Sonja Foust, Romance Author

Part 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

So after joining RWA, I realized how much I seriously, seriously didn’t know. My critique group pointed out all the flaws I never saw (which was great except that I was, you know, devastated that I’m not, like, perfect or something). I learned all kinds of stuff about what the market looks for and why my stuff isn’t it. I learned how to “target” a book toward a specific line and why that’s a good idea (supposedly… but I’ll get to that).

I decided my stuff wasn’t good enough for the Golden Heart contest. (It’s not.) I decided it really probably wasn’t good enough to keep sending around to editors. (It probably wasn’t.) So I quit for a while and started on a new project.

I’d love to tell you that after I finished that first book during NaNoWriMo, all subsequent books were a snap. They weren’t. In fact, since then (almost 2 years ago now), I’ve only completed one more full manuscript. It’s hard, people, and I don’t see it getting easier anytime soon. But I’m not whining. Writing a book is not supposed to be easy. If it were easy, everyone would do it. If it were easy, I wouldn’t jump up and down and scream and drink 8 celebration martinis every time I finish one. If it were easy, I wouldn’t care if my manuscripts ever saw the light of day. If it were easy, I wouldn’t get such a kick out of saying, “I’m a romance novelist.”

Anyway, I’d like to leave you with a few tips for beginning novelists (romance or otherwise) and then finish with a little happily ever after, because that’s what romance readers want to hear! So here are the tips:

1. Write what you love. Don’t write for the market. Don’t target. I know some people say it’s a good idea, but I can’t work like that. Especially on your first book, write about what you love. It will be better that way, I promise.
2. If you don’t know what you love, take some time to figure it out. If you get part-way into a book and don’t love it, it’s ok to stop and start again. Sometimes it takes a few false starts.
3. Write an entire book before you start pitching around to editors and agents, if it’s your first attempt. (I’m on my second attempt and don’t feel comfortable pitching without an entire book ready to send. I probably won’t on my third attempt either. I don’t know how long it takes to get there.)
4. Make a schedule with deadlines and keep working on a project always. Don’t wait around for people to get back to you. Push ahead.
5. Get a website! Believe it or not, agents and editors actually do look at them. I’ve heard of cases where an editor/agent rejected a manuscript that a writer sent in, but then asked to see a different one that was listed on the writer’s website. That’s why I keep a list of completed and in progress books as well as a list of “proposals,” which are really just blurbs of ideas for books I haven’t had time to write yet, but will eventually. Usually only published authors get to work from proposals (the lucky dogs), but it can’t hurt to have a few floating around, just in case.
6. Have a Bad Day project. I’m moody, I admit. This is the reason I keep a Bad Day manuscript around to work on when I’m just not in a Happily Ever After mood. I may never finish it, and even if I do, I’m willing to bet no one will publish it (at least not any romance line), but at least I’m working, even when I can’t squeeze out any rainbows. And who knows? Maybe when it’s done, I will have written the next Catcher in the Rye. Mother would be so proud.

Those are all my beautiful pearls of wisdom. And now here’s the happy ending: I did indeed finish my second full manuscript just this month. It’s better than the first manuscript, and all those manuscripts I started and never finished helped me get there. None of them were a waste of time or effort. My second manuscript is out to an editor and an agent at the moment, and while I’m waiting to hear back from them, I’m working on a new project: my NaNoWriMo 2006 book! Look out world, here I come. Maybe it’s not happily ever after yet, but it’s happily right now, and that’s good enough for real life, isn’t it?

Technorati tags: Writing

Bonus post because I’m busy procrastinating. Hahaha.

Also, random thought: Know why Billy Joel is awesome? Because he knows his woman is a moody biatch who can’t carry a conversation in a bag, but she’s still always a woman to him and he wants her just the way she is.

(idea stolen from the long long comments section of one of Kiba’s blogs, which is Friends Only so I won’t even bother posting a link)

In no particular order:

1. Jane Eyre. Just because. She’s boring. Shut up.
2. Holden from The Catcher in the Rye. Alternately, he makes me want to slit my wrists. But punching him in the face would be more fun. And less hazardous to my health.
3. That guy from Brave New World. Yech.
4. Ishmael. Why does he think we care about how one slaughters a whale? Whyyyyy?
5. Beth March. She’s just too freakin’ nice. I think Jo should punch her in the face. But, like, you know, before she’s on her deathbed. Because it’s not really nice to punch people in the face when they’re already dying.
6. Roxane. Come on you stupid broad, can’t you figure out that Christian = dumb as a brick?
7. Edward. Okay, rat on your poor little sister for Turkish delight, but then don’t get all pissy when the ice queen turns out to be not-so-nice.
8. Nan from The Nanny Diaries. Whine whine whine. Judge judge judge. Then sit on your thumbs while you get kicked around and end up doing nothing, NOTHING to make the world a better place in the end. Ugh.
9. The dude from A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. Shut up shut up shut up! (That’s not to say I didn’t like the book. I did. But I can still Not Like the narrator.)
10. Piggy, from Lord of the Flies. But that might just be because everyone else in that book wanted to punch him in the face too, and I’m all about the mob mentality.

Part 1 | 2 | 3

So, after I wrote my first novel, I thought, “What the heck do I do with this thing?” And Google jumped to my rescue, as always. I can’t remember what exactly I Googled for, but I had a vague idea that I was going to have to find an agent or something in order to get published and knew it would be helpful to have some local support. In any case, I stumbled upon the Heart of Carolina Romance Writers and the Romance Writers of America.

I wandered through both websites, gleaning whatever I could. At first, I thought I’d just join so I could enter the Golden Heart contest. It looked like the Golden Heart was my golden ticket to being published. “Ha!” I thought. “I’ll just enter that contest, win it, and agents and editors will be banging down my door. But first I have to join. Grumblegrumble.” So I forked over the big bucks and even decided to join my local chapter. But first, I attended a meeting and learned a whooooole lot more that I thought I would.

