On Monday night, my husband purchased a drink for a newly agented author at a bar near our house. Furthermore, Mr. Kiddoc informed me this author was “a cute redhead.”
But I am not the least bit jealous.
Because I am that newly agented author.
I am delighted to announce that I’ve accepted an offer of representation from Katie Boyle at Veritas Literary.
I’m so excited to be working with Katie, and can’t wait to get The Edge of Memory out on submission!
I’ll be working hard to make that happen, so if I seem uncharacteristically quiet here on Trying to Do the Write Thing, you’ll know why.
If you read my last post, you might think the Great Pager Swap 2009 was all hassle and no payoff. But you’d be mistaken.
I have an unpredictable schedule that can keep me away from a computer for big chunks of time. I also have in-laws with dial-up whom we visit frequently.
Like every other author seeking representation, I don’t want to miss a reply from an agent when I can’t get online. So I set up an email filter that forwards messages with “Query” or “The Edge of Memory” in the subject to my text pager.
This works great, overall, but it did backfire on me once.
An email reply on my full manuscript was forwarded to my pager from an agent who’d requested my full after reading my partial. My pager displayed the beginning of the message:
From: Awesome Agent
Re: Requested Full Manuscript of The Edge of Memory
Dear Heather,
Thank you so much for letting me review The Edge of Memory. I’m really intrigued by the premise and definitely think it has appeal in today’s market
<snip>
As you’ve probably guessed, I thought this might be good news, but the next sentence (which didn’t make it onto my pager display) started with “However.” When I finally made it back online, I was crushed.
It turned out to be a great response nonetheless, since her feedback gave me a Eureka moment that made my manuscript much stronger. But I could have done without the false hopes.
Well, my new pager displays more than twice as much text as the old one did. And I doubt any agent will beat around the bush that long before lobbing a “However” or an “Unfortunately” at me.
So, you see… there is a reason for everything. Even for the Great Pager Swap Fiasco.
Well, Prom season is upon us. You may wonder what the heck that has to do with marketing a novel. Well, I’ll tell you.
But first, I’d like to introduce this into evidence:
That’s me (with my sister) on my way to the prom circa 1992.
Now, if you’re like me, after looking at this picture, you’re rubbing your stinging nose with one hand while wiping the coffee off your laptop with the other. Which is hard to do when you’re shaking with laughter. I mean that is really quite the look, right? Check out the asymmetric hair-do and the “floating pearl” necklace. Not to mention the white iridescent tights. And when you’re uberpale, the best look is almost always baby pink patterned satin over white tulle, natch.
Here’s the thing:
At the time, I thought I looked awesome. Other people thought I looked awesome, too. I overheard my date’s younger sister whining that her brother must have bribed me or something cuz OMG, she’s actually pretty!
Unfortunately, I believe writing is a bit like fashion. I finished the first draft of The Edge of Memory in 7 weeks. I did a quick grammar edit, and then shipped the manuscript off to a bevy of test readers for feedback, while I took a month away “for perspective.” (yeah, right.)
Over the next several months, I completed several major edits. I then decided I was done tinkering and ready to seek representation. I read the blogging agents mantras of “Don’t Query Before You’re Ready” and “Write a Great Book” and felt confident. I loved my manuscript. I didn’t think it was perfect, of course, but I thought I’d reached the point where I needed professional feedback to progress further.
I was both right and wrong.
Since that first stopping point (when my book was titled “Still Haunted”), I’ve done at least six more rounds of editing. And each time I finish a round of edits, I cringe to look at the previous drafts. Just like that prom picture, I look at those versions and wonder, “what the heck I was thinking?”
In February, an agent who had requested a partial and then my full manuscript pointed out a plot detail that bothered her. She gave me a eureka moment and I subsequently rewrote several scenes. I am very pleased with the resulting manuscript, and have not edited again since (which, of course, shatters my previous record of approximately nine minutes between edits). I think this time I finally have reached the most polished version I can produce.
Naturally, I wish I had known that I wasn’t as ready as I thought I was when I first began querying. But then, I’m not sure I would have reached this place without the submission process. Certainly, I might never have had the eureka moment without that agent’s input.
