Tag: writers

One Thing These Famous Novels Have in Common

Published on by J. Kelland Perry31 Comments

As I await responses from various publishers on my novel queries, I’ve been reading reams of info on the publishing world. Learning what to expect in terms of selling your work can make you wonder if it’s worth it at times, when you think of all the love and effort you put into your project.

If there is one tidbit of advice I keep reading, it’s that you better be in it for the enjoyment and satisfaction of writing, and not for making a ton of money, or even a living. But that’s a topic for a future post.

I wanted to share this book list with you. It may give you more incentive to keep striving for that goal, to get your own work in print.

  • Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights
  • Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees
  • Harper Lee’s only novel To Kill a Mockingbird
  • Margaret Mitchell’s only novel Gone with the Wind
  • Boris Pasternak’s only novel Dr. Zhivago
  • Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones
  • Nicholas Sparks’s The Notebook
  • Sara Gruen’s Water for Elephants
  • Daniel Dafoe’s The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe
  • Kim Edwards’ The Memory Keeper’s Daughter

All of these ten wonderful works of fiction, are, of course, bestsellers. Some of them even won the Nobel and/or the Pulitzer Prize. 

But what is most interesting and inspirational to me about this list is this: they were all first novels. Yes, that’s right, these were debut novels that were wildly successful, and in fact there are many more ( I shortened the list). The older classics are known to still sell thousands of copies a year.

And many of them were rejected by numerous publishers before ultimately being signed.

As an example, Kim Edwards found great success with her first novel The Memory Keeper’s Daughter, the last one on my list, and the second to most recent I’ve read on the list. Published in 2005, it made it to #1 on USA Today’s list of bestselling books. As a result, in 2006 USA Today chose her novel as the Book of the Year. As they put it:

Book clubs and word of mouth helped send The Memory Keeper’s Daughter to Kite Runner heights, and once you’ve read this heart wrenching story, it’s easy to understand why it has connected with millions of readers.

On a stormy winter’s night in the 1960s, a doctor delivers his own twins. One is a perfect son; the other is a daughter with Down syndrome. He tells his wife the little girl died, and his lie reverberates across the years and affects every character.

Prepare for tear-blotched pages and a redemptive, hopeful ending that makes the tears easier to bear.”

I loved that book and loved finding out it was a first novel. So take heart, burgeoning writers. Perhaps your debut novel will make money. And if the stars align, perhaps it could be added to this list before long. Wouldn’t that be a dream realized? Stories like these are what keep me hopeful in selling and promoting my work.

You miss 100% of the shots you didn’t take. ~ Wayne Gretzky

What keeps you optimistic in your writing life?

A Virtual Writing Tour

Published on by J. Kelland Perry16 Comments

 

How and why a writer writes has always been of great interest to me. That is why I accepted an invitation to take part in the #mywritingprocess tour, an exercise in which writers share insight into their writing process. J-Bo over at J-Bo.net is the blogger that nominated me. She is a therapist with a fun writing personality, has been freshly pressed, and she hopes to publish a humorous memoir on her life up to the age of eighteen.

Okay, back to me!

What am I working on?

A number of things are currently keeping me busy. First and foremost, I am putting my focus on trying to get my novel, Calmer Girls published. This involves writing, rewriting, and sending query letters to literary agents, in hopes of snagging one that will shop my book around to publishers.

The thing about this process is that it takes patience waiting for replies, and guts to face the rejections. Most agents only want to know what your novel is about, and may or may not request manuscript pages, so you have to make that query letter pretty darn inviting. This, the business side of things, is my least favourite part of being a writer. I would much rather focus on the actual writing of my other projects. For those of you who haven’t reached this stage yet, enjoy your writing and revising while it lasts!

In addition, I am outlining a sequel to Calmer Girls. This, like the first one, will be able to stand on its own, so readers will not feel they’ve missed anything if they don’t read the other one. But I am hoping and counting on them liking the characters and story so much, they will want to read more. 😉

In between, I like writing poetry, musings, and playing with photography to update my blog. Getting feedback on WordPress and connecting with other bloggers and writers is consistently rewarding and a valuable supplement to my writerly life.

