Heroes make me cry

I've cried many times for the men of the 359th Fighter Group, shedding tears for men who were killed in action 70 years ago. Capt. Wayne N. Bolefahr is one such man.  Capt. Bolefahr flew with the 368th Fighter Squadron from April 1943 through 10 June 1944, when he was KIA.  Last week I posted this text on the 359th's Facebook page:

"On this early 10 June mission, the only claims were an electric loco and several goods wagons strafed by Fogg and his flight. But this was the opening of an eventful day. The only mission actively resented by the pilots as “a suicide job” came up next: escort on the deck of four PRU (Photographic Reconnaissance Unit) P-38s to the Antwerp area. The PRU pilots said they had not been able to get any planes back from the heavily defended Lowlands. The 368th was ordered to take them in. Colonel Tyrrell, briefing, warned of the flak and told the pilots they could do little good attempting to intervene: keep the enemy off the PRU and let them brave the flak.

"But the compulsion of the West Pointer’s code of duty, honor, country led Captain Wayne Norbert Bolefahr, beau ideal of the 368th, to do more than that. As the squadron swept in over the Scheldt with the four P-38s they came under a staggering barrage: there were automatic weapons emplaced everywhere along the winding coasts and the railroads, the heavy guns were in motion at extreme slant ranges. Bolefahr, slim, dark, kindly, courteous, a soldier in whom the sense of duty replaced the killer instinct he totally lacked, felt compelled to intervene. He was there. The Air Force wanted the pictures. So all along that blazing route he flew in the van, firing at every emplacement, drawing the enemy flak while the camera-Lightnings went off to the side, making their low obliques. It was magnificent; it was also death. “Bo” survived until 1410, four miles N of Antwerp, when his aircraft flamed under a hail of hits and augured in from 100 feet. Tom McGeever’s P-51 was badly clobbered, too, but he got back to Manston. All four PRUs came home with, the group hoped, the pictures of whatever it was they wanted. On the way back, four locos were destroyed and another damaged, but it was a saddened group of pilots who sat numbly in the lounge at Wretham Hall that night, and the impact of Bo’s loss fell heavily on every man and officer on the ground side who had known him." ~ Excerpt from the June 1944 359th Fighter Group History report dated 4 July 1944.

"Bo" gave his life for all of us, for freedom for the world. Yet that costliest of lessons seems to have faded as people run faster (from home to coffee shop to work to the gym or school and back), talk or text constantly, and rarely pause to reflect on life, to cherish their myriad opportunities. I could easily rant about the evil that seems to promulgate itself in this world of ours, but instead I'll shed a few more tears and continue to quietly work on my manuscript while also sharing photos and stories about the men of the 359th Fighter Group.

I do hope, though, that the story of Lt. Bolefahr's actions that day made a few of you cry. After you've wiped your face dry, but before you pick up your phone, read another blog, or jog to the coffee shop, please take a moment to step outside and gaze at the high, blue sky. Then send a word of thanks to "Bo," and to all heroes.

~ Janet Fogg
    Fogg in the Cockpit

Five Things or You Can Do It

by Nib

I’m on the downhill side of the Colorado Gold conference. If you’ve never been, you don’t know what you’re missing. A weekend full of writing, writing, writing. Not physical sitting down, fingers to keyboard, but learning, talking, immersing in craft and the business. I attended my first conference in 1994 and haven’t missed one since.

Every year I grab hold of some vital information or inspiration to boost me along my writing path. Last year I got all excited about writing new adult contemporary romance and self-pubbing on Amazon. I tried it. After one and three-quarters books, I decided it wasn’t the path for me. I don’t regret the experiment… much. I wrote a lot of words in a short amount of time, so that is always good.

This year, I focused on my biggest weakness in my writing career. Marketing. To show you how bad I am at this, I had forgotten to take business cards to the Colorado Gold conference. With three books out, I didn’t have one stick of promotional material to place on the freebie table.

