Writing, Publishing, Social Media and Community

By Alegra Clarke

Every year my husband and I make two lists on New Year’s Eve. One of the lists is of our resolutions, the other is our requests. We like to look at resolutions as things that we know we can achieve by our own efforts. The requests represent our dreams and hopes for the year ahead. The two lists often find themselves intertwined, the requests representing the fruit we hope to harvest as the result of fulfilling our resolutions. An example would be the resolution to write and submit ten short stories with my request being that four or more of those stories might find publication.

There is something deeply satisfying when a request is fulfilled. At the end of each year we review all of the things we have achieved and the requests that have come to pass. The achievement of a resolution grants us a temporary sense of accomplishment but the fulfillment of a request gives us something more—it fuels our sense of adventure and possibility.

Requests are fulfilled in ways that are always a surprise and very often involve the generosity of others. I like this, especially when it comes to my writing goals. It allows me a certain freedom to dream big and work with full commitment but without so much fear of failure— after all, besides trying to win the affection of my muse by buying her pretty notebooks and taking her out for lattes at artsy cafes, I have to surrender the outcome of my writing efforts and enjoy the adventure. I can’t force someone to publish me, at least not in any way that will help me sleep better at night, so I never know which one of my writing requests will be fulfilled or how it will come to pass.

This year my resolutions are streamlined. This has nothing to do with finally learning moderation or respecting my limits and everything to do with the fact that two of my resolutions are so big that they nearly consume all of the oxygen in my brain whenever I think of them. As the mother of a newborn, two small children and a horse-dog, I really need that oxygen. My first two resolutions are to finish my master’s degree and finish the novel. My other resolutions are intended to support those first mammoth tasks.

Morning Pages & Writing Routines

Years ago my mother gave me the book The Artist’s Way by Julie Cameron and from that book I took away the habit of writing morning pages (three pages of hand written stream of consciousness) and made it a daily practice for several years. My memoir that won the Writer’s Digest Competition, Salamander Prayer, was born out of these pages. I’ve decided to return to writing them this year.

The other resolution is to experiment with my writing routine. Most of my favorite authors have discussed the importance of certain rituals when working on a project. For some it is the need to write in the same place at the same time every day. For others it might be going for a walk every morning. Whatever it is, the key thing is that it requires consistency. I have never attempted this before and I want to try it out for myself. One of my first experiments is to work on the novel only in my bedroom. It is the one space in my small home where I can have some level of control over my environment—especially once my husband gets around to installing a lock on the door.

What are your writing resolutions this year? Or if you don’t believe in resolutions, I’d love to hear some of your working habits or writing rituals. I am always inspired to hear how other writers work and dream.

Alegra Clarke is a frequent contributor to Editor Unleashed. Follow more of Alegra’s writing adventures on her blog

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Well, Happy New Year everyone! Great news: I was able to find a tech genius working over the holidays to fix our broken forum. Check it out—good as new.

Due to the forum downtime, we’re extending the deadline of the Editor Unleashed/ Smashwords “Why I Write” essay contest to January 31. Popular ranking will now take place over the month of February.

Thanks so much for your concern, your support and especially your patience through the crash. You all make this so worthwhile for me. Finding out how much this site is appreciated has really inspired and re-committed me.

-Maria Schneider

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I just wanted to let everyone know that I’ve run into substantial technical issues with this site and I’ve been having a difficult time diagnosing and fixing the problems.

I upgraded the blog to the new version of WP last week, and it hasn’t worked quite right since.

The EU forum has completely disappeared, and has apparently been hacked.

I’m so sorry about this. I’m working to try and resolve these issues. If anyone can offer help/advice/IT expertise/a box of tissues, please send my way asap.

-Maria Schneider

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By Alegra Clarke

November has come and gone and left me with some valuable lessons. The first lesson is that a heavily pregnant woman (that would be me) should never brag to her husband about how she “feels pretty confident that I will be able to write the first half of the novel this month, maybe even get close to the end.”

That is right, I strutted in front of November 1st rolling my neck, cracking my knuckles, daring NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) to lift its gun in the air and begin the race. I was feeling in fine form. I planned not only to match last year’s stride towards the finish line but maybe cross it before the race was over, circle back to the beginning and start again. And then the gun went off. The earth trembled with the stampeding of thousands of fingers hitting keyboards all over the planet. I felt the adrenaline surge. I took my first stride forward and then…I fell on my face.

I would like to blame the whole ‘big and pregnant’ thing for the way I faltered but let’s face it, writing is a race of the mind, and the only thing that my mind was encumbered by was expectation. I was ripe with it. After months of research, mulling over plot, making attempts at the first several chapters and taking workshops, I had conceived this idea that 50,000 words were just waiting to emerge cleanly out of my mind. I was dreaming of a fully formed baby. In fact, I think I expected the novel to come out walking, talking and toilet-trained without a whole lot of sweat and effort on my part. Of course, I was wrong.

