Comic Con

I’ll be at Comic Con in San Diego this year. I’ll post my schedule as soon as it’s confirmed. I should be on a panel or two and have some time set aside for signing.

See you there.

Impatience and the Publishing Process

Stacy asks: Any tips to ease this "acute impatience" I've had with the whole [publishing] process?

For those who don’t know what Stacy is talking about, let me explain. It usually takes a long time to find an agent, sell a novel, and get it published. Literary agents and editors get hundreds, if not thousands, of manuscripts a year (see my previous posts here and here). Even if your novel is good, it may take months before anyone reads it.

Then there is the submission process to an acquiring editor which can also take months...or longer. If you are a never-before published writer (and not a celebrity) you will be understandably at the bottom of an editor’s priority list.

All this adds up to lots of waiting...the occasional rejection...and then more waiting.

So what can you do during this agonizing period?

There's only one thing: start your next project.

This is very hard. Everyone wants validation before they continue. Why spend another year or more writing a second novel if the first one wasn't good enough to sell?

Two reasons.

First, you’ll want to become a better writer anyway. The only way to do that is through study, research--and lots and lots of practice.

Second, if your book sells it may take up to another year until the finished product hits the bookstore shelves. You will want another novel ready to show your editor ASAP so your readers can enjoy your next novel in about a year.

Again, this is hard. By the time my first novel was acquired by an editor, it had been a year and a half since I had sent it out—but I had completed my second novel. Every day I asked myself if I was crazy to do this because all I was getting was rejections.

I often wonder what would have happened in that year and a half if I had stopped writing. My writing certainly would have atrophied instead of getting better. I think I would have just given up.

I’m glad I didn’t.

NOTE: These days I work on two projects at the same time. Once one project is out the door and looking for a home, I’m already in the middle of another project…so it’s harder to stop.

Reading and Voice

Shini writes: Is it a good idea to read your favored genre voraciously? I am concerned that would lead to either loosing your natural voice or otherwise having it butchered in favor of an amalgam of what has recently been read.

I’m sorry my reply has taken so long. There's been way too much travel in my life lately.

As a beginning writer, is it a good idea to read? Yes. You need to read good fiction to understand how it works. When I started writing I would read a novel once for pleasure, and then go back and dissected it to figure out exactly how the author did what they did.

Did my voice suffer? To be brutally honest I didn't have a “voice” when I started. Most beginning writers don't. Professional editors tell me that it usually takes a writer several hundred thousand words before they establish a decent voice.

There was a point where I had to be careful to read only well-written fiction, because I would absorb a particular author's style of writing. The benefits of learning from established authors, however, far outweighed any compromising of my fledgling voice.

Note: an author's voice will change over the course of time. It's nothing to worry about. It's a natural evolution for the better. Embrace it. Grow. Change. Enjoy.