How Not to Be a Potential Client

Now that I freelance for a living, my life depends on developing good relationships with clients. Far be it from me to complain about any potential client's behavior, but I need to share this one with the wider world because it's representative of what freelance editors encounter every day. I've changed some of the details to protect the identity of the person who sent me this message via one of the freelancing sites I belong to.

Greetings!

I am shopping around for an editor to go over the final draft of my [genre I work with] novel before I sent [sic] it to print. I need someone who is very detail-oriented to double check for typos, grammar mistakes, etc. Are you available to take on a project this week? My goal is to have the edits done by next Monday. Also, what do you typically charge for a project that is just under 100,000 words?

Thanks!

Let me dissect the flaws in this all too average message so that if you're ever in the market for an editor or proofreader, you can do better. Correspondence to potential editors is one more place you can make a good or bad impression, one more chance to put your best foot forward as a writer.

I am shopping around for an editor to go over the final draft of my [genre I work with] novel ...

The opening is off-putting because of the phrase "shopping around." Yes, freelancers are aware clients do this, but if this person had written something along the lines of "I saw that you like to edit novels in this genre," it would have been a point for them rather than against. It would have shown that the client had read my preferences and may also have done some (highly advisable) research into the books I've edited in the past. Such research benefits both of us because it makes it more likely that you'll find the right fit, which results in a good working relationship and satisfactory results.

I need someone who is very detail-oriented to double check for typos, grammar mistakes, etc. 

It's great that they give some sense of the work they'd like done, but the "double check" sentence makes me suspicious that this person doesn't really know what services they need, and the "etc" doesn't help that impression. Ideally, before you approach your researched editors, you need the following elements in place: 1. A completed book. 2. Someone (preferably many people) whose opinion you trust to read the book. 3. A list of issues your trusted readers found that you can't correct on your own. Editing the book as much as you can by yourself will save you time and money. Knowing the specifics of what you need will make for a better estimate process, saving time, money, and heartache.

Are you available to take on a project this week? My goal is to have the edits done by next Monday. 

What's the rush? Most editors have many projects going on at once and scheduling each project is a superhuman act to begin with. Much as we might like to help, we can't throw our other projects a week off schedule without serious consideration and, ideally, previous notice. It takes time to find tiny errors. This client was expecting someone to find all the needles in 100,000 bits of hay in just a little more than six days. Why the need to get the book to the printer so quickly? Please don't leave your copyediting and proofreading needs as the last hurried step in a production crunch. It stresses everyone out and creates opportunities for the mistakes we're all trying to avoid.

Also, what do you typically charge for a project that is just under 100,000 words?

The last question is inappropriate, since rates are explained on all the freelance sites I belong to. 100,000 words in a week would qualify as a rush job, which is far from typical. How can I know that I would charge typical rates for this book when I haven't seen a sample? A better approach would have been: "Please take a look at the attached sample and let me know your best quote for this last-minute rush job."

Every human interaction is an opportunity to prove you are a thoughtful, considerate human being as well as a professional. Remember that even when you reach out to someone online, there is a human being very similar to you, with their own issues and concerns, on the other end. 

Revisions

Slice and hack! That's what revisions are for!

Now that I've finished the first draft of The Seven Noble Knights of Lara, it looks as if 2013 is all about revisions for the foreseeable future. Last week, I started sharing the book with my husband. With his help, I've come to the wrenching decision to cut -- absolutely get rid of every last word -- the first chapter.

The first chapter preoccupied me inordinately form the beginning. I started with Chapter II because I was so worried about how to start the book and draw the reader in. A previous consultant had commented that since it's going to be a violent book, it should start with a violent scene. In the first version of Chapter I, a small boy gets murdered on the first page.

But the chapter had too many problems compared to what it brought to the story. I tried to untangle the political mess I'd made for myself by writing without researching first, got rid of the poor murdered boy in order to introduce actual important characters, and shared that new version with my husband. It was the first time he's had any notion of what I've been agonizing over for two years. He's far too kind to have said it, but I imagine he was thinking, "Dear God, she's wasted two years of her life on that drivel?" Luckily, he was able to honestly enthuse about Chapter II, and lopping off Chapter I has put the breath of inspiration into the revisions.

Chapter II begins slowly and the only violence is off-screen, when they have to catch and skin rabbits for supper. So of course, the old anxiety resurfaces: that it will not be exciting enough to draw readers in and to set up their expectations for the backstabbing and bloodletting that is to come.

