Why Comp Titles Are Important

I love books. I love food. I love books about food—reading them, writing them, and, it turns out, writing about them.

One of the fun things about striving for publication is researching and reading comparable titles for an understanding of the marketplace. In my case, that means “foodie fiction,” books in which the characters or plot are heavily influenced by cooking, baking, or the restaurant industry. These are books I would read just because I enjoy them, but because I’m working towards publishing my novel, I get to call them “work.”

After my latest read, I thought I might give a submission to my favorite online magazine, Verily, a go. I’ve been dreaming of writing for Verily for a long time now, but hadn’t come up with quite the right piece. The submissions page for their culture section said they were open to round-ups of books, movies, or other media, which was just what I had in mind. This article was one I’d already happily done the research for, and writing it was just plain fun.

I’m thrilled to share the link to my first published piece outside of a blog: http://www.verilymag.com/grammys-2015-kanye-west-fifty-shades-of-grey-jon-stewart-kingsman/. Check out Verily’s weekly post, “While You Were Out,” posted this past Friday, February 13, and scroll down for “Foodie Fiction for Your February” by yours truly.

Every little bit is one step closer!

Now back to the rewrite . . .

It Helps to Have Brilliant Friends

Check out any acknowledgements page and see that every writer benefits from a little encouragement now and then. There are moments when we writers doubt our work. Sometimes something needs to change in our manuscripts. Sometimes we just need to be a bit braver and press “send” on our submissions. (Eek!)

 

I am fortunate to have friends who can deliver in both situations. And who happen to be brilliant, as well.

 

One of my most trusted writer friends is a friend of my husband’s from college, whom I have since claimed for my own. David is one of the most articulate people I know. Plus, he indiscriminately loves ice cream, which is an obvious sign of good character.

 

In the years following undergrad, David and I pursued different career paths, while working up the courage and the credentials to make a go of writing. We checked in with each other from time to time, whether at an informal reunion or another mutual friend’s wedding, and the first question we asked each other was always, “What are you working on?”

 

David writes nonfiction; he’s interested in the intersection of sports and society. I find his work fascinating, despite initially knowing little about the figures and situations he investigates. I, on the other hand, wrote a novel about a twenty-something upending her prestigious financial career to pursue cooking (and find love along the way). David is not exactly my target audience.

 

And yet, while I was writing and editing, again and again he offered to read a section of my work. When he did, he was both full of encouragement and able to point out areas that could be improved.

 

I’ve recently been working on a nonfiction article, sparked by David’s mention of a new journal a professor he knows is launching. He laughed when I told him it would be a good chance to “flex my nonfiction muscles,” but hey, even if I don’t write about athletes, I can make sports jokes, too. Ann Patchett is proof that contributing nonfiction articles to other publications can be a boon to successful fiction.

 

David gave me notes a week ago, and I am still in awe that I am lucky enough to have such a fabulous mind among my friends. Despite the fact that our bookshelves have nary a title in common, we share a passion for good writing and good storytelling. Finding the intersections between fiction and nonfiction informs my work and makes me a stronger writer.

 

So does having a brilliant friend who is always ready to cheer me on.

Induction into Club Rejection

A few weeks ago, I got my very first rejection from a publisher.

And I was thrilled.

I’m finally in the club! Every legitimate writer has been rejected—and now, so have I!

The rejection was initially complimentary, and noted a couple of things I had been trying to do with the manuscript were working. What I took from this was that I am capable of writing well enough to be published; this just wasn’t the right story for this editor’s list. I have written this type of response from the other side of the desk, and I respect it. Sometimes there is something intriguing, but it’s just not enough to go all the way.

The reason to pass was not a surprise, and I was grateful that it was a critique I could see and understand. As much as I wanted to send out something absolutely perfect, my agent and I had agreed that the manuscript does have a shot, and I’d gotten it as far as I was going to get it at this stage, for a variety of reasons. It was time to see whether anyone was going to fall in love with it.

Thus far, two editors have not, and I am surprisingly okay with it. It’s easy to say whatever will happen will happen, but it’s a lot harder to legitimately feel that way when things don’t turn out as you’d hoped.

