{"id":29487,"date":"2012-04-25T08:00:29","date_gmt":"2012-04-25T12:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shilohwalker.com\/website\/?p=29487"},"modified":"2012-04-25T10:11:10","modified_gmt":"2012-04-25T14:11:10","slug":"on-being-a-writer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shilohwalker.com\/website\/2012\/04\/on-being-a-writer\/","title":{"rendered":"On being a writer&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve gotten these questions a lot lately, so rather than just trying to parse it out in twitter or facebook or keep answering it on twitter, I&#8217;m just going to do it here&#8230;and then link here&#8230; I&#8217;m lazy&#8230; and swamped. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n<p>These questions often go hand in hand, so I&#8217;ll answer them that way.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>How long have you been a writer&#8230;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Always. \u00a0Seriously. \u00a0I think I came out of my mother&#8217;s womb telling stories. \u00a0I&#8217;m just a storyteller. \u00a0I started actually <em>writing<\/em>\u00a0them down in middle school, as far as I can remember, although my mom says it was before that.<\/p>\n<p>I wrote short stories all throughout middle school and got into longer stuff in high school. \u00a0I had notebook upon notebook crammed with stories written in horrid purple ink&#8230; (yeah, what was I <em>thinking<\/em>). \u00a0Many of them were fantasy, although there was one contemporary young adult that had the hero dying at the end. \u00a0Yes, even in high school, I was all about the angst. \u00a0In nursing school, there was the start of what might have been a halfway promising romantic suspense, and if I can ever find <em>that<\/em>\u00a0one, I might try to rework it and do it again.<\/p>\n<p>Now&#8230; when did I start writing professionally?<\/p>\n<p>I sold my first book in late 2002. \u00a0By then, I&#8217;d written dozens of stories, if not more. \u00a0I&#8217;d had dozens of rejections. I kept working in nursing even after I&#8217;d sold and even though I was able to quit my day job in 2004, I keep my license active because writing <em>isn&#8217;t<\/em>\u00a0a stable field.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m not exaggerating on this and I&#8217;m not trying to scare anybody, but just because you&#8217;ve sold ten, twenty, thirty, sixty books doesn&#8217;t mean you&#8217;ll be able to keep on selling. <em>Trust<\/em>\u00a0me on this&#8230;I speak from experience. \u00a0There are no guarantees in life, and especially not in writing, except for this. \u00a0It&#8217;s hard and signing a contract doesn&#8217;t mean it gets easier.<\/p>\n<p>Sooooo&#8230;if I haven&#8217;t managed to completely scare you&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>The next question that generally comes&#8230;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>How do I become an author<em>?<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The answer to this depends&#8230;Are you a <em>new<\/em>\u00a0writer? \u00a0If so&#8230;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Read. \u00a0Read a lot. \u00a0It&#8217;s fuel for the brain and if you tend to read the books from the sort of publisher you want to write for, you&#8217;ll get an idea what sort of books they are looking for.<\/li>\n<li>If you haven&#8217;t written a book, you have to do that first. \u00a0And you have to <em>finish<\/em>\u00a0it. \u00a0If you&#8217;re a new writer, the very first thing an editor and an agent need to know is that you can <em>finish a book<\/em>. \u00a0If you have the most amazing, brilliant idea that will leave Nora Roberts, Stephen King and JK Rowling in the dust, but you get half way through and you <em>can&#8217;t finish<\/em>&#8230;that idea doesn&#8217;t mean much to them.<\/li>\n<li>If you&#8217;ve just started writing, then finish that book. \u00a0And then&#8230;start another. \u00a0The fact of the matter is, the first few books almost any writer writes aren&#8217;t going to be published. Yes, there are exceptions, but if you focus on being the exception, you may be setting yourself up for a life of disappointment. \u00a0Focus on reality. \u00a0Writing the first book, and the second, and the third is what improves your craft and gets you to that crucial point&#8230; where you have a book that is actually <em>really good<\/em>. \u00a0You find your voice, you figure out what in the hell is <em>show versus tell<\/em>, you nail down point of view switches and all of that.<\/li>\n<li>If none of that makes sense, you can figure it out just be visiting various writer blogs or forums&#8230; Absolute Write is a good writer resource. \u00a0PBW\/Lynn Viel is a great resource for writers. \u00a0Ilona Andrews has some wonderful tips on writing. \u00a0And if you don&#8217;t <em>know<\/em>\u00a0what any of that means, it is absolutely okay. \u00a0We all start somewhere. \u00a0Just don&#8217;t try to start with me, because I&#8217;m a lousy teacher&#8230;I&#8217;m still figuring out what the shorthand is for some of the writer lingo. It would be the blind leading the blind.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Have you been writing for a while but don&#8217;t know how to go about getting published?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"line-height: 22px;\">First things first&#8230;be prepared for this one simple thing. \u00a0<em>You&#8217;ll get rejections.<\/em>\u00a0We all do. \u00a0I had one book rejected by two different publishers just this year. \u00a0My urban fantasy thing that I&#8217;m trying so hard to sell isn&#8217;t exactly grabbing anybody and it&#8217;s probably one of the best things I&#8217;ve ever written. \u00a0<em>You&#8217;ll get rejections. \u00a0No matter what<\/em>. \u00a0Be prepared for it, accept it&#8230;and whatever you do, don&#8217;t have a hissy fit and email the agent\/editor back and go off on them. \u00a0Your book didn&#8217;t grab them. \u00a0That doesn&#8217;t mean you wrote a bad book. \u00a0It doesn&#8217;t necessarily mean they didn&#8217;t like it. \u00a0It means it doesn&#8217;t work for them.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"line-height: 22px;\">If you&#8217;re not sure how to go about getting an agent or editor&#8230;this is going to vary depending on whether you want to go digital (Ellora&#8217;s Cave, Samhain, Carina, etc) or traditional (the big New York houses, Random House, Berkley, Grand Central, etc) that focuses more on print. \u00a0<em>Most<\/em>\u00a0print houses require that you have an agent. \u00a0<em>Very few digital publishers do require this<\/em>.