Writing: Making work or making progress

For more than five years I had a relatively successful network marketing business. I had a large team of sales people and our annual revenue as a down line topped six figures in my best year. This gave me some great practice in sales, marketing, and working with people. One thing I learned that I continue to apply to my writing is recognizing the difference between making work and making progress.

It is important as a writer to clearly determine which you are doing on each project. Early on it is best to take on every opportunity you can find to write. This is because we all need the practice. My mentor once told me that writers have to write half a million words to get all the junk out. That is why some authors even write letters (real ones, not email) when they have writer’s block. But as you progress as a writer, how do you distinguish whether you’re making work or making progress?

Here are a few ways to know if you are actually making progress in your writing:

• If you take time to write a piece and then consider the market it might work best for.

• If you continue to work on it, even if you haven’t found ‘Your Muse’.

• If you are working on an already contracted piece [this may seem obvious but writer’s block sometimes leads us to work on ‘new ideas’ before we’ve finished contracted work.

This is by no means exhaustive, but it does begin to give criteria to help you recognize whether you are stalling or progressing. The sign of a professional writer is a person who pushes through and writes even when they don’t feel like it.

The Writing Career Coach blog is moving! In order to offer you more services and a central location for all information I am moving this blog to our main website: http://www.writingcareercoach.com/ There you will find the blog, information on my speaking topics, FREE articles to help you with your writing and more.

Tiffany Colter is a writer, speaker and writing career coach who works with beginner to published writers. She can be reached through her website at http://www.writingcareercoach.com/

Tiffany is a speaker and teacher. Find out about available topics for your group’s next event.

Tiffany is a National Examiner. Read her articles here.

Learn more about Tiffany’s Marketing techniques on her main blog.

Common-sense money management is free at The Balanced Life website.

Read Tiffany’s award winning manuscript “A Face in the Shadow” on her fiction blog.

She writes a blog for the Christian writer Tuesdays at Writer’s Rest.

Interview with Editor Sally Bradley

Today we are interviewing Editor Sally Bradley.

Sally Bradley has worked for two Christian publishers, writing sales and marketing materials, sorting through the slush pile, and proofreading and editing fiction. She has a BA in English and a love for perfecting novels, whether it’s her own work or the work of others. A judge in fiction-writing contests, Sally is a member of ACFW, The Christian PEN (Proofreaders and Editors Network), and the Christian Editor Network. She’s a work-at-home mother of three and is married to a pastor who moonlights as a small-town cop.

Sally took a few minutes to talk about editing with Writing Career Coach.

Writing Career Coach: How did you get started with editing?
Sally Bradley: Straight from college, I worked for Tyndale House Publishers. I created the sales sheets the entire staff used to sell every new product. The editorial department sent me information on a new book, and I’d create a short book blurb, an author bio, a list of potential markets, things like that. That was a great foundation for learning how to create hooks in a proposal.

I left Tyndale when my husband and I moved out of state for him to attend seminary. The church that ran the seminary started a small fiction publishing company, and I proofread and edited a number of books as well as sorted through the slush pile there. Sadly the company no longer exists because they had no sales or marketing department. It’s awfully hard for people to buy a book they don’t know exists.

I left that job to have my first child, and my goal at that point was to become a published novelist. I spent the next six years writing and studying the craft. I spent almost half a year studying how to write a synopsis and proposal, and the proposal I wrote garnered an offer of representation from two reputable agents.

About that same time, I began to consider opening my own freelancing business. A friend from church asked me to read over an essay for grad school applications. She was having a hard time getting it to word count, and I showed her a number of changes that made it concise and below word count. It was at that point that I realized how much I loved words and that this was a job I needed to do.

My friend got into her dream grad school, by the way. :)

WCC: What type of editing do you do?

SB: I work mostly with fiction. I love diving into a story and finding ways to make it (and the writer) stronger.

