Category: Blog

Do We Really Need Author Coaches?

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

Jackson was playing in my purse and fell asleep with one incriminating paw still inside…

The other day on Twitter – yes, where I get pretty much all of my news – I saw someone listed as an “agent and author coach.” And he was tweeting coach-y type things. You know – those energetically optimistic exhortations that you can doo eet. Usually with the caveat that you need the coach’s help to doo eet. (Sorry – Adam Sandler movies have forever corrupted this phrase for me.)

In case you haven’t picked up on my tone, I should say I’m not a huge fan of the whole coach concept to begin with.

Some of this goes back to being a 10 year-old cheerleader and having the football coaches yell at me to get the hell out of the way. And the coaches in school who also taught gym class and showed nothing but contempt for non-athletic me. So, yeah, I have issues there. But even the whole personal trainer and life coach trend bothers me. I even have a friend who’s a life coach, and she’s a really lovely, interesting and dynamic person, but I still have problems with telling people how to run their lives.

See, that’s the thing – a personal trainer or life coach really doesn’t have access to knowledge you don’t have. You can read all kinds of information on how to build muscle tone or organize your schedule. What the coach brings to the table is that outside perspective and a kind of authoritative permission/directive to do the things you really want or need to do.

Fair enough.

I’m stubborn and self-directed, sometimes to a fault, and I really don’t like other people telling me what to do. Not my gig.

But let’s talk about these “author coaches.” We all know that the job of agent is in flux. With the rise of digital publishing, authors have access to publishing again in a way that they didn’t for many years. We still need agents to reach the upper echelons of traditional publishing, but that particular brass ring isn’t quite as shiny as it was. Certainly it’s not the be-all and end-all of a writing career anymore. Advances – where agents traditionally made most of their money – have shrunk or, in the case of many digital publishers, have gone away.

A lot of writers are questioning whether they need an agent. When I see agents selling their clients’ books to the exact same digital publishers that I am, I wonder, too. That debate is another issue, but what is undeniable is that many agents are reinventing themselves and their profession. Clearly the agents selling clients’ books to digital publishers that don’t do advances are making their money through a percent of royalties, perhaps with the hope of building the clients’ readership and moving them into bigger and better contracts.

Clearly this “author coach” concept is one of the reinventions. This feels predatory to me. An agent’s job is to be your advocate, get you access and know the contract negotiations. Not to be your friend and cheerleader. I know some authors have this relationship with their agent, which is great, but it’s not necessary. What is necessary is that they have information and expertise that you don’t have. And can’t just read up on.
 
I think that’s what it comes down to for me: anyone can call themselves an author coach. Hell, every time I tell my CPs they can doo eet, I’m being an author coach, right? Does this entitle me to a percentage of their royalties?
 
Hmm….

The Flip Side of Over-Editing

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

One of the things I love about this blog is the conversations it starts. Jodie Griffin, one of my Carina Press stable-mates (whinnies) said she thought I should touch on not giving up on editing, too. I invited her to guest post and here she is!

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Yesterday, Jeffe posted a great blog about over-editing a book. Today, I want to talk about the other side of that.

Don’t give up too easily.

Let me take this to a personal level.  Forbidden Fantasies, my first Carina Press title and my first published story ever, was rejected by Spice Briefs. Form rejection, no suggestions as to why, nothing. I put it aside and worked on some other projects, but it was never far out of my mind.

I submitted two other stories to different Harlequin lines, both of which were rejected. At this point, I was seriously questioning my writing skills and wondering if the stress of raising a family, working a full-time job, and trying to get published was worth it.  But Forbidden Fantasies wouldn’t let me go, and I started to fiddle with it again.

I deleted a lot. I added new stuff. And then I let it sit. I was considering some other publishers, but just wasn’t sure if I was brave enough to try again, and then Harlequin ran a Carina Press pitch contest.  I submitted my two-paragraph blurb and was chosen as one of five to pitch my story to Angela James.  I was crazy nervous, but Angela was wonderful.  When I finished my pitch, she asked to see the full manuscript. I was elated and terrified at the same time. My fabulous critique partners helped me make sure it was as clean as could be, and I sent it in.

You’d think the story about not giving up would end here, since Forbidden Fantasies was published in March, but you’d be wrong. Because rather than a sale, I got a revise and resubmit request. In a way, a rejection, but the best possible kind of rejection. We like it, but it needs work. If you’re willing to try to fix it, we’re willing to look at it again. 

I felt like I’d won the lottery.  Deborah Nemeth, my editor, had incredible ideas on ways to strengthen and expand the story.  I took my time, played around with it, got advice from my crit partners, and (holding the longest breath I’ve ever held) sent it back in again. 

