y o u r w r i t e r s g r o u p...

The Power of Critique

So critique groups. Good or bad?

It's like asking if publishing is good or if a book is good. Of course the answer's yes and no. Like everything else. It always depends on the people in them.

And just like everything else, what you get out of them is largely dependent on what you bring to them. Know someone who didn't like The Shack? Maybe their theology caused them to bring something different to it than someone without that filter. The same people are now angry at Rob Bell for Love Wins even though it's nothing Don Miller didn't say before, a little differently, maybe less pointedly in Blue Like Jazz.

But after I experienced disillusionment as a 19-year-old kid, I wondered if disappointment with God is a universal, that necessary moment when your eyes open and your innocence falls away and you know that God is not always going to save you from the worst attrocities life may bring. Everyone gets to learn this eventually. Even believers and the faithful. Life happens. And the point is to recognize that even still, God is always good.

So I believe it's a "writer fundamental" that what I'm able to bring to my writing is largely dependent on my willingness to accept that life will bring pain. And this is not bad, not to be fought off, but embraced as the gift it is. Fear of pain is instinctual, elemental--those who deny it, deny the very thrust of existence. But facing the fear of that pain, peacefully but forcefully, is at least one essential benefit a good critique group can offer.

This week, I'm working with one of my favorite future authors who's writing a genre western romance (what? That's not strange--one of my favorite books is Redeeming Love. Okay, maybe it's strange). I've encouraged her to trust her abilities, to let herself feel the fear of failure and to courageously believe in her inevitable success anyway. At the OCCWF conference a couple weeks ago, author Simon Tolkien claimed that a big part of his grandfather's success was because he had spent years studying language--words, their meanings and origins--and this allowed him to know how his characters spoke and how that defined them. 

I'd argue that this is what every author has to do--study words, learn, and respect that training. And a good critique group encourages a healthy respect for the symbols of words, their meanings, listening for where your "translation" is inaccurate or not revelatory enough.

Does this involve fear? Yes. But can you face it with courage?

Some authors discredit critiques, which is understandable. It's nearly impossible to find a good group that understands what critiques are and consistently applies their full attention and effort to it. It's often hopelessly idealistic to believe you can find an honest, dedicated, knowledgable group of writers who can regularly meet to thoroughly discuss your work. Especially within 30 miles of you.

Maybe they don't have to be within 30 miles.

A professional editor knows how to fix the things that need fixing. And a good critique group can point those things out. Where it's slow, redundant, and even not fully developed yet, a critiquer who's well-read, knows you, and appreciates the process of writing (through having done it themselves and having read the best books on craft) is worth a fortune. Professional agents are good readers as well, though until you've risen in stature a bit, you won't likely be told what isn't working. You need someone you can trust, who gets both what you're trying to do and what you need to do to pull it off and get peple talking. This could cost you a bit out of pocket. But that's why I started YWG and it's proving that just like a great book, what's truly valuable doesn't have to cost what it's really worth. Is it worth it to you? I don't know. It's not perfect and there's work involved. But I do think it's worth it to check it out--there's no charge to read the critiques.

Pro authors know early feedback is the best "promotional" money you can spend. But what can't a good critique do? It can't replace the need for a copy editor who will look for grammar mistakes, misspellings, wrong words, weak constructions, inconsistent elements like Suzy being 9 on page 4 and 12 on page 37. Critique groups shouldn't waste time on the minor things until the big things have been addressed. So authors, do not skip this step or you will suffer the consequences. If you're a good student of language, you'll save money when it comes time to hire a copyeditor. 

But just like the earlier stages, this one can be painful. It's hard to give up the pieces of ourselves that are holding us back. We fight for our ignorance and call it personality, style, artistic license. Most often, it's plain prideful stupidity. Sure, readers will accept your incomplete sentences. Even love them. But respect the refinement process. It's not just making your book better, it's making you better as well. And that's the big point.

The artist who demands he has nothing to learn soon finds he has nothing to say.

A powerful critique group is about growth, a shared journey of trust, fear, empathy, hope, and faith. It's powerful because it's built on relationships over rules, on embracing acceptance and peace amidst the striving for what's better. I have been in a few of them in my lifetime, and I can promise you the people you learn to write with will remain lifelong friends.

It's about being your vulnerable, wart-covered self and finding it accepted and improved. And as a bonus, you get to discover the true meaning of gratitude.

