Author Terry Persun speaks at the January meeting. Here is Terry's contact information: Terry Persun: Giver of Gifts. Wolf's Rite, & The Witness Tree. 360-379-3375; tpersun@cablespeed.com

Author Terry Persun covered several topics very well at our January meeting. I’ve included his handouts below this short summary of his commnts.

Terry wrote his first novel in the 6th grade. He later received an engineering degree but after writing song lyrics for a musician friend, he decided he loved the writing and went back to school for an M.A. in writing. His first advice is, “You don’t get anywhere if you are not writing.” Terry suggests setting up a time and place to write every day. He gets up at 4-5 am and writes for two hours before work. If writing is something you love, why would you take a day off from it?

Write stories that have a meaning for your life. Good stories write themselves. Theme doesn’t matter. All that matters is the story is important to you. Follow your writing and see where it takes you. Know the rules and break them in your own way. Nobody can write what you do so be honest with yourself and write what you need to write.

Terry expanded on Elizabeth Lyon’s tips on getting published (included below). He suggested many references for markets such as: Poets and Writers Magazine; Book; Pages: Publishers Weekly; The Writer; and Writer’s Digest. Also, Publishersmarketplace.com has a good listing of agents and deals. He suggests having a clean summary of what your story is about to use in “pitching” your work. Have a friend who read your work write two paragraphs about it. You can use the best parts for your query letters.

Be creative in marketing your work. Anything that gets the work known is good. Self-publishing is difficult because the goal is a reader base for the next work and even small presses can help more in this than going on your own. Also, self-published work is difficult to get reviewed. If you do self-publish, get a good editor because it will be scrutinized closely.

Write!

Ron Hansen, author of
(from an article from the Writers Chronicle):
What are stories?
"A story is a fictional narrative about characters in conflict that has meaning for our own lives."

What stories are not.
"Stories are not about theories or themes, though our high school practice of talking about books in this way often gives people the false impression that serious writers first and foremost have a point they're trying to prove."
From F. Scott Fitzgerald: "Good stories write themselves - bad ones have to be written.

What makes a story great?
''The great artist is the writer who sees more connections between things than ordinary people can see.

What do stories do?
Dennis Waitley - motivational speaker
"People listen to stories." and "Stories teach better than nonfiction instructs." Stories motivate; inspire; teach; transform; excite; entertain, etc.

Some qutoes:
F. Scott Fitzgerald = ''There is no 'safety first' in art!" p73 W.O.W. Anthony Burgess = "All novels are experimental" p184 F. Scott FL. = "A writer wastes nothing." P28

Where do stories come from?
F. Scott Fitzgerald: "My novel is autobiographical in point of view but I've borrowed incidents from all my friends' experiences.
. Hemingway: ''The good parts of a book may be only something a writer is lucky enough to overhear or it may be the wreck of his whole damn life - and one is as good as the other.

About imagination?
Hemingway: "It is the one thing beside honesty that a good writer must have. The more he learns from experience the more truly he can imagine. If he gets so he can imagine
truly enough people will think that the things he relates all really happened and that he is
. ."
Just reporting.
Hemingway: when asked do you know what is going to happen when you write a story?
He said: "Almost never. I start to make it up and have happen what would have to happen as it goes along."

WHY DO I WRITE?
Deepak Chopra "There is more truth resident in fiction than in fact. Frederick Raphael = ''Truth may be stranger than fiction, but fiction is truer." Mark Twain = "Why shouldn't truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all,
has to make sense."
Paul Theroux = "You can't want to be a writer, you have to be one."
John Fowles = ''There are many reasons why novelists write, but they all have
something in common: a need to create an alternative world.
Leo Rosten = ''The only reason for being a professional writer is that you just
can't help it."
Irwin Shaw = "If you're a real writer, you'll write no matter what."
Quentin Crisp = "I write in order to stay alive."
F. Scott Fit... = "A writer not writing is practically a maniac within himself."

