First day of MFA Summer Residency

Today was a great day to ease my MFA program for our first day of classes.  We had a discussion about Kafka’s The Castle.  It was our book-in-common for the whole group (we are divided into genres based on our focus area but today we were all together.)   It was really interesting to hear so many people share amazing insights into what they had gleaned from reading the book.   It was also great to hear how many of them struggled to make it through the thing as well.  When they started discussing existentialism in the book, I had to try to reach back to Philosophy 101 to make the connections.  Good mind-stretching!

The other cool thing we did today was to hear each of the faculty for the summer residency read part of their own work.  Wow!  What a talented group of people!  The person for my focus area read a couple of her upcoming picture books (one is scheduled to be published in 2017…such a long time away!) and they were so cute.  I can’t wait to buy them down the road. 

There are places for students to sign up to do 5-minute readings of their own works-in-progress. The workshop leader for my genre was encouraging several of us newbies to the program to put our names down when the 1^st years get the opportunity to sign up tomorrow.  She said it would be good practice since she often has to do readings for school groups, etc, and it is wise to start getting experience with doing it.    I see her point.  Not sure if I’ll do it though.   I timed a portion tonight that might be interesting to read then remembered that I am horrible at doing different accents and one of the characters needs to have a British-sounding one. 

So, don’t be a chicken like me.  Read your work out loud to others!  :)

The Personalized Query Reject

I've started sending out query letters (slowly...only three so far) to agents to get a feel for what I need to work on.

QueryTracker.net (QT) is awesome in keeping track of who/when/what happened when you query agents.  You can sort the agents in their system in a variety of ways, search for agents that meet certain criteria (i.e. represents your genre), and see comments from who else has queried them and been rejected/selected.

For my first agent of this round, I selected one person at a top listed agency.  (Only a query letter.)  I got a quick rejection the next day.

For the second one, I sent the query letter to an agent I was very impressed with at a conference I attended.  She is one of the most queried agents.  It took a month to hear back but I got a personalized rejection letter!  Woohoo!  Through QT, I had been monitoring when other people heard back from her and they were getting one-day turn-arounds.  So, the fact that it took a month and it had my name instead of "Dear Author" was encouraging.  Plus, she added an extra line up front about something I said in my letter.  It was probably the nicest rejection letter ever.  I assume it is the next level of rejection form-letters but since it had the extra line and my name, I'm counting it as personalized.

For the third one, I am still waiting.  I selected a colleague of an agent I had a one-on-one with.  (I really liked the agent I met with but she had said at the time that the story was something that would appeal more to her colleague.)  The agency says to give them three months since they ask for the first three chapters.

If nothing else, I am feeling better about my query letter that it made it over one well-known agent's immediate reject pile.

The Awesomeness of Workshops

In case you’re new to writing, or you don’t write but I guilted you into reading my blog, I wanted to talk about the awesomeness of workshops.

In education, workshops often refer to a training session where you learn about something new or get to understand something at a deeper level.  However, in writing circles and programs, it refers to something different.  It is where you bring a passage you wrote to share with others who will read very carefully and critique it.  It goes beyond people saying that they liked what you wrote and identifying the strengths and weaknesses of what you wrote.  In turn, you do the same for the others.

The first time one participates in a workshop, it can be very scary.  You are taking your work that you put so much blood, sweat and tears (well, hopefully not that much blood…) into writing and you are letting people criticize it.   I’ve had workshops from one to forty pages and everywhere in between.  They’ve all proven useful.  (I’ve blogged separately about the one-on-one session where my whole book was read…loved that…but not what I’m talking about here.)

I went to a couple workshops at conferences several years ago where 15 people and two agents listened to my first two pages.  After hearing the agents’ comments, I was ready to curl up into a fetal position in my hotel closet.  However, that experience helped me to figure out how to make my opening stronger. 

