My short story, The Vase, was part of an actual gift exchange in 2009. I did have an old mahogany vase with matching lid from Jamaica. I put dry cement into a plastic bag and sealed it into the vase and wrapped it. I put the story and manifest sheet into an envelope which accompanied the vase. So, the story was actually ABOUT the actual event that we planned to attend. It was a big hit. In fact, we attended this year's party and the vase was re-gifted.
I invented a few characters and began writing character bio's soon after the party in 2009. After about two months, I had an outline and was ready to begin writing. The result of my planning seem to pay off as I was quite surprised to write an additional 65,000 words in a little less than two weeks.
Of course, I spent a lot of time editing and now the manuscript is at revision five.
Currently, I have submitted the manuscript to Sourcebooks in Naperville. It has been fourteen weeks, but I know that it takes a while for a publishing company to review a fiction manuscript, so I am working on my plans for additional work in the meantime.
The first order of business is to prepare a solid query letter that I will send to a very select few agents. I have a list of possible agents, but the process is very long as agents also require a long time for reviewing manuscripts. I think I have a good start, but feel that I must wait for a response from Sourcebooks before I send a query to an agent.
This business of writing is not easy for an old guy like me from a different line of work. It requires a lot of patience and also a great deal of humility. Everything I've read indicates that pushing ahead before doing your homework can have very bad results. For instance, sending out manuscripts before they are ready, approaching the wrong agents, and attempting to shortcut the painstaking process of accessing professionals can all damage a writer's reputation very quickly. These folks have seen it all, and they have a tendency to appreciate a writer's due diligence.
So, it also pays to have a plan for maintaining positive momentum while waiting for a response from agents and independent publishers.
My plan is to educate myself on the business while continuing to produce creative collateral. It is a convoluted business and some of the information is contradictory, but it pays to research before making a fatal mistake that could have been the best possible opportunity for your work. Stated differently, rushing in can result in a burned bridge to your best possible resource if you are not careful. It is better to understand the landscape before moving ahead in this case, I think.
The marketing aspects of self promotion are daunting. This also requires a great deal of research and patience. I recently attended a bookstore event in which David Sterry and Arielle Eckstut, co-authors of The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published compared marketing collateral to a dowry. That is, today you should present yourself along with your marketing collateral as a demonstration of your commitment and ability. I have a website, but I am writing this very blog as an attempt to expand. Videos on YouTube, articles and guest blogs can also help a writer to build a following OVER TIME. It does not happen overnight!
Finally, I continue to write. I write on several blogs with some regularity, but I still have a backlog of short story ideas that I continue to produce between large projects. In fact, I wrote a short story this morning along with several relatively long blogs on our writer's group site. Yesterday, I worked on a new set of character bio's and the beginning of an outline for a possible prequel to my existing manuscript, Box of Dreams. It is a more in depth character study of the autistic son of my main characters, Art and Karen. I am considering a separate blog that will follow my writing process as I create this story. The point is, I remain busy with a variety of projects, both business related and creative as I wait for an answer from Sourcebooks.
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