Sometime You Just Need To Have Faith and ROW 80

Believe In Yourself, Before It Seems Possible

Whenever you send off a new lot of agent queries, there are a series of stages you go through, a bit like grief.

1. Usually within a day you get a bunch of immediate 'no's. Hopefully this will be because they are no longer taking submissions, or haven't even bothered to open your file (sad, but better than they read it and thought you were .... not so good.) It can be traumatic, but at least you got a response, which is slightly cheering. 

2. A few days later you start getting the 'no's which have taken a bit more time about it. At first this was exciting to me, because I thought the messages were personalised. I then realised that no, it just sounded that way, and they were all stock standard.

3. If you are lucky, you then get a few messages a few weeks later saying they are 'reviewing'. 

4. If you are very, very lucky, you will get a email asking for a proposal or partial manuscript. 

5. Then you start getting a new round of rejections from these.

6. Finally, after about three months, so a quarter of a year later, you realise that the other half of the agents you queries are just never going to get back to you. 

So you start all over again. 

And with every new beginning, you get the same excitement, that this might be the time, and the same slow, drawn out, drip-fed rejection. 

Having just sent off a new bunch of agent queries last Saturday (Sunday?) I have already got two rejections, and 5 I haven't heard from (which, in a week isn't too bad. Hopefully it means the 5 might actually be reading the query). 

I still have that outstanding 'We are reviewing' which I haven't heard back from, so there is a bit of hope there.

But on Wednesday was feeling a bit down about it all. 

So, I decided it was time to have faith in myself. Time to show the world that I believe in my book, no matter what!

As a result, I have bought a bottle of Rose Sparkling Wine (Zibbibo by Brown Brothers, a favourite with a long story behind it for my sister and I, which might have involved running around London on Christmas Eve trying to find a bottle shop that sold Australian wines...) and it's in my fridge, waiting to be popped. Because it will happen! I will get an agent and then a publisher for Sally Hunt, my Young Adult Christian series!

Also, I found this website through a post on Nathan Bransford blog, and I highly recommend it to anyone that wants a bit of procrastination:

http://thrilling-tales.webomator.com/derange-o-lab/pulp-o-mizer/pulp-o-mizer.html

The results of 5 minutes of playing around on it:

 

How awesome is that? So many things you could do with it! 

Totally made my day. (Along with the thought of sparkling Rose.)

So ROW80 Goals:

This week hasn't gone as planned, but it never does. I didn't check in on Wednesday, for the first time this round (which is my first round ever). I was just exhausted, and that sort of continued. 

I did get an article written and submitted to Unique Article Wizard (aff). 

I got only 1 good post per blog, and only spent 1 strong session working on the theology book, so a bit behind there. But at least I'm further ahead than I was this time last week. Forward is always a good direction to be going in.

I also finished editing The Five Day Writer's Retreat, worked quite a bit on editing the webpage, and preparing for the launch in a week's time. 

I just want to say, it will feel so fantastic to have something out there. My book, for sale, on Amazon (and my website, and Smashwords, and through affiliates, etc.). 

So This week's Goals:

It's all about the launch. 

I want to create Buzz. 

I want to get people excited.

I want to get the word out there!

Practically, how am I going to do that?

- mock up a full version for advance release for people to review and promote (anyone interested?)

- beg other kind bloggers to let me do a guest blog, to review it, or even run giveaways with the book (happy to provide free books, if you are prepared to run the giveaway.) 

- write more articles linking back to The Five Day Writer website. 

- Keep promoting my promotion: buy the book and receive a personal proposal or sample chapter appraisal.

Also, in there I'll be organising my 30th birthday which will be a combined book launch/birthday party. 

Exciting times, no?

And after the launch, when it is all running smoothly and the book is out there, then I'll be focusing on my two blogs and breathing life back into them. Just you watch.

So, anyone interested in reviewing The Five Day Writer's Retreat, acting as an affiliate selling it (am offering 50% commission), or happy to run a giveaway on their blog about it? 

Just let me know!

End of the Weekend, Already?