I will customize my work to fit whatever a client needs, but most of my work involves looking at the big picture of a novel--plot, characters, setting, story structure, opening hook, etc.--and seeing what works, what needs some help, any areas where the story can be tied together better, anything that will make the structure of the book itself strong and more appealing to publishers and agents.

In addition to critiquing the big picture, I offer line editing where I do my best to make the actual prose more polished and professional. This involves deleting unnecessary words, identifying pet phrases, fixing awkward wording, and other little details that make a book sing. I'll even mark any misspelled words and grammar and punctuation problems I find.

WCC: What is one consistent issue you see in the manuscripts you edit?

SB: There are a few I see routinely, but the most consistent problem is telling instead of showing.

Telling isn’t evil; there is a time and a place for it, but it should never be the main action of the story. Fiction readers want to experience the story happening right in front of them through dialogue and action. They don’t want to have it summarized as if they were hearing about it from another person. Think of it this way—would you rather watch a movie or hear about it from someone else? Writers need to make sure the reader is watching the action happen.


Read more of Sally’s interview here at Examiner.com and find out what the best resources are on writing well.

The Writing Career Coach blog is moving! In order to offer you more services and a central location for all information I am moving this blog to our main website: http://www.writingcareercoach.com/ There you will find the blog, information on my speaking topics, FREE articles to help you with your writing and more.

Tiffany Colter is a writer, speaker and writing career coach who works with beginner to published writers. She can be reached through her website at http://www.writingcareercoach.com/
Tiffany is a speaker and teacher. Find out about available topics for your group’s next event.
Tiffany is a National Examiner. Read her articles here.
Learn more about Tiffany’s Marketing techniques on her main blog.
Common-sense money management is free at The Balanced Life website.
Read Tiffany’s award winning manuscript “A Face in the Shadow” on her fiction blog.
She writes a blog for the Christian writer Tuesdays at Writer’s Rest.

Changes in the industry

Hello everyone!

I wrote two articles recently on the new FTC rules/guidelines for Examiner.com. Take the time to go check them out.

Reviewer Beware: New guidelines could cost you $11,000 in fines.

Reviewer Beware again: Clarification on guidelines causes more concerns

I have three new articles coming next week on craft and your writing business. I will also have the code so you can sign up to continue to receive the postings when we go to our new website. Stick around. Next week is going to be a great week.

See the latest blog on our new website

The latest Writing Career Coach blog has just been posted at the Writing Career Coach website which will serve as the new home for our blog. Go there now to read the post or it will post here tomorrow.

I look forward to seeing you over at Writing Career Coach.com

Tiff

Tiffany Colter is a writer, speaker and writing career coach who works with beginner to published writers. She can be reached through her website at http://www.writingcareercoach.com/
Tiffany is a speaker and teacher. Find out about available topics for your group’s next event.
Tiffany is a National Examiner. Read her articles here.
Learn more about Tiffany’s Marketing techniques on her main blog.
Common-sense money management is free at The Balanced Life website.
Read Tiffany’s award winning manuscript “A Face in the Shadow” on her fiction blog.
She writes a blog for the Christian writer Tuesdays at Writer’s Rest.

Writing Career Coach is moving!!!

Greetings,

For almost exactly two years this has been the home of the Writing Career Coach blog. During that time this has transformed from an idea born out of passion for writing to a place where thousands come by each year to learn craft, grow their platform and develop their writing business.

Well, I'm pleased to announce that we are now taking the next step. We are integrating the blog with my newly updated WritingCareerCoach.com website. This new website offers free articles for you to download, the blog and will soon have even more features to help you with writing. I hope it will become the central location for you to go when you need a reputable source of information for any aspect of your writing.

For those of you who don't know the full story of the birth of this business, let me give you a quick history. I began freelancing full time in 2003 and quickly broke in to the national market. By late 2005 I was writing regularly for a local paper and was working on my second full book manuscript. [I had scored in the top 2o of Operation First Novel in 2004].

