Fact & Fiction – Page 2 – writing by Ronald McGuire

So You Want to Be a Writer? Part 3

[My third essay for The Dillydoun Review, in which I make the case that writing is the journey and publication is the (first) destination.]

Writing is the First Step

So you want to be a writer, and the starting point seems obvious, write something! Therein lies the problem. Writing, creating, storytelling, that is the beginning of the journey, not the destination. The next step is getting published, and as hard as producing good work can be, getting it in front of readers (other than friends and family) can be the most difficult step to take.

Let’s say you’ve done the work, you’ve refined your novel, you’ve even got objective feedback and some editorial guidance. Now what? Find an agent or a publisher or go the self-publish route? There’s a lot to unpack related to those decisions and processes, so I’m going to save that for my next essay.

In this essay I’m going to focus on the business of getting your short work published digitally, in print, or both. Because you can go big and swing for the fences with your first novel if that works for you, but there are rewards to be reaped when you go small and submit your short stories, creative non-fiction and essays for publication.

A quick search of the internet will turn up thousands of places to submit your work, including literary journals (online and print), writing contests, publishers (particularly anthologies), and several blogging/self-publishing platforms (e.g., Medium). The latter of these offer an opportunity to build and monetize an audience in a ways that didn’t exist before the internet.

Before I dive into the more traditional offerings from this short list, I want to caution new righters. If you choose to post your work on a blog (even your own), or on sites like Medium or Wattpad, be aware that the overwhelming majority of literary journals, writing contests, and publishers consider anything published to any digital platform to be previously published work. This means either they will not consider the work for their platform/publication our it will be treated as a reprint, which at a minimum means any pay rate for the work will be lower than that for previously unpublished work.

I have a WordPress site and I publish almost nothing there. I post links to my published work, which helps both my site and the publishing website. Right now my site generates about 2000 page views per day, which means several hundred people every day have the potential to discover new platforms where my work exists. Is it breaking any records? No, but if a literary journal publishes your work it’s in everyone’s best interest if you direct readers to that journal. The goal, as a new writer, is to get published and connect with readers. I recommend that you consider yourself in a symbiotic relationship with any publisher that gives your work a platform.

With all that said, let’s talk about my three favorite places to submit work, and why.

First and foremost, I love literary journals. I said there were thousands, but this is an understatement. There are online and print journals to match any and every taste and genre. Some are run by large well-funded teams affiliated with a university, others are side projects by young writers, some still in high school, and still others are the result of dedicated writers and editors who are passionate about the written word and give their heart and soul (as well as time and money) to an effort that might never generate revenue.

One of the great things about submitting your work to a journal, whether online, print, or both, is that quite often you will receive editorial feedback on your submission. You may pay a reading fee to get that feedback, but as I said in my previous essay, this is a legitimate and useful tradeoff, a win-win situation.

Keep in mind that most literary journals have limited resources and it takes time for submissions to go through the review process. Patience when submitting your work isn’t everything, it’s the only thing. If you’re not comfortable waiting, perhaps months, to find out if your work has been accepted, then you’re a good candidate for additional fees. In other words, if you want an expedited response, there are quite a few journals that will give you one for a price. To me this is fair, but keep in mind you are likely one of many writers who have submitted and paid a fee for a fast turnaround. The fee guarantees nothing beyond the response time – your odds of acceptance don’t go up, and might even go down due to the speed of the reply. Spend your money wisely.

It’s a good idea to have multiple active submissions at any given moment, even if you’ve only produced one piece of work you feel is ready for submission. I personally do not like simultaneous submissions (submission of the same work to multiple journals). Yes, it is a numbers game to some extent and you need to write, submit, repeat. But as good as it feels to get a “yes” from one journal, if you’ve submitted to multiple journals you’ll have to withdraw your work from consideration from all of them. This is not fun, and while most journals accept work that has been submitted elsewhere, having a piece of work withdrawn is no fun for them either.

My strategy: write, write, and write some more. When I’m not writing, I’m editing. When I think a piece is ready, I find a match (if I haven’t already) and submit. Then move on. Once you submit, it’s out of your hands so you might as well start something new.

Because you never know when an opportunity is going to pop up, a call for submissions or a contest, that is a good match for your work.

Writing contests are second on my list of favorite places to submit my work. Second because they tend to have a long run-up before even a short list is announced. I submitted two stories to a competition and by the time the winners were announced I had revised both stories several times and they were accepted for publication at two different journals. This is where my simultaneous submission rule breaks down. I’d rather withdraw from a competition if my work is accepted for publication than miss out on a chance to get published. To each their own on this point.

Whether you win a competition, make the short list, or are rejected outright, there’s a lot of value in the process for new writers. At the least, you’ll see where you stand against other writers by reading the work of those who place in the competition. In some cases, your submission will garner critical feedback. Such a competition may have a higher entry fee, but in many cases it’s worth it. Just be clear on the vetting and feedback process before you pay your entry fees. As with anything, not every competition is worth the price. Of course, there’s always the chance your work will win the top prize. If this happens, make sure you shout it from the highest mountain top because you deserve the recognition, as does the competition. For lists of sites that can guide you to excellent writing competitions, check out the links in my first essay in this series.

Finally, let’s talk about publishers. In this case I’m referring to book publishers who also publish anthologies of short work. An example of this would be Ab Terra, the sci-fi imprint of Brain Mill Press. While Ab Terra’s focus is on publishing novels, they also produce an annual sci-fi anthology. As with most publishers, submissions for these publications are usually open for a brief time once per year (more often for more frequently published anthologies). This is where preparation and patience are critical. Make sure your work is ready because there are no do-overs, and be certain you are a good fit for the publication because it could be months before you learn whether or not your work is accepted.

The beauty of submitting your work to a publisher for an anthology like this is that the publication will be available in print, and if your piece is accepted, there’s nothing quite like holding a book and opening it to the page where your short story or essay lives. I just ordered two copies of the “Queer as Hell” anthology from Haunted MTL to give away because I honestly can’t wait to crack open the cover and see my story in print. This may not be special to everyone, but to me it’s the first time one of my short stories will appear in print, and in the end, getting published is, for me, the point. Getting published in a print anthology? That’s icing on the cake, and who doesn’t love a little icing now and again?