Saturday morning always has so much potential, Friday night even better. And then suddenly it is Sunday evening!

And what do I have to show for it?

Well, since I last checked in:

-  I've not written anything on my theological book. Bad Buffy, bad. (Writing theology has a lot more issues associated with it than writing historical romance. I'm just saying, they tend to get annoyed when you make things up, or get stuck so add in a tall dark handsome stranger.)

- Have edited another 1/3 of the Five Day Writer's Retreat, which is great.

- I've also sent off to a few more agents (I also got a 'Thank You. We are reviewing' reply from an agent I queried at the beginning of Feb. This is pretty exciting, as it's not a straight out no, and they took the time to tell me, even though they could have just waited. Well, a girl's allowed to dream :D).

- I did do an epic post on how to do google keyword research, which I was proud of (if you haven't read it, I highly recommend it.) 

- Finally got the post on choosing barefoot running shoes to publish on my fitness blog (with a bit of help).

- And the rest of the time has been on doing The Five Day Writer website adjusting.

 

So what are my goals for this week? 

Was sitting in church tonight and got convicted about ignoring the theology book. It was actually kind of freaky, as it was like the sermon was focused on me and what I was writing about, saying how necessary it was for people to hear this message. (This used to not be so freaky. When your Dad is the minister, sometimes you do get subtle hints which are more directed at you than other members of the congregation, but I'm now in a church of about 700, and my pastor doesn't even know what I'm writing about!) So, okay, I'll get around to writing it then.

And then there is Kait's call to do 5-10% more than we have been.

So, this week I'm going to get serious about the theology book. I want to try and write 3,000 words a day on it to come up with a chapter by chapter summary, and the first 3 chapters written by the end of the week.

I've also been slack with my blogging, so want to do two fitness and two strong content writing posts by Wednesday.

Add in there finishing off editing the last 1/3 of The Five Day Writer's Retreat, and I think that's pretty much all of my time used up.

(Except that I'm now in the middle of Alan Bradley's 'The Sweetness At The Bottom Of The Pie', which I'll need to finish, obviously, and I've ordered from another library Cassandra Clarke's 'The Clockwork Prince' as I just finished 'The Clockwork Angel' and as much as it annoyed me, I have to find out what happened... hmmm, will see how it all goes!)

Finally, a big thank you to everyone for supporting The Five Day Writer. It is two weeks today until my 30th Birthday, which is scary for completely unrelated reasons! I'm excited about turning 30, just scared about getting everything done for the book launch in time! Well, it's one way to take the focus off aging ;)

If you still haven't done it, but want to receive a copy of The Five Day Writer's Retreat when it comes out as my gift to you, go to www.thefivedaywriter.com and sign up for the newsletter. 

An Overview of How To Build A Killer Online Platform

 

This is the first in a series on how to build an online platform, particularly aimed at writers/authors but also useful for anyone else out there. (There are people who aren't trying to be writers? Seriously?)

The aim of building a platform is to get your writing out into the big, bad world, get as many people as possible to see it and hopefully like it and/or follow you. You might or might not also want to generate income from the platform through advertising, affiliate links etc. (on top of getting book deals). That's up to you. But either way, you need to be prepared to promote yourself, in the nicest possible way.

Since you want to get as much possible traffic you can't just go in there with a happy-go-lucky attitude hoping you will magically be discovered. You need to be canny and purposeful in your positioning and targeting. 

The Internet is just like real-estate, it's all about location, location, location. And in Internet terms, that means having a site that is easily found by the search engines.

Sound all too commercial and selling out your art form? Well, just depends, do you want to change 5 peoples' lives, or 5 million peoples? With the right position and promotion you can reach almost imaginable numbers of people. And if you love your writing, really think it is of value to people, have put months and years into writing it, why not spend an extra year maximise it's potential reach? You do not have to monetize the actual platform if that makes you feel better.

I personally intend to, because I think I offer great value on my platform as well as in my books, and everything I offer through affiliate links will be helpful and won't cost my readers anything extra. So, I don't feel bad to have people pay nothing extra and bless me with a small side income that will allow me to keep writing in between the book deals (when the book deals come). But I understand that some bloggers do push it and make their readers uncomfortable, please let me know if I ever do that!

