Saving Ink with Ecofont

Pati Nagle writes as a guest blogger:

As all writers know, the amount of paper and ink we consume is startling. A Dutch creative communications company has now released the Ecofont, which uses up to 20% less ink. It's done by making holes in the normally solid strokes of the letters. Example:



Using less ink means changing your toner cartridges less often. It's also better for the environment, which is the whole idea.

The font is a free download from this site: http://www.ecofont.eu/ecofont_en.html

Jerry comments:

What a terrific idea, terrific because it's so obvious--after you've seen it.

Terrific because it can be applied in an obvious way with almost any popular font, once someone takes the trouble to do it.

Terrific because it's good for the environment in which we live.

Terrific because it saves money for us starving writers.

And speaking of starving writers, this blog would welcome other guest contributions on how to help us eat steak (or tofu) instead of cat food.

FINDING YOUR VOICE

By Terry Hayman, Guest Blogger

If there's one thing that almost every editor on a panel at a conference will claim they look for, it's voice. Specifically, they want to hear a distinctive, fresh new "voice" coming out of the manuscript they've just picked up from their slush pile. If it's got the voice, maybe they can fix the rest.

What is voice, exactly, someone in the audience always asks. And the more experienced editors (who've fielded this questions dozens of times before) will talk about an author's world view, their life experience, their word choices and sentence structures, the things that just happen when the author writes, that he or she really has little control over.

Used to drive me insane. Why?

Well, the message seemed to be - you can't develop a good voice. You either got it and editors snap it up (which happens, maddeningly enough, with some first-shot-out-of-the-gate novelists), or you don't.

This gets driven home when editors bring up, inevitably, Stephen King. Look, they say. If someone reads you a passage out of any of King's books, you know it's King. His voice is just that distinctive.

Now I know for damn sure that my writing voice isn't Stephen King distinctive. It's been called "commercial" and "spare" but I doubt even my mother could pick my prose out of a pile of stuff by other authors if she only had a brief passage to go by.

And yet...

About midway through last year, I finally started to recognize my own voice. It came when I recognized that, for all the different genres and story types I've written and sold over the years, my stories tended to bend in certain directions and take on certain tones. For short stories, I could generally carry a cynical, humorous, pompous, genteel, you-name-it tone from start to finish. But give me a longer work and it all became...me.

That is, I might love to read complex character analyses or tongue-in-cheek humor, but it's not generally how I approach the world. I tend to see it as made up of a never-ending struggle between good and evil, love and hate, hope and despair, and it's never an easy thing for the good to win out. Ever. Yet it usually still does in my stories. After a lot of pain and sweat and damage, my characters usually come out affirming family, love, hope, truth. Straight-up. I just don't do cynicism well.

What did this realization mean for my writing?

Only this - choices about what to write about got easier. I went to a workshop where we were all assigned a story to write about the trouble with heroes. About a third (?) of them would be slotted into a paying anthology produced by Tekno Books. The pressure was on. First thing that came to mind were the sort of comic hero-bashing tales that stand fairy tales on their heads. And from the talented group of writers I was with, we got some wonderfully original ones along those lines. As I knew we would. And I knew they'd all be better than anything I'd come up with in that vein.

So I instead wrote a kind of quiet, intense little domestic drama that felt real and personally scary to me. No humor at all. (Except in the actual writing of the thing which had me sticking my head into the still-buzzing workshop common room at 1:30 am and crying "Help me! I'm violating every copyright law in the book!")

My humorless little story (with copyright issues fixed) made the final cut. Not necessarily because of my voice, but maybe because at least I wasn't strangling it.

And who know, maybe someday someone will point out how you can just read a few pages of this particularly humorless, intense guy and just know who it is...

Grant-writing Advice

There are many small grants (and some, not so small) available to fledgling writers (and some not so fledgling). One of my correspondents wrote the following question about a grant application:

The Question:

I'm asking advice. As some of you know, I'm a highly qualified, employed professional, so I have extensive educational experience and a few academic publications/presentations. My question is, would you downplay this on a grant app for writing because they might call you a rich professional and turn down your grant?

Jerry's Answer:

It is worth considering. Here's our experience:

When Dani applied for a grant to support her doctoral fieldwork in anthropology, she was awarded the grant--but it was a "dry grant."

What? You never heard of "dry grants"?

Dry grants give you the honor, but not the money.

Their "reasoning": "Her husband has a job, so she doesn't need the money."

That was many years ago, but there are still granters who think that way.

"Downplay" might be the way to go. You're a creative writer, so perhaps something like, "I can't afford to lose a week's pay unless I can get some financial support."

You might also point out that you have a child, so you have extra expenses and can't work extra hours or moonlight to earn more money. You are, after all, begging for money, so you have to have a tear-jerker story of some kind.

And good, good luck,

Another correspondent, Cindie Geddes, replied:

I've gotten a few grants for classes/workshop/etc and I pretty much just don't mention my day job (freelancer writer) unless I have to. I just explain that I'm an artist applying for an arts grant and then explain why the class/workshop/etc. is not only good for me, my craft and career aspirations but also that it's good for the community (simply because I'm willing to pass whatever I learn onto other writers) because that's what is important to this arts council. But this is Nevada, and arts grants like these are pretty easy to get. So long as you can show how and why it will help your artistic goals, the committee is not overly concerned with your finances. Most arts organizations have a mission of supporting artists, not saving them money, so that needs to be the focus of the application.