 And this time, I got an offer.  The editing and revising didn’t end there by any stretch, but now it was being guided by Deb, a wonderful editor who understood what I was trying to say and helped me make sure I was getting that across.

Forbidden Desires will be my second story with Carina Press, and it’s coming out in November. And guess what? It was also rejected by Spice Briefs, same as the first story. Form rejection, no explanation, nothing to tell me why. To submit it to Carina Press, I changed it from first person to third person, and used everything I’d learned from the editing process with Forbidden Fantasies to make it stronger.  It sold without a revise and resubmit, but I would’ve been fine with that, too.

I loved Jeffe’s don’t over-edit advice, and I really agree with it. But there’s definitely a fine line between that and giving up. I’d hate to see someone give up after their first rejection. If you truly believe in your story, you owe it to yourself to try more than once.   It’s a chance I’m glad I took.

About Jodie Griffin:

Jodie writes naughty tales about nice girls & the men who love them.  She loves chocolate, happily-ever-afters, and alliterative titles, and could seriously use more hours in every day. You can find Jodie on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and at www.jodiegriffin.com.

When to Stop Revising and Move On

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

Aerro invented this game where she threw the ball in the pool and had David fish it out for her with the lacrosse stick. Best game ever!

There have been some interesting conversations this week about continuing to revise books after they’re published. Now, knowing when a book is done is always a challenge for an author. You can literally work on the same book your entire life and never be “done” with it. At a certain point, you just have to let go and make the conscious decision that you’re not going to screw with it any longer.

And, with print publishing, it used to be that there was a definite end point to this process. Once the story hit paper, you simply *could not* revise any longer. Over and done with. Move on.

Well yesterday, Sunita who is a reader and reviewer at Dear Author, posted to her blog about a self-published author who is responding to reader reviews and revising her ebook accordingly. She makes an excellent case for why this is a problem for readers on a number of levels.

I think it’s also a problem for writers to consider.

I’m pretty sure I’ve told this story before, but I’m telling it again. Back when I was in a writer’s group, there were 12 of us and we met once a week. Each meeting we focused on one person’s work, which meant your turn came up once every three months. Sometimes faster because people would bail on their turns. But still, this was a fairly slow schedule for feedback, especially to the cycle I have now. This one gal brought her essay to the group easily five times. So, for more than a year, we read and critiqued various versions of this one 5,000 word piece. Finally, another member became exasperated and told the author that she would never get this feedback she wanted that the essay was PERFECT. There would always be something to pick at. She needed to decide to be done with it.

The writer became very offended.

And the rest of us took to using the title of the essay as a shortcut reference to over polishing and obsessing without finishing.

It also puts me in mind of another author I know, whose book was published several years ago. It met with modest success. Not raving responses, but I don’t think anyone hated it either. Not an unusual story. The thing is, she’s still pimping that same book. She must have gotten her rights back, because she had it republished with a book-packager – essentially self-publishing, but of the very expensive paper variety.

So, now, several years after the original publication, she’s investing huge amounts of time and money into pushing this same book.

How many new books could she have written in the interim with this kind of effort? Instead she seems to be stuck on that one story. That one book.

I wonder if this isn’t true, also, of the gal who’s revising her ebook according to reader comments. She’s wanting it to be perfect. Totally understandable – we all have this fantasy that *everyone* will love our book, and us, and we’ll be universally celebrated – but there’s a serious problem with wanting that.

IT WILL NEVER HAPPEN.

Perfection does not exist. Universal acclaim never occurs. Someone will always find something to pick at. I’ve heard that quilters and knitters deliberately insert a flaw in their works. The rationale is supposedly that only god is perfect, but I wonder if it’s not just kind of restful to have something you know isn’t perfect and to be okay with that.

Being okay with moving on is crucial. Write the book. Revise and polish. Decide you’re done. Publish it and move on.

There are always new stories to be written.

That’s the magic.

When Your Writing Schedule Gets Decimated

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

There’s lots of stuff out there about how writers and cats go together.

It’s true – the two creatures have similar natures and habits. A lot of that has to do with quiet and contemplation.

You might also notice that this is always about cats and never kittens.

This is our New Kitten, officially named Jackson.

I finally managed to get this photo, when he ran out of energy and got a little sleepy. I have requests for video. So far, this is the best I’ve managed:

Jackson 2

It gives you an idea of the eternally moving target I’m dealing with here. Is he a good desk companion? Oh yes! Every inch of my desk, all the time. Keyboards are for walking on. My face is right there for loving on. He goes for my tea. I move it to the other side. He follows. I move it back. He follows. Persistence, thy name is Kitten.

