Location: Books & Such Central Valley Office

For our last Favorite Five day, I thought we’d share our favorite “classic” writers. It begs the question, what makes one classic? I’m not sure I have an answer to that but I’ve taught a year-long class on Classic Christian Literature and another three month class on the devotional classics and I just added those whose work has stood the test of time. I’d put several twentieth century writers in this group as well and I think we could argue for some of our contemporaries but only time will tell.

Here are my five favorites. You can tell that I prefer spirituality for my nonfiction writing.

C. S. Lewis— I know he’s almost contemporary but it’s obvious that his work is in the classic category

G. K. Chesterton— No one comes at things the way he does. I’ve always considered him a good-natured spiritual uncle of sorts.

John Bunyan— I came to know him when I wrote a book, Tinker’s Daughter, about his ten-year-old daughter Mary. Pilgrim’s Progress has still been outsold by only one book– The Bible.

St. Julian of Norwich— this anonymous medieval nun’s writings about our longing for God would be enough to meditate on for years.

Charles Spurgeon— his writings always speak to me.

Your classic writers may not be in the category of spirituality– my favorite. There are wonderful memoir writers, self-help gurus, even cookbook writers (who could forget Julia Child?) who may be among your favorites. So, tell us, who would you choose for your Favorite Five?

Location: Books & Such Central Valley Office

This one is a little easier for me since one of our criteria is books that changed our lives. Here are my five:

Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis— This book started me on a quest to read (and collect) every book by and about C. S. Lewis. I found that the things he said resonated with me. In fact, he could put into words ideas I had not been able to express.

Walking on Water by Madeleine L’Engle— I’ve read and reread this book so many times I’m on my second copy.

Prayer by Richard Foster— This book changed my life. It came at a transition time and opened up a whole new world for me.

Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott— This book is filled with rich examples of the Hound of Heaven– the God who pursues.

Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh— Simple seaside devotions to chew on for a lifetime.

I promised when I started on Monday I would not include friends or clients’ books otherwise I would have added Magnificent Prayer by Nick Harrison. I’ve used it twice fror yearly devotions and it never gets old.

Those are my Favorite Five. What are yours?

Location: Books & Such Central Valley Office

Yesterday we had such fun talking about our entertainment reading. And that’s not to say that some of those writers are not intellectual or literary– it’s just that those are the books we turn to when we want to escape. Today let’s chose our all-time Favorite Five novels. These are the books we couldn’t stop thinking about– the books that we will read and reread. The books that changed our lives.

For me, this is the most difficult choice. Only five? I could do twenty-five and still not cover all my favorites. and some I just read this year may supplant others on this list (like The Help) but it’s too early to tell. So here goes:

And Ladies of the Club by Helen Hooven Santmyer— when this book came out in 1982 it was the talk of the publishing industry. The author was 88 years old and had been writing the book for decades. For me this book was like the Our Town. It gave me, as a young women, my first glimpse of the passages of life.

Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett— a masterpiece. Tom the builder is as real to me as many of the people in my life.

Peace Like a River by Leif Enger. It’s a story of faith and seeking the lost one.

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. No explanation needed.

Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. A southern novel with strong women protagonists combined with a coming-of-age story– all the elements I love most.

So those are my Favorite Fives for right now. What are yours?

Location: Books & Such Central Valley Office

When we’re talking about favorite books it can get pretty intellectual. Too often we feel a kind of literary performance anxiety– like if we don’t name an artful enough book, we’ll somehow end up looking like a lowbrow.  I want to get around that in today’s Favorite Five. Before we move on to our five favorite novels I want to choose our five favorite novelists– those writers we turn to when we want a purely enjoyable read or an escape. For me it’s easy, I just look at my iPad or Kindle. They contain the books I purchased when a plane was delayed, I was half brain-dead from a conference, and I wanted nothing more than to have someone tell me a story.

You’ll see from my list that I’m mostly an historical fiction aficionado. Hopefully some of you will balance me out with some great contemporary novelists.

So here’s my list:

• Anne Perry— I love her Thomas Pitt and William Monk Victorian era detective mysteries. All the texture of an historical with complex characters and superb mysteries.
• Elizabeth Peters— Amelia Peabody and late Victorian egyptology– what’s not to love? Her tongue-in-cheek narration is a delight.
• Amanda Quick— so shoot me. It’s my guilty pleasure. Humor and Regency. Entirely too much fun.
• Victoria Holt— I know she’s been dead for a long time, but I still love a good gothic and since no one is writing gothic mysteries without vampires, I reread these. It doesn’t get much better than House of a Thousand Lanterns.
• Alexander McCall Smith— I anxiously await the next No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency installment. Me and Mma. Ramotswe– sisters at heart.

