Here are my notes from the workshops I attended:

Third Draft

Unfortunately I arrived late to this highly entertaining and informative panel, but here are some takeaways:

Robert Dugoni: “you write your way into the book and you write your way out of it,” by which he meant that you often have to discard a good chunk of the opening pages (he described cutting half of the first 100 pages for one book) and sometimes the end because you’ve been using that writing to figure out what you’re doing.

C C Humphreys made the point that often when something goes wrong later in the book, the fix needs to happen earlier in the book.

A reader asked about the value of critique groups. Humphreys said: “Never show anyone your first draft.” Dugoni said: “The reader should never be reading it until it’s ready to be read,” which seems both incredibly simple and profound. A member of the audience said she really loved online crit groups because they were based on mutual interest in a particular genre (instead of just a convenient meeting place and time as for many in-person critique groups) and critiques are not influenced by exposure to other people’s comments (at least in the group to which she belongs).

How Did a Bunch of Nice Gals Like You Get Into Murder?

A lively and informal panel with local mystery writers (and my sisters in Sister in Crime): Jeanne Matthews, Joyce Yarrow and Susan Schreyer. Some of the things I found most interesting:

They all had different paths to publication. Jeanne, after many rejections, attended a conference where she chose to pitch her work to a marketing guy from Harper Collins, rather than any of the agents or other writers at the conference. He fell in love with her work and hooked her up with her eventual publisher, Poisoned Pen Press. Susan, after years of trying to sell her work, decided to self-publish. Joyce found an agent who sold her book to a small press (Martin Brown Publishers). The second book sold to a slightly bigger press, Five Star, which makes books primarily for libraries.

Jeanne said that readers don’t remember the puzzle of a mystery as much as the characters. Joyce said that for her the why is more important than who-done-it. I was happy to hear this as I don’t read mysteries to solve puzzles (I have the New York Times acrostic for that). Besides character, I love books with interesting settings.

Susan shared a delightful story about how when she finished one book, she felt that something was wrong with the ending, so she set up an empty chair in her living room and interviewed the character she had pegged as the murderer. He told her firmly he had not done it and suggested she talk to the victim. She jumped back and forth from one chair to the other, taking on these different characters. The victim told her firmly who had killed him. Then she interviewed that character. It was a great example for me of how the story really has a life of its own.

Making the Media Want You and Your Work

The best panel I attended was the marketing panel which was delivered by Marsha Friedman and Alex Hinojosa. In answer to the question, why would you hire a publicist? Marsha said: “Because we are professionals.” That’s when I got it. In the brave new world of self-publishing, authors are expected to be designers, editors, production managers, distributors, and publicists as well as authors. But we are professionals at writing. Why not hire other professionals so we can get on with what we do best?

Marsha and Alex talked about the various forms of media and what sorts of stories work best for each, for instance, a visual project will work better on the Internet or TV; a controversial story that can spark a discussion works great for talk radio.

Other great ideas I took away from this workshop:

• Don’t promote your book, when pitching ideas to media; instead talk about the problem the book solves.
• Don’t promote yourself; instead focus on the issue that the book addresses.
• And always tie things to current events. If there is no current event, you could hitch it to a holiday (they suggested Chases Calendar).

The fiction writers in the class were agitated about how to promote their novels, after all, they weren’t solving problems (except perhaps the problem of what to read on the bus) but Marsha and Alex had a good example, a client who, after a 30 year career at Bullocks Wilshire, wrote a novel about the retail fashion business. They pitched her as an expert on retail fashion and tied her in with some news stories about economic trends in that business. Also, because she wrote her first novel at 72, they pitched her story as a life transformation story.

I was thinking about the Dial C for Chihuahua novel I wrote with my friend Curt Colbert, since we were about to talk about it at the Brave New Books panel. We had already timed the publication of the book so it would come out in October during National Adopt a Shelter Dog month (the hero of the book is a rescued Chihuahua), so we had the timing aspect down.

