Linda Collison's Blog, page 16

How to write a KILLER query

 

In this golden age of indie-publishing some writers still want to go the traditional route, which means finding a literary agent to represent your brainchild. It’s all rather backward in my opinion; I mean, why aren’t agents researching writers and querying us?  But that ain’t happening. And so we ever-hopeful writers, like proud and babbling parents of slightly gifted children continue to send letters to perfect strangers.  “Sir or Madame won’t you read my book…”

Agents claim (and sometimes complain) to receive hundreds, thousands, or bazillions of these letters a week.  Why do we writers keep pestering them?  To read some of their tweets, we are pathetic risable bores.  Yet agents make their living representing writers — not heaping scorn upon us.  They’re all looking to find the Next Big Thing.

Agents will succumb to a well-targeted query but you’ll need a heat-seeking missile to escape the trash can’s tractor beam.  Your query has to be sharp and shining to hit the mark. It has to make them want to read your manuscript — want it enough to actually hit “reply” and ask you to send it.  Now you’ve got your foot in the door. It’s only the first step but it’s the first step.

I’m pretty good at query letters.  I started writing them decades ago, when I was freelancing for magazines.  My first published book, Rocky Mountain Wineries; a travel guide to the wayside vineyards (Pruett Publishing, 1994) was the result of a Hail Mary query.  My queries aren’t always successful but often enough they have resulted in an agent or editor asking to see more.  Many times they resulted in a published article, twice they won me an agent, and twice they won me a book contract with a small press.  I figure I’m on an uphill roll.

Whether I’m pitching a novel, a nonfiction book or an article my format is basically the same.  Three or four paragraphs, tops.  Here’s my advice:

Keep it short. One page is perfect. Two pages if you’re a Nobel Prize winner or past POTUS.

Personalize! I target each letter to a particular agent for a specific reason, based on what they say they’re looking for on their website, blog, an interview or at a writers conference. I keep a master list of who I’ve queried, the date sent, and the response — if any. These days most agents don’t reply to unsolicited queries unless they’re interested.

Queries can be sent out in quantity, but an outstanding query will generate results, so be prepared for several agents to request “exclusive” readings of full manuscripts. I had this happen recently and was so pumped up by the thought of two agents wanting me, maybe even fighting over me, that I basked in the glow of their desire for a couple of days before responding to either one of them. When I did email back I explained truthfully that another agent had also requested a full manuscript. Both agents wrote back that they still wanted to read the full manuscript, but only if I didn’t shop it out to anyone else while they were considering it.

Ultimately both agents passed on the project.  “Strong voice, well-written, just didn’t fall in love with it, blah, blah, blah.”  Still, my outstanding query letter got me past the threshold.

In the first paragraph I try to hook them with a concept statement about my story — and with a sentence that shows I have an idea of what they’re looking for or other successful books they’ve represented. This is a bit of a smooze effort, but can be highly effective if sincere. If I’ve attended a conference at which they were a speaker, I mention that. I try to make a meaningful connection.  For instance,

Dear _______,

I enjoyed and learned from your comments on the “First Pages” panel at the recent RMC SCBWI autumn conference in Golden, Colorado. I’m querying you about my YA novel “Water Ghosts,” a psychological novel with paranormal and historical elements…

Nothing flashy here but I’ve tried to personally connect with this agent who I know is looking for YA with compelling characters.

The second paragraph is about the project itself. One paragraph in which I capture the heart of the story. Impossible? Yes!  The second paragraph of your query may be the hardest one you’ll ever write.  Don’t explain your story and don’t try to give a full plot synopsis.  Instead, write the back cover teaser for your book.  You might end the second paragraph by mentioning books that influenced you.  Personally, I refrain from comparing my book to other popular titles but many writers do.

The third paragraph is all about me.  A brief bio, germane to this story or project I’m pitching.  Here’s where I mention my previous publishing credits and awards. Publishing credits aren’t as important as they sound because many agents today are looking to discover the next “new” writer. If pertinent, I include a sentence or two about what drove me to write this novel or what experience in my life gives me credibility. This deeper connection to your story can be emphasized if you don’t have publishing credits. You exhibit your writing ability by creating a tight, compelling, well-targeted letter that speaks for itself.

End your killer query by thanking the agent or editor for her time. Offer to send the full manuscript and a box of Belgian chocolate to eat while reading. (I’m kidding about the chocolates.) Don’t forget to include your your contact information!  Include a website, Facebook, blog and twitter links if you have a big following. You have about 30 seconds to capture this person’s attention and make them want to read more.

Find and follow the directions on the agent’s website for querying. Some only want a query, some want sample chapters and a synopsis along with the query, some don’t want attached files but request sample pages cut and pasted beneath the body of the letter. A few agents don’t want electronic queries at all and some will only accept emailed queries.  Some really have no clue what they want.

Save your query letter to use as a template for other agents; no need to reinvent the wheel, just personalize for each.  Don’t forget to keep a log or spreadsheet of agents queried.

Ultimately, a query letter is a concise, elegant sales pitch.  Don’t get discouraged; refuse to be defeated.  Sooner or later you’ll hit your target and bag an agent.  Or maybe you’ll decide to publish the damn thing yourself!

Listening for Redfeather – free audio download

Storytelling isn’t just for bedtime and this ain’t Mom reading Good Night Moon.  This is Aaron Landon bringing to life Ramie, Chas, LaRoux, and the many characters they meet on the road. This is the ACX audiobook production of Looking for Redfeather available from Audible.com

As a writer it’s extremely valuable to hear your work read by someone else.  To have your work read by an actor is both a privilege and a pleasure — and a little startling to literally hear those voices who inhabited your head for so long.

The Audible.com edition includes the Outlaw Trail soundtrack, a single composed by Matt Campbell and recorded by Red Whiskey Blue, a Denver-based band.

We’re giving away five free downloads here on linda collison’s Sea of Words blog; comment on this post or contact us to be entered.  This offer ends October 4.

It ain’t Jack Kerouac’s road trip.

 

 

Coming of Age On the Road

Coming of age is a term that for me encompasses those years, those days, that moment in time when we realize we are alive — that we are sentient beings apart from our parents, and that we are responsible for ourselves.  Coming of age often involves a sexual awareness or awakening as well, though that is only one aspect of the phenomenon.

Standing on the edge of childhood’s shore, adolescence is the ocean we must cross to become adults.  Or so we imagine when we are young.  We don’t realize until years later that there is no final port of call.  We never reach the imagined shores of the fabled continent of Reason, Happiness, and Fullfilment but instead spend our time on this Earth navigating an archipelago of alluring but ultimately unsustainable desert islands, sometimes running aground on dangerous reefs.  What we find, if we don’t become marooned on one of these islands and go tropo under a palm tree or at the shipwreck bar, is that the crossing, the passage across unknown waters  is life; there is no continent of adulthood, just the becoming.

If you put the whole metaphor on land and substitute a boat for a car, you have a coming of age on the road story.

