It's Time I Start Hitting the Snooze Button

When my son was two years old and my stepson was twelve, my husband and I decided to let my stepson move his bedroom to the finished basement. It gave him a lot more privacy, a much bigger room, and meant that my son’s occasional recurrence of midnight screaming didn’t wake him up on school nights anymore. A nice side effect was that my husband and I could move our son into my stepson’s old room, which was about twice as large as the nursery. That had a nice side effect of its own. We turned the nursery into what I referred to as “my writing office” and what my husband referred to as “the creativity room” because he intended to paint miniatures and plan D&D campaigns there (both of those wound up falling through pretty quickly and the room was effectively my writing office, but I let him call it whatever he wanted).

At that time, my son was sleeping until seven or eight every morning. This is the latest he’s ever habitually slept in his entire life and I foolishly thought it was going to be the new normal, so I decided to start waking up at six every morning to write.

Not three days after I made that decision, my son started waking up between five and six every morning. I’ve been trying to break him of that habit for four and a half years. I didn’t jump into #5amwritersclub right then, though, at first because I was hoping he’d revert back to the later wakeup time and later because I still managed to find time to write back then. At that time I didn’t draft in my laptop, that was a switch I made after the great big writer’s block incident (which was, unbeknownst to me, looming on the horizon, and which I have written about here), I wrote by pen in a notebook. It was easy, then, to buckle my son into his booster seat with a snack or a meal and sneak away (often outside to have a cigarette, another factor which directly contributed to the great big writer’s block incident) to write for a few stolen minutes at a time.

Then, when my son was a month shy of his third birthday, I found out I was pregnant with my daughter. My “writing office” was converted back into a nursery and I quit smoking and felt sick all the time and entered the great big writer’s block incident and, really, you can read about that and how I dug myself out of it after two years here.

When I finally found my writing groove again I’d changed everything about my habitual writing, including finally forcing myself to get up at five o’clock every morning to write. I did NaNoWriMo, but I also started using the NaNoWriMo website’s stat tracking tools in other months. And at the time, it was all there in charts and graphs and a little cartoon bird with a worm in its beak declaring me an “early bird,” making it clear that the five a.m. writing time was my best—almost my only—productive writing time. I’ve been getting up at five o’clock in the morning almost every single day since then, for a little more than the past two years.

I wrote a bunch of short stories that way, I wrote the novel that got me into Pitch Wars and I did all the Pitch Wars work that way, I drafted and revised the next novel that way, and I’m drafting my current novel that way, and I’m not sure, actually, when getting up at 5 am every day stopped being super helpful for me, personally.

The panini started, we moved and moved my husband’s grandmother in with us, I got into Pitch Wars, we did remote kindergarten with my son, my kids got bigger, my son started in-person school, we moved again but this time nearly 800 miles away, and at some point I fell out of the habit of using NaNoWriMo’s stat tracker and only started again recently.

And at first I was annoyed, honestly, to see that the early bird cartoon telling me I did most of my writing between 5 and 6 in the morning had changed first to a flamingo telling me I’m a midday writer and then to a night owl telling me I get most of my work done in the hour between putting my daughter to bed and putting my son to bed.

Writing at five o’clock every morning isn’t productive for me anymore. I haven’t lost my writing time—I’m still getting the work done at the same rate I have for the last few years. It’s just that making myself get up at five o’clock in the morning every day isn’t helping anymore. The nature of my and my family’s day to day life has changed.

And I’m tired. I’m so tired, all the time. We all are, right? There’s so much more going on than just the writing and the stuff we see on Twitter, there’s the state of the world and there’s everyone’s personal worlds and we’re tired and I’m so, so tired.

I resolved this year to rest more, take better care of myself.

So why is it so hard to give up waking up at five every morning? I mean, okay, the cats and the children waking up before six every day doesn’t help. But I still have the alarm set in my phone, I still get up and make my coffee at five every morning—sometimes earlier and sometimes later, but let me tell you, the “sometimes later” happens a lot less than anything else—even though I can see that it’s not necessary anymore.

I wonder a little bit if it’s a low-key martyr complex. “Look at how I suffer for my art” type shit. I don’t think I see that in myself but what if that’s what I’m doing on a subconscious level. I don’t think so. But maybe. But probably not.

It’s more likely that I’m just having a hard time letting go of the habits that saved my ability to write back when my daughter was a tiny baby. I built these behaviors up as Absolutely Necessary (for me, personally, not for everyone), and now I’m afraid of letting them go.

Even if it means I’m not sleeping enough any night ever in my entire life.

I sighed deeply writing that.

I think it would be easier to tell myself I should sleep in more if my kids would oblige by also sleeping in more. Still, letting go of life habits that were bad for me was so integral to getting my writing back on track, it’s hard to make myself feel in my guts that letting go of habits that were good at the time will help me get my well-being back on track without also messing my writing up at all.

But it’s true. So I guess I better work on it.

Hello, Pitch Wars 2021 Hopefuls!

Hi! Welcome to my blog for people submitting to Pitch Wars this year!