But not everyone can adopt a shelter dog. I started to think about the deeper level of the story, and realized that the Chihuahua novels are really about the profound relationship people have with their pets. Did you know that there are more dogs than children in Seattle? We know that living with a pet has a profound effect on health and on emotional well-being. And that helped me realize what was going wrong in the writing of the third novel. We haven’t been threatening this relationship, the one between Geri Sullivan and her dog, which should be at the heart of the book.

Brave New Panel

Bharti Kirchner invited me and Curt Colbert to be on this panel of authors with new books. Bharti, who has written several novels and several cookbooks, has just written her first mystery novel. Also on the panel were Sarah Martinez, the author of Sex and Death in the American Novel, and Janet Lee Carey, the author of several young adult novels. http://www.janetleecarey.com/

Bharti submitted a story to Seattle Noir, which Curt was editing, and then realized that it was the start of a novel. It was drawn on experiences she had earlier in her life while working as a counselor at a domestic violence shelter. The initial premise is that a best friend goes missing, and the protagonist, Mitra, must find out what happened to her.

Janet Lee Carey talked about her new book, Dragonswood, which takes place on an island she created in an earlier novel, and triggered by her  reading about the witch trials. After learning about how women were tortured until they admitted they were witches and then tortured until they gave up the names of other witches, Janet realized her character’s identity must be founded on loyalty because the greatest challenge she could face would be betraying her friends. Of course, an author must hurt her characters, so Janet has Tess give up the names of her best friends and then attempt to right this wrong.

Sarah Martinez really impressed me with her passionate advocacy of artistic integrity. At most gatherings of writers, getting published by a major publisher is seen as the supreme prize. But Sarah encouraged writers to write the book they wanted to write and then find the right place for the book. She signed with a small local press, BookTrope, to publish a novel that might not have found a place in New York because it crosses genres: erotica and literary.

I left on Saturday evening, thoroughly exhausted and totally replete with an armload of books and a list of book titles, my brain lit with ideas and insights.

Artwork by Krista Brooks of RetroPets

Artwork by Krista Brooks of RetroPets

Dial C for Chihuahua, the humorous mystery I wrote with my friend, Curt Colbert, will be published by Kensington under the name of Waverly Curtis in October, 2012.

It’s the first in a series of three novels about Geri Sullivan and her talking Chihuahua, Pepe.

We have our own web site for the books here.

I remember when it first showed up in my writing life. Years ago I was a member of a writing group led by Brenda Peterson and was getting feedback on a piece I had written (perhaps one of the most personal pieces I’ve ever written) about why my father stopped talking when he was a little boy. It was the primary mystery in my family history, an event that might explain why my father was the silent person he was, and a question I had pursued through three quarters of the family history and genealogy certificate program offered by the University of Washington Extension. I gathered family stories, I analyzed my dad’s speech defect, I read microfilmed copies of old newspapers from Perkins County, South Dakota, looking for clues. I finally consulted a psychic when all my research proved fruitless and though I came to no conclusion, I thought the story was fascinating. The writing group did not agree. They asked “so what?” Well, actually I don’t think they said “so what?” They were way too polite. I think they said “Why should we care?”

This was my first experience with the dreaded “so what?” and it has reverberated in my consciousness ever since. Mostly because at the time I had no idea what to do with it. I cared, I cared passionately about my subject but I had no idea how I could convince the reader to care.

I realize now that one possible way to answer that question would be to create sympathy for the narrator and to show the reader how the search for the answer to this question changed her, or her perception of her father, or their relationship. (In my defense, some of this was in the essay, although perhaps not enough. I tend to underwrite myself as do many of the memoir writers I work with in classes.)

Years went by before I encountered another “so what?’ but it has showed up twice in this year. I think it has become a new catch phrase in the publishing world, the way the word “platform” became ubiquitous five or six years ago.

A few months ago, I submitted a proposal for my non-fiction book, My Year in Flowers, to my dream agency and got a response from my dream agent. She told me the proposal was charming but she needed an answer to the question: “So what?” This time I didn’t take it quite so personally, although again I was surprised it wasn’t obvious.