One of my critique partners, Rob Stennett has a book releasing today called Homemade Haunting. (I know. I'm a lucky dude.) Rob is a one-of-a-kind genius with character comedy and this time he mixed it into a thriller and asked "If evil is real, what happens when someone doesn't have the only true weapon against it?" If you think it was easy to blend comedy with such a serious subject, you're dreaming. But Rob figured it out and critiques played a hand in that. I'm sure he'd be happy to tell you if you asked. Anyway, get the book (it's only $10), read it and ask yourself how many people it really takes to finish a great book.

Editor to Author: Letter to a Memoir Writer

Dearest Author,

I've been thinking about worth lately.

What's your story worth?

At a recent writers conference I taught a workshop on how I saw publishing changing. Modern publishing, the only time in history when we've had separate "markets" for books, has begun to fracture and redistribute. I've shared several times about how The Shack has shifted things. It isn't just a book, of course, it's a bridge. And those bridges are inevitable because it isn't only spiritual people or Christians who recognize God as creator.  

Blue Like Jazz came well before it and created connections between the Christian and secular markets. Lauren Winner's memoir Girl Meets God made some connection points before that, similar to how Eat, Pray, Love did more recently, from the other side of the spiritual divide. Several spiritual/worldly, secular/sacred books have become best-sellers as bridges in the long history of such books since the beginning of print, and some people have traced this line back to the best-selling book of all time: The Bible.

The Secret. The Purpose-Driven Life. The Alchemist. The Celestine Prophesy. The Late Great Planet Earth. Pilgrim's Progress. Books you've never heard of have sold over 30 million copies: Steps to Christ by Ellen White, In His Steps by Charles Sheldon, late-19th century Congregational minister and advocate of the ever-intriguing idea of "Christian socialism." Even Nikolai Tesla wrote about his life a true spiritual man and world-renouned scientist in My Inventions. The Canterbury Tales, The Odyssey, and The Divine Comedy by Dante, written in 1304, has "sold" more than anyone knows and we have no idea how it or any of these books have changed readers and the history of spiritual thought, becoming seeds for the trees of countless theologies.

But of course, we know this is what books are--seeds. And this is what they do: define life and defy death.

"So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee."

So this story that's a part of you, that is you, that defines your work and all of your effort and sacrifices to share it completely (or as completely as possible) for others to use--what's it really worth?

Don't answer. You can't. Simply try to see the fullness of the question clearly. Continue on...

Do you know where your worth is really found?

Yes, in God's ownership of the life and love he's created you to embody (1 John 4:7-12). His ownership, creating, protecting, guiding and infusing of his great, unchanging spirit into us. He dies that we might live (parents always understand this principle). And we die that others might live through our sacrifices. This is the daily work of writing.

Do you know what that is really worth?

Intimately known and held, seen and heard and helped in every way, this knowledge is invaluable, isn't it? We can talk of worth and value, and shift our understanding of that from copies sold to readers influenced, but it's the knowledge a reader will have by the end of your story that makes what you're doing truly valuable. And this understanding of how God fills us and dies for us is the greatest wisdom, the most valuable in the world. And if you are practicing that, that makes what you're doing invaluable.

I want to give you, as a witness of your discovery of that unchanging love, my invaluable opinion on it, my affirmation that you've been seen and heard and that what you've written down is completely worthy. And with your assurance that it's been well established and others will see it and respond, you can continue, knowing it's incredible and invaluable. 

So do you see what your story is really worth?

Because there's no true price tag you can put on it. There's no proper estimating the value of my work, my seeing it, or others' receiving it either. It's in-valuable. We have to simply trust together that whatever comes of it is just a small piece of its fullest value as a seed for God to use, and not at all connected to the worth of what you've written, or what I've done to help. I know you've sacrificed and given for your story, and I've been brought into the processing of it, but regardless of how it will be published and the realities of our modern marketplace, you must know:

What's your story really worth?

I remain your solid co-laborer in the process of delivering these invaluable words. Never assign its worth to money, public perception, publication, or anything else. Your heart is here, and that's established and it's something you have written definitively, and just as we have agreed together at the outset here, others will when they read it.

We don't know how it will all play out. But I'm on your side and not looking for specific outcomes big or small. Don't think in terms of what's "fair," but decide you will pay with your life what's necessary to give to this project. What you give is directly proportional to what that seed will be able to produce in readers. And in terms of return and profit, I believe Cohelo is right: the universe will conspire in our favor.

So what's your story really worth?

 

Your Loving Editor,

Mick

Does Your Writers Group Provide These 3 Essentials Every Writer Needs?

Welcome back, everyone. Hope you had a fabulous Easter.