Then my husband, who was 29, was diagnosed with cancer. We had 4 small children ages 2-7, including a special needs daughter. During his battle my husband read books on business, marketing and finance. I read them along side of him and we'd spend hours discussing them together. The summer of 2006, Chris was declared cancer free, but over the next 2 years we'd face joblessness and a drop of our income to 1/2 then 1/3 of what he'd previously earned. So, all of you facing financial trials. I've been there. I know the pain. The threat of foreclosure loomed heavy and we struggled to hold on. In was in the midst of this lack that we took $160 and put together a two page website and I bought the domain "WritingCareerCoach.com". I wanted to teach writers all the business/marketing information that I'd learned during Chris' cancer treatment.

Tiffany Stockton of Eagle designs helped me build the website and a week later I was up. That was followed 4 months later by the Writing Career Coach blog. The rest, they say, is history. We are now moving to the future. We are taking Writing Career Coach to the place I always envisioned it as: A place of resources, information, articles and other things that will help every writer who may have more passion than money. I hope each of you will take advantage of the information here. I spend more than 20 hrs a week reading, learning and researching so I can bring you the blogs, articles, products and services that I provide.

Over the next couple of weeks I will continue to post my blogs both here and at WritingCareerCoach.com, but by late October my website will be the only source for updated information from the Writing Career Coach to advance your writing career. I would like to thank Grant Webster at Launch Thought for helping me develop and design this new website. Both webmasters are incredible people who have truly been a blessing to me.

To all of you who have taken the time to subscribe to this blog, I hope you will follow me over to the new site. There I will be able to add new free articles each quarter, offer new products and services and offer a single, central place for all information. And if you link to my blog, please update to reflect my central www.WritingCareerCoach.com website. Thanks!

For those of you who don't follow, I want to thank you for more than two years of support. From the humble beginnings we have become an incredible business. I have valued each and every one of you.

Later today my latest blog will appear at our new home: www.WritingCareerCoach.com I hope I'll see you there.

Interview with Patti Lacy

Today we are interviewing author Patti Lacy. Her most recent book, What the Bayou Saw, is available through Kregel Publications.

In 1955, Ann Qualls gave birth to her daughter Patti in the front seat of a Buick. By pure coincidence, Ann claims, their daughter was named Patti Day Qualls, PDQ.

This moniker has served Patti well, as she’s moved at least ten times, traveled to forty states, and changed occupations with a liberality unusual in native Texans. However, Patti thinks her latest profession will stick awhile.

The Still, Small Voice encouraged Patti to write after a brave Irish friend shared memories of betrayal and her decision to forgive. In 2008, An Irishwoman’s Tale was published by Kregel Publications. Patti’s second novel, What the Bayou Saw, draws on the memories of two young girls who refused to let segregation, a chain link fence, and a brutal rape come between them.

The secrets women keep and why they keep them continue to capture Patti’s imagination. She writes full time, teaches Bible studies and seminars, and attends book signings. Patti and her husband Alan, an Illinois State faculty member, live in Normal . They have two grown children and a dog named Laura.

You can reach Patti at http://us.mc591.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=patti@pattilacy.com or http://www.pattilacy.com/.

What the Bayou Saw: Since leaving Louisiana, Sally Stevens has held her childhood secrets at bay, smothering them in a sunny disposition and sugar-coated lies. No one, not even her husband Sam, has heard the truth about what happened to her and her best friend, Ella Ward, when they were twelve years old.

Now a teacher in Normal, Illinois, Sally has nearly forgotten her past. Then Shamika, one of her students, is violently attacked, and memories of segregation, a chain-link fence, and a blood oath bubble to the surface like a dead body in a bayou. Lies continue to tumble from Sally’s lips as she scrambles to gloss over the harsh reality of a betrayal that refuses to stay buried.

Finally cornered by the Holy Spirit and her own web of lies, Sally and Shamika embark on a quest to find Ella in post-Katrina New Orleans. With the help of friends, family, and God, Sally can glimpse a life free of the mire of deceit and truly begin to live with joy. Will she pay the price for a lifetime of deception? Can she save Shamika?

