MAKE DREAMS COME TRUE
Isn't it time you made your writing dreams come true?
Several years ago I read this question and it has haunted me since. I love to write, have been published many times but for the past two-three years I have involved myself in volunteering and life matters that continue to crowd out fruitful writing time. My dreams of completing a novel has been reached but the revisions have slipped to the back burner, and finding an agent or publisher has become second banana in my life's schedule.
Making fiction writing dreams come true in today's market is not impossible but it sure is difficult. The success rate for me finding an agent is nil to impossible mainly because agents more and more want a tried-and-proven author to represent. Two self-published books, two newsletter columns, inclusion in seven recent anthologies, and hundreds of articles, essays, short stories and poems in print does not constitute a "name" as far as an agent is concerned. And, it doesn't always depend on how well we write as many of us know by the books that do make it into a bookstore. But we have to keep trying to get there.
If we write good fiction, we briefly place ourselves and our readers in lives other than our own. We experience the pleasure of the romantic story without the ups and downs of such a relationship. Without the terror, running through dark streets and dodging bullets, we can thrill to a mystery. We can give our characters the traits, the good looks, the perfect dialogue that we don't, and probably will never, have. The world we set these characters in can be an imaginary one or can be the streets of San Francisco, Paris, or Tatum, Texas. Even by doing all of this well, we are continually met with challenges.
As a writers who yearn for our work to be read, we must keep our story plots in motion, allow our readers to hear and see the characters as if they were real people, and show them through open eyes, the sense of smell, and feel of texture what the scene/setting is really like.
We authors must fill in the missing pieces, fluff up the descriptions, give a voice to our story people and figure out what is going to happen (and make it seem you knew it all along). Because you are not bound by the truth, you can allow your imagination to fly.
You, as well as I, will face rejection. Many of them before we see our work in print. Rejections do not turn your dreams into nightmares unless we allow them to. We must be able to accept them and go on. Having our work rejected is not the end of our writing life. It is merely a delay in the dream of being a published writer.
++++
Write about a new character you would like to place into a unique setting; write the first scene you hope will hook your readers into the next 250 pages.
Several years ago I read this question and it has haunted me since. I love to write, have been published many times but for the past two-three years I have involved myself in volunteering and life matters that continue to crowd out fruitful writing time. My dreams of completing a novel has been reached but the revisions have slipped to the back burner, and finding an agent or publisher has become second banana in my life's schedule.
Making fiction writing dreams come true in today's market is not impossible but it sure is difficult. The success rate for me finding an agent is nil to impossible mainly because agents more and more want a tried-and-proven author to represent. Two self-published books, two newsletter columns, inclusion in seven recent anthologies, and hundreds of articles, essays, short stories and poems in print does not constitute a "name" as far as an agent is concerned. And, it doesn't always depend on how well we write as many of us know by the books that do make it into a bookstore. But we have to keep trying to get there.
If we write good fiction, we briefly place ourselves and our readers in lives other than our own. We experience the pleasure of the romantic story without the ups and downs of such a relationship. Without the terror, running through dark streets and dodging bullets, we can thrill to a mystery. We can give our characters the traits, the good looks, the perfect dialogue that we don't, and probably will never, have. The world we set these characters in can be an imaginary one or can be the streets of San Francisco, Paris, or Tatum, Texas. Even by doing all of this well, we are continually met with challenges.
As a writers who yearn for our work to be read, we must keep our story plots in motion, allow our readers to hear and see the characters as if they were real people, and show them through open eyes, the sense of smell, and feel of texture what the scene/setting is really like.
We authors must fill in the missing pieces, fluff up the descriptions, give a voice to our story people and figure out what is going to happen (and make it seem you knew it all along). Because you are not bound by the truth, you can allow your imagination to fly.
You, as well as I, will face rejection. Many of them before we see our work in print. Rejections do not turn your dreams into nightmares unless we allow them to. We must be able to accept them and go on. Having our work rejected is not the end of our writing life. It is merely a delay in the dream of being a published writer.
++++
Write about a new character you would like to place into a unique setting; write the first scene you hope will hook your readers into the next 250 pages.
posted by Barb | 2:55 PM
1 Comments:
It's definitely time we made our writing dreams come true! And I keep wondering what will happen to these agents who only want to deal with "name" authors when those authors are gone. Do they never think about the future?
Somewhere some of them will have to take a chance on a few of us "unknowns" or someday they won't have anyone to represent.
I think of how the Western genre has really died along with Louis L'Amour because none of the publishers would encourage any of the younger writers coming on. Scary business.
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