What you do with your journal depends on many things.
You may be using the materials for personal development - to understand yourself better through the objective recording of your story.
However, your journal is also a unique resource for your fiction writing. In it, you can record stories drawn from life – your own and other people’s. You can write down conversations overheard on public transport, in the pub, at the doctor’s surgery. And you can turn all this into a story without end. You can write this in daily or weekly instalments until it grows into a volume of anecdotes with its own themes and enhance these with images, cartoons, objects such as discarded tablet packets or sea-shells – whatever.
From either of these kinds of journal you have ideas and notes which will make your fiction and your autobiographical non-fiction authentic. And this will mark out your writing’s unique selling point - its individual ‘voice’.
When you come to review your materials, of course, several issues become significant.
OK. So you’ve had an interesting life; your journals are waiting to be mined for information; your family and friends are clamouring for ‘the book’. What next?
Autobiography is now an industry and – as with any other kind of writing – certain rules underpin success. Even if you are thinking of self-publication, consideration of these can make all the difference between a book people want to read and a book that stands neglected on the shelf.
Your reader – the audience – is as ever in pole position. Who are you telling your story to? This will dictate what words and expressions you employ. Would you, for example, want your mother to read what you write for your friends?
And then, there’s the thorny issue of what you include and what you leave out.
The trick lies in the vexed issue of goal-setting. A recent visit to a writers’ group left me convinced that not one among the seven people who read their ‘stuff’ out had the least idea about goal-setting, either for their literary career or for their individual project. Planning for this group was anathema and so was review. People wrote what came into their heads with no idea of where to go with it. The resulting prose excerpts were shapeless, unstructured and cliché-ridden. Their material was raw beyond belief - although not irretrievable. And their goal, if any, was to enjoy their writing. So – in that sense – they had achieved one goal. But they still hoped that publication would happen.
Monday, 7 September 2009
Friday, 4 September 2009
Book proposals – seven elements necessary for success!
Write a good book proposal and your task to produce a good book is well under way. Like any other creative endeavour, the ground work is crucial and makes the ultimate task – writing, embroidery, project management – easier. In the case of writing, a book proposal reduces the task to do-able chunks. So let’s get down to the spade work.
The seven elements of your proposal are:
1. An overview of your ‘product’ – yes, publishers do call books ‘products’ these days – and why it’s a must-have.
2. A Marketing Bit indicating
a. How the unique features of your product will make it stand out from others on offer
b. Target audience – who will want to read this ‘product’ and in what numbers?
c. Where will they buy it?
d. And what you are prepared to do to promote it.
e. Enclosures – newspaper cuttings (relevance and timeliness)
3. Publishing data:
a. When will it be ready?
b. How long will it be?
c. Non-textual information (graphics, charts etc)
4. About you and why you? Include your reviews, your credentials, anything which indicates why you should write this book.
5. Sample Chapter (although for some publishers, published articles provide your bona fides relating to ability to write or your expertise.)
6. Table of Proposed Contents – including where appropriate sections on acknowledgements, resources and index.
7. A detailed Outline – written in continuous prose (for example the plot-line of a novel) or chapter block-outs for a non-fiction works such as an autobiography or a how-to book.
This will clarify your mind and provide your potential publisher with a reason to publish.
The seven elements of your proposal are:
1. An overview of your ‘product’ – yes, publishers do call books ‘products’ these days – and why it’s a must-have.
2. A Marketing Bit indicating
a. How the unique features of your product will make it stand out from others on offer
b. Target audience – who will want to read this ‘product’ and in what numbers?
c. Where will they buy it?
d. And what you are prepared to do to promote it.
e. Enclosures – newspaper cuttings (relevance and timeliness)
3. Publishing data:
a. When will it be ready?
b. How long will it be?
c. Non-textual information (graphics, charts etc)
4. About you and why you? Include your reviews, your credentials, anything which indicates why you should write this book.
5. Sample Chapter (although for some publishers, published articles provide your bona fides relating to ability to write or your expertise.)
6. Table of Proposed Contents – including where appropriate sections on acknowledgements, resources and index.
7. A detailed Outline – written in continuous prose (for example the plot-line of a novel) or chapter block-outs for a non-fiction works such as an autobiography or a how-to book.
This will clarify your mind and provide your potential publisher with a reason to publish.
Book Proposals - what can they do for you?