But I’ve had years of experience editing writers and I know that often what seems obvious to them is not apparent to the reader. Writers love to be subtle. We think hitting the reader over the head with information is clunky. We want to trust that our readers are smart and can read between the lines.

I thought I had clearly spelled out the advantages of my book. Wasn’t it obvious that being around nature is good for people? Wasn’t it obvious that focusing on nature in the city was a trending idea? And that most people live in cities? And wasn’t it obvious that people could learn from my experience and apply some of the same ideas to their lives and explore nature wherever they were living?

Apparently not. I’m in the process of rewriting my proposal and my introduction to make these concepts more explicit, citing authors of comparable books, and, in the process, gathering names of experts I hope will blurb my book, which can only help my prospects of selling it: to my agent, to editors, to readers.

The third “so what?” showed up a month later during a class I took this summer at Richard Hugo House. It was a four-week class on writing for This American Life taught by Bryn Gribben. This was a challenging class for me as I never listen to This American Life, but I took it because I wanted to study with Bryn and that turned out to be a smart decision: she’s a firecracker of a teacher: smart and sparkly.

I was working on the final essay in my book which is about the plant communication workshop I took in October (thanks to funding from Artist Trust). Bryn challenged us to come up with a “so what?” and then turn it upside down.

Most “so what?”’s are thematic. They can be summed up in a pithy sentence, for instance, Being around nature is good. So my statement for my essay was something like: it is possible to talk to plants! Which comes across as either trite, or obvious, or too woo-woo.

At first, I was puzzled by Bryn’s suggestion we reverse this. Is it better not to know what plants would say to us? (Perhaps, and that does point in an interesting direction.)

Bryn also suggested we try an alternate form to express the content of our essays. (This is a strategy I often use with students in my Point of View and Shapes of Stories classes..) She proposed using the structures explicated by Brenda Miller and Suzanna Paola in Tell It Slant. I had just taken Brenda Miller’s awesome workshop on one of these forms—the hermit crab essay—at the Chuckanut Writing Conference and I was eager to try it on my essay which up until then had been told in a fairly straightforward narrative.

When using the hermit crab essay, you take a form that already exists and use it to express your material in a new way. I chose the form of the Book Club Questions sometimes found at the back of books. I always hate those. They are so patronizing. It’s not a form that would work for This American Life and it probably won’t work for the final essay in my book but it did produce an interesting essay and one I think I might be able to expand and submit to a literary journal

And the juxtaposition of that form and my material revealed the twist that could make my “so what?” more interesting. I realized I had more trouble talking to my fellow participants at the workshop than I did in talking to plants.

Are you looking for a “so what?” in your writing?
You could try writing for fifteen minutes in response to the question “So what?”
Or complete any of these prompts:
The moral of the story is…..
And so, ….
Therefore, …
Thus…

The Actual Essay

Discussion Questions for Waverly Fitzgerald’s Essay Talking to Plants

1. The author seems to believe she can communicate with plants. Do you believe her?

2. Describe the dynamic between the author and the other participants at the workshop. How did that differ from the way she related to the plant?

3. Describe different ways the author interacted with her plant.

4. The author discusses the principle of “fascination.” Have you ever been fascinated by a plant?

5. The author included examples from scientific studies about plants and their intelligence. What purpose do these serve in the essay?

6. Would you ever attend a Plant Communication Workshop? Why or why not?

7. The author begins with a question from Charles Lewis: “In what ways do plants in their myriad forms enter our mental and spiritual lives?” Does she answer this question?

For years the path to readership for most writers was pretty narrow. It consisted of submitting your work for approval to a publisher or a journal, enduring many rejections, agreeing to give up a certain amount of control over marketing, and having the final result be delivered to your door or nearby bookstore as a product—a thrilling moment but one strangely outside the writer’s authority.

Just in the last few years, a whole range of new possibilities has opened up that allow the writer to find his or her audience in a multitude of ways. I begin most of my writing classes by asking writers to think about their purpose in writing and their audience. If you are clear about this, you can more easily pluck your choices from the smorgasbord of publishing choices available to you. It’s not just printing technologies that have changed radically but also options for distribution, payment and promotion.