So, regardless of whether it is for the money, or for the exposure, let's start looking at how to build a successful online platform!

Today, I'm just going to lay out all the steps, so if you are super excited and know what you are doing you can jump straight in.

Over the next few weeks, I'll go through each of the steps and outline them in detail, and probably add more steps and then link back to this as I go, so don't be surprised if this page changes. (Will make this it's own page tab as I start working through the steps and linking to them).

The following is based on a collection of the steps in Gary Vaynerchuk's 'Crush It!', as well as advice from Pat Flynn over at the Smart Passive Income blog, Bob Lovich at Christian Personal Finance, and a good dose of Buffy mixed in there (and maybe a few other things I've read places and now claim as my own because I can't remember where they are from).

1. Identify your niche area.

Every author wants a blog about themselves. But until you are already famous, that might not be the best approach. If you market your blog towards particular area, people will be more willing to read it. For example, would you read a blog about Mary Jane doing her house work? Or Mary Jane's tips on how to become a top selling young adult author?

2. Make sure you can think of at least fifty awesome blog topics on that area.

Having a stock pile of posts ready to go, or even just a list of topics you want to work through (like a contents page of a book) makes a big difference. It also ensures you have enough to write about in your niche. If you can't think of 50 posts, find another niche.

3. Name your personal brand.

Two things to keep in mind here: it needs to be catchy and concise, and it needs to pick up on keywords people search for to maximise your chance of being found. Ideally it would be a short statement that summed you and your approach up neatly. Gary uses the example 'The cool guide to young adult books boys will love to read'. Pretty clear and targeted.

4. Build your Home Base!

If you are spending money: buy a domain name as close to your brand name as possible. Exact match domains are great. Then get it hosted and start building the site. 

If you want to do it for free: start up a Wordpress, Tumblr, or Blogger account with as close a match as possible. (Will discuss the pros and cons of these two options).

5. Choose your medium.

We are all writers, so we naturally think in terms of a written blog. But you can also make an audio podcast about writing which people can listen to as they go to work, or a video blog where you can be much more interactive with your audience. Of course, you can include elements of all three as Pat Flynn does on his site. (am going to start adding video blogs soon, just because I want to experiment, so watch out for those, and if you don't see them soon, call me up on it!)

6. Design your webpage.

Gary suggests hiring a web designer, and if you are not really good with technology this could be money well spent. However, it is easy to learn if you are patient and ready to ask for help.And it's not necessarily all or nothing, you can do most of it yourself and just pay for help with the harder bits.

7. Create a Facebook fan page. 

I've just done this! (like, literally, yesterday). I haven't added much content yet, but join my page! 

Just to note, this is not your ordinary FB profile, this is a special page separate to that.

8. Start posting content! 

Yah! You need to get some solid content up before you really start driving people to your site.

9. Sign up for apps to distribute your content across various social media platforms such as Facebook and twitter.

10. Start creating a community.

Leave comments on other people's blogs and forums and reply to comments on your own. (Events like ROW80 is a great way to meet people in your area, just saying... :D)

 

11. Start creating back links to your website.

There are a couple of ways to do this, but basically you want to your content and name to appear in as many places as possible, all pointing back to your home base site. There are two levels at which you can do this, and I'll discuss both. Some of you reading this will have come through articles and Hubpages that I've put up around the place, so you know it works!

12. Use Twitter Search.

This allows you to find as many people as possible talking about your topic and communicate with them.

Okay, for the sake of full disclosure, I'm not yet on Twitter, and so will be learning how to do this as I'm telling you.

13. Similarly, use blogsearch.google.com to find more blogs that are relevant to your subject. Then become a regular, with such great, insightful comments people just have to know more about you!

14. Keep posting content! 

You need to be consistent, and posting about 3 times a week. I post a bit more here because I want to build up a good stock of content and practice my writing.

