Confessions of an Un/Published Writer

Frustration and Comic Con

2008-08-01T08:36:00.000-07:00

So it's been nearly a year since I've posted to this blog. I've been frustrated by my inability to sell my novels, and that frustration has taken a toll on my writing. Sad, but true. I've got to start doing better.

And now for the Comic Con part of the subject line. We (myself, my wife, and our six-year-old son) went to Comic Con for the very first time last weekend and had a blast. There were some downsides, to be sure, (the massive, headache-inducing crowds!) but we had a really good time nevertheless. Spent way too much money, but, hey, it's a vacation, and that's what you do on vacations, right?

We didn't attend a lot of panels, something I regret and intend to rectify if we ever go again. But the exhibit hall was truly a site to behold, and where I spent nearly all my time. We were there Wednesday night, Thursday, and Friday, and I barely managed to get through the entire hall. I bought a lot of stuff, got a fair amount of freebies, and took a lot of pictures with my son posed with various costumed people. His favorite? People dressed up as characters from Avatar: The Last Airbender, of course.

We also went to Legoland and the crowds there were thin by comparison. Pretty much everything there is built from Legos! A really fun place, and my son had a great time -and so did we!

And now back to the writing thing. I'm still working on my third novel. I need to stop worrying about selling them and just get back to writing them. Not that selling isn't my ultimate goal, and one I'll continue to work at, but I'm going to have to get past the point where I let it distract me from actually sitting down and writing. Wish me luck!

What have I been up to?

2007-09-24T07:00:00.000-07:00

I haven't updated this blog in a long time - and the longer I put it off, the harder it is to start writing again. (Funny how that works!) But I've been working on finishing and editing last year's Nano effort, and trying to decide if I'm even going to participate this year. If I don't, it'll be the first time in four years since I haven't, and so I probably will, but...

It's frustrating. I'm currently waiting on two agents to get back to me - one who has had my book for nearly a year! - and I just want to sell the thing and move on to the next. I've been advised by at least two big-name authors, both of whom I have huge respect for, to send directly to the publisher and avoid the agent, but somehow I haven't done that yet. I want an agent. (Now, please, as opposed to later, thank you very much.)

And thus I keep plugging away.

Too Long

2006-12-31T19:57:00.000-08:00

It's been way too long since I've updated this blog, and I'm sorry about that. If I made New Year's resolutions, I'd resolve to do better in 2007 - but since I don't, I'll just have to make a concerted effort to actually write in this thing more than once a month!

Nano went alright this year. 50k wasn't too difficult, but finishing up the novel is proving to be challenging. I have everything worked out, and I just need to put it down on paper. November and December, however, are busy months, and I just haven't done it. I guess I'll be tackling the ending in January.

So how is everyone out there doing? Do I even still have any readers left?

Six Weird Things About Me

2006-11-14T19:56:00.000-08:00

I found this on another blog and thought I'd answer it on my own:

Each player of this game starts with the “6 weird things about you”. People who get tagged need to write a blog of their own 6 weird things as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose 6 people to be tagged and list their names. Don’t forget to leave a comment that says “you are tagged” in their comments and tell them to read your blog.

And here are my answers:

I'm the useless psychic. I always know mundane things just before they're going to happen. About a year ago, my son turned the thermostat on the refrigerator to the maximum level, freezing the line that dispensed water. A few weeks later, I dreamt that I got out of bed, walked into the kitchen, and pressed the dispenser button. Something inside the fridge clinked and, finally, the water worked again. I woke up and followed the pattern from my dream and, sure enough, everything happened exactly as I'd seen. Even the "clink." I also knew the exact moment my first wife died, though I was nowhere near the hospital when it happened.
I'm the owner and webmaster of the Official Chris de Burgh (think "Lady in Red") website. That's not weird in itself, but most people in the US have no clue who he is.
When I was a kid, my friend Brad and I were putting together a tent in the front yard when we decided to put all the tent poles together and see how high we could make them. We hit an electric wire and nearly electrocuted ourselves. The bottom of my feet were burned.
I collect action figure from the 1970's, and probably have more toys than my five-year-old son does.
I'm double-jointed in the second-to-last finger in my right hand. I can "lock" that finger into place, pointing straight out, even while the rest of my fingers are balled into a fist. I've never met anyone else who can do this, and you can't either. Go ahead, try it.
I can recite all of the phone numbers, driver's license numbers, and credit card numbers that I've ever had, but have a hard time remembering my anniversary.

Want to join in the fun? Reply to this post and tell everyone six weird things about yourself!

I've been busy...

