From a Nice Rejection Letter
~~~~~~~~                                                             As part of The New York Times's series titled "Writers on Writing," Alan Cheuse wrote: "You can't write seriously without reading the greats in that peculiar way that writers read, attentive to the particularities of the language, to the technical turns and twists of scene- making and plot, soaking up numerous narrative strategies and studying various approaches to that  cave in the deep woods  where the human heart  hibernates." ~~~ Why go to conferences? In an article for the Westchester County Times, novelist Benjamin Cheever was asked to give advice to a young man who wanted to be a writer. "I told him to associate with writers and editors. It's much more like other businesses than anyone wants to admit. People are apt to publish people they know. Don't count on merit. I've seen gifted writers fail and mediocre ones flourish." ~~~ "Ignorance of English vocabulary and grammar is a considerable liability to a writer of English. The best cure for it is, I believe, reading." —Ursula K. Le Guin, "'Where Do You Get Your Ideas From?'" Dancing at the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places (Grove Press, 1989) ~~~ “Creative minds have always  been known to survive  any kind of bad training.” —Psychoanalyst Anna Freud	Frequently Asked Questions (including Recommended Reading for Writers and my well-considered opinions on everything from critique groups to Print-On-Demand) +   Links for Writers of Fantasy and Science Fiction: Organizations & Resources Markets Agents Dictionaries & Glossaries Successful Query Packages First the FAQs: Here are answers to some of the general questions that I'm often asked about writing. For an inside look at how I wrote the books of Waterspell, please see Interview With the Author. For my "official author bio," please see my other Web site: www.djlightfoot.com. —Deborah J. Lightfoot When did you start writing? How did you break into print? How does a new writer get started? How long does it take to get published? What how-to books do you recommend? Do you write every day? How many words do you write in a day? Do you make an outline before you start? Where do you write? What do you like best about writing? What gives you the most trouble? How do you deal with writer's block? Do you ask other writers to critique your work? Do you enter writing contests? What other books have you written? How did you go from Western history to epic fantasy? How do you write in different styles for different audiences? Is it possible to make a living as a novelist? Why write, when it's so hard to get published these days? Why not self-publish or e-publish? How do you market your work? How do you handle rejection? What does an editor do? How does a writer work with an editor? How does a writer live with an editor messing up his/her work? Who designed your Web site? Q: When did you start writing? A: I can’t remember when I wasn’t writing. From early childhood I kept a diary and wrote long, newsy letters to relatives. Writing has always been a more natural means of communication than talking, for me. Nobody in my West Texas family was a talker. I didn’t experience the world through conversation, but through the written word. I read a lot and wrote a lot. Q: How did you break into print? A: My first bylined piece appeared in the college newspaper. While I was studying journalism, I wrote articles for the student paper. After graduation I worked briefly as a copy editor at a West Texas newspaper, then moved to the "big city"—Fort Worth—to a commercial printing firm. The company printed several monthly magazines and seemed to think I'd make a good customer-service-type liaison, to work with the editors and publishers of those magazines. But I wasn't happy in the work. Many jobs in printing require great creativity, but there was nothing creative about my duties in management. So I quit, with nothing else lined up. While looking for something to do, I attended a meeting of Women in Communications, Inc., and met the editor of the city magazine. She had recently given a freelance writer an assignment for an article on home computers (which were altogether new and novel at the time). She wasn't happy with the article the freelancer turned in, so she reassigned the story to me. That was the first piece of writing I ever got paid for—$100. More importantly, it drew me away from printing and back into writing. My time in the printing business was well spent—I learned much about the logistics of printing and publishing that has stood me in good stead since. But I'm glad that I didn't stay away from writing for too long. Q: How does a new writer get started? Where does one go for help? A: After college I began attending writers' meetings, reading how-to books, and signing up for workshops and creative writing courses. A whole new world of possibilities—and challenges—opened to me. I met talented writers whose backgrounds were entirely different from mine. Some had majored in English, but many had no "formal" training in writing; some had been submitting short stories for years and never had anything published, but they kept plugging away because they loved to write and had something to say. The tenacity of those dedicated writers inspired me to take chances, to learn more meaningful and more personal ways of self-expression. Every new writer ought to join a writers' group and learn from the combined experience of the members. Go to conferences. Attend workshops. Most importantly: Read. Read and analyze books by writers you admire. Study their use of language. Look for the strong verbs that power the writing. Are adjectives and adverbs used lavishly or sparingly? Do sentences tend to be short? Do most have a straightforward subject-verb-object construction? Or does the writer manage a complex