Cars are a big part of American culture.   Having one’s own car or access to a car is an important part of growing up in the Land of the Free.  I’m not condoning our reliance on the automobile, I’m just saying that cars are important to our way of life and our freedom of movement.  One of the symbols of coming of age in American society is getting a driver’s license.  When I got mine at the age of sixteen, I was allowed to drive my mother’s Chevy Nova to my first “real” job — working weekends at a bakery six miles away.  I was allowed to drive it occasionally to school functions or to a friend’s house.  I remember my first independent road trip with four friends — a five-hour jaunt to Ocean City Maryland one summer Saturday when I was seventeen — which nearly ended in us all being arrested, but that is another story…

Twentieth century coming of age on the road stories that stick in my mind include the classic ones: On the Road, Rebel Without a Cause,  American Graffiti and Diner.  Recently I revisited all of these stories, re-reading Kerouac’s On the Road and watching the movie versions of the others.  While I still found them enjoyable, I was struck by how old the characters seemed and how, well, entitled.  Even Kerouac’s thinly disguised alter ego had the luxury of time — and beneficent friends who were willing to sustain and support him as he traveled around the country looking for life.

A number of YA (young adult) novels have been published that include road trips as part of the plot.  But for me, the road trip is more than a plot device. As Audioslave sings, “I am not your rolling wheels, I am the highway.”  For me, the road trip is the metaphor, the setting, the structure.

There’s a difference between a YA novel and the classic, coming-of-age novel which takes a longer perspective and might employ irony, wistful yearning, and hard-earned wisdom.  Coming-of-age stories are equally enjoyed by the mature reader who remembers what it was like to be young.  Indeed, I wrote Looking for Redfeather for that awkward, troubled teen who lives within me and who has refused to grow up even after all these miles.

Road trips, like ocean crossings, are all about the journey.  But of course you need a destination to justify the trip.  You need a mission, a goal, a purpose.  A redfeather is as good as any.  I’ve been driving many miles now, and although I still haven’t found Redfeather, I’ve caught a few glimpses of him, running through the trees or soaring overhead on an updraft of warm summer air.  Redfeather is my metaphor for awareness, experience, and for life itself.

Looking for Redfeather is now available in audiobook format from Audible.com, narrated by Aaron Landon.   Listen to a sample.  It’s also available in trade paperback and electronic format. Next, the stage play…

 

 

The scatology of finding the heart of your story

Being a writer sometimes feels like a cross between an archaeologist, a nurse, and a sanitation engineer.

To find the heart of your story, you have to be willing to write shit.  A lot of it.  Take a purgative if you need to, and get ready.  In my experience the heart is formed during the first weeks of logorrhea.  Stock up on toilet paper and your favorite form of liquid hydration, then commit yourself to the purge.  Give it a month.

I wrote the first draft of Looking for Redfeather in 2007 during the month of November — National Novel Writing Month.  After thirty days I had a fresh hot dump of words that frankly stank — but i was aware of a beating heart somewhere in the muck.  Over the next few years I put my waders on and began to dig into the rich fetid dung heap, looking for the life in the story.

My past experience as a nurse helped prepare me for this crappy job.  See, I’m not afraid of organic waste; producing it is part of the business of living as well as the business of writing.  I approached the re-writing of my first draft with a will and although sometimes I had to hold my breath, I did find the heart of my story somewhere within the steaming hot mess of words.  Or rather, I found the three beating hearts of Ramie, Chas and LaRoux, the teenaged protagonists who go looking for Redfeather in Chas’s dead step-grandfather’s vintage Cadillac.  Looking for Redfeather is my 21st century homage to Jack Kerouac and his quest for life On the Road. 

It helps to write fast and furiously in that first draft.  You can’t construct a beating heart in an outline, you have to discover it in your subconsciousness.  The heart is what drives your story and without it your words, no matter how well thought out or meticulously outlined, are dead on the page.

A good time to outline is AFTER the initial dump.  AFTER you’ve found the heart and washed it off a bit.  There it sits, pink and pulsating, in your gloved hands.  NOW you can plan the bones — the structure — of the story and do some other needed surgical interventions.  At least, this has become my process.  Hearing the heartbeat, then feeling it quiver in my hands gives me incentive to finish the story.

So how do you recognize the heart of your story?

After you have purged, let the pile of words cool off for a few days, weeks, or even months.  During this time your subconscious mind will likely still be working on it, if its any good.  After a vacation read it again with fresh eyes, highlighting the parts that make your own heart jump.  These are the living sentences, paragraphs, or scenes, that bring your words to life.  They probably still need some work, but they have potential.

Be careful not to flush the heart of your story when you revise.  Don’t workshop or talk too much about your characters while in this vulnerable stage or you may lose the urge to write it at all.  Who but a nurse understands the similarities between elimination and story gestation?  Both are very intimate processes necessary for life.

Here’s your discharge instructions in a nutshell:

1. Prepare yourself.  Set aside a block of time (30 days is ideal) to dump your heart out onto the page or screen.  Make the intention, then shut the door and do your business.

2. Don’t go back, don’t edit, don’t flush anything yet.  Never mind the disgusting noises and smells — they’re part of the process.  But don’t share them at this point — keep the door closed.

3. When you’ve finished, leave the mess.  Then go back with fresh eyes and wade through the pages, looking and listening for those parts that jump off the page.  Highlight them and build on them.

4. Don’t erase your first draft. instead, keep it in a separate file and let it drive your re-write.  Nobody ever has to see it but you!

 

Looking for Redfeather is available in paperback and electronic format from your favorite purveyor of literature.  To be released soon as an audiobook, read by Aaron Landon! 

It’s all about Theme

Characters hook us, plot compels us to turn the pages, but the theme of a story is what stays with us long after we’ve forgotten the details. Theme answers the question, What’s the story about? Not what happens but what might it mean? What is the author trying to express?

Is theme the moral of the story? Is it one of life’s lessons? Like, Don’t build your house of straw? Or, Slow and steady wins the race? It can be, but the themes of many memorable novels are often subtle and complex, questioning our assumptions about what we hold to be true.  Questioning aspects of the entire human experience.  Which is why fiction is a nearly inexhaustible medium.

The consequences of strong human emotions such as jealousy, lust, and revenge provide powerful themes for novels, but quieter aspects of the human experience can be equally compelling.  Emotions like desire and regret.

In Looking for Redfeather I set out to write a story about three teens from troubled families (aren’t all families troubled?) who meet up by chance and go on a road trip together. One of the three protagonists, Ramie, has father issues; he’s looking for the father he never knew. One of my own sons still struggles with this, even though he now has sons of his own and his father is dead.  While Ramie’s story is not my son’s story, I drew inspiration and some details, from our own collective past.

LaRoux, the female protagonist, has learning disabilities caused from a genetic deletion on the 22nd chromosome – a deletion my own granddaughter is challenged with. I didn’t want the story to be about 22q deletion syndrome or about learning disorders, but it helped bring LaRoux to life as she struggles with dyscalculia and executive functioning difficulties –and against her rigid, conservative, but loving parents – to follow her dream to be a singer.

