I Propose I Write A Book
One thing that is different about this Some College project for me is that I think I have a story I can approach an agent with, something that could be shopped around and sold. The only thing is, I didn’t know the first thing about that. Luckily, I follow a blogger with an agent who is working on her book proposal to send to said agent to shop around for a publisher (or there is already a publisher interested? I’m very fuzzy on the details). Through the powers of internet research, I find that a book proposal is a great way to get your work into the hands of a publisher. Apparently, agents can shop these around, and book publishers can get a good idea of what your work is about and whether or not they want to advance you money for it.
The first thing that really brought this into focus for me was reading Eat Pray Love. Elizabeth Gilbert publisher purchased Eat Pray Love and advanced her money for travel before she embarked on her travels. I don’t know how involved of a book proposal she wrote, whether she knew that she would use the unique structure she decided to use or if she included statistics and comparison titles in it, but I do know that she was able to secure a LOT of money and, more importantly, time and experiences.
My purpose in writing a book proposal wouldn’t be the same as Ms. Gilbert’s. I don’t need the money to have the experiences to write the book; I had that for free. My purpose in writing a book proposal will be to have something concrete to send to an agent that proves that my little book deserves a chance to sit on a shelf and be picked up and read by someone other than my mother. Aside from the aid in finding a publisher, do the statistical research and evaluating the market is a great way to get thinking about what happens once “butt in chair” has accomplished all it can and it’s time to try and sell this thing.
I’ve taken a look at the methodology for a study that was done regarding the very thing that my book is about, and I have noticed that I am EXTREMELY qualified to write this book. They “disproportionately-stratified” a sample to “over-represent” me. There was a program on American Radio Works specifically targeting this issue. The group of people who fall into this category is growing. The government attention is being drawn to this issue. This is the perfect time to get this book out into the world. That’s why I couldn’t write it any sooner.
All of this is a long way of saying I’ve started working on a book proposal for Some College. Prepare to see many angry posts about how I never should have started this stupid thing, how I’m never going to find an agent, let alone a publisher, and how I’m going to have to lose a ton of weight and get staggeringly beautiful to deflect from my otherwise failure at life status at my 10 year high school reunion in 2013. Please, please, please pray for me and my sanity.
On a totally unrelated note, I have contacted a graphic designer to create a logo for me, which is step one in my journey to self-hosting my own website. I think I may have a domain name and overarching concept for the site (which will not affect this site…for now), I am playing with color schemes and a possible theme for the look of the site, as well as an updated About me section. I have been looking into a good camera to start adding pictures to my entries, as well as finding a photographer for a professional photo shoot to capture my whole vibe. Next will be trademarking and licensing, etc. This is a long term project, a one step at a time thing. I’ll keep you posted as things progress. Wish me luck!
Related articles
- Eat Pray Love – and Other Things I Meant to Finish (copywrite1985.wordpress.com)
- What Comes First, the Platform or the Book? (chiefwritingwolf.com)
- Why Every Book Needs a Proposal (Even Self-Published) (terrywhalin.blogspot.com)
- For Writers – The Dreaded Query Letter (heatherelizabethking.wordpress.com)
- A Book Proposal Doesn’t Merely Sell Your Book – It Helps You Write It! (wordservewatercooler.com)
- So How Do You Write a Book Proposal Anyway? (writersradioblog.wordpress.com)
- Ask an Agent – Part 3 (chipmacgregor.typepad.com)
Eat Pray Love–and Other Things I Meant to Finish
I was reading Eat Pray Love for a while after I bought it for my birthday from the Goodwill for $0.59. I must admit I thought the writing was great, but I’ve since gotten bogged down in India and had to drag myself through some of Indonesia. I am now in the “how many chapters are left in this section?!” stage of reading. I’ve somehow lost the enjoyment for this particular story.
I will give you an actual review of Eat Pray Love at another time, but I wanted to talk about getting bogged down and whether or not I should try and stay with the project I’m bogged down with or switch to a different project and come back to it later.
Of course, that’s not the problem this writing go round. I am forever pouring out observances, actual parts of a chapter, reminding myself of things to research, etc. on this project. I don’t know how much I will have to use, but I do know that I am, dare I say it, PROLIFIC on this project, for me at least.
At this moment, I’m working on the memoir, Some College. I have no idea about the tone, whether or not I’m going to be taking the tact of trying to teach lessons and make it a book for those entering college, or just tell the story as a sometimes insightful (but subtly so) memoir that simply retells life events. I guess it’s the difference between a bullet pointed study guide and reading Autobiography of a Face and making a study guide yourself. I guess that depends on purpose and audience. At this point, I just have a story that’s beginning to be told, a sometime cautionary tale that I just have to write down.
Should I be worrying about the details of story telling yet? Should I be writing to a specific structure, as Elizabeth Gilbert did in Eat Pray Love, or do I just write a crappy first not-quite-draft and figure out the rest later?
