The meditations of G.B. Lindsey

I just bought this: How to Write a Book Proposal

The story of how I got my agent is pretty unusual. I was straight out of my Masters degree, and feeling for the first time that actually selling what I wanted to write was possible.

(I went abroad and into some niiiiice debt for my degree. I love ya, America, but sometimes your educational system gets really snobby about what is acceptable reading fodder. The Great American Novel is not actually what everyone wants to read, ye ken? It's not actually the highest selling genre either, and it doesn't make you an amazing writer just because you wrote it. Thanks for brainwashing and demoralizing writer-hopefuls for years, but it's time to end that shit. You know how people always go, "But what are you going to DO with your writing degree?" It's time we all start answering, "Well, I am going to WRITE." /rocketscience)

ANYWAY. I first spoke to my agent because I was suddenly optimistic! OMG, you mean people will actually buy my romance and horror? I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS. I turned to a friend and writing buddy, diana_copland, and with much apology and profuse promises that I wouldn't poach her agent, I asked Diana if she could get me in touch with said agent so I could grill her about the publishing industry.

Saritza Hernandez, kind soul that she is, let me yammer at her for a good hour with all my "HOW" and "WHATSIT" and "WHEN" and "WHEREFORE" and "I LIKE WRITING SLASH" and "AND SOMETIMES ALSO THE HORROR KIND". She answered everything in great detail, thereby making me even more optimistic. She put it within reach, which for years I had been taught to believe was a pipe dream.

She asked what I was working on.

I said I had a second-person POV male/male romance short story.

She said, "Diana highly recommends your writing."

I blubbered around a bit and probably made little sense but I know I said thank you.

She said, "I'm not accepting submissions right now, but why don't you send me the story anyway?"

Look, I get it. I get that I did not match up with my agent in the usual way. And I REALLY get it now, when I find that I have no experience writing a pitch. Point in fact, I'm about to start pitching my next project as a thriller series, and I'm like, shitshitshit, synopsis, is this a good synopsis? What the hell do you mean, 1-2 pages? Effing log lines, IT'S ONLY ONE LINE HOW CAN IT BE STOMPING ON MY HEAD LIKE GODZILLA? But I like all my characters, I can't just describe two! How does this make no sense to you?? It makes perfect sense, you just have to read the novel!!

Hence, the purchase.

My match with my agent was primarily through networking. A very important part of marketing, that, and one that I still have to practice. But I unknowingly sidestepped so many horror stories: authors who went through four agents, authors whose book deals folded right at publishing, authors who got scammed out of their burgeoning baby manuscripts. Looking back, it's frightening: I never saw what I was being spared. Complete fool's luck. I count myself extremely lucky and privileged to have found Saritza the way I did.

Now I have to pick up the slack of my good fortune. Buckle down. Learn a thing or sixty.

But hey, maybe this research will balance out the file the NSA has, documenting all my inquiries into scalpels, landmines, plagues, psychoses, handguns, the FDA, and the city of San Francisco. >_>

Come by! Enter to win prizes!


June 23rd:
Ramblings of a Dreamy Writer ~~~ My Fiction Nook ~~~ The Hat Party

June 24th:
Kimi Chan ~~~ Amanda C. Stone

June 25th:
Prism Book Alliance ~~~ Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words

June 26th:
Cate Ashwood ~~~ Parker Williams

June 27th:
MM Good Books ~~~ Crystal Many Reviewers

June 28th:
The Blogger Girls

Greetings! The fourth newsletter is bigger stakes because…

THE COVER IS HERE. O.o

I present to you:
One Door Closes, the cover reveal at Prism Book Alliance

Want to win a free copy of the entire Secrets of Neverwood anthology when it comes out? Hop on over to the above link and enter toward the bottom to win! While you’re there, check out the excerpt from One Door Closes and the audio reading of the first ten minutes.

As if that cover isn’t scrumptious enough…

Book Two cover reveal: The Growing Season
• Come see the Anthology cover design, as well as the reveal of Part Two of the Secrets of Neverwood with author Diana Copland. Enter to win a copy of the anthology upon release!

