Fogg in the Cockpit Book Signing at the Leanin' Tree Museum of Western Art on August 30, 2011

Thank you again, Julie and Karen, for organizing and hosting such a special event. You created a magical evening, one we shall never forget. And thank you as well to the Trumbles, who so generously shared their spectacular Museum of Western Art with all of us. ~ Dick and Janet Fogg

Figure Out the Fix

Time for another go at Mu Shu Mac-N-Cheese. After many glowing rejections, one agent was able to spell out more clearly what’s wrong with it.

Others came tantilizingly close to grabbing it up, loved the writing, the characters, the storyline, the premise…but…something was not quite connecting. When it comes to editing, it's pretty hard to work with a vague feeling.

Today, in contrast, I feel I have something more to work with. The new plan: after brushing up the last two chapters I wrote on my new one…I’ll put it aside and go back to Mu Shu, do a read and summary, and try to figure out how to make each chapter "swell under its own crescendo." That is the writing life: Figure out the Fix. Thank you Barbara Poelle of Irene Goodman Literary Agency.

1,254 days from query to contract (but then again, who's counting?)

Fogg in the Cockpit was released on July 28, 2011.

Finally.

The journey to publication of this WWII military history book about my husband’s father, Captain Howard Fogg, seemed long and arduous. Was our journey abnormally difficult or fairly typical? I just don't know. What I do know is that I kept records of the query, rejection, and contract process, and thought I would share that information so you can judge for yourself.

My husband (Richard) and I began to work on this book in late 2004, and over the next two years we did a great deal of research and wrote text to interweave with the text from Howard’s diary and other document excerpts. We completed the first, 60,000 word manuscript draft in early 2007. We were so excited! Now it was time to send out queries!

1st Query: 03/24/07 to Talbot Fortune Agency – rejected

2nd Query: 04/02/07 to Dystel & Goderich Literary Management – rejected

3rd Query: 05/07/07 to Stackpole Books – no response

4th Query: 07/30/07 to Potomac Books – rejected

5th Query: 05/08/08 to University Press of New England – rejected

6th Query: 05/08/08 to Naval Institute Press – rejected

7th Query: 05/11/08 to Carlton Publishing Group – no response

8th Query: 05/11/08 to Burford Books
06/12/08 – Burford requested sample chapters
06/20/08 – sent sample chapters
06/21/08 – declined

9th Query: 05/11/08 to Westholme Publishing – no response

10th Query: 05/11/08 to Camroc Press
05/13/08 – Camroc requested sample chapters
06/20/08 – Camroc requested full manuscript
07/03/08 – declined and suggested we try a university press

11th Query: 05/18/08 to W.W. Norton & Company – no response

12th Query: 05/28/08 to Skyhorse Publishing – rejected

13th Query: 05/29/08 to Hellgate Press: No response for 21 months

14th Query: 05/30/08 to Schiffer Publishing – rejected

15th Query: 07/08/08 to Utah State University Press
07/09/08 – USU requested 2 copies of full manuscript
07/10/08 – mailed 2 copies - USU acknowledged receipt of manuscripts via email – no further response

16th Query: 7/25/08 to University Press of Kentucky – rejected

17th Re-query: 11/21/08 to Stackpole (referral from one of their authors) – rejected

18th Query: 03/09/09 to University of Oklahoma Press (referral from one of their authors)
03/16/09 – requested full
No further response despite several follow-up emails

Demoralized, we decided, “The hell with it, we’ll self-publish!”

Over the summer I read Lulu’s guidelines, registered with them, and requested an ISBN. Then we decided to try a couple of additional queries, but if we had no offer by the end of the year we would self-publish. This was our last salvo, so to speak.

19th Query: 05/01/09 to FPP Aviation
05/03/09 – requested full manuscript
05/05/09 – sent full manuscript

Who said silence is golden?

20th Query: December 29, 2009 to Norlights Press – rejected

21st Query: January 3, 2010 to Casemate Publishers

Back to the 19th Query that we sent 05/01/09 – 9-1/2 months later…
02/18/10 – email re: wants to make an offer
02/23/10 – met with publisher, received verbal contract offer, contract to follow
03/27/10 – we sent follow-up email re: status of contract – No response

Then everything happened at once.

03/29/10: Received charming response to 10th query we sent 21 months previously. In summary, our query and sample chapters had been misplaced during a move. Hellgate requested a full manuscript which we sent 03/30/10.

03/31/10: Received an email from Casemate (21st query) expressing interest. “We would be very interested to discuss this project further as we feel this is a very interesting story and perspective on the war.”

04/06/10: Casemate scheduled a conference call with us.

04/08/10: Received a verbal offer from Casemate contingent upon increasing word count from 60,000 to at least 75,000. (Minimum 75,000, maximum 125,000 words.)

04/09/10: Sent additional material to Casemate to show that we could, indeed, increase the word count.

04/13/10: Sent even more additional material.