2006-11-06T12:41:00.000-08:00

I'm sorry for not posting to this for so long. Both my wife and I have been down with a killer cold for the last two weeks - and then there's Nano. I've participated in NanoWrimo every year since 2003, and have reached the requisite 50k every time. It's going to be hard to do it this year, though I'm going to do my best to prevail.

I'll write more later when I'm feeling a bit better.

Thanks to everyone who left comments, suggested names, and what have you. I really appreciate you reading!

Agents

2006-10-12T16:35:00.000-07:00

We were discussing literary agents in the comment section of another blog, and the discussion was so interesting that I thought I'd bring it over here. Agents, like people in general, range from the nice ones to the dreadful ones, and I've encountered all three. Some will blow you off with a tiny slip of paper essentially saying "Thanks for wasting my time." Some will ignore you completely. But the worst will blow you off while also trying to sell you their "editing services," and those are the agents I have absolutely no respect for.

I've been a full-time non-fiction freelancer for twelve years, but have yet to even get my foot in the door in the world of fiction. I've written three novels, the first of which has gone through multiple revisions to the point where I believe I've honed it into something to be proud of. Scratch that: I am proud of it. But that's not enough. I want to sell the damned thing, and its sequels. And, in order to do that, I need an agent.

And it's frustrating. I've been trying to find an agent for going on three years now, which is why I can lay claim to having encountered all of the types mentioned in the first paragraph at the start of this entry. Now I just need to encounter one who'll take the time to actually read the book, and who can hopefully see the potential in not only the novel but in me as well. I'm willing to work hard to make them and the publishing house they sell my novels to a lot of money. I just need to be given the chance.

So, gentle reader, (I always hated that phrase, but it somehow seems appropriate here!) what are some of your experiences - good and bad - with agents?

I need help choosing a name

2006-10-10T15:06:00.000-07:00

I'm working on a novel and I need a surname for one of the families I'm writing about. Without revealing too much, I'll outline this --

Bernard "Bernie" Noname is the father of the family. He's twice divorced. He's also recently dead. Born and raised in a small Midwestern town in Illinois, he has many secrets about his family's history that apparently died with him.

Connor Noname is the product of Bernie's first marriage. He's in his late twenties, disgruntled, estranged from his father, came back to the town he grew up in for his father's funeral but mainly to see his half-sister from his father's second marriage, Sabrina.

Sabrina Noname. Sixteen, coming out of a bit of a Goth girl phase but sweet underneath. Very intelligent. Popular in school, but has had a tendency to "go along with the crowd" to gain that popularity. Missed her brother, happy to see him but at the same time resentful that it took the death of their father to bring him home.

Here are some of the last name I'm been considering:

Blake
Black
Hawthorne
Underlay
Wayne
Murdoch
Madison

So what do you think?

Help me out with this and, if I use the name you suggest, I'll list you in the "thank yours" when and if the book is published.

You can go home again, but just for a while

2006-10-03T14:25:00.000-07:00

I went to the Carthage, Illinois (population: 3,000) school system from Kindergarten through 11th, then moved to Dallas, Texas for my 12th. As you can imagine, I never really bonded with the kids in 12th, so always considered Carthage my school. Even though I hated it. (More on that later.)

Anyway, I found out a couple of weeks ago that they were having the 20th high school reunion. I vacillated on going, and finally decided last Monday to take the eight-hour drive. And I'm glad I did!

I didn't have a good school life. I was a chubby kid and constantly picked on. My dad was a violent alcoholic and so I had that to contend with at home. All in all, it made for a rough life growing up. And having not seen these kids in 21 years, well, I had no idea what to expect, and was nervous as hell going back there.

But my first instinct was that, if nothing else, the experience would be cathartic, and my first instinct was right. All the pain and grudges I felt over school have pretty much gone away. Everyone was happy to see me, I was actually one of the most gregarious of the bunch at the reunion (I was painfully shy in school,) and had a great time.

But, more than that, it was great to reconnect with friends and classmates. I even confessed my school crushes to each of the crushees, something I'd never done in high school. It was very freeing. And, amazingly, all five of us that bowled together on a team were there, so we managed to take a bowling picture together.

Here are some pics of the trip:

http://www.sparkynet.com/1986/

So what's all this have to do with writing, you might ask? (You there, in the third row. Yeah, you, wearing the hat, I just heard you.) Well, my first two novels are set almost entirely in Carthage, and Carthage makes a cameo in my third novel. There's a lot of material there, in my past, and even more now that I've made the trip home again.

