Author: Elizabeth Spann Craig

by Elizabeth S. Craig @elizabethscraig

I’ve had a crazy last week. That’s because, in addition to the regular craziness, I had a car kick the bucket on me.

My husband, fortunately, jumped into full car-shopping gear while I tried really hard to stay out of it. My demands of a car are pretty minor: I want it to run and I want it to be safe. Low gas mileage would be nice. That’s about it. :)

Unfortunately, though, I couldn’t completely stay out of the car shopping. “Elizabeth, you’ve got to test drive the two cars I’ve narrowed it down to,” said my husband. “This is going to be the car you drive every day. I can’t just buy you a car without your ever even driving it!”

“Can’t you?” I felt very wistful.

No, he really couldn’t. So I ended up at two car dealerships on Monday. My husband told me he’d asked the salesmen not to try to sell me on the cars at all…just to let me drive them.

For salesmen, of course, that’s a pretty tall order. And they’re just so extroverted. I believe they tried their very hardest not to give me a sales pitch. But I could tell they were gently trying to show the car in the best light possible.

Writers do a lot more selling than most of us would like. Not only are we literally selling our books (promoting them), but we’re also trying to keep our readers flipping pages and giving them a great read so we can have them buy our next book.

After listening to the expert salesmen at the dealerships, I realized that some of their techniques could be adapted for our own use, too:

Have a pithy pitch: The salesmen both dropped something casual about what they loved about the car they were showing me. It’s good to be prepared for people to ask us, in person, about our book. I used to get a deer-in-the-headlights look when an acquaintance would ask me what my latest book was about. I’ve tried to hone this skill, because it’s important. What’s your favorite part of your story? The characters? The life or death conflict? It should be something you can be enthusiastic about.

Be friendly and accessible: After I left the dealership (probably before I’d even gotten off the lot, actually), I’d gotten emails from the dealers telling me how much they’d enjoyed meeting me and giving me all their contact info. Writers should have a welcoming home base of some kind online for readers to find them. Readers can visit your blog, website, or Facebook page to find out more about you and what you’re working on next.

Give something for readers to identify with: The dealers quickly realized that cars were not going to be a good common denominator for me to relate with them. One salesman started talking about how much he enjoyed reading thrillers and asked me about the mystery market and the other salesman quickly started talking to me about family life and children. Naturally, this made them very likeable to me. Making our protagonists likeable or at least someone that readers can identify with. Even the Grinch had likeable traits…and quickly changed.

The car salesmen’s soft selling did work…I’ve already gotten my new car. And I think I walked away with some good tips for selling. How do you sell your story to your readers?

Hope you’ll join me in welcoming Kathleen Ernst today. She’s got some excellent tips for working with an editor. Kathleen is the author of the Chloe Ellefson/Historic Sites mysteries among other books.

Getting a book contract in hand can be such a long slog that many pre-published writers don’t think much beyond that magical goal. I wrote novels for twenty years before my first book was published, so I can relate.

My latest title, The Heirloom Murders, is my seventeenth book. I’ve worked with seven different publishing companies. They range from very small (White Mane Kids) to mid-sized (Cricket Books, Midnight Ink) to large (Dutton, American Girl.) Each house has its own editing style. And each editor within a given house has her own editing style, too. Small presses might move quickly to copyediting, while larger ones spend months working on more substantial revisions.

Creating a good relationship with an editor is both challenging and incredibly important. Over the years I’ve developed a few strategies. They’ve worked for me—perhaps they will for you as well.

Tip 1: Don’t respond immediately.

Although some editors give suggestions over the phone, most of the editors I’ve worked with begin with a written editorial letter. If you haven’t been through this process before, the emotional impact of a several page, single-spaced letter can be enormous. (This is the point where you think, But I thought she liked it!)

I once heard an editor say that she tells her authors to “Pretend I’m right for three days.” Editors want writers to consider new ideas with an open mind, so it’s OK to buy yourself some time. Even if you’re on the phone, you can probably get by with “That’s an interesting suggestion. May I think about that for a few days?” Give yourself a chance to absorb and process a suggestion or request that might at first seem shocking…but just may be perfect.

Good editors want their writers to approach revision thoughtfully, not make every change requested before slamming the manuscript back.

Tip 2: Establish the “Three Pile” rule

Ideally, you’ll find that most of the suggestions an editor makes—big or small—are good ones. Those go into the “Good Idea” pile.