style without sacrificing clarity? Is the writing tight, efficient, free of redundancy and excess? Is the voice active, not passive? How are scenes constructed? How do they connect? Do you see a scene-and-sequel (or "peaks" and "valleys") structure? Does the story move along briskly? How does the author keep the pace? Do the characters seem like real people? Why? What are their motivations, wants, needs, fears? What conflict drives the story? Is it character against character? Character against self? Character against the elements? Character against society? Character against relentless fate? Some combination of these? Is the background well drawn? Can you see, hear, smell, taste and feel the world where the story is set? How does the plot "twist"? Are the plot twists satisfying, surprising, convincing? Does it all hang together believably? Why or why not? You can learn a tremendous lot about writing by carefully studying the work of good writers. Also read how-to books, to help you identify the specific techniques that successful writers use to achieve outstanding results. Inspiration is all well and good, and you'll be grateful for it when it comes. But industry will carry you further than inspiration. Writing is hard work. The process of getting words down on paper can be exhilarating and mysterious at times, but often it's more a matter of applying the seat of the pants to the chair and staying there until you've written something acceptable. There's a lot to learn about any kind of writing, but fiction is a special challenge. Everything I didn't learn in a four-year curriculum in journalism—about characterization, point of view, plotting, conflict, pacing, scene-setting, sensory details, "show, don't tell," chapter hooks, etc., etc.—I've learned through self-study, by attending workshops, and by talking with other writers. Writing is a lonely profession, it's true. But most writers enjoy sharing what they've learned. And if they don't have the answers, they may help you find a book or other resource that does. (Go to sidebar.)   How long does it take? Get to know some writers who are serious about their work, and you may be startled to discover how many years they've spent honing their craft. From first byline—on a magazine article or short story, for instance —to first book, the elapsed time is often a decade or so.		“You are a gifted writer with a strong sense of how to breathe life into your imagined world, but in the end, we did not think this was a book that would fit into our lists ... I do wish you the best of luck with placing it elsewhere—I’m rooting for you, and I know that you’ll find the right editor for this one.” —A New York editor   I still haven't found the right editor. The quest continues. —Deborah J. Lightfoot   (Back to the beginning of all this)

"What to do with too much information is the  great riddle of our time." —Theodore Zeldin. An Intimate History of Humanity. HarperCollins, 1994.                                                   “I’m a slow writer ... I worry about searching  and tracking down the right word, whether it emerges from the  dictionary or from a  deeper place within  myself. One of the  things I’ve had to do  over the years is  accept my pace, even  though there’s a  tremendous pressure  that’s brought to bear  on a writer in America  to produce and to  produce quickly.” —Paule Marshall, novelist                                                                                                   “Writing a book is an  adventure. To begin  with, it is a toy and an  amusement; then it  becomes a mistress,  then it becomes a  master, then it becomes  a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled  to your servitude, you kill  this monster, and fling  him to the public.” —Winston Churchill                     Why write? "... the afterglow can last for years if the work is published and other people profit from it. The lasting pleasure is not in their praise but in your knowledge that you have contributed something of value to the culture from which you derive your being." —Ellen Gilchrist, The Writing Life   "I believe the road to hell is paved with adverbs, and I will shout it from the rooftops." —Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, 2000

Q: What how-to books do you recommend? A: There are so many! Any list I offer will be incomplete, and probably inappropriate for a particular writer's particular needs. There are, however, four books that I consider essential reading for any writer, whether published or aspiring: Book Business: Publishing Past, Present, and Future, by Jason Epstein (W.W. Norton, 2001) The First Five Pages: A Writer's Guide to Staying Out of the Rejection Pile, by Noah Lukeman (Fireside, 2000) On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, by Stephen King (Scribner, 2000) Editors on Editing: What Writers Need to Know About What Editors Do, edited by Gerald Gross (third edition, Grove Press, 1993) Also click here for other titles that might get you started. Bear in mind that these books of advice are only that: Advice. Not rules, not laws, not dictums—only advice. You are free to discard anything that doesn't work for you. Read how-to books as critically as you read the works of the authors you admire. Understand that different writers have different approaches and may be highly opinionated. You can respect their opinions without heeding their advice. Be suspicious of any writing advice that's offered in absolutes: "You must" or "You must not." It's good to learn the rules before you break them. It's bad to view writing as a set of inflexible rules that may not be broken. Q: Do you write every day? A: When I'm working on a book, I think about it all the time. I'm working out intricacies of the plot, or finding just the right way to turn a phrase, or imagining a scene in vivid detail so that when