End of summer writing report. I have 300 pages of a new novel. About 30 of them worth keeping. LOL. I’ve been through two rounds of index cards, four outlines, countless drafts. It finally got into my thick head that I had to introduce the parallel storyline in the second chapter instead of 50 pages in. Today, in a last gasp effort to sidestep madness, or perhaps madness itself, I printed the whole fucking thing out, found an old binder and am currently on the hunt for my three hole punch.
How are you doing?
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Betsy Lerner 
John C. Krieg.
Ain’t no cure or the summertime blues. Writing has been hard, and I have been remiss in sticking to it. Still adhering to the 250 words a day challenge which I can usually do in my sleep, but I’m treading water looking for something that inspires me.
Ever watch those home improvement shows where a designer sets up an “inspiration” board which is nothing more than picking out readily available colors and materials. That’s not inspiration, for the most part, it’s merely copycatting what someone else has done. I look at some authors the same way, especially those prone to producing a series.
I’m dancing on the edge of being stuck and know that to prevent it I have to write something, anything, which is usually a book review. Literary magazines are starved for them and it’s an easy way to amass publication credits in a less competitive genre classification, but it oftentimes leaves me cold. I would rather be saying great things about my own writing than someone else’s while knowing full well that what you say about yourself is usually taken with a grain of salt and/or taken as insufferable puffing.
So, I start essays and stockpile them and can usually force myself to finish one or two a week. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been told that essay collections are a tough sell, and short story collections are even worse. So why do I write them? Because sometimes when I have the summertime blues they are all I’m capable of writing and I have to write. Why? Because a writer writes.
Thanks for coming back to the blog. It gave me the motivation I needed to write the 250 words I needed before going outside to stomp in some mudpuddles from a rare late summer rainstorm and then I plan on watching the sun set. That may not be inspiring, but it sure is comforting.
Hi. Sounds exciting. I love to print out pages and see my progress. I love to cut and paste. I’m working in an advanced playwriting class on a play about the Israeli/Gaza war. The 1st scene of the script was shamefully censored by the new “director” of my previous writing group where I’d been a member for 7 years. The group is local with 20 or so playwrights and numerous actors. Thankfully, I’ve been getting good support to help me move on. We all have to remember it’s a big world out there and when one door slams shut, another will surely open.
Keep sharing Betsy. It helps.
Betsy, how about taking a five-minute break from writing, and sharing your thoughts about “the book market today.” While you and we are hunched over our keyboards the world seems to be changing. I will spare you and your readers my possibly pessimistic thinking in the meantime.–Stephen Sossaman
Love this! Keep going. Madness can take a hike. I’m waiting for the ending of my short story to occur to me…has been a loooooong wait. -mcj
“How are you doing?”
Thank you for asking. Well enough. My doctor keeps me on Zoloft so I don’t succumb to despair.
Two books I had been working on over the past several years, and parts of which have already been published in litmags both at home and abroad — though that distinction doesn’t matter so much in this Internetted age — have stymied me to the point where I don’t work on them as much as I once did, or once would have thought professionally necessary and proper. I’m not sure that I will ever finish them. It seems I just don’t care that much anymore. My time is passing and my torch is dimming.
I have turned to Substack, where over the past year I have published two of my books and about a dozen stories. I have a third book set to roll out in daily installments come the start of autumn (Northern Hemisphere autumn, that is). All are invited to drop by. There’s no paywall to read, though visitors do have to pony up if they want to leave a comment. I won’t post a link, as that seems somewhat gauche, but I’m not so hard to find.
Last up is a recent development that has raised my interest and suspicions; that is, my weaknesses are being targeted and my BS detector has gone off. In rather quick succession I received email from two separate literary marketing specialists offering services to help me get my published books to the attention of more readers. They’re speaking specifically of a book published a decade ago, which is I think not only a pretty good book but probably the best I will ever write. But still — it was published a decade ago.
One of the marketers appears to be legit, but the other I’m not so sure. She claims to have read both my previously published books, the first being a memoir from over a dozen years ago. Assuming that she is a she, as the feminine first name she is using would seem to indicate, and not a bot of indeterminate gender, I’m just not buying it.
Anyway, that’s that. In the enduring words of the orange-painted buffoon, we’ll see what happens.
John C. Krieg
Don’t buy it. I have been similarly approached. These people look at what books you have posted on Amazon (or now Substack), pick out the title where you seem to have poured out your heart the most, and then target it.
Scams are getting so bad that a lot of literary agencies are issuing warnings about people impersonating them before you can even open the webpage.
Personally, I let my ego rule. If they don’t believe in my writing enough to lay down their cold hard cash, there’s a reason.
It’s just so hard to market any book in the present climate of free internet drivel. Look at how hard Ms. Lerner pushed Shred Sisters, and she knows the industry inside out.
I’ve come to hate two words – platform and celebrity, but I don’t doubt that both sell books, and I don’t doubt that I have been deemed to not possess either. Still…we persist for love of craft or because the muse nags at us to keep going no matter what.
Sometimes I feel like a contract from the Big 5 (some now say 4) is like hitting the lottery which always reminds us that you can’t win if you don’t play. To that end, if I can’t get a smaller house to bite, I’ll occasionally self-publish knowing the odds are long but at least there is the tiniest chance. If that’s all I get, then that’s what I’ll take. With what these people want to charge I can pay for formatting services and cover designs for six books, and the truth is that my odds of being noticed are just as good as theirs.
Thanks for the feedback. Two more emails from “literary marketers” have come in. I haven’t read them. Not going to. Deletion of useless emails is easy.
so nice to hear from you. i don’t trust those literary marketing specialists. I get their sales pitches all the time, too. it’s pretty scammy. I’m also so glad to know that you continue to write because you are a writer.
How am I doing? Up and down. I finished my book, and yes, it’s damned good, and yes, it was, for a short while, a sense of accomplishment. But now I’m being thrust into a world I know nothing about and care less. How many webinars must I take on how to market this soul-blasting work of mine, generated by blood sweat tears and years? I know I know, I’m ranting. Honestly, I’m having to rewire my brain with tech-marketing in a changing and quite frankly demoralizing glutted publishing world.
But ok, I’m game for it. I have no choice. I haven’t come this far to let the book fester like some dream deferred.
Diane Melton
You finished the fucker. You did it. WOW. Now put on another hat and get it out there. Just make sure you’ve workshopped it, revised it to the best possible draft, have a great title, smart query letter, and targeted list of agents. Roll up your sleeves. All this info is available on the internet, publishers marketplace, publishers weekly, poets and writers and lots of othe resources. We are all rooting for you.
Publishers Marketplace is the most targeted and realistic resource. You can buy it for $25 a month and it shows what agents are making deals to what houses in real time. You can hammer it hard for a month, cancel it, and then come back and reup every three to six months or so.
How am I doing?
I use paper that is prepunched with three holes.
I, 2Ns, are a smart bitch:)
When it works the pages flow and fly and have a mind of their own. I love it when I’ve written pages I don’t recall writing… alas, it’s rare.
But it happens. Hang in there-