Storymakers Conference

I just signed up for the LDS Storymakers Conference. I'm really excited by this year's conference. Part of that is because they've asked me to teach two classes! One will be on writing for magazines--partly emphasizing the Ensign and such, but also some more mechanical things on how to craft such stories.

The other will be on writing back cover copy--the secret to pitches and queries. I'll draw a lot from a webinar I took from Kristin Nelson of the Nelson Literary Agency, combined with a few other things. She deserves credit. That was a fantastic seminar that completely changed how I consider queries and such. Really opened my eyes. I hope the material will be useful for the class!

Fortunately, I've got over four months to prepare. Not to procrastinate, I hope!

There will also be other editors and agents coming. This is mostly a fiction-based conference, but it is excellent. I believe last year drew about 600 people. One of the finest writing conferences I've been too.

I also signed up to attend the Whitney Awards. I've been helping a little behind the scenes to prepare for the awards. I've been impressed with the professionalism of the committee and their efforts to ensure a quality contest. If you haven't nominated someone and think their book is worthy of the award, you have until December 31st. Better get on it!

World Fantasy Was Awesome!

I had a great, great time at the World Fantasy Convention in Columbus.

First, I ran into some writing friends. I've found that conventions are so much more enjoyable when you've been developing a network of peers and associates with whom you can spend time discussing the industry, catching up, and generally instilling confidence in your work. It also helps when those people help clue you in through networking to other professionals you ought to know. That worked fabulously. Thanks to Stephen Nelson, especially.

Second, I pitched to a number of agents and editors and have a total of 9 requests from the conference. I know it's pie in the sky still, but they were all friendly, generous with their time, and polite enough to open the door to opportunity. I hope it is fruitful for all of us.

Third, it was informative regarding the industry. Writers, editors, agents, and publishers are interesting people with interesting ideas, stories, concepts, and energy. You spend enough time around them at a convention and you practically explode with creativity. For me, it was rejuvenating as well as exciting for possibilities and for making new contacts. Well worth the trip.

OK, should have posted this a week ago, but following the convention I was on vacation visiting friends, family, and traveling a great deal with my own little family of six. Yes, very busy times! Now, on to polishing that middle grade for submission. Thank you editors and agents for providing the incentive!

Tomorrow I'm off to the World Fantasy Convention

Ecuador was an amazing, life-changing experience. I met people so humble of circumstance it was hard to believe. Many wondered how they were going to feed themselves and their children each day, a literal struggle for survival. Others were more well to do. But in each case, they were humble in heart, and humble seekers of goodness and the Spirit in their lives. They were good and faithful. But I'll write more about that elsewhere.

Tomorrow I join my family in Ohio. They'll be visiting friends and having many Halloween festivities while I attend the World Fantasy Convention. It's one of the largest professional writing conventions in the world. Many editors and agents are going to be there, as well as a thousand authors. Excelllent!

Have any of you been to a writing convention? How about World Fantasy? If you haven't, you should seriously consider it. One of the best means of improving your craft, making new friends, and building your career.

Tell me about your experiences.

Off to Ecuador

Well, I'm off to Ecuador! Travel all day today through Atlanta to Guayaquil. Tomorrow, off to the Galapagos Islands. Would you believe there is a branch there? Wow, and some amazing people to interview and share their stories. Plus some amazing photo ops. Look for some coming articles.

Guess who I ran into at the airport? Brandon Sanderson! On his way to St. Louis for a book tour. He's gone two weeks as well.

OK, folks, the plane is boarding. I'll write again if I can.

Ecuador

So, I'm leaving for Ecuador tomorrow. 2 Week trip. Really looking forward to the interviews I'll make and the people I'll meet and the beautiful country. But I'm starting to feel anxious about being gone so long and wondering if I've left anything unfinished that shouldn't be left unfinished???

Writing for Church Magazines in the Deseret News, Mormon Times

See today's print version of Mormon Times in the Deseret News, page 2, Tips for Living. There you'll find the print version of the article on writing for Church magazines. That's the article featuring my presentation at LDS Storymakers last April.

Lessons Learned from Rushing

The past few weeks I raced in an attempt to get my middle grade book finished and out to readers in time for good feedback. The reason was because I was hoping to pitch to a specific publisher at a specific event.

Well, I didn't get my book quite finished, I did sent it out to some friends for review but had to attach caveats explaining why it wasn't finished or polished, and then discovered that the individual I was going to pitch to wasn't going to be available as I had thought.