04/13/10: Received an offer from Hellgate Press, the one that misplaced our query for 21 months.

Now what? Casemate was interested but we had a bird in the hand. Two, if you counted FPP, though we were now skeptical about them.

04/15/10: We let Hellgate know that we had an offer from Casemate. The Hellgate editor was terrific. He assured us his offer would remain while we decided who to go with. He complimented Casemate, said they were a great press and much larger than his. Could offer a color insert whereas he couldn’t.

Stewed and debated the pros and cons of the offers.

04/21/10: Let Casemate know that we had an offer from Hellgate.

Paranoia reigned. No word from Casemate.

05/13/10: Sent follow-up email to Casemate, inquiring about status of offer.

05/14/10: Casemate scheduled conference call to review contract terms.

05/25/10: Back to the 19th Query, FPP. Still no response to our follow-up emails or a voice mail, so we sent a letter and email withdrawing our manuscript.

05/25/10: Let Hellgate know that we were going to accept Casemate’s offer.

06/16/10: Still no contract draft from Casemate, sent follow-up email.

06/20/10: Sent additional material to Casemate with estimated new word count.

07/08/10: Still no contract draft from Casemate, sent follow-up email.

We were now considering going back to Hellgate.

07/26/10: Phoned Casemate and left a message re status of contract.

07/28/10: Casemate phoned us, explained the delay, and reinforced their interest in the manuscript. Reviewed terms, deadlines, and estimated publication date. They would need the bulked up manuscript by 11/01/10. Yikes! Could we have one more month, until 11/30/10?

09/01/10: Received contract. Deadline for submittal 11/01/10. Wait! What happened to 11/30/10!? Oh well, we can do it!

09/03/10: Mailed signed contract to Casemate! Time for champagne!

Pop!!!

Elements of successful novels: the first two pages

I've just returned from two glorious weeks at the University of Iowa Writing Festival in Iowa City. It's always a little like drinking through a fire hose; as usual a great deal of useful information on writing was exchanged. I have a fun and useful tip to share.

We all know the first few pages are crucial to keep the agent or editor reading, so I signed up for the week-long course, "Beginning the Novel." The tone of the workshops tends to be literary rather than commercial, so our wonderful workshop professor, Gordon Mennenga of Coe College, apologized for coming dangerously close to being formulaic before sharing this. He'd gone into a bookstore, the classic Prairie Lights (Iowa City's Tattered Cover), and picked up all of the bestselling and otherwise successful novels of the past year or two. Each of them had all of the following on the first two pages (brace yourself!):

a sentence containing three commas

a one-word sentence

alliteration

food (the universal ritual)

body fluid--sweat, blood, tears, urine

reference to sex or death

something sinful or painful

a color

a physical feature

a personality trait

question mark

mention of nature

anything with a brand name

furniture

body part or parts

smell/odor

metaphor, each of which saves five pages of description

city, state or street

walk/gesture/overbite/musculature

He had us go through our first two pages and check off how many of these we had included. Most of us had two or three; one of us had ten or so (way to go Alan!). As far as evoking sensations in the reader, we realized we were writing at about 1/10 power. You might enjoy going through your first two pages and seeing how many you instinctively included...and then add the rest! You can always take them out again if it feels too much, or too contrived, but it's a useful exercise in writing vividly with all the senses.

Happy writing.

Storm Petrel

Point of View - Rules and Breaking the Rules

Point of View is a tricky thing. The popularity of each approach varies over time. 1st person (especially in Young Adult books) and deep 3rd person have the benefits of connecting directly to the reader and drawing on empathy early to maintain that sense of personal-stakes-in-the-conflict (when done well with a fascinating character). In the current reading climate I vote for a novel limited to one POV in a scene, if not chapter, if not entire book.

In my own books, I've mixed it up. I've used a single 3rd person POV in an entire book, 3rd person alternating (every other chapter) between two characters, and a more complicated method of three POVs - two of them 3rd person protagonists and one 1st person serial killer.

I tend to have a personal theme running through my books that is essentially: "The bad guy is a misunderstood good guy." That requires that I paint skin-crawling, dangerous bad guys that have motivations that can be understood and even sympathetic to the good guy and reader by the end. This is particularly tough to pull off with a character that kills, but being deep inside the antagonist and slowly revealing the cause of his/her behavior is easier to pull off using very deep 3rd person or 1st person. It is a challenge, for sure, the reason I didn't attempt it until my forth book.

If we decide to change Points of View within a scene, each change in POV needs to be handled so deftly that it is a huge challenge (or more simply handled with a drop down as a signal) Rarely can a writer pull off abrupt changes in POV with no signal.

Omniscent is still used, as is 2nd person and present and future tense; but they often fall into the experimental category now rather than popular fiction. I frequently catch slips of POV in popular fiction, but in the context of deep 3rd person POV it is often ignored, forgiven, or missed by readers (unless they are also writers or editors who are trained to flag the slips - you should see me putting sticky notes into novels - sometimes it is a curse to be an editor) It isn't a cardinal sin, just head-bouncing if done frequently. And editors give less leeway to new writers - thus my seeming obsession over it.