I know some of my friends and family read my blog, but if you’ve stumbled upon this article chances are pretty high that you found it by looking at the #PitchWars hashtag on Twitter, or through Google. Probably the Twitter thing. But anyway the point is, it’s pretty likely that you don’t know me. So a quick intro:

My name is C.J. Dotson. I write genre fiction, mostly horror and SFF. I have a handful of short stories published, and I participated in Pitch Wars 2020 with a horror novel called These Familiar Walls. My mentor was Rochelle Karina and she’s wonderful. I currently live in the Midwest, in a big, creepy old house, with my husband, my almost-93-year-old grandmother-in-law, my almost-16-year-old stepson, my 6-year-old son, and my 2-year-old daughter. Up until I was furloughed last year when everything shut down, I worked at a bookstore, and I really miss it. When I’m not writing or reading or spending time with my family (or cleaning up after them), I love painting and baking. I think that one of the absolute greatest pleasures in life is to eat food and read a book at the same time. From a purely aesthetic perspective I find images of the planet Jupiter super soothing and satisfying. I’m afraid of the dark and I have a hard time remembering to keep the volume of my voice below a shout and I have a poor memory. I’m six feet tall and often find myself overwhelmed and impatient in stores so I usually wind up wearing clothing that is not quite long enough for me. I like bowling and swimming and roller skating and skee-ball and miniature golf, though I’m not particularly good at any of them. I dream of someday owning a kayak. If I ever get really fit, it’ll be almost entirely in the service of trying to cosplay Sypha Belnades from the Castlevania anime. I’m bi, my pronouns are she/her. I’m on Twitter!

There, now you know me, right?

But if you’re here deciding whether you should submit to Pitch Wars or not, or to get a better idea about what that’s like, you’re probably looking for another piece of information about me. Do I have a literary agent? Has my novel been picked up by a publisher?

Not yet.

So, do I think you should do Pitch Wars anyway?

Absolutely.

Right around a year ago I was doing what you’re doing right now. I was reading blogs written by former Pitch Wars mentees and trying to figure out what to expect. I was also making a big mistake, which was cherry-picking the blogs I read. This person got a two-book deal? That person is in talks with Netflix? Another person got an agent within a day of the showcase? Those were the blogs and articles and posts I was focusing on, last year.

The blog posts all about how Pitch Wars didn’t mean instant success for everyone, the posts about how people don’t always get an agent but it’s still worth it, the voices on my screen assuring me that the best part of Pitch Wars is the community you get out of it, I didn’t want to see that. Part of that was wishful thinking, of course. I wanted to be one of the big flashy success stories. But also, the last lingering clouds of social anxiety that I’ve mostly-but-not-entirely overcome over the last sixteen years managed to cast just enough of a shadow over me to convince me that the friendships were for other people, people who were good at making friends and being personable, not for me. I think that attitude is evident in my team interview on the Pitch Wars blog, if you know to look for it. Meanwhile a few of the other mentees had made a discord server for us, and were building a community, and I hadn’t joined it at first, and I was missing out.

You, Pitch Wars hopeful browsing blogs and social media in the weeks leading up to submitting your material and awaiting the big announcement, you’ll see this a lot:
The community is everything.

I really lucked out, because in Rochelle I got a mentor who I vibe with really well, who I genuinely like a ton, and who didn’t just go above and beyond with my manuscript but also made it clear from the start that she was ready to be friends and to stay friends. (Seriously, if your book fits her wish list, submit to Rochelle).

My first few weeks of participating in Pitch Wars, I didn’t put a lot of effort into getting to know my fellow mentees. Most of this is because, like I said, I convinced myself I wouldn’t be good at getting to know them. But a smaller part of it is because the first few weeks of Pitch Wars coincided with some personal difficulties and some technical difficulties. A good friend passed away in November of 2020, and I have a hard time thinking about the early days of my Pitch Wars experience without also thinking about him. There were other things going on in my personal life that November, but that’s the one that matters. And it’s relevant to this post because there’s this fundamental thing that I think hopeful Pitch Wars applicants might not be paying enough attention to. If you get into Pitch Wars, the rest of your life doesn’t stop, and it can’t really be put on a back-burner.

It’s been pointed out elsewhere that Pitch Wars is a stressful experience. A great experience, but a stressful one. And others have said what I’ll say now, which is if you’re not mentally or emotionally capable of taking on stress and deadlines and expectations and intense work on your creative endeavor while maintaining your mental health right now, submitting to Pitch Wars is not a decision you should take lightly. All that being said, Pitch Wars vibes really well with the way I handle stress rather than causing more stress. Having a big project to sink into and a tight deadline to keep up with helped keep my head above water during that hard time.

Pitch Wars is starting for a lot of you, but it’s over now for me. I did the work and I waited with bated breath through the showcase and I queried agents afterwards. I’m still waiting to hear back from a few of the agents who requested my full manuscript in the showcase. I’m still writing, revising a new novel, but the hectic whirl of work is past, for now. But I did eventually get in touch with the other mentees and ask to join the mentee discord, and I’m so incredibly glad I did. There were over a hundred mentees in 2020, and not every single mentee joined the discord, and I am not close with every single one of those of us who did. But I haven’t seen any antagonistic relationships in there, any enmity. I haven’t seen any pettiness or unpleasantness. There are a bunch of my fellow mentees from 2020 who I’m glad to know, and there are a handful who I believe I will be friends with—great friends with—for the rest of my life. It’s support, sharing information, celebrating together, commiserating together, sharing pet pictures, reaching out in times of need, critique partners, zoom hangouts, chatting about our lives, it’s building a web of professional connections together. But the most important to me is that it’s genuine, solid, amazing friendship.

Pitch Wars leveled up my writing. Pitch Wars gave me the confidence to start my querying journey and the belief that I’ll make it eventually. Pitch Wars provided me with a goal and structure in a time when that was really good for my mental health. And Pitch Wars introduced me to some people who I believe will rank among the best friends I’ve ever had.

If you’re wondering whether you should submit to Pitch Wars, and you’re reading articles by people who didn’t get agents, and you’re thinking to yourself, “Well, is it still worth it, then?” Yes. I don’t yet have an agent, but I would do it all over again. And if you have any questions for me, please feel free to comment here, or hit me up on Twitter!

(That paragraph up there about how PW leveled up my writing, gave me confidence, and provided structure? I’ll write a whole separate blog post about that soon. I intended to get into that in this post, but the community aspect really has been so deeply important to me, it wound up needing its own whole post. So check back here in a week or two, when I’ll get more into the craft aspects of the experience. And in the meantime, here’s a great blog post on the subject by my fellow 2020 mentee, Erin Fulmer.)