Just remember, like I said, it is a numbers game. If your work is solid and you know it’s ready, submit it and get back to writing. The more your write, the more you can submit, and in so doing, shift the odds a little more in your favor. Yes, you’ll have to deal with more rejection, but if you’re not ready for rejection, you’re not ready to submit.

But if you’re truly ready, rejection will only make you stronger. Keep writing, keep reading, forge on. You got this.

TIP: If you’re submitting your work, you need a third-person bio. If you don’t know what that is, or how to write one, check out this great set of tips from the folks at Coverfly. (https://www.coverfly.com/5-tips-for-crafting-your-perfect-writer-bio/) Note that these tips are geared toward screenwriters, but they are still useful in helping any writer hone their “pitch.”

Fitting In

Fiction published by The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature. This goes to a dark place, it is not for the faint of heart. If you can make it through to the end, you’ll see that the story is really about owning your truth, no matter the cost, because the lies will eat you alive. This story received an Honorable Mention from Tom Howard/John H. Reid Fiction & Essay Contest 2022, a Winning Writers competition.

Enjoy it here, or visit Dead Mule for some truly extraordinary writing (and some fascinating “Southern Legitimacy Statements”).

Trigger Warnings: Violence and offensive language.

Ronald McGuire : Fiction : Sept. 2021

Fitting In

As a boy, I longed to speak like the other boys I met when we moved to Georgia.

My parents divorced when I was 4, and my earliest memories are blissful and dreamlike days and nights on my grandparent’s farm in Iowa, early dawn hours of sweet air laced with dew, drifting in with the birdsong through the open window by the bed I shared with my uncle. He was eight, and my moon and stars. I was parked there for a year while my mother went out of state to work and figure out how to make a new life as a single mother.

She married a man in Texas, and his job took us from Houston to New Orleans, then landed us in Georgia, just outside Atlanta.

We got to Georgia as I was starting third grade. A teacher decided there was something wrong with the way I talked, so they set me up with a speech therapist. I don’t know what they set out to fix, but I could take a guess.

All I know is I wanted to sound like all the other kids.

The boys in Georgia would say things like “ain’t” or “dang-it” or “fixin-to” or “crik” and I soaked it up like the earth soaks up the sun.

My mother had no intention of raising what she called “a redneck kid.”

“You won’t go anywhere in life if you don’t speak proper English,” she would say. I never dared ask her what that said about her new husband, the man I called “dad,” and his Texas drawl.

I secretly cataloged the Southern-isms I heard and by high-school I could pass as a native, at least among those who didn’t know the truth.

It felt good, those times I was anonymous, and could drop into the drawl and twang at will and be accepted like any other kid.

It had other uses too, like the time a cop pulled me over for speeding. “Awright young man, I’m gonna write you a warnin’ this time, but I ketch you drivin’ hell-bent for leather agin an’ I’m writing’ ya for real, ya unnerstan’?”

“Yessir, I do, you ain’t never gonna see my face agin, offsir, I swear.”

I could start a new job and slip into a conversation with the other employees without anyone asking me “Where you from boy?”

Living this dual-dialect life also came in handy as training for how to deal with bigger problems.

Like being gay at a time and in a place where such a thing could get a person killed, without much consequence.

I had to talk a certain way, walk a certain way, be a certain way. I had to fit in.

I perfected the act, until one day in Texas, senior year in college, when the lie was ripped away and the truth spilled out like the bloody entrails of a butchered animal.

I had to face a new reality. I had to deal with it. I had to survive those walks across campus where it seemed everyone found joy in shouting out words like “faggot” and “cocksucker” and “queer,” perverting the beauty of their colloquial speech. It was a small school in a small town and everyone was in on the game.

Then one Friday night, I had to fight it.

A fraternity brother, Greg, came to my apartment half drunk and full of rage. He pounded on my door, screaming those words I heard every day. I could hear some of the other guys at the bottom of the stairs. “Damn, boy, give it a rest” or “you’re gonna have the cops here, let’s git outta here” and “what the hell’s wrong with you, man, the girls are waitin’ fir us.”

I’d had enough. I was cornered, there was no other door. I couldn’t run if I wanted to, but I didn’t want to, not this time, not ever again.

I opened the door, and he rushed in. He must have thought being gay made me smaller or weaker. It made me scared, yes, but that night, scared made me dangerous.

He came at me, eyes bloodshot from chugging cheap beer. Greg always drank before he drank. I fell back to buy some space, then grabbed his shirt and swung him around, intent on shoving him back out the front door, ready to throw punches.

He was heavier than I expected. Instead of flinging him back the way he came, I sent him through the bank of windows set low in the wall next to the door.

He crashed through and landed on the porch. I heard a familiar voice shout “Holy shit!”

I stepped onto the front porch, looked down to the parking lot, glaring at the three below me. All of them dropped their “shit eatin’ grins” in a hurry.

I looked back at my former friend, trying to extract himself from a glittering field of shattered glass, blood already flowing down his face in black-red rivers.

My first impulse was to tell him I was sorry, to rush inside and grab a towel to staunch the bleeding, find some way to roll back the clock, try somehow to make things right.

When he looked up at me I could see the force of his hatred rising, the pale blotches of his face turning red, framed by ribbons of blood.

“You fuckin’ faggot!” he screamed, and started to rise.

His scream purged that place in me that housed my empathy.

I was six foot two, and two hundred pounds of well honed muscle, with adrenalin and sobriety on my side.

I grabbed him by his shirt again, pulled him the rest of the way to his feet, and flung him down the stairs.

I hadn’t noticed the two guys rushing up, almost at my landing, until I released Greg to the open air. The ascending and descending forces collided, neutralizing one other. They fell back, none the worse for wear.

It could have ended there. They tried to pull Greg away, to end the mayhem. The neighbors would put up with a lot, especially when it came to me, but screams and shattering glass crossed the line.

