Friday Fricassee

This.

Behold this wondrous Christmas gift from my daughter Maggie (an aspiring author whose writing I love, and who has been my champion and biggest fan from Day One).  I may have cried a little when I opened this on Christmas morning.

Every word in the cloud is related to my writing journey.  She apparently spent days trying to make sure she didn't forget anything (and, of course, she forgot things, but it doesn't matter even a little).  Titles, coffee shops, character names, and anything else related to my writerly life is nestled here.  You'll see "coffee", "wine", "music", and even "Cape May" (my favorite place in the world, and therefore my favorite place to write).

If the last 12 years of my life were heart-shaped, this is what it would look like.

The support from my family over the years--and especially now that I'm on my way to my first published novel--is immeasurable.  For as important as my professional support system has been, my at-home, I-love-you-when-you're-grumpy team is equally valuable.

My mom has spoken endless words of affirmation over me through the years.

My husband bought me a new Macbook Air for Christmas (totally spoiled me, and I know it).  No more dying E-key!

My offspring have provided me with chocolate and coffee shop gifts cards, because THEY KNOW.

My sister has started bringing food over and throwing it in the freezer to relieve some of my cooking burden while I work on this revision.

You guys.  IT DOESN'T GET MUCH BETTER THAN THIS.

And yes, I've got my first official editorial deadline, and I LOVE IT!

Well, I also hate it.  BUT MOSTLY I LOVE IT.

For years, I've trained myself to write to a deadline, and now it's paying off.  Honestly, there hasn't been a single time I haven't met my self-imposed end dates.  I've treated them as though they were imposed upon me by someone else, because I knew that some day that's what my life would be like.

And here we are!  Elayne has requested the revisions be complete by February 1, and I intend to deliver.  (Hence the food in my freezer.)  The timing couldn't be more perfect--an entire week and a half of PRACTICALLY NOTHING BUT WRITING before January's schedule kicks in on the 8th.

Well, okay.  I may be doing one or two other things, like cleaning out my closet and possibly spending a quiet New Year's Eve with some dear friends.  But mostly?  I'm writing.

And eating Christmas cookies.

More than one of my published author friends has assured me that, though the pub date feels so far away, the time will actually fly.  I'm starting to believe it!  The journey continues to be exhilarating, and I'm thankful I can share it with you.

Also, HEADS UP:  My shiny-new author web site will be launching the first week of January.  I'm VERY excited about this, and I hope you'll join me for this latest unveiling.

In the meantime, HAPPY NEW YEAR!  Thank you for celebrating with me this year; I have been so blessed by your support and good cheer.  Keep writing!  Keep believing!  You never know what 2018 may have in store.

(And Maggie?  I love you.  And some day, I'll be giving you a word cloud, in celebration of your own debut.  For real.)

WHAT ARE THEY UP TO NOW? Featuring Peter Adam Salomon

Today's author: PETER ADAM SALOMON

Here is Peter's SUCCESS STORY PAGE.


QUESTIONS FOR PETER:

1. What role did your participation in a Miss Snark's First Victim contest or critique round play in your ultimate success as an author?

Technically I never even entered a contest or critique round. I had just ‘finished’ revising a YA Horror manuscript and was beginning to consider the whole ‘querying’ concept. I hadn’t even written a query letter at that point. All I had was a list of agents and agencies I was interested in and the thought that I should probably sit down and write a query letter.

While that was going on, there was a new MSFV contest but since I didn’t feel ready I figured it would be wiser to sit that one out and enter the next one.

Then, you unveiled the agent. Ammi-Joan Paquette of the Erin Murphy Literary Agency was at the top of my dream agent list. Unfortunately, they’re not open to submissions and, since I hadn’t entered, I’d just blown my chance to get my brand-new manuscript to her.

This is where I still sometimes think I’m dreaming. You posted a lovely note from your ‘Secret Agent’ that she was so impressed with the quality of your contestants that she’d open for submissions to anyone who put MSFV in the subject line.

I didn’t even have a query letter to send her. I just threw something together and emailed it as quickly as possible, thinking ‘so many people were going to email her that I’d better be quick.’ So, I basically didn’t even edit my query letter, just sent it off.

An hour later, she wrote back asking to see the whole manuscript. A week later, she wrote back asking to talk on the phone. A week after that, she wrote one more time offering representation.

It might have then taken well over a year for that novel to sell, but Flux liked that query letter I threw together so much that seven years later it is still the blurb for the book on Amazon and other booksellers.

2. Tell us what your journey has looked like from your MSFV Success Story until now.

What a strange adventure. It has been a paradigm shift and life-altering in so many ways. I’ve had a poem performed on the BBC by the creative geniuses behind the music for Dr. Who. I’ve been nominated for a Bram Stoker award, the highest honor in my genre. I’ve mentored some brilliant teen writers and seen them experience their first taste of success in the industry. And I have made so many dear friends. It’s hard to believe, sometimes, that any of it is real.