I have a natural aversion to promoting my books. I don’t know why. Maybe I fear other people won’t like them. It’s hard for me to remember that professionals in the publishing industry liked my writing enough to invest in it. It also seems that marketing is such an overwhelming maze, with no one knowing what works, that I tend to throw up my hands and retreat.

But no more. I refuse to remain a marketing weenie. Led on by Guerilla Marketer, Julie Kazimer, author of the The Deadly After Ever series with the latest book, The Fairyland Murders coming out in December, I am determined to conquer this fear of marketing.

Julie says to break it down. She suggests we do five things for marketing every day. It can be big things, like calling books stores to set up signings or setting up blog tours. It can be small things, like working social marketing sites or commenting on blogs. She says you can even count leaving your business card with your payment at a restaurant. (Of course, you’d have to remember to have cards with you.)

It’s only been a week since I committed to this. On the very first day, after a business meeting, I pulled out a couple of cards promoting my books. I was very excited when the woman I’d met with emailed me later that day and said she’d bought my book. It’s one sale that won’t make a big difference in my income. But it was the validation I needed.

My next book launches in March. It’s not too soon to start setting up a blog tour and book signings. Because of Julie’s urges, I’ve started putting those events in motion. Five things. Every day.

I work out almost every day. I clean my house, pay bills, all manner of grown up things that require discipline, organization and planning. I worked hard to learn to write well enough to get published. Surely, I can figure out this marketing thing.

I’m jumping back on Twitter. I’m at http://www.twitter.com/sbakerwriter. I think they also say @sbakerwriter, but that will be a lesson for another day. I’m really bad at Twitter. But if all these other people can figure it out, I can, too. So, here’s what, I’ve created my first hashtag #5things. Help me out and if you tweet, send me a message.

I remember when I didn’t know what POV meant. Someone had to teach me about passive language. I can be taught. I can learn how to market my books.

Five things every day.

Who’s in?

Change Someone's Story

I appreciated this blog post so much I decided I should share it here.

The theme, “Take someone's face in your hands.”  It's about being the one to make a stranger feel better.   A lovely thought.  I had a similar experience April in an airport when I missed a plane and had to run crying to catch another one to get to my dying father.  A woman in the boarding line ahead of me noticed my crushed state.  She offered to carry my bag and put it in the overhead for me.  She even gave me a hug as we got off the plane.  It reminded me that wonderful things can happen even parallel to devastating things.

- Inkpot

A few quotes about writing

for your consideration.


A word is not the same with one writer as with another. One tears it from his guts. The other pulls it out of his overcoat pocket. ~ Charles Peguy


And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt. ~ Sylvia Plath


Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart. ~ William Wordsworth


Don't loaf and invite inspiration; light out after it with a club, and if you don't get it you will none the less get something that looks remarkably like it. ~ Jack London


Writing is both mask and unveiling. ~ E.B. White


The purpose of literature is to turn blood into ink. ~ T.S. Eliot


The greatest part of a writer's time is spent in reading, in order to write; a man will turn over half a library to make one book. ~ Samuel Johnson


A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people. ~ Thomas Mann

Have You Got It?

by Nib

I researched flights for Bouchercon. I checked my email and had an on-line conversation with my daughter. I wandered over to Facebook and blew an hour. After that, I messed around with some hot tub maintenance. Then it seemed like time for coffee so I brewed a pot and read a few articles in The Week.

I dug into the file cabinet looking for an obscure bill from last year to compare with this year. Checked my emails again and answered some questions. Then back to Facebook. And out to check on the garden….

All of this while carrying around a fifty-pound sandbag of guilt, knowing I have a big word count I set for today. I can’t seem to force myself to BICHOK this morning. (Butt In Chair, Hands on Keys) Now it’s nearly noon and I’m still in high-speed avoidance behavior. To break the seal and get the words “flowing,” I’ve finally settled into writing this blog.

