Two for the Money, Two for the Show

This morning has been one of entertainment and revelation, as well as finding two more writers I want to get to know much better now that I know so little about them. Odd phrasing, I know, but true, nonetheless.

I met John Jakesthrough a short article he did for the June issue of The

Cover via Amazon

WriterMagazine. Though I’ve dabbled in his books, I never stopped to pay attention to the one behind the words. That privilege came with his article.

Jakes talks about how plot, while important, seldom brings someone back for a second reading of a book. Rather, it is a character that calls the reader back for another look into the life represented within the confines of the book’s covers. That reasoning is one I can agree with without reservation.

At fifteen, Louis Bromfield’s marvelous novel “The Rains Came” leaped off the school library’s shelf and into my waiting hands. This story for more mature

Cover of The Rains Came

audiences both surprised my composition teacher and dismayed her. She felt I wouldn’t be able to grasp the complexity of its story, characters, and plotline at a mere 15 years old.

I devoured this story of colonialist India with it’s coming revolution for sovereignty and its interwoven native characters and English colonials, its love stories—both adulterous and forbidden inter-racial unions, and its political statements. I couldn’t put it down. The depth of the story spoke volumes to me. I wanted more and took the time to find just that.

I went to the public library to find more books by this author. I came away with his Pulitzer winner, “Autumn Leaves” and counted myself fortunate that it was available. I’d discovered a world beyond kid’s literature. I could read something again with the depth and knowledge of Tennyson, Homer, and Shakespeare and get away from what was “acceptable” for my age bracket.

I understood perfectly what John Jakes spoke about. I’ve reread Bromfield’s books half a dozen times since that first introduction. Now I can look forward to reading Jakes’ marvelous volumes of “The Kent Chronicles” and “North and South,” along with anything else I can find.

Once I put way The Writer, I found Canteen Magazine online. I was looking for a new market. I found much more than that. I perused a past issue, while I sorted through the offerings, and came across one of the best writer’s articles I’ve read in months.

Of course, I’d heard of Joyce Maynard but never read her books. There are so many books out there and so little time, I hadn’t yet come to hers; a situation about to change soon.

In her article A Storytelling Life, October 3, 2011, (from Issue Two), Joyce talked of her mother and the early training in storytelling that she obtained by continual exposure. Joyce says:

“THERE YOU HAVE IT. My legacy. Daughter of a master storyteller—for whom allegiance to the truth took second position after reverence for good drama—I took to heart the lessons of two stories told to me when I was very young. One was of the princess locked in a room each night with a pile of straw, instructed to spin it into gold. That was what a writer had to do, I knew: Study a pile of dry sticks and grass, and figure out a way to make it glittering and precious. But the legend I loved even more came from Arabian Nights. It concerned Scheherazade, a young woman condemned to death, who kept a man from killing her by telling him a new and irresistible story every night. Spinning a tale well, I figured, could actually save a person’s life. Possibly mine.”

Throughout the article, phrases spring out to grip the throat of the reader, forcing one’s full attention to the detail given in spare, sharp words. Hers is an example of living without adverbs, of allowing the story to be about character while placing them on a train called “story line” and taken for a ride to allow the reader to see the characters from all sides. Her sentences flow into one another with such ease of statement that one is seldom aware of individual bits of punctuation, while the words place vivid images into the mind without effort.

Maynard explains: “But I learned more than craft under my mother’s ceaseless tutelage. She instructed me in the essence of what well-told stories are meant to accomplish—the idea that the joy of writing well might actually redeem and even trump the raw material of painful experience, thereby revealing deeply meaningful truths to the reader. Days when I’d come home from school, upset by some injustice or the hurtful behavior of a friend, my mother’s words of consolation seldom varied. “Never mind,” she said. “You can always write about it.”

Along with John Jakes article, Maynard’s example of what’s important to any kind of writing will have a special place in my new reference notebook. Take an opportunity to read these articles for yourself. You can find them at:

The Writer Magazine: http://www.writermag.com/en/The%20Magazine/Current%20Issue.aspx

Canteen Magazine: http://www.canteenmag.com/posts/joyce-maynard

And if you happen to come across others that are of special note, drop the link in a comment here for everyone to share.

Happy reading, all, and happy learning. A bientot,

Claudsy

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How We Make Choices

choice and context (Photo credit: Will Lion)

Writers are dead in the water without the internet in the current publishing environment. Everything concerning the writing business is online, including, but not confined to, publishing houses, editor and other manuscript related services, promotional company services, writers-for-hire and their job sites, and the list goes on.

How do we make choices for those projects that need a market?

Not including newsletters, I receive market listings from several sources each week. Within each of those sources are seemingly countless markets looking for stories, articles, poetry, essays, etc. One listing alone can take up a single day of reading, speculating, and planning for future projects, which require note-taking.

At the end of that day, the original question stands unanswered and has bred a new one. What criteria will be used to eliminate choices?

Here’s an example. I have a finished piece entitled “A Teacher of Spirit,” which is multi-dimensional. It contains: memoir, children’s, inspiration, and instruction. That gives me four potential primary areas to search for markets.

