Printed books are by no means on life support, but based on the recent story that e-Books outsold them 8-to-1 and that devices like iPad and Kindle are flying off the shelf, printed books are, at the very least, on the ambulance ride to the hospital.

Don’t despair. There may be help from an unlikely source.

That’s because the days of unlimited surfing of the Internet are mostly over. American broadband Internet providers are imposing caps to how much of the Internet you can consume each month. That number rests somewhere between 50 and 250 gigabytes. The number is irrelevant, really. What matters is that the number will change behaviors in the way people surf, play online games, watch streaming films and more.

The cap won’t affect Kindle users, who get their materials delivered free via mobile networks, but for other tech users, there could be budgets put in place for home entertainment. Limits already exist for mobile users on 3G/4G networks (wireless phone and tablet users). There are also implications for “cloud computing,” a term and business model that I mostly loathe.

It could also mean a return of the patrons to the books stores. With less Internet to be surfed and excessive fees to be charged should you bust that monthly cap, users could be more retticent about gulping new data via WiFi on their iPads and home computers and more time touching, feeling and experiencing what lies beyond that.

Most of this is speculation on my part. It’s about markets. The broadband market wants more from your wallet. But what exactly is the tradeoff? Will publishers recognize a potential opportunity and lower prices? Can they? Thirty-three dollars is still expensive for a hard-cover book. In the ‘Net savvy user’s mind, that’s 40 more gigabytes of data each month. That’s four more books on Kindle. That’s another hour of time on an XBox. That’s three more streaming movies. You get the idea.

I’m not a proponent of big book/media stores. I like them. I’ve bought books in them. However, I like small book stores and I like buying books online (printed and electronic). I’m also a proponent of the business or market that enables me the best experience for the least amount of my time, money and resources. Buying eBooks to be read via Kindle software on my iPad most efficiently meets that need.

However, there are a number of people who cozy up to Borders, Barnes and Noble, and Books-A-Million just fine. Capping the Internet might just be the action that pushes some of the current e-suitors back into those bricks-and-mortar havens. It could also mean a wholesale return for consumers to the litany of shops and stores that have faltered because of online shopping.

What do you think? Does limiting your Internet use mean you will change your habits? Let me know in the comments.

(Image source: thaliapress.com)

For the better part of two decades, I spent my life as a military journalist. I worked in locations around the globe during war and peacetime writing stories and talking to hundreds, probably thousands, of people. Jet fighter and super secret reconnaissance pilots, generals, admirals, astronauts, kings, rangers, SEALs, cops, firefighters and almost everyone else in between. I loved it.

Above all else, the experience of meeting and having a conversation with these people opened the door to new ideas and new directions. For example, on a trip to Edwards Air Force Base, California, I interviewed the lead engineers for the F-22 fighter program. They would talk like surfers attacking the biggest wave in the ocean about the fighter’s capabilities – excited and motivated to make it work.

In discovering my career writing news and feature stories for the Air Force (something I still do in my day job), I found out that the experiences and conversations with people were what made the stories rich, vibrant and worth reading. From military sniper school to medical trauma in Baghdad, the best way to write those stories was to learn and feel them. It was also the best part of my job.

Believe it or not, for fiction writers, there are plenty of people willing to speak with writers about their craft. You just have to know how to reach them. Some you can call or email directly. Others require you to go through an intermediary, like a public affairs or human resource office, to set up an appointment. Admittedly, there’s no one who can tell you about walking on Mars or traveling through a black hole. But there are astronauts and scienitists who know an awful lot on the topic.

Say you’re looking for a forensics expert. Your police station probably has one. Find the number to the police station’s public relations office and call it. Be professional and specific. Have your questions prepared in advance. Let the intermediary know how long you need on the phone or in person. Don’t go any longer than that. Always ask to follow-up.

In my first attempt at a novel, one I wrote simply to pass the time as I went through cancer recovery, I needed to know how a particle beam worked. I found the AOL email address for the lead scientist for President Reagan era “Star Wars” space program (using a Yahoo! Search no less). I contemplated emailing him for three days, but, no guts no glory. I dropped him a note. He responded the next day “Send me the questions. I’d love to help.” He answered each question and some follow up questions. He also wished me good luck on my book, which will never see the light of day. I still thanked him profusely.

