Janet Q. Glaser, the Wordwright
The Writer's Life of Frivolity and Philosophy

I thought when writing a story I would write the best one ever and sell it to a publisher. Umm…it doesn’t work that way.

Writing the first draft is difficult, but fun. Seeing the story take place on the page and emptying your heart out is satisfying. But you are not finished..not by a long shot. You must add flesh to the skeleton of the story. More details about each character, more information about the setting, description. And oh no, sometimes the paragraphs that you so lovingly wrote, just have to be cut. You have to be ruthless. Keep the story tight. Keep the characters in, well, character. Check that there is no head hopping, in other words, the Point of View has to be told through one character or the reader gets really, really confused.

Then after revising the second time, you will need to revise again, and then again, and again until you are satisfied. Let a fresh pair of eyes read to catch spelling errors, awkward sentences, typos, etc.

Then you have to write an attention-getting query to a publlisher or agent, not just one, but perhaps 70 times 7 of them AFTER researching each pub or agent to see what they are looking for. Study the guidelines thoroughly. You don’t want to send a sweet little romance to a publisher looking for erotica.

The wait begins, so don’t just stop writing. Start a new project to keep your mind off the waiting.

Then, if you do sell your story, the hard work of marketing and promotion begin. Oh no, you cannot sit on your hands and think you will be dragging in the money from all those sales. You have to stir up the buzz on the Internet, author talks, and signings.

I hope I have given you some helpful information and you have been warned that writing is a LOT more than telling a story if you want to be published. So go ahead and write, but that is not the end of it.

I never read YA books which are written for the Young Adult crowd….Hmm, there is no designation of OA books, Old Adult, which would be the genre I should be reading…But I met Kim Baccelia on Facebook and Writers Chatroom.  She is into the YA book business as editor and writer of this exciting segment of publishing.  I am sure you have heard the buzz about Twilight which was originally a YA book and is now a big money-making movie.  I have not read it yet, but plan to very soon although I never was much interested in werewolves, para-normal, fantasies, etc. 

However Kim kept writing on Facebook entries how much she was enjoying reading Shiver.  She never really gave away the story, but her enthusiasm made me check it out of our library only to find out it was a were wolf story…not a horror story, but a love story between a were wolf boy and a high school age girl.  I thought I would read a few pages, then turn it back in.  Not true. Once I began reading, the premise held me and the writer painted fabulous word pictures.  I was caught up in this odd romance. 

I plan to read more YA books and probably write a YA novel soon.  Can’t wait to get started.  Oh no, there will be no werewolves in it.  But it will be fun and interesting.