Writing a successful book proposal is the real trick. Publishers have no reason to publish your book. But this is how you persuade them that they have. You’re also providing him or her with a crib sheet for when he has to talk to the accountants and the sales department that run his firm and the booksellers whose shelves he’s competing for. A publisher’s life is not an easy one and your task when you send in your proposal is to smooth his way. It is after all on your behalf.
But you – in your role as writer – will also benefit hugely from sitting down and seriously working out what to include. Let’s face it. From the mountains of material you have inside your head for this book, your readers – and therefore by definition, your publisher - will only want to take away what relates to them.
So firstly the book proposal will help you to clarify your own goals and objectives. You’ll have to reduce the whole concept to a few sentences – but oh, how carefully chosen. These sentences will encapsulate the ‘book’’s most important ideas and elements and persuade the publisher that these are new and interesting enough for him to spend time on.
Another advantage of writing a proposal is that you’ll become aware of the weak spots in your material. These may be the areas where you need to do more research. Or it may be the areas you need to beef up which relate to marketing - because the proposal is a marketing document and you are both author and marketing manager.
If you are – at this point – throwing up your hands in horror that you, an artistic soul, must stoop to involving yourself in commerce, remember the electricity bill. Oft-quoted even by accountants, American poet Louis Untermeyer said: “Write out of love, write out of instinct, write out of reason. But always write for money.”
According to the Society of Authors, authors must now be prepared to sell their books. If this means book signings, public readings, appearances on radio and television, you have to be prepared to do it. And the publisher will expect to be told of your willingness to embrace marketing methods of this sort in your proposal.
You will also have to provide him with a clear idea of where your book will sit in the market and when the manuscript will be sitting on his desk.
To answer these questions, some authors rely on Amazon placings. But, I recommend my clients take themselves to a bookshop and browse among similar books getting a feel for the kind of book they may produce – its length, its style, the questions its audience will want to know the answers to. Two major advantages will follow from this research method. Firstly, you will find an anchor for your motivation (and this will sustain you throughout the writing period). And, secondly, you will find a publisher on the same wave-length as yourself. Which helps!
But you – in your role as writer – will also benefit hugely from sitting down and seriously working out what to include. Let’s face it. From the mountains of material you have inside your head for this book, your readers – and therefore by definition, your publisher - will only want to take away what relates to them.
So firstly the book proposal will help you to clarify your own goals and objectives. You’ll have to reduce the whole concept to a few sentences – but oh, how carefully chosen. These sentences will encapsulate the ‘book’’s most important ideas and elements and persuade the publisher that these are new and interesting enough for him to spend time on.
Another advantage of writing a proposal is that you’ll become aware of the weak spots in your material. These may be the areas where you need to do more research. Or it may be the areas you need to beef up which relate to marketing - because the proposal is a marketing document and you are both author and marketing manager.
If you are – at this point – throwing up your hands in horror that you, an artistic soul, must stoop to involving yourself in commerce, remember the electricity bill. Oft-quoted even by accountants, American poet Louis Untermeyer said: “Write out of love, write out of instinct, write out of reason. But always write for money.”
According to the Society of Authors, authors must now be prepared to sell their books. If this means book signings, public readings, appearances on radio and television, you have to be prepared to do it. And the publisher will expect to be told of your willingness to embrace marketing methods of this sort in your proposal.
You will also have to provide him with a clear idea of where your book will sit in the market and when the manuscript will be sitting on his desk.
To answer these questions, some authors rely on Amazon placings. But, I recommend my clients take themselves to a bookshop and browse among similar books getting a feel for the kind of book they may produce – its length, its style, the questions its audience will want to know the answers to. Two major advantages will follow from this research method. Firstly, you will find an anchor for your motivation (and this will sustain you throughout the writing period). And, secondly, you will find a publisher on the same wave-length as yourself. Which helps!
Saturday, 29 August 2009
Why keep a journal?
For those of us who have been brought up to consider journal-keeping as the preserve of muslin-dressed women with time on their hands, think again. It is not something to be squeezed in between water-colouring and embroidery.
Journalling is a way of listening to yourself. So, in a world constantly exorting you to give your opinion, journalling can be a useful check on what you really think.
Of course, you may like your opinions to be a knee-jerk reaction, a response on the wing. But, if so, are they really your opinions? Are they based on evidence and your own form of expertise? Or are they the half-remembered gobbets of other people’s views. Are they views which you could not defend if challenged? And are they truly what you believe?
