Tag: advice (page 25 of 25)

You wanna be a writer? Then failure is not optional.

You know what? That feels like it needs some profanity.

Revision: “You wanna be a goddamn writer? Then failure is not fucking optional. Shitstain!”

Hm. I think the “shitstain” maybe went over the line. Cut it, and move on.

What I’m saying is —

If you are of the belief that everything you write is going to be a home run, that every ball you hit is going to pop the stadium lights and shower down magical sparks like in that Robert Redford baseball movie, then you are at best deluded, and at worst a dangerous psychotic who believes the cat is telling him to strangle the mailman.

You will write. You will submit. And you will be rejected.

Not once. But resoundingly over and over again. You’ll start to feel like you’re on a carousel ride, and on every go-around someone is punching you in the face instead of giving you cotton candy. The calliope music will be dizzying. The scent of funnel cake, cloying.

Rejection is a default state for the writer.

And so it falls to you to make use from it. Make hay from your failures. Build sculptures from your wreckage. Compost your garbage and let it grow new things.

In the past, I told you How Not To Deal With Rejection.

Now, it’s time to find truth in rejection. Time to find a way to make it useful, energizing, empowering.

Or, as the title says, time to churn bile into buttercream, baby.

“See This? This Is My Battle Scar. It’s In The Shape Of A Rejection Letter.”

See this table full of little green plastic Army men? Right. Let’s pretend a tactical nuclear missile tumbles out of the sky, belched forth from a North Korean rocket tube, and it takes out a good 3/4 of these toys.

*swipes them off the table with an angry arm*

We have now separated the Real Writers from the dilletantes.

I know, I know, it’s not popular to talk about “real” writers. But I’m going to do it anyway, because I’m just that kind of blue meanie. I’m not talking about hobbyists. I’m talking about the talkers. The dilettantes. The people you meet at a party and they tell you, “Oh, I’m a writer, too,” except no they are fucking not a writer, too, because they don’t know shit about shit and they write shit (if they write at all) and they wouldn’t know what being a writer is like if it snuck up behind them and shoved a typewriter up their ass.

Writers write. And writers submit.

And writers get rejected.

It is your battle scar.

Pull a sword from its scabbard and you can see if it’s the weapon of a well-coiffed, soft-handed officer type because the metal is unmarred. No nicks in that edge. No flecks of blood still nesting in the nooks and crannies. A real soldier — the dude out there getting muddy and bloody — his sword looks like hell. Like it’s cleaved skulls and pierced guts.

When you get rejected, it’s like I said in the past — that’s some Viking shit, right there. Sure, you got your ass handed to you, but you still stepped into the ring. You’re no coward. You’re no dilettante.

“Wait, So I’m Not Supposed To Submit My Manuscript On A Roll Of Previously-Used Toilet Paper? Are You Sure?”

I think a lot of writers do not possess the proper cognitive separation of The Manuscript and the Submission Of Said Manuscript. I know I felt that way once when I was a young buck, wet behind the ears and with a full-up diaper and other metaphors of youth and inexperience. I thought, “Well, my manuscript should sell itself. That, after all, is why I wrote it.”

Yes, but you’re ignoring reality just as I once did. The book in the bookstore doesn’t let the manuscript sell itself. It has back cover copy. It has lovely cover art. It has quotes from other writers. None of these things are contained within your manuscript but rather, outside of it. And so you must embrace that.

The submission process is beholden to rules. It is, as the name suggests, a process.

You must follow those rules or otherwise be outed as a special snowflake (translation: jerkoff). You may think it’s unfair. Sure, okay, but you did pass puberty, right? You’re an adult human being? Then by now you’ve surely shed any illusions that life operates by the playground laws of Fair and Unfair.

You’ve been rejected over and over again, it is maybe time to reexamine your method of submission. Does your query letter snap-crackle-pop? Have you selected the correct five pages or chapter to submit alongside of it (if that’s what they asked for)? Are you submitting to the wrong agents and editors?

Sometimes rejection is not a failure of your manuscript but rather, a failure of delivery.

“They Don’t Actually Hate Me Personally, Do They?”

Rejection demands a shift in perspective. When you go up to a woman at a bar and you say, “Hey, can I buy you a drink?” and she’s like, “Ew,” and then stabs you in the hand with a cocktail fork, you can be pretty sure that her rejection is a little bit personal. She doesn’t like your face, your shoes, your sour milk odor. Something about you personally made her all stabby-stabby.

