I Worked All Day... And Didn't Write A Word

Last week I tweeted this:

Quite a few authors seconded me on that - and then it happened again this past Friday. I was up at a decent hour (for a self-employed person) and spent the entire day working, yet didn't write a word on a WIP. How's that possible?

I'll break it down.

9-10 AM: Exchanged texts with a writer whose book I'm blurbing about talking points of her novel and what kind of wording worked best to get those across in a small snippet.

10-12 PM: Answered emails. Yes, honestly, for two hours. I was on a trip with very little internet access (but many, many ticks) from Monday-Wednesday and had a buildup of emails that needed answering. Even without that influx, I do generally spend roughly two hours on emails every day.

On this particular day I needed to listen to audio snippets from three different actresses for the audiobook version of THIS DARKNESS MINE to choose who I liked best for the narrator, answer emails from both the agent and the editor about marketing things coming up, confer with the coordinator for my event that evening to make sure necessary tech was in place, answer questions about a different event concerning best time / date options, and fill out questionnaires about yet another event concerning tech, content, and what books I would like to have available for sale at said event. I also fielded and sent emails with upcoming podcast guests, looking to find good times for us to get together to record our sessions.

12-1 PM: Read and critiqued a project pitch for a fellow author, then conferred with her over text about whether it not it represented the manuscript well. (It did, because this is RC Lewis we're talking about, and the woman knows how to write a pitch.)

1-2 PM: Finished writing up notes for a manuscript critique of a Middle Grade I had read for an aspiring writer. (If you're interested, click here). Emailed editorial letter and line edits to the author.

2-4 PM: Wrote a proposal for a manuscript of my own, sent it off to trusty RC Lewis who read, reviewed, and sent back to me with her nitty-nit-picks which keep my work so clean in the first place. (I don't know how to use a semi-colon, basically). Sent proposal off to the agent, realized I desperately needed to put on pants and head to an event.

4-7 PM: Drove to an event, did my thing, met with some awesome teens and had a great talk at a library, sold some books, signed some books, drove home - I did also eat at this point, you'll notice I hadn't done that yet - and upon getting home checked in on email once again in order to follow up on all the conversations that resulted as part of those earlier emails.

7-8 PM: Uploaded artwork and ordered swag for THIS DARKNESS MINE bookmarks and postcards, then dealt with formatting issues when they came back and needed adjustments. Said bad words. Re-uploaded.

8-11 PM: Read a book! Yes, it's part of what I consider work - with a healthy dose of pleasure, as well, of course. I've got ARCs piled on the nightstand that need to be read, some for blurb purposes, some for being featured here on the blog, as well as for giveaways. I also read the novels of my upcoming podcast guests, so that I can have informed, intelligent conversations with them about their work and process.

That's an entire day of work, and very little writing. This is the life of a writer - and so little of what we do is writing.

Wednesday WOLF - Run the Gauntlet

I've got a collection of random information in my brain that makes me an awesome Trivial Pursuit partner, but is completely useless when it comes to real world application. Like say, job applications. I thought I'd share some of this random crap with you in the form of another acronym-ific series. I give you - Word Origins from Left Field - that's right, the WOLF. Er... ignore the fact that the "from" doesn't fit.

Ever heard someone say they had to run the gauntlet? Most people know what this means, but not perhaps the origin of the word. And for those of you who don't know what it means, I'll enlighten you.

During the Thirty Years War (1618- 1648) the English army adopted a punishment they observed their German counterparts employing. The offending soldier stripped to the waist and ran between two lines of their fellow solders, each of whom was holding a whip or a lash, and they beat their buddy on the back as he passed. Number of run throughs and number of knots in the lashes depended upon the severity of the soldier's crime.

Sound rough? Well, we're German. However, the German army claimed to have picked it up from the Swedish, where it was known as gatloppe, literally translated as "the running of the lane."

So think about that next time you're in a really nice development whose streets are all called "Insert Relaxing Word Here - Lane."

Alexandra Ott On Continuing to Write While On Submission

If there's one thing that many aspiring writers have few clues about, it's the submission process. There are good reasons for that; authors aren't exactly encouraged to talk in detail about our own submission experiences, and - just like agent hunting - everyone's story is different. I managed to cobble together a few non-specific questions that some debut authors have agreed to answer (bless them). And so I bring you the submission interview series - Submission Hell - It's True. Yes, it's the SHIT.

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Today's guest for the SHIT is Alexandra Ott, author of RULES FOR THIEVES, from Aladdin (Simon and Schuster). She graduated from the University of Tulsa with a BA in English and is currently an editorial intern at Entangled Publishing.  In her spare time, she plays the flute, eats a lot of chocolate, and reads just about everything. She lives in Oklahoma with her tiny canine overlord.

How much did you know about the submission process before you were out on subs yourself?

I had a basic understanding of the process; at the time, I’d been interning at a publishing company for about 6 months, so I knew a little about what acquisition is like on the editor’s side of things. But it was a completely different experience to actually go on sub myself!

Did anything about the process surprise you?

I was actually surprised by how quickly the process went! I knew that it could take a year or more, so I tried to prepare myself for a long wait. I didn’t even consider the possibility that we might get an offer after only a few months, but we did!

Did you research the editors you knew had your ms? Do you recommend doing that?

I did look up a few of the editors at first, but I stopped pretty quickly. Imagining those editors reading my manuscript made me too nervous. Personally, I found it less nerve-wracking to try and focus on other things.

What was the average amount of time it took to hear back from editors?

It really varied, but I think the majority of the responses came in around the two month mark. Since we received an offer relatively quickly, my agent had to nudge quite a few of the editors we hadn’t heard from yet; I don’t know how long it would have taken otherwise.

What do you think is the best way for an author out on submission to deal with the anxiety?

Work on the next project, if you can. I ended up finishing a draft of a novel that’s very different from the one on sub, which helped me to focus on something else. I also highly recommend leaning on your critique partners for support!

If you had any rejections, how did you deal with that emotionally? How did this kind of rejection compare to query rejections?

For the most part, I found it much easier than querying. I asked my agent not to share the actual rejection emails with me, which helped a lot. There was one rejection in particular that was very disappointing, but I didn’t have much time to get too discouraged, because we received an offer soon afterward. :)

When you got your YES! how did that feel? How did you find out – email, telephone, smoke signal?

It was so surreal. My agent emailed the offer to me right away. I wasn’t expecting an offer to pop up in my inbox, but it was a great surprise! At first I didn’t believe it was real.

Did you haveI to wait a period of time before sharing your big news, because of details being ironed out? Was that difficult?

Yes, I had to wait several months while the contract was negotiated before the deal was announced. At the time it felt agonizing, because I didn’t know how long the wait was going to be and I was so excited to share the news! But in hindsight, it could have been a much, much longer wait; I was incredibly lucky to have both the submission process and the contract negotiation go quickly. :)