All of this dovetails on a Facebook discussion some writer friends and I had that said this: get out and experience life. Ask questions. Do homework. Instead of a creative writing class, take an anthropology or macroeconomics class. Go out and experience things that will push your work to new levels. Ask questions and commiserate with people who are engineers, sculptors, pilots, truck drivers and prostitutes. Then synthesize them and write them well.

So, who are you going to call today? :)

Have you got hustle? Hustle is that part of the whole writing process that ensures you’re at the top of your game. It’s that intangible quality that others refuse to give. It’s that extra five minutes for edits. It’s the additional time spent following an agent or publisher’s submission rules, building a relationship on Twitter; following trends and knowing the market. It’s courtesy and ability to work with everyone along the path. It’s the X factor. However, it won’t mean much unless the fundamentals are there first, like:

• Is this what you want? Why? What’s your goal tomorrow? Goals in a year, five years and ten years from now? If that sounds like an 10th grade counselor, it’s because your 10th grade counselor was right.
• Can you write? It’s not for everyone. It takes time to hone the craft, in whatever discipline you plan to enter. If you can’t, maybe you ought to try filmmaking, painting, Toastmasters or another means to get your ideas out, or try them all. Just because you can’t write doesn’t mean there isn’t a means of telling your story, though writing is a good foundation.
• How’s your grammar (mine’s pretty good, but not flawless)? How’s your knowledge of the language in which you plan to write (mine’s very good)? How’s your spelling, word choice, sentence structure? I like all of mine.
• If your fundamentals are solid, now let’s get into style. Do you have one? What is it? How’s your pacing and rhythm? (I’m great at this) How’s your ability to write dialogue? (I excel at this) How’s your plot making ability (mine’s not great)?
• Once written, are you ready to close the deal. Eventually you have to stop writing and sell the thing to an agent or publisher.

That last part is, in my mind, where the hustle and savvy kick in. You’ve mined the ore. You’ve extracted the gold. Now, it needs to be sold. And because it has to be sold, hustle has to happen every day. So maybe this is a good time for the ‘Always Be Closing’ lesson and a case for motivation via a scene from “Glengarry Glen Ross.” I offer this scene as a matter of context in competing with THOUSANDS of other writers in a digitally interconnected world. (Warning: lots of NSFW language).

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TROhlThs9qY]

So every day, we hustle. If we get ALL the things in line, it puts us in a position to compete with everyone else who gets all those things right. And that’s all it does. It puts us in position. Nothing more. Agents and publishers get to pick from all those people who got everything right. So that means success is on the way, right? Hardly:

• A photographer will take 100 head shots of an actor client but only one of those will be deemed useful.
• A baseball player gets 500 “at bats” every year but only gets a hit 26 percent of the time if he’s very good. Only 35 players got a hit 40 percent of the time in one season that in the professional game’s 100+ year history. The last time it happened? 1941.
• In reading writers who track their acceptance/rejection stats on the Absolutewrite.com Water Cooler, based strictly on the numbers, its about nine in every 100 submissions that gets green-lighted.

Now, you’d think that would be good, but that’s to the entire spectrum of e-publishers, startups, fledgling companies and others who accept submissions. If the submissions strictly went to professional agents, reps and publishers, that number would be much smaller. Instead of one in 100 queries getting greenlighted, the number would probably fall to more like one in 1,000. However, the Information Age has opened up new means of distribution and marketing that some find agreeable to their goals.

Regardless, it still means in order to get one success, a writer’s gotta write, submit and wait for 100 responses to query. And that’s for one story. Multiple stories require more queries, more time and so on. Every day, we’re hustlin’.