Then there’s neutral ground—requests that strike you as something that will make a chapter/scene/sentence different, but not necessarily better or worse. Those go into the “I’ll Give It To You” pile.

That probably leaves a few things that you do feel strongly about, which go into the “No Thanks” pile. Politely explain what changes you don’t want to make, and why. Since you’ve already been accommodating on most things, the editor will probably agree.

Tip 3: Hit your deadlines.

Once you’ve thoughtfully processed the editorial suggestions, and sorted them into neat piles, it’s time for butt-in-chair. Understand that missing a deadline affects complicated schedules for editors, designers, marketing people, and more within the company. Unexpected life events can affect anyone, of course, but writers who habitually miss deadlines may find themselves bumped from an editor’s “Authors I Love To Work With” list.

Do you have any other tips for forging a great relationship with an editor? I’d love to hear your ideas!

I’m grateful to Elizabeth for allowing me to celebrate publication of The Heirloom Murders: A Chloe Ellefson Mystery by guest-posting here. And I’m grateful to readers! I love my work, and I’d be nowhere without you. Leave a comment, and your name will go into a drawing for a free book. The winner can choose any of my titles. The Heirloom Murders, one of my American Girl mysteries, a Civil War novel—the choice will be yours! To learn more, please visit my website, www.kathleenernst.com.

by Elizabeth S. Craig/ @elizabethscraig

At some point when we’re writing our book, there comes a happy time when our characters become real. It’s like Pinocchio turning into a real boy.

Of course, it’s only natural to have it happen over time. Think about how well you know the closest members of your family or your oldest friends. You can almost predict their reaction to any given situation that comes up. You know what they’ll say, what they’ll do, how they’ll act. You almost know what they’ll think. That’s because we’ve spent so much time with them.

That’s, I think, one of the main reasons I love series so much. I love them as a writer because I want to hang out more with the characters I’ve created. As a reader, I become invested in other authors’ characters. I’ve spent a lot of time with them, gotten to know them. They’ve either made me laugh or made me sad or even scared me. I feel like I know them and it’s easy to go to the writer’s next book in the series because I don’t have to do all the work of learning new characters again…I already know the main ones.

When we’re writing the first book in a series, or a standalone, we have to work a little harder to get acquainted with our characters. I’ve heard lots of different approaches for doing this. The most popular are to base the character on a person the writer knows, make the character an amalgam of different personalities the writer knows, and use character worksheets to help flesh the character out.

One of the ways I like to get to know a character is to spend the day with my character by imagining them near me throughout the course of my day—thinking about how they’d react in the situations that I face, how they’d handle things differently, what they’d rather be reading or watching on television.

Once you know your character, you really know him. I’m still editing that first backlist book of mine and I keep thinking (horrified), “Myrtle would never say something like this!” I’ve deleted a ton of dialogue. It’s funny that I feel almost offended that Myrtle had the wrong words coming out of her mouth. But then….the book was written over five years ago. Myrtle has evolved over time. And her voice has gotten stronger.

How do you make your characters real? Do your characters evolve over time?

My son is in marching band, so I found myself at the homecoming game last week as snack mom. :) What’s more, since I was snack mom and had to stay for the whole football game, I told his friends’ moms that I would drive their children home.

This means that I was at a high school football game with no friends to talk to. It was chilly, I hadn’t dressed appropriately, I was by myself, and I don’t watch football. And, every time I turned to watch my son instead of the game, (flirting in the stands with several different girls, it appeared), he frowned at me.

So I took my notebook out. Yes, I was the only person at the football game doing work, but luckily I’m able to block out announcers’ voices, cheering/booing crowds, cheerleaders’ chants, and curious looks. And who cared if I were embarrassing my son, since I was already embarrassing him by just being there? I made some progress on the new book.

But then—I found there was one force of nature I couldn’t block out—the avid football fans seated directly behind me. And this, apparently, was the biggest game of the season that I had innocently wandered into.

The problem with the bellowing of these fans (“Where’s the flag, ref?! “GET HIM!! GET HIMMMMM!!!” “GO! GO! GO!”) is that I had absolutely no idea when they were going to start yelling, since I wasn’t watching the game. So as soon as I got really embedded in my story, they started screaming behind me and I’d jump about two feet off the bleacher.