That said, I guess my advice would be

1) Don't put what you do in your day job unless they ask.

2) Give them exactly what they want on the grant application (perusing their web site to see their mission statement will help).

3) And one more tip: Most applications will ask for a budget for the workshop you are asking for help paying for. Always show all the costs of the trip, not just what they will cover. Here, they give up to $1,000 (I think it's still that), but I show all the costs of the trip anyway, so they can see I am willing to pay for quite a bit myself. Include air travel or mileage, meals, registration fees, paper, toner, books you need to read--anything you can. So if you show that the trip is going to cost $2000 and you're only asking for $1000, you are showing your commitment and not coming off as just another artist with her hand out.

And good luck!

A List of Granting Agencies

Later, Cindie wrote:

Here's the list of grants organizations I mentioned, starting with my local sources:

*Subject:* Commission/Granting/Residency resources

I'm grateful to Michael Ogilvie, who compiled a list of Commission granting and residency resources – see below*

Michael Ogilvie

City of Las Vegas

Office of Cultural Affairs

401 South Fourth Street

Las Vegas, NV 89101

(702) 229-5256

http://www.lasvegasnevada.gov/lvac

http://www.lvartscommission.com/


*Commission/Granting/Residency resources*

*INTERNATIONAL, NATIONAL, AND REGIONAL:*
http://www.nyfa.org/

http://www.nea.gov/

http://www.artsusa.org/

http://www.artistresource.org/

http://www.artcalendar.com/home.asp

http://www.getty.edu/grants/index.html

http://nasaa-arts.org/

http://www.zpub.com/public/

http://www.fundsnetservices.com/arts01.htm

http://sites.target.com/site/en/corporate/page.jsp?contentId=PRD03-001818

http://www.collegeart.org/opportunities/type/1/

http://dmla.clan.lib.nv.us/docs/arts/

http://xericfoundation.org/

http://www.artheals.org/artist_support/grants.php

http://www.antiquesatoz.com/artatoz/grant.htm

http://www.burningman.com/installations/art_guidelines.html

http://www.midatlanticarts.org

http://www.cranbrookart.edu/library/research/grants.htm

http://www.watershedceramics.org/residency.php

http://www.pkf.org/

http://www.warholfoundation.org/

http://www.joanmitchellfoundation.org/

http://www.carnegie.org/sub/pubs/grantlist.html

http://www.gatesfoundation.org/ForGrantSeekers/

http://www.lannan.org/lf/about/funding-areas/

http://www.frenchculture.org/

http://www.bunka.go.jp/english/index.html

http://www.asianculturalcouncil.org/programs.html

http://www.jusfc.gov/index.asp

http://www.toyotafound.or.jp/english/

http://www.asahibeer.co.jp/csr/soc/activity.html

http://www.saison.or.jp/english/application/04.html

http://indianembassy.ru/cms/index.phpoption=com_content&task=view&id=36&Itemid=470

http://www.britishcouncil.org/arts.htm

http://www.e-flux.com/shows/view/5139

http://www.oakfnd.org/

http://www.danisharts.info/20c000c

http://www.iro.hr/hr/info-servis/akademski-infoservis/obrazovni-programi/view-info-1354/

http://www.danishvisualarts.info/515000c

http://www.cultureireland.gov.ie/grants/applying.html

http://www.blakemorefoundation.org/art.htm

http://www.writersofthefuture.com/

http://www.nfaa.org/

http://www.judithrothschildfdn.org/index.html

http://web.mac.com/marciareidmarsted/Capelli_dAngeli_Foundation_Site/____2008-2009_Grant_Application.html

