Steve Jobs’ resignation from Apple 40 days ago was the first time I had ever heard, seen, or known of the word pescatarian. Pescatarian. What a lovely, utilitarian kind of word. And who would guess that I would have anything in common with the creative genius behind Apple computers? Whatever parts of Mr. Jobs’ brain light up in technological intelligence only blink – intermittently and with hesitation – in mine. Still, in the wonderfully unifying power of language, we are both pescatarians. Which has nothing to do with signs of the zodiac or political preferences. Steve Jobs is a vegetarian that will on occasion eat fish. I am, too. So the king of iPads and iPhones and a man that can tilt the Dow with only a brief announcement and I, possessor of neither iPad nor iPhone and a woman whose only connection with the Dow is a rapidly-dwindling 401(k) account, are both pescatarians. How very encouraging that there is a word – the combination of the Italian word for fish (pesce) and the word vegetarian – that crosses economic, social, and gender lines to describe basic eating practices. And how validating to find that sometime in the last 2 decades the language hatched a word for my own personal food habits. A good reminder that language is fluid and reflects its environment. Thank you, Mr. Jobs, for adding to my vocabulary, however unintentional on your part. I wish you good health and happy eating. (I have a great recipe for herbed Salmon. Just shoot me an email [sorry, I don't text] and I’d be happy to share.)

Too, too bad that we will lose the Borders stores! Bookstores have such allure! Like libraries, the mystique of all those books – those characters, those adventures, all that information still to be discovered – is intoxicating. Don’t ya just love tables of discount books & the thrill of digging through them looking for a hidden gem? And then there are all those cookbooks and all those recipes waiting to be tried!

Well, for whatever reason – whether the rise of the ebook or the decline of reading in general or the bad economy or poor corporate planning on Borders’ part or the vast disconnect with the reading public by conglomerate publishers and literary agencies located on the periphery of the U.S. that remain totally, happily ignorant of the literary likes & dislikes of 85% of Americans – whatever the reason, I hate to see Borders go. It’s our loss. For all the refills at Panera’s, you just can’t beat the pleasure of sitting in the Borders cafe sipping a cup of Seattle’s Best surrounded by all those books!

I wonder how, or if, a person can look at her writing in a completely objective way. Possible? Maybe not. I don’t know. I’d like to think I’m a good writer that tells an interesting story with competent technique. But if that were the case, would I have enough rejection letters to paper the walls of a ballroom in Buckingham Palace? I just finished a book that was supposed to be a mystery, but which was (for me) nonsense start to finish. Illogically plotted, unnecessarily gross, peopled with unsympathetic characters, & sometimes just plain goofy with zombies & animal sacrifices & all kinds of silliness. (Yes, I’m being stalked by a murderous zombie so I think I’ll just take my flashlight & leave the safety of my office to see what made that peculiar shuffling noise at the end of that dark hallway. Really?? What rational woman wouldn’t barricade the door with her desk & call security??? I can’t stand it.) Yet the book is one of a series published by a mainstream publisher – a series likely to go on forever. If people didn’t buy the book, the publisher wouldn’t publish the book & the series wouldn’t have continued through multiple volumes.

Well, I see where that line of thought leads me: straight to a story about a turn-of-the-century werewolf suffragette (do werewolves always have to be male? I think not!) that falls in love with a playboy vampire. O wait. I already wrote that book – but without the werewolf and the vampire. If only I’d known then what I know now I would have titled it “Suck the Blood from my Circled Heart” & I’d be on my way to significant book sales. Well, rats! (Ooooo – another idea! – a story about giant rats living in the wilds of Wyoming that prey on single women homesteaders…)

If you’ve ever considered (dreamed of – fantasized – talked about) being a published author, or you know someone who has, here’s how the process would work in a perfect world, a perfect internet & email world:

1. Write the great American novel. (You will likely discover that this is the easiest step of the entire process. Seriously.)

