The Alpha Post

Well, here we go!  This is my first post on my spanking new blog. The internets are no longer safe!

Since I intend to use this blog to promote my writing (mostly) I think I'll start out with an overview of the books I've written thus far. I've been at it for about 4 years now and have 5 books in inventory.

Those of you who write will appreciate the amount of time invested in having 5 edited books on the hard drive and in cloud storage. You'll also not be surprised that none of these books are actually in print--not if you've suffered through the query process and have yet to find a champion (aka-agent), to get your masterpieces in front of the big boy publisher's acquisition editors.

I'll be riffing on this in later posts, so be sure to check back.

My first book, originally a 200k word doorstop called Sneak Thief (currently edited to a tidy 90K words) was a lot of fun to write and taught me a very valuable lesson. Well, a couple of lessons. Okay, a LOT of lessons.

DO NOT QUERY UNTIL THE BOOK IS READY! Your first book (at the very least) is a practice book unless you've just written Water For Elephants or some such thing. It's a waste of time and effort and, maybe, ego. Know that you will learn to spend more time editing than writing, and you'd better enjoy it...editing.

DEVELOP/JOIN/ A CRITIQUE GROUP OR BETTER YET--GROUPS! Your mama is probably going to say she likes it. Your spouse is probably going to say he or she likes it. Your best friend...ditto. What you need is to find someone who will tell you the truth, a Beta Reader that knows something about writing and the genre you're writing in. Someone who isn't afraid to prick your skin or your ego.

A side note...after 5 books my wife has finally become a very good Beta Reader! Early on she was hesitant to tell me if something worked or didn't--if the language felt funny--if the scene didn't grab her--whatever. But after watching me beg borrow and bleed for harsh criticism from other writers as the journey continued, and listened to me curse agents who politely passed on taking the book on even after requesting partials or fulls without giving any constructive reason as to WHY, she's learned to just lay it out for me.

PARK YOUR EGO AT THE DOOR!  If you are bothered by rejection in any form do not try to get published by the mainstream publishers. Welcome to the slush pile. Your book might be pretty good. I think 3 of my 5 books (honestly!) should have snagged an agent, but they didn't. You will be rejected.

I'll be posting more at the first opportunity, but right now the football game is on! Go Vikings!

Peace