Writer's Nemesis: The Publisher - Part 1

When someone asks me what it takes to become a good writer, I usually grumble, "Enough rejects to paper the walls."nn Perhaps this is not a very auspicious point to start defining one's writing career, but it takes courage to write. It isn't so much that it takes courage to put the fingers on the computer keyboard, but one has to be able to take publisher rejection. All too often, a potentially good work gets shelved because of a seeming lack of courtesy on the part of the publishers. After a few rejects the writer gives up. That is not the time to give up, that is the time to rewrite.nn When I first finished writing "Jesus, the True Story", more years ago than I can almost remember, I received the following rejection from a publisher, "The first of your book is boring, the middle is the most you have to offer, and I would prefer that you send me no more of your writing."nn Certainly I was devastated, as most writers are at some moment in their life. I had worked for five years on the book and now a publisher was telling me that it wasn't good. At the time, I was on US lecture tour and headed for West Virginia. While in-route I puzzled over the situation and ultimately agreed that, if I were honest, the publisher was right. Finally, I made the decision to simply rewrite the first section and try again. And that is exactly what I started out to do.nn Early each morning I would hit the keyboard, and in the afternoon head to a small library nearby to do research. I was midway in the third chapter when I looked down and a light went off inside my head. At last, I was learning to write. The secret...detail. nn For instance, we can write, "Someone left the window up and the cat got out of the window." Or, we can write: Paula was so engrossed in her favoite television show, that she did not hear her mother call out, "Paula, close the window or Sambo might get out." Sambo, of course, was the somewhat overweight family cat that had develd a habit of escaping out of the narrow confines of the bottom story apartment every chance he got. It seemed that Sambo had developed a fatal attraction for the Persian cat, which preened herself in the front window two buildings down the street."nn Ah Ha! I had better stop now, because every writer, and would-be writer, can see where this is going.nn Any description must captivate the reading audience. My solution is to envision myself writing to those who would be the most interested in what I am writing about. For instance, children's stories: The writer should just imagine his or her self, sitting in the middle of a group of children and telling a story. Of, if one is riting Sci-Fi, the writer needs to be in the middle of a battle over the galxies. After all, they are the captain of the Starship Hope.nn In that I write for mass consciousness, most of my work is non-fiction. Therefore, I must try to draw the reader into the lives of persons, or the events, that I am writing about. I have, however, also had some success in fiction; both short stories and books. "Htrae-Operation Earth Angel", and "Maya Sangh and the Valley of the White Ones", are now handled by bookstores all over the world, such as Germany, France, Africa, India, Austrlia, Japan and UK. Nevertheless, whether I am involved in fiction, non-fiction, or poetry, I am in the middle of those whose lives I want to touch. The reader cannot see the topography or the events I am writing about, unless I describe them in such a manner that they can.nn A major problem with first-time writers is that they think they have written a great masterpiece, and perhaps they have. But, they had better not broadcast it. Between the author's image of their masterpiece and getting it published, is a sea about as wide as the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean.nn "Don't change one little hair on my child's head", the author cries, as they send off an eight hundred page scenario of their life, covering his or her pain at birth, through almost getting electrocuted on the barnyard fence. Naturally, the publishers won't read it, because they have hundreds of writers sending in their 800 page autobiographies, or a battle over the asteroid belt. nn Large publishers will not read unsolicited manuscripts, so it behooves the author to learn how to write a proposal. First, however, the author needs to shorten that book by at least three hundred manuscript pages. This is really quite easy; just take out the routine stuff and leave the blood and guts. When I was writing "To Walk with God", my own autobiography, my editor, who was a successful Sci Fi writer, said, "Elizabeth, we don't want nto hear about your life when you were a baby. Start with the good stuff.nn I threw out 70 pages and started again. He was right.nn Ah! you are curious? Yes, all my books have been published, and I have even managed to win an award now and then. My favorite, The National Author's - Presidential Award for Literary Excellence. I have not forgotten, however, that it took enough rejects to paper the dining room wall to teach me.