So that’s my version of the beach read. How about you?

Location: Books & Such Central Valley Office

Last time I blogged I promised you, dear readers, that for just this once I would refrain from blogging about gruesome realities like Career Killers, Kisses of Death, QueryFails or Worst Case Scenarios. I asked for your suggestions of happy things I could blog about. I considered puppies and babies but I finally settled on one of our favorite things: books.

I love books. Had I lived in Victorian times I’d have been considered a bluestocking for my devotion to books. Happily, we can now indulge in books without society’s censure.

So for this week, we’re going to attempt the near-impossible task of coming up with our Favorite Fives in five different categories. I had to make one ground rule for me– it can’t be a book by one of my clients or one of my friends. So today let’s share our favorite five children’s books. This includes picture books, middle grade and young adult– both current and classic. Yep. Only five.

This may be the most difficult category of all for me because though I don’t represent children’s books, I’m a dedicated fan. I’ve long collected antiquarian illustrated picture books. I love the work of Henriette Willebeek LeMair, Jessie Willcox Smith, Ethel Franklin Betts, Mabel Lucie Atwell, Johnny Gruelle,  and many others. And I’m a fan of many of the contemporary illustrator/ authors like Patricia Polacco, Tasha Tudor, Michael Hague, Susan Jeffers, Trina Scart Hyman, Jan Brett, my own client Andy McGuire and too many others to list.

I’m a fan of middle grade, too, especially the classics.  I have shelves of series books— the twins book (like Dutch Twins, African Twins, etc.), the Little House books, Anne of Green Gables, Betsy-Tacy, Honey Bunch, The Bobbsey Twins, The Chronicles of Narnia and Nancy Drew. I love contemporary middle grades as well, like everything by Madeleine L’Engle. A few years back I made it a point to read all the past Newbery winners and honors. So many treasures. . .

All this to say, how does one pick a favorite five?

This could change in the next hour, but for right now here’s what I’d pick and why:

• Picture Book: All the Places to Love by Patricia MacLachlan, illustrated by Mike Wimmer. The most beautiful picture book ever. I experience deep sehnsucht every time I read this.
• Classic YA: Little Women by Louisa Mae Alcott— need I explain why? This classic has it all— unforgettable characters, a company of strong women loving each other and growing together. It’s a story that still makes me laugh and cry.
• Classic Middle Grade: The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. My very first gothic mystery. I can still recite parts of this book: “Please, sir, may I have a bit of earth?”
• Adventure: Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C. S. Lewis— Reep-i-cheep is one of the most memorable heroes of all literature
• Middle Grade: Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech. A story of love and loss– powerful.

Okay, those are my five. Now it’s your turn. Tell us your favorite five children’s books.

Location: On the Road–Heading toward North Dakota

Weather: Sunny and hot

Will someone remind me that the next time I blog I need to write about happy things? Why is it I am always coming up with such upbeat themes as “Kiss of Death,” “QueryFail,” “Worst Case Scenario,” and “Career Killers”? I think someone needs to stage an intervention.

Oh well. . .

For the final day of this cheery little series on career killers, I want to touch on a subject that is connected to yesterday’s speed writing blog. Today’s career killer is impatience. If you’ve been in this industry long, you know that nothing will cause you to throw up your hands and walk away faster than impatience. If you are used to instant gratification, this is not the career for you. If you are in the habit of developing a plan and having each piece fall into place on your schedule, this is not the career for you. If you’d like to make a six-figure income right out of the starting gate–you guessed it–this is not the career for you.

As agents we talk a lot about career planning, but we always do so with a humble spirit because we know the truth of the old saying taken from Robert Burns poem,  To A Mouse, On Turning Her Up In Her Nest With The Plough: “The best-laid schemes o’ mice an ‘men/ Gang aft agley,/ An’lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,/ For promis’d joy!”

Yep, we know about the best laid plans when it comes to publishing.

