In conversations with authors, I frequently hear the following queries:  

“I can’t get my characters to speak to me.”

“I just don’t know how to coax my characters out of the shadows.”

“How do I go deeper with my character’s voice and find their motivations?”

These are valid struggles that every writer has—including me—whether you write fiction or memoir. Sometimes cultural contexts can complicate how we handle our own emotions, and that bleeds into how we dive into our own narrative writing. I encounter a character who won’t reveal their deeper story to me in every book I’ve written. Using a series of immersive characterization exercises I’ve created from my past work in theatre, I create flow states that peel back the layers to characters who need more conjuring. It is thrilling to experience those ah-ha moments from this series of flow states. This practice starts with entering your character’s experiences by going from inside out. Instead of doing a top-down character analysis chart or answering a series of prescribed questions, deeper work requires a meditative flow state. It starts first with getting in touch with your body and your breath—clearing any distractions for the time you’ll spend in the world of your character—so you can enter their body and live inside their skin, not just imagine what that would be like. Here’s an exercise to help you fully conjure your character! Start with three images. You can choose from the set below, or pick from amongst any postcards or images you have at home).   Which of these images appeals to your character on a visceral level? Jot down anything that’s coming from the image, starting in list format. Make sure you’re writing for at least three minutes without stopping. If you come to a block, simply write blank, blank, until words come back to you. Don’t worry about voice, wording, sentence structure, anything, just write what comes to you from that picture that might appeal to your character. Next, turn on calming music without words or in a language you don’t understand. You can listen to the rest of this flow below or read on, then close your eyes for a few moments after reading through the prompt. This practice works best in a distraction free zone.   Close your eyes and feel the surface of your feet on the ground and your back against the chair. Or, if you’re lying down, the surfaces touching your skin. Inhale and exhale five times, clearing your breath. With each breath you feel yourself slowly transforming out of your skin, and into the skin of your character. Your feet, legs, hips, torso, arms, and hands are slowly transitioning with each deliberate breath into the muscles and tendons of your character. Keep your eyes closed as you continue to feel the changes. You feel this transition most acutely with the next breath as your face changes and morphs, your ears pick up new sounds, your eyes see new colors and textures from your character’s perspective, but in their world. As you feel your weight shift to the proportions of your character, your body is slowly transported and lifted with the next inhale, up and out of the building or scene you previously were in, and into the world of your character. You are surrounded by a new setting, with different vegetation, new smells, and even the wind feels different in this new skin of your character. As you drift into the sky, hovering over this new scenery, you and your character are of one body and one mind as you float fully in their body. The wind picks you up and blows you closer to one of the nearby trees. It has a color and texture that appeals to you. You allow it to drop you, ever so gently, into this tall and leafy tree. You allow yourself to be deposited with the next gust of wind on top of this strong, but comfortable canopy of leaves and branches that perfectly support your weight. As you look over this lush scene before you, your character can’t help but notice… Open your eyes and write what is in your character’s heart, mind, or voice. Give yourself a full 5-10 minutes to write without stopping. Anything can go on this page. Next, if your character turns and looks in another direction, climbing down or hovering to the next level in their world, and someone walks by, who is it and what is it bringing up for them? Write the dialogue between your character and this person. Give yourself another 3-5 minutes to capture what’s coming to your character. What are they feeling in their body? What is it that they want after this encounter? A few things to remember as you explore with your character further:

• We’re conjuring, not digging. Their spirit is awaiting that exact combination of elements for you to conjure and embody them. Entering their realm helps with empathizing, understanding their motivations, living in their skin, and discovering rooted motivations.

 

• Lead with the gut, not the brain. Let anything esoteric: imagery, poetry, songs, snippets of scenes float to you. Jot what’s coming down without censoring yourself. Don’t worry about form, just keep the pen or keyboard moving. Be open to what you’re discovering about your character, so you’re moving in a new direction experientially.

 

• Avoid puppet-mastering your story. Allow this organic practice to lead you in a new direction via your characters.

 

• Every time you enter a flow or immersive state, invite a new or deeper voice to emerge that may be different, but more aligned with who your character is.

 

• Repeat what works and don’t do what gets in the way of conjuring your character. Record what’s working so you can try it again.

I use a multitude of character immersion exercises (that we’ll explore further in my Craft Talks seminar on April 5), with every character I write. This gets me into the visceral, the flesh, and out of the puppet-mastering I’m so fond of doing with my stories. It allows me to live and breathe in my character’s skin so that they’re leading the story and I’m simply transcribing their experiences.  

One of the most frequent questions I’m asked as an editor and book coach is: how do you start writing a book? It’s an excellent question! My desire here is for aspiring authors to know there are great tools for drafting your first book. How do you make the most of your writing time? What do you focus on so that you can stay the course? Folks often ask me how to both write a book as well as how to get it published, often not understanding that these are separate activities. Getting fixated on the end goal can sometimes ruin the bright, shiny-new ideas brimming for your awaiting draft, particularly when you’re in drafting phase, which is precisely where you want to be—and stay—when first writing a book. The most important thing, when considering writing a book is: what story (or stories) do you want to share? This is especially important for non-fiction and memoir. If you’re writing fiction, really allow the ideas to stir for your characters, their voices, desires and the developing ideas you have already about who they are. Don’t censor yourself or wait for the perfect moment to write down any of your ideas, simply start with simple tools such as a notebook or MS Word/Google document. Another important thing to talk to yourself about, or even journal about, is why it’s important to you to write this book or series of stories at this time? What are some developing goals? (These are not concrete, they can stay fuzzy, but are the fuel you’ll need to stay the course.) It’s okay to start with pie-in-the-sky dreams. Absolutely nothing wrong with that! Keep a post-it note visible to you when you’re working with that dream, wish or prayer. Let it remind you why you started this process in the first place! If you’ve never written a book before, you’re training your brain how to write long-form fiction or non-fiction. You’re going to need a few tools to sustain yourself over the long-haul and the below advice is from 21 years of teaching writing, editing books, and being a full-time author/editor myself! Feel free to print this out and refer back to it, especially anything that resonates with you.

GUIDELINES FOR DRAFTING A BOOK

1. Don’t ever try to draft and revise at the same time. Don’t be afraid to get messy in the drafting phase.

Your first phase of writing your book is called drafting. It’s okay to be messy. Trust that when you’re in editing mode, after you’ve written that first draft, you will be able to go back and fix everything, in phases. Why don’t you ever try to draft and revise at the same time? You’ll have a hard time reaching your finish line. I’ve seen far too many authors get derailed, and it took me six years to finish my first novel because I kept revising the same 60 pages. It took one of my teen students pointing this out to get me to stop! (Thanks Jacob!) If you’re like me, and work better in tidy and organized environments, this will feel like chaos, initially. However, this wonderful program, Scrivener, makes it easy for me to take that messy first draft and shine it up in my revision phase. You have to separate the two tasks of drafting and revising or you get: derailed, overwhelmed, and can take a long time reaching the finish line. A lot of new authors feel pressured to produce pristine prose on a first draft, regardless of genre. If they’re writing prescriptive non-fiction (how-to non-fiction) or accustomed to writing short pieces for work this can be especially hard to instill. However, simply remind yourself, any time you want to go back and fix, or wait for “the right word,” that you can simply write blank, blank or use the _____ symbol to fill in the right word when you go back and revise. Allow yourself to get into a flow state by focusing on the structure of what you’re building with that book idea. If you finish a scene or chapter and feel like there’s a lot of missing information coming back to you, instead of trying to find a place to put that information, simply put in an “*” where you left off and type up the new information. Worry about where it will go later. Trust me, you’ll find the perfect place for it. If you’re using Scrivener, you can put a note in the side margin (that doesn’t show up in the text itself when you export it), if your idea isn’t fully formed yet. Often authors who work with me aren’t aware of what the drafting process looks like for longer projects. These talented folks, many of whom have successfully written shorter pieces for work or published short stories, approach long-form writing with the same expectations and drafting techniques. You can easily edit as you go for a short story, article or blog, or pretty much anything under 5,000 words. Once you’re going above the 5,000 word mark, your strategies have to change—or you risk burning out. (See # 7 below).

2. Give yourself dedicated weekly writing time with built-in breaks.

If you’re like me, you have a full-time job or full-time obligation that means you can’t sit and write for hours a day. That’s okay. You’re not alone. Most authors can’t write full-time, it’s just not possible. Instead, they carve out time weekly to give themselves dedicated time to work on their books. Feel the joy of writing this new work by carving out regular time and sacred space where you will not be interrupted for at least 20 minutes, but even 10 minutes can do. When I’m really busy I aim for at least 10 minutes twice a week. I also mark a star on my paper desk calendar so that at the end of the month I can congratulate myself with a small treat for a job well done. You might ask: how do I use this time wisely? Keep your phone out of arm’s reach, with your ringer turned off. Decide if analog (hand-writing in a notebook) or digital works better for you, or maybe do a mix of both. However, put on a kitchen timer or other timing device for at least 10 minutes starting off to give yourself that uninterrupted time for flow. When you feel stuck, give yourself a break to stretch, get a drink of water, walk for a few minutes, trusting that the answer to what you’re stuck on will come through movement and patience. Once the idea strikes, go back to the page immediately. If you need more techniques on time management of creative projects, take a look at Chapter 6 of The 5 Resets by Aditi Nerurkar.

3. Believe that your voice and story matters.

If you keep working on this book with the idea that your voice/story matters, it will help when life tries to invade your precious writing time. I find that women often bear the brunt of this as well as full-time caregivers, where they are expected, unrealistically, to be on call all the time. Look at ways in which you can say “No” to one thing that will free up at least 20 minutes a week to write what you’ve always dreamed of writing, but never had the time. Believe that this journey is essential and trust at least two friends with helping hold you accountable to your goal of finishing this book. If you need some help with believing in your voice, seek out that help. Don’t hold back or delay.

4. Be aware of what derails you and write it down in a journal or notebook.

Don’t get tied up in solving your book’s theme or plot or get mired in research rabbit holes. Your first draft is just that: a precious first draft; it is not the end of your book’s progression. Most books go through at least 3 idea drafts before they’re ready for solid granular revision (copy-editing/proofreading). Most fiction books, like mine, have gone through 8-10 drafts before publication. Don’t let this information overwhelm you.  Knowing there will be plenty of time for correction later is intended to free you up now. You’re only job right now is drafting. Revising is for later. Repeat this as a mantra when you feel the urge to revise, before you’re finished drafting.

5. Don’t fixate or worry about how to publish or who will read your book while you’re drafting.

You’ve got at least 2-3 more drafts ahead of you as you form this narrative into something solid. If you’re writing prescriptive non-fiction (see more below), you don’t actually have to draft the full book in detail before approaching a literary agent or publisher. Allow yourself to enjoy the journey and talk to those negative voices trying to derail you and protect you from going into untested waters. Most people who write books have never been published before and are not professional writers. Trust that you are not alone, but also find your people who are writing through organizations like The Writer’s League of Texas, SCBWI, and Authors Guild. Continue to feed the spark that got you writing and let that joy be fully manifested by sharing it with others and hearing how they’re enjoying the writing process.