I do get to the computer, it's all there in my mind, ready to be put to paper. In that sense, yes, I write every day. Do I force myself to sit down each day, regardless of circumstances, and write my quota of words? No. Most of the manuscripts that I edit for pay are nonfiction—science and history, in the main. I find it difficult to switch from novelist mode to editor mind-set and back again. So I tend to do one thing at a time. Typically I'll devote four or five days to editing whatever assignment I have in hand, then take a day to read or make notes or otherwise prepare my mind for fiction writing, then spend the next four or five days concentrating fully on my novel. That's more productive than trying to do both kinds of work over the course of a single day. If deadlines press and I absolutely must do both, then I'll spend an afternoon and the following morning on editing, then switch to writing for the rest of that day and the morning after. That seems to be less wrenching to my psyche than alternating days in the traditional sense. Q: How many words do you write in a day? Do you have a quota or a goal? A: A good day for me is 1,800 words. A great day is 2,800. I saw where Arthur C. Clarke had admitted that, at age 81, he wasn't as fast a writer as he used to be. "I don't know if I've ever written more than 3,000 words a day," he told The New York Times. I'd be delighted to ever in my lifetime get 3,000 usable words down on paper in a day. Q: Do you make an outline before you start? A: Not willingly. Outlining has never come naturally to me. I use an outline only when I have a specific need for that kind of precisely structured rigidity. Perhaps that's easiest to explain by example. The first book of Waterspell, for instance, had been in my mind for so long that the story "outline" was clearly before me, in my thoughts, throughout the writing. As the climax neared, I knew there were certain things that had to be accomplished in those last three or four chapters. Lingering questions had to be answered, and some final parts of the mystery solved. Other threads had to be carried forward into Book II. I knew what those were, but I made a list just to be sure I didn't omit anything vital. That's the only outlining I did for Book I. Book II was different. It's a quest that takes the characters cross-country, and lots of things had to happen before they reached journey's end. My "outline" for that book took the form of a map. I sketched the characters' route through the landscape, and along the path I jotted down the major story events that I thought would happen at those places in the journey. Some of them actually did happen just where I'd planned them, but others got moved later in the story. The map served its purpose, though, in keeping me on track through both the physical geography and the plot. (Interesting, isn't it, that plot can refer equally to a piece of ground, a map of a piece of ground, or the main story of a book?) Book III, which I'm working on now, poses its own challenges. Because some of the action takes place simultaneously on two different worlds, the timing of events is critical to make sure the two main characters will work through their individual problems and arrive at the same place at the same time. The "outline" I'm following for Book III is really a timeline. Timelines and maps are fun to create, whereas outlines in an academic sense can be a drag. I've learned that an outline is only a tool, to be used or not, as the needs of writer and book dictate. Many writers find them indispensable as an aid to thinking the story through and working out the plot, then guiding the writing from beginning to end. Other writers feel straitjacketed by them. If you've got a story that you're raring to get down on paper and you don't want to take the time to make an outline first, then don't feel that you must. But if you are "discovering" the story as you go, you can expect to take some wrong turns. The trick is to know when you've gone off on a tangent, and to turn around before you've gone too far. In writing the first book of Waterspell I digressed a few times, and always knew that I had done so as soon as the two main characters had nothing to say to each other. Anyone who has read the book knows that those two never are at a loss for words. So anytime they fell silent, I only had to backtrack a few paragraphs to find where I had shortcut something important, or diverged from the story line. When I'd fixed the problem, the people started talking again. That sounds unscientific, but I'm not one to overanalyze the creative process. I'm just glad that my subconscious has its own peculiar checks and balances. If you're a writer who needs and wants to work from an outline, be glad your mind is turned that way. It'll undoubtedly save you hours of backtracking. Don't feel that you're doing it "wrong," though, if you don't outline before you write. If the lack of an outline causes you to rework your material, to explore your idea from various angles, it can be an excellent learning experience—as long as you don't end up with so many rewrites that you get lost in them. Q: What's your writing environment like? Do you have "a room of your own"? A: I do. It's a cozy space upstairs, a studio under the eaves: quiet, isolated from the rest of the house. It's cluttered with three desks (one for the computer, one for writing and revising longhand, and one for stacking stuff on). An old kitchen hutch that came out of my grandmother's house provides extra storage, and makes the room homey. As does the antique rocker that fills the room's last remaining corner. The cat, Ferdinand, gets more use out of the rocker than I do. There are overflowing file cabinets and overflowing bookshelves to the ceiling. It looks messy, but I know how to find most of what's buried in the clutter. It's only when I