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"line-height: 22px;\">If you decide to try digital houses, that&#8217;s awesome, but <em>never<\/em>\u00a0sign a contract without having it reviewed. \u00a0You can get a contract attorney for probably $250. \u00a0I know that&#8217;s a chunk of change, but not all contracts are created fair and equal and there have been more than a few authors who have huddled in their beds and cried because they signed a bad contract and when things went to hell, they were screwed.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"line-height: 22px;\">Visit the websites of the houses you want to write for. \u00a0Read their work. \u00a0Does your work fit them? \u00a0IE&#8230; if you love to read inspirationals, but you&#8217;re writing erotic&#8230;<em>you&#8217;re going to get a rejection<\/em>. \u00a0That might sound like common sense, but you&#8217;d be surprised. \u00a0This is why publishers often say in their form letters: <em>&#8220;Read our work to get a feel for what we publish.&#8221;<\/em>\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"line-height: 22px;\">Find out if you need an agent.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"line-height: 22px;\">If you do, start querying them. \u00a0don&#8217;t ask me for help on this&#8230;I suck at it. \u00a0But you can find help for that at places like Absolute Write and many agents have blogs. \u00a0Visit them and see what to do and what not to do. \u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"line-height: 22px;\">One thing <em>not to do&#8230;go against the guidelines<\/em>. \u00a0If they say no digital submissions&#8230; then use snail mail. \u00a0If they say don&#8217;t send the MS&#8230;then DO NOT SEND IT. \u00a0This is a sure way to end up in the NO pile. \u00a0That might sound harsh, but when you&#8217;re getting hundreds (thousands?) of submissions and half of them make it clear they don&#8217;t care enough to follow the simple guidelines, then it tells the agent\/editor those writers are not taking their writing seriously. \u00a0Some writers have this&#8230; ah&#8230; megalomania thing, almost, where they think creating something means they get special treatment and they needn&#8217;t follow guidelines and then they get pissy when they get rejectons. \u00a0Yes, we see this happen and no, they aren&#8217;t any more special than all the other billions of people out there. They wrote a book and so did I, so did hundreds of thousands of other people. \u00a0They want to get published? They have to plod through the steps the same way all of us do. \u00a0You stand out by actually <em>following<\/em>\u00a0the guidelines, being courteous, being professional. \u00a0Well, being an ass will make you stand out, but not the way you want.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"line-height: 22px;\">Hang out at writer\/writing blogs and forums. \u00a0That sounds like a cop out but you learn <em>a lot<\/em>\u00a0there.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"line-height: 22px;\">Consider joining RWA-Romance Writers of America. \u00a0Whether you&#8217;re a romance writer or not, RWA will do more to help grow you as an aspiring writer than just about any other writer organizations out there. \u00a0They have online chapters, local chapters, the website, online workshops, etc where you can learn about how to write query, how to pitch your book, etc. \u00a0You can learn to network, learn which agents to avoid (yes, they exist), which digital publishers are good to write for (yes, there are some that you want to run <em>screaming<\/em>\u00a0from&#8230;learn them, know them, so you can hide your lovely writerly goods from them), which print publishers aren&#8217;t playing well with their writers (they definitely exist), and too much to list. \u00a0Like anything else in life, though, you&#8217;ll get out of it what you put into it.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div>Ok. \u00a0See? \u00a0This is why this is too complicated to go into via twitter, really even via FB. \u00a0You can do it an email, but doing it repeatedly&#8230; ah. The brain. \u00a0It hurts. \u00a0So now it&#8217;s immortalized on muh blog.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>One thing to keep in mind, above all of this&#8230; there is no <em>set<\/em>\u00a0path to becoming an author. We all get where we are differently and it&#8217;s always a learning journey. It&#8217;s a rocky road and it can be fun, but what worked for me isn&#8217;t going to work for others. Just like their journey wouldn&#8217;t have worked for me. This is one of those things where you kind of have to find your own way.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Hope it helps.<a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.shilohwalker.com\/website\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/cropped-banner21.jpg\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-thumbnail wp-image-29434\" title=\"cropped-banner21.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.shilohwalker.com\/website\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/cropped-banner21-150x150.jpg?resize=150%2C150\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.shilohwalker.com\/website\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/cropped-banner21.jpg?resize=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1 150w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.shilohwalker.com\/website\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/cropped-banner21.jpg?zoom=2&amp;resize=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.shilohwalker.com\/website\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/cropped-banner21.jpg?zoom=3&amp;resize=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1 450w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve gotten these questions a lot lately, so rather than just trying to parse it out in twitter or facebook or keep answering it on<a href=\"https:\/\/www.shilohwalker.com\/website\/2012\/04\/on-being-a-writer\/\" class=\"more-link\"><span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;On being a writer&#8230;&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29434,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10161045129738658_54762468447":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_bluesky_dont_syndicate":"","_bluesky_syndication_accounts":"","_bluesky_syndication_text":"","_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[542,60],"tags":[572],"class_list":["post-29487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-useful-places-for-writers","tag-writing"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.3 - 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