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Thanks to guest blogger Margot Kinberg for posting for me today! Margot is the author of Publish or Perish and an associate professor at National University in Carlsbad, CA.

It never seems to fail. I’ll be settling down for a few hours of undisturbed writing when the phone rings. Or the dogs need attention. Or the laundry needs to be moved along. On other days, I’ll be inspired by an idea, but it happens while I’m in an important meeting at work. Or in a long line at the bank. Or sitting in traffic on the way home from work. The problem sometimes with being a writer is that real life keeps getting in the way.

But that’s just it. Good writing is real life. The best characters are real characters who behave in believable ways. The best plots come from real-life situations that we all face. The most memorable stories are stories about people who could be us. So instead of resenting the real life that seems determined to intrude on my make-believe world of writing, I’ve learned to embrace it. I’ve learned that with a few tricks, I’m able to harness the real-life situations that I face and use them in my writing. Not only does it help to improve my writing, but I also get to feel very smug and productive even when I’m not actually at the computer ; ).

Here are the tricks that work for me:

Savor those distractions!

Sometimes it can seem as though distractions are only irritating wasters of time. But they are also the stuff of real life. Those distractions can actually help me to connect with my characters in ways I probably wouldn’t be able to do if my life ran more smoothly. Characters in my novels have to drive through bad weather, fix flat tires, pay bills, walk their dogs, deal with work issues and a thousand other things. When I experience those things, too, I’m able to empathize with those characters and write about them in ways that help readers empathize with them, too.

Distractions also help me stay connected to other people, and that’s important, too. When I’m standing in line at the dry cleaner, for instance, I connect with the other people there and with the person behind the counter and that reminds me of what real people do in those situations. That makes it much easier to write real-life scenes. For instance, there’s a grocery store scene in my book B-Very Flat. That scene’s the product of a thousand trips to my own grocery store on the way to or from work. I can empathize with the characters in that scene because I’ve been there and done that.

I admit it’s not always easy to step back and appreciate a distraction for the opportunity it is. I get as irritated as anyone when the day doesn’t work out the way I’d planned. But I’ve learned that it’s just those distractions that have taught me the most about real characters and therefore, well-written characters.

Remember what it’s like.

This one takes a little preparation, but I’ve found it to be really useful. When I’ve been pulled away from my beloved computer, instead of seeing it as “wasted time,” I try to remember how it feels to pull warm, soft clothes out of the dryer, or successfully complete a work project I’m proud of, take a long plane ride or attend a convention. All of those emotions are also the stuff of real life, and remembering them helps me to empathize with my characters when they have similar experiences. If I can empathize with them – walk in their shoes – I can make them more real, so readers can empathize with them, too.

Of course, emotions are fleeting things. That’s where the preparation part comes in. I’ve found that it helps to keep a little pad of paper and a pen handy, so I can make notes that I use to jog my memory. I know other writers use audio recorders for a similar purpose, and I’m sure that they work well, too. In some way, it’s important to try to capture the feelings one has, because that helps in giving characters believable reactions to life.

Use it!

Most writers hit “dry spells,” where the dialogue seems forced, the characters “flat” or the action unrealistic. I know I do. There are books, workshops, even courses designed to help writers create interesting and realistic stories. Those can be very useful. But the reality is, most of us don’t hit “dry spells” at convenient moments, such as just in time to register for an interesting workshop. We hit them at very awkward moments, such as a week before an important deadline.

That’s where those annoying, but very useful distractions can come in very handy. Using those experiences to “breathe life” into a character, a conversation or an event can do a lot to make writing more “real” and engaging. Using experiences we’ve had ourselves, like waiting at a dentist’s office, answering phone calls and buying a birthday present for someone can make characters more “real” – more “well-rounded.” And after all, those “round” characters are the ones that are most appealing. Readers empathize with them because they have walked in the same shoes.

I’ve found that if I look back on the situations and experiences that pull me away from writing, and remember what they are and what they feel like, I’m able to use them to draw me back to my writing. In other words, if I use my own experiences to “walk a mile” in a character’s “shoes,” I can make that character or situation more “real” – more “round.”

What do other people advise?

