I can answer my own question. Because I love you, and for those of you I haven’t met yet, I pre-love you. I am the Thomas Merton of Creative Writing. 

My forthcoming novel is suspenseful, thoughtful, and sometimes emotionally troubling. Be forewarned. But this Brian showing up today, human Brian, is upbeat and here for you.

This is what I got for you right now. On tomorrow’s show, it’s a cobra-juggling unicyclist, but today is “Writer’s Day.” So here are some takeaways from about 25 years as an active, publishing writer. Some of it may work for you. 

I can report with all sincerity, I wish I’d had this list way back then. I have found my kind genius writer, and by the end of this post, you will have too.

1. People who tell you that you must write every day forget to admit that they don’t write every day. They are not kind genius writers.

They don’t tell you that’s a rule for you but not for them. If you write three days a week for just a couple hours at a time, or 6 days a week an hour at a time, or 7 days a week 15 minutes at a time, it’s all the same. If you can write one day a week because that’s all you can pull out of your busy life schedule, well, gods-bless you!

My writing schedule has changed dramatically over these many years. For example, there was indeed a time I wrote every day. Then I fell in love and moved in with a great guy. I wrote less frequently, but not any less well. The guy, by the way, is in the acknowledgments of all my books. 

Do make a weekly plan, but don’t fret, no matter how many days you commit to. Just commit your writer to the days and times you – you kind genius writer – CAN write.  

2. Your kind genius writer’s sweetie can wait.   

What I mean is, yeah, he was a great guy, but I didn’t let him read any of my work before it was published. Why? Well—and yes, there are rare exceptions—your sweetie is wonderful, I agree. So are many of your relatives and friends. Naturally, you want their thoughts on your work. They know you best, after all. 

And that’s the problem. You need the freedom to not be you in your writing. 

And you need the freedom from your sweetie and these others searching for and making assumptions about where they are in the work. 

Also, because they love you, much of the critique your writing really needs will go left unsaid. 

I know two poets married to each other. They share their writing. I don’t know how they do it, but they manage quite well. So, maybe that’s the addendum. Follow my advice unless you can marry a kind genius writer poet. 

In any case, replace extra love for the unpublished writing you won’t let your sweetie read. They’ll appreciate the tradeoff. And so will you.  

3. I was a super cute little kid kind genius writer.    

That has nothing to do with this list. I just wanted you to know in case you see me now on the street. 

But, speaking of childhood, Mrs. Rodgers read Stuart Little to my first-grade class. It was a wonder. A mouse born just like a little man. My entry point into queer literature, for sure, but back then, I was just thrilled to Stuart on his boat, worried for him wrapped in the blinds, admired his tenacity and boldness to venture out into the world to find his future. 

What book from your childhood (up to 14?) excited you the way Stuart Little did me? Or, what book when you first had access to books thrilled you? When was the last time you read it? 

Stuart and I have a little lunch together every two or three years. Why? Because I like to be reminded of that feeling I had when we first met. I want to remember delight. 

I want to remember delight because it reminds me of my own responsibilities as a writer, and it reminds me that reading shouldn’t feel like a chore nor medicine. Some of the best-intended literature courses and book clubs can wring the life out of the very texts they mean to honor with attention. Remembering delight reminds me, even in my most serious, somber writing, my ambition is to be in service of a reader’s delight.

So, from time to time, revisit that book which delighted you in childhood. Re-read what raised your little genius writer.

And if you’re thinking I’m being too precious, alternatively I might have mentioned that in fifth grade I came across a used copy of Helter Skelter and read it in one day. It’s a terrifying account of the Manson murders. I could have mentioned that book instead of Stuart Little, but I wanted to first delight you with my cuteness.  

4 Be honest: Your inner kind genius writer likely has a couple of places in mind. 

Where are you going to publish? In what print or online journal? With what press? What non-profit literary organization do you hope will play a role in supporting your writing and writing life? 

Now, how do you know these places will be there when you need them? We’re all hoping against hope that enough people are subscribing and donating to keep our favorite journals, presses, and literary organizations afloat so that we have a place to land. Everyone in print this month was made room for by the folks who in the previous year or years supported the publishing venue. Those very good people.

Are you a very good people? Right now, how many print and online journals are you supporting? How many literary organizations? Are you making it possible for other writers to achieve their dreams? It is, after all, a reciprocal ecosystem.  

Put simply, how are you in service to other writers? You can’t expect more than you give. I’ve met so many good-hearted writers who want to be assisted and supported in their ambitions, but who make almost no investment in other writers. If you want space on the bookshelf, help make room for others on that same shelf.

It’s not all dollar signs. There are non-costly ways to be in service of other writers. Being an eager and thoughtful reader of an unpublished manuscript, for example, or volunteering with a literary non-profit.

Think of it this way: the most fabulous and selfish thing you can do in service of your own writing is to support other writers. Every good rainbow needs more than one genius writer.

5) You know you’re Mad, right? 

There is just a blip under 8 billion people on this planet. Most of them aren’t writers. My, my, what an odd duck you are. Is it crossed wires, wild synapses, firing up all these images in your brain that you must bring to life through text? There are so many surgical instruments and pulsing electrics on the table that there’s hardly room for the body. 

