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My Recent Work with The Authors Guild: New Publishing Resources and Classes

I’m delighted to announce that I’ve been working with The Authors Guild on the creation and release of their new resource guide on self- and e-publishing, available for free to active members. Even non-members can get a sample chapter for free.

The guide is roughly 40,000 words and covers the following areas:

Evaluating what publishing help you need
Understanding the service landscape and most commonly used services
Finding the right assistance (agents, freelancers, hybrid companies)
Setting up a small press and other administration
Producing and selling print and ebook editions
Learning the ins and outs of ebook files and metadata
Marketing and promoting your work—in traditional ways as well as digital-first methods

Learn more at The Authors Guild site.

In addition, throughout the summer, I’m teaching a series of online classes with the Authors Guild on the following topics—all free to members. (If you’re not a member, registration is $49 per class.)

Best practices for author websites and blogs
Email marketing 101 for writers
Social media for authors: how to make it worth your time
Self-publishing 101
The basics of marketing and promoting your work online

Learn more and register.

You may be wondering: how does one qualify to be a member of The Authors Guild? Fortunately, in recent years, the guild has rolled out additional membership categories so that all types of writers are welcome to join. These include:

emerging writer memberships ($100/year), for those who are unpublished
student writer memberships ($35/year), for college students

Professional memberships ($125/year) are available to self-published authors and freelance writers who have earned at least $500 in the last 18 months from writing. Learn more.

The Authors Guild has recently amped up all of its author education resources, and is extending its writers’ resource library with an excellent range of business information. I may be biased given my partnership with the Guild, but now is a great time to join!

5 Commonly Confused Words Starting With A

This post is excerpted from Get a Grip on Your Grammar, copyright 2017 Kris Spisak (@KrisSpisak), with permission from Career Press, Wayne, NJ.

We live in a fast-paced time, but that’s no excuse for typing drunkenly across keyboards. Sometimes we know the rules and abandon them; sometimes, we err because we don’t know any better. Consider this your call-to-action. No more excuses. Use your words precisely. It’s my challenge to you.

1. “All Ready” vs. “Already”

All right, already. Are you all ready to discuss the differences between these two words? Much like the eternal squishing of “all right” into“alright,” “all ready” is often forgotten in lieu of “already.”  The problem is, though, that these are not alternate spellings of the same idea. “All ready” and “already” don’t honestly have much to do with each other.

“All ready” is pretty self-explanatory if you take a moment to think about it. Are you a little bit ready, or are you all ready? Is just one of you ready, or are you all ready? Do you see the slight variations in these two sentences? In short, “all ready” can mean either totally prepared or that a group is prepared.

“Already,” on the other hand, means before this moment or before another specific moment. You already knew this, though, didn’t you?

Squeezing “all ready” into “already” is not an acceptable contraction, so stop doing it already. Got it?

2. “All Together” vs. “Altogether”

All together now, say it with me: “all together” and “altogether” are two different words. I know some of you prefer one or the other, but it’s time to focus hard and get this right.

I suppose I shouldn’t be altogether shocked at this confusion—I remember the day I learned this one myself—but let’s break it down once and for all.

When you learned to spell “together,” did you learn to spell it by remembering the breakdown of “to get her”? I always thought it was a bit menacing, but maybe that’s why it stuck in my head. Let’s use the same logic when remembering “all together.”

If we’re all going to get her, we need to go all together. Remember:

“All together” means to be collected as a group.
“Altogether” is an adverb that means entirely or on the whole.

Meanwhile, I’m altogether disturbed by this threatening writing tip, so I want to end with a casual reminder to give your mom, sister, grandma, or best gal pal a call. Maybe even buy her flowers or tickets to a baseball game just because. (Yes, I said a baseball game. Who doesn’t love peanuts and Cracker Jacks?)

3. “Alright” vs. “All Right”

Maybe you had a teacher who once told you, “Alright is not all right.” The rule still stands, though in the ever-evolving world of words, “alright” seems to be gaining traction—in British English especially, according to the experts. But in nine out of 10 dictionaries, “alright” is considered a misspelling of “all right.”

This common error is seemingly rooted in language patterns used in words such as “already” and “altogether”; however, the two-word form is the standard you should use when you want to appear like you know what you’re doing. And we all like to appear like we know what we’re doing on occasion, right?

As for that 10th dictionary, it speaks of two different definitions, where “alright” means simply satisfactory, whereas “all right” means correct in its adjective form. According to this logic, these two statements have two different meanings:

Example 1: “My exam was all right.” (It was all correct. No mistakes!)
Example 2: “My exam was alright.” (It was okay. I probably passed.)

It’s words like these that make the evolution of language and its accepted use an interesting subject to follow. Nonetheless, until more dictionaries accept “alright” as a correct spelling, I suggest you use the two-word form in more formal communications. All right?

4. “Anytime” vs. “Any Time”

“Anytime” is a relatively new word—yes, I’m calling early twentieth century “recent” for the sake of this linguistic argument. And you know that any time there is a new word, there’s going to be a grammarian hullaballoo. Here’s another example.

“Anytime” (one word) is considered a casual form; it’s not one for your resume or emails to advance you up the corporate ladder. In fact, this one-word form is still not recognized by some dictionaries (I’m looking at you, OED). “Anytime” is technically defined as an adverb meaning “whenever” or “on any occasion,” but as a new word, it is young and defiant, having other meanings too. “Anytime” can also simply mean “no problem” in response to a “thank you.”

If you aren’t sure if you can get away with “anytime” versus “any time,” ask yourself if you can replace the word in question with “at any time.” For example:

When are you free for coffee?

Anytime. (Correct. Answering “at any time” would also make sense.)

Does dinner Tuesday work?

Sure, anytime after six. (Correct. Answering “at any time after six” would also make sense.)

Do you have anytime to take a walk with me? (Incorrect. Do you have “at any time” to take a walk with me doesn’t make sense. The adjective-noun pairing “any time” [two words] is needed here.)

I can go further with this one, but I’ll stop there.

“Any time” (two words) is admittedly the standard form. If you’re ever concerned about which form you should choose, experts argue you’ll never go wrong by using the two-word combination. I’m not sure I completely agree with that, but then again, I’m American and therefore a linguistic rebel at heart. Or so the argument goes. (The casual “anytime” is apparently much more common on this side of the Atlantic.)

Personally, do I dare to use the nonstandard form? Anytime I can. Take that, Oxford English Dictionary.

5. “Anyway” vs. “Anyways” vs.“Any way”

Allow me to let you in on a secret: “anyways” is not actually a word. I’ll let that sink into your brain wrinkles. Yes, it’s true.

The correct word many of you are looking for is “anyway” without the “s” on the end. “Anyway” is an adverb. Can adverbs be pluralized? No, they cannot be.