This is not likely true of your submission’s rejection, however.

Understand that this is a purely subjective industry. It’s nothing personal. You maybe just haven’t found the right editor or agent yet. When I was submitting to agents, I found that some really loved what I was showing them, but I also had rejections like, “I’m just not feeling it.”

Nothing personal. They don’t hate you. Let that lessen the sting.

“Hand Me Some Duct Tape, A Hammer, And That Lemur! There’s Work To Do!”

A single rejection is not particularly useful. Whether it’s a form letter or a detailed analysis, you shouldn’t take it as anything indicative of your manuscript.

But get a bunch of those motherfuckers together and you start to see a picture emerge.

That picture might very well be: “Needs more work.”

And so that’s what you’ll do. This is a good sign. It means you need to slap on some to-the-elbow rubber gloves and get deep in the guts and the junk and the radioactive materials and the rhinoceros uterus and start rearranging parts and wiping away the crap and delivering a squealing rhino baby. Rhino baby? No, I don’t know. I think my metaphor got away from me there. Like a squirrelly gazelle, it leapt from my grip.

What I’m saying is, look at the big picture and decide: do I need to take this back to the drawing board?

Then do that. You have the power to make it more awesome. Especially if someone hands you specific criticisms. Criticism is a blessing in disguise, like a diamond ring in a pile of horse crap. Rescue the diamond. Use the criticism. Huzzah.

“Once More Into The Breach, Dear Friends!”

Rejection knocks you down.

So get your ass back up again. In fact, don’t just get up. Grab that adrenalin rush from the pain two-handed like you’re catching hold of a goddamn screaming bald eagle and let it launch you upward with a mighty shriek and as you land on your feet, start swinging.

Let rejection energize you, not enervate you.

As one project is out there drawing fire, take each rejection on the chin and as you get jacked up, keep writing. Write more. It’s not only a good way to use that energy, but it’s also a good way to remain distracted from the rejections. (This can backfire, too — as you get rejected, you might start feeling like you’re not worth more than a sippy cup full of gopher diarrhea. Man, my dog once rolled around in gopher diarrhea — it was greasy and shot through with half-digested berries. That took a long time to wash out of his shepherd’s coat, so trust me, you do not want to have to clean yourself of that feeling.)

In fact, it’s not just about writing more. It’s about submitting more. Fine. Editor X and Agent Z said “no.” Your ten submissions came back as “Sorry, nuh-uh.” Submit more. You’re not done. You’ve got other avenues. Keep on keeping on. It’s like that Tai Chi move where you redirect your opponent’s attack, using his energy against him. Or something. What the fuck do I look like, a Tai Chi master? Please. I have a writer’s body. I don’t flow like water, move like air. I flow like Nutella and move like a pregnant narwhal.

“Oh Yeah? Ohhh Yeeeaah? I’ll Write Something Even Better, And Then You Can Suck On That Lollipop, Publishing Industry! Boo-yah!”

Alternate version of the above lesson is, your rejections may teach you that this book just isn’t The One. It’s not going to be a bestseller. It’s not going to even make it to the bargain bin.

That’s a sad realization, but an important one.

And once more, it’s time to redirect that energy. It’s time to write a better book. It’s that easy. This one didn’t work, fine. Write a better one. All those successful authors on the shelves? That’s exactly what they did. “Oh, this one sort of sucks, so the next one must suck less.” And on and on until they don’t suck at all.

You have to know when to give up on the book and focus energy on the next one.

“Turns Out, I’m Not A Writer After All. Who Knew?”

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: not everybody who wants to be a writer can be a writer. The numbers aren’t just against you. They’re really, holy shit what the fuck was I thinking? against you.

There may come a point when you have a stack of rejections from multiple projects and they are all uniformly non-glimmering, non-shimmering, not happy rejections. Nobody has hinted at your potential, no letter says that it wants to see more from you in the future, no one offered any notes at all. The majority of your rejections say “FUCK NO” and are written in pigeon’s blood on a postcard.

You’ve had nothing published after repeated attempts across multiple projects.

Just as there comes a time to give up on one book to make way for a better one, there comes a time to give up on one career path to make way for a better one. This is not popular wisdom, of course. Popular wisdom dictates that we all follow our dreams endlessly — except, sometimes, our dreams are callous elves leading us down a path that dead-ends in a pocket of quicksand or a dragon’s crushing maw.