Five Sentence* Specialties

*roughly

Pitch Wars announced their 2021 and early 2022 schedule. Seeing the deadlines for mentor applications and mentee submissions, and especially seeing the dates chosen for the 2022 showcase, feels so strange. It’s so close to coming up again. I’ll have another post later about my feelings about this, and either in that post or yet another even later maybe some advice for people about to dive into this. Today’s post is a little different.

Coincidentally, I think, around the same day the timeline was posted, a bunch of us in the 2020/21 mentee chat group needed a bit of a boost. (If you’re finding this blog because you’re a Pitch Wars hopeful, you either have already or will soon see a lot on this theme: getting into Pitch Wars doesn’t make all your worries as a writer go away, any more than getting an agent or a book deal will. Don’t expect it to magically make you feel perfect about your writing. It won’t. That’s okay! It’s not supposed to! And while it’s different for different people, for me it’s been overall a great experience. Now, where was I? Oh, yes…) A bunch of us needed a boost and we wound up making a thread listing our own writing strengths!

Listing our strengths evolved into giving a few words of advice about them. And I had the idea to collect those in one place and share them, for anyone who’s interested. Check them out below, included with the permission of a few of my friends and fellow members of the Pitch Wars Class of 2020! (And click on any contributor’s name to visit them on Twitter.)

VOICE
Gretchen Schreiber
https://mailchi.mp/f54c0e1f5761/disabledyanewsletter
1. Music — helps to build flow and pacing of words 
2. What does your MC love (like a thing or expertise) — build that into the way metaphors take shape. 
3. Line breaks, white space, and hard returns 
4. Slang / specific words / personal expertise

MULTI-P.O.V. NARRATIVES
E.G. Fulmer
https://erinfulmerwrites.wordpress.com/
1. Use as few POVs as possible to tell the story—more POVs or swift POV shifts can make a story harder to connect with and follow. 
2. Each POV should have a distinguishable “voice,” goal, and arc—they should bring something important/unique to the story and be fully realized characters in themselves. 
3. Your structure and plot will be easier to wrangle if you choose a single protagonist out of your POVs, though each POV should still follow your chosen structure/beats at least loosely. 
4. When switching POVs, use a scene or chapter break, and try to indicate whose head the reader is inhabiting as soon as possible—ideally in the first sentence, though you can also use a header with the character’s name to help ground the reader. 
5. Because of their complexity, multi-POV stories may require very tight writing to feel complete and well-developed, so be prepared to be ruthless about what scenes are necessary and who is the right person to narrate specific events.

CHARACTERS READERS LOVE
R.A. Black
wordsofrablack.wordpress.com
1. Make them fail - it's hard to be invested in someone who never makes mistakes 
2. Make them vulnerable - give them something that can be used against them, something that can be exploited, whether that's a relationship, something they need to protect etc. And even better if the reader can see that coming before the character 
3. Make them want - give them a goal, something they need to achieve, and something the reader can root for along with them 
4. Make them connect - the main character’s interactions with the side characters helps bring them to life more, even if those interactions are less than positive. Relationships changing as the book progresses show growth in the main character as well 
5. Make them laugh - it's often easier to relate to a character we've shared a joke or happy moment with, then one who purely experiences misery. And also it makes the moment when they do lose that happiness much more poignant.

DIALOGUE THAT FLOWS
E.G. Fulmer
https://erinfulmerwrites.wordpress.com/
1. Dialogue has a rhythm, like music—develop your ear by listening to real conversations, but also recognize that the way people really speak (often contentless, full of ums and uhs and small talk) doesn’t translate on the page exactly. Written dialogue is a stylized imitation and carries more emotional content than the average real-world conversation. 
2. Use beats (physical action/”business” if you speak theater, internal thoughts/reactions, emotional responses, etc.) as a counterpoint to the spoken dialogue—it says a lot more than tags like “she said” (tags are still fine, just use them sparingly). 
3. Know your characters’ different voices and use their voices as a vehicle for characterization, i.e. some characters will favor declarative statements over questions, some will qualify and prevaricate, some will be wordy, others terse, some will have verbal tics/catch phrases/habits. 
4. Dialogue partners’ spoken lines should respond to each other in some way, but how they choose to respond and what they respond to can be very telling—perhaps they turn something into a joke, change the subject, deflect, lash out to hide vulnerability, or pick out a specific part of the previous speaker’s line but ignore the rest. 
5. Dialogue should move the story forward, just like any other aspect of story, by revealing character motivations, catalyzing change, advancing goals, deepening relationships, or sparking conflict—banter is fun but it should carry some story purpose as well.

DIALOGUE
M (half of MK Hardy)
1. Say the words in your head if you can do that and out loud if you can't. 
2. Put your face in whatever expression their face is in as they're talking. 
3. Don't have them say the name of the person they're talking to unless there's a reason for it. 
4. Pick your vocal/verbal ticks and don't mix them up between characters. 
5. Finally: start actively noticing how real people talk.

CHARACTERS EXPERIENCING EMOTION
C.J. Dotson
cjdotsonauthor.com (hey that’s where you are right now!)
1. Take time to describe the sensation physically, sometimes, don’t only ever use the words for the emotions.
2. Once you know what emotion your character is feeling, think of the thing that provokes that emotion in yourself; recall specifically how your body felt when you were experiencing that emotion.
3. If you can’t remember that sensation, and if it’s safe for you to do so, make yourself feel the emotion again and write a list of everything you physically feel in response to that. (For example, my eyes water when I’m scared.)
4. Even the coldest, most logical character will probably make at least some decisions based on emotion rather than rational thought; let their emotions push them to act irrationally sometimes—that doesn’t mean acting out of character, and it can deepen the characterization.
5. Don’t forget the emotional aftermath: When the anger has burned itself out, when the crying is done, when the laughter fades, how does that leave your character feeling, and how does that impact their next actions?