So, yeah – my even, pleasant rituals are shot all to hell. If I’m not trying to see through a tail, I’m mediating conflicts with Isabel, who is decidedly cranky about the whole thing. Here was her statement from last night.

Hint: look at the end of the near canale. Yes, we got her down. She’s been up on the roof before, but we had to get out the extension ladder last night. Just so I would know that she is DISPLEASED.

So, now I’m trying to get my schedule back into place – knowing full well I’ll lose it again, because I’m headed to Rom Con on Thursday. (Hey, if you’re coming, or are in the Denver area, stop and say hi!) I’m trying to be Zen about it all. My life is overall pretty even and peaceful – like I said yesterday, I don’t know how you people with little kids do it – and this kind of disruption doesn’t happen often.

I think that’s part of the staying the course with writing: knowing that sometimes different parts of life get in the way. And that’s it’s all good. All part of being a connected human being.

Just like getting back to my exercise routine after the holidays, to extend my recent analogy. Starting off slow and easy.

Working my way back up to full intensity.

(With only a little whining.)

How to Break Old Habits and Learn New Tricks

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

We visited the progeny this weekend, which was very fun. Tobiah is turning four this week, so this fishing pole was a birthday present. It had a little plastic fish to practice with. Otherwise, their swimming pool isn’t stocked with many fish.

I also brought these fun, sparkly flip-flops for Aerro. She loved putting them on. Then taking them off. Then putting them on. Then taking them off. Then dipping them in the pool. And endlessly fascinating discovery.

Recently I learned I tie my shoes wrong.

While I’m thrilled to discover a better way to tie my shoes – Runner’s World has a video that teaches the better knot – I confess I still feel a little bad about the shoe-tying thing to begin with. See, when I was in first grade, they pulled me out of class for special tutoring in tying my shoes. Also in telling time on an analog clock. I suspect now that I was slightly dyslexic – though no one ever tutored me in running toward the correct goal. At any rate, I was young for my grade, but otherwise fairly intelligent.

The shoe-tying thing was embarrassing.

But this reef knot concept? So super cool! And it totally works better. So, I’m kind of amused to be learning, at 45, how to tie my shoes all over again.

That’s the thing, isn’t it? There’s always a new thing to learn, even in the mundane. The stuff we’ve been doing our whole lives. I don’t know how many times Aerro took off her shoes and brought them to me to put on her again. What had become a mundane thing to me, that I did out of force of habit, fascinated her.

This morning, back at home, we headed to the gym. As I was running on the treadmill, I realized I’d tied my shoes wrong. I’d gone back to my old method, out of habit, and the laces were loosening. I had to stop and retie them, concentrating on the new method.

Probably I should just do this over and over. And maybe dip them in the pool, too.

More fun is always better.

Training to Incrementally Increase Wordcount

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

These cholla cactus are terrible to touch and so lovely to see. Right now the desert is all pink and yellow with their blooms and fruit.

So, now that we all have the guilt out of our systems and we’re not worrying about trying to get 10K words a day, I want to talk a little about how I’ve worked myself up from 1K/Day to about 1750 words/day. That’s the schedule I mentioned yesterday. It lets you draft a 100K novel in two months, with a month to revise. Or to write and revise a 30-40K novella in a month.

This is just a general goal for me, because all of these then require layers of edits, which also take time. And usually have to be done right away.

So, working with this idea of being healthy and creating sustainable habits, I approached increasing my word count like I do my exercise program: incrementally.

For example, with weightlifting, I keep a record of how much weight I do on each machine each day. (Amusingly, I use my notebook from the 2010 RWA conference in Orlando, with the Harlequin “Honeymoon Mountain” cover. Heavens only know what the gym rats think – I’m such a girl.) After I finish on a machine, I note whether that weight was easy, good or if I need to repeat. Once it’s good or easy, I increase the weight next time, to build my muscle mass and strength.

Likewise, on the treadmill, I increase my speed by 0.1 mph at a time. Don’t snicker – I’m a weenie. I have to build the cardiovascular stuff really slowly. But I have. Over time I’ve increased speed so I’m running half a mile farther in the same amount of time as I could when I started.

I tried the same approach with writing – gradually increasing my word count goal over time. My morning blog writing is the warm-up and, for the last week or so, I’ve been hitting at least 1750 words/day. And I’m very happy with that.

Now – this last week was relatively perfect conditions. No work travel. Work is not frenzied. Not that much other stuff going on. We’re headed up to Denver this weekend to see the grandbabies and get our New Kitten. It will be a good test of whether I can get my wordcount all three days.

I’m really determined.

Wish me luck!

Creating a Sustainable Writing Schedule

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

I love little enticing pathways into interior courtyards.