6. Don’t set unrealistic expectations for your first draft—know what word count to realistically aim for.

It’s good, while you’re drafting, to decide what genre your work could fit into, at the most essential level, if it’s just fiction or non-fiction. This will help with knowing what word count your book could eventually fit into, but doesn’t need to be anywhere near in your first draft. I see too many authors getting derailed trying to “pad” their book when they don’t need to. Here are the major types of books’ word count average lengths:

• Prescriptive Non-fiction (How-to, Self Help, Recipe Books, etc…) 25,000-75,000 average wordcount depending on the genre of book and its topic. This is the type of book that doesn’t have to be fully written out word-for-word before approaching literary agents or publishers, but it does have to have a solid outline + sample chapters before approaching literary agents. See more about writing book proposals on Jane Friedman’s website here.
• Memoir/Biography 40,000-80,000 words
• Fiction (it will vary greatly depending on genre and publisher):
  • Novella 30,00-45,000 words
  • Novel 45,000-100,000 words

There is nothing wrong with aiming for half of the word counts above in a first draft, or even less. A skeleton can be easier to work with for a first-time author than a ponderous draft in which you already know you’re going to have to cut half of it. Set a realistic goal for that first draft. For my first draft of my next novel, Bones of Our Ancestors, I set the goal of just 20,000 words, all handwritten. It made it easier for me to draft, because writing was super portable. I didn’t have to lug my laptop around with me and get distracted. It meant in five months, I had a finished draft that I’m currently adding to.  It’s okay to have scenes and chapters that are outline only in a first draft, or even just drawings. There is no “right way” to draft. The aim with drafting is to simply get the ideas down so you can come back in your first revision and solidify them.

8. Congratulate yourself on the small and big wins.

I like to take myself out for Juiceland or celebrate with a friend at lunch or dinner when I make both small and big wins. If I’ve been able to hit all my writing appointments with myself for the month, it’s time for a Lick ice-cream or Juiceland smoothie. If I’ve got a big win, I like to go out with my husband or a friend who knows how hard I’ve been working on this. I belong to a writer’s accountability group with author PJ Hoover, Kara Lenore and poetess/editor Heidi Kasa, who help me stay on track monthly with my goals, but also have supported me when things get in the way. Being kind to yourself is essential: you’ll stay more motivated if you’re gently encouraging yourself versus beating yourself up. Always ask yourself, in tough moments, what is possible for me today? If it’s only a few minutes of writing, that’s okay! That’s still a win!

9. Get informed: be a part of the writing and publishing ecosystem.

There are a lot of myths circulating about writers and what it means to write a book. I hope I’ve helped to debunk several of them, but one I haven’t spoken about yet is that writing is only for elite people who have lots of time. This is completely untrue; however, it’s hard to stay informed if you’re only relying on google searches and not interacting with the writing community in real time. Join a local write-in, go to local book launch events, even if it means driving for an hour (I’ve been there in my long stint living overseas), be a part of the living, in-person book space when you can, and join online events when you can’t. Read great books by writers about writing, like Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, or Steering the Craft by Ursula K. LeGuin. If stress is getting in the way of your dream, read The 5 Resets by Aditi Nerukar. Your book will get published, it’s just a matter of when, and it’s about making sure you’re putting yourself in the position to be informed about what that process looks like for what you’re writing. Read in your genre and outside your genre. Be aware of what’s getting published now that looks like what you’ve written. It’s okay if you’re trying to be an outlier, but be aware that if you’re too much of an outlier with your story structure or book idea, you might not be the best fit for traditional publishing. It’s better to know when you’re only on draft 1 or 2 about what type of market your book is sold in. Sign up for newsletters from editors and authors who care deeply about the welfare of authors such as Jane Friedman, local editors Tiffany Yates Martin and myself! Be aware of scams for new, unaware authors by checking out Writer Beware.

10. Embrace and believe that EVERYTHING in your book can be fixed in revision and with really incisive feedback you’ll get the support you need to see your book through to the finish line.

Every author’s finish line looks different. Some authors write books and shelve them, choosing a second or third book to go through the various phases of revision to publication. First-time authors often attend workshops, classes, and even submit their work to contests that offer feedback to sharpen their writing skills. The most important thing to keep in mind is that all good books, especially the ones you love, have had several eyes on them before they went to print. You are never reading the first draft of someone’s work, despite the rumors circulating about a particular author’s writing process. Give yourself the grace to let each draft have a specific focus as you develop your work, and decide when you’re ready for it to be seen by a trusted critique partner, get workshopped in a class, or receive professional feedback. Don’t hold back from getting help just because it isn’t perfect or “ready.” Nothing published is ever perfect. The author simply got to a point where it was good enough and they stopped polishing it to hand off to their editor! If you need help with deciding how to develop your novel, or would like writing coaching to help you reach the finish line, you can get in touch here . Keep on pursuing that dream. It’s totally worth it! For those already writing their book: welcome to a really wonderful community of authors. We’re happy to have you here!

 

“Publishing is show business for shy people.”

A literary agent announced at Writer’s Workshop’s (now Jericho Writers) 2013 Getting Published Day in London. I thought, “Is this true? If so, how do we talk to people about the books we’ve spent years slaving over?” I was bombarded, in that one day conference, by a slew of information: how to craft an elevator pitch, ways to approach query letters, and making certain you reveal your story’s ending in your synopsis. The most compelling part was watching as my query letter was critiqued in front of a crowd of over a hundred unknown authors and a panel of four literary agents. I quickly learned, after receiving wonderfully conflicting advice from all four agents and an author running the panel, that I need only listen to the agent’s advice who represents my genre. Going even further, I probably should only concentrate on advice from folks who actually champion writers, help them get better, and aren’t having a grumpy day in which they’re making flippant remarks. (Which, we’ve all seen to varying degrees online and at in-person publishing events.) My hope today is to help you feel braver, more able to conceptualize your story’s marketability and understand that this is important work whether you’re heading into the turbulent waters of indie publishing or querying literary agents. Whichever publishing route you take, you will:

1. Have to talk to people about your work, particularly if you’re keen on having your work sell.
2. Pitch yourself to events to be on panels, workshops, give book talks or readings. (If this terrifies you, ask yourself why and keep reading, as I have some tips!)
3. Have to submit a type of query to bookshops, festivals and conferences, especially if it’s your debut year.
4. Query literary agents if you’re seeking traditional publishing, or some select publishers that allow non-agented queries (which is becoming very rare).
5. Query editors you’d like to collaborate with on your work, particularly if you’re ready for several stages of pro-edit before indie publishing.

Now, there are loads of other iterations of submissions for authors, but the above cover the main five that I see authors encountering at various stages of their careers, and numbers 1, 2 and 3 above are the most frequently repeating ones for folks already published. Before we get into the general querying advice for all walks of authors, let’s have a short conversation about fear. (Skip down below if you’re an intrepid author ready to sally forth.)

OVERCOMING THE FEAR OF PUTTING YOURSELF OUT THERE

A few questions to ponder and write answers to:

• What fears do I have about this process?
• Why am I afraid to put myself out there?
• What past experiences have made this process stressful or have made me avoidant of this stage of the process?
• What is another, more positive, healthy and holistic way of seeing my work?

It is natural to have doubts about your work, whether it is ready, whether you’re actually worthy of people lauding your work with praise when it comes out. It’s important to see not only the obstacles, but the possibilities and to write down what those possibilities might be. Go ahead and write them down now, or ponder this question over the course of the next several days: what is possible if I forge through or let go of my fear?

AN APPROACH TO QUERYING (in general)

Talk with a friend, colleague or editor who has read your book and critiqued it from a professional lens. If you’re having trouble creating a short pitch (one sentence or approximately 25 words) or longer pitch (3-6 sentences or paragraph length), you need to collaborate with someone who has read your work and is invested in you as an artist. (Both of these things are really important!) Collaboration is one of the best ways of seeing your work in new light, of distilling down the saleable features of your book while also focusing on where the main character (s) journey (s) are starting. If you have two POVs, you’ll likely also need two paragraphs, but there are exceptions, of course, if an agent asks for just one pitch paragraph.

QUERYING GENERAL GUIDELINES FOR FICTION (& MEMOIR)

There’s loads of advice floating around about writing query letters. It’s enough to make your head spin. However, there are basics that are good to grasp. I’ll go over them in my workshop next week on February 14. If you’re eager to have your work featured (name & identifying information remove) and live edited at the workshop, here are some basics that are great rules of thumb (culled from conversations with dozens of literary agents): Query letter components:

1. Connect paragraph, which includes:
   1. Why you’re writing-met at conference, requested, referral, read about-keep very brief and professional. (I’ll share some funny stories at the workshop!)
   2. Your work’s genre
   3. Word count
   4. Elevator pitch
   5. At least two recent (in the last 5-10 years) comparison titles
2. Pitch paragraph (s)-if you have two POV characters you might need two paragraphs, memoirists usually need two paragraphs here as well:
   1. Hook-a compelling sentence or question centered in your character’s reality
   2. Stakes of at least two major characters + world-building or primary situation
   3. A final large stake to round-off (sometimes posed as a question) and energize the agent to want to read on and find out what happens (like you’ll often see with the final sentence of well-written book blurbs)
3. Your bio/background
   1. 3 sentences max, unless you’re writing memoir
   2. Any awards won, degrees or experience related to the genre you’re writing in, if relevant-keep professional and brief
4. Polite closure, which includes your contact details (phone and e-mail)
   1. Double-check your phone and e-mail are accurate, you’d be surprised how many agents try to contact an author only for neither to be correct.

You might ask: this feels so vague! And, you’re right, without having an incisive edit of your particular query letter there are so many variances and nuances that this blog alone cannot answer, which is why I’m teaching a donation-based live-edit workshop where folks can get affordable feedback on their work and better understand how their genre is treated in a query letter and/or author submission materials, if you’re published. The important thing to keep in mind is that if you really spend the time on crafting a pitch that captures your book’s marketable elements, and also read-up (Publisher’s Weekly and Jane Friedman’s Hot Sheet are great resources) on what is being sold and how it’s being marketed, including taking a look at jacket copy, you’ll get a sense and rhythm regarding how story is distilled. Is this not something you enjoy doing? That’s okay! Pay a professional or do a trade with an author you trust to whip your letter into shape. Why does this matter? It is sometimes the first thing an agent reads before deciding if they’ll dive into your pages. But, every agent is different. There is not a one-size-fits-all approach here! That leads us into…drumroll…talking about pitching yourself as a published, or soon to be published author.

PUBLISHED AUTHORS: SUBMITTING YOURSELF FOR EVENTS

I remember attending an SCBWI event for published and listed authors. It was massively helpful, but also felt like I was receiving information via a firehose. There was no way I could implement all of their suggestions and also hold down my full-time job as an editor. You might feel the same way and that’s okay. When deciding what events, workshops, panels, conferences, signings or community events to pitch yourself for, it’s important to be aware of your bandwidth. If you’ve already published one book, you know what it’s like to burn out on the “I have to do this, otherwise my book won’t sell” bandwagon. Go ahead and give yourself permission to do what you have the emotional and physical capacity for. There are authors who do very few in-person events, and that’s okay, but they have to have to think of other ways of getting the word out about their book, because bookselling still remains very much a word-of-mouth marketplace, even if social media would like to make us think otherwise. GUIDELINES FOR PITCHING YOURSELF

1. Connect-establish how you’re familiar with this organization, if you met anyone from it, if they requested you contact them. It’s okay if it’s a “cold call,” but any connection does help.
2. Be specific on what you have to offer + your recent history of book credentials.
   1. Include a review quote or two
   2. An award, if applicable
   3. Recent press on you as an author or presenter
3. Link to your website + a video where you’re being interviewed or have had video press in some form (it’s okay if you don’t have this yet, but look for opportunities). The reason this is important-it allows them to see you almost in 3D without having to meet you in person.
4. Attachment-author sheet or book release. (I’ll show a few samples in my workshop & have a few also in this existing workshop.)

Create a few templates, based on the types of events you enjoy attending, so you’re not reinventing each document for each submission. Your first few submissions will take awhile, but after that you’ll have a working template to extrapolate from.