The take-home point here is that I’m glad I’ve never been a Query Player (much as I’ve tried). If I had queried a zillion agents when I first thought my manuscript was ready, I’d have burned all my bridges.
But since I’ve only queried a few agents at a time, I’ve got a chance to show my best work. And I’m grateful for that.
I received a google alert for my book title, The Edge of Memory, this morning. The link led to a chatboard discussion comparing various social networking sites.
At first, I thought the alert was related to the series of Social Networking posts I’ve started on the Querytracker Blog. But then I remembered the flag was on my book title, not my name. So I followed the link and snooped around.
Hmmm… nothing about me or my book that I could see… just someone complaining that he didn’t have enough memory to run a particular social networking site.
And then I saw it. My book title, linking to my ABNA entry.
That’s right. Thanks to Amazon.com, I’ve become a stealth ad, triggered by the keyword memory.
I feel like the father on A Christmas Story: “I’ve won a major award!”
If you’re the sort of folk who reads my blog, you are probably well acquainted with the ABNA contest. For 2009, Amazon accepted up to 10,000 entries of finished novels in February.
They narrowed the entries down to 2,000Â on the basis of the Pitch (basically the meat of a query letter). Excerpts of the 2000 novels were then reviewed and scored before the 500 quarterfinalists were announced.
And The Edge of Memory was one of those 500 novels.
At this point, the contest gets a bit American Idolish… the quarterfinalist excerpts are posted on Amazon.com for Amazon customers to review. Based on these reviews and a formal score/review of the full manuscript by Publisher’s Weekly, the entries will be cut to 100 semifinalists on April 15th.
So, if you have the time and inclination to read and review my entry, I’d greatly appreciate it. You can download the excerpt here, and then click “Create your own review” to leave your thoughts and star-rating (the button to leave a review is on the right side of the page, just below the “Customer Reviews” heading.
So… um… it’s Friday again. Actually, it’s been Friday more than once now. I think with my posting on the QueryTracker.net blog, my In Deep Smit posts will become more biweekly-ish.
But I definitely have something I’m deeply smitten with to share this week.
I’m in the middle of another manuscript revision. An agent who loved my partial and requested my full manuscript identified a plot point that didn’t work for her later in the story. Her comment gave me a eureka moment for a small backstory change that I believe makes the novel stronger.
I rewrote the chapters primarily affected, and now I’m finishing a detailed line edit to make sure I haven’t missed any inconsistencies along the way.
And since I’m going through word by word, I figured I’d take the opportunity to tighten my manuscript wherever possible.
Now, you might think this post would be about the agent who inspired the idea. And I am indeed, deeply grateful to her for her time and insight. But the object of my affection for discussion today is the Narrator tool on my PC.
I had heard that text-to-voice software was included on most recent PC’s, but I’d never bothered looking up how to use it before. I find reading aloud to be a great editing tool, but have noticed that when I read from my manuscript, I sometimes miss problems like missing or repeated words anyway because I know what the text is supposed to say and my brain corrects it without my noticing.
I wanted something that would read my text to me, so I looked up where to find the preinstalled software.
And there she was… Microsoft Anna, the robotic narrator, hiding under “Ease of Access” in my “Accessories” folder.
Together, Anna and I have obsessed over each word of the first 3/4 of my manuscript. Despite frequent careful editing by myself and hundreds of beta readers, I still found a few small typos. I’ve also found a few overuse quirks, like my apparent fondness for starting dialogue lines with “Well,” which each of my characters indulged to some extent.
Hands down, this is the best edit I’ve done. So I’m deeply smitten with Microsoft Anna, and I’m not afraid to shout that to the blogosphere. 🙂
Now, if you don’t mind… Anna and I would like to be alone for a while. 😉
So someone needs to start off the next round for the blog chain gang.
So all of us on this blog chain gang have worked feverishly on what needs to be done before a novel gets published. Some of us are quite close to publication, including the next link in our chain, Jessica Verday whose debut novel The Hollow will be released later this year. But lately I’ve been giving a great deal of thought to the work that needs to be done during and after publication.
Besides writing new stuff, of course.