Greg shook them off, shoved them away, then turned to look up at me. Before he could speak, I started down the stairs.

All my life, even before that night and ever since, I have experienced profound states of calm in the most dire of circumstances. A car accident, a boat sinking beneath me, a gun pointed at my face, all of these things, and more, had already happened to me before that Friday night. Such situations, when most panic, bring me to an intense mental focus and physical calm. Some special cells in my brain take over and say, “You got this, let’s go.”

When this has happened, people have said I looked different, like another person, like no one they’ve ever seen before, someone that frightened them. Only years later did I learn it had a name – dissociation.

In the case of Greg, my first two steps toward him brought him to a halt and silenced his voice.

I didn’t stop.

He step backwards and slipped on his own blood. He stumbled down to the shared landing between the two second-floor apartments, and fell to his knees, leaving another puddle of himself on the concrete surface.

I kept going.

He couldn’t get to his feet, instead grabbing the next step below him and dragging himself lower. The two who had abandoned him on the staircase came back. They grabbed him by the armpits and dragged him the rest of the way to the parking lot.

I maintained my deliberate pace.

The four of them backed away, all now speechless, until finally the one who I knew wanted least of all to be there said “awright, dammit, awright, it’s a ‘nuff already.”

Then I stopped. His voice grabbed my attention, then his eyes held it.

In a flash I relived all the times we’d spent together, Mark and I. The football games, the parties, the booze, and of course that one particular night, after the party died down, our lives coming together in a fearful embrace that grew into something more. Something I thought would last forever.

Until I walked into his room one afternoon, using the front door key he’d given me almost as an afterthought. I knew the man he was with that day, but even if I hadn’t, my heart would still have broken. The image of the two of them together, burned into my memory.

I made my threats, and he made his, though mine were empty and his became my new reality, placing us on the path we were all now walking.

I suppose there’s a fine line between powerful love and raging hate, and I’d found the way to push him, and everyone else it seemed, across that line. He told a few friends, and in a few day’s time my secret life became an open book, a story to be told and spread with whispered voices in the halls and courtyards and ballfields of higher education.

I didn’t know it then, but though he seemed safe behind his accusations and condemnations, his world was growing smaller and darker than it had ever been. Hindsight educates my understanding of him in a way the experience couldn’t. All I knew then was betrayal and the pain that came with it.

I looked into those pricing blue eyes, and felt it all again. I had to look away from him, to hold back my tears.

I scanned their faces, took note of Greg’s fear, then returned to the source of my suffering. When I saw the look on Mark’s face, with no hint of sadness or regret, I didn’t feel like crying after all.

“Forget I exist,” I said, choking out all the disgust my throat could carry, “I’ve already forgotten you.”

I turned away and headed back up the stairs as the wailing sirens grew closer. I climbed up to my porch and sat on the edge, my legs draped over the top steps.

They piled Greg into the backseat of Mark’s car and before he got in, Mark looked up at me. His face never changed, even as he raised his right hand and shoved his middle finger into the air, a performative act for everyone peeking out through their curtains to witness. I laughed at the impotence of it. He responded by getting in the driver’s seat and slamming the door behind him.

I watched the life I’d known drive away, taillights rushing into the darkness, until the space around me filled with flashing blues and reds, sounds of brakes screeching to a sudden halt.

Four cars, eight officers in all. I guess someone convinced them it was necessary, or maybe they were just bored cops working in a small town.

They held a little confab below me, then one of them made his way up the steps, scanning with his flashlight, trying not to step in any evidence.

I knew him and he knew me. I’d done a month of nightly ride-alongs with him as part of my criminal justice curriculum.

“Hello Tom,” I said. It’d been a while, but I knew we were still on a first-name basis, “how ya doin’?”

“I might ask you the same question,” he said, “you wanna tell me what happened?”

“Not really.”

“Any of this blood belong to you?”

“Nope.”

“You wanna file a report?”

He was standing with his eyes level to mine, just a few feet away. I looked down at the gaggle of officers in the parking lot, all of them with a hand on a hip.

“No,” I said. My voice was calm, my heart beat slow and steady, I felt lighter than I had in years.

“This gonna be a regular thing, ya think?”

“That’s not up to me.”

“No, I guess not,” he said.

With a look down and a nod of his head, everyone but his partner returned to their cars and drove away, lights blinking out as they went.

When they were gone, he leaned in and stared into my eyes. I returned his stare.

“Buddy,” he said, knowing I liked it when he called me that, “you know we can’t protect you. There’s just not…”

“Did I ask you to?”

“It’s my job…”

“And you can’t do it.”

“I’m not your enemy…”

“Yes,” I replied, cool as a Hill Country winter, “you are.”

He pulled back and his voice rose an octave when he asked “How so?”

“The truth used to be my enemy. Now it’s the lie. You’re part of the lie.”

He raised his palms up, “Whatdya want me to do?”

“Nothing.”

We looked at each other until he shook his head and let out a sharp exhale that sounded like defeat.

“You sure you wanna stick it out here?”

“I’ve got three months, then I’m done, nobody’s taking that from me.”

“Might be easier for ya back in Georgia.”

“Here, there, what’s the difference?”

I looked over my shoulder at my ruined window, then down the stairs at the blood already drying on the steps.

“Besides,” I said, “I think I made my point.”

“You think this is gonna quiet things down a bit?”

“Yes,” I said, and believed it, “it’s a small town, news travels fast.”

After that night, I moved through the world like a boulder in a stream, life rushing around me as I waited out the weeks. Some still shouted their hate when I walked across campus, while a few made attempts at eye contact, flashing fervent smiles filled with sadness.

None of it mattered.

I was alone, an outcast in a world filled with lies.

But I wasn’t afraid anymore.

So You Want to Be a Writer? Part 2

[My second essay for The Dillydoun Review – it’s about a 5 minute read for anyone interested in the business of writing and publishing (primarily fiction).]

You’ve done the work, you’ve written and re-written your story or manuscript multiple times, and you’re ready to submit your work to a publisher or agent.