WRITING IS WORK!
Madeleine L'Engle = "Work. Prayer. As with all of life, it is a rhythm: tension, release; tension, release. Work, [release]. Discipline, [release], obedience, [release]; pull the bow string taut, and then let go. But it must be done daily.
Hemingway = How can a writer train himself? "Watch what happens daily. And
listen. A writer dries up when he stops listening."
Hemingway = "You just have to go on when it is worst and most helpless - there is only one thing to do with a novel and that is go straight on through to the end of the damn thing."
Patrick Dennis = "I always start with a clean piece of paper and a dirty mind." Bernard Malamud = ''The idea is to get the pencil moving quickly."
Anthony Burgess = "I start at the beginning, go on to the end, then stop." . W. Somerset Maugham = "Writing is a wholetime job: no professional writer can
afford only to write when he feels like it."

A few recommended books:
''The Sell- Your-Novel Toolkit" - Elizabeth Lyon
"If You Wantto Write" - Brenda Ueland
''The Fine Art of Technical Writing" - Carol Rosenblum Perry "Bird by Bird" - Anne Lamott
"12 Keys to Writing Books that Sell" - Kathleen Krull "Ernest Hemingway on Writing" - edited by Larry Phillips "F. Scott Fitzgerald on Writing" - edited by Larry Phillips "Writers on Writing" - edited by Jon Winokur
"Walking on Water" - Madeleine L'Engle
"The Key" - James N. Frey

Highly Accomplished Authors (from a conversation with Priscilla Long)

1) Keep an accounting system (you must account for your
time/work)
-produce (you must write every day)
-work in process (have several things in process at a time)
-completed work (keep finished pieces circulating at all times) -published (organize finished pieces for possible collection
later)

2) Conceptualize the whole thing as a relationship (beginning, middle, and end)
- first contact (sending your first piece)
- send something new and respond to the rejection (make your
note meaningful)
-don't be afraid to 'play the field' (send to five to fifteen places
at once)
- once your in the relationship, give them your best, nurture
them for greater things

3) Create a community of equals
- make friends among other poets, short story writers, novelist,
creative nonfiction authors
- ask for their help in craft, business, and publishing (who do
they send to regularly, who is part of their relationship)
- keep in touch (write notes, email, call, go to conferences
together)
- share in your successes (throw them a party, send a gift or
card)

How Novels Get Sold
from ''The Sell Your Novel Toolkit" by Elizabeth Lyon

1) Insider Connections - Your sister marries an agent. You meet an editor/agentJ publisher at a show/party/grocery store. Your friend is published and introduces you to his/her editor.
2) Celebrity Status - Famous people usually know they're famous and would just use
that to get them started.
3) Contest Winners - Win St. Martin's Press Malice Domestic Contest and you get published. University presses have contests all the time, and a lot of small, independent publishers are starting to do this as well. Also, contest winning is a good thing to put on your publishing credits page under' A wards' .
4) Publish short stories - Many editors and agents read short stories published in literary
magazines and journals in hopes of discovering fresh new voices.
5) Writers' Conferences - Every year, aspiring novelists meet their future agents and editors face to face at hundreds of writers' conferences around the country. There are also bookseller shows that editors often attend. For small presses, the publisher/editor often manages the booth.
6) Self-Publication - We've all heard the 'dream come true' story where someone has self-published a novel and it got local press and local support and eventually was bought by a larger publisher. (Celestine Prophecy, Mutant Message Down Under, Himalayan Dhaba) There are more of these books being sold every year.
7) Slush Pile Success - Yep, the slush pile. This is where the unsolicited manuscript is read, usually by an assistant editor, and passed along to a 'higher up' editor, who eventually buys the book.
8) Query Letters - This is still the most common and most successful way to match a novel with a publisher. We all know this one, send a query letter with synopsis and short bio and a chapter or two. Wait for a response: hopefully to send your entire manuscript
9) The Ninth Way - refers to pursuing a combination of the eight ways. Query, attend
writers' conferences, meet agents and editors, and talk with everyone.

Top