Chas, the third protagonist, is fleeing his wreck of a life back home, driving his grandmother’s car, a treasured antique Cadillac he took without permission.   Chas, the eldest and most loquacious of the three, is facing a crisis of his own, which he deals with by stealing the heirloom Cadillac and setting out on a road trip, “looking for sentient life on a barren planet.” (This idea came from a true story about a young man, who upon being confronted by his parents and his sixteen-year-old girlfriend with the news that he was going to be a father, his first response was to leap off the porch and run into the woods. You can’t make that stuff up! Being a teenaged father is NOT Chas’s problem, however…)

Family turmoil interests me, as do friendships; how and why people connect. In Looking for Redfeather I listen in on three teens from different backgrounds who run away for different reasons. Essentially, Looking for Redfeather is a 21st century road trip story. Like Jack Kerouac these kids are looking for life –but their problems are more immediate and more concrete than those of the iconic Beat author.  And LaRoux has a personal goal driving her — a goal that does not include getting laid by the male protagonists. Imagine that, Jack Kerouac!

Looking for Redfeather, will soon be available as an audiobook, read by actor and musician Aaron Landon. Just in time for your end-of-summer road trip!

 

 

Chesapeake Writers Conference 2014

My reflections on the 2014 Chesapeake Writers Conference

In a nutshell:

6 days and nights/$750; not including optional lodging and meal package.   Award winning faculty included Patricia Henley, Matt Burgess, Ana Maria Spagna, Elizabeth Arnold, and Gerald (Jerry) Gabriel, who was also the conference director.

Disciplines: Fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry. Offered course credit.

Focus: Geared to emerging writers intent on improving their craft. Challenging workshops, lectures, craft talks and readings in a nurturing and inclusive environment. One discussion featured Mitchell Waters, a literary agent from Curtis Brown, and John Peede, the publisher of Virginia Quarterly Review, with personal ten minute interviews following. Another panel discussion about options in publishing for emergent authors, in which I was asked to participate.

Setting: Isolated setting at historic St. Mary’s campus on the shores of the St. Mary’s River. Student housing facilities and cafeteria meal plan were optional and are recommended, as there are few lodging and dining opportunities in the immediate vicinity. If you’re looking for night clubs, shopping and fine dining, this is not the conference for you.  On the other hand, the conference offers organized recreational activities and night time social gathering on the shores of St. Mary’s River.

My favorite activity: The daily three hour intensive workshops. I chose Matt Burgess’s group and was not disappointed. Besides being a good writer himself, Matt clearly has an academic background and has led many writing groups. His detailed written critique of my short story was both thorough and insightful.

My favorite lecture: Besides breaking into smaller critique groups, the week was filled with lectures, craft talks, readings, and small panel discussions, one of which I was asked to take part in. While these were all valuable, the opening talk by Patricia Henley was perhaps the most inspiring for me. Like attending a religious revival meeting, I re-dedicated myself to the writing life, vowed to make more time for writing and taking part in “the great conversation,” as Henley called it.

My thanks to conference director Jerry Gabriel and his hardworking assistants who organized this event, one that exceeded my expectations.  My only advice to future attendees is to stay on campus and spring for the meal plan!

Faculty:

Jerry Gabriel (fiction)

Patricia Henley (fiction)

Matt Burgess (fiction)

Ana Maria Spagna (creative nonfiction)

Elizabeth Arnold (poetry)

Reflections…

In one of my imagined parallel lives I’m an award-winning MFA writer-in-residence at a small liberal arts college. But in this life — the one I’m actually living — I’m a jack-of-all-trades who has managed to cobble together an evolving career of diverse occupations, including freelance writer and novelist.  I have taken some undergraduate level writing classes, but mostly I learned to write by reading, writing, and participating in writing conferences and workshops, including Aspen, Steamboat Springs, Maui, Southwest Writers, Napa Valley, and Colorado Teen Literature Conference. Some of these were better than others but nearly all were useful to me at various stages of my career.

I chose to attend the Chesapeake Writers Conference this year because I was looking for a craft based conference in an academic setting. I felt this was what I needed to invigorate my own writing and to connect with like-minded writers and perhaps find new mentors. I wanted to come as a beginner, not as a published author with an established mindset. I wanted to leave behind notions of what and how I should be writing. I did not want to focus on writing for the market or selling to the market. I didn’t want to practice my elevator speech or pitch to a bored agent. I wanted to hone my writing skills. (That being said, I was thrilled when literary agent Mitchell Waters asked to see one of the manuscripts I’m working on. The fantasy of a well-connected agent falling in love with my words and proposing commitment dies hard!)

I first heard about the Chesapeake Writers Conference on newpages.com.   2014 was its third year.  I wasn’t familiar with the presenters, they weren’t on any commercial bestseller list I was aware of, though they were all award-winning authors with much experience teaching creative writing.  For me, this was important. I didn’t need to pay good money to swoon at the feet of a One Hit Wonder talking about how he wrote his breakout bestseller. I wanted nuts and bolts. I wanted trustworthy critique. I wanted to expand my circle of literary contacts.

Next, I sampled their writing to see if I admired it; to see if I felt I could learn something from these writers. Indeed, I did.

Another factor that swayed me was location. I was born and raised in Maryland, though I haven’t lived there in many years. I felt a pull back to the state of my beginnings.

I decided to stay off-campus because my husband was flying in on Wednesday to join me, then we’d leave on Saturday, for Europe. In hindsight I should have elected to stay on campus; Bob and I could have shared a student townhouse. Instead, I booked a room at Island Inn and Suites on St. Georges Island, which was a nice venue with a lovely view — but a 25-minute drive from the conference. Also, I had a hard time finding places to eat.  Next door, the Ruddy Duck Restaurant and Alehouse, serves up good fresh food, including an authentic Maryland blue crab cake — but the hours of operation weren’t conducive.  Like, where do I get breakfast and lunch? I passed plenty of bait & tackle shops and gas stations in this neck of the woods, but there was a dearth of coffee shops, cafes and charming bistros. I ended up drinking a fortifying peanut butter smoothie at the campus coffee shop every morning for breakfast, and dining in the cafeteria with my fellow writers –that is, until Bob joined me near the end of the week.

Coming back to my home state, writing in this lush rural setting on the Chesapeake Bay, under the direction of the excellent faculty proved to be just what I needed.  I’ve made new contacts, learned a new way to examine my own writing, and was reaffirmed in my own practice.  All in all, the conference exceeded my expectations. Now, back to my work, newly inspired.

Writers Conferences — Worth it?

“Who here has been to a writers conference before?”  Matt Burgess asked at the welcome dinner last night.  I was one of a very few old veterans.  Most of the youngsters at the table were newbies; I envied them their innocence.

Here I am at the Chesapeake Writers Conference  — as a participant.  I’ve been a presenter at the Colorado Teen Literature Conference and the International Historical Novel Conference, so what am I doing sitting around a table with aspiring writers listening to another veteran author’s advice?

Because I have so much to learn.

Writing is a lifelong process, a way of life. It’s essentially a solitary endeavor. So how do we practice? How do we refine? How do we connect with other writers? One way is to attend a writers conference. But conferences can be expensive and time-consuming. Really – are they worth it?