Being a book editor is such a strange job. It has enormous up sides: not requiring me to, say, buy a lot of expensive equipment or be out in extreme elements. I don't have to dig through anything too revolting. At least not physically. But still, it has its challenges.

Chief among those is the fact that everyone I meet wants to publish. And this varies in intensity, often marked by dilated pupils and shortness of breath when I mention what I do, who I've worked for, authors I've helped. In most settings, I try not to mention it because chances are if the person has thought about writing at any point in their life, a little bell labeled "My-Golden-Ticket-to-Published-Author" goes off in their heads. And its particular frequency has a way of pushing the conversation past the more important matters like writing, editing, networking, etc.

Even the best writers need a lot of help ignoring this pesky bell. Especially if they spend any time online.

But once in a while I meet someone who wants to be an editor and I always get excited because I've always wanted to help more authors than I have time for. It's no easy thing sometimes to help authors say what they mean, prove we're worth listening to and that they're not, in fact, full card-carrying citizens of crazyland.

My advice to future editors is this: 3 things. Creating great books (and authors) always starts with the same 3 things, and they all derive from the question, Will this book absolutely force people to share it?

The big challenge with being an editor is that you get to be the one to ask how exactly it will do that. It's a difficult question for authors to accept, let alone answer. But if you can get them to face the question, the rest isn't all that hard. Help an author keep answering that question through every stage of the book process, and eventually what they'll get is an exceptional book.

Will this writing compel sharing? Does this edit improve the chances of sharing? Is this a brand that fills a desperate need or want? And is there someone who would be naturally inclined to enjoy it?

And while good editors can provide help in at least two of the three essential categories, a good writers group can help in all three:

1. Motivation.

The first essential element in birthing a book that can change lives is a heart that's fully engaged. Writers who are most productive need daily encouragement and inspiration to continue the hard work of showing up, sticking with it, and continually developing the vision. This is a critical step that's missing in most of the courses I've seen. Each week, I want to send you a new motivational message to inspire you to write what matters most.

2. Education.

Writers need to engage in every step of the book process as though it's the most important step there is. From writing to editing to branding, networking and publishing, the reason a book doesn't sell is a breakdown in one of those areas. And unless authors have a strong understanding of their story and their essential difference, the book won't rise as well as it might have. First, authors need to know how to write words that work better than the rest, and like any creative endeavor, this takes training and practice over time. Each step should build on the last, with solid guidance in editing, building a brand, networking, and choosing best publishing options.

3. Connection.

The final element that's sorely missing for writers today is connection to a larger, engaged community. The trick with books is getting critical feedback on your best efforts at each step to ensure you're on the mark. And when it comes time to release your message, the best way is organically--by letting people put it to use. You don't sell great books, they sell themselves because they're so remarkable. They solve huge problems and inspire people to change. If I was a fancy marketer, I'd call this the Authentic Approach Advantage or something, but it's basically what happens naturally  when you stay focused on helping people all along the way through your own development.

To encourage authors to finish well and excel my new plan is to focus on an online writers group. I'll still help authors individually, but much of it will be through the website. For those who signed up over Easter weekend, I'm grateful for your trust, and I'd like to extend the $10-first-week offer for your entire first month. Anyone else who would like to check it out, your first month will be $10 as well. Who knows, if it gets going well, I may extend that price indefinitely.

I'm learning how to run a website as I go, but I'm still just an editor and my goals for these three categories haven't changed. So if you want to see if YWG can help you produce an exceptional book, I encourage you to come by and see the different kind of community we've just gotten going.

Thanks for reading--I'm always open to any ideas you have for making it better. See you over there!

 

 

 

Progressive Publishing Program, Part 1: Finish Your Book (for Free) with a Writing Coach

Some offers are just hard to believe, aren't they? 

The day I came up with the idea for a "progressive publishing program," I didn't believe it either.  

But here's a confession: I’ve always been something of a skeptic. As a small(er) babbler, I remember seeing the commercial for the Tootsie Roll pop and I determined to prove them wrong. I stuck with that thing until I licked the stick clean. I probably have some undiagnosed OCD, and coupled with a near-religious devotion to Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers during my newly-verbal years, my ability to persevere through difficult tasks that I enjoyed was virtually assured.

Of course, my mom would tell you, I was one headstrong little snot. I stomped my defiant foot into the deep shag carpet more than once. And as corporal punishment was something of a Christian duty in the 70s, I learned to withstand much pain. 

At school, I followed my own beat stubbornly, even learning to use my spankings to make my punishers cry. But something stuck. I learned self-discipline. And today I use it every day, to edit, write, and not coincidentally, to help authors edit and write.