Normally, beginnings aren't such a problem for me, while endings make me run for cover. With The Seven Noble Knights of Lara, I'm pretty thrilled about  the ending, so perhaps it's only right that I should have trouble with the start.

I'll try to stick with that breath of inspiration as I go through the first revisions. When I finish with that, an editor gets the masterpiece. I'll leave the decision about how to start the darn thing with the professional.

NaNoWriMo and Things To Do

NaNoWriMo is about to come roaring down the highway at us. At least it doesn't sneak up.

These are the items I need to get done in November, in no particular order:

1. Write 1,667 words per day of The Seven Noble Knights of Lara as an unofficial NaNoWriMo. If I don't make a really big push now, the project could languish for a few more years, and no one wants that. 1,667 words a day is a lot for me, and I'll probably have to rigidly schedule a time to sit down and do it until it's done. I've resisted rigid schedules because I now have so many demands on my time, with priorities that change more often than I'm used to.

2. Fireship Press: Acquisition work. At a meeting this week, the new COO said we needed to shift acquisitions to someone with fewer qualifications than me so I could get back to higher-level editing. The thing is, I love acquisition work! Deciding whether a piece has what it takes to make us request a full MS, and then deciding how much editing the full MS would require before it was ready for publication can be the most thrilling part of the entire publishing process. So far, if I've had a hand in approving a book, it's then been assigned to me for the aforementioned high-level editing, and it's tremendously satisfying to take a book all the way through, from MS to the exit gate. Acquisitions is probably the least time-consuming of all the tasks here, but it does mean that much less time to do everything else.

3. Fireship Press: Editing work. Currently, I have four books I need to pay huge amounts of attention to in order to ensure their overall quality. I prefer to do them one at a time or I'll become distracted and irritable, because I typically have intense consultations with the author in order to better understand his or her vision and shape it as changes come through. I also love this part of the process because it's where the real metamorphosis takes place. Needless to say, it's the most time-consuming aspect of my Fireship work.

4. Fireship Press: Copyediting. Exciting, higher quality standards and a severe dearth of staff mean I have to take on a lot of the tasks Tom taught me how to do, although they aren't officially in my job description. We already have a new copyediting system in place that should eliminate misuse and mistakes, but if I see a mistake myself, I can't help but correct it. Hopefully, that instinct will lessen the work load of the official copyeditors.

5. Fireship Press: Production. This includes all aspects of formatting. I don't mind this at all and would gladly keep doing if it weren't so time-consuming. Again, the company is working on offloading these tasks, but for now I either have to do it myself for the books I'm editing or work closely with the other staff members to get it done right. One important task this month is to "teach" everyone how to upload the book for the printer. Which brings me to:

6. Fireship Press: Admin. We're working most of the time from our own home bases, but meeting once a week to update each other and teach each other about all the little details no single one of us has complete control over. Yet. At these meetings I also tend to be assigned more tasks.

7. Blog. In November, I will have to reduce the blog to excerpt days on Saturdays and Sundays and the occasional book review I'm already preparing. I'd love to provide much more exciting content for you, but as you can see, I'm stretched a bit thin at the moment.

8. Açedrex Publishing. My company isn't the cash cow I was promised, but my theory is that hard work will pay off eventually. My strategy is to keep increasing the catalog with irresistibly fascinating titles. Of course, the timing is perfect (not!) and I'm now working on a couple of especially intensive projects, which I will unveil when the time is right. In the meantime, you can always help by purchasing inexpensive but high quality titles! Acedrex.com

9. Publicity. In a perfect world, I would have the financial and time budget to promote my writing and my company. I don't need to point out that this is no perfect world.

10. Keep reading good books in order to keep gaining exposure to good writing for my own uses. I also enjoy being of some help to talented writers by putting my reviews out there.

11. Taking care of my husband. He doesn't literally need taking care of, but mainly emotional support as he works just as hard as I do, but at a job he doesn't feel drawn to, just to keep a roof over our heads. And save to get our stuff in storage back to us some day. He's easy to please: he's thrilled just to spend time with me. For that reason, I can't be working on any of these other items at the same time I'm taking care of him. No, all that other stuff has to be done when he's at work. Such "rules" help to keep me grounded. I love my work, but it's important to work to live, not live to work. Also during November is my husband's birthday. I wish I could seize the moment to show him how much he means to me, but a card and a restaurant visit will have to do.

12. Thanksgiving. We'll probably be pretty pathetic. We can't travel to be with loved ones, but at least I assume my husband will have some time off to cook a turkey breast and give thanks for all our blessings. It's a great opportunity for calm and attention.