I’ve attended a number of conferences over the years.  In 1996 I entered, and won, the Maui Writers Conference.  The following year I signed with my first agent, again at Maui.. I  participated in the Napa Writers Conference at a week-long workshop led by Michael Cunningham, who subsequently won the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction for The Hours.  I’ve attended numerous shorter conferences, such as the Aspen Writers Conference (see my post The Night Editor-in-Chief Myrna Blyth taught me to pitch). I’m a decorated veteran — complete with war wounds I don’t like to talk about.  Are writers conferences worth it? It depends on what you’re looking for.

If you’re looking to “be discovered”, I’d say probably not.  A powerful query letter is usually more effective than a pitch session at a crowded conference with a hung-over, jet-lagged literary agent who won’t remember your well-rehearsed pitch nor read anything at the conference.  Mass meetings of wannabe writers are not the best venue for being discovered.  Whatever that means.

But If you’re looking for motivation,  if you’re seeking a mentor, if you’re looking for tangible ways to write better, write more productively, if you’re looking for critical  feedback on your writing (take a breath so you can finish this run-on sentence), if you’re looking to establish new literary connections and to recommit yourself to the writing life, then yes — writers conferences can be worth the cost.  If you do your homework, commit yourself, and follow through when you return to the real world.

Before you sign up, ask yourself: What do I hope to achieve? How much time do I have to commit? How much can I afford? Am I willing to travel? Conferences can last a day, a weekend, a week. The focus can be on craft, or it can be on publishing and marketing. Be aware and chose which one best suits your needs.  But how do you know?

You can type “Writers Conferences” into your search engine to discover upcoming ones. I subscribe to New Pages –  which is how I found out about the Chesapeake Writers Conference I am now attending. Hosted by St. Mary’s College of Maryland and directed by Jerry Gabriel, author of Drowned Boy (winner of the Mary McCarthy Short Fiction Prize), this year’s week-long event features novelists Patricia Henley and Matt Burgess, nonfiction author Ana Maria Spagna and poet Elizabeth Arnold.

I chose this particular conference because the emphasis is on the craft of writing rather than publishing and marketing.   And because of location – St. Mary’s City, on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay, less than a hundred miles south of my birthplace in Anne Arundel County.  I felt a primal longing for my roots (forgetting how hot the motherland is in early July…)   Although I had never heard of any of the presenters I researched their published works, read a selection of each, and was hopeful I could learn something from them. All are literary authors, not commercial bestsellers.  My goal is to get back to the craft of writing, not the business of selling.

The structure of the Chesapeake Writers Conference promises to be intense, with morning and evening lectures, and various optional activities.  Afternoons are spent in focused workshops to critique each others writing.  These sessions are led by the featured presenters and participants choose which one they’d like to attend.  After reading Matt Burgess’s novel Dogfight; A Love Story, I chose his workshop, which he describes as “descriptive rather than proscriptive.”  Today is Monday and the first workshop is in a few hours.

After the conference is over I’ll post a wrap-up and let you know Was it worth it?

How We Write: Getting published – in a science journal

a  memoir by Martin Evans

“Publish or perish!”. The warning is more urgent in today’s world of science research than when it was first used in the nineteen-thirties. A young post-doc, hoping for a career as a research scientist, is expected to get about two peer-reviewed research papers published every year in a front-line journal. In addition he or she is expected to publish summaries, short reviews, or a chapter in a book. If one is a co-author within an active research team this is not too difficult, but is hard to achieve if one works more-or-less alone or has university teaching duties as well as a research project.

Anyone who regularly fails to meet these expectations will start getting comments, and perhaps verbal warnings from a superior. They will find it hard to raise the grants that fund most modern research. Their professor or head of department may sideline them for promotion and tenure. The head of their institute or college will begin to think about replacing them with someone more productive.

These facts will not be much in the thoughts of a young postgraduate, enjoying the excitement of laboratory research and library study for a doctoral degree. The satisfaction of having passed their first degree with a good grade, being offered a place to work for a higher degree, and the thrill of doing real research are enough. It is a special world that they have entered. They will still be under the guidance of a supervisor but are encouraged to think creatively of new ideas and test them out with scientific experiments. They may have to begin by acquiring special skills and familiarising themselves with the relevant publications of others, but after a while they will discover something new, something unique, a contribution to our total knowledge. However small it may be, there is no feeling quite so exciting and satisfying than finding something that nobody else has ever known. The never-ending joy of scientific research is that for every question to which an answer seems to have been found, a couple of further avenues for research will open up.

After a year or two, the young scientist’s life will be disturbed by their supervisor telling them that it is time for them to make their discoveries public. The first step will usually be a presentation of their work at a meeting of a scientific society, followed by publication in the society’s ‘Proceedings’. My own primary society was the Physiological Society, which holds several meeting a year in various British universities and research institutes. Those intending to present a spoken paper send in a short abstract ahead of time. It will usually be published afterwards in the Journal if the presentation is accepted at the meeting. This will often be a young graduate’s first publication in a science journal.

I recall reminiscing with some colleagues a few years ago, about the terrors of giving ones first paper. One of us had worked for her Ph.D. degree at a Scottish university. She still remembered her unworldly professor, with an unfortunate choice of words, telling her: “Miss S., I think it is time for you to expose yourself to the Physiological Society.” At any meeting of this Society one could expect to be addressing an audience that included several Fellows of the Royal Society, and perhaps one or two Nobel Laureates.

Many of us have had experience of meetings where the chairman had not enforced the time allowances, speakers overran excessively, and we were all very late for a meal break. Having been created originally as a dining society in 1876, when a few scientific papers were presented after the dinners, the Physiological Society enforces time limits rather rigidly. Ten minutes exactly are allowed for each speaker to present their paper, followed by up to five minutes of discussion time. Novice speakers, especially, are carefully rehearsed beforehand in front of colleagues to make sure that they can deliver their presentation entirely from memory, without reading any of it, within the ten minutes. I remember one meeting when Professor Davson, an eminent character in the society, stopped speaking in mid-sentence when the red light came on. The chairman had to beg him to finish, to the amusement of the audience.

In September 1968 I was a speaker at a joint meeting of the British and Italian pharmacological societies, held in Florence. The conference was held in the new Palazzo dei Congressi on the outskirts of that fascinating historic city, which still showed much evidence of the damage done when the river Arno had flooded the previous year. The new congress building had all modern conveniences: dimmable lighting in the auditorium, excellent projectors for the 35mm ‘slides’ that we then used to illustrate our research presentations, and simultaneous translation between the two languages. I stepped onto the dais during the first morning session, had been speaking for a couple of minutes and had just called for my first ‘slide’, when everything went dark and quiet. The entire electricity supply to that sector of Florence had crashed – as apparently it did from time to time. So I ad-libbed through my paper in total darkness, speaking loudly because the microphone was dead. I told them what I would have shown on the screen if only the projector had been working. I remember some sympathetic chuckles at this, coming from the darkness of the auditorium. I was well trained in delivering a talk from memory, since the Physiological and Pharmacological Societies absolutely forbid a paper to be read from a script. I received enthusiastic applause when I finished. I doubt that it was for the scientific value of the paper: it was as much for my punctuality in keeping to the ten minutes and for having coped calmly with the local problems. In due course my paper was published – without any mention of the power-outage.