5. If they ask for specific things, make yourself a list (I’ll show in my upcoming workshop how to do this) that you can tick off. Too many authors make the mistake of not following what’s asked for and it can burn bridges faster than you might realize.

Keep in mind that folks reviewing pitches for events, media, etc..are often as time strapped as you are, possibly more. They have full inboxes and want to be able to quickly assess if you’re a good fit. Keep communication simple, polite and informative.

DEALING WITH REJECTION

At all stages of your author career you are going to receive rejection. I wish I could tell you otherwise. You might be one of the lucky few who has not had a lot of rejection. I hope you stay on the winning streak for as long as possible. For the rest of us, it’s a daily part of our lives. What do we do?

1. Talk to a friend. Do not wait until you’re the death grips of crippling anxiety, writer’s block, or something unmentionable that feels like it’s keeping you from being able to create. Just eight minutes talking to a friend can really lift you out of the depths of despair that can come with rejection.
2. Make sure you have at least one writer friend who is also querying/submitting themselves for events. Talk about the challenges, your mindset, and be analytical. Agree to support each other and to never be competitive. When one of you wins, you both win. (You can share things you’re experiencing so the other is more prepared when their win comes around!)
3. Do something that brings you joy. For me, that’s getting a hug from a loved one, dancing, singing, and cleaning/organizing something that’s long overdue. If I’m really in the doldrums, I need to buy myself something that won’t produce guilt later. A smoothie, notebook, or book I’ve been craving always make me feel like I’m giving back to myself when it feels like something has been taken away from me without my control.
4. Focus on what’s in your control. Don’t fiddle with your submission materials until you’ve got around 20 rejections (for unagented authors). For published authors, give it around 10 rejections and talk to an author friend, making sure they can see your materials and give you pointers on where you might need to tweak things. If you have the funds, hire a pro to help you with not only what you’re submitting, but also analyzing your strategy in your submissions.
5. Acknowledge what is not in your control!
6. Avoid social media advice from folks who haven’t been in the trenches for awhile, or who are being disparaging or fickle with authors.

# 6 is especially important, because weekly I hear from authors who are being driven mad by very conflicting advice from industry professionals or on social media, or even folks who ought to know better. Gut check anything that feels fishy, but also reach out to trusted pros who care deeply about authors. Don’t get sucked into a scam or situation unwittingly. If you’re just getting started in this process, I highly recommend the following trusted industry folks who will definitely not lead you astray:

1. Jane Friedman
2. Tiffany Yates Martin
3. https://www.allianceindependentauthors.org/

If you’re ready to discuss your work that’s ready to query or submit for events, join me at this donation-based workshop this coming Wednesday, February 14 from 12-1:30pm CST. (It will be recorded and available for sale in two weeks for $50.) If you want your work considered for inclusion in the workshop, make certain to sign-up by this Monday, February 12 at midnight CST. You’ll need to send your work by 6pm CST Tuesday, February 13 to be considered for inclusion in the workshop (names and identifying information will be removed).

  I find quite a few new novelists (new= those who’ve written between 0-3 novels) being impatient with the process of drafting, collaboration and publication. You’ve got a story, it’s ripe and ready for hungry readers. Why should you be patient in a “hurry up and wait industry?” Everyday I meet with authors around the world and their questions have spurred a lot of the material in this article. Because there’s a lot of misinformation floating around about the writing and publication process, I hope to shed light on how to approach not only your draft, but your publication journey. At the heart of your artistic practice there must be patience, understanding, and knowledge from credible sources.

WHY ARE WE IMPATIENT WITH OURSELVES WHEN WE’RE DRAFTING A NOVEL?

A big obstruction to being patient with one’s process is a lack of understanding about drafting and revising. Before any of my books go to print they’ve gone through anywhere from 8-12 full drafts. (The beginning of my novels I tend to revise quite a bit more.) Each of those edits is focusing on something different, until the last three revisions where we’re getting into the granular/nitty gritty of sentence structure, word choice and punctuation, as well as layout. A good idea to keep in mind, if you’re not familiar with drafting processes is that you want to break your novel writing process into something much more manageable, like follows:

• Idea Draft (for me, this is usually drafts 1-3, but sometimes 1-5)

Zero or Rough Draft-I usually start with a notebook so that I feel really free to write whatever I want, let the ideas flow and not feel pinned down to create a grand masterpiece and forever feel disappointed with myself.

• Revised Idea Drafts-Drafts # 2-3

This is where I go deep into who my characters are, what they want, their relationships, the rules of the world they’re living in, the deep histories of the lands they inhabit, cultures, etc… I use my Character Mincer workshop with all of my major named characters. In later years, I’ve leaned more heavily on my character’s lives and histories. I save world-building solidifying until after character and relationships feel really solid. I also want to decide whose POV to prioritize after Draft # 3. In the past, it’s usually after draft # 3 or # 4 that I’d get a professional developmental edit, or swap with a trusted critique partner.

• World-building Idea Drafts # 4-5

I’m revising just for the world, setting, and how it’s affecting my characters. This is often where I get input from others about what feels clear and what doesn’t. I’ll go to workshops with pages, submit pages to my critique group or critique partner. I’m still in that fluid state where input can help shape the ideas and where I think they’re going. For those writing historical novels or novels with a lot of important timelines overlapping, this is usually where you’ll do the heaviest work, depending on your process. It’s also at this point that I decide if I need to completely re-type the novel up, after printing it out and sticking it on my Accto book stand. Never be afraid to re-type up your novel. It has saved me hours of work of trying to jenga scenes that were only partially working.

• Voice/Language Draft # 6

I’m looking at the dialogue, narration and voices of the characters. I almost always write in alternating POV. (Why do I do this to myself?) This means I have to really check that there’s a clear difference in those two character’s voices, language and observations in order for readers to not feel confused. I divide up the book and do one sweep just in one characters voice and repeat the same for the other POV. I look at the use of narrative language here to make sure that I’m not overusing the same words, or confusing readers with too much world terminology. My goal with my books is to always make them accessible to a variety of readerships, particularly those for whom English is a second language. I don’t want my prose to be so dense that it’s untranslatable into another language.

• Granular Draft # 7

This is where I go deep into line editing my work. I print it out and really look at it as if it weren’t my work, but one of my author’s manuscripts and try to find every mistake, awkward phrase (often reading out loud) and place where there’s incongruity and even other issues I didn’t notice in the drafts above. This is often a much slower revision because I have to go slowly, mark everything on paper and then make sure I take care of any big picture things I didn’t notice in subsequent drafts before I get into the super granular. It is after this draft that I feel ready to either submit for copy-edit or for literary agent representation. Now, my process above might feel bonkers for others. They might have a brain that allows them to look at multiple things at once. If I give myself too tall a task, I’m likely to miss essential things that need sweeping and tidying. In addition, I’ll be discouraged from making essential changes because I’m too overwhelmed. Take the time to know what process works for you. Overwhelm is a real thing. It can fuel Imposter Syndrome, causing us to pull back and even believe we’re the only ones who can’t go forward with a project. When I feel this way, I’ll challenge myself to try to at least edit (or compose) a page or two before moving onto my daily work. In this way, I’m making small steps forward and not giving Imposter Syndrome any fuel to keep obstructing the important work I have to do. Because there is still so much misunderstanding about how revising and drafting can work, it means overwhelm and personal impatience is much more likely. I’ve met far too many new authors who think if they write three drafts of a novel it’s ready to query. (It could be, but it’s unlikely.) Or, I have individuals contacting me for a copy edit and the POV in their novel is still all over the place. I don’t say this to be discouraging or demean anyone, the opposite, actually. Instead, I want writers to feel empowered to both be patient and diligent. That is only possible if you have the knowledge to know that self-editing is a lot more involved than it might look. It does often mean getting input from experts.

PATIENCE WITH PUBLISHING PROFESSIONALS: STANDARDS OF CONDUCT

This patience also transfers into working with publishing professionals. Endeavor to understand what that relationship looks like and what our editor’s and agent’s expectations are for professional conduct. Too many authors unknowingly get themselves into interpersonal binds when they refuse to follow the culture of an industry that is underpaid, overworked and subject to very volatile market shifts. We all (editors, agents and authors alike) wish it wasn’t like that. We’re doing our best to champion good books, but we are also imperfectly human. It’s super important to always approach industry folks with the utmost kindness, patience and professionalism. Here are a few behaviors that will hurt your career:

1. Sending lengthy/rude e-mails that are not succinct and to the point after receiving feedback, a rejection, or offer of representation w/ feedback. Editors and literary agents spend the bulk of their time editing, talking with authors, industry professionals, and selling/promoting your book. We reserve a very small amount of time for e-mail. It is not in your benefit to write long monologues, round robin/rapid fire multiple e-mails when one will do, or to defend your work with pages of explanations. You have to show that you understand how the industry works with your professional conduct. Don’t assume that you can act differently because you’re better than everyone else out there or your work industry operates differently. You’ll only receive ire and rejection as a result. Offers of representation can be rescinded, contracts can be canceled; folks do get blacklisted. Take a look at Publishers Weekly or Jane Friedman’s Hot Sheet to get more informed about the industry.
2. Don’t pester industry folks if you haven’t heard back within 48 hours. Of course, if you are a paying client, most editors want to respond within 48 hours, unless it’s over a weekend. However, literary agents and editors at publishing houses are just as time strapped as I am. If a literary agent requests your full or partial manuscript, it isn’t unusual for six months to go by before you hear from them. Some literary agents will give you an estimated timeline for hearing back from them, but e-mailing before 3 months (or the timeline they’ve established) unless you have another offer of representation is never a good idea. The squeaky wheel does not get the grease in publishing. If you’re in doubt, check with an author friend or past editor you may have worked with to get a check on how to proceed, especially if you feel your question is urgent. If you’re paying an editor for feedback and you haven’t heard back within a week, it’s always a good idea to follow-up.
3. Receive feedback gracefully, with gratitude, and give yourself at least 72 hours before responding with any sort of rebuttal (which you should avoid at all costs). I was in a wonderful panel with Sean Desmond, head editor at Twelve, an imprint of Grand Central, who talked about how authors have really got to restrain themselves, after receiving feedback, from immediately responding with a defensive e-mail. It NEVER works in your favor and it just annoys and erodes the editor/author relationship. We all want to work with people who are ready to learn how to become better writers, at any stage of their career.
4. You have to find a way to separate your feelings about your work from the work itself. You are not your work. Your self worth is not inextricably connected to your book, which eventually will be sold as a marketable product. You have to see feedback and revisions as necessary evils that you must be patient with becoming accustomed to.  When I first get feedback it never feels great, it’s often stress-inducing as I try to weigh all the different ways I could possibly solve a problem with the manuscript I had not anticipated. However, I always reply to my editor or critique partner with a succinct “Thank you so much! Excited to dive in.” And I get to work. A week after looking everything over, I schedule in a phone call or in person meeting to talk through some of the harder edits so I have a clearer way forward.
5. Everything in that outbrief meeting, after receiving an edit, is about implementing the changes I’ve agreed to. I don’t even bother talking about the ones I’m not going to take on, because it’s not important to go over them and start a debate. Of course, if there’s a crucial thing that needs editing, I’ll discuss it, but NEVER debate it. Instead, I always approach things that feel like they’ll ruin the manuscript from a place of curiosity and patience. At the end of the day, I decide which edits will go forward. There’s no reason to be dramatic and argumentative about those changes I’m not implementing. I’ll only waste both of our time.
6. When engaging with a freelance editor, make sure you’ve given yourself enough lead time. At least half of the inquiries I receive are from individuals that want to start working tomorrow, or shortly thereafter. Some will state they only have the next 4-6 weeks to work on the project and get it in shape (because of a lull in work projects, life, etc…) and then they’ll have to query agents. When I tell individuals that it’s not a long enough timeline, I sometimes receive grumpiness instead of gratitude for being frank about the state of their manuscript. (This is often during a free meeting where I’m not being paid to give this advice.) Most full-time editors are booked up at least 1-3 months in advance, with rare exceptions. (It’s not bad if they are available to work right away.) It’s important to be patient with the fact you’re likely going to work on this book for years, not just months. Query freelance editors at least a month ahead of when you’d like to start working with them. Wait for all the proposals to come in before you decide who to engage with: it will save you a lot of headaches later. You want quality, not just the cheapest/fastest bidder.
7. Be patient with yourself and your own capacity. Often the reason authors express impatience with me is not because of anything I’m doing or not doing. It’s because they haven’t yet learned to approach their work with a 1% daily increase attitude. Your work matters, but your life also matters. When you are patient with yourself, you’ll find more harmony in many other aspects of your life.