A famous American football coach once said, “You are what your record says you are.” Every day, I’m hustlin’. How about you? Tell me how in the comments. (NSFW language after 0:36 of video below)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5betFZRICVg]

Just  a quick update, as I’m in Budapest, Hungary, all this week on business. It’s a beautiful steeped in old world charm. I’m here for a week doing a number of things that won’t require to wear a tutu or wax the hair off a goat (again). In any case, let me up date you on some queries and ongoing projects:

• The primary project I’m working on is a set of comics with an artist from Australia. He’s brilliant. I’,m working through meshing his ideas with some of my own and forming a fantastic adventure about honor, integrity and character. There’s also going to be plenty of action, including a deep military theme (the main characters are Navy SEALs). Stay tuned for more on that as that’s all I’ll be doing after this week.
• I’ve brought Galactic Milk with me. My expectation is to get very close to finishing it by the end of the week. My goal is to have it done and start editing by Oct. 1. Hooray. This thing has lingered longer urine smell on Bourbon Street.
• I have one short story, A Single Red Spot, out on submission. I’ll be sending two more at the end of the week after a bit of editing.
• My work on The Undead That Saved Christmas is complete. It includes a 3,000-word short story and a few illustrations. It’s the first time I’ve done horror, which I probably wrote more like a fantasy piece. We’ll see if you like it. You may have seen some of the illustrations on my fan page. I’ll be linking and pimping that bunches before it goes live Oct. 1.

That’s what’s happening right now.

I’m a big believer that editing is more important than writing. The assemblage of ideas into a first draft of fiction or nonfiction is tough, but it’s only the first  step down a long road toward publication. So, I realize editors are the gatekeepers to ensuring the best opportunity for publication. Beginning with the end in mind, a solid editing process is business-like, emotionless and keeps in mind the eventual goal: publication and purchase by a consumer (if that is, indeed, your goal).

My goal is put horizons and actual markers on this so you can look at your calendar and figure out how to fit this process into your schedule. So, let’s start with a basic tenet: you can write 2,000 words in, say, four hours. Then it takes 160 hours to get the 80,000-word first draft done. That 160 hours is four work weeks, or one month. Suddenly, NaNoWriMo makes sense, right? ;)

With that in mind, here’s what happens once I finish a first draft. For the sake of discussion, I’m using the aforementioned 80,000-word fiction manuscript as the example. I’ve broken this down by task, the number of actual days or hours needed to accomplish the task and the number of times needed to repeat the task:

1. Wait. Save the file or let the thing sit somewhere for a while. Now, if I’m on deadline for a newspaper story, then this waiting goes from days to minutes. But even then, I have to get my mind off the subject for a while and then come back to it. For almost anything that’s not on a deadline, I wait between one and two weeks. I’m trying to quell that enthusiasm that I have for a first draft. After all, that “enthusiasm” is bias; a champion for the first draft. That bias needs to be tamped down by the pragmatism distance brings. A week allows the bias to ebb considerably and for me to edit without the championing voices in my head egging me on to make poor choices in the editing process. During this time, feel free to move on to something else, like another story or paintball. Time needed: Varies but 1 week to 1 month | Repeats: zero
2. Spelling and Grammar. Sure, use the spell check feature in the word processor. When that’s done, print out the entire manuscript on bond paper, single sided and go through with a red pen and find the spelling and grammar flaws. The spell check capability will miss words. It will change words. However, for about 70 percent of what you’ll want to accomplish the spell check is fine. Be aware, however, that the spell check also does something awful: it weakens that involuntary muscle you use while you’re creating your first draft that catches spelling and grammar mistakes on the fly. So, going through the manuscript with your eyeballs and marking it up ensures you exercise the muscle memory while building it as you go. Also, do this review reading from front to back and back to front. Time needed: 20-24 hours | Repeats: 1-2
3. Style and Continuity. Look, if you use the number 8 instead of the word ‘eight,’ fine. Just be consistent throughout the manuscript. A publishing house or agent will correct you later. However, do find a style to follow. There are a few. I follow Associated Press style because that’s what I’ve used professionally for almost my entire career. It ensures I’m consistent with things like city names, numbers, military ranks and unusual words like knickknack. This is also the time to ensure a character you created at the start of the story has the same name at the end of the story. I change or forget names of characters all the time. Finally, don’t forget to ensure your time line is consistent (sunrises, sunsets, evenings, mornings, and so on). Just be consistent from start to finish. Time needed: 24-30 hours | Repeats: 1-2
4. Macro Edit … Again and Again. This is the big picture edit. Did I write the story you wanted? Does it hit all the themes or goals I had in mind? Does the foreshadowing in the first act play out later on in the book? Is the writing solid or not? You get the idea. This is the time for deep think and reflection. I’ll move sections. I’ll rewrite passages. I’ll create new characters. I’ll change day to night. And so on. You’ll probably spend the most time here. Time Needed: 30-40 hours | Repeats: 4-5
5. Send to Beta Reader(s). And bear in mind that you are on their schedule. I realize that having a beta reader is a privilege. Having several is the best, as I can move stories from one person to another and ensure they don’t grow used to my style of writing. Avoid close friends. Avoid relatives. Time Needed: varies but five days to two months | Repeats: varies, but 1-3 should do.