Preparing a full paper for publication in a peer-reviewed journal has been transformed by the availability of computers and word-processing software, and internet connectivity. Nevertheless, authors still have to learn the conventions of writing for a scientific publication. The required style almost always demands a dispassionate tone, written in the third person. Authors are discouraged from phrases: “I set up the apparatus …” or “We noticed some unusual effects …”. Instead, one writes: “The apparatus was set up … effects were observed …” Emotive words must be avoided, and one learns not to use some common words that may have specific technical meanings in some contexts. For instance, ‘significant’ has a precise meaning in the statistical analysis of data. It usually implies a 95 percent probability that a finding is not attributable to random chance. It should be used carefully in general scientific discussions.

My first real job, as a young physiologist with a shiny new Ph.D. degree in the summer of 1956, was in a large department of a major research institute in London. My Ph.D. supervisor had heard of the new post through his network of friends, and most of the groundwork had already been done. My interview with the head of the department then took place in a corridor during a meeting of the Physiological Society. He asked me whether I knew what a ‘leaky condenser’ was. “Yes”, I answered (I had been trained as a radio maintenance specialist during my military service in the Royal Navy some years earlier). He then asked: “Do you get depressed?” “No”, I answered truthfully (though it was not true in later life). “Good. Can you start on the first of next month?” I was taken on to assist a talented medical doctor who wanted to research some applications of neurophysiology in clinical medicine. Angus was a wonderful character and, although my boss in formal terms, we became very close friends. He was something of a bohemian, working late, going home late, and dining between 11 pm and midnight. After dinner he and his wife would relax listening to eighteenth century classical music, jazz and Ella Fitzgerald, with generous glasses of cognac or burgundy. They would seldom go to bed before 2 am. Consequently he tended to be rather late for work. He drove rather fast in an old Aston-Martin and usually managed to arrive in time for the morning coffee break, thereby meeting the departmental rules. These were slightly unusual. When I joined the department I was told by the head’s secretary: “Doctor F. does not care what time you arrive for work in the morning, nor what time you choose to leave, as long as you are in the department for morning coffee.” I soon discovered the reason behind this: those of us who were able to leave our laboratories would gather for the coffee break in a large room. During this break some minor administration would be discussed and settled, avoiding the need for time-wasting formal departmental meetings. I commend this practice to all departmental heads!

Angus and I worked very well together. After some discussion we would jointly write up the results of our experiments. I cannot remember the details, but the writing would always be in longhand on sheaves of paper. We would discuss points of detail, and the manuscript would get over-written with deletions and insertions. We might then re-write it, again in longhand, before showing it to the head of the department. Dr. F. was an eminent scientist, who had come to Britain from Europe during the 1930s, and he was a rather autocratic head of department. He insisted on reading through all draft papers in detail, and would usually impose many changes. All authors were expected to wait in his office while he read and amended their drafts, and sometimes one would see a short queue of senior scientists in the corridor outside his office, waiting for their latest manuscripts to be edited and approved.

Much the same routine would take place in most academic and research departments, with the head checking the authors’ drafts before passing them to the departmental secretary or typist for the first (but probably not the last) typed version. The labour of typing, and often entirely re-typing, scientific papers was enormous. At that time few academics had any keyboard skills, and would depend almost entirely on a professional typist.

Most scientific papers present experimental results in quantitative terms, with the numerical data sets often supplemented by graphs or other diagrams. Even in the biological sciences numerical data were increasingly important in the post-war years, and applied mathematics was supplying methods of evaluating the numbers by means of statistical analysis. No longer was it sufficient to quote an average figure for some series of experiments: mathematical equations allowed the reliability of the average to be estimated, with calculation of ‘variance’ and ‘standard error’. If two sets of results were being compared, for two different experimental circumstances, journal editors were then demanding that the data sets were analysed with statisticians’ methods such as the “Chi-squared test” or “Student’s t-test” to prove that the differences were ‘significant’, i.e.: real and not due to chance variability. These mathematical techniques found particular application in the biological sciences, to help handle the natural variability which is normally much greater than in the physical sciences.

Research workers now have computer programs to do much more complicated statistical analysis of their data, and also to generate printer-ready graphs, histograms and other forms of illustration for a paper. In the 1950s and ’60s we would work away with slide rules and perhaps have access to a mechanical desktop adding machine. Later on more versatile mechanical calculators became available: I still have the beautiful precision hand-held mechanical calculator made by “Curta” which I had bought in the late 1960s. It was a silky-smooth product of the watchmaker’s art, held in one hand while the other turned a little handle on the top. It could simultaneously add up the sum of a set of numbers and the sum of their squares, for calculating variance. It was soon to be made redundant by the emergence of the early electronic calculators that could do as much, with less effort, though at first they cost about as much as the mechanically delightful “Curta”.

We would become skilled at drawing our own graphs in Indian ink on cartridge paper. Very few departments could offer a drawing or graphic arts unit to do this for us. We learned to use stencils with special pens to put neat lettering on our illustrations. Later on, lettering transfers in a variety of typefaces and font sizes became available and editorial boards began to specify what typeface should be used in the illustrations. Preparing a manuscript for publication thus included learning how to analyse our data with standard mathematical equations, and learning how to make neat illustrations.

When the typescript (usually in carbon-paper duplicate and sometimes in triplicate) and illustrations were ready we sent it all off to the editor of whatever scientific journal was deemed appropriate and waited. … And waited…

All reputable journals have arrangements for submitted manuscripts to be ‘peer-reviewed’ by independent experts in the appropriate subject. The names of these referees are normally unknown to the authors. Only recently has the balance been corrected by keeping the name(s) of the author(s) hidden from the referees. This two-way anonymity should prevent a referee from writing a hostile anonymous review of a paper by a rival with whom there might be professional disagreement.

Refereeing someone else’s manuscript is always a responsibility. A senior scientist in an active field might have a big backlog of other workers’ manuscripts waiting to be reviewed. It takes time to do the reading and cross-checking thoroughly, so it is often several months before an author hears from the editor. Most referees take the task very conscientiously, and it is not pleasant to have to recommend that an editor rejects a manuscript outright. I have done so once, and later wondered whether I was too harsh on someone whose paper was so far outside conventional scientific norms that I may have missed some fragment of gold among the rubbish.

Very occasionally one hears within two or three weeks that ones manuscript has been recommended without reservations. More usually it comes back with a few, or many, requests that it be changed for one reason or another. They might be minor changes in wording or layout, or the referee might ask for very substantial changes or even additions to the data or reworking of the data analysis. This is always depressing, and always involves unwelcome additional work. Occasionally the criticisms are unwarranted, coming from some referee who clearly knows little about the subject and has failed to grasp the point of the paper. In these cases it is usually possible to negotiate with the editor. In my experience, at least three-quarters of ones manuscripts are positively improved by the wise suggestions of unknown reviewers. But it almost always used to mean sending another amended manuscript back to the overworked typist!