But how do you know your work is ready?

It can be difficult for a writer to turn a critical eye to their own work. It’s easy to overlook flaws or mistakes when you’re the one who created them.

I’m talking about things like word choice, grammar, plot holes and dialogue. Do you have textual crutches you fall back on when you write, easy phrases you don’t realize you’re using? Are there phrases or words you repeat throughout your manuscript which, while they seem fine to you, might drive your readers crazy?

There are limited strategies for sussing out these sorts of problems, and like most things in a creative endeavor they can be highly subjective.

Honest critical feedback is key to improving a story or manuscript, and to improving writing skills overall. Unfortunately, while honest feedback is your best friend, your best friend probably won’t give you any.

So how as writers do we critique and edit our own work, or find someone else to do it?

I’ve adopted three strategies for addressing this problem.

First, my go-to process was created by Samantha “Sam” R. Glas on her exceptional blog “Writing Like a Boss.”

Sam has condensed a masterclass into a single post with “10 Warning Signs of Amateurish Writing & How to Fix Them.”

Number 7, “Unnecessary Word Choice,” includes a list (from Writers Write) of filler words you can cut from your manuscript, words you and your readers will never miss.

This may seem elementary, but the first time I used #7 to review a draft of a new novel, I found I’d used the word “just” over 400 times. It’s excessive, even for a sci-fi epic clocking in at 110k words.

400 edits because of one word. There were more I had to remediate, like “now” and “sort of.” It took a while, but it was worth it. I learned from it, and I now perform this “checklist” review for all of my work. It’s objective, simple, and effective.

It has enabled me to approach my work in a new way and I’m finding fewer issues over time as I learn to check my bad habits while I’m writing.

But this won’t help with things like plot holes, ineffective dialogue, or other problems related to your story or writing style.

For that, you need a human, which could be a costly endeavor but doesn’t have to be.

This is where a manuscript swap, my second strategy, comes in handy.

The best thing I ever did with my first sci-fi novel was to share it with a fellow writer.

We exchanged manuscripts, then sent each other feedback. He called out critical problems I’d overlooked, and I was able to fix them with a series of edits, the removal of a chapter, and a change in sequence for a few other chapters.

Seek out fellow writers and give this a try. You may not agree with the feedback you receive, but at least you’re getting feedback, and all it costs is time.

Speaking of cost, this need for critical feedback has created business opportunities within the publishing industry, some of which are legitimate, some of which are not.

I’m not going try to list all of the illegitimate businesses in the industry. Winning Writers has put together an awesome resource for this purpose, and I urge you to review it before you spend money on anything writing related. Writing communities on social media can be a good resource, but always consider the source.

One special piece of advice for novelists: Be wary of vanity presses masquerading as publishers. There’s nothing wrong with self-publishing, but some businesses exist for the sole purpose of fleecing writers. Be sure to check out “The Best Self-Publishing Services and the Worst: Rated” created by The Alliance of Independent Authors. Combined with the information from Winning Writers, this can save you money, time, and a lot grief.

If you’re ready to pay for author services, pay yourself first by leveraging the existing research.

If you’re not there yet, consider paying reading fees instead.

What are reading fees and why should I pay them?

Great question, and it’s the third method I use to improve my writing.

Th exception here is novels. Never pay a reading fee, an edit fee, or any other service fee associated with publishing your book to someone claiming to be a publisher or agent. I mean it, never. Don’t do it. Save your money and spend it on a legitimate editorial services provider whose purpose is to help improve your book before you submit it to a publisher or agent. (NOTE: Some publishers offer editorial services, but they make it clear these services are not part of the submission/acceptance process.)

For everything else, a reading fee, for those who don’t know, is exactly what it says, a fee charged in exchange for reading your work.

Let’s say you’ve written a short story and you’ve made all the revisions you think it needs. You find a literary journal you like and you click the “Submit” button. You’re re-directed to a submission management platform, like Submittable, and prompted to set up an account and possibly provide a credit card to cover submission fees.

This is totally legit, nothing wrong here. There are several platforms used by literary journals and book publishers to manage submissions and contest entries. Submittable is a popular one, and most of the submission opportunities (not all) require a fee or request a donation.

This is where you want to proceed with caution. The questions I always ask are:

– What will I get in return for this fee?

– Is this the right publisher for my work?

– How many times has this publisher rejected my work previously?

I’ve submitted numerous stories this way, but I’ve also submitted work via publisher websites and email at no cost. In the end, if you’re not comfortable with a submission process, the easy response is don’t do it.

I’m fine to pay reading fees, especially when the fee comes with an expedited response, say 24 hours, or it’s an entry fee for a writing competition, or, and this is the best, the fee includes an editorial critique of my submission. For me, this is a low-cost, high impact way to hone my skills.

If you can afford reading fees, look for publishers who offer detailed feedback when you submit your work. It’s a fast way to get a measure of your writing from a neutral party. Some of these fees are as low as $5, and some range to $25 or higher. If a fee seems high, check out the masthead of the journal. You might find the fee is worth it to get insights from an experienced and talented editor.

But take note, paying for feedback should never guarantee acceptance, and paying for an expedited response might speed up rejection. Always manage your expectations.

Also, make sure your work is a match for the publisher by reading what they’ve already published. Otherwise, you may be wasting their time and your money.

In some cases, a rejection letter will come with a note encouraging a writer to submit again in the future. In one case, an editor rejected my story because she didn’t connect with it, but asked me to submit something else if I had anything ready. I did, and the second story was accepted. It’s all part of the process.

However, if you’ve been rejected multiple times by the same publisher, you should consider moving on, at least for a time. You’re not connecting with the reader and your money is better spent elsewhere. This isn’t terrible. I was rejected three times by one literary magazine, and each rejection came with feedback. I used their feedback to improve the stories and the revised versions were accepted for publication elsewhere.

To sum it up, I use three methods to gain a more critical view of my writing. First, I take a “checklist” approach to find and fix flaws. It creates objective space between me and my writing. Second, a manuscript swap. It’s a quid pro quo that works. Finally, feedback in exchange for reading fees. This is another win-win. I receive actionable feedback and the editor/publisher can keep the lights on and get a cup of coffee.

