Where Have All the Tomboys Gone?

The other night I went to my second meeting with the Scottsdale society of Women Writers. This is quite a dynamic and enthusiastic group of women who all have the same common goal of writing, publishing and selling their work. At least those I’ve met are interested in that path. Many of them have already been published traditionally or have self-published. And self-publishing is an act that I’m coming to learn is slowly becoming more traditionally accepted form of publishing as well.


We sat around the good viewing side of the table, there were six of us at our table, and chatted while we waited for dinner to arrive and the leader of the group, Patricia, to get things kicked off for the night. I was wearing my name tag in guest red but had just joined that night and it felt great to know that next month I’d be sporting member blue; no longer just a guest but one of the people who can call herself a Writer. As we talked about the projects we’ve all worked on, our lives in general and what our current success has been in publishing, I suddenly realized that a few of the women at our table were asking me about the steps I’ve taken in publishing my novel.


I am not yet published, this first manuscript that I wrote during (the dare known as) NaNoWriMo in 2009 had its edits completed in mid-2010 and I’ve been shopping it ever since. My time doing research to find out the proper steps and ways to go about getting a 60,000 word Chick Lit novel into mainstream publication has armed me with a whole bunch of knowledge but no contract with an agency as of yet. But I still felt great that I could contribute to the smaller group at our table with a little bit of information on how they too could get their work out into the world. Maybe those yet unpublished authors at our table would find quicker success than I have and I hope they all go for it!


My book, I professed, is a specific sect of a specific genre. Generally when I make these kinds of statements the person I’m talking to nods and says “oh, that’s nice” but they don’t ask the follow up questions. These ladies asked exactly what genre it was, what makes it more niche-y and I was overjoyed to describe it! I need to create an elevator pitch as if I was the book talking, it will help with queries, so the more I can narrow down by saying it out loud the better.


I told them that it qualifies as Chick Lit but my female main character isn’t like typical girlie-girls. She’s not all about shoes and purses, she’s a tomboy who loves The Bruins and beer and jogs almost daily. One of the women at my table said “ooh, cool!” and I almost ran over across the table to hug her. It hit me in that moment that there have got to be hundreds, if not thousands, of women just like my main character out there. Women that would think a story about a tomboy and her friends hanging out at bars, building businesses, and finding love in Boston is cool. I mean, I’m that way. My character’s disposition and activities came out of my imagination so while she isn’t a carbon copy of me, there are still a whole lot of “she’s the me I’d be if I could create the dream me” moments.


I agreed that I thought it was pretty cool. It’s not likely I’ll ever write a girlie-girl story with a high heel wearing, Prada bag carrying, powerful and rich type of girl simply because that is not me.


So while I pondered the fact that there is a definite market out there for my work I started to wonder if I already know that entire network of people. In theory of course, I hope more than the few hundred women I know will enjoy my book. I guess I mean that if I’m a tomboy and most of the gals I know might also be considered tomboys it must be reasonable to deduce that there are many, many others out there too. Maybe even some Agents.


Next step: find an Agent who likes a good Porter and an Irish Townie who knows how to kiss, can’t live without hockey, and is there in a crisis for her friends regardless that she too is essentially in the middle of a crisis.


Or at least find an Agent who wants to read about that girl because although it nerves me, I can’t wait to stand in front of the group and talk about my soon to be published novel.

If Nothing Else It Sure Is an Interesting Journey

So far, according to my account on querytracker.net, I’ve sent out 19 queries. Not a lot that’s true but my goal is to research and submit my pitch to at least 6 new agents a week. Since I started getting back into the swing of this whole thing again about three weeks ago I’ve almost kept that promise to myself; I think my number is somewhere around fourteen. Not bad but still not good enough.

In the world of publishing there are some truths that, no matter how many blogs or twitter feeds I’ve read, seem to hold true.

1. Agents really don’t like when you spell their name wrong. (Luckily I’ve never done this and its likely because I hate when my name gets misspelled -- two N’s, seriously, how hard is that?)
2. For every 100 queries sent (very approximately), one will want to publish you.
3. Agencies have all kinds of creative ways to tell an author to go pound sand.

Yesterday I received my fourth different type of communication from an agent. So far, I have received rejections in the form of a teeny slip of paper attached to my own original query, a handwritten note scrawled at the top of my original query, an email that had been sent months after my snail mail query (then it was printed out with a quick handwritten note and sent back in my SASE), and a postcard (the one pictured above, I just changed the info to protect the innocent but the wording is as I received it).

Not to mention all the eRejections but they aren’t as creative.

Oh yeah, but there was that one…that one agent so far who saw the same potential in my work that I see. The agency that requested the first two chapters. I don’t know if that will be my agent or agency, I probably won’t hear from them for another two months either way, but just the request alone leads me to believe I must be doing something right.