1. I plug in to the mass market magazine listings first. I want to see if I can find a paying market that will make my time worthwhile. On any given day, there will be at least five markets that accept inspiration pieces, unsolicited, and with less than a three month response time. Those factors are critical to me. I write down the particulars, as well as the differences between publications’ needs.
2. I move on to children’s magazines. I scan those names I know well to check for current needs or upcoming themes. I find two that might be successful submissions. As with my previous search, I note the publications, their needs, wants, themes, etc. I also note which ones I could do similar pieces for with different slants. I might be able to rework this essay to fit a different magazine.
3. Moving on to instructional/parenting magazines, I find three that could work if I make a few changes in the essay’s approach and emphasis. That could do well. I haven’t published in that area before. This market could answer for both the instructional aspects as well as inspirational aspects. I could do a simultaneous submission with these and a slightly shifted version of the essay.
4. I repeat the entire process for those publications of the literary persuasion. This takes longer simply because there looks to be an endless stream of literary magazines of various circulation sizes. Here I come up with dozens of possibilities.
5. The initial sorting steps leave me with a long list that needs prioritizing. Ranking markets from greatest chance for success to the lowest takes time, but that time is lessened with every use of the process. The more experience a writer has looking through possible markets, the more easily the sorting and prioritizing becomes.
6. The resulting “Chances” list gives me plenty of potential. There are two excellent possibilities in the Inspirational column where I can send an original version of the essay. I choose the top three from the Literary column. I can send simultaneous submissions to those and the essay revised to reflect a different angle. Two choices come from the Children’s column for submissions that require tweaking for content needed by the individual magazine. All three from the Instructional/parenting column can be sent tweaked versions.

Once all of those choices are made, I can move on to separating out those essay copies that will go as is. Each publication gets its own query letter/cover letter, according to that magazine’s guidelines. (Doing a careful study of the guidelines is essential.)

As soon as those submissions are on their way to potential new homes, I tackle the next group of newly slanted versions, and so on to repeat the selection process.

Finding the markets is simple compared to preparing different versions of the same essay for multiple audiences and magazine needs. Getting the balance right can be difficult and time consuming. The upshot is that I learn more about writing and its needs with each round of choices I make. That’s a plus that I can take to the bank.

It isn’t uncommon to spend two or three days on this process if six or more markets are approached. Like all writers, I have other things on my editorial calendar than submitting articles or stories. I allow specific time for this task on that calendar, now more than ever before. It has as much importance as writing, more than blogging, and slightly more than social media.

Hopefully, this look at my marketing and submission process helps someone else.

That’s all for now, folks. Below are links to various marketing resources. Explore them for yourselves.

A bientot,

Claudsy

Marketing Resources:

 Duotrope will take you to a lovely little site with big impact. Many writers rely on this source for finding new markets, and keeping up on those online markets that are no long viable.
Sharing with Writers http://sharingwithwriters.blogspot.com/ has all sorts of industry info, including markets to watch.

Poets and Writers Magazine which has a free online sign-up that can get you hooked up with many market listings, including those for contests, grants, fellowships, agents, etc.

The Writer Magazine and it too has a free newsletter, plus market listings for publications, agents, etc. This is a marvelous site with all sorts of cool info.

The home of Writer’s Digest also has a free newsletter, market listings, writer communities and lots more.

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Finding Balance and Launching Projects

One of the things that many writers have complained about is finding balance in their writing lives. For me it’s an every-day struggle.

For the past two weeks my time has been spent reading: journals, writer’s magazines, novels, newspapers, marketing lists, and grant listings.

Oh, yes. I’ve run through a gauntlet of publishing advice, writer’s key points to remember, plus a myriad of funding choices and recommended sources for those who are proposal challenged.

Considering all of that, you might wonder what I came away with.

Let me say this. I’m someone who’s always been expected to finish all projects as quickly as possible and to perfection. Does this give you a clue as to my stress level concerning any given project?

I’ve almost come to a point of accepting a typo, grammatical error, or other minor flaw as not requiring blood-letting. ALMOST. Biting one’s tongue to keep from screaming out loud doesn’t count.

This expectation of mine stalls submissions but doesn’t stall idea generation. That’s where the problem comes in. I have too many ideas.

It takes little to send me haring off on the scent of a possible new rabbit before it goes down the nearest hole and disappears. Why?

When I have so many pending projects already in various stages of completion, I become overwhelmed by the volume.

Discouragement rears up and hisses at me when I start to go back to tackle one of the Needs-To-Be-Finished projects. I lived in rattlesnake country too long, I guess. I tend to back off when something—anything—hisses at me. As a result, I’ll begin yet another story, article, etc., instead.

Soon I have an avalanche waiting to descend and smother me.

My fairy godmother arrived during this last reading frenzy. I caught up on my perusal of back issues of The Writer Magazine. In the December, 2011 issue, editor and author, Linda K. Wertheimer, wrote a timely essay; one that I desperately needed now.

She wrote “Perfecting the Art of Slowness,” which detailed how she had to return to the discipline of small daily practice sessions used for becoming a first chair flutist in order to find real success later in writing.

It sounds so simple to hear someone else say it, doesn’t it; slow down, two small words that could make or break a story, submission, or query.

Her advice got me to thinking hard about how I used my time and organized my work. If I teach myself to envision a large stop sign at the end of each phase of a project, pause to look both ways—back to the beginning as well as toward the finish line—and ease out into the flow of time traffic, I would have fewer frustrations, missteps, and avalanches.

When I couple that strategy with practicing the art of merely writing down new ideas rather than beginning the whole new project, current projects can be finished more regularly and well.

I’ve begun my daily practice. Each day I take out one project, children’s lit or adult, read through it, and begin the revision. I work for one hour on editing and then go looking for markets for the piece. By the time I return to it, I’ve removed myself far enough that a final edit can commence.

Hopefully, I’ll be able to clear out my backlog of material, and continue to work on current projects, an hour at a time. I’ve discovered that it isn’t so much that I’m mismanaging my time as it is a matter of clearing inventory. An hour isn’t much to devote to something that can leave home and live on its own, after all.

Tell me about your own struggles, downfalls, and strategies. Until later,

A bientot,

Claudsy