Writing Excuses

Daniel José Older joins us for a Q&A on showing your work around. Here are the questions, which were submitted by attendees at the Out of Excuses workshop:

* What’s the best way to meet editors and agents at conventions?

* How do you write a good query letter?

* What do you mention as credentials in your query letter?

* You didn’t cover self publishing at all this month. Self publishing is legit, right?

* Can you submit the same work to more than one agent or editor at a time?

* Can you re-submit a revised work to an agent who previously rejected the piece?

Marco Palmieri and Michael Underwood took the stage with Howard and Dan at GenCon Indy 2015 to discuss hand-selling manuscripts. Marco Palmieri is a senior editor at Tor, and Michael Underwood is an author, and is also the North American Sales and Marketing manager for Angry Robot Books. We begin with a list of the things to avoid doing, including the classic mistakes like chasing editors into restrooms, but we quickly move on to where you get started, and what your task list is going to look like. We cover resources like Literary Marketplace, Locus, and Publishers Lunch, and the not-so-secret-anymore #MSWL hash-tag.

Our Sponsors:
* Check out MasterClass and use my code masterclass.com/excuses for a great deal: https://MasterClass.com
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We're at the end of our Season Ten Master Class, and if you've been diligent about the homework, you may very well have a finished manuscript in your hands. What do you do with it? Daniel José Older joins us for a bit of reminiscence. We talk about some of our first submissions, and what we did right, wrong, and weirdly. We cover our criteria for selecting publishers to whom we'd like to send our stuff, and we include the shiny intangibles in that list. This episode was engineered aboard The Independence of the Seas by Bert Grimm, and mastered in an abandoned missile silo by Alex Jackson.

Our Sponsors:
* Check out MasterClass and use my code masterclass.com/excuses for a great deal: https://MasterClass.com
* Check out Talkiatry and use my code talkiatry.com/WX for a great deal: https://www.talkiatry.com
* Check out Tin Can and use my code tincan.com/WX for a great deal: https://tincan.kids


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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

We’re at the end of our Season Ten Master Class, and if you’ve been diligent about the homework, you may very well have a finished manuscript in your hands. What do you do with it?

Daniel José Older joins us for a bit of reminiscence. We talk about some of our first submissions, and what we did right, wrong, and weirdly. We cover our criteria for selecting publishers to whom we’d like to send our stuff, and we include the shiny intangibles in that list.

 

This episode was engineered aboard The Independence of the Seas by Bert Grimm, and mastered in an abandoned missile silo by Alex Jackson.

Spoiler Alert! We'll be discussing the latest John Cleaver book from Dan Wells with author, podcaster, and unrepentant bacon-lover Dan Wells! If you haven't read it, and you want to be surprised by it, stop listening and grab a copy now!

Our Sponsors:
* Check out MasterClass and use my code masterclass.com/excuses for a great deal: https://MasterClass.com
* Check out Talkiatry and use my code talkiatry.com/WX for a great deal: https://www.talkiatry.com
* Check out Tin Can and use my code tincan.com/WX for a great deal: https://tincan.kids


Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Spoiler Alert! We’ll be discussing the latest John Cleaver book from Dan Wells with author, podcaster, and unrepentant bacon-lover Dan Wells! If you haven’t read it, and you want to be surprised by it, stop listening and grab a copy now!

If you have read it, we apologize on Dan’s behalf for any emotional scarring you may have experienced. Now… give the episode a listen, and learn how Dan managed to do that to you.

 

This episode was engineered aboard The Independence of the Seas by Bert Grimm, and mastered in an orbital communications array by Alex Jackson.

And now for your questions about revision. Or rather, questions from the WXR attendees, who were aboard the Independence of the Seas with us (the answers to these questions are secreted away in the audio file...): During revision, when do you think it's acceptable to throw the whole thing out? How do you fit the whole structure in your head? What do you find you most often need to add? What do you do when your revisions have made things worse? How do you avoid over-writing during the revision process? When revising, how many passes do you make, and what order are they in? Do you take the sounds of words into account when writing and revising? This episode was engineered aboard The Independence of the Seas by Bert Grimm, and mastered in a concrete bunker somewhere in the midwest by Alex Jackson.

Our Sponsors:
* Check out MasterClass and use my code masterclass.com/excuses for a great deal: https://MasterClass.com
* Check out Talkiatry and use my code talkiatry.com/WX for a great deal: https://www.talkiatry.com
* Check out Tin Can and use my code tincan.com/WX for a great deal: https://tincan.kids


Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

And now for your questions about revision. Or rather, questions from the WXR attendees, who were aboard the Independence of the Seas with us (the answers to these questions are secreted away in the audio file…):

* During revision, when do you think it’s acceptable to throw the whole thing out?

* How do you fit the whole structure in your head?

* What do you find you most often need to add?

* What do you do when your revisions have made things worse?

* How do you avoid over-writing during the revision process?

* When revising, how many passes do you make, and what order are they in?

* Do you take the sounds of words into account when writing and revising?

This episode was engineered aboard The Independence of the Seas by Bert Grimm, and mastered in a concrete bunker somewhere in the midwest by Alex Jackson.

The microphones again find us aboard the Independence of the Seas*, to talk about how terribly ugly this manuscript is, and what we can do to make it pretty. In this episode we drill down on line-by-line, paragraph-by-paragraph revisions. This stage of the revision process is where our prose gets wordsmithed. This episode runs long, touching on: Punching up the pacing Turning things upside down Parallelisms Adverbial compression, The pyramid of abstraction Free and direct thought Replacing negative-information descriptions extreme editing exercises like "one sentence per concept." Obviously if you want more than just the bullet points you'll need to have a listen... *NOTE: Registration is now open for the 2016 Out of Excuses Workshop and Retreat! This episode was engineered aboard The Independence of the Seas by Bert Grimm, and mastered ashore in a volcanic caldera by Alex Jackson.

Our Sponsors:
* Check out MasterClass and use my code masterclass.com/excuses for a great deal: https://MasterClass.com
* Check out Talkiatry and use my code talkiatry.com/WX for a great deal: https://www.talkiatry.com
* Check out Tin Can and use my code tincan.com/WX for a great deal: https://tincan.kids


Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

The microphones again find us aboard the Independence of the Seas*, to talk about how terribly ugly this manuscript is, and what we can do to make it pretty. In this episode we drill down on line-by-line, paragraph-by-paragraph revisions. This stage of the revision process is where our prose gets wordsmithed. This episode runs long, touching on:

* Punching up the pacing

* Turning things upside down

* Parallelisms

* Adverbial compression,

* The pyramid of abstraction

* Free and direct thought

* Replacing negative-information descriptions

* extreme editing exercises like “one sentence per concept.”

Obviously if you want more than just the bullet points you’ll need to have a listen…

*NOTE: Registration is now open for the 2016 Out of Excuses Workshop and Retreat!

This episode was engineered aboard The Independence of the Seas by Bert Grimm, and mastered ashore in a volcanic caldera by Alex Jackson.