I’ve had my oldest dreams come true. What more can I ask for?

3. What has been the best part of your experience as an author? What has been most difficult/challenging?

There’s something amazing about being interviewed or signing autographs and all those trappings of being an author.

But, the teaching, mentoring, helping other writers? That’s where the magic is. This community of creative artists, striving together to make the world a better place, one person, one act, one word at a time. It’s an amazing thing to be a part of.

I’ve been mentoring teen writers for a few years now, after spending a couple years as a judge for different competitions and awards. That’s been the best part. When one of the teens I mentored made her first professional sale, that was pretty incredible.

The most difficult is the fact that everything starts all over again. All the waiting and revising and hoping and praying and dreaming that goes into that first sale also goes into the next one. And the one after that. I’m still waiting for that third sale, and the same doubts are there from the decades I spent as pre-published. I work all the time to remember how fortunate I am to have two novels and three poetry collections published in the last 5 years. And work just as hard, if not harder, on whatever comes next.

4. What's your latest offering, and where can we find it?

For poetry, 2017 saw the release of my third collection, PseudoPsalms: Sodom, which is available wherever poetry is sold (mainly Amazon since poetry isn’t exactly a best-selling kind of thing). Even after publishing two novels, I still think of myself as a poet first. I’ve been writing poetry since I was in elementary school, and only started writing fiction in college.

I also will be re-releasing my first poetry collection, PseudoPsalms: Prophets, soon, (also available on Amazon, etc) since the publisher went out of business making the collection go out-of-print.

5. Please leave us with some words of wisdom for all aspiring authors.

Whenever I’m asked for words of wisdom I cringe inside. I’m just not so sure how wise I am. Then, being serious for a moment, I tell everyone the same thing: write, read, write some more, read some more. Then edit. Edit a lot. No, edit more.

But most of all: love the process. Love every single moment of it. Love the creative passion driving you to write. Love the drudgery of revision that you feel will never end. Love it no matter what.

Because there’s going to be a lot of it. You’ll edit and revise and do it all over again and finally land an agent and the first thing they’re going to ask for are more edits and revisions until finally you sell the book and, you guessed it, the first thing they’re going to ask for are more edits and revisions.

So, you might as well learn to love the process. You’ll be doing it a lot.

Then write more. Read more. Revise more. And love it all.

Especially that moment your phone rings and you hear the best word in the English language: ‘Sold.’

You’ll love that moment the most.

WHAT ARE THEY UP TO NOW? Featuring Piper J. Drake

Today's author: PIPER J. DRAKE

Here is Piper's ORIGINAL ENTRY ON THE BLOG (entered as PJ Schnyder) from an August, 2009 Secret Agent Contest featuring Emmanuelle Alspaugh Morgen. And here is the WINNERS POST from that contest.

Here is Piper's SUCCESS STORY PAGE.

QUESTIONS FOR PIPER:

1. What role did your participation in a Miss Snark's First Victim contest or critique round play in your ultimate success as an author?

Ms. Alspaugh provided valuable constructive feedback in follow-up to my 1st runner up win and 30 page request. The novel, Heart's Sentinel, was written as PJ Schnyder and became my first sale to Decadent Publishing. It went on to publish in both digital and print formats.

Participation in the Miss Snark's First Victim community helped me to receive constructive feedback. It helped me learn to pick out recommendations or critiques that resonated with my intent for my book and incorporate them. This skill has served me well for every book I've written since.

Now, I still participate in contests and critique rounds when I can because I strongly believe in paying it forward and I also believe the more we provide good critiques, the better we are at self editing our own work.

2. Tell us what your journey has looked like from your MSFV Success Story until now.

As PJ Schnyder, I went on to sell more paranormal romance and science fiction romance to Decadent Publishing and Carina Press, a Harlequin digital-first publishing company. I also co-wrote The Ministry Initiative steampunk role playing game and short stories for the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences. My books went on to win the Golden Leaf and the PRISM awards and my podcast of A Swan in Siam won the Parsec Award as part of the Tales from the Archive Vol 2.

In 2014, I was asked to reboot as Piper J. Drake, writing romantic suspense. It took a lot of courage and careful planning, which paid off in the form of a 3-book digital deal with Carina Press and then a 3-book print deal with Hachette Group, Grand Central Publishing's Forever imprint.

My True Heroes series made the Nielson Book Scan bestselling lists and has been featured two years in a row as a success in my genre by Nielson at their book summit. In 2016, I signed another 3-book print deal to continue the True Heroes series.

My digital format Safeguard series with Carina Press has been chosen for Harlequin's Direct To Consumer program and will be available in print from online retailers starting in January 2018.