Research shows that for those who want to write a book, finishing is the #1 barrier. Estimates put it that over 80% of American adults want to write a book, but it turns out life can get in the way. And I could use competition, the TV-addicted childhood, California slacker thing, or my Gen X label as excuses.

Or I could write myself a different story.

There are plenty of stories for all of us to choose from. But eventually we all need to recognize it's our choice to chose the one most worth fighting for.

Commitment isn’t all we need. But it's like, 9/10s. It may be true that obsessing gets you nothing but ulcers, but devotion is the main defense against the enemy of all great books, this enticing fruit of distraction. Greedy salesmen and barking self-publishers purport to want to help you, but do they care how good your book is? What's in it for them to help you not just publish, but sell well? The vision you initially had for your book when you imagined it finished, is that what you have? Or are you in danger of straying from your path? Opportunists have sprouted up everywhere, even in Christian corners, to prey on your flagging devotion. And they're very convincing.

"Congratulations! You finished writing! Now it's time to publish! Trust us, we're professionals."

Maybe you've noticed the decline in book quality. Or typos. Or simply what Stephen King calls "fast-food books" that bypass anything nourishing and go straight to the bowels. I think they're going straight to authors' heads, making their brains fat and slow, convincing them they can publish bestsellers as quickly and easily as, well, passing some fast food.

My theory, and it's just a theory, is that the major problem is undisciplined authors. They may not tell the lies, but they give them power by believing them. And they sell out their vision before a better book is given a chance to be born. Either too distracted, untrained, or afriad of never reaching the shelves, the majority miss their chance of connecting and selling well.

A glut of entitled sell-outs is dragging down the art and literature of publishing.

And why? Because they believe the hype. A brainless machine can publish your book. The real value is in the wisdom to know what's required to publish a best-seller. Are best-selling books always great books? No. And no one can predict success. But there are common characteristics in the authors who write well and sell well. The easiest way to make money in publishing is in selling false hope. And it costs far less to give people what they want than to commit to high quality work (what they really want, trust me).

If you've got a different kind of story, maybe it needs to be published as a great book. Maybe you are one who should choose a better way.

You can do that and make a stand. But you'll also need others around you who believe in that goal really, really stubbornly.

Look at how best-selling authors do it. My newsflash for you after having worked with many successful authors over the past decade is that the good ones committed to the idea that valuable work costs much. They sacrificed for it. They sought out professionals to ensure the highest quality and before they published, they decided they really, really wanted to learn to write and edit well. They learned to tell a story. Armed with this, they managed to wait, to learn to edit, to research the market and others' books, and put themselves through the paces to pull together a refined vision, instead of selling it for scrap.

Choosing a different story than the self-publishers' hype is a new first step to becoming a great author. And only those with the determination to finish well will ever sell a great book.

Stay tuned...part 2 tomorrow.

(Oh, and in case you're wondering how many licks it really takes, I'll tell you over in the forum at the new site...)

Success as a Writer

Wouldn’t it be nice if someone could hand you the steps to success? Haven't you fantasized about finding the formula like some long-forgotten treasure hidden away in the attic for several years, collecting dust and just waiting to be employed by an enterprising writer--like you?

Maybe you've even believed the blueprint existed.

Like anyone, I've secretly longed to find that plan. I've imagined it as a golden list of time-saving short-cuts or a nice clear map to follow to the promise of perfect publishing bliss. Maybe it's our weaker selves who harbor this shameful hope to avoid the time and practice the art and skill of writing requires. But it's not uncommon. I'd wager that for writers it's near universal.

Of course, part of us, the wiser part, realizes if we got all we wished for and ended up easily writing bestselling books, we might quickly find out we weren’t prepared to handle the responsibilities and pressures that come with it. Why are we so easily convinced we should find that mystical land assumed to be “Success” anyway, or that we’d even like it when we got there?

Looking back, we can see it’s a good thing we don’t always get what we believe we're after. In all likelihood, the treasure, had we found it, would have ruined us.

I think there are a few stories about this very thing.

Wisdom has taught us that there’s a journey, a struggle involved in the process. And this isn’t really a bad thing, however impatient we may feel. I think this is something every new writer has to face, maybe it's the first lesson of great writing—that it involves hard work. And that's the very thing that makes it so valuable when you do finally achieve it.

