A Contest Re-Visited: If at First You Don't Succeed...

Two years ago, I blogged about my intentions to go to my first ever writing conference. I was a nervous little bundle of excited energy, heading down to Provo, Utah with my best friend, anxious to see what I would learn at the 2016 Storymakers conference. Also, I was excited to see my nephews because, let's get real, I am super good at mixing business with an excuse to crash my older sister's house.

A few weeks later, I'd come home and posted about some of my experiences, particularly what I learned about receiving critical feedback from the First Chapter Contest that I entered at the conference. You can find that post here, but the TL;DR version is that I didn't win anything, and processing the feedback I got from the judges was difficult because so little of it matched up.

Now here we are today. Just shy of two years later, right on the heels of Storymakers 2018. It's been a good year. A REALLY good year. And I would be a lying, ungrateful wretch if I didn't acknowledge that, at least in part, it's because this year, I kinda - ahem - won my category in the First Chapter Contest. Oh, and I took third in another category, just for funsies.

Now, those who attended the conference with me know that I am good at talking about myself. I've been too excited to be overly modest. The conference kindly gives you ribbons that proclaim your winner status to attach to your name tag as well, so for a couple days, both friends and strangers alike were congratulating me and I am honestly so grateful for all of you who were kind to me.

It also meant I was asked a lot of questions about my work. A lot of people asked what genres I won in, but after that, this was the thing people most wanted to know: How many times had I entered the contest before?

Looking back, I'm trying to remember if I asked that same question of the people I saw walking around with winner ribbons back at my first Storymakers. I know of at least one person, I did. I was trying to process my contradictory feedback, and trying to figure out how much longer/more work it would take for me to succeed. This is such an agonizing place to be in; one that I haven't yet escaped myself, as I continue to query my novels and seek agent representation. In other words, I really get where this question comes from.

I'm certainly not *there* yet. I have a long road ahead of me, littered with success and failures. But if you're like I was then, and how I am now, trying to make sense of the swerving trajectory of an unpublished writer's career, then this post is for you. Here's a two year history of Emily, told over the course of three Storymakers conferences.

STORYMAKERS 2016

Number of first chapter contest entries submitted: 1 (YA Fantasy)

I had a lot of big dreams when I went to my first writing conference. I was going to make friends, learn things, and, with some luck, win all the prizes. In a post like this, it can be easy to focus on the thing in that list that I didn't do: win. While it didn't have any long term impact on my motivation or confidence, I was pretty choked when I saw my scores. I came so close. One judge gave me perfect marks. And another basically gave me a C-.

If you read my post about processing that feedback, you'll know that I claimed to have never found that low mark helpful or instructive. Even though the judge listed ways I could improve, it would have meant changing the things the other judges loved. I can say two years later that the answer is still true. That particular feedback form was never helpful to me, and those are the breaks. I stand by what I said then, that there WILL be people who never connect with your work, and no amount of trying to please them will help you.

It could have happened this year, too. In fact, when I opened my feedback on my winning entry, the first judge said how stressed they were that the other judges wouldn't like it as much as they did. There's some divisive content in the book, you could say. The first paragraph was filled with counsel about what advice I should ignore if a judge who didn't "get" my entry gave me feedback, but I got luckier this year. Everyone who read my book "got" it

But let's return to that list of goals. I had way more success in the first two areas. Some of the friends I made at that conference became a critique group for me during the coming year, and those people have supported me and helped me refine my craft. I'm less alone than I was back in 2016, and that was the main motivator for going to a writing conference. I was tired of trying to write without support and feedback.

And then there was the learning piece. One of the classes I attended was on writing Young Adult Contemporary. I'd never done it, but I liked reading it, and had found myself picking up more and more of those books. I read several more that summer, and gradually, that sparked ideas...

STORYMAKERS 2017

Number of first chapters contest entries submitted: 2 (YA Fantasy and YA General/Historical)

Going into this conference, my expectations were WAY lower, at least in regards to winning things. I'd learned my lesson about reasonable expectations but, oddly enough, I entered more entries. One was the chapter I'd entered the previous year, and based on feedback I got from other people, I had changed a lot of it. However, in doing so, the length ballooned and chapters over 3000 words weren't eligible. I cut the chapter at an awkward point around that mark and knew better than to get my hopes up.

