I Think I'd Like to Write a Book

Can you tell me where to start?

That's a common question. One I get asked all the time.

The answer is surprisingly simple: Start anywhere.

Yes, just like Dorothy and the Yellow Brick Road, all roads lead to the finished product. You see, you don't have to make a firm commitment to your beginning. You just need to begin. Start somewhere, start writing, sit back and think about how it's going. You may decide later to change the beginning. That's normal. In fact, that's good. I just read about how Nancy Pickard changed the start of her marvelous The Virgin of Small Plains. After working on her book, she decided she needed to show her main character in such a way that you knew everything you needed to know about what motivated the protagonist. But here's the point: That's not how she began the book originally.

Let me be more blunt...Worrying about where to start is really a procrastination device. It keeps you from starting. So, ditch that excuse. Sit down and start writing. Then re-assess. Start over, or start anew, or keep going until a better beginning appears. That often happens. As you get to know your work, you'll be better able to "see" that perfect start.

But that will never happen unless you begin writing SOMEWHERE.

I've Always Wanted to Write a Book--Can You Tell Me How?

A doctor asked me this at a cocktail party.

I had to bite back my initial response. Because I know that what I'm going to say is going to sound, well, peevish. Not very nice. Defensive.

But here goes:

Here was a man who had been through, what? At least five years of medical school? How long as an intern? And he was asking me to tell him over a drink how to write a book.

You see, people assume that since they've written term papers, or short articles for a company newsletter, or a piece for the professional journal, that they can write. And they can. But to write a book is NOT the type of activity one person can explain to another over a casual conversation. In fact, excuse me, but I always find my hackles rising. (Okay, I don't mean to sound nasty, probably what I am is...HURT. Do you really think that what I've done is so trivial or easy that I can tell you how in the space of a cocktail conversation?)

You see, I've been writing my entire life. This is--and has always been--my profession. My career. When people ask, "How long did it take you to write Paper, Scissors, Death?" I tell them 55 years. It's the culmination of a life's work. I have a degree in journalism. I worked 40 hours a week to put myself through journalism school. I taught writing, wrote columns for the local daily newspaper, and for the campus publications while I was still in college. I have always worked in some aspect of the profession. I've always done freelance work in addition to a regular job. Currently, I put in 60 hours + a week writing. I've worn the letters off of 3 keyboards, and finally, I've just decided that I don't need the letters, I know where they are, so why replace the keyboard? And I've taken classes, read books, gone to conferences, been part of critique groups, and continuously upgraded my skills for my entire life. I re-wrote Paper, Scissors, Death four times after it was accepted. I've written fourteen books now. I've written for magazines, television, newspaper, online publications, radio, and advertising. I've written speeches for corporate executives. I've served a long apprenticeship.

And this doctor wants me to capsulize all that work, all that effort into, what? A Reader's Digest version of my life's work?

I could just as easily ask him how he opens a person's chest, operates on a heart, and walks away leaving a newly healthy patient!

All this reminds me of the old joke: A visitor to New York walks up to another man and asks, "How do you get to Carnegie Hall?" And the New Yorker says, "Practice, practice, practice."

Which is what all this has been for me: Practice.

Just as that doctor practiced his profession. Just as he went to school. Just as he read the medical journals. Just as he studied under the finest teachers. Just as he paid his dues, I've paid mine.

So, I can't explain how to do this in 15 minutes, an hour, or even an evening.

What I can do is suggest some reading material--and if the doctor, or anyone else, REALLY, REALLY wants to know how to write, he/she will take the time to read all this:

* Plot & Structure by Bell
* Stein on Writing by Sol Stein
* Write Away by Elizabeth George
* Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maass
* Seven Steps on the Writer's Path by Nancy Pickard and Lynn Lott
* Self-Editing for Fiction Writers by Brown and King
* Writing the Blockbuster Novel by Zuckerman
* Guide to Writing Fiction by Phyllis A. Whitney
* Writing the Modern Mystery by Norville
* How to Write Killer Historical Mysteries by Kathy Lynn Emerson

And I'll post more some other time. You see, these are just the books I have within arm's reach.

Like I said, I've been doing this for years. My library alone proves that!

Believe in Yourself

In a recent interview with Claire Applewhite, I was asked what I'd tell anyone who wants to get published and who feels discouraged.

