I’m delighted to announce the launch of my online course, Master the Art of the Synopsis. Designed for writers struggling to craft a compelling synopsis, the class divides the process into manageable stages. It expands upon the course I’ve taught for years, both in person and virtually, and adds supplemental materials including a workbook and sample synopses. Students will have lifetime access and be able to work through the units at their own pace.
After spending months–or years–writing a novel, writers often hate having to tackle a synopsis. How do you distill an entire book down to a few pages, or even paragraphs? But don’t let a sense of overwhelm stall your submission process. If you or someone you know needs to polish up those synopsis-writing skills, check out the course today.
Toward the end of last year, I mentioned I planned to make some changes here on the website moving forward. Given how infrequently I blog, it makes sense to shift gears. This site will continue as an informational hub from now on. I plan to maintain the archive of posts, but in future things will be more news/announcement focused.
What does that mean? This site will remain your go-to spot for finding out what I’m looking to take on/represent, and where I’m traveling once the world opens up and we start to see in-person conferences again. If I’m teaching online, I’ll include that information here. Plus, announcements about TKA clients, book covers, and so on.
What’s going away? Anything that feels like an actual blog post. It doesn’t make sense to maintain a blog if I only write occasionally.
Instead, I’ve started a newsletter for anyone interested in the more personal side of publishing life. I plan to chat about the industry, books, reading, and writing, plus likely a bit of cultural overlap. Whatever I’m feeling passionate about at the moment. Right now the goal is two issues per month, directly to your inbox. The first post is up, so if you’d like to check it out and/or subscribe, you can find me over on Substack at Tempest in a Teacup.
One last announcement for now: Queries reopen on February 21st. I’ll likely update the wishlist here right before reopening.
Welcome to mid-October! The calendar insists on speeding us toward year-end, so now is the time to make some decisions. Are you doing NaNoWriMo next month? Did you promise yourself that this was the year you’d submit your writing somewhere? Have you set a reading goal for 2021?
I believe pandemic-time means being a little gentle with yourself when it comes to hitting those marks. But at the same time, you won’t get these years back, so take a few minutes to assess where things are. Maybe make a mini goal for the next couple of months. You’ll feel better come January.
This week’s links offer up the usual assortment of bookish and writerly sites to visit, but I hope a few will inspire you to do some writing or read something terrific. Wishing you a wonderful weekend. Enjoy!
Literary Magazines: General Submissions. – A helpful list of places currently open to new work in Sept/Oct; note that The Lumiere Review provides an updated list every month or two, as some lit mags open to submissions seasonally.
Welcome to the long, not-so-lazy days of summer. We’re a few weeks in, and while this summer ranks far better than last, things are still a little… different. (If you hail from the southern hemisphere, this goes for chilly winter days, too. Pandemic life affects all seasons.)
Life and work continue to pick up pretty steadily, which means reminding my pandemic-brain how to function at normal speeds. In my heart, I yearn for a long vacation with a stack of books by the pool. The vacation part still looks unlikely, but the reading is a go. So this week I thought I’d try and revive Friday Links with a few good to-read lists with summer indulgence in mind. Of course, I’m throwing in a few writerly links, as well.
What are you all reading these days? Has the pandemic altered your book preferences at all? I’d love to hear what you’re up to. Meanwhile, wishing you a lovely weekend and some good reading and writing time. Enjoy!
Best Books of 2021 So Far. – BookRiot rounds up a huge list of excellent titles published between January and June of this year. Great for playing catch-up.
Happy Friday! Somehow we’ve reached the end of the month. When did time start moving normally again? I take it as a sign of hope for good things to come. But as we kiss February goodbye, I have some random housekeeping announcements to share before the links.
First, I’m happy to let you all know that I am in the process of prepping an online version of my course on synopsis writing. I’ve offered this before through various venues, but pandemic times call for more availability. The new, updated course will go into greater detail than I could previously due to time constraints, and include handouts. More details to come next week.
Next, to address the state of my inbox (otherwise know as submissions). It’s no secret I am woefully behind. I did virtually no reading of new material over the holidays and came back to a bunch of client projects, which means I’ve not caught up. No, I am not closing to submissions in order to do so. However, I am about ready to switch up what I’m looking for, so I will be closing over the weekend to make that adjustment. I’ll post a revised wish list early next week. As always, please follow submission guidelines! If you’re waiting to hear from me on something, I’m reading as fast as I can. I’ve requested more pages on quite a few queries, which is great, but also means… more to read. So please hang in.