I was a bit frustrated in how the whole process got to where it was, but in the end it turned out better than I had expected. But I learned a few things about setting goals and deadlines in the end.

1. Deadlines can be useful things. They help you push through a lot of barriers, whether self imposed or otherwise, so that you can accomplish great things.

2. Even so, don't let deadlines rule your life. Deadlines can also create a lot of stress, and sometimes that stress is unnecessary because of ill management or because something changes in someone else's schedule and you didn't need to bother. Or, if you had analyzed things a little better, you'd have seen there was a different route to take to begin with.

3. Deadlines, if properly managed, can help you produce great work. If ill managed, they can cause you to submit before your work is ready, and that means people won't have a chance at first impression with the best you can offer.

4. Analyze those deadlines. Be flexible with arbitrary deadlines. I guess this is a two parter: (A.) Don't waffle if you don't need to. You've got to write in order to publish, obviously, but, (B.) You also can't control everything out there. Sometimes things beyond your control change the environment for which your deadline was created. If you can be flexible, you won't be unnecessarily disappointed. Well, maybe that's not always true. But you can adjust and plan out your life with greater happiness if you do.

5. If someone gives you a deadline--a serious deadline that won't shift in time--then start as early as possible to meet that deadline. Figure out what you've got to accomplish by the calendar, either on a daily or weekly basis, and then make sure you do everything you can to meet those deadlines. When a publisher or agent sets those deadlines for you, then you are in a whole different ball game.

So, use deadlines, and worked toward them. But try and make them realistic so you don't feel like you're letting yourself down. I did that some this summer, and it was a bummer. If I'd done a better job at analyzing the calendar, I would have either adjusted my schedule or my self-imposed deadlines. Either way, I'd feel better about what I did and how I went about it.

Nevertheless, I feel like I had divine help in the end. Oh, the deadline essentially just got pushed back two weeks, but it gives me a greater chance of accomplishing what I've got to do--get the draft finished, out to reviewers, and edited. Oh boy, there's still a lot to do! Guess I'll be putting in some late nights!

So what was it I learned this week???

On other news, I attended a class this week on story craft using the ice cream cone model of character interplay created by Katie Farmer, and discovered why there may be some major issues with my epic fantasy. More on that in a few days.

The Power of Facebook

So, 13 hours after posting my blog and Facebook about the Mormon Times article on my presentation to LDS Storymakers on writing for the Church magazines, I had 2 comments and no 'likes' on Facebook.

However, just minutes after the Ensign Facebook page posted the link, there were 26 'likes' in the status post, 25 'likes' in the second post with the actual link (Facebook doesn't seem to place posts with links as the main status message), and several comments. That's the power of 55,500 friends on one active site (Ensign) versus 466 friends (mine) on a moderately active site.

This teaches me an interesting lesson: social media can be a powerful tool to get the word out, but you have to create a fan base that opens up the possibilities. The magazines have that. For my novels--both middle grade and epic fantasy, I'll have to work hard to market myself to make a splash.

I'm in the News!

A few months back I gave a presentation at the LDS Storymakers conference on writing for the Church magazines. Michael De Groote interviewed me, and the article has gone live here!

It's a good article, and Michael was very generous in handling the piece. Hope it's helpful!

Excellent writing telesminar

I participated in an excellent teleseminar last week about the publishing industry and changes in how authors need to view it. Although predominately leaning towards the nonfiction market, much of what was said and shared relates to fiction as well.

The seminar was hosted by Roger C. Parker (for more about him, check out his Web site), and his guest was Stephanie Guzikowski (you can read a summary of the conference she presented the ideas used as the basis for this seminar here).

They discussed "The 10 Awful Truths About Book Publishing," compiled by Steven Piersanti, president of Berrett-Koehler.

Very interesting. What it all boils down to is this: because publishers are doing less and less for marketing books, authors need to rise above the average rest and really shine in their efforts to produce excellent material and to market themselves, building a fan base and connecting with individuals. Very interesting stuff. For example, about 1 million books were published last year, more than ever before, but even as the number of books published go up, book sales are declining. Today the average published book has less than 1% chance of getting shelf space in the average bookstore.

However, authors can combine new media and old strategies to get recognized. They can even hire a publicist. Stephanie is a publicist, so she had a vested interest in promoting the concept. Still, it can be helpful. My sister published a book two years ago as part of my sisters' joint company ("The Venus Week": book my wife and many of her friends think is extraordinary about women's health). They hired a publicist who played a key role in helping them get promoted. Of course, one of my sisters is a marketing expert, so that didn't hurt, either!

