Things I Know About Writing and Getting Published

Very often, a writer sits for days, weeks, maybe even years writing their memoirs. They believe they are very good and that their writing will be snatched up by the first publisher that reads their works. They imagine having the option to say "Hmmmm, I think I will wait for another offer. A better offer. Not to say this is a bad thought but it is normally an unrealistic thought. If it should happen to you, then I am thrilled for you. I truly am. But there is a chance that things will not fall the way they have been envisioned.

Being a writer myself, I know about the sending, the waiting and the rejections that can sop your enthusiam and cause you to question your own abilities as a serious writer. You have to realize that though your writing may in fact be great, publishers have a list of what they are looking for. Novel subjects go in and out just like seasons. If you hit the right "season" then your book has a better chance of being picked up by a publisher. You have to have patience and need to keep writing. The right publisher or agent may come out of left field and take your work. You need to take the time to do some research and join writers sites and authors sites to see what is selling or what the popular subjects are at the time of your writing. Check with publishers and look at their guidelines to see what they do or do not accept. Learn to write a professional query letter or synopsis to send to publishers or agents.

I spent the better part of 10 years writing before actually submitting a novel to anyone. I was not rejected but the publisher that took my novel was really looking for new authors at the time. My timing could not have been better as they were also looking for the subject matter I was offering was exactly what they were looking for.

It is so important to know what you are writing and where the best sites are for your work. And if you are still rejected by them, then keep writing and keep sending.That is the best advice yiou are going to ever going to get from me concerning publishers. Study, learn, get to know them.

As for the prep before you send the manuscript to anyone, have it edited professionally. When you send your manuscript un-edited, one of the first things that a publish or Agent will ask is to see the credentials of your editor or critiquer. If you have not had this done then they will ask you have this done before they will even take the manuscript any further. Save yourself the time and efforts of submitting your manuscript until you have accomplished this step.

You need to be ready for some tweaking and tightening of your manuscript and that is not a bad thing at all. The better your manuscript comes to the publisher or agent, the better you look also. I encourage you to do all that you can to make your manuscript the best that it can be. You want to be a professional writer and deal with professional publishers and agents. You need to then look like a professional also.

A really good book to help you along the path to being published are Writers Market Companion from Writers Digest. This book is put out by a very well know group and written by Mary Cupito and Joe Feiertag. Mary is a freelance writer who teaches journalism at Northern Kentucky University. She has worked as a reporter for the Cincinnati post, the Columbus Dispatch and the St. Petersburg Times. Joe is a public relations professional and former journalist who has built a very successful career as a freelance writer and editor. He also has taught writing at college level. They have mastered the art of writing Query letters and synopsis.

Another great book to add to your library is the MFA in creative writing, written by the members of the New York Writers Workshop. This book helps teach writers dialogue and ways to improve your writing skills concerning creating "hooks" inside your book and ways to write so that your words reach the audiences you are seeking to sell to.

The Writers Digest offers an extensive list of publishers and Agents looking for authors, new and already published seeking ways to publish their novels. Very well worth having it at your fingertips also.

Married just a little over a year and with a beautiful baby girl, my life was about to be "blessed" again. Sheila was to be the next learning in my walk of things I know about. Her illness, her undeniable and encouraging strengths would take me to another opportunity to either love and grow or become bitter. It was during her illness that I realized part of why God had blessed me with the years of working with those that were "challenged."

Sheila developed Muscular Dystrophy one year after we were married. We had our first child by then and I was working a full time job as a foreman. I had served my four years in the Military and got out. As her disease progressed, we spent many hours and days and weeks and even years in hospital rooms. During a year of total remission, she became pregnant with our second child. Though not planned, we were estatic to learn of the blessing to come. The pregnancy was hard and Sheila spent the better part of 9 months in the hospital under intense medical care. Our daughter was born two months early and weighed only 3.2lbs. She was in the Neo-Natal Unit until she was seven weeks old. I would go up each night after I got off of work at midnight and learn to feed her and care for her. There were special ways to feed her and infant CPR classes to be taken. She came home on a heart monitor and there were classes to take for that.
Sheila remained in the hospital for another 5 months after our daughter came home. I would work my night shift job and come home and feed our daughter. I would wake in the night to feed her again and then my parents would wake me when they were leaving for work. I survived on two hours sleep a night for several years. I had two babies, aged new born and two years old to care for and my wife to visit each day as well as work.

Sheila came home and went back into remission for several years. Together we found a way to purchase our first house and live a wonderful life together. We could not have done it without the loving help of my family, that I do know. In spite of all the hurdles in our life, we made ourlife and our children's lives the best they could be. Insurances ran out and renewals denied but we continued to give our girls everything we could. They never knew when we were strapped for money or going without. We sold our home to move to a smaller town to raise ourdaughters. The city simply was not a safe place to raise them. We bought a 3 acre property and lived there for almost twenty years. Sheila was hospitalized 25 times in those years but we continued to be a family and to love our daughters and each other beautifully.

In those years I wanted so much to write. I had written songs since I was thirteen and written short stories when ever I could. Sheila and the girls encouraged me too try and publish them. In 2004, my first novel was published. I cut a C.D. the same year of 13 of the 100 songs I hadwritten. Both went on sale and though I didn't become rich in money from them, my life was enriched to know I had become a published author and singer/songwriter. In 2005 my second novel was published and today I wait for novels three and four to be published. Sheila being loved and missed more than my words will ever convey, I continued to write as she asked me too. I remember the day that I stood in front of my novels in the Barnes and Noble in the Mall of America.I held my novel up to the sky and said, "We did it, Baby. We made it here."