13. Staying sane. Under this umbrella fall eight hours of sleep per night, going to my writers' group meeting, keeping a private journal, and taking a moment to cook a nice meal once in a while. Some kind of contact with my actual friends would help, too, but I guess I'll put that off until December.

If we could assign a universal effort unit to each of these tasks and total them up, I think we would be looking at several months of work. The effort I put into each task is pretty intense, with the result that I'm a slow writer and a pretty slow editor. I always want to get it right the first time, which obviously doesn't apply to the writing process. Oh, the incessant push and pull of my different instincts!

So, November will be an experiment in quantity/quality balance. Wish me luck!

Big Announcement: Açedrex Publishing is Now Ready!

When I got some funding and the blessing of Tom Grundner of Fireship Press, I took the plunge. I have always wanted my own publishing house. The time is now. The result is Açedrex Publishing, a bilingual (English and Spanish) press that I hope will meet the needs of readers and writers alike.

Visit us here: acedrex.com. We're having a big debut party sale!
Please like us on Facebook.
And tell everyone you know (especially readers, writers, and translators).

Thanks for coming on this journey with me. I couldn't do it without my readers and supporters.

This was a big, scary venture that required a lot faith and a lot of work. Here are some highlights from the soundtrack of my life over the past couple of months.

When Chenoa's singing, you know everything will go well!

Madonna can really rock an inspirational song, but here's one of the sassier ones.

When you need every day to be the first day of your life, turn to Los Aslándticos.

And Stacey Q teaches us to seize the moment when the moment is right.

Any success Açedrex has will be the result of even more work, so there's no stopping now! I won't be giving up my own writing, either, so wish me stamina.

Sad Rhinos

This is Yebonga, the Southern White Rhinoceros at the Tucson Zoo. White rhinos are the most sociable of all the species, and so, when we visited this one, I couldn't help but feel a sense of wistful loneliness from her as she went about her daily business. Yebonga is about 35 years old, a bit older than the average life expectancy of one of her wild relatives. I'm under the impression that she used to have a companion in her enclosure who has now passed away, possibly of old age, because no proper zoo would have a single white rhino on purpose (and overall the Tucson Zoo is very well done). Even her horn looks droopy with sadness, poor old gal. My husband and I wanted to take her to another zoo to be with other rhinos, just because there aren't any big rhino refuges that we know of around here.

I'm using Yebonga's picture to illustrate my disappointment at having a rhinoceros story rejected recently. I had written what I thought was a charming fantasy that included a (possibly naive) solution to poaching problems in Africa. The idea sprang from the call for papers from the very anthology that rejected the story, so I wrote it specifically for that publication, which feels especially personal. Some people (a lot of people?) just don't like charming fantasies. Every time I get one of my many upbeat stories rejected, I think the only stuff that gets published is chronicles of addiction, alienation, illegal activity, and man's inhumanity to man. That's probably an exaggeration, but really, lighten up, people! Don't we have enough doom and gloom in real life? Why would I be interested in writing about it?

Yebonga has a lesson to teach us. Even though she's sad, she keeps right on being the best rhino she can be, with a great deal of dignity. So, following her example, I will assimilate the rejection and keep plugging away to find a place for my happy rhino story. I think Yebonga would love to read it. I'm hoping some people will, too.

Ask and Ye Shall Receive

Writers beware. I'm now a publishing insider.

How did this happen?

Like any good thing in this economy, I did not stumble upon my dream job through traditional search-and-résumé methods.

I wanted to start carving out a real writer's community for myself here in Tucson. The communities I was involved with from Pennsylvania were theoretical. I wanted, at the very least, a cyber community I could exchange manuscript critiques with, because I can't seem to get motivated sufficiently to write my amazing novel without some kind of outside impetus. Through the connections I forged with these goals in mind, I happened to be at a couple of different events at the same time as the founder and editor of the local wonder, Fireship Press. Naturally, I approached him immediately with a résumé, list of references, salary requirements, and hours of availability...

Of course that's a lie. I recognized that he would be fascinating to talk to, but was far too shy to start something. I was heading off to collect my husband and leave the scene when the editor approached me (apparently because I had been the only person in the group who was working on historical fiction). We had a short but hugely informative talk about the market for historical fiction and the role of series in publishing profitability. And so I went into the holidays with that breath of fresh air.

It's important to note from the day-to-day living standpoint that I have been given a volunteer, i.e., unpaid position. I haven't had any bites since my bookstore gig ended, and it looks like my husband's job isn't going to be a fast fix, either, so I figured I had nothing but time on my hands. I might as well make good use of it.

