"Tricks" of the trade

I'd like to thank the organizers, volunteers, vendors, and readers at the Kansas Book Fesitval. My only regret is that I wasn't there for Friday and its 4,000 school kids.

Also, over the weekend, I found two articles/posts online that mirror a lot of my own thoughts about writing and, specifically, the nature of being a professional writer.

As Diana Peterfreund writes on her blog, unagented writers frequently ask me how I found an agent.

My response is always the truth: I wrote and rewrote until I had a book worth publishing, then I researched agents, followed their submission guidelines, and Kristin Nelson loved my work enough to want to represent me.

That's it. The whole story.

And something about that story causes people to look at me like I'm crazy. Or a liar. Or probably a crazy liar.

So what will it take to make these people believe me? Really. I'm asking.

I’m sometimes tempted to say, "Of course I printed my cover letter on hot pink paper--you know agents only take you seriously if you use hot pink!"

But there is a "trick", and I give it in my initial response: write a book someone will want to publish. Do that, and you'll find an agent who is ready to sell it.

(Picture Ally ducking to dodge all the "who do you think you are up on your high horse" emails and comments.)

Yes. It's harsh.

Yes. I've written and deleted this post twice now because I know people are going to get mad.

But the guys who wrote Pirates of the Caribbean once said that “asking a successful writer how to get an agent is like a going to Pete Rose baseball camp and asking where he bought his glove.”

The point? The product is what matters. If your goal is to hit baseballs, work on your swing. If you want to play in the NBA, shoot free throws. If your goal is to be a working writer, you write.

Once you write something good enough, (ducking again) agents and editors will follow.

Maybe you just haven't queried the right agent yet.

Maybe you’re writing in a market that simply doesn’t have a lot of commercial potential which equals a smaller pool.

Maybe you’re still writing your dirty water books (my phrase for the words that come when you haven't let the water run through the hose long enough--at first you get dirty water.)

How do you get to the clean water? You let it run. You write.

I know pink paper is easier. But trust me, the hard part is writing that good book to begin with.

The really hard part is to keep writing them.

The other article I loved is this The Six Habits of Highly Effective Screenwriters. Every writer should go read it in my opinion.

I probably should have saved my time (and yours) and just posted these two excerpts instead.

• …Too many beginners focus only on how to write a script without bothering to learn what it takes to BE a screenwriter. They believe writing a script is easy and only dream of that million-dollar sale. All they have to do is get the right software, attend the right classes, read a couple books and bingo! they're set for a six-figure development deal.

• You'd be amazed how many writers want to sell their script for a million dollars, but they still haven't written it. They keep going from conference to conference, attending seminars and buying books without actually writing anything that closely resembles a finished, professional screenplay.

If you want an agent, you write. If you want to be published, you write. If you want a six figure deal, you write.

And sometimes it isn’t fun.

But it you want to be a writer…

You write.