Things I know about because of our life together are about giving and love and care-giving. To be a care-giver for life I think takes a special heart. There are so many pros to that lifestyle and certainly some cons. When Sheila got sick in the early stages of our marriage, she neededcare to walk and bathe and do most things. From time to time, she would go into remission and for a year or so she would be able to walk and we would embrace that time and live it to the fullest. Taking care of her became just a way of life and we never really thought of life asanything different from anyone elses life. Our life was perhaps a bit different in that we had to be a little more prepared for emergencies as she would be fine one minute and then in an instant, in the hospital for a month or three or four. But we still lived our lives as filled as we could and were always on the go.

Sheila taught me that life doesn't have to control you. You can take control and make living a joy no matter what the challenge may be. She taught me that an illness, no matter how crippling, can only control you IF you allow it to. When life is beating you up, fight it and to remember that "Quitting is Never an Option."And she taught me that Love really IS stronger than anything this world can toss at us.

Things I know about? I know that love is everlasting long past when our loved one goes to heaven. Life is what you make it and choosing to live and love life is a better choice than becoming bitter. You only lose years of living and memories that you can never recover if you become bitter. She taught me that care-giving is a two way street. She was MY strength and My happiness as I was hers.

Life took many turns for both my wife and I but we remained with one another until March 8th, 2006.The disease she had fought so bravely and strongly for almost 24 years had taken it's toll on her precious body. After being in a coma for 60 days and then again for 30 days, Sheila went to heaven. But before she went, she taught me so many "things that I know" today.

Oh yes... she taught me one more thing that I know. It is Never, ever Goodbye, it is only "see you later." Darrel

Things I Know About

And so away we go. There are many things in this life that I still have left to learn. Of that I am very certain. But, that said, there are things I have learned along the road of life that might or might not help others along the way. today, i think i will tell you about one of the more precious gifts that I learned along the way.

I can't do this without a little bit of background. Many years ago, too many to want to say, my brothers 8 year old hand was placed on my shoulders. Born with almost no sight, his eyes continued to worsen as he grew older. I was 7 at the time that he became a part of my everywhere life. I don't recall ever looking back on that moment and feeling used or burdened in any way. In fact, I felt blessed and privileged to be trusted in such a way. I became his eyes and he became my first teacher of things I know about. We went everywhere together and learned to climb trees and run and play together.

Some of our adventures did not always turn out so well, but we carried on without looking back. His hand on my shoulder, I took a turn around the corner of our house too close and too fast. He of course had no idea that that the corner of the wall was there. I made the turn... he hit the wall full speed. that was the first but certainly not the last of the bandages and scrapes that he and i would both receive on our journeys. He went to a summer "Special Ed" school each year. I sat on the sidewalk and watched him go each day. One day the bus-driver asked me if I would like to come along. With my parents permission, I joined Dan at his summer school. I found it was less school and more a place for kids like Dan to be in the summertime. There were blind kids and deaf kids and mentally challenged kids. Some of them more severely challenged than others but all in the same scenario. A place to be when there was no school.

Now you might wonder what it was that I learned by being at that school. Thing I know about concerning caring for those that had a little trouble doing for themselves was something i took in and used it for life. I know that when you have a "sense" that is taken from you, your trust goes down until you find someone you feel safe with. I know that if you reach out in kindness and offer your hand in friendship, that you will have a true friend for the rest of your life. I also know that 40 years ago, the treatment of those "handicapped" children was not as watched as it is today. I saw things that I know now as an adult weren't right then. As a child, I knew only that if I spoke out, I would simply NOT be asked back again.

Children that were a bit... high strung or as it was called, "Unmanageable" were locked in closets until they calmed down. Blind kids weren't told that if they worked slower and used the senses in their fingers, they could not just read Braille. They could put together a model car or an airplane that looked like the picture on the box. They weren't told by too many that they could do virtually anything anyone with sight or hearing or without a "mental" handicap could do.
My friends became a mix of blind, deaf and mentally challenged kids that Would learn exactly that. My parents never treated Dan any different than they did the other four of us. He was asked to help clean our room and he played baseball with us. I know that the hearing of a blind person is multiplied enough to hear the sound of the ball as it is passing by them. I know if you toss the ball in an underhand motion slow that the same kid labeled blind can hit that ball a long distance. A deaf kid can swing just as hard as any other kid and a "mentally' challenged kid can hit the ball if you take the time to hold the bat with them until the day they hold it themselves.

The neighbor kids were always up for the challenge of playing against a team of "retards and blindies." How hard could it be to beat them? Well, true we didn't win a lot of games but... we did win the hearts and respect from the other kids in the neighborhood. They learned as I did that those kids had more heart and more desire to be the best than any other kid in town. They saw the want and the determination in those young peoples eyes. Moving up a little or dropping the ball now and then did not hurt the self-esteem of these kids, challenged or otherwise. They learned things that I already knew about. They learned that compassion and patience would earn them the place of trust and loyal friendship for the rest of their lives in these kids' hearts. They learned that one day in their adulthood, that the things they learned then might be applied to their own lives.

Things I know about? Well there are many more, but I do know that the day my brothers hand was placed on my shoulder was one of the greatest gifts bestowed on me. A gift that has kept on giving for the past 31 years. I will tell you more of the "things I know about" in another blog. This is just my first...