have a fit of housekeeping and file the piles that I lose things! (Go to sidebar.) Get Comfortable In arranging your writing space, don't compromise your comfort. Get a chair and desk that fit. You'll be more productive if you're not in pain. Avoid aching wrists and arms by positioning your keyboard at the right height. For me, that's 28 inches from the floor. The pullout keyboard shelves of most computer desks are too low. My solution has been to discard the pullout shelf and cut enough off the desk's legs to put the main work-surface 28 inches above the floor. Then stack phone books on the monitor shelf to raise the monitor to eye level. When everything is at the right height, you can work at the computer for hours and not get a stiff neck or sore hands. Every writer, whether new or established, needs a personal space for work. It need not be large or elaborate—a converted bedroom or a screened-off corner of a den works fine, as long as it's a place where the writer can think without interruption. Q: What do you like best about writing? A: The "writer's high"! Few pleasures in life can top it. When the fingers are flying over the keyboard and the words are flowing onto the screen, forceful and vivid and confident, it makes up for all those hours when writing is like slogging through the mud in cement overshoes. The biggest thrill is to get out of bed the next morning and reread what you wrote at 2 a.m., and get goosebumps because it's the best thing you ever put to paper. What a rush! Q: What gives you the most trouble? A: "Show, don't tell," has been pounded into me by workshop leaders, editors, and authors of how-to books until I want to show everything in excruciating detail. In revising Waterspell, I had to cut out detailed descriptions of the characters mounting their horses, bracing their bows, putting their boots on. Part of the problem is that I see the events so vividly in my mind that I'm moved to record them in finest detail. But that's death to the pacing of a narrative. My biggest weakness as a writer is wordiness—I love words and enjoy using them. (That helps to explain the size of this Web site, eh?) In revising, I'm constantly on a "search-and-destroy" mission, killing the unnecessary descriptions, details, adjectives and adverbs. Dialogue and action scenes don't give me nearly as much trouble as simple narrative. Connecting one scene to the next should be done quickly and concisely. I never get the writing tight enough, the first time through. Several drafts later, I'll still be weeding out the excess.

“The scariest  moment is always  just before you  start. After that,  things can only  get better.” —Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft   “... if a writer works in  more than one genre,  the chances of getting  writer's block are greatly  diminished. If I am stuck  in a difficult passage of  a novel, I may jump  ahead to smoother  ground, or I may pause  and work on poems  exclusively for a time.  If I lack ideas for one  genre, usually I have  them simmering  for the other.” —Marge Piercy             “The trouble with  the world is that  the stupid are  cocksure and the  intelligent are  full of doubt.”  —Bertrand Russell                                   Jean Cocteau once said: "Listen carefully to first criticism of your work. Note carefully just what it is about your work that the critics don't like— then cultivate it. That's the part of your work that's individual and worth keeping." Theodore Zeldin, in An Intimate History of Humanity, writes: "Condemnation is lack of imagination, when one cannot suggest something better."

Q: How do you deal with writer's block? A: When people talk about writer's block, they generally mean an inability to write. I'm always able to write something. It may be pure trash—a block of wasted words to be deleted the next morning—but (as I confessed above) I can always generate words. Sometimes I don't want to write—but lack of desire is not the same thing as lack of ability. I suspect that people who have experienced an actual incapacity, who really cannot put anything to paper, are letting their internal editors smother their creative urges. We all have an inner critic. The trick is to keep that carping little voice quiet while you're writing, and only let it speak up when you're ready to hear what it has to say. Q: Do you ask other writers to critique your work? A: I didn't for a long time. As an experienced, gainfully employed editor, I figured I could critique my own work as competently as most. For my nonfiction especially, I felt no need of an outside opinion. With Waterspell, I entered new territory. To get everything out of the experience that I could, I joined the Science Fiction and Fantasy Workshop and began an exchange with some of its members. To my joy, I found kindred spirits who offered insightful, helpful suggestions. Asking others to critique your work is a good way to identify awkward passages; writing that isn't clear; imprecise or infelicitous language; stilted dialogue; and hosts of other problems. A critiquer who comes cold to a manuscript can point out what implications a reader will likely draw from a given passage, which helps the author to avoid inadvertently creating the wrong effect. That said, I'll caution you not to believe everything a critiquer tells you. The person critiquing your work may be less experienced than you. Your critic may have an uncontrollable urge to remake your work in his or her image, which won't do you any good if you don't want to be a clone. Perhaps the person whose opinion you're seeking would not choose to read a book like yours, if you hadn't asked. That person might not be a member of your intended audience. Someone who writes (and reads) only hard-science SF might find little to like in a novel of high fantasy, no matter how well it's written. You can't please