“Anyway” has two major meanings. It means regardless or anyhow (for example, I know some of you are going to keep using “anyways” anyway), and in more casual use, it acts as a segue, returning to an earlier topic of conversation or back to a major point.
“Any way” is a matter of whichever path or whatever direction. The easy reminder is that if you can swap out the words “in the” for “any,” you should use the two-word form (for example, “I don’t recommend you write any way you want to on your resume” would still make sense if the words were swapped: “I don’t recommend you write in the way you want to on your resume”).

I won’t lie. When it comes to “anyways,” people have been tacking on that extra “s” for a long time. It’s not a recent development, but every time it arises, it never quite gains enough momentum to win over any dictionaries more than a note of slang or casual use. Thus, avoid “any-ways” in all formal writing. Maybe you want to avoid it all together.

If you enjoyed this post, check out Get a Grip on Your Grammar for 153 commonly confused words.

 

 

Freelance Writing IS a Viable Career (Don’t Listen to the Naysayers)

If you dream of a full-time freelance writing career—but have felt discouraged by the largely negative messages about how difficult it is out there (many of which come from freelancers themselves), then allow me to introduce you to Mridu Khullar Relph of The International Freelancer.

Last week, she released a list of 70+ publications that pay $1 a word or more (or a $500+ flat rate). She put together this list in defiance of everyone who says it’s “impossible” to make a living as a freelance writer and to provide a helpful resource to the wider community of freelance journalists and writers who are looking for ways to earn more.

Mridu was a successful freelance journalist for twelve years before starting The International Freelancer. She built her career from New Delhi, India, writing for top US and UK publications, including The New York Times, TIME magazine, The Independent, CNN, Forbes, ABC News, The Christian Science Monitor, GlobalPost, and more. She’s won several awards for her journalism, including being named Development Journalist of the Year in 2010 by the Developing Asia Journalism Awards for her work on wastepicker women in India. She is currently based out of London.

Mridu was kind enough to answer my questions about the freelance life.

Jane: One of the complaints I hear from freelancers is that online writing doesn’t pay. That isn’t true in my experience, although I can understand why that belief is widespread, especially when good online publications fold (e.g., The Toast) for lack of funds. Can you comment on the types of online writing that can and do pay, versus those that don’t?


Mridu: In my experience, whether a publication will pay well (or at all) will come down to how it’s funded. While I love the startup and issue-based feel of many online publications, they are typically run by people passionate about a topic and who have access to limited funds. So they grow organically and often take time to become high-paying markets, if at all. That’s important to remember.

In terms of the kind of writing, I think it often comes down to supply and demand. Right now, personal essays are everywhere and writers love writing them. The appetite for them seems almost endless, but perhaps for that reason personal essays, unless they’re going in the back pages of national magazines, aren’t incredibly high paying.

I do find that original reporting is almost always going to be something that’s valued and we’ve seen that shift recently in the minds of consumers. Online publications such as Ensia, which I’ve written for, will often pay for well-reported, well-researched stories, for instance. (We forgot to add them to our list, but they too pay approx. $1 a word.)

Specializing in a subject or region can also be helpful. I routinely negotiated double the initial pay I was offered simply because I was a journalist in India working for US and UK publications and translating East to West was something I did well for my clients and I was often one of the handful of people doing it.

When considering the practice of professional full-time freelancers, how much time would you say is spent working on pitches (and researching pitches or publications) versus the actual writing and revising? As one becomes more established, do you think less time is spent on pitching and researching publications (because you have relationships in place)?


Definitely. When I first started, I was spending almost 80-90% of my time pitching. I didn’t have any work and I wasn’t writing the best pitches, so I was sending out five pitches a day as a matter of practice. (I talk about that here.)

I’m now more focused on books but in 2014, which is the last year I was making my entire income from freelancing, I would have pitched less than 20% of the time. This was partly because of relationships with editors but it was also because I had introduced content marketing into my business and I was getting a lot more regular and high-paying assignments from those clients. (More on that here.)

I think that’s key to talk about, too. Diversification is something freelancers should look at. This list we’ve published is all about $1-a-word publications and as someone who is incredibly passionate about telling stories from the developing world, I have found that news magazines, online markets, and consumer publications have been a fantastic source for feeding that passion. But I’ll also add that I have been able to use my journalism experience to break into the content marketing field and the top agencies and markets in that field continue to pay $1 per word or $200-300 per hour to writers who can demonstrate expertise and experience in specific industries. I’ve worked with nonprofits, national governments, and big organizations working in the fields of agriculture and solar technology and been paid incredibly well for that work.

You have a good number of A-list magazines on your list of 70 publications that pay $1 a word—such as New York Times magazine, Oprah, The Atlantic, and so on. Most writers are pretty intimidated even thinking about pitching these publications. While obviously you’d want to do your research before pitching, and approach such magazines with only your best ideas, what else can a writer do to be taken seriously by such publications, especially early in their career?


I feel like it might be a mistake to categorize markets as deserving of higher or lower quality pitches based on what they pay. By that I mean that I’m a big advocate of making sure you do your research before pitching and approach ANY magazine with your best ideas, even the local ones, even the ones that don’t pay as much. Always be willing to put your best work out there and not skimp on any part of that effort because when you do your best with absolutely every pitch and every assignment, you’re adding to your learning and your clips.

Once that’s done, I advocate to my students that they stop overthinking the whole thing and simply start getting their work out there. Do not be intimidated! Many of my students have started off getting paid $500 or $1 a word for their first, second, or third assignments. It happens more frequently than you think.

And here’s the way I think you’re going to be able to do that as a new writer: Come up with ideas editors can’t say no to. Unique ideas that they don’t have access to. If you’re a writer in Ohio, is there a new trend or farming technique that you might be able to report on that has national relevance? That an editor in New York may not have heard about, for instance? Could it work as a pitch for an agricultural magazine? If it’s a big enough trend and growing, could it work for a news publication? When you send that pitch, you won’t get hired because of your credits. If you get hired, it will be because you have a story to tell that only you have access to because of your location.

That’s just one example. You could use access to a difficult-to-find source (something I have done) or access to a celebrity who doesn’t give interviews often. You might have technical knowledge about a subject that most writers don’t.

The way to break into top publications as a new writer is to give them something unique, something no one but you can offer.

What do you wish you had known about making freelance writing pay when you started out? Or what lesson was the hardest to learn?


I wish I hadn’t listened to all the experts and the advice about starting with local publications and the “realistic” advice about freelancing not being a viable career. I was told I couldn’t do it from India. I was told it was impossible to make a decent living with it. I was told you could chase the awards or the money but not both. I was told that if you wrote stories about social issues, you wouldn’t get paid for that work. (My highest-paying assignments have been about human rights issues.)

The hardest thing for me, personally, was learning to trust my gut and to allow myself to follow my own path, even if that meant that I had falls along the way. Because now I am proof that it doesn’t have to be love or money. For me, it is both.

