This is cause for celebration…

I finished a draft of my book!

That’s right, I’ve written through the entire manuscript. It feels like a huge accomplishment. I’m ready to move onto the next stage: revision.

Actually, I’m already well into the revision process. I’ve edited 16 of my 33 chapters. At least one critique partner has read through them, and I’ve made changes based on their suggestions.

I realize this goes against conventional wisdom about writing an entire draft before revising. But revising along the way worked for me. And one of the most important lessons I’ve learned so far about writing a book is that I have to do what works for me, even if it doesn’t follow conventional wisdom.

What do I hope to accomplish during my revision stage?

Cut & Trim. My manuscript comes in at about 100,000 words. I want to get it down to 85,000 – 90,000, a length that will appeal to literary agents and publishing houses. That means I’ll be tossing out chapters and scenes I spent time and energy writing. But cutting is about more than losing words. Tightening my manuscript, getting rid of scenes I don’t really need, will improve the story.

Decide on a beginning. Several of my readers made a similar suggestion about the beginning of my book, that I may want to start differently. I’m going to give it a whirl and see whether that works better.

Consider the chapters all together. I’ve edited half my chapters, so I believe each works separately. But once I finish revising the rest of my pieces, it’ll be time to look at all thirty or so chapters together and see how they work as one unit.

Improve transitions. Several chapters could transition more smoothly. I’ll examine the beginnings and endings of each chapter, making changes where necessary, to make sure chapter breaks are seamless.

Reconsider all embarrassing scenes. During my first draft, I revealed everything about myself that would make the story interesting, knowing I could always delete those embarrassing scenes later. Now it’s time to decide whether I really want to include each one in the book. Am I comfortable with letting readers know all these personal details? In many ways, those embarrassing tidbits are what make my memoir interesting.

What do you focus on during your revision process?

Writers’ Roundup

Happy Friday! Lots of good links out there this week:

• What makes a blog successful? By Penelope Trunk.

• Should new authors go to BEA? (BookExpo America, that is.) Literary agent Janet Reid says don’t bother.

• Literary agent Rachelle Gardner rebukes some publishing myths, including that authors should never write proposals for fiction.

• Back from the Baltimore Writers’ Conference, Ami Spencer talks about how she networked with other writers there.

• Annoyed that Publishers Weekly’s best books of 2009 didn’t include any female authors? You’re not the only one. Here’s what one blogger is doing about it.

• Literary agent Jessica Faust writes about the benefit of critique groups. She says feedback from others is crucial, but it’s most important to trust your own instincts.

• Great post from author Mary Carroll Moore on rethinking what your book is about.

• 24 Things to Do when Launching a New Blog. Solid ideas here.

• Editor Alan Rinzler has some fabulous hints to make your author appearances successful.

• And for your non-writerly read: Emily, a voluntary simplicity newbie, offers some thoughts on leaving journalism. Or, rather, how it left her.

Cheers to a productive weekend!

Why you should have a bucket list

I’ve long wanted to hike the Appalachian Trail. Walking the 2,178-mile footpath is on my bucket list — my list of things I want to do in my lifetime (before I kick the bucket).

It’s more than a list of my goals — it’s a compilation of my dreams. We often work toward our goals, but leave our dreams to the wayside, hoping they might happen on their own. But you have to work toward your dreams just like you work toward your goals. You have to make those dreams happen.

That’s why it’s so important to have a bucket list. Writing those dreams on paper turns them into goals, makes them attainable, tangible, doable — aspirations to work toward, instead of pipe dreams that might eventually happen.

What does this have to do with writing? Everything. Writing a book, a travel memoir specifically, has been on my bucket list for years. (So was backpacking through Africa.)

My list keeps me moving forward. It’s a reminder of what I have to look forward to, as well as what I’ve accomplished. (The author of a blog I read regularly, Starfish Envy, has a bucket list, too!)

So what’s on my bucket list? Here’s a sampling:

Write a book
Backpack through Africa
Teach a class
Go bungee jumping
Get paid to play piano on a cruise ship
Run a marathon
Coach a softball team
Backpack through Latin America
Learn Spanish
See more of the world (this has its own list)
Earn a master’s degree
Research my family’s genealogy
Lead a Girl Scout troop
Hike the Appalachian Trail
Have kids

What’s on your bucket list? More importantly, what’s keeping you from crossing off those items?

