Rejections

I know what you must be thinking reading the title of today's post.  "Rejections, you don't even have a book yet, right?"

We've all done it at some point in our lives.  We have all put ourselves out there for one thing or another.  Willingly making ourselves vulnerable for our own benefit, to help another or even bring attention to something.  Chances are that you're going to end up getting rejected more often than not.

Maybe it's that new job you really wanted.  Maybe it was that cute guy at the coffee shop.  Maybe it was just wanting to be apart of something as you look in on it from the outside.  I'm sure everyone reading knows what I'm talking about.

I got my first writing rejection letter today.  It came in the form of a very pleasantly worded, generic, sorry-but-the-position-has-been-filled kind of email.

Here's the part of the blog where I blame Facebook.  Over on the right hand side of the window, Facebook suggests pages you should follow or friends you should have.  The friend suggestions seem to be a little out there for me.  I really don't need to know what my father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate is up to these days, and just because we have one friend in common doesn't mean we know each other.  Thanks Facebook, but if I want more friends I'll go looking for them.

The pages, on the other hand, have always been pretty good for me.  All my suggestions seem to be centered around shoes and books.  :-)  Works for me!

So when a suggested page came up called Book Riot, I had to take a look.  Book Riot is a fantastic site.  It's full of contributing authors that write about all kinds of things all centered around reading.  I found this site around Thanksgiving time and had been reading the articles here and there.  Just like any magazine or newspaper, some of the articles I found very entertaining and some, well, not so much.

When I found that you could actually add their articles to your RSS feed I was hooked.  They post a lot more articles everyday than what they advertise on Facebook.

If you love to read you really should check their web page out!

Where was I?  Oh yeah, my rejection.

Anyway, after I had been reading their articles for a few months, and about a month after I started this blog, Book Riot put out a request for submissions.  They were looking for new contributing authors.  It also looked like they were trying to diversify their topics since they were looking for avid readers of Romance, Fantasy, Christian, Young Adult, and Crime and Mystery books among others.

This seemed like a really great way to get even more writing practice.  They were only looking for a 2 post a month commitment and to be willing to work with other Rioters (that's what they call all their writers!  Awesome huh?) on some group projects.

I thought this was great.  I could actually get paid to read books, write fun articles about them, get my work published and possibly even make a little extra spending cash (revenue share).  It took me about a week to decide what I was going to write in my submission articles.

I sent my little submissions out into the world, to have someone read something I wrote outside this blog.  It was a huge first step for me.

I though they handled it splendidly.  I got an email about a day after I submitted saying thanks and we'll be in touch.  Now all I had to do was wait.  Thankfully, in the meantime, I had all these great articles to read.

Today at work I was up to my eyeballs in stuff to get done, so I didn't really think much of my phone buzzing to tell me I had a new email.  As I was walking down the hallway I opened the email and began reading it before it even registered in my brain what it was I was reading.

As I mentioned before the email was very nice but it was very clear it was a mass email.  It stated they had over 440 people submit and that they have, at this time, filled all the positions.

So bummer, I wasn't going to be a contributing columnist for Book Riot.  Let me take a 5 second break so I can feel sorry for myself.   .   .   .   .

Ok.  Now that that's over I can get on with it!

I have read quite a few articles and interviews with current big time authors who talk about all the rejection letters they got in the beginning, or even still get today with some of their ideas.  I get that rejections are part of the process.

So bottom line, my first rejection letter didn't make me feel like I needed to pack it all up and forget about being a writer.... I know I was just as surprised as you at my reaction!

I really don't feel that badly about not being chosen this time around.  I will continue to follow the site and if they call for another round of submissions, I will join that one as well.

As I think about how well I am taking this I realized that what I gave over to Book Riot were two 500 word articles that I spent a few hours putting together over the course of about a week.  When I someday write the blog entry that talks about the first rejection letter I got for a book that I put my heart and soul and countless months into I might take it a little more personally.

But before that happens I actually have to get the thing written!  So thanks for not picking me for now, Book Riot, you've freed up a bunch of my time to focus on my own book.  But, someday, you might be sorry you didn't scoop me up when you had the chance ;-)

Brain Burnout

Last week I had to work extra hours at my day job, both of my children were ill (you name it, they had it) and no one in my house was sleeping very well.

