Copyright ® 2003 by Angela Booth
How brave are you?
You need courage to submit your work to potential buyers, but you
also need courage to get creative with your career. To get
creative, you may need to break a few rules.
There are hundreds of rules around writing. The rules give you
basic information, such as --- how to format a manuscript, how
to contact editors, how to find and interview sources, and more.
The danger is that you may come to look on these rules as
"musts". Not so. These rules are merely guides. They're NOT
written down in stone. You can flout the rules if you wish. There
are no publishing-police, who will drag you into publishing court
and charge you with the horrendous crime of submitting your
manuscript in 12-point Times New Roman, rather than in Courier
New, for example.
=>Get creative: do it your way
Like the immortal Chairman of the Board, you can do it your way.
I was interested this morning to read a message from a much-
published friend, telling me that she'd decided to take a new
tactic with a novel she was working on. She has almost completed
the novel, and rather than shipping off the completed novel to
her agent, she decided to send the first half of the book to
fifteen agents, to see what the response would be.
Here's how my thoughts ran when I read this message: *Whoa! She's
breaking all the rules. She has an agent. She should offer it to
him. If she wants to contact other agents, she should send them a
letter first, and ----* I was indulging in a wonderful round of
"musts". I do know better, but since this was my initial
reaction, it shows you how firmly the rules hold us in their
grasp.
Don't buy into the rules. There are no rules.
More power to my friend. Her intuition told her that this was the
right procedure for her on this book at this time, and she went
ahead and did it.
I've told you this little story to show you that you can do as
you think best, always. Others may not agree with you. Tante pis.
You donÆt need anyone's permission.
=> Break the rules creatively
How do you creatively break the rules? First you need to know
what the rule, or the common practice, is in your situation.
"Breaking the rules" doesnÆt mean that you act insensitively or
arrogantly. In the example above, my friend wasn't breaking her
contract with her current agent. She has a verbal agreement with
him which operates book-to-book, not a written "whole-career"
contract. She said that she feels that this new novel might not
be his kind of book, and didnÆt want to argue with him before she
finished the book. She loves the book, and doesn't want to listen
to any doubts from someone she trusts. She wants to find someone
who loves her book the way she does, without reservation.
You break the rules creatively when you decide to try something
new, because it seems to be right for this situation. Another
writer just posted an entire published novel on her Web site.
She's made some money on the book, and because the rights to the
book reverted to her, she feels that she'll get more promotional
mileage by letting people read the book for free on her site than
she will by trying to sell it to another publisher, or by selling
it as an ebook on her site.
A couple of years ago an Australian writer whose books went out
of print published them on her Web site. She charges a hefty
yearly-subscription for access to the site. Subscribers get
ebooks free, a forum, and can ask the writer's advice on her
topic, because she's an expert. She broke the rules too, and in
the process made a new rule. This happens too.
If you get an inspired flash to try something, try it. The flash
may make no sense at all, in the context of your current writing
and writing career goals, but why not try it? When I look back
over a quarter of a century of writing, I donÆt regret anything I
wrote. What I regret are all those ideas and inspirations I
pushed aside and ignored. I regret the times I listened to other
people, instead of to myself. I regret the times I thought other
people knew more than I did, because they never did. I'm the
expert on me; just as you're the expert on you.
What creative inspirations are you ignoring? Start today. Get
creative with your writing career.
*** Resource Box ***
To read more articles by Angela Booth, visit the Digital-
e Web site--Information for writers and creatives.
Ebooks, free ezines, Creatives Club. Love to write? Turn
your talent into a business! http://www.digital-e.biz/