It's hard to compare numbers year to year, since the contest format was revamped between 2016 and 2017, but I think I scored worse the second year. I still did okay, but the awkward break didn't do me any favors, plus people had some legitimate gripes with it, some of which I'd never thought of before. I was... pleasantly startled by the results. I incorporated some of that feedback, and I am very grateful for the people who gave me such thorough comments. Storymakers judges, you guys rock!

I also submitted a very rough first chapter for an uncompleted draft of a Young Adult Contemporary novel that I'd started. One of my critique partners currently HATED my main character's best friend, so my hopes weren't high for this one either. Sure enough, one of the judges questioned why I'd included such an unlikable girl, but across the board I got this feedback: rough, but it has potential. They liked the voice. One judge liked the voice so much she marked me higher than I probably deserved in a couple categories. The judge said things like, "so technically this category is about pacing, and nothing really happened in this chapter but I DON'T EVEN CARE! I love your voice!" Other judges did care. I didn't win anything.

But I felt encouraged. I kept working on that draft, and gradually, my critique partner stopped hating that one character so much. I'm skipping over a lot that happened in 2017, but it was a year of drafting and revising, and then revising again. I queried the project, had less success than I wanted, and then rewrote some more. 

Another important thing happened at Storymakers 2017. One guy placed in three separate categories. THREE! I was gobsmacked! I also realized that I could be even bolder if I wanted to. Winning isn't the only objective, after all, since the judges offered feedback. So why not go nuts and enter everything I had on hand?

STORYMAKERS 2018

Number of first chapter contest entries submitted: 4

This year, I threw caution to the wind. Who needed it???? Not this girl! 

That being said, I went in with reasonable expectations. If people are curious, here are the four categories I entered, and how I did in each one.

YA Sci-Fi/Dystopian - I decided to enter a chapter from a book I'd shelved a few years ago. It was a book I still loved, but hadn't been successful in the query trenches. When I reopened it to cut down the overly long chapter by four pages so that it fit the word count, I think I burned my eyes. Cleaning this up was PAINFUL. I hadn't realized how much I'd improved over the years. I also didn't budget enough time to really perfect this one, but whatever. I was subbing for feedback anyway.  It actually did better than I thought it would, and while I haven't had time to go over the feedback in detail yet, I'm hopeful to have some awesome insights from this.

Adult Speculative - This is actually where I subbed that pesky YA Fantasy from the previous two years. I'm toying with the idea that I need to age the book up. It didn't win anything again, but this time I gave the chapter a better breaking point and judges loved the ending. Overall, I improved my marks from the previous year greatly, and I'm excited that this might be a good direction for future revisions. It also might help explain why the previous two years, there were judges who just didn't connect with it. The story probably works better positioned as an adult story than a YA. I'm not breaking as many reader expectations, like I did for that C- judge two years ago. So maybe I did learn something from that low score after all.

Adult Mystery/Suspense - This is the book I'm currently drafting. It's weird and wonderful and exciting and COMPLETELY outside my wheel house. When I started it, I'd read a grand total of, like, five adult mystery books over the course of my entire life. I'm playing catch up right now, but I knew enough about the genre to know that if someone was dead by the end of chapter one, I would be on the right track. Also, I'd learned by writing my YA Contemporary that my strength was first person perspective character voice, and I leaned hard into that. That's what nabbed me my 3rd place ribbon. To be clear, the judges did have a LOT of constructive feedback, and I'll definitely use it as I finish the draft and catch up on my mystery reading. I'm excited for the encouragement and to see where this book goes.

YA General/Historical - Sweet mercy. I am still overwhelmed, you guys. With the previous three categories, I felt like a long shot. One was an old book. One I was trying to switch age categories. One was in a genre I barely knew anything about. But one was Sweet Pee. A book I loved. A book I'd slaved over. A book a judge told me to change the title on last year and my Pitch Wars mentor told me to change the title on last Autumn and another judge told me to change the title on this year and, dang it, some day I might just do it. Maybe.

I won. I finally did it. I'm freaking out.

To be clear though, winning this contest is not the be-all-end-all of my career or anyone else's. It's a stepping stone and learning opportunity. Believe me, I would have been perfectly happy NEVER winning this contest. I wanted to be ineligible SO BADLY, by getting an agent offer before it came around again. Nope. No such luck.