Author Ken Brosky has some useful ideas about using your own experiences to make characters more real.

http://writingfiction.suite101.com/article.cfm/real_life_writing_prompts

Here is author Simon Wright’s article on using personal experiences as the basis for writing: http://www.helium.com/items/1417668-using-personal-experiences-and-emotions-to-write-a-novel-or-short-story

CompletelyNovel.com is also a very valuable resource for writers. It’s got a lot useful links and article for writers, including this one on using your own experiences.

http://writingfiction.suite101.com/article.cfm/real_life_writing_prompts

Kelly Stone has also edited a fascinating book, Time to Write on integrating personal experiences and writing so as to work writing into a busy life. There’s an overview and preview of the book at http://books.google.com/books?id=lBkuU7H16r8C&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=&f=false

What do you do when life seems to get in the way of your writing? How do you make those myriad distractions work for you?

Margot Kinberg
Confessions of a Mystery Novelist
@mkinberg (Twitter)

Thanks to author Glen Allison for his guest post today. Glen writes the Forte suspense novels, featuring New Orleans child rescue specialist Al Forte.

A teenaged girl is found wandering the hard streets of New York. She doesn’t know who she is. Or where she came from. Or how she got there. Her fingerprints lead nowhere.

On her arm is scrawled a birthday greeting and some Chinese characters.

She does recall some lines from a fantasy novel. She found herself reciting them. Why? What does it mean? She has no idea.

Sounds like the start of a mystery novel, doesn’t it? Nope. True story. It was in yesterday’s (Friday, October 23, 2009) news.

But here’s the thing: I have a novel idea that involves an amnesiac kid. Think I’m not going to swipe a scintillating fact or two from the lost girl story?

Maybe you should, too. (Not this story but some other story that smacks you in your news collector.)

My point is this: There are stranger-than-fiction tidbits flying past us all the time, true tales of intrigue that are there for the picking. If we will only open our eyes and see them. And reach out and pluck them.

Don’t worry about copyright violations and lawsuits. You aren’t going to use the facts and act like you made them up. You are going run the real-life stuff through the creative mazes of that pinball mind of yours and by the time the idea goes DING, it will be your own concoction of mysterious fictional fun.

Off the top of my head, here’s how I would use the true lost girl in a story: Remember the fantasy novel the girl is quoting? I’d have the author of that book behind it all. Maybe she staged the whole situation to give herself some buzz for her book. But something happened. The girl was intercepted by nefarious cads and brainwashed. Those Chinese symbols on the girl’s arm? They are a code for something more sinister. Something that bodes trouble for the “lost girl” and the author both.

See how it works? Go loosen up your Weird-O-Meter as you scan the news. You’ll crazy up your stories a bit. And your readers will benefit.

Glen C. Allison
Author of the Forte suspense series
http://torturedhero.com/
@glen_allison

Thanks so much to Marvin Wilson for guest blogging for me today! Marvin is “An old Hippie rock and roller, a non-religious, dogma free, Maverick spiritualist Christian. I am an author, with the audacity to write novels. I also am an editor. I’m on the editors staff at All Things That Matter Press and also do freelance. For a rate quote, contact me at marvwilson2020@gmail.com.”

Having gone through the daunting and laborious task of getting that first book published, I thought I’d take some time and write down some things I’ve learned along the way. Maybe some talented new writer can read this and cut down on the amount of frustration, confusion, and anxiety that I went through trying to break through the barrier from “amateur writer” to “published author.” As the published author of just three books so far, with three more scheduled to be published in 2010, I am certainly no senior writing sage – don’t profess to be. However, I am a quick learner, and I think that if you are new to this industry, or even started on your way, you will find my observations and recommendations more than sophomoric. Let’s get started.

First, you have to know what you want, and at the same time you must be realistic in your expectations. Unless you are already famous in some other area, in the literary world you are an unknown. If you have never had a magazine or newspaper article published, never hosted a successful blog, never had so much as a poem in print anywhere, no literary resume of any weight, you have to realize that nobody knows you, and nobody cares that you’ve written a book, even though you may believe it’s the next Great American Novel. Your friends and family have read your manuscript. They may have filled your head with affirmations of how wonderful your precious book is, encouraging you to get it published, assuring you that you are at least equal to Stephen King and will most surely be fantastically successful.