Book Three cover reveal: The Lost Year
• Author Libby Drew talks about the brainstorming of Neverwood, the house where our main characters grew up, and offers the chance to win a copy of the full anthology!

Additionally, all three books plus the Anthology cover are now up on my brand spankin’ new website.


COMING SOON...

The official blog tour, courtesy of the lovely and talented Pride Promotions. This blog tour will include stop-offs on a list of blogs, featuring reviews of the book, interviews with me, and excerpts from the text. Please come by and join the fun!

Check out the first ten minutes of One Door Closes, read aloud!

One Door Closes (sample reading)

Welcome to the first ever newsletter update on the works and publications of

G.B. LINDSEY!



Top Four Ways to Stalk Grete

TWITTER: @GBLindsey
(Being a Twit is so much fun…)

BLOG: http://gb_lindsey.livejournal.com
(Where I expound upon writing and life.)

FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/lindseywords
(Click! Like! Oh my god, it’s like you’re in my bushes!)

AGENCY PAGE: http://www.corvisieroagency.com/GB_Lindsey.html



News on The Project!

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am thrilled to announce that my first book has been sold to Carina Press and is (tentatively) scheduled for release in June 2014!

(Please excuse me while I perform an interesting interpretation of the happy dance.)

This book is a contemporary romance. That said…

1. No bodices were harmed in the production of this novella.
2. There are no pirates acquiring high-born ladies or gentlemen in questionable ways.
3. There is no swashbuckling at all unless you count the irresponsible wielding of a set of house keys, but on the upside…
4. There is no eventual surrender to Stockholm syndrome by way of the nearest silken bower. Silver lining, thar ye be.

What there is: a young gay man who must juggle saving a house, gaining a family, and falling back in love.

When Calvin Ware's foster mother Audrey passes away and gifts him her ramshackle Victorian mansion, he figures he's got his hands full. He doesn't count on having to share the place with two of his foster brothers, and he certainly never meant to come face to face with the high school boyfriend he left behind a decade ago. But when unexpected demons from Calvin's past threaten his new home and his mother’s legacy, Calvin must decide just how important family really is, and how he chooses to define it.

The novella title is still unconfirmed, but the real carrot is that my story is just the first in a trilogy! The following two novellas are being written by my wonderful co-writers Diana Copland and Libby Drew, each telling the story of a different brother.

For those who are unfamiliar with Carina Press, it is Harlequin's e-publishing house. Yes, Harlequin. O.o I am very excited to have been selected for publication under this house's name on my first time out!

That’s it for Newsletter #1! Thank you from the cockles of my heart for being a part of my writing adventures.

Yours,

G.B. Lindsey

Tis November, NaNoWriMo month! (That's National Novel Writing Month, wherein writers are challenged to write 50,000 words in 30 days.) In fact, it is the end of November, when most people are either scrambling diligently to reach their quota or sitting back and enjoying that gorgeous word count table and the beautiful "WINNER!" bars next to their names.

This would have been my third year in a row participating.

I cannot stress enough what a great idea NaNo is, because above all else, it gets people writing. It certainly did for me. It loosens up those cords binding the words in, shutting down voices. You know, those barriers that say things like, "That'll never work, it doesn't make sense, don't even bother starting." NaNo brings people together in support and friendly competition. And it results in a WHOLE LOT OF FIRST DRAFTS.

The first year I did it, it was a revelation. What came out of it was 50K of culture, scenery and characters set in the realm of death omens, namely the Black Dog and the souls designated to fill the role of harbinger for the rest of the world. I haven't done too much with it since, but I am so proud of it, and it's a universe I am chomping at the bit to explore in more detail.

The second year, while more prolific (I wrote 60K with time to spare), was also disturbingly sobering. I wrote a coming of age tale about a gay boy and the best friend he's secretly in love with, driving from California to Yellowstone National Park the summer before college. The story, drawn heavily from my own trip to Yellowstone that summer, was in and of itself not the problem. It came out (no pun intended) very readily, and I liked my characters and where they went, in the real world as well as metaphorically.

