The Scenic Route to Publication

"Not all who wander are lost." ~ Tolkien

Every writer's path to publication wanders over unique ground. Some make use of an agent. Some enter contests that result in a publishing contract. Some writers pitch their story to an editor at a writer's conference and are invited to submit the material. Today, fantasy author Helen Johannes shares the story of the road she meandered along till she saw her work in print. Take it away, Helen.

______________________________________________________

“Write what you love to read and write with the market in mind.” Good advice, right?

My school friends lured me beyond the BLACK STALLION novels into THE LORD OF THE RINGS and Ayn Rand’s ATLAS SHRUGGED. I was so caught up in their complex worlds and plots, I had to start my own quest tale, THE PRINCE OF VAL-FEYRIDGE. College intervened, but the story never left me. I dreamed of my hero and heroine and how I could possibly bring them together when I had set up so many obstacles to their love.

Years later, I discovered category romances at rummage sales, devoured them, and decided I could write romantic suspense. I liked my characters, but the stories didn’t engage me as deeply as the one I’d left behind. Meanwhile, I broke into publication with short stories and articles for writers’ magazines, plus I’d garnered contest wins, so now I had “publishing credits.” My query letters were getting requests for partials, but no contract. Because my children were starting to write stories too, I wrote them a short fantasy. The pleasure that gave me brought me back to my roots, and I dug out my handwritten manuscript. From my now “experienced” perspective, I deemed it worthy of completion.

Boy, was I naïve. I had three main characters, an adverbial overload, and so many subordinate characters I couldn’t keep track of them. I had a 15,000 word digression mid-story and no talisman to symbolize the quest. Plus, unlike Bilbo’s journey “there and back again” in THE HOBBIT, I had no “back again.”

What I did have was a love triangle, heroes I was in love with, plenty of conflict, and three lands that had once been one kingdom. That kingdom had been broken by a long ago act of theft—one brother stealing the throne from the rightful heir and the third brother refusing to choose sides. When I nailed down that concept and came up with a long-lost crown to symbolize the quest, that piece of history/legend began to shape everything in the story. It drives the Prince on his quest to reunite the kingdom, and that forces every character to decide where his or her loyalties—and heart—truly lie.

What I finished, however, didn’t fit publishers’ pigeonholes. I had blithely written the book of my heart, and like all choices of the heart, there were consequences. It took a few more years of queries, pitches, and partials before THE PRINCE OF VAL-FEYRIDGE found a home at The Wild Rose Press.

Back to that good advice: While you can write what you love to read, and you can try to write with the market in mind, sometimes you just have to write what your heart wants.

Prince Arn has a destiny--an ancient throne--but he’s not waiting for fate to deliver when he can act now, before his enemies organize against him. The healer Aerid longs for her barely remembered homeland. Marked out by her gift and her foreign looks, she insists she is no witch. The swordsman Naed hopes to honorably defend his uncle’s holding, but he harbors a secret fascination for the exotic healer. Prince Arn’s campaign against Aerid’s homeland throws them into a triangle of forbidden love, betrayal, and heartbreak. Only when they realize love is blood-kin to friendship, and neither is possible without risk, can they forge a new alliance and restore a kingdom.

THE PRINCE OF VAL-FEYRIDGE is available from:
The Wild Rose Press
Amazon
Barnes and Noble

HELEN'S BIO:
An Army brat with a yen for travel and a fascination for history, I majored in German and English and earned a Master’s degree in teaching English--specifically, all kinds of writing--and have taught creative writing for years. I love to travel, read all kinds of fiction, and hang out with romance writers.

My WEBSITE is www.helendjohannes.com
______________________________________________

Thanks for sharing with us today, Helen. Now it's your turn. If you're a writer, where are you on the path to publication? If you're not a writer, you still have goals you're striving for. What helps you along the way?

PS. I tried to fulfill #4 on my 9 Month Personal Bucket List over the weekend. To quote Robert Burns, "The best laid plans of mice and men oftimes gang agley." Find out what happened at www.miamarlowe.blogspot.com.

Getting Published

PLEASURING THE PIRATE, my 5th book, will be in stores tomorrow! I'm thrilled. And grateful. And feeling like this is an opportunity to look back a bit over the last few years since my debut in May 2006.

When one of my MySpace friends asked about how to get published, I thought there might be others who'd like to know as well. Everyone's journey is different, but if others will be helped by my experience, I'm willing to share. So, here's a brief stroll down my path to publication.

I'm not like Susan Elizabeth Phillips, who scribbled a proposal and sold her first book before it was even written. I had to learn my craft. I started in 2001 with the naive notion that since I was a reader, I could be a writer. That's right. It took me 5 years to publish. You may take less time. Or more. It's the journey that's important, not how long it takes.

I wrote 2 complete manuscripts that will forever gather dustbunnies under the bed. They were my teachers. I learned about story arcs and POV and dialogue. And generally how not to write a romance novel. Even so, the 2nd one (a sad little western) started to win a few writing contests. It was enough encouragement to keep me going.