TIPS TO HELP YOU GAIN MORE PATIENCE

• Do the work and get help–don’t isolate yourself!
• Attend a writing workshop, or self-guided course, if freelance editors are outside your budget.
• Go to book launches, swap work with a fellow author and be an engaged member of the writing community
• Read Brene Brown’s books! A few favourites: Braving the Wilderness, Rising Strong, and Atlas of the Heart.
• Join Jane Friedman’s Electric Speed Newsletter & Tiffany Yates Martin’s Newsletter
• Examine your workflow. Are you expecting yourself to cover too much ground in a short period of time?

Giving Yourself Room to Grow, the 1% theory There are many theories out there about person growth. One that has helped me immensely is approaching my art from the lens of trying to increase my skills by 1% each day. I don’t want to rest on my laurels and simply vegetate where I am. (I’m sure you don’t either!) I embrace the opportunity to read publications from the industry (like PW and the Hot Sheet), take classes, read blogs and articles from other editors and authors and keep a running catalogue of articles to share with the authors I work with. I also try to grow as an artist by taking dance and painting classes, exercising, etc. Like any normal person, I sometimes let the well run dry. And when that happens, impatience flares its ugly head. Know What You Have Control Of I do not have control over how readers will react to my books, how they will sell, nor do I know how my efforts will translate into sales, acclaim, etc. However I position myself for success by defining it for myself, sans outside validation. We live in a society that thrives on outside validation. In fact, people often pick up books or decide to work with someone because of that outside validation. It is important, but it is not everything. Someday someone will give me a one-star review. I don’t have control over that. But, I do have control over doing the work, approaching it with grace, and being a part of a community that supports books. Working With the Pros-Understand What Will be Expected of You When you get published, you’re expected to have a great deal of knowledge, even if you’ve never been published before. There’s unfortunately a lot of assumption heaped upon new writers. A recent Bookseller survey showed that authors who are launching a debut novel for the first time felt mostly unsupported by their publishers. This is because so much of the launching experience has been shifted into the hands of authors themselves. The days of wine-soaked lunches and being brought up to speed by your agent or publisher about your book launch are mostly over. You are expected to be prepared for launching with or without your publisher’s help and that means making sure to grow your network of folks who can help you when launch day comes. Book selling still remains very much a community effort. What Patience Will Prepare You For This gives authors the opportunity to become knowledgeable about what your book launch will look like and to also negotiate terms with your publisher based on what aspects of marketing fall on the author’s shoulders. You have a lot more control over that process than you might think. It means shifting to being proactive about your role in the process. I’ve been editing and teaching writing for the past twenty years, in addition to having my own work published and running a small press. I have seen the authors who make the most progress and feel the most successful are the ones who recognize that essential quality of focusing on what they have control of, owning up to the fact that all art needs revision, and embracing that you’re never done, you simply give-up and declare it “good enough” and move onto another project. Embrace that you are doing your best work now. Breathe into the comfort of patience and meditatively approaching your work with the grace and love that it requires to reach the hands of readers. They’re out there waiting for your work to reach their hands!

Last year an author told me that it was hard for him to dig deep with his characters because he wasn’t a very deep person. I’ve thought about this a lot as I meet with new authors as well as seasoned ones that yearn for their characters to leap off the page and into the hearts and minds of readers. My struggle, as both an editor and author, is how to give legitimacy to the characters we create while looking for ways to go deeper (without sacrificing pace and dramatic timing).

The first step in this journey is to go deeper. Get curious about your characters while also being curious about your own psychology. 

I started out writing as a poet and playwright. However, I mostly digested books first and plays second. I loved inventing elaborate backstories for characters in my plays (whether I was writing them or acting them out). Much to my director’s consternation, I was also well known for improvising my lines in the many plays I acted in. I knew there was more to that character’s story and my mind was primed to add to it, whether I had permission or not.  As an author, you have to give yourself permission to delve really deep. An important question to always ask yourself: what does my character want? Brene Brown says in Atlas of the Heart “I understood that people would do almost anything to not feel pain, including causing pain and abusing power, and I understood that there were very few people who could handle being held accountable for causing hurt without rationalizing, blaming or shutting down.” It’s important to know how your characters are rationalizing, abusing power, or shutting down. However, that is not enough. You must know why. The essential bridge I’m also proposing here is to examine why you shut down or avoid accountability. Knowing the ways in which you are avoiding pain gives you an essential tool to also investigate where your characters are emotionally and will help you identify what their motivations are. What motivates your characters to get what they want? It’s hard to identify their motives without knowing our personal motivations and how our histories inform those daily actions. Being able to go deep isn’t a state bestowed by a fairy when you’re born. (I wish it were!) Instead, it’s a psychological deep dive. I’m constantly working a multilayered process of examining myself, observing others, reading how other writers handle the complexity of the human experience and trying to fold that emotional and layered depth into my characters. Finding our character’s motivations takes time, investigation, and (for me) twice a year carving out a dedicated week of spending hours each day deep in the experience and world of my characters. I sit with their perceptions, write about what is fueling their journey, reactions and decisions. I use the exercises from my Character Mincer Workshop to delve into their emotional reality and layered history, as well as defining the objectives that are creating those emotions.  For example, for years I fought with Idris, one of the main characters in Orphan Pods, a novel I have on submission. Part of the reason Idris wasn’t talking to me was because I hadn’t given her sufficient time to open up. Her story is complicated, her history sometimes tragic. It takes time and wooing to allow that all to unfold. I had to really be still in the space and coax it out of her.  It was in Santa Monica, within earshot of the ocean, hunkered down deep in a character mincer at a cafe, that I finally felt her history in the factory, her parent’s demise and how she had shunted her emotions: “I liked running from my emotions a lot more than facing them.” I felt her pain, which I realized I had been avoiding feeling. More than that, I experienced how hard it was for her to imagine a bigger joy in the aftermath of having been one of the few to escape the factory she was enslaved in. She didn’t believe it was possible until she met kids her age who had a connection she needed, but was terrified of, because so much of her life and safety depended on swallowing extreme emotions, appearing tough and conserving her energy for long shifts in her hover taxi.  If I hadn’t sat with her for all those hours, all those days, I wouldn’t have had her specific personal history to continue writing and revising her narrative. 

Make room for the internal and external world.

  I would have discovered none of this without going deep and taking that time to write and draw the internal and external world of not only my characters, but investigating my own inner and outer world. Personal therapy and daring to go deep with my own emotions has helped a lot. Getting curious about why I feel what I feel in certain situations, and what from the past can inform the present is enormously helpful. There is always something fueling reactions and by being curious about my own, I often learn a lot about characters who might have a completely different backstory from mine. One amazing therapist said, “our brains are very good at tricking us into thinking related experiences are the same. You’ll encounter something and your fight/flight experience is activated as the warning signs flash ‘Same! Same! Stop!”  But in reality, they may not be the same at all. Give yourself permission to explore both yours and your character’s psychology.  Where do they run a similar course?  Where do the two diverge?” The act of going to therapy alone won’t help you get curious about your psychology. Many writers journal. Some find it helps them with anxiety, depression, or simply getting started with a project. I’d conjecture that it helps us to be really curious about how we see the world, what contributes to our ongoing emotional state and how our personal history informs our daily actions.  For example, I was bullied through most of K-8. By the time I reached ninth grade, the repeating advice “don’t pay attention to them” stopped being helpful. I saw my life change in positive ways when I learned to stand up for myself, because I was sick of being treated horribly. I quickly learned that you either had to be scary or appear eager to fight in order to scare off those looking for easy victims. Confrontations in my 40 year-old world occasionally trigger flashbacks to my skinny, cowering thirteen year-old self feeling like she is trying to navigate all her hardships by herself. Instead of avoiding those moments, I get curious about them. I write about them, and I try to see parallels in my character’s lives, if relevant.

Get curious about emotions.

Often where characterization falls short is when the writer isn’t giving themselves permission to explore their character’s emotions and reactions to stimuli. They’re so excited to plow through the plot (which is completely understandable in a first draft) that the inner world of the character can get lost or forgotten. However, in those second drafts and beyond, you want to give yourself permission to see the connection between “how we think, feel, and act,” (Brene Brown, Atlas of the Heart) which are the essential foundations of character and the key to their depth appearing on the page. Brown states, “what surprised me the most when I was growing up was how little other people seemed to understand or even think about the connection between feelings, thinking and behavior.”  It’s essential to plot, chart, or write out and uncover how your character’s actions, friends/family/enemies actions and the context of their world are affecting their behavior. Brown aptly points out: “Without understanding how our feelings, thoughts, and behaviors work together, it’s impossible to find our way back to ourselves and each other. When we don’t understand how our emotions shape our thoughts and decisions, we become disembodied from our own experiences and disconnected from each other.” Characters cannot operate on an island unto themselves, yet I repeatedly find myself telling authors that they’ve left their characters alone for too long in the context of the story, or that they’ve spent so much time building a world that the character seems to be wandering mindlessly without a true objective. In essence, they’ve made it too hard for us to understand who the characters are when they are around other people. Or, we don’t know enough of their thoughts about the people in their life, nor do we see, in action, how they are shaping the character’s reality. 

The layers of character

When you think of character, try to see it as an immersive experience, instead of a set of character profile questions (which are a great starting place, but a terrible place to stop). Imagine your character’s emotions in an active situation using active verbs (what they’re doing to get what they want) to help with understanding what’s fueling their behavior as well as the other main characters around them. There are many theories about where emotions come from. CBT therapists state that emotions are the byproduct of our thoughts. Drama theorists teach actors that when you become a character you’re seeing the entire character’s experience through the lens of dramatic objectives, which will allow you to feel the character’s emotions. The famous Russian dramatist Konstantin Stanislavski methodically studied how actors worked in a laboratory-style theatre company in Moscow where he wanted actors to fully embody their characters and devised clear ways to do this. He actually overruled his earlier “method” acting for a much more systematic (and I believe, thorough) approach to safely embodying character that has been carried on in the laboratory acting of Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Richards.  I mention all of this, not to send you down rabbit holes, but to help authors to see that characterization has myriad methods of exploration, but also that it requires layers of work in having enough of a sense of that character’s reality to fully embody them on the page, similar to the work an actor does to embody character.

Where language, emotions and character meet

Brene Brown says that “language shows us that naming an experience doesn’t give the experience more power, it gives us the power of understanding and meaning.” Ask yourself: what does my character want to name from their experiences? Where do they seek power? Where does power overwhelm them and where can they actively be a part of the power structure? A character that comes to mind is Martha Wells’ Murderbot’s incredible understanding of the world around him, despite being a robot. He loves watching films and serials about humans, yet finds them incredibly irritating. What does your character gravitate toward as a result of their tastes and history?