So, we have a foundation for an editing schedule:

• Potential minimum time spent editing (weeks plus hours): 6 weeks (About two months)
• Potential maximum time spent editing (weeks plus hours): 24 weeks (six months)
• Total time spent writing and editing before query process: 10 to 34 weeks.

A finished, ready-to-query book in 10 weeks? You mileage will vary, of course based on your life, children, weather, spouses, and a litany of other things. Some writers are faster than others. However, I don’t think you can go much lower unless you’re a full-time, no kidding writer stuffed in a loft drinking Red Bull bashing away on your MacBook with blazing multitasking skills. And really, what that means is you’ve built up those involuntary writing muscles to catch things as you go and ‘multitask’ during the editing steps. And yes, I know you’re out there.

Further, it doesn’t hurt to have a roommate, boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, partner or well-read dog to look over the manuscript, either. Look along the chain of events that gets ideas from the brain to a Barnes and Noble sale rack; the process is not a solitary one. Plus, throwing something or someone random but helpful into the process keeps my interest.

In my mind, the writing should not take longer than the editing. Editing expands. Editing unites. Editing pares, trims and shapes. Ultimately, editing turns a draft into a book. It’s emotionless, business-like and keeps your goals in mind.

What do you think?

I know. I wanted to type ‘minotaur’ there, too. Alas, the word I typed is ‘mentor.’

It’s not a word I like, actually. For many years, there were too many people wanting to “mentor” me on how to wear my clothes, cut my hair or act in front of adults. The military is that way. I wouldn’t have minded, but these people were doing the process in reverse. They were, without my permission or interest, choosing to “mentor” me about those things. And that’s not a mentor. That just someone who wants to tell you how it is and then act like a doting father when the whole thing is done. “Look how I fixed him.”

A mentor is someone you find — if you’re lucky. And I was lucky to find three people in my writing career who fit that description. Now, this doesn’t discount countless dozens of other people who have influenced me in one way or another, in both good times and bad. However, these three folks provided the catalyst, the fuel and the flame.

The first was a military supervisor. She ran the military office where I was first assigned. She also wrote nonfiction feature material exceptionally well. I was 19. I wanted to do that, too. So, mostly, I observed and then gleaned what I could from her. Eventually, I stole enough from her writing coupled with a foundation education to start to “get it.”

My second mentor happened along at about the same time. A great writer, he also helped me establish a tone for what I did write and helped mold my attitude toward writing. He helped me try new angles, words, sentence structure. He helped me set up my “style.”

The third mentor came by means of being a newspaper editor. He oversaw about two dozen different newspapers within one military command. He knew quality. He could also spot crap. He also made no bones about telling me when I had the former or the latter (usually, the latter). He made me, at every turn, consider flushing mediocrity out of every sentence on the page.

The mentorship of all three allowed me to eventually earn about 150 different writing awards at a number of levels, military and civilian. I wouldn’t keep this blog or write much of anything at all if those three hadn’t taken some interest in me and what I might do. I think about them almost every time I sit in front of a keyboard and start typing.

I coupled that mentorship and on-the-job training with incessant research and found literary models, too. Yes, I was a dictionary reader. Yes, I was a AP Style Guide reader. And yes, you’ll probably find inklings of Mike Royko, Mickey Spillaine, Michael Moorcock and others flashes of others throughout almost any bits of fiction and nonfiction I pen.

The value of the right mentor can be measured in a number of ways. However, it’s probably best found ow much excitement, passion and life you put into your writing and, in turn, how much excitement, passion and life you give to your readers. There’s also the argument that no one goes it alone, a point with that I completely agree.

So, who’s your mentor and why, and how does he or she help?

It hit me like something of a sledgehammer after listening to one of my favorite songs.