http://www.hluce.org/aagrants.aspx

http://www.lannan.org/lf/art/grants/view-all/

http://www.terraamericanart.org/exhibitions/index.asp?key=32&year=2008



Alabama

http://www.arts.state.al.us/council/index-council.html

http://www.cranbrookart.edu/library/research/grants.htm


Alaska

http://www.eed.state.ak.us/aksca/

http://alaska.cgweb.org/

http://www.jahc.org/grant.php

http://www.atwoodfoundation.org/grants.html


Arizona

http://www.azarts.gov/

http://www.tucsonpimaartscouncil.org/

http://www.westvalleyarts.org/about/contact.html

http://www.sccarts.org/


Arkansas

http://www.arkansasarts.com/opportunities/


California

http://www.cac.ca.gov/?id=100

http://www.cac.ca.gov/othergrants/

http://www.culturecalifornia.com/culturecalifornia/about.asp

http://eldoradoartscouncil.org/

http://www.artscouncil.org/grants/

http://www.marinarts.org/html/apply_for_a_grant.htm

http://www.kernarts.org/stories/storyReader$470

http://www.artspca.org/grants.htm

http://www.getty.edu/grants/index.html

http://artleagueofnortherncalifornia.org/index.html

http://www.stocktongov.com/arts/SAC/index.cfm

http://www.city.newport-beach.ca.us/artsculture/arts&culture.asp

http://lacountyarts.co.la.ca.us/

http://www.ci.richmond.ca.us/index.asp?nid=104

http://www.sbartscommission.org/about.html

http://www.sfartscommission.org/

http://www.plumasarts.com/

http://www.ci.brentwood.ca.us/boards/artcomm/art.cfm

http://www.ci.santa-cruz.ca.us/pr/ac/ac.html

http://pvarts.org/

http://www.chico.ca.us/Arts_Commission/Home_Page.asp

http://www.lagunabeachcity.net/arts/commission/ordinance2.23.htm

http://www.acgov.org/arts/html/home.html

http://www.artshare.org/

http://www.eureka-art-culture.com/

http://www.sandiego.gov/arts-culture/index.shtml


Colorado

http://www.coloarts.state.co.us/

http://www.coloradolinks.net/Colorado_Arts_Organizations.htm

http://www.colofolkarts.org/

http://www.adolphcoors.org/index.html


Connecticut

http://www.cultureandtourism.org/cct/site/default.asp

http://www.tremainefoundation.org/Default.asp

http://www.sde.ct.gov/sde/cwp/view.asp?a=2618&q=320834

http://www.artsnwct.org/newsletter_detail.php?ID=13&mo=7&yr=2007


Delaware

http://www.artsdel.org/

http://artsci.case.edu/hba/doku.php?id=public:fellowships


Florida

http://www.florida-arts.org/grants/

http://www.flheritage.com/grants/

http://www.pinellasarts.org/

http://www.keysarts.com/new_site/pages/grants.html

http://www.sarasota-arts.org/grant_programs.cfm

http://www.artcentersf.org/

http://www.filminflorida.com/ifi/g.asp

http://www.moneymatters101.com/grants/florida.asp

http://www.knightfoundation.org/grants/



Georgia

http://www.gaarts.org/

http://www.maconarts.org/grantsFunding.htm

http://www.romearts.org/artsresources/georgiaartsresources.html

http://www.uga.edu/gamuseum/collections/seagrant.html

http://www.georgiahumanities.org/grantmaking/info.html



Hawaii

http://hawaii.gov/sfca/



Idaho

http://www.arts.idaho.gov/grants/indoverview.aspx



Illinois

http://www.state.il.us/agency/iac/

http://artscouncil.uchicago.edu/



Indiana

http://www.publicartindianapolis.org/

http://www.artswin.evansville.net/grants.htm



Iowa

http://www.iowaartscouncil.org/funding/artist-project-grant/index.shtml


Kansas


Kentucky

http://artscouncil.ky.gov/guide/prog4/fa_gdl.html


Louisiana

http://www.crt.state.la.us/arts/

http://www.artscouncilofneworleans.org/index.php?topic=grants.generalinfo


Maine

http://mainearts.maine.gov/artists/fellowships/index.shtml


Maryland

http://www.msac.org

http://www.mdhc.org/

http://www.wdchumanities.org

http://dcarts.dc.gov


Massachusetts

http://www.massculturalcouncil.org/

http://www.somervilleartscouncil.org/programs/lotgrant/index.html


Michigan

http://www.michigan.gov/hal/0,1607,7-160-18833_18834-57660--,00.html


Missouri

http://missouriartscouncil.org/


Mississippi

http://www.arts.state.ms.us/grants/for-individuals.php

http://www.jacksonartscouncil.org/home.html


Minnesota

http://www.arts.state.mn.us/grants/artist_initiative.htm

http://www.plrac.org/grants.html

http://www.nwrdc.org/artsgrants.htm

Montana

http://art.mt.gov/artists/artists.asp

Nebraska

http://www.arts.nebraska.gov/index_html?page=content/GRANTS
/Categories/CatGrants.htm
www.nebraskahumanities.org