Probably not. Not with your first go-around. Maybe not even with your second or third or fourth book. The King himself went through decades of living as a starving artist before his breakthrough novel, “Carrie,” vaulted him into ‘overnight’ success. (Read On Writing by Stephen King. This is mandatory reading for all aspiring authors). Trying to get a major publisher or literary agent to pick you up, as a novice, is about as easy as herding cats, and as much fun as a root canal. If you go about it the wrong way, you may well become despondent, frustrated, and give up. This article is intended to help you find your way with some clear, proven methods of getting your writing career up and running.

So, let’s get started. Here are your down-to-earth choices, Mr. or Mrs. Novice Author. There are four realistic choices available to you.

They are-
1. Self-publish
2. Go with a vanity press
3. Go with a POD
4. Get a contract with a small traditional publishing house

Choice number one: you can self-publish. This is a monumental undertaking. You buy your own ISBN number, you copyright the work yourself, you produce the cover art (or pay an artist for it), you hire a printing press to produce the copies (Amazon.com now has a self-pub option with BookSurge that makes it a little easier, I’ve been told), and then you seek a distributor to distribute your books (which you probably will not be able to get) or you market and sell your books yourself. True self-publishing makes sense only if your work is too controversial for any publisher to print, or if your book relates only to a small geographic area, or perhaps if you just want to produce a textbook for a class you are teaching in some obscure subject that you are an expert at – those types of scenarios. Otherwise, it’s too much work (for this author, at least) to take on.

While the next two options are often (mistakenly) called “self-publishing,” they are actually not. These are publishing houses that do it (all that work we discussed above) for a fee. They are the vanity presses and the POD (print on demand) publishers. Some of the better known vanity presses are iUniverse, XLibris and AuthorHouse. But there are hundreds of them, just do a Google search. They are the easiest way to publish. With many of them, you just pay a fee and they’ll publish your work, even if what you’ve written is the most pathetic drivel ever penned. So if you are with me so far, we are now left with two other choices. Get with a good, reputable POD publisher, or go for a small traditional publisher’s contract. Let’s talk the POD route first.

A good POD publisher will have standards. The more respectable the outfit, the higher the standards. They don’t publish just any rubbish. You will in most cases need to submit a query letter to get their attention. You also need to investigate the company enough to know if they are accepting submissions and/or queries at this time. Remember, they are small; they can only publish so many books in any given year. Nowadays they all have websites, so go there and read up on them. Find out what genres they accept and which they do not. Most do not want a full manuscript submission before reading your query. If they like your query, they will usually ask for a sample first three chapters.

Know this: submission guidelines vary – so do your homework. Your book could miss a chance at being published just because you didn’t take the time to read up on how a particular publishing house wants you to submit your query/sample/manuscript. That nettles veterans in the industry. If you are too unprofessional to read and follow simple submission instructions, or for some reason can’t read, they don’t want anything to do with you. Remember, these are professionals. They’ve been at this a long time, and they can smell an unpromising, slow-learning amateur from a continent away.

After reading your query and sample, if they still like what they are reading, they will likely ask to read the whole manuscript. Then, and only then, (and after an agonizing long wait, most cases – I’m talking months – really) will you find out if you have landed a publisher willing to publish your work. So, first off, you need to learn how to write an effective, attention-getting, professional looking query letter. There are plenty of sources for tutorials on the do’s and don’ts of writing a good query letter. Do a Google search. Two sources I highly recommend from personal experience are Carolyn Howard Johnson’s book, The Frugal Book Promoter, and Janet Elaine Smith’s Promo Paks.

Now we come to the fourth viable option, landing a contract with a small traditional publishing house. Here are some of the advantages of going that route:

A) They pay all the expenses to publish your book. You have no out of pocket costs. Unless, that is, they don’t have an in-house editor to your liking and/or standards and you need to hire one. And, a side note here, you must use a good editor. The best authors with dozens of best-sellers already to their credit have an editor. Even editors use another editor for their own books. As the author, you often cannot “see” what is actually on the page. You think it’s there, but it’s not clear or missing altogether – or visa versa. Good editors will spot plot/subplot/timeline inconsistencies, character trait/speech inconsistencies, poor sentence and paragraph structure; I could go on and on. This is mandatory – hire the services of a professional editor, a good one. Back to the advantages.

