I keep a running list of my crutch words in (another) word document on my computer desktop. And after completing any book or story, I work through this list, checking to see if I have overused any of the usual suspects. How do I know if I have overused them? I do a universal search of each word or phrase, which gives me a count of occurrences. And then I compare that number to the number of occurrences of the same word or phrase in several of my other completed, edited manuscripts, ones I know I have checked for crutch words. If the numbers are about the same, if figure I’m okay. If the number for the new book is a good deal higher, I have some work to do. Dealing with crutch words can be a slow, tedious process. It can take me several full days. Slow, tedious days . . . .

Finally, after seeing to my edits and getting my crutch words under control, I put the newly completed manuscript away for several weeks and start work on something else — short fiction, a new novel, editing projects. It doesn’t matter what. After about four to six weeks, depending on how soon the book is due, I pull out the manuscript again and read it through a couple of times start to finish, doing a full edit of the manuscript, looking for any and all problems — stylistic, narrative, structural, etc. Everything. Only after doing this, when I am convinced the manuscript is as good as I can make it at this time, do I send it on to my editor, or my agent, or my Beta readers. (At some point, I’ll have their suggested edits to deal with. And after that there will be copy edits and proofs. But that is part of the production process and is another subject entirely.)

By this time, of course, I’m in the middle of whatever project I’ve started next, so I’m no longer in the mood for celebrating the completion of the manuscript. But that doesn’t mean I can’t have a wee dram of whisky. . . .

Keep writing!