Today’s guest post is by the author of Rose’s Will, Denise DeSio. Denise and I met through Supporting Authors One Read at a Time, as well as the WLC! So I am pleased to have her on my blog!
Welcome, Denise!
Before I sent out my manuscript, I scoured the internet and went to numerous writing seminars and conventions, sucking up information like a Hoover. I learned how to send a query, what an agent wants and doesn’t want, what sells, what stinks, and how to pack a punch in the first paragraph. Armed with all that valuable information, I obsessed, second-guessed, and over-analyzed to the point of paralysis, while my manuscript skulked in the dark recesses of my computer. 
A very famous author/agent told me never, ever to start a book with My name is so and so and this is what I do. Why? Because it’s BOR-ING, and an agent will throw my work directly into the trash bin. Horror of horrors! I ran home and immediately changed the beginning of my novel. I was cranky for a few days until I decided that all the cracks in my 2600 square foot home had to be caulked.
Weeks later, my partner pulled my twisted body out from under the bathroom sink and capped the caulk gun. “Stop it!” she screamed, as she dragged me back into my office. “Change that shit back the way it was and send the damn thing out already!”
She was right. My character, Eli Fineman, would never begin his story without introducing himself. It would show a lack of refinement.
I changed it back, and started sending out sample chapters, envisioning an industry full of agents and/or publishers pressing the delete button and generating a rejection template in unison. Luckily, that didn’t happen. Rose’s Will was offered a contract from the second publisher I sent it to.
So, get ahead. Get all the education and information you can, but don’t compromise your art to comply with generic instructions. If your work is good, your story is well-written, and you have a fine command of the English language, send the damn thing out already!
Connect with Denise:
Facebook http://facebook.com/ReadMyBooks
Twitter @Topbee
Blog http://DeniseDeSio.com
Dreaming Awake 
Thanks Emerald, for hosting me. I’m glad to be here. Hope you got my email. Oh and check your tags for this post. I just noticed the need for another little adjustment.
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Sorry about that. I got it all changed! 🙂
Oh, and you’re very welcome! I was glad to have you. 🙂
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Great post, Denise. Very pleased for you that you got a publisher on second try. Yu must be over the moon 🙂
Your site is cool, Emerald, so I just liked you. You’re on my site today, by the way 🙂
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I forgot about that! Sorry, Junying. Thank you again! 🙂
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I agree completely. I remember when I heard about “filter words.” I’d never heard the term before, so I did some reading to figure out what they were. At that point, all sorts of bloggers were posting about how you need to get rid off all the filter words, like they were some sort of disease or something.
I picked up my copy of Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon and flipped through it. Tons of filter words. In fact, filter words are sort of the point — since most of the narration is filtered through the main character’s (stoned and unreliable) perceptions.
I haven’t worried about filter words since. As my father used to say, there is only one rule for writing: write well. And no simple-minded rules are going to get you there.
Oh, and yes, get the education you can, but when somebody gives you advice, the first question should be how many novels have they written, and were they any good.
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“Write well.” Now, that’s one piece of writing advice I’m happy to take!
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Isn’t that true, Danielle?! Anthony is full of great writing advice, but that one is so wonderful! 🙂
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Thanks for the kind words. As I said, that was my father’s advice, but his name was Anthony, so you’re talking about him, too. 🙂
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Well, you’re passing on the wonderful advice, so it counts both ways in my opinion! 🙂
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That last sentence is so very true! 🙂
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I heard from a good writer who also is my friend saying the same thing, that if you have a good story, you work will get published.
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That’s very true. 🙂 Thanks for commenting.
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What a timely post for me! Thanks so much, Emerald, for having Denise over to chat. I have just completed the fourth “final” version of the novel I am pitching next week, face to face. Time to say “enough caulking!”
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I just finished a final version of my novel as well. I never think it’s polished enough! 😉 lol Now, it’s in my editor’s hands. But I can relate. 🙂
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