Above all remember, no matter what anyone says about your work (good or bad), take a deep breath, accept it as part of the learning process, then forge on.

Footnote for scriptwriters: Coverfly.com has a ton of scriptwriting competitions, most of which provide exceptional “coverage” (feedback) for an additional fee. These are expensive, so make sure your work is ready. They also host prose competitions for published and unpublished novels.

So You Want to Be a Writer? Part 1

[This was the first in a four part series of essays for The Dillydoun Review, sharing my experience to date in the business of writing.]

Writing is not easy, it seldom pays well, and it fills your inbox with rejection. In early 2020, because I’m a glutton for punishment, I decided to write full time.

If I knew then what I know now I would have made the same choice, but with a better strategy.

Because writing is also emotionally rewarding, intellectually stimulating, and can provide a good living for those who persist and hone their craft. As for rejection, it’s like table stakes in a poker game. If you can’t manage the baseline bet, you should sit out the game.

With that said, I am no expert. I did write for a major news outlet years ago, but that was a side job to my real job. Since last year, I’ve completed three novels, a book of poetry, a script for a TV pilot, and have a growing collection of short stories.

In my first year I made every mistake a rookie writer can make, and it’s possible I invented some new ones. The last six months have gone much better.

I’m not a rookie anymore.

What do I have to show for all this you ask? Good question.

My first script was a finalist in a TV Pilot competition, my self-published novel (under a pen name) was a finalist in another competition and cracked the Top 100 in its genre on Amazon (#98 briefly), and I’ve had several short stories accepted for publication. I have one novel in the hands of a publisher right now, another one just completed, and I have begun querying agents.

So far I’ve made exactly zero dollars.

The Big Payoff for me is experience.

I learn best from hands-on experience. Now I’m on this journey and I’d like to share some of what I’ve learned so far.

Let’s start with the most basic – Do The Work.

It sounds simple, but many aspiring writers never write, and for active writers, writing is haphazard and filled with distractions.

I spent years dreaming of being a novelist, and I didn’t write a single word toward my goal, mostly out of fear and self-doubt.

Your dream of being a writer won’t materialize if you don’t sit down, put your fingers on the keyboard, and type. Hemingway wrote his first drafts in pencil, so that works too.

As new writers, the odds are already against us in this business. But there are ways we can start to tilt things in our favor.

I’ve found the three most important things for me are having a dedicated space to work, blocking out distractions, and setting a writing a schedule (and sticking to it).

I work in the afternoon, six hours per day minimum, on average.

This includes research, querying agents, or submitting to publishers, contests and literary magazines. Mornings are for strong coffee, light reading, and walking the dog. In the evening, I do more research and a lot of brainstorming.

Yet I still struggle.

My schedule was recently obliterated by a piece of mail. Its contents presented a frustrating problem, but not an urgent one.

I spent ninety minutes of my afternoon dealing with it.

Then I spent the rest of the day trying to refocus on writing. I got next to nothing done. It felt awful.

I didn’t properly prioritize my time and I paid for it with a lost afternoon.

If I’m to have any hope of succeeded as a writer I have to learn to be selfish with my time, my space, my priorities, and my writing.

Because a loss of focus can cost even more time by allowing loads of errors to sneak into my work.

The less focused I am, the more likely I am to make mistakes I will fail to find and fix later.

The most insidious of these are typos. I am a self-taught typist, so I make a lot of typos.

For the record, spellcheck is not your friend and auto-correct is your declared enemy.

Spellcheck won’t tell you when you’ve typed “form” instead of “from” and it won’t tell you when auto-correct changed a mistyped “decided” to a correctly spelled, but wrong, “denied.”

These tools are unreliable. They are often a hinderance. Plus, I tend to read right through typos and incorrect words, my mind filling in where my eyes refuse to see.

I’m not saying, ‘don’t use them,’ I’m saying, ‘don’t trust them.’

I learned this the hard way when I wrote my first novel and decided to self-publish. I ran spellcheck and grammar check, fixed what was found, and sent the manuscript off to The Land of E-Book Publishing.

When I loaded the ebook into my reader, I discovered it was filled with typos. I stopped counting at 47, across 42 chapters. One was in the opening paragraph. It wouldn’t have mattered if no one had downloaded the book. But they had, and I was embarrassed.

Don’t trust automated tools, ever.

Reread, reread, then reread some more. If you have someone in your life to proofread your work, or can afford to pay someone, consider yourself lucky.

My solution is to reformat my text every time I read it.

Change the font, the spacing, the borders, or even print the work if it’s not too long. If it’s a novel, I export it as an EPUB and read it on my favorite device. Think of it like driving down a bumpy road, then driving down the same road after it’s been repaved. Same road, different experience.

When I do this, I’m more likely to catch my errors and correct them before anyone else sees my work. It’s not a perfect system, but I’ve gotten good results from it.

In the end, writing is editing and editing is writing. I allow myself one exception to this rule. I try to avoid extensive editing while writing a first draft, whether it’s a novel or flash fiction, or anything in between. I like to capture my thoughts, finish the story, and clean up the words later.

Whatever I write, I expect to edit and revise until the work is polished.

Here’s another useful tip: take some time between each pass. A day, a week, a month, you’ll figure out over time what length of break works for you.

Work on something else, read a book, improve your third-person bio, or research publishers, agents, journals, and competitions. Create some space to let your mind forget some of what you just wrote, then come back to it and edit with fresh eyes.

Since you’ve read this far, I’ll leave you with a final thought.

Don’t believe everything you read about writing.

People like to Tweet quotes by famous writers, and Hemingway’s missives are no exception. The attributions are often wrong, or the words taken out of context.

Hemingway is often quoted as saying, “Write drunk, edit sober.”

I’d argue that’s objectively bad advice.

According to Katherine Firth, Hemingway never said it. What he wrote in A Moveable Feast was:

‘…my training was never to drink after dinner nor before I wrote nor while I was writing’ (p.61).