While there are several prerequisites to great writing, the hard work is a given, and it's really grueling, certainly not the kind most people prefer. Refining excellent, mature work requires intense internal focus and mental discipline that ends up draining and depleting the very heart and soul of you. And though I don't know, I wonder if it's the most taxing non-physical exertion there is. I do know that even those with uncommonly strong will power and stamina will find their commitment challenged and their daily lives reduced to a shadow of the former. At least for the time of editing and refining.

And then there's the proselytizing to worry about too.

But what we're really doing as these stubborn wordsmiths of wonder is not dreaming of an easy way out, but always searching, searching, searching for new ways to grow our awareness. Of the world, ourselves, the lives around us, and the all-important interrelationships of these most essential nouns. The verbs and mechanics are of course important too, and it's because all of this matters to the end product that we know the sacrifices will be great.

SO my encouragement to you is to believe in the treasure right before you! Be persistent in your application of all the learning you've acquired. Hope for the easy days, and there will be some, but you know better than to give the dream of easy leisure too much credence. Instead, believe in the hope that the time and trouble it costs you will be worthwhile, time spent in the most valuable way imaginable, in growing your awareness of the nouns and the art of translating their beauty to the page.

Is it worth your all to become a more astute observer of everything, and to fashion those thoughts into the most beautiful and revealing form? Do you trust that if you were called, you were also made capable of meeting that call?

Remember: it's always, in the end, a question of what you believe the real treasure is....

Your Writers Group 2.0 Update...

As I get ready to launch Your Writers Group 2.0, the broader community/training site that's taken many months to produce, I've been researching a lot of great sites and programs for writing and generally thoughtful reading. There's a ton of great stuff out there for free.

What I think is missing is balanced help on NOT publishing too soon--on writing, editing, and working out the story as best you can before charging ahead with the publishing packages.

And I think one of the best things you can find is a supportive community to help you gauge where you are relative to others in the business, and how your writing is stacking up so far. Several folks I respect have said it takes a few years and much writing before you're really ready to say anything unique and say it well. This is the very idea behind Your Writers Group 2.0. (Coming soon! Wink! Wink!)

So I was excited to stumble upon L.L. Barkat's discussion of "anchor communities" at The High Calling as a way to filter the online experience into more productive, rewarding time. It couldn't have come at a better time.

This is the sort of site I'm creating for bookish folks, mainly writers, but also readers, and generally those who love excellent "true" stories. Yes I'm using quotes on "true" because, as I've discussed here before, "it’s possible to tell an accurate story that isn’t actually true" (this is a quote from another great article at The High Calling on the power of story). And we need to talk about other ideas as well, like the practical realities of writing and selling stories as vocation, not to mention thinking honestly about the larger goal of culture making. Anyway, thanks to The High Calling for already having put many of these guiding principles I'm using into action.

My new site is essentially a place where I'll spout off and pontificate about the new book world emerging and yet to come. I'm taking a leap of faith to see if I can survive (my wife is fully behind me on this, trust me) by offering my best training for a fraction of what it'd cost to hire out a big book editor as a consultant on your work. I've found some people can and do need the one-on-one, but I figure if you can get my best motivation and advice at about 80% off the cost of a writers conference--and it lasts all month!--that's got to work. The bonus is that you can grow and learn from the community in the pursuit of excellent books and true stories. All of this has got to lead to better books with better chances of catching on and selling well, right?

If there's one thing I've found over and over in my 10+ years in book land, it's that you can't really make a book work without a whole lot of help from friends. So I'm heading back to work on that release now, but I just wanted you to know I haven't forgotten about the big dream here. It's coming. And it's going to be truly something cool.

Keep writing. Keep reading every day. Get back into your story world and spend the time. I'll be back soon.

Are You a PERFECT 3 Author?

This is part 2 in a 6-part series on writing your best book now. With apologies to Thomas Nelson and Joel Osteen.

You’ve noticed the perfect 3. It’s holding together your beginning, your complication, and your resolution. It’s in liquid, ice, and steam. It’s the animal, the mineral, and the vegetable. It makes up the trinity, the cord of 3 strands, the what was, what is, and is to come.

The perfect 3 defines our lives in a number of deeply profound ways, a number which is probably even divisible by 3. Our veteran editorial veep at WaterBrook Multnomah likes to say the best books need 3 legs to be stable: platform, subject, and writing. Someone recently improved upon the metaphor by suggesting a tricycle.

Three wheels. Very stable. You can stand on it, if you want. A bicycle can also get you where you’re going, though less safely. But a unicycle is always inadvisable. For a number of reasons (again divisible by 3). Doesn’t mean people don’t use unicycles and succeed at staying aloft. Just involves more training. More time.