Then we moved to Seattle and I joined Eastside RWA. Finally I wasn't on my own, trying to reinvent the wheel. I had help in learning how to write. And at one of the chapter meetings during a writing exercise, my heroine Rika from my debut novel MAIDENSONG was born.

I was just typing THE END on MAIDENSONG when my husband lost his job in a corporate downsizing. We moved to Missouri to lower our expenses. I took a position as a banker to help make ends meet, while he looked for work. While I struggled to learn a new job, I also struggled to learn to write in the evenings and on weekends, when I was tired, whether I felt like writing or not. I wasn't playing with this. It was not a hobby. There was far too much of my blood on the pages for that. I was determined to be a real writer.

I sent queries (I'll talk about query letters in my next post) to agents, since I knew I didn't have time or the expertise to submit MAIDENSONG on my own. Thanks to a faithful e-critiqueing friend, during this time I finished ERINSONG, and wonder of wonders, I finally was offered agent representation in 2004.

I continued writing. Each time I finished one story, I didn't wait to see if it would sell. I started on the next one. In June 2005, I got THE CALL. Leah Hultenschmidt from Leisure Books had found MAIDENSONG languishing on her desk and loved it. (Bear in mind, MAIDENSONG had been there for a year. Most of the time, publishing grinds with glacial slowness.) MAIDENSONG came out in May 2006 and I wept when I first saw the cover.

Now, I have 5 books in print, another due out next March and a contract for one after that. I'm writing full-time now (Thank you , God and my dear husband!). I have been extremely blessed and I feel I must share that there is an element of luck in who gets published and who doesn't. It's a matter of the right manuscript on the right desk at the right time.

But it's also a matter of perseverance. The clinical definition of that word is "continueing an activity past the time when it makes sense. To persist in an idea, purpose or task, despite obstacles." I used to think 'perseverance' meant going to grad school, but it fits trying to be published to a T.

Persevere. Keep writing. Once you start down the path, don't give up on the journey. You'll find places in yourself and others you never knew existed. Good luck!

* * *

"I simply couldn't put this one down!" ~ Reviewer Top Pick, NightOwl Romance on PLEASURING THE PIRATE

10 Ways to Make Sure You'll Never Publish

Anyone can give you ideas to help you get published. Here's a few helpful hints to make sure you never have to worry about getting The Call.

1. Never finish a manuscript. Surely just your premise scrawled quickly onto the back of a napkin ought to be enough. It's the idea that counts.

2. Don't accept critique from others. It's your story. You should be able to tell it from 37 different points of view if you want. And be sure to ignore the publisher's guidelines. Do they want your manuscript double-spaced in Courier New 12 pt? Well, isn't that silly? You can fit twice as many words if you single-space. And if you use Ariel 8 pt. I bet you can cram even more on each page.

3. Never be willing to revise. Why mess with perfection? Your mother loves your story just as it is.

4. Agent-schmagent! Who needs another hand in your pocket? Sure, the publisher's guidelines require agented submissions, but that's just for those other less-inspired writers. Besides, if you're a tough negotiator on your advance, that editor will think twice about trying to cross you with pesky revision requests.

5. Be as nasty as you can to other writers. After all, we're all going for the same finite number of slots. Leave the encouragment and mentoring of other authors to the Mother Theresa's of the writing world.

6. When you pitch, make sure you tell the editor how lucky he/she is to have found the next Nora Roberts. Of course, once she reads your 800,000 word manuscript, she'll realize how brilliant you are. But it never hurts to be cocky . . . er, I mean, confident.

7. Don't join RWA or some other writer's group. If they knew so much, they'd all be published. Besides, one of them might steal your idea for that genre-bending futuristic, erotic, chick-lit western mystery.

8. If you attend a writer's conference, be sure to stalk the editors. They like the attention. If you want to be totally memorable, shove your complete manuscript under the bathroom stall door to them. That'll get your work noticed! And I guarantee they'll remember your name. They might even tell their friends.

9. If you do finish a manuscript, make sure you don't start a second one before the first one sells. Just keep sending the same manuscript out to as many houses as you can, whether they publish your type of story or not. For good measure, if one editor at a publishing house rejects you, make sure you send it to all the other editors at the same house. Won't that first editor feel silly when the fifth editor buys your work? After all, it's not as if they talk to each other or, heaven forfend, consult with each other on their acquisition decisions.

10. Don't give away the ending in your synopsis. What better way to make an editor request the full manuscript than to finish up your outline with a coy, "If you want to know how it all turns out, you have to read the full manuscript!" Besides, they really need to read the whole thing to understand why you decided to kill off the hero on the last page.

If you follow these guidelines, I can virtually guarantee you'll never be bothered by a contract offer. However, if your goal is actually to see your writing in print, you might want to forget these rules or even do the opposite.

Happy Writing!