Now most scientists will type their drafts and final manuscripts with some word-processing software and the burden on the departmental typist is much less. It also means that when the editor does require changes, these can sometimes be made relatively easily without having to wait for a place in the typing queue. More troublesome are the papers returned because a referee has decided that the data are insufficient to warrant the conclusions, and the editor then tells you that additional laboratory experiments are essential to meet the referee’s criticisms. This is always depressing news, and might mean the major interruption of a new sequence of research. It happened to me at the time I retired from physiological research. A referee had asked for additional experiments to supply extra data. By the time I received the report I no longer had access to any laboratory and it was impossible to meet the requirements. A big set of experiments were never published. Tough titty! I eventually forgot about it, and found entirely new areas of interest for my retirement.

***

Martin Evans was born in Wales but spent most of his childhood in South America, where his father worked, before returning to Britain with his mother aboard the SS Highland Princess in May 1945. He completed his two years of National Service in the Fleet Air Arm before entering Guy’s Hospital Medical School in 1949. During his training Martin decided to switch from medicine to the biomedical science of physiology. After obtaining a PhD in neurophysiology from London University he taught and carried out research in various research institutes and medical schools until 1987.

Martin Evans and his wife, Dr Janet West, who trained as a biochemist, share an interest in maritime history with a developing expertise in scrimshaw and maritime art. The couple maintains a list of the maritime museums of the British Isles, accessible at: http://people.ds.cam.ac.uk/mhe1000/

Dr. Martin Evans

 

 

 

Getting published – in a science journal

a  memoir by Martin Evans

“Publish or perish!”. The warning is more urgent in today’s world of science research than when it was first used in the nineteen-thirties. A young post-doc, hoping for a career as a research scientist, is expected to get about two peer-reviewed research papers published every year in a front-line journal. In addition he or she is expected to publish summaries, short reviews, or a chapter in a book. If one is a co-author within an active research team this is not too difficult, but is hard to achieve if one works more-or-less alone or has university teaching duties as well as a research project.

Anyone who regularly fails to meet these expectations will start getting comments, and perhaps verbal warnings from a superior. They will find it hard to raise the grants that fund most modern research. Their professor or head of department may sideline them for promotion and tenure. The head of their institute or college will begin to think about replacing them with someone more productive.

These facts will not be much in the thoughts of a young postgraduate, enjoying the excitement of laboratory research and library study for a doctoral degree. The satisfaction of having passed their first degree with a good grade, being offered a place to work for a higher degree, and the thrill of doing real research are enough. It is a special world that they have entered. They will still be under the guidance of a supervisor but are encouraged to think creatively of new ideas and test them out with scientific experiments. They may have to begin by acquiring special skills and familiarising themselves with the relevant publications of others, but after a while they will discover something new, something unique, a contribution to our total knowledge. However small it may be, there is no feeling quite so exciting and satisfying than finding something that nobody else has ever known. The never-ending joy of scientific research is that for every question to which an answer seems to have been found, a couple of further avenues for research will open up.

After a year or two, the young scientist’s life will be disturbed by their supervisor telling them that it is time for them to make their discoveries public. The first step will usually be a presentation of their work at a meeting of a scientific society, followed by publication in the society’s ‘Proceedings’. My own primary society was the Physiological Society, which holds several meeting a year in various British universities and research institutes. Those intending to present a spoken paper send in a short abstract ahead of time. It will usually be published afterwards in the Journal if the presentation is accepted at the meeting. This will often be a young graduate’s first publication in a science journal.

I recall reminiscing with some colleagues a few years ago, about the terrors of giving ones first paper. One of us had worked for her Ph.D. degree at a Scottish university. She still remembered her unworldly professor, with an unfortunate choice of words, telling her: “Miss S., I think it is time for you to expose yourself to the Physiological Society.” At any meeting of this Society one could expect to be addressing an audience that included several Fellows of the Royal Society, and perhaps one or two Nobel Laureates.

Many of us have had experience of meetings where the chairman had not enforced the time allowances, speakers overran excessively, and we were all very late for a meal break. Having been created originally as a dining society in 1876, when a few scientific papers were presented after the dinners, the Physiological Society enforces time limits rather rigidly. Ten minutes exactly are allowed for each speaker to present their paper, followed by up to five minutes of discussion time. Novice speakers, especially, are carefully rehearsed beforehand in front of colleagues to make sure that they can deliver their presentation entirely from memory, without reading any of it, within the ten minutes. I remember one meeting when Professor Davson, an eminent character in the society, stopped speaking in mid-sentence when the red light came on. The chairman had to beg him to finish, to the amusement of the audience.

In September 1968 I was a speaker at a joint meeting of the British and Italian pharmacological societies, held in Florence. The conference was held in the new Palazzo dei Congressi on the outskirts of that fascinating historic city, which still showed much evidence of the damage done when the river Arno had flooded the previous year. The new congress building had all modern conveniences: dimmable lighting in the auditorium, excellent projectors for the 35mm ‘slides’ that we then used to illustrate our research presentations, and simultaneous translation between the two languages. I stepped onto the dais during the first morning session, had been speaking for a couple of minutes and had just called for my first ‘slide’, when everything went dark and quiet. The entire electricity supply to that sector of Florence had crashed – as apparently it did from time to time. So I ad-libbed through my paper in total darkness, speaking loudly because the microphone was dead. I told them what I would have shown on the screen if only the projector had been working. I remember some sympathetic chuckles at this, coming from the darkness of the auditorium. I was well trained in delivering a talk from memory, since the Physiological and Pharmacological Societies absolutely forbid a paper to be read from a script. I received enthusiastic applause when I finished. I doubt that it was for the scientific value of the paper: it was as much for my punctuality in keeping to the ten minutes and for having coped calmly with the local problems. In due course my paper was published – without any mention of the power-outage.

Preparing a full paper for publication in a peer-reviewed journal has been transformed by the availability of computers and word-processing software, and internet connectivity. Nevertheless, authors still have to learn the conventions of writing for a scientific publication. The required style almost always demands a dispassionate tone, written in the third person. Authors are discouraged from phrases: “I set up the apparatus …” or “We noticed some unusual effects …”. Instead, one writes: “The apparatus was set up … effects were observed …” Emotive words must be avoided, and one learns not to use some common words that may have specific technical meanings in some contexts. For instance, ‘significant’ has a precise meaning in the statistical analysis of data. It usually implies a 95 percent probability that a finding is not attributable to random chance. It should be used carefully in general scientific discussions.

