Posted on

The Key to Publication is Persistence: Welcome Author, Shannon Mayer

Shannon Mayer writes paranormal romance and is the author of the Nevermore Trilogy: Sundered (Book I); Bound (Book II); and recently-released Dauntless (Book III). One reviewer wrote this about Sundered:

It’s all YOUR FAULT! Today my hair is a mess because I overslept and couldn’t get ready for my meeting without being rushed and I hit traffic because I left a few minutes later than I normally would have, which made me 10 minutes late for my meeting in New Minas…because YOU wrote a book that…was so good that I just kept on reading because I wanted to know what was gonna happen next and then it was 2 am and the book was done and now I have to WAIT for the next one? AAARRRGGHHHHH!

How’s that for writing that brings your readers to the brink and has them begging for more? Wow! The reviews for Dauntless suggest that this kind of energy (and pull) in her writing holds out all the way to the end of the trilogy.

By day, Shannon is a farrier, and like most of us, balancing the day job with the passion to write can be a struggle. Never mind the drive it takes to carry your writing all the way to publication. Today, Shannon shares her story of how getting published is never easy, but it’s possible. And, the benefits run deeper than a finished book in hand. Welcome, Shannon!

*****

Shannon Mayer, Farrier and Author

My publication journey has not been the smoothest of roads. Though I suppose that not too many writers can say that they have had an easy time seeing their books in print. The first thing I did was write a full length, 90,000 word piece of crap that I had edited and then sent out to agents. As you can imagine, it didn’t even get a single request of the five agencies that I sent out to.

After that I moped around for a bit. Got mad. Wrote another full length novel, this one with no regard to what anyone would think and had it edited. Worked with the editor and readers for a good year on it. Queried agents, got requests to see the manuscript. Got rejected. Again.

Sucked it up, re-wrote sections of the manuscript, edited some more, paid for a conference in Seattle and went, with as much confidence as I could muster. I sat down at my first agent appointment, she requested the material; I handed her a submissions package. Thing went fast from there. The agent had me signed to her agency within a week of meeting me. It was a very exciting time.

Then it was more submissions, now to publishing houses. More rejections.  No suggestions though from the house editors on how to make the manuscript better. In fact, I got a lot of praise from the editors. They just couldn’t figure out where to put my manuscript. It was a genre buster and didn’t really fit in anywhere. Damn.

My agent seemed to lose steam after 4 rejections, and I began to wonder what was the next step. With my agent uncertain as to what I should be doing (I did ask, she said she didn’t know) I set my sights on self publishing some novellas. Not only would this give me a goal to work towards; it would keep me writing, and keep me from worrying about what the agent was doing or not doing, whichever the case was at the time.

I decided on a trilogy, started them in June 2011 and had the idea I would have the first 2 books in the trilogy out on Amazon by September 1st 2011. I lined up editors, copy editors, beta readers, proof readers and a cover artist.

Working like a mad woman in between my regular job hours I was able to get the first book out on September 2nd and the second book out on September 15th. The third book I published on October 31st.

So, where does that leave me? Agented, self published and still seeking a traditional publishing contract with a major publishing house. More importantly, it leaves me writing, and loving it.

Read more of Shannon’s work on her blog, follow her on Twitter, or like her page on Facebook. You can also purchase her books, including her most recent one, DAUNTLESS, on Amazon or on Smashwords.

Posted on

The Secret to Writing While Driving

Last month I struggled to write a short story. It was longer than any of the short stories I’d ever written and came with a set of parameters that (for some reason) kept throwing me off balance. Too, just when a picture of where I wanted the story to go would begin to come into focus, that image would flicker and fade.

Except when I was in the car.

There I would sit, buckled in tight and cruising along, when my muse would mention – in passing – a secret to pulling the story together and making it work. With both hands on the wheel, my eyes would slice to the right to gauge the proximity of my purse and weigh the hazards in rifling through it for a pen and paper. I’d break out into a cold sweat, knowing that the idea might dissolve or fall apart with one false move – and fast – and I’d spend the next few hours or days chasing down the memory of it, like I do the name of my mother’s favorite perfume when struck with the faint, but familiar scent. It’s there, in my mind, if I could only draw it out.