As it turned out, this conference coming up yet again forced me to improve the chapter, and four pages disappeared from it. Moral of the story: at some point, all of my chapters WILL balloon in length and they WILL need to be cut. I think I had to cut about four pages from every single one of my entries this year. Something is wrong with me.

Additional moral of the story: don't be afraid to try new things. A wild chance at mystery got me third place. More importantly, I got up the gumption to try YA Contemporary a couple years ago, when things weren't working so well in YA Fantasy. It can be hard to do, especially when you imagine yourself being known a certain way and for a certain type of book. It was scary for me, but I'm so glad I did it. 

There have been a lot of different versions of this winning chapter and, as you can see, several others, so if you're currently reading feedback and wondering where you're going from here, please don't give up. Whether it's a contest or a query critique or edit letter, don't give up. It may take you two years or five years or fifty. Or maybe you get it right tomorrow. I don't know. I can't tell you.

But if you keep at it, there are happy endings. Maybe not mine precisely, but you'll find one. I believe that about books. And I believe that about you.

New Year, New Writer!

This is one of those blog posts that will probably hold more interest for me than anyone who regularly reads this blog. It calls into question why I'm posting it here, but I've come to realize that in the absence of a more traditional journal, this blog has taken the place of that for me. In fact, I've got a few pages of unpublished posts that are either too messy, too raw or too boring to make the cut as public posts, but they live on in my drafts folder as reminders of earlier ideas or thought processes. You could say I've hit that point in nerd evolution, where all my deep, personal thoughts come out as long form essays, but I digress.

Today, I want to talk about goal setting! New Years is one of my favorite holidays, even if I'm not doing anything for it. (I've got nothing but attending church planned for New Year's Eve this year. Woopwoop!) Mostly, it's because I'm a chronic goal setter, and I love that blank slate feel that a new year gives.

Further, I'm a firm believer that if you want to get anything done as a writer, you need to have some system for setting and fulfilling goals.

Making Time and Reason for Writing

When you are like me - unagented and unpublished, but striving to reach both those milestones - it can be very difficult to make time for writing, due to the absence of any external pressure to do those things. Currently, my income is not derived from my writing. Writing does not make my house any cleaner, feed my cats or fulfill my church assignments. It takes me away from my friends, and as we speak, writing this blog post is keeping me up past midnight. Whoops.

My passion for writing is my primary motivator that keeps me coming back. I love stories. I love creating. I would do some form of writing and creating no matter what in my life. But due to the other demands on my time, it's downright impossible to get anything substantial done in my writing without some coordinated effort. Those other things distract me and destroy my productivity, unless I  hit back.

To me, goals are the names we give our dreams. If I want to achieve those big picture dreams I have, like selling books and using that money to buy cat food, I need to give a name to each brush stroke of that picture. So today, I'm doing that.

Feel free to comment with some of your own New Year Resolutions! Like I said, I love this holiday, and when people tell me their goals, I feel like I'm learning what they named their little, baby dreams.

First, The Year in Review

Let's look at some of the things I achieved or learned this year! YES!

• Joined an online writing group. Got my revision game back on. All the love to you, my Oddballs.
• Attended the Storymakers Conference, where I:
• Met some of the people in my online writing group. HEY GUYS!!!
• Got my first page onto the First Impressions agent critique panel
• Pitched an agent after said panel, didn't die, and got a request for pages
• Subbed two stories to the first chapter contest
• Finally understood what is meant by Deep 3rd Person POV 
• Learned what a beat sheet is
• Wrote about insulation, and was complimented on it by Allie Condie. Guys, I may never get over this one.
• Endured the loss of Tuula Mantta and Miranda Leavitt, when they had the nerve to move away.
• Resolved to make more friends. Forced people to watch Planet Earth II with me.
• Took trips to Kelowna and Calgary, where I got to see Tuula and Miranda, keeping summer awesome. YES!
• Realized my friends were a terrible influence on my writing habits. Sat down, and finally...