I finished the draft of a novel and sent it off to an editor three weeks ago and I’m going crazy waiting to hear what she thinks. I know there will be suggestions, dear lord there are always suggestions. But I don’t know what those will be and how much work it’s going to take to make my little snot-nosed manuscript presentable. Still, I finished a book and have a great beginning on the next one.

And that’s my problem. I’m battling that “Hey, you rock” attitude with the “Don’t quit ‘til you’re done” guilt. I spent a lot of years as a Lutheran and I am from Nebraska, so you can see where the work ethic/guilt part might be pretty ingrained. Seriously, though, what would be so wrong with taking one day off? Sure, I know Stephen King never takes a day off, but I’m no Stephen King.

Then I happened along a TED Talk on something called grit. (Yes, I stumbled upon it while browsing in Facebook, why do you ask?) http://tinyurl.com/c2sxaay. According to Angela Lee Duckworth, grit is what causes success. It’s not how smart we are or how talented we are, but it’s the ability to dig in and keep working toward the goal.

Angela Lee Duckworth

I even took the quiz linked to the video. (Well, I was murdering time so why not?) If I answered the questions honestly—and I’m not above lying to myself—it turns out I have quite a bit of grit. I might go ahead and agree with that assessment, though. I’m not the most brilliant bulb in the chandelier, nor am I gifted with great heaps of writing talent. But I’ve been toiling away on writing books for a very long time.

I haven’t achieved success in terms of John Grisham or Nora Roberts but I’m continuing to make progress in my writing career. I’m becoming a better writer with each book I turn out and I’m learning more and more all the time. To stick with this crazy business and challenging career, it takes grit, not to mention a loose grasp on sanity.

So now, duly inspired and my fingers well oiled, I am shutting off Facebook, turning away from email and setting up in the blocks in today’s race for word count.

When you hit a writing funk, what fires up your gritty nature and sends you back to the keyboard?

WHICH AGENT?

I have yet to publish a novel with my name on the cover.  With nonfiction, I contracted to write a literary cookbook only to have it fall through when the photographer backed out.  But my work has been represented.  I’m the exception to the cliché about it being harder to get an agent than a contract with a publishing house. 

Hooking up through conference pitches and query letters, eight agents have offered to represent my work.  I turned down some of those opportunities.  Roll your eyes.  I know.  This is not to brag, but to establish my credibility on the topic of finding an agent. 

Here are my suggestions for those of you who are ready to have help in selling your book.

When you pitch yourself and your book to an agent, be sure to target the right one.  Many factors will determine which will be your best advocate. 

Be sure they represent your genre.  This doesn’t only mean he likes the genre, although you want your agent to be passionate about your mystery, which may be challenging for one who doesn’t like mysteries.  It means he’s sold them before and will have connections to editors that acquire them.  If you write in more than one genre, as I do, you may be better off getting an agent who is part of an agency that is large enough to represent a variety of genres.

 

 

The large Jane Dystel agency represented my cookbook for a year and later a celebrity memoir I was ghostwriting.   If your agent is part of a larger group and is eager to sell your romance novel but doesn’t represent cookbooks, she can pass your cookbook to a partner.

Kathleen Anderson

One of my agents, Kathleen Anderson, didn’t have connections for my cookbook but had had tremendous success with mainstream novels like mine.  Because she didn't have a partner to pass my nonfiction to, my cookbook sat stagnant. 

Lilly Ghahremani

Another agent, Lilly Ghahremani, knew about that cookbook and wanted to sell it for me, but Kathleen wanted to represent all my work and believed it would be complicated if one publishing house had to bargain with two different agents on two different projects.  In retrospect, I should have signed a one book contract with each of them so my genres would get equal attention. 

 

There are other reasons to consider the size of an agency.  Big agencies are sometimes less attentive, their time spread thin, devoted more to their established authors.  On the other hand, big, well-established agencies have reputations that get their clients taken seriously.  The newcomers in that big agency may be the ones that are easier to pitch to and get a response.  They are still growing their clientele.  