This you know. You have the power to create life. You are a god on Earth. You have the power to make a positive difference in other people’s lives through your writing, not to mention your own. 

After reading the previous four items in this list, what the hell are you going to do with all that power? Will you find your kind genius writer?

Brian Leung is the author of the novels Ivy vs. Dogg: With a Cast of Thousands, Lost Men, and Take Me Home. Among other honors, he is a past recipient of the Lambda Literary Outstanding Mid-Career Prize and the Willa Award. Brian’s fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry appear in numerous magazines and journals. He is a Professor of Creative Writing at Purdue University. His forthcoming novel, All I Should Not Tell (C&R Press), will be released in the spring of 2022.

Click here to pre-order a copy of All I Should Not Tell.

The post #5onFri: Five Tips for Finding the Kind Genius Writer in Your Mad Genius Writer appeared first on DIY MFA.

Who killed the Princes in the Tower? (Hint: It was not Richard III.) 

Did Princess Anastasia survive the murder of her family? 

Was Elizabeth I really a virgin Queen, or did she allow herself to be seduced by the dashing Robert Dudley?

There’s one caveat to my love of historical mysteries, and that’s that I don’t want them to contradict known facts. Elizabeth I could not have borne a love child; she was never out of sight long enough. Anne and Mary Boleyn could never have been rivals for the dubious attentions of King Henry VIII, as they were never at court at the same time.

Thus, writing a historical mystery is an act of both discipline and fancy. The discipline is cold hard research, so that my story is not absurd in light of known facts. And the fancy lies in taking off from those facts, to weave a web of imagination and reality together in such a way that I forget which is which.

Solving the mystery, of course, requires a Big Reveal scene, which should make you shiver with pleasure, and resonate perfectly with every other tiny piece of the puzzle. 

Tread Carefully when Writing a Historical Mystery

When my eldest son was about eight, he and my husband had The Talk. My son apparently puzzled over their conversation for a few days, then came back to my husband with two follow-up questions. “So you and Mom did that three times?” My husband: “Er, yes, son. That’s exactly right. Three times.” (We had three children at the time.) Second question: “How do porcupines do it?” My husband: “Very, very carefully.”

I thought of that when I was puzzling over how to plan the Big Reveal for my historical mystery, The Long-Lost Jules. As an avid mystery reader, I always resent it when an author presents a Big Reveal at the very end, drawing on information that the reader never had. No fair! I want to shout. 

But I also get cranky when I nail the whole plot on page 3. (Oh I see, it’s the husband and the nanny; and the parrot saw them getting it on…)

When I wrote Jules, I knew I had to plan the Reveal very, very carefully. Drop bread crumbs along the way, but not so many that the reader susses it out before Chapter Three. 

For those of you who may be strategizing around a historical mystery and a climactic reveal, here are my Top Five Tips:

1. Do your homework! 

Good solid research into the facts surrounding your mystery will pay off in spades. 

When I was researching Queen Katherine Parr for The Long-Lost Jules, I decided that I had to walk in her steps; so I wrote to the curator of her own Sudeley Castle and he invited me for a personal, behind-the-scenes tour! The high point was when he agreed with me that her baby, Lady Mary Seymour, might have survived infancy (which is at the core of the mystery in Jules). “I always thought the babe didn’t die,” he said in this wonderful British accent and I almost hugged him.

2. Consider your placement.

Figure out where in the book you want the Reveal to occur. Last page? Middle of the book? First third? 

In my upcoming book, The Spy’s Wife, the major Reveal occurs on page one when the heroine discovers that her husband is not a dull consultant but a high-level CIA officer. There are no right-and-wrong rules here; it just has to be right for your book. 

3. Decide how many Reveals you want. 

One huge lightbulb moment, or a bunch of smaller Ahas! along the way. 

Which approach works for your book?

4. Do you want to shock the reader?

Do you want to really shock your readers with the solution to your mystery? If so, I suggest doing this early-ish in the book so they don’t get that resentful, you-should-have-given-a-few-hints feeling. 

5. Or do you want the reader to figure it out?

Or do you want to give readers enough clues to pretty much figure it out by themselves, so they can take pride in their smarts when the Reveal comes? 

Reading is an intuitive, interactive experience; readers like to think and speculate throughout the book, and sometimes it’s a gift to let them get it right.

Most important: Feel free to ignore any and all Tips! 

Always remember that you’re the writer, so you’re in charge—this is your world to create, to toy with, to manipulate, as long as you don’t contradict the known facts of the case. There are no absolute rules (otherwise my page one Big Reveal would violate all of them); or if there are, they’re made to be broken. 

As the author, have faith in your instincts; that’s the only Golden Rule that matters. 

Jane Elizabeth Hughes is an obsessive reader with two fully-loaded Kindles; she buys so many books that Amazon would probably like to send her a gift every year for the holidays.  