Playing Sammy Hagar’s “Three Lock Box” gives me nothing but sheer joy every time it pops onto my music player. However, I never really knew what the song was about. I just figured it was a great rock jam with obscure lyrics often written by musicians while they are hysterically high. However, I found this quote about “Three Lock Box” by Mr. Hagar that gave me something of an epiphany about my writing. I’ve bolded the breakthrough:

“It’s got to do with deep sea diving, when you look for a buried treasure. The ultimate treasure would be a sunken treasure with three locks on it, because that means it was the most valuable stuff that the queen had on that ship. And you need three different guys with keys to open it, that way no one could steal it. So a ‘Three Lock Box’ to me is within yourself. If you unlock the treasure of your physical, and your mental and your spiritual potential – those three in balance – you are a real human being and almost godly.”

We heard different versions of this growing up in the military, too — take care of your physical, mental and spiritual sides. I’m a big believer in that, though I admit to not doing it as well as I could have over the course of my life. But it occurs to me that in writing — fiction and nonfiction, these three facets exist. Without at least two of the three, the writing fails. Let’s look at how all three work together.

Physical. The nuts and bolts of the manuscript have to be in place. Knowledge of language and vocabulary. Sentence structure. Spelling. Punctuation. Grammar. Rhythm. Pace. It all has to be there before I can even submit the manuscript for query to an agent or a publisher. Without those things, the writing will never get a sniff, let alone a review. The better the “physical workout” I can give to the manuscript — writing, editing, reviewing over and over again until it just cannot be done anymore — the better. This starts with a foundation of education and research. It continues when the thing actually gets written. For this bit, Harlan Ellison rings true: “People on the outside think there’s something magical about writing, that you go up in the attic at midnight and cast the bones and come down in the morning with a story, but it isn’t like that. You sit in back of the typewriter and you work, and that’s all there is to it.”

Mental. The work has to be smart. While there are no hard fast rules, editors and readers will uncover poor writing. So it’s about research research research because there are few things for which I am a subject-matter expert. That also means understanding my genre. It means understand police procedures, how a court of law works, how a B-52 flies, the ins and outs of military ranks, or whatever I’m writing about. There’s also the notion that being mentally prepared means a better than avreage plot twist, following the three-act rule or other notions (though I am a believer in the no hard and fast rules rule, as mentioned). Still, once you start laying down particularly colored paving stones in a specific arrangement, your readers want to know where you’ll lead them and they’ll want to to eyeball everything along the journey.

Spiritual. While not necessarily mandatory,I like my writing to have a certain passion. Soul. Mojo. There’s something to being invested so wholly in a work you get lost in it. Yep, there’s a mechanical process to writing (the physical), but there’s something about believing the work will matter. To someone. As author Jean Houston said, “Stories are living and dynamic. Stories exist to be exchanged. They are the currency of Human Growth.” Now, not every piece of writing will incur this sort of emotional tariff. However, I’m a believer that the more sheer energy I exert on behalf of a written work, the better a chance it has to see a reader’s eyes.

As always, I’d refer you to the Absolute Write forums for some guidance from agents, published authors and those who’ve bloodied their hands with this.  I’m a big believer that the best balance of all three of these things gives a work it’s best chance at success, and I’m glad the Red Rocker gave me a chance to say it.

So, what do you think? How do you see your writing habits fitting into this?

There are two that come to mind. Let’s get them out of the way now:

• It’s and its
• Their, there and they’re

If me typing either of those gets you excited for a conversation about two common grammar mistakes, steer clear. I’m addressing first-draft writing. Specifically, I’m addressing the need to move an idea that’s caught in my mind and onto the page. So, this article has to do with the creative process.

I’m a big believer that typing the draft without hesitation; without the want to go back and redact passages and correct words, is vital. Necessary, even. Otherwise, I’m probably typing a business letter or a medical insurance claim. All over the Absolute Write forums, the “sages” and many I consider experts agree: write first, edit later. So does this person. And this one. Sit. Write. Get it out. And at no point be worried about spelling, grammar or, to some extent, coherency. Butt in Chair. Two hours each day. Write. In short, get the draft done.

As Dr. Seuss said, “Everything stinks until it’s finished.”