Specifically, I’ve been thinking about marketing.
Now, many aspiring authors I’ve encountered dread the idea of marketing. So you might think I’m getting ahead of myself, but I see this as sort of like wedding planning.
I mean, after all, I’m going to notify all my family and friends of the date when I’ll finally be able to walk down the aisle (of the bookstore) and hold my handsome love (whom I’ve been seriously involved with for a year or two) in my arms.
So why wait until I’m officially “engaged” to start planning?
But seriously, I don’t think it can possibly be too early to start thinking of ways to market your project. Although certainly a publisher might have different ideas and choose to go in another direction, but it can’t hurt to have your own plan developed and ready to go.
So, blog chain buddies…
What plans do YOU have to market your novel? How will you make sure the public finds your work?
(Pssst, gang… this would be an ideal time to show us your book trailer, if you have one)
Naturally, I plan to use the tried-and-true marketing methods (guest blogging, conferences, maximizing my online presence, bookmarks, etc.), but I also have a couple of ideas I’m very excited about that are specific to The Edge of Memory.
First of all, my novel features a silver charm bracelet, which my protagonist discovers with the hidden letter from her birth mother. For a contest prize, I would like to create a similar bracelet. I would also have some less pricey prizes available. To enter the contest, people would have to view my book trailer.
Speaking of book trailers, I already have a mock-up one:
When the time comes, however, I will produce a professional version. And I’m especially excited about that, as my diverse group of test readers includes photographers, actors, musicians, make-up artists/stylists, and an amazing videographer. They might even give me a discount. 🙂
But the idea I’m really excited about doesn’t involve flashy trailers or prizes. It involves a concept I think will help generate interest with a specific group of readers: book clubs.
Book clubs usually involve three main activities: reading the book, discussing the book, and EATING. So all the better if I can create a food connection to my novel, right?
My protagonist Beatrice cooks when she’s stressed… and I gave her a lot to stress about. So there are a few dialogue passages where she’s preparing a meal during the conversation.
A friend of mine runs a fabulous cooking blog (seriously amazing… more drool-worthy pictures than most mortals can handle) and has graciously agreed to some guest blogging with recipes for the meals my character prepares.
How much fun is that? I’m anxious to cook them myself.
Anyway, I’m excited to hear how the rest of the gang envisions themselves marketing their novels. And our next blog chainer will have extra cool insights, since marketing her debut novel is not just a fantasy for Jessica Verday.
What do you do to amp up the conflict? What pins do you stick in the little voodoo dolls? How do you torture your characters???
Leah was also sneaky enough to postpone answering her own question, leaving me to get this topic rolling. Which is tricksy.
Naturally, an engaging novel needs conflict and lots of it to keep a reader’s interest and provide the impetus for your character to truly evolve during the course of your novel.
The trials a writer forces their characters to endure, and the characters’ reactions to those trials are the essence of what a novel really IS. So regarding the specific pins in my characters’ voodoo dolls, I’m tempted to say, “You’ll just have to read my novel to find out.”
But this topic does bring up something I’ve been thinking about lately.
There’s a line in the movie Funny Girl, when Fanny receives a telegram from Ziegfield asking her to audition. “No, this is too easy! I haven’t suffered enough.”
That’s the bit I’ve been pondering on lately… when have your characters suffered enough?
As writers, we pile on the stressors: murder, rape, job loss, relationship troubles. When I was writing the first draft of The Edge of Memory, there was a phrase that kept running through my consciousness as I closed in on the climax of my novel.
It’s a silly quote, from a silly movie, but that phrase represents knowing when I’ve finally pushed my characters to the breaking point. It captures for me the build to the frenzy of the climax, the character’s exhaustion, and the straw that breaks the proverbial camel’s back.
The movie?
Jumanji
By the climax of the film, the characters have fought carnivorous plants, wild animals, and a man who hunts people. The two adult protagonists are trapped and one of the children is dying from a poisonous dart.
The quote appears on the Jumanji game for Sarah’s last turn.
“You’re almost there, with much at stake. And now the ground begins to quake.”