ANGST+STEAM
Stella Wren
stella-wren.com
1. Angst: Boil angst down to a battle between the character and themself—define the inner demon they are fighting and build scenes that force them to face it. 
2. Angst: Externalize the angst to a symbol in the text and evolve the character’s relationship to that thing over the course of the narrative. 
3. Steam: Find at least one point of contrast in the scene and blow it out—ex: character vs. character (enemies to lovers), characters vs. society (forbidden love), or characters vs. setting (Beds? Who needs beds?). 
4. The Steam Is In The Details. That thing you love, but you don’t think anyone else likes that thing? That’s the thing. Put that dude’s ring on his middle finger. I DARE YOU.
5. Steam+Angst: Define the relationship of steam to angst over the course of the scene, the act, and the book (Is it a healing catharsis? A pleasurable but ultimately toxic tryst?) and use it to catalyze your character's development.

DESCRIPTIONS
Sari 
1. Always add details. It's not enough to say it's a rug, you want to say what the pattern is, and if it ties back into your worldbuilding even better, so it says something about the world you're in. 
2. The best way to embed description is in the character's interactions with it. Texture is so very grounding, so is smell. They add layers to things that sight alone does not. 
3. I really love describing heat in different ways. There's the sweat on people, the sun beating down, but my favorite thing in my PW novel was talking about the heat lines rising in squiggles from a car. it's such a mundane detail, but if it doesn't say summer in arizona, idk what does. Think about temperature. Cold should be biting, Sun and heat should impact everything. 
4. Think about what makes something unique. Does the mug have a chip in it? Are the couches worn and faded? Is there a grandfather clock ticking noisily in the background? Even better if it's something that annoys the character or makes the object endearing. 
5. Dabble it out in bits and pieces. No one wants ten pages about the lake, followed by songs about the lake.

NATURE DESCRIPTIONS
Sara Codair
saracodair.com
1. Use some metaphor or simile, but don’t go overboard 
2. Use as many of the five senses as possible 
3. Don’t worry about cramming ever little detail into the description—just pick the ones you feel the most strongly about 
4. Connect the description to the character’s emotional state. 
5. Make the description part of the scene or action—it doesn’t have to all be one long paragraph but can be sprinkled throughout an action.

IMMERSIVE SETTINGS
Lyz Mancini
lyzmancini.com
1. close your eyes and imagine yourself in that room or field or bar or whatever. 
2. Pretend you’re a Sims character. Walk around it, smell it, feel stuff, stare at people, explore it all as if there were no societal rules and you could freely walk around 
3. If the place exists, go there! I’ve revisited locations that appear in my stories to notice attention to details I’d never noticed before 
4. Meditate on the locations in different seasons and situations. Whats it like in winter? What’s it like at 4am? What’s it like on fire? 
5. Pretend you’re a vibe architect and get to writing. Go full in on too much detail at first. Instead of editing in the detail layer, edit out too much detail later.

ACTION SCENES
C.J. Dotson
cjdotsonauthor.com
1. This is not the time for introspection.
2. Cut your sentences in half. Maybe into thirds. Shorter sentences read faster. This increases the pacing and the tension.
3. Emotional responses to the action are good, but try to weave them throughout rather than explaining them in long, flowing sentences or all at once. Also, this is a good time to really keep the emotional descriptions grounded in the physical.
4. Cut your paragraphs in half, too. Maybe into thirds. It’s the same as with sentences.
5. Make sure the stakes of the action scene are clearly laid out from the start. Why is the action happening? Why is it happening now? What does failure look like for this scene? What happens if the character does fail? Make sure your reader knows this going in. Even if you raise the stakes (plot twist, the villain suddenly reveals that he has captured the hero’s best friend! oh no the rockslide shifted course and is about to hit a pet store! even if you make it to the dock before the lava reaches you, if you’re not fast enough the ship will still leave without you!) partway through the action sequence, there still needs to be a clear objective or consequence from the start, too.

PLOT
Gretchen Schreiber
https://mailchi.mp/f54c0e1f5761/disabledyanewsletter
1. Always know your: hook, midpoint turn, and climax 
2. Scene tests — does the scene push the plot forward? 
3. Brianstorm 50-100 scenes for the book, then hand pick the best ones and put them into order / force them into a story 
4. How is the character pushing it forward — happenstance/coincidence is only okay in act 1

PACING
Diba Bijari
1. This may sound simple, but in any scene, keep only what is necessary in terms of descriptions and dialogue, so the inciting incident is most striking, especially in the first 20 pages. As much as I love pretty prose, it fuzzes the reader’s focus in the beginning. Save it for later! 
2. If you’re tired of a certain scene as you write it, the reader will be too. 
3. Something I’m working on: try not to stay in your protagonist’s head (if in first person POV) for too long. Dialogue is key. Interaction with other characters moves things quickly naturally. 
4. Move scenes along with their most exciting key points and less  detail or long prose. Sounds like the scene will be naked without, but no, it works. 
5. Think of the scenes as movie scenes and how long you’d tolerate them in a movie.

NARRATIVE ARC
E (half of MK Hardy)
1. Figure out what your character(s) wants at the beginning of the story, and then do everything in your power not to give it to them.
2. Or, give it to them but when they get it, it's not what they want after all.
3. Make sure each chapter/scene/conversation moves them in some way - doesn't always have to be forward, but don't stay static
4. A good arc shows change - both in the characters and the narrative. Change usually evokes feelings - oftentimes more negative than positive. What emotions are you evoking in your reader?
5. Ideally your reader will realise where things are going just before you (or your character) gets there. You want things to move logically but not predictably

THEME
M (half of MK Hardy)
1. What is your theme: a hypothesis, a question, an exploration?
2. State your theme early, in passing; it'll make you look clever later.
3. Knit it through every aspect of the story - your hero, your villain, your setting and your metaplot should all service the theme.
4. Your theme should be explored in both a literal and metaphorical/metaphysical sense if at all possible.
5. State your theme again in the third act, and be as heavy-handed as you feel is tasteful: you earned it.

