How To Publish a Novel in 63 Easy Steps

As many of you know, I just signed a contract with a publisher for my romance novel. After three straight days of jumping up and down and squealing, “They’re publishing my book, they’re publishing my book, they’re publishing my book!!” and then another two just grinning uncontrollably like the Cheshire Cat (which makes talking difficult, but brushing teeth a breeze, FYI), I finally read my emails. There were a few people who asked the big question: So, how did you do it? How do you get your book published?

I’m here to tell you how to publish a novel in 63 easy steps.

1.       Go back to your childhood and read A LOT. Take out the maximum amount of books allowable at the library and chortle at the librarian’s warning that you have only two weeks to read them.

2.       Oh yeah, invent a time machine for #1.

3.       Write, write, write….and then write some more. Write while at work (exhibit A, your honor), at school, on the bus, while walking, first thing in the morning, at midnight, for a minute at a time, for eight straight hours. You get the point. 

4-18. Dream about being a writer.

19.   Complete a novel. Don’t worry, you’re not going to let anyone read it. It sucks. But you HAVE TO write sucky novels to get to the good ones that are within you.

20.   Complete a novel. Don’t worry, you’re not going to let anyone read it. It sucks. But you HAVE TO write sucky novels to get to the good ones that are within you. (No, this is not a typo.)

21.   Go to book signings and book readings.

22.   Hang out with other writers. Don’t know any? I’ll bet you do. They’re the observant, well-spoken ones in any group. Still don’t know any? Go to Starbucks, close your eyes and point. 

23-33. Dream about being a writer. Get frustrated because it’s not like getting a business degree and then two years later having “CFO” on your office door.

34.   Learn to enjoy being a waiter, temp, dog walker, paralegal, taxi driver, personal assistant or whatever other “B-job” you will take to pay the bills.

35.   Get a sugar daddy/mama.

36.   Marry #35.

37.   Divorce #35.

38.   Return to #34.

39.   Complete a novel. This time let someone (remember all those writers you befriended back in #22?) read it and give you honest feedback.

40.   Be amazed that it took you all this time to discover Writer’s Market. Devour the Literary Agent section.

41.   Feel overwhelmed.

42.   Make a list of literary agents that represent your genre.

43.   Revise the novel you got feedback on.

44.   Write a short synopsis and a query letter. Read The Sell Your Novel Tool Kit by Elizabeth Lyon to learn how. There are a ton of great books out there, and you should read them all, but this is the one I am mentioning.

45.   By the way, quit referring to yourself as a writer-wannabe. You ARE a writer. You’re writing, aren’t you?

46-49. Dream about being a published novelist. Stop listening to people who ask you if it’s time to quit trying. And no, your age has nothing to do with success.

50.   Start sending your query letter out to literary agents! Vomiting, shaking, crying and heavy drinking are all acceptable reactions in this stage. Read every literary agent’s submission guidelines carefully and heed them! You don’t have to be perfect, but you don’t have to be a disrespectful, oblivious ass either. Professionalism is KEY here.

51.   Make a folder for rejection letters/emails.

52.   Receive rejection letters/emails. Immediately file into appropriate folder and send out next batch of query letters.

53.   Tell everyone you know that you are a writer, have written a novel, are seeking an agent, are sending out query letters, and are always open to being treated to breakfast/lunch/dinner (which you’ll need, unless you ignored #37).

54.   Get to work on your next novel.

55.   Get into the flow of sending out query letters to new agents and filing away the rejection letters.

56.   Be amazed that it took you all this time to discover two magazines: The Writer and Writer’s Digest. Notice that every issue has a list of literary agents or publishers or literary magazines or writing contests and realize how much easier it makes #55. Try to blame someone else for your lack of knowledge with, “Why didn’t anyone tell me about these magazines??” and then let it go.

57.   Receive more rejection letters. Wonder if you should give up and get a “real” job like your successful cousin Ernie. Feel sorry for yourself in your small apartment with the lousy plumbing. Have a good cry. Then let it go.

58-61. Send out more query letters.

62.   Open the umpteenth email from a literary agent or publisher. Stop breathing. Wonder if “umpteenth” is even a word. Read email again. Remember to breathe again. Leap up from your chair with a strangled-sounding laugh. Repeat the phrase “we love your book and would like to offer you a contract” in your head or out loud a zillion times.

63.   Sign the contract. Pat yourself on the back. Celebrate. Return to earth. 

See how easy it is?