So, there’s this gal who did a workshop at a conference recently and then did a blog post – about how she’s developed a way to write ten-thousand words a day. A 10K Day. I don’t know her at all – I just glanced at her blog post because several of my writer friends were (understandably) really excited about her ideas.

I mean, who doesn’t want to write ten-thousand words a day?

I also saw a magazine cover at the gym proclaiming that Kim Kardashian (I have no idea how to spell that) lost ten pounds in one week, and I could do it, too!

I admit, that sounded pretty damn wonderful, also.

This is where I’m at right now, in the weeks leading up to the RWA National Conference at the end of July. I did some assessing on Saturday and figured out I needed to lose 10 pounds, so my cute outfits fit right, and write 80K words, so I can have a draft of RP2 finished. This works out to 1 pound every 8K words. So clearly I just need to not eat while writing.

Thus the temptation of the Big Leaps is ever-present.

Write 10K in one day? Yes, please! Lose 10 pounds in one week? Sign me up!

And yet, I also know that this leads to the Dark Side. The best weight loss is slow and steady – or the fat just comes right back and is harder to lose. I think we all know this. Which makes me wonder if similar isn’t true about the promise of the 10K Day.

So, here are my caveats. I don’t know this gal. I have absolutely nothing against her. I have nothing against writing fast. I know that there are writers who can and have turned out this much in a day.

What I think is this is not sustainable.

It’s binge writing.

I noticed, in her description of this method that she said she hired a babysitter so she could write 4 to 5 days a week (I forget which) and figured out a way to write that much. She also said this enabled her to write a novel in 3 months instead of 7. So,  a little math tells me that, at 10K per day, it would take 10 days to write a 100K novel (most novels are 85-120K, so that’s a reasonable round average.) If she’s writing 4 days/week, then she’d have the novel written in 2 1/2 weeks. Where did the other 8 weeks come from?

I’m presuming that’s revision time. (And maybe she covered this – I confess, that I skimmed.)

Some people like to work this way. Candy Havens does a Fast Draft class, where you draft a novel in two weeks and then do Revision Hell for two weeks. This works for her and for some others, which is great. I’m not sure if she feels the novel is ready to go after that, or if it takes more polishing after that.

But here’s another model.

If you take two months to draft a novel, that’s 60 days to write 100K, or about 1667 words/day. Most writers can do about 1,000 words/hour. (Your mileage may vary.) So, in two hours a day, you can draft a novel, spend a month revising it and still have a novel in three months.

Sure, it takes discipline and adherence to schedules, like we talked about yesterday, but so does healthy weight loss. And, to me, this is a healthy approach to a sustainable schedule.

Change your eating habits, work out every day, get plenty of sleep and water, and the weight will come off.

Develop good writing habits, write every day, get plenty of sleep and water, and you’ll have a novel.

It’s not great on a magazine cover, but it works.

 

Why the Last Thing You Need Is More Time to Write

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

Very early on in my writing career–dare I say, before I’d written or published much of anything–I took a seminar with Ron Carlson.

Look, he has a Wikipedia page, but no website. What’s up with that, Ron?

Anyway, Ron is a very talented short-story writer, and a terrific speaker and teacher. There we were, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, eager wanna be writers with stars in our eyes over becoming full-time writers someday. He told us a story about his own life.

He’d started writing when he was teaching, so he grabbed writing time when he could. At lunchtime, in the 15 minutes between classes, waiting for students during office hours. We’ve all been there, where even a few minutes of writing time is precious and you snap up each opportunity. But you long for the paradise of unbroken writing time. It beckoned to him, too. How much more he could write, if he only had the time.

So, he and his wife reviewed their finances and decided they could afford for him to quit teaching and write full-time.

It was the worst thing that ever happened to him.

Also? The house had never been so clean.

He did dishes. He vacuumed. He dusted things that had never been dusted. He did not write. One day, a friend dropped by and found him washing the spiral cord on the wall telephone. (That’s a dated reference, huh?) She took one look at him and said, “Man, you are lost.”

One of the questions I get most often from new or wannabe writers is about finding the time to write. And my answer is always that they never will. You have to make the time, or it won’t happen. I also tell them that they don’t have to find much. 15 minutes here, 30 minutes there – it all adds up. And that bright and shining hope for unbroken writing time?

It’s a lie.

It’s very difficult to use time wisely when you have big chunks of it. Ask any retiree. They dally the days away. People who have to cram a great deal into their days, get a lot more done. Because they need to.

The more you do, the more you can do.

So, what was Ron Carlson’s solution? He got a part-time job. A couple of them. And when he was back to having a finite time to write in, he started producing again.

It’s a valuable lesson.