If you have any freelance aspirations at all, be sure to visit The International Freelancer.

The Most Common Entry-Level Mistake in the Writing Game

Photo credit: sbluerock via VisualHunt / CC BY-NC-SA

Today’s guest post by author Larry Brooks (@storyfix) is excerpted from Writing Voice: The Complete Guide to Creating a Presence on the Page & Engaging Readers (Writer’s Digest Books).

By far the most common entry-level mistake in the writing game, the thing that can get a perfectly good story rejected by an editor on the first page, is overwriting: a writing voice that is laden with energy and adjectives, that tries too hard, that is self-conscious in a way that detracts from the story, that is obviously the work of a writer trying to poeticize a story that doesn’t stand a chance.

Bad writing voice is like wearing a clown suit to the Oscars. Chances are you won’t make it past the lobby.

Of course, one writer’s clown suit is another’s tuxedo. Which is to say, you may believe your eloquence is palatable and beautiful, and you may feel the need to stuff all this fat into your sentences because you don’t feel they’re muscular enough as is. It’s always an opinion—yours and the editor’s, and finally the reader’s—but it’s a critical one.

The mailrooms of the big publishing houses are full of these manuscripts created by writers who try to trick up their sentences, who reach for contrived eloquence, who attempt to liberate their inner poet, who overtly imitate someone famous who writes that way (J.D. Salinger has inspired more rejected manuscripts than any writer in history), and generally stinking up the place with strings of words that detract instead of enhance.

Overwriting will get your work rejected faster than a ridiculous deus ex machina in the final act.

That’s not to say stylistic writing, a voice full of attitude and personality, is a bad thing. Hell, I’m doing precisely that right here. But it’s how I write, and it’s seasoned with several decades worth of professional experience (including the scars to prove it) in fine-tuning. Shooting for a level of personality in your narrative is always a risk.

To mitigate that risk, carve this into your forehead: Less is more. Just don’t minimize your writing voice to the point where it sounds like copy from a metropolitan telephone directory. Somewhere between a love letter scripted by a drunken, suicidal poet and the world’s driest technical copy awaits a level of style that suits you. And, just as important, it will suit your story or manuscript.

Your journey as a writer, as a storyteller, is to find it. The essence of your writing voice is significant for your writing career. Which means you have to get it right before you can turn pro. That word— pro—is critical here, because while it may be simplistic or positively John Updike-like, it absolutely, unequivocally, needs to be professional.

Where that bar resides is, once again, an opinion. One thing, however, is always true about this—the further you move in either direction from a safe and clean middle ground, the higher the risk your work will be perceived as less than professional.

Writing voice, in my humble opinion, gets too much airtime at writers conferences filled with people who are actually in need of mentoring on their storytelling. It remains a staple of academia—high school in particular—but it’s actually the least challenging of other writing obstacles you’ll face when it comes to publishing your work.

You don’t have to write like J.D. Salinger or John Updike to get published. Pick up any random published book from a shelf at the mall and you’ll see this to be true. While there is a huge variance in style among those authors, they all have one thing in common: they’ve met the bar of professionalism. Which in today’s commercial market means clean, crisp, efficient writing that doesn’t stink up the place with too much effort.

The personality and voice of your writing should be natural, not something contrived. Because only when you are writing naturally, without forcing it and without abusing adjectives will the scent of your narrative be as subtle and functional as it needs to be to attract a buyer.

Consider the novelist Colin Harrison. Harrison has been called the “poet laureate” of American thriller writers, but not because of what that tag implies. You’d think someone with that on his name tag would be positively Shakespearean with his words. But eloquence isn’t your goal as storyteller—essence, as conveyed through tonality and attitude, is. And nobody does that better than Colin Harrison. Here’s the first paragraph of Harrison’s novel Manhattan Nocturne:

I sell mayhem, scandal, murder, and doom. Oh, Jesus I do, I sell tragedy, vengeance, chaos, and fate. I sell the sufferings of the poor and the vanities of the rich. Children falling from windows, subway trains afire, rapists fleeing into the dark. I sell anger and redemption. I sell the muscled heroism of firemen and the wheezing greed of mob bosses. The stench of garbage, the rattle of gold. I sell black to white, white to black. To Democrats and Republicans and Libertarians and Muslims and transvestites and squatters on the Lower East Side. I sold John Gotti and O. J. Simpson and the bombers of the World Trade Center, and I’ll sell whoever else comes along next. I sell falsehood and what passes for truth and every gradation in between. I sell the newborn and the dead. I sell the wretched, magnificent city of New York back to its people. I sell newspapers.

There are only four adjectives here. Two each in two separate sentences. That’s it. And yet, this paragraph screams attitude and personality. It is a soaring, melodic example of writing voice, one that is completely in keeping with the dark city detective thriller that it is, only written by a master linguist. Use this as a model of writing voice that’s way out there from the boring, vanilla middle of the stylistic continuum, and allow it to inspire your musings at that level.

Many of us become writers in the first place because we have been told for years that we have a way with words. That can actually be a curse in this game. Just make sure that the words don’t have a way with you and your career.

If you enjoyed this post, take a look at Writing Voice from Writer’s Digest.

A New Memoir Class Starting April 17: Perfect for Beginners

Memoir, as William Dean Howells said, is the “most democratic province of the republic of letters.” Indeed, the genre is evidence that every person in the world has a worthy story to tell, that it’s not what the story is but how it’s told that engages a reader.

Professor Nell Boeschenstein has designed a new, five-week online course that introduces writers to this generous genre and to start them down the path of putting their own stories to paper. You’ll explore everything from how to select a subject and structure to the pivotal role of narrative voice, the impact of pacing, and the benefits of research.

The course will also discuss ethical questions: What does it mean to write about one’s family? How does one approach inevitable lapses in memory? Whose truth is being told? Why write memoir to begin with? Along the way, you’ll read excerpts from full-length memoirs and be given a list of further reading recommendations, as well as writing exercises and assignments designed to inspire your own projects.

By the end of the five weeks, you will have a solid grasp of memoir’s basics and be well on your way to having a story that has long been in your heads emerging onto the page. Learn more.

About the Instructor

Nell Boeschenstein has an MFA in creative nonfiction writing from Columbia University and a BA in English from Dartmouth College. She currently teaches essay, memoir, personal essay, and feature writing at Sweet Briar College.

Prior to Sweet Briar, she taught writing for two years at Columbia, and before she began teaching, Nell worked as a producer for the public radio programs Fresh Air with Terry Gross and BackStory with the American History Guys, and as a writer and editor for weeklies and magazines.

Her work has appeared The Guardian, Ecotone, Newsweek, The Believer, The Rumpus, The Millions, Guernica, and The Morning News, where she is a contributing writer, among other places, and her essays have been featured by Longreads and Longform.