Yes. That’s exactly what I want to achieve. My character at the breaking point for all she’s endured to that point, out of time, with everything on the line… and then the final blow to light the powder keg.
Next up in our chain is the fabulous Jessica Verday, so be sure to pop over to Jibberings tomorrow and see what she has to say.
I’ll be answering the “Alternative Question” Terri posed:
Alternative question: Do you brainstorm with a friend when you are plotting, or do you prefer to be the only one who knows what your characters are going to do?
Well, I have to say… I am quite grateful that Terri chose this topic. Because up until now, I have never properly acknowledged the awesomeness of my BFF Clara.
Although I do a LOT of pre-writing plotting, there are always the detail issues that come up along the way. Whenever I find myself sinking into a plot hole or running into a wall, I torture poor Clara by making her hear all about it.
Seriously, she is the best listener ever. She doesn’t tell me what to do or suggest something can’t be solved. If I give a possible solution(s), she simply tells me whether or not she thinks it will work or which solution might work better.
At risk of jinxing myself, I have always solved my plot problems within 48-hours of talking to Clara. The solution may not come during our conversation (in fact, it usually doesn’t) but talking it through with someone encouraging, but not leading, really helps me organize my own thoughts.
Time for another blog chain posting. This chain topic was selected by Abi.
Leah Clifford wrote the previous link and Jessica Verday (whose book cover was just revealed!) will be up next.
The questions are:
What writing related things have you done in the past?
What WIPs are you working on now?
Do you have anything brewing for the future?
Are you setting any writing goals or resolutions for 2009?
What writing related things have you done in the past?
I’ve done a variety of writing projects. In high school, I was the editor-in-chief of our school newspaper. I also won creative writing awards, primarily for my poetry, but also for a few other things, including a script for a comedy called Feuding Families where “Sudden Death” took on a sinisterly literal meaning.
In college, I continued to write and publish poems in our school’s literary magazine. Once I started medical training, my writing took a more technical turn as I compiled case presentations and lectures.
And, of course, THE EDGE OF MEMORY is currently out on submission with several agents.
My current project is suspenseful women’s fiction, tentatively titled “Enter Like a Needle.” It’s the story of a pediatrician (like myself) whose kids are being secretly harmed by a patient’s mother who is out for revenge. The doctor’s trying to figure out who’s responsible and protect her kids, but everyone– including her husband– think she’s the guilty one.
Do you have anything brewing for the future?
Of course. But I think I’m going to be cagey about that. 😉
Are you setting any writing goals or resolutions for 2009?
I’m not making any resolutions about finding an agent or getting a contract, because I have very limited control over that. But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to keep working my tail off to achieve it. Meanwhile, I keep stewing on marketing ideas. I have lots of marketing plans for THE EDGE OF MEMORY, and it sure would be exciting to put them into action!
Another Friday here, although I suppose for most folks today was a holiday. But just like there is no crying in baseball, there are no holidays in the hospital.
Regardless, it’s time for another “In Deep Smit” posting. I have many things to be grateful for this week, especially. I’m grateful for the time I spent with our family in the last few days. I’m grateful for the helpful pitch critique I received from Jessica Faust at BookEnds. I’m grateful I made it safely through the dangerous ice storm this morning, even if it took over 2 hours to get to work.
But for this week’s smitten discussion, I’d like to talk about something I’m very excited about: the QueryTracker Blog.
If you’re a writer reading this blog, you should already know how useful QueryTracker is when searching for representation. (If not, you’d best scoot over there and check it out.) Soon, the associated blog will be a busy place.
A few wonderful, talented folks and I will be co-authoring lots of hopefully helpful postings there. You’ll find tips on how to maximize the benefits of the QueryTracker site, articles covering topics in writing and publishing, featured guest bloggers, contests, and more.
All of us participating are very excited about this new venture, and hope to see you there!
I, for one, am deeply smitten with both the project and my partners-in-blogdom.
A long time ago, I celebrated my uber-geekiness here when I discovered how to use Palm Markup Language to create my own ebooks with formatting, table of contents, etc.
