How do you write a novel? A draft in time saves nine
irishtimes.com – Thursday November 14, 2019
I’m often asked about the best way to write a novel’s first draft, and thank God for that, for otherwise I’d have no social life at all.
For some reason it generally seems to happen when I discover myself at the bottom of Dawson Street around lunchtime, waiting to cross over to the Trinity side.
“I say, Mr Burke!” bawls some aspiring scribe who, having recently perambulated around from College Green, has mistaken me for that prime hunk of literary boulevardier, Edmund Burke. “How does one go about writing a novel-length story?”
“Well,” I bawl back, which usually precipitates something of a conversational longueur, it being my accoster’s expectation that I have deployed same as a precursor to embarking on lengthy disquisition, whereas my advice in the matter of writing novel-length stories is as brief as it is simple, ie, that if they must be written at all, then they really ought to be written well.
How To Land A Literary Agent, According To Iris Blasi Of Carol Mann Agency (Part 2)
forbes.com – Thursday November 14, 2019
Yesterday I shared part 1 of my interview with literary agent Iris Blasi of Carol Mann Agency about getting your nonfiction manuscript published. Today, Blasi discusses the specifics of selling memoir as a genre, author submission deal breakers, and how authors can best position themselves to get signed by an agent.
You mentioned memoir, where you’re basically selling yourself. Is memoir different in terms of what it takes to sell one?
The ways memoirs are pitched to agents and publishers is different. Generally in the nonfiction world, books can be sold on proposal. That’s the summary, comp titles, marketing and publicity section, about the author, annotated table of contents and a couple sample chapters that show how you would do this if you had an advance and a book deal. The flip side is that on the fiction side, the vast majority of fiction is sold with a completed manuscript.
Five Things To Keep in Mind When Writing A Fantasy Series
winteriscoming.net – Wednesday November 13, 2019
Writing a fantasy series can feel a lot like going on a really long road trip. No matter how prepared you think you are, you’re probably still going to get lost a zillion times and realize that you didn’t pack half the things you need. But none of that will matter because you’ll have all kinds of adventures along the journey!
Or … your characters will at least.
As the author? You’re mostly going to consume a lot of caffeine.
I’ll be honest: I had no idea how to write a book when I first got the idea for Keeper of the Lost Cities. And I knew right away that the story would need to be told throughout the course of a series, so it felt extra daunting. I tried studying the craft of writing, but it was all a bit too abstract to be useful for me. What helped me so much more was devouring as many fantasy series as I could get my hands on—which brings me to the first thing to keep in mind if you’re writing a fantasy series.
How To Land A Literary Agent, According To Iris Blasi Of Carol Mann Agency (Part 1)
forbes.com – Wednesday November 13, 2019
For unpublished authors eager to see their words for sale on bookstore shelves, finding a literary agent is often the first step in their publication process. But how do you know which literary agent might be right for you? And once you find them, how can you persuade a literary agent to take you on as a client? What credentials and platforms are literary agents looking for from authors? How can you craft a book proposal that will get an agent to sign you?
I asked Iris Blasi, who’s been in the publishing industry for 15 years, first as an editor at Pegasus Books, and now as a literary agent at Carol Mann Agency, what she’s looking for from new authors, what kind of platform they need and what types of books she represents.
When rejection isn’t failure
dailyprincetonian.com – Thursday November 7, 2019
This year, I had only one New Year’s resolution: to receive a rejection letter from a literary agent. This wasn’t because I didn’t want to succeed. It was because rejection isn’t the opposite of success, but a necessary step on the road to accomplishment.
Rejection sucks. It’s inevitable, but still — it sucks. This problem is especially prevalent here at Princeton, where students who were their high school’s star athlete or lead actor or first chair find themselves suddenly surrounded by people who are, let’s face it, more talented than them. So often, Princeton students will go through audition after interview after application and face rejection after rejection after rejection. I’ve certainly had my fair share here, and I won’t pretend that it didn’t shatter my self-esteem a little.
Agents Do Drop You
By G. Miki Hayden
Instructor at Writer's Digest University online and private writing coach
firstwriter.com – Monday November 4, 2019
When they stop communicating with you, you know you’re toast.
So should you negotiate without an agent?