How does my work differ from others of its genre?

The setting of my novel(s) is here in Newfoundland, Canada, the first one taking place in 1993, so there are no cellphones and computers to get in the way of daily life and my characters’ interactions. The main character is dealing with several socio-economic problems of that period as well as conflicts and events of a personal nature, to which many sixteen-year-olds can relate.

Why do I write what I do?

I like writing about what I know and within genres I like to read. Young Adult and Coming-of-Age are of high interest to me, and I will continue in that vein for the time being. Realistic, relationship-based fiction has always been my favourite. I wrote my first novel about a teenager when I was fifteen, but never sought to publish it.

How does my writing process work?

In writing Calmer Girls, the first thing I did was settle on a beginning and an end. From this I created my characters and a rough outline. After that a lot of brainstorming goes in, and during the process of writing I allow the flow of new ideas and inspiration to come to me. So I suppose you could say I’m a “planner” and a “pantser” (For those who don’t know, a pantser is someone who likes to fly by the seat of their pants when writing a novel).

It took me about sixteen months to write it, including revisions and the final draft, but this included several interruptions that sometimes took me away from writing for weeks at a time. I found the tweaking at the end the most time-consuming, but I also loved that stage the most. In writing the first draft, I only wrote in the mornings, but the final draft was done all hours of the day.

Next up on the #mywritingprocess tour are Kath, Wendy, and lionaroundwriting, three bloggers who have graciously agreed to take part:

Kath Unsworth from Minuscule Moments of Inspiration lives on the south coast of Australia with her family. Her dream is “to create, illustrate and write happy hopeful stories for children”.

Wendy from greenlightlady lives in Canada like me, and is all “about inspiration for you, your life, and your relationships”. Nature, poetry and photography is highlighted in her blog.

Lionaroundwriting is a young man from Scotland who has written a number of short stories and is now trying to get published like the rest of us. He likes to write about all sorts of things, “drawing… inspiration from real life events, comedy, philosophy, psychology, futuristic musings and the dark recess of (his) mind”.

I hope you bookmark and/or follow these bloggers next week when they present their own personal takes on the #mywritingprocess tour.

Want to read more about my process? Check out these posts:

“…Then You Must Write It”

The Creation of a Novel – A Progress Report

Completing My First Draft: Three Things I’ve Learned

Letting my Baby Go – Tougher than I Thought

 

 

“…Then You Must Write It”

Published on by J. Kelland Perry27 Comments

 

“If there’s a book you really want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” ~ Toni Morrison

I have recently begun a new adventure, dear readers and fellow bloggers.

No longer can I ignore the voice inside me that is clamouring to be heard, so I have started to write a novel.  I am a little nervous, but mostly I am excited to be on this new journey I have destined for myself.

When I told a friend a little while ago about my plan to write a book, she said, “Gee, I’m the one with the English degree.  I should write a book!”  Well, I don’t have a degree, but I’ve always had a passion for stories, fictional or otherwise, and a desire to tell some stories of my own.

Heck, I wrote a teen novel when I was still in school, at the grand old age of fifteen.  So diplomas and degrees or lack thereof won’t hinder me now either.

It has been a rewarding experience keeping this blog that I started back in December.  The original purpose of Jennifer’s Journal had been to get into the habit of creating and writing something on a regular basis, in order to better prepare me for the demands of writing a novel.  But now that I have taken on this ambitious new project, I will have less of that precious commodity of time to devote to blogging.

But abandoning my blog seems unthinkable to me..  Have you ever nurtured a child?  Cared for a pet?  Or even tended a garden?  And then, stopped?  No, I will keep my blog, adding thoughts, inspirations, and a photograph or two, as often and as regularly as I can.  I would also like to keep you updated on my novel’s progress.

Life is going to get busier, that’s all.

I leave you with another favourite quote of mine:

“Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don’t feel I should be doing something else.”  ~ Gloria Steinem

How about you?  Have you ever written a book, or do you see yourself writing one someday?  Do you have advice for someone taking on a creative project?