After another brief meeting, I confirmed that this was the publisher for me. Fiction! History! Innovative, grassroots methods! So I set my jaw, trying to squeeze the shyness into submission, and shot the editor an email asking whether he needed any help with his inspiring enterprise.

He did. So we met and talked it over. He said my qualifications were impressive. I received a document to translate into Spanish and a manuscript from the slush pile the next day. Thankfully, I say that so far the job has been from home. Tucson, the majestic and wide, is just not friendly to a one-car family. I should visit the premises soon, to get a look at the whole production process. In the meantime, I'm going to do such a good job that the editor will put me on the payroll, or I can at least take the experience elsewhere. Either way, the time will not have been wasted. Time spent learning never is.

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Showing versus Telling

"Telling" gets a really bad rap in the writing world. The strong, universal preference seems to be for lush, sensory-enhanced descriptions of every detail and emotion that happens to fall into the scope of a story. In writing courses, instructors always admonish, "Show, don't tell!" But for someone like me, who can appreciate brevity, telling has its uses. While I would not care to read a whole novel of bare telling, consider the following opportunities:

• Moving the story along: "Three days passed with no news."

• Shorthand for a minor character: "Melissa had lived next to Bob since they were children."

• Keeping under a word limit: Sometimes all you have room for is "He was handsome." Admittedly, as I mused in my last post, most editors want more words instead of fewer, but there will always be a time in a writer's life when words are at a premium.

• Summarizing the first book, if this is a subsequent book in the series. J. K. Rowling did this at the beginning of  Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, so technically you never had to read The Philosopher's Stone. Of course, most people did read it, and they were allowed to skip over the summary in the second book if they were so inclined. The telling did no damage to anyone in that case.

• Otherwise avoiding repetition: "He sat them down and told them what had happened, leaving nothing out."

Just as a single short sentence can be the strongest among long ones, a well-placed instance of telling, set like a diamond on a cushion of showing, can make the biggest impact. Used consciously and skillfully, a writer can consider telling one more tool in her kit.

So, for Pete's sake, move the story along, people!

Farewell, 2010! The Year in Review

There's a wonderful Mexican New Year's song that starts, "Yo no olvido el año viejo, porque me ha legado cosas muy buenas" (I won't forget the old year, because it's left me some nice things). The things I pledge to remember about 2010 all have to do with writing. I don't think anyone would argue that my husband and I had any luck or success with money this year. Twenty-ten is the year we avoided complete bankruptcy and living on the street solely by the grace of my husband's sister. In 2010, we sold a gorgeous deluxe fold-out desk for $100 in Pennsylvania and spent the money on folding chairs, TV trays, and an air bed in Arizona. All we're really left with for 2011 is the love we have for each other, and a dogged determination to be successful again soon.

Great Things of 2010:
1. 15 pieces published in literary magazines. Click on "Good Reading" to your left for a full list, with pictures and links! The indescribable thrill of having Fiction Collective accept my humble "Justine" has still not abated through all those other acceptances. The idea that some few people somewhere on the planet have read some small part of my work has made a lot of really awful twists of fate this year much more bearable.


2. In November, I got my second royalty check from Tree/House and Dusk Before Dawn. They wait to accumulate $20 before they send it to me, and I got it! Twenty dollars doesn't begin to compensate for the time, effort, and money I've invested in their promotion over the year and a half since I got my last royalty, but again, the idea that someone, somewhere, is reading my work makes up for a lot. Thanks you so much to anyone who purchased either book! They're still highly enjoyable, affordable, and ready to be shipped to your home in paper or digital formats.

3. I started this blog, which has had a modicum of success. Thank you so much for stopping by! I hope to see you and get your feedback in 2011!

4. I found Duotrope. I'll keep the trade secret from those of you who don't know what that is. Those of you who do know will agree with me that it's possibly the single greatest tool for a writer in the digital age. Please contribute $5 a year if you're a user and keep the dream afloat! Without Duotrope, I would have a lot of inspiration and not much else when it comes to writing.

