Are You A Career Writer?

I retweeted a post on Twitter today from Jonny Geller, joint CEO of literary agency Curtis Brown. He has been in the agency business for almost twenty years and has a senior role in a very successful, well-known agency so he is someone to sit up and take notice off if you have any interest in the world of writing.

The post on Twitter linked to a BBC article giving his top-ten tips for being a literary agent.

I have no aspirations to be a literary agent, although a job that requires the reading of fictional novels sounds very appealing. The article is still pertinent to a writer and would-be published author as it provides some insight into the type of writer he is looking for.

I can appreciate top tip number 2: Be Prepared To Start At The Bottom. As a solicitor and someone who worked their way up from a paralegal, through a training contract to become a qualified solicitor, I know that perseverance and dedication with a good dash of ambition can push you towards achieving your goals. I also know that it can take a long time, a tough skin and an ability to absorb disappointments, learn from them and move on. Jonny Geller's tip is about the agency business and I have experienced it in the legal profession but I think it equally applies to writing.

There are plenty of discussions on writing sites about what it takes to make a successful writer and how you measure success. It will always mean different things to different writers, for some it will be the act of getting the words out of their head and into print, for others it will be seeing a story through to completion, some will be happy to know that anyone enjoys what they write and for others it will mean getting that elusive publishing contract, making a fortune through massive sales, getting accolades or being a bestseller.  What you consider success may depend on what you foresaw when you first felt compelled to write. For me it was a very secret ambition I held for most of my life. I daydreamed about writing a novel but I was always too busy with my life and pursuing my "proper" job. I was too full of doubt about myself; this idea stopped me - who am I too write a book? I quite literally woke up one day with the idea in my head and, when I got an empty house, seized the opportunity; I lifted the laptop and started writing. Within a day it became an obsession but I told no-one. I even took my laptop on holiday in the hope I would steal some time to keep going with the story. At that point I had to confess to my husband that I was writing a novel. I had such a sense of achievement and happiness when I completed it, but I still did not tell anyone I had done it. In other parts of my life that sense of achievement would have been accompanied with an element of pride but it so personal creating something and then finding the courage to share it with the world.

I slowly ventured into the virtual world and started to share my story. What I found was, people liked it but technically I had a lot to learn. I have accepted criticism, compliments, read and read more, absorbed as much as I can about the writing world and the technique of writing and continue to do so. I have found the quick high of writing flash fiction and short stories, the slow burning passion of writing a novel. I have managed to complete two novels (although that first one is going through a rewrite of the whole story) and I am currently writing a third. Due to the writing, I participate in more social media than I ever have before. Where has all of that led me?

One of my novels, The Glass House, was chosen as a One to Watch in March by the editors of the HarperCollins owned Authonomy blog but I have not self-published, I have not won any writing competition awards, I have not got an agent or a publisher. So, am I a writer?

I have the confidence now to say I am a writer but I see that as being different from an author. I think of an author as someone who has published. I write under a pen name and I do not talk about it much in my real life. That leads me to one of the top-tips from Jonny Geller that I found most interesting. Top tip number 5: Look For Career Writers.

To quote from the article: We get around 13,000 manuscripts a year and I'm looking for someone who is a career writer. There was a statistic recently about self-publishing that 75% of those asked said it was a hobby for them. I'm interested in the other 25%.

I'm interested in people who are obsessed with writing, who cannot not write. It's a very peculiar and distinct little group of people who will make their living as a writer.

My job really is to identify somebody who can write a story in a way that only that person could have written it. If I can identify that voice then I'm half way there. It is easier to help someone with a story if they can write, than the other way around.

My career is a solicitor. That is what I studied, trained, worked and pushed for to qualify as. When I  admit to people that I write I say, 'it's just a hobby.' I feel like that because, whilst I love it and would be thrilled to find an agent and publisher, the realist in me recognises how difficult that is and just how many unknown, undiscovered writers there are out there dreaming the same dream I am and never making it a reality. Does that mean I should give up and it will never happen? Not a hope. I get far too much pleasure from writing. I had to take a hiatus from writing, including this blog due to my full-time work commitments. I found room for it all again and know how much I missed it. The characters and story ideas were still with me and I needed to find time to express them. That is the compulsion that drives me to keep writing.