Her writing has been anthologized in Scratch: Writers, Money, and the Art of Making a Living and The Rumpus Women, Vol. 1 and her radio work has been featured on 99% Invisible. She has received residency fellowships from the Ucross Foundation, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Albee Foundation, as well as numerous college grants. She is at work on a collection of essays—personal, reported, and lyric—themed to the idea of “lost colonies.”

Frequently Asked Questions


Do I have to show up at a specific time? No, all course lectures are available to read and study at your own pace, on your own schedule.

When does the course officially start? It officially begins with the posting of the first lecture on Monday, April 17, but you’ll have access to the course website upon registration, as well as the private Facebook group shortly after you register.

How long will I have access to the course lectures and materials? Indefinitely. The first lecture will be made available on Monday, April 17, and each new lecture will appear on subsequent Mondays. After the course ends on May 21, you will continue to have access to the course website.

Will I get feedback from other students on my work? Peer critique and feedback is not a requirement or key feature of this course, but you will be invited to share and comment on small samples of each other’s writing in the Facebook group.

Must I have a Facebook account to join the course? Not necessarily, but you’ll miss out on conversations and discussion among other students and with the instructor. But you’ll still have access to all course curriculum (at the course website), and receive information on how to join office hours with Nell.

What if I can’t make office hours? Office hours are optional and will be recorded for those who can’t attend. You are welcome to send questions to Nell in advance of office hours, to bring up for discussion, if you can’t make it.

If I sign up for the advanced registration, how long do I have before I must submit my material to the instructor for critique? You have until the last day of the course (May 21), but you may ask the instructor for an extension if needed.

What is the cost? Basic registration is $125. Advanced registration is $175.

Learn more about the course and register.

Have questions? Leave a comment or email Jane.

The Importance of a Strong Opening Scene

Photo credit: Hernan Piñera via Visual Hunt / CC BY-SA

Today’s guest post is adapted from the Writing & Selling Your Mystery Novel: Revised and Expanded by Hallie Ephron (@HallieEphron).

No pressure, but the opening of your book is the gatekeeper in determining whether your novel will sell. If your opening is weak, it won’t matter if chapter two is a masterpiece. Editors and agents and booksellers and librarians and readers will stop reading before they get there.

Your opening scene can be long or short. It can be action packed, or moody and rich in description, or skeletal and spare. It may contain a vivid sense of setting or a strong shot of character. Regardless of what’s in that scene, the reader should have some idea of what the novel is going to be about after reading it, or at least have a good sense of the theme. Most of all, when they finish, readers should be eager to keep reading.

So what makes for a good dramatic opening? In the absence of any useful rules, the best I can offer is an example. We’ll consider the opening scene of Julia Spencer-Fleming’s award-winning debut novel, In the Bleak Midwinter. Plot and character take equal weight. It’s as much about introducing police chief Russ Van Alstyne (one of the series’ two protagonists) as it is about setting up the story of an abandoned baby. Every sentence, every detail is a deliberate choice, and by the end, the reader knows that the novel will answer two questions: Who abandoned that baby, and why? The opening line:

It was one hell of a night to throw away a baby.

Right away, the opening establishes an out-of-whack event: a baby has been abandoned. This intriguing opening is a line of internal dialogue that puts the reader firmly in Russ’s head. The point of view is the third-person limited, and we experience this scene as if the camera is looking through Van Alstyne’s eyes. His thoughts filter the images we see. It’s written in the past tense, but the feeling is one of immediacy.

The cold pinched at Russ Van Alstyne’s nose and made him jam his hands deep into his coat pockets, grateful that the Washington County Hospital had a police parking spot just a few yards from the ER doors.

You’ve probably heard the author’s adage “Show; don’t tell.” Throughout this brief passage, Spencer-Fleming shows us what Van Alstyne is like. She shows that he is chief of police: The ambulance driver addresses him as “Chief,” and he parks his car in a police parking spot. She also shows how cold it is with the phrase “the cold pinched his nose” and with the way Van Alstyne jams his hands into his pockets. The bitter cold isn’t mentioned just for ambience; it brings home to the reader how dangerous it was for that baby to be left on the church steps.

The place smelled of disinfectant and bodies, with a whiff of cow manure left over by the last farmer who had come in straight from the barn.

In a few descriptive phrases, we get a visceral sense of place. We know this is a hospital, and we know it’s located somewhere rural. We later get a detailed description of what Van Alstyne is wearing (wrinkled wool pants shoved into salt-stained hunting boots) as he mentally compares himself to a younger officer (spit-and-polished within an inch of his life.) Van Alstyne is a guy with more than a few miles on him who doesn’t fuss with his appearance.

“How’s the baby look?” Van Alstyne asks. He cares. And already we’re wondering: Who left this baby on the church steps, and what happened to the baby’s mother? “He was wrapped up really well, and the doc says he probably wasn’t out in the cold more’n a half hour or so.”

Clues!, thinks the astute reader. Someone wrapped that baby up well. Maybe that someone was even watching to be sure the baby was found in time.

Here’s what Spencer-Fleming doesn’t give the reader: a whole lot of backstory. Backstory is background information about how a character arrived at this particular place and time. When a load of backstory has been dumped into the opening chapter, it’s a sure sign that the novel was written by a novice. At this point we get only a whiff of Van Alstyne’s past and a hint of why an abandoned baby matters to him:

He’d had one baby-stuffed-in-a-garbage-bag case when he’d been an MP in Germany, and he didn’t care to ever see one again.

That’s all the reader needs to know at this point.

How to Write Your Mystery Opening

Open your mystery novel with a dramatic scene in which something out of the ordinary happens. It might be a murder or just some out-of-whack event with an element of mystery to it.

Your novel might open with the murder itself. Or it might begin with your protagonist discovering that someone has been murdered. Or it might start with an event that happened years before the main story begins.

Your book has to start in an exciting or intriguing way by posing an unanswered question that provides a narrative hook that pulls the reader forward. You don’t have to have a body drop in the first chapter. And you usually can’t solve the problem of a flat, uninspired opening by inserting a prologue that flashes forward to the murder, followed by a chapter one that takes place earlier.

Out-of-whack-event: A criminal defense attorney meets her new client—a woman accused of killing her cop boyfriend. The woman extends a hand and says, “Pleased to meet you, I’m your twin.” (Mistaken Identity, Lisa Scottoline)

Unanswered question: Is this woman the defense attorney’s twin, and is she a murderer?

Out-of-whack-event: PI Bill Smith receives a late-night telephone call from the NYPD, who is holding his fifteen-year-old nephew, Gary. (Winter and Night, S.J. Rozan)

Unanswered question: Why would Gary ask for Smith? Smith hasn’t seen his nephew for years and is estranged from Gary’s parents.