My first real job, as a young physiologist with a shiny new Ph.D. degree in the summer of 1956, was in a large department of a major research institute in London. My Ph.D. supervisor had heard of the new post through his network of friends, and most of the groundwork had already been done. My interview with the head of the department then took place in a corridor during a meeting of the Physiological Society. He asked me whether I knew what a ‘leaky condenser’ was. “Yes”, I answered (I had been trained as a radio maintenance specialist during my military service in the Royal Navy some years earlier). He then asked: “Do you get depressed?” “No”, I answered truthfully (though it was not true in later life). “Good. Can you start on the first of next month?” I was taken on to assist a talented medical doctor who wanted to research some applications of neurophysiology in clinical medicine. Angus was a wonderful character and, although my boss in formal terms, we became very close friends. He was something of a bohemian, working late, going home late, and dining between 11 pm and midnight. After dinner he and his wife would relax listening to eighteenth century classical music, jazz and Ella Fitzgerald, with generous glasses of cognac or burgundy. They would seldom go to bed before 2 am. Consequently he tended to be rather late for work. He drove rather fast in an old Aston-Martin and usually managed to arrive in time for the morning coffee break, thereby meeting the departmental rules. These were slightly unusual. When I joined the department I was told by the head’s secretary: “Doctor F. does not care what time you arrive for work in the morning, nor what time you choose to leave, as long as you are in the department for morning coffee.” I soon discovered the reason behind this: those of us who were able to leave our laboratories would gather for the coffee break in a large room. During this break some minor administration would be discussed and settled, avoiding the need for time-wasting formal departmental meetings. I commend this practice to all departmental heads!

Angus and I worked very well together. After some discussion we would jointly write up the results of our experiments. I cannot remember the details, but the writing would always be in longhand on sheaves of paper. We would discuss points of detail, and the manuscript would get over-written with deletions and insertions. We might then re-write it, again in longhand, before showing it to the head of the department. Dr. F. was an eminent scientist, who had come to Britain from Europe during the 1930s, and he was a rather autocratic head of department. He insisted on reading through all draft papers in detail, and would usually impose many changes. All authors were expected to wait in his office while he read and amended their drafts, and sometimes one would see a short queue of senior scientists in the corridor outside his office, waiting for their latest manuscripts to be edited and approved.

Much the same routine would take place in most academic and research departments, with the head checking the authors’ drafts before passing them to the departmental secretary or typist for the first (but probably not the last) typed version. The labour of typing, and often entirely re-typing, scientific papers was enormous. At that time few academics had any keyboard skills, and would depend almost entirely on a professional typist.

Most scientific papers present experimental results in quantitative terms, with the numerical data sets often supplemented by graphs or other diagrams. Even in the biological sciences numerical data were increasingly important in the post-war years, and applied mathematics was supplying methods of evaluating the numbers by means of statistical analysis. No longer was it sufficient to quote an average figure for some series of experiments: mathematical equations allowed the reliability of the average to be estimated, with calculation of ‘variance’ and ‘standard error’. If two sets of results were being compared, for two different experimental circumstances, journal editors were then demanding that the data sets were analysed with statisticians’ methods such as the “Chi-squared test” or “Student’s t-test” to prove that the differences were ‘significant’, i.e.: real and not due to chance variability. These mathematical techniques found particular application in the biological sciences, to help handle the natural variability which is normally much greater than in the physical sciences.

Research workers now have computer programs to do much more complicated statistical analysis of their data, and also to generate printer-ready graphs, histograms and other forms of illustration for a paper. In the 1950s and ’60s we would work away with slide rules and perhaps have access to a mechanical desktop adding machine. Later on more versatile mechanical calculators became available: I still have the beautiful precision hand-held mechanical calculator made by “Curta” which I had bought in the late 1960s. It was a silky-smooth product of the watchmaker’s art, held in one hand while the other turned a little handle on the top. It could simultaneously add up the sum of a set of numbers and the sum of their squares, for calculating variance. It was soon to be made redundant by the emergence of the early electronic calculators that could do as much, with less effort, though at first they cost about as much as the mechanically delightful “Curta”.

We would become skilled at drawing our own graphs in Indian ink on cartridge paper. Very few departments could offer a drawing or graphic arts unit to do this for us. We learned to use stencils with special pens to put neat lettering on our illustrations. Later on, lettering transfers in a variety of typefaces and font sizes became available and editorial boards began to specify what typeface should be used in the illustrations. Preparing a manuscript for publication thus included learning how to analyse our data with standard mathematical equations, and learning how to make neat illustrations.

When the typescript (usually in carbon-paper duplicate and sometimes in triplicate) and illustrations were ready we sent it all off to the editor of whatever scientific journal was deemed appropriate and waited. … And waited…

All reputable journals have arrangements for submitted manuscripts to be ‘peer-reviewed’ by independent experts in the appropriate subject. The names of these referees are normally unknown to the authors. Only recently has the balance been corrected by keeping the name(s) of the author(s) hidden from the referees. This two-way anonymity should prevent a referee from writing a hostile anonymous review of a paper by a rival with whom there might be professional disagreement.

Refereeing someone else’s manuscript is always a responsibility. A senior scientist in an active field might have a big backlog of other workers’ manuscripts waiting to be reviewed. It takes time to do the reading and cross-checking thoroughly, so it is often several months before an author hears from the editor. Most referees take the task very conscientiously, and it is not pleasant to have to recommend that an editor rejects a manuscript outright. I have done so once, and later wondered whether I was too harsh on someone whose paper was so far outside conventional scientific norms that I may have missed some fragment of gold among the rubbish.

Very occasionally one hears within two or three weeks that ones manuscript has been recommended without reservations. More usually it comes back with a few, or many, requests that it be changed for one reason or another. They might be minor changes in wording or layout, or the referee might ask for very substantial changes or even additions to the data or reworking of the data analysis. This is always depressing, and always involves unwelcome additional work. Occasionally the criticisms are unwarranted, coming from some referee who clearly knows little about the subject and has failed to grasp the point of the paper. In these cases it is usually possible to negotiate with the editor. In my experience, at least three-quarters of ones manuscripts are positively improved by the wise suggestions of unknown reviewers. But it almost always used to mean sending another amended manuscript back to the overworked typist!

Now most scientists will type their drafts and final manuscripts with some word-processing software and the burden on the departmental typist is much less. It also means that when the editor does require changes, these can sometimes be made relatively easily without having to wait for a place in the typing queue. More troublesome are the papers returned because a referee has decided that the data are insufficient to warrant the conclusions, and the editor then tells you that additional laboratory experiments are essential to meet the referee’s criticisms. This is always depressing news, and might mean the major interruption of a new sequence of research. It happened to me at the time I retired from physiological research. A referee had asked for additional experiments to supply extra data. By the time I received the report I no longer had access to any laboratory and it was impossible to meet the requirements. A big set of experiments were never published. Tough titty! I eventually forgot about it, and found entirely new areas of interest for my retirement.

***

Martin Evans was born in Wales but spent most of his childhood in South America, where his father worked, before returning to Britain with his mother aboard the SS Highland Princess in May 1945. He completed his two years of National Service in the Fleet Air Arm before entering Guy’s Hospital Medical School in 1949. During his training Martin decided to switch from medicine to the biomedical science of physiology. After obtaining a PhD in neurophysiology from London University he taught and carried out research in various research institutes and medical schools until 1987.