5. I'm now a GoodReads author! Check me out!

This time of year, people talk a lot about resolutions. Resolutions are an especially handy tool for the writer, who can so easily get bogged down by anything from other demands on her time to a funny sound or a fly on the wall. So, in 2011, I resolve not to let anything get in the way. Not my exhausting temporary job and the difficulties in getting to and fro, not the ongoing job search and distracting hopes for the future, not the dire lack of furniture in our new apartment, not the worries about money. Specifically, I resolve to finish a certain story to my own satisfaction and find someone to critique it, rather than sending it out to the publisher all raw, as I've had to do with a few too many pieces this year. (My husband is wonderful, but far too appreciative of my vision to be any use as a sounding board.) I also resolve to get serious about at least one of my book projects. (Stay tuned for those!) By "get serious," I mean take a look at the all the resources I've already gathered and managed to bring with me to Arizona, and make a decision about which to do first. And then write. Come up with a concrete, doable goal and stick with it. In the land of my resolution, at least one book will be completed this year for the enjoyment of literary agents and publishers in 2012. Wish me luck!

Tree/House is Great, But Not Publishable -- Spooky!

Though I'm reluctant to admit it, Tree/House is self-published. I have faith in its quality, and so I always have it under consideration at some reputable traditional publisher.

My relationship with Madras Press has come to an end for now. I just adore them, so I hold out hope that I will write something appropriate for them at some later date, but, when given the opportunity, they decided to pass on Tree/House.

Novellas (fiction works between approx. 15,000 and 35,000 words long) are really hard to find a home for in the publishing world. I can see no rational excuse for this. The shorter length means less publishing cost. I would think it would be ideal for a society with an ever-shorter attention span. A few independent publishers seem to agree with me, because I've been able to scrounge up a short list of places to query. Let this be my notice to the big houses: Novellas are cheap to print and easy to edit! They are undoubtedly the next big thing!

The only reason I'm bothering you, reader, with this information is that the farewell I got from Madras made me feel so strange. Maybe this is the norm in small publishing, but when I asked for permission to send it to someone else who had asked for it out of the blue, the editor seemed thrilled. He said they liked it (hooray!) but had been having a devil of a time finding a place for it in a series and figuring out how to market it (boo hoo!) I don't know if he was overstating the case, but that sounds like I was awfully close to being published with a house I admire hugely. (Disappointment.) It sounds as if its only downfall was its very uniqueness. (Dismay! Bewilderment!)

I won't mention that one of the first things they ever published was a little book by Aimee Bender, which  utterly lacked category, genre, species, etc. I won't mention it because I know I'm not the incomparable Aimee Bender, with now two acclaimed novels and two short story collections to her credit, and before that, a degree in creative writing.

I will mention that this feeling is eerily familiar. I wrote in a previous post that I keep finding great venues for my writing, but then the venues don't accept it into the fold of their genre. Maybe every writer who gets rejected feels a little bit like that, but I'm starting to feel uncomfortably unique. I always thought unique was good, because who wants to read the same old thing, rehashed with slightly different names and locales? Apparently, a lot of people.

I sympathize with the publishers, because there are so many books out there that I might start coming out with fantasy stories in which a writer gets read by someone other than her mother. There's a definite glut going on, and publishers seem to have chosen to combat it through marketing. In marketing, or so I've heard, if the message isn't clear, it's not worth the media it's printed on, because no one will pay attention. Sending a clear message in the marketing of a book involves assigning any number of categories to it, among them genre. Readers have recently become very accustomed to choosing between books that magically fall into preset categories. Some people read only one certain genre.

The thing is, the categories aren't really "preset": they have to be assigned by publishers and booksellers.  I'm sure they have endless headaches trying to figure out how to categorize all these millions of books. I can't blame them for shying away from my little Tree/House, which has no identifiable popular genre beyond "literary fiction," and just possibly "women's."

Here's a list of genres and subgenres Tree/House doesn't fall into (suggest some!):
romance (it's sort of anti-romance!)
instructional (although there are a few suggestions on many topics)
western (although it has stables and knife-throwing)
fantasy (although there are some less-than-believable elements)
horror (although it has a really creepy guy and he's brutally murdered)
paranormal (although there's a ghost)
adventure (although it has travel and a couple of characters who throw caution to the wind!)
campus (although the main character goes to college for a while)
animals (although one character is a cat)
environmental (although the trees are soooooo important)

So the gist of it is, if you want to expand your horizons and read something outside what you normally read, something that, while not very categorizable, will inspire you to strike out and make your own way in life, please consider Tree/House.

Writing Short: Haiku and Microfiction

Joseph Quintela is certifiably the nicest editor out there, always getting back to submissions within a day and giving solid reasons why if he decides to pass on them. Additionally, his 'zine, Short, Fast, and Deadly, is the finest thing you can read in five minutes or less. Joseph is also a writer, so check out his admirably terse work. But mostly, check out the interview they posted with him last Saturday at High Coup Journal.