Time to Get Excited? Maybe...

So I'm having lunch today with a couple of good friends to talk about my new middle grade novel--they've been reading chapters from my first draft. One of them also happens to be an editor for a major publishing house.

So how excited do I get? On the one hand, this friend is doing this as a favor to me. On the other, boy, I'd love to hone this book to meet their expectations so that it is valuable to them and publishable.

I'm really excited, but trying to remind myself that this is, fundamentally, a lunch with friends and not necessarily a business lunch promoting my book. But I can pretend it's the latter!

Finding Your Genre

I've written about this before in previous posts, but I find this topic particularly on my mind after discussing my current interests with other authors, agents, and publishers. For the longest time, I considered myself purely an epic fantasy novelist. Oh, I have a couple of human interest books in mind--I've got one particularly good one brewing about challenges in the conversion process and how to see through others' eyes--but those are just a few specific plans.

In truth, ever since I read Tolkien in my youth--perhaps 10 or 11 years old--I fancied traditional fantasy. I was never much interested in science fiction, and fantasy that did not have a particularly strong medieval component didn't seem my thing. I was a bit of a snob, really, turning down books of many categories, even subcategories of my own interest, for such reasons.

But recently I've been telling my children fantastic fairytale stories that I create on the fly. Episodic in nature, these tales have found themselves woven together in an interesting tapestry of myth and plot that make a compelling story. At the urging of my children, I began to take notes of these stories and turn them into a written book.

The process has required a great deal of additional material, mostly to smooth out transitions, to create character arcs and evolve the story, and moving events out of original sequence to create a more logical chain of events building to the eventual climax and denoument. Characters have to be more fleshed out, dialogue added, and an overarching plot conclusion known now from beginning to end creating the complete plot sequence have all been mapped out.

But here are a couple of things I find curious:

1. I'm having a blast writing for the middle grade audience. I always thought it possible, but nor likely, that I might consider writing for audiences other than epic. After all, I obtained my master's degree in medieval history and studied Classics and medieval history for many years. I developed quite a sophisticated way of communicating. I thought that's where my main talents lay.

Yet here I am, finding this method of writing as though storytelling to youth not just fascinating, but downright exciting and entertaining for me as an author. Who knew that would happen?

2. I'm finding it easier to maintain the correct voice. For epic, I tend to hear a rather falsely eloquent, 'high' voice as though I were some pompous bard, pronouncing the tale in my head. That voice has to be gently nudged to the side, sometimes forcely and at gunpoint, so that a more accessible and engaging voice and tone can come through.

But with this middle grade, I find it more natural to slide into the voice I want. I still tend to hear things a little high minded. Yet turning on the storytelling voice comes more naturally. I have simply to imagine my children, or others of a young age, and try and tell it to them. Then I have to add sensory details and character voice to complete the spell. It's just a more natural experience for m.

3. I can keep the novel in my mind so much more easily. A plot of 190,000 words, now that is daunting to keep together in my head, especially when I've got plans for sequels. But 40,000 words? I know the end from the beginning much more easily.

4. It's just so much fun! And my kids are really enjoying the experience, too. They are my captive audience and focus group.

This experience begs the question: what genre are we really suited for? And is there only one? I no longer think so. In fact, I've become a believer that to really hone your craft you have to write things outside what you normally write. You have to experience different audiences. Not that you have to write to every audience and every genre. But even this simple change has opened my eyes to possibilities, reinvigorated my excitement and interest as a writer, and brought new waves of plans and potentialities that I had never considered.

So if you find yourself stuck in a rut, try a different audience or genre. If you just feel a change might do you good, go for it. Grab a group of kids, or adults, or just imagine they are there, and practice telling a story to them. How different would the story be from what you normally do? How would this impact your voice? Your tone? Your style of delivery? Your characters?

It's made a huge impact on me and for my career.

Joshua J. Perkey writes epic, YA, and middle grade fantasy. He also dabbles in human interest writing and works as a senior editor for the Ensign and Liahona magazines. While not playing with his kids or spending time with his wife or serving in church or the community, he's trying to catch up on his favorite pasttime: sleep. He gets far too little of that!

The Magic of an Artist

Just one quick thought: A good friend of mine, Isaac Stewart, is an incredibly talented individual. Recently he took the map I created for my epic fantasy world and turned it into something so dramatic, so wonderful, so colorful, I could easily see it in the inside of an amazing hardcover book. It's only limitations were my imagination, but what he did with it is extraordinary.

Now I just have to try and get a manuscript worthy of it!

Ha!

