The Waiting Game

posted by Aunty Cindy

I am not a patient person. (Waits for roars of laughter all over the Lair to die down.) However, two things in my life have forced me to develop and cultivate my patience: motherhood and publishing.

Since the former subject would fill volumes, suffice it to say that my son did not arrive until eleven days after his due date. Apparently he did not receive the memo about vacating in a timely manner, and I suffered through the longest eleven days of my life. I should have realized this was the start of an ugly trend.

As for publishing, every author who has ever submitted so much as a query letter knows that glaciers move faster. And with far more reliability. For example, I once sent a query letter (only a brief, to-the-point letter) via email to an agent who was reportedly looking for new clients. FOUR MONTHS later I received this reply (also via email): Sorry, not for me.

FOUR MONTHS FOR THAT??? PULLEEEEZE!

Still, not as bad as one of my Bandita sisters who had an editor request her manuscript and not respond for TWO YEARS! And worse, for the last five months of that time, she assured said Bandita that the manuscript was "...on top of my desk and I'll read it in the next week or two." Clearly the weeks on her calendar were MUCH DIFFERENT from any I or my Bandita sister had ever seen. Worst of all, when the editor FINALLY got around to giving an answer, it was the tired old "just didn't love it enough" rejection.

ARGH!

What's a writer to do?

Nothing, except keep waiting, keep submitting, then wait some more!

I am currently living this hurry-up-and-wait scenario all too painfully. It was one year ago last week that I sent my initial query letter to the editor that ultimately resulted in a sale seven months later. It has now been five months since that magical phone call and at this point I still have no specific publication date, no cover (Though I have a serious case of cover envy! Look at our sidebar and you'll see why.)... Heck, right now I don't even have a title since the editor told me a month ago that the marketing department wanted to change the one I originally had.

However, all whining aside, I'm sure that just like when my son finally decided to make his appearance, once I hold my book in my hot little hands, all the waiting will be WORTH IT!

How bout giving Aunty a wee bit of sympathy? Or better yet, tell us about something you had to wait 4 EVAH to finally get. And please tell me it was worth the wait.

Fruits of Our Fingers

by Caren Crane


Gentle Reader, I have a confession to make. Though you will hear the Banditas and others quiver at times with insecurity about whether people like our writing or how a book will be viewed by the public, we are only half insecure. As the incomparable Claudia Dain has said, "Writers are a mountain of ego, surrounded by an ocean of insecurity". Claudia nailed it.


After all, ours is an avocation - the thing we love to do. And yet, it is enormously draining, difficult and full of rejection (and the potential for rejection). Ask yourself, what sort of person knowingly takes on a job where they will be rejected 99 times out of 100? Oh, a salesman, perhaps?

Yes, like it or not, we are called on to sell, sell, sell our stories. First to agents and editors, then to booksellers and librarians and finally, Gentle Reader, to you. Such crass commercialism! Surely Jane Austen did not have do such a thing? Well, maybe at one time writers were not called upon to sit at a lonely table in Barnes & Noble and direct customers to the bathroom. To bribe people with chocolate to talk to them. To make them feel guilty enough to buy a book and - please, oh, please! - let them autograph it.

Yes, perhaps the readers and writers both were spared such humiliation at one point in time, but today it is a reality. Today, writers must produce a great book, sell it and promote it. That is rather daunting to many writers. Unlike your Banditas (*g*), most writers are solitary creatures, who would rather sit at home alone with their keyboards than direct potential buyers to the restroom. Being subjected to such things is, to them, too high a price to pay.

I, for one, will be happy to sit in a bookstore and direct people to the restroom. I will invite several friends along, who will plant themselves in the romance section and allow their conversation about that fabulous writer who is here, OMG! to be overheard by romance browsers. Ones who will pass out chocolate and keep me company. Even if unaccompanied, I will make friends. Not because I was born an extrovert, but because I can become one for the sake of getting my book in your hands.

I can sell. Heck, I can hard sell, if that's what it takes. Anything, Gentle Reader, to get the fruits of my fingers into your (perhaps unwilling, but ultimately happy) hands. I have to. I chose to be a writer.

So, what have you done that was against your nature but necessary for your survival? Gone out with a guy so you would have something to eat for dinner? Sold jewelry for gas money? *gasp* Suffered through a booksigning?