Ideas are odd things and can be slippery as stream fish. At one moment, something pops into my head that could cure cancer. And in a fleeting moment, it’s gone. The phenonenon is similar to needing something upstairs then getting downstairs and forgetting what I wanted. Ever reached for a plastic cup and grabbed a cereal bowl instead? I did that last night.

However, while writing, I could care less about the Oxford comma, the possessive or whether or not I spelled out a number. I’m hoping that through education and experience, enough of those things are rooted into my first draft (because there will be less to correct afterward). if not, I’ll catch them later. And I usually also hire a proof reader (Hi Rhonda!) to walk behind me and pick up after me, too.

See, I always fall back on something Keith Olbermann gave as advice to an up-and-coming broadcaster. He said something like this: you’re either in front of the microphone your behind it. Choose one. However, once you take the opportunity to produce or direct, you don’t come back.

Editing and editors are hand-in-glove in ensuring the success of almost ANY commercially viable entertainment process. Editors are gatekeepers. They are sounding boards. But, they are people who’ve chosen a different path than the creator (a management or administration role). Along with a host of other people, they are the gears that move a creator’s content from brain to Barnes and Noble. They matter.

I’ve done both. I’ve served as the editor for newspapers. I’ve been a senior staff writer for a magazine that reached about 500,000 people. I’m pretty good at editing, but I prefer writing. I like hunting and killing. I’d prefer someone else cook it and serve it. 

That’s not to say I don’t edit my work. Of course I do. With care. Grammar. Spelling. Style. The whole nine yards. And then I turn it over to people who have roles within the process as editors. They are on the other side of the microphone. They cook it and serve it. However, it’s my job to produce the best story I can with every ounce of creative muscle I can muster to make it happen. Editors champion it the rest of the way.

To that end, being creative is about risk. Even in this blog post, with facts lined up and sources cited, I take a risk on value and entertainment. And that risk takes energy. And the energy expended to get the idea from mental chaos into something a reader will read takes a different set of gears than what’s required in the editing process. To that end, I like what my friend Mel says about being a writer (and a creative). There are also plenty of other “I am a writer” manifestos on the Web if you need them. Maybe this is mine.

Still, I can see the proclivity for many people who say they are writers to want to be editors. I can see it in their blog postings. I can tell by the tone of their forum posts. There’s just an attitude about what they are saying. They blog more about editing than they do posting. So I wonder what motivates writers who create blog postings about the Oxford comma or revel in someone else’s in ability to fix the spelling of “purient.”

They’re probably the ones who get too caught up in process, time management or overly worrying about what font the manuscript should be written with. That’s an editor’s role (though, as mentioned, there are some basic tools necessary to even finish a first draft).

So, tell me a little about how your ideas go from grey matter to the double spaced page. Do you edit as you go? Are you an editor or a creator?

I’ve worked with editors most of my life. I’m thankful for this. My writing has grown stronger because of editors. Editors are the gatekeepers to being published. It’s important to understand what an editor wants and how to give that to him or her. I’ll steal from Stephen Covey: “Begin with the end in mind.”

As a writer, I realize I am one cog in the publishing process. True, I create the content. But I am just that – a content creator. There are millions of others in the market who can create content. There are thousands who submit. There are hundreds of those editors can replace me with.

So, it behooves me to be cooperative in the editing process and understand the big picture. First, I want to ensure my copy is as clean as it can be. Spelling and grammar aside:

• I want the thing to be rock-solid from beginning to end.
• I want names to match. I want them to be spelled correctly.
• The plot line should make sense from front to back. There should be continuity, rhythm and pace.

In other words, I want to do my due diligence on the copy before it reaches someone else’s hands. Anything else makes me careless and irresponsible.

There’s also the idea of being courteous and responsive to an editor’s needs. I may be working through several revisions before my story gets to print. I try to ask smart questions. I also try to remember that an editor is helping me get my copy to print; not hinder that process.  So, keeping cool when someone is cutting “my darlings” and can be challenging, but is important to the end product.

Which brings up another valid point: editors have bosses, too. So, in looking at that bigger picture, I force myself to understand that there are bigger agendas in play and sometimes, the editing process will be longer or shorter depending on that process. I also realize that anything can change during that process; I’m obligated to what is printed on the contract. So is the publisher.

