You ugly.

I read through a bit of your blog and found it interesting.  As much as inspiring writers could benefit from your sage advice, however, it appears that you yourself would do well to listen to those skilled in the ways of developing websites.  The black background in combination with the red and orange nearly sent me screaming in horror from the room, and I swear that at one point I was weeping blood from prolonged exposure to this Lovecraftian monstrosity.

I'm not gonna lie--I thought this design was pretty. But what do I know, I'm just a word jockey who begs her designer friends to make her logos only to alter them with MS Paint. 

If anyone's poor eyes are still with me, let me direct you to my new and marginally more attractive site, editorialavenger. It's, um, still black as of this moment.

Content-wise, this blog was kind of a practice run for me, and I soon grew the cojones to put a real one out there with my name on it. Be only as kind as I've been.

Same old boring advice

So I give workshops and have sat on a couple panels on writing, editing, and publishing. Every time, I freak out and overprepare for really challenging industry questions. And every time, every single time, I get these:

I want to write. How do I start? What should I produce that'll sell?

I am so sorry to disappoint you with the same thing you've heard over and over, but it's the only freaking answer:

Write what you love. Write the book you want to read.

You know what, forget publishing at this point. Just write and write and write, and figure out what you actually enjoy while you're doing it. I know a lot of "successful" authors at this point, and just a couple of them actually make their entire living by it. Writing cannot be first and foremost a job; that's not sustainable for most people. It's too competitive, with too little payoff. Writing has to be your daily routine, it's what makes you happy. If it pays someday, awesome, but virtually all of what you're going to get out of it (even if it sells!) is just the joy of doing it. So concentrate on doing the writing that you enjoy (the only kind you're be any good at), and maybe it'll pay later.

Pay no attention to the beginning.

The first chapter of my novel is actually a problem, it doesn't read like the rest of the book. Nothing happens, nor anything pertaining to the plot.

You really have to give us a little more information on both counts. If nothing happens, nor anything pertaining to the plot, and it doesn't read like the rest of the book, what is its purpose? Just as importantly, what will your prospective editor expect from the rest of the book? Remember that we'll stop reading at any point; the last thing I want to hear from any of yous is "Just keep going, it'll get better in the third chapter."

I think you've just decided to trash that first chapter and work its contents into the exposition. If you're really enamored of that initially different voice, try a short prologue, but make sure it's necessary.

I'm wondering if I should start in the action, or just a bit later on, and then flash back.

Where to start your story in relation to the action is another question entirely. Usually, any of several different techniques will work. It depends on what kind of action you're telling us about. What style are you going for, what are you good at, and what makes sense for the story?

Sorry for the vagueness. Pitch to the clinic, let us see!

Keep bleeding, there's blood left

Is there a point when you receive so many rejection letters as a writer that it's unrealistic to hope for a change in fortune? I've been sending short stories and poetry out for the past year and the pile of letters is beginning to topple over.

Honestly, it depends on what you're getting out of the rejections. Most (all?) successful (and by successful, I mean have ever sold anything, ever) writers have an amazing stack of rejection letters under that first manuscript that went anywhere. So one way to look at is that you've done amazing job at persevering, which is pretty special. Most people give up way before now. Seriously, good keeping at it.

The question is, what are you getting out of these rejections? Are you learning anything, and is your writing improving? Has anyone given you any real feedback, or are they all form letters?

If you've got some personal notes from editors, great. Take their advice to heart and rewrite, and work on new projects. Revision's kind of a crap shoot for us; we really don't get excited about projects that need a lot of it, as so many writers can't do it. Use editorial suggestions to inform new work instead of focusing solely on rewriting one project to death.

If your feedback's remained completely generic, it might mean it's time to really examine the quality of your writing. What does your critique group say? You do have one, right?

Also, poetry and short stories are tough to sell. Make sure you're submitting to publications that want exactly what you're doing. (Odds are overwhelming it's not going in a book.)

First Pages: #2

AZ / Inhabit

Although I really did find a way to power the rockets to take hundreds of us throughout the solar system, the only product of my entire career struggle working in so-called "rocket science," was that people wanted to hear the story.

“Entire career struggle” is confusing, but right on. I want to hear the story too.

As the "Featured Evening Speaker", again and again, they would keep me long after I was finished talking, asking me questions. What was so captivating? Was it the stories about how we can actually leave the Earth? Or was it just that I was telling them stories and entertaining them? Or was it my struggle against the real world and reality? I can't tell, so I am telling the story

You know, this is a really interesting topic, but it could be a lot more engaging. The Featured Speaker Q&A is a really great way to give your readers vicarious access to your storyteller. This technique would work a lot better as a scene than a narrative. Drop us right into that Q&A with some dialogue.

The struggle to make a Vision come alive, a kind of Exodus Path to Leave Earth, became intense, compelling, overpowering, and took on a single purpose at the moment when I first found out there was water in space. I knew immediately I could use it.

Clarify this a little more, and use it in the back story after you’ve hooked us with some speaker-audience interaction.

At the end of that career, after I "retired" and started another, I had discovered comparatively simple ways to do it:

Wait, which career ended and which started? Ease into this transition.

• to use the water objects and ice comets in neospace as gas stations,
• to use nuclear-heated steam rockets to move us,
  
• to travel the solar system,maybe to live on ice moons of the Sun System,
• maybe to use giant, ice-igloo, hollow wheels as space ships,
• to move killer asteroids and comets out of the way without atomic bombs.