This all can lead to not enough energy or time to feel productive in other areas.  I started a book, from a series I thoroughly enjoy, over 2 weeks ago and I am only on page 50.  I can't even remember what day it was when I read the paragraph I am currently on.  I sure haven't had a whole lot of time to devote to my writing.  This sadly leaves us with not a lot of material for this blog.

So why do it?

I do it, because I need to make myself do it.  It would just be so easy to say I can't do this, I'm tired, I don't have the energy, I don't have the time, I just don't feel like it.  Here's the thing.  I feel like if I can't take time out and devote at least an hour a week to writing this blog, I'm never going to be able to commit  the massive amount of time it's going to take to finish my book.

As I said before.  My goal for this blog was to help me establish a writing habit.  A reason for getting me to the computer to write something for which I'm going to be held accountable.

Since my book writing has seen a slight holdup, I need to do this blog.

It keeps me anchored.  It keeps me from floating away from my computer, never to return again.  It doesn't matter to me if no one out there is reading it.  There's a possibility that someone might be, and that someone may be looking forward to reading, just like I look forward to updates to some of my favorite blogs.  It's the possibility that someone may read it that keeps the pressure on me to keep writing.  And that is a very good thing.

This week is, thankfully, back to a more normal schedule and the kids are both on antibiotics so I will be able to devote time again to writing my novel.  Wednesday night!

Even now I feel the bubble of excitement rise up when I think of the time when I get to sit back down and get my hero and heroine talking to each other for the first time.  Its exciting, I feel like I'm setting up a blind date where I know the two of them will just love each other.... eventually :-)

So thanks for reading if you are.  You keep me here and you make me want to write!

If you're not reading it well, I guess I can say whatever I want about you because you're not going to know about it, but I will say thanks to you too.  Its the possibility that you may read it someday that gets this butt in this seat at least once a week so I can share with you.

I really enjoy writing.  More so than I thought I would when I set out to do this!

So my brain might be mush right now, but in a day or two it will have recovered enough to make two fictional (but no so fictional to me) characters go all mushy for each other!

Just like getting over a cold.  I'll be back in the saddle before long!

My goal for blogging

When I first set out to write a blog about writing my first novel what I was really after was writing practice and a way to committing to write on certain nights of the week.

As I started writing I was hoping that eventually I might get some posters on my blog telling stories that related to what I was talking about or even some advice on how to get over a hurdle I was currently facing.  I even hoped that someday I could use this blog to get some exposure for my impending novel.

Last night I got something from this blog that I would never have expected in my wildest dreams.

I had a really good friend of mine send me a message.  This friend and I had met at our day jobs.  We had a few chats many, many years ago about how we both wanted to write novels.

In this message my friend told me that my blog had motivated him to start writing again as well.  He was starting off small but hoping to work up to something bigger in the future.

So while I started this blog for practice, advice, camaraderie and maybe even a little fame in the writing community (well a girl can try), I got something even more rewarding.

Hearing that I motivated someone out there to write got me excited that people are actually reading my blog, yippee!  It also got me really excited to get to my writing night so we can have more writing chats as delightful as the one we had last night.

Sadly, my day job needs some extra TLC this week.  I am probably going to be skipping my book writing night so I don't burn myself out.  After working 11 hour days I don't think I will have the mental capacity to come home and write anything worthwhile in the pages of my soon to be masterpiece.  It would  also be why the blog post is a little shorter and, maybe, less entertaining tonight.

But hopefully that will be just this week and next week I can be back at it with a vengeance next week!

A place for everything, and everything in its place

I'm a list maker.  Just ask my husband, his honey-do list is about a mile long.

The reason it's a mile long is because I make lists to help me accomplish goals.  I create a punch list of each item or task I need to acquire or accomplish to reach my ultimate goal.  This could be as simple as "Finish Grocery Shopping", "Clean House", or even, "Pack for vacation".  They can go all the way up to very complicated with things like "Sell House" or "Remodel Fireplace Room with Built in Bookshelves" which are really lists of lists.

