Writer Unboxed

The Power of Writerly Kindness

May 15, 2019 By Julie Carrick Dalton 29 Comments

Pull up a chair, pour a cup of tea, and get comfy. I’d like to talk about kindness in the writing community. I don’t mean retweeting to give each other a boost or following a stranger back to be courteous. I’m talking about profound kindness that settles in your chest and warms you on cold, lonely days.

As writers, we are accustomed to hearing stories of crushed hopes, long shots, and tales of glorious success. We lean in to listen to them all. Stories of rejection make us feel less alone. We warm our hands over the heat generated by other writers’ victories. Each story reminds us we are part of something bigger than ourselves.

But knowing we aren’t alone isn’t enough to sustain us. We crave connection to other writers. We long for someone to acknowledge that we are out there doing this hard work, for someone to nod in our direction and tell us to keep going.

In search of literary fellowship, I’ve stumbled into several writing communities over the years. The kindness that greeted me each time is the fuel that sustains me on my writing journey. I’m about to point fingers and name names, so buckle up.

First, I’m looking at you, Nancy Johnson, my writing soulmate and dear friend. Nancy held my hand as I queried. She talked me through the anxiety of waiting, waiting, waiting, while my book was on submission. But two things in particular that she did for me inspired me to keep going, and I’m calling her out on both of them.

I asked my agent to wait until I had a collection of rejections from editors before sharing them with me instead of sending them piecemeal. As a result, she sent the first batch of passes to me in one long email, as I had requested. I read through them one after another. They weren’t awful. They included some lovely compliments, but they all ended the same way: rejection. I felt nauseous.

I forwarded the letters to Nancy so we could discuss them. She promptly called and left me a voicemail in which she strung all the kind things the editors had written into the loveliest blurb about my book. My novel sounded incredible! I have listened to that voicemail more times than I care to admit. It made me feel good about my writing again.

Later, as more rejections trickled in, Nancy stepped up with another thoughtful gift. “I know you’re doubting yourself right now, but it’s okay,” she told me as the wait began to crush me. “I got this. I believe in you enough for both of us.”

The thing is, I believe in Nancy just as much as she believes in me. So, when she offered to take up my burden, I let her. I can’t explain why, but it made me feel better. As I trusted her to believe in me, I was able to shake off the negative feelings and have faith in my writing again. I believed because Nancy believed.

Next up, I’m pointing at you, Milo Todd. [Read more…]

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Tune out your self-doubt—Fiction Therapy

May 14, 2019 By Jim Dempsey 15 Comments

Best-selling thriller writer, Ian Rankin, has been writing professionally since the mid-1980s. He’s written close to 30 novels. He pretty much writes a book a year. But, at a certain point in his drafting process, usually somewhere at the end of the first month, he is struck by, what he calls, ‘the fear.’ He is convinced that all the work he’s done in that month has been a waste of time, that this new book won’t be any good.

When he mentions this to his wife, she usually asks, ‘Are you on page 65?’ He thinks about it, and yes, he is. It’s then he realizes that he goes through this phase with every novel, always at the same point. Always around page 65.

Many writers, if not all, experience this kind of doubt about their work at some stage. And, since writing is such a lonely profession, they don’t all have someone with whom they can share their frustrations.

I feel privileged, in my work as an editor, that authors confide their fears in me. Sometimes they just need someone who can give them feedback, someone with experience who can reassure them that their work is worth pursuing after all and they’re not wasting their time. Someone who can help them get past their page 65.

But not everyone has the time, the inclination, or, let’s face it, the money to seek reassurance from an editor. That doesn’t mean you have to suffer alone. Below are some techniques that can help authors deal with that inner critic and get back to writing. [Read more…]

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Big Publishers, Small Publishers, and Contract Negotiations

May 13, 2019 By Sophie Masson 10 Comments

In a previous post, I wrote about the ‘red lines’ that authors and publishers alike might encounter in book contract negotiations. In this post, which like the earlier one is drawn from a conference paper I presented late last year, I look at another important question for authors: Are big or small publishers easier to deal with when it comes to contract negotiations?

In my home country of Australia, the size and importance of the small and independent press sector has grown exponentially in recent years, which means that more authors and agents are working with small presses than ever before. In the paper, I presented interviews with authors and agents who had worked with both big and small publishers, focusing on how they viewed the contract negotiation experience. The answers offer some illuminating insights on the contrasting experiences and opinions within the industry:

‘Most publishers have a take it or leave it attitude to contracts. The bigger the organisation, the more they exert their will in terms of the details within the contract.’ (author-illustrator)

‘Small publishers are generally more nimble and flexible and are often less intent on holding certain rights so we’re generally able to reserve more for the author. Having said that, there are some small publishers who are inflexible on their terms because of their business model and that can be off putting for creators and/or agents.’ (agent)

‘I have found there has been more room to move in contract negotiations with larger publishers than small. The smaller the publisher, the more limited the budget, the less room there is to move with regards to money. But I have negotiated things like future writing work clauses, division of rights, and the number of copies I get.’ (author)

‘It’s not size but the company. For instance, taking two of our biggest publishers – one is very difficult to negotiate with and has a very hard-line approach, which is actually a disincentive to pitch to them at all, and another is always fair and reasonable to negotiate with – not a pushover, but you know you’ll get a straight answer. Many smaller publishers are great to negotiate with – they know their business and where they can bend, but a few use their small size to (wrongly) try to justify very poor terms for authors indeed.’ (agent)

[Read more…]

Writer Unboxed’s 4-Day, 4-Auction Auction ENDING SOON

May 11, 2019 By Writer Unboxed Leave a Comment

If you’ve been watching a favorite item in WU’s 4-Day, 4-Auction Auction, heads up!