5 Valuable Things Facebook Has Taught Me

After many years and countless wads of cash spent on therapy, workshops, seminars, conferences, discussion groups, round tables, symposiums, self-help books, other-person-help books (you know, “How To Make Your Man/Children/Boss/Neighbor blah blah blah”), crying, marathon talks on the phone with my friends, and good old-fashioned numbing out the pain with a tube of cookie dough, I’ve not been able to transform into the person I feel I ought to be by now. Namely, Supergirl.

And then one day I realized that all I needed to learn was right here at my fingertips. Facebook! This social media platform is a microcosm of the real world, and once I master the lessons of FB, I can bring my new tools with me to my job, my relationships, even my coffeeshop interactions. And the best part is, I don’t even have to get dressed to take this life course! Stay with me, cuz it’s brilliant.

Facebook teaches me:

1. To be visible. Oh sure, you may think that hiding behind a computer in the dark basement of my mom’s house doesn’t make me visible, but you’d be wrong. I post pictures of myself in varying degrees of humiliation, other people tag me in their photos (Drunk Selena at a party; Coked out Selena in the middle of an intersection; High Selena at the supermarket, etc.), and when I call in sick to work and then take a road trip to Ojai, FB is the first to out me on its Map app (“Selena was at Robert Patterson’s house in Ojai today!”). This is a valuable tool to bring with me out into the real world: don’t be afraid of being visible. No matter what. 
2. To ask for what I want. For example, I am having a birthday party for my new iPhone 5 on September 12 and I want everyone to attend and bring prezzies (I’ve registered at Apple.com, by the way). I’ve also created a FB Page (not to be confused with a plebian FB Profile) and every time I send out an update on my new baby’s features, I get to ask you to "Like" me. Yesterday I practiced asking for what I wanted at Starbucks: “Good morning, I’d like a grande half-caff extra hot no foam unsweetened with whip caramel-lite mocha cappuccino. Hit LIKE if you think this drink order rocks!” The stink-eye I received from the kid taking my order did not deter me in the least. Because I’d practiced this tool on Facebook first.
3. To not take anything personally or anyone seriously. This means when people leave derisive comments on my post about a celebration for an inanimate object that I purchased for the same amount of money with which I could buy a month’s worth of groceries, I get to laugh it off. Ha ha ha. And then when I reply to their comment with a three-page rant, I get to end with ‘LOL!’ so that they don’t take me seriously. Note: there are several spots still available in my passive-aggressive workshop next week.     
4. To ignore incessant chatter. To be successful in the real world, you must learn to tune out what you don’t want to hear, and focus on what you need to hear. Oddly, I don’t hear much of anything these days. I’ve gotten so good at this it’s like I’m living in deep space. Facebook is the perfect learning tool for this. If you have 500 “Friends” (notice the use of quotations to indicate a word used with irony or reservation), chances are 80% of what comes in on your news feed can be classified as “incessant chatter”; be especially aware of any post that begins MUST READ! or IMPORTANT! or BAD LUCK TO YOU FOREVER IF YOU DON’T SHARE! Skimming and speed reading are helpful skills.
5. What everyone is having for lunch. Wait, is that a tuna sandwich?? Stop the presses!! 

Ok, that last bullet point definitely merits a derisive comment from all you tuna sandwich lovers on my Facebook page, but that’s ok, because I asked for it. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to iron my cape, lace up my red boots, and go tackle the world, one post at a time!

My Mind is a 2 Year-Old

I finally figured out why my mind won’t settle down, prefers to play, asks “but why?” incessantly, bursts into tears at the slightest provocation, thinks the world revolves around it, and isn’t 100% potty trained yet.

It’s because my mind is a 2 year-old!

How on earth can I be expected to settle down and finish writing the last 50 pages of my novel when there’s a rambunctious 2 year-old running around?! How can I possibly exercise on a daily basis when this kid in my head is screaming that she wants to go out and play? And how do I pretend to be a mature adult having a difficult conversation with someone when my internal toddler is putting her hands over her ears and singing, “La la la la la la!”?

I’ve spent years—eons—attempting to tame this wild animal and make her work for me, not against me. I’ve gotten angry at her, spoiled her, attempted to ignore her, indulged her by letting her eat ice cream for dinner, and even tried leaving her on the steps of a church with a note taped to her “please love her as I cannot”.

And then one day it struck me. After the pastor ripped the note off my head and had me escorted off the church grounds, I realized the age-old axiom: we’re all insane, and the ones in the mental institutions just got caught. Sorry, wrong axiom. The one I realized in this moment was: if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.

You wouldn’t try to treat a 2 year-old as though it were a 30, 40, or 50 year-old, would you? You can’t reason with a toddler, it’s never going to be able to get up and go to work on its own, its default setting is play!play!play!, and it won’t be able to tell itself to take a nap when cranky.