There is a lot of work involved in querying and so far I’ve only done about a quarter of what I will likely need to do. In my quest to find the perfect agent I’m starting small -- researching and submitting to those who require nothing more than the query letter in email. Next will be those who take a simple query via snail mail. After that I will need to start paying a little more for postage as the requests differ wildly from agent to agent.

Some want as much as a query, 10-20 page synopsis and the first three chapters. And that’s just to get a foot in the door! It isn’t that I don’t want to do it, in fact if the agent above who requested two chapters via email asks me to ship out my completed manuscript where do you think I’ll be within twenty minutes?

Well, barring weather of course.

Speaking of the weather, Boston is doing a pretty good job of reminding me of one of the reasons why I so desperately want to get out of here this year. Two storms of eighteen inches of snow in as many weeks, stuck in yesterday, and now another potential whopper on Friday. Yes, I am counting down the minutes until we leave for the Valley of the Sun!

The funny thing though is that I keep thinking, as long as I’m trapped inside I might as well make good use of that time. So this is the time I’m spending getting to know agencies and formatting my queries. Next month, however, I made myself a promise that no matter where I was in the query process for Ripple the Twine, I’d get back to my second manuscript re-writes.

Bet you all thought I forgot about my second NaNo win didn’t you? Yeah, well, there were days I really wanted to forget it, so I can appreciate that. But overall I think the bones are there for a really funny and well written story. It’s just that I need to completely re-write it to get there.

Well maybe not all of it, I might even keep the attack of the killer zombies scene but she definitely can’t be a blogger anymore and the whole love triangle thing needs to happen with a completely different guy. Oh and I really need to beef up her mother’s character but she can’t be the evil one, I need to make that a random co-worker. Who I will have to write in now. But she is still going to suffer from post traumatic stress amnesia. It’s kind of integral to the entire plot.

The plot that formed in my head the last week of November but never quite made it to the page.

About three weeks into NaNo I had the most brilliant idea for how I could give her a happy ending even though she had been hit by a bus, divorced from her high school sweetheart and sexually harassed online. Of course half of that had to change but keeping with the majority of her back story, etc. I couldn’t wait to write it!

In February.

After I left her in a cold dark place to ruminate over all her missteps for a while.

And by ‘her’ I of course mean me.

And by ‘missteps’ I of course mean all those plot bunnies.

If nothing else, this writing thing sure is a wild ride full of millions of dull and pathetic moments of boredom and repetition…and I am loving every single minute of it.

The Million Dollar Idea

It really isn’t a big secret that I would love to be a millionaire. That old adage ‘money doesn’t buy happiness”? Well I’d love to know if it really is true or not. There is also another famous line about the ever popular, substantial sum of money that sounds a lot more appealing: “If I had a million dollars, I’d be rich.” If I were rich, maybe I would invest in a canoe so I could paddle my way out of my street.

But I digress…Let’s talk for a minute about what could get a person into the million dollar club. Specifically, that person, being me.

So as you all know by now I have this book, well manuscript in its current incarnation, and it’s a pretty satisfying story to me. I’m in love with my leading male character, didn’t feel like killing off anyone more than I actually did, feel good about the plots & sub plots and like the way it flows overall. Is it a million dollar idea though? I’m not quite sure.

The book is Chick-lit (a term which I absolutely loathe but sadly seems to be here to stay), mainstream fiction. The basic premise is: 4 middle to upper middle class friends, from all manner of backgrounds but who share the common bond of entrepreneurship, live and work in the Boston area and try to make their way through the muck that is life with a smile and a laugh knowing they will be there for each other no matter what that life may throw at them.

Can’t you just see the rainbows shooting across the sky?

Okay, before you start to retch all over your keyboard, the story is actually fairly real, none of them do anything for a living that could have them jetting off to distant lands with loads of money and a perfect significant other waiting for them back home.

Okay, well maybe one of them does. Wait, two. Er, thr…never mind. It’s a piece of fiction. Chick-lit at that. Suspend the disbelief people.

But therein lies the issue of the million dollars.

Quick, name the last Chick-lit novel that made its writer a boat load of cash? Sex and the City? And didn’t that only become a hot selling book after the show of the same name got made? Suddenly people everywhere were asking the questions ‘Wait, it’s a book too?’ and ‘Who the heck is Candace Bushnell?’

I would wager that not many know she also wrote the book that, for some reason, NBC also tried to turn into a television show, Lipstick Jungle. (In that case, I’m sure the book did do way better than the show.)

It isn’t as if the genre won’t sell, it certainly does to people who are hungry for a flirty read that lets them laugh through a fantasy woman’s tragically hilarious trials so they can feel better about their own life. Hell, I felt better about myself just for having written the damn thing, but a best seller that makes a million dollars? Hmmm…not really sure.