Besides, the company’s paying me. I’m a contracted employee. It wants first rights to my published work because it believes it can make money from it. Why would I want to do anything other than help that process along and, in fact, improve it as I go? It doesn’t mean I want to lose my independence as a writer. It simply means I want to give my work the best chance at reaching a buyer’s hands.

As an aside, I also want to understand the publisher’s process. In doing the query process, I do a bit of research. However, there’s probably more under the hood then what’s learned in the query process. How much do you really know about your potential publisher, its titles, its reach and its staff?

This isn’t usually possible when you start, but i know  it’s probably okay to ask questions as I go along. I also want to know a bit about the publisher’s marketing strategy. For one, I don’t want to do something counter to that when the times comes for me to start my own marketing.

Working with an editor is one step in getting a story to print. Beginning with the end in mind and keeping the numerous steps and challenges that exist not only for me, but for the people who work with my story along the way, helps ensure success.

Worked with editors? What’s your experience?

In my writing, I like to be thorough. That is, I like to have parts of the process like an involuntary muscle so they do not have to be redone in the editing wash. Certainly, I’m all for the idea journey where I just let ideas flow. Many are. We all want that Jim Morrison trip through the ether in order to concoct the Lizard King. But before that, it’s important to have some basic training. That varies from person to person. And then, we add things on: organization, outlining, and whatever else helps you complete the march from “Chapter 1″ to “The End.” These things apply to nonfiction, too.

Part of my own mental checklist is a list of five questions. Some usually reserve these until the editing process starts, but I prefer to get them into the organization, outlining and Butt-In-Chair writing process. Here they are:

1. Why did I write that? Some times I look at actual words. Sometimes the sentence. Sometimes the paragraph. Sometimes the chapter. The “why” has to relate to the overall piece. For instance, does it affect something in this act, or another? Does it set something up? Does it provide necessary description. Does the word make sense? Is it the correct word? Does it feel right? Sometimes a word may not have the actual dictionary definition, but carries more weight. The goal is to train my mind to catch crap and lessen the burden on the editing side.
2. Do I really need it? In the draft of the first novel I penned, I had four descriptive pages about driving down Highway 101 from San Francisco to Monterey, Calif. I did it for no other reason other than to fill space and to give some idea of the beauty California. But at that moment, I thought I needed the prose in the same way used car dealers stick sawdust in a transmission to help it run better. Necessity, accuracy, brevity and clarity should have dictated the words and sentences. So, the same process goes through my head now. For instance, do I need to describe his trousers and shirt? Do I need to explain just how brown someone’s eyes gleam? Necessity may be the mother of invention, but it also creates crap sometimes, too.
3. What else does it tie into? For almost everything I write, I believe that characters are tied to one another through props, locations or events. When placing a character in Monaco, Burundi or Los Angeles, I ask myself how that ties into what I’ve already done and where I’m going? Does mentioning the long-lost cousin add anything to the story; does it bolster a character or will it mean something down the road. Ties are important because they lend the book some continuity and allow readers the opportunity to see the work as a whole.
4. How will what I’m writing here help me later? This is another big question for me. A character may have a meeting with someone. So, what’s does the meeting do? Does it expose the chief antagonist? Does it start the romance sub-plot? Or am I having a meeting for the sake of having a meeting? In a current manuscript, I have the main character and his ex-wife together in several places. It all leads somewhere later. If it helps, think of every paragraph like cards in a poker hand. The quality of each card improves your chances of winning. You discard those that don’t.
5. Is it the best I can write it? I would say 70 percent of the time, I wait to answer this question in the editing process. Sometimes, however, I get tied to a blocks of text because of flow or choice of words. So, it’s important for me to find the middle ground with my emotions and rationally judge the characters and their situations. They may be experience extreme emotions, but as the writer, I need to control myself and ensure I convey that sense of dread, terror, fear or elation. So, in asking if that was my best effort, I;m also looking at how high or low I may have been approaching the process. A little positive is probably better than more negative. Otherwise, I get 2,000 words of pseudo-goth poetry. In any case, the good news is that if I edit the thing right, then this one cleans itself up nicely at the end of the writing process.

In conclusion, the more tools you can have ingrained in your writing process, the easier the editing becomes. The easier the edit, the faster the query. The faster the query, the quicker the acceptance and eventual pay check.

What do you do strengthen your writing as you go?