And on that note, I’ll share some fun links and let you all get on with your Friday. Wishing you a wonderful weekend, filled with bookish goodness and inspired writing. Enjoy!
Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Poet Who Nurtured the Beats, Dies at 101. – Excellent obituary that includes a worthwhile video history. Ferlinghetti lived a wonderful, long life, and left a real mark. I’ll look forward to getting back up to City Lights books as soon as travel is safe again.
Pandemic Pen Pals. – A lovely little write up of Penpalooza, the pandemic-era pen pal exchange started by New Yorker writer Rachel Syme over social media. Matches are still happening, so head over to penpalooza.com if you’re interested in some old fashioned snail mail. You can check out the #penpalooza tag on Twitter to get a feel for things. There are somewhere in the range of 11,000 people signed up at the moment, from all around the world.
Most years, I start discussing goals for the new year a few weeks before the end of December. I advocate for taking time to review the year you’ve just gone through to see where things stand. Have you written as much as you’d like? Did you make more progress or less than you wanted? What needs finishing? Improving? Where do you need to just keep up the good work? You need to know where you stand to figure out where you want to go.
As with all things, 2020 proves the exception. I still think it’s important to take stock of your current writing progress, but looking back over the year is a personal decision. For many of you, it’s better to just plow forward because it’s been a year of frustration and lost focus. If you’ve achieved your goals for 2020, kudos! But many, many people will have fallen short. Don’t beat yourself up. We’re living through extraordinary times and it’s important to be kind to yourself.
So what does this mean for 2021? New years deserve new goals. I’m not a huge resolution person, as many of you might know. I feel like the expectations are huge and the follow-through unlikely. Goals come at any part of the year, however, and you can always add to them or adjust them based on circumstances. Consider them guideposts for your writing plans.
Setting Goals for 2021
By all means, take a day or so to think about what goals you’d like to set for your writing next year. Make them measurable, and things you can control, especially after this past year. Don’t say “I’m going to get an agent,” because you only control part of that scenario. Instead, plan to complete the steps required. A series of goals related to finding an agent might include:
Finish writing manuscript.
Revise/edit manuscript until it’s ready to submit.
Research agents and agencies (to see who reps your type of writing and who might be interested in your work).
Write a synopsis and a query letter.
Those are all manageable steps, things you can check off your to-do list and call completed. Finishing a manuscript takes far more time than writing a query letter, so it would be a larger goal. You might research agents in small bursts over several weeks. Revising requires more time, especially if you plan to let a manuscript sit until you have a fresh perspective.
Wherever you are in your writing journey, from newbie to pro, I recommend setting a few goals of different sizes and then estimating when you might reasonably finish them. A big goal might take all year, but smaller ones might be complete in a couple of months or so. Set them up on a calendar, and stagger some of those smaller projects. For instance, you might have a major goal that runs until December, as well as a medium one that runs January to June and a smaller one from July to September.
Making Allowances for Life
2020 won’t be the only year to mess with you careful planning. Consider your typical year and allow more time during periods where you get busy or have other responsibilities, whether to a day job or family. If the December holidays are usually packed with chores and family gatherings, you might aim to finish a larger goal in mid-November so you don’t feel the pinch for time. But keep in mind, you can also tweak your timelines based on your life and what comes up. Stay flexible. They’re your goals; unless you have a publishing deadline or something similar tied to your goal, you’re the only one who can say when and how it needs to be done. Don’t let yourself off the hook for every tiny detour, but don’t beat yourself up if you honestly need to alter your original schedule.
Finally, remember to write your goals down somewhere you’ll see them often, and keep them fresh in your mind. Review them at the end of each month or quarter to assess your progress and see what needs to be updated. If you’re ahead of schedule, you might wish to add a new goal at some point during the year. And always find at least some little way of congratulating or rewarding yourself when you hit one of those goals. Achievement should be celebrated.
Happy Friday, and welcome to the middle of October. For the many writers, October serves as the countdown to NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month. In today’s selection of links, I offer up a bit of inspiration to help you get into the writing groove. Check out how other writers tackle their projects, or learn about new twists on older ideas. Be sure to visit the official NaNo site for additional tips on getting ready.