I attribute this to a couple of things:

1. A novena to St. Francis de Sales, patron saint of writers, which helped me gain mature perspective on my life as a writer. The prayer is not explicitly focused on writing, which made it difficult for me to say at first. Over time, I’ve found that because it reaches more broadly, I can better see how writing fits in to the whole of my life.
2. My agent knowing not only when the manuscript was ready, but also when I was truly ready to let this one go.
3. Encouragement from family and friends who remind me that writing a novel and getting an agent are pretty big deals in themselves (it’s tougher to remember this once you’re on to the next thing).
4. Being super excited and slightly intimidated by my next project.

Now, I hope, it’s not too far fetched that sooner or later I’ll make my way into another, more coveted club. There’s a whole lot of hard work between here and there, but it’s work I’m more excited than ever to do.

I’m Baaaack!

For weeks I’ve been mentally drafting this post, putting it on to-do lists . . . and not following through. But today, all that changes!

 

My manuscript is revised, done, finished, ready to go out and see the world. The night I finished, as I formatted my synopsis to send to my agent, my husband, John, asked how it felt. I told him it felt weird and anticlimactic. Then I pressed send, and the reality of almost three years of work set in. I giggled. We high-fived. We ate ice cream and cookies.

 

That was almost a month ago. In the meantime, I’ve been freelancing, meeting with my writers’ group, reading, and training for my first half marathon.

 

Wait, what? Until last year, I hated running. I’ve always found it just a teensy bit ironic that my husband proposed while he was running the Boston Marathon.

 

But time will change things, and apparently I now believe that trying to accomplish two nearly impossible goals (being traditionally published and committing to twelve weeks of training in order to run 13.1 miles straight) is better than one.

 

The race is in a month, and I wonder if I signed up as a kind of consolation for my ego. Even if I get rejections before the race, at least I can run a considerable distance. Or, even if I can’t run in my goal time, my novel might still get published. To tweak another cliché, I guess I’m putting my eggs in two baskets, with some kind of confidence that at least one will hold.

 

The odd thing is that I signed up for the race knowing that I could run it, what with the adrenaline the day will bring (we’ll be in Nashville with a different country band at every mile), but worrying about the training. Could I keep up with the schedule? Could I work the miles into our schedule? How much would I have to walk on the longer runs?

 

What I’m learning about the training is that most of the battle is maintaining consistency. It’s only on the “long run” days that I really have to push myself, and there are only seven of those days in twelve whole weeks.

 

I’m doing my best to resist running/writing comparisons, so I’ll leave it at that.

 

In other writing news, I have new confidence as a growing writer. I know I have a lot to learn and my writing has room to improve. But I also know I can produce something worth reading, and that every word read and written makes me stronger.

 

I’m working on my new novel—and perhaps a related short story—as well as a YA novel and a picture book. The adrenaline from running and the fact that exercise makes me sleep better are contributing to a burst in creativity.

 

As my writing life grows and changes, so may the shape of this blog. I’m very happy to be back here, and will strive for regular posts, but I make no guarantees. Thanks for coming back to visit again. More soon!

New Year’s Status Check

Somehow starting the New Year with a ten-day-old baby inspired me to set ambitious goals for 2013. Call it postpartum adrenaline, I guess.

 

The pace of the year always picks up during the last two months, so now is as good a time as any to take stock of my progress in 2013.

 

Resolutions:

1. Run a 5K. – Check! And in an acceptable time, too, 31:22.

2. Knit through my yarn stash. – Kind of check. I knit a lot of what I had into a sweater, but it came out shaped kind of strangely, so I’m ripping it out and trying other projects. Does that count?

3. Read the Catechism of the Catholic Church. – Done! No caveats!

4. Read Anna Karenina. – Currently on page two! That’s progress, right?

 

And the one you actually care about . . .

5. Sell my novel.

 

It would be great if all this was building up to tell you my manuscript had found a publisher, but unfortunately—fortunately?—it’s not. There’s one more revision to be done, and though that’s somewhat disappointing, I know the book is getting stronger every time I go back to it. My agent has brilliant editorial sense, and the prudence to be sure that when we do send it out, we send it out in its best possible form.

 

So I’m not going to sell my novel this year. And that’s okay, because I am doing the work to give it its best shot in 2014.