everybody—don't try. The opinion that matters the most is your own. This above all: to thine own self be true. (Go to sidebar.) To sum up regarding critiquers and critique groups: Critique Groups at Work There's ample evidence that small, supportive groups can achieve great things. Nalo Hopkinson, whose Brown Girl in the Ring won the Warner Aspect First Novel Contest, says she gets feedback from a group of five writers who have had their work published at the semi-pro or pro level. Bruce Sterling, whose novelette "Taklamakan" was a Nebula Award nominee, gives credit to the Sycamore Hill Workshop for helping mold his first version into a Hugo-winning work. I'm  acquainted with a critique group that produced back-to-back winners of the Delacorte Press Prize. The group is small, cohesive, stable, and supportive. I emphasize "supportive" because inexperienced writers may tend to equate "tough" with "good." Recently I saw a notice informing writers that "Self Abuse has never been easier! Need your writing ripped to shreds in a convivial atmosphere? Want to make new friends while, at the same time, strangling your literary children in their beds?" My answer to those questions is a resounding NO. Having your work savaged is not the same as having it critiqued in a constructive, respectful, and insightful manner. Develop your skills of self-editing. Learn to put distance between your creative half and your critic/editor half. Become your own most insightful critiquer. If you want an outside opinion, join a writers' group and participate in the critique sessions. Before you bring your work to read, sit in on a few sessions to learn the ropes and to make sure that these are writers whose opinions you'll value. Alternatively, join a critique group that does not meet in person. Online or postal-mail groups are great if you can't get to in-person sessions. Since you won't have the same opportunity to observe them in action that you have with an in-person group, you'll probably need to "audition" a few prospective critiquers to find people with whom you can engage in a meaningful, supportive, professional, productive exchange. Q: Do you enter writing contests? A: Occasionally. Contests, like critique groups, can give you useful feedback. They can also steer you wrong. Contest judges aren't always published authors or publishing professionals. Some contests give the judging job to anybody who'll do it. Before you pay $15, $50, or more to enter a contest, try to determine the judges' qualifications. I tend to finish higher when the judges are editors or agents. In contests judged by unpublished or barely published writers, I seldom do well. From this, I can only conclude that pros and non-pros look for different qualities in a manuscript. If you're taking the trouble to enter a contest, of course you'll want to receive a professional opinion, not an untutored one. (Read about an unpleasant contest experience I recently endured.) Research a contest before you enter it. What I said about critique groups applies here: If you don't value the opinions you get, the experience is worthless.

"A thrilling tale, full of danger and hardship, stampedes, rough country, and bad weather." —Kirkus Reviews "Rich with details of ranch women's lives, and spiced with humor, this is the warmest, liveliest ranch history I've ever read." —Jeanne Williams, Books of the Southwest "Well-written . . . takes the reader on a journey back in time to the turn of the twentieth century." —Review of Texas Books           "To have a new vision of the future, it has always first been necessary to have a new vision of the past." —Theodore Zeldin, An Intimate History of Humanity. HarperCollins, 1994   “We must have a past to  make a future with . . . To make a new world  you start with an old one, certainly.” —Ursula K. Le Guin, Dancing at the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places           "History did not have to happen the way it did. What exists today is not its logical conclusion. There is no freedom where history is a straitjacket." —Theodore Zeldin, An Intimate History of Humanity. HarperCollins, 1994                                             “Writing which achieves well the thing it sets out to do and doesn't cheat or be cynical or a slave to  fashion is still the key.” —Caroline Dawnay, literary agent

Q: What other books have you written? A: Three award-winning books of Western history and biography that are as different from Waterspell as pine trees from poinsettias. An apt analogy, I'd call that, since the garden of my summer house in Mexico grows both. Different though they are, they aren't incompatible in the mountains of Mexico. And different though my first books are from my current pursuits, there are many elements that harmonize. For example: What I've learned of history and the sciences, through formal education and independent study, influences just about everything I write, whether fact-based or fictional. History is a particularly versatile tool for a writer. It can be told straight or fictionalized. It can furnish plot and characters for a story, or form the background. Writers of speculative fiction often combine different periods from history to create a "new reality." And, of course, the "what if" game is a popular idea-generator. What if the Allies had lost World War II? What if Rome had never fallen? The more I write, the more different kinds of writing I attempt, the more subjects I tackle ... the clearer it becomes how interconnected everything is. I'm thinking of a short biography that I wrote, years ago, of the movie stuntman Yakima Canutt. He was a Westerner, a rodeo champion; he made his name staging horse stunts for movies like Stagecoach (1939). He went on to handle the action for costume spectaculars like Ben Hur (1959) and Ivanhoe (1952). For Ivanhoe, he had to teach the British extras how