Consider too, what kind of attention you need.  You’ll likely get more attention from a small, boutique, or individual agent.   That doesn’t mean every smaller agency will want to hold your hand through your divorce—though I’ve heard some agents do that.  It means you may have hour-long conversations about that POV fix you need to tackle or how to use Twitter before your book is even bought.  It may, as it did for me once, mean she’ll actually show up to meet you at your home.  Don’t count on that though, the visit usually happens the other way around.

Ten years ago I would have suggested getting a NY agent.  That is no longer necessary.  Kristen Nelson represents Jamie Ford (Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet), Hugh Howey (Wool) and other bestsellers.  She’s in Denver. 

Check the acknowledgments in successful books in your genre.  Which agents are mentioned?  If a book is very similar to yours, you may want to avoid querying that agent.  They typically don’t want two of their books to compete.

Do your homework at online sites such as Predators and Editors, Query Tracker, and Absolute Write.  Then make your list.

Don’t send out 100s of queries at once.  Send to a few choice agents, wait as long as they suggest on their websites, check in politely once after that, then move on.  If you get individualized feedback, that is not to be discounted.  It took him time to personalize.  He may be interested in your work after a good edit or perhaps willing to look at your next project.  Pay close attention to what he and others have written to you.  If actionable feedback is consistent among them (couldn’t buy into this character, story didn’t seem big enough, the situation was not believable), take it seriously.  But don’t be surprised if the response is generic and unhelpful (just isn’t my thing, can’t imagine who I’d sell this to, great writing but I’ll pass on this).  They are busy people.  Their job isn’t to educate you.  It’s to serve their current clients and snatch up new ones they can sell.

Whether it is 2 or 20 you are querying, never address your email (or snail mail) to Dear Agent.  Always personalize including a first line about why you chose her to query.  “We spoke at the Pikes Peak Writers Conference….”  “I saw you represented one of my favorite books….”  “Because of your success in representing hard science fiction…”  This shows you’ve done your homework, that you aren’t just blanketing the world of agents with a desperate call for help.

Limit your queries to only one agent in an agency.  Imagine the confusion that could ensue if two people in one agency decide to offer representation.  Plus they often do get together to discuss queries.   Donald Maas says his agents sit around a table once a week and go through queries committee style.  If your query pops up twice, it will, at best, seem as if you weren’t targeting a specific agent.  Wait a couple of months, then you can approach another agent within that agency. 

Finding an agent who will work for you and your book takes a bit of homework and a lot of common sense.  What would you add to my list of things to consider when choosing a literary agent?

- From the Inkpot

I Blame my Brothers

I recently flew to Nashville and thought I would download a couple of ebooks onto my phone to read while on my trip.  I perused many options (you can't have too many books!), added a dozen or so to my wish list, and eventually selected a zombie apocalypse novel and a new mystery based on the world of Peter Wimsey created by Dorothy Sayers.  

Then I sat back and laughed.  At myself.  Zombies and post WWII England!  Could just as easily have been high fantasy and literary fiction.

I really do blame my brothers.  When I was young, in the summer I regularly took the bus to the library, often with my brothers and sister.  Books, books, books!  I was in Heaven!  We could each check out five books, and after I read mine I would then dip into those my brothers and sister brought home.  I didn't care that the books were typically above my reading level or what genre they selected.  Didn't matter one whit.  I consumed those books!  Pirates, pioneers, prisoners, or pomp (and circumstance).  Fairy tales, adventures, science fiction, or romance.  I relished each and every one.

Many years ago, when asked about my favorite books and the genres I preferred, I had great difficulty settling on just one or two.  I read and enjoy them all.  Sure, there's the occasional horror that's just too specific in its gore or torture scenes and I turn away, but that's a specific book, not the entire genre.  And yes, too much technical lingo in a military thriller will sometimes make my eyes glaze over, but if I care about the characters I read on.  And on, and on, and on.

So I want to thank my brothers and sister.  I hold them responsible for not only improving my reading skills but opening my eyes to so many genres.  And for sharing their books.

~ Folio