REVISING
Briana Una McGuckin
Moonmissives.com
1. Write the compelling parts of the first draft, for you. Embrace that the picture will be incomplete, let it be okay. You don’t even know what you’ll need and what you won’t until it’s over, so just do what you have to do to tell the story to yourself. 
2. Understanding that plot and character arc turn on each other, write down questions of plot/character as you have them (e.g., how can it be more believable that Todd would do this?, or is there a better way to burn the house down?) You don’t need the answers yet—and likely you won’t get them—so just keep writing. 
3. At the end of the first draft, revisit your list of questions. If you get an answer, go back to that place in the book and fix the plot/character issue. Repeat until the plot and character development work together for you in a believable way. This is your draft 2.
4. Reread again, looking for those elements outside of character or plot that you UNDER-wrote in your first draft, and note them down. For me, these things are setting, body-language, and people reasoning/reacting on the page. Whatever they turn out to be for you, this dictates your next 3 (or however many) revisions. Go through looking for where setting is needed and mark it/add it, start to finish. That’s draft 3. Then go again, with the next element on the list. That’s draft 4, and so on. 
5. On the other side of this, the manuscript should be MEATY. You added what you needed. Now you can look for what you DON’T need anymore, now that you have formerly-under-written elements doing more of the narrative work. What did you over-write? For me, it’s dialogue and reflection. Make a list and do it the same as with your under-writing—one draft per element focus, except this time you’re cutting what is now extraneous
6. When this is done, I reread again and see how things hang together, and the longer I wait to do that, the better, so I’m less inside the story, more dependent on what’s on the page. 
7. I rely on what I call “task lists.” Instead of marking pages, I keep a separate word doc that lists issues chapter to chapter. This way, as I go through (whatever phase I’m in), I can cross things off a list. It feels productive, and it keeps the revision from feeling overwhelming

There you have it! These aren’t be-all end-all guides to writing, of course, mostly this is what we’ve found works for us. As with any writing advice, if you try it and find that it doesn’t work for you, don’t try to force yourself into someone else’s way of doing things. But we hope that these five-sentence advices can help! Oh, and hey, if you’re reading this and you have a particular writing strength or specialty you’d like to share, especially if you want to throw out any words of advice of your own, I’d love to see what you have to say in the comments!

Also, if you’re checking this out in advance of submitting to Pitch Wars, keep an eye out for a future blog post or two where I’ll talk about that more specifically, and good luck!

So You Asked a Writer When Their Book Comes Out...

…and they sent you to this post.

First of all, I think it’s cool that you’re supportive and showing interest in your friend or family member’s writing. That’s nice of you! Second of all, this post is not a comprehensive breakdown or a universal explanation of any part of the writing process, it’s just my experience of querying a novel so far.

So! Your friend is trying to get a literary agent and you’re wondering when they’ll have news about their book!

Your friend doesn’t know. No one knows. It’s a mystery. They can’t even give you a ballpark. There are no timelines.

The first step of querying is…well, okay, the first step of querying comes after a lot of hard work already that only started with writing the book. But for the purposes of this blog post, querying starts after researching the best literary agents for the book (which is more tricky than it sounds but we’re skipping straight to actually beginning to query, here).

Your writer friend first has to send a query letter to an agent. (This is not a how-to post to guide anyone in writing a good query letter. This is a very tongue in cheek approach. Please, writers who stumbled on this post instead of friends-of-writers who were sent here, please don’t try to use this as a guide to write a good query letter.)
The query letter basically says,

”Dear Agent,

I’m looking for someone to represent my book, and I have read that you like books with these things in them. My book has these things!

Here is my attempt to write a back-of-the-book style blurb about my manuscript, please be intrigued.

Here is some information about me, please like me.

Thank you!
Tired Author”

What goes along with that query letter is determined by what the agency requests and it’s different every time. Some of them want a synopsis (summarize the entire, whole novel in usually one page—without missing any major plot elements but also without sounding like a dry summary but also without going on for too long…). Almost all of them want a small sample of your writing. This can be the first five pages, the first ten pages, the first chapter, the first three chapters, the first 10,000 words, or anything the agent decides to ask for in their guidelines. Only a few times have I run across an agency that asks for a query letter with no sample pages at all.

So your writer friend or family member sent that! That’s a huge step, they were very brave, they deserve some cookies or something!

Next they wait for a response. Agencies take submissions generally by email or by an online form (sometimes by snail mail but I have zero experience with that, so I won’t touch on it here). I prefer the forms, there’s almost no guesswork, and with a form submission I almost never run into one of my least favorite sentences in querying:
“Due to the volume of queries we receive, we unfortunately cannot respond to all queries.”

One reason your writer can’t answer the question of when they’ll know more about the book they’re querying is because they don’t always know whether the book has already been rejected by some agents at any given time! Sometimes querying a novel is like throwing it into a deep dark well and never knowing if it ever hits the bottom!

Some agencies who include that in their guidelines go on to give a time frame. “If you don’t hear from us in eight to twelve weeks, it’s a pass.”

Some agencies say “We respond to all queries” but don’t include any time frame. That’s fine, writers can consider a query open forever. Some say “We try to respond to all queries within twelve weeks” and that’s honestly still basically considering a query open forever.

Some, though, say, “If we don’t respond within twelve weeks, please feel free to reach out.” Look at that! Your writer friend has permission to ask how the query is going! That’s reassuring, right? Wrong, it’s terrifying. I’ve gotten up the guts to do it only one time.