to ride Western style, neck-reining their horses with one hand on the reins so that they had a hand free for brandishing their swords. They only knew how to ride English, with both hands on the reins. It was up to an American cowboy to reintroduce them to a skill that their knightly ancestors had mastered—the one-handed reining that a horseman needs, whether he's handling a sword or a lasso. Are medieval Europe and the American West really so far separated, either in time or in culture? Q: When you put it that way, maybe not. Still, it seems like a long leap from writing the history of the Western U.S. to penning an epic fantasy with medieval overtones. A: It's more like a few short steps. I can think of so many parallels and kinships—maybe the best answer I can give is to just start naming them. Gene Roddenberry made the original Star Trek understandable to television executives by describing it as "Wagon Train to the Stars." The movie Outland with Sean Connery was a remake of High Noon, set on the moons of Jupiter. Who was Richard Boone's Paladin, in Have Gun, Will Travel, if not a knight on a black horse? He just happened to wield a six-shooter instead of a sword. (The word paladin, by the way, means "a trusted military leader, as for a medieval prince.") Where does country music come from? Its roots are in the music of Ireland. How should the First North Americans Series by Kathy and Mike Gear be categorized? Is it speculative fiction? Historical fiction? The Gears are members of both Western Writers of America and Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. One year I was a Spur Awards judge in the Best Western Novel category—one of the entries was a Western by Richard Matheson, a well-known science fiction author. (Go to sidebar.) We're not talking apples and oranges here. Westerns and SF are like two varieties of apple: One's Golden Delicious and the other is Gala! "Pick" your favorite. Sir Walter Scott: Genre Jumper? The author of Ivanhoe (1820), Sir Walter Scott is generally credited with originating the historical novel genre. Because his first novels were set in Scotland, he was known forever after as the "Author of the Scottish Novels." He called Ivanhoe "an experiment on a subject purely English" and offered it forth with some trepidation, knowing that his shift in subjects might meet with disapproval. "The public are, in general," he wrote, "very ready to adopt the opinion that he who has pleased them in one peculiar mode of composition is, by means of that very talent, rendered incapable of venturing upon other subjects. The effect of this disinclination, on the part of the public, towards the artificers of their pleasures, when they attempt to enlarge their means of amusing, may be seen in the censures usually passed by vulgar criticism upon ... artists who venture to change the character of their efforts, that, in so doing, they may enlarge the scale of their art." Scott rejected the notion that writers must limit themselves to only that mode of expression which first brought them to the public's attention. To paraphrase his argument: "The same capacity which carries a writer to popularity in one department will obtain for that writer success in another, because the adventurer in literary composition is not limited to a particular class of subjects by any peculiar mechanical habits of using the pencil"—or the computer. Q: How do you write in different styles for different audiences? A: By keeping my audience firmly in mind. When I write a biography or a history, I know what kind of reader will read it and I write for that person. When I write for a younger audience, I visualize that youthful reader and choose an appropriate vocabulary, sentence length, etc. A fantasy, I write for the reader whose tastes I'm most familiar with: me. I like a richly detailed, fully realized story, and the longer the better. When I get into a story that captures my imagination, I want it to go on forever. I'm confident that many readers want the same. If there's any secret to being a versatile writer, it's simply to know who you're writing for and to keep your intended audience clearly in your mind as you proceed. To borrow a theme from Sir Walter Scott (see the sidebar above), I'm pleased to think of myself as an adventurous writer who accepts no limits upon the written word. I won't be constrained by others' expectations. My interests range wide, and they all end up in my writing. In my career as a journalist, a science writer/editor, a historian, and now a novelist, I've written on topics from archaeology to zoology and from architecture to the culture of the Zuñi people. I take pride in being a versatile writer who's proficient in more than one type of work. What I say to you is: Write what you want to write. Write what interests you. If your research and writing interests are highly specific, let it be known that you have expertise in that field. If lots of things interest you, then enjoy the variety and use your broad base of knowledge to enrich all of your writing. If you're highly versatile, you'll have the satisfaction of your extensive accomplishments. But be prepared to hear yourself labeled a "genre jumper." Publishing seems built on categories. If you're hard to categorize, you may have difficulties with the rigidity of publishing's pigeonholes. Of course, you can always use a pseudonym—or two or three—to "fit" your work into the categories. Robert Jordan, author of the "Wheel of Time" fantasy series, has written historical novels under the name Reagan O'Neal, and a Western as by Jackson O'Reilly; he says he's saving his real name, James Oliver Rigney, Jr., for any contemporary fiction that he may write. I'm tending in that direction. I used my full name for two of my books of history and biography. "Deborah J. Lightfoot" is a shortened version of my unhandily long handle.