http://www.bemiscenter.org/about_us/index.html

Nevada

www.lvartscommission.com

http://dmla.clan.lib.nv.us/docs/arts/


New Hampshire

http://www.nh.gov/nharts/grants/index.htm


New Jersey

http://www.njartscouncil.org/


New Mexico

http://www.nmarts.org/

http://www.rair.org/


New York

http://www.artsrochester.org/artscouncil/cag.htm

http://www.artscouncilofrockland.org/


North Carolina

http://www.ncarts.org/

http://www.intothearts.org/grants/available.asp

http://www.theartscouncil.com/index.shtml

http://www.darearts.org/grants.cfm

http://www.uacgreensboro.org/grants/index.html


North Dakota

http://www.nd.gov/arts/grants/grants.htm


Ohio

http://www.oac.state.oh.us/grantsprogs/

http://www.orbi.org/

http://www.oberlin.edu/newserv/stories/ohio_arts_council_grants.html


Oklahoma

http://www.arts.ok.gov/grants.html


Oregon

http://www.oregonartscommission.org/grants/commission_grant_programs.php

http://www.racc.org/


Pennsylvania

http://www.pacouncilonthearts.org/

http://www.philaculture.org/about/pressarchive/09.21.07_5CAF.htm


Rhode Island

http://www.arts.ri.gov/grants/index.php


South Carolina


South Dakota

http://www.artscouncil.sd.gov/grants.htm


Tennessee

http://www.arts.state.tn.us/grant_categories.htm

http://www.jacksonartscouncil.tn.org/


Texas

http://www.arts.state.tx.us/

http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/redevelopment/cad.htm


Utah

http://arts.utah.gov/funding/artists_grant/index.html


Vermont

http://www.vermontartscouncil.org/Default.aspx?tabid=212


Virginia

http://www.arts.state.va.us

http://www.virginia.edu/vfh


Washington

http://www.arts.wa.gov/

http://www.artisttrust.org/grants


West Virginia

http://www.wvculture.org/arts


Wisconsin

http://www.newartscouncil.org/index.htm

http://arts.state.wi.us/static/programs.htm


Wyoming

http://wyoarts.state.wy.us/WACGrants2006.htm


*GUIDES TO GRANT WRITING:*
http://writingfiction.suite101.com/article.cfm/applying_for_state_art_grants
http://www.npguides.org/

http://www.svsu.edu/sponsoredprograms/grant-writing-services-guides.html
http://www.mcdaniel.edu/3891.htm

A Final Word

There are so many possible grants that grant-writing itself becomes a danger. As another correspondent writes:

"Also, put a fence around the time you spend on grants, market research, submissions, and the rest of the office work. You're probably a lot like me. The office busywork will be easy -- it WILL want to expand. Don't let it. Set your timer and walk away when your daily allocation for that stuff is over. Remember, you're doing a full-time writer week, not a "catch up" week for office work that may have been piling up. That means a lot of your time needs to be spent at your writing table putting together NEW WORDS that you can sell."

Why We Fear Agents

By Christina F. York

Because the question has come around several times. I have been thinking about the reasons we, as writers, invest so much emotional power in the agent relationship.

First, of course, is accepting the fact that this is an emotional issue, not a logical or business issue. Logically, practically, most of us know the proper response to the agent issue. But when we actually face the issues, emotional responses often block that practical knowledge.

With that in mind, I have been trying to figure out what those emotional responses are, why we have them, and how to get over or around them. As we have discussed so often, the root cause seems to be fear, in a multitude of forms.

We talk about fear of failure, a common one. And fear of success, which may be less common, but still shows up often.

But I have another one that I realized applies directly to the agent relationship: the fear of being alone.

Now, I know that an agent is an employee, and no one should be afraid of losing an employee, especially one that isn’t a good fit. But we have learned – from somewhere – the attitude that the agent has to love their job, to be enthusiastic about the product they are selling.

By extension, we then assume they have to love our work. Which makes them our ally in selling our work. At last, we have someone on our side! Someone who will champion us, our work, our creations.

Writers, by their very nature, are solitary creatures. We work alone, often in isolation. Most spouses, families, co-workers, classmates – most of the other people in our lives – just don’t get it. I hear time and again from people whose husband or wife resents the time spent away from the family, from the day job, from housework, and children and family gatherings. We don’t get support from the people who are supposed to be in our corner.

Besides, if our family is supportive, we dismiss their opinions. They are not professionals, they don’t know if what we are doing is good. They say “Good job!” even if it isn’t, because they love us, and want us to feel good. We listen to them, and remember every time someone else said “I don’t care if your mother loves your work, what did the editor say?” And we discount every compliment that comes from someone who likes us, or loves us. They aren’t the people whose opinions “count.”

So, when an agent offers representation, when they volunteer to be in our corner, to be part of that support system, we’re thrilled. Someone gets it. They believe in us, and want to be our partner in our business. They provide outside validation that we are good. They give us our Sally Field Moment.

They want to help us, and that is a huge feeling of relief. At last, we don’t have to do it all ourselves. Someone else will take on part of the load. This is particularly seductive for a writer with a day job and a family, with commitments that leave little enough time for writing, much less all the other things that go with it. We can offload some of the tedious work we don’t enjoy.
Yes, writing is a business, and we shouldn’t put this emotional load on the business. But perhaps, if we understand the cause, we can learn to lessen the effect.

So now, we think, we have an enthusiastic employee to share the load. Someone who believes in the product we are selling (and, our emotional self says, us). Someone who will take some of the burden off of us, freeing us to spend our precious time writing. Finally, we have someone to help.

Then, sometimes without even a warning, that help disappears. The agent isn’t returning your calls, or answering your email. They don’t respond as quickly as they should, or they aren’t submitting things when they should, or they start “suggesting” changes, and refusing to do their job unless you do what they want.

As a boss, the answer is simple. If they don’t do the work, they lose the job. Your logical self has no problem with this, and probably thinks it is the best thing to do, and as quickly as possible.

But the emotional self, the overwhelmed individual who felt he or she was building a support system, doesn’t see it that way. The emotional self sees that support system evaporating, sees herself losing that help and assistance. The emotional self sees herself once more alone, without the enthusiastic employee to share the load.

Of course this isn’t the reality. Of course the support system is already gone, often long before the rational, practical, self realizes how bad the situation is. But the rational self often isn’t in control. I agree that it should be, but I realize that it isn’t.

