I mentioned earlier that entering writing contests is one way of attracting the advances of an editor or agent – in a professional sense, of course. You also get some handy feedback from judges too. Though knowing when to take or leave advice is an art form in itself. When I first began entering comps, I was a chronic first-round flop. But that changed when I really got my writing act together.

Finalist - Get Your Stiletto in the Door contest (YA section)

2007

1st place - Selling Synopsis

Finalist – First Kiss

Finalist – Single (Title) and Loving It!

2nd place – The Emerald Award for Best Unpublished Manuscript

2nd place – Single (Title) and Loving It!

4th place – First Kiss

Finalist – Single (Title) and Loving It!

Finalist - 2007 Launching a Star (YA section)

Short-listed – The Frustrated Writer’s Mentoring Program

Seems like only yesterday I was sixteen. (It’s actually been many yesterdays since I was that age...) With all the angsty things I went through back then, you’d think I’d want to forget. Curfews, fights with friends, boys who wouldn’t give you a second glance - it’s universal stuff that’s fun to write about...now that I’m no longer afraid of getting grounded.

With great difficulty! It takes practice, patience and vast quantities of chocolate. There are as many methods of putting a manuscript together as there are writers.

For me, the approach to every book is different. The last one I wrote began with nothing but a title: Giving Up The Ghosts. Then I did a lot of thinking. I needed a concept: Ghost Whisperer - The Teen Years. After that, main characters and a plot materialized. I added a subplot and developed a one-page synopsis. Borrowing from Karen Wiesner’s excellent how-to book, First  Draft in 30 Days (Writers Digest Books), I wrote a brief chapter-by-chapter summary of the novel. I also created a character list and worked out each person’s descriptions, goals, motivations and conflicts.

Only then could I start Chapter One. I use a combination of pen and paper, voice recognition software, and keyboarding into my computer, depending on how I feel. (Using voice recognition is like dictation. I’m sure Barbara Cartland would’ve loved this technology.) Unlike my other books, I knew exactly where I was going with the story and didn’t get stuck. Actually, I’m making it sound too easy, aren’t I? Don’t be fooled.

Eventually I got the story down and my four critique partners pounced on it. I also had two fabulous teen readers, both named Claire, hand in their verdicts. By the time I got everyone’s opinions and suggestions back, enough time had passed for me to make some (okay, lots of) tweaks and start shopping it around to literary agents.

In ye olde days of publishing, you could send your manuscript directly to an editor and maybe, just maybe, get a contract. Nowadays, most of the major publishing houses won’t accept unsolicited manuscripts. That is, a manuscript that hasn’t been requested by an editor, or isn’t represented by a literary agent. You could go to a writers’ conference, pitch to an editor and score an invitation to submit. Entering a writing competition in which the final judge is an editor might help. Or you could query an agent and convince them to represent you. Otherwise your project will probably languish in the slush pile or get sent straight back to you.

A literary agent represents your work and is a buffer between you and the publishers. Their goal is to put your work in front of the right editors and negotiate the best possible deal for you. Depending on the agent, they might offer editorial advice. They’ll also take care of foreign and film rights.

There are plenty of websites that can help you find the right agent (and uncover the scammers). On my blog page you’ll find links to those resources. The tricky thing is it’s getting harder to find an agent, so always put your best work on show. Don’t send your manuscript to an editor or agent the day after you finish writing it.

I’m a hopeless introvert and don’t mind being alone. But when I do need some company, I turn to my supportive author friends in Romance Writers of Australia and in a very special YA email group. Plus I have friends who are into acting, music and scriptwriting, and we all share the same anxieties about our work. You also need a sense of humor, and remember rejection or criticism of your work isn’t personal. Oh, and chocolate is a good crutch too.

I like my name! It’s Dutch. There’s a town called Barneveld in Holland. I believe it’s home of the noble Barnevelder chicken breed. I’m not sure what came first, the chicken or the Barneveld. That’s something I ought to Google one of these days.

When I was in Grade 4, my teacher accidentally referred to my mother as Mrs. Bananaveld. (Mum wasn’t in the room, though.) I got a strange feeling that perhaps my surname had been the butt of jokes in the teachers’ lounge for some time before that slip. I was certainly the butt of jokes afterwards.

Pardon my language. I’m actually quoting a slogan from a coffee mug I received at a writing conference years ago. Back then, I liked to write but never considered myself a real author until 2003 because… (Gasp!)  couldn’t finish a book. Oh, I could complete a sentence, a paragraph, even a whole chapter, but write an entire novel? Are you kidding? But I’ve learnt a few tricks and now feel very much like a real live productive author.

Oh, boy, join the club. I am the Queen of ProcrastiNation. The drug of choice in my tiny principality is television. There are times when I’d prefer to tune out with The Bold and the Beautiful rather than write or edit a chapter. Then I wake up when I realize that in half an hour I could have written a couple of pages. Which is a couple of pages closer to writing “The End”. Write first, then reward yourself with TV or whatever else prevents you from working.

It is really, really hard work to write well. Some people are born with talent and aren’t afraid to use it. But the good thing about writing is that it’s tangible; it can be improved. Enter competitions and get feedback from people who don’t know you. More importantly, process that feedback.  Unless having a completed manuscript is a contest prerequisite, you don’t need to write the whole book to enter a competition – though it does help to have a clear idea of where your story is going. If you’re not ready to plunge into a contest, sign up for a workshop.  Buy or borrow how-to books. You also learn a lot by analyzing published novels.