In the meantime, I am back to writing on paper, mostly in meetings and at lunch (don’t worry, I’ve permission to not pay strict attention in meetings, LOL). I don’t know what it is about paper that makes the words flow for some projects, but I’ll take productivity where I can find it.
Once Upon A Time…
I used to write in this blog a lot…now it’s being neglected. It’s mostly neglected because I don’t have anything to say of a writing or reading nature. So what’s so special about today? I found an old notebook with a reading wishlist in it and it inspired me to talk about things that I want to read (in hopes that increasing my reading will increase my writing, both here and my creative writing pursuits).
So, what do I want to read? I don’t know. I know what the world says I should have read already (like The Help), but I don’t have many books I want to read lately. I do have a few non-fiction titles I would like to read: The Other Wes Moore, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, and Laying Down My Burdens. I’m currently combing through my old list for fiction books, and I may cruise back issues of BookPage to find something.
I have been working on some pieces in my long term absence. I have made progress on my Camp NaNoWriMo manuscript (aka continuing to write a crappy first draft), and I officially starting on the second short story in the Candy Apples series. So it’s not all sitting on my hands this way. This second story in the series is hard to write because I haven’t been there. It’s dark and terrifying and sad. It’s not a place one likes to dwell. It’s not difficult thinking like an adolescent again, but the subject matter gets so dark I wonder if I can see my way out sometimes. But it will be powerful fiction, the kind of fiction that may help someone else. These addiction stories are turning out to be some powerful stories. I was thinking of putting Candy Apples up as an Amazon single, but I don’t know if I want to. I might have to make it free and then sell the series, which doesn’t sound like a plan to me. Besides, I still will have ten stories to write, so publishing it now will be a little soon. I would like to know if any of you would buy my work.
I’ll post the fiction books in my notebook up tonight, and you can tell me if they’re worth reading. In the meantime, two questions: Read any good books lately? Would you buy my book?
Related articles
- I’ve Lost My Mojo (copywrite1985.wordpress.com)
- Ready, Set, Write I (accordingtohoyt.com)
- What I have learned while working on my first novel (mecopeland.wordpress.com)
- WWW(W): Writing on the Web this Week about Writing (saratoolemiller.wordpress.com)
- I’m thinking of quitting blogging… (breadcrumbreads.wordpress.com)
First Impressions
Yesterday I handed over the pages of my book to the first person I will have critique it. They aren’t anywhere near finished; this isn’t an editor. I just want someone I consider more knowledgeable on the subject to evaluate my arguments. Is it easy to follow and clearly stated? I want to see if what I’ve written makes sense to anyone not currently in residence in my head.
Now I’m in the waiting stage. There are a million things I still need to do for the book, but today I want to take a moment or two to feel a sense of accomplishment for getting this far. I have outlined my arguments and chosen my sources. I have a strategy for how to employ quotes from the interviews I’ve conducted and will conduct. I’m celebrating my productivity…and trying not to worry about what my reader thinks about it.
No NaNo…and I’m Okay with That
I’m not doing NaNoWriMo this year, and I’m OK with that. I don’t want you to take that to mean I’m not writing; I am. It’s just that I’m choosing to focus on finishing my marriage kit book instead of heading headlong into the fiction writing frenzy of NaNoWriMo. I’ve committed myself fully to focusing on this one project and actually finishing a manuscript this year as I’ve planned.
Thanks to a new position at work sparking new life in me and conversations and news articles that have kept my interest in this project high, I have a lot written down in various places. Now I’m typing it all up, as well as expanding on ideas and trying to put it in some sort of other. I feel as if I have confirmation I’m working on the right book at the right time.
So I have decided to be fully committed to one project at a time, at least until I finish this one. I haven’t been on the blogs as much and I haven’t been working on other projects. I’m going to give something my all, for once. And so far, it seems to be the best road for me to have taken.
To NaNo or Not to NaNo…
This is the question I keep asking myself this year. The first year I attempted it, I had no internet. Last year, I was preparing to move and had a lot going on personally that prevented me from giving it my best effort. This year, writing might get in the way of…well, writing.
I’m working on the marriage kit project. I’ve actually got the beginnings of a good chapter written and a few others outlined, as interviews and such have been few and far between. I am also transcribing a backlog of interviews onto the computer and selecting quotes, scripture references, and etc. I’m concentrating solely on this project right now, but I’m starting to grow a bit bored with just one thing. I’m starting to wonder if switching gears to fiction, to NaNoWriMo for a month, might be in order.
I don’t know what I’m going to do just yet. Are you going to do NaNoWriMo? What are your reasons? How do you know when it’s time to switch gears and when you just need to buckle down & gut it out?