Homes and such

So, we've decided to buy a house in our neighborhood. Just around the corner, in the same ward, and will be the same ward as the in-laws when they get back from Milan, Italy, this July (serving a mission). We hunted all over the known universe, looked at tons of great and not so great homes, tried to find some around good friends, and even tried to buy a farm.

In the end, nothing was really working out or calling us. Then a nice little house around the corner became available for significantly less than we thought it would sell for, and we took it. Decent sized home, in great shape considering its age and such, and for a really good price under market value and less than a lot of other homes we have been reviewing.

So to all my friends out there who had been hoping we'd go elsewhere, sorry!

OK, now I've got to try and get a chapter written on my middle grade fantasy.

From the mouth of a child

So, as I just noted on Facebook, when your nine year old, the one whose favorite movie when she was two was Sleeping Beauty because of the terrifying fire-breathing dragon, which she loved, tells you that your middle grade fantasy written with her in mind has a scene that is terrifying and gives her nightmares, it's time to rewrite. This is the kid who never has nightmares. Nerves of steel.

That's when I made the edits. Fortunately, in this case the scene didn't have to be completely rewritten. Instead of having the monsters who capture the main character begin to dismember the character in preparation to eat her as a child sacrifice, they just capture her and hold her fast and begin to summon the big bad guy. The good guys come to the rescue anyway, and it's early enough into the book--about a third of the way in--that it shouldn't be too scary.

This does tell me that the transition from epic fantasy writing to MG is just a bit more involved than I had thought. Oh, learning to write for the different age group is not too hard--I've been doing that for years as I switched from my master's program in medieval history to editing for 6th grade textbooks. And then again as I started working for the magazines for adults, others for teens, and yet others for younger audiences.

It is wonderful, though, that I get such awesome feedback right here in my own home. She is the audience!

Writing to different audiences

I'm about a week and a half into writing my middle grade fantasy, and I am absolutely loving it. So much easier to write these shorter works than the grueling epics I've written in the past. Oh, it is so much fun as well to write to my kids. They eagerly await the installments when I read back to them the stories. Of course, these are based on nighttime stories I tell them, so they've already heard some of it.

But the stories evolve as you put it down in written form, and get more complex, rich, and wondrous. At least, that's been my feelings on the matter. Goal is to finish the draft before Memorial Day weekend. That's only another 30,000 words, so it should be no problem.

I know we sometimes call this changing genres, but to me it's really about shifting audiences in terms of age groups. I still write fantasy. With this book I just imagine I'm telling it (or reading it) to my kids. I have the benefit of revision and expansion along the way. Oh, I'm not doing heavy editing. Just fixing major plot shifts that impact the later story.

But this is just so much fun! I think I may be a middle grade/YA writer after all. It is so freeing to be writing actively again. Woohoo!

I'll start giving snippets of plot sometime soon to see how this intrigues readers. If it seems to work widely, the goal is to submit to agents by mid June.

House hunting

We saw two lovely homes yesterday. One is a half acre with chicken coop, dog run, and a garden larger than our current backyard. Five mature fruit trees, sunken trampoline, two sheds, and just acreage galore. All the neighbors have half acre lots as well, except, of course, for the big lots. ;-)

Yeah, the lots just behind us are 1.5 to 3 acre lots. Horses next door and behind us, goats, even a donkey. My kids were really flipping out when we told them. They were dancing on the floor in crazy hysterics of excitement. And it's only a mile north of my in-laws on a very navigable, bikeable road.

The other house we really liked was in a traditional neighborhood. Lovely house, nice neighbors, and a very solid second choice. Of course, when we pulled up I did see a green slug bug drive by with the license plate, "Schlock." Hm, could I really live in the same ward as Howard Taylor???

Ha! Of course! He and his wife are some of the coolest people I know, so we'll definitely consider that. But the farm, that's the dream. If we can just get the price right.

Blogging to Notes in Facebook

I just set up my blog to post to Facebook. Thanks, Ben Crowder, for the idea! I hope it works. I'm not technically challenged, per se, just illiterate. ;-) Creating blogs and interacting online is just something I've done very little with.

Anyway, let's hope this little experiment works. If it does, very, very cool.

Tell me about your experiences blogging and such. What's worked for you? How often do you do it, and what benefits have you seen from it?

Dan Wells and story structure

Ok, just watched Dan Wells's presentation on story structure from LTUE on Youtube. If you haven' seen it, you are really missing out. This five-part entry has incredible advice on how to structure the story once you have laid out your characters, world setting, and the main conflict. It opened my eyes for sure. I'm going to apply this to my current epic to see how well I did, then to my next book I'm about to write, and then to my MG to see how well it applies. But boy, it's very exciting. Cool! Watch it, now!