So now that I am aware of this basic principle, I can work with my inner tot. For example, when I sit down to complete an article with a short deadline and my mind is jumping up and down, screaming for me to take her to a movie, I can give her a time-out for an hour while I work. I use small words and allegories from Sesame Street so that she’s sure to understand. And I remind her that just because I’m disciplining her, doesn’t mean that I don’t still love her.

Of course, this works best when alone. It’s unnerving for others to observe what appears to be a grown woman chastising a kid that no one else can see….

Phone Etiquette Peeves

I close my eyes and go to my special place...

Sometime I wonder if I’m the only intelligent person left on the planet, and then I search my house for twenty minutes for the keys that are in my hand. So much for superiority. But at least my ridiculous behavior doesn’t affect anyone else (she said, subtly replacing superiority with judging). In the last couple of weeks I have come across the following phone pet peeves too many times not to comment on them.

Ok, first of all, don’t call me from your cell phone, on speaker, in your car, driving down the freeway with the windows open—and then get pissy with me when I keep saying, “Pardon me?” If you’re going to call me in that context, you can just damn well repeat yourself twelve times in a courteous manner. Oh yeah, and when the line “accidentally” goes dead, I’m going to stick to my story that it’s your bad cell reception.

Why do I have to explain the concept of voicemail in 2012?? Exhibits A through D, your honor:

Me: He’s not available right now. Would you like to leave a voicemail?

Caller: No, I need to talk to him.

Me: He’s still not available. Would you like voicemail?

Caller: But I’m returning his call.

Me: And I’m telling you he’s not available and offering you a chance to leave a message.

Caller: Oh, ok. Can I leave a voicemail?

Me: Hey, great idea.

Me: He’s not available right now. Would you like to leave a voicemail?

Caller: Ok. Tell him that John called. My number is—

Me: Whoa Nelly, hang on there. I’m not the voicemail.

Me: He’s not available right now. Would you like to leave a voicemail?

Caller: How do I do that?

(silence as I fight back all the sarcastic responses I could give)

Me: One moment please.

Me: He’s not available right now. Would you like to leave a voicemail?

Caller: No, can I just leave a confidential voice message on some kind of recorded device, though?

Do I know when someone else might answer their phone? Yes, just as soon as I get my crystal ball back from the repair shop. I love that most people don’t believe in telepathy or the ability to see through walls—unless they call the office and speak to me. I realize that some callers may assume that I am sitting right in front of the person they want to speak to, but I’m here to say: don’t assume. I may be around the corner, down the hall, on another floor, or, let's face it, just don't want to turn my head and look after your rude and demanding call. 

This last type of call is actually fun for me, because I get to pretend I’m rehearsing lines for a badly written sitcom.

Caller: Can I talk to Nancy?

Me: Nancy?

Caller: Marta.

Me: Marta?

Caller: Yes.

Me: You want to speak to Marta?

Caller: I need to talk to her.

Me: Which one?

Caller: Tony.

Me: What?

Caller: I’m calling him back.

Me: Calling who back?

Caller: Yes.

Me: Sir, please stop. You’re hurting my head.

So do me a favor, and before you make a phone call, please be sure that your doctor has given you permission to speak to other human beings.

P.S. Why does this post belong on Occupy Selena? Consider it my on-going demonstration to protest the disparity between the 1% who know how to have a sane phone call and the rest of them…

6 Reasons You're Not Successful

How can they say my life is not a success? Have I not for more than sixty years got enough to eat and escaped being eaten?  --Logan P. Smith

Whenever  I bemoan the fact that I’m not successful, someone always starts listing my accomplishments: avoided falling into potholes today, set alarm for a.m. and not p.m., ate a meal without spilling anything on my white shirt.

You think these things are easy to do? Heck no! They took effort, diligence, vigilance, and discipline. However you define success—whether it’s watching an entire season of Mad Men in one weekend, climbing Mt Everest, or forming your own rock band—there are certain factors you have to keep in mind.

