The Last Two Weeks

The Last Two Weeks:

Just got done taking two weeks to write a YA short story for a Writer’s Digest competition. This meant not being able to seek out any new literary agents, but seeing how I have 5 still out, I don’t think it’s a loss. Plus, I feel that this may help get me some notice. I hope.

I've never actually entered a writing competition before except to win a scholarship though my local junior college. I did win, but I think 15 other students did as well. I also realized that I hadn’t written a short story for a very long time. It might have been when I was at that junior college, but before that I can only think of one other in Junior High School, where I killed off everyone in the end when an alien ship came blowing everything up. I still don’t understand why I only got a ‘B’ on that one.

I had read a column by a literary agent, and they had said another way to get noticed, or gain experience is to write short stories. However, I’m thankful I’ve got one novel under my belt, because I drew a lot from my experience from that and used it to write, edit, and talk with friends to get their opinions to make it better.

The story I wrote is called ‘The Escape,’ which is about a girl who’s falsely accused of a crime, sent to prison, transferred to cover up the fact she was innocent, and then escapes -hence the name, ‘The Escape.’ Did I mention, there’s fighting, huge explosions, and it takes place in space? Quit a ride for 4,000 words. And no, an alien ship doesn’t come and kill everyone.

(Note worthy to me at least) I just finished reading the second part of Suzanne Collins’s Hunger Games Trilogy. She doesn’t need my endorsement, but wow! She can write a great book. Fun, exciting, faced pace, she keeps you wanting more. Suzanne definitely knows her craft well. If you haven’t read them, pick it up. Also I saw they casted Woody Harrelson as Haymitch Abernathy for the Hunger Games movie, plus Stanley Tucci, Donald Sutherland, Elizabeth Banks, Josh Hutcherson, and Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss. It’s going to be great!

Interview with myself Part 2

Part 2

Q: How was the writing process? I mean like how long did it take to write, review, and edit?

A: It took a solid 6 months to write the first draft, but because I had so much to learn I spent a great deal more time editing, and re-editing. So maybe a year and half, but I won’t be finished till it goes to print. Just like recording a song, it’s never done until it’s finally recorded. I’ll tweak this or that until it sounds perfect, or till it’s time to write my next story.

Q: So this was your first book?

A: Yes.

Q: Did you think you could do it, I mean it seems so daunting?

A: I’d been writing off and on for a long time, but mostly lyrics for songs. I’d told my wife while dating about all these screen play ideas I had, but never finished them. One day, she said, “Why don’t you finish one?” So I decided I would, but instead of a screen play I’d do a novel. I knew I could write a novel, but really didn’t know how. I figured initially I’d just start and see where it takes me. Probably the wrong way to do it, but it was fun to see the story progressed right in front of me. I really liked the process.

Q: So your wife inspired you, who else?

A:  A few former co-workers, Martha, and Jack. Martha took a lot of writing classes and when we worked together she poured into me a lot of her knowledge. And then Jack is this creative guy I know that kind of looks at the world in a different way. But he’s the one that was gutsy enough to tell me, you need to get some books to help with writing. Opened up a whole can of gummy worms for me, that’s when I got several books from the library.

Q: What book helped the most?

A: A Complete idiots Guide to Writing a Novel. I still wish I had a copy, it was great and I encourage everyone to read it.  I’m sure I’ll go back and find it, and read it every year.

Q: What were, or are some of the most influential writers for you?

A: This is kind of weird, but the author who showed me it could be done was Stephenie Meyers. She showed me it didn’t have to be super wordy to get your point across, the book can be fun, fast paced, and still is able to tell a good story, or at least a story. I’m not a huge fan of the Twilight series, because it’s aimed at girls, but I did love reading the version from Edward’s perspective, because it was way more violent, and aimed for guys…I think.

Q: So you’re not into Chick-Lit?

A: I wouldn’t say that, if it’s good… than I don’t mind it, but if it’s just constant dribble about a girl pawning after a boy, than nope. If it has a good subject, and has more to offer than a love story I’m good. However, I’m very selective about what I read, because I’m a slow reader.

Q: Do you think being a slow reader hurts your writing?

A: I think it does, but it’s something that I’m trying to compensate for… meaning I’m trying to read more books, and asking around what avid readers think are the best books for someone who wants to be a writer to read. Also knowing my weaknesses helps me continue to improve.

Q: So how do you improve your writing skills, I know you can’t just take a class and be better?

A: I practice my craft. I play guitar, but if I didn’t practice I’d never be any good. As it is with writing, I enjoy it, so I write.

Q: Any examples of what you write.