I’m not saying that’s you. I’m not saying to give up easily or even to give up at all. But I am saying that there comes a moment when you have to check your gut and say, “This really isn’t me.”

On the other hand, if you’re saying, “I don’t want that to be me,” then fine. Don’t let it be you. Writing is about failure. It’s about perseverance. But it’s also about improvement. It’s about learning your craft and using the corpses of your failed manuscripts as a stairway to publication. You want to give up on being a writer, I wouldn’t blame you. But if you don’t want to give up, if you want to get published, then you need to take the rejections you’ve earned and use them. Use them to give you energy. Use them to get better.

This is the writer’s thorny path.

You know the word “scapegoat,” right? Are you aware of the origins?

It’s like this: in what we’ll just call “Bible Times,” the community would heap all their sins upon a goat. The sins were metaphorical; the goat was not. Then they would kick that goat in the ass and force him into the desert, where presumably he’d either a) get into crazy adventures with the Devil and a talking cactus or (more likely) b) die and be eaten by flies. Either way, that goat carried your sins away from town. When the goat expired, so did all your terrible actions.

Your novel is kinda the opposite of that pathetic goat: onto it you heap not your sins, but your greatest hopes and dreams. “One day, you’ll be a bestseller,” you whisper to the goat as you duct-tape your manuscript to his back. Then you put him in the elevator and send him into the Publishing Wilderness, where he will either a) randomly wander into the proper agent or editor office and get your book published or (more likely) b) die and be eaten by flies.

Brutal honesty time:

That novel of yours isn’t likely to get published. The numbers just aren’t in your favor. Last I did a sweep of the Internet, it was home to 500,000,000 writers. Once you remove the wanna-be dilettantes, you still end up with 1,000,000 left. And they’re all fighting to have their manuscripts published.

You gotta maximize your chances of putting a kick-ass book into the ecosystem where it bites, kicks, shivs and garrotes any other novel that gets in its way. One way to do that is to identify the many pitfalls that await you, your book, and its goat.

Wanna know why your novel won’t get published? (Or, alternately, won’t get an agent?)

Ten reasons. Here we go.

1. Them Brownies Ain’t Done Baking

Brownies need long enough in the oven, or the middle ends up soft, gooshy, and still uncooked. Your novel might suffer from that problem: you sadly didn’t do enough with it. Maybe it needs another draft. Maybe it needs a strong copy-edit. Could be that it will benefit from some challenging readers or from a down-to-earth writer’s group. Whatever the case, the novel just isn’t “there yet.”

Make sure you’re spending enough time and effort on that sucker before you loose it into the world.

2. Your Training Wheels Are Still Attached

Sometimes the problem isn’t the novel — the problem is you. Ever hear the term “starter novel?” It means that this is your first book and it implies that this first book just isn’t a fully-formed novel. It was a learning process. It was an experiment. The training wheels are still squeaking and rattling.

Hey, listen, I wrote five novels before I got an agent for the sixth. Those first four novels were crap, the fifth almost got me an agent, and the sixth really sealed the deal. I learned as I wrote. I grew as a writer. I kicked the training wheels off. Now I’m on a mad Huffy BMX bike. Or maybe a Vespa scooter.

That’s right. I said it. A Vespa. Mmmm. I know I’m sexy.

Wait, what? I dunno. Point is, you still have work to do as a writer. Let this novel be a stepping stool to other, better books. Is it guaranteed that your first novel is a stinker? No. But I’d call it a reasonable chance, so it’s best to get some informed opinions before you pin your publishing dreams to it.

3. You’re Allergic To Following Instructions (AKA You Suffer From “The Special Snowflake” Conundrum)

When you submit a novel, you are beholden to a number of instructions supplied by the agent or the editor. “Send the first five pages and a query letter; also include a deed signing over the soul (but not body) of your first-born child. Please include an SASE as well as a feather from a peacock made of molten pewter.”

Writers, for whatever reason, think they’re immune to such instruction. As if it’s some kind of test. “Oh, they don’t mean me. My novel is sublime. It transcends such petty nitpickery. Lesser authors will be caught in the netting of micromanagement while I — champion of all writer-kind! — send them a novel written across 40,000 Post-It notes and shoved into the digestive tract of this here billy goat.”

You are not immune. Follow the fucking instructions. You are not a special snowflake. Do what they ask. Do so politely. Shut up about how they’re trying to oppress you and just dance the dance.

