{"id":870,"date":"2017-07-05T12:10:36","date_gmt":"2017-07-05T16:10:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/?p=870"},"modified":"2017-07-05T12:10:36","modified_gmt":"2017-07-05T16:10:36","slug":"some-comfort-maybe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/2017\/07\/05\/some-comfort-maybe\/","title":{"rendered":"Some Comfort, Maybe"},"content":{"rendered":"

On March 2, 2017, Christie V Powell wrote, \u201cThe problem with querying is\u2026 that supply exceeds demand. There are more good writers out there than there are reader eyeballs.\u201d I came across this statement by an agent recently and wondered what you thought about it.<\/em><\/p>\n

I asked my husband, and he mentioned a study of song popularity. There is a threshold of skill, he said, but once this is surpassed, which song \u201cmakes it\u201d and which doesn\u2019t is completely random.<\/em><\/p>\n

This was not comforting.<\/em><\/p>\n

Sadly, I think this is probably mostly true. And true of all the arts. Humans are drawn to art, and many of us are good at it and love to make it. There aren\u2019t enough readers, theaters, concert halls, museums, art galleries to provide all of us with an audience, let alone a living.<\/p>\n

Once the skill threshold has been reached, luck becomes important. Agents\u2019 slush piles teeter to their ceilings. The interns and junior staff who read them\u2013I\u2019m guessing\u2013find no<\/em> easier to say than yes<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Many of you know that it took me nine years to get a manuscript accepted. I may also have written before that at one point in my long trek it occurred to me that if I had set out to become I brain surgeon, I would already have been one (aside from the fact that I\u2019m too squeamish even to remove a splinter). This thought jumped to the fore when I met a doctor who had given up his practice to try to write for children. Yikes! I thought. I hope he knows what he\u2019s getting into. Yikes! I hope he has savings!<\/p>\n

During my pre-published time, an editor visited one of my writing classes. He said that the way to get published was either to write something great or to write about something that few were expert in. The only subject I was expert in was welfare programs for people who were healthy enough to work, and that topic didn\u2019t seem promising for a children\u2019s book. As for great, I felt defeated right off.<\/p>\n

Hence the nine years.<\/p>\n

Now, let me try for some comfort.<\/p>\n

When I talk to kids about the nine years, I ask them for the moral of my story. Hands pop up, and the answer I get is, \u201cNever give up,\u201d which was true for me. If you give up, you don\u2019t get published. You also may stop writing, and for some of us, that\u2019s like cutting off a limb.<\/p>\n

Okay, maybe not comforting. I\u2019ll try again.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s another moral. During those nine years, I took adult ed writing classes and read the Newbery-and-Newbery-honor-winning books of the prior twenty or more years. Both helped me become a better writer and one who could write for the readers I wanted. In my classes, I met other wannabe writers. We supported each other. I joined and formed critique groups and made friends. Turns out, this was one of the happiest times of my life, even though achieving my goal still seemed more a dream than a likelihood. So the second moral is: While you\u2019re never giving up, find a way to have a wonderful time. Which will help you stick with it.<\/p>\n

Also, a critique group and classes gave me a (tiny) audience, and one of my most important reasons for writing was to be read. 0thers were self-expression and to learn a skill.<\/p>\n

So these are comforts, I hope, for continuing to write, regardless of the eventual outcome, which, unless we have a crystal ball, is unknown. And I still find them valid. I\u2019m published now, but I don\u2019t know if a particular book will catch on with readers. My audience for any one book may be small, but I\u2019ve still added to my skill set by writing it. I still have writing pals who sustain me. This, as I\u2019ve said here before, is especially true of writing poems.<\/p>\n

But there are things that we can do to increase the odds of luck smiling on us. Some of these, alas, don\u2019t apply until you turn eighteen.<\/p>\n

Go to conferences, if you can afford to. At many writing conferences, the editors and agents who are speakers and panelists will preferentially treat participant submissions, which means your work won\u2019t be placed at the bottom of the slush pile.<\/p>\n

If the conference includes a critique option from an editor or an agent, sign up for it, even if there\u2019s an extra fee. Frankly, these industry readers (I\u2019ve been one) will see a lot of work that falls sadly below any reasonable threshold. Writing that rises above will be a relief. The editor or agent will be so happy not to have only bad news to deliver to the writer. You may begin a relationship that, if not immediately, may result in an eventual acceptance.<\/p>\n

When you\u2019re there, move outside your comfort zone. Introduce yourself to editors and agents. Talk about your work. Do not mention your uncertainty about its worth.<\/p>\n

Also, for the comfort of community, speak with other participants. Make friends, if any of them appeal to you. Share experiences. Get tips.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re old enough and you\u2019re writing for children or young adults (which these days extends into college age and a little beyond), join the Society of Children\u2019s Book Writers and Illustrators (www.SCBWI.org<\/a>), a great organization for people just starting out\u2013in terms of its focus on getting published as well as on craft. Get involved in your local chapter, where there may be meetings and may be a regional conference that\u2019s much cheaper than the national one.<\/p>\n

Send your work out! You can\u2019t get published if no one is looking at your stories. I once heard of a critique group where the person who got the most rejections in a year got an award\u2013because the one with the most rejections is the one most likely, after a while, to get the most acceptances. I recently went through my files. My folder of personal rejections is about three inches thick! I didn\u2019t keep the form letters, or we wouldn\u2019t be able to get into the basement.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t get in your own way!<\/p>\n

For example, a woman in my favorite writing class was working on a book I adored. I don\u2019t know if she\u2019s finished it, twenty years later. I know it isn\u2019t published, and I also know she\u2019s shown it, or parts of it, to this friend or that. She keeps fooling around and not getting to the point, and the world is deprived of a great story.<\/p>\n

If you do send something out and get criticism from an agent, take the criticism seriously. Try out what\u2019s being offered to you, and do it relatively quickly. After you\u2019ve revised, ask this person if she\u2019s willing to see it again.<\/p>\n

Before you send work out, proofread it obsessively. It should be free of typos, spelling errors, and grammar mistakes. If it isn\u2019t, you won\u2019t get much of a reading. If you\u2019re not good at this skill, ask someone who is for help\u2013not with critiquing the story, in this case, just checking for these sort of mistakes. Same for query letters. With something as short as a letter, read it backwards, which will help you notice the itty-bitty things.<\/p>\n

End of lecture.<\/p>\n

But here\u2019s a little more comfort: According to my favorite podcast, Planet Money, fiction writers are unlikely to be replaced by robots. Chances are better than ninety percent in our favor.<\/p>\n

And new people break in all the time, and debut books come out constantly. Yours can be one of them.<\/p>\n

So–since I have no prompts to offer this time–have fun, and save what you write!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On March 2, 2017, Christie V Powell wrote, \u201cThe problem with querying is\u2026 that supply exceeds demand. There are more good writers out there than there are reader eyeballs.\u201d I came across this statement by an agent recently and wondered what you thought about it. I asked my husband, and he mentioned a study of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[101],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=870"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":871,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870\/revisions\/871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}