So. After some completely unknown period of time one of four things will happen with your friend’s query.

1. It will never be answered and they’ll eventually consider it closed but they’ll never be really sure. Maybe the agent didn’t even get it? Maybe the agent did email you but you didn’t get that? It’s a mystery forever.

2. It will be rejected. A bummer! But at least your writer friend can move on from that one now.

3. It will get a partial request! Exciting! An agent read your friend or family member’s query and liked what they saw enough to ask to read more—most often the first three chapters, the first fifty pages, or the first hundred pages. Then your friend goes back to waiting. For how long this time? We still don’t know! But however long it does take, one of two things will happen:

   • It will be rejected. More of a bummer than a query rejection! But at least your writer friend has had a solid confidence boost, maybe some feedback and encouragement, and can move on from that one.

   • It will be upgraded to a full request! Exciting, see below, point 4!

4. It will get a full request! Exciting! An agent read your friend or family member’s query and liked what they saw enough to ask to read more, and to be sent the entire book! Then your friend goes back to waiting. For how long this time? We still don’t know! But however long it does take, one of four things will happen:

   • It will be rejected without much fanfare. Really big bummer! But at least your writer friend has had a really solid confidence boost, maybe some feedback and encouragement, and can move on from that one.

   • It will be rejected in a lovely manner. Less of a bummer! Your writer friend got a super confidence boost, probably good feedback and encouragement, and maybe even an invitation from the agent to query them again with another project if they don’t find representation with this one.

   • It will get a revise-and-resubmit request. From what I hear, this can run the gamut from exciting to nerve wracking to a bummer. The agent is interested in your friend’s work but isn’t ready to offer them representation unless they make requested changes and resubmit to make sure the requested changes were done in a way that works for the agent. If your writer friend or family member decides to go for the r&r request, they’ll work hard on the revisions and then send the altered story back, and one of three things will happen.

     • rejected, extreme bummer

     • still need more revisions, try again, extremely mixed feelings

     • an offer! see below!

   • It will get an offer of representation! Joy! The goal! Attained! (Kind of, some more steps to the process of getting an agent appear after this, they usually take about two more weeks before an offer turns into a signing.)

So, okay, once the queries are sent out into the wild, your writer friend or family member has very little control over how long the process will take. More than that, they have almost no real knowledge of how long the querying process will take. I’m sure they loved that you showed interest in their goals! That was really sweet of you! But it’s an impossible question for them to answer. And they probably will tell you when they do have good news to share! But they don’t know when that will be and they cannot guess.

After your writer friend or family member gets an agent, there’s a lot more that has to be done before the book can come out. There’s more revising with the agent, then the agent submits the book to publishing editors and the agent and the author wait together for rejections/acceptances, then there’s probably more editing, honestly this part of the process is not familiar to me but from everything I hear, it’s marked by a lot of the same uncertainty and lack of any distinct timeline for most of it. If any of my friends who are on submission decide to write a blog post of their own about this part of the process, I’ll link that here.

What it all boils down to is that your friend can almost never answer the question of how it’s going or when they’ll have news. But it’s really nice that you cared enough to ask!

I Had My First Querying Dream Last Night

I dreamed that I received an email from an agent who wanted to set up a phone call with me. For some reason, though, in the dream the email came through not to my laptop or my phone, but to the butter I’d just put into a hot frying pan. And though this didn’t strike me as strange, it still wasn’t ideal; the butter melted before I had a chance to read the whole email in it, much less respond.

And as absolutely ridiculous as it is, I still woke up from that dream with one second of frantically thinking it might have been real and I had to figure out how to get the butter to show me that email again.

That’s my first querying dream, I’m pretty sure. I’ve been querying my horror novel, These Familiar Walls, for two and a half months now. Which is about how long it took me to have wedding dreams during the wedding planning process (the most exciting of which involved a hostage situation, the worst of which involved teeth and fingernails), and also about how long it took me to have pregnancy/baby nightmares each time I was pregnant (the most disturbing of which involved demons and my father, the most fun involved a fire truck).

It’s funny that I had that dream now, because I’ve realized recently that the feverish way I had been checking my inbox for the first month or two after the Pitch Wars showcase has worn off. If I get a query rejection I shake it off and keep going. It’s not something I ever would have imagined I’d be good at before I started submitting short stories to magazines and anthologies. Spending a year getting used to the publishing world from that side of things really helped me a lot.

And I’m drafting my new novel! It’s going really well. I’m 51,733 words in as of today, a little over halfway through, and I really like my characters, and I’ve managed to give myself the skin-crawling creeps a good handful of times already. It’s a good feeling. I’m enjoying it a lot, and I think I’ll be done with the first draft by the end of this month.

Overall, in spite of that weird dream, I’m in a good place with my writing and with myself right now. (And I’ll be in an even better place when remote kindergarten is over, but that’s a blog for another day)

After Pitch Wars 2020, "Post-Project Bummer"

Back in October I submitted a novel I’d recently finished to Pitch Wars. I wrote about that here, if you want to check that out.

Now Pitch Wars is over, the showcase ended eleven days ago, and I thought I’d write this blog post a lot sooner than I wound up doing. I didn’t expect the week and a half after it ended to be marked with a kind of tired, sad lethargy. Now don’t get me wrong! I loved everything about the Pitch Wars experience – my absolutely wonderful mentor and fantastic new friends, what I learned about my writing and how to better it, what I learned about the industry and how to navigate it, everything. Even so, I did spend about a week wandering around feeling sad and not quite being able to connect it to anything. Easily distracted. Waking up at 5 am like I always do for writing, but then just refreshing my inbox and browsing the Twitter feed of a few literary agents. I was hit by that ill defined “post-project depression,” but I got a mild dose of it (more like “post-project bummer”) and I’m just about past it.