You can see the difference.

The internet, and book stores, are loaded with advice for writers and a lot of it is good. But even the good advice won’t always be a good fit for you, and the bad advice can send you on some costly detours. Consider the source, take what works for you, leave the rest.

I said I was no expert, but after 18 months of full time writing and research, I know where to find a few experts.

Below are links to some websites I’ve found useful. If you’ve been writing for a while you know them already. If not, they make terrific companions for your writing journey.

To sum it all up, work hard, be selfish with your time and attention, write-edit-repeat, take advantage of the help that’s out there, trust yourself, and learn from your mistakes.

You got this.

Writer’s Digest: workshops, free downloads, how-to articles, competitions, you name it, they’ve got it, and most of it is free. https://www.writersdigest.com

Winning Writers: one of the Writer’s Digest 101 Best Websites for Writers, they’ve got a focus on competitions and a massive list of links to great resources for writers, everything from advice, to literary forums, to ways to spot scams targeting writers. https://winningwriters.com

Alliance of Independent Authors: This should be your first stop if you’re considering self-publishing. There’s a LOT here, just like the two websites above, but one of the most useful things you’ll find is their ‘Best Self-Publishing Services’ list. If you read nothing else before you self-publish, review this list. https://selfpublishingadvice.org/best-self-publishing-services/

Lit Rejections: A site with stories, quotes and a blog about literary rejection, it also has some great interviews as well as information about literary agencies. If none of that sounds useful, at least visit and take a look at the collage of book covers from best sellers that were initially rejected. It’s eye opening. http://www.litrejections.com

Authors Publish Magazine: Everything is free on this site and their email newsletter is filled with great information, but not overloaded. They research publishers and provide links to one that are open for submission, with a healthy does of paying markets. https://authorspublish.com

Review: Chasing the Dream

I like golf. I’ve read books about golf, watched movies about golf, watched golf tournaments, even played golf for a while (it’s been a while). I did not like this book about golf. I may have been too harsh, but I did at least say the book was funny. But it was often cringe-funny, not hah-hah funny. Anyway, it was a long time ago, I don’t think it hurt his career.

See what I did there? You will if you read the review.

The title of the review is probably all you need to read. I kind of wish I could take this one back and pretend I never read the book. If you can’t say something nice… I’ll plead youth and inexperience and hope for forgiveness. But I meant every word of it. At least I kept it short.

Chasing the Dream

Disclosure: I am an affiliate of Amazon.com. I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.

Reviewer: ‘A spoiled brat’s midlife crisis in print’

‘Chasing the Dream: A Mid-life Quest for Fame and Fortune on the Pro Golf Circuit’
by Harry Hurt III

(CNN) — Let this be a lesson: if George Plimpton likes it, you probably won’t. That’s the feeling I have now that I’ve finished Harry Hurt’s manifesto on professional golf. Plimpton calls the book ‘A wonderful adventure splendidly told.’ Uh, excuse me, but which book did he read?

This thin volume, ‘Chasing the Dream,’ amounts to not much more than a spoiled brat’s midlife crisis in print. Mr. Hurt — and if you don’t know his name, there’s a good reason — may be a fine writer, but he definitely does not put his best foot forward in this effort.

In ‘Chasing the dream,’ Hurt tells the story of his rebellious desertion of his college golf team, then goes on to detail his experiences while attempting a comeback of sorts some two-plus decades later.

But it’s hard to feel any sympathy for Hurt when you realize he left the freshman team at Harvard (full scholarship, thank you) over a lousy haircut. It is also difficult to empathize with Hurt’s trials and tribulations during his comeback attempt — unless of course you’re an over-the-hill whiner with a country club background.

But I have to admit; Hurt’s book is funny. His tales of post-round drinking with his extensive network of golf buddies and PGA wannabes is enlightening, to say the least. Ladies, if your husband spends a lot of time playing golf, you should read this book. You’ll probably learn more about him than you want to know.

Does Harry Hurt III make it back into the golfing elite? Does he catch his dream of being a pro on the PGA tour? Like I said, if you don’t know his name, there’s probably a good reason.

Review: Pulse by Edna Buchanan

My second book review for CNN.com, wherein I give my honest opinion about a work of commercial fiction, and manage to miss the point of commercial fiction. Who knew a book about murder and heart transplants is supposed to be light reading? Not me, not then. Now I know. Like I say, learn something new every day.

I really did like the book.

Disclosure: I am an affiliate of Amazon.com. I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.

‘Pulse’

(CNN) — There’s a saying known by virtually every writer on the planet that goes something like, “Write about what you know.” Edna Buchanan has taken that advice to heart, writing novels of crime and suspense set in her home base of Miami, Florida. Her latest installment, “Pulse,” is no exception.

This newest edition of her Miami chronicles revolves around businessman and heart transplant recipient Frank Douglas’ attempts to ‘pay back’ the family of the heart donor. The novel opens at Frank’s hospital bedside, just hours after his life-saving surgery. By page nine, Frank is back home and well on his way to a new life.

But strange dreams, and a nagging sense that there is something he must do, leave the protagonist sleepless and confused. Frank Douglas becomes a man with a mission, determined to find the family of his donor and help them any way he can. But he gets far more than he bargained for and in no time becomes deeply involved in a twisted tale of murder and deception.

The novel moves at a brisk pace, due largely to the sparse writing style and thinly developed peripheral characters. Buchanan doesn’t waste time with unnecessary details, choosing instead to focus on the steady revelation of clues and the progress of the action towards the (unfortunately predictable) conclusion. As I read “Pulse”, I was reminded of the works of fiction in my junior high school library — written with a clear picture of the audience and designed to keep the reader engaged without over taxing the brain.

But that’s one reason the novel was fun — it’s easy to read. Buchanan’s characters are ordinary people caught up in extraordinary circumstances, while the tale she weaves is entirely believable. If you are already an Edna Buchanan fan, you’ll have no trouble digesting “Pulse”. If you’ve never read her work, this may be a good place to start — probably not her best effort to date, but good enough for light summer reading.