4. Novel’s Great, But The Query Letter Sucks Eggs

You’ve written a 90,000 word novel. And now you have to condense it down into 250 words.

Trust me, it’s hard. I know. It’s like putting on 200 lbs but you still have to fit into your Speedo bathing suit: it feels like you’re cramming so much into so little.

Sure, sure, it isn’t fair. Neither is a 40-hour work-week. Go home and cry in your mother’s vagina. You want to sell that book, that means you have to put together a good query. I don’t know that you need to put together a great query — you just need to convince them to take a peek at your beast. And I don’t mean that in a creepy, sexy way, either: the query is there to convince them to take it to the next level and request a full manuscript. Then your book can sell itself, as you had intended.

If you want to know how I wrote my query letter, check out:

“The Pitch Is A Bitch (But Don’t Fear The Query).”

5. You’re A Dick

Maybe your novel is the bee’s knees, the cat’s pajamas, the canine’s testicles (as they say in England).

Fact remains, if you’re just a big ol’ douchey dickface, nobody’s going to want to touch you with a ten foot pole. This is an industry of people. You’re selling your novel, but your novel won’t even get in the door if you can’t muster cursory politeness and expected tact. Are you a whiny, complainy, ego-driven Negative Nancy? Not a good sign. If the author is more trouble than the novel is worth, well…

*poop noise*

So sorry. No consolation prize. Buh-bye.

Be nice. Put a good face out there. You don’t need to be bland or boring or Suzy Sunshine all the time.

Just don’t be a dick.

6. What Genre Is That, Again?

Ask yourself this: “Where will this go in the bookstore? In what section? On what shelf?” If that has no clear answer, then you’re throwing up a red flag. “It’s horror paranormal romance mystery, with sci-fi elements. Oh, and it also has recipes!” Hey, I think that’s an awesome and brave experiment and maybe you’ll have some luck with it. But you have to recognize that, for better or for worse, publishing is in shaky straits right now and it’s running a little scared. Something that doesn’t fit in any box is problematic — how do you market something whose market is uncertain? If you can’t do it, neither can they.

7. Deja Vu

“And then Neo sticks his lightsaber into the Eye of Mordor. Popeye kisses Olive. The End.”

Your work is derivative.

Maybe you didn’t mean for it to be, but it is. Or maybe you thought it was some kind of “homage.” Either way, an agent is going to look at it and say, “Seen it, done that, don’t need it, need a nap.”

You might be asking, “Wait, I’m supposed to stay inside the box but also think outside the box?”

And now you know why it’s so hard to get a book published.

Yes. We want comfort and familiarity without redundancy.

Shepherding a novel to publication is like threading a needle. Blind. On a moving train. While you’re being attacked by monkeys with sticks. Good times.

8. The Book Is Not, How You Say, “Commercially Viable?”

Something about the book is just striking the, “I don’t know if this will sell” bell. Maybe “vampire koalas” aren’t hot this year. Maybe the book-buying public has, in polls, revealed a certain discomfort with novels that prominently feature “cat abortions” as a plot point.

This is a tough one (says the author who perhaps knows it intimately).

Maybe your book is in a niche. A niche is nice in that it has an audience, but its audience may be too small to accommodate publication — which makes the niche a bad place to be.

Either way, the best advice is, be ready to make changes. Changes that will mold the book into something that is deemed attractive to a money-wielding audience.

9. Sometimes, Even The Brightest Spark Won’t Catch Fire

You might have a glorious masterpiece in your hands and yet… bzzt. Nothing. You know it’s awesome. Everybody else knows its awesome. And yet for some reason, it just isn’t happening.

What can you do about it?

*blank stare*

I really don’t know. You probably have two courses of action:

1) Be patient. Eventually an editor will get mauled by a tiger or something and then you can try again.

2) Self-publish. The publishing world doesn’t know your novel’s glory, so you must become its pimp.

(Check out, “Should I Self-Publish? A Motherfucking Checklist.”)

10. Unfortunately, You’re A Deluded, Talentless Hack

Out of the 500,000,000 writers out there, do you honestly believe that they’re all top notch penmonkeys? Mmmyeah. No. Some of them are completely in love with the stink of their own word-dumpsters, just huffing their foul aromas, getting high on inelegance and ineptitude.