Subsequent workshops I’ve done have been online.  I really like the time that particular approach gives to digest the feedback before responding.  Some of the harsher sounding feedback I received has been the most helpful…although it took a few days of pouting for me to appreciate it.

By having multiple people reading and commenting on your passage, you can get a feel for how others would read and interpret what you wrote.  I looked at each person in my workshop cohorts as representing ten people each that might read my story – kind of like how the Nelson ratings have representative people that determine how well a TV show is doing.   

Why have one person represent 10 views? For me, it helped to realize that the one person I could have thought was crazy for thinking about something in my book would not be the only one to think that if my book made it to the general public.  Otherwise, it might be too easy to dismiss a comment from a lone individual.

On the other hand, if one person out of 15 says one thing and the rest say something completely different, then perhaps you need to listen to the majority and how to tweak something.  The real challenge occurs when the group is split evenly about an issue in the passage.

The main challenge with workshops is that the readers are only seeing a limited portion of the book.  As a result, when my whole book was read, there were repetitive sections, there were repetitive sections, and there were repetitive sections due to each chunk having received separate feedback.  ;)  Keep an eye out for that issue so you don’t fall victim to it. 

Otherwise, remember – Workshops are Awesome!

BookCon Recap

I loved BookCon!

It was so much fun.  Well, okay, when I was waiting in some of the huge lines to see panels, get autographs, or go to the restroom…not so fun.  But, even then, there were awesome people to talk to in line including a lot of other aspiring writers.

So, quick recap of the first ever BookCon.

I woke up around six and the BookCon app already had teens messaging that they were in line.  What???  Well, I was too old to do that so I left my hotel around eight-ish and was in line by 8:30am to get my badge since I was pre-registered.   That line went quickly and they were able to scan my registration code from my phone so I could get my badge. (Phew!  Forgot to print it out.)

The line to get in was huge by that time.  BookCon opened at 9am for us regular folk.  My portion of the line didn’t move until about 9:15 due to the size of the crowd.  The front book stalls were already picked over for their free books. (Those teens – I tell ya, they are quick!)

There was a HUGE line to get the tickets for certain autographs.   But, there were others that did not require the tickets and were in the publisher’s booths instead. 

In the end, I got about five books autographed in person at the booths.  Including Cary Elwes,  (Side point - He is so charming.  We need to get his character from Psych, Pierre Despereaux a spin-off.  In the mean time, I'm looking forward to his book As You Wish coming out this fall.) 

Jeff Kinney (Diary of a Wimpy Kid) was a total sweetie.  He was so patient when I realized I had turned off my phone.  I also got a photo with him too but I'll post the one of just him here.

I also went to a couple of book panels that were a lot of fun. There was a New Adult panel on Bad Boys in novels.   The authors were hilarious and we got one book from each.  I also went to the Dystopian YA panel lead by Veronica Roth (Divergent) and got a couple of chapter samples. 

In all, it was a great day for $30.  Twelve free books, 3 chapter samples, 5 autographs and a ton of memories. (Ah, isn’t that sweet!)

I hear next year they are thinking about making it two days.  Sounds like a great plan since there were some things I didn’t even try to go to but wanted to see.

Random Tidbit and Decisions on Workshop Submission

Tidbit from conferences I've attended - Agents have said that they sometimes get very well-polished first couple of chapters with a query letter but when they ask for a partial or full, the rest of the writing is a mess.  So, we need to make sure our whole book is ready to go.

And now to my dilemma -
My challenge today is to select 5,000 words for my last workshop of the OWC program.  Do I resubmit the first couple of chapters to get more feedback on it after making some small changes to it or do I submit a portion later in the book that hasn't been read as often and has larger chunks that I've added to it?

Benefits to submitting the early stuff - I would have another read of the first two chapters which would help with submissions to agents.
Problems with it - I've had it read many times before.  Each time it gets better but what about the other portions?