I think the most important single bit of advice I can give is, YOU must believe in your dream long before anyone else does. And you need to hold onto that dream even when everyone around you gives you that "yeah, sure" smirk. Because we are all "wannabes" before we are authors.

Let's face it. When you go to any writers conference, you'll see there's a definite pecking order. As nice as people are, they still seem to operate in a sort of unspoken class system. Even though I'd written ten non-fiction books, at every conference, I felt like the last kid picked in kickball. At the top of the food chain were multi-published bestselling authors. In the middle were those who had series that were doing okay. And then chumming around at the bottom of the ocean floor were those of us who'd never been published...in fiction. All my non-fiction work didn't count for much.

I still recall those who treated me then as though I had value. I also remember those who pranced about and talked down to me.

How they acted didn't matter. Not really. Because you see, I had a dream. I was going to keep on working at it until my dream came true. I had to believe in myself first, before anyone else did. And you do, too.

How to Get Published

At this writing, I have thirteen books to my credit. Nine have been published and three are under contract. I just turned in a new Young Adult to my agent, Liz Trupin-Pulli, and she's shopping it around New York.

Recently one of my fellow Crimespace pals asked a great question: How do you get published?
What I intend to do in this blog is share the various ways I've achieved publication, and perhaps if I'm ambitious enough, I'll even interview other authors about their route to success. Please, let me know if this has value to you, any of you, otherwise, I'll gladly return to my w.i.p. (work in progress).

I'll start at the beginning: I've always written. I was a voracious reader as a child. The public library was thirteen blocks away. I would walk there, check out books, read them as I walked home, then have nothing to read! My mom got pretty disgusted, marched me down to the library, and told the librarian I needed serious help. Said librarian introduced me to the adult section. And I read and read and read and read. (Are you getting the point here? If you don't read, you can't write It's just that simple.)

I say this because recently I heard the first pages of eleven or twelve people's books. It was a reading at a local writers' group. A reading, I might add, of unpublished authors.
How do I say this without sounding critical?

Well, there's a reason they were unpublished. Not one of those books were publishable.

Why?

They didn't have enough tension. The characters weren't sharply drawn. There was no hook.

So here's the first step to publication: Go to a bookstore. Pull every book off the shelf in the new offerings area. (Bypass anything earmarked "literary." Those are notorious slow-starting and expected to be.) Read those first lines. Read those first pages.

Now compare those to what you've written. Be as honest and critical as you can.

How valid is my little test?

This summer I was at SleuthFest with Kathryn Lilley, J.A. Konrath, and our pal Linda Hengerer (the soon to be published Linda Hengerer, because I know she will be). We all went out to dinner. As we walked, Joe (that's J.A.'s real first name) asked if we could play a little game. It was, "Tell me the first sentence of your book."

Without exception, each one was a real grabber. Mine? "Two days before Thanksgiving, a man doesn't think about dying." And that's a cozy, folks, so that's comparatively warm and fuzzy.

Here's a first line from Lee Child: "I was arrested in Eno's diner."

Barry Eisler: "Once you get past the overall irony of the situation, you realize that killing a guy in the middle of his own health club has a lot to recommend it."

Randy Wayne White: "On the morning that the most disliked man on the barrier islands was found floating, dead, Ford was aboard his skiff, blanaced on the poling platform and looking for sea anemones."

Oh, you moan. (I hear it. Even as far away as we are, I hear it.) You're thinking, hey, if she'd only give me a few more sentences, I could pass the test. Okay, are your first three sentences as compelling as these by Miriam Auerbach, "I confess. I said it. When my husband raised his fists at me that last time, I said, "Go ahead, make my day!" (By the way, if you haven't read Dirty Harriet, go buy it. Now. That' s an order.)

So the first, the very, very first step along the route to publication is a dynamite first sentence.
Next week, I'll tell you what the next step is. (It might take me that long to figure it out myself.)
And if you're pouting, saying to yourself, "But come on. I want to know about agents and publishing houses and contracts," here's my response: Hello. You will blow your shot at an agent, a publishing house and a contract unless your book grabs them by the unmentionables from the git-go.

Trust me. I know. I blew a few great opportunities along the way myself.