Check out these six simple reasons why success may be eluding you:

1. You're a writer/actor/filmmaker/singer/lawyer but you don't write/act/direct/sing/argue. Period. Do I even need to list the next five reasons? You’re afraid? So what? Do it anyway. You’re not disciplined? So what? Do it anyway. You’re a big procrastinator? SO WHAT? DO IT ANYWAY! Clearly I belong in the military and not in the fuzzy, hand-holding therapeutic world. My point is simply this: if your passion is what really makes you feel alive, then you’re slowly killing yourself with all these excuses.
2. You're waiting for inspiration. That’s like Waiting for Godot. If you have no idea what that means, just go back to reason number one. Who was it that said he writes when inspired, and thank god that's every morning at 9? You’ve got to do it every day, or at least on a regular basis. As Aristotle put it: “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit.” 
3. You're not marketing yourself/your work. This is anything from cold calls to social media to networking. Nobody knows what a fabulous person with a fabulous product or service you are unless you tell them (and no, telling your granny doesn’t count – unless she’s CEO of a PR firm). Don’t know the first thing about marketing yourself? Bull. What do you think you’re doing on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest?* When you tell everyone you just had a rockin’ burger at your favorite joint (complete with instagram, of course) – you just engaged in marketing. Now do it for something that’s actually important.
4. Real-life distractions keep getting in the way. Like paying the rent. Yeah, I know, real-life stuff sucks ass because it has to be taken care of. But did you ever play Dodge Ball in school? The idea of the game (if you can call being pelted with really hard balls by angry adolescents a game) was to dodge all incoming missiles at any cost. That’s like life. Just because something comes your way that you have to deal with, doesn’t mean you have to sit down and give up. Find a way to take care of it, leap over it, or ignore it—but don’t stop writing/acting/directing/singing/juggling, etc.
5. You don't believe you can. In other words, you don't believe in yourself. Whew! This is more than I can help you with. Maybe Louise Hay can help you out with a few tips on transforming old beliefs. Basically a belief is just a thought that got lodged in the cracks in your brain. Unearth them, shed them, and replace them with new beliefs that YOU CAN DO IT!
6. You spend too much time writing lists entitled 6 Reasons You’re….

Simple? Yes. Easy? Hell no. But if achieving your dream seems like too much work, then take to heart what W. C. Fields once said: If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There's no point in being a damn fool about it.


*Did you see what I did there? I oh-so-slyly marketed myself! 


 

The Last of the Luddites

I drive a '95 Altima sans GPS, own a 17-inch convex-screen TV, and, after a year and a half without a cell phone, have had the absolute most basic one for a year now (so basic, in fact, that I'm often asked if it's a toy). And I'm fine with my Luddite life. It's everyone else who is up in arms about it. 

"How can you live like that?!" they cry out in horror. 

My philosophy has always been that technology should enhance my life, not take over my life. In other words, when the GPS stops working can you still figure out where you are? When you drop your cell phone in the toilet, do you still know how to use a payphone (do you even know where to find a payphone? Do you even know what a payphone is?). I laugh when others ask me how I cook my food without a microwave, how I plan my day without a BlackBerry or iPhone, and how I communicate with my friends without going on Facebook. Honestly, I pitied these fools who had traded in a functioning brain for a new gadget. 

 

And then I fell in love. 

When my toy phone started malfunctioning, I figured I would just give it up and go au naturel again. But one day I was walking past a phone store and something greater than me compelled me to go in and browse, just browse, the display case of shiny new phones. Like a customer sampling every flavor of ice cream at Baskin Robbins, I asked the assistant to pull out almost every phone for me to touch and test. I told him right up front that I was probably not going to buy one, and he just smiled and nodded. Not a declaration he was unfamiliar with, I'm sure. 

Very gently, hardly even intruding upon my personal space, he told me to go ahead and try out the touchscreen phones (after stifling a snicker at the standard keypad on my toy phone). 

"It's too weird," I complained. 

"I'm used to the old keypad," I whined. 

"There's too much info on this phone - I just want to talk and text," I insisted as my heartbeat picked up. 

And so I walked out of that store with my new Android smartphone. I have to admit it made me feel abundant, extravagant, grown-up, modern! 

I headed over to a coffee shop to meet my friend and spent the first half hour showing off my new phone, making him call and text me several times to test out various display screens and ringtones, pulling up our destination on the GPS even though I knew precisely where we were, gently laying it on a napkin to avoid the sticky table.... After he'd courteously admired it for as long as he could take, he stopped my enamored giggles cold with one line: "Now you're one of us."

My smile dropped. Oh dear. It was true. I had become one of them.

At that moment I lost my coveted martyr status of The Last of the Luddites. I could no longer make fun of the people who gaze at their gadgets more steadfastly than at the person across the table from them. I could no longer feel superior about arriving at my destination on Mapquest printouts and good ol' fashioned intuition. I could no longer point my accusatory finger and blame 'them' for everything that was wrong in the world. 

I was now one of 'them.' I worried that I was no longer special, that I would blend in with the masses, that I, too, had sold my soul and traded in a functioning brain for a new gadget. 