15. Join as many active Facebook fan pages and groups relating to your blog topic as possible.

16. Guest Post!

Write epic content and see if you can get other, more established blogs to feature it, driving their readers towards you as they will be blown away by how awesome you are.

17. Bribe people!

Run a giveaway or a contest which encourages people to interact with your content.

18. Set up a email subscriber list. 

As they say in the online business: the money is in the list. You don't have to directly sell anything through your list, but you could use it as your invite list to your first book launch, or to ask for reviews on Amazon, or even just to show an agent and say 'hey, I've got 500 people signed up to my list who already like my writing.' (would be better if it were 50,000 but we are still only up to step 18, not 992!)

19. Produce an ebook. 

While you are waiting for a publisher to snap up your first great novel, how about writing another one that will be fun and entertaining, which you can offer to your readers either as a free gift for signing up to your email list, or to buy for the price of a cup of coffee. (Yes, you will be seeing me doing both of these things in the coming months, so enjoy!)

20. Show me the money!

After about 6 months, you can start thinking about monetizing your platform if you want to.

I agree with Pat and the others when they say not to jump in too fast to monetizing, as the aim is to build up a really good community first. Once people trust you and love your content, then they won't mind you have a few ads here or there, and a few affiliate links.

21. Keep learning!

There is so much to know about Search Engine Optimization, new media, things that are trending etc., and if you want to stay on top of it all you need to dedicate time on a regular basis to learning. I've been listening to the Smart Passive Income podcast, which is completely free and I don't get any money for referring you to it, I've just learned so much from Pat that I want to point other people his way. I'm also investing in books such as Crush It!: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion (that is an affiliate link through to Amazon, just to be open. The book was useful, and good for the very beginner, but after 52 episodes of Pat, I knew quite a bit of it already, just to let you know).

22. Finally, keep posting epic content. 

Did I mention you should be posting great value content? 

No? Well, you should always post high quality content and get a reputation for giving great stuff away for free.

And that's pretty much it. Not that hard, really. Right? 

Don't worry if some of that sounds unfamiliar or overwhelming, because you know me - I'm definitely going to take you step by step (it's the teacher/lecturer/preacher in me, I just can't help it!)

So, get excited, because you are going to be huge!

Good night for now,

Buffy. 

Why You Need To Build An Online Platform

Everyone nowadays needs an online platform. Especially if you want to be a writer. Where else do you think you are going to get your readers of the future?

For those not clear, an online platform is a way for people to find you, find out about you, and follow you. Blogs and websites are one of the best ways for a writer to get know.
 
And yes, this blog is part of my online platform, so me writing about how to create an online platform sounds like I think I have it all worked out. But actually I see it more as that I'm about 6 months ahead of you and passing down all the cheat notes I'm writing for exams!

I should admit, though, that I'm pretty proud of this blog. I think it looks shmicko, and I've worked hard to have some great content on here. I also have some great followers and commentators, and try to do my bit by giving back to all those who support me through fundraising and giveaways (which will never stop! The bigger I get, the more opportunity I have to give things away :D).

I have been building this blog, my first born, my favourite (shsh, don't tell the others!) for 6 months now. And to be honest, despite posting almost five days a week, trying to write interesting content, getting out there, facebooking a bit, etc., it is only now that I'm starting to see some rewards. My pageview count is slowly increasing, my followers and email subscribers have started to multiple (yeah, lots of my friends are having babies, what can I say?) and I'm even starting to get some of you to comment!

And from what I'm learning, this is pretty common for most people. It takes at least six months for a blog/website to start taking off and usually a year before it is really getting somewhere. And in between there is a lot of hard work. (So, pretty much, it's really like writing a novel. You spend hours and hours and hours working on it with absolutely nothing but a word count to show for it. But the more you put into it at this early stage, the more likely it is that it will be picked up by a publisher, and be a hit on the book stands.)

Why am I telling you this? You don't want to hear this just yet, you are struggling to write your first draft!