I can understand the description Jonny Geller applies to his vision of a career writer when he says they are obsessed with writing and cannot not write. I have been there and felt that compulsion, the need to get the story that I could watch in my mind into words, despite a lack of sleep and stinging, sore eyes from spending too long in front of the laptop. So, maybe I do have it in me. Perhaps one day I will be that career writer but to achieve that I believe it is important to be able to write in the first place and that is what I am still trying to discover about myself; do I have the talent to make it? In the meantime,  I will continue to love this crazy, emotional obsessive hobby.

My favourite tip is number 10: don't take the job or yourself too seriously.

It's important to remind yourself that you are not really in control of anything and learn from your experiences. 

Advice I could apply to just about every aspect of my life and that we could all do with remembering.

You can read the full BBC article here.

One To Watch

My manuscript, The Glass House, has been chosen by the Authonomy Editors at the Harper Collins Authonomy website as this week's One to Watch. I'm so thrilled that it was chosen and at the comments they left on their blog about it.

If I didn't already have an incentive to get back to something I love, this has provided the nudge I needed.

I've been saying I feel like framing it...

And if that wasn't shameless enough, here's a link to the full blog post.

Undertaking Love: Kat French

I've mentioned in previous posts that I belong to some online writing communities and one of them is the Harper Collins owned Authonomy.

It's a review site where writers can upload as much or as little of their work as they like, subject to a 10,000 word minimum. Readers can also join up. The site also comes with a forum, where several critique groups can be found. I've found them to be one of the most valuable aspects of the site. At one stage I ran the Romance Crit Group and I'm one of the original, participating members of the Women's Fiction Crit Group, run by Gail Cleare.

Previously, there was a lively critique group for chick-lit. Some of the chick-lit writers have since formed Vanity Case Books.

One book, which I first came across in the chick-lit group, is Undertaking Love. I've had the great privilege of reading and reviewing a brief sample of this story, at an earlier stage of its life, and was thrilled when the news came that Harper Collins had picked it up and would publish it. The book is available to pre-order. The release date is 25th April 2013 and I can't wait to download my copy so I can find out what happens to Marla and whether the wedding chapel and funeral parlour find a way to co-exist and live in harmony.

Good luck Kat and I'm sure you'll have a whole new legion of fans very soon.

Getting Published

A subject dear to the heart of so many writers. Is my writing good enough to be published? If yes, do I seek an agent who will help me find a publisher, submit directly to a publisher or do I self-publish? In either situation do I pay for a writing course, a literary consultancy or an editor before submission or publication?

Writing a novel is only the beginning. There are so many other issues to consider after you've written the ending and, as an unpublished, unknown, it feels like breaking through is almost impossible.

There are countless stories on the internet of the struggles some authors have gone through before being published, all of them telling you not to give up on your dreams. Then I read books like Carole Blake's From Pitch to Publication and there are some reality checks in it about how far down an agent's list of priority the unsolicited manuscripts are.

All of this is going on within the shifting publishing landscape.

I blogged recently about the need for an online presence and how necessary it is even for unpublished writers to build their own brand. I think this blog post from Authonomy, a Harper Collins owned website, expressing the view that self-publishing is 'a powerful incubator for writing talent' is a step on from that discussion.

The Authonomy post could be saying that publishers are not taking risks on new authors. They aren't going out looking for them and they want writers to do their own publicity. They want an author to make a name and a success of their books before they will invest, putting their name behind the book. Now, there's nothing new in an author having to do some marketing and publicity. How many authors have to do book tours, signings, interviews, workshops and readings? That's always appeared to be part of the job to me. The difference here is that Authonomy appear to be saying that new writers need to do all their own editing, publishing, cover design and marketing to sell a few thousand copies in order to attract an agent or a hundred thousand sales to get a publisher's attention. So, if a new writer can only get noticed by spending all this time publishing and marketing their own book to the point that they sell in these figures why do they need a traditional publisher at all and how much time will that leave them for actually writing?

The Authonomy article cites the success of writers, such as E L James, Amanda Hocking and Nick Spalding. Closer to home Leesa Harker signed with Blackstaff Press after she created a noise on social media with her Belfast based parody of Fifty Shades.

