Year of Fearless Writing – So you’re a writer; now what?

Welcome to the Year of Fearless Writing!

Being fearless

We’ve spent this year trying to give you some tools to help you on your journey to becoming a writer. Some of those tools are meant to hone your skills, others to build confidence. But most of all we wanted to push you outside your comfort zone—to create a platform from which you can shout (or even whisper), fearlessly: I AM A WRITER.

This month is a bit of a recap, just to remind you of what you’ve accomplished and how you can keep moving forward using this year’s series as a guide. Because “being a writer” isn’t a static thing: you’ve got to keep writing, keep pushing, keep expanding your knowledge and skills and networks. To that end, we’ve reorganized our lessons into three broad categories or areas of focus: craft, publication, and building your career- including marketing. Maybe you need to spend a little more time in one category and a little less in another, but we hope this framing helps you consider other ways you can (fearlessly) sustain your writing life.

And yes: there’s still homework at the end of the post.

Improving your craft

You can’t be a writer without, well, writing. And most importantly, writing well. These topics focus on ways to improve your writing whether you are working on your own or with an editor or a group.

Do I need a MFA?

Not everyone needs a MFA, but it’s something you might want to consider if you learn best in a structured classroom environment or if you are interested in pursuing a teaching career. In a nutshell, a MFA is a graduate-level credential that indicates that you have completed a series of coursework focused on your particular craft (in this case, writing). Having a degree doesn’t necessarily mean you are a better writer, but it does grant you some legitimacy, and examining how great stories are put together can be helpful when you are crafting your own narratives. On the other hand, MFAs are expensive, in terms of both money and time, and there’s no guarantee you’ll sell more books than any writer off the street. In some circumstances, a MFA program can even stifle voices that are underrepresented in the market (that’s a euphemism. You know who you are) simply because they do, whether intentionally or not, value and encourage a certain kind of style. In the end, it’s up to you to decide whether or not the degree is personally or professionally worth the effort.

All about critique groups

A critique group is a great place to get some feedback about the general flow of your story from a variety of perspectives. Look for a group that feels comfortable to you in terms of size, personality, and goals. But also—look for a group where at least one writer has skills or knowledge you don’t, even if that’s intimidating. You don’t want to be the biggest fish in a small pond, even if it feels good to hear how awesome you are. You might want a group that focuses on your genre if you need help world-building, or you might want to get feedback from people who don’t normally read your genre—often these readers can identify issues others might overlook. Before you send your baby off to your group, it’s important to outline what you would like to get from your critique. Are you looking for help identifying plot holes? Are you worried that your characters are flat and unrealistic? Accept criticism with grace, and give criticism with kindness. Everyone in the group is looking for help with something, even if they’re a novelist with multiple books on the shelves. Remember: a critique group is not a substitute for an editor. Speaking of…

Finding and working with an editor

There isn’t a writer out there who is so perfect that they can’t benefit from working with a professional editor. But not all editors are the same—although many people wear more than one type of editorial hat. A developmental/structural editor helps with the overall structure and organization of your story or essay—the thirty-thousand foot view, so to speak. A sensitivity reader looks for problematic tropes, characterizations, or assumptions that pop up when you’re writing outside your own experience. A line editor goes through your work paragraph by paragraph and sentence by sentence, looking for inconsistencies, cleaning up grammar and making sure everything hangs together. A copy editor goes through your work word by word, making sure any issues with language are cleared up (this is the editor who checks your spelling). Look for an editor that offers the type of service you need, and be clear up front about what you are looking for—but also be open to the idea that the editor you hire may have a different assessment of what you need than you do. We’ve all seen someone who thinks they need a “light copyedit” for their story that’s full of massive plot holes and glaring grammatical errors. Hiring an editor is a worthwhile investment that should help your work shine.

