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Aspiring Author Q and A
I get a lot of e-mail from aspiring authors looking for advice, encouragement, etc.–and I love it! I’m always happy to share details from my own path to publication, and I’m thrilled if my experiences are any help to others. I traded e-mails with an aspiring author recently who said I’d given her “so much hope.” I love that!
But I sold the Twilight of Avalon trilogy nearly two years ago, now, and the publishing world has been through a huge amount of upheaval since then. In many ways, aspiring authors now are trying to break into an entirely new and very different market and publishing climate. That’s why I’m thrilled to welcome as a special guest today the incredibly talented Sarah Woodbury. Sarah has written a (totally wonderful) historical novel, has landed an agent, and is now going through the process of submitting to publishers. And she’s kindly agreed to do a series of interviews here about the highs, lows, and challenges of trying to get a book published today. Welcome, Sarah!
What made you start writing?
I had experience writing non-fiction—from school and work—but had kicked around the idea of writing a novel for years, quite literally, before I plunged ahead with my first attempt. I have four children, ranging in age from 18 to 5, and the youngest was two years old at the time. I was feeling like I needed to do something, but as a full-time caregiver, wasn’t prepared to work outside the home.
Initially, I had only a vague idea of a plot, although the kernel of the novel was a short story I had written to entertain my daughter (then about fourteen). She is a writer herself and I asked permission from her before I went ahead with the full novel, not wanting to trespass on what had been her special talent up until then.
It was a fantasy novel, with elves and magic, lots of battles and romance, and I wrote it during my son’s daily naps. In six weeks, I had churned out 300 pages and the experience taught me more about writing, and myself, than 5 years of graduate school.
What made you want to get published?
One thing leads to another, doesn’t it? Here I had this full length novel: what if I could actually get it published? I confess to delusions of grandeur, naiveté, and complete ignorance about what this endeavor might actually entail when I first started out.
Not all writers have the goal of getting published. It is my experience that many people enjoy the process of writing enormously but aren’t interested in sharing their work with anyone else. They write for themselves, and often because they couldn’t not write.
After 3 ½ years of intensive writing (and having completed 5 novels—all unpublished), I certainly am deeply attached to the process of writing, but it would lose much of its attraction for me if there were no possibility of sharing my stories, particularly with my family. I don’t need to be published, however, to do that.
The two worlds are very different, too. On one hand, you have the artist who writes in her own space; and on the other is a commercial endeavor with the primary goal of making money. So, I’m not sure that writing and publishing necessarily go hand-in-hand for everyone. I’m hoping, however, that they do for me.
While I admit I would very much like my work published, I would say that it is probably better if a writer who is just beginning to work on their first book—or even has written one novel and is starting on their second—put the idea of publishing out of their mind. It isn’t that a first or second book couldn’t be published, but that it can’t drive the work—the publishing experience is too frustrating, with too little compensation—for that to be a significant motivation.
Only after you’ve written a book, revised it 15 times, showed it to four or five people you trust who have given you feedback, and then revised it several more times, is a novel ready for public consumption. And then, maybe, it’s time to think about finding an agent.
What advice do you have for someone just starting out on writing?
Just write. Sit down every day and plow ahead, with whatever word count goal you choose. Maybe even try NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) which is coming up in November. (nanowrimo.org)
And as you write, even if what you put on the page today is terrible, no-good, the worst chapter ever inflicted on a word processing program, believe that through editing, educating yourself, and reading what other people write and say about writing, you can learn and improve, and get better day by day. Until one day you read over the two pages you managed to write the day before and think to yourself, ‘hey, that’s pretty good!’
Don’t think about publishing. Don’t think about the fact that you’ve never written anything longer than a twenty page paper and that was for a class you hated in college. Don’t think about anything when you write but your characters and their struggles and joys and how to funnel their lives onto the page. Write for the sheer joy of it, and the knowledge that only you can tell the story in your head, and if you don’t, nobody will.
Thank you, Sarah! We’re going to be talking to Sarah more in the coming weeks about where she’s traveled so far on her path to publication, about handling rejection, working with an agent, and what it’s like to have your manuscript submitted to publishers. Anyone with questions/thoughts/experiences of their own to share, feel free to leave them in the comments. Sarah (or I) will do our best to answer anyone wanting to know more.
This entry was posted Friday, October 16th, 2009 at 9:27 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
5 Responses to “Aspiring Author Q and A”
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October 16th, 2009 at 11:30 am
Great interview!!!
October 16th, 2009 at 6:00 pm
yay Mum!
October 16th, 2009 at 6:44 pm
Great fun to read! Since writing has always been an admired skill in this family, it is wonderful that you love it and are so good at it.
October 18th, 2009 at 10:28 am
Good article and interview. I always wonder if there is an aspiring writer in all of us. That certainly was myself years ago.. but real life got in the way. I looked up the nanowrimo.org and that premise is interesting and sounds fun!
November 3rd, 2009 at 9:24 pm
Excellent interview.
I admire writers not only for their creativity but for their tenacity to see their “babies” published. I can’t even begin to imagine going through that publishing process.
Good luck to you both!