Well, basically you already want your platform skyrocketing by the time you are approaching literary agents and publishers, so you need to start it at least a year before you finish your novel.  That is to say, you need to start now. Whenever 'now' is in your process, it is the right time to start. As they say, the internet is pretty forgiving, it doesn't mind you playing around on it to work things out. However, ignore it at your peril.

So, to help you out with this next stage of development as a writer (and you do need to think of this as all essential parts of being a writer) I'm going to do a series every Monday on different aspects of building your own online platform. I've been reading a lot about it, listening to great podcasts, testing things out myself in different ways and am actually super excited. I want to share with you all that I've been learning, and let you see as I test things out on this site.

Also, for all I know, this might be the most people will ever see of my writing. This blog and the other online writing I'm doing might be my publishing platform. So, I want to do it as well as I can, just in case.

In future posts I'll start with the basics of keyword research and why you need to do it, look at starting your blog/website, how to get yourself out there, and how to be everywhere. There is a lot I want to cover, but I'm just going to do it section by section and be applying it to some of my own blogs etc. so I can give authentic feedback on whether it is working.

These are exciting times my friends, exciting times.

For a good explanation of why a writer needs a platform, and to get ideas of what sort of things you can do, Folio Literary Agency have put together a video with one of their best selling authors. It's quite long, but definitely worth a look. Have a look at the 'thank you for submitting your manuscript' page from FolioLit

Finally, if there are things you are dying to know right now, ask away and if I don't know, I'll do some research!

(Don't forget: ROW 80 starts today!)

The Continuing Agent Search

As promised, I have not been (completely) idle this December.

Okay, well maybe up until yesterday I had been sort of idle, but I'm trying to make up for it.

First step: I got my best friend/literary manager to go through my query letter with me and point out all the embarrassing bits. Was much better after that. (Did that on the weekend actually, so usefulness extends further back than I thought).

Second step: read through the website Writer's Digest which has really useful information on getting an agent (and other stuff, but I'm being focused!). Particularly they have a lot of interviews with agents who go through what they want, what they don't want, etc. This is great for personalising queries.

Third step: opened up every link to an agency that I thought I might fit well with.

Fourth step: still took the time to read their submission guidelines. Sadly some no longer took Young Adults works, and others didn't want international authors, etc. :(

Fifth step: I used my new and improved query letter, matched with my personalised information on the agents I wanted to contact, mixed in their specific requirements (no manuscript, 5 pages of manuscript, 10 pages, first chapter, first three chapters... etc.) and sent off 5 new agent queries.

Note on simultaneous submissions: (which is different, I have found out, from multiple submissions, which means presenting one agent with two or three different ideas). Simultaneous submissions is where you send your manuscript to multiple different agents or publishers so they are all looking at them at the same time. A lot of agents and publishers really dislike this.

However, from discussions with Rochelle Manners at Even Before Publishing, and the suggestions on many agent websites, it is generally acceptable to query multiple people, but only send the actual manuscript to one at a time. If two or three get back to you, you politely reply thanking them for their interest, and say that the manuscript is currently with an agent, but when they are finished, you will be sure to send it on. (or something like that).

Over night I received three responses! (okay, you can probably guess from that that they weren't great news, but it wasn't all bad).

One was an auto reply saying they were not taking submissions over Christmas so to resend after that. Ok, can do.

One was to thank me, but they do not take international authors or young adults (I knew I was pushing my luck there.)

One replied that she thought it sounded interesting (win!) but she already had a sort of similar young adults she was trying to push so didn't want to take on another one, but another agent might like it. Yah!

So obviously not a total win, but definitely my query must be better because people are taking the time to reply.

One of the last two remaining is one of the ones I think I'm a really good match to and would really like to take me. But will have to wait and see.

Only 10 days until Christmas, and one never knows, Santa might give me an agent for being good :D

In the meantime, will keep working away.

Exciting Discovery for Christian and/or Australian Unpublished Authors

Well, am continuing in my search for places to submit my manuscript, in case I just happen to get rejected by the first few (which would totally never happen to me, just all those other not so good authors, like J.K. Rowlings).