Yep, I took a huge step out of my comfort zone and went to a romance writer meeting. And you know what? Everyone was super friendly. And normal-looking. I don’t know, I guess I thought they’d all look like the glamour shots on the back of their books and I was a leeeetle intimidated by that. But they all looked surprisingly like me and I immediately felt better. The first speaker I heard was Claudia Dain, who spoke on author relationships with agents and editors and professionalism in the business. Yep, writing is a business. That was lesson number one. And I learned so much that I didn’t hesitate to join after that. It was the best decision of my writing career thus far.

So my advice to budding authors: If you’re a romance writer, join RWA and your local chapter now. If you’re not a romance writer, consider joining anyway just because we’re so much fun, OR you could, you know, find another local group to join. Writing is a tough business (yep, go ahead and start thinking of it as a business), and you can use all the help you can get.

Joining a group also made me realize how much I didn’t know, though. Right away, I joined a critique group and got overloaded with agent lists, writing rules, ins and outs of publishing, sub-genre classification, market trends, and a whole slew of information I never even knew was out there. Here’s my one word of warning about joining a writing group: Your confidence (unless you’re a better person than I) will take a hit. Roll with the punches. I wish I’d learned that earlier.

Continued tomorrow, wherein I bemoan my low self-esteem phase but end with a Happily Ever After… at least until my next mood swing.

Last Year In The Life Of Sonja: Purity Test

Technorati tags: Writing, Romance Writers of America

See Part 1 and Part 2.

For Alana: Romance novels are eeeeeaaassy (well, the heroines usually are, anyway) and, plus, the fairies helped. (I totally have fairies. What? You don’t?)

More on how I finished my first novel (a sidetrack from talking about RWA, per Kimmy’s request):

I never could have done it without NaNoWriMo. Seriously. I stole all the wordcount spreadsheets. I joined all the chatrooms. I commented in the forums. I was in it, man. Those other novel-writing crazy fiends (otherwise known as fairies, maybe?) were my ultimate support group. So, here’s some of the stuff I posted in the forums that should give you a look into my process:

1. “Show, don’t tell” is one of those phrases English teachers beat into our heads that works well in some instances but sometimes has to be relearned. You will piss your reader off if you pussyfoot around every single issue in the name of showing not telling. Really, I’m not sure how you’d tell a story from childhood without just TELLING it unless you did a flashback scene, which can take some time and sometimes messes up the flow of the story. Your readers want to get to the meat of the story too. That’s the fun part. That’s why the Star Wars Trilogy 4-6 kicks 1-3’s ass. (Yeah, I’m a geek. Bite me.) So just go with your gut and write what you’d want to read! Good luck!

2. If you’re coming to the climax too soon, just bite yourself and don’t.

3. Well, I’ll give you an outliner’s point of view. I’m a hyper-outliner. I outline until I can outline no more. Don’t let people tell you outlining is a bad idea. Do what works for you. I personally can’t write a word if I don’t know where I’m going.

My basic outlining style is to create scene sheets. I’m about halfway through with my scene sheets, but have the basic idea of where the other scenes will go already roughly planned. You’ll see lots of scene sheets in my outline. Then I stick to those sheets unless inspiration hits. Key: You can always change your outlines, but it’s better to at least have a starting point if you’re having trouble getting going.

Hope that helps!

[Another note: I don't do scene sheets anymore. It takes too long and I'm lazy. But on the last book that I actually, you know, finished, I did do a scene-by-scene outline.]

4. Whatever you decide, be sure to keep the plot moving forward! If it’s extraneous to the plot or character’s development, leave it out. I know that’s not what you want to hear when word counts are you main goal, but it will be easier to move the plot forward in the long run and get to your word count goal if you keep the plot moving now.

5. Outline, outline, outline. It sounds boring and a lot less fun than writing by the seat of your pants, but I swear to you that I have the exact same problem [of starting 6 different novels and quitting after 2 pages] if I don’t outline. Develop your entire plot before you start. Know your characters. Leave some space for new ideas, of course, and don’t be particularly TIED to your outline, but at least have one. It takes more time at the beginning, but saves you starting over 6 times. Good luck!

Go forth and Novel.

Tomorrow: All about RWA and a mysterious gold heart thing, I promise.

Last Year In The Life Of Sonja: Yet More Movie Reviews

Technorati tags: Writing, National Novel Writing Month

First, read Part 1.

So I set off to become rich and famous. I read about a billion romance novels of all genres. I broke them down and made plot charts of them. I counted the number of pages in each chapter. I measured the pacing. I looked for patterns. And then, a few months later, I decided it was time to write one. So I tried. And got about 3 chapters in. And quit. It sucked. So I started over. And got about 3 chapters in. And quit. That one sucked too.

Coincidentally, this was about the time I discovered National Novel Writing Month. “Aha!” I thought. If I have a deadline, I will finish a book. So I decided that this time I’d actually, you know, have a plot in mind before I started and stuff, and so I wrote a book in November 2004. A whole book. Well, a 50,000 word book, which it turns out is more of a novella. But still. I lived and breathed that book for 30 days. More, in fact, because I was thinking about it for like a month before I wrote it. I outlined half of it before I started, and the other half while I was writing. I dreamed about it. I almost drove myself crazy. Well, except you can’t drive yourself crazy if you’re already there. But anyway.

I finished the book in 30 days. And then I thought, “What the heck do I do with this thing?”

That’s when I discovered the Romance Writers of America.

Continued tomorrow…

Last Year In The Life Of Sonja: Newest Family Member

Technorati tags: Writing, National Novel Writing Month