Tualla - A primer for beginning authors

A Primer

For

Beginning

Authors

What you don'tknow

that you don'tknow.

Kris Tualla

SmashwordsEdition

Published in the UnitedStates of America.

2010, 2012 by KrisTualla

All rights reserved. No partof this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means withoutthe prior written consent of the Publisher, except for brief quotesused in reviews.

Goodnight Publishing and itsLogo are Registered Trademarks.

Cover photo by Jon-PaulTualla.

ISBN-10: 1450527310

EAN-13: 978145052731

By Kris Tualla:

A Woman of Choice

A Prince of Norway

A Matter of Principle

Loving the Norseman

Loving the Knight

A Discreet Gentleman ofDiscovery

A Discreet Gentleman ofMatrimony

A Discreet Gentleman ofConsequence

Leaving Norway

Finding Sovereignty

*****

A Primer for BeginningAuthors

Becoming an Authorpreneur

With much love and appreciation tomy husband of over three decades, who has supported me without failon my new journey.

There would be no food, no cleanclothes, nor a clean house without his unending and cheerfulefforts.

LESSONS:

Why should you listen to me?

Awarning for the faint of heart.

Start writing - and don't stop!

What is your genre?

Plotter or Pantser?

Research Learn it, then hide it.

Word count is ALL that counts.

They're using their best grammar there.

But I don't wanna go to school

10 Workshops, seminars, conferences - ohmy!

The Author's "Three Rs"!

Why are you writing a book?

Love me, love me; please say you love me!

Facing down the dreaded synopsis.

A requested submission! What do I do now?

Make your submission the best it can be.

Rejections? Get more chocolate! Stat!

What to do while you're waiting

Time to put on your "public" face .

Facebook and Twitter

Blogging: Written and video

Book trailers & Google alerts

Personal appearances - yes, you!

Some final nuggets of random wisdom.

LESSON 1:

Why should you listen tome?

Before we get going, I should explainwhat makes me an expert in how to start a writing career. Mycredentials: I started a writing career. And I clearly remember theday I turned down the path of this insanity.

My husband and I were onvacation in August of 2006. We spent the week surrounded bybeautiful scenery, good food, and sleeping without setting analarm. Summer lightning flitted no, make that taunted the surrounding mountainsand thunder grumbled back (good) tossing warm, gentle drops in concession. And inthe midst of that muzzy sense of well-being, the result ofcompletely removing oneself from all responsibility both physicallyand mentally, I turned to my beloved husband of almost thirty yearsat the time and said, "I think Ill write a romancenovel."

My poor sweet husband, ignorant of themagnitude of what he was about to unleash, simply said,"Good."

Let the insanity reign.

It was obvious that my first officialstep from reality would be to buy a laptop computer. I pushed theknowledge of my long-standing desire for one from my consciousthoughts and claimed that only I needed it to write my book. So offI went, returning with a simple, lightweight model that wasreasonably priced. Step one, accomplished.

Now, I needed a story. For years, Ihave written scenes in my mind, agonizing over word choices thatwould succinctly express the core of what I envisioned. One scenethat I found fascinating, was the idea of a woman waking up in aroom she didn't recognize, beaten from head to toe, and not knowingwhat happened to her or even who she was. Awesome!

Nave and blissfully optimistic a.k.a. the second step into the abyss I had no idea aboutclichs, popular settings, or marketable time periods. I just knewthat I wanted to find out who this gal was and what happened to herbefore, and after, she woke up in such a bad state. And boy, did Ifind out! Once prompted, the woman, her rescuer, his best friend,his son, his dead wife, his conniving sister-in-law, hishousekeeper, the womans betraying husband, his lover, and thecomplicated situations therein, vomited forth.

Yes, vomited. I couldn'tget the words down on the page fast enough. This wouldn't normallybe a problem, except I never paid attention in typing class so Iuse a highly advanced method of hunt and peck. In spite of that, Icompleted my first 100,000 word manuscript in 10 weeks; at 250words per printed page, that equals a 400-page mass-marketpaperback book. In my navet I thought, "Gee. That wasn't sohard." What I didn't yet know was that I had made every commonfirst-timer's mistake, and inspades . (One of those mistakes is usingclichs, by the way.)

Did I mention that I had a full-timejob? Every day from 7:00am until 4:00pm I was committed to beingsomewhere and doing something that had nothing to do with my recentdescent into madness. A madness, which by now had revealed thatthis first story (which takes place from 1819-1822 and spans twocontinents) would take three full-length novels tocomplete!

Insane? Why, yes I am. Thank you fornoticing. How many hours a week? At first I averaged thirty,outside my job. Once I retired from that job in 2009, it's morelike seventy. No, I dont cook. Or clean. Or do laundry. Or groceryshop. My sweet, patient husband does all of that.

I sit in the den, either writing on mylaptop, or doing everything else that a successful writing careerrequires on my desktop computer, and listen to the voices in myhead. I see my characters' lives. I laugh when they laugh, I crywhen they cry. They are as real to me as the friends I meet forcoffee every Friday. I believe that qualifies me ascertifiable.

And when I began, I had no idea whatto do next.

Over subsequent years Ipieced together what to do next, and the result is the book you nowhold in your hands. I hope you'll find it useful. Rememberthis: it doesn't matter what genre offiction you write, the process is going to be the same.

Happy insanity to you!

LESSON 2:

A warning for the faint ofheart

When I told my friends andacquaintances that I had decided to try my hand at writing a novel,I got two responses. The first response, which I expected, involvedquestions about the story itself: "What's it about? When does ittake place? What happens?"

The second response took mecompletely by surprise: "Really? I wrote/am writing a book, too!"The next logical step was to read each other's manuscripts. Thatwas seriously scary! It was immediately apparent that we all needed to learn moreabout current fiction-publishing guidelines.

And let me be very clearabout this: publishing guidelines arechanging all the time.

What sold just five yearsago might not sell now. Diana Gabaldon's Outlander - the shortest book in herplanned 9-book series - was published in 1991 and weighs in atabout 300,000 words. To contrast my experience: in 2008 I sat downwith an editor from Dorchester Publishing (now defunct) whose firstquestion was, "How many words? I won't look at anything over90,000." And she meant it. She never even asked what my bookwas about . Justtold me to make it shorter. Ouch.

I took a deep breath,forced a smile, and walked away. Either I was going to do this orquit. One thing was clear: trying to getpublished is NOT the place to build self-esteem! If you can't handle criticism, quit now. You mustbe able to listen to someone tell you what they don't like aboutyour plot/ characters/scenes, etc. And you must do so without 1)interrupting, or 2) mentally crafting reasons why theirobservations are wrong. Because they are probably right. You havemore to learn than you can fathom.

Realizing all of that, Iwrapped my ego in a soft fuzzy blanket, gave it a glass of wine anda huge chunk of chocolate, and locked it in a cupboard. It can'tcome out or it will be battered and beaten to death. This processis brutal; I can't emphasize that enough. You'll bare your soulthrough the written word and multiple people will tell youeverything you did wrong. In excruciating detail. Brutal.