So starting to write was no different.  I needed my list of things I needed to do.  If you read my last post some of the things on my list were really there to keep me from completing the list, but most were valid items I needed to get done.

The first item on that list was finish my very encouraging book leading me out of the land of Dummies and into the world of the enlightened published author.

There is an entire chapter in this book about Outlining.  I was very excited when I saw it in the table of contents (NERD ALERT!) and I was also very excited when I reached the chapter and was on the verge of learning how to properly put together an outline.

I learned the importance of outlining my senior year of high school.  Since I didn't take an English class that year I had to take a literary and a writing course.  The writing course I mentioned here.  The literary course was one of my favorite classes of all time.  It was called Woman as Hero and the entire course was about gynocentric literature.  The structure of this class was read a book and then for tests on the book we would write in class papers.  We would be given the exact topic of the paper ahead of time and we were allowed to bring only an outline with us.  The outline would be turned in with the paper so she could see you didn't just bring in a bunch of cliff notes.

At first I didn't put too much in my outlines and it really showed in my papers.  They were disorganized, not very well supported and were not receiving grades that were up to my standard.

I didn't realize that my real problem was in my outline.  About half way through the semester my teacher put a note on my test saying that she knew I was reading the material because my in class discussions were spot on, but my papers were not where they should be.  She helped me work on my outlines and by the time I knew it my outlines were strong enough to produce papers with strong, well supported arguments.

All through college my outlines were the foundation for every paper I had to write, even if it was just a rough couple of bullets of topics or arguments I wanted to cover.  Come to think of it, those outlines were probably the start of my list writing habit, but they sure made writing easier.

So here I was, eager to devour the chapter in Writing a Romance Novel for Dummies on Outlining.  I was expecting a sort of how-to outline for a work of fiction instead of that of a term paper.

I finished the chapter and I was a little disappointed.  I read the entire chapter and basically the take-aways were:

1. Outlines are important 
2. Always write an outline 
3. Even if you don't want to write an outline write one anyway.  

I had expected to know everything I needed to know about outlining at the end of this chapter.  I was an outlining dummy for crying out loud!  After reading this, I didn't feel like less of a dummy, I felt like dummy in the dark.

Well, now what was I supposed to do.  I did what I have been doing every time I got stuck on my writing.  I just shot from the hip to see if I could hit anything.

If I missed maybe I would try the other hip?

In hindsight I'm not really sure why I expected this after finishing the chapter.  In any of the other chapters she didn't give me a step by step checklist on how to write other aspects of my novel.  So why should the outline be any different.  You need to find out what works for you.  

So I already had this stack of note cards I had been using for story boarding.  So one night after the kids were in bed and my husband was off playing hockey I started to lay all the cards out on the floor in our living room.

Holy Winter Wonderland, Batman!  I had so many note cards strewn across the living room floor it looked like it snowed!  That night when my husband came home from hockey he found me on my hands and knees crawling around on the floor trying to get my cards in the right order.  For the next book, I am going to have to find a better way to do this!  Maybe a white board in my office... Oh honey, I have another item for your list!

The nice thing about this was I was able to see where there were holes in my story and I quickly plugged them up.

Before I created my outline, I had a real fear that I wouldn't be able to turn the few vivid scenes I had in my head into a whole story.  After going through the exercise of the note cards and then translating them into an outline on my computer it really showed me that not only did I have enough ideas to make a whole book, what occupied the 4 pages in front of me was the skeleton of a future romance novel!

I think I read through it about 100 times just to reassure myself that it was all there.  I made a few tweaks and changes but I finally felt good about this.  To be completely honest as I am sitting down now and writing my novel there are things that I come across in my outline that won't really work anymore because things change even as you're writing.  That's okay.  The outline is easy enough to change and to see what your changes will affect in the future.

So, yes, the outline is a vital tool in the writing process, for both fiction and non-fiction and you should write one even if you don't want to.

For me it wasn't just something to put together to keep me from getting lost while I'm writing, it was a way of showing myself that I did really have everything I needed and it was time to start writing.

That was a very good day for me!