A: Well, I use to blog on MySpace, but since that’s kind of a dying platform I started a Blogger.com blog. Also any time I get an idea, I try to write it down. Before when I’d email, or text someone, I didn’t care about capitals, or commas, or quoting someone right. Now I try to edit myself, make sure all the spellings correct, and reread everything before I send it out. Of course I don’t catch everything.

Q: So when you finished writing your novel what did you do next?

A: My wife and I celebrated, because it makes life more fun. Prior to finishing my book, actually way back when I started taking it serious I’d read on Stephenie Meyers web site, how she wrote her book, how she found and agent, and how she got published. Honestly, I followed her game plan. I learned about query letters, literary agents, and where to find all the information I’d need. Plus I spoke to a friend who edits books for businesses, and he’d mentioned this e-book that helps with writing a query.

Q: Did the e-book help?

A: Honestly by the time I read it, I’d found about 90% of his information free online. The only thing that has been helpful has been his blog.

Q: Care to mention who it was, or what it was called?

A: Nope, if I find something awesome, I’ll share, but if I didn’t think much of it, I tend to not share the names because you never know when or if, it’ll come back to haunt you. One thing I will say is there is plenty of people out there blogging information about getting an agent, it’s not hard to find excellent blogs on the subject. Also Writer’s Digest is an amazing free resource. Go there and get tons, and I do mean tons of good information. You may never leave the site, so if you need to write something, you may not want to go there.

Q: What would you tell someone who’s just getting started out as a writer?

A: If it’s a novelist, I’d say read ‘A Complete Idiots Guide to Writing a Novel,’ and then write, and don’t stop. Too many people think too much, and don’t do enough writing. One thing I’ve learn is just write, don’t edit, and don’t think too much about everything, just write. Details are important, but can be added later. Spelling, grammar, and punctuation need to be as spot on as possible, but if it hampers your creative juices, do it later.

Q: Okay, I’ll leave you with this last question. Where do you hope to be, in say… five years? What are your goals as a writer?

A: First off, I want to get my book published. If that happens then awesome, if not, I’ll continue working on my other ideas. I have 4 other books in my brain that needs to be written. I know my first book was all about learning the process of writing, and I’ve still got so much growing to do, but I’ve gotten a lot better and I think it’ll show. Also I think finding an agent that’ll help me grow, point me in the right direction, and potentially they’ll keep me working in the writing field, which would be awesome. In five years, I’d like to have my first book in print, and maybe even have a second and a third on the way. 

Part 1 of 2, Questions with Myself, the Interview!

I was reading on an Amazon add where a writer (I don't remember which), did an interview with herself. I thought, well until I'm world famous and everyone is clambering  for an interview I may as well do one with myself as well. Good writing exercise too, so enjoy!

Q: The books called Zombies: The End is Just the Beginning, so I’m assuming it’s about zombies, but briefly would you tell me about your book without giving too much away.

A: Yeah sure, it’s a story that follows Ryan, a young adult in his early twenties trying to find his niche in life, and love in the process. The book is set in Tacoma WA, during the first three weeks of the zombie apocalypse. In Ryan’s perspective we see him find other survivors, a potential love interest, become a leader, watch him fail, deal with self doubt, and then learn from his mistakes. During the story he’s forced to become a man to provide for his group, lead them to safety, and do some unthinkable things to survive. In a nut shell it’s a coming of age story with flesh eating zombies.

Q: So why books? Did you grow up reading; has this always been your thing?

A: Honestly, I wasn’t much of a reader, not because I didn’t like books, it was because most were just too wordy.

The only thing I read a lot was the Bible, and I’m thankful because it did help improve my reading, and writing skills. So when called to read in class I wasn’t the worst, but still not the best.

Writing was always there, but it was with songs, poems, and short stories. With two older brothers that were tight I was always kind of left to have fun by myself, I made up little stories and battles with my action figures.

Q: Any imaginary friends?

A: Nah, there was always too much stuff going on for fake friends. My dad took us camping, we played sports, made monster movies, and stuff like that.

Q: So is that where your love of zombies happened?

A: Maybe, but monster movies, and scary movies were always a staple in the Street house.

Q: Why zombies then?

A: I was always told, “Write what you know?” I’d seen so many movies, and loved how it can be funny and dark all at the same time. That scene where Shaun has to kill his mum in Shaun of the Dead was awesome. Played very serious, but those guys always make me laugh.

Q: Who were some of your early favorites?

A: I was always fascinated with Edgar Allen Poe; I remember having to read his poem The Raven, and can still remember by heart the first page of it. I don’t know why, but I always liked the dark subject matter. Maybe it had something to do with my dad letting us watch all those scary movies when we were young. Still to this day, I’m not sure why he let a 10 year old see American Werewolf in London.