Storymakers 2010 post 2

OK, another thought: This conference has some truly fantastic panels. That said, one of the things I enjoy the most is continuing to develop friendships with other authors, editors, and agents. I spend a lot of time visiting in the hallways. It's not just social, though that is also a wonderful benefit. It's about the synergy from the other great people involved in different aspects of this craft. It's also about the true people and real relationships that are the hidden gem of this industry.

The industry's secret that everyone knows is that networking is key. The secret that we don't often think about is that we are real people, and that real relationships are the oil that greases the world's machine. Our relationships give flavor and joy to the entire process, the interaction, the smiles and jokes and deeper discussions that bring them to life. We aren't machines, despite my previously stated bad analogy. We are real people. How wonderfully that settles the nerves, brings enjoyment to my life, and energize!

I don't mean to get sappy. This is not about a family reunion, though it sort of is like that. It's about the fact that we so often work in the bubble of our homes, our offices, or wherever we sit to create. We grow taller through such relationships. We expand. I'm not just talking about our ability to write because we know more about the world. I'm referring to how it expands us as individuals and motivates us to help each other, to be more than just someone with a laptop. Real people interacting with real people become more than the sum of the parts. And that is what life is truly all about.

Storymakers Conference 2010

I'm sitting right now with the coolest editor on the planet. OK, it doesn't hurt that she's also a good friend and just downright nice. Any guesses?

Lisa Mangum!

We're enjoying the LDS Storymakers Conference, 2010. Yesterday's sessions were fantastic. Some of the particularly good sessions I attended (let's not mention that I only attended a couple due to pitch sessions), were:

1. Laura Rennert, senior agent with Andrea Brown Literary Agency. She gave a very informative presentation on how to ace the audition with agents with specifics on on the query letter. Some of this I already knew, but she also directed us toward ways that agents look at the queries. I'll refer to my notes for this, which I may post as an addendum--assuming I can figure out how to do that, hah! It was unusual in that I saw how she looked at the query. Key: Who, What, Where, and Why Should I Care?
2. Elana Johnson on writing query letters. Excellent handout that showed the nuts and bolts of the query. These are terribly difficult for me to craft. Her suggestions about writing in the style of your book and about boiling down the entire story into a sentence finally hit me. I've read this before, but it still needs to sink down. Of course, writing epic fantasy means I think really big, so this is a naturally difficult feature for me.
3. Pitch sessions with Laura Rennert and Nephele Tempest. Nephele asked for 3 chapters, and Laura very gently described to me why she doesn't represent epic, but gave great encouragement on how to prepare my middle grade book and said she'd see it when I got it written. Time to write!

LTUE and such

I attended LTUE this past weekend. I spent a lot of time with some really talented friends and writers. It was inspiring in the deepest sense. Not just the quick emotional high of wanting to get home and write immediately. Instead, it was inspiring on a lower level, a slow burning coal of "I can and want to make this happen." Good times and good people.

Some names to mention: I spent a lot of time with some really good friends: Isaac, Janci, Cavan, Lisa, Eric (x3), Heidi, and a host of others. I also made some new friends: Dennis and Bradley among them. And some really good, friendly writers with whom I have spent enough time that I might venture to call them personal acquaintances. You know, when you can't really call them friends yet, because of lack of time and the professional barriers that you haven't quite climbed, but people who are genuine and with whom I enjoyed meals and such: Brandon Sanderson, Howard Taylor, John Brown, Dan Wells, and a few others.

Then there were the friends I just didn't get to spend nearly enough time with: Julie Wright, Karen Hoover, Ben, Alex, and a bunch of others. Just too busy.

Ok, so there were too many to name all of them--sorry if I didn't mention some of you.

But I had a blast learning, getting creative, and thinking of my future. I also spent a lot of time promoting the magazines, teaching how to write for us, and soliciting articles.

So, here's a cool piece of info: I'm teaching a class at the LDSStorymakers conference this April, 2010. My class is 10:00am Saturday morning, April 24th. I'm teaching on the why's and how's of writing for the magazines. Should be a fun class.

And if you haven't thought about going, you should! It's going to be an excellent, excellent conference. Lots of writers, published and aspiring, agents, editors, and so on. And lots o fun, too.

Here's the link (I hope it works, I'm still new at this): http://ldstorymakers.com/conference_2010.php