Writers are often eager to have time-limited contracts with their agents—as well they might be (you want to get out when you’re ready to go)—but some agents have time-limited contracts for their own protection. One popular authors’ representative gives a contract for a six-month period and says if he can’t sell your book within that time, you’re free to go.
Thought poetry was dead? The 'Instapoets' raking it in online would beg to differ
theage.com.au – Saturday November 2, 2019
Paterson, Poe, Plath – would they have resisted plugging their work on Instagram? Meet the Millennials sending their pop verse viral – and generating sales that prove poetry’s demise has been exaggerated.
Standing on a Persian carpet before a crowd in Bankstown in Sydney’s west, swaying to the rhythm of her own words, Canadian performance poet Rupi Kaur recited Broken English. It’s a poem about the shame she once felt over her Sikh mother’s inability to speak the language. The 300 mainly immigrant Australian women at this, the Bankstown Poetry Slam, were mesmerised. Borrowing from the 1950s beatnik poetry tradition, the audience snapped their fingers in appreciation, then hollered and cheered as Kaur’s performance came to a close. “You can go on forever,” someone from the floor proclaimed, transfixed as much by the cadence of Kaur’s voice as by her verse.
It was May 2017, and the then 25-year-old Canadian dubbed the “queen of the Instapoets” and the “Oprah of her generation” was in town as a keynote speaker at the Sydney Writers’ Festival. Accompanying her on the visit was her publisher Kirsty Melville, whose American company is credited with a global revival of interest in poetry through the publication of books by young women like Kaur, now 27, who have both a way with words and a big social media presence. In Kaur’s case that means 3.8 million Instagram followers, who feast on a feed that alternates between selfies and sparse but digestible poetry.
Tyler Hayes Guest Post–"Rescued From the Trunk"
locusmag.com – Thursday October 31, 2019
The week before I got an offer on my debut novel, I made the decision to give up on it.
The Imaginary Corpse was a labor of love: a noir-flavored fantasy cobbled together from childhood memories, my experiences in therapy, and a million literary and ludological ancestors. Writing it felt right in a way that no other manuscript had before. I built this world in a matter of hours, the outline in a matter of days. Rarely did I have to stop and think during the drafting process (editing, of course, was another story). It’s the book of my heart. Writing it required years of working on myself, finding my real voice under all the received wisdom about writing, and trying very, very hard not to be afraid.
I also couldn’t seem to sell it for the longest time.
Out of all the books I’ve written, the queries and pitches for The Imaginary Corpse were by far the best-received, but all that means is that I finally got partial manuscript requests. I also got partial manuscript rejections, and all of them said essentially the same thing as the rejections of my initial query packet, just in more detail: This is good. But I, a literary agent, have no idea where I’d sell it.
How to write the perfect approach email
artshub.co.uk – Monday October 28, 2019
No matter what kind of art you produce, you’ll definitely have to try and get someone interested in it at some point. This might mean getting in touch with a gallery owner if you’re a painter, a producer if you’re in the performing arts or film, or a publisher if you write books. And odds are, you’re going to do so via email.
With that in mind, I caught up with Kathryn Burnett to talk about how to write (and how not to write) an approach email. Kathryn runs The Writing Room (an Auckland space for writers to work, hang out and connect with other writers) and has been a screenwriter for 25 years and a playwright and writing coach for eight years. Early in her career, she used to send approach emails and query letters. Now, she does less of that, but gets lots of approach emails herself. Here’s what she’s learned about contacting someone you’ve never met before and asking them for help.
When the pope offers writing advice, should you listen?
theguardian.com – Friday October 25, 2019
Pope Francis offered the staff of the Vatican some writing advice in September: “Give up using adjectives” – and also adverbs, as in phrases such as “authentically Christian”, to which he declared himself allergic. I suppose if there’s anyone you can’t condemn for pontificating like this, it’s the pontiff. Yet his advice annoyed me, as did some newly published tips aimed at scientists from the novelist Cormac McCarthy, who turns out to have been giving behind-the-scenes editorial advice to leading researchers for years. “Remove extra words or commas whenever you can,” reads McCarthy’s advice (as paraphrased by two of his academic collaborators). Also: “Don’t overelaborate.” Though he’s less of a stickler than Francis when it comes to adjectives: “Only use an adjective if it’s relevant.” In short, we’re back to William Strunk and EB White’s famous advice in The Elements Of Style: “Omit needless words.”
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