The SWEET PEE timeline

• Started drafting a new manuscript, titled SWEET PEE - and yes, that's spelled correctly - for NaNoWriMo in November 2016. Got about 20,000 words in by November 9th.
• On November 9th, started a new job, which destroyed my brain and productivity. Put the manuscript on the backburner until the New Year.
• Wrote large amounts of the first draft on the bus, to and from work, due to time constraints. Learned the value of a light, small laptop.
• Resolved to make more friends in April/May. Got terribly distracted. Failed to finish last 4th of book for several months.
• Realized the deadline for the Pitch Wars writing contest was coming, and remembered that I wanted to enter. Banged out the last 4th of the first draft in the first week of August, and submitted to Pitch Wars August 4th.
• Got into Pitch Wars August 24th! Spent the next two months revising the book with the help of my amazing mentor, Lianne Oelke. Check her out here!
• Completed the polished manuscript in time for the October 31st deadline, making it almost exactly a year from sloppy, first words to query ready manuscript. Fastest turn around I've had on a manuscript to date!

And back to other lessons learned...

• Realized during revisions that there is DEFINITELY such a thing as biting off more than you can chew.
• Learned some things about comma placement and compound sentences that would likely make my poor Master's Thesis advisors weep for joy, knowing I've finally... improved. Slightly.
• Started listening to the Writing Excuses podcast.
• Bought some awesome Christmas decorations.

Whew! I honestly didn't expect the list to be that long when I started, but it's kind of nice to see the year captured like that. Of course, I'll be the first to admit that this version of events glosses over some of the angst and messiness that goes on behind the scenes, but this is New Years and it's a frickin' holiday, and I reserve the right to have a party. GO ME!!!

This Year's Goals

• Complete another first draft of a manuscript - this might not seem very ambitious in light of the turn around on my last book, but I am "between ideas" right now, and so it's hard to commit to getting something all the way past the editing stage when nothing is on the page yet. I'm between several different ideas, all appealing in different ways. We'll see where I go.
• Draft 10,000 words in January - Again, I could be more ambitious in terms of word count, but the real goal lurking here is PICK AN IDEA AND WRITE ABOUT IT!!!
• Send 100 query letters during the year - or get an agent. One can hope.
• Send 20 query letters in January - right now I'm itching to do this, so it shouldn't be too hard.
• Read more books - while I got a LOT of writing done in 2017, my reading suffered a bit. I'm trying to make up lost time right now while I'm between ideas. Still settling on a realistic yearly/monthly reading goal. 
• Attend Storymakers again and maybe a second conference/writing retreat - anything additional will depend on finances, but I am SO STOKED for Storymakers! Anyone who writes and can get to Provo, Utah in May should absolutely check it out.
• Start a Bullet Journal - guys, I am so excited about this. I've been reading up on them, and I think it could be really useful for me. I've been feeling like I want to a) do more journaling again b) start using a sketch book again and c) try and make a day planner work. But the idea of trying to do all three at once sounds insane. I like how a bullet journal can kind of grab from all three of those things at once. Like, guys! It's a journal/planner you get to DRAW IN!!! I just have to keep reminding myself that it's okay that I have terrible penmanship. I'm in it for the organizing/better documented memories/excuse to draw pictures. Pictures. Not pretty penmanship and headers. That's what I've got to focus on. Anyhow, if anyone out there uses one and has tips/spreads they use (especially any for organizing writing goals or LDS church callings) let me know!

And there you have it! My writing recap for 2017, and my writing goals for 2018. Here's hoping for another good year.

When is it safe to ignore criticism of your writing/art?

Hey everyone! In my last post I talked about my excitement for the LDStorymakers Conference in Provo, Utah, and promised that I would eventually blog some of my thoughts and feelings about the experience.

First off, it was AMAZING!!! I had a fantastic time, met awesome people and made great connections. The classes were phenomenal and as I embark on revising my manuscript, I've been doing it with one eye on the notes I took from a few of my favorite workshops.

But of course, not every happy story is without it's hiccups, and oddly enough, one of the WORST experiences of the conference was also one of the most informative. It really made me reflect on my work in a different way and reevaluate what I believed about receiving feedback. And that's the first story I want to share from the conference, mostly because I think it will be interesting to other people.

As a side note, I almost didn't post about this, because I don't want to seem crabby or ungrateful or to suggest that my general experience was anything other than awesome. I've worked through all the emotions that came from this long ago, and can happily stick my thumb sky high, a la Siskel and Ebert, when I sign off about this story. But I am sharing this, because the thought keeps reoccurring that what I learned might benefit someone else.

The First Chapter Contest

Leading up to LDStorymakers, I entered a First Chapter Contest with - you'll never guess - the first chapter of my most recent manuscript. Before I submitted it, I participated with a group of other writers attending the conference, trading manuscripts and offering feedback. It was fantastic! My work improved hugely thanks to their input, and I started making friends, some of which I met in at the conference.