Examine your motives. Is this really what you want to do with your spare time? Madonna once told Vanity Fair, “If you can’t say ‘I’ll die if I don’t do it,’ you shouldn’t do it.” I think Madge was on to something. The point is you have to feel driven to do this crazy thing called writing and stick with it.

Most of us don’t have the luxury of time to write. Not with partners, kids, cats, chores, full- or part-time work, uni, blogging or socializing. Yet it’s not a matter of having time. It’s making time. And there’s no quantum physics involved, just discipline. Get up half an hour early and scribble down as much as you can. Write down a few ideas when you’re waiting for the washing machine to stop spinning. Don’t make excuses, make up a plot line.

Back strain, wrist injury, tendonitis, carpal tunnel syndrome. Pain, acute and chronic, is a writer’s nightmare. Voice recognition software is getting better and it saves your hands. Too expensive? Get a friend to help, pace yourself, use a Dictaphone or tape recorder, do whatever you have to do to get those words out. Don’t fall into the self-pity trap. If you do, though, exploit that darkness and channel it into your writing when you get better.

The problem with labels is that they’re sticky and hard to remove. I didn’t say impossible, though. If your internal editor is stuck on telling you what you are not, it’s harder to think about what you are and what you can do. Aspiring to dream up the next original, mind-blowing plot can actually bog you down. Often the best ideas come from something simple, like a conversation you hear on the train or an ad in the newspaper. Ask yourself, “What if?” What if the kindly old man you see at the shops every day has just been released from prison? What if he’s trying to piece together his fractured relationships? Try not to censor your imagination.

If you know this in your heart, then stop wasting your time and brainstorm new ideas. Having said that, the first book I ever finished was insipid but I kept going until it was done. I wanted to prove to myself I could hold the plot reins for the duration of a novel. I’m sure that book will never sell unless I do a complete overhaul. My subsequent books were much better but only because I learnt from mistakes.

In my kindest, most compassionate voice, I say, “Get over it.  Please!” Writing is a scary business for many reasons. We’re human – we hate hearing that people aren’t in love with our work, we hate rejection, we hate not winning contests! But we love writing, don’t we? Polish what you write. Make your critique partner fall in love with it too. Polish again. Then submit. Remember, if an objective agent or editor says your work isn’t right for them, it’s not a personal attack. Nasty comments aren’t worth dwelling on but do consider constructive feedback. Dust the flack off and keep on submitting.

It’s a fact: certain people have a place for everything and everything in its place. Others have everything, including their thoughts, floating around everywhere. If getting organised is a problem for you, buy a calendar, an alarm clock, folders (or sort your computer’s folders) and a brilliant book by Julie Morgenstern called Organizing From the Inside Out (Hodder, ISBN 0 7336 1350 0).

Use the calendar to give yourself deadlines. Plan your day in advance. In the real world, contracted writers work to deadlines, so you might as well train yourself now. Set the clock to give yourself a time limit. If fifteen minutes a day is all you have to write, use every second of it and don’t give yourself a hard time for not doing more. Have the enviable problem of too many story ideas? Allocate a folder for each idea and pick one to work on. Try not to sneak into the other folders until you complete a draft of one story. Books on organizing your workspace provide handy tips on storage. Morgenstern also analyses emotional or psychological reasons behind clutter chaos.

Just do it - Write. Don’t edit, don’t delete, don’t read back what you’ve written. Just write. Prune your prose only after you’ve let the words grow. To carry on with the corny garden theme (get it?), you could try writing in summer, do a mild edit in autumn, let the book lie dormant in winter during which time you can plot your next book, and spring it out of the bottom drawer in September (for those of us in the Southern Hemisphere) for a good clean-up.

Establish an achievable, measurable, realistic goal - If you’re a slow writer, don’t expect to write a 100,000-word novel in three months. Come up with a target like two pages per day, three days a week. Faster writers could aim for ten pages a day. Record how much you achieve on a spreadsheet or a calendar. You might even find yourself capable of doing more than you thought possible. Don’t be discouraged if life gets in the way and you can’t always make your daily page count. You’re not a fembot from outer space.

Don’t compare yourself to Nora Roberts - Don’t compare yourself to other writers either. We’re all at different stages of our careers, with different circumstances and experiences. If everybody else around you is getting published, sure, be jealous for a second. Even Jennifer Crusie says going a little green is good. Then get to work.

Read widely - I’m often afraid I might subconsciously steal other peoples’ ideas when I read published books. I jot down the inspired piece of writing, as well as the book’s title and author, so when I look back at it later I’ll know it didn’t originate from me. Sometimes I’ll take an element of a book and think about how I could put my own twist on it. Blatant plagiarism is a definite no-no. Ideas and titles, however, aren’t copyrighted. Reading new books is still the best way to figure out what’s selling as well as learn how good and bad novels are constructed.

The best piece of advice I can offer is to take one day at a time, one book at a time. Stay focused on achieving all the little goals that make up the big goal of finishing your manuscript. A few years ago I didn’t have a finished novel to my name. Now I have completed four and am working on books five and six. The Queen of ProcrastiNation is ready to abdicate.

Great writing advice I’ve received (and some I’ve made up on the spot)