Q: Is it possible to make a living as a novelist? A: According to Mike Resnick and Barry Malzberg, in the Spring 2000 Bulletin of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America: The going rate for first novels in the genre markets is $5,000 to $6,000. First novelists seldom get more than a two-book contract. If those first novels sell weakly—and Malzberg points out that most first novels sell fewer than 10,000 copies in mass market paperback— the writer may be dropped. Getting on with a new publisher will likely be tough. But, as Resnick argues, an established writer can make a living if she or he turns out two novels a year, gets advances of $17,500 apiece for them, and makes thousands more from overseas sales. How realistic is such a scenario? My advice to those who want to quit their day jobs and write fiction full-time: Don't. There are less risky ways to have your freedom and also enjoy three square meals a day. Try freelancing first, to see how you handle the insecurities of irregular income, no paid vacations, no medical plan, no employer-sponsored retirement, etc. If you're flexible enough to take work where you can find it, you can get assignments not only from magazines, newspapers, and book publishers, but also from business clients, nonprofit organizations, educational associations, trade and professional groups, and others who need to communicate with their customers or constituencies. There's no shortage of people who need help with the written word, who may be delighted to have you write or edit their materials or pull their Web pages together. Be creative in your approach to freelancing, be flexible and versatile, give your customers great service, and you can build a client base that'll give you a respectable income and also allow you time to write your novels. Then, if you don't produce a bestseller right away, you won't have to give up your dream, swallow your pride, and slink back, head hung low, into the 8-to-5. Or, if freelancing seems too precarious, you might find your ideal job in seasonal work or in teaching. What's needed is time in which to write—great blocks of uninterrupted time. What you give up to get that time is up to you. Some writers sacrifice their social lives rather than forfeit their financial security. I've given up a little of both, and I'm happy with the career freedom that I've gained in return.

“If you write (or paint or dance or sculpt or sing, I suppose), someone will try to make you feel  lousy about it ...” —Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (2000)   "The only safe thing is to take a chance. Play safe and you are dead. Taking risks is the essence of good work, and the difference between safe and bold can only be defined by yourself since no one else knows for what you are hoping when you embark on anything." —Mike Nichols, director                               "To me, the essence of editing lies in helping  the author say what he wants to say in the way he wants to say it." —Legendary SF editor Betty Ballantine, Locus November 2002               "There used to be the shared conviction that the author's job was to write masterpieces and that the publisher's job was to publish masterpieces. I have known editors and publishers who believed it. They are all dead." —Matthew J. Bruccoli,  author and critic

Q: Why write, when it's so hard to get published these days? A: Most writers of my acquaintance write because they can't help themselves. And you wouldn't be searching the Net for information by, about, and for writers if you didn't feel a driving urge to learn and to create. Let me qualify the second part of the question before I try to answer it: It's not hard to get published these days. With the proliferation of print-on-demand (POD) and e-publishing, it's shockingly simple to get a book published. The real issue is how to get well published. And that, I'll grant, is quite a difficult task. Many major American publishers are closed to over-the-transom submissions. The houses that still accept unsolicited submissions have uncounted numbers of deserving manuscripts sitting unnoticed in the slush piles. The solution may lie with the independent publishers who will use the economy of POD to produce books, and the vast reach of the online booksellers like Amazon and Barnes & Noble to market them. Publishing is rapidly entering an age that will find scores of vigorous new companies transforming the book business. It's an exciting time to be a writer. Q: Why not self-publish, using the technologies of print-on-demand or e-publishing? A: It goes back to the idea of being well published. A well-published book is edited. It's the rare writer who doesn't need the pen laid on by at least one good editor. A professionally published book is often looked at by two—a manuscript or line editor, and a copy editor. It's not impossible, of course, for a self-published book to be well-published. But those who contemplate self-publication should realize that there's a stigma attached, especially for fiction. Right or wrong, the prevailing attitude is that a self-published novel is an exercise in self-indulgence and a dumb move for anyone wanting their work to be taken seriously. A commercial firm that chooses to publish a book in hopes of making money from it bestows on the book and its author a "legitimacy" that's lacking in self-publishing. On a purely practical, financial level, the self-publishing author must do it all. POD has made the actual production of a book a far cheaper and easier matter than hiring a printer to make hundreds or thousands of copies at a time—which the author must then store somewhere. POD books are printed only as they're wanted, by either the customer who orders from a bookseller or by the author who needs copies to take to her next speaking engagement. That's a vast improvement over the old way. The willingness of online booksellers to offer self-published books alongside the titles that the big names put out is also a great help. But getting your book listed with Amazon, B&N, Borders, etc., is only a part of the marketing that's needed. Established publishers have publicity departments that, in theory, help to bring a new book to the attention of its intended audience. I'm not defending the big publishers, the media conglomerates whose performance has been disappointing in modern times. All too often they have failed in their obligations to effectively edit and market their authors' books. Self-publishing brings an author no relief, however, from the problems of poor editing and minimal marketing. It's a case of "out of the frying pan into the fire." There's wisdom in trying to stay in