And as I'm going along, I thought I would share some of the places I've found in case other people are interested. Once I feel I've gone through and exhausted most of the options, I'll do a summary blog post. But you might as well read this blog post now that you are here.

Today I submitted to Pan McMillan's Manuscript Monday (who take unsolicited manuscripts on Mondays), as well as to the American Christian Literary Agent Steve Laube (I had to do a query letter for first).

A friend then pointed out that I should check out Allen and Unwin (another of Australia's biggest publishers). And guess what? They accept unsolicited manuscripts on Fridays for The Friday Pitch! So, guess what I'll be doing on Friday. (though can't work out if it has to be submitted only on Fridays, or they only check their emails on Fridays. Pan McMillan made it very clear it had to be submitted on Monday between 10 am and something like 4pm, but not so clear for Allen and Unwin). Am glad that the big houses do still take some unsolicited manuscripts. I know that it will be read super quickly by an unpaid intern, but they promise that it will at least be read. 

My other discovery today was Authonomy run by Harper Collins. I found it because it was recommended by Zondervan. Previously I've mentioned Christian Manuscript Submission which I thought I would try if my other options fell through. This is a website where you can upload a proposal for 6 months, with a fee of $98 (USD I assume). It is supposedly browsed by a lot of the big publishing houses in the US looking for Christian material.

Authonomy is pretty similar, except it's free, based in the UK and is run by one of the big publishing houses. Also, it has this strange process of recommendations by readers which I'm still working out.

Anyway, it's free and might bring my manuscript to the attention of more people, which can only be a good thing (I think, feel free to tell me otherwise). And it's covering the UK, which I haven't done yet. 

So, yah for free stuff!

Once I test it out a bit more, if I discover anything more useful about it I'll let you know. 

As to my own writing: spent quite a bit of time dancing around my apartment and cleaning it (can now see most of the kitchen bench which is super cool). Also rather annoyingly found out that you shouldn't put a newly serviced bike on white carpet. Didn't even think about the oil. And carpet cleaner is not really cutting it. Any cleaning advice welcome.

But what has this to do with writing? Okay, you caught me, not much. This is made slightly more embarrassing as I gave a talk at work today on Time Management and staying focused.  The talk went really well actually, in that my colleagues didn't want to stone me for being a pretentious prat, which I was afraid of. Whether it actually speeds up work is yet to be seen. (And if anyone from work is reading this blog at work, I'm really glad you are reading this, but bad assessor, bad!)

Though, after I cleaned my apartment, tried to save my carpet, had dinner and did some researching into manuscript submissions, I started work on my new draft - The Secret Railway. 

Side note: I googled the title to make sure that it wasn't already a book, because it just sounded like such a good title I couldn't believe it would still be free. Turns out it is the name of a Canadian anime series in French from like the late 1970's. As I am pretty sure my readers won't get it confused, I'm sticking with my title until someone sues me. Though, the anime did look rather cute and interesting. There was some on Youtube, though I haven't looked at it yet, saving that for later procrastination.

Anyway, my Secret Railway is the children's story that I came up with after waking up from a dream. The dream itself was rather scary and dark, but has given me an idea for a rather sweet and hopefully interesting middle grades story. 

So I started off planning to just write up the brief outline I had from my notebook (sleeping with notebook next to head pays off!), but got carried away and have been writing out the chapters in rather a lot of detail, and then got caught up in bits of dialogue, etc as I went along. I now have it planned out in detail until chapter 8 (2,000 words of plan, which for me is a lot), I think that is 1/3 of the way through the book. Though I might have just worked out all the easy bits. But still, the rest will hopefully come to me. 

Tomorrow I will start writing it out in full and see how I go.

Will put up a brief synopsis on the synopses page, though might have to leave the ending ambiguous... well, more ambiguous than synopses usually are, that is. 

Good Night and Sleep Tight.

 

I Need Your Help! Vote on My First Chapter.

First of all: 999 page views as I'm writing this: super cool! Thanks everyone for dropping by.