I'm still digesting this latest news and trying to decide where it leaves new writers like myself but one thing it has shown me is that publishers are even more reluctant to take on new writers than I previously believed. It looks like they want to avoid all risks and you have to show yourself capable of grabbing readers and sales before they'll consider adding their logo to your book in return for a cut of the cash.

So, do we give up on the dream of traditional publication? Do we self-publish instead or do so hoping that it will still lead to traditional publication?

Charlie & Pearl

A link for a new blog from Tammy Robinson, indie author of the fabulous Charlie and Pearl. A story I was lucky enough to enjoy on its way to a gold medal on the Authonomy writing site.

Charlie and Pearl

Next Big Thing - Blog Hop

A fellow blogger and member of Authonomy, Audrey Bennett, has invited me to join in The Next Big Thing blog tour. The idea is to hop from blog to blog to discover exciting authors and their books we might not have heard about or that are still Works in Progress (WIP).  This is Week  23.

The hop rules require me to answer questions, and then at the bottom of my post, to list links to authors who will answer the same questions on their blogs next week. 

So, the Q&A part:

1) What is the working title of your book?

My latest manuscript is called The Glass House.

2) Where did the idea come from for your book?

I love gardening and inherited a glass house from my grandmother. I write women's fiction and I wanted to write a story about judging people on first impressions and the dangers of doing so. I took inspiration from the old phrase, 'People In Glass Houses Shouldn't Throw Stones.' That gave me the idea to make my main character a gardener and from that the story revolved around a Victorian Glass House that she discovers and restores.

3) What genre does your book fall under?

Women's Fiction with a hint of crime/thriller.

4) Which actors would you choose to play in your movie rendition?

As the story is set in Northern Ireland, preferably natives of Northern Ireland or at least someone who can do a plausible Norn Iron accent. Three women and three man are pivotal to the plot so there are a few roles to fill. I recently watched a film called Cherrybomb, set in Belfast. Rupert Grint plays a lead role and I was pleasantly surprised at his Northern Irish accent. Robert Sheehan is also in it and, although from Co Laois, he can also do a good accent. He would make a great Stuart. Homegrown talent in that movie is in the form of James Nesbitt and I could see him in the role of Tom.

5) What is the one sentence synopsis of your book?

A sanctuary. A Workplace. When a blackmailer finds a use for it, what secrets will the glass house cultivate?

6) Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

I hope it sits well within the realm of women's fiction. It has a surface plot of romance, deception and blackmail. The underlying issue of judging people on impressions develops throughout the story so I hope it will have commercial appeal. I intend to submit it to agents and see what sort of reaction it gets. So far the feedback, on the sample chapters, on two writing sites has been positive and encouraging.

7) How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

I started the story and wrote the first few chapters about a year ago. Then I turned my efforts to editing my first MS, Twisted Truth. Feeling that I've done all I can with it, for now, I returned to The Glass House and wrote the rest of the first draft within two months.

8) What other books would you compare this story to?

I read a lot of chick-lit and women's fiction but can't think of another one that combines gardening and blackmail in this manner, or that is set in Northern Ireland. Hopefully that all makes up for a unique selling point.

9) Who or what inspired you to write the book?

This answer mirrors that to question two. My own love of gardening and the phrase, 'People in Glass Houses.' One of the characters in the story is too quick to judge people on first impressions. Combine that with a stubborn mind and it's a recipe for trouble.

10) What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

I hope the Northern Irish setting will appeal. I've used my blog to try and highlight this corner of the world and I hope the book could do the same. Caitlin gets a role presenting a gardening show which takes her around Ireland. The glass house is near the village of Sion Mills, which has some very unique architecture and parts of the story are set in Belfast, which provided an opportunity to show the changes and development but also reflects our history and ongoing problems.

Next Wednesday, you can visit the blogs of friends listed below to read the answers on their 'Next Big Thing.'

Melanie Jones - Melanie's debut novel will be released next year and you can also follow her on Facebook.
SJ McClanahan - a husband and wife team who write together and can also be found on Facebook.
Gail Cleare - Gail writes women's fiction and runs a critique group on Authonomy for those who write in the genre.