Review: Last Days of Summer

I wrote this review for CNN.com in 2000, I believe, right before I left to go to work at a tech startup. It was one of the last book reviews I wrote, for CNN or anyone. I loved this little book. The author, Steve Kluger, has quite a few books published and occasionally Tweets. He also has a cool picture of Fenway Park on his homepage.

Disclosure: I am an affiliate of Amazon.com. I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.

Last Days of Summer

Last Days of Summer by Steve Kluger

Buy it, read it, give it to a friend

(CNN) — As a kid, did you keep a scrapbook filled with letters, ticket stubs, clippings, and assorted other memorabilia of your youth? If so, you will readily identify with the style of Steve Kluger’s latest literary endeavor. If not, you’ll wish you had after reading “Last Days of Summer,” a novel in the form of a teen-age boy’s collection of quirky letters, matchbook covers, and assorted other bits and pieces of a childhood lived on the edge of disaster.

Kluger’s protagonist, Joey Margolis, is the most unlikely of heroes. A child of 13 — abandoned by his wealthy father and moved into a tough Brooklyn neighborhood by his indulgent mother — Joey lives life reeling from one mishap to another. He is a child lost without a father and desperate to fill the tremendous void in his life.

But Joey is never at a loss for words. He is intelligent and stubborn — a combination that just as often leads a kid to jail as it does to runaway success. In Joey’s case, you can never really be sure where he’s going, but you always know he’s on the move — or more precisely, on the make.

A constant schemer, Joey manages, through a series of antagonistic letters, to win over an initially stand-offish professional baseball player (who happens to be dating a famous singer). The book is set in 1940-41, and the athlete who would become the object of Joey’s unwanted attention is the hard-hitting and hard-living Charlie Banks.

Their initial correspondence amounts to little more than hate mail, but over time Joey and Charlie come to realize that they are more like the other than either wants to admit. Their story is told through their letters, but much of what the reader comes to know is more implied than expressed. Theirs is a relationship built on hard won mutual trust — and it is that trust that saves Joey Margolis, despite the painful price he must ultimately pay.

This book is captivating. I simply could not put it down, and found myself wishing it had just one more chapter, one more letter, one more moment of youthful exuberance before the carefully constructed world of Joey Margolis came crashing down around him. The lessons Joey learns from Charlie are lessons for us all, and they carry him through what is perhaps his greatest challenge. Buy it, read it, give it to a friend — they’ll be glad you did.

Review: Consilience

My first-ever book review for CNN.com and this is what I drew from the options I had. It was not assigned to me, I chose it. It looked interesting, so I dove in head first.

Some notes on this one: I received a prepublication copy of the book to review, Edward O. Wilson has a couple of Pulitzers to his name, a National Medal of Science, and this book was on the New York Times Best Seller list when it was published (helped no doubt by the write-up in Newsweek).

If you want to know how I really felt, skip to the last paragraph. If you’d like a more academic review of the book, check out H. Allen Orr’s write-up for Boston Review (a shining example of what you can accomplish with a high word limit).

One more thing – someone was kind enough (or foolish enough) to add a link to my review to the Wikipedia page for this book. I did not do it, but I thank the person who did. Now I have to scour the web for other references to me.

Disclosure: I am an affiliate of Amazon.com. I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.

‘Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge‘

Consilience by Edward O. Wilson

When you were a kid, did you wander through the woods near your home, observing all the flora and fauna, all the while reviewing their respective Linnaean classifications? If so, you have the foundation for an understanding of “Consilience”. Published by Knopf, this latest work from two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Edward O. Wilson is nothing short of an attempt to form a single, unified theory designed to bind together all forms of intellectual pursuit.

Wilson draws heavily on the natural sciences and philosophy to support his approach, reaching as far back as the golden age of Greece, drawing examples from work by the likes of Einstein and Freud. If you understand the meaning of the title without reaching automatically for your dictionary, you have a head start on the rest of us. In Wilson’s own words, consilience is “a jumping together of knowledge.” Wilson borrows the word from The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, written by William Whewell in 1840. Whewell spoke of a linking together of “facts and fact based theory across disciplines to create a common groundwork of explanation.”

And that, in a nutshell, is what Wilson aims to establish in “Consilience”. That all knowledge and understanding is bound together by some as yet unknown common theory. There is one grand scheme to explain and unite all that we know and can know. The real problem here is that Wilson himself admits it can’t be done. He states unequivocally that consilience “cannot be proved with logic from first principles or grounded in any definitive set of empirical tests.” He states further that “the strongest appeal of “Consilience” is in the prospect of intellectual adventure.” Which is an apt description of the book. It is nothing less than an intellectual journey through time and space.

Theories dealing with everything from quantum mechanics to incest taboos are brought together, dissected and compared, all in an effort to find some common thread linking all of it together. Wilson draws on so many philosophers, from such divergent periods and places as ancient Greece and Victorian Europe, that at times one feels compelled to rush out and buy the thickest compendium of western cultural knowledge available. “Consilience” is as much a lesson in the history western philosophy as it is a treatise on ontological unification. Reading the book, I was reminded of what it felt like to be hopelessly lost in my philosophy 310 course in college. When he finally makes his point, it is clear and straightforward. But along the way it’s easy to get distracted by the references to unfamiliar figures in history and their obscure (to the casual reader) theories.

If you are a scientist, a teacher, or a student of philosophy, you may find the book engaging and enlightening. As for the rest of us – don’t read it in bed unless you’re having trouble sleeping.

Interview: Rosamond Purcell

An interview with the author/photographer Rosamond Purcell for CNN.com in August 1999. Unfortunately a lot of the interview was cut and the editor focused on the description of the book to support the photo gallery – their choice, not mine, but that’s what editors are supposed to do, make choices. This interview was in the top ten on CNN.com (for page views) for several days, largely due to the photo gallery. I’d say the editor made the right choice.

NOTE: The link to the photo gallery no longer functions, but the book is still available on Amazon.com.

Disclosure: I am an affiliate of Amazon.com. I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.