Thing is, if you’re that guy, you’re probably never going to not be that guy. It’s possible that, once you recognize the illusion you may shatter it as if it were a distorting funhouse mirror, but that won’t do anything for the “talentless” portion of our competition. Some people just aren’t meant to be writers no matter how much they want to be that thing. Reality is a cold bucket of water.

Of course, realistically, if you’re deluded, then you’re probably not even reading this post, are you? And if you are, you’re not going to take any of my advice — not one lick of it. Which is okay, because hey, maybe I’m a deluded, talentless hack, too.

Anyway, looking to hear from you kids out there in the audience. Writers, editors, agents: why aren’t novels getting published? I’m sure I missed something. Shout it out.

Ahhh. The writer’s platform.

I first heard the term… what? About three, four years ago? Reading various snidbits of advice, you pick up on that increasingly popular question: “Do you have a platform?”

I thought, oh, shit. No, no I don’t. I didn’t have anything that looked remotely like a platform. So, out in the woods I built a small raised dais. On it I placed a chair. In the chair I placed my ass, and on my lap I rested my novel. Just in case, I wrote a crazy person sign — “I AM NOVELIST WILL WRITE FOR HOOKERS” — and then I waited. Eventually I grew hungry — and further, I grew tired of people throwing their fast food garbage at my head. So I went inside, did a little investigation and lo and behold I was doing it wrong.

Sadly, building a writer’s platform does not involve an actual platform. I know, right? Welcome to Disappointment City, Population: Me.

So it goes.

Let me be clear: I detest the word “platform.” I mean to say, it’s fine when used to literally define something that deserves the term: I don’t froth at the mouth and rip out clods of chest hair anytime I hear the phrase “platform shoes,” for example. But when someone says “writer’s platform,” I cannot help but grind my molars together until I hear the crinkly, crunchy snap as my enamel cracks like punched glass.

Still. As a buzzword, it’s got legs.

And in the bullshit of the buzzword, truth lingers. Let us tease it out with a tickle, shall we?

Define Your Terms, Inkmonkey: What In Tarnation Is A Writer’s Platform?

The metaphor of the writer’s platform is — duh — that you as a writer need to stand on a platform with your megaphone and your lectern, and the stronger the platform is — or is it the higher the platform? — the better off you’re going to be when the time comes to get published because you stand on a solid base above all others and you rule them with an iron fist. Blah blah blah. Snargh. Or something.

Fuck all that right in the blowhole.

Here’s a simple definition:

You are your platform.

Lemme explain. Getting published is the sum of two parts: one, the book, and two, the author that wrote the book. The book matters in the short term: the audience (and by proxy, the publisher) want a good book in hand. The author matters in the long term: everybody wants to get behind an author with some longevity, an author they like, or even better, an author that they love.

The writer’s platform is about you. It’s about putting yourself out there. It’s equal parts “putting on armor” and “taking off all your clothes.” Your platform is how people know you — it’s their perception of you as an author, but even more importantly, of you as a human being.

Your Strongest Platform Is A Book That Doesn’t Suck Moist Open Ass

Go read a gaggle of articles about a writer and his platform and the one thing you won’t see very often is advice talking about your actual book. Here’s the thing: a writer without a platform can still get published if he has a kick-ass book, but a writer with a great platform isn’t likely to get published if his book is better off being dragged out behind the barn and shot in the head.

A shitty book will crush even the most well-constructed platform under a ton of manure.

Let it be said: your primary goal is to write a fucking whopper of a book. The lion’s share of your efforts should go into that which makes you a writer: your writing. Many writers are all about the sound and the fury, but it’s all bark and not a lot of bite. They over-promise and never deliver. Don’t be that asshole. Write the best book of your life, and then go write an even better book.

The book is your currency. You and your platform are just the way to get that book seen.

Now, to be clear, I don’t mean you shouldn’t concentrate at all on getting yourself out there. You can, and should. No false dichotomies here — you can do both. As you’re writing the book you should also be putting yourself into the world as the writer you want people to know and to read. Just remember that the book is king. You are merely the power behind the throne.

A Writer’s Platform Is Made Out Of People

“A writer’s platform: the miracle food of high-energy plankton gathered from the oceans of the world.”

No, wait, that’s Soylent Green, isn’t it?

Still, the point stands: your platform is made out of people. You’ll hear a lot about social media this and writer conference that. Those are tools. Those are means to an end.

People matter. Relationships count. That is no less true today than it was 50, 100, or 1,000 years ago — you don’t want to lone wolf this shit. You are not Author Ronin Without Clan.