If you’re dishonest in your journal, you’re fooling no-one but yourself. In which case, why bother to keep a journal at all? A journal is one place where you can afford to be brutally honest with yourself. Think of the advantages of that!
But someone may read it and make a judgement, you may think. Remember the responsibility of keeping your journal as a ‘safe space’ – away from chance encounters with people you have not permitted to read it – is yours. Totally. You have only yourself to blame if you are careless with its sanctity.
If however you do care for your journal in this way, it rewards you with total confidentiality. It’s like carrying around a counsellor or a coach in your pocket. It has that much power.
For those of us who have been brought up to consider journal-keeping as the preserve of muslin-dressed women with time on their hands, think again. It is not something to be squeezed in between water-colouring and embroidery.
Journalling is a way of listening to yourself. So, in a world constantly exorting you to give your opinion, journalling can be a useful check on what you really think.
Of course, you may like your opinions to be a knee-jerk reaction, a response on the wing. But, if so, are they really your opinions? Are they based on evidence and your own form of expertise? Or are they the half-remembered gobbets of other people’s views. Are they views which you could not defend if challenged? And are they truly what you believe?
If you’re dishonest in your journal, you’re fooling no-one but yourself. In which case, why bother to keep a journal at all? A journal is one place where you can afford to be brutally honest with yourself. Think of the advantages of that!
But someone may read it and make a judgement, you may think. Remember the responsibility of keeping your journal as a ‘safe space’ – away from chance encounters with people you have not permitted to read it – is yours. Totally. You have only yourself to blame if you are careless with its sanctity.
If however you do care for your journal in this way, it rewards you with total confidentiality. It’s like carrying around a counsellor or a coach in your pocket. It has that much power.
Journalling - the route to your inner self
Keeping a journal opens up your inner world with powerful results.
You can, for example, record your dreams on its pages and re-telling dream-stories lifts your waking mood. Breaking your dreams, as the old saying goes. After all, we’ve all woken up – in tears or buoyant with love – with an almost overwhelming desire to tell someone about a dream. At least, if you confide in your dream journal, it won’t tell anyone else. Confidentiality is assured.
But, if patterns of dream imagery recur, your journal may also be warning you of something you need to take seriously but have not yet consciously acknowledged. In this case, your journal will not judge but will help to raise your awareness of some potential danger.
So how – exactly - does form influence the effectiveness of what you write?
Some days, for example, you may want to use your journal to understand – or even to remove – some vivid emotions disturbing your daily life. You may want to hang on to all this emotion or let it go. But, because of the mental energy required, describing it in words is a strong first step towards regaining control of your life.
At this, you may choose to write your journal in the form of a daily poem, exploring the experience through metaphor. Or your journal could become a long-running unsent letter to the person who is generating all this feverish confusion in your life. And – unless you make a conscious decision to share - the person in question need never know. This useful strategy can diffuse bubbling conflicts with your boss. Or keep the lid on a love affair. Or speak to someone who has died leaving you with things unsaid.
You can, for example, record your dreams on its pages and re-telling dream-stories lifts your waking mood. Breaking your dreams, as the old saying goes. After all, we’ve all woken up – in tears or buoyant with love – with an almost overwhelming desire to tell someone about a dream. At least, if you confide in your dream journal, it won’t tell anyone else. Confidentiality is assured.
But, if patterns of dream imagery recur, your journal may also be warning you of something you need to take seriously but have not yet consciously acknowledged. In this case, your journal will not judge but will help to raise your awareness of some potential danger.
So how – exactly - does form influence the effectiveness of what you write?
Some days, for example, you may want to use your journal to understand – or even to remove – some vivid emotions disturbing your daily life. You may want to hang on to all this emotion or let it go. But, because of the mental energy required, describing it in words is a strong first step towards regaining control of your life.
At this, you may choose to write your journal in the form of a daily poem, exploring the experience through metaphor. Or your journal could become a long-running unsent letter to the person who is generating all this feverish confusion in your life. And – unless you make a conscious decision to share - the person in question need never know. This useful strategy can diffuse bubbling conflicts with your boss. Or keep the lid on a love affair. Or speak to someone who has died leaving you with things unsaid.
Journalling for beginners
Communication usually involves someone saying or writing something to someone else and receiving a response. And, as I’m proposing journaling can have a special role in communication, you may well ask ‘Where is this response?’