Unfortunately, reading novels all day is not an easy career path, so Jane has a day job as a professor of international finance at Simmons College School of Business in Boston. She has also consulted with multinational corporations and governments for nearly three decades, including the Rockefeller Foundation, Inter-American Development Bank, and Asian Development Bank. An engaging and accomplished public speaker, Professor Hughes has written and lectured widely about international finance throughout the world.

She began to pursue her life’s dream of seriously writing fiction during an academic sabbatical. With the help of her brilliant agent, Marcy Posner, she published her first novel, Nannyland, with Simon & Schuster Pocket Star Books in 2016 and joined the SparkPress family in 2021 with the upcoming publication of The Long-Lost Jules. A mother of four and granny of eight (the eldest is only seven, so she’s a very busy granny), she is fortunate enough to live on beautiful Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

Jane graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University with a degree in French Literature. She earned a master’s degree in International Relations from Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, and an MBA from New York University. 

You can find Jane on her website or follow her on Facebook.

The post #5onFri: Five Tips for Writing a Historical Mystery appeared first on DIY MFA.

I was devastated. I cried big, ugly toddler-sized tears for days. The bitterness lasted even longer. Why did two of my friends get book deals and I didn’t? My platform was bigger than theirs!

Years later, I realized that rejection was the greatest thing that ever happened to me professionally. That NO changed my entire life—for the better.

If that proposal had become a book deal, I would have been the author of a book I didn’t care about, and it’s more than possible I never would have discovered the power, profitability, and potential of self-publishing.

That NO was a gift because it forced me to pursue publishing in my own way—and use my own book idea. The book I wrote after that rejection, More than Cashflow: The Real Risks and Rewards of Profitable Real Estate Investing, has helped hundreds, maybe thousands, of real estate investors make better investment decisions. It went to number one on Amazon as a print book—ahead of Game of Thrones and Dan Brown in Canada. I also made way more money than I would have in a traditional publishing deal and kept full control over the content.  

So, if you’ve been told NO, say “thank you,” and make the most of it. Here are 5 ways to do that:

1. Explore Other Paths

When you hear NO, look at how else you can accomplish your objective. Rarely is it true that there is only one path available to get to where you want to go. What other options are there to get to the result you want? 

When a traditional book deal was no longer an option, I decided to self-publish. It was more challenging, but the rewards were far greater.

2. Pause and Reflect

NO is an opportunity to pause and reflect. Was the pursuit of that goal really important to you? I’d gotten lost in the excitement of potentially getting a book deal that I never really paused to think about the book topic my proposal was on. 

When I was rejected, I realized that I had almost no interest in writing the book they wanted me to write. What a relief to not be the author of a book I didn’t care about!

3. Fuel Your Determination

You can use rejection to fuel your determination to succeed. Ever met a kid that accepts NO at face value? There’s negotiation, strategy, tears, pleading, anger, and determination at the heart of every tiny human when they’re refused something that they want. It’s immensely frustrating as a parent, but there’s value in tapping into your inner child and fighting to get what you want. 

The rejection made me decide that if I was going to self-publish my book, it would be as good or better than if it had been traditionally published. I did hundreds of hours of research alongside the hundreds of hours I put into writing the book. I was fueled by the determination that I could do it as good or better—and I was going to prove it.   

4. Ask “Why Not?”

NO gives you the opportunity to ask, “Why not?” and learn something valuable from the answer. If you are told, “you can’t do that,” dig past the rejection and uncover the gift within. Sometimes the greatest opportunity lies in that hidden lesson, and simply accepting NO and moving on robs you of the opportunity to discover it. 

That publisher told me I didn’t have a strong enough platform to sell books. That made me dissect what platforms sell books. I researched book marketing strategy deeply, and ultimately realized I would have to connect with people who did have a platform and ask for their support! Thanks to the support of many other folks with sizable audiences, we sold thousands of books in a single week!

5. Find a New Direction

Sometimes NO is just a really great nudge that you’re going the wrong way. You’re chasing the wrong result or the wrong opportunity. Often, I think it is life’s way of saying, “Hey you need to turn around—you’re meant for bigger, better, and more impactful things.” If you were to have heard “yes,” your life would have been too full to pursue the bigger opportunity that was available to you. 

Being told NO by traditional publishers opened me up to the world of self-publishing—owning all your rights and keeping all your royalties—and if that hadn’t happened, I never would have started Book Launchers, which is pretty sad because I love it far more than I ever enjoyed any real estate deal. Together with my team, we’ve created a company that cares about our authors and their books deeply and supports them to self-publishing success. No book deals required!

NO can be so much better than a yes  if you choose to look for the value and opportunity in that moment. Sometimes you’ll need a bit of time to see the value and opportunity, but if you choose to find it, you will!

Julie Broad is the founder of self-publishing services firm Book Launchers and an Amazon Overall #1 Best Selling Author. Her popular YouTube channel BookLaunchers.TV teaches nonfiction authors how to write and market books people will want to read. An expert on writing with marketing in mind, Julie has been speaking on stages across Canada and the US since 2009, providing the best approaches to get results, make an impact, and ultimately, make more money. You can find out more about her on her website and follow her on LinkedIn. You can also find out more about BookLaunchers on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

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