The reason I decided not to do NaNo a third time in a row came out of this second try, however: As freeing as it is to just write and write and write, no self-editing, no redrafting, just hit that 50,000 mark and then you are allowed to look at it a second time... Such a method ended up being detrimental to my particular writing style. I found myself tossing down as many words as I could in order to reach my daily quota. Never mind if those words actually had a real place or purpose in the story. Never mind if they were just restatements of the adjectives that came before. The stressful part turned out not to be meeting the word count so much as coming back later and realizing that, had I been allowed to write in my normal manner, I would not be back chopping out a third of what I'd spent a month putting down.

I know we are taught not to self-edit as we write, but frankly, it works for me. Only rarely does it stopper my writing. It does not slow my process but rather enhances it: I go back and reread what I've already written in order to glean more knowledge about the places I have yet to go, the scenes I am gearing up to write. In this sense, it helps that I do not tend to write a story's scenes in order. I will write the beginning, then something two-thirds of the way through, then the end, then right after the beginning, then the middle, then... You get the idea. If it comes into my head, I get it down before I forget it, regardless of where it is slated to end up in the story's timeline. Ultimately this method assists me in keeping themes arcing strongly and teaches me more about my characters and the world they live in. One would think this method would lend itself well to NaNo; when there is no rule concerning writing in order, a person can just go crazy. Fly. Erupt with a tide of storytelling.

Not true. For me, it turned into another way to not actually write. And by that I mean "write substance".

This year, I bowed out. Next year I may come back to NaNo, because goodness knows it's a wonderful way to flood the brain with ideas. Get things moving. This November, though, I needed time to work as I work best: producing something ultimately less wordy but that I can nod at and call quality.

How are you all finding NaNo? Does it work for you?

~~

Random Writing Exercise: Try another method of writing. If you always write consecutive scenes, try writing the ending of your story first. If you tend to write all over the place (like me), trying writing a story in order, start to finish. If you edit as you go, try just writing straight up (no editing until you're done) and vice versa. Challenge yourself, just for this one story. How does this switch inform your style of choice? How does it cramp said style? (I know a lot of writers with a lot of different writing styles. We can always stand to learn from the styles of others, whether they work for us or not.)

It has been suggested that I make a main post with all the writing exercises I include in my other posts. ^___^ Soooooo....




...where you can find a series of little suggestions to get your pen moving again.