During this process, I received amazingly positive feedback. A number of people told me they loved my work, some even going so far as to say it was the best of everything they'd critiqued for the contest. I was getting such consistently good reviews, I couldn't help going to Provo somewhat hopeful. I knew my category - Young Adult Sci-Fi and Fantasy - would be a tough field, due to it's popularity, but with such an outpouring of affection, it didn't seem unreasonable to think I might win something.

I didn't win anything.

Okay, well... that was fine. Of course I was disappointed, but this had always been a possibility. At least I would find out how close I came. One of the great things about this contest was that every entrant received feedback from four judges. The judges would all be writers in that area who were either agented or published, so that sounded pretty legit.

As one of my dear friends said, maybe I was *just* below placing and they could tell me how to improve. But as my wounded pride grasped for some straw to hold to after losing, I said, "yeah. Or maybe I got three really good reviews and one who didn't understand my work and marked me down so low, I couldn't place."

Guess which one it was?

If you were thinking this was the post where Emily is forced to swallow some humble pie then, HA! That is not this post! You may refer to the post where I talk about my sister not wanting to eat scrambled eggs for that!

As it turned out, I was bang on. I got three very, very high scores and the other? Not so much. To put the numbers in perspective, imagine submitting an assignment at school and getting three A+ grades and one C from four separate teachers. Those were my marks. In a school setting, you would appeal that C and probably get it thrown out. But this was a contest with over 300 entrants and not the sort of thing where appeal boards are set up. The arts don't work that way. If you don't win, you don't win. End of story.

So what do you do with a critique like this? What do you do with critique generally? Let's see if we can unpack some of the dos and don'ts of listening to feedback.

1) Don't Bother with Opinions that come from People who Don't Care about your Work

I think it should go without saying that anyone who attacks creative work or laughs at it or ridicules it or generally points out flaws so that they can make themselves feel better is not someone you should be listening to. No mean-spirited critique is helpful. Also beware of those who describe themselves as "brutally honest." While not universal, most people who describe themselves that way emphasize the "brutal" part more than anything else.

Frankly, I don't believe the truth is inherently brutal. We're talking about creative work here, not nuclear war. There is nothing someone can say to you about your work that can't be stated kindly.

One of the main criticisms I've heard levied at MFA programs is that students become competitive and critiques start turning into attacks. I'm so grateful for the teachers I had who chased away the notion that we were directly competing with each other, because I can admit that it WAS tempting to see things that way. But many of my classmates were creating work so vastly different from mine, it would have been foolish to treat them as direct competition. My classmate who wanted to write about psychedelic drugs was not going to chase my Middle Grade novel about cats out of the market.

So be kind and be helpful. You can afford to be. And even when you are dealing with people within your genre, competing for the same attention, still be kind. You never know when you're going to need those people to help you by blogging about your book release. Like most professional environments, the writing world gets smaller the deeper you get into it.

In return, look for helpful, insightful critique that has your best interests at heart. If someone seems intent on tearing you down, don't listen to them.

That being said, critique often feels inherently cutting, so do beware that just because something HAS hurt your feelings doesn't mean that the person who said it MEANT for it to hurt your feelings. If you find yourself wounded by a critique, try asking them to clarify what they are saying or how you could make it stronger. Sometimes that prompts the kinder, healthier response as they start looking for solutions rather than problems. Ask about how you can improve your work. It also helps you by making you focus on forward progress rather than what might be "wrong" with the project.

Of course, if they follow up these measured, even questions with something rude then by all means, roll your eyes and move on. This is easier said than done. It can be very VERY hard to share your work with the world and any rejection can feel damning. But you'll only get better by listening to people who look at art with an eye towards making it better.

2) Subjectivity is a Thing

So as mentioned above, the arts are unfair. They're inherently subjective and sometimes you draw the short end of the stick. And because the arts are ALSO underfunded, you can't exactly beat your chest demanding a more *fair* result. People do the best they can with the resources they have and the people who run contests of any kind wrack themselves with guilt already over the dreams they may  be crushing.

I've participated in a large number of contests over the past few years - some I've placed in, others I haven't - and I've seen the hosts struggle to massage the egos of disappointed writers as we slump back to our writer-caves. Much of the time, they repeat over and over how subjective art is and how, in another context, our work might be loved.

