Writer for a Weekend

 During MLK weekend (1/13-1/15/12) I was fortunate enough to attend a Novel Revision Retreat facilitated by Darcy Pattsion at the beautiful Camp Allen.  I had heard about the retreat from Vonna Carter over a year ago. I saw her highlighted shrunken manuscript and was blown away. So when Darcy came back to Texas, I jumped at the chance to attend.



The group minus Linda Leschak, who I stole this picture from.



I had HIGH expectations for this retreat. I expected to come home with a completely revised version of my new YA ms and I expected my life as a writer to be forever changed. Well, of course those expectations were ridiculous. Only one of them was met.

I still have a lot of work to do on my revision.

For the retreat we sent in a complete draft of our manuscripts and were placed in groups of 4. I read my group members' novels along with 2 required craft books and showed up to Camp Allen ready to revise. I was lucky enough to be placed in a group with Linda Leschak, Melissa Buron, and Bettina Restrepo. Their stories are wonderful and their feedback was invaluable.

Throughout the retreat we used Darcy's workbook, Novel Metamorphosis, to dive into our stories and begin our revision. The shrunken manuscript technique is incredibly useful and what this retreat is known for. But I felt the most valuable part of the retreat was to spend an entire weekend thinking about nothing except writing my book and having three writers who had read my story available to bounce ideas off of.

The retreat was intense. If you're looking for a writerly vacation, this is not it. We started early and worked late, breaking only for food (mmmm blackberry cobbler and ice cream), coffee, and the occasional glass of wine. Darcy's jam-packed workshop coupled with Camp Allen's rustic and peaceful setting made it easy to focus only on the writing.

I left for the retreat as a girl who writes books. It was a secret ambition, this dream that is too big to say out loud. I didn't talk to my co-workers and non-writing friends about my writing very much. When I left work early on Friday for the retreat, I was coy about where I was going, making jokes about going to summer camp.

But once I arrived at Camp Allen, I was no longer Alyson-the-financial-aid-advisor, Alyson-the-former-teacher, Alyson-the-wife, Alyson-the-daughter, or Alyson-the-sister. I wasn't Alyson-whose-leaves-need-to-be-raked, or Alyson-who-really-needs-to-start-excercising. I was Alyson-the-writer.

I was a writer for an entire weekend. I took myself and my craft seriously and the other writers did so as well. It's a weird thing we do, sitting alone in a room with our imaginary characters. Spending time with other people who do the same thing was incredibly validating.

It's been almost a month since I've left Camp Allen, but the feeling has remained. I'm not a girl who dabbles or plays or scribbles. I'm a writer and my stories are worth telling.

Waiting on Wednesday...and Thursday, and Friday, and...well you get it

So Waiting on Wednesday is a meme hosted by Breaking the Spine where bloggers discuss books they're anticipating.  And I'll get to that. But first I wanted to talk about waiting.

It's no coincidence there's only a one letter difference between writing and waiting.  Any writer seeking publication knows waiting is just part of the process.  I've experienced a bit of waiting myself recently and had a chance to reflect on the waiting process.

I did a lot of waiting and obsessively checking emails while querying agents and I heard published writers say the waiting doesn't get any better once you have an agent.  I didn't believe them.  I thought I did. I tried to believe them, but lately I've still found myself thinking, "OMG! This waiting is torturous, it's worse than querying! Why did no one warn me?" They warned me.

I've come up with some tips to help you with waiting, but this is more of a "do what I say, not what I do situation." While waiting, my day looked like this: Check email.  Check facebook.  Check twitter.  Read blogs on google reader.  Check email.  Email friend to make sure email is working.  Check facebook.  Check twitter.  Check facebook.  Check for new blog posts on google reader.  Check email.  Reply to friend. And so on.

Waiting Made Easy! Less Excruciating

1. Stay busy.  Waiting is easy if you don't have time to check your email.  The days fly by and you can't spare a second to think about it.  So take on new tasks at your day job, write like crazy, and spend time with friends and family.

2. Change locations.  I don't know why, but it helps. Sleep in a bed not your own, get away from your computer, and the days fly by. I spent last weekend at my parents and although
it wasn't a particularly exciting or eventful trip, I didn't obsessively check my email.

3. Connect with other waiters writers.  You feel like things are taking forever? Try talking about it with someone who doesn't understand the publishing industry.  My husband is constantly outraged it could take someone a month to reply to an email.  He'll say, "Just call him."  Because in his job, that makes sense.  You want an answer from someone?  You just call and ask. So talking with someone who does understand is great.  Reach out to other writers and no matter where they are in the publishing process, chances are, they're waiting too. Whine about it together.  Trust me, it helps.

