Hello, writers. Many thanks to mettle fatigue for hosting her annual Turkey Trot edition of WO! last week. Check out the diary for a host of useful links to everything you ever wanted to know about writing and publishing.
And...
We did it! Or we almost did it. Our tenth NaNoWriMo is almost over. If you’re going for the traditional 50k, you’re on target if you hit 48,333 words by midnight tonight.
I’ll update your wordcounts through 10 pm eastern tonight, and then do the final list of accomplishments next week.
Remember, even if you didn’t make your goal, even if you didn’t come within a mile of your goal, you’re still ahead of where you were at the beginning of the month.
Remember, also, that we’ll be doing another marathon together in a month. January will once again be DaKoWriMo. (Daily Kos Writing Month.)
The progress reports:
bonetti 📌 93,339/100k wds
clio2 📌 54,046 of 50k wds
Cyclopsgirl 📌 write at least once a week
dconrad 📌 52,476/50k wds
Diana in NoVa 📌 19,500 wds
DoctorCorey 📌 7000/50k wds
GrouchySquirrel 📌 write every day
James Wells 📌 16k wds
Leo Orionis 📌 halfway through chapter 18 of A Meeting at Ishtun
mettle fatigue 📌 computer hook-up & resume ms (done!)
Mnemosyne 📌 3800/25k wds
reppa 📌 9487/20k wds
SensibleShoes 📌 finish revising Ghost Ships (halfway through final pass)
ursulafaw 📌 make a collection of diaries published on dKos
xaxnar 📌 make a collection of diaries published on dKos
That’s an incredible number of sheer words, folks.
Back when I first started Write on! in January of 2009, I had a stealth goal of increasing the number of leftwing authors in print. I didn’t yet realize that nearly all authors are leftwing. That said, let’s talk a little bit about publishing, and about audience.
I think of getting published as an obstacle course. At the starting line is you, the writer. At the finish line is the publishing contract. (If that’s not your goal, if you intend to self-publish, then think of it the finish line as Reaching The Reader.)
In between you and the goal are certain obstacles. Some of them are beyond your control. Examples of obstacles that are beyond your control might be:
- you’ve written a mystery [or whatever] and publishers aren’t acquiring mysteries [or whatever] at the moment
- the sheer number of other writers trying to get published
- the state of the economy
But then there are obstacles that are completely within your control. You choose them. You can either have these obstacles in your way, or not. You shouldn’t necessarily avoid them, but you should choose them with full knowledge that they are obstacles.
Note that I am not saying any of the following are bad things. Many authors chose these obstacles and wrote excellent books which did well. They wrote books that needed the obstacles in order to work. The important point here is that you should choose these obstacles only in the quantity you want and only when you have a good reason for choosing them. And know that, once you’ve chosen them, they are part of the obstacle course between you and publication.
Some examples are:
- writing in the 2nd person
- having more than one viewpoint character
- crossing two or more genres
- a story where time is weird; eg each chapter happens before the one before it, or time has split
- you’ve done something that requires extra work on the part of the reader, such as not giving any of the characters names, or inventing your own pronouns
- the book is written in dialect
- it’s a mystery, but the solution isn’t revealed
- the first-person narrator dies ¾ of the way through
- the characters are not human
- the characters only ever speak in a language the author invented
- the setting --time and place— is never revealed
- etc.
Again, these aren’t bad things. There aren’t rules against them. They’re simply obstacles. You and I can think of examples of books where the authors have chosen these obstacles and made them work.
The point is for you to choose your obstacles knowingly, choose them for a good reason, and limit the number of obstacles to only those that you absolutely need.
Tonight’s challenge:
Look at the list of chosen obstacles above.
Think of a good reason you might choose to have one of these obstacles in a story.
Write the opening of the story.
Write On! will be a regular weekly diary (Thurs 8 pm eastern, 5pm pacific) until it isn't.
Before signing a contract with any agent or publisher, please be sure to check them out on Preditors and Editors, Absolute Write and/or Writer Beware.