But in actuality, I've rarely found this comforting. Usually when I've missed out on something, I've been able to explain it somehow, either through feedback or through where I perceive there to be a weakness still. Hard as it is for authors who are starting out to hear, most of the time, you miss out because you ARE missing something, even if that something is small. At least, that's been my experience. Which kind of undercuts this bullet point, but leads us to the next...

3) Always Evaluate Criticism Carefully

It is much easier to write something good than it is to write something that is perfect. I actually tend to pick apart the work I like MORE than the work I don't, because I see better where the piece could go. This is one reason why finding people who like your work to give you feedback can be really important. These are the people who feel a vested interest in making your work better.

But isn't it shortsighted to only listen to people who like your work? Why yes, dear reader, it is! Especially if you evaluate how much someone likes your work by how many nice things they have to say about it. If you have a good relationship with your critique partners, you'll listen when they say "this is crap" or "I don't understand this" or "wanna go get a burger?" (This last bit of advice is extremely important!)

But there are other sources (besides your friends/critique partners) that you should turn to for feedback whenever possible. You should also listen to the Important Strangers. Who are Important Strangers? They are people with some sense of authority in your area who have a vested interest in making your work better.

So for example, I once had an agent write back on a query letter that she liked my manuscript's concept, but thought I used too much dialogue. Or there was the time one of my professors pointed out that "he shrugged his shoulders" can ALWAYS be shortened to "he shrugged" since no one is going to be confused and think someone is shrugging their eyebrows. This feedback is incredibly valuable, as it comes from a higher vantage point than yours. As such, if anything, it should be taken MORE seriously.

And this is why I had a hard time, initially, putting that bad review down. The feedback I got WAS from an Important Stranger and I was used to listening to them. The contest was anonymous, so there's no reason to think this person hated me or didn't want me to succeed. More likely, they just didn't like my work or think it up to snuff, and felt they should give an honest critique for the sake of the contest. There certainly wasn't anything mean-spirited about the comments.

At first, I tried to reconcile the reviews by thinking, "well, maybe this reader is more deeply bothered by my story's flaws. Maybe if I fixed those flaws, then my work would be ACTUALLY perfect!" So I read over the review carefully. But when I lined it up next to the others, I began to realize a disconcerting pattern.

Reviews 1-3: I loved the opening! So brooding and atmospheric! So evocative! I was right there with your characters! The soldiers and caving-in ceiling gave it immediate tension!

Review 4: Boring opening. A leaky ceiling is not interesting.

Reviews 1-3: The style was so gorgeous. You are clearly a gifted writer. The language was so evocative.

Review 4: I don't think this writer knew what the words they were using meant.

Reviews 1-3: I would definitely read on, though I've got a few concerns that need addressing when you edit this. I hope you get this published! It's going to be great!

Review 4: I would not read on. This is not publishable yet. Needs a lot more work.

Clearly reviewer 4 didn't like my chapter. But often the things they were hitting me the hardest for were the things my other readers loved, like my word choice and my opening. And changing those things in order to satisfy that fourth opinion would have essentially meant making my book something it wasn't ever supposed to be.

I wanted evocative language that built tension slowly. This story was about quiet dread, not flashy explosions, so yes, the leak in the roof came first. And three of my Important Strangers understood that and loved my work for it. One didn't.

At various intervals, I've posted about my experiences disliking books or finding ones I hate so much I don't finish them. Some have been classics, and a small part of my brain might even understand why. But at the same time, I do not get the appeal of The Chocolate War and if it showed up in a contest folder for my review, I would probably give it bad marks. If I didn't know it was a classic, I might assume everyone else was busily giving it bad marks too.

4) In Publishing, Nothing is Sacred. Be Ready to Make Painful Changes... Usually

What I relate this all for is to say very strongly that it is not advisable to change your work substantially until you have MORE THAN ONE opinion on it. Even if that opinion comes from an Important Stranger. Of course, if you do have only one review, but that review resonates with you and you DO want to change it right away, that's another matter. But if their words are coming somewhat as a shock, wait for another opinion.

Again, from personal experience, I can say that if something needs to be fixed, you will get enough feedback from trusted sources to confirm that they are right. Querying my first manuscript, I learned that I needed to rethink the way I balanced scene and description. I needed to be more ruthless when deleting "extra" words. I started the book in the wrong place.