I love having a copy of my manuscript handy on my palm pilot, and I love reading my crit partners’ manuscripts on the go this way. Ebooks also display nicely on the PC (with ereader) when I’m only looking to read, as opposed to adding comment. I like to read manuscripts I’m critting through once for big-picture feel, then I go back in Word with track changes and all. 😉
Anyway… ebooks=highly cool. Since I posted last May, I’d been planning to post a tutorial so that other folks could make their manuscripts into formatted ebooks. Last night, I finally sat down to write it up.
And I discovered it wasn’t necessary. The geek requirement has been dramatically decreased by a super-easy program called “Publish Ebook“. Seriously, you can do this without a smidge of geekiness whatsoever.
If you have ereader installed on your computer, handheld, phone, or whatever, you’ll be able to read your manuscript. The files are tiny, too, so you can store a lot of them even on devices without much memory.
Here’s my ebook for The Edge of Memory displaying on my PC.
It has a clickable Table of Contents and everything.
In other news, my blog stats show that someone is searching for “Heather Dyer UIUC” and “Heather Dyer poetry”. So if you’re looking for the quirky bio major and Linsey-Woolsey Lit Magazine staffer who wore bell bottoms and was often the only person dancing at O’Malley’s (despite sticking to diet coke all night), you’ve found the right person. 🙂
Terri Rainer made the most recent post on this subject. She also wins hands down for most gratuitous hottie picture, so if you don’t go check it out you have only yourself to blame. 😉 Mary Lindsey will be up next.
The topic this round:
What is the role of wish fulfillment in fiction? What personal wishes do you want your stories to fulfill? Are they the same ones you want to read about? How do our fictitious wishes affect our everyday wishes?
My favorite Tori Amos song is “Tear in Your Hand” which includes the line, “You know, you’re full of wish.”
I am. Absolutely full of wish.
I’ve had ideas for stories forever, but I only started writing novels a little over a year ago. So what was the catalyst?
Wish fulfillment. Or more accurately, the lack thereof.
Like, oh… everyone else in the world, my life has not turned out exactly the way I thought it would. And like other reasonable folks, I’ve realized it’s silly to expect it to. As John Lennon (Sandra’s muse) once said, “Life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans.”
I’m a physician and the director of my department. I am used to taking control of situations, whether that means managing patient care, arranging on-call schedules, or running a code in an emergency. I thrive in those situations. I’m a problem-solver and a take-charge gal.
I struggle when I feel powerless to fix a situation. Among other complications in the last few years, a car crash forever changed the life I planned. I wish I could have stopped the other driver from running the red light. I wish everyone was healed and pain-free. But I can’t make that happen.
So the catalyst for me to start writing grew from my desire for control… to put my characters through all sorts of stress and know for a fact I could pull them through to a happy ending.
That’s why the world loves a happy ending. People need to believe wish-fulfillment is possible.
And that is the spine of every story really… to engage the reader to the point that (s)he WISHES for an outcome for the characters, and to fulfill that wish in some way. Even if not quite in the way the reader expects.
So, that’s my response. Probably not really the way Sandra intended, but you can’t always get what you want.
It’s not quite Friday yet, but I have a very good reason to celebrate my weekly “In Deep Smit” a day early…
It was one year ago today that I signed up for this spiffy blog on WordPress.
I started this blog when I was just one month (and about 40K words) into The Edge of Memory, mostly as a way of documenting the process.
I was quite private at first. Only my husband and BFF Clara knew I was blogging, and I kept the blog out of search engines and whatnot.
After my first round of editing, I asked for test readers on a number of internet chat boards to which I belong. I set up the Test Readers pages so folks could discuss their thoughts after reading.
But aside from my clandestine beta-readers and a handful of close friends, no one knew I was here.
In May, when I started marketing my novel, I made this a public blog. So Trying to Do the Write Thing has only been public for six months, but it’s a year old today.
I’ve come a long way in a year. Finished a novel and started another. Revised my query letter approximately 72 million times. Learned that publishing is to weeks what football is to minutes– it’s a slow process. I’ve reached a zen-like state of understanding there.
As a physician, I’m used to ordering things “Stat” and that really doesn’t apply in publishing.
I mean REALLY doesn’t apply. But there is an element to that fact that is kind of refreshing. It makes me appreciate the journey.
