Oh, Dear! Another perfectly good two weeks have gone by and I haven’t revised or written anything. Today’s post is a help list to continue writing even when it is not paying the bills.

Of course, I am being hypocritical.  I delayed writing while getting the grades in for one of my numerous day-jobs:  teaching.  I do not even teach writing;  I teach math to  Liberal Arts Majors.  Then I delayed writing while I prepared for my next day-job:  teaching skiing at the Winter Park Ski and Ride School in Colorado.  Donna McAleer, an agented writer and snow-ski instructor, taunted me with tales of spending her morning in knee-deep powder.  Ha!  I know she did not write today, either.  I have delayed writing while meeting catalog shopping deadlines and meditating on staying peaceful while my family visits me.  December has to be the top month for not writing.

As of now, I resolve to find ways to write my memoir during December.  I am starting by scheduling time during my peak focus hours, as Tamara Sellman advises us to do.  While meditating on the reason for the season, I will ask God to use my writing talent, which implies a big obligation on my part to use that talent, as well.  I will be inspired, not just by Hallmark commercials, but from my Janes Stories newsletter.  I resolve to share the best part of me this season, which means sharing on paper, as a writer, at least thirty minutes a day.

Will you join me at the writing desk?  Will  you wish me luck?

[This is the fifth article in my series on Getting a First Book Published]

Award-winning, multi-book  author and teacher Diana Abu-Jaber delighted conferees at the Janes’ Stories Press Foundation/ Florida Literary Arts Council “Other Words” Writing Conference this past November weekend.  Lucky me moderated our session on “Getting into Print II” and introduced Abu-Jaber as the conference’s featured speaker at the evening reading.  Our session  included a light-hearted exchange on how to find a literary agent.

I started off by outlining all the rules I have learned for approaching literary agents.  One of these “rules” is to target your query to an agent who represents the  types of books that you are writing.  I repeated advice that a fledgling author should make a list of fifty target agents.  “Don’t just turn to Jeff Herman’s guide to literary agents and write down the first fifty names,” I cautioned.  “Make sure that the agents you choose to query actually like and represent your type of book.  …Diana, can you tell us how you got your first agent?”

“Well,” Ms. Abu-Jaber smiled both sheepishly and mischievously.  “At the time, I was so new to writing that all I knew is a friend told me I had to get an agent.  I opened the directory of literary agents and saw a name that I thought sounded like the person would be really nice.  I mailed a collection of short stories to Eric Ashford just because I liked his name.”

Mr. Ashford wrote back that he loved Diana’s writing style, but that short stories are nearly impossible to sell.  He asked her to submit to him again when she had a novel.  Several years later, she contacted him with the manuscript for Arabian Jazz.  He sold the novel and the rest is history.  Mr. Ashford is now retired.

I could make the trite comment that Diana’s experience acquiring her first agent is the exception that proves the rule.  Instead, I will just add that luck–or in this case, intuition–and talent are still the best formula for success!

My life in the military prepared me well for the “hurry up and wait” aspect of being a writer.  I make a conscious effort to change this to “take the time to get it right and then wait.”

Waiting is the operative word.  I thought I had my book proposal and agent query ready to mail months ago.  Then I waited six weeks to hear back from a famous and very busy friend about an endorsement, before sending the query to my top choice of an agent. About the time I heard back from this friend, I made contact with another friend I hadn’t seen for nine years.  My second friend is an editor for an international journal and a client of the agent I want.  When he volunteered to read the sample chapters of my manuscript, I put my query on hold and eagerly sent him the chapters.  Unfortunately, he is also a very busy person.  I waited another four weeks.

It’s a good thing I waited.  While I had hoped he would recommend me to his agent, instead he sent me a valuable critique—the kind that made me pause and wonder why I hadn’t already thought of organizing my chapters that way.  Even though I have been helped by several readers and editors, my friend’s fresh and professional assessment of my work pointed out needed improvements to my manuscript.

Being human, I sighed and thought about querying his agent anyway.  The suggestions, however, rang too true to ignore.  I am lucky to hear them, for free, from a professional editor who knows the agent I plan to query.  So I am back to the word processor for the umpteenth rewrite (I stopped counting at thirty).  “This is NOT a setback,” I tell the voice whining in my head.

Instead, this proves, once again, that writing is hard work.  Unpublished authors often complain about how difficult it is to find an agent.  My belief is that the difficulty comes in preparing a wonderful product (the manuscript), a viable business plan (the book proposal), and finding the appropriate customer (the agent who specializes in this type of manuscript).  Does this approach sound different from just querying every listing in a book of literary agents?

Once I improve my chapters, I will be crossing my fingers that I become the first choice of the agent who is my first choice.  Stay tuned and find out what happens.