This list will be updated each time I include a new writing exercise, and will be available in the Writing Exercises memory section of my journal.

~~~

Writing Exercises


1) The Gender Switch: Take a character you've written or are thinking about... and change the gender, just for a day. Rewrite scenes, write new scenes, introduce this character to their other-gender self over coffee. Make your character genderless, if you want. Discover how much this changes your perception of your character. Get to know your character better. (Originally posted here.)


2) The Eavesdropper: Pick one phrase you heard someone say while out and about this past week and write an entire conversation based off of it. Just the one phrase, taken out of context of whatever was going on when you heard it. (Originally posted here.)


3) The Comedy Rewrite: Your task is to take a downer moment in your life and convey it in comedic form. This may end up being a more thinky exercise than a writey one. Whatever works. I think the real exploration here centers in what you find yourself doing with the story in order to spin a funny tone. How much of it changes? How much doesn’t? Are you okay with those alterations? Does it change your memory of the event? (Originally posted here.)


4) The Well-Rounded Antagonist: Write a scene from your antagonist's POV. Doesn't have to go into your story or even get mentioned anywhere. This is just to get to know the other side of the story, as it were. Motivations? Lack of motivation? Give your antagonist a well-rounded moment, because it can only help your protagonist's development. (Originally posted here.)


5) The Style Switcheroo: Try another method of writing. If you always write consecutive scenes, try writing the ending of your story first. If you tend to write all over the place (like me), trying writing a story in order, start to finish. If you edit as you go, try just writing straight up (no editing until you're done) and vice versa. Challenge yourself, just for this one story. How does this switch inform your style of choice? How does it cramp said style? (I know a lot of writers with a lot of different writing styles. We can always stand to learn from the styles of others, whether they work for us or not.) (Originally posted here.)


6) The Family Tree: Explore a character’s family tree. Who are the people who came before? The people that came along at the same time? The people they married or didn’t marry, and the people who interacted with them? If there aren’t any people, why? Did they never exist or have they already gone? Sit them all around a kitchen table and tell them the stories of their lives. (Originally posted here.)


7) The Telescam: Write the phone call that drove you insane. Write the character that got back at the smarmy telescam artist. Write the answer you wish you could have given. (Originally posted here.)


8) The Flip-Side: Take a particular scene (bonus points if it’s one you are stuck on!) and write in the exact opposite direction from the one you’d planned. See where it goes. It may take you nowhere. It may give you insight into your characters or plot that you were missing. It may throw open the next door and reveal to you exactly how to rampage over the writer’s block into the meat of your story. (Originally posted here.)

There’s a site I just love right now: HitRecord (see my links list over on the right side there). I’m fairly new to it, and while looking through past collaborations, I came across a collab called Tragedy/Comedy. The idea is to take a difficult experience in your life and convey it in a comedic manner, because even in the darkest times, there are always standout moments where you can just laugh and laugh. An intriguing premise, with a lot of potential for contributions (obviously, as there are many!). Immediately it caught my eye, both for the emotional impact inherent and the hopeful approach of dealing with hardship in such a way. I thought, okay. This is something I can do.

And then I started thinking about the bad things that have happened to me.

I am a writer. It’s what I do, what I’ve always done, the one straight thread that has run all the way through the twists and turns of the rest, intersecting with every other thing I’ve wanted to do: jobs, activities, people I wanted to meet, places I wanted to go, things I was rabid to learn.

(To give you a taste, as a child, I would say things like “I want to be a cowgirl… and a writer” or “I want to be a tightrope walker… and a writer.” Nowadays, it’s “I’m a writer… and an administrative assistant” or “I’d really like to go to school in England and write some characters north of Hadrian's Wall.")

I am incredibly grateful for the fact that in the overall scheme of things, I haven’t had a whole lot of horrible things happen in my life. But everybody, including me, has something, and maybe it’s an event another person wouldn’t consider all that bad, but to that one individual, it might be the worst thing he or she has experienced.

And that deposits a lot of baggage.

I have discovered it can be very hard to think about a bad experience in comedic form. I thought I would have more than a few things to pick through, and some that would spring to mind immediately as funny, given the time that has passed since they occurred. The truth is that, in trying to turn a bad experience into an amusing anecdote, you find out you might not be as over that event as you thought you were. My mind’s first reaction was to shy away from the bad memories, put them back into their labeled drawers where I have been safely keeping them. In a weird fit of hypocrisy, my mind also kept circling back to those ugly items from those once-locked drawers, unable to tangent away toward other possibilities. It took more effort than I expected to keep from continuing that unending cycle, from tucking things away again, instead making myself take them out and examine why they refused to be funny. And the things that did crop up as immediately amusing no longer feel serious enough for what I want to convey.

Maybe being able to turn a tragedy into a comedy is a crucial step toward actually getting past the event in question. The adage “Someday we’ll look back on this and laugh” is more than just a cliché or a phrase meant to provide (albeit lackluster) comfort at the time; it might be the one stepping stone people actively push back under the surface of turbulent waters. I’m starting to wonder if turning a tragedy into a comedy is something everyone should practice, as far as that’s within their ability to do. I realize that some things just are not funny.

I now have a story to contribute to this collab, but it’s taken the better part of two pondery weeks just to find an event I feel I can write about, while still doing the original situation justice. I want to thank the collab’s creator for presenting the idea, for giving me so much food for thought, and so much to examine. The HitRecord website is all about looking at things from another angle, and this collab has certainly prompted that in me.

~

Not-so-random writing exercise: Obviously, your task is to take a downer moment in your life and convey it in comedic form. This may end up being a more thinky exercise than a writey one. Whatever works. I think the real exploration here centers in what you find yourself doing with the story in order to spin a funny tone. How much of it changes? How much doesn’t? Are you okay with those alterations? Does it change your memory of the event?