NaNoWriMo Lessons

Last year’s NaNoWriMo left me with a manuscript of harvestable material and the lesson that I am someone who needs to do some advance plotting before I begin writing. This year NaNoWriMo taught me that the first stages of labor are necessarily messy. Rough drafts do not always emerge from euphoric inspiration. In fact, mine required a lot of hard pushing and lots of swearing. I also learned that the best way to stall out is to have grand expectations.

I had about eight chapters outlined and I believed they would come tumbling out onto the page in technicolor, the characters fully realized, the prose singing. They didn’t. I panicked at the first sign that things were not going to go as painlessly as planned. I began pacing and searching for things to eat. I watched back to back episodes of “The Office.” I started to come up with elaborate rationalizations about how it was physically impossible to get the words out. I was stuck and an intervention was necessary. So, I took myself to the ER of writers: Dr. Wicked

Dr.Wicked is labor induction for words that need to get out. You choose the length of time you want to write and how fast and furious you want the pace to be set. I chose both ‘evil’ and ‘kamikaze’ modes—the meanest of the mean that Dr.Wicked has to offer. If the ‘electric shock’ mode was actually functional, I would have been setting myself up to be jolted.

I was ready to get the chapters out of my head. ‘Evil mode’ meant that I was given maybe 3 seconds to pause during writing before ‘kamikaze mode’ kicked in and started erasing everything I had previously written. It forced me to get past my expectations and start writing. One 48 minute with Dr.Wicked gave me about 1300 words. After about 5 sessions, I began to feel something like affection towards those screaming, messy rough drafts. I realized that they were a necessary stage, the beginning of my chapters cleaning up and coming to life as the cooing, rosy-cheeked sweethearts I had been daydreaming about.

Check out Alegra’s pre-NaNoWrimo post: Writing with the Bulls.

Alegra Clarke is due to have a baby—and a finished novel—at any minute. Visit her very entertaining blog for updates.

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We’re hosting a live chat with literary agent Ginger Clark tonight at 8 p.m. EST so come talk books and publishing on the forum tonight. Here’s the thread.

And you can find her interview in the previous post.

-Maria Schneider

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Ginger Clark is a literary agent who joined Curtis Brown in 2005 and is actively building her list.

Here, she answers some questions for Editor Unleashed readers, including what the trendy genres are, and the best way to get her attention in a query.

Stay tuned for an announcement: Ginger will be visiting the forum next week for a live chat.

What genres do you represent and what kind of query are you most hoping to see in your inbox right now?
On the adult side of my list, I represent mostly SF, fantasy, literary horror, and paranormal romance. On the children’s side of my list, I represent middle grade and YA fiction, all kinds. On the adult side, I’d like to see specifically: urban fantasy, military SF, and paranormal romance that does not involve vampires. On the kids side: middle grade fiction in general, but more MG fantasy; YA urban fantasy that does not involve overdone magical creatures; SF for both age groups.

Have you noticed any trends recently in what publishers seem to be buying?
Lots of YA urban fantasy. A LOT. Also, on the YA side, post apocalyptic/dystopias, steampunk, epic fantasy too.

What’s the best way to get your attention in a query letter?
Besides proofreading it and calling me by the right name and not addressing it “to whom it may concern” and…etc. etc. etc.? Knowing your market. Is it YA urban fantasy? Then tell me how it compares to writers in that field. And a paragraph plot summary that is clear and focused is always something I appreciate.

Who are some of your up-and-coming writers we should be reading and why?
I would name my whole list if I could! And to pick out some authors over others would be very unfair. So let me just give you the most recent ones I have taken on: I have two Australians new on my list. Rhiannon Hart has a YA epic fantasy I’m going to be submitting shortly that is in the Tamora Pierce vein. Steph Bowe is 15 years old and has written a heartbreaking novel of first love which I will also be submitting soon.

I have two new writers of YA urban fantasy I took on in the past year, Gretchen McNeil and Tina Connolly. Gretchen’s is about a girl who goes to Ireland and gets caught up in a war between different sides of the Irish supernatural; Tina’s is about a girl who is living with her guardian who is an evil witch and … there’s a dragon in the garage. And finally, Mark Del Franco is a writer of adult urban fantasy (his Conor Grey series is with Ace) and he just signed up two new books with his editor there.

Are you a proponent of authors blogging? Why or why not?
Yes, as long as it doesn’t take away from your writing time. It’s a great way to connect with other writers, and to establish yourself in the community.

What is one piece of advice you’d like to share with writers who are hoping to break into this challenging marketplace?
Know the field you are trying to break in to. Read it voraciously, and have a critical eye towards it.

You can read more about Ginger Clark on Publishers Marketplace.

-Maria Schneider

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