I don’t know what the answer is. I don’t have a magic formula for transforming our emotions, or putting the rational self firmly in charge. I can’t solve this for myself, much less anyone else, in the course of an afternoon’s thought.

What I do know is that asking the question is the first step toward finding an answer, and that awareness is the first step toward change.

Writerly Fear

by Annie Reed (invited guest contributor)

Chris York's post on agents and fear got me thinking. That can be a scary thing in and of itself, but this time what I was thinking about a different kind of scary.


Writerly fear. Something I know well.


I'm not talking about the cower in the corner kind of fear, which I get when I see a spider or discover a six-foot snake coiled in my kitchen cabinet where a five-pound bag of flour should be. Or when I read a really oogy Stephen King story. No, I'm talking about the kind of debilitating emotion that's more a simple lack of self-confidence combined with fear of the unknown.


As an adult, which I sometimes think I am, I can go confidently about my daily life and routine without a second thought. But put me in a situation that's out of my routine, tell me I have to do something I don't know how to do, something that might be hard, and the part of me that's still five years old wants to run and hide. Routine is easier. Routine is comfortable. Routine isn't scary.


Routine also doesn't let you grow. Or learn. Or achieve your dreams.

Eight years ago I took a step outside the routine. It helped that I had a partner in crime.


On Mother's Day weekend of 2001, Louisa Swann and I took our first in what would be many, many trips to the Oregon coast, this one for a Saturday get together of professional writers hosted by Kris Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith.


At the time, I had no story sales. I barely submitted anything anywhere, my writerly ego having taken a battering on a response to a story submission I sent to the Nevada Arts Council literary fellowship grants program. What was I thinking, going to a gathering of professional writers? Was I nuts?


Thank goodness for Louisa. Between the two of us, I worked my way through an iceberg size case of cold feet.


I think I spent most of that night sitting quietly and just listening, wide-eyed, to the stories being told around me. Not only the stories read and commented on, but stories of other writers and their escapades, the kind of oral history about writing that only comes out when writers get together and talk. Inspiring? Oh yeah.

If real life was a Hollywood movie, I'd be able to say that my life completely turned around after that one eye-opening night. Well, not really, but it was a start.

I still have my moments of fear, and there are more days than I probably want to admit where I stick to routine instead of pushing my own personal envelopes. I'm very much a child of "it has to be done right or not at all!" and that kind of life-long indoctrination takes a long time to overcome. It took a lot of workshops and lunches and get-togethers before I felt less of a pretender and more like I belonged in a group of professional writers. I'm still very much a work in progress, but I'm a lot farther along the road than I was eight years ago.

Louisa and I are heading back to Oregon for a workshop next month. I can't wait.

There is a little slice of Hollywood happily-ever-after to this story: Four years after Louisa and I went on our first Oregon coast adventure, I won a Nevada Arts Council fellowship literary grant.


Writer - 1, fear - 0, at least for that day.

The Crux Moment

by Matt Buchman

www.lookatusgo.com

For me, in every novel, there is a moment, a definable instant of time when my method of writing changes. For weeks, often months, I plug away. I sit in my chair and write a scene only because it follows the one I crafted before. Writing is an agonizing task requiring immense pain to tear myself away from my family, the interesting book I’m reading, and the desperate need to dangle a feathered toy for a bored cat, to then proceed into my writing office. There, I close the door and face the dreaded blank page. Gene Fowler’s quote is terribly, even painfully apropos at this period of each novel’s birth, ““Writing is easy. All you do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.”

I have short circuited this long painful period only twice. Once, the core of the novel arose from naught but dust in one blazing discussion. Neither my wife nor I slept that night and by morning I understood the characters, the plot, and all that they were. That it would take me six months of research to understand the topic enough to write the first paragraph was beside the point. The painful period never existed. The second time, I took a challenge to write a novel in a week. Seven days and seventy-five thousand words later I had achieved that first draft, and I hadn’t had time to notice the crux moment passing.

Before I elucidate what I mean by the crux moment, let us step briefly together over that barrier and observe the other side. Beyond the crux moment lies laminar flow. It is a region where, if my fingers could move more quickly, if my body needed less sleep, if my butt weren’t cramping in my chair, I could write the rest of the novel without thought or hesitation. It is the moment when the novel is alive. Where the characters are living and no longer need my intense, poring concentration to reveal the story. They are living it. I am living it. Here is this writer’s joy. Before this moment is this writer’s agony.

The transition from agony to joy never lasts long. Rarely more than a few hours. For me, it typically starts the day before. A third to halfway through the novel, carved from obsidian painful word by painful word. An idea tickles. Or a question is asked. “What if...” may well be the two most powerful words on the planet. And in that timeless moment, the novel shakes itself.

Sometimes the awakening is abrupt and the detritus that has hid the novel’s core from my view is scattered far about never to be seen again. In my second novel, “The Dalari Accord” published by Goodfellow Press, I was asked a simple question, “Do they have a child?” In that single moment, the central core of the romance unfurled its sail. A four year old love child holds the key of bridging the vast divide between the Clans of Dalar and the stagnant Council who rules the planets. As I sat in stunned silence, the questioner tried to apologize for the inappropriateness of the question. I began counting aloud, almost at the rate of seconds, new scenes that solved previously insoluble problems. That gave the novel its life and its heart.