In the spirit of "exceptions proving rules," if you'd like to see every writing guideline broken in an amazing, magnetic and shocking way, capturing even the Pulitzer Prize, take a luxury dip into TINKERS by Paul Harding. If I tried my entire life, I couldn't do what he did. I believe devoted writers, on the other hand, could do something off the beaten track after 100% mastering the more accessible POVs. A strong writing voice would carry the reader over the waves of atypical craft - not because it is easy to read, but because it is poetry to the heart. TINKERS may have still worked and had a wider readership if Harding had stayed within today's expectations. We can't know for sure.

Do you have any favorite books that break POV "rules" successfully?

I'd love to hear about them - Inkpot

Reflections on Time (Spent Writing)

I’ve spent thousands of hours writing, perhaps even tens of thousands of hours, and the very magnitude of that number made me pause to consider how I might otherwise have spent that time. My house might be less dusty, though I should emphasize “might” since I dislike housecleaning and avoid it as much as is possible. I would definitely have read more books, many, many more books, and my garden would be much larger. What else? Ah yes, I would have taken more classes…

Despite working full-time I used to regularly register for classes to study all sorts of things: how to ride a motorcycle, throw and fire clay pottery, knitting, beginning ballet, and though raised in Colorado, rock-climbing and mountaineering. I climbed two dozen Fourteeners, some dangerous, some not. In the midst of all that I also decided to write a novel, high-fantasy, no less. I completed that first draft oh so many years ago, and back to Lifelong Learning I went to learn how to get published.

How to get published; now there’s a challenge. Semi-annual writer’s conferences soon usurped Lifelong Learning classes and critique meetings decorated my calendar. Writing, writing, writing and new, cherished friends. And so the years passed.

Would I have ever met such dear friends, my sisters and brothers of the quill, without penning that first manuscript and attending that class? The odds are poor and quite sad to contemplate.

What of that book on the shelf, with my name on the spine? And soon there will be another, penned with my dear husband. Oh my. Yes, oh my.

Writing books. All those hours of anguish and hope, of deliberation and delight. All those words. All those worlds.

Time well spent, don’t you think?

~ Folio

Cooking Our Bounty

Last time I wrote about planting our literary seeds, weeding, and harvesting. Today I ponder tools, secrets, and tricks for turning our produce into an enjoyable meal.

Equipment is important. It’s almost impossible to cook or write without the proper tools. Cutting boards, knives, and woks are a few of the tools necessary to prepare vegetable stir-fries. For writers it’s not only about the laptop. It’s about collecting the skills essential to our craft. Taking classes, attending workshops, reading books on writing, finding a good writing coach or critique group.

It’s best if we weigh carefully the flavors we work with. Our choice of genres can be thought of as our garden’s herbs and spices. Mix too many genres and we’ve got confusing flavors. Hybrid genres are one thing. A post apocalyptic fantasy thriller that takes place in the Wild Wild West with SF and romantic elements will taste like some of the confusion foods that try to pass as fusion foods. Know what we are writing and write it boldly.

Just as gardeners and cooks approach produce differently, each writer has a unique style and brings to his work different strengths. Some focus on plot and some excel at developing characters. Some are all about the beauty of the sentence. Even thin or unwieldy plots can sell well if the writing is brilliant, just as one chef’s simple, local offerings can succeed as can the creations of another who focuses on complex and exotic ingredients.

Writing, like gardening, is all about hidden secrets. Seeds are the most obvious and miraculous secrets. But there are countless other garden secrets. Sure, a zucchini plant can net enough fruit to feed 100 armies, but if plucked at the just the right time, the blooms can be used to make one of the best appetizers in the world, stuffed squash blossoms. In a writing career and in each of our books (regardless of genre) there are hidden mysteries. The secret is to find and share them.

We grow veggies to eat them. It’s important, then, to do them justice, but not too much justice. Cooking them too long turns them into paste. Some of us writers cook our books so long we never consider our work finished. Sometimes we fear failure; sometimes we fear success; sometimes we hesitate to start a new project. If we are aware of our fears, we may be less likely to overcook our produce.

On the other hand, there are those of us who don’t let the sauces simmer long enough to meld the flavors. We whip through a draft or two then send our books off, false hope in the mail. Tomato sauce doesn’t belong on noodles unless it’s had a good long time to simmer the flavors to Italian perfection. We’re better off considering five drafts half simmered.

We could layer in discussion about our lives as the soil we start with, fertilizers that inspire our words, bad-habit weed barriers, and selling our produce in the farmer’s market. But metaphors are like truffle shavings, too much of a good thing overwhelms.

Words are food for thought. We grow them so we and others can enjoy them.

The clouds are cooperating. Inkpot wishes you good gardening and good eating! Bon Appetite!