Now, that’s not to say that if it doesn’t end up in the Times it won’t make a million dollars. Not strictly. There are many ways to pimp oneself out these days that have nothing to do with the top critic’s gauge of the awesomeness of the novel (although it is awesome, I assure you). Two words my friend -- Social Networking.

There are so many ways to market a story, so many people out there in the virtual world, that it almost seems pointless to go with a standard publishing house and wait the year after acceptance just to get it printed, when I could just hop on over to one of the bajillion self publishing sites, upload the MS and have copies on hundreds of people’s shelves by this holiday season.

Hundreds. Hundreds? Well at roughly $2 profit per sold copy, let’s just do the quick math here. That means (assuming it’s at the very top of the hundreds category) I only have $998, 002 to go. Seventy or so more books and I could be a millionaire! Yippie!

Yeah, the day I croak. Maybe even long after.

The potential for sales does greatly increase with an old school publishing house. But of course the profit decreases. But of course the editing is better. But of course that might mean I have to rewrite the entire thing to what they want it to be. But of course they can sign me for a multi book deal.

Ugh.

Maybe if I want to really make boat loads of cash I should go literal and just build boats. But not some silly, lame canoe. Instead, I bet I could sell a million, $1.00, “Build Your Own Ark” kits to everyone up and down the east coast this week.

They can take 2 copies of my book on board with them when they float away.

The End is Rapidly Approaching

It’s been a while, yes that’s true, and I wish there was some excuse other than I have mostly been writing the book like a complete fool junkie for Chick-lit but there isn’t so here I am now. I do have to admit, I miss my blog and miss reading blogs but in February when I have a well crafted publishable novel that I can start shopping (read: lots of down time while I get rejection letters in the mail) it will all have been worth it and I promise to get back with everyone before then.

To keep my mind semi off the book I have been continuing with drum lessons, which have been going really well and my instructor is branching me out of the instruction book and into more real time beat driven stuff that doesn’t involve me reading along with anything and keeping the beat in my head, not on the page. It’s awesome to escape for the hour and just not think while I bang out some real music; albeit very slow music.

Speaking of music… Something strange that has happened, and I didn’t at all expect, is that I have not been able to bring myself to listen to my favorite music this month. No Jason, no Melissa, no Foo Fighters and no Dave Matthews Band. Since I tend to sing along with every word most of the time I didn’t want them infiltrating my brain and clouding up my own words for the book. Weird, because I love to listen to music while I write most of the time and especially lyricists like those folks.

Speaking of Dave (and Jason)... Last night the band (including Tim which was so awesome!) was the musical guest on SNL. Lately I make it to the Weekend Update and that’s about it but last night I think there were only one or two skits that didn’t make me laugh out loud. I was impressed by Joseph-Gordon Levitt as a host, I haven’t seen this kid since he was in 3rd Rock From the Sun but he was awesome! Great monologue, no shame, never forgot a line & he stayed in character, no matter what the skit, all night.

The best skit ever came somewhere near the start of the show. Anyone who’s a fan of Dave, Jason, Jack Johnson or Ozzy Osbourne will enjoy this. Even if you’re not and just know the general personalities of any of those musicians you should get a kick out of it.

The Mellow Show with Jack Johnson

Still makes me laugh. Hysterical.

So I’m breathing down the door of 40,000 words and bloody well plan to be at 44-46 by the end of the day today. I plan to hit the 50k mark on the first day we’re allowed to upload the book to claim the certificate, that way the pressure is off and I can just finish the beast knowing, if nothing else, I let myself win this challenge.

In other awesome news…you may have noticed there is a stagnant post at the top of the blog. It is a story on local Nano writers and I was featured in the article. Woo hoo! Matt Reid from the Medford Transcript and Malden Observer contacted me to see if I’d be interested to share some info for the article and it went up this past week on line and into the print copy last Thursday. Not only was it a front page story it was the lead off headline! It is very exciting that locals will get a chance to learn about Nano and I was so happy to be a part of the piece! Thanks Matt!

So that’s about all the news to report in my life.

My character, Sara, on the other hand... Well so far she has had to deal with the break up of one of her friend’s relationships (because she just got signed and is about to go on tour with her band), discuss the possibility that another might be having an affair with a much younger man in London, find out that another friend might be selling his bar and sandwich shop (which is her touchstone location) and she is trying to decide if its appropriate to sleep with a guy on their next date (because she isn’t really sure if its their second or fifth) and that guy is about to reveal the biggest secret that will affect all of them forever.

Whew!

She is on a month long roller coaster here but I’m so glad to be able to be along for the ride. Luckily I have her to live vicariously through; my own life sometimes seems kind of boring in comparison. Of course that isn’t exactly a bad thing.

See you all again in December!