Encouraging Words...

posted by Aunty Cindy

As an AYU (As Yet Unpublished) writer, it is very easy to feel discouraged in the face of all the rejections and general negativity involved in the publishing biz. That's why I love reading and hearing words of encouragement. In fact, I keep a list of "positive" quotes related to writing close at hand so I have a little pick-me-up when I'm feeling down. I'm always looking for things to add to that list and the other day I ran across this gem from Karen Gillespie on "Romancing the Blog":

Debut novelists tend to have a fresh perspective. They often possess what Zen Buddhists call “beginner’s mind.” Unlike many career novelists they’re ignorant of publishing trends and the bottom line. Instead of writing to get another contract, they write because they have something they want to say to the world. There’s an uninhibited quality to their prose that can be impossible to replicate.

As an AYU who hopes to be a "Debut novelist" in the not-too-distant future, it's pretty obvious why this quote resonated with me! But what about you? Care to share some of your favorite encouraging words?

Fence sitting (or, could someone get me a cushion)

I'm a fence sitter. No, it's not that I can't make up my mind about a topic. This type of fence sitting is what those of us who have been writing a long time and had a good amount of success in the realm of the unpublished writer do. We sit up here on this fence looking over at the Land of the Published (which I visualize as looking like Hobbiton from the Lord of the Rings), wishing for that elusive call from a publishing house that will finally knock us over to the other side of the fence. I've often joked that I've been sitting on this fence so long that my butt hurts.

Last weekend, my local RWA chapter celebrated its 10th anniversary. That made me think about where I was 10 years ago compared to where I am in my career now (and it is a career even though I'm not published yet). Back then, I was muddling through my first romance manuscript, which went through so many different versions that I eventually lost count. It was the only historical I wrote, but over the intervening 10 years I've written 17 additional manuscripts ranging from romantic suspense to young adult. Back then, our chapter had one or two published authors. Now, roughly a third of the chapter is published, including my two long-time critique partners. One of those CPs won a RITA last year; the other is a RITA finalist this year. Back in 1997, being a Golden Heart finalist was this dream way out of reach. But it was a goal that I worked toward, and when I finally finaled for the first time in 2003, I about passed out. Literally. I had to sit down on the side of the bed because I was shaking so much. In 2004, I accomplished yet another dream -- I won a Golden Heart. And what did I do when I got on the stage to accept it? I bawled like a baby. I'm told I made many of the people in the audience bawl too. Sorry if I ruined your mascara.

As I began to have success in the Golden Heart and other contests and began to get requests for revisions and encouraging words from editors, as I signed with my dream agent who had such glowing things to say about my writing, I felt that my big dream of getting published just might be on the horizon. I felt I was so close that in January of 2005, I left my full-time job as a magazine editor to write full-time. Then the editor who had two of my manuscripts and gave me every indication a sale was just around the corner left the publishing house and those manuscripts came sailing back so fast that I was stunned. Yes, tears were shed, and I wondered if I'd done the most stupid thing I'd ever done in quitting my job.

I could have quit and gone back to a full-time job, but I didn't. I've had this dream for so long, and I've put so much time, effort and trips to the post office into it that I'm not quitting. If I do, it will have all been for nothing. And I've never been a quitter (okay, I quit running track and playing basketball after two years, but let's be honest -- I sucked at both).

I'm not saying that there aren't difficult days. When manuscripts that my agent and I really, really believe in get rejected, there are still tears and brief dips into the dumps. Dairy Queen makes a mint off me when those things happen. Chocolate Extreme Blizzards are the best comfort food. When people see me at conferences and ask, "So, when's your book coming out?" and I have to respond, "I haven't sold yet", to which they say, "I could have sworn you'd sold," -- yeah, that's a bit of a bummer.

We're writers and thus a bit neurotic, so those little devils on my shoulder often whisper things like, "It's never going to happen. Quit wasting your time, and get a real job" or "Yeah, Golden Heart finals are great, but aren't you getting to the pathetic stage? Maybe you've plateaued, and this is as good as it's going to get." You know what I do after I inevitably listen to that little devil? I punch him in the face and get to work on a new story idea, the one that's going to wow the editors and start a bidding war and finally push me over this fence. The view's nice from up here, but seriously I think I'm getting calluses. :)

If you're a fence sitter, try to enjoy the success you've had so far but keep pushing yourself to do more, do better. Believe that you WILL sell. Do not let defeatist thoughts take over your mind or darken your speech. Reaching the Land of the Published takes timing, hard work, belief in yourself and a positive attitude. I'm hoping we all are having a nice sunny picnic on the other side of the fence very soon.