The hand-made book has always been a work of art as well as a piece of literature, an object as lovely to handle and view as it is to read. One of the guest lecturers for my Indie Publishing class, Kate Lebo, created a hand-made chapbook for her popular Commonplace Book of Pie, which she sells through her shop at Etsy as well as at readings. The cover was printed by another one of my guest lecturers, Jennifer Borges-Foster, who creates and curates the literary journal, Filter Literary Journal.

This type of book is uniquely suited to poetry or other small texts (say, lyric essays or short short fiction). If you have the proper distribution channels, you can sell it yourself (at your poetry readings, like Kate does, or your web site). Several local independent bookstores are happy to stock your chapbooks: Elliott Bay Book Company on Capitol Hill and Open Books in Wallingford. Of course, this is a very hands-on process. The author is intimately involved in every aspect of production and distribution.

Also on the art end of the spectrum are gorgeous glossy photo-heavy books produced using print-on-demand companies. I use the Booksmart software provided by Blurb.com to make a little keepsake book at the end of each year. My book contains a page for each month, containing text and photos I’ve taken, plus an appendix of lists, for instance, my top ten books of the year, the writing I’ve completed, classes I’ve taught and classes I’ve taken and (new for me this year) the 10 best moments of the year and the 10 suckiest moments of the year.

The Booksmart software provides ready-made templates into which you can place your photos and text, thus creating a more coherent design than I might be able to attain on my own. Artists and architects often use this type of technology to produce portfolios of their work they can make available to clients; it’s also popular for wedding albums. I can imagine this being a great technology for someone who wants to document a trip or summarize family history research.

The next step-up is print-on-demand publishing, which comes with a huge range of options. If you want a truly local print-on-demand publisher, you can use the Espresso Book Machine, located at Third Place Books (Lake Forest Park) and the University Book Store. You provide a copy of your book as a PDF and the machine prints out a copy. The set-up fee is $50 to $70 and the cost per book varies, depending on page size. You can watch Vladimir Verano operating the Espresso Book Machine on this Youtube video.

Barbara Sjoholm published her book, An Editor’s Guide to Working with Authors, using the Espresso Book Machine. It’s a very nice perfect-bound book, with a classy but not too elaborate cover, containing the wisdom she’s gained working with authors and editors over the years as a publisher, an editor and the director of the Author-Editor Clinic . I got my copy from her in person at an Editors Guild event; I don’t know if she is making it available any other way.

If you are using the Espresso Book Machine to produce your books, I suspect you would have to do your own distribution and promotion. But if you choose one of the major online print-on-demand companies, you could do all your work electronically and have the company ship your book to online customers through Amazon and to bookstore customers through Ingram or other major book distributors.

I published my non-fiction book, Slow Time, through one print-on-demand company, Lulu.com ,  and I published an anthology for my writing group through another print-on-demand company, CreateSpace. I simply sent a PDF file to the company and was able to begin ordering books. Both books look good and I’ve been able to sell them through Amazon. I notice that James Patterson is now using Lulu to publish his latest co-authored books—a smart move as he has the reputation to attract fans to any sales outlet and an author receives more from a properly priced print-on-demand book than from a royalty on a sale through a major publisher.

When you’re publishing a book through print-on-demand, you’re in charge of the way the total package looks. The costs of cover design, page design and several rounds of editing will all come out of your pocket instead of the publisher’s but the other advantage of print-on-demand publishing is that you can create a new, corrected version any time you find a typo (or offer your readers an incentive to report mistakes to you!).

Many authors use print-on-demand books as part of their outreach for their business which may be focused more on lectures, consulting or coaching. Andy Himes, who is another of my guest lecturers, author of the book, The Sword of the Lord , about the generations of fundamentalist preachers in his family, has a fascinating, multi-faceted strategy for promoting his book that includes lectures and workshops, which may ultimately bring in more money than sales of the book.

