Publishing Lessons: Fundamentals of Publishing My writing profession started
With that you have finished your book. Have you looked into publishing courses to find out how to get your story out into the world? I did it years ago.
It was 2013.
MLK's "I have a dream" speech turned fifty, I had just moved from a very toxic job to a much more peaceful one and was determined to take my writing career a little more seriously. I researched publishing classes and ended up in the Foundations of Publishing program (called Write to Publish at the time).
It is worth noting that I entered this program with the greatest confidence.
I had self-published a book the year before, and although it only sold a meager eleven copies, I was convinced that the only problem was that I didn't know how to market and that if I was doing the "trick" to attract an agent or a publisher, I would surely be an instant hit.
So I signed up, prepared, and knew I was only a few weeks away from becoming a bestselling author.
Then came the first challenge.
While I wasn't new to writing, I had no idea what I actually needed to know if I was to publish successfully. I still had many lessons to learn.
I still had a lot to learn from this publishing class
If you ever decide to take a publishing course, especially Foundations of Publishing, you will immediately find that Joe Bunting, the director and creator of The Write Practice, is asking you to take on a simple task: write a short story.
When I first crossed this, I felt resilient. To put it simply, I felt "over" short stories.
Why write short stories when I can write novels?
Why should I try to limit myself to a skimpy short story when I have already completed a 150K word book?
But since I didn't want to give up a program on the first assignment, I decided to reluctantly write this short story. I immediately learned my first lesson: sShort stories are difficult.
You can learn a lot from writing a short story
With a length restriction, every word had to count. I was used to looking for pages on a character's tragic backstory that was about a candle and chair, or the color and decor of a particular tea house.
I fought hard, rolled up a semi-passable story and posted it on the forum for review. The feedback I received was politely positive, but I could tell that nothing about my story stood out. I fiddled with the piece trying to figure out why it wasn't good and came across my next major obstacle.
I didn't know how to fix this.
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Before deciding to post a story, it is important to understand how to fix it.
Writing is one thing, revising is another
I went through the rest of the program pretty disappointed and followed the steps to post to Amazon as closely as possible, but when it was time to hit that button I stopped.
I couldn't allow myself to post this story that I didn't even like. It kind of felt like I was compromising my integrity as a writer.
And so, the basics of publishing taught me the most important lesson I've learned so far: When should I admit that I wasn't ready to publish my story (yet)?.
This may sound like a step back, and for a while it was. I said goodbye to writing and writing practice for three years.
During that time, I underwent strenuous fertility treatments to have my first child, followed nine months later by my second child's surprise pregnancy. Then, in 2016, when I was tired and had no sleep during my second maternity leave, I received an email from The Write Practice.
They called for participation in the Spring Writing Contest. I was very reluctant to write a story. But this email was with me.
Why writing returned to my life
As I said, the email intimidated me. After all, I hadn't written in years. In fact, I had begun to convince myself that I didn't want to be a writer after all.
But something about the contest called me and I made the decision to give it a try learn How write.
Up until that point, I was a member of the "Writing Cannot Be Taught" camp. I believed that either you were good at writing or not.
But now that I had admitted that I might not be ready to give up this dream, I decided to take a risk. Why not?
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In publishing courses like The Write Practice's Foundation of Publishing, you can learn a lot about publishing, including strategies for revising your story and ways to then share it with the world.
I was too tired to do anything other than sit around and wait for my newborn to wake up to be fed again anyway. I would try these "writing books". I picked one of my favorite author Stephen King: his classic book While writing. I figured If the book had nothing to offer, at least I should enjoy it.
This book changed my life.
For the first time I realized that writing can really be taught and learned. I read through the book, picked up a number of tips and tools, and decided to enter the competition. But so as not to try to write a new story, I unearthed the only real short story I never wrote: the same one I wrote for Foundations of Publishing three years earlier.
I can now admit that technically this was a scam. We shouldn't use a story that we wrote before.
But it was three years old, poorly processed, and never released. There was a lot of room for improvement, and it might not even be the same story it started when I was done with it.
I wiped it off, read it through, and saw that it had good bones, but everything else was terrible. This time, however, I knew how to fix the problem.
P.S. Do you want to learn the story principles you will need to fix your stories? Check out the six elements of the plot here on The Write Practice.
Turn something rough into something that can be published
I changed the story to better fit the contest theme and then implemented a number of tools that I learned from While writing. T.The greatest tool I've learned? "Everything has to be history." I polished it and submitted it with a little hope that at least it wasn't embarrassing.
This story is wingtips for those interested in reading it.
It finished sixth among the six contest winners and became the first of my many stories to be published on Short Fiction Break.
Two years after starting my writing journey again, I felt ready to face another challenge – to write another book. This time, I told myself, it will be fine. I was better prepared, had a plan, and found tools that worked for me. I sat down to write and said to myself that no matter what, I would publish this story.
And if it didn't turn out well … then nobody needs to know, do they?
I wrote this book. Then rewrote it. Just as I was debating what to do with it, another opportunity arose – a year of publishing opened up. I signed up, picked up my book, and nervously presented it to a group of colleagues for the first time.
They confirmed what I was concerned about, but deep down they knew it was true – the book is good.
Foundations of Publishing includes a year to launch as part of its program. It was kind of weird to go back to where I started years ago, but at the same time it was a big confidence boost. Because this time around I finally have a book to be proud of and calling myself a writer felt a lot less like a scam. The program taught me how to take authorship one step further, and this time I was able to follow it, build my website, and build my online presence. Where it humbled me before, it lifted me up now.
This book is headspace. It's slated to be released by Story Cartel Press this summer.
In short, I accepted the reality that you can learn to write.
Because of this, I started implementing all of the additional lessons I learned in Foundations of Publishing, such as: B. Why it is important to share my stories and how to publish them.
Do you want to read my upcoming novel? Headspace will be released in July 2021, but you can read it for free right now if you join my launch team! Send an email to admin@thewritepractice.com to let me know of your participation. I can't wait to hear your thoughts!
Humble yourself before posting
Regardless of the progress I've made, I still look back on the first time I came to The Write Practice and the difficult lesson I learned through the Foundations of Publishing publishing class.
The fact is, I don't think I would ever have humbled myself to really learn to improve my craft if the program hadn't shown me my limits. Although I almost gave up writing after that, realizing my own shortcomings led me to look at myself honestly, get back to basics, and become a more competent writer than ever before.
Saying all of that, a new meeting of the Foundations of Publishing is starting soon. If you could invest in publishing courses to help, this might be a great choice for you!
If you have joined the program, I wish you all the best! If you don't have it, I highly recommend it.
Whether it gives you the boost you need to finally get released or a much-needed reality check like the one I've been given, it's an opportunity not to be missed. Sometimes you can find what you need most in unexpected places.
Have you ever been afraid to publish or share your stories? Do you think it was because they weren't done yet? Let us know in the comments.
WORK OUT
It might seem strange to write a short story when you've already finished a book, but writing a really great short story can actually help writers hone their craft at every stage of their writing career.
That brings me to today's challenge in practice: come up with an idea for a short story and write a premise for it. Spend fifteen minutes on it, then choose a word count for your short story.
Share this idea and your word count in the comments section and comment on at least two other posts (don't be afraid to ask them to criticize your premise too!). Then write it. Perhaps this is the next short story you take part in or use for your own registration with Foundations of Publishing!