Writers’ Roundup

Hey regulars! And a warm welcome to newbies who discovered this blog because of an interview I did over at Mira’s List earlier this week. Glad to have you.

Links from this week:

• How much money would you make from a New York Times Bestseller? This author tells all.

• Speaking about your book: Seven Tips for Successful Public Speaking from The Creative Penn.

• The Christian Science Monitor reviews a new book about the history of memoir (appropriately titled Memoir: A History). One interesting fact from the story: between 2004 and 2008, the genre’s sales have jumped 400 percent. Now that’s something for us memoir writers to be excited about!

• Literary agent Nathan Bransford writes about comparing your book to other books in your query or proposal. (I’ve struggled with in my own proposal, so I appreciate his advice.)

• For lovers of Strunk & White, Editor Unleashed interviews the author of Stylized: A Slightly Obsessive History of Strunk & White’s The Elements of Style. What a great idea for a book.

Happy weekend!

Update on Cooper, the Hambidge dog

Had I waited a bit longer to name Cooper, I might have called him Shadow.

This dog has been glued to my hip since the first day I fed him outside my studio at The Hambidge Center. Now that he’s living with me in upstate New York, he’s on my heels whenever I get up from the chair in my home office. And I mean every time I get up. Literally.

Cooper running in his new backyard.

You all offered so much positive feedback when I wrote about how I had adopted Cooper, a stray dog, during my writer’s residency in Georgia, that I figured I should give you an update. My big red dog is adjusting fine. He responds now to his new name. And he gets cuter by the day.

He has his issues, of course, like most rescued dogs. His new vet says he won’t let me out of his sight because he’s coping with a lot of changes, and I’m the only thing he can count on. And who knows what he went through before I adopted him.

The vet in Georgia had estimated Cooper’s age at seven to nine years, but our Albany vet put him between ten and eleven. He has a couple of health problems related to age, including arthritis in his back legs and a tumor on his testicle. Cooper was never fixed as a young pup, so you can guess what fun lies in store for him during the next few months! The vet wants to wait until he’s adjusted to his new environment to go ahead with the procedure, but says it should take care of the tumor.

Here’s my guess on Cooper’s past: He was an outdoor dog, maybe a farm dog, not often on a leash. He certainly didn’t spend much time inside a house. His favorite toy is a stick — nothin’ fancy. He’s afraid of our stairs, and refuses to climb them, which means I’ve been sleeping downstairs with him in our guest bedroom. He rarely barks, but when he does, it’s usually at men, so I’m thinking he had a mean man in his life somewhere along the line. (His bark is so coarse he sounds like a seal.) He also barks at trucks, so maybe he was dumped out of one? He’s housebroken (thank goodness), has a fabulous personality, and — this is unusual for a golden –  doesn’t shed.

As my dad said recently, isn’t it amazing that a dog who probably was treated poorly — he was dumped, after all — could still be so sweet?

Writers’ Roundup

Happy Friday! Some great links out there this week:

• Writer’s Digest offers ideas on how to start your memoir on the right foot.

• A practical Savvy Author’s Guide to Podcasting from Editor Unleashed.

• How does a writer cut text from his story and not lose his soul? Editorial Ass weighs in.

• The Creative Penn makes an excellent point on author marketing and networking and the power of social media.

• From author Mary Carroll Moore, notes on creating solid beginning and ending chapters.

• Still haven’t joined Twitter, or need a few pointers? Here’s a fabulous Writer’s Guide to Twitter, from @InkyElbows.

• Every once in a while, I like to tell you about a new blog I’ve come across, even if it has nothing to do with writing. Recently I’ve been reading Starfish Envy, about a woman who’s single, approaching the end of her child-bearing years, and has decided to have a baby on her own. For a while she was debating between adoption and invitro, but it looks like she’s going with the latter. In some ways, I’m saddened by her story; she’s taking an alternate route because she hasn’t found a partner to share her dreams. But it’s also inspiring, because this woman is taking steps to get what she wants, to make her dream happen, despite certain obstacles. Couldn’t we all learn from that?