Last night the awakening was more like a poodle uncurling from a long, lazy, Sunday snooze in the sun. As I lay in bed puzzling over 48,000 words painfully extracted one at a time over three months, a simple thought occurred. What if I send my heroine on both the Hero’s Journey (see Joseph Campbell, “Hero of a Thousand Faces”) and the Heroine’s Journey (an answer to Joseph Campbell by Maureen Murdock regarding the woman’s role).

Three hours ago I broached the idea with my first reader, who I have the good fortune of also being married to. Within an hour, the other 50,000 words of the book became clear. A woman of exceptional skill (if your heros and heroines are not exceptional in some way, why are you writing about them?) has buried herself in the male world. Is happy there through her excellence. But when the past calls her away, her life’s journey is placed squarely in front of her face, a most uncomfortable position to a woman used to the black and white of right vs. wrong, she is forced to see the neglect she has given to her feminine side. Not girlish and cute, but acknowledging the needs that are not a man’s but a woman’s.

Now, as I write this, I could complete the first draft of the novel if I didn’t have to go to work for the next week or so. There are still problems to solve, puzzles to work out, but the characters are now alive and I can hear their voices and there are things that they will do and will not do, no matter how I, the author, am convinced otherwise.

Despite overwhelming tides of fear, uncertainty, and doubt, I have once again crossed over the crocodilian river to the other side. The battle scars of my own mistrust of self still drip their pain down my legs. But I don’t care, I have entered the nirvana of writing. Meaningful words. Strong emotions. Great story. Joy.

As I sit here, on the backside of eleven or twelve novels, I can look back, as I have every time, and know what the secret is to reaching the crux moment and passing through the gates to enter the glory of joyous writing. It is a simple truth that I have heard from a hundred published writers. It is a truth that I never trust, just as I haven’t trusted it these last three, long, nerve-wracking month. But it is nonetheless an absolute truth.

Put your butt in the chair and keep your fingers moving.

February 23rd, 2009

San Juan Islands, Washington

Measuring Progress

by David H. Hendrickson, Guest Blogger

Am I getting better? Will I ever become good enough? Am I just wasting my time?

Writers ask themselves these questions over and over. The rejection slips that litter the mailbox provide the haunting answers: You sucked yesterday, you suck today, and you're going to suck tomorrow.

The hard truth is that until you've almost reached the Promised Land of selling your words, there's no feedback mechanism to let you know you're making progress, that you're one step closer to realizing your dream. The stories or novels go out; the polite no-thank-you's come back. The Promised Land is nowhere in sight.

Few other pursuits are so heartless in their lack of encouragement. A golfer's handicap goes down. A chess player's rating goes up. A student's grades or test scores improve. An actor or actress gets picked for increasingly significant roles. A salesperson's commissions grow.

But all the writer gets is: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, and no.

This doesn't just go on for weeks or months. It lasts for years.

Am I getting better? Will I ever become good enough? Am I just wasting my time?

After enough years of negative feedback, the answers seem self-evident. Because years and years -- perhaps even decades -- is what it takes.

The late, great John D. MacDonald once said that the first one million words a writer produces are crap. Derivative and useless.

Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers talks about how the perceived geniuses in almost every endeavor only got that way by working not just harder than everyone else but much, much harder. To the tune of about ten thousand hours to become world class, whether the pursuit was writing, music, or software.

Ten thousand hours. That's writing three hours a day, every day, for close to ten years.

Which sounds a lot like Stephen King's prescription in On Writing of "reading and writing between four to six hours a day, every day." Elsewhere he comments that after ten years of regular writing, you should be pretty good at it.

Almost certainly, that's what is required in terms of total effort for a writer to get to the Promised Land. (Yes, there are "joggers" and "sprinters," the former producing every day and the latter in bursts, but the total productivity required remains the same.)

So how does a writer track that effort?

The problem with an hourly goal is that too many writers, especially new ones, waste hour after hour. Wasted hours don't count.

Trust me, I was the worst. After that magical moment when I scribbled my first two paragraphs and felt like flames were firing out of my fingertips, I proceeded to fool myself with what I thought was hard work. I'd sit down for a three-hour session and think I was making progress when an hour of that time was spent endlessly rewriting the same few paragraphs, another hour bemoaning that I got a later start than those lucky souls who began as young teenagers, and a third hour mentally composing my Hugo Award acceptance speech.

Foolish as it sounds, I thought I was working hard. I thought I was making progress. But I wasn't; I was fooling myself.

Only productive hours, measured in terms of writing lots of new words, matters. Dean Wesley Smith has written on his blog of how a professional can write a thousand words in an hour. I'm not at that level and perhaps neither are you. So let's say for you it's five hundred words an hour or perhaps two hundred and fifty.

The Outliers prescription of ten thousand hours to become world class -- and you do want to become the best you can be, right? -- means that at a rate of five hundred words an hour, you'll need five million words before you're world class. Give or take a few million.

John D. MacDonald set the bar at a million words to get past the derivative crap. The bar goes up to five million words, give or take, to become world class.