Before I delve into this week’s links, I want to remind you that I reopen to queries on Monday the 19th. I updated my wishlist here on the blog, but for anyone looking for a quick genre overview:
At this time, I’ll be looking to take on women’s contemporary or historical fiction; contemporary or historical single-title romance; magical realism; young adult contemporary, mystery, or historical fiction.
I will continue to adjust what genres I’m accepting every few months, based on current market needs, my reading interests, and what I’ve recently signed on. Please do not attempt to query outside of the requested genres, as I will auto-reject without reading.
Without further ado, I give you a mishmash of links to explore this weekend. I hope they inspire you to try new things in your own writing, or push yourself in whatever ways you need. Happy writing!
This week’s links:
Los Angeles Times Festival of Books: Stories & Ideas. – Initially, The LA Times postponed this year’s festival due to COVID-19. Eventually, they decided to go virtual. Register now for free panels starting this weekend and running into mid-November.
My submissions box reopens to queries on Monday, October 19th. As I mentioned a few posts back, I am changing how I handle requests for material. Due to the extreme influx, I can no longer accept queries for every genre I represent simultaneously. It’s a wonderful problem to have–all those great stories coming my way–but I can’t keep up.
Instead of taking queries on all fronts, I plan to rotate what genres I’m open to seeing. Which genres open will depend on the current market, what I have signed on recently, and what I feel most interested in reading at the time. I expect to review my decisions every few months, and to change what I’m looking for accordingly.
Accepted genres will be updated on my QueryManager page prior to my reopening on the 19th. I will also update my wishlists here and on The Knight Agency website. I hope this new system will lead to speedier response time, especially on partial and full manuscript requests. Looking forward to seeing what you’ve all been writing!
Somehow, despite the global pandemic and the west coast burning and what has often felt like the slowest year on record, we’ve reached October. Autumn in SoCal is nebulous at the best of times. Predictably, I’m writing this in the midst of a heatwave. No hot tea or cozy sweaters for me. More like ice cream and air conditioning. But fall still brings to mind school supplies and productivity, and I am way past due for an update.
Things on the horizon:
Utmost in most of your minds, no doubt, is when I plan to open again to submissions. The answer is, in a couple of weeks. I haven’t set a firm date yet as I’m tinkering with a few things. I’m also making decisions on some lingering projects in my inbox. Right now I plan to make a more formal announcement late next week.
That said, there will be some changes in what I’m looking for in terms of new material. I’m not making any huge shifts in what I represent, but I will no longer be accepting queries for all of those genres at the same time. I can’t keep up with the influx. I will update my wish list both here and on the agency site, and my QueryManager page will offer a much more limited list of genres I am accepting.
Please note that I will be changing which genres I’m accepting queries for from time to time, based on the balance of my client list, the market, and what I am most interested in reading. So if I’m not accepting projects in the genre you write, that does not mean I won’t be taking them again in a few months. But please, do not try to sneak your query to me by labeling it under some inappropriate genre or emailing it directly. It will be rejected unread in the first instance, and deleted in the second.
I realize some of you will be frustrated by this, and I am sorry. All I can say is, like many people, I have found my state of mind profoundly affected by world events, particularly the pandemic, and the result is my reading interests and ability to focus have shifted. I bounce off books I should adore. I sink into things that previously would not have interested me. Fighting it doesn’t do anyone any good.
So that’s where things stand on the business front. Now on to the fun stuff. I’ve a mishmash of links for you this week, and I hope you find them interesting and inspiring. Wishing you all a lovely weekend and happy writing!
Why Goodreads Is Bad for Books. – A review of the site’s history and stagnant existence, plus an intriguing peek at a new potential alternative.
Susanna Clarke’s Fantasy World of Interiors. – A lovely interview with the author, discussing the long break between her books and the mysterious ailment affecting her ability to work.
Welcome to this week’s unapologetically theme-free Friday Links. Work and holiday prep beckon, and my brain refuses to conjure up a creative topic for these babies. Yes, they’re all bookish. Or writing related. But otherwise, they’re just things I stumbled across this week, or recently, and found fun or useful. Themes will return when I’m no longer falling asleep at my desk, likely in the new year.
The December Writing Challenge keeps on trucking. Are you writing every day? Is the challenge proving hard? Or are you setting your schedule and sticking to it? Remember, even a short writing sprint counts. You can do this!
And on that note, I’m off to do a million things before the weekend can start. Have a great one, and happy writing!