Wish I should have one of those flashing things that says 'Congratulations! You are the 1000th person to read this site!' But I'm not that tech savvy, and it would also probably look like I was trying to sell you something, or give you a virus.

Second: guess what? You know all those query letters (ie. the whole three) that I sent out? Well, one of the agents got back to me today saying I could send through a proposal!

So, I know that I'm meant to be all cool and like 'whatevs, I get agents emailing me all the time', but stuff that! This whole blog is about being new to everything and while it probably means nothing, I still think it is super exciting. Especially since the agent's website was like: yeah, we don't like international authors, and very rarely accept young adults stuff. So then I was like: yeah, hey, I'm an international author writing young adults stuff, you interested? So to have them write back and go: 'show me what you've got' is sort of big. They could have just ignored me, or written a copy and paste email saying: read our website, we don't want you. 

Now comes the problem: My First Chapter.

Here's the deal. I really like my first chapter. Everyone who has read it so far (except for my little sister) really likes (or at least says to my face they do). Even the reader who was critiquing it for the writing competition liked it. However, they also pointed out that young adult works generally jump straight to the action, and while she liked my description, she thought I should drop it.

So, I'm putting my first chapter (of my very first completed novel, exciting, no?) up in the tabs across the top of the blog. 

I've just put up a poll on the main page: Sally Hunt Chapter 1: Should it stay or should it go?

This poll is open until Monday morning (when I hope to send a reply to the agent with my proposal and first three chapters of my manuscript). 

Let the People Speak: should I shorten the first chapter and just jump straight into the action (Sally on dirt bike, riding up to greet friends), or keep it with its description?

All people who have said to my face they love it, are welcome to vote here with the truth. 

If you want to nuance your reply more than the set answers allow, feel free to just comment below. 

Hope to hear from some of you at least.

(And even if you don't know me, and stopped by here thinking it was a porn site, I would appreciate it if you took the time to have a quick read, even the first paragraph of the chapter, and vote. But no, I won't take my top off for you.)

Off to get some sleep.

A 9am - 5pm Day.

I did it! I sat down at 9am, had a tea-refill break at around 11am, 45mins for lunch, and then worked straight until actually about 5.30pm. Go me!

Result? Less words than I usually write, but more research, some editing, and finally getting around to drafting a query letter to send to agents.

Okay, so it is sad about not getting as many words written. Will definitely have to improve on that.

I'm currently  having a few issues with beginning this new story:

1. I had written the prologue and part of the first chapter about 4 years ago (did not think it was that long ago until I did the maths, which is very sad for many reasons.) At the time, I had thought it was a brilliantly written piece (though in need of minor editing), full of emotion and atmosphere. Looking back at it today...  well, lets just say I spent the first three hours this morning editing and then reediting. And I mean the type of editing which is cartoonised as someone standing over a screaming page with a bloody cleaver and a mad gleam in their eyes.  

2. Having not actually finished writing the book before turns out to have consequences. Sad, but true. I know in my mind that the main character is going to get framed for murder and possibly treason by a group of bad guys, ends up floating at sea (somehow), is picked up by a Spanish privateer ship and this book starts three years later. However, I hadn't actually got around to working out: what treasonous things, exactly, did the bad guys do that he was framed for? Who are these bad guys, and how many of them are there? What did he do for three years on the privateer ship, exactly? I had brainstormed that he started chasing down the guys, or running secret missions for England, but when it comes writing from that point onwards, a bit more detail is sort of necessary.

Not knowing all these little bits did have quite a large debilitating effect on my ability to write. So I will need to spend a bit more time brain storming, and then just free writing to see what comes. I'm past the prologue and onto an entirely new bit, so that should help in my next session. Will try the technique of writing out my problems with the story just as I go to sleep, and see if I can answer them as soon as I wake up in the morning. Though, to be honest, 10 to 1 I will wake up and the first thing I will think of will be breakfast, and it will be while I'm biting down on my toast that I suddenly remember I was meant to write out my first thoughts, by which time it will be too late. Toast is the downfall of us all.... well, not us all, as it was the making of the Roman Army, but you get my point, I think/hope/wish.