Keeping a journal must appear to be a very one-sided form of communication. Journals, however, have multiple purposes and can take many forms. And none of these is ultimately incompatible with the concept of communication. You may also find that – ultimately - keeping a journal even enhances your abilities in this area.
Firstly, you can use your journal as a way of finding out what you really think about something. And you may then ‘practice’ conversations there you’ll later have in daily life. About your career, for instance. In the quiet confidential space of your journal, you can work out the pros and cons of the conversation you want to have with your boss about your readiness for promotion.
Personal relationships are common journal material. In your journal, for example, you could find yourself asking why your husband has suddenly taken on responsibility for buying his secretary’s Christmas present – especially as before, Matilda’s talcum powder had always been just an extra on your own Christmas shopping list. You then have a very private opportunity to work out the answer your own question. And prepare for a conversation you know you must have.
Sometimes it helps to know why you’re keeping a journal. As with any other form of writing, start by defining your purpose or purposes clearly. Do you want to dump emotion, organise a programme of self-improvement or create a resource of stories and characters which will fuel your fiction writing?
Once you’ve established your clear intent in writing this journal – again, as with any other form of writing - you can then choose the form best suited to the purpose. If you want to dump emotion, your journal could take the form of a long unsent letter to the person who is generating all this feverish need to ‘splurge and burn’ in you.
But always remember, your journal exists to give meaning to your life. You are the one who will be empowered by keeping it. It is safe and private. And you can choose to change your purpose in keeping it and adopt different forms, whenever you want. After the catharsis of the unsent letter, for example, you may feel calm enough to itemise your calorie intake for the day. Your mood diary will become a food diary.
Keeping a journal must appear to be a very one-sided form of communication. Journals, however, have multiple purposes and can take many forms. And none of these is ultimately incompatible with the concept of communication. You may also find that – ultimately - keeping a journal even enhances your abilities in this area.
Firstly, you can use your journal as a way of finding out what you really think about something. And you may then ‘practice’ conversations there you’ll later have in daily life. About your career, for instance. In the quiet confidential space of your journal, you can work out the pros and cons of the conversation you want to have with your boss about your readiness for promotion.
Personal relationships are common journal material. In your journal, for example, you could find yourself asking why your husband has suddenly taken on responsibility for buying his secretary’s Christmas present – especially as before, Matilda’s talcum powder had always been just an extra on your own Christmas shopping list. You then have a very private opportunity to work out the answer your own question. And prepare for a conversation you know you must have.
Sometimes it helps to know why you’re keeping a journal. As with any other form of writing, start by defining your purpose or purposes clearly. Do you want to dump emotion, organise a programme of self-improvement or create a resource of stories and characters which will fuel your fiction writing?
Once you’ve established your clear intent in writing this journal – again, as with any other form of writing - you can then choose the form best suited to the purpose. If you want to dump emotion, your journal could take the form of a long unsent letter to the person who is generating all this feverish need to ‘splurge and burn’ in you.
But always remember, your journal exists to give meaning to your life. You are the one who will be empowered by keeping it. It is safe and private. And you can choose to change your purpose in keeping it and adopt different forms, whenever you want. After the catharsis of the unsent letter, for example, you may feel calm enough to itemise your calorie intake for the day. Your mood diary will become a food diary.
Saturday, 27 June 2009
Naming the rose?
Names are powerful - so much so that the Yogis say, when you feel you understand who you are, you should choose a name to reflect that knowledge. My name is Elizabeth. This I feel connects me to a long Quaker tradition in my family. But its diminutive, Lizzie, allows me to show my playful, joyous side. It was given me at birth but as my second name. My first was used by teachers and friends and family up until the point at which I realised it wasn't working for me and never had. I still feel a shock if someone uses that one - and some people from my past still do. But my choice is Lizzie or - more formally - Elizabeth.
Similarly, when choosing names for a character, you have to take infinite care. Compare Dickens' use of names with your own. None of his were serendipitous. Gradgrind, Pecksniff, or Agnes, they all conjure images which resonate with the characters he portrays.
And - if you are choosing a nom de plume - make yourself fully aware of the possibilities attached to any name you're considering.
Similarly, when choosing names for a character, you have to take infinite care. Compare Dickens' use of names with your own. None of his were serendipitous. Gradgrind, Pecksniff, or Agnes, they all conjure images which resonate with the characters he portrays.
And - if you are choosing a nom de plume - make yourself fully aware of the possibilities attached to any name you're considering.
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