Another type of reader you might consider, especially if you’re writing about people who don’t look, talk, or live like you, is a sensitivity reader. A sensitivity reader can offer advice about issues within their area of expertise and experience, but not about everything, so pay attention to what you need and don’t hire a sensitivity reader whose specialty is disabilities to read through your work about immigrant kids.

Summarizing your work

In order to get strangers to read your work, you need to be able to talk about it. Or at least, to write about it concisely. Professional editors, agents, and marketers don’t have spare time to waste, so one of the easiest ways to get—and keep—your work in front of them is to be able to summarize it well. Whether you’re trapped in an elevator for three minutes or handing over a single sheet of paper to introduce yourself, that summary can be the key to your career.

Before you can put together a good summary, you need to answer a few questions: Who is your audience? What genre and/or subgenre are you writing in? Who else is writing similar works (known as “comps”)? Once you’ve got those questions nailed down, you’ll move to the actual plot summary, which should include at the very least a) who the main character is, b) what they want, and c) what is preventing them from getting it. Here’s a formula we like: “Hi, I’m [name], and I’m a writer. I write [genre/subgenre] for [audience (if not adults)]. My latest project is [plot]. It’s like [comps].” You’ll want different versions of your summary depending on the audience (an agent? a teacher? a stranger at a cocktail party?) and the medium (a written query letter? a verbal pitch to an agent or editor?). Depending on the context—and the content—you might include broader social themes that the reader might care about outside of your story, essay, or book.

Getting published

You’ve written your story, you’ve polished it, you’ve run it by beta readers and editors. What’s next? These topics will help you get your writing off your desk (or computer) and out into the world.

Finding a (potential) home for your writing

Before you can submit your work for publication, you need to know where to send it. It sounds simplistic, but start by figuring out what you like to write, and who publishes that kind of writing. Google is a great friend here, but also talk to other writers, published or not. If you have a story already written, you can try submitting to magazines and journals that publish that genre. If you’re not sure what to write, look for calls for submissions: themed anthologies are a great place to get ideas, especially if they’re publishing the kind of story you already like to write. If you want to publish a novel, research agents and publishing houses that represent authors in your genre, and see if they are accepting new work. And when you do submit, follow the guidelines precisely. Be ready for rejection: you might have written the year’s best story, essay, or novel, but that doesn’t mean it’s right for that agent/editor/publisher at that particular moment.

Pitches and queries

Now that you’re ready to send something out, how do you do that, exactly? You can pitch an unwritten essay, article, or non-fiction book to a publication or publisher; you can query an agent, editor, or publisher with a completed work (usually a book-length manuscript); or you can submit a completed story to a publication like an anthology or magazine (on- or offline). Most publishers explain what they want to see in a pitch or a query on their website; make sure to follow their instructions exactly. Don’t send material they are not going to seriously consider, even if you think it’s great. Be personal but professional in your query, and remember that the person reading it is a human being. You will get rejections; don’t respond with arguments or requests for feedback. In fact, don’t respond at all, even to say “thanks,” unless you got personal feedback (always thank people for the time they didn’t have to take to help you out, even if you disagree with the feedback). And never, ever badmouth an agent, editor, or publisher in public, including on social media—the field is small, and word will get around.

Tracking your submissions

Keep a record of your submissions. You may find it easiest to do this in a spreadsheet or chart, although there are also programs that will do the tracking for you. Chances are you’ll be sending out the same story to multiple places, and you want to make sure you don’t send the same story to the same publication more than once. There are online tools that will help you track these things, or you can create your own basic tracking spreadsheet. At the very least, your spreadsheet should include a) what you submitted, b) where you submitted it, c) the date you submitted it, d) the expected response date (if any), and e) the status of your submission (accepted, rejected, etc.). Over time, you’ll start to see trends and learn to adapt your submissions to the market.

Building a career

Even if you aren’t expecting your writing to be a primary source of income (but especially if you are), taking yourself seriously as a writer also means getting professional about it on at least some level. You’ll need to figure out when to write, what you expect to make (if anything) from writing or writing-adjacent work, and who you need to know to make it all work out.