A few guiding tips and questions to help you on this journey:

 

1. A helpful technique as you’re developing your manuscript, is to ask yourself: What haven’t I experimented with yet? (Try out my Character Immersion (Mincer) Workshop, if you want more step-by-step guidance.)
2. Who has been influential to my character’s history and what scenes can I write about from their interactions?
3. How does my character feel about his/her/their personal history?
4. Which individuals or circumstances have had the biggest influence on where my character is today? (Or right now in this scene?)
5. How does my character act around other people, vs. by themselves, vs. inside their head?
6. How do other people feel about my character vs. how they feel about themselves?
7. How do readers experience my character’s reality and full embodiment?
8. At what point in the book do I want readers to understand how my character navigates their reality? Why?
9. If I were to go on vacation with my character, where would we go and what would that experience be like?
10. If I was to travel to another planet with my character, what would that journey entail?

Your ultimate goal with your characters is to be able to shape what readers are feeling. Brown states, “we have compelling research that shows that language does more than just communicate emotion, it can actually shape what we’re feeling.” You want readers to feel what your character is feeling, to get close to them. I would encourage you to get curious about the psychology of your characters, pick up Brene Brown’s Atlas of the Heart, and work your way through her narrative on emotional experiences. Hopefully you’ll be able to see where you and your characters resonate with how Brown interprets the major emotions in our lives.

If you want to go on a more in-depth exploration with your characters, join my Deep Characterization Exploration Class for Fiction Writers on Tuesday nights at 7:00pm CST February 7-28, 2023. (This class is a part of a three-part series that will continue through to May 2023.) For more information and to sign-up go here.

Take a vacation from the real-world and join me at Armadillo Con this weekend! We Are Austin covered the conference in the following news broadcast this week. There are over 170 programming items to choose from and the opportunity to learn from the best in SFF! I’ve posted my programming schedule above as well as information about the book launch for Sim Kern and Marshall Ryan Maresca that I’ll moderate tonight at 9pm! If you’re wanting to know more about how to work with professional editors, definitely join myself and Associate Editor, Alex Herrera for our workshop on Sunday at 10:00am “What You Should Do Before Contacting an Editor.” If you want some cool swag, come to my book signing. I look forward to joining you on your vacation into new lands, strange new worlds, and enticingly cool people!    

  I remember attending my first publishing conference in London, as an author in 2013, and reeling from information overload. It wasn’t only that I needed to process all the information, advice and conflicting feedback, it seemed all my research on the internet about the publishing process was a lot more off the mark than I had realized. My whopping 143,000 word debut YA fantasy novel– that took me six years to finish– needed a ton of work. The word count was the least of my worries. I thankfully was surrounded by a wonderful support group back in Germany, where I was working and living. Some of the most important questions my friends asked me were: 

1. Have you taken notes on all the advice you’ve received?
2. What is actionable and what isn’t?
3. What do you need more information about?
4. Who can you ask to get that information?
5. Is it possible to take a class to get a better understanding of the main problems with your manuscript?

One of the best things that came from this furious note-taking session with two very seasoned educators: Becky and Russ, was the sage advice: “this isn’t a ‘no’ for your book, it’s just a ‘get better’ opportunity.”  I immediately e-mailed Andrew Wille, who I had my book consultation with, and he very kindly looked at my opening page (again) and suggested I take one of the classes the Writing Workshop (now Jericho Writers) had on offer. I took this amazing self-editing online course with Debi Alper and Emma Darwin. This gave me the opportunity to really hone my understanding of narrative structure as an author. I was also surrounded by a supportive group of authors who have become lifelong friends and allies.  The important thing about that first conference was that I didn’t stop my learning process as an author. I didn’t say, “Oh, I’m an editor and teacher of creative writing, I can just read a book and learn everything I need to know about my own writing process.” That first conference taught me that I needed to get as much industry and professional feedback as I could afford and that I had a lot to learn as an artist about my own process. Because I’m now an almost decade-long veteran of writing conferences, as both an author and editor, I feel fairly confident giving some hopefully sage advice to those who have either just finished a writing/publishing conference or who are getting ready to enter that busy season!

1. If you haven’t yet taken notes or reflected on the experience, take out your notebook from the conference and hand write (not on your phone or computer, unless you suffer from dysgraphia) everything you remember using “The Crappy Memory Technique” which I’m borrowing from Nicola Morgan. Often we get caught up thinking that we have to write everything down in a particular order. Don’t worry about that. Just write what you remember, don’t worry about what you don’t. Doing this writing will trigger a memory down the line, and if it doesn’t, it likely wasn’t something important. (I hope.)

1. After you’ve written down everything you remember, highlight or circle what feels actionable and re-write that list on a separate pad of paper (a to-do list or other type of list that you will actually reference).
2. Choose only one of those items to focus on for the next week. It needs to be something that you can actually accomplish in the next week (and make sure that you look at your calendar so that you aren’t aiming too high). It might be that you want to contact another writer you met to see if they want to swap sections of manuscripts. Or, it might be to sign-up for a writing class, contact a freelance editor (like myself) that you met at the conference, or perhaps you’re ready to start your first round of queries and need to rearrange and re-prioritize your list of agents after meeting with a few.

1. See the conference as a learning process, a jumping off point, not a capstone or end to your writing journey. I’m going to talk about this more below. Continue to carve away at that list and be a part of the literary community by being a good literary citizen. Attend local book launches, buy books from local bookstores, praise books that have moved you, and continue to grow as an artist by either joining a critique group, becoming a good critique partner, or getting professional feedback. The important thing is that you need at least one good author friend. Your spouse/partner/significant other/best friend/workout buddies are great. They’re beautiful people, I’m sure. However, they don’t know what it’s like to write a book and go through the often harrowing journey of trying to get published. Your author friend; however, knows exactly what that’s like.

  THE WRITING CONFERENCE AS A LEARNING PROCESS Because I’ve sat on the other side of the table: judging writing contests, exhibiting as a freelance editor, talking on panels and moderating, and taught writing for a long time, I hope to instill a great sense of self worth in authors by talking about the learning process that every conference, class or literary consult has to be. I often see authors coming back from a pitch session with a literary agent completely devastated. I can understand why. You’ve worked on this book for anywhere between 1-20 years. You were hoping that this one appointment with this agent would garner you a “yes” to submit your query and hopefully get your baby published and out to the world. However, literary agents don’t sign authors at conferences. If they said something to the effect of “Yes, send me pages,” they need you to follow the official process of querying them (and following their querying protocol exactly). If you instead received a “no” and they say that the work you’ve pitched to them doesn’t sound like something they can sell, it isn’t a personal affront to you, your work or your dedication to the craft. They simply know what they can pitch to acquiring editors and your work isn’t possible for them to sell. It’s actually good that you know this from a ten minute conversation versus going through the trouble of preparing (which hopefully takes you longer than ten minutes) your materials to send to them only to receive a rejection weeks or months later (or no response at all).  Because this is a learning process it’s important to not get jaded. That’s easier to say than to do. I’ve encountered several authors who are so discouraged that I hear them lambasting the industry (within earshot of industry folks), or appear to be fixated on believing that their publishing dreams are only possible via one very narrow course of action. If you feel yourself feeling this similar dark spiral, I’d suggest allowing yourself a moment to write out the dark feelings, tell them to a trusted friend or fellow author, then go forth and support someone else. Be a part of the solution by helping a struggling author whose book came out during the pandemic, blurb someone’s book who might not be receiving the limelight you think they ought to, and be a beacon of light in the darkness.  ADDITIONAL ADVICE ON UNHELPFUL ATTITUDES AFTER A CONFERENCE

1. Saying “I already have a day job, I don’t have time to do x or y.” If you were given good advice by an agent, editor or other industry professional, it’s helpful if you take time to consider this advice, weigh how you can fold this advice into your daily practice as an artist and refine your journey, even if it’s only dedicating a certain amount of days/minutes a week to working on your book/stories. If you want your publishing dream to come true, you will have to make sacrifices.
2. Arguing with an industry professional by pointing out places you’ve heard conflicting advice. We already know about the conflicting advice. However, if we’re taking the time to talk to you for free, it’s a safe assumption that we’re giving you the best information we have. Just listen and take notes. You can always disregard what you don’t like later. Just don’t waste that person’s time by arguing with them. It’s rude and it doesn’t allow you to absorb the important information you likely need. 
3. Believing that because your work wasn’t accepted during a pitch, or didn’t win a contest that it doesn’t have merit. Your book can change so much during a really clear revision process. I know my books change radically from rough draft to final draft. (Hirana’s War is a perfect example. I submitted a very rough third draft to my editor and when it came back from him I had to scrap the first 13-15 chapters, if I’m remembering correctly). I was gutted, but I knew he was right. Following his advice and pushing back the publication date allowed a very different and far more solid book to evolve. The most important thing you could ever do for your work is to invest in it. Whether that’s doing a manuscript swap, joining a critique group, attending a workshop or paying for a professional critique, making some effort is better than burying that manuscript in a drawer.
4. Never assume that because you’re a professor, content writer, lawyer, or other type of professional writer that it  automatically means you know how to write fiction. Of course, there are some translatable skills, but writing fiction means that you’re crafting a narrative in which you ultimately want the reader to care enough about your main character(s) to go on this journey with them through the entire length of your book. That requires a definite understanding of character intentions, point-of-view, and narrative structure that other domains of writing rarely utilize.

ACTIONS THAT WILL HELP YOU FEEL IN CONTROL AFTER A WRITING CONFERENCE

1. Identify if you’re really at a good stage to query literary agents. You need to have at least 3-4 revisions of your manuscript completed and the manuscript’s story structure needs to be very clear, especially its POV! If you don’t feel like you understand story structure, take a class or get a professional critique or writing coaching to help you understand this, if you can.
2. If all of the above feels really solid, get going on that query process. Get an impartial reader to look over your whole query package if you can’t afford a pro edit. Make certain that you’re personalizing your queries, following what is required by taking note of each individual literary agent’s requirements. Have a method of tracking what you send where so that you’re aware of who you’ve contacted and what they’ve requested from you, if applicable. If you want a bit more help in this process, you can use some online tools like Query Tracker or Duo Trope.
3. Attend workshops by literary agents (at least once a year) where they give sage advice about the querying process. One of my favourite workshops this year was by Howard Yoon. 
4. Join Jane Friedman’s mailing list. She has Electric Speed (free) and the Hot Sheet (first two issues free, but must pay after that) also. I subscribe to both and her advice and articles are completely invaluable!
5. Have regular meetings with authors, at least once a month, if you can. This will keep you current, supported and feeling loved by people who know what it’s like to live this life. It’s a great life, but it can be taxing at times. As Misty Copeland, one of my favourite dancers says, “Be strong, be fearless, be beautiful. Believe that anything is possible when you have the right people there to support you.” 
6. Have faith that your work will find the right home. If you have a flexible mindset about that home for your work, that will also mean that your chances for publication increase. It isn’t if you get published, but when. Though many less educated still sneer at indie publishing, if you are eager to still be published after querying for 18 months, it is worth pursuing, if you’re clear about your goals and budget for indie publishing. The beautiful thing about the modern age that we live in is that you have options. Embrace those options and be educated about them. 

I see a lot of authors walking away from conferences feeling inspired, but sometimes feeling despondent about everything they feel they have to do as a result. It saddens me when anyone walks away truly feeling horrible. I hope that the above are a combination of a balm for the soul and a loving kick in the pants. The most important thing is that I don’t want to undermine how hard this process is. However, it is totally worth it. It’s even more worthwhile because of the amazing friendships and community I’m so blessed to be a part of. I hope you’ll also soon feel the same way!   If you want to continue the conversation, please feel free to get in touch here.