A journey on which I’ve met (and virtually met) a lot of fabulous people. If you’re reading this, THIS MEANS YOU. 😉
The Blog Chain has circled back to me again, so I’m postponing my usual “In Deep Smit” posting (unless y’all will buy the deeply-smitten-with-the-chain-gang thing two weeks in a row. 😉 ) This chain’s topic was selected by Kate Karyus Quinn. If you didn’t already find your way here from Leah Clifford’s blog, be sure to check out her post. And Mary Lindsey will be up next.
The topic this time:
How as a writer do you find the balance between having too much or too little confidence in your work?
So, I’ve titled this entry, “Smug as a Bug in a Rug.” And by “in a Rug,” of course, I mean “wearing a toupee.”
Rubber Tree Plants aside, have I done what the topic question asks? Well, I will answer that with a strong, confident “Maybe.”
If you’ve followed our chain since it started, you’ve seen that most of us don’t really have a “balance”– more like a teeter-totter of ups and downs.
I have to say, this blog topic is not the first time I personally have pondered about my confidence.
In April, I attended my first writing conference, The Chicago-North RWA Spring Fling. (Posts about that here, here, and here.)Â I did NOT anticipate the nervousness I experienced there.
I’m a physician and the director for a hospitalist program. I think we can safely agree that a 35-year-old woman does not get where I am without a healthy portion of professional self-confidence. I am an experienced public speaker. From Speech and Debate teams in high school to delivering medical lectures, I’ve never been uncomfortable talking to anybody.
So I was as surprised as anyone to find myself picking at my conference lunch, envisioning myself puking on the agent’s shoes during my pitch session.
I’m a powerhouse, I told myself. Why am I terrified of a 7-minute conversation?
The answer to that, I think, comes from the blurring of “professional” and “personal” that comes with writing.
To write a great story, you need to pour yourself into the work, so professional detachment gets a bit harder.
There are some components of writing that I am quite confident about.
Professionalism. Business letters come easily to me. I interview well. I’m comfortable with public speaking. My work requires skill in starting and conducting much more difficult conversations than any I could have about my writing. I know many authors are less comfortable on the networking/business side and would prefer to stay comfortably behind the keyboard. This is thankfully not a concern for me.
Stories. I love the story of The Edge of Memory. I may need to revise some of the nuts-and-bolts of how the story is told (and I am always willing to consider ways to tell it better) but the story itself is solid. I think about my stories for a long time before writing them, so the web of connections is already well-defined before the first draft. This helps me weave in the details that eventually come together more naturally into the narrative.
Communication skills. I’m not talking here about my writing, but more about my comprehension. It is a running joke among my family and co-workers that I translate English to English. Quite frequently, I am called upon to explain when folks have “a failure to communicate”. I’m fluent in Mother-in-Law to Son translation, as well as Resident-Physician to Nurse. When I receive feedback on my writing, I believe I’m good at understanding and then acting on it to improve my story. Beyond a good story foundation, that might be the most useful skill I have.
Every writer has crisis moments. I know I have. All of us have reached the point where we’ve announced we were ready to give up. We didn’t. That makes all the difference.
I once read a quote from Erma Bombeck. It’s not really about confidence per se, but more about perserverance:
~
When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, “I used everything you gave me”.
~
I’m a writer. I am going to have crises of self-doubt. I’m going to think what I’ve written is the worst drivel ever to be strung together. I’m going to believe my test readers are just being nice when they tell me they stayed up all night to finish my novel. I’ll convince myself that I’ll never be good enough to make it in this industry.
So you might think I’m getting ahead of myself, but I see this as sort of like wedding planning.
I’m anxious to cook them myself. 
to Clara, the best BFF ever.
I’m grateful for the helpful 
All of us have reached the point where we’ve announced we were ready to give up. We didn’t. That makes all the difference.
I’m going to think what I’ve written is the worst drivel ever to be strung together. I’m going to believe my test readers are just being nice when they tell me they stayed up all night to finish my novel. I’ll convince myself that I’ll never be good enough to make it in this industry.
H. L. Dyer's Weblog 