“Swift as a Shadow: Extinct and Endangered Animals.”

‘Swift as a Shadow’

A Glimpse at the Past

(CNN) — How do you breathe new life into a bag of bones? Or bring beauty to a stuffed bird lying in a box?

If you’re Rosamond Purcell, you do it with light and texture and an eye for composition. These are the essential elements in her new book, “Swift as a Shadow: Extinct and Endangered Animals.”

What started as an invitation to photograph an unparalleled collection of specimens locked away in a European museum has itself become a thing of beauty. Until recently, the National Natural History Museum in Leiden, the Netherlands, had none of its 11-million-strong collection on public display.

The museum serves as a repository for specimens from all over the planet. Contained within its closets, drawers and boxes are samples of species as exotic as the Pig-footed bandicoot and as seemingly familiar as Burchell’s zebra. The specimens at the museum are, in many cases, the last and only examples left to us of these once thriving species.

Perhaps the greatest challenge faced by Purcell was how to bring life to something dead, stuffed and essentially artificial. Her approach was dictated by her goal, which, she says, was to “get people to focus on the creature.'”

Her methods may be as unique as her subjects. “I use backgrounds and natural light found right in the museum,” she says. Occasionally, she adds some cloth, bark or paper for texture, but more often than not the image contains only the objects and the minimal light available within the immediate vicinity of the actual specimen.

In some cases that meant juxtaposing the extinct creature with the harbinger of its doom. The Guam flycatcher, one of nine island bird species wiped off the face of the earth by the invading brown tree snake, is posed before a jar filled with specimens of the snake. “I do arrange everything,” Purcell says, “and I wanted to show what it was that made this bird vanish.” The snakes are believed to have arrived as stowaways on military ships or planes returning from World War II in the Pacific, and in a twist of fate may now be approaching endangered status as well.

Coupled with the images are brief passages, written by the curators of the museum in Leiden, which provide insight into the lives and deaths of these creatures. The Falkland dog, for example, was so tame that in 1690 the captain of a ship visiting the islands took one as his ship’s pet. The animal became so frightened by the firing of the ship’s cannon that it leaped overboard and drowned. A booming market in dog fur in the mid-1800s, combined with increased human habitation and farming in the Falklands, spelled the end of this gentle creature by 1876.

These stories, and the afterword by Ross MacPhee, lend context to the images and take the reader on a virtual journey through a lost world, reminding us that our world was and is a beautiful and fragile place.

Review: The Best Little Boy in the World Grows Up, by Andrew Tobias

Another book review for CNN.com, from November 1998. We’ve come a long way since then.

Interesting note – I had a very nice email exchange with the author after this was published. He was especially amused by the fact that I bought the predecessor to this book for ten cents. Best money I ever spent, that book changed my life. You can read it on the legacy CNN.com or below.

Disclosure: I am an affiliate of Amazon.com. I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.

‘The Best Little Boy in the World Grows Up’

(CNN) — Several years ago while rummaging through the dusty back rooms of an indoor flea market I came upon a bookcase filled with yellowed paperbacks. There in the middle of the third shelf sat an unread copy of “The Best Little Boy in the World.”

The author’s name, John Reid, initially caught my attention, since I knew of another author by a similar name. Though I realized the names were spelled differently, I picked up the book and read few pages.

Based on that brief introduction, I paid the nominal price of ten cents and took the book home. That night I read the entire book. It was captivating, enlightening, and unlike any book on the subject I had ever read before.

It was a personal account of one man’s coming to terms with his homosexuality. I was stunned that it did not end with a suicide, a murder or some other grizzly and depressing conclusion. This was a departure from the norm. Other books on the subject, such as “The City and the Pillar” or “Cruising” invariably acquiesced to the demands of the market place and presented their protagonists as disturbed, psychotic and murderous outcasts, incapable of functioning in any but the most bizarre of ways.

This book was different; no one died, no one went insane, and the protagonist navigated the minefield of personal acceptance and societal rejection with hope and humor. And yet, despite its inspiring message, one could not overlook the fact that the author felt compelled by the time in which he was writing to publish his work under the protection of a pseudonym.

Over the years, I found myself buying new copies of the book (it has never gone out of print) to give to friends who found themselves in the midst of similar struggles, facing their own challenges. Along the way I had heard rumors of the author’s true identity, but these went unconfirmed for years.

Now, 25 years after the publication of “The Best Little Boy in the World,” the veil has been lifted and the author has laid claim to his work. Andrew Tobias, author of such captivating works as “The Only Investment Guide You’ll Ever Need,” has written a sequel.

With the publication of “The Best Little Boy in the World Grows Up,” Tobias has acknowledged what so many have already come to know. No more pseudonym, and no more hiding.

And yet, as with so many sequels, this follow-up falls short of the standard set by its predecessor. It is a fine book in its own right, but it lacks the innocence and zeal of the original. Of course, so do most of its readers. We’ve grown up, and times have changed. This new volume reflects the changes experienced by both the author and his audience. And in that sense, it is an excellent update.

Though I enjoyed this book, it lacked the impact of the first. I could identify with the “The Best Little Boy in the World,” and I felt on some level that I shared his struggle. Which meant that I could share his hope.

But this new book describes a way of life far removed from my own. For the first twenty chapters or so, it is more informative than insightful. While the author’s experiences rubbing elbows with the rich and famous are interesting, and do make for good reading, I was hoping for something more.

When he ultimately turns his attention to the moral and social struggles of our time, I felt as though I was finally getting more of what I had seen in the first book. A man not unlike myself, facing the same issues every day of his life and struggling to make sense of it all. Of course, if this were the sum total of the book, it wouldn’t be working its way to the top of numerous best-seller lists (a feat never even considered possible for the first book).

Maybe I’m just jaded. Maybe I shouldn’t expect so much from a sequel. Here’s the bottom line: if you’ve read the first book, this one is practically required reading (you must know how his life has turned out since college). And if you haven’t read “The Best Little Boy in the World,” you may not care that he grew up and made it out of the mountains.