  There are days when I show up to the page- more of them lately- and it’s a grind. I know I have to do it, because I see that I’ve marked up my writing calendar with how many chapters I need to revise a day and I’ve been working on Orphan Pods for so long, I just have to do it. Like a runner’s high, or a dancer’s euphoria, once I get my stride, I’m there, and it’s no longer painful. (Just for the record, I’ve never had a runner’s high, but the dance euphoria I definitely know). I recently had a dance workshop with Laura Dalava and Elias Travers that taught me a lot about pushing against what I think my natural boundaries are. I think it starts first with the heart, your feelings, breathing into the work, then with your body, your mind and everything that we think makes writing what it is. Laura said something incredibly profound: “A lot of what we do in Brazilian Zouk works against your body’s natural processes. You have to train your body to do something that feels unnatural so it becomes natural to you.” A lot of dance is just that: stretching and training the body to make it more resilient and pliable with what you need it to do. (Even if that means spinning with your head tilted sideways). Writing to me often starts with pen to paper. It’s so rudimentary. Sometimes it’s even typewriter keys to paper. I have to let myself do things badly. (A lot of my early progress in dance involves this too: I have to do things badly so I can learn, make mistakes and break free of my desire for perfection.) I also have to take feedback frequently. I often think that there aren’t any rules other than: feel, revise, feel again, revise again, seek outside input, and, you’ve got it, revise again. These can be rearranged in many different combinations, but those basics of embracing the art of revision have to be there.  I also have to give myself the space to see my characters, even my future characters hovering on the periphery, asking me things, needing me to breathe life into them as they lurk by the lake while I dance under the stars. I have to give myself time to sit down, cobble down a few lines in my tiny notebook before being whisked out on the dance floor again. A lot of the time, I’m drafting or revising when I’m dead tired in the morning, my eyes sandy, my brain foggy. However, I want to write a few lines because I want writers to know they’re not alone. I want them to embrace that they’re part of a larger community doing hard things and that they too can train their brains and bodies to do this important work. Another fun note: just because you have a few books published, the process doesn’t get easier. If anything, it can feel muddier because each manuscript requires something different from you. A different stretching and flexibility. You might ask, what if life gets really shitty and it feels like everything is standing in the way of writing? Write anyway. Just three lines. Or three stanzas, if you’re a poet. Let the words that are in your brain seep into the paper. Don’t lose that connection with the page, even if it’s your thumb typing into your phone. Some of my best writing has happened when things truly fell apart. I was able to go somewhere with my characters that it was hard to access without the rock bottomness of life. Lean into where you are and use it. I don’t mean this in an unhealthy way, but in a channeling, healing way. Trust that in revision you’ll sweep things where they need to go. There is a trust that happens with your art. For me, there’s a triad that stabilizes my writing life: reading/writing, dancing, singing. I need to practice all three to feel in harmony. In different seasons of my life I’m doing more dancing/writing with my singing being reserved to when I’m driving. Sometimes I’m doing more reading and less writing, but the point is that I use what is in my life and let it swirl around me to fill the well. Sometimes, when we don’t feel like writing it is resistance, fear, the oppressor telling us we can’t do it. At other times, it is that we’re depleted and our body is telling us to take care. At other times, it is simply something else holding us back that we need to write through, investigate and dig deep to investigate. (For more on this, check out Allie Pleiter’s blog.) Often, I find that at the root of the act of resistance is a fear that we will dig so deep that we’ll be lost and can’t find our way back. There has to be a trust built around our writing practice, just like there’s a trust I have to have with each lead I follow. I have to breathe with him, let it flow and trust that we’ll come out the other end safe and more knowledgeable than when we started. Most of the time, that trust alone carries me through that initial panic that I won’t be able to move the way that lead needs me to move, needs me to trust, hopes that I will care enough to surrender.

Ultimately, I believe writing requires a type of surrender and trust, not only in ourselves, but in the characters forming under our fingertips. 

When I wrote Hirana’s War, I was under a lot of pressure. I had just left traditional employment for the first time in my life, had started The Writing Consultancy and had a massive publishing deadline looming over me. Hirana’s War also had more parallels to my real life than any other book I’d written and that scared me. It look me longer to write scenes with one of my characters, Gulnaz, because she just wouldn’t speak to me. I had to leave town, book into an Air BnB in the woods in East Texas where I heard gunshots throughout the day and found myself in very unfamiliar territory. But it was exactly what I needed to hear Gulnaz and her feelings of disorientation. Those six days were some of the most productive of my writing life. They weren’t comfortable. I had many tearful moments of writing her scenes, but I also had other moments of walking in the woods, feeling some scary thing on my trail, only to turn and find nothing behind me. The further I walked toward Gulnaz, the less afraid I became, because I could see who she was instead of what I wanted her to be to fulfill my vision of the book. I had to let her take the reins and show me the hurt, the history, the joy, and why self destruction was a type of control, the only type she’d ever known. I don’t write to be successful. I write to experiment and push my boundaries. I also don’t dance to look beautiful or elegant (though, sometimes I hope I am). I want to feel, to love, to express myself and to join in a beautiful dance with another person and feel that connection that is so real and visceral. I like feeling like I can push both my body and mind and it’s probably what keeps me writing and dancing. They are my two true loves, since I was probably four years old and I doubt much will change that, even incredibly rocky seasons of life. If you’re still feeling like the writing is hard, find what you love, even if it’s making little swirls with coloured pencils on the paper. Seek the love, and go from there.

What I’m listening to: Simi’s “Duduke”

The sound of the muezzin wakes me before dawn most mornings in Senegal, West Africa. Whether it’s crackling from the speakers in Dakar, or echoing across the earth-coloured one and two story houses in Ziguinchor, that call to prayer anchors me as the sweltering, shimmering heat swells with the day and recedes at night. It isn’t unusual to eat dinner at 10 o’clock at night to the sounds of Cabo music and various mobile phones going off, football conversations shouted over everyone imploring me to “mange, mange” (eat more) even though I’m stuffed. It is a vibrant contrast to my often solo dinners at home in my two room flat. I’m living my life with the volume turned up, and loving every minute of it. Senegal is a country unlike any I’ve ever encountered and I was excited to experience life at the ground level, not as a tourist, but living amongst locals. I never expected going there for over two weeks would change my life in unprecedented ways and that coming back to the U.S. would feel so different. The trip reminded me of how far my life had come and yet, how far I’ve yet to progress. To give a brief itinerary, here was our travel trajectory:

• 2 days in Dakar with Yogu, my cousin’s husband’s (Idy’s) sister 
• transit from Dakar to Ziguinchor: we took the overnight ferry (a lovely 14 hour trip) and slept for most of it on the deck on mats while Cabo music played late into the night. 
• 7 days in Leona, Ziguinchor at Madame Gueye’s house 
• 2 days in Cap Skirring on the coast
• 2 more days in Leona before flying back to Dakar to return to the U.S.

In total, I took four planes to get to Dakar, and five planes to get back to Austin, TX. (I won’t do that again, but it was a really good experience learning my limits in air transport). I went to Senegal with a very knowledgeable guide: my cousin, Koumba who had lived there a total of three years and whose husband is Senegalese. As a result, we were always surrounded by family (which I loved) and it felt like the loving, joyous and celebratory family reunion I had never experienced before in my life.  I’ve often thought that my best ideas come from solitude, isolation and having space to do my own thing whenever and whatever I like. However, being with 15+ complete strangers who became family in a short amount of time taught me a lot about the power of love and connection. How it can trickle into your heart delicately, take a hold of you, and heal you in ways that are unprecedented. Every day I started my morning eating breakfast with either just Ousseynou  and I before we had a small gathering of Koumba, Idy and others hanging around, chatting, drinking tea (Ousseynou is a tea master of the highest order). I would write while everyone talked, usually in Wolof (of which I know maybe 10-15 words max) and sometimes French (my knowledge is VERY basic). I watched the cadence of how they spoke to each other and I was brought back to growing up in Japan and the warmth I had felt there from visitors to my parent’s house and how we’d eat and talk for hours, even though conversation was difficult, and required pulling out dictionaries to make sure we understood each other.  This was no different. We’d consult with translator Jen (who was far more proficient than google translate or my paper pocket dictionary), but we didn’t let a language barrier get in the way of getting to know each other. Every day we danced, sang, ate really delicious food, and I loved how Idy, his brothers and sisters watched me take everything in with awe and wonder. I truly felt like I was with some of the world’s most loving and beautiful people and it was heart-breaking to leave them behind after so many late nights dancing, singing, talking, eating and simply enjoying each other’s company. As an author, I have to live “under” things, experience them on both an observational and visceral level (if I can, without harming myself). I felt like being in Senegal was like living in technicolour, except instead of being by myself, traveling solo (like I normally have to) I was cushioned in a loving embrace with an elasticity beyond comprehension. No one thought it strange that I wanted to hug them every day, or that I’d randomly start humming a tune, or that when danceable music came on, I just automatically moved.  They’d simply move with me and we’d have an impromptu dance party, right there in the front room of Madame Gueye’s house. No one said to me: “Gosh, you’re spirited,” or “Wow, you’re friendly” or anything that felt like a back-ended compliment. I was teased about my snoring (though I had my own room for a good portion of the trip) and for my funny facial expressions when I dance, but it was all friendly and the bonding type of teasing that isn’t the same as trying to put someone down for the sake of conformity. Koumba once said that she felt more beautiful in Senegal because there isn’t the same beauty standards there as in the U.S. I felt that same thought immediately upon arrival, despite feeling underdressed most of the time. As an adolescent in Japan I had often been ashamed of my appearance (frizzy hair, tall and easily tanned were not considered beautiful, plus cystic acne didn’t help). I felt fully myself in Senegal, away from the trappings of American beauty standards, which I have to fight against on a daily basis.  However, having access to only a tiny mirror and having left everything except lipstick and basic toiletries behind, I had to accept what I looked like with virtually no make-up. I also shared a bathroom with anywhere from 7-10 people for the bulk of the trip which meant there was very little privacy in the way I’m used to in the U.S. After I came out of the shower, there were usually others waiting to use it. Hot showers didn’t exist (which didn’t matter 90% of the time because it was so warm…I even found a mid-afternoon shower had slightly warm water if it was a particularly hot day, at least for the first few minutes). If I did need warm water, I had to heat it on an open flame burner and lug a bucket to pour over my head, which felt like a total luxury. I had been warned to expect that life would be very different in Senegal: I would sleep on the ground, have zero hot showers, and I would need to tote a lot of the gluten free grains I needed for breakfast because gluten free bread didn’t exist where we were staying. However, none of this felt like a hardship, because I felt a part of the family, a cherished guest and everyone went out of their way to make me feel welcome. It was like coming home instead of entering a foreign country. The same hospitality I was raised to show guests in Japan was on shining display in Senegal. One of my favourite Sundays was when I had the chance to visit with the local women’s group that Jara and Nde Mbaye (Idy’s sisters-in-law) belong to. I was invited to dance with the women in their gorgeous finery while one of Idy’s brothers DJ’d and encouraged the women as they danced, calling them by name. It was an incredibly wonderful time to see all of these women dancing with each other, gathering and supporting each other. Instead of relegating me to spectator, I was asked to dance alongside them, take pictures and relish the moment, like I was a part of their group.  In the evenings, most nights in Ziguinchor, I’d sit on the roof, write in my notebook and take pictures of the sunset. I loved the feel of the warm, gravelly concrete around me, listening to Kine talk on her mobile while Princess sat on her lap. Kids were usually playing futbol below, yelling at each other, and the muezzin’s speakers would crackle with the call to prayer. I would write what I could before someone came upstairs to check on me. Sometimes, Idy or Ousseynou would come sit next to me and just breathe in the dusty air for a moment while the sun went down, before we were cloaked in darkness up there amongst the cement and rebar sticking out of the roof. The stars would come out and I couldn’t help thinking how beautiful it was. How I never thought my life could change so much in the face of so much loving company.