Patti took a few minutes to talk about publishing from a writer's perspective with Writing Career Coach.

Writing Career Coach: What are some ways you prepared to market your book before you were published?
Patti Lacy: Thanks to Kregel’s marketing guru, Cat Hoort, and the experienced and fabulous Wynne Wynne Media, I jumpstarted the old girl (What the Bayou Saw) before she hit the shelves. Then I could focus on local bookstores, who I blackmailed into scheduling signings (chocolate helped!) The talented and lovely Dineen Miller designed brilliant flyers that I distributed, both in hard copy and e-mail, to friends, relatives, coworkers, or folks that just needed a cool sheet of scratch paper.

They say word of mouth sells books. Thanks to genetics (a Southern mama) and loads of practice, I have lots of words and a big mouth. Let’s hope what “they say” proves true!

WCC: Tell us about your book.
PL: I’d love to gab on about all of them, but let’s cover Segregation and a chain link fence separate Sally Flowers from her best friend, Ella Ward. But a brutal crime and a blood oath bind them together. Forever. Decades later, Sally Stevens can’t get that bayou betrayal out of her system. And her bad habits are catching up with her and threaten to ruin her future. When Hurricane Katrina slams into New Orleans, Sally heads home to make amends…and to save her soul.

WCC: How do you plan and write your book?
PL: My first two novels were totally seat of the pants and definitely had some snags and holes. But I’ve matured and use an altered version of Randy Ingermanson’s Snowflake Method:

Nail a hook. Expand to a short summary. Get wild and crazy with a synopsis. Then plan those scenes. If you’ve got complex characters and plot and that supernatural thing called timing, folks just might buy your manuscript. But if God asks you to write it for Him, let that be enough. And make it as good as it can be.

Now, is that a plan OR WHAT??????

WCC: What is it like working with editors? Do you have tips for getting along and building a great relationship with them?
PL: My editors at Kregel have to be the most brilliant folks in the world! My advice, especially for newbie writers: THE EDITORS ARE RIGHT. You are wrong. Use them unashamedly, because they have sooo much to teach. And don’t be afraid to ask for their help in writing a scene.

Dawn Anderson, one of Kregel’s great pros, asked me to compose a prologue from threads of a climactic scene in my first book. Instead of screaming over the phone or ripping off a crazed e-mail, I took a jog, prayed, then called her back and asked her if she could “get me started.” She wrote a paragraph or two (don’t all editors have a tinge of frustrated novelist inside?) As soon as I read her lines, I grasped what she’d been trying to say. Second tip? BE FLEXIBLE. The story really CAN have a different twist than YOU planned.

WCC: Do you have a tip for finding-and working with-an agent?
PL: Wait for the one you consider a soulmate. One who shares your dreams, your visions. Take it ssslllloooowww as cold molasses. It has been said that a bad agent is worse than none.

Read more of Patti’s interview here at Examiner.com.

YOU COULD WIN!

Leave a comment on this posting and you could win a copy of What the Bayou Saw. The drawing will take place on Sept. 21, 2009. This give away is for US residents only. There is no fee to enter.

Another book by Patti Lacy:An Irishwoman's Tale

Tiffany Colter is a writer, speaker and writing career coach who works with beginner to published writers. She can be reached through her website at http://www.writingcareercoach.com/
Tiffany is a speaker and teacher. Find out about available topics for your group’s next event.
Tiffany is a National Examiner. Read her articles here.
Learn more about Tiffany’s Marketing techniques on her main blog.
Common-sense money management is free at The Balanced Life website.
Read Tiffany’s award winning manuscript “A Face in the Shadow” on her fiction blog.
She writes a blog for the Christian writer Tuesdays at Writer’s Rest.

