analysis of herstory

There’s a lot of good blogtalk going on right now. First of all, the conversation is hopping in the storywriter’s post. Genre conventions are being debated in front of a student audience (I think I need to be brushing up on my lit theory!) over at Jennifer Echols’s blog. The validity of my anecdotal statistic of “I sold in three years. Hear that’s about average” from my FAQ post is being questioned at Shalanna’s blog (and for several posts after). And, finally, Julie Ramsey cuddled with Sting.

And now we’re going to talk about what I learned from my path to publication. As I was typing it out yesterday, I realized that it’s pretty easy to see the origins of all of my biggest writing mantras.

1. “Join a writer’s organization.” Everything i needed to knwo abotu being a novelist, I learned from TARA.

2. “Contests are a crapshoot.” Yeah, I won the Maggie and the Molly and stuff. But I never finalled in the Golden Heart. My Golden Heart scores were pretty much always abysmal.

3. The always-present “Get an agent.” I waited 10 months for a form rejection from a editor on a requested partial, while well-agented friends of mine sold to her left and right. I wasted several months in a futile back and forth with an editor when a good agent would probably have a) realized that this was never going to turn into a marriage and b) there are other fish in the sea for me to be submitting to. Finally, once I got an agent, I sold in a matter of days.

4. “Find a good critique partner.” One of my critique partners let me live in her house. Another pitched my book, sight unseen, to a pile of industry folk and started the buzz. Its corollary, “Good isn’t necessarily the same set as published”: neither of mine are published (yet!!!!)

Someone else might have a whole different group of experiences that have colored their opinions about the industry and how a writer should operate within it. These have been my experiences, and so these are my views. I’m interested to hear Jaci’s.