The Language We Use

2006-09-22T21:23:00.000-07:00

My wife bought a new comforter for our bed. When my four-year-old son Fletcher saw the new comforter, he asked what happened to the old one. We told him it had a rip in it and that we didn't need it anymore. He was still curious what we'd done with it. The conversation went something like this:

"Where's the old comforter with the rip?" Fletcher asked.

"It's in the back of the car," my wife said, "so we can donate it to Salvation Army."

"Why?"

"So other people can have it."

"Who will have it?"

"We donate things so that poor people can use them."

"Poor people like things with rips?" he asked.

My wife and I broke into laughter. As far as I know, poor people don't enjoy sleeping under a ripped comforter any more than rich or middle-class people enjoy sleeping under a ripped comforter. And, really, it's probably poor form to refer to whoever ends up with our castoff comforter as "poor people."

But the whole thing made me laugh and, later, thing about just how influential language can be. Which ties the whole thing into this column, which is, after all, supposed to be at least vaguely about writing.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go find some more ripped stuff - an old shirt, perhaps, and more than a few pairs of socks - to give away to the poor.

National Novel Writing Month

2006-09-18T08:25:00.000-07:00

I've done National Novel Writing Month (or Nano for short,) in which you do your dead-level best to write a novel in thirty days, every year since 2003. Small Things was my first effort, though it required a good two years editing and rewriting until it was up to snuff. Next came Threads, the second book in the eventual Small Things trilogy. Last year I tried something different, a stand-alone, as-of-yet-untitled novel that I'm still working on.

So why am I tell you all of this? To inform you about Nano, for certain, but also to vent about my frustration over having not yet gotten the first book published. Certainly there's some hubris there - why should I, my first novel out, get published, when it takes some authors virtually dozens of books before they finally sell even one? But I'm confident in the book, and have revised it and revised it, and I know it's a good read. And so I keep trudging along, trying to get an agent (I'm just targeting one in particular right now, waiting to hear back from her) and continuing to write.

So will I do Nano again this year? Sure, I will. It's September and I haven't quite decided what to tackle yet, but I'm for sure going to do it. For one thing, it'll be my third year being the Municipal Liaisons for the Northwest Arkansas area, and I've got to set a good example. But that's not the only reason I'm doing it.

As frustrated as I am at not having an agent, at not selling the first novel, I love to write. Though I still have high hopes for a career as a novelist, I imagine I'll keep writing forever, published or not. I'm a writer, after all, and that's what I do. I'm still confident that I'm going to sell that novel - or another novel - but until that time (and, I'm imagine, well after) I'll keep plugging away, putting words down on the page and dreaming of walking into Borders or Barnes and Noble and seeing Small Things or another one of my books on the shelf. And then I'll cackle like a madman, kick up my heels, pull out a sharpie and sign every last one.

Are Writing Source Books Really Helpful?

2006-09-11T14:45:00.000-07:00

Are writing source books really helpful? Other than making the writer of said source material money, I'm not so sure. In my experience, few are worth the price, but a couple do stand out for me:

Writer's Guide to Places, by Don Prues and Jack Heffron, has proven to be invaluable to me as a writer. Sure, some will argue, it doesn't cover every aspect of any give place (how could it?) but it does generally provide you with enough information to fake it.

Write what you know, they say. That's all well and good, but not every story can be set in your hometown. If you need to get the general layout of, say, Chicago, because you're writing a few scenes there, you could do a lot worse than this book. Sure, it's no substitute for actually being there, but it gives you enough details to add much-needed flavor to your words.

Descriptionary, by Marc McCutcheon, is another book worth adding to your resource library. The subtitle of Descriptionary says it's "the book for when you know what it is, but not what it's called." That actually happens to me a fair amount. If you own this book, however, you can quickly flip through the included glossaries and find out, for instance, that the highest ranking officer in the Navy is a Fleet Admiral, that cryptology is the science of deciphering hidden or disguised communication, and that a Parsec is a measurement equaling 3.26 light years. Pretty darned useful, if you ask me.

There are other useful books out there, to be sure, but I've found these to be two of the best.

Confessions of an Un/Published Writer

2006-09-09T20:38:00.000-07:00

Let's get this out of the way right off the bat - I'm not an unpublished writer, it's just that I've yet to sell any of my novels, hence the title of this blog. I've been a full-time non-fiction freelancer for over ten years and have published well over a thousand articles and reviews, and yet haven't been able to get my foot in the door in the world of fiction.

And, yes, it's frustrating. I have two and a half novels under my belt, and I know I'm good, but getting an agent to even look at the thing let alone consider representing you seems tantamount to winning the U.S. Open without a tennis racquet. But yet I persevere.

This blog will chronicle my experiences as I continue to write, submit to agents and, hopefully one day, sell that first novel.