Clean this list up; you’ve got some unclear concepts and you’ve mixed vague ideas with solid problem-solving.

We would inhabit, occupy, move minor planets and other celestial objects.

After all the effort, all the Visions, I got old instead of making it happen.

Love this line. Is this the focus of the story?

First Pages: #1

MR / An Unsettling Lack of Giraffes

He was Australian – I remember that part distinctly. It was the first time I’d seen an Australian outside of television and it made me immediately suspicious.

Nice opening, but we have no idea where we are. The tone is set, but nothing else. Which is fine if we get oriented really quickly.

He didn’t have a boomerang or a knife, and neither his boots nor his belt were made from animal skin. He was just tall and bearded, kind of in the way that the president on the penny
looks. Was he legit?

"Kind of in the way that the president on the penny looks" sounds like an attempt to overwrite your way into a kid's POV. Make it simpler. "Legit" clashes in voice. What age are we aiming for here?

“G’day,” he said. Other adults sounded awkward when they used that expression, but he didn’t at all - like it was natural for him.

That last line's wordy and intrusive. "Used that expression" sounds adult. Even when you're reporting a childhood memory as an adult, you want to capture that younger perspective.

I liked him immediately.

"Immediately" seems to have quite the window here. And what happened to the suspicion?

“Which came first: the chicken, or the egg?” he asked us.
I was in the 2nd grade at the time, and my school had gathered the student body together in the auditorium for a special assembly. The Australian opened his lecture with that question and nobody raised their hand to reply.

This would be more engaging if we were getting this from the second grader's perspective. It's not yet time for the narrative to dry out any. What are the really salient parts of grade school assemblies?

“Which came first?” he repeated, but the room was still silent. “Does anyone want to guess?”
Some of the hands in the auditorium went up. He called on several of us (including me) and got some typical elementary school answers.

Sounds accurate to a memory, which isn't exactly what we want to read. Punch it up a little. "Some of the hands" and "several of us" could be more specific and colorful.

“The Chicken, because eggs don’t come from nowhere.”
“The egg. Chickens can’t come from nowhere.”
“They both came at the same time?”
“Well, those are all good ways of looking at it,” he said. “Does anyone else want to take a guess?” He called on one of the 4th graders.
“The Chicken! It came first because God made it,” She said.
“Right!” he said. “It’s designed to do what it does do, what it does do it does do well, doesn’t it?”

This is probably hilarious spoken, but it's hard to follow written. Is it from something? Is this a cute line you can use a little later, when he's discussing the chicken's "design?"

We giggled.
“The chicken came first because God made it,” he repeated. “This is a Christian school so I’m sure all of you have heard the creation story by now. You know, seven days. All that good stuff.”

His tone sounds a little forced and awkward here. He doesn't seem terribly reverent, either.

All the hands went up around the room.
“Great! But I wonder – have any of you heard of evolution before?”
And again, hands shot up.
“Well, good! But can any of you tell me what it means?”
Less hands went up this time. He went around and had several kids give their explanation before he got the answer he was looking for, which was something to the tune of “evolution means God didn’t create anything.”
“Right! Evolution means that God didn’t have any part in creation at all. Evolution says that we were an accident. An accident!” he repeated with emphasis. “That we just happened to show up here; that we just happened to turn out the way we did. But that’s not how the bible says it happens.”
He stepped up to a slide projector.
*click*
A graphic of a timeline was projected on the screen with dinosaurs on one end and humans on the other. I don’t remember the dates exactly, but the gist of it was that dinosaurs existed several million years before humans did.

Voice is getting really adult here. We're losing the cute "immediately suspicious" second grader.

“This is a timeline. See how the dinosaurs are on one end and the humans are on the other? This is what evolution says. Evolutionists say that humans and dinosaurs never existed at the same time.”
He pushed another button on the slide projector.
*click*
The timeline changed to a picture of dinosaurs in a large, spacious garden. Near the bottom of the picture were two half-naked humans, conveniently covered by some low-hanging branches. One of them was petting a raptor.

WC: the bird or the dinosaur? Avoid ambiguity, even when it's obvious to you. Using a great-sounding word isn't usually worth the risk of interrupting your reader. Here, I think "velociraptor" rings just fine.

“Who remembers what day God made the animals?”
Kids shouted out several numbers between two and six.
“The fifth day!” he said. “Very good! God made all of the animals on the fifth day, and that includes the dinosaurs. And then God made us on the very next day. Now, see anything wrong with that timeline we just looked at?”
He switched back to the previous slide.
“Dinosaurs didn’t exist millions of years before us. They existed one day before us. One million years. One day. Big difference, right?”
We giggled again.

Hm. He'd be really interesting if he were more sarcastic and crazy, or insidiously smarmy. Ramp it up! We want to see his eyes bulge and his hair frizz and his teeth show right from the get-go. He's kinda just a voice right now.

I'd keep reading. Even though I know my house wouldn't touch it. Promises to be interesting.

In which we resume

Sorry about that pause in programming, folks. Your favorite assistant fell in love.

I lost my perspective; all the submissions looked entertaining and purposeful through the haze of my rosy glow. My interns finished their semester and I was left alone to frolic like so in the mountain of creativity that is the slushpile. Its anthropomorphism captured the essence of what it is to be a writer's pet these days. I found its many overused tropes insightful and warranted; the alliteration, alluring. Even the Crazy was a joy to invite into my brain. What need had I for a point to each story? The journey was its own reward!

Stop it, now. Breathe. The love must be tough.

Now that the serotonin dump has leveled out a bit, onward!