4. You're not the only one waiting. I like to think of the process of making a book as a whole.  When you think about it, agents/editors have probably waited over a year for you to write the book.  So it's only fair you wait one or two months to hear back from them.  And they wait for you too!  My waiting ended yesterday and now the ball is back in my court and someone is waiting on me. Also, I try not to think of people in the publishing industry as the super-smart-speed-readers they are.  I'll ask my co-workers how long it takes them to read a book and adjust my expectations.

5. Write something new. Seriously.  There's nothing better to distract you from the last book than to get excited about the next one.

6. Magic makes everything better.  If all else fails, I like to think of NYC as this magical place, like the land of Faerie or...space, where a single day there is the same as three months here.  We're writers.  Without our imaginations to comfort us, what do we have?

Speaking of Waiting...
Here are the two books I'm most excited about in 2012.  I can't wait!

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. Not only am I fascinated by John's signing psychosis, but this book sounds amazing!  I read the first chapter here and I can't wait to get my copy!

Born Wicked by Jessica Spotswood.  Isn't the cover gorgeous?  I've heard so many great things about this book.  I can't wait to read this beautiful story.

Give Away!

What book are you waiting on?  Tell me in the comments before midnight CST Wednesday 11/9/11 for a chance to win.  I'll choose one random commenter to win either a pre-order of a book not yet released or a copy of a book released in the last 2 months.  (U.S. only, sorry)

Just keep writing...(or why manuscripts are like ex-boyfriends)

One of the best pieces of advice you'll find on this whole journey towards publication is: write another book.  Now this advice can be either incredibly helpful or incredibly depressing, depending on where you are in the writing process.

Once upon a time, I wrote a middle grade adventure/fantasy.  There was a secret magic school and sinister bad guys who forced the students to eat avocados!  I made a lot of classic mistakes in the manuscript and in the querying process.  I queried way too early.  I'd do a little research, send a batch of queries, refresh my email, more research, refresh email, get rejections, revise the manuscript, do a little research, send another batch of queries, refresh my email....on and on and on.

About six months passed between when I sent my first query and my last.  My manuscript changed dramatically during this time and my body of knowledge about the publishing industry grew exponentially.
 
A month or so into this process, I read some statistic, or maybe it was just anecdotal evidence, on an agent's blog (either Janet Reid's or Kristin Nelson's--both are INCREDIBLY helpful for queriers), but basically she said that writers hardly ever--like never--sell their first book.  I was devastated.  I was working so hard!  How could this be?  Digging around on author's blogs, you'll find almost all of them have at least one (if not five) books they've written and are "trunked"  or "shelved."

I called my mom with this horrible news.
Me:  "Mom!  I just read that, like, no one gets their first book published!"
Mom: "So, write another book."
Me: "But it's my baby!"

At the time I was pissed off and horrified.  How could she just tell me to write another book?  She just said it in her cheery tone like it was nothing!  I've just spent almost two years of my life on this and she says write another book!  

I honestly felt like my child had died and my own mother was telling me, it's ok just have another one.

Well, guess what happened?  I wrote another book.  Because in this whole writing game, there's an awful lot of waiting.  Just to keep myself from refreshing my email too many times, I started something new.

So I wrote while I waited and eventually this rebound story started getting exciting.  I saw how much BETTER it could be than my first book.  So by the time my last partial rejection came in, I was so wrapped up in this new story that it didn't hurt quite so much.  It was ok.

Now, I don't think of that first book as a lost child.  I think of that book like I think of my 8th grade boyfriend.  Sure it hurt A LOT when we parted ways when I was 13.  But now?  Do I think of him as the one-who-got-away?  Do I fantasize how things would be different if things had worked out with us? NO, definitely not.  I learned a lot from that first relationship and I might have looked him up on facebook, just once, but that's it.

Giving up on or shelving a manuscript is a lot like a break up.  It hurts like hell at the time.  But as long as you keep putting yourself out there, you'll find someone new.  And after a while, this new person is so great, you can't even remember what you saw in that last story.

So now that I'm back at another waiting stage in this whole process, I have a little song I like to sing to myself.  You know Dory, from Finding Nemo?  She sings "just keep swimming, just keep swimming..." Well, whenever I'm tempted to drive myself crazy refreshing, I sing to myself "Just keep writing, just keep writing."