Martin Evans and his wife, Dr Janet West, who trained as a biochemist, share an interest in maritime history with a developing expertise in scrimshaw and maritime art. The couple maintains a list of the maritime museums of the British Isles, accessible at: http://people.ds.cam.ac.uk/mhe1000/

Dr. Martin Evans

 

 

 

Writing the next book

Writing the first book is hard.  Writing the next book can be equally hard, and harder still to publish.  Unless of course you’re under contract to write a second book, and even then, it can be the devil to write.

Witness a few of the many one-book-wonders of the the modern world.  They stand alone. Their authors never wrote, or at least never published another novel their entire life.  Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, Jay McInery’s Bright Lights Big City, Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind.  And then there was Emily Bronte, who never wrote another novel because she died a year after publishing Wuthering Heights.  And Silvia Plath, who committed suicide shortly after The Bell Jar was released.  OK, Emily and Silvia have death as an excuse, but what about the rest of us?  Why is it so hard to write and publish the second book?

True, some people only have one book in them.  That’s it, they’re done, they’ve got nothing after that.  But I suspect that’s not the case for most of us.  Me, I write because I’m compelled to;  for me, it’s a form of expression, an adventure, a compulsion, an addiction, a way of life.

Most  books billed as “first books” by the publisher are not the author’s first book.  Most people don’t just decide to write a book, do it, then get it published. It generally takes years of writing, many aborted attempts, half-finished manuscripts and several completed ones before we learn the nuts and bolts of writing a full length novel or non-fiction book . My first published novel, Star-Crossed, was sixth full-length book I had ever written, counting two non-fiction guidebooks published by Pruett, a small press based in Colorado.  One of my earlier novels, With a Little Luck, won the grand prize at the Maui Writers Conference in 1996, but had no luck at all finding a publisher.  Same for my fictionalized memoir, Night Shift.  I wrote my first novel in my twenties.  I don’t remember the working title, it was never published and probably didn’t deserve to be. But it was an important step in my writing journey.

I like to think that any one of my unpublished manuscripts could still be polished and published, if I could just revitalize my relationship with the story.  If only I had a Max Perkins type editor or agent to encourage and nurture me, to take me to lunch and buy me martinis while we discuss character motivation and theme.  Max Perkins is dead, they’re all dead, those wonderful mentoring editors who believed in their favorite writers.  These days agents don’t represent YOU the writer, they represent a particular manuscript, leaving them free to drop you (and you to drop them) afterward, if they don’t fall in love with your next book.  Former editors forget you in a heartbeat if your first book sinks to mid-list or goes out of print.  Twenty-first century writers have to find their own way, editors don’t have the time to groom us.  Yet we can groom one another.  We have to.

So how do you write the next book?  If your last book was a best seller, you might already have a two book deal, so good for you, go write it.  But if book number two isn’t an instant best seller you’re going to be right down in the muck with the rest of us.  Because the publishing world IS that fickle.  My advice is don’t try to write the book you think your agent or editor wants.  Don’t try to write the book you think the readers want.  Write the book you want to write; write the book only you can write.  It will be just as hard as the last book you wrote, only in different ways. Each book, like each kid born of a woman, comes with its own set of problems. Write to become a better writer, not to be a best-seller.  At least, that’s my philosophy.

After I had signed the contract with Knopf/Random House to publish Star-Crossed (NOT my first novel, but my first PUBLISHED novel) I had to wait almost two years until it was published.  So of course I started right in, writing the sequel.  Unfortunately, Knopf didn’t want a sequel.  Neither did my agent, because she wouldn’t be able to sell it to another house if Random House didn’t want it.  I wrote it anyway.  I wrote it because I wanted to.  And eventually Tom Grunder, a small publisher in Tucson, offered me a contract.  He published Surgeon’s Mate; book two of the Patricia MacPherson Nautical Adventure Series.  And after Star-Crossed went out of print with Knopf, I obtained a reversion of rights and Tom offered me a contract for Barbados Bound, the slightly modified version of Star-Crossed.  Tom died before Barbados Bound was published, but his company Fireship Press, now  headed by Michael James, published Book One of the Patricia MacPherson Nautical Adventure Series in 2012.  I’m currently working on book three of the series, and its taking quite awhile.  I put it aside for a time and worked on two other novels before coming back to it.  I’m breaking new territory in this third book, am experimenting with different points of view and subject matter, it’s quite enlightening for me and the background research has been so much fun.  I suppose I’ll eventually finish it, maybe even later this year, but I’m learning a lot and enjoying the process.

For me, the biggest problem at this stage is finding reliable peer review and further instruction.  I belong to a writers group that meets regularly to read aloud and critique our work ensemble.  I  attend writers conferences to learn from other writers, to make new connections, and to be inspired.  I have also been a presenter at conferences but that doesn’t mean I’m done learning how to write.  Although the big draw at writers conferences these days seem to be editor consultations and agent pitch sessions, I recommend you spend more time at the workshops that teach craft, and more time writing.

My advice for writing the next book is the same as writing the first book:

Get it done. The process is messy and never linear.  Trust yourself to tell the story. Write the book an hour a day, a page a day, or whatever works for you.  Don’t discuss your story and don’t share your first draft because first drafts suck.  Resist the temptation to edit until you have a complete first draft.  Having given that advice, I’m breaking it myself now, in writing the third book in my historical novel series.  Do whatever works and if you lose your momentum, try a different approach.  There are no rules for writing a book, only guidelines.

Revise and revise and revise.  Don’t try to publish your next book too soon.  When you think it’s finished and ready to go, put it away for awhile and take a break.  Or jump right into writing the next book.  Your finished manuscript will profit from fresh eyes.  Have someone whose opinion you trust read it and give you feedback before you send it to an agent or go rogue and publish it yourself.

Don’t worry about whether the book is “marketable” or not, just make it the best damn story it can be.  But don’t edit the life out of it either.  I’m not talking about grammar and spelling, I’m talking about substantive edits to the story line and word choice.  Don’t let your trusted friend, your “beta reader” or your editor-for-hire change the way you write.

Connect with other serious writers.  Attend workshops, take classes.  Read authors whose work you admire.  Join a writers group or form your own.  Just because you’ve written and published a book doesn’t mean you’re at the top of your game.  No one is ever an expert at writing but with experimentation and feedback we just might get a little better.  Write your next book, and then write the one after that.  It’s the writing that counts.

If you’re planning to write a series, consult historical novelist Barbara Kyle’s guest post published March 3 on my Sea of Words. Barbara Kyle is the author of the acclaimed Tudor-era Thornleigh Saga novels. Over 425,000 copies of her books have been sold in seven countries. Barbara has taught writers at the University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies and is known for her dynamic workshops for many writers organizations and writers conferences. Before becoming an author Barbara enjoyed a twenty-year acting career in television, film, and stage productions in Canada and the U.S. Visit www.barbarakyle.com where you can watch an excerpt from her popular series of online video workshops “Writing Fiction That Sells.”

If you decide to write a sequel, or a series, like I did, after your first book has already been published, you are in for a challenge!  Yet it can be done.  Surgeon’s Mate is proof of that.  It’s an adventure, it’s an ongoing discovery; don’t be daunted.