On the actual business side of things, today was great. I've been meaning to get my act together and start the not so creative process of actually getting my Sally Hunt books properly published. I know we discussed self-publishing, and I think I will do that with the Castle Innis series, as it is unlikely to be taken on by a traditional publisher as it is not in a clearly defined marketable genre (not enough romance to be considered historical romance, and I don't think historical adventure is so big at the moment.) But for Sally Hunt, my first ever series, which I love deeply and actually think is really pretty good, I want to try and do the best by it.

So, I'm starting with trying to get an agent. Is it bad of me that I'm looking to America instead of Australia because their Christian market is so much larger than ours? It makes it sound like I'm doing it just for the money but not really. I'm doing it just for the fame! Well, not fame for me personally, I just want the largest number of people to read Sally Hunt and hopefully feel a bit brighter about the world because of it.

For those of you thinking of looking for an agent, there is a lot of information out there. I spent four hours today basically just reading info on how to write a query letter, which is the letter you send before you send the proposal, which is what you send before you send the full manuscript, which is what happens before it actually gets seen by someone who could publish it. It's a slow process, what can I say?

Looking around I came across another writing blog which again appears to be super famous and also really informative. The blog is written by Nathan Bransford who is himself a published young teens author and literary agent.

I just want to copy out some of his advice on writing a query letter, because it is priceless. This was written in 2008, and he has added some updates since then, so please check out the original post if this amuses you as much as it did me:

You know those "mad lib" games you'd play as a kid, where you start off by writing down a list of verbs, places and adjectives, and inevitably the words "snot" and "farted" were involved, which made any story HILARIOUS?

Well, we're going to play query letter mad lib today. Here's how it works.

First I'm going to need these things:

[Agent name], [genre], [personalized tidbit about agent], [title], [word count], [protagonist name], [description of protagonist], [setting], [complicating incident], [verb], [villain], [protagonist's quest], [protagonist's goal], [author's credits (optional)], [your name]

Now, look how your query turns out:


Dear [Agent name],

I chose to submit to you because of your wonderful taste in [genre], and because you [personalized tidbit about agent].

[protagonist name] is a [description of protagonist] living in [setting]. But when [complicating incident], [protagonist name] must [protagonist's quest] and [verb] [villain] in order to [protagonist's goal].

[title] is a [word count] work of [genre]. I am the author of [author's credits (optional)], and this is my first novel.

Thank you for your time, and I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Best wishes,
[your name]


That's all you need.

Now, granted, this is the most formulaic query ever written (you know... because it uses a formula), and I'm crossing my fingers that I don't now receive a thousand virtually identical letters. But if you can't fill this mad lib out in two seconds and craft a pretty decent query letter, something might be wrong with your novel. 

The saddest thing? I had spent about an hour prior to this drafting a complex and meaningful letter, and then just for fun tried this out. It kicked ass over my carefully crafted, way too self-centred and long earlier attempt. I then went on and fiddled with it a bit and plan to check over it again tomorrow, but over all, it is super awesome.

Am thinking of typing up templates like this for Arts essays for my tute students.

Eg. [name of scholar1] has argued [outline theory] in their seminal work [title of work]. This has been roundly trashed by [name of scholar2] who complains that [objections to theory] clearly demonstrate that [name of scholar1] should be teaching elementary school instead of running a university department.

Could be so much fun.

Anyway, other benefit of 9-5 day is that I felt absolutely no guilt about curling up after dinner and watching Grimm. Can't watch TV all the time I'm not writing, as I still need to be reading and spending wordless time, but it was nice to know I had fulfilled my duty to the world, if not myself.

Tomorrow might be a bit less structured as need to take car (whose name is Tommy, by the way, and it suits him very well) in to get a roadworthy and then go out to lunch with my aunt (which I'm looking forward to, in case that didn't come out in my sentence structure). I'm also possibly being forced into slave labour by my mother to help unpack all my grandmother's boxes. But that should be my charity for the month, so can then be super rude to everyone I know and sit down and write. Yah!

Ta ta til then, darlings!