While I plan to continue to write bestselling romantic suspense, I am also working on science fiction and fantasy while I plan for the right time to bring those stories back into my brand.

3. What has been the best part of your experience as an author? What has been most difficult/challenging?

Best Part: Seeing my books out there for readers to enjoy never gets old. It is my joy.

Most Difficult/Challenging: Balancing my writing schedule with my very demanding day job has been incredibly difficult. The biggest challenge is maintaining the balance because I love both my writing career and my day job career. I could not do either one nearly as well without the other.

4. What's your latest offering, and where can we find it?

From my True Heroes series, Absolute Trust is available online and in bookstores.

From my Safeguard series, Contracted Defense is available online at e-retailers everywhere.

5. Please leave us with some words of wisdom for all aspiring authors.

I've given this advice consistently for years and I still believe in it wholeheartedly: Surround yourself with nifty people who continually inspire you and challenge you to continue to do the next nifty thing.

One Young Writer

My niece will be 14 next month.  She lives and breathes ballet, and I'm thrilled that she is now studying at the School of Nashville Ballet.  She's also a gifted baker, a dependable childcare giver, a decent photographer (photo cred for the pointe shoe shot) and a lovely young woman.

And she writes.

Writing is one of her more recent pursuits, but like everything in her life, she isn't going at it halfway.  I knew she'd begun writing, but even her mom wasn't allowed to see anything she'd written.  When my grown daughters both shared with me that their cousin had let them read some of her stuff, I was determined to dig my little claws loving fingers in.

Fortunately, she bent, and shared with me the first chapter of her WIP.  To say that I felt honored is an understatement; garnering the trust of a 13-year-old is no small thing.  We all feel a bit "undressed" the first time someone reads our work, yes?  And these emotions are especially heightened in the young teen years.

You can tell my niece has what it takes.  And you can tell that she has read a lot of books.  Truth:  reading lots of books really does affect the depth and quality of your writing.  If you aspire to be an author but you never take the time to read novels, then you will never truly become the writer you want to be.  So, yes, my niece's reading habits are reflected nicely in her writing.

Her setting is historical--the "prairie" years of the United States--and she already has a great sense of how to create tension.  Is she ready to query agents?  Of course not.  Her work is raw, young, undeveloped. But SHE IS WRITING.  Her characters have emotion and believability.  She instinctually knew that she needed to create an inciting event that would propel her protagonist into the story arc.  With an instinct like that, this girl will go places.

Here's what struck me most of all:

Yep.  Those are STICKY PLOT NOTES ON HER CLOSET DOOR.

What 13-year-old does this?  As soon as I saw this photo on her Instagram, I knew I wanted to write a blog post about my niece.  When I was 13, I had lots of story ideas that I started to write, but never finished.  I didn't even know what it meant to "plot a story".  Thanks to the Internet and the wealth of resources out there for writers, my niece is already way ahead of the game.

This is very much her personality as well, so I'm not completely surprised to find that she works out her stories so meticulously.  But still.  SHE'S 13.

I don't know.  Maybe I was just a slacker, but I find this attention to detail extraordinary at this age.

(Yeah, I'm doting a bit.  But I never gush about things that don't truly inspire me, so it's not blind dotage, I assure you!)

She's even got the find-a-pleasant-spot-to-write thing down.  This is a "work station" on the back deck of her home.  I'm pretty sure I'll be having coffee/writing dates with this gal at some point!

I love--I absolutely love--to fan the flames of passion in young people who write (or who do anything else that I also do, like music).  If anything reaffirms my own undying devotion to the art of writing, it's finding and affirming that same flame in someone less one third my age.  I'm so delighted to see my niece wholeheartedly pursuing this!

Need a pick-me-up?  Find a young writer and pour yourself into them.  You'll both benefit!  And you may just find yourself squealing and doting over someone with a fresh mind and an eager pen who wants, perhaps, to be just a little bit like you.

You have much to give, dear writers.  Go forth and give it!

Drop the Needle: Critique Guidelines

Okay, folks, here we go!  Let's see how well we do with sexual tension.

(There are 11 entries instead of 10 because several people ran into technical difficulties while trying to enter.  I took their entries and put them in manually, and since there were fewer than 10 entries this time, I just took everyone's.  I mean, why leave out one person? :) )

Guidelines for Critique on MSFV:

• Please leave your critique for each entry in the comment box for that entry.
• Please choose a screen name to sign your comments. The screen name DOES NOT have to be your real name; however, it needs to be an identifiable name.  ("Anonymous" is not a name.)
• Critiques should be honest but kind, helpful but sensitive.
• Critiques that attack the writer or are couched in unkind words will be deleted.*
• ENTRANTS: As your way of "giving back", please critique a minimum of 3 other entries.

*I can't possibly read every comment.  If you ever see a comment that is truly snarky, please email me.  I count on your help.