the frying pan: There you have a chance of getting a book that's well done. If you desert the skillet for the fire, you may end up getting burned. Q: How do you market your work? A: If there's a way around the "send it out and wait" routine, I haven't found it. Publishing is a buyer's market. As discussed above, the major publishers are buried under piles of paper sent in by hordes of writers. Much of what they receive is unpublishable. The only trick I know is to make your work stand out from the slush pile. Impress editors with your professionalism. Query the right editors: Target your marketing. Submit letter-perfect query letters and synopses. Use those letters and summaries not only to sell an editor on your book, but also to show how well you write. A query/synopsis should showcase your writing skill and your enthusiasm, confidence, and experience. Neither bravado nor false modesty will help you. Be businesslike, brief, and convincing. Study examples of successful query letters and synopses. You can find some through the Resources links and in the Recommended Books. Don't give up. Books may be rejected dozens of times before they land with the right publishers and become great successes. Book publishing, like writing, demands patience. Q: How do you handle rejection? A: I heave a big sigh, and set the rejection letter aside until I've gone through the rest of the day's mail, looking for a check made out to me, a letter from a relative, a credit card offer, or any other sign that somebody out there wants me. Then I pick up the nasty little rejection and learn what I can from it. If it's a form letter, it says nothing useful. But sometimes an editor will take the time to personalize the rejection, and those few words can be invaluable. The briefest comment may identify a weakness that I hadn't noticed before, or send me looking for a new solution to a persistent problem. Standard advice to writers is: "Don't take rejection personally. It's your work that's being rejected, not you." That applies to nonfiction—the editor might love the way you write but decline your project because his house already has a book on that topic, or doesn't publish in that area. It's useless advice for a novelist if your work springs from your heart, as mine does. A rejection of my work is a repudiation of who I am, and it hurts like hell. I've been known to cry over a rejection, or go to bed and hide under the covers for a day. But my irrepressible ego saves me, and soon I'm reworking the rejected manuscript and sending it out again. Writers tend to have strong egos. (Why else would we be writing?) That strength is a bulwark against the frustrations we face daily in our work. Q: What does an editor do, besides reject manuscripts? How does a writer work with an editor? How does a writer live with an editor messing up his/her work? A: The book Editors on Editing: What Writers Need to Know About What Editors Do, edited by Gerald Gross, gets you into the editor's mind and gives you first-hand information, so that you need not depend on what other writers think editors want. Every writer should read it. From "What Is an Editor?" to "How Books Are Chosen," its insights into the editorial process make this collection of essays a real page-turner for the information-starved writer. One caution: Some of the editors who contributed to Gross's book wrote of their profession as it might be practiced in an ideal world. The world of publishing today is not ideal. Few writers get to send in their raw material and have a top-flight pro editor restructure the whole incoherent mess for them, the way one developmental editor describes the process. Even the basic copyediting which every book should undergo is skipped at some houses these days. Books get published with so many spelling and grammatical errors that it's obvious no editor's pencil touched them. In the main, however, I found the essays in Editors on Editing to be illuminating, inspiring, and not occasionally horrifying, as they gave me a peek at the machinations of New York-style publishing. Drawing on my experiences as an author and an editor, I'll end with these observations: If you get an editor who gives your work close attention—be grateful! In the understaffed world of publishing today, such editors are getting rare. Keep a copy of this quote from Gerald Gross: "The editor must not in any way at any time attempt to edit the book so that it will be written the way the editor would write it if the editor wanted to, or could, write. The editor must learn to edit in the writer's voice, think the writer's thoughts, achieve the writer's perspective." Believe it. If you ever get an editor who subscribes to a different policy, have Mr. Gross's words engraved on a plaque and give it to that editor with the suggestion that it be hung where it will be seen daily. (Be aware, also, that you're acting as editor when you critique another writer's work. Heed Gross's admonition. Do not attempt to rewrite the other work so that it will be written the way you would write it. Respect the writer's voice, thoughts, and perspective.) Understand, as you enter into a publishing contract and a relationship with an editor, that your writing is unlikely to appear in print exactly as you submitted it. Be prepared for some give and take. Concede the small stuff. Resist to the utmost those changes that you consider damaging. If you can back up your opinions with solid reasons, any able editor will yield to your wishes. I can hear you asking: "What if I get an unimaginative, incompetent dolt who will ruin what it's taken me years to write?" Fortunately, those sorts are rare. An editor who believes your work needs a complete rewrite won't rewrite it for you—he or she will just send you a form rejection. It's sort of a self-limiting problem. Let that be your consolation the next time you get a rejection letter. The editor who sent it was nobody you'd really like to work with anyway, probably. ;-) Q: The Waterspell Web site is attractive and easy to navigate. Who designed it? A: I did, using WebExpress 4.0 from MicroVision Development. It's easier to use and more flexible than other programs I tried. The basic templates can be customized to fit individual needs. I could only get some of the effects I wanted by inserting HTML code directly, but overall, I'd recommend it. © 2009 by Deborah J. Lightfoot / All Rights Reserved More questions? Comments? djls@djlightfoot.com Next ---> > Home > Excerpts > Readers' Comments > Author Interview > Words & Treasures > Word Games > FAQs & How-to Books > Links for Writers > Author Presentations > Inquiries & Feedback TOP Back to the FAQS On to the Links