While I was in Senegal I listened to the entirety of Brene Brown’s Atlas of the Heart and furiously scribbled notes. A frequent question that I asked myself was: “What would it look like if I let go more?” I wrote this alongside the notes to a chapter in the book entitled “Why We Feel the Pain We Feel.” On the roof that evening I answered the question the chapter is asking: “I write about the love that I have and want to experience–as a way out of emotional pain—a type of soothing.”

Brene Brown talked about her family as having difficulty expressing deep emotions. Their motto was: “Suck it up and get it done and don’t talk about feelings.” I feel this sentiment a lot in America. I believe most countries have a culture that has to do with some aspect of suppressing our deep emotions. That’s why we love songs, dancing and reading stories. It lets us access what society wants us to suppress so that we’re more productive. More like machines and less like humans. As a result, it means we often turn to suppressing behaviours that Brene Brown describes here “I made everything around me so loud that it drowned out the sound…” This can lead to neglecting our inner voices asking for something different, something kinder.  I know what numbing looks like and how I’ve suffered when I turn to numbing instead of working through tough emotions. As a result, I’ve been on a path to doing the inner work to curb activities that numb my ability to feel, though I still fall into old patterns of running from the hard stuff. (Staying out late, dancing?)  When I read this chapter, I asked myself “What pattern needs to die?” In answer to my question, I loved this quote from Atlas of the Heart 

“the sharp edges let us know where we end and others begin-they bring grace and clarity.”

Seeing those patterns and sharp edges lets me know where I’m treading too thin, running too fast and wearing myself thin because I think that is better than facing the pain. A note I wrote to myself after pondering this chapter, while next to the sea in Cap Skirring: “Lean in and lock eyes with it. Don’t choose a life of suffering and exhaustion.” I scribbled this as the glistening ocean roared in front of me. At that moment, I realized that I had been burned out for months and it was why I had been struggling before leaving for Senegal. “In the midst of struggle, the center will hold if and only if we can feel the edges” (Brown, Atlas of the Heart). Brown goes on to talk about how we need precise language for what we’re feeling and that language “will help shape what you’re feeling…it gives emotional granularity.” Each person needs 27-28 emotions to accurately convey their human experience and she goes through and maps these emotions in Atlas of the Heart. I sat on the steps of my hut in Cap Skirring when I copied down Brown’s invocation to readers “with an adventurous heart, and the right maps, we can travel anywhere and never fear losing ourselves, even when we don’t know where we are.” I dove into the ocean an hour later, got tumbled in the waves as Sitor was trying to hold me up, even though I knew I needed to let go of his hand, I didn’t want to. I was afraid he was going to get swept away. Instead, I got tumbled and scraped up my right knee fairly badly. I rose out of the waves, bloody but okay. It wasn’t until everything was scabbing over that the pain really set in. 

Let your self doubt die.

Before I left for Senegal my therapist, Andy, said it was important for me to look at the period of burn out that I was in denial about as a type of death. I needed to take the space to ask myself what needs to die? in order for me to move on. At different stages of our lives we have death transitions (death of loved ones and animals, habits, geographic moves, etc…). Though reluctant at first, I contemplated and wrote what had to die in order for me and my art to live. I didn’t realize I was creating a map for this stage of a type of death transition. For a long time, I had doubted that I needed to ask for help, that I needed more love in my life, and had to follow my instincts about hunches that I didn’t have a ton of data support. However, in a sea of pure belonging and kindness, I found my heart healing in ways I hadn’t estimated were possible, because I hadn’t realized the depth of my broken heartedness and grief until I was separated, by several thousand miles, from everything that had broken my heart in 2021.  “True belonging doesn’t require us to change to be who we are, but to truly embody who we are. If people don’t know who we are, then we can’t truly be ourselves” (Brene Brown). This is especially hard if you’ve experienced any measure of trauma, because you might, like me, have created maladaptive coping skills to publicly display the sides that community and family are the most likely to accept. But, in Senegal I was too tired and in awe of everything to be anything other than myself. I didn’t have the time to build unhealthy walls. I felt so comfortable I didn’t want to.  Now, this doesn’t mean there weren’t moments of stress, misunderstanding, and cultural clashes. There were, but they were communicated, and I moved through the feelings. It meant that my ability to write was suddenly opened up in the wake of having so much life to observe, interact with and a myriad of people to love and accept love from. (This is familial love I’m talking about here!) We did have a few marriage proposals from complete strangers, which was flattering, comical, but I had to graciously turn them down. There was an awesome moment where Idy politely declined a marriage proposal on my behalf. This guy already had two wives and asked, “What’s wrong, is she difficult?” Idy nodded his head, very kindly, “Oh, yes, very difficult.” The man stood up, brushed off his hands. “Oh, no, I don’t need another difficult wife.” I laughed so hard when my cousin, Koumba, told me. She and I had quite a few laugh out loud moments, many of them because of things I was doing, or not doing. Instead of feeling embarrassed (most of the time), I tried to be kind to myself and accept that I’m not going to know everything. The act of having more grace with myself made everything easier: the writing, relating, and most of all the loving. Senegal brought a new definitive focus to my life. My whole life’s purpose isn’t just about writing, dancing or editing books. I believe my life is truly about love and belonging and hopefully helping everyone I encounter, who wants it, to feel loved and like they belong. Writing, editing, dancing are a part of that journey, but they aren’t the destination. I realize the destination will likely be (and always has been) to celebrate the hearts and minds of everyone I encounter. Going to Senegal taught me just how important that was and helped to heal my very broken heart. Now, I’m hoping that the healing can continue so that when I go back I can learn more lessons that are waiting for me on those blessed shores.

I’ve decided to challenge myself this year and endeavor to learn a new dance that I’m completely unfamiliar with: Brazilian Zouk! Several months ago as I stood with the other beginners, anxious to be with the advanced dancers further up in the giant dance space at Inspired Movement, I reminded myself to slow down, breathe and enjoy the sensation of learning, of doing something badly and embracing constant revision. Since I primarily partner dance, it means I’m not only monitoring my own body, but how it flows and moves with my partner. When I cut out, daydream or become unfocused, I have to revise again. My instructor recently said, “Remember that often as dancers we’re afraid to mess up and step on someone’s toes. Just go ahead and do that. Make those mistakes, that’s how you learn. It’s better to do that than to be so careful that you don’t step and never learn.” That hit me like a lightning bolt! Aha! That is my problem as a dancer, and often as a writer as well. I’m so careful with my prose that I won’t make the bold choices a narrative requires until later revisions. Occasionally, that’s after a lot of prodding from critique partners and editors alike! The relationship between an editor and author is not unlike the dynamic between lead and follow in Brazilian Zouk. A recent workshop with Gui Prada illuminated this dynamic so clearly for me. It was particularly revelatory because Gui focused so much on guiding us to rethink how we dance, the energy we communicate to one another emotionally, and how our bodies interacted with each other based on specific touch points. Gui broke down and focused on the fundamentals of touch and interaction and invited the follows to give feedback to the leaders. This structured feedback lead to a beautiful synergy and a much more enjoyable dance experience for me, because I felt listened to, empowered to say what wouldn’t work for my body, and I didn’t have to worry that a lead was going to be offended that I was trying to do her/his job for him. Similar to partner dancing with a lead and follow, the world of writing and publishing requires both an author and editor to make a good book. There’s a delicate, but necessary balance of give and take on both author and editor, which is also an integral part of the relationship between lead and follow in dance, which I never fully understood before Gui’s workshop. Incorporating feedback involves an emotional connection and receptiveness in both individuals for a work to reach its full potential. A connection in text and also in dance cannot be made without your emotions being involved. When you revise, you have to seek out the love in your manuscript, like dancers gravitate toward movement patterns in beloved songs that weave a narrative. At the end of the day, writing and dancing are both about creating a story. One of the main tenets of Gui’s Leaders Intensive Training (which can apply to more than just Brazilian Zouk dancing) was “the mindset: the ability and willingness to adapt.” What does this have to do with writing and revision? Honestly, everything. The bulk of inquiries I receive from new authors consist of individuals who have been laboring on their book/stories anywhere from 1-10+ years. The longer they’ve labored alone, and the less they’ve had outside input, the more their idea of their book’s vision has calcified. It’s similar to a comment from a lead I was struggling to dance with after the workshop who kept lamenting “This move works so well when I’m dancing by myself. I don’t understand what the problem is.” I stopped dancing and grinned, wondering for a moment if he’d been listening during the 10+ hours of instruction that weekend. “Loads of moves work well when we’re dancing by ourselves. But, that’s not what we’re doing here. This is Brazilian Zouk: it requires both of us to make the dance,” I said. The act of revision cannot always be done alone in front of your computer screen any more than practicing my dance moves in front of a mirror will train me to dance with a lead. I have to go to class, take private one-on-one lessons, and attend workshops. But, most of all I have to practice the art of revision with the person in front of me. The reason I bring this up is because I’ll meet with authors (for their free consult with me) who will sometimes scoff at my suggestions that they:

• Need to be flexible with their vision of their book, because it will be hard to sell or pitch in its current state,
• Must take writing classes, workshops or work with a writing coach because their prose isn’t at the necessary level to construct a compelling narrative. However, with work their story can get there,
• Need a community of writers, or at least one writing pal to confide in outside of the editor’s relationship so that they have a peer to collaborate with and use as a sounding board for their developing ideas.

Why are dancers, musicians and actors continually taking classes and workshops without a moment’s hesitation, but some writers think that simply getting a short critique from an established author, a partial edit of their manuscript, or attending an occasional weekend workshop once every couple of years will somehow increase their skill level as a writer and artist? I’ve been asked a lot lately whether simply getting an MFA is the answer. There aren’t any easy answers. If you want to get better, you have to dig deep and do the internal as well as external work to examine your mindset about your art. Assume nothing, because your effort won’t guarantee you become a star in the literary scene any more than attending every dance workshop out there will guarantee I become the best partner to everyone I dance with. There is always something I’ll have to work on and I’m okay with that. Gui talked about the different aspects of his body he had to work on in the past (his head drifting toward his shorter follow) and the continuous work of keeping his left hand from squeezing his partner’s hand. He was open to the experience of listening to feedback from his dance partners, and as a result, his dancing truly looks like pure magic. Most importantly, the people dancing with him are having a good time too. They don’t look stressed because he meets them where they are. I strive to be that editor that always meets people where they are. Likewise, I want to be that author that meets my critique partners, editors and collaborators where they are and has a flexible mindset about where my stories can go without having expectations or assumptions about things I have zero control over. The writers that I see make the most progress are the ones who understand the power of their mindset, and who ask a lot of important questions, like:

• Is it worthwhile to keep submitting to agents after 10+ rejections?
• How is the feedback I’ve received from beta readers different from the feedback from a professional editor?
• How will my story concept sell?
• What in my writing needs the most attention right now?
• If I get a professional edit on my manuscript, will it increase my chances of landing a literary agent or my book gaining traction as an indie publishing venture?
• How can I revise my work myself after a professional edit?
• How can I make my book read like __________?

It isn’t a weakness to be aware that you can always be better.

