After the Poets and Writers Weekend in Manchester, Thoughts on the Publishing World…

Posted on by Ed Cyzewski

I once again participated in the Poets and Writers Weekend in Manchester. It’s a great event planned on a shoe string, but put together with some great presenters and wonderful hosts. Beth and Clemma did a stellar job organizing the event.

I’d like to share a few observations about the weekend from my end of things, especially as a panelist on the changes in publishing and as a presenter.

Jumping to self publishing too fast: Self-publishing is a wonderful option, and with the machine at the Northshire Bookstore, it’s a great option. However I noticed far too many would be authors, who couldn’t find a publisher on their own, jumping right to the self-publishing option. First of all, self-publishing, in my view, should either be a strategic move because you’ll have the right publicity channels and resources to get the word out or because you’re plain out of options. Secondly, it is very, very hard to get a book published without an agent who not only has the contacts, but will hone a writer’s proposal into the right stuff for publisher. Before self-publishing, every writer needs to look long and hard for an agent who can put their proposals into the hands of publishers. Keep in mind that agents should only take a cut of your book’s sales. If an agent wants money up front, don’t go for it.

From Idea to Editor: We didn’t spend too much time talking about the particulars of working a book idea into a winning proposal that will wow an editor. I think a workshop on that next year would be a great help. There is so much research that needs to go into a proposal, and I can’t stress enough the importance of finding a good editor to polish it. Good editors will bring your most important ideas to the front, cut away the unnecessary junk, and make your writing shine. You can’t afford to not have that when you hand in your proposal. Can you imagine how terrible it would be to bore an editor?

Doom and gloom in the book world: The publishing panel offered a very sobering assessment of the publishing industry, one that is fraught with uncertainty as blogs, e-books, and a down economy eat up profits. One of the things we didn’t get to cover too much was the possibility of books as art in and of themselves—merging art and word together in the pages of books may create an experience that cannot be duplicated on a computer screen. We didn’t have time to get into all of that, but as far as a new direction for publishing, check out books such as Jesus for President and Refractions. They mix art with the written word and may be the kind of books customers will still want to own in a physical format.

Lessons from the Past Six Months on Writing

Posted on by Ed Cyzewski

By the time Coffeehouse Theology was released in September 2008, I was well on my way with my next book project—writing stories, searching for articles, and testing out ideas. I had one foot in marketing and the other in a new project on evangelicals: Saving Evangelicals from Themselves: Where We’ve Gone Wrong and Why We Have Hope. Without the head start seminary afforded on Coffeehouse Theology, I learned a few lessons in the course of writing a first draft for a book completely from scratch.

Using del.icio.us to not only tag and organize links, but to also set aside material worthy of a quotation made the research process much easier. At first I just tagged everything that looked relevant, but soon I realized that it helps to read the articles first rather than assuming I’d read them later. I rarely did that! So I read through, highlighted the section I wanted to quote, and then tagged them. By highlighting a section, I could then find it on my del.icio.us bookmarks without have to reread the whole article.

Small sticky notes make it much easier to find quotations from books. I had a system of using small sticky notes as tabs sticking out of books. I’d typically stick the note to the page, make a bracket around the relevant text, and then jot a few words connecting the quote with a particular chapter. I later found that many of my quotes didn’t fit, but without taking the time to mark everything that seemed important, I doubt I would have been able to find enough helpful quotations to pull from the many books I read.

Lining up readers for your drafts is absolutely essential. I received invaluable advice from my readers who soldiered through my early drafts. One chapter needed to be deleted, while another began with too much intensity. In both cases my readers helped prompt significant changes to my book that I believe will make it more successful.

Writing down many of my stories and anecdotes months before I began seriously working on the chapters helped me sort through the most important topics to be covered in the book. This book could have taken a couple of different directions, but I wanted it to unfold as organically as possible, letting my stories direct and shape the overall direction and point of the book. By starting with a solid core of stories totaling 30,000 words, I quickly ruled out certain chapters that would not have enough substance to work within the parameters I had established for the book.

Anything written can be deleted. I have found that I am continually amazed at what ends up working and what ends up being tossing into the “scraps” folder. Never tire of using the delete button.

Writing a Nonfiction Chapter: Integrating Research

Posted on by Ed Cyzewski

By now you should have some solid fragments of writing, a loosely organized outline, and some gaps that have been filled in. The next step is integrating quotes and sources into your writing.

Over the six-month to a year process of writing, you should be reading articles, listening to conferences, reading books, and gathering the information together under chapter categories. Sometimes you’re just expanding your knowledge, which is necessary for writing a book, but in other cases you’re accumulating quotes and key points of research that will back up your writing.

While reading books I tend to use small sticky notes to flag particular pages, writing on the notes where I imagine the quote fitting into the chapter. This can save a tremendous amount of time flipping through each book in search of quotes. In the case of online material, I heavily rely on del.icio.us, an online bookmarking service that allows you to tag web pages in particular categories, as well as saving chunks of text you’d like to quote. When you have an idea of where your chapter is going, these sticky note tabs and online bookmarks will help fill in your chapter.

Of course there will be time in the course of writing when you’ll simply need to look up a fact or do a bit of research, but when working my way through a pile of sources, I tend to either drop them all at the end of the chapter, or to sort them according to the outline. It all depends on how many I have. At this point you’ll also want to create a scrap file for each chapter, a place to dump stories and quotes that don’t quite fit, but may not warrant deletion.

