Linda Francis Lee in NYC Webisode #9 Going Off Broadway

How I Got Published

The most frequently asked question of any author is: Where do you get your ideas? The second most asked question seems to be: How did you get published? Probably the most important part of my answer is that I had a manuscript. A completed manuscript. And a query letter that was written in my voice – which is a whole other discussion.

It was several years ago and I hadn't a clue what I was doing, knew nothing about the publishing industry. But I had written a book of my heart. I had never heard of any of the guides to finding publishers, but I created a list of five publishers based on books they published that were in a similar category to mine. And thankfully, through other author acknowledgements, I pulled together a list of editors whose books I enjoyed so I could send each query letter to a specific editor rather than to a generic Dear Hopefully Pertinent Publishing House. Today this seems an antiquated way of going about things, but at the end of the day, fundamentally, I was doing market research and learning who published what.

Once I had my list, I sent out five query letters. Three of the five asked to see the manuscript. Then six weeks to the day after I mailed the manuscripts I received a call asking to buy the book. It turned out that two of the three publishers wanted it. It sounds like a fairy tale, but what I learned soon after was that I would have been better served with a good agent.

At the time I was unagented and the editor who bought the book promptly jumped ship and moved to another publisher. However, I didn't know she was gone until six months later when another editor called and said, I found this manuscript in Ms. Deserting Editor's stack. Can you give me some history on how we acquired it? Thankfully Ms. New Editor and I hit it off (we are still friends today) and they published the book, and four others after that – though all under different names, different types of books, no rhyme or reason to what I was doing. It took taking the time to write another book of my heart and getting a good agent before I started moving forward.

This has been on my mind recently because a friend is taking a course on getting published. Many in the class already work in some capacity in NYC publishing and half of them have come down firmly in the camp of an agent is a waste of 15%. I couldn't disagree more. Sure, a bad agent is worse than no agent at all. But nothing can take the place of a good agent who will help guide your career. Thankfully I survived my early missteps. But in today's publishing environment that is ruled by sales track and publishing plans, missteps can be fatal.

A Question of Happiness

I'm always thinking. Analyzing. Figuring out. The fact is that's what a writer does: make sense of something then find a way to "show" it in fiction or nonfiction. However I have wondered if I do this because I write, or if I write because I do this. The whole chicken or egg question. I suspect for me that writing is the outlet for all my thinking, a place to channel or process all the thoughts that spin in my head. My very first memories are of trying to figure out, to make sense of a world I didn't understand.

I've been aware of this for a while. I've been on a quest to make sense of the world for decades. Quite frankly, for me, I think half the joy of writing is the puzzle of it all. I'm enlightened! That makes me happy! But recently after finishing up one of the Linda Francis Lee in NYC video shoots, the mystery cameraman and I stopped at an outdoor café for a drink and given the crowds we ended up sitting with a couple from out of town. We began to talk about life, aging, happiness. What struck me was that this lovely gentleman said that he had been perfectly happy until it was pointed out to him that he was not. I can't get that out of my head! My unquestionably existential question is: Was he really? If someone pointed out to him that he didn't appear happy could he possibly have been happy? Could he not have been aware of his "grumpy" state? And if he wasn't aware, was it possible that the way he acted didn't affect him, only his partner who admittedly wasn't happy and searching, questioning? Moreover, if the gentleman truly had been happy, is it possible that people who don't spend time thinking, analyzing, figuring out are happier than people who simply exist on the surface?

I doubt it, but of course I would think that! How could I afford to NOT think that? But as a writer, the question circles in my head. I probe it from different directions like a scientist trying to make sense of a conundrum. And, of course, I will use whatever nugget of truth comes out of the analysis in a book!

Frustrating Books - Plotting Woes

So this is the thing. I am reading a book (which will remain nameless) that I was loving. I loved the characters was interested to see where the plot was going, what happened next . . . Everything a book needs to be for me until bam, I hit the end of the first act and learn the first pivotal plot turning point. This is the telling moment as to what happened that caused the story to exist. It is the basic premise--the justification for how the main character proceeds in life, that piece on which the entire plot hangs--and I don't buy it! I mean, I'm like WTF? You're kidding me, right? Dear Author, What were you thinking? Which brought me back to that place of plotting, and how hard it is sometimes to see clearly. Sometimes as a writer you know where you're going before you know how you will get there, which, if you're not careful, will force you to hammer a square peg of motivation into a round hole of a plot. I have learned the hard way that no matter how you hammer, that kind of plot will never be organic.

I am continuing to read, but every time the character makes use of his justification for what has happened or where he finds himself in life, I cringe thinking: No way would any thinking human being have done what you supposedly did . . . or more specifically, the character the author presented in the first 100 pages would not have done what supposedly he did.

Not to say that as a writer I could have done it better. This is just about how as a reader it is disappointing to be falling in love only to have the love affair ripped apart when it is in its budding stages as if I had just witnessed an infidelity!

After hitting a plot point that makes little sense to you, can you keep reading?

How I Write

Given that I'm a writer, for years I have spent more time alone in front of a computer than with people in an office chatting at the water cooler, or even gossiping in a social setting. And when I write I don't really see the words on the screen. I actually "see" the story unfolding like a movie playing in my head. My job is to find the words to express what I see fast enough not to lose the image . . . which means that I spend a lot of time staring, seeing something that no one else is seeing. This came home to me the other day when I was on the subway, thinking through plot, lost in my head. When I finally blinked out of the scene I was staring at the person across from me . . . and not the sort you really want to find yourself staring at in a New York City subway. I've lived here long enough not to show any emotion, just shift my eyes away ever so slightly, then start staring at the space next to the guy's shoulder. As if I wasn't intimidated. As if I hadn't been staring at him at all. As if I could care less if he started channeling Robert DeNiro with a slightly altered, "You lookin' at me?" But it has made me wonder if other writers write that way, seeing what is in their heads, and if they do, how do they break the habit of staring!!

Plotting

I've finished a book, the copy edits delivered, and now I am focused on the next book. Plotting a new book is always scary for me, even after having written 20 books. I'm always afraid that this time I won't be able to take all the different pieces of a story that is bubbling in my head and make them into a cohesive whole. Or worse, this time I won't be able to come up with all the pieces that make an entire story. Plot points will remain out of my grasp. Every single time I have to remind myself that I always feel this way. And every single time, like magic, somehow the pieces come and the pieces fall into place. Not that I ever believe this while I'm angst-ing over this. However I read an article in the New York Times about how the brain works in regards to creativity. When I'm plotting, I often want/expect my brain to work the same way as when I'm doing some sort of analysis or problem solving. But reading this article puts into words exactly what I feel . . . when I'm doing math my brain moves efficiently from Point A to Point B. But when I plot, it meanders all over the place. It goes off on tangets. This has always scared me. After reading this I realized I need to sit back and enjoy the ride.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/08/books/08creative.html?ref=books

When you're plotting out anything creative, do you trust that you'll come up with the solution? Or do fear that the plot will never come clear until suddenly, voila!, there it is?

Writing As Fast As I Can

Some days I wonder why writing is so hard. Why a jackhammer that normally wouldn't register bangs outside with the persistence of an anxious heartbeat. Why it feels that my characters mock me. Why sentences get tangled in my head like I have two left hands and can't move over the keyboard with any sense of grace or meaning. On those days I wonder if I should have been a sales clerk or forest ranger or deep sea diver. But then all of the sudden the words are there, the characters playing like a movie in my head, my hands racing to keep up with my thoughts, and I remember that I'm not all that enamored of stores or forests and especially not of anything in the deep sea. Then the jackhammer fades away and I find my place.