My answers to a lot of these questions vary with the author, but they all involve embracing the partnership that’s essential in the hauntingly beautiful dance of writing. A few tenets of Gui’s teaching that especially felt relevant to embracing the art of revision in dance:

• Assume nothing-leads need to go into the dance without an agenda
• When the follower gives feedback about what feels good for them in their bodies, it gives the leader a chance to meet them where they are and, most importantly, adapt
• Adaptation is maybe the main element of our work
• The process of graciously accepting feedback has the potential to create great leaders if they are open to receiving and incorporating
• A process of permission and revision when concepts are broken down slowly into steps that built on each other (lateral, viradinha, basic, body rolls, sways, pressure points, etc…)

Modifying the above for writing fiction and narrative non-fiction:

1. Assume nothing about where your writing has to go. Instead start the act of revising with goals for submission, but understand there are specific points you’ll need to concentrate on first before that submission. (You’re likely going to need to revise upwards of 3-5 times or more.)
2. Authors need to communicate and ask questions of those giving them feedback, especially if they’re paying for edits. Mention what feedback is helping you to improve, and notice what is harder to hear and why. Be open to discussing that so that your editor knows how they can help.
3. Editors and authors need clear communication and that can be hard if authors aren’t attending events or booking in time with editors to make that happen. (Just like I pay to go dance class so I have access to my instructor, similarly authors can do the same).
4. Accept that anyone who takes the time to give you feedback has taken a lot of time and thought to give that feedback (I hope!) and accept it graciously. You don’t have to revise everything they address, especially if it feels wrong in your gut, but do consider it before rejecting it. Give it three days, at the very least. The process of accepting feedback will make you a better writer. Never let your ego win, because you’ll lose precious opportunities to become the artist you dream of being.
5. Give yourself permission to go back to the basics and understand them: POV, narrative structure, and various voicings in fiction and memoir. Re-read and analyze, imitate (as an exercise) “the greats” that you love: their dialogue and narration. Know the terminology and how it functions in the genre(s) you’re writing in. Going back to the basics is a great way for me to anchor myself after a big edit with a lot of feedback. It’s okay to get feedback that says “not yet ready” or “not yet there.” It isn’t personal, it’s professional and it’s an opportunity for me to stretch after dusting myself off!

What makes dancing with another person engaging, at the end of the day, is the connection. That connection cannot be reached without constant and inventive revision. It’s an art, this act of subjecting your body and mind to a process of adaptation. Nevertheless, the end result is absolutely beautiful. Especially when after dancing for only a few months, you triumphantly declare: I can do more than the basics! The same rings true when you’ve applied a flexible mindset to your stories and the feedback you receive. Because you’ve listened to feedback, you’ve created an emotional connection between the reader and your characters. Instead of your story feeling basic and clunky, your words flow. The voice of your prose is engaging and people forget they’re reading a story and instead live inside the carefully constructed world you’ve created for them. Your words, your experience, or your fiction has captured that experience and transported the reader there. I want to encourage you to embrace the art of revision and see the possibilities your work has. It isn’t if your work gets published, but when. Take out your writing notebook (if you don’t have one, get one) and start jotting down what your vision is for your writing life. Embrace that vision and aim today to work toward seeing what opportunities for revision there are to make that vision come to life. Give yourself permission to step on a few toes and move in the wrong direction so that you can eventually dance to the music and truly enjoy it.

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 Join me next month for the first installment of my regular human-interest blog series: “What’s Your Dance Story” where I interview and converse with amateur Latin dancers and pro teachers about what inspired them to join the world of dance. Subscribe here to receive this monthly story in your inbox. Interested in being interviewed? Go here for more information.

I don’t know when I first heard the phrase “the show must go on” but it was somewhere between singing with a Baptist Choir/Musical group in third grade (when I thought I was definitely cruising toward adulthood because I could swim in the deep end without my Mum around on the military base pool) and dancing my feet off in No, No, Nannette in 7th grade during summer in a sweltering California un-airconditioned theatre in a full wool ‘20s drop waist sweater. Yeah, cruel. But, the show must go on, eh? Human suffering be damned. There’s something beautiful about pushing on through the muck and saying “the show must go on” except when the show is killing you. Or, slowly killing you. I came to this conclusion after three days of coughing my lungs out after an allergic reaction to something I ate (cross contamination at its finest) combined with months of aggregate exhaustion (I’m sure), poor sleeping habits, and running too hard for too long. I wanted to believe I could keep pushing my body, but that wise voice in my head was saying, “Is singing karaoke until midnight, really the best choice on a weeknight?” Sure! Because it kept me from wallowing at home over my break-up (well, let’s count that as two break-ups from two lads I really fancied), losing a beloved pet who’s been with me my entire adult life and three global moves, working two jobs and having to tell one of them I couldn’t handle the workload and hoping I’d made the right decision, all despite my screaming body telling me something definitely had to give. Grief and “powering through” are not good friends. Grief really demands its own type of justice and though I am very good at externally looking like I have my shit together; internally- and everyone who knows me well can see, that is not the case. It’s harder to grieve when you feel like you’ve been hurt by someone who was part of your circle of trust and it feels like they’ve exited stage left just before a duo together in front of a sold-out audience. No, all of that is swept away and you’re handed a different sheet of music, minutes before you appear on a different stage, in a different musical and you’re not entirely certain your scratchy throat can hold a tune any longer. Because it’s all become too much.  I’m amazed at the American, even more so, the Southern capacity to go on in the face of serious setbacks. Yet I also understand people who feel they can’t go on and need to hunker down and have a time out. I’ve found I volley between extremes, which is natural, but not pleasant. I seem to be either very good at:

1. running fifty miles per hour when faced with such colossal let-downs as to question the fabric of my ability to trust myself to,
2.  shutting completely down and only letting a small handful of friends into what is up.

Because grief has been my companion before, I decided to not let myself be alone this time. As often as possible, I wanted to be out, doing things, working through the grief and not home letting the thought clouds circle like some evil Dementor out to get me. This was a good initial strategy. It did help me to go on, grade student essays, meet editing deadlines and finish revision # 4 of Orphan Pods.  Now, post holidays: I wish that I had been gentler with myself. There’s this lingering phrase at the back of my mind- the show doesn’t always need to go on. Because, I’m not a show. I’m a person.  At the end of my life, no one is going to be rolling any credits. I won’t say to myself “Gosh I wish you’d stayed out late that night, or done that ….or…..” instead, I think I will wish I’d enjoyed my life just a little, but not at the expense of my health. From here I would like to go gracefully into the future, not rocketing forward without any brakes, attempting to “grin and bear it.” I’d like to be able to ponder what it is to lose a lot, more than I ever expected, in such a short amount of time and to not blame myself for that loss. That will require some powerful meditation, prayer, walking, and time to talk one-on-one with loved ones. I’ve been thinking a lot about a related topic: how a lot of the catastrophes in our life aren’t our fault. They’re often the results of choices others have made. Sometimes, in an attempt to create control (when so little is in our control) self-blame can be very convenient. I’d like to instead do a certain measure of non-judgmental observation. Look at my choices, observe where other’s choices affect me and simply let those observations be there in the ether without having to label or judge them. Instead of seeing us in a cosmic drama where one of us has to win, there isn’t any winning, just the two of us being.  We leave the stage, instead, for a much more realistic forest. The tree cover is thick, ferns aplenty and a mist obscures the distance. If I keep moving forward, at whatever pace I can handle today, I’m able to see the sunlight peeking through the mist. It’s radiant, but it isn’t dependent on me doing a particular tap dance. No, it’s always there. Sometimes I just have to wait and be patient for the mist to move.  I hope that we’ll be more mindful of our needs in this new, beautiful year. Instead of feeling like the show has to always go on, I hope that we’ll occasionally take rain checks and wander through the forest instead, content to harmonize with ourselves and find balance in all the seasons of our lives. I think we all need moments of pausing, even daily. Our art often demands it, but more importantly our souls require that introspection and connection with our deepest needs.

Today’s blog post is brought to us by Jenifer Denison, a former Peace Corps volunteer and current Publicity & Marketing Assistant at Murasaki Press. Ramadan (koor gui) has started in Senegal, where she now lives permanently. Enjoy her incredible story and experiences.

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Fasting for koor gui is fasting of the whole body; mouth, eyes, ears, etc, not just the abstinence of food and water.   Koor gui has begun. The new crescent moon is visible signaling fasting will begin the next day. No more breakfast sandwich stands set up on nearly every corner. Walking through the sand-filled streets you don’t smell the omelets being made, the fresh café touba being poured or the fresh bread being delivered to the boutiques and breakfast stands. I miss the stand that sets up right next to where I’m staying, to the right of the palms and in front of a defunct dibiterie, with its stereo blasting Senegalese pop and 90’s American hits Monday thru Saturday. The beignet sellers come out in the evenings instead of the mornings now while most are fasting. The days are a bit sleepy and you can see lips become dry with the absence of consuming water.  Just before 7pm there’s a long line of people waiting to buy fresh bread at the bakeries for their upcoming break-fast. The bakeries change their hours during the month so it can be difficult to find bread if you’re not Muslim, or not fasting. All the fruit sellers have dates now, the first morsel most fasters enjoy when they break their daily fast and replenish some energy. The supermarkets are promoting Ramadan baskets filled with powdered milk, coffee, dates, thiakry and other nourishment.  The beach is less busy than usual with fewer tourists because of COVID-19 and the shrimp, fish and rice sellers aren’t selling during Ramadan. There’s always that light sea mist in the air and you can always see the shape of a few pirogues full of fishermen out at sea. Around 17:30 there are still plenty of people running, playing football, doing squats and pushups, getting in their exercise with a cool ocean breeze just before consuming their first calories since early dawn. It’s the best time to expend the decreased energy people have during the month. All the bustling of people out and about builds during the last stretch before the day’s fasting is over. But, things are easy here on the peninsula compared to most of the country inland. During my Peace Corps service in northern Senegal many people gave up exercise for the month or only were active at night, after ndogou, because of the oppressive heat. I can remember sitting down outside on a colorful plastic mat laid out on the hot cement in front of the house. The whole family was spread out; the women preparing bissap (sweet hibiscus juice) and hot water for coffee and tea, the kids being sent to buy bread, the men tiredly waiting for the clock to hit that minute of relief, and me feeling the heat of the day start to soak through from the cement beneath, through my thin cotton dress and into my already exhausted body.  It can feel a bit lonely when almost everyone around you is taking part in the holy month and you, the foreigner, are not. The only real expectation I’ve been aware of is to respect those who are fasting by not flaunting the things that they are abstaining from. I’ve tried fasting before as an act of solidarity, but it doesn’t equate to the real thing.  In the first few days of Ramadan, I thought to myself, I need to make sure I have travel plans for next year. But then, I retracted, how can I be so negative when I love so many things about this time of year? Breaking the fast with my host family I had for two years in the hot and dusty north is one of my favorite memories. I love eating breakfast foods at dinner time. Seeing the spiritual dedication and solidarity of Senegalese Muslims is truly remarkable and I am grateful to be able to witness it. It makes me ask myself: what I am dedicated to? What part of my life do I act in this same diligence that so many people in the world do this every lunar year?  As the sun goes down this evening, I’ll be able to take part in this short wave of energy before the hour of relief arrives. As my fasting partner and I return from our evening run, I’ll be able to greet all the familiar faces, buy some beignet if I want, and prepare for our own ndogou.

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Jenifer Denison served as a Peace Corps volunteer in northern Senegal from 2018-2020. After completing her Master’s degree in Public Administration in Portland, OR she is back in Senegal drinking attaya and eating breakfast sandwiches. Email her at jeniferrdenison@gmail.com or check out more photos from her service on instagram @secondtrysenegal