Warning: Don’t allow your opening scene to steal your book’s thunder. It’s tempting to write something that foreshadows the big secret, but keep in mind that in doing so you might weaken the reveal at the end.

So pick your opening gambit, and examine it with a critical eye. Be sure it sets up your novel, propels the reader forward, but doesn’t rob your story of potential surprise by revealing too much too soon.

Parting Advice

The first scene of your book presents some unique problems. Your primary job is to get your story moving. At the same time, you need to introduce your characters, the setting, and the situation. It’s a tall order, and it’s easy to bore the reader with too much information or to confuse him by laying too little groundwork.

Keep your eye trained on the story you’re setting up—something intriguing has to happen. Lay in just enough character and setting description to orient the reader. You have the rest of the book to fill in the blanks.

End your dramatic opening scene with an unanswered question that is implied or stated. Your goal is to make it impossible for the reader to put down your novel. Steer clear of a “Had I but known” ending or a generic “Boy, was I surprised and terrified by what happened next” statement that could be tacked on to the end of any novel’s opening.

If you enjoyed this post, be sure to take a look at Writing & Selling Your Mystery Novel by Hallie Ephron.

How Lists Inform Our Writing, Our World

Earlier this week, at this site, I featured a post by Cyndy Etler on how list-making can help you manage the overwhelming process of trying to write a memoir, or any story about your life.

The universe is working serendipitously this week, because Yelizaveta P. Renfro just published a piece over at Glimmer Train on the magic of list making. She says:

A novel I’m working on began two and a half years ago as an eighty-four-word list divided into nineteen “items” that became chapters…. Slowly, each of the nineteen items expanded into its own list, a nesting-doll regression to smaller and smaller units, to scenes and paragraphs and sentences, until each word was in place.

Related (and nearly a decade ago), I learned about an important productivity method—perhaps the most important I’ve ever learned—and it boils down to this: Never create a to-do item that is actually a project. Instead, use to-dos that are specific action steps. In other words, you would never have the following to-do items:

Buy a house
Write my first novel
Build a website

Instead, you would break these enormous projects into the smallest possible components, starting with to-do items such as:

Research real estate agents in my area and create a list of candidates to contact
Visit the library and see what books are available on novel writing for beginners
Visit writers’ websites that I like and make notes on what I want my site to do and look like

Breaking large projects down into small steps (into lists!) makes them less intimidating, and—most importantly—helps you make progress with less anxiety. As Anne Lamott says, you tackle things “bird by bird.”

Also this month in Glimmer Train:

On Form by Peter Ho Davies

The Secret Lives of Novellas by Daniel Torday

4 Freelancing Myths That Are Holding You Back

Today’s guest post is adapted from a portion of The Renegade Writer, just released in a new third edition, by Linda Formichelli and Diana Burrell.

Misconceptions about getting started often hold new writers back. You may think that to be successful as a freelance writer, you need a J-school degree, an impressive database of editorial contacts, and a truckload of supplies. Not so—read on to learn  the most common myths that can sabotage you before you start.

1. You need “connections” to land assignments.

We think you’re confusing breaking into writing with breaking into Hollywood, or maybe with making it big in multi-level marketing.

When Linda started freelancing in 1997, she didn’t even know the janitors at any of the publications she was pitching, much less the editors. All the wonderful “connections” she has today came from good, hard work. Diana happened to know the editor who assigned her first article with Connecticut Magazine, but after that, she targeted and broke into magazines where she knew no one on staff.

We’re not going to lie and tell you connections won’t help you; they will. If you have an “in” with an editor, your proposal may get priority, or you may even have an assignment thrown your way. But what’s more valuable to you, and to any editor—whether she’s someone you played bridge with in college or a complete stranger—are your timely ideas and professional attitude. These two attributes will take you further than the connections lesser writers gnash their teeth over.

If you’re still not convinced, don’t worry: The connections you desire are simple to make. So simple, in fact, that we scratch our heads whenever we hear some poor new writer railing about another writer’s success due to his friends in high places.

Here’s the deal. Say you email several pitches over a period of several months to a publication. One day, instead of sending you yet another form rejection, the editor finally writes back and says, “Sorry, we already have that article in progress with another writer, but feel free to send me more ideas.” Bingo—you’ve got yourself a connection. The next time you pitch her, you can write, “Thanks for inviting me to send you more ideas.”

But many writers don’t consider that sort of interaction a connection, and they completely blow it off. They feel a connection is someone who calls them and says something like, “Hey, remember me from that bar crawl in 2010? I’m a magazine editor now and I hear you’re a writer. Feel like covering the cocktail scene in Paris for us?” (That’s a total fantasy, by the way.) If you’re a good writer with lots of salable ideas, we assure you—you will soon have more editorial connections than you’ll know how to handle.

Here are other ways smart writers develop connections.

They keep in contact with editors who change jobs. Diana, for example, worked with a terrific editor at Psychology Today. When the editor changed jobs and went to Parenting, Diana suddenly had an “in” at a magazine she’d been trying to crack for a long time. She became a frequent contributor to the magazine for many years and followed the editor to Kiwi when she became editor-in-chief.

They send introductory emails. Editors are conditioned to ignore the pile of submissions on their desks, but they will often respond to a friendly email. This won’t always work, but why not give it a try? Linda once sent an intro letter to fifteen editors at top magazines asking for details on what they were looking for—not selling herself or pitching an idea—and received personal, encouraging replies from Shape, Health, and Better Homes & Gardens.

They meet with editors. If you really want to make a personal connection, next time you’re in New York (or near a publication’s office elsewhere), ask an editor out for coffee. Even if they know you only from rejecting your pitches, many editors will respond favorably to such a request. Often, once they see you’re a witty, charming, intelligent coffee companion, they’ll be even more receptive to your proposals.

When Linda lived in New England, she’d make an annual trek to New York City to meet with editors at Family Circle, Redbook, Fitness, and other publications. And whenever she had a road trip planned she’d research what publishers were located along the way, which led her to meet editors at Rodale in Pennsylvania and Imagination Publishing in Chicago.

They ask editors for introductions. There’s nothing wrong with approaching an editor at Magazine A with whom you have good rapport and asking if she knows an editor at Magazine B who would be receptive to a proposal. If she does give you a name, consider this an awesome connection—you can start your pitch with, “My editor at Magazine A gave me your name…”

In addition, if the magazine you’re writing for has sister publications, ask your editor to introduce you to the editors at these other titles. When Linda mentioned to her editor at Men’s Fitness that she had an idea for the magazine’s sister publication, Muscle & Fitness Hers, her editor actually walked over to this magazine’s editorial offices and passed her name on to the editors there. Soon, Linda had an assignment to write about alternative therapies for Muscle & Fitness Hers.