Consider this comment I had from an editor a few weeks ago: “Let’s take things step by step. She should finish her manuscript and submit that. Then I’ll consider a proposal from her for a new contract.” Or, even worse, one I’m hearing more often these days, “We don’t want to look at a new proposal until the book is released and we can track sales for a few months.”

When you are trying to build a career not to mention building a readership, nothing is more frustrating than hearing that your publisher is taking a wait-and-see approach. If a proposal can’t even be submitted until the previous book is published and performing well, chances are that there will be more than a year between books. Frustrating.

But here’s the rub–if the writer gets impatient and decides to try to find another publisher, he runs the risk of breaking any momentum and continuity that may be building. A change of publishers needs to be strategic move, done at the right time and for the right reasons. During the building process the author and his agent have many issues to consider, and it may take an inordinate amount of patience. If the truth be known, career building is far more in the hands of God than in the hands of humans.

I love the verse from Ecclesiastes 7:8, “The end of a matter is better than its beginning, and patience is better than pride.” Good advice for those of us in this crazy book industry.

Okay, now I need your help. What kind of happy topics do I need to blog about next time? Puppies and publishing? Chubby babies and equally plump advances? I seriously need an intervention.

Location: Books & Such Central Valley Office

Weather: Sunny and hot

I keep revealing these potentially career killing comments I’ve recently heard from editors. To put them into perspective, ninety-nine out of a hundred comments I hear from editors are positive, but these warning comments are so instructive that I’m sharing them as cautionary tales.

Anyone who is trying to build a career as a writer knows that making a living in the early years is an almost impossible challenge. I addressed it when I blogged the following advice: Don’t Quit Your Day Job. But when a writer has sold a couple of books and had a little success, it’s natural to get out the calculator and try to figure out how fast a book could be written if all things were perfect. After all, there’s NaNoWriMo. If a writer could log in 50,000 words in one month, why couldn’t he do that every month? With taking a month off for the holidays and another month in case emergencies cropped up. . . why, that’s five books a year! Even with his modest advances, he could live on that, right?  He could quit his day job!

Not so fast.

Literally.

Here’s what I heard from an editor about a writer just last month: “He needs to stop trying to write so fast. The deadlines that he proposes for each project don’t make sense. Are you telling me that he can write three complete manuscripts by December? Highly unlikely…”

Hmm. Sounds like this editor is anticipating the kind of problems that come with writing too fast. Let’s consider just a few.

When writing too fast:

• The author runs the risk of turning in a sloppy manuscript. If you read my blog on Tuesday, you know that can be a career killer.
• There is no time to let the book or the story marinate. There’s more to writing a world-class book than mechanically getting the words on paper. The story or book needs to live in the author’s mind for a time.
• It doesn’t take long for the author to burn out.
• If the author doesn’t have time to experience things, to be with people or to travel, pretty soon the well runs dry. It’s one of the upsides to having a day job–you’re collecting material all day long.

Everything in this world seems to move too fast.  If you want a career that will last–one that will grow–you need to slow down. In the early years your money may need to come from another source, but successful authors will tell you that the investment is worth it.

So let me ask: How fast is too fast? Can you be too slow with writing subsequent books? Is there a perfect balance? I’d love to hear you weigh in.

Location: Books & Such Central Valley Office

Weather: Sunny and mid-nineties– again!

Here’s another comment I recently heard from a frustrated editor talking about a writer: “I just wish he would spend less time networking—Twittering and Facebooking— and more time writing a book that takes it to the next level.”

Eek! We are always telling our authors to build a significant presence on the social networks. We want you to Facebook, to Twitter, to blog and to keep up your website. It’s part of building community, right? And community is potential readership. I mean, we’ve all read Seth Godin’s Tribes and if we haven’t jumped into the blogosphere, we feel guilty about our electronic slothfulness.

What does one do with a comment like that?

Before we take a closer look at what this editor was really saying, take a look at this hilarious award winning book trailer. Dennis Cass could be the poster boy for online neglect, but the snarky line about his once thinking it was all about the book is a sad commentary on how imbalanced we can become.

But back to what this editor was really saying. There’s an unspoken story here. It has more to do with the quality of the book being turned in than the online marketing the author is doing. This particular author is very visible on every writing blog and every social network. There is nothing more upsetting to an editor than having an author beg for an extension of the deadline when that editor can see the author Tweeting about lunches with friends or a parasailing weekend.