Q: So comedy, or horror?

A: I love comedy, and I love horror, but the cheesy funny stuff like ‘Evil Dead, and ‘Drag Me to Hell.’ I think my stuff is funny, but it’s not trying to be laugh out loud funny, more amusing I guess. I think the best comedies, and the best horror are played real, and the situations makes them funny, or scary. That’s how I write; I just hope it comes out that way.

Q: So you’re writing Young Adult, why?

A: I didn’t set out to write YA, but I learned in the process that my audience would probably be more youthful. Don’t see too many older adults reading zombies books. Not that they can’t, just not as many would. Plus my story revolves around a group of kids dealing with the zombie apocalypse.

Q: So it is horror?

A: I’d say it’s more an action/adventure. There’s chase sequences, fights, gun battles, dragster cars, skateboarders, out of control fires, and zombies being torn to shreds.

Q: But, it’s got zombies, right? If it’s not horror, then is it a monster novel?

A: Yeah, there are monsters. Zombies are the backbone, the threat, but the story is more than just zombies running around eating people. It’s about the relationships that form in the course of the book.

Q: But, there's also a love story, right?

A: Yes, the main character Ryan runs into a girl he’d met prior to the zombie infestation.

Q: Want to elaborate a little on that?

A: I don’t want to give too much away, I do- want people to read the book when it comes out, but what I will say is that the relationship is one that grows during the story, and it’s not girl meets boy and they start making out. I wanted it to be a little more realistic, they are facing onslaughts of flesh eating zombies, which makes it hard to make out all the time.

Up for a writer challenge?

Are you up for a challenge?

I was looking on a website for a literary agent, and found one that has a submission system set up to take on-line queries. It’s set up almost like filling out an online job resume, or application. 

One of the questions that surprised me was… What is the one best sentence in your whole manuscript? As you can imagine, I was thinking, “My manuscript is 100,000 words, and you want me to tell you what I think is my best sentence.”  Wow, that’s asking a lot. 

However what I found out was that this is a great exercise for you to try, and you could potentially craft better sentences in the process. I searched my entire book, and wrote down my favorite sentences. Some were very long, even hinging on a run-on, others very short, and some regular lengths. Then I went around my office and asked four people what they thought were their favorites. To my surprise some of the ones that I thought weren’t as good, were rated better than I thought they would on a scale of one to ten, and some of the ones I loved didn’t rank nearly as well as I had hoped. Fear not, I took this as a way to make those sentences better and to make them really pop.

It was really interesting finding out what people thought made for good sentences with very little to go on. Most of my co-workers know I’m working on a zombie novel but they’ve never read it, or at least any of it in context. But, narrowing it down to the smallest element, in my opinion the sentence it put my work under the microscope which I believe helped me improve. 

If you’re looking for ways to improve your writing I’d suggest doing what I did; besides it can’t hurt. Well, maybe just a little.

1. Write a book (or poetry, lyrics, etc.)

2. Find every sentence that stands out to you.

3. Find several people to read them aloud.

4. Have them rate it from 1-10.

5. Listen to why they rated them the way they did.

6. And improve the ones that didn’t do so well.

7. And be proud of the ones that did better then, or just as good as you thought they would.

Good luck and God Bless.

The Wait

Well, as I posted before, there are many things to do while waiting for a literary agent to email you back. I know it's only been one week, but since my first guy only took one day, this seems like a long time. I'm not saying the waiting seems like a long time because it's bad, it just feels like weeks ago that I sent my second batch out. I'm selecting three more to send out tomorrow, and then I'll go from there. In the mean time I've done an interview with myself that I'll post in two parts. Also I'm looking for others to ask me questions. This may seem silly as I am not published, but this helps in two folds. One, I hone my writing skills, and two, you all get to learn more about me, and my writing. I plan on releasing some scenes from my book, so be looking for that too. It'll almost be like a beta test from a program, you all can tell me what you think. Well that's it for today...oh one last thing, if you don't have a lot to say, don't waste people's time...it can get very boring.

What to do...While you wait

What to do, while you wait:

My first experience with a literary agent went well, or so I thought. I sent out my letter and within one business day they got back with me. That’s good right? Well, after thinking about it, if he actually liked some part of my book or idea he may have taken a little more time to consider it. So, anyway what I’m getting at is this. My next three letters went out, and I know that I may be waiting a little longer, which I think is a good thing. But, what do I do while I wait? What would you do?

First off, you can always go back through your manuscript, edit, reedit, or rethink scenes that might be weak, work on dialog, get someone else to read it… tired of working on the manuscript, or you’re at a good place with it.