Your platform is about connecting with people.

Yes, it’s that simple. It is in part about building audience, but to me there’s a bit of a mind-set tweak in there: building audience puts you at a separation from people, and it’s the same separation suggested by the term “platform.” It sets you both above and apart. “I am Author!” you shout from your dais made of human skulls. “Hear my voice! Read my book! When you’re done reading my book, I’ll also need you to lick my feet! And smite my enemies! And buy my t-shirts and coffee mugs! Do not forget to read this interview with me, for it is filled with the blood of awesome! Raaaaar!”

Ah, but the writer’s platform isn’t all about you.

You shouldn’t stand above and apart. You should stand within.

That sounds like some real Zen Hippie Shit, but your platform isn’t about screaming so the cheap seats can hear it. It’s about connecting. It’s about connecting with people so that you may exploit them and make them dance on your puppet strings and then when you’re done you will wear their flesh like a suit and boil their bones for broth! Whoa, wait, no, where’d that come from? Whoo. Zoinks. I maybe need a Xanax. And a Zantac, because I have heartburn from slurping all this bone broth.

No, seriously, connecting with people is about reciprocal relationships. It’s not even all about I Am Writer, it’s in part about I Am Just A Dude Or Chick Who Is Pretty Cool And You’re Pretty Cool And We Should Talk About Coffee And Bacon And Dreams And Writing. Be a writer, but also, be a person. And don’t be an asshole. Or, rather, don’t be a huge asshole. More on that in another post.

Because Damn, Who Doesn’t Love A Checklist?

Okay, fine, I hear you. You’re saying, “This is a big basket of theory and metaphor, but you’re not giving me any practical information. Dickwipe.” And I’m like, “Dickwipe?” And you’re like, “Yeah, I said it.”

Fair enough.

Practical information. Here goes. Ready?

One: Figure out who you are and who you want to be. You know how you go to college and that’s a time to kind of… if not “reinvent” yourself than to make upgrades to your original design? This is like that. You are transitioning from Regular Human to Author Human. No superiority intrinsic to that, I just mean that now is a good time to slap a new coat of paint on who you want the world to see. Want to know a secret? This should be the best and most interesting face of who you already are. No ruse, no illusion.

It helps, too, to think a little about your authorial mission: ideally, who you are or appear to be matches the books you hope to write. Presuming you’re a confident author with some understanding of your voice, this shouldn’t be too much of a problem. That said, if they’re totally different, you need to navigate that. Do you sanitize and create an illusion? Me, I say be who you are and let the chips fall as they may. The majority of readers won’t know that you’re a foul-mouthed weirdo on the Internet. And when they find out, they probably won’t really give a rat’s right foot.

Two: Get a blog. That blog should not look like a Myspace page or Geocities blog from 1998. No amateur hour shit. Go pro, or go home. Own that blog. Own it from the ground up. Feel free to disagree with me, but I’ll just pull this lever and drop you into the dark churning ocean. No, I don’t have any sharks. I have squid. Little squid with robot brains and laser eyes. Seriously: own your blog and your domain name and create a space. This is your nexus online. Drive traffic here.

Three: Get slathered up in the sweet grease of social media. Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Tumblr, Goodreads, Forums, Skype, Soup Cans Connected By Cat-5 Cable, whatever.

Four: Remember that the key word of social media is social, which means it’s about people, which means you need to connect and communicate. That means you are not just a salesman of information. You are not just pimp and prostitute. If you act like that, then our hunter-killers will confuse you with a Spam Bot and you will be beheaded on sight by their whirring mouth-saws. BZZZTGGRHHBLLE. Blood everywhere.

Five: Don’t be a huge asshole. Or a giant douche. Be cool. Be funny. Be honest (mostly).

Six: Be consistent. Put yourself out there and stay out there. Communicate with your people frequently. Don’t have to be annoying about it, but don’t drop off the map: connect, and stay connected.

Six-Point-Five: Do not confuse “followers” with “buyers.” Tweets and blog posts are free. Your book will not be. They may buy. They may not. Keep expectations in check.

Seven: Realize that the Internet isn’t everything and that a real world exists. Leave your home. Talk to people. Meet other writers and industry people — your so-called “platform” is as much about audience as it is about connections within the industry. Those people have done it. Listen to them. Extend a hand. Better yet: buy them alcohol. Many writers have built strong platforms out of beer kegs and whiskey bottles. (Alternately, buy them a meal because otherwise they’ll go home to a fridge empty of everything but hobo wine, mustard packets, and month-old Indian food.)