In fact, I ended up watching the game, which became a very close one (which meant the Avid Football Fans got louder and louder.) And I became aware that of all the people to be near each other, we had to be the most radically different: the nerdy woman trying to beat a deadline by writing a murder mystery at a football game, and the sports fan who has been closely following games since before I was born.

It occurred to me once again that playing with opposites is incredibly useful for a writer:

It can help provide a comic foil. I’m sure I looked funny juxtaposed miserably with the Avid Football Fans. And vice versa.

Opposites create conflict and tension in scenes. I know how I felt when I was around the Avid Football Fans…I wasn’t exactly relaxed. We can also use opposites to provide internal conflict for our characters (what do they want most? What’s the direct opposite of that? Can they want the opposite thing, also?)

Playing with opposites can be helpful in creating a character arc for a story. There can be two people—romantic interests, rivals, enemies—who hate each other at first, then grow to like or love each other.

It supplies contrast to show more information about our protagonist.

Do you enjoy using opposites in your stories?

I know your pain.

Everyone’s telling you you’ve got to write that novel and stop putting it off. Everyone’s telling you that you’ve got to stop wasting your time watching Desperate Housewives already and start dedicating that time to building your author platform. Everyone’s telling you that you can’t be irresponsible–you’ve got to pay those bills. Everyone’s telling you that you have to have a social life. (Where else are you gonna get that inspiration for your novel, anyway?)

Everyone’s telling you to do all of this, but what you can’t help thinking to yourself is: “YEAH, BUT HOW? HOW CAN I JUGGLE ALL OF THESE THINGS ALL AT ONCE?”

I know your pain.

Today, writers—and everyone else for that matter—are being asked to balance so much. Along with balancing work, life, blogging and our passions, we got to be expert “Twitterer’s” and dynamite “Facbookers” and smart and hip “Google Plus-er’s,” too. We have to read up on all the news that’s going on in the world and we have to keep nurturing our rapidly growing networks and connections.

But, if you’re like me, you’ve probably realized that doing all of this, and doing it all effectively, is no easy task. In fact, trying to balance work, life, blogging, and your passion is not only nearly impossible—it can drive you insane.

Work can often be demanding. Life: all consuming. Blogging: a full-time job in and of itself.

But… what if there was a better way?

What if you could “do it all” by making a small, little tweak in your writing schedule? A small tweak that might seem innocent and simple at first, but that will eventually makes it a whole lot easier for you to balance ALL of your responsibilities?

Introducing “The 4-Hour Novel” Writing Schedule

For those who are swamped with a day job, and want to still maintain their sanity, I recommend that you dedicate only four hours a week to your passion (a.k.a. writing.)

Why four hours? Well, through trial and error I’ve found that four hours is just enough time to dedicate to your novel so that you don’t feel like you’re neglecting your passion—but not too much time that it’ll make you feel like you’re not fulfilling other important responsibilities.

I know. You already have doubts about this.

But, you think, if I only dedicate four hours a week to my novel–does that make me a real, committed writer? Or just a half-hearted one? Aren’t writers with day jobs supposed to write at least 20+ hours a week by waking up before the crack of dawn, drink 25 cups of coffee and 40 Red Bulls, and avoid contact with their family and friends for most of the year except for on holidays and sick days?

Listen, if you can manage to do all that, more power to you. But I’ve found that waking up at the butt-crack of dawn just to write my novel makes me exhausted, cranky, and very unhappy all week. And it doesn’t make for good writing. I have also found that locking myself in a dungeon and never seeing my family or friends for months at a time makes me feel awfully depressed and isolated. This type of writing-schedule-on-steroids “strategy” made my life feel drained and, consequently, there was no joy or excitement in my writing, either. In fact, I hated writing because of it.

So that’s why I searched for a better way.

Balance: Your Passion (Writing)

For those who really want to balance everything and then some, the “The 4-Hour Novel” schedule might work for you. It’s actually the best writing schedule I’ve ever been on.

When I’m on this schedule, my writing comes out so much better, I’m a lot more productive, I procrastinate less, and the schedule invigorates both my life and my passion.

I know, right? Who knew REDUCING the amount of time you wrote actually was BETTER for your writing than increasing it? But it’s true. Try it out yourself.