Try to blog, blogging is a great way to hone your skills. Just don’t fall prey to text talk, and by that I mean; remember to write how you would in your book, not in little sparse phrases. I use to write training material and that’s what I was familiar with. We’d spend hours crafting training, and bullet phrases that broke down the meaning to one small phase, often not even sentence worthy.

Start a new manuscript or just write down your ideas. I’ve started work on my next book. I’ve learned a lot about character development and have started creating profiles for each of my characters. That way when I write about them, they already have back-stories to draw from.

Maybe, you can do some writing exercises. Think of a scene that you’ve never tried to write before. Do you write romance? Well how about writing an action fight scene? Have you ever described the sky, the earth, a little girls face? You can also work on conversations, pick two people that are very different from each other and write dialog in their voice. This can really help develop the skills you’ll need to have characters jump off the page. Here’s an idea: Write one page of dialog with a sweet little girl, talking to Satan. If you do this, I want to read it. Not only could it be very funny, but also it could be very scary.

As always read as much as you can. Read books, other people’s blogs, magazines, etc.

Well, those are my thoughts and tips for today. If you have any pointers, thoughts, or questions for me, please write.

Research and Soul Search

Research, and soul search!

I’ve done my research and picked two new victims, I mean literary agents. Well I guess I should say, one’s an agent, the other is a publisher who accepts submissions from authors. Since I don’t have an agent, I’m free to shop as I please. Doing a little bit of research, I found out that some publishing houses will accept submissions. They may be a rare exception to the rule, but if there’s a company you’d like to work with, you might as well go out and research them. Any way I digress.  The two I have selected are about as far from each as the moon from the sun. Again, I won’t mention names because I think it could be tacky if I was rejected, and they were rude, or something worse and I went around slamming them. I think professionalism is important. One company deals with spiritual fiction, but doesn’t focus solely on that, the other deals with teckie, horror, and stuff that you might find geeks, or Sci-fi fans reading.

After my first rejection, I did a little soul searching, as well as looking at the list of agents. There are a few I’d love to work with; some seem to have like minded ideals, morals, and convictions. Then there are others that I’d love because they’ve worked with some of the greats. I have to narrow my search and find an agent that would best serve my manuscript, someone who could best reach my intended audience, or a bigger one.

I had time, so I decided to get a third agent into the mix, this time it’s an agency that represented an author of a book I’m currently reading. I really like their creative titles, covers, and subject matter covered in their novels. They have the type of stuff I’d actually stop to look at when shopping. That’s a good quality to have, because if the covers and titles are boring and bland you might as well keep on walking, meaning find yourself another agent.

Am I nervous? Yes, because I’m putting myself out there, and allowing myself to be critiqued, but if you don’t do it, and don’t allow for rejection you will never succeed. Like faith, God says, seek and you shall find, not sit on your butt and wait for it to happen.

If you have questions please send them out!

The Final Frontier

The Final Frontier…

Growing up watching the original Star Trek, they always started with, “A Five Year Mission,” from what I can recall. Then later it went to a Continuing Mission. Well, this is my ‘Continuing Mission’ to find an agent. For some reason, whether it’s my own confidence level or me just being a realist, I knew that my first attempt wouldn’t be successful in scoring a deal.

Now the search for a new victim (And by victim I mean literary agent) search to begin. I’m not an expert at this but one of the things I learned, is don’t just blindly send your book to just anyone. 

First off, if they don’t even deal with your subject, then they most likely won’t deal with your query letter. 

Next thing is do some research; find out which authors they’ve worked for. 

Also make your query personal. Find out something about them, read one of their blogs, or an author they represent, and put this in your query letter.  (This is information some people charge you for!)

Just a little more information on subject: My novel is a story that has its roots with zombies, and zombie folklore, but does that mean it’s a horror? It could, but my story really spends more time with the main character Ryan growing into a man, falling in love, and gaining confidence in himself.

Is my story a YA novel (Young Adult)? I’d think so, for one it deals with a group of young adults and kids, it’s also relatively clean, plus my vocabulary is not for someone seeking to better their knowledge of the English language. It’s meant to be fun, quick paced, and humorous.  What I’m trying to say is this; just because your novel may fall in a category of monsters, or spacemen, it doesn’t necessarily mean its Sci-Fi or horror.

One major thing I’ve learned is that Horror fans love real horror, they want to be scared, and that’s why they’re reading it. So if you call it horror but don’t scare the bahjeebees out of them, then they’ll eat your lunch. Sci-Fi fans are the same, but even more so. If you write Sci-Fi you better know your stuff. They have you for lunch if you don’t.

So try not to pigeon yourself into just one category when seeking an agent. But, if you do try to sell your book in a different market, you should be able to back up; why it fits in the market you’re trying to sell it to.