Tip: Write for Free Sometimes

Here's why: do you know the first thing a lot of publishing houses do when they get a book proposal? They Google the author. This is because they want to see how much the author is already out there, how much they are already working to be visible, how much they can help promote their own book. This is sometimes called the author's "platform," especially for nonfiction books. But publishers are extremely interested in this information for fiction books, too. Also, if the author is doing other kinds of writing, it enhances his or her professional credentials.

A great way to get mentions on Google or any search engine and to show that you are out there working is to do a little writing for free. I don't advocate making a habit of accepting no pay for your work just because you're "lucky" to get it out there, but there are still a lot of things you can do that don't take up too much of your time. Many online services and community newspapers and magazines are very eager for short work from good writers, but can't pay or can't pay much. For example, I used to do book reviews for the Sierra Club Bookstore website. I didn't get paid, but there was my writing, for a perfectly credible outfit, there online, and I could list the Sierra Club Bookstore as one of my freelance clients in my query letters. It didn't take that long either; I just had to read the book (most were quite interesting) and write a review of a couple of paragraphs.

The other nice result of this is that you will soon have a library of clips, and who knows what that can lead to? Possibly a specialty you are known for, or more lucrative writing jobs.

To get this kind of gig, search online for writing job opportunities (many of them are for no pay, surprise, surprise), and look at the small community publications and circulars in your area. You might want to familiarize yourself with info about how to pitch a story, especially for the community newspapers. When I get home I'll hunt up some of my journalism textbooks to see if any are helpful. And Writer's Market usually has some good info on this.

Good luck.

Meanwhile, I am leaving France tomorrow -- ah, California, home sweet home! Will try to blog again Tuesday. Signing off.

New Flash Fiction: "Black Cat"

[Not really sure what this is -- flash fiction? Prose poem? But as you all know I try not to get too hung up on definitions. Whatever it is, it's kind of growing on me. Running around werewolf country in France is definitely adding inspiration to these Halloween-inspired tidbits (although this one isn't particularly canine, more feline).]

Black Cat

Yeah, she was there with me.

Black cat, I said, come be by me, bad luck. Crouch by me, purr against my leg, why don’t you, Number Thirteen?

You and me roam the streets together, all gussied up in jewelry, rhinestone collars. We stand outside the walls of the temple, you and me, skirts too short, eyeing the passers-by, looking for trouble.

My skin has imperfections, moles, warts. Those are for you to suckle, familiar. You and me together. We know the score. We are what we are.

Callow boy passes. Got no idea what to do with two black cats. We’ll show him, won’t we, sister? Thinks he’s in charge, but that’s just what we want him to think.

Ready for a little fun?

We chase him down the blind alley, corner him at the dead end, by the overturned bowl of milk. We look in his eyes, we see his soul. We almost let him go. But we don’t. We’re hungry.

Pretty soon he’s our trouble, used up, thrown away. The way he did with those tabbies and calicos, those housecats who won’t have anything to do with us. Lucky for them, though, that we’re here.

They haul us in, accuse us. Oh, we’re guilty as sin. We did him for sure. But they can’t hold us (ever try to hold two black cats?) and we’re gone, slick beneath their fingers, slipping between their hands.

Tip: Go to Readings, It Helps

Enough of my musings, now, here's some practical info. Something that has been really helpful to me in my writing career is meeting other professional authors. This was particularly encouraging before I was a professional author. A good way to do this is to go to the readings that so many local bookstores, as well as the big chains, have.

Unless the author is a gigantic name, these are not usually packed -- sometimes the turnout is downright spindly. Authors are very pleased to have a few extra folks there, and you can usually ask questions both during the formal presentation (usually a reading and question-and-answer period) as well as by just going up to the author afterward.

Authors are in general very nice people who have gone through what you are going through now as you try to get published. I have never once experienced an author being snooty or annoyed or anything but pleased by my interest when I ask them about their work.

This doesn't mean the author will magically give you their agent's name and refer you to them. Honestly, they probably won't. But if you, say, mention that your writing is similar to theirs in some way, and ask, very nicely, if you might email them or write them to ask advice, they might say yes. You might run into them another time. You might notice who their agent is (remember the trick of looking in their acknowledgments?) and ask if they would recommend that person. You might begin to develop a small network of people in the field who know your name.

Of course, you always want to be polite, never over-demanding, and be willing to take no for an answer; people have different personalities, different wishes about privacy, and different fears about stalkers. But in my experience, most authors are pleased to have intelligent fans and happy to give a word or two of advice. And often they will give you a few words of encouragement to keep on trying. That, I found, can be worth a lot.

More on the Caves

So I want to articulate what I said last night (it was last night in the French Alps, anyway) a little better. The caves I went to were made by a group known as the Magdalenean culture, named after the place where their artifacts were found. But they're part of the group we call Cro-Magnon -- that is, homo sapiens sapiens, that is, us. (As opposed to Neanderthals.) Their average height was six feet. They were as completely evloved as we are. Their paintings (actually frescoes) and engravings were made about fifteen thousand years ago, and they used techniques not seen again until Michelangelo and Picasso. Really.