Here’s are some of the benefits you might discover:

– You are granted “ever-lasting” fresh eyes. The more time you spend on your novel, the more you risk getting “tunnel vision.” Your objectivity gets skewed, and you risk falling into what I call a “Writer’s Paranoia.” A Writer’s Paranoia is when you start to think you’re a really a bad writer, or strongly suspect that the novel you’re writing is total piece of crap—but no one wants to break the bad news to you. But, with the 4-Hour Novel schedule, you get a huge amount of time in between one writing session and the next one which gives you the opportunity to return to your work with fresh eyes all the time. You’ll easily see how far you have come in the editing process and you’ll be able to better measure the true merit of your work—because your perspective will always be closer to that of a brand new reader.

– It makes you more excited about the work. Believe it or not, I always look forward to my novel now. When you write too much, I think you risk letting your novel take over your life. This will make you start resenting your novel for not giving you enough space. (Yes we can resent the thing we love if it becomes too “clingy.”) But by dedicating only four hours to your novel, you give your novel (and you) ample space to breathe and be independent of each other.

– It increases your productivity and your focus. Because you’ve spent most of your week not writing your novel, your eagerness to write during those four hours is at its peak. You’re at “Level 10” of excitement, when, if you write regularly, you normally average about “Level 5.” With the 4-hour novel schedule you dig into novel as if you were a starving man who has just been given a whole feast to devour. Just like that starving man, when you have those four hours to write you are so much more focused because you’re trying to savor each moment–

because you know your time with your novel is short and you’ll have to wait a long time before you see it again.

Balance: Blogging

Now that you know the benefits of only dedicating four hours a week to your passion, let’s talk about how blogging fits into all of this.

Here are some more ways that we can make blogging an even less time-consuming job:

– Schedule posts in advance. You may miss that excitement that comes with writing spur-of-the-moment posts, but having your posts all written and ready to be rolled out ahead of time relieves you of some of the stress that comes with keeping up a blog.

– Close your comments after a period of time. I set my comments to close after two weeks. This means I can reply to comments and interact with the most urgent posts, but I don’t have to spend times on posts that don’t require my urgent attention.

– Write less by cutting down your posts to 500 words each. In my work as a freelancer–writing online content for a websites–I’ve noticed that the shorter the articles the more views the articles get. Let’s face it: we live in an ADD culture. So not only will reducing your word count save you plenty of time blogging, it might even get your blog more views and shares.

– Mix it up. You can have posts with videos you’ve found on the Internet, or you can share reviews of your favorite books. These types of posts require less of your time and effort to create, and they also bring a welcomed diversity to your content.

– Post “Re-Runs.” You’ll be surprised how many of your readers will actually appreciate you revising an old, popular post and then re-posting it on your blog. This is because your readers don’t have time to look through all your archives and so many of them might be seeing the old post for the first time. As long as the content you repost is really good, and as long as you don’t post too many re-runs too often, this is a great way to free up more time for other responsibilities.

Balance: Work

Finally, with the 4-hour novel schedule, your novel becomes a reward for all that hard work you put into your day job. If you allot at least four hours for your passion every week, and you keep that time sacred, then your novel can remain as a constant reminder of why you sweat and toil so much at your day job.

Balance: Life

I have found that dedicating 4 hours a week to my novel makes me a happier writer, a more productive writer, and a writer who enjoys his life and his passion more.

But please know that achieving a perfect “life balance” is never easy, and it is certainly not consistent. Some days work will overwhelm everything else, or life will take center stage, or your passion will demand the spotlight. Sometimes absolutely nothing will fall in place.

Very rarely does everything fall in place.

But why should it?

When we think of balance, we should see it as a process—not as something we can really achieve, but as something we’re always striving for. Instead of focusing on trying to attain “perfect” balance, then, maybe we should just pay close attention to the times when we feel like something is “off” balance.

Instead of focusing on how much your life needs to be perfectly balanced, instead, when you feel a great imbalance, check in with each part of your life, and see which one of those parts is taking up too much of your time, or too little, and then revise your schedule accordingly.

In this way, the balancing act of life is less of a law you must follow, and more like a set of guidelines that help you cope with an ever-changing journey.

Good luck to you, and happy balancing!

Ollin Morales is a writer. Courage 2 Create chronicles the author’s journey as he writes his very first novel. This blog offers writing advice as well as strategies to deal with life’s toughest challenges. After all, as Ollin’s story unfolds, it becomes more and more clear to him that in order to write a great novel, he must first learn how to live a great life. His blog was named one of The Top Ten Blogs for writers by Write To Done in 2011, and has been featured on The Huffington Post and Colorlines.com.