I hated rewriting my first book. But when I finished, I was so glad that I did. While that book still isn't perfect, I could see how much better it had become. But in order to get there, I had to be willing to delete scenes and characters I loved. I had to gut large sections of text. I had to reevaluate praise I got in school, because the publishing world didn't respond the same way as my teachers and classmates. I had to admit that some of the "artistic choices" I'd made were the wrong choices.

When I looked at those first chapter critiques, I knew that I'd made an artistic choice with my manuscript, and that choice had lost me at least one reader. But I also realized that for the sake of the project, it was a reader I could live without.  My reviewer assured me that if they found my book on a library or store shelf, they would not turn the pages past Chapter One. And that's okay. I didn't write it for them.

I didn't think I'd come away from that contest with this kind of story. I hoped for a more traditional happy one. But if nothing else, that critique taught me something I hadn't realized I'd only partially believed - that it was okay to disagree with someone who disliked my work. There are situations where it's appropriate to nod, say "that's your opinion" and then get on with life. At the end of the day, it's not worth writing a book unless you love it. There are far easier ways to make money than publishing fiction.

Oddly enough, that bad review only made me more confident in my love for my story. I could firmly say that there were things I wanted that book to be, no matter what someone else said. And that feels pretty darn good.

Conferences and Drafting: Writerly News

You might have noticed it's been a little while since I wrote a blog post. Or you might be going merrily along with your life none the wiser. Either option is fine. But suppose you ARE that person who has noticed it's been a while. Suppose you've been waiting for me to complete my blog series on boys and reading. If you are among these people, then you might have worried the past month or so that I wasn't writing much any more.

Well, worry no more! Because as it turns out, the problem was the opposite. I was writing. A lot. And it all pointed towards one purpose...

Conferencing

Last year I completed my Master's, and while that was awesome and exciting, it also left an empty space in my life. During my studies, I'd been enjoying the support of a school writing community that pushed me to produce large amounts of work and also to refine that work into something better. I can't emphasize enough how amazing it was to focus entirely on writing during that time.

But perhaps even more important, school created a sense of urgency in me when it came to writing. If you didn't show up with new pages every week, you looked like you were slacking off, even if you were technically *allowed* to miss a week or two. But why would you want to? The feedback we got by workshopping our stories each week was incredible. All you had to do was finish on time, and people would read your work and comment on it and help you improve it.

Deadlines were one of the best things about school. I could take or leave the grading, but the chance to learn and workshop once every week - well, I can't over state it. Since graduating, it's been difficult at times to force myself to keep to a writing schedule, largely because I don't have someone external to me expecting results in a timely manner. I tried setting my own deadlines, but I felt strongly that I'd do better if I was writing for something.

The best solution I could come up with was to look for a writing conference I could attend at some point this year. Conferences provide a great opportunity to network with other writers, enter contests, interact with publishing professionals and - highly appealing - join critique groups and get feedback on work.

I spent a long time finding a conference that I both wanted to attend and could afford to get to. Eventually, I settled on LDStorymakers. There were agents and writers in attendance I was interested in hearing speak, an impressive schedule of classes and, perhaps most compelling, it was all taking place in Provo, Utah, where I could stay at my sister's house for free!

I've already thoroughly enjoyed getting to know the Storymakers community. People have been supportive and reached out to one another, offering feedback for the First Chapter Contest and playing Twitter games with each other. It only seems like it can get better from here.

I'm also excited - though, honestly, nervous too - about the chance I'll have to interact with other writers who are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. For anyone who was either raised in/currently belongs to a religious community, it's pretty much impossible for your faith not to influence all aspects of your life. I think this is particularly true for Mormons and other minority religions. We're used to coming off as oddballs to other people at times, because our beliefs aren't common and we might not see things the same way as those who hold more mainstream beliefs. And despite this obvious influence, my writing life and my religion have often been kept in neat, separate boxes.

While I was at school, I was hyper aware of how weird I may or may not seem to people, due to my faith. I'd grown up as a decidedly uncool nerd, and away at Grad School, I got my first taste of acceptance by the wider population. We were all a bit weird, and it was so exciting to be around people who shared that experience and the accompanying enthusiasm for art. But even there, I was still DIFFERENT different. I couldn't go to bars or clubs and, as a result, missed out on some of the wider university culture.