And only two percent of the art represents any kind of violence, which is something to remember this time of year, yes? We weren't always so divided.

We are literally all descended from groups like this, whether they were in Europe, Asia, or Africa fifteen thousand years ago (and of course they were in Africa, the birthplace of homo sapiens sapiens, from which we ALL spring, even before that). Just one of those things that brings home the point that we are all related in ways that run far more deep than any superficial differences.

So there.

I'm in France

Well! Have managed LAX, Frankfurt Airport. Geneva Airport, many Swiss and French trams, trains, and automobiles, and have now seen the caves at Font de Gaume (last cave paintings of the folks commonly known as Cro-Magnon man that are still open to the public), Combarelle (ditto, except these are cave engravings), and Lascaux (where the cave was ruined through tourism and had to be closed, so you can only see a replica). Mind blowing, as was the late-night effort to find a hotel room on the way to the French farmhouse where I am staying. My hostess swears that the name of the town where we finally found a place to sleep at 11 pm above a bar and cafe means "The Suspicious Room."

Surely a book must be written.

Now that I am safely settled in everyone's fantasy of a farmhouse in the French Alps (pear trees, walnuts, apples, tomatoes, grapes, homemade bread from the wood-fired bread oven, homemade ice cream, two huskies, a sheepdog, and two cats, one of them named Praline), I will be able to update more regularly.

But I want to leave with a closing thought -- if you can, see these caves! They are mind blowing, and they may not stay open forever, or even for much longer. You need to make reservations, make a trip of it. They open your eyes. These people were the same as us in every way -- emotional and mental capacity, technological inventiveness, artistic sensitivity. We all come from them, and they rocked!

New Flash Fiction: "Ghosts"

[But first -- this is my last posting before I leave for France tomorrow. Hope to be signing on again soon in a couple of days from a village in the Alps!]

Ghosts

The ghosts hang on the washing line, freshly laundered, drying in the night air, so they’ll smell like the moon. Clean again, like the three little kittens who lost their mittens. They ate pie, got blackberry jam on themselves, but their mother made them warm and dry again.

Later, ladies — weird, witchy sisters — will iron the ghosts, irons set on cool so the delicate fibers won’t melt, fold them up, put them in a drawer, away from your sight. The ladies hide them from you, the gossamer bits of ghost. So you peek over the fence into their yard, trying to catch the flutter from the clothespins with your eyes.

If they would just let you see them, when they take them newly awake again from the line, just one, irrefutably, for sure, really absolutely, so you know you saw one.

And then you would know that it is all real, that it all really happened, the Chronicles and Caspians of your childhood, the Tarans and the wanderers and the lions, the Harrys —

Go ahead and say it, why not? Magic.

Why won’t they show you? Why do they leave you twisting in the wind like a sheet, like Macbeth on the Heath?

Did you turn your head away? Don’t look now. They heard you. One of them is looking at you, her crooked finger beckoning. Go on. Make it real.

Tip: You Do Not Need One Big Chunk of Time to Get Writing Done

I often find that new writers and pre-publication writers are concerned about the amount of time they have in the day to write. Somehow the myth began to circulate hundreds or thousands of years ago that the only way to be able to write was to become somehow independently wealthy first so you could quit your job and devote eight hours a day to writing.

THIS IS NOT TRUE. First, most writers, even professional ones, can't write more than a few hours at a stretch. Second, as I learned in my experience as a journalist, it is amazing the amount of writing you can get done in an hour if you try. I wrote my first published book in one hour a day at a local cafe I went to before work every weekday morning. It took about a year.

Also, many writers, when faced with the prospect of hours and hours, or pages and pages of solid writing, just flat out panic. It actually helps to break things down into smaller chunks. Another thing to remember is that IT IS OKAY IF THIS WRITING IS AWFUL. It is just your first draft. You can revise it later. Do not get so concerned over making each individual sentence or plot element perfect now that you become paralyzed and can't move forward.

This is what I tell my students: If you can, write everyday for an hour. At the end of two weeks you will be amazed at what you have managed to put down. If you can't write for an hour, write for a half hour. Or twenty minutes. If you can't do it everyday, do it three times a week. Or even twice. Or once. The important thing is to make a habit of it.

Some people do better with quantity. Every day, write a page. If you can't write a page, write a paragraph. If you can't write a paragraph, write a sentence. And DON'T PANIC.

You will soon find that everytime you begin you will find it easier to snap more immediately into your writing state of mind.

Two books that are very helpful along these lines are Natalie Goldberg's "Writing Down the Bones" and Julia Cameron's "The Artist's Way." Some of you may find them a bit New Age, but many people have found both these books very helpful.

Loosen up and relax. Writing is supposed to be fun.