As I drove to pick up this same friend for lunch a few days later, he texted me 'are you and the phone engaged yet?' I laughed, but still worried about my soul. Until he hopped into my 15-year-old car and said, "Can't this horse and buggy go any faster?" I smiled broadly. I still retained my Luddite status and therefore my individuality in this technological age. 

Oh wait, was that a Nissan dealership we just passed...?



Originally published on In The Powder Room.
 

A Day In the Life of a Writer, i.e. Writer (Finale)

Continued from yesterday’s A Day In the Life of a Writer, i.e. Panhandler.

Now that you’ve patiently (or impatiently) waded through tales of an infatuated ESL student of mine, a tour of slavery on a cold, wet TV set, eight hours of training on how to answer a telephone, and trying to sell my “asse”, you have successfully reached the final installment:

Selena and writer Michael Palin.

Writer.

The first thing I ever wrote (besides diary entries which consisted almost entirely of “my brother is a bumhole!!!” * and “just got free candy, yay!!!”) was a story about a girl my age who encountered the same problems as I did, only she always triumphed. It was written as an ongoing story, and last I saw of it, it was about 60 pages.

The first thing I ever wrote and was paid money for was a radio play a friend and I came up with in seventh grade. Truthfully, we recorded the radio play as an improvisation one day, learned about the contest, and then transcribed it. We won twenty bucks – each. A hefty amount for a 12 year-old kid not receiving an allowance.

And thus began my Life As a Writer. Well, that and twenty years of wandering around the figurative desert, i.e. working jobs just to pay the bills because a number of people I looked up to as a kid assured me that you can’t make money at writing (one of whom told me this in a building full of books for sale).

My first job out of college was as office manager and assistant to the publicist at publishers’ representative Ampersand Inc, and once every couple of weeks or so I would escort an out-of-town author around the city for a day, driving her to interviews, taking her to lunch, getting us lost in the vast downtown parking garages. I listened to every interview they gave and peppered them with my own questions and after two years I realized that all the accumulated wisdom and experience of a writer could be distilled down to one simple tenet: Just Write. Wow, I could’ve saved a gazillion dollars on higher education had I known this nugget of info!

My second post-college job was Editorial Assistant and later Calendar Editor at The Hollywood Reporter, which allowed me to write occasionally – and get published and paid for it, thus officially making me a Professional Writer.

I convinced a Hollywood Literary Manager to take me on as a script reader, and after a couple of years branched out with my own script coverage biz. The first screenplay I analyzed was my own and, sadly, received a mere ‘consider’ – until I randomly sprinkled violence, sex and t-shirt-worthy one-liners throughout. Now it’s a surefire blockbuster in the vein of: Driving Miss Daisy meets Armageddon. What do you think of my logline: When an asteroid the size of Texas is headed for Earth, an old Jewish woman and her African-American chauffeur are sent to nuke the rock from the inside.

I co-wrote and co-produced a short film which won third place at the Akira Kurosawa Short Film Competition. I believe we would have won first place, had it not been for my cameo appearance. We attended the awards ceremony in Japan where we stayed in what can only be described as a suitcase-sized hotel room. The shower heads are ridiculously low.

Bill Murray showers in Lost In Translation

I started writing award-worthy articles such as “Different Sizes of Copy Paper” for websites like eHow, SoYouWanna and LiveStrong. They say write what you know, right? Speaking of which, my expertise quickly branched out to “Ways For Women To Increase Sex Drive”, “Psychological Symptoms of Anxiety”, “Herbs For Memory Loss”, and…I forget what else.

Because I'm clearly so hilarious, I funneled my goofy experiences and knack for self-deprecating humor into slice o' life articles for In The Powder Room. The long list of stories touches on how men can avoid getting that second date, the absurdity of the gynecological exam, and how real women, apparently, change diapers. Which makes me a fantasy, I guess.

Being born with a red pen in my mouth, it was only natural that I started charging for my annoying habit of correcting other people's spelling and grammar. Without payment I am merely irritating; with payment, I am an expert marketing article writer, copy editor and copy writer.

I am a regular contributor to a fabulous organic and natural living magazine called The Garlick Press. I have written two (almost three!) novels, one of which is being read by a literary agent, the other of which is being used to keep my table from slanting. I am a newly commissioned biographer for a fantastic artist, Tom Winkler. And I write two blogs: Love Matters and Occupy Selena. Which brings us full circle. Aaaand scene.

Ok, mom, now you can stop worrying about me. The previous four installments made her question the state of my mental well-being. But I’m not crazy, I’m just a writer.

* For the record, I no longer consider my brother a bumhole; in fact, he’s a very cool and loving brother.