From the Garret: Archives

Pearls of Wisdom: Advice from Other Writers (Part II)

I love to listen to writers talk about writing. Sometimes it merely comforts me to know that I'm not alone in my struggles. Sometimes other writers' words inspire me with new ideas. Sometimes they solve a pressing problem for me. Always, I come away with something to add to my personal collection of pearls of wisdom.

Following is the continuation of last month's From the Garrett column, in which I shared the advice that has helped me the most in my writing career.

4) Writers solve their problems by writing.
—April Kihlstrom, creator of Book in a Week and author of 31 novels

5) I can fix a bad page; I can't fix a blank page.
—Nora Roberts, New York Times best-selling author

These two authors permanently cured my writer's block.

April Kihlstrom says the best tool for getting through a rough spot in your writing is…writing. If you keep working with the words, problems really do start to sort themselves out. It's almost like picking at the strands of a seemingly intractable knot; keep at it and all of a sudden the knot unravels.

Nora Roberts states one of the great truths in life: you can't improve something that doesn't exist. Even more comforting is her implication that no writing is unredeemable. As long as you're putting words on the page, you're making progress.

6) Enter unpublished writer's contests.
—Jenna Mills, Silhouette author

Jenna Mills traveled all the way from Texas to the New Jersey Romance Writers' conference when she was a finalist in the Put Your Heart in a Book Contest. Chatting with her before the awards dinner, I asked why she had entered our contest…or any contest for that matter.

“To get my manuscript in front of a particular editor,” she said. “I've just signed a contract with Silhouette because an editor liked my entry in another contest.”

That sounded good to me so I followed in her footsteps.

Entering contests provided unexpected benefits. Most of the judges' comments were genuinely useful. I revised my entire manuscript twice based on the constructive criticism I collected from my returned entries. In the midst of a steady stream of rejections by editors and agents, I got positive feedback: a perfect score by one preliminary round judge, a framed certificate for my second place finish in another contest.

Finally, one week after I had signed a contract with Berkley, I received a request for the full manuscript by the judging editor.

7) Being published is a combination of determination and luck.
—Mark Bowen, author of Black Hawk Down

Mark Bowen confirms what all published authors say: you have to be willing to persist in the face of constant rejection to become published. You have to keep putting your work out there over and over again. You have to really want it.

In addition, you have to understand the rejection isn't personal. That's where luck comes in. You're not necessarily being turned down because the book is bad. Perhaps the editor just bought two other books dealing with the same theme as yours. Maybe the editor hates bridges. Possibly the editor ate a bad hot dog from the cart on the corner. That's just rotten luck.

On the other hand, that editor might have just read the first paragraph of three truly lousy manuscripts, thrown them down in disgust and pulled yours out of the slush pile. Your prose sings, your heroine enchants, your plot enthralls…and the editor needs something good to read on the train home.

That's wonderful luck!

A huge thank you to all the above-mentioned authors for their help, both intentional and unwitting.