Interview with Roxanne Rustand

Today we are interviewing author Roxanne Rustand. Her most recent book, Final Exposure (Steeple Hill Love Inspired Suspense), is available through Harlequin Enterprises.

Roxanne lives in the country with her family, and a menagerie of pets that frequently find their way into her books. If not working at her day job as a registered dietitian, writing at home in her jammies, or spending time with her family, you'll find her riding one of the family's horses, playing with her camera, or hiding with her nose in a book.

She is the author of twenty-three romantic suspense and heart-warming relationship novels. Her first manuscript won the Romance Writers of America Golden Heart, and her second was a Golden Heart finalist. More recently, one of her books won RT Bookclub Magazine's award for Best Superromance of 2006, and she was nominated for RT's Career Achievement Award in 2005.

She loves to hear from readers, and can be reached through http://www.roxannerustand.com/ or www.shoutlife.com/roxannerustand

Roxanne took a few minutes to talk about publishing from a writer's perspective with Writing Career Coach.

Writing Career Coach: What are some ways you prepared to market your book before you were published?
Roxanne Rustand: When I first started writing, I had no thought about becoming published. It seemed so impossible that I just wrote for pleasure. And then I found out about RWA (Romance writers of America) and the education about writing and the writing business that I got through that organization was worth its weight in gold.

For those of you who are starting out in inspirational fiction, instead of secular fiction, I can't recommend American Christian Fiction Writers enough. It's a wonderful resource, and the annual conference is simply amazing. I belong to both ACFW and RWA now, and their value is far beyond what costs to belong. Armed with the knowledge you gain, you'll be far better prepared to move from aspiring writer to author, and to do the best job of marketing your first book!

Part of marketing is to build your name, and thus the potential readership for your book, long before you sell. In that vein, I wrote articles for chapter newsletters and for the Romance Writers Report. I entered contests. I volunteered in every way I could. And when I finally made my first sale, I did everything else I could think of, within a very limited budget.

I made my own business cards and bookmarks. Developed a simple website. I joined a group of newly published authors who bought group advertisements in Romantic Times Book Reviews magazine and the RWR. I took part in book signings, and signed stock in bookstores. I spoke at schools, organizations, and libraries. And I also sent out my book to many online review sites. Not only did that yield quotes for my website and promotional materials, but then all the visitors at those sites, who read the reviews, had a chance to decide if they wanted to buy the book or not.

Times have changed since then. New authors now have a whole new world out there--and so much more of it comes at a reasonable cost, or free!

The wonderful Romance Sells advertising magazine, for instance, which goes out to many thousands of booksellers and librarians quarterly, is a bargain--one couldn't personally mail all of those people for that amount. There are many inexpensive places to buy professional bookmarks and business cards that you can design yourself. You can find easy publishing software for creating professional quality newsletters, though these days, with the cost of ink, paper and postage, using the Internet is probably far more cost effective than mass mailings of postcards and newsletters. There are hundreds of writing blogs out there, and most owners are eager to host guest authors--which opens up a chance to share information about you and your book to a whole new population of followers, every time you agree to participate.

Listing your personal website and blog when doing those "guest appearances" is a way to draw some new people to your own site, where you can market your new book. People may be more likely to buy your first book if they've gotten to know you!

Thanks to Lyn Cote's patient urging, I recently started something that has been such fun. I wanted to start a blog, but didn’t have any focus for it until she reminded me that many of my books have been romantic suspense, but they've also had a warm, touching, emotional element--often with quirky animals in the subplots. So I started the "All Creatures Great and Small Blog" where authors and readers can exchange stories about their pets, and I can also run articles about an old-time horse traders. It's fun for both the followers, and me and it ties in with my books and my brand. Which is something else for you to think about--developing a blog that means something to you, not just something generic, and one that will hopefully draw the type of readers who might enjoy your books. Oblique marketing? Maybe...but it's a good thing to try.

So....marketing your first book can start well before it hits the stores, and there are many options now for getting that title out in front of potential readers. It's an exciting journey, and I wish you all the best1

WCC: Tell us about your current release.