B) Unlike the Big Houses, small traditional publishers still allow you a large amount of control over your work. You will still most likely have the say in what the cover looks like. A company I worked with recently, (Cambridge Books), even welcomes the author submitting the cover art his or herself if they have it. Also, if they like your manuscript enough to pay to publish it, they probably won’t demand that you rework it in any major way.

Now some disadvantages to consider.

A) As with POD’s, small traditional publishing houses do not have staff and budgets to market your book for you. You are just as alone here as with the POD’s. Sorry, but that’s just the way it is.

B) When I say “small” traditional publisher, that’s exactly what I mean. You have not hit the big time. Getting your first “real” contract can lull you into a deadly slumber, thinking you’ve “made it” and have no work to do except write for a living from now on. Your book could go nowhere, and probably will, unless you start promoting and marketing the living bejeebers out of it starting months before the expected release date.

C) You make less money on the sale per book. Since the publisher has shelled out the bucks to publish your book, they take a higher cut of the proceeds from sales. Your royalties will be a smaller percentage than with POD’s, and your net ROI will be somewhat less on personal sales than with a POD publisher.

There you have it. Four avenues to consider for publishing your book. My best wishes I send to you as your pursue your new career in the wonderful and challenging world of literature.

Marvin D Wilson
Blog at: http://theoldsilly.com
Avatar Award Winning Author of Owen Fiddler
Tweet me at: http://twitter.com/Paize_Fiddler

On Friday evening, a friend of mine asked me some questions about mystery writing while I was at the Brownie Scout sleepover. Naturally, since this is my favorite thing to talk about, I was happily prattling off all kinds of info when it occurred to me that my non-writing friends aren’t ordinarily that interested in the process of writing. They’re incredibly supportive, but not usually asking the kinds of questions that my friend was asking.

I’m slow on the uptake, I’ll admit it. Especially in conversations. “Oh! You’re interested in writing.” Which was wonderful. Because if I could convert everyone into becoming a writer, I’d do it. The world would be a happier, if odder, place.

My friend wanted some ‘starting out’ information about writing. My mind really boggled. There’s such an incredible amount of information out there. Where do you start? What’s useful?

I think it’s good to do some research ahead of time. Some. Not enough to stifle the creativity. Not enough to feel like the process is too daunting. But enough so your first attempt isn’t way off course.

What genre do you want to write? What do you read? What do you like to read? Is it different from what you feel like you should be reading? You might even want to focus in on a particular subgenre—a paranormal mystery. An apocalyptic sci-fi. It would definitely make it easier to query later on because agents and editors want to know what kind of book you’ve got.

In that genre, what is the usual word count range? For a ballpark idea on what you should think about shooting for, try this article. Why is this useful? You need to think about whether your idea is sustainable for 75,000—95,000 words (which is likely the range of most adult books.) And you want to stop yourself before you write too much material. More usually isn’t better, as far as agents and editors are concerned.

Where do I start? At the beginning….or not. There’s no rule that you have to start at the beginning if that’s the part that’s tripping you up. Skip the beginning and move on to the next scene. You could even write the ending first.

Set a small, attainable goal. Otherwise, it’s like a New Year’s Resolution that ends up getting ditched. Even 10 minutes a day is good, as long as you’re looking at your manuscript and writing.

Don’t worry about agents and editors until your book is done—unless you’re writing nonfiction and want to send out a proposal for your project before writing it.

Aspiring mystery writers—and other genre-writers (since some of the info isn’t genre-specific)—here are some links I’ve thought were helpful in the past. Most of them I would only use if you get stuck. If you try to read a whole bunch of information before writing, it can really mess with your mind (at least, it does with mine.) Obviously, take what you need and ignore the rest. There is a formulaic aspect to writing mysteries, but we all infuse the process with our own personalities on paper.

Tripod.com’s Classic 12-Chapter Mystery Formula This can give you an idea of what plotting a mystery is like if you’re not really sure where different elements come in. It’s by no means a Bible…and the word count is usually higher than 60,000 words.