2. Write a 1-2 page synopsis of your entire book. 1st, google book synopsis & get all the details of a good synopsis. Then try your hand at conveying the full sweep of your novel in no more than 2 double-spaced pages. Keep at it. Write it 1 day & go back to it the next & cut more words. Repeat. Repeat. A great exercise in concise writing!

3. Use the web to find literary agents that specialize in the genre of your book (genre=mystery, romance, fantasy, women’s, western etc.) & make a list of the names & web addresses. It’s a simple search (“literary agents for romance novels,” for example.) Cross check each agent on your list to be sure s/he’s reputable by going to aaronline.org (Association of Authors’ Representatives) & be sure each name on your list is a member. Do not approach anyone that’s not a member of that org. It’s not a perfect guarantee but it will keep you away from the more carnivorous sharks.

(why an agent? you ask: 2 reasons -1) reputable agents offer entree to the best publishing houses because they have contacts there, often because they used to work in that arena, and 2) those same publishers will usually welcome only manuscripts that are ‘agented,’ meaning they will not accept anything directly from the author)

4. Go to each agent’s website & click on the Submissions link. Follow their Submissions directions EXACTLY; jump through every hoop. Use the font & font size they want; measure your margins; make sure your email has the greeting & word count they want. Be careful. Be very careful. IMO, it’s all a “screening out” process so don’t give even a superficial excuse to rule you out of consideration.

(In the old days [old=2002-03] agents still accepted USPS requests & I recall 1 agent that would consider your manuscript only if you included a self-addressed, stamped envelope for him to mail you his decision about representing your book -not unusual then, except the only envelope he’d accept was a self-stick, safety strip envelope – apparently, glue on the flap of your envelope made your entire manuscript unacceptable!)

5. Write what’s known as a Query letter. ‘Pitch’ your book. See #4 above. Jump through more hoops. See #2 above, but google “Writing a Query Letter.” Read about them & read examples of both good & bad queries.

6. Once you have your list of agents, send them EXACTLY what they ask for – which will almost certainly include your (perfectly edited) synopsis & query letter – in the manner they ask for it. (usually items are NOT accepted as an attachment in this spam-prone world but are included in the body of your email.) Use some kind of calendar to record when you sent the email & how long of a wait there will be before you get a response. *

*My opinion about #6? (I know you’ve never asked for my opinion but that hasn’t stopped me so far) Do not apply to a literary agent that says s/he will respond only if s/he’s interested in your book. You end up going into a great black literary hole & are never sure anyone even looked at your email. Besides all that, such a response is discourteous & disrespectful to you as an author. If you take the time to follow their directions, at the very least they can send a reply, even if it’s a ‘thanks-but-no-thanks’ form response. You deserve that much respect. Don’t buy into that “We’re so busy we can’t be bothered with a response unless we’re interested” stuff. Everybody’s busy. You know it. I know it. It’s a way to try to legitimize bad manners so straighten your author’s spine & take a stand~!

(Part 2 to follow another day)

when writing for my own (solitary) pleasure stopped behind enough, and I’m working on the answer with a kind of “stream-of-consciousness” technique that works best written down in black & white. I still write for myself, but it’s become much more important to me that others read what I write. Why that’s so, why my attitude changed and when, are (surprisingly) hard queries. I don’t want a bazillion reader-fans in order to become rich & famous (I have nothing against being rich & famous, mind you) because I know that won’t happen. The cosmos has room for just so many Rowlings & Kings. I think that for me the core seduction comes from wanting others to meet my characters. The people in my books aren’t really “made up” to me, they’re real (well, some of them – Jane Addams & Alice Hamilton & the like – are real, but you know what I mean) and I think it’s on the same emotional level as having a good friend & wanting another friend to meet her because I care so much about both of them. Now we all know it’s not true that if A loves B and A loves C then B & C will be crazy about each other, too, but once I gave life to Louisa Caldecott & John Rock Davis I wanted others to know them, the way a person hopes that her good friends will like each other as much as she likes them. For a lot of years I wrote & stashed & shredded & wrote & stashed & shredded some more, but there was something about Lily’s Sister, the characters & the emotions, that planted a seed of longing for others to read the book, too, to love Lou & John, & to care about what happened to them. I never suspected that would happen. I figured writing would always be a private hobby for me & it wouldn’t matter that I had a stack of manuscripts on the floor next to my desk that no one but me would ever read. But it does matter. Really matters. Which is why I started this blog & updated my website, why I’d like to be technologically savvy enough to put a Facebook Like button on my website home page (I spent all afternoon trying to figure that out yesterday & am no closer to success now than I was when I started; my conclusion is that technical directions are NEVER intended for NON-techies but how much sense does THAT make…??), why I continue to send manuscripts to agents & publishers & swallow the rejection & do it all over again. (I understand how addicted gamblers feel – maybe this time I’ll hit the jackpot – but that’s a post for another day.) So I suppose the moment I created characters that I enjoyed being around, that I truly cared about, was the moment I became a public writer & left my “hobby writing” behind. And once that happened, there was no going back. Even if I’d wanted to go back. Which I didn’t. And still don’t.