Eight: Go to a conference or three. Meet people who write the kinds of things you write.

Nine: Meet people who aren’t writers or publishers. Break the incestuous little fuck-tangle and meet anybody you can: dock-workers, librarians, artists, bartenders, hookers, and did I mention bartenders?

Ten: Keep writing. Always keep writing.

Caveat, Cuidado, Verboten, Awooga, Awooga

Be advised: nobody is a social media expert. Do not pay anybody anything to help you build your platform. You want to pay somebody, pay an editor. Pay an agent. Pay a cover artist if you’re self-publishing. But you need to handle your own shit. Only you can be the face of you, and it really is as easy as a) finding your voice b) putting that voice out there by connecting with people in and out of the industry.

Further, the platform isn’t a magic bullet. It won’t guarantee sales. It won’t guarantee a publishing deal. It won’t make that dead fish of a book you wrote suddenly come alive and start flopping around on the dock. It is merely a maximization of luck: you won’t get hit by lightning if you don’t stand out in the field.

Your platform can backfire. It can collapse under the weight of your bullshit. If you don’t have a good instinct for dealing with people but you write kick-ass books, then trust me — step off the platform and disappear into the crowd and let the book sell itself. I’ve seen a few upcoming authors who are pretentious jerkoffs or self-righteous blowhards — I know they’re good writers, but their attitude turns me off.

Now Go Forth And Connect

That’s it. Find your voice and use it to talk to people.

And all the while, keep writing.

There you have it: a writer’s platform in a nutshell.

Comments? Questions? Prayer requests? Death threats? Proposals of marriage? Nigerian email scams?

You just finished a novel. Like, finish-finished. You wrote it. You edited it. You edited it again. You drank profusely. You gave yourself a 5-Hour-Energy-Drink enema. You cried into your pillow. Then you edited it one last time. And now — big deep breath — you’re done.

Exhale. Release the demons.

And now —

Elation! Freedom! A flock of happy chickadees alighting off the fencerail that is your heart.

But then —

There it is. The book. A brick. A big block of words and dead trees, or a garish white screen of 1s and 0s comprising your asstastic prose. Your gut sinks. Palms sweat. This thing? It might as well be a football helmet filled with diarrhea. It’s got nothing of value to offer to the world. It’s a tangled briar of gibberish. Nobody’s going to want to read it. The best thing they can do with it is to bludgeon Snooki to stop her from writing another novel. Best thing you can do for the book is crawl in a hole and die.

Deep breath again.

In. Out. Ahhhhh.

Unclench thine hindquarters. Stop pinching your nipples: they’ll turn to raisins and fall off. (True story. Where the hell do you think raisins come from? Dead grapes? Don’t believe the lies.)

Calm thyself.

Here’s the problem:

You’re overwhelmed by possibility. You’ve just taken a chompy bite out of your life, chewing off a goodly hunk of months — maybe even years — and then spat that time and effort up in front of you. Hrrrgh-ptoo! This story is important to you. It matters. You want to do the right thing. You want to put it out there. And here it is, done. Ready to rock out with its proverbial you-know-what out. But with that realization comes a tide of triumph coupled with fear (like a fine wine paired with a quivering adrenal gland tumor).

The problem is, you don’t know what’s next.

You’ve asked yourself the question, “What Now?” and you have come up wanting.

That’s okay. Let me help. Let me stroke your hair. Let me whisper secret truths in your ear. I mean, sure, I actually don’t know cat shit from Captain Crunch, but somehow I’ve managed to convince you people that I know what the hell I’m talking about, so we might as well continue the scheme.

November, we talked about writing the book.

December, we talked up editing that sumbitch.

And now, January, it’s time to figure out what to do next.

Welcome to the month of “What Now?”

We’ll talk more about agents and publishing. I’ll chat (maybe tomorrow) a little about an author’s so-called “platform.” You’ll see some posts concentrating on both the writer’s life and the lifecycle of your novel.

For now, I’ll just say:

Stop worrying.

You did good.

But the work ain’t done.

If you have specific questions, feel free to expectorate them into the comments below — otherwise, just sit back and relax. I’ve got the wheel. And a bottle of Tito’s vodka. Let’s roll.