This editor actually loves connected writers, but she was pointing out a dangerous imbalance. I call it playing around the edges. There are too many writers who love the cachet of being an author; they just don’t like the work of writing. They’d much rather talk with other writers, sip exotic coffees in literary coffee houses and just play around the edges of writing. It’s a dangerous business if you hope to build a career.

How can you tell if you are a diligent networker (which is important for a successful career) or just playing around the edges (which can be a career killer)?

You might be playing around the edges if:

• You like doing Facebook, Twitter and blogs far better than writing.
• You are spending more time online talking about writing to other writers than connecting with your readers.
• Your blog is all about writing instead of about topics of interest to your readers. (Your readers are more interested in the things you write about and in you than they are in how you write.)
• You can blow off an impending deadline to have lunch with a fellow writer or go to a conference.

See the pattern?  If writing comes first, you have no worries. If you love the writing community or the online community far more than the solitary work of writing, you may have some soul searching to do. No matter how much we talk about connecting, it’s the writing that will ultimately insure success or be a career killer.

I’d love to hear you chime in. Tell us how you find balance.

Location: Books & Such Central Valley Office

Weather: Sunny and mid-nineties

Last week I spoke to an editor about a potential client who published a recent nonfiction book with their publishing house. Here’s what the editor said, “The manuscript took us by surprise. It needed a tremendous amount of editing when it came in. It was choppy. Transitions were rough and the whole thing needed smoothing.”  I asked if they were interested in this author’s next book. Guess what the answer was?

That’s not the kind of surprise you want your editor to receive upon opening your manuscript, but I’m afraid it happens more often than one would guess. I’ve even heard authors quip that grammar and spelling are why we love editors. That may be true but, these days especially, we need to turn in near-perfect manuscripts. I know I sound like a broken record but the market has never been tighter and the competition has never been as stiff. Even if you see yourself as an old hand at publishing, be aware that there are new voices out there– excellent voices– who will only find a slot if you lose yours.

Here’s why sloppiness can be a career killer:

• Publishing houses have had one downsize after another with smaller and smaller staffs to do the same amount of work. Your editor is not a good steward of his time if he allows you to turn in a rough manuscript. He has to answer to management for his time and if you affect his output you will not be his favorite author.
• Many houses are now using outside editors. If the freelancer quoted a price based on a clean manuscript and then he receives one that needs a lot more work, it’s going to come to the attention of the editor. Plus many of these contract editors work for multiple houses and are influential in the industry. Your reputation is at stake. What do you think would hppen if another editor goes to that freelancer and says, “I’m thinking of signing Author X. Would you be willing to edit him?”
• Even with editing a sloppy or disorganized manuscript is not going to make the best book. You cannot risk alienating readers. think about how many times we’ve heard someone say, “Okay, that’s it. That’s the last book I’m going to read from that author.” That’s a carer killer. We need to build audience with every book.

It’s a small world. Word gets around. If you earn a reputation for being last minute and turning in a manuscript that needs a lot of work, listen carefully– the clock is ticking on your career.

Let me ask you: if you are not sure your manuscript is polished to near-perfection what can you do?

Location: Books & Such Central Valley Office

Weather: Hot, hot, hot.

Yesterday was the 50th Anniversary of Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird. It’s the perfect time to look at becoming a master of the craft of writing.

This week we’re going to examine some of the career killing mistakes a writer makes by being sloppy, writing too fast or being impatient. Fun topic, right? But an important topic– one that can make all the difference between success or failure. Today I want to talk about the most important thing of all for a successful writing career– mastery of the craft. Too many of the queries and proposals we see are not anywhere close to publishable yet. Some writers expect to open their word processing program, start writing and sell that very first book. It’s like a kid getting his first set of pipe wrenches and setting off to get a job as a construction plumber. You can’t skip the apprenticeship.

I’ve been reading Malcolm Gladwell’s brilliant book, The Outliers, where he focuses on what he calls the 10,000-hour rule. He quotes neurologist Daniel Levitin as follows:

“In study after study, of composers, basketball players, fiction writers, ice-skaters, concert pianists, chess players, master criminals, this number comes up again and again. Ten thousand hours is equivalent to roughly three hours a day, or 20 hours a week, of practice over 10 years… No one has yet found a case in which true world-class expertise was accomplished in less time. It seems that it takes the brain this long to assimilate all that it needs to know to achieve true mastery.”