My friends at Chatham were warm, accepting and never challenged me to do anything that went against my beliefs. Any barriers that existed between my faith and how I expressed myself were largely of my own making. My friends all knew I was Mormon and we had a lot of awesome conversations about faith and what religious beliefs we'd grown up with. But when we got into the actual classroom, I had a tendency to shut down that side of me. It was easier to come across as something neutral and non-threatening than to expose that more vulnerable part of me. We come from a culture where "common knowledge" suggests that religion is a topic that makes people angry and uncomfortable, so even when I was experiencing acceptance, it was hard for me to shut down this script in my head, that if I spoke about my writing from a position of faith, I would be yelled at or labeled as narrow-minded.

I don't know if I would have even noticed I was doing this if it hadn't been for a student/teacher mid-term talk I had with one of my favorite professors. He was trying to encourage me to be freer in my work, and I wasn't getting what he meant. As his careful, professional words failed to get through to me, he looked me squarely in the eye and said, "you're Mormon. You believe God put you on this earth for a purpose. That's what you need to write about."

I was instantly in tears, struggling to express how grateful I was to him for saying that. This fundamental part of why I write and why stories matter to me was something I'd never dared express in class. In my head, it would only make me sound crazy. But deep inside, I knew he was right. I didn't tell stories for fun, but because I believed they were part of what I was supposed to do with my time on earth - something I felt accountable to God for.

It's a memory that still makes me cry. In many ways, there are three things that matter to me in my life. My faith, my family and my writing. Inside me, they're all deeply intertwined, but it's rare I get the chance to experience them as united. I don't expect every Mormon author I meet to experience their faith and writing the same way I do, but that's part of what's exciting about the chance to go to LDStorymakers. I'm curious how others have integrated these things in their life and their work. Some will be people who write directly for the LDS niche market. Others will be like me, influenced thematically, but more drawn to books and stories aimed at a wider audience.

Hopefully, all of us can learn from each other. The conference starts on Thursday, May 5th with an intensive workshop, and I'm super excited! And one of the main reasons I'm excited is because I'm bringing a brand, spankin' new manuscript with me.

Drafting

Earlier tonight, I finished drafting my current Work-In-Progress (or WIP as we writerly types like to call it), a Young Adult fantasy novel set in a world based loosely on pre-revolution France. It's about the transition of a country from war to a state of peace and the uneasy tensions that still litter the countryside. And at the center of it is a young woman who's thought of as a traitor by both sides.

Doesn't that sound exciting? I'm so glad that story exists now. And I would likely still be dragging my feet drafting it if not for the fact that Storymakers is starting this coming week.

Remember that talk about deadlines? Well, I promised myself that when I went to Storymakers, I would focus on classes that could help me edit my manuscript. But in order for that to be relevant, I needed to be finished the book I planned on editing. It is rough rough rough, my friends, but it exists. I love this story, and I'm really looking forward to going over it again and reshaping it into the story it is in my head, if not yet on the page.

Later, I might write another post talking about the differences between drafting and editing. For now though, I'm planning on focusing on the conference. I plan on writing at least one more post on LDStorymakers after it's finished. Maybe even more than that. :) We shall see!

Until then, I also want to say thank you to everyone who supported me while I finished this story. A huge thanks to my friends who were very understanding when I had to blow them off so that I could write. Thanks to my brother, who not only was patient with me through this process, but also has let me write about him and our relationship in the most bizarre, twisted of manners. Thank you to my sister who - did I mention? - is letting me stay at her house FOR FREE! Major props to Disturbed, whose cover of Simon and Garfunkle's Sound of Silence literally got me through a few of the darker chapters. A colossal thank you to my dad, who volunteered to drive me to the conference so he could see his grandsons and because he loves me a crazy amount. And a "I couldn't have done it without you" to my best buddy, Miranda Leavitt, who listened to long, rambling talks about characters, plot twists and my neurosis. She's a super hero, and I couldn't be more thrilled that she's coming to the conference too.

And above all, an amazing, all encompassing THANK YOU to my mother, who put up with a flaky daughter who constantly forgot to clean things and instead of getting annoyed with me, would time and again tell me to go finish my book instead. She's even volunteered to do my laundry tomorrow so I can focus on my other conference prep activities, because she's a saint.

For the rest of tonight, I'm gonna celebrate and rock out to the Dolly Parton album iTunes had on sale tonight. It's a good day, folks. A very good day.