I’ve been working on an outline for my next novel, and I’ve reached out to some knowledgeable people and picked up some books for research, and I’m about ready to start drafting (while I continue my research). It’s going to be fun and scary, I’ve figured out all the twists and turns and the emotional arc, and I know my main character pretty well now. I’m well on my way, and that’s a relief.

I originally had intended to write a blog post about how great Pitch Wars was (and it was!), how fabulous my mentor Rochelle Karina is (and she is so fabulous!), how great the bonding with new people part of Pitch Wars has been (and it is!), and how excited I am to be querying (and I am, but honestly also stressed about it, which is normal!). After the first week passed, I also considered writing about the complicated feelings that come with not being one of the Pitch Wars showcase instant success stories (bummed to be feeling left behind, still conscious of the great boost to my writing and self-esteem that I was lucky enough to gain out of the experience, guilt at feeling bummed, annoyance at feeling guilty, etc, like I said, it’s complicated, but it’s alright).

Instead, I want to talk to anybody who’s feeling that kind of lost, occasionally breathless, stomach dropping unhappiness after a long project. Man, that feeling is weird and unexpected and it sucks, huh? Like jeez, can we not just feel proud that we accomplished something awesome? Instead we have to feel weird and unmoored and sad about it? I don’t think fighting the feeling or getting mad about it will help though. So I plan to pick a few indulgences that aren’t too unhealthy and go easy on my brain for a little longer. And I needed a reminder so maybe you do too – if you don’t jump feet first right into your next project it doesn’t diminish the work you just got done with, and it doesn’t mean that you won’t find your groove again soon. This is normal. You’re good, I’m good. We got this, we’re alright.

(But if you happen to be a literary agent glancing at my blog and deciding whether to offer me representation – uhh, pretend that the only thing in this post was the part about outlining my next novel, researching, and getting ready to start drafting.)

A Post-Christmas Story By My Five Year Old

Back in February I wrote a blog post about teaching storytelling to my son, followed in March by his first stories and in August by his second set of stories. This morning he told me he wanted to write a happy story for after Christmas and asked me to “tell it to everyone,” so here is my son’s latest tale.

The Day After Christmas

by G.R. Dotson

It was the day after Christmas. People with fake trees were walking around, putting their fake trees away in their basements. People with real trees were pulling their real trees outside for the trash. Nobody saw the old real trees stand up and jump away.

They jumped all the way to the water. At the beach they went into the water and started to float. They floated past some sharks. The sharks did nothing, because they don't eat trees.

The trees floated to an island called Jumping. On Jumping Island they jumped around and grew mouths so they could eat coconuts and fish. They used their branches for hands. When people come to Jumping Island the old Christmas trees fold up their hands and shut their mouths tight and stand straight and sort of bend around with the wind. They want to hide from people, because they don't like to be thrown away for the trash. When people leave again the trees open their mouths and jump and eat again.

The old Christmas trees stay on the island, and they're happy.

The End

Pitch Wars 2020!

Last month I wrote a blog about feeling confident lately, and referenced “something I’m trying to do.”

The something was that I submitted a novel to Pitch Wars! I’m still kind of surprised that I did that, put myself out there like that. I believe in my writing, that’s true, but if I’m being totally honest, entering Pitch Wars wasn’t something that I planned a long time in advance or agonized over. I did it the way I do lots of things — I had the idea, thought it was good, and just went for it. I submitted “These Familiar Walls,” the horror novel I’ve been working on, just a handful of hours before the Pitch Wars submission window closed.

And my first pick of mentors, Rochelle Karina, picked my novel!

I saw the announcement on Twitter and the 2020 Pitch Wars Mentee welcome email in my inbox at about 2 in the morning on Saturday the 7th, when I got up out of bed to use the restroom and noticed on my way back that my phone’s notifications were blowing up. And my first thought was that I was misinterpreting those things somehow, until I went to Pitch Wars blog and saw my name on the list.

So that was just over a week ago. I’ve gotten SO much out of this experience already. Rochelle is going above and beyond as a mentor, and I’m unbelievably excited and lucky to have her help. In between working on my novel and taking care of life stuff, I keep slipping into this wandering sort of disbelief. I can’t believe I’ve been picked. And the stuff that I’m learning as I go is going to improve my writing going forward, not just on this novel but in general.

I’m so excited. I’ll probably post about it more when I get too jazzed and don’t want to spam Twitter, haha.

And now I’d better get back to work!

Let's Do This

Hey, it's been a really long time, haha.
I have a hard time lately remembering to update the blog. And then when I do remember I have a hard time making myself go do it. But that's a concern for a different post. The writing itself is still going well, and that's what feels important for me.

But I was talking to a friend of mine about something I'm trying to do right now, and I realized something that I'm feeling really good about, so I wanted to share.

For the first time recently, I said (well, typed) to another person, “I believe in my writing.” I'm still kind of surprised that I can say it. But I do, I believe in my writing. I'm not super certain where this confidence came from? Because in many regards I am not exactly brimming with confidence. But recently I have realized that I sincerely do think that my writing is good enough and my stories are good enough, and in 2021 I'm going to try to get a literary agent. I'm going to try to become a traditionally published author. Putting it out into the world like this is scary, and maybe by this time next year I'll be writing a post about how this was a harder, longer process than I would have liked. But by this time next year I won't be writing a post about having given up.

I believe in my writing.

There's another thing I've learned about myself over this year of seeking out beta readers and submitting short stories. I'm not afraid of constructive feedback, and I don't let rejection stop me. Earlier I said I'm not super certain where my confidence came from, but let me tell you, I have no idea what this perseverance is about.