My book’s not my baby… But it’s close

My best friend just had a baby.

The writing-a-book’s-like-having-a-baby analogy has always annoyed me. No matter how laborious (pun intended), creating something with your mind just cannot be compared to bringing another person into this world.

But Lauren got pregnant right around the time I started writing this travel memoir.

Her baby is in a bassinet.

Me? I’m still laboring.

I’m ready to push this sucker out already!

Mira’s List of grants, fellowships & residencies

I recently discovered a fabulous blog, Mira’s List, which helps writers, artists and other creative thinkers find grants, fellowships, residencies and more resources. Who’s the woman, I wondered, who compiled this valuable information for free and shared it with everyone lucky enough to stumble across her site?

Mira Bartok, of Mira's List

Turns out she’s quite the interesting character. Mira Bartok has published her writing in anthologies and literary journals and is the author of more than 30 children’s books on world cultures. She recently sold her first full-length book for adults, an illustrated memoir entitled The Memory Palace. She’s also a visual artist who exhibits her work at museums and galleries throughout the United States and abroad, and she serves as a spokesperson for A Room of Her Own Foundation, a foundation for women writers.

I considered simply linking to Mira’s List and leaving it at that — her blog alone is a wealth of information. But then Mira agreed to an interview. So continue reading below, and you’ll learn not only more about what makes this artist tick, but also a few of the gems for writers she has come across in her research.

Thanks for joining us, Mira! It sounds like you’re a jack of many trades. What’s your day job?

The short answer is that I don’t have a day job. Over the last ten years I’ve been recovering from a traumatic brain injury (TBI), a result of a bad car accident, and after trying to teach part-time and do a variety of freelance writing that I used to do before the TBI, I ended up having to go on disability. About five years ago I won a lawsuit from the accident and that, plus some grants, thankfully provided me with enough to live on until now.

Fortunately, I just sold my book to Simon & Schuster! That should get me through the next two to three years if I’m careful. But I’m one of the millions out there without a pension plan, an IRA or 401 K, etc. etc. When I was younger, in my twenties and thirties, I made a living as a cultural specialist and educator in museums, and also taught the occasional university class. I also spent several years writing a children’s book series on different cultures to pay the bills. Oddly enough, I’ve made most of my living from either doing art or writing.

Why did you start Mira’s List?

I began Mira’s List as a blog late in the winter of 2009. But I had been sending announcements out to a list of people, about a hundred of them, for a year or so before that. What started as my nagging about ten good friends to apply for things turned into a longer list of their friends and their friends’ friends and eventually, I thought I would serve people better if the whole thing became a public forum. I believe in championing people and helping others to succeed and become more resourceful. I was helped a lot by various institutions during my recovery period so it is my little way of giving back.

What are a few of your favorite grants and fellowships for writers?

Wow. That’s hard to say. If we are talking about the Big Ones, then of course, getting a Guggenheim, a Radcliffe or an NEA would be high on the list! But there are also those smaller grants, the ones that are rather particular to certain kinds of people or art forms that don’t usually get much attention. The Xeric Foundation gives grants to comic book writers/artists and as far as I know, it might be the only institution of its kind. Oh, Creative Capital is fantastic. They do all kinds of things and are totally open to New Media and experimental work from all genres. Some people call it the gift that keeps on giving.

Another place that is great is the Haven Foundation, which was started by the writer Stephen King after, oddly enough, recovering from his own TBI. They give up to $25,000 a year for four years in a row to writers and others in the arts who have suffered an illness or some kind of financial disaster. I wish they were around when I was looking for help in 1999! Anyway, there are many, many little gems out there, and I hope they survive these hard times.

You’re an encyclopedia of knowledge! What about residencies for writers?

You know, when people are starting out looking for residencies, they first hear of MacDowell and Yaddo and think, gee, I’ll never get into those. I haven’t even published a book yet. Well, those places are amazing but there are also dozens of places all over the world that are interested in not only established writers and artists but emerging ones as well. And I have seen some really interesting environmental residencies popping up every year. Where people go and not only do their work but also collaborate with other artists on an environmental theme, or they do some kind of community project. Sitka Center for Art and Ecology is one environmental residency I’ve heard great things about. There are also some very intriguing cross-genre residencies, like the Binaural Residency Program in Portugal, which brings together sound artists, writers, musicians and others to create new media sound projects.