Write That Novel , which has useful, printable sheets for characterization, plotting, storyboards, etc.

Book Crossroads , which has links to online mystery writing groups, hardboiled slang dictionaries, forensic information, and legal overviews.

Twenty Mystery Writing Rules

Writing Clues: Help for mystery writers

Don’t Drop Clues: Plant them Carefully! by Stephen Rogers does a great job covering the types of clues, how to misdirect your reader, and mistakes to avoid.

Suite 101 covers planting clues in different ways: tucking them in a paragraph, heightening the drama, clues of omission, missing weapons, and clues from real life.

Author Sandra Parshall’s website explains how “Clues Drive the Mystery Plot.”

The Christie Mystery website demonstrates how Agatha Christie used clues and other plot devices.

Stephen Rogers writes a different article on red herrings and how to use them effectively.

Thanks so much to everyone who is helping me out this week! I’m really excited about the interesting group of bloggers who are guest posting for me as I take care of my son (and spray Lysol disinfectant everywhere!) First up, tomorrow morning, will be the fabulous Marvin Wilson, better known as The Old Silly.

As I make blog rounds and visit Tweeted links, sometimes I can see a pattern of interest in a subject over the course of the week. This week I kept running into tips on tweaking our author websites. Or…maybe I was subconsciously interested in the topic and those were the links I kept clicking on.

Website designing software has gotten so easy to use that most of us are able to come up with a simple design, then maintain and update our own sites.

I’ll admit that I’m not a decorating type of girl. As you can see from my blog. :) Not a whole lot going on, aesthetically, on the blog. In fact, the Blogger template was called “Minimalistic.” My eyes have a hard time reading anything but black on white, so I went with what was easiest for me, since I’m spending the most time on the blog.

The website is a little different. I do think websites should pop a little bit.

These are the sites I came across this week. I think I need to spruce up my website a little, so I’m going to use some of the tips I came across. And, unfortunately, H1N1 has hit my house (courtesy of my son) and so I may be spending some quiet time around the house the next few days. Or longer. Or maybe we’ll all end up with it and I’ll talk to y’all again in a month. :)

The Book Publicity Blog, which is new to me, seems to be a good resource for many different things. I’m linking to their post on author websites. Most interesting point this article made: including your contact info for your agent. I never would have thought of doing that. So Ellen—I’m putting your info on there now!

Literary agent Nathan Bransford’s post on author websites. Most interesting point: Be very, very careful about posting excerpts from a book you’re hoping to have published.

And this site just seems hilarious to me: The Intern. Basically, it’s written by a young woman who’s been working (for free) for a publishing company. She’s seems really witty and sharp—fun to read. I’ve linked to her post on websites. Most interesting point (and I’m quoting directly):

INTERN gets confused if the author website the author provides doubles as the author’s personal ferret photo collection/manga link farm/news feeds from other random websites, and one has to sift through all this other stuff to find writing-related information. Save your author website for content directly related to your writerly self (and/or your professional self, if applicable). Please?

I’m going to look at these tips and brush up my site, which I usually neglect doing in favor to spending time with my blog.

On a separate note: There’s a fairly good chance I’ll come down with swine flu. Not only was there flu present at the Hannah Montana sleepover that I chaperoned last night (a girl fessed up that she hadn’t been to school that day because she had flu–and had missed school all the past week suffering from it. MOM—What are you thinking?!?!?! This mom may end up as a victim in my next murder mystery…) but it’s in my own house now, too. Is there anyone who’d like to write a guest post for this blog? Y’all know the kind of thing I stick on here. Or you could write something different.

If you’re interested, please just email me a story, links, photos. Elizabethspanncraig@gmail.com. I’ll throw them up on the blog. I usually like to post very early in the morning…except, well, for today. Because of Hannah Montana and the fact that my air mattress had a hole in it and my bony back was on a gym floor. :) So you could email it to me the night before and I’d schedule it for the next morning.

I’ll take the first 7 people, for right now. I think I’m going to be on Lysol and Clorox wipe duty for a bit, even if I stay healthy, so it might be nice to grab a quiet week. Thanks, y’all.