How do you measure the plodding steps you're taking while climbing such a steep mountain? What feedback mechanism can you give yourself to help you keep faith, to remind you that you're making progress?

Here's what I do. On the shelf atop the desk where I write at home, I keep a small goldfish bowl. Every time I complete ten thousand new words of fiction, I put a penny in the bowl. Nonfiction doesn't count. Rewriting doesn't count. Only new words matter.

A hundred pennies means a million words. The John D. MacDonald hurdle. About eleven novels. Five hundred pennies, give or take, means world class.

Give yourself this feedback mechanism. As you hear a penny clink inside the bowl and see the mound accumulate, you'll feel like the golfer whose handicap is dropping or the chess player whose rating is climbing toward master or grandmaster levels. You'll know you're making progress no matter what those slap-in-the-face rejection slips say.

Or use some other ten-thousand-word reward. If you're a romance writer, pin an Ace of hearts on the wall. If you're a mystery writer, try the Ace of spades (honoring Sam Spade, of course).

Pick the feedback mechanism that works for you, but pick something to feel good about your steps toward the writer's Promised Land.

With sustained effort -- writing new words and studying your craft, always learning -- you'll get there.

Now go earn yourself a penny.

---
David H. Hendrickson has published over nine hundred works of nonfiction ranging from humor and essays to scientific research and sports journalism

The Do's and Don'ts of Sending Out Manuscripts

Blogmeister Note: Here's another essay transferred from the former OWN Writer's Blog.

by Laura Ware

I’ve been spending the last couple of weeks sending out a stack of short stories I’ve let sit in my office for various reasons. While concentrating on this task, I’ve given a lot of thought about the process. My thoughts on it are listed below, in the hopes it will help someone else along the way:

DO send out your manuscripts. If you want to sell your writing, it has to get off your desk. No one can consider buying a manuscript they haven’t seen.

DON’T sell yourself short. Go ahead and send your stories out to the top markets. Let them decide if it’s right for them. That’s their job, not yours.

DO include a self-addressed stamped envelope (SASE) with all your manuscripts. This is common courtesy, and the only way you will get a reply.

DO make a note somewhere on the envelope of what story this is attached to. Sometimes form rejections don’t include the title of your story and unless you make a note on the SASE, you’ll be scrambling through your records trying to figure out which story they’re talking about.

DON’T send enough postage to get your whole manuscript back. It probably won’t be in a condition to resend (and you should always send a fresh manuscript anyway). Save yourself some money and use a standard business envelope for your SASE.

DO keep track of where your manuscripts are. I use three methods: I make notes in the folder I have my manuscript in, a spreadsheet with the markets, and an online database. If one of these fails, the other two should help me recreate it.

DO make backups. Not only of your manuscripts, but of your records. That’s why I do a triple redundancy.

DO use manuscript format. If you aren’t sure what manuscript format is, do a Google search for the phrase. Don’t make reading your manuscript a chore for an editor.

DO double check guidelines and addresses. Magazines and publishers do change their addresses from time to time, and not keeping up with that will waste your time.

DON’T take any rejection you get personally. The editor is evaluating your manuscript, not your personality or your morals. And you will get rejected a lot in this business. So make up your mind not to freak out about it.

DON’T give up. If you get a rejection from one market, send the manuscript to another. Perseverance is key to succeeding in this business.

DO make sure you have adequate postage on your manuscript when you send it out. Sending something with insufficient postage does not endear you to an editor.

DO be polite and professional in a cover letter. This is a business. Be businesslike.

DON’T be impatient. Check a market’s guidelines for how long they suggest you wait and give them extra time beyond that. Publishing is SLOW. And “yes” almost always takes longer to say than “no.”

DO keep writing. You want to have a lot of stories out there. After all, when you sell everything you’ve written so far, you’ll need new stuff, right?

Sometimes You Have To Get Hit Upside The Head For The Learning To Sink In

Blogmeister Note

In order to increase traffic, I am consolidating this blog with selections from the OWN Writers Blog, which will be closing soon. I didn't want to lose some of the great contributions there, so I'm moving them here, one at a time, in the form of guest contributions. Today's guest is Louisa Swann, author of a number of Star Trek stories.


Installment #1: Vasectomies and Other Life Rolls

by Louisa Swann

Got you hooked? Good. I decided to go balls out on this little blog post and dive headlong into an issue that’s haunting me right now: reader expectations versus author expectations.

Sometimes reader and author are on the same wave length. Sometimes not. Take the title of this piece. I’ll bet “reader expectations” didn’t come to mind when you read “Vasectomies and Other Life Rolls.” I’m guessing you expected to read something more challenging, like how I tried to convince a local surgeon I needed a radical vasectomy. You see, I’m afraid of impregnating my words with meaning. Might as well cut those squirmy little metaphors off at the source, right? That way words are just words, no innuendos or implications or undertones of darkness. Just plain old straight talk. That way no one can claim any misunderstandings. Especially my husband. But the doc just didn’t get it. Told me only guys could have vasectomies, of all things. Talk about prejudice.

