NEVER SAY DIE

Frank Roderus

If you intend to make it as a professional, perhaps the most important quality you can have is simple stick-to-it’iveness. Bloody-minded stubbornness is more like it.

And no matter what, do not – do not ever – allow yourself to be dissuaded from the dream.

Let me tell you a true story about my struggling years. I was a newspaper reporter and as such spent a great deal of time sitting through murder trials. Now there is nothing so boring as a murder trial. The lawyers laboriously, studiously, boringly go into incredible details of arcane law, frantic lest they forget some technicality.

Sitting and listening to this nonsense in real life is most unlike the drama you see on TV. To keep myself busy I wrote, in longhand in steno pads. And I wrote what I thought was a pretty good yarn.

I typed that up into a manuscript in the style specified in Writers’ Markets, then had to find a publisher. Now how do you go about such things when you have no track record and know nothing about the business?

Why, you get an expert to handle it for you. Of course.

So I went through the books again and found a likely agent. Mailed the manuscript off and started chewing my nails waiting for the response.

Boy, did I ever get one. My manuscript came back in due time and along with it a letter. The letter said, not quite in so many words but very bluntly, that I was not a writer, should not bother her or anyone else again and to find something else to occupy my time.

To say that I was crushed is an understatement. I was devastated. I took her advice. Because, after all, this woman was a New York agent and New York agents know everything. Right? Sure they do.

I put that manuscript aside and tried to give up the thought of writing. It was three years before the desire to write overcame me to the point that I had to try again.

I pulled that same manuscript out, read it over and decided it really was not that terrible. Sent it off again, this time to a small, mid-western press.

They bought it, and Duster was a Spur Award finalist that year. I have been writing and consistently selling ever since.

My point here is that the all-knowing New York agent (I have completely forgotten her name, but her initials are Ann B Elmo) very nearly stopped my career before it ever happened. And would have had I not been so determined to try again regardless of that ‘professional opinion’ from on high.

Believe in yourself. That is the key.

Writing Professionally

By Frank Roderus

I’ve been writing professionally for 45 years, first as a newspaper reporter and for the past 35 years as a novelist. I consider this a joy, a privilege and a blessing.

During the course of these years I have been asked countless times for the ‘secret’ to the writing and/or the selling. If there were such a secret I would gladly pass it on to another generation of writers. Sadly, there is no such thing.

What there is, however, is almost as simple as following a secret path to writing success. It is, in short, persistence. Ideally you should be mule stubborn and Polyanna optimistic if you want to write for a living.

But first – please – read.

Yes, I said read. I cannot tell you how many times people have told me that they want to become writers. When I ask what types of books they prefer to read, amazingly often the response will be that they do not read. They don’t have time. They don’t have (insert excuse here).

Incredible. If you do not read, you will not be able to write. Period.

Next, write. A lot. You find your voice and hone it by writing.

Often, perhaps even usually, I am told that the would-be writer really would write a book if only s/he had time. Hoo-ha! Everyone has time enough because no one sits down and writes a book. You sit down and write a scene, a chapter, a paragraph. Just one. At a time. Add a whole lot of those together and you have a book.

I started writing longhand in steno pads. Those go anywhere without trouble. You can write a sentence in the morning while the kids are having breakfast, a paragraph on the bus, a scene while the family is at the beach. Any scrap of idle time can be productive for someone who really wants to write.

Have a manuscript? Think it is good enough to market? Good. Now comes the hard part. Sell it.

First, though, if you really want to succeed, do your homework. Haunt the bookstores to see what publishers are buying and which publishing houses those are. Find a copy of Writers’ Markets and study it. Do keep in mind that a great deal of lead time was built into the publication and a publisher’s needs may have changed since those entries were made.

Don’t ignore the small and regional presses. Those may be a suitable outlet for your manuscript. But don’t be afraid to shoot for the stars either.

If at all possible, attend a convention or two. Want to write westerns? Come to a convention put on by Western Writers of America and/or Western Fictioneers (WF meets are scheduled in conjunction with WWA). I cannot stress enough how helpful it is to meet the editors who will be appraising your work. Get to know them. Ask what they like. Not just what they need but what they like.

Editors are people. I know. That is hard to believe but it’s true. They have preferences and prejudices just like the rest of us. Find out what those are if possible and then tailor your mss to them. That effort can help pay off in sales.

But first you must produce that ms so compelling that it cannot be turned down.

I wish you luck with it.