Being a Working Writer

Jeri Westerson

I’m feeling like a full time writer at last! I edited one manuscript and sent it off to my agent. And then I finished up the writing of another manuscript in another series I write under a different name, and sent that off to my editor. While waiting for the agent comments, I received notes back from the editor of the other. And when that’s done and sent, I will start the rewriting of yet a third series I hope to send off to St. Martin’s, the first of which is called OSWALD THE THIEF, a funny and fast-paced caper series about thieves and con men, a sort of Ocean’s 11 in the Middle Ages. And then, I’m still trying to get ideas for some short stories I can send to magazines or compile into my own anthology to self-publish. And during all that, I still have a slew of public appearances to make in and around southern California.

Whew!

It’s good to be busy. And really, I am enjoying it, even through the grumbling. It’s been a long time since I had a career I enjoyed and not just a job. How do I do it? Well, by treating it like a career.

When I get up in the morning before the coffee is done brewing, I start in on emails. Good to correspond early with those on the east coast since they’re already at work. Then there’s hitting Facebook (both pages, one for Crispin and one for my gay mystery series) to see what’s going on there, and then perhaps checking in on my other blogs and putting up a post or two.

Once hubby is out of the shower and off to work, it’s my turn to get cleaned up. By then, it’s about nine and I can sit down to write. If I’ve got a new project before me, I begin outlining. With at least three series on the table (that’s three books a year), I have to be organized. I’ll never make my deadlines if I’m not. That means, for me, having an outline. Not a particularly detailed one, but I take the one that I wrote for my publisher and expand on it, dividing it into chapters, adding details and other plot twists as they occur to me. And once that is down, I see the areas I need to research. I map those out and if I can’t utilize the books I already have at home—and I have many, believe me—I get on the internet and scope out the titles I need to find. To get those, I sometimes go to my historical lifeline, a medieval listserv of medievalists—scholars, professors, historians from around the world—who communicate and share ideas. I might ask the list what is the best secondary source to get the info I need and they will chime in with recommended texts. I check my local university library online to see if they have it in their stacks and then head out. Sometimes I’m lucky, and the source I want is out of copyright. If that’s the case, then Google Books has it and I can download a pdf right to my very own computer. And if it’s not out of copyright, I can sometimes still find it on Google Books and get to read just the pages I am after (since they blank out every few pages or so).

The research part might take a few weeks to get the info and get it organized. But I can’t delay. I’ve got to get cracking on the manuscript. I set myself the goal of a minimum of ten pages a day. If I meet that goal—which I usually do around three o’clock, I can quit for the day or, if I’m not mentally exhausted and I’m on a roll, I can keep going. Sometimes I don’t quite meet that goal, but it all seems to work out. In about two to three months I have a working draft (since I rewrite and continue to research while I write. I lose days to promotion when I have a lot of driving to do, but as I’m only aiming for a 300 page manuscript, it works out to about two to three months).

In between all of that are public appearances. I do a lot of library and literary luncheon appearances to get my name out there (just take a peek here to see if I’ll be in your area). That’s not the book tour for the newest release. That’s just the everyday appearance schedule. The book tour for TROUBLED BONES begins with a big party or book launch at my favorite indie in Pasadena, Vroman’s, complete with dueling knights and free-flowing mead. After that I’ll be either driving to my next venue or hopping onto planes every weekend in October and some in November. Does the publisher pay for this? Nope.

It’s all part of the game of writing and staying published. It’s part of the job. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I'm Leaving on a Jet Plane...

Elizabeth Zelvin

The Peter, Paul, and Mary song, one of my favorites, has been running through my head these days as I email and pack and organize the hell out of my life for my very first book tour. For those who may not know, nowadays only bestselling and celebrity authors get the traditional publisher-sponsored tour. For the rest of us, it’s a do-it-yourself venture—and essential to success for a debut mystery author. Luckily, I’m enjoying the process enormously, in an overwhelmed and anxious kind of way.

One big advantage I have over some writers doing this is that I adore public speaking. Talking or sharing my work with an audience, for me, taps into the same hunger for connection that, in my “other hat” as a therapist, I express through listening.

For example, I’m proud that on occasion I have been able to make people cry. As a poet, that’s meant I’ve moved them. As a therapist, it’s meant I’ve helped them tap into something deep and genuine that they need to release. As for making them laugh—what a high! I’m not a constant comedian, but on a few memorable occasions, some going back decades, I’ve been able to set a big group roaring with laughter. Those memories are indelible. In fact, I’d call each one a peak experience.

Another asset: as a veteran of thirty years of poetry readings, I am thoroughly familiar with the event to which no one comes. I remember one in a Brooklyn Heights art gallery in which the sole attendees were the husband of the other poet who was supposed to read with me (she had the flu), my parents, the woman who ran the art gallery, and a crazy person who wandered in off the street. The latter, by the way, is a perennial feature of such events. My recent book launch for Death Will Get You Sober—very well attended, I'm glad to say—ended with my husband helping the bookstore staff escort a drunk off the premises.

Experienced writers and publicists have told me that the primary agenda on a book tour is getting to know the booksellers along the route. Selling books is a bonus. In fact, I’ve heard numerous authors say that visiting a bookstore generated sales not at the event but later on, as people who may have met them briefly at the event come back to buy signed stock, ie the copies of their books that the author autographed for the bookstore to display. I’ve taken this approach to heart and made mystery bookstores the milestones of my tour. In towns along the way—or towns where I have friends—that don’t have a store devoted to mystery, I’ll visit independent bookstores that are friendly to genre fiction. And I’ll do “meet and greet” events in some of the chains as well.

At my publicist’s suggestion, I’ve added libraries to the mix. I’ve become addicted to library conventions, which are a terrific opportunity to meet librarians—enthusiastic readers all, and many with impressive budgets for new books—while hanging out with other mystery writers at the exhibit table of Mystery Writers of America or Sisters in Crime. Some of the librarians I’ve met at these huge events have been happy to have me come and give a talk to the general public or the mystery book club at their library. And I'm delighted to visit their libraries.

From the initial response, my willingness to tour and schmooze with book people makes not only the pros but readers happy, especially if they live in small towns in the country. For example, a cousin of mine who lives in rural New Jersey helped me contact his local librarian, and as a result I got not only a date for a signing and discussion but the following delightful letter from his 9-year-old daughter:

Dear Liz,
Congradulations about your book. I saw your summary about yourself at the Ringwood Public Library and I hear that you are coming to the library at my place to talk about your book. Congradulations!
Your cousin,
Emily