Writers’ Roundup

A big welcome if you’re here for the first time courtesy of The Creative Penn, who hosted me for a podcast this week on travel writing and writer’s residencies. You’re just in time for the weekly writers’ roundup, a collection of my favorite links, which runs each Friday.

Since returning from my writer’s residency, where I didn’t have an Internet connection in my studio, I’ve spent less time on Twitter. I still think the social networking tool is incredibly useful, but I realized while I was away that spending so much time online was taking away from my writing.

Unfortunately, less time in the Twittersphere means fewer links for my roundup. But we have to prioritize, right?

• Ami at Writing: My Life is doing NaNoWriMo this November. Any of y’all challenging yourself to write a novel in a month? (Not me. Gotta focus on the book.)

• No women in Publishers Weekly’s top 10 books of 2009? From the Christian Science Monitor’s books blog.

• Author Liz Palmer has a section on her Web site for writers that’s worth checking out.

• Literary agent Rachelle Gardner explains why backstory doesn’t work at the beginning of a story.

• Shack’s Comings and Goings offers a Sunday Wash-Up with links from the week — another writing blog to add to your RSS feed.

I’ve got a Q&A scheduled here for Monday that you won’t want to miss — See you then!

How to turn your blog into a book

The movie Julie & Julia started out a blog, then became a book (and finally, a film).

It’s the most well-known example of a story that went from blog to book. But that tale — which, ironically, is partly about a frustrated writer — isn’t the only one. An increasing number of blogs are being published as books.

I’m one of the writers trying to make that happen. Whenever I talk about transforming my travel blog, Inkslinging in Africa, into a memoir, I say my blog is serving as a “skeleton” for my book. That’s because creating a book from a blog requires much more work than simply pasting together posts.

So how does one go about turning a blog into a book? What does it take?

Figure out your theme. Penelope Trunk, who got a six-figure book deal from her blog, says the main difference between blog posts and a book is that the latter has to have a Big Idea. She’s right. For me, that Big Idea is a theme, a thread that pulls all of my mini stories into one narrative, a story with a point.

Consider your voice. I love my blog voice. Blogging comes naturally to me. I’m funny on my travel blog, maybe even funnier than I am in real life. But my blog voice does not always translate into literary voice. Why? Because it’s choppy. On my blogs, I write in short sentences, quick paragraphs that are easy to read. But my book has to read smoothly, with longer paragraphs, because I’m writing entire chapters, not posts. A book is 300 pages, not eight paragraphs like a blog post. That means my book voice is slightly different than my blog voice. Maybe your blog voice translates directly to your book. But maybe it doesn’t. Either way, this is something to think about.

Add transitions. On my blog, it was okay for me to be in South Africa one day, Madagascar the next. That doesn’t work for my book. Taking the reader along for the ride is more literal, and smooth transitions are important.

Double — or triple — the stories. The book is about more than what I wrote on the blog. Otherwise, why would you buy it? Why would you buy my book if you could just scroll through my travel blog for the exact same stories? My book has got to offer more stories, more introspection, more something. Whatever your something is, offer more.

Add context. On my blog, I have an About Me section and a sidebar with links that explain background about why I left my job to travel. In the book, that’s gotta be in paragraph form, part of the story. I have to include background in an interesting way because the reader can’t just click around my book, choosing links that provide context.

Improve and reuse. Even blog posts that make it into the book must be rewritten better than they were on the blog. Think of the blog as a rough draft. The book version needs more description, dialogue, pretty much everything I neglected to include when I quickly wrote the post in an Internet cafe in Cameroon, trying to finish it before the power went out. For example, here’s a post I wrote for my travel blog; here’s the better version I wrote for the book.

Don’t forget to use the blog to sell your book. Write about the popularity of your blog in your book proposal. Inkslinging in Africa got 50,000 page views during its first six months. That may not be a huge number by some standards, but it’s impressive for an independent start-up, and it shows there’s a market for my stories.

Anyone out there embarking on a blog-to-book project? Or considering one? Got advice to add to the list above? What sort of blogs do you think might make good books?