There’s the most obvious two troubles of not having an agent: 1) someone to offer revision suggestions to make your story stronger; and 2) someone to negotiate contracts for traditional publication, etc. But the biggest one to me (as least I think it would be, not quite knowing for sure since I don’t have an agent), is the time and focus bit.
An agent often gives revision suggestions, then expect you to have it cleaned up and back to her in a timely fashion. The getting it back to her is the time factor. The focus part is not wandering off, thinking about or actually working on writing other stories. Once I was given a week to complete editorial revisions, this deadline was emailed to me the night before we left for a week’s vacation. And, yes, I did revised it.
A couple days ago I spent several hours looking over some of my NaNoWriMo blabber file. I deleted many words, but got tired of the mess on my screen. I finally stopped and sat down with pen and paper to organize the plot, in three acts, with rising and falling tensions nicely placed.
I hate this part of “writing.” I’d much rather just blabber away in raw writing on a rough draft. Blah, blah, blah. But after seeing the clutter I’ve write as rough drafts, I find myself wanting to start from the first word and rewrite the entire story. Perhaps I shall.
But with no agent pressing me onward to complete revisions by a certain time, I’ve decided to stop, take a Christmas and family break until January, and then dive back in – with a plan! That is, as long as I don’t have the story of the next book waving flags through my brain cells demanding attention. BTW, I already have a pile of notes on that story, too.
Oh, agent! Where are you, I need someone to give me time constraints and focus.
Each of us should get a book ready for next Fall’s writer conference. Maybe they’ll have an agent to read our stuff. We will only win by trying.
Did you hear about the conference in Plymouth in March? Not SCBWI, but hosted by them. I’m going. Lots of editors/agents.
Here’s what helped me a LOT. Stop doing Nano because all that writing and so much junk in it. I couldn’t wade through it. The most important part–making an appt with myself every day to write, only write, no internet or phone,. Choose the time you can devote to 30-60 minutes and the time you feel your writing is the most productive time of day. I chose after lunch. I still do when I’m working on a book. Keep the appt like you would if it were a doctor’s appt or dentist appt–no wait, I cancel those…!!! It’ll take 2 weeks to get used to doing it, but after awhile you actually look forward to that time and feel cheated if you HAVE to miss it. Merry Christmas!
Good plan of writing action, Janet. I’ve heard similar advice. But one must be able to have a weekly routine to set up a daily time.
The thing I really like about NaNoWriMo is the unexpected golden nuggets of creativity. Some of my most interesting scenes have come through NaNo’s wild writing.
I do wish my lifestyle would allow me to be more daily disciplined. Thanks for your input.