Time confetti

Supposedly, we all have lots of free time—we’re just not utilizing it well. This sounds great (“Hey, maybe I can write that novel while I’m waiting for the bus!”), but the reality is that not all time chunks are created equal. Learning to manage and prioritize how you use your time is critical, especially (but not exclusively) if writing is not your primary full-time gig. Try to consolidate small blocks of time into larger ones, and if you can’t, figure out what you can accomplish in those smaller bits of time. Maybe you can use that time for emails, social media, or other writing-related tasks. And maybe you’ll need to not do something else, if you are going to have time to write. The key here is to treat your writing like any other job. Even if it’s not paying the bills (yet!), it’s still important.

Don’t quit your day job

Or maybe do. A writing career takes a lot of time and focus; only you can decide how much of each to give it.

It’s fine if you want writing to be your hobby. Enter competitions, post flash fiction and essays to your blog, place the occasional story (or essay, or poem) in an anthology, or write fanfiction (just don’t expect to get paid for it!)—it’s all good.

Or keep your day job and work a writing career around it. Maybe you can carve out time in the mornings and evenings and during your lunch breaks. Think about how that affects your family, friends, and coworkers. Don’t forget that parenting is already a full-time job; keep that in mind when organizing your time.

If you really want to go all in, quit that day job, but make sure you can still pay the bills. Find writing-related streams of income, such as freelancing, editing, or ghost-writing, that will support your passion. It’s not easy—okay, it’s really hard—to make a living wage as a writer, but if you have alternate funding streams (or rare, wild success) you might just make it work.

You might need to combine any two—or all three—of these ideas at any given point in your life. That’s ok; the important thing is that you are writing, not what percent of your time you’re spending on it.

Bio and website

First impressions matter. Your web presence is kind of like a screening interview, and like prospective employers, prospective agents and publishers (not to mention readers) are going to check you out. Every author needs a website. It doesn’t have to be fancy, but it should include some basic information: a short bio, a list of publications (if any—and don’t be alarmed if you don’t have any; it’s totally fine) or information about your current projects, and your contact information. You can also link out to your blog or excerpts from your writing. Your bio should be written in third person and include your name, genre(s), experience, and a personal touch—somehing to make the reader remember you. Keep your site design clean and professional; going over the top with fonts and colors and graphics is not only distracting, it could be an accessibility issue. Remember that people are coming to learn about you; don’t make them wade through a dozen links or menus to find you!

Networking on- and off-line

Like many industries, writing—or more specifically, publishing—is a little bit about who you know. Think of networking as developing relationships with people who are interested in the same things as you. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be strategic, though. If you’re a novelist, for example, you’ll want to get to know agents, editors, and publishers both in and outside of your genre. You can make a lot of these connections online—Twitter is a great place to follow publishing industry people, for example—but if you can swing it, take the time to meet up face to face, either at conferences, readings, or industry gatherings. Don’t be shy; be prepared to talk about your work (remember your summaries!) and to ask questions, and to share any expertise you might have. But don’t be pushy, either—nobody likes to feel like a commodity. Treat industry professionals as human beings with individual interests, and don’t expect something for nothing, even if your professional relationship has evolved into a friendship. Pay your friends for their services the same way you’d pay a stranger.

So now what?

As we said at the beginning, there’s no end state to being a writer. But you have to start somewhere, and the more you say it, the easier it gets—and hopefully, the easier it gets to believe.

Your homework for this month:

It’s the season for holiday parties and other social functions. Chances are, you’re going to meet somebody new, and chances are, they’re going to ask what you do. Your task: tell them you’re a writer. No disclaimers, no caveats, no qualifiers like “aspiring” or “novice.” Even if you have a day job that pays the bills. Just say it straight up: “I’m a writer,” and for bonus points, be prepared for the follow-up question: “So what do you write?”

Be fearless. You’ve got this.

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