Notes from a workshop

Last night I went to a writing workshop. The speaker, Debbie Fuller Thomas, is an accomplished author, and her books laid neatly stacked and fanned out on a table at the back of the meeting room. Before the meeting, I perused her website http://www.debbiefullerthomas.com/ and discovered lively writing at its best, so I was more than intrigued to come and take notes of this busy writer’s life. Although I already knew many of the suggestions presented, it was the additional emphasis on these monumental landmarks to a future career in writing that I craved to embrace. The outline below highlights a writer’s way to finishing a novel, working with agents and publishers, and finally, marketing your story.

• Start out small, writing articles or short stories for periodicals in order to secure your credential as an author.

• Your own website increases networking traffic, and adding books to sell and other writing paraphernalia plunks more money into your pockets.

• Get business cards printed from a reputable firm. Handing out your business cards to family, friends and acquaintances help promote future liaisons between agents, publishers and customers.

• Lock onto a good agent. As the author said, “A bad agent is worse than no agent at all,” research the agent’s credentials and find out their experience in handling publishing houses and other authors’ books. This author remarked after signing up with a certain agent, she found out the agent had never read her book but was willing to present it to publishing firms. She was advised to fire her agent and get a new one, which caused a lot of stress and anguish but helped her in the long run.

• Don’t write in a genre different than what makes you comfortable. I have tried to write nonfiction stories from the dictates of my mother and found my writing stifled, not speaking her voice into the projects. It’s like I must interject my own thoughts and emotions to carry the story through with some pizzazz.

• Sometimes the genre we write about is narrow and filled with a lot of rules. Play by the rules and you will most likely be picked up as an author.

• First write fast, as much as you can. Worry about details in the editing stage. Writing fast also helps bring out your feelings into the story. Edit later to polish it.

• Networking with other writers and people in your life can break the monotony of writing and researching all the livelong days. Then, a fresh approach back to your writing may uncover some needed edits and rewrites to top it off before submission.

• Honing your craft before embarking on a lengthy novel will ease your way into an agent’s world, as careless grammar, punctuation and spelling errors could damage your reputation from the onset of your career.

• Writing is serious business. Carve out a sufficient time slot each day for your writing. If you work fulltime, try writing after dinner and jotting down notes during lunch time. If you are able to stay home fulltime without going bankrupt, choose any comfortable hours during the day in which your mind is at its perkiest best. If you have children, write during their naptimes or bedtimes or when they are visiting their friends or are at school. In any case, announce to your family that this writing business you are taking very seriously is your career.

• Writing is hard work. After the publication of your first book, don’t think your life is now going to be all easy with roses minus the thorns. Usually, if a publishing house likes your book, a second story is already fashioned in their minds about a year away. You cannot rest easy but be plunking at the old keyboard again until the second book is ready out the door.

• Getting into a critique group is essential to success. But be warned some may want to whittle down your story to a cute representation of their own ideal story. It is noted that if most of your group has the same opinion in their edits, the populace should win in this respect and a change imminent in the process.

• Study writing books and other teaching materials to hone your craft.

• Register for conferences and workshops like this one, especially ones with published authors, agents and editors. You will gain writing expertise, possibly land a new agent for your new book, and/or win an editor’s heart for your finished story.

• Remember that creative writing is different from nonfiction. Suffering to follow all your p’s and q’s down to a “t” in nonfiction does not generate an impressive review from editors or readers for contemporary fiction. Creative writing does not follow all of the rules of grammar as it is most important to stress a creative flow and emotions in which to pull the reader into the story.

• Do not forget to write an outline or quick summary of your story, emphasizing descriptions of things throughout so as not to wind up becoming senseless, duplicating things or circumstances, or even names of people. Follow this rule after each book is published so the subsequent books do not carry the same names, cities, events as the previous ones.

• After your book is published, now comes the marketing part: it is up to YOU to market your own book! There are only a few publishers who will risk advertising your jewel of a book in order to bring in the customers, and most likely your precious gem is not one of the prized. Marketing your book involves speaking at workshops/seminars, networking with other people, hosting events with prizes such as winning an editor’s critique of your story, advertising online with popular websites such as Amazon.com, giving your book away to influential people to read and pass on to others, and more. It is not advisable to give book signings at book stores, as most stores are not willing to risk purchasing a lot of books for the event.

• Be courteous to your readers. Invite them online to share their comments about your books. Praise other authors’ books, as this lends support to their writing efforts and wells up your day with good thoughts.

• Do not forget to acknowledge all the people who have assisted you in writing your story in your newly crafted novel.

• If your story is too way out or passé, do not throw it out the window or burn it in the fireplace! It may have possibilities in the future, you never know.

• Humor can fall flat on your face because gestures and tones are not included in the writing. Be very careful with this possible lethal substance and sway far away if you cannot pass this genre over well in the physical world before attempting it on paper.

• Posting on your blog could have tremulous results if written during the wee hours after midnight and up to eight in the morning. What sounds fine at this time could have devastating conclusions with your network of followers.

• Practice elevator pitches on your book—a summary of your story. These succinct pitches must entice the reader to purchase the book, advertise it to a would-be agent, or grasp an editor headlong into desiring to read your manuscript. The pitches can also accomplish its task in queries before submitting your manuscript to agents or editors.