What to do, what to do? I thought.

At times, I’ve fished out what I needed, though scribbling with two hands while driving with your knee is as dangerous as texting. Other times, I’ve let the ideas fall into that writer’s abyss, thinking, Maybe. With any luck. If it’s meant to be. I’ll remember.

Then, on a particularly long drive to a retreat, when I knew I’d be alone and might be fertile for a visit from my muse, I considered my options: driving while writing, or writing while driving.

There’s a difference. And, it has to do with how you record your thoughts.

I discovered on my iPhone, by chance almost, a picture of a microphone. The voice recorder. The memo-taker. The not-just-for-grocery-lists detail-maker.

iPhone voice memo

Of course!

I plugged in my ear buds, so I could do a test run hands-free.

“So…this is just to see how this whole recorder business works…Test…Boo…I’m so cool.”

Then, I played it back: the words were there, the sound was good.

It was magic, and I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of it before. All those drives to work and back, this long road trip to a retreat? I didn’t have to worry. I could still write; I’d just keep my thoughts in digital form.

Those early recordings weren’t anything close to pretty. Many of them started off with a stumble of words and ended with things like, “So, there” and “What d’ya think of that.” Sort of like sass-talking with my muse.

Still, it worked. I visited and re-visited several parts of that short story with my tiny digital excerpts, and I jump-started a few blog posts and articles as well. I’m not particularly fond of listening to myself talk, there’s a nasal quality that worries me. But, I’ve found a new route to writing, on those days when I can’t get pen to paper or fingers to the keyboard, when I don’t want an idea to fall away unexplored.

What about you? Do you write while in transit or record your thoughts in digital format? What’s your secret?

*Photo credit: James Cridland on Flickr.com

Posted on

Said the Phlebotomist to the Writer….

“Too much fear stops the flow.”

Blood-letting. It happens, at The Blood Center and in writing — both for good cause. And for me, it’s happening simultaneously. My appointment to give blood looms on the horizon, and I have a short story due to a group of writing friends this week. Both events put the fear in me, so I figured this was a good a time as any to re-publish an old post.

Give it up.

This weekend, I gave blood. This wasn’t my first time, but let me say that (in my case anyway) it never gets easier.

I know the routine: the check-in, the donor questionnaire, the finger stick. I know exactly what to expect, which is the whole reason I break out into a sweat and forget how to breathe the second the phlebotomist cracks the cover on the needle. And, that sitcom rerun playing on the television across the room does nothing to distract me from the snaking tube sticking out of my arm for a solid ten minutes — or more, depending on whether or not my vein cooperates.

I am mess from the minute I walk into the Blood Center to the second I hear the beep from the machine that announces my pint-size bag is full up.

It’s the anticipation of discomfort that gets to me, and the worry that I might not make my quota. What if I didn’t drink enough water? What if something goes wrong and she has to re-insert the needle? What if I pass out and never make it to the sugar-filled treats at the end of Donor’s Row?

Oddly enough (or maybe not so much), a recent sit down with my work in progress felt a lot like this blood-letting. The same anxiety crept up on me seconds before I opened the file. I started to sweat as I scrolled down to my page mark. And, the initial string of words I typed out cut across the page and sounded choppy and slow. Then, all of the “what if’s” flooded my mind.

What if this scene doesn’t come together?
What if the story falls apart, right here, right now?
What if…I.Never. Finish.

I can’t avoid that anxiety, really. It’s genetic, and it’s part of my writing process. In many ways, dealing with it helps move me forward. I could give in to those fears, but that would mean I quit, and I’ve come too far to quit.

So, just like I squeezed that little stress ball and survived my stint at the Blood Center, I’ll write through my fears as best I can on a given day. Each word that falls onto the page fills that page, eventually, and some of those words will gel into a decent story. I’ll remember what the phlebotomist told me, in between her constant chatter that she hoped would settle my nerves: the more you relax, the better your blood flows, and – before you know it – you’re at the end!

There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed. ~Ernest Hemingway

* photo credit: rvoegtli on Flickr.com