And often laughing crowds.

Now it’s a sad little publishing truism that you do not need great writing or an excellent subject from a platform author, but that book will still sell. At least for a while. But eventually it’ll fall down and the other books will laugh at it. There are also excellently written books from no-name authors who wouldn’t know a proper subject if they spent all day searching their cabinets and sock drawers.

Yet what I see most often in the writers I meet at conferences is some great people with great subjects…and very little writing ability or platform. I’ve seen people at it so long they despise the words “craft” and “platform.” Without those other legs, they’re going to remain imbalanced.

But here’s where The Perfect 3 can help. Many things go into those other two legs besides time.

Research.

Analyzation.

Prayer.

Focus.

Self-awareness.

Acuity. 

Sacrifice.

Support.

A strong will.

Good bladder control.

An eye for opportunity. Great personality. Tooth whitening. Sense of humor. Confidence. Basically, all the unmentioned things that go into making a wonderful, attractive, well-rounded person.

Are you weak in any of those things? Me too! (Let's hear it for bladder control!)

So, author, what do you want to do about the rest of those?

Most people don’t have the strength, discipline, and humility to accept where they’re weak and decide to fix it. Many of those areas will require assistance that’s too painful. Of course, that's not you, is it?

And despite what my mom used to say about my uncanny ability to get out of traffic tickets, no one is born charmed.

The 3 essential qualities that build The Perfect 3 author are:

            1) the determination to continually push yourself to acquire new skills,

2) the tenacity to get up again and again after failure, and

3) the humility to learn the essential lessons from it each time.

Do this.

Don’t skip corners.

Don’t even look for a shortcut. You are not a cheater.

Show up every time, do it until you’re done, and do it again tomorrow with all 3 of those legs (or wheels) of your project:

·               Researching your subject (& is it a good and needed one?),

·               Writing (and the rewriting, revising, & macro and micro editing),

·               Platform building (and the resulting back-breaking publicity)

In the end, your creativity, craftsmanship, and care shows your audience you’re the perfectly-balanced author you’ve worked to become.

How to Write Your Best Book Now

This is part one in a 6-part, totally free master class on everything you need to know to write "your best book now," with apologies to Joel Osteen and Thomas Nelson.

Part 1: The manuscript

You have 6 jobs before your manuscript is ready for professional editing, and then submission to an editor. 

Job #1: Start by reading (preferably memorizing) The Elements of Style by Strunk and White. 

Next, pick up Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maass and the accompanying workbook and work through the exercises there. If you're writing nonfiction, you still need narrative techniques, so consider reading Maass' book anyway, or Zinsser’s On Writing is a good one too.

Other greats include Stein On Writing, Stephen King's On Writing, and Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird. But my new favorite is Susan Bell’s The Artful Edit which details the macro and micro elements of getting the words and phrasing and style right, but it's for writers who have already gotten a good portion of their million crappy words out of the way already.

I also recommend fiction writers give Self-Editing for Fiction Writers a read for the basic elements to be aware of.

Also, anything by Orson Scott Card, James Scott Bell, Sol Stein, and Arthur Plotnik, feel free to supplement your reading with any or all of them. Card’s book on character development is excellent. Characters and Viewpoint. And there’s always the incomparable Max Perkins, generally regarded to be the greatest editor ever.

Writers must first read, read, read. Aspire to read above your comprehension level. And find the redeeming qualities of that beneath you. Read Books & Culture. Read PW. Read poetry. Follow what your favorite writers do and who they follow, watch their interviews on B&N and learn what they did. There's so much available now. Go to Ted.com and watch the videos that interest you. JK Rowling’s Harvard address on failure is excellent.

Immerse yourself in the writing world of working writers. Read their blogs, check out their advice and links.

#2: Here's a very important piece of advice I stole from Bernard Cornwell: read your top 3 books and study them. How simple is that? But I'd add, use a book like Susan Bell's and/or Maass' to focus on the important elements and break them down chapter by chapter. Use your favorite writing books as guides and you'll learn more than you ever would at a writers conference about the actual tools and skills of working writers.

Pay attention to the way the sentences sound, the way the chapters work, how you’re drawn in, what’s said and not said. Consider metaphor and symbolism. What elements are your favorite? What parts do you like least? Keep a writing journal and mark your progress, then go over it at the end of the week and synthesize what you've learned.

