#IWSG: A Plan for the New Year

Purpose: To share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds!

Posting: The first Wednesday of every month is officially Insecure Writer’s Support Group day. Post your thoughts on your own blog. Talk about your doubts and the fears you have conquered. Discuss your struggles and triumphs. Offer a word of encouragement for others who are struggling. Visit others in the group and connect with your fellow writer - aim for a dozen new people each time - and return comments. This group is all about connecting!

Twitter handle is @TheIWSG and hashtag is #IWSG.

The awesome co-hosts for the January 3 posting of the IWSG are Tyrean Martinson, Ellen @ The Cynical Sailor, Megan Morgan, Jennifer Lane, and Rachna Chhabria!

Click here to view everyone in the Blog Hop.

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Thank you for dropping in for this month's Insecure Writer's Support Group post from a member of the Pee Dee Writers! Today, we will hear from Jason J. McCuiston.

The optional question for January: What steps have you taken or plan to take to put a schedule in place for your writing and publishing?

Let's see what Jason has to say...

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A Plan for the New Year

So now is the time when everyone is making plans for their New Year's Resolutions: "I'm going to lost 50 lbs." and "I'm going to quit smoking." and "I'm going to be nicer to people!" You know, that sort of thing. All of those are perfectly good and noble objectives for the upcoming year, but what I want to discuss is "What are you going to do to get published in 2018?"

Chances are, you are working on a novel or two; maybe a short story is sitting on the back burner while you are running a poem through your head. But if you are reading this, you are a writer. Now let’s work on making you an author!

Short Stories: I currently have somewhere in the neighborhood of a dozen unpublished short stories sitting on my desktop. Now, the great thing about short stories is that they are easier to get published than novels – you just have to keep sending them out to editors until they sell. The downside is, the rejections can come fast and furious and always seem to land when you’re already having a crappy day. But hey, that’s life. And, I digress.

If you want to publish short stories (and poetry), you should be able to find several Facebook groups to join that will announce open calls and submission windows for specific publications. I belong to Open Call: Science Fiction, Fantasy & Pulp Markets and Open Call: For the Love of Horror. There are probably other genre groups for Romance, Literary, etc. I imagine that there are groups similarly organized for non-fiction freelance writers, as well. The great thing about these groups is that they will usually give you a heads-up about any upcoming anthologies as well as regular publications like podcasts, magazines, and e-zines.

So here’s the thing, write as many short stories as you can, polish them up, and send them out. Make a spread sheet so you can track which stories you have submitted to which publications – it is a faux pas to have an editor reject the same story twice in a calendar year! When a rejection comes in (and they will), just send the story out to the next market on your list, and try not to think about it until it comes back. If you don’t have any short stories, try to write one – or ten. Or, look at any of the chapters in your novel manuscript that could stand alone as a story (if you are constructing your chapters correctly, a lot of them will fit the bill), and give one or two of them a spin. This could actually help get your foot in the door when you are ready to publish the novel. Which brings me to...

Novels: I cannot speak to the process of self-publishing, but I’m sure there is a lot of information about that process out there (Jenna Moreci has several vlogs on her YouTube channel on this topic), including classes available at Writer’s Digest University. I have, however, made a run at traditional publishing – an unsuccessful run as yet.

Here’s the process:

1) Write the best novel that you can.

2) Rewrite said novel.

3) Get someone you trust and who might be actually interested in said novel to read it and tell you the truth about it.

4) Pout, then get on with making the necessary revisions.

5) Get a group of strangers to read said revised book (the Beta Readers).

6) Fume, then take their feedback and revise yet again.

7) Get a professional editor if you have problems with grammar, spelling, etc.

8) Write a fantastic query letter – basically jacket-copy on steroids plus a brief bio that focuses on your expertise and/or publishing credits. Also, write a synopsis, keeping it short and sweet – no more than 3-5 pages.

9) Use the internet to “stalk” potential literary agents and research their agencies. This is vital; you do not want to use the “spray and pray” approach when submitting your query letter to agents; these people know each other and will talk. (Two of my favorite websites for finding out what agents are looking for are http://mswishlist.com/ and http://www.manuscriptwishlist.com/ )

10) Make a list of the top twenty agents you would like to represent your beloved novel, and submit to them – following the EXACT method indicated on their agency website – three or four at a time.

11) Rinse and repeat.

Eventually you will get a request for the entire manuscript, and then hopefully a call to offer representation. Do not make the same mistakes I made; you should be prepared to ask at least some of these questions:

1) What drew you to my story?

2) To which publishers/editors do you plan to submit?

3) Do you recommend any revisions or changes prior to submission?

4) How involved are you in such revisions?

And most importantly, you should expect a written contract; do not accept a “verbal handshake” type of agreement.

And that’s it. Pretty much. You still have to write. And read about writing. And read stories in your preferred genre. And read stories outside of your preferred genre. And take courses on writing and the publishing industry. And go to writing groups and conferences for feedback and encouragement. And – here’s the hard part - resist the urge to go on Facebook and Twitter every five minutes that you could be and should be writing.

All that being said, here’s my plan for 2018: I have nine stories waiting in the wings to fly out to editors between now and early March. I have three novel manuscripts that need at least a little revision, and two partials that need a lot – all of which I will be working on throughout the upcoming year. There are at least two webinars at Writer’s Digest University I want to take in the coming months, and I plan on going to my first writer’s conference this year. I would also like to start attending regular meetings with this group. And, I have one agent with whom I will be having words in the next week or so, which will doubtless predicate the search for a new one.

And so the New Year begins. Let’s make it a grand one.

Jason was born in the wilds of southeast Tennessee, where he was raised on a healthy diet of old horror movies (both classic and of the B variety), westerns and war movies,comic books and old pulp magazines, sci-fi and fantasy novels, and, yes, Dungeons & Dragons. He now resides in the Pee Dee.

Jason's story, “The Wyvern” can be found in Pole to Pole Publishing’s new anthology, Dark Luminous Wings. His first published story, “The Last Red Lantern” (which was a semi-finalist in 2016’s the L.Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest) can be found in Parsec Ink’s Triangulation:Appetites anthology.

#IWSG #writer #goals #writing