Our auction ends tonight at 8 p.m. EST. Click through on the links below for a quick view of each of our auctions, and scroll down to comments to see our most recent bids. We are thrilled that we’ve been able to reach amounts that should bring a second scholarship winner a cash stipend, and we’re well on our way to funding a third scholarship winner’s stipend, too!

Help us to reach that goal? Thanks in advance for viewing, for sharing, and especially for bidding!

And if you’d like to help but through a donation alone, we are grateful for that, too! See Donation Options below.

Auction Links:

AUCTION 1: A beautiful art textile handcrafted by Deb Lacativa (our 2016 UnCon scholarship winner)

AUCTION 2: A bundle of whimsical prints made by Marta Pelrine-Bacon

AUCTION 3: A set of story-inspired Dragonbelly mugs crafted by Lisa Janice Cohen

AUCTION 4: An ad and ad post bundle for your novel or writing-related product on Writer Unboxed

Auction Rules:

Below are links to four auctions; click through to read all about them. If you’d like to bid, please do so in comments for that item’s post before 8 p.m. EST on May 11th. Serious bidders only, please. Payments over PayPal or Venmo are required within 48 hours of the auction’s close. If payment isn’t made within the 48-hour window, we’ll offer the item to the next highest bidder.

Donation Options:

1. Donate via our Eventbrite page. At the top of our Eventbrite page, you’ll see Registration Information/Registration Type. The fourth option is Donation to Scholarship. Note that Eventbrite will charge a fee for this transaction.

2. Donate via the Writer Unboxed PayPal account. Clearly note that your contribution is for the Scholarship. (We’ll send you a confirmation note after receiving. Know that a regular payment on PayPal will result in a fee, but a friend-to-friend transfer will not.)

Anyone who makes a donation to the scholarship account or ultimately wins one of these four auctions will be named in the WU UnConference Program, with our thanks.

Please bid and/or promote our auctions often and enthusiastically over social media. We truly appreciate your support and know the scholarship winners — who have yet to be named or informed — will also be grateful.

Good luck, and thank you!

What Teaching in Prison is Teaching Me

May 10, 2019 By David Corbett 40 Comments

Every Thursday from 5:30 to 7:00 PM I join author Kent Zimmerman in teaching a class on writing at the California Men’s Facility (CMF) in Vacaville, California.

We cover fiction, memoir, poetry, even screenplays—whatever the men submit. Most of the manuscripts show a need for basic grammar, spelling, and syntax skills, while a few are as accomplished in style as anything I get from students outside, with stories that hands-down, in subject matter if nothing else, beat most of what I’ve seen from MFA candidates.

As Joe Loya, himself an ex-con (he served eight years in federal stir for bank robbery, and is the author of The Man Who Outgrew His Prison Cell), once remarked: Every convict has at least one great story—the story of his arrest.

The most surprising element of the writing, though, across the board?

Honesty. The men in my class have highly tuned BS meters, and have little patience for self-serving piety or glad-handing, from each other or from Kent or me. It’s made me far more aware of when I’m holding something back, or shading something to make it sound more interesting or less offensive than it really is. And that in turn has taught me to listen more carefully, and not to judge.

That lack of judgment is important. The men don’t need me to judge them. They need me to listen and help them write better, period. Funny thing, though. In the process, we’ve build a genuine bond of respect, fondness, and mutual concern.

A little background: Kent’s a long veteran of teaching in prison. He and his twin brother, Keith, taught at San Quentin for nearly a decade before submitting a grant proposal to expand their program to other prisons. Just as this effort was bearing fruit, Keith’s Scottish wife desperately wanted to return home to Glasgow, and so Kent was suddenly not only deprived of his lifelong sidekick and co-writer (working together, they’ve written a number of books on the music business, Hells Angels, the Chicago mob, and more), he lacked someone to help him teach some of these now far-flung classes, ranging geographically from Folsom to Chowchilla, 150 miles apart. Vacaville’s not far from where I live, he asked if I’d like to come aboard, and I said yes.

That was two years ago. Some of the men in the class have moved on, either through release or transfer, including a car thief nicknamed Sideshow who wrote some of the funniest, craziest, most interesting stories it’s ever been my pleasure as a teacher to read.

Several others, especially a core group of particularly strong and insightful writers, remain. At least six of them are serving sentences for murder.

What can you learn from a murderer? [Read more…]

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