#3 Figure out your writing system. Try different things until you get it. No one is able to tell you how you work best and you may change, so stay at it. I write best starting at the end and working backwards. I often start with the final image and write that last sentence and work back from there. It's taken me an embarrassing amount of time and effort to realize (and accept) this. You will no doubt work differently. You might want to consider using organizing software. Scrivener is a great one for Mac users.

As Ray Bradbury said, you must write 1 million crappy words before you're any good. So don’t worry, be crappy.

#4 Figure out if you’re writing in the right area, targeting the right reader by asking those close to you what they see as your unique gifts, abilities, and bent. And objective friend can save you much time if they're willing to be honest. Buy them lunch or dinner.

#5 Figure out if you are able to devote the needed time to this. There’s a time of life issue. Much prayer and consideration is required before you set out to write, let alone publish (we'll get that that in a couple weeks). Myself, I can’t do much more than write an hour a day right now b/c I can’t take the time away from my life to travel & commit to publicity work.

Know where you are and prepare accordingly. Exercise in the meantime and commit to the work.

#6 Finally, get hard, trustworthy critiques from qualified writers. This is so essential. You have no idea how you need this until you've received it, but take it from me, there's nothing more important than the insights of a seasoned writer or editor on your work. Nothing. 

This may be tough to find as you’re starting out, but strive for it and you will find people you can connect with through conferences and online groups like ACFW and CWG. You don't need people writing what you write necessarily, but you do need people as committed to the craft, and who are devoted to encouraging and shepherding your talent. 

My hope is that this will be that kind of group very soon, so if that's you, hang tight and leave a comment. We'll be hooking people up very shortly for you to grow with.

And tune in next time for Part 2: The Proposal.

A Writer's Sacrifice

A writer was just starting her story. But it wasn't working.

I told her so. She had a good start, but there wasn’t enough interest. She realized she needed to give readers a better sense of the big problem that started her out on her journey. But she didn't know if she could do it. I said we’ve got to know how bad off things were beforehand if we’re going to be interested in how she got through it.

I pushed her to dig deeper (in that encouraging-while-discouraging way editors have) and she came back a few days later totally worn out. Really difficult, she said. “It’s like I’ve forfeited everything just to go back there again.” She wasn’t sure it was healthy and didn’t know if she’d be okay once the book was done. That was the deepest, darkest time in her life, without hope, without God.

I started to doubt I could help her. I considered pulling back.

But I knew better. If she hadn’t found what made her want to write the book in the first place—namely, peace—it might have been different. But now she knew what she’d found. I know my own dark places well too. And it’s in writing about them I’ve learned to face them and truly value the experience. It is difficult to turn off while you’re going back to occupy that unstable brain space again. And it can be a very real struggle not to fall back into that hole.

Maybe you know what I’m talking about. If you’ve ever gone back to that familiar oppression and felt disconnected from your current life because of it, you know how you and everyone around you needs a lot of forgiveness. Every writer I know has found some form of this same challenge. How to return to living today after digging through the past.

I think it was Phil Yancey in his article Writing As a Psychotic Act who said that writing for him is like entering a hyperbaric chamber and trying to subsist on its oxygen for a while—and then trying to reacclimate to reality is tough. I tend to think it’s a necessary struggle to authentically recreate moments from the past. Maybe some writers just have to stay there for a time, like method actors. Writers of true stories have both the shadowy memory to contend with, but also the unavoidable reversion to a less fulfilling, less alive time. And I'm not sure this is any different for other kinds of writers.

It seems to me, anyone attempting to write deeply (about their past or anything really) is likely to experience more than some mental lag. There’s spiritual and practical-daily-life sort of challenges as well. Writers are more affected by environment than most, and those writing about their own past are often in a pretty dark environment.

So my word for all of us heading into Easter is trust. We do know three days will pass. And because of Easter, when we make sacrifices, it will turn into far more than it was before. In a very real sense, we’re giving over all we have in order to write—and at the stories’ start, all our hard-won intelligence and awareness itself—but that’s the very thing that sets up the exponential multiplication of that awareness in your readers. Think about that as you go to the place before you knew what you do now. And expect the miracle.

This is what I’ll be pondering on Easter. How essential every sacrifice is that writers like you make to be true to their stories. And so many are grateful for the effort. But best of all, though it may be just a speck of the experience he went through for us, it could just become the saving knowledge for someone.

On Quality and Excellence and What Does It Really Matter?

I think it’s about time for another of my old fashioned diatribes on high quality. It's been a while since I picked up the old saw, and I found this today on my local classical music station and couldn't wait to share it. 