They socialize with other writers. It’s classic “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.” Linda and Diana, along with several other writers in their circle, regularly trade leads, contact names, and other valuable information. After Linda shared the name of one of her editors with another writer, for example, the writer responded with the contact info of an editor for a new teen magazine.

2. You have to live in New York City to succeed.

Of all the successful freelance writers we know, only a handful live close to the editor nexus known as Manhattan. Diana lives in Boston, Linda lived in New England and then North Carolina, and we know writers who live in Kentucky, Kansas, California, and even Greece, Australia, India, and England. We’ve even met a few writers who live year-round in RVs! In fact, the farther away you live from your editors, the more valuable you can be to them, because you can deliver stories and a perspective they won’t find on Madison Avenue.

What’s more, not every publication has a New York-based editorial staff. Shape, for example, is based in Los Angeles, Southern Living and Coastal Living are in Alabama, and The Atlantic’s editorial offices were in Boston for years, but are now located in DC. Location may be all-important in real estate, but you’re selling ideas, not land—and ideas can be written about from anywhere.

Stop worrying that you can’t make it big as a writer if you’re not in New York. You can succeed in writing from anywhere, except if you’re totally off the grid.

3. You have to follow writers’ guidelines.

A few years after Linda started writing for magazines, she realized she had amassed an entire box full of guidelines she had never looked at. Reading the magazine, looking up the publication online or in Writer’s Market, and calling to verify the editor’s name gave her all the information she needed—and that situation hasn’t changed. In fact, an editor at a major women’s magazine once told Linda that the editors rarely even know what’s in their guidelines; they’re there to scare off the less-than-serious, and thereby help relieve the pressure on the editors’ inboxes.

Diana also rarely looks at guidelines anymore. When she started freelancing in 1999, she compiled a stack of them in a three-ring binder that she has since misplaced—and not once has she gone looking for it. The game of musical chairs at most magazines makes guidelines pretty useless in her opinion: New editors like to shake things up and change direction faster than they can update the guidelines.

What she finds more useful is sitting at a bookstore café with the latest issue of a magazine she wants to write for and pretending she’s an editor in an assigning mood. What kind of stories does the magazine seem to favor—first-person viewpoint, lots of reporting, or a wealth of expert quotes? She can also tell a lot by looking at the masthead. Are freelancers writing the majority of articles or are staffers?

Often Diana will get a dozen good ideas to pitch from that half-hour of brainstorming. If she’s interested in writing for one of the magazine’s departments, she simply calls the editorial office when she gets home and asks who assigns for that section.

Don’t let this fake rule keep you from pitching the publications you really want to write for. Polish your idea, come up with a compelling pitch, and send it in the way that works best for you.

4. You shouldn’t quit your day job.

This is a “rule” we hear from all those wannabe freelancers who were afraid to take the leap, well-meaning relatives who worry about us, and writers who weren’t able to make it work and ended up back in cubicles. However well-intentioned it may be, it’s simply false.

If you really want to freelance full time and you’re aware of the pros and the cons, you have to make the leap. In fact, in a business climate where company job security has largely vanished, you may be better off drumming up your own business than depending on a faceless corporation for your living—a faceless corporation that can turn off 100 percent of your income with little or no warning.

Before making the move to full-time freelancing, make sure you have enough money in the bank to survive for at least six months. When Linda decided to leave her part-time office job to freelance full time, she and her husband salted away enough money to cover only three months worth of expenses, which was plenty since they had no kids, no mortgage, and not even a car payment to worry about. Now that we’re ten years older since we last revised this book, we say to aim for nine to 12 months!

Author and writer Brett Forrest says that when he left his fact-checking job, his colleagues at Men’s Journal asked him, “Are you insane?” By the time he’d given his notice, he had written a few features for the magazine, and he’d made inroads with publications like Rolling Stone.

Forrest says the first few months were a challenge. He was living in Manhattan’s Lower East Side in a rent-by-month/week/day studio that he shared with a bunch of other writer and editor friends. “The floors slanted and there were cigarette burns all over the carpets from past tenants,” he says. “We called it ‘the Flophouse.’”

He adds, “It is funny and charming to talk about now, but it was a low point for me. The lowest point came when I walked across the street to this Dominican deli to buy a quarter pound of salami—the cheapest meat they had. I counted out my coins and realized I was a nickel short. I didn’t have another nickel on me. The woman who worked there said, ‘Oh, I see you here all the time. You can pay me back tomorrow. I know you’re good for it.’ I hoarded that salami for three days. At that time, I was bare- ly even surviving.”

But times got better for Forrest. He started lining up two or three assignments every month, generating enough income to move to a new apartment. In the years since, he’s written not only for Rolling Stone, but also for Details, Spin, Vanity Fair, National Geographic, The Atlantic, and The New York Times Magazine.

Roxanne Nelson worked as a nurse when she started out freelancing. But then a car accident in 1996 prevented her from working for six months. “I was forced to really forge ahead with my writing career if I wanted to eat and pay rent,” she says. “By the time I was well enough to work, I decided that I couldn’t bear the thought of it. It was a little bit of a struggle, but I was determined to be a writer and never work as a nurse again. And I’ve never returned to nursing.”

So don’t let the naysayers hold you back with this killjoy “rule.” If you have a cushion to fall back on—money in the bank and/or a partner who’s willing to support you through some lean times—and motivation in spades to make this freelancing life a reality, then go for it! It probably won’t be easy, but living off your writing isn’t as impossible as others would have you believe.

If you enjoyed this post and want to become a skilled and serious freelance writer, be sure to check out The Renegade Writer. 

How to Write Your Memoir with Fun, Easy Lists

Today’s guest post is by Cyndy Etler (@cdetler), author of The Dead Inside, a YA memoir about the sixteen months she spent in Straight Inc., an adolescent treatment program described by the ACLU as “a concentration camp for throwaway teens.”

So you’ve got this life, and it’s an interesting one. It’s taught you a few things, and you’d like to share them with the rest of us. You know it, we know it: you need to write a memoir. Except…the mere thought floods you with anxiety. You’ve got decades of memories; where would you even start? Lists to the rescue! This step-by-step process will guide you through organizing and writing your memoir with a series of fun, easy lists.

1. Get your mind right.

Before we tackle our first list, we need to discuss mindset. In today’s hyper-stimulating culture, we feel the constant thrum of panic. We rely on lists to create calm from our mental chaos. So this mandate might seem counterintuitive, but to complete this process, you must let your brain run free and allow yourself to unleash chaos on the page. We’ll pull the diamonds from the soil later and use them to create your memoir’s outline.

Here’s what to do: give yourself permission to write your lists with quick, uncensored bullet points. Don’t let your brain ask questions. Don’t let it ban you from writing “those” things. You’re going to gush out each thought in the order and style it comes to you, and keep writing until there are no more pictures in your head. Did you shut all of your mental filters down? Okay, let’s write.