Research is the New Black
Lately, I’ve been doing a lot of research and only a little writing on my Marriage Kit project. The research is interesting and fun, and finding things that validate my argument are essential to making the book a success, but I miss the writing part. For the past week, I’ve been organizing myself, making a makeshift outline (something I never do as I’m a pantser), deciding what I really want to focus on and say. So far, I’ve identified the areas I most want to discuss, started pulling out scriptures I may want to use and researching them, writing down any insights that strike me while studying this, and trying to find further resources.
The one thing I’m worried about with the research is hitting a wall. For this project, there are a lot of people I want to talk to–counselors, matchmakers, ministers, married couples, singles ministers, singles. For the more professional people, if I can’t get information from them, it could halt my progress.
But I’m not thinking about that. I’m pushing on…and I’m focusing only on this project, whether I’m writing or researching, I’m putting my focus on one thing at a time and one project at a time…finally.
So, that’s why I’ve been a little silent here. I will try to update more as I navigate my way through this process.
Related articles
- Freestyle Friday: The Possibilities Edition (2blu2btru.wordpress.com)
- Overview of “Is Marriage for White People? How the African American Marriage Decline Affects Everyone” (volokh.com)
New (Untitled) Piece…and What I’m Working On…
There’s a new piece up on my (Untitled) page that’s really personal…it’s about my relationship with my dad from way back. Thankfully, we’re beyond that stage now, but it was a good piece and I wanted to air it out somewhere.
Lately, I’ve been going through my various journals and highlighting things I want to use and ideas I want to play with for my two non-fiction works, Some College and the Marriage Kit book. It seems I’ve written short excerpts and stream of consciousness thoughts for both works everywhere; now that I have the command center set up, I’m putting it all together. I’m also slowly but surely working my way through the Camp NaNoWriMo manuscript, and living life experiences that will go well with the NaNoWriMo 2010 manuscript. All in all, it’s been a pretty productive month for being creative.
I’ve been going through some of my floppy disks, the ones that I used with my Brother Word processor. That’s been an experience. I found some things from when I turned 15 and on that I may share on this or another blog. I still have plenty of disks to go through from my computer disk days in middle and high school, but so far I’m estatic about all the pieces I’m rediscovering, some of which have some real merit. Now to get my hands on the other notebooks I wasn’t able to bring, and to have my entire body of work here to mull over and continue.
Nothing much else never in 2blu2btruLand. How are your writing lives going?
2blu2btru
Book Report: Please Stop Laughing at Me, by Jodee Blanco
Image via Wikipedia
Last week, Writer’s Digest kept tweeting me about nine free books to download in celebration of school starting back. I finally decided to check it out and download a few things. One that stood out was a memoir on school bullying by Jodee Blanco called Please Stop Laughing at Me. In the memoir, Jodee Blanco describes her adolescent years from fourth grade through high school, which were plagued with teasing, taunting, pranks, physical abuse, and the struggle to fit in somewhere. Now a successful woman in the PR and publishing industries who has interviewed celebrities, organized celebrity appearances, and launched successful books and movies, she writes about attending her twenty-year high school reunion to book-end the tale. Sitting in her rental outside of the reunion, she relives these memories again.
If I hadn’t read the preface and learned of her speaking engagements and all day bullying awareness/prevention seminars, it would be hard to tell that the message of the book was how to prevent or overcome school bullying. Most of the book is spent on the things that are done to her, the lack of help her parents and teachers were, and the fact that even those that weren’t cruel to her were afraid to help her or speak up for fear of the same treatment. In short, she outlined a lot of the problems faced by those being bullied, but this book didn’t offer many solutions (maybe the sequel does). The unnerving thing seemed to be that instead of anything actually helping her, she…just grew up and moved on with life, which is what adults were telling her would happen.
To be fair, there were people in her life and things that she did that provided momentary relief from the torment while she was going through it, and she glazes over good periods in time to related more bullying, but the effect is that this all seems unrelenting. Add to this Blanco’s theater background, and it’s easy to see how after a while, I became a little numb to much of the teasing and abuse myself (I feel ashamed to admit it, but it’s true). Blanco constantly had to up the horror factor to pull me back in after long passages of how depressed it all made her, which I don’t doubt happened.
Overall, I think it’s a most read for anyone who has children, works with children, was/is a victim of bullying, or who bullies people. I think it’s important to understand the psychological impact these things have on a child’s psyche that reach far into adulthood, whether you’re the abused or the abuser. It’s important to note not everyone grows out of bullying behavior, nor does everyone “get over” being teased.
Related articles
- Bullying Affects a Quarter of High Schools Students (usnews.com)
- 91% of teens say they were bullied: survey (marketwatch.com)
- Back 2 School: Is Your Child Being Bullied? (wycd.radio.com)
- Teenage girls sue over school bullying (heraldsun.com.au)
- I Think My Child Is A Bully – What Should I Do? (education.com)
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Speak Now, Or Forever Hold Your Peace