Even if you weren’t interested in my V-trials, you probably expected to learn more about how life’s been treating me, and maybe, how that treatment affects my writing. If so, you’re going to be disappointed. Wait! Don’t go away. I know I’ve shattered your reader expectations, but I did so with an ulterior motive, well, several, all of which are loaded with innuendos, laced with implications, and heavy with undertones of darkness. Sorry, I tried. Blame it on the recalcitrant surgeon.

Ulterior Motive #1:

To prove that titles are important enough to spend months...um, days....no, hours... heck, maybe five minutes thinking about. Titles should be catchy, appropriate to the story, and definitely appropriate to the genre.

Should be obvious, right? But what’s obvious to the reader often isn’t so obvious to the writer.

This particular little bit of writerly wisdom comes after shooting myself in the proverbial foot several times. For example, some of you will remember PIGGY PIGGY BLING BLING. Cool title, or so I’ve been told. Catchy, memorable. Just the sort of story that should start with a down and dirty scene – like sacrificing lizards, right? I thought so. Or rather I was thinking about starting the story with a crime, thriller-style, to show just how nasty the bad guys were – in a humorous way. That was my author expectation. My readers, however, had a much different expectation based mainly on the title. Something a bit more light and blingy. That opening scene definitely got reactions: a faster-than-the-speed-of-light rejection from an editor who’d been interested enough to ask for the first fifty pages and lots of “Ew’s!!!” from my critiquers.

NOW I’m probably oversensitive about choosing a title, subjecting each and every nominee to intense scrutiny. Which, of course, slows down the whole writing process because I can’t – I just CAN’T – start writing without the proper title, right? Huh. Sounds like a good reason to procrastinate. Especially since the title I give this little gem before I start to write a single word has to be the bestest in the whole wide world because it will never be changed. NOT!!!

New Year’s Resolution #1:

Don’t sweat the title stuff until the manuscript is finished, do review for appropriateness to story and genre, do listen to reader response and don’t hesitate to change the title as needed.

Ulterior Motive #2:

To get you hooked enough to read past Ulterior Motive #1 so I could introduce another Reader v. Author issue: being consistent to the genre. Recently, I inadvertently (it’s a whole ‘nother ball game if the writer does this particular “oopsie” on purpose) started a novel off as one thing and finished it as another. Mystery opening, thriller ending. And who knows what in between! I had no clue I was pulling the big switcharoo. But my faithful first readers gently whapped me with a steel beam and got me headed down the proper road.

New Year’s Resolution #2:

Decide what you’re writing (genre) before giving manuscript to first readers (yes – it’s a mystery AND a thriller. Surprise!!!!) Better yet (big lightbulb switches on) – make sure I stay consistent to the intended genre.

Wow. What a revelation!! Now if I could only get rid of this headache.

Ulterior Motive #3:

To lead you (the reader) down the path to my (the author’s) enlightenment as I struggle to put an end to the steel-beam-to-the-head method of turning “information” into “knowledge.” Let’s take the above issue: Why the evolution from mystery to thriller? No big surprise here. I deal with this particular canker sore on a consistent basis. It’s called “vacillation.” Seems my mind doesn’t like to make firm decisions, so it kind of wavers back and forth between genres, ideas, names – you get the point. That’s why I needed the surgery. Yeah, I know. I mentioned something about innuendos before, thus setting up another reader expectation. See why I need help? Something that will remove this tendency to vacillate? In other words, a vacillectomy. Wait a minute. Vacillectomy... vasectomy.... Oh, my gosh! You probably thought...

New Year’s Resolution #3:

Watch those word choices. The reader can’t know what’s going on in the author’s mind, only what’s written on the page. (Note to self: get yearly Dictionary Procrastination Bug inoculation shot available wherever fine words are sold.)

Hmm - appropriate titles, know your genre and stay true to it, excise vacillation from your life, and word choice. Looks like I’m all out of motivation, for now anyway. All that’s left is to summarize the above in a banner I can put over my computer along with my automated “Hit The Idiot In The Head” monkey (comes complete with monkey laugh and mini-baseball bat which is definitely better than a steel beam. Trust me.)

Here you go – a computer banner blurb composed just for this blog post:
Thou shalt not eat chocolate while standing on your head in the pouring rain.

What? You expected something different?

Odds and Ends and Words

Diamonds in the Sky

http://www.mikebrotherton.com/diamonds/

A NASA sponsored anthology of short stories with lessons about space. See my story, "The Moon is a Harsh Pig.'

100 Most Beautiful Words

A scintillating, quintessential elixir

This felicitous list can be a bit esoteric, but in the end it's an exuberant and mellifluous efflorescence of language. See if you agree with the words that were judged most beautiful by "Dr. Goodword" at alphaDictionary.com.

Happy peregrinations...
http://www.alphadictionary.com/articles/100_most_beautiful_words.html

(And this is just a sample of lots of other fun stuff at alphaDictionary.com.)

Thomas Christensen's Glossary of Book Publishing Terms

Be careful when you read this funny publisher's glossary, or you could hurt yourself laughing.

http://www.rightreading.com/publishing/publishing-glossary.htm

Another Glossary of Book Publishing Terms

http://bookendslitagency.blogspot.com/2009/06/publishing-dictionary-expanded.html

This one's a bit more serious, on another useful blog.