Minding My Own Business from James W. Ziskin

As far as the business side of your own writing, what are you looking forward to in the near future?

I never look forward to promoting my books, probably because I don’t believe my meager efforts move the needle on sales or brand-building to any appreciable degree. Or maybe just because I’m tired. Schmoozing exhausts me, as do bookstore signings. All writers worry that no one will show up at our signings and we’ll be embarrassed as well as stressed out.

Furthermore, I have no plans to attend any conferences in the near future. While I used to adore going to writers conferences, I now have mixed feelings. I love seeing old friends, attending interesting panels, and pumping up my creative energy, but it’s exhausting and expensive. And I’ve never noticed any bumps in sales of my books following a conference, even when I’ve been nominated or won awards.

So, no, I’m not looking forward to any of the so-called business-side activities of my writing career.

What I do look forward to is writing.

I look forward to starting a new novel, even if I’m not sure I’ll be able to devote enough time to it. I teach high school French, you see, and there’s simply no time for writing during the school year. I have to wait for summer vacation to get cracking. Last summer, that worked out well; I managed to finish the first draft of an 85,000-word novel, The Prank, in 40 days. I’d never written anything that long so quickly before, so it was a hoot. Extremely satisfying. Since then, I’ve been revising and polishing the book. I don’t compromise on revisions. Revise, revise, revise, say I. A first draft is fine (and, of course, necessary), but I can’t imagine anyone’s first draft is good enough for publication. Mine certainly aren’t. I suppose, in a way, revision is part of “the business side” of writing. It’s essential to the creation of the product I want to sell. 

So what exactly do I edit and polish anyway? Every word. At least that’s the idea. One tool that helps me revise is the Read Aloud function in Word. Try it. You’ll be amazed at the number of errors you’ll catch and the improvements you’ll make hen you listen to your manuscript. Here’s an example of a recent tweak I made to the manuscript.

“Something was definitely off with him, and I couldn’t fathom a guess.”

I’d passed over this line perhaps twenty times before, but suddenly it caught my ear. Something about it bothered me. I stopped the Read Aloud, backed up, and read the text carefully. What was it that had triggered my doubts? Do you see it?

It was the word, “fathom.” Merriam-Webster defines it as, “to penetrate and come to understand.” 

“Fathom” is a fine word. Just not one that works with “a guess.” The verb I wanted was “hazard.” One does not fathom a guess. One hazards a guess.

“Something was definitely off with him, and I couldn’t hazard a guess.”

This is just one example of what I mean when I talk about challenging every line and each word of your manuscript. It may seem a small thing, one that an editor might well catch for you. Not worth worrying about.

Think again.

Another “error” I discovered while listening to The Prank was a reference to pizza delivery. The book is set in 1968, and while delivery was just getting started around that time, it was not yet common. Since The Prank takes place in a small Central New York town, I figured it would be better to have my character pick up the pizza herself. I remember clearly that my dad always drove to get the pizza whenever we ordered it in the sixties. Back then, there was no delivery in my upstate New York town.

I doubt many editors would flag those two errors. Hell, I’d missed them during many previous revisions. But that only means I needed to concentrate better. Challenge myself. Know what I don’t know. Never be satisfied until the clock runs out and the buzzer sounds. Then you live with what you’ve created, warts and all.

I hope to find a home for The Prank. To that end, I’ve been trying to write a compelling pitch to pique the interest of editors, and I’ve been searching for comp titles to help market the book. Two more “business” tasks I loathe doing. 

In fact, my fondest wish is to be able to write. Just create something new and then something else new. I wish I could leave all the business of writing to someone else. Any volunteers?