Gladwell tells success story after success story, each time adding up the hours the person invested before bursting onto the scene– a seeming overnight success. His analysis is eye-opening. I have a number of authors who also burst onto the scene seeming to be overnight successes. Jill Eileen Smith made the bestseller list with her very first novel, Michal and her books continue to rack up impressive sales figures. An overnight success? Jill spent twenty years writing and rewriting Michal. And that wasn’t twenty years on and off; she was a committed writer/ researcher. Jill put in her 10,000 hours many times over.

Lori Benton is a new client for me. Though I knew her from comments she often made on our blog, she came to my attention as the winner of the Novel Matters Audience with an Agent contest. As I read her entry I couldn’t believe she was an as-yet-unpublished author. Her writing was exquisite— so sure, so well-developed. Her manuscript exhibited complete mastery of the art of writing historical fiction. If she’d been writing long enough to achieve mastery why hadn’t she been submitting? Why didn’t she have an agent? It had me scratching my head. It wasn’t until I uncovered her story that I began to understand.

Here’s what she wrote in a blog interview with Romance Writers on the Journey:

“I wrote my first story when I was nine, and my interest in writing stories persisted in fits and starts throughout childhood and my teen years. But it wasn’t until 1991, when I was in my early twenties, that I realized the time had come to write the novel I’d always wanted to write. Just to see if I could do it. I did. It was a Celtic fantasy, and it was very long. The next logical step seemed to be… could I find a Christian publisher interested in publishing a massive fantasy tome? I never did, but I received enough positive feedback from editors who loved my writing that I didn’t give up. I set the fantasy tome aside and moved on to the next story. After two years of serious work on that first novel I joined a local critique group and began to get feedback from those ahead of me in the process, and mega doses of encouragement. In 1994 I joined Oregon Christian Writers and began attending their summer conferences. I gained a much broader sense of the world of Christian publishing.”

“Turning 30 is a milestone for most women, but my 30th year was a bit more of a milestone than I bargained for. I was diagnosed with Hodgkins Lymphoma in March of 1999. I decided to take those treatment months off from writing and focus on getting well. After the “all clear” in November of 1999, I intended to jump back into working on the novel I had set aside in March. An editor was interested in it and wanted to see it when I was finished. The chances of the cancer coming back were slim. I had every reason to press on and immerse myself again in the joy of writing. But that’s not what happened.”

“I’m sure everyone reading this knows chemotherapy has side effects. I experienced a number of them, but in the end I felt I’d gotten off easy… until the months started passing, and very little writing got done. And what did get done was joyless, frustrating. Concentration proved elusive. Plot threads frayed out of my grasp. I’d spend hours and hours researching and promptly forget everything I’d learned and have to do it over again. Though I didn’t know it at the time, I was suffering from chemo fog.”

“When I experienced a lifting of the chemo fog nearly five years after my treatment, I found my writing process was both rusty and radically changed from how I approached writing a novel before cancer. I used to write in a linear fashion, Chapter One thru to The End. When I began Kindred, I knew next to nothing about the time period I had chosen to set it in, the late 18th century south, and I couldn’t see where the story should start. Having gained a healthy aversion to spinning my wheels in a mess of words that won’t behave, and knowing the importance of maintaining the joy of writing—joy in the process of sitting here and putting words on the screen—I decided to simply write what I could see. This turned out to be a chunk of scenes near the middle of the novel. I kept on that way, writing whatever scenes were speaking to me the loudest, the most beguiling, even if I wasn’t sure where they would fit, or if they would fit, doing whatever it took to keep me eager to come to the computer each day. I was reconditioning myself to daily work, and knew it was, for me, most important to find and maintain joy, not worry so much about what the end result might look like. I had to prove to myself that I could still finish a novel.”

“I did finish Kindred, four years later. But that was only the beginning.”

When Lori’s debut novel is published it will look to some as if this writer just burst on the scene. Nothing could be further from the truth. Count the years. Even with her hiatus from cancer, Lori achieved her 10,000 hours many times over. And the challenges she personally faced give depth and richness to her fiction.

Mastery. This has got to be goal, not publication. You don’t want to forever be making excuses about your “early books.” You want to be one of those writers who burst on the scene to critical acclaim.

So what do you think? How do you measure up to Gladwell’s 10,000-hour rule? Or do you believe true genius does exist– a talent that doesn’t require an apprenticeship?