E-books are another option available to authors these days, especially authors who have a web site or a blog. E-books can be downloadable PDF files, which usually sell well to readers who need instant information (I’ve been selling holiday e-books this way for years). Or they can be books formatted and published for e-readers, like the Kindle or for the I-pad. Amanda Hocking, became a millionaire selling paranormal romances as Kindle books at $1 to $3 a book.(She has since decided to publish with a traditional publisher, to give her more time to concentrate on writing.)

The Internet makes finding an audience easier but you still have to promote your book. Janna Cawrse Esarey, author of The Motion of the Ocean , another one of my guest authors, used various strategies including a video book trailer and a fabulous book launch. She also established a platform for herself before the book came out by publishing articles in magazines and blogging for the Seattle PI.

Master writing teacher, Priscilla Long, another one of my guest lecturers, put together a team of other writers (a smart move—I am on this team!) to help her with the project of publicizing her book on writing, The Writer’s Portable Mentor, which is selling like hotcakes. She is utilizing tools like flyers, postcards and address lists to get the word out about her book, and then observing the effect of these efforts through the Bookscan maps made available to authors by Amazon.

Self-publishing does involve a lot of work, and a lot of education, but it can provide rewards, including more control over the text and look of the book, greater profits for the author and a more intimate connection with readers.

So what’s a writer to do? Priscilla Long recommends at least 15 minutes of writing a day in her inspirational writing book, The Writer’s Portable Mentor, and I know several writers who have taken this on as their new year commitment. Other writers use quotas, like 1,000 words a day or seven pages.

I used to aim for a chapter a week, and that worked pretty well for me and Curt throughout the writing of our mystery novel. But I have to admit, it helped immensely to have a partner who was not only expecting me to show up with writing, but was looking forward to reading what I had written. That’s how we’re planning to write the second in our series of Pepe novels.

Last year, also inspired by Priscilla Long, I began using quotas to motivate me to send my work out. Priscilla had the ambitious goal of sending out 365 queries a year. When Curt and I decided to send out queries for our mystery novel, we had a much more modest goal (though we were inspired and impressed by Mindi Scott’s 75 queries). We were going to send out 50 queries before we would give up on agents and start querying small mystery publishers. Luckily we only made it to 21, before getting the request for the complete manuscript which turned into a contract.

This year I am also going to use quotas as a way to get my essays out into the world. I’m planning to send out one essay to ten different journals each month, for a total of 120 submissions (not as many as Priscilla but far more than the three I sent out this year). I started a list of possible journals last year which will make the task easier.

I am also going to apply the same principle to other opportunities. I plan to apply for two residencies and two grants. This quota will help me choose the best opportunities, which means I won’t waste my time, applying for every opportunity that floats into my purview.

The other lovely thing about quotas is that they give you metrics. Looking back over 2010, my track record for grants was superb. I applied for two grants and got two grants. This is after years of abysmal failure. If you look at my lifetime record, it would be more like 12 applications to three grants. Not bad, really, though for the first eight applications, my number was zero. The interesting thing about success is that it’s only one submission away.

My metrics in other areas were more embarrassing. I submitted one article and got one rejection. I queried on one book proposal, got a request for the complete proposal and then a very lovely and encouraging rejection. Obviously I could do better in these areas.

I have another (rather ambitious) goal of having two book proposals circulating at all times. (I plan to work up one in my Winter Book Proposal class.) This would mean that if anyone bought the book, I’d actually be a bit put off because I would need to whip out another proposal in order to meet my goal of having two proposals in circulation.

I also set goals for professional development. Reading regularly is an important part of my development as a writer and I use the library to give me deadlines. Got to read that book before it’s due (I often renew them up to the maximum first). I’m also planning to attend two writing workshops and two conferences.

I used to plan to attend one reading a month. Now this just comes naturally. In fact, some months I attend a reading a week. So many of my friends and students are getting published that sometimes I have to choose between conflicting events.

In those early days, I was always the person asking “What’s a typical writing day for you?” (Never “where do you get your ideas?” I have more than enough of those. In fact, if you need some, just let me know.) Nowadays I’m more likely to be asking for information on how someone found an agent or a publisher. The writing is done, the writing is solid, and I want to get it out into the world.