2. Create a big list of memories.

Our first assignment is fun and freestyle: you’re going to list every memory that comes to mind. Remember, trust yourself. The memories that pop up now will be the memories you’re meant to write about now. As an example, here’s a short version of my list.

Gross PB & honey sandwiches
First cig town pool
“Motivating”
“Baby We Can Do It”
Jacque bathroom corner mother
Strip search
“That’s not my house. That’s not my mother.”
Bigwheel
Running away

Notice: my bullet points are short, which allows my pen to keep moving. And they don’t make sense to you, which is fine. Now, you go. And go. And go.

3. Establish the life categories.

You’re back! Did you empty your head? Perfect. You probably have pages of memories, zigzagging between eras and experiences. Some of them will find a place in this memoir; others most likely will not. Now we’re going to step into that “creating order from chaos” mode I promised, but again, you need to get your mind right.

Step 3a: You need to loosen your brain up enough to listen to your writing, with no judgment, no “shoulds.” Pretend the words in your lists are speaking to you in sonar; your job is to perceive what they’re saying in their voice, rather than in your brain’s logical, linear one. Your creative subconscious knows what it’s doing; you just have to trust it enough to hear and obey its suggestions. You cool with that? Okay, now…

Step 3b: Read through your list with this question in mind: how am I mentally categorizing these memories? Do you think, “This was high school; this was college” or “This is when I was goth; this is when I was an eco-warrior” or “This is when I was single; this is when I was dating Pat” or…? In addition to noting how you categorize, note what your specific categories are. I remember events according to where I lived, so my categories would be Norwalk, Stamford, Monroe, Straight Inc.

Step 3c: And now we begin the organizing. Write each of your category titles at the top of a fresh page—if you’re using notebook paper leave a few pages between each category—and go through your list of memories again, copying each bullet point onto its category page. My mini-list would look like this, but yours will be way longer:

Page 1: Norwalk

Gross PB & honey sandwiches
Bigwheel

Page 2: Stamford

“Baby We Can Do It”
“That’s not my house. That’s not my mother.”

Page 3: Monroe

First cig town pool
Jacque bathroom corner mother
Running away

Page 4: Straight Inc.

“Motivating”
Strip search

Done? Now flip through those pages and tell me you don’t feel good. Ten bucks says you feel calm and accomplished. As well you should, because you know what you just did? You just wrote your memoir’s basic outline!

4. Start writing.

Step 4a: Put your brain back in wide-open receptive mode. Your next task is to read through your lists of categorized memories, listening for that single memory that’s calling out, “Me! Pick me!” There will be at least one; circle it. If there’s more than one, go back and reread each one you circled, sensing for which gives you the most tingle.

Step 4b: And now the real fun starts. Open to a fresh page, give your brain permission to write uncensored, and start writing about the memory you circled. Don’t worry about plot or structure or any literary thing; just relive that memory on the page. Write whatever you see and hear and smell and taste and feel.

Step 4c: When you’ve drained that one, look back at your lists. Listen for the next memory that’s calling out to you. Go back to it, relive it, write it all out. Repeat. Keep filling pages with those memories. This step can go on for days, weeks, months…

5. Ask questions about the narrative.

…until you start feeling itchy and overindulged. When you find yourself thinking things like, “Writing these memories is fun, but where is it all going?”—it’s time to create your map.

Step 5a: You’re going to pose some questions to yourself, but don’t expect immediate answers. If they come, write them down. Otherwise, just leave the questions on brain simmer. The answers will float up as you complete the next steps. So. Pose the following questions to yourself:

What is the starting moment of this story?
What do I most want at the time of these memories?
What is the moment where I definitively get, or don’t get, my “big want”?
What is the lesson I learned?                                                                           

Step 5b: Go into fine-tune listening mode again, but this time, think of your brain as a butterfly catcher. When the answers come, they might be fleeting and subtle. Be ready to catch them as you reread your pages of memory-writing, listening for the answer to the questions in 5a (starting moment; big want; moment you get, or don’t get, your big want; lesson learned).

Step 5c: Write down any answers that come up. My answers would be,

What is the starting moment of this story? Walking by my childhood home, convinced the other kids magically know what happens to me inside it. Swearing to them, “That’s not my mother. That’s not my house.”

What do I most want at the time of these memories? To have a place in a safe, loving family.

What is the moment I get/don’t get my big want? When my mother leaves me at Straight Inc.: the strip search.

What is the lesson I learned? “Bad” kids are actually kids who need love, badly.                                                              


6. Begin a narrative arc.

It’s the moment our anxious brains have been waiting for. We’re going to organize your free-floating ideas into a nice, clear roadmap for your memoir. It’s time to create your narrative arc—the beginning of your story, the rising action, the climax moment everything builds up to, and the wrap-up scenes.

Step 6a: Open to a fresh sheet of paper—yes, actual paper—and sketch yourself an arc, like this:

Step 6b: In sound-bite form, write your starting moment at the lower left point, the moment you did or didn’t get your big want at the peak, and the lesson learned in the space to the far right, like this:

Step 6c: I like to circle or highlight the lesson learned, to reinforce to my subconscious, “Every scene is pointing toward this.”

7. Complete the narrative arc.

At this point you’ve got all these pages written, so you’re feeling secure and confident. Your brain knows where it’s going; it’s been going there the whole time you’ve been writing about single memories. Trusting your brain is now easy. From this place of strength, you’re going to complete your roadmap, by filling the arc in with the pivotal memories that drive the story forward, all the way up to the moment it’s clear that you did, or did not, get what you most wanted. Here’s how:

Step 7a: Pose this question to yourself: What were the major events that either helped or hurt my attempts to get my big want?

Step 7b: With that question in mind and a bright-colored pen in hand, reread your categorized lists of memories, circling those events that shout, “Me! I was a major event!”

Step 7c: …and now, reread those bright-pen-circled memories, putting an asterisk by the five to eight most pivotal among them.

Step 7d: …and now, write those five to eight memories, sound-bite size, along the rising line of your arc. It will look something like this:

8. Assemble the parts.

So…do you have any idea what you’ve got at this point? Well. Let’s have a look. You have…

A huge list of memoir writing prompts (your big list of memories).
A stack of completed memoir pages (your sensory writing about single memories).
Your memoir’s plot (the narrative arc) complete with opening scene (the first event), conflict (your big want, and the struggle to get it), rising action (the big events ascending your arc), climax (the moment you got, or didn’t get, your big want), and theme (the lesson you learned).
The ability to trust your creative subconscious to guide your writing.
The ability to step back from your own experience and assess it objectively (noting how you categorize your life; choosing the most pivotal memories for your arc).
The ability to edit your thoughts down to sound-bite size (filling in the events on your arc).
And a complete, detailed roadmap to get you to your completed memoir!