I've always been extremely sensitive to criticism and setbacks and rejections. But I've discovered recently that when I'm working with a beta reader, if the only feedback is to say that the story was good, I'm not satisfied. When I was younger, that would have been the goal for me. Write a story, ask for feedback, and be proud of myself if the feedback is just a compliment. Now, don't get me wrong! Compliments are kind and appreciated! But I want to make my work better. I believe in my writing and in my capacity to improve my writing. I've realized that these days I don't have to force myself to accept constructive criticism, I don't have to fight the urge to defend my writing when someone makes a suggestion, I enjoy it. It's fun, to have someone find the weak point and to discuss that with them and find a way to make it stronger. I actually like it. Weird, haha.

I can't say that I like rejections, I haven't gone that far down the path of being cool with whatever comes my way. A rejection still disappoints, and sometimes they sting a bit too. But I can say that they don't make me spend a day or a week doubting myself anymore. If a short story is rejected with feedback, I take that feedback to heart. And then I submit it somewhere else. I know, I know, that sounds so simple, so basic to the process. But this is still a big step for me. My first inclination, when I began submitting short stories, was to consign a rejected story to the trash heap. Not only have I overcome that impulse, I've banished it completely. And I'm a little amazed sometimes. I don't know who this person is, who doesn't let rejection stop her. This is a new type of me.

But here's my prediction. These are going to be the things that make the difference. I believe in my writing, I believe in my ability to improve my writing, and I am not afraid of rejection. Those factors are going to be the keys to finding success as a writer. I've had the talent, and I've had the work ethic (especially when it comes to writing). What I've got now is the confidence and the perseverance.

I feel like I've spent my whole life reading about how those factors are the keys to success and feeling dismayed by it, because those were things I didn't have. I don't say I didn't feel like I had them, I say I didn't have them, because that's true. It's just that what I didn't realize at the time – what maybe other people don't realize, so perhaps this can help someone else? – is that not having them doesn't mean never being able to have them. The reason I couldn't imagine myself having confidence was because I already didn't, and it became this loop. And I feel like I had to metaphorically grit my teeth and force myself out of that loop. But, man, if I can do it anyone can.

Get comfortable saying that you believe in your writing, and when you say it, don't weaken the statement or add qualifiers to it. Practice taking constructive feedback and working with it, even if you have to force yourself to do it at first, and if you find yourself getting defensive stop and be aware of that and try to let it go. And submit your stories, query your favorite agents, get rejected sometimes, let it hurt if it hurts but don't let it stop you, keep going, keep going, keep going. My husband calls it the “keep banging your head into the wall” method of accomplishing anything, and I think it works.

Confidence and perseverance can be attained, even if they don't come naturally to you.

Let's do this.

Stories By My Five Year Old

A couple of months ago I had a blog post of stories by my son, who was four at the time. He really enjoyed the process of writing those stories with my help, and loves to share them and show off. Today while I was working (okay, I’ll be honest, today while I was procrastinating) he ran around the house for five minutes shouting that it was time for me to work on my writing before eventually carrying my laptop to me. At which point he said that ACTUALLY I had to help him write a story. “Just one story,” I told him, “then you’re right, I do have to work on my own writing.”
”One story,” he said, “I promise.”
Anyway here’s all four stories he asked me to help him write today. Fortunately for my patience, two of them were rather short, haha.

THE GHOST IN THE SILENT HOUSE

by G.R. Dotson

This story is dedicated to my brother, my favorite friend.

A long time ago, an old lady was in a silent house. The house moved in the sky on the wind. When she needed to go grocery shopping she rode her magical pony from the house to the ground, and back again.

One day she came home on her magical pony, and her house wasn't silent anymore. There were noises, footsteps, everywhere. At first she thought maybe her pet lizard had escaped like it did one day before. But she heard a sound like hair brushing, and lizards don't have hair, so she knew that wasn't it.

She decided to investigate. She went upstairs to investigate but saw nothing. She heard it downstairs then. But when she went downstairs to look, she saw nothing again.

It had to be a ghost! She went to her magical pony and grabbed her groceries. At the store earlier she'd gotten a can of Ghostbuster Beans. When she threw the beans at the ghost it went away forever.

THE KILLER FLY

by G.R. Dotson

This story is dedicated to my whole family in this house.

The sewers were full of snakes, rodents, and cockroaches, and they were all hungry. They smelled a house full of trash, and the trash had fruits in it. The bugs went into the house first and ate all the fruits. The rodents went next and ate all the bugs. The snakes went last and ate all the rodents.

A killer fly made a sickness in the city that spread to all the houses, so they filled with trash, and the same thing happened in all those houses. It was a happy ending for the snakes.

THE WHOOSHING WIND

by G.R. Dotson

This story is dedicated to everybody in this city, even Aunt Courtney

Far away on the Pacific Ocean, there were ghosts whooshing the wind.

The ghosts were angry that someone accidentally teleported into the monster world. They were so angry that they snuck out to get rid of everyone.

But they came out at the ocean and saw a boat with an engine. G.R. and Courtney were on the boat, ready to hunt the ghosts.

Luckily, G.R. and Courtney trapped the ghosts all in a box and got rid of them.

THE DUBATA VAMPIRES

by G.R. Dotson

This story is dedicated to my brother and sister because I love them so much

In a basketball court in a park in the city, thirteen people fought thirteen vampires.

The vampires came straight out of Dubata, the monster world, where you can only go with a portal. The vampires left Dubata because they wanted people to be nice after they saw some people fighting an old lady.

The thirteen vampires didn't know that the old lady was the one who started the fight, because she was a monster of some kind, too. She was a zombie vampire who could change form.

She started the fight to trick the thirteen vampires into coming out of Dubata to get rid of the thirteen vampires so that she could go wherever she wanted.

Once they figured out her plan she fought them with a sword.

It took three hours to finish the fight. When she was finally done the thirteen vampires were gone and she could do whatever she wanted.

It wasn't a good day for anybody else, but it was a happy ending for the pretend old lady.