RR: FINAL EXPOSURE is the first book in the "Big Sky Secrets" trilogy, Steeple Hill Love Inspired Suspense. The series is set in the Rocky Mountains of Montana, and involves three women who shared a tragic loss as children--the murder of their close friend. They've all been away for years, but now they are drawn back to Montana, one by one, to a place that offers healing, new beginnings and unexpected danger...


WCC: How do you plan and write your book?

RR: People talk about being a "seat of the pants" writer, or a plotter...as if it is something permanent, like red hair or blue eyes. I think that many of us evolve over time, as we internalize the process of writing, learn from each other, and put a lot more miles on the computer.

Most authors need to be plotters...at least, to sell a book. There are some who can sell on a concept. Sometimes, we're asked to write a certain story, and that's that--off to contract. But usually, authors have to come up with a coherent synopsis that makes good sense, and that in itself involves being a plotter...at least at the outset. After that, all bets are off!
I started out being an avid maker of charts. Graphs. Lists. W-plot graphs. Charts with the hero's journey. I did personality charts, not knowing if my hero really did like chocolate ice cream, but dutifully filling out his favorite flavors. You name it, and I probably did it--needing every crutch in the book. I still get teased a bit about being--quite possibly--the most left-brained person on the planet!

But as time went on, and I starting selling, there was less and less time for all of that. And, as I wrote more, I needed it less, because the sense of rhythm in story telling became easier. I gradually developed a better sense of what had to happen when (which is probably inherently part of true pantser's psyche, but I think I missed that gene!)

Now, my process is simple--and it has saved me a lot of work. Yep--I still have to write a synopsis to sell. But once I have that in hand, I break it down into subplots. Sit down at the computer. And then start to brainstorm with myself--writing "lists of twenty" (or thirty) things that could or should or might happen for each subplot. I just let my brain fly, and type fast as I can. When that's done, I look at my lists and pull them into logical order under each subplot heading...discarding the silly things and keeping the best.

Now, I may not use half of these scene starter or turning point ideas. A subplot may veer off in a different direction, and change completely. But I've got ideas listed, in a semblance of logical order...so I'm less likely to end up in a muddle. Referring to those lists can spur even better ideas, once I know the characters more fully. Nothing is planned scene-by-scene, chapter-by-chapter, but my lists always give me an idea of where to go next!
So...is this being a plotter? Pantser? I don’t know...but for now, it works for me!

The other thing I do which is of immeasurable help to me, is that I do my bookkeeping as I write. Doesn’t that sound boring? It isn't--it's a great tool that helps prevent the need for major revisions. I don't plot in detail ahead of time. But as I finish each scene, I switch to my "Subplot Tracker" file and type in the main things that happened for each subplot. My form is set up in columns and rows. If I neglect a subplot for too long, I'll see a lot of white space. I can also see if something isn't developing well enough. It's kind of hard to explain, but I've got copies of my forms on my website under "articles" at http://www.roxannerustand.com/. Take a look!

Roxanne Rustand
"The All Creatures Great and Small Blog"
http://roxannerustand.blogspot.com/

http://www.roxannerustand.com/

YOU COULD WIN!

Leave a comment on this posting and you could win a copy of FINAL EXPOSURE. The drawing will take place on Sept. 15, 2009. This give away is for US residents only. There is no fee to enter.

Tiffany Colter is a writer, speaker and writing career coach who works with beginner to published writers. She can be reached through her website at http://www.writingcareercoach.com/

Tiffany is a speaker and teacher. Find out about available topics for your group’s next event.

Tiffany is a National Examiner. Read her articles here.

Learn more about Tiffany’s Marketing techniques on her main blog.

Common-sense money management is free at The Balanced Life website.

Read Tiffany’s award winning manuscript “A Face in the Shadow” on her fiction blog.

She writes a blog for the Christian writer Tuesdays at Writer’s Rest.