When I started writing book-length fiction – 9+ years ago now – it seemed to me the easiest thing in the world. That was before I understood the tedium of editing, of course, and the sting of rejection and the circling of the shark-agents that smelled author-blood & thought they might profit – in the most literal sense – from impatience. But the writing itself, the story-telling, was easy for me (& still is.) I loved my 1st book Lily’s Sister, loved the characters & the setting, & I thought well, who wouldn’t love Louisa & John Rock Davis? I wrote the kind of book I wanted to read, created the kind of characters I wanted to be around & consequently expected in a simplistic but very honest way that others would feel the same. But I was wrong – or so literary agents on both coasts told me (if they deigned to respond to my queries at all)…”can’t get excited about it,” “no audience for it,” “industry is too competitive to take a chance on it,” etc. etc. That was a hard lesson for me – but from it I took away one truth: I still had to write the kinds of books I would enjoy reading. I don’t read fantasy so I’m not going to write fantasy. I am a bazillion percent UNinterested in vampires & werewolves so I’m not going to write about them. I don’t read explicit, road-map-style sex & gruesome violence so I don’t write that, either. Despite the rejections & the dismissals, the one constant I held onto with both ink-stained hands was: I must write what I love. In the end, passion will out. Publishers & agents may someday see the light (or not.) Fame & fortune may come or not come but for really good story-telling 1 true thing must hold firm: write what you love. I did. I do. I will.

…wait, better make that writing for fun because if it’s not fun I can’t believe there will be any profit (& truth be told, even if it is fun there’s no promise the profit will follow.) My website is newly designed & I have the ability to blog (short for web log…did you already know that?…ah, the things I’ve learned recently!) but that assumes I have anything interesting to say that’s non-fiction. I think I do – about passion & disappointment & rejection & joy & inner satisfaction & following one’s muse, to name a few – but saying it is one thing & having someone read it is another thing entirely. (that last phrase also depicts the fiction-writing process in general now that I see the words in print) So here’s where I start. I hope to use this blog as a tool to share with others what I’ve learned about writing over the last decade, all of it: the good, bad, ugly, uglier, & totally unbearable – not because I want (or need) to hear myself talk (I talk to myself all the time & believe me, it’s not all that exciting!) but because I hope that my experiences will help others in their quests for personal literary satisfaction.

‘So what can I do to help?’ you ask…(it’s likely you didn’t ask that, but I’ll tell you, anyway)…you can share my website and my blog address with others & link it on your facebook page or myspace location (do I know how to do that? No, but I intend to learn & if a technophobe such as myself can learn, SO CAN YOU!) If you know someone interested in writing or someone discouraged by rejections (literary or other) or someone curious about the reading & publishing environments, (& those parameters will include a lot of folks) give the person my website address & encourage her/him to check in now & then. And feel free to do the same yourself, even if you aren’t really curious about any of those topics. To paraphrase Hope Birdwell in Waiting for Hope: “I can do a lot with potatoes.” You have to read the book to understand the specific context but for me it means, ‘I can make a difference with just a little.’ And that’s my goal.