 

Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767) was a contemporary of Bach’s who has nearly disappeared for even classical music lovers and admirers of 17^th century music. Yet in his day, Telemann was apparently more famous and respected that Bach ever was. And according to the several websites Google brought me, he was chosen as cantor of St. Thomas in Leipzig (a position Bach held as well) and out-produced Bach’s weekly cantata output 2-to-1. Bach’s music was considered overly artful, laborious and too complicated by then-modern culture and critics. It didn’t give enough space for “proper” reflection and respect for natural melody, whatever that meant to 17^th century musical tastes.

 

So now those times are long gone and people grew different ears. I won’t even speculate how that happens (a journey for another day perhaps), but the lasting quality of Bach’s work compared to his simpler, less labored, and proficient contemporaries is unmatched. So why? Who knows Telemann, Graun, Hasse? Even Bach’s own idol Handel isn’t as recognized. And there are many reasons for this, but it’s not a matter of opinion that Bach’s music has remained because of its superiority in form, style, beauty, and originality. As one site puts it, “In some aspects, he has no equal, and in all aspects, his music is unique.” 

 

But so what? How does it help him now? He gets no bonus points, no enjoyment or benefit from posthumous praise. What if he had tried to be more productive and efficient, to churn them out more? Why didn’t he? Sure he still produced a major body of work, but he never enjoyed the fame his music would eventually produce. What’s his payoff for pursuing quality over quantity? A legacy? What could that matter to him while he was alive? Respect of people he’d never meet?

 

Why commit to excellence? Practice and sacrifice is hard! It’s takes too much time and energy, especially if the struggle isn’t practical or doesn’t produce a better life. Why push so hard for so little? After all, more people will experience it if you produce quick and disposable. You'll have more chance for fame, money and immediate benefit. Less lasting, but so what? Who wants to pay and wait for visionary/beauty/quality in our world anymore?

 

This great destruction going on throughout the world is of course, nothing new. Yet it does seem to be getting worse, doesn't it? Our food, our products, our cars, our writing, our music, our culture, our idols, pundits, and politicians—and inescapably our opinions, ideas, relationships, and every other form of “output”—each exhibit the short-sighted self-focused decisions we’re forced to accept today, dispensing with high quality in favor of necessarily-immediate results (we might call it the McDonald's Effect or Wal-Martization), even when those results are vastly inferior in quality. But why should we care if the food/work/product/image does its job? It won’t last anyway? Nothing lasts! Why should we waste time and effort when there’s no benefit but some uncertain effect in the far future?

 

Everyone must make the pragmatic choice to push for higher quality or not, which may not become Bach's choice to forfeit keeping up with his contemporaries, suffer to produce far less, and miss his chance for greater recognition and prosperity. Indeed, for novelists, the choice seems ludicrous. Produce slowly? Less? That can mean poverty. It can mean unfulfillment too when others get the contract for producing quickly and we're forced to survive doing what we’d rather not have to.

 

So why strive for high quality? Why care about developing good taste? What is a superior work or product really worth and why not appreciate the compromises that enable our hyperspeed world to exist? Why make our goal one of dogged faithful service to a higher cause and not production, fame, survival, or even a lasting legacy? Disposable life is important now; it's how we've come to survive. A return to quality is what's short-sighted and selfish.

 

And still, some people can’t stop pointing at the beauty for the thought of one person stopping long enough to look up at what he’s missed and be captured by the idea of something greater.

 

Refined art! It sits and languishes, waiting to be noticed. It says, “Here is your lost dignity! Here’s your roots! Here’s solidarity with the real humanity and strength you possess! Here is a sacrifice for a creator and creation we’ve forgotten.” Inspired work reminds us of the incredible value of life before conveyor belts and utilitarian necessity and mass production forced our souls into exile.

 

Art is the truth of life in a microcosm—an object, a work, a piece fashioned from creation!—a chance to wonder at the reminder that all is to the glory of God reflecting his holiness. All is for this. Commit to pursuing the height of your potential and you will find your purpose.

 

Give of your best. Sacrifice your chance to pander to the masses. Sacrifice your lesser life and you will find the greater.

 

Can we get off the conveyor? Do our lives really depend on it? And can you really influence those several others around you for this?

 

If we are made in the image of the creator, then every day is a choice to reflect that or to slowly die.

 

Do you agree? Do you think this is an important topic or not? Leave a comment; let’s discuss.

 

 

Incidentally, classical music is one of the arts the Obamas strongly support. Michelle Obama went way up in my book when I watched this, from a White House classical music workshop for middle and high school students she recently hosted (check out the kids at 33:45—why does that make me so happy?).