Step 8a: From here, all you need to do is repeat steps three and four—reading through and selecting the next memory, and writing it out using the five senses—guided by the events on your roadmap.

Step 8b: And when you get that itchy, overindulged feeling—“I’m having too much fun writing!”—gather your pages, arrange them in the order of events on your map, and read your new material, making sure it’s heading toward your climax and adding lines, as needed, to connect one memory to the next.

Step 8c: When you’re done—when you’ve written about each memory along your roadmap, as well as the smaller memories leading up to them—know what you’ll have? A completed first draft. Know what you won’t have? An anxiety attack. Because lists. They work like magic.

The Actual Magic

Spoiler alert: don’t read if you don’t want to know the “trick” that makes this work!

This process is the writing version of dessert before dinner. The writing begins in an exciting, no-pressure format: recounting single, vivid memories. What could be easier? Because we’ve freed our brains from the heavy mandates of literary structure—Plot. Theme. Voice. Dialogue. Denouement.—our words flow, fast and easy. Before we realize what’s happening, we have the meat of our memories all written, and we have the confidence of having written pages and pages. At that point, we just have to slip the spine through the meat, maybe move some ribs around; bulk up around the legs; slim down around the middle. But the hard part—the sitting down and writing through the intimidation of—gulp—writing a whole book? We did that, without even realizing it! When we read all our pages, feeling the self-assurance that comes with achievement, the heavy literary must-dos become clear and obvious. We read them between the lines of our own writing.

The Second Act Novelist: 6 Ways to Prepare

Photo credit: daskerst via VisualHunt / CC BY

Today’s guest post is by writer Kathleen Jones (@joneslepidas).

Ever since I can remember, I’ve had a passion for the written word. As far as I was concerned, devising an imaginary world full of colorful characters was more fun than work. Throughout my school years, my creative writing—which always came easily to me—routinely won kudos from teachers. I was sure that once I graduated, I would launch a brilliant career as a novelist.

Then I became aware of one inconvenient fact: most novelists, even those lucky ones who manage to snare a contract with a publisher, struggle to make a living. So, with great reluctance, I entered the corporate world.

But in my mid-forties, bored and disillusioned by my job, I returned to my first love and began penning a novel. Ten years later, the axe finally fell, and I found myself forced into early retirement. Sort of.

By then, I had completed two novels. I hadn’t tried to publish my first novel—I didn’t feel it was strong enough to withstand the tough scrutiny of agents and editors—but I was happy with my recently completed second novel, and I felt that it had real potential. And, thanks to years of diligent saving and investing, I now had the freedom to pursue, on a full-time basis, the only work I had ever wanted to do: the work of a novelist.

It’s a post-retirement career that other would-be novelists, trapped for decades in mundane, unfulfilling jobs, might consider. Of course, it’s possible to write a novel while employed at a job, but let’s face it: at the end of a long, hard week, it’s very difficult to find the time and energy to produce truly great work.

If this is something you’d like to pursue in your retirement years, here are practical suggestions based on my own experience.

1. Start practicing the habits you’ll need as a full-time writer.

Get into the saving and investing habit as soon as you can. Set a realistic goal for the amount of money you want to invest each year, and try to invest a portion of it every few months.

While you’re still employed at that job, start writing. Try to write at least a few pages every week, and write them whenever and wherever you can: during your lunch break at work, during your daily commute on public transit, on weekends. Better yet, create a schedule where you set aside time each week for your writing.

2. Increase your knowledge about the business and craft.

Get to know the book publishing business. Check out articles like this one on the industry, and familiarize yourself with influential book bloggers. A great place to start is the Top 50 Writing Blogs for 2016 by Bryan Hutchinson. Consider purchasing a book on the craft of novel writing; an excellent beginner’s resource is The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Writing a Novel by novelist Tom Monteleone.

3. Treat your writing as a business, not a hobby.

Once your employer decides that they can do without you, you need to start viewing your writing career as a business. And your business—like any other business—requires marketing support. Authors market their work through online platforms such as author websites, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. If you know virtually nothing about online platforms (I sure didn’t!), then I suggest purchasing a book to guide you. Chuck Sambuchino’s Create Your Writer Platform is full of smart ideas. Derek Murphy’s Book Marketing Is Dead covers both online platforms and direct book marketing.

4. Set some deadlines.

The daunting task of writing a book becomes much easier when you break it down into small tasks and set realistic deadlines for each task. For example, you might aim to write 3 or 4 pages per day, 15 pages per week, and 60 pages per month. Based on that level of output, you might plan to finish writing your first draft in six months. Of course, since life is unpredictable, you’ll probably need to change at least some of your deadlines, but the mere act of setting them will motivate you to finish writing the book.

5. Create a long-term schedule.

Setting up an author platform; writing and rewriting a book; trying to sell your book to a publisher; self-publishing, promoting, and marketing your book … the list of book-related tasks is long and seemingly endless, especially for new authors. And what if you forget a task? Or do a task at the wrong time? Or do the wrong thing?

To save your time and sanity, create a long-term schedule, preferably in an electronic format such as Word. List all of the tasks, in order, that you need to complete, then assign tentative dates to them. Of course, the tasks and dates will probably change—over and over and over again—but at least you now have a realistic idea of what you need to do to bring your book to life.

6. Revise your work until you can’t see any way to improve it.

Rewrite your novel over and over again until you’re (more or less!) satisfied with it. If you’ve never published a book before, consider hiring a professional editor. Hiring these pros isn’t cheap, but your reputation as a novelist is at stake, and you might improve your chances of getting published by a traditional house. Be sure to hire reputable people who have relevant experience with novels like yours. Jane Friedman offers a list of helpful resources; Canadians can hire experienced professionals through the Editors’ Association of Canada website.

Above all, stay motivated. 

One of the biggest obstacles you’ll encounter is discouragement. More than likely, your family, spouse, friends, co-workers, and everyone else won’t support your writing career. They’ll probably view it as an unattainable dream; after all, very few people write books, and most of them can’t even muster up the courage to try. Once you’ve finished writing your book, you’ll also have to deal with rejection from literary agents and editors, as well as negative reviews from readers. To avoid giving in to despair, try to connect to other authors. Join groups on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Goodreads, and ask other authors for their advice. If your query letter to agents isn’t working, hire a professional editor to look it over.

I just started my new “retirement career” more than six months ago. Although it’s far more work than I ever envisioned and although I haven’t yet released my first (published) novel, I’m happier than I’ve ever been. In a short period of time, I’ve set up my online platform, connected with hundreds of interesting people, and worked with a substantive and line editor, a copy editor, and a proofreader. If you’ve always wanted to write a book, and you suddenly find yourself retired—and if you can afford it—don’t hesitate. Start your full-time writing career. Now.

If you’re a second-act novelist, what preparatory steps helped you? How would you guide someone else? Let us know in the comments.