Benefits to submitting the later stuff - Although it has also been read, there are some new portions that I added based on feedback I received. If an agent wants to read more material, it would be good to have more polished portions throughout the book.
Problems with it - If I can't get an agent past the beginning portion of the book, the rest won't matter anyway.

Off to go decide now...

Stanford's OWC - Applications for the new cohort due June 6, 2014!

So, I've already mentioned this program several times but you have less than a month to apply for the new cohort.  If you've been thinking about it - Do it!  It is awesome.  I love it.  The other people in it were smart, fun, impressive people.  The teachers were incredible. And each course had a workshop component where you get feedback on your own writing in addition to other valuable writing exercises.

Here is the information from the email I received this week for Stanford's OWC:

"Applications are now being accepted. The deadline to apply is June 6, 2014, 5:00pm PDT. The application details are listed below. Please don't hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.

• Register for OWA 001 and pay the non-refundable $80 application fee on the Continuing Studies website.
  
• Complete your application packet (download here) and email it to: continuingstudies@stanford.edu as one scanned file. We no longer accept applications by postal mail or fax.
  
• Your application must include the following (incomplete applications will NOT be accepted):
  • A completed Application Checklist
  • References and Education
  • Policies and Honor Code
  • A Statement of Purpose
  • A Writing Sample (3000 - 6000 words)
  • Sample Classroom Feedback

Application materials will NOT be returned to the applicant. Please email the completed application packet to:continuingstudies@stanford.edu. Upon receipt of your full packet and verification of enrollment OWA 001, you will receive a confirmation email.
For more information about the Online Writing Certificate Program in Novel Writing, please visit:csp.stanford.edu/writingcertificate."

Writing Update

Book 3 is now up to 70,000 words.  Woohoo!

Now, I'm not saying it's any good…because it's not.  But my goal for this weekend is to "finish" the first horrible draft so I at least know what is going to happen in it and then I can officially start plotting out book 4 (even thought I've been working on it already too.)  By doing these drafts now, I know some things I have to add in book 1 to make sure they aren't deux ex machina when I need them in book 3-5.

One of the things about each of my  "books" in my "series"  (quotes are due to them not being official books in a series yet…aka published) is that they each take place over a small slice of the main character's life.  I really appreciated how one of my writing teachers at Stanford's OWC shared that there is the arc of the character's whole life (picture an arc like a rainbow) but our stories are a slice out of it.  In my case, my series will look at a chunk of Kayla's life over five years but each individual book is a very small slice within that already small part of her life. 

Now, some of the stuff that comes before the slice that I'm sharing is important to understand the character but I can't cram the whole first part of the arc into the beginning of the story.  I need to fit in little tidbits here and there so that the reader can better appreciate the slice they are reading.  (Why do I suddenly want a slice of pizza now???)

I have a 5,000 word rewrite from book 1 due on Sunday for my One-on-One Tutorial.  It is so hard to select which portion to submit.   I love getting feedback on pieces of the story from people that are genuinely interested in seeing it become a stronger piece of fiction.

I was talking to a person who had never done a workshop before in writing.  She was concerned about people taking her ideas or being too harsh.  I can understand those concerns but once you get that feedback and use it, you start to realize the huge difference it can make in your writing.  So, I encourage all of you to find a group of aspiring writers willing to do workshops where you "sandwich" the criticisms between praise.  

BTW- Having friends and family read your writing is not the same as a workshop.  People who are not reading your work-in-progress (WIP) from a writing perspective do not necessarily know how to comment on your writing and the flow of your story.    They might point out typos but they won't necessarily point out the holes in the plot, the confusing portions, the overly verbose sections, or other issues.  You need people that can be critical but still supportive.  

My desire to keep that type of workshop-circle-of-writers is one of the reasons I wanted to pursue the MFA.  It sounds like workshops are a large portion of the brief residencies and I am looking forward to new people reading my works-in-progress while keeping in contact with OWC folks too.