At this point your chapter should be stronger, with quotes and citations adding an additional punch to your anecdotes and main points. You should take note of your weak points, continue to seek out helpful sources, and make sure your outline maintains a logical flow.

For some additional insight, see Don Miller’s post about writing a book.

Posts in this series:

  1. Start writing what you know.
  2. Brainstorm ideas for the rest of the chapter into a draft outline.
  3. Continue writing based on this outline
  4. Integrate quotes and research into the chapter
  5. Read through the chapter to sharpen the outline and fill in gaps.
  6. Revise your chapter draft.

How Twitter is Changing my Blogging

Posted on by Ed Cyzewski

I signed up for Twitter because I heard it’s a great way to keep track of news and to share information. So far it has delivered. I find helpful links, share my own, and interact with the 60 or so people I follow.

The hardest part to get used to is the 140 character limit for each post, or “tweet” as they call it. I eventually conformed, and have since loaded the Firefox TwitterBar plug in to make it easier to post throughout the day. I also loaded an extension to my Windows Live Writer that automatically sends updates to Twitter about my blog posts. Connecting Twitter to Facebook means I don’t need to post the same thing twice.

As I use TwitterBar, I have actually learned to tweet well below the 140 character limit. Suddenly 140 characters seems luxurious.

Now I’m beginning to wonder if a word limit would help my blogging a bit–force me to condense my thoughts into brief posts instead of rambling down the page. While there always will be a place for long blog posts digging into important topics, Twitter hints that we can say just as much with a lot less.

200 words seems about right.

This post was originally published on www.inamirrordimly.com.

Writing a Nonfiction Chapter: Continue writing based on your outline

Posted on by Ed Cyzewski

Now that you have a better idea of where your chapter is going, take some time to not only rearrange your existing work, but to start filling in each section. Hopefully a bit of structure will jog your mind for additional stories and points to be made.

You should also make notes throughout these early drafts about information you’ll need to look up. Nonfiction requires quite a lot of research, so you can’t skip out on the hard work that’s coming up next.

Nevertheless, have fun writing what you can, being sure to fit each new story and point into the rough outline you’ve created. You’ll need to start paying attention to your beginning, middle, and end, ensuring that you’re taking your readers from A to B throughout each chapter and throughout the book in general.

Keep in mind that each additional piece of writing may alter the shape of a chapter, the order of chapters, or even the content of a chapter. I have deleted sections, split chapters in two, and repeatedly shuffled chapter outlines throughout this process.

Hang in there and keep writing.

Posts in this series:

  1. Start writing what you know.
  2. Brainstorm ideas for the rest of the chapter into a draft outline.
  3. Continue writing based on this outline
  4. Integrate quotes and research into the chapter
  5. Read through the chapter to sharpen the outline and fill in gaps.
  6. Revise your chapter draft.

Brainstorm ideas for the rest of the chapter into a draft outline

Posted on by Ed Cyzewski

Part two on writing a nonfiction chapter:

Now that you’ve done some free writing and brainstorming, it’s time to organize and brainstorm a bit more within a rough chapter structure. Think about the progression of ideas, how you will connect them, and how you want to wrap up the chapter.

Is there something you can lead off with and then reference at the end of the chapter? Are there controlling themes or metaphors that you can place throughout the chapter? Where will you need additional research and facts?

This is the time to identify the holes in your chapter while also providing an overarching structure. I generally write out the section headings separately so I have a bird’s eye view of the chapter without having to read through it. You can expand on this outline draft as you continue writing.

Posts in this series:

  1. Start writing what you know.
  2. Brainstorm ideas for the rest of the chapter into a draft outline.
  3. Continue writing based on this outline
  4. Integrate quotes and research into the chapter
  5. Read through the chapter to sharpen the outline and fill in gaps.
  6. Revise your chapter draft.

Writing a Chapter: Starting with What You Know

Posted on by Ed Cyzewski

Part One on writing a nonfiction chapter:

In that terrifying moment when a blank page paralyzes your fingers and freezes your thoughts, the best way to engage your fingers and to thaw out your thoughts is to start with a story that you know. Recount your drive around town yesterday, your last holiday dinner with family, or your least favorite activity. Anything that primes the pump will work. Just start writing.

If you can make this exercise fit in with your chapter, then great.

After you’ve done a little bit of writing for 15-20 minutes, take some time to think about the chapter you’re working on. Are there stories you can tell, opinions you can share, or some other chunk of information you can write about? You’ll fill in the gaps, organize your thoughts, and add research later. For now you need to get your ideas out there on the page.

As you read over these drafts, continue to think of related stories and points that need to be made and write them out as well. Keep in mind that we’re still talking about a first draft here. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Believe me, you’ll have plenty of time to organize and edit later.

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How to Write an Organized and Organic Chapter

Posted on by Ed Cyzewski

When I put together a chapter for a nonfiction book, I try to balance my organic, free-form approach to writing that lets my mind wander through stories, anecdotes, and main ideas with a loose structure that keeps my thoughts organized–flowing from one to another. I have found a synthesis of order and chaos particularly helpful.

  1. Start writing what you know.
  2. Brainstorm ideas for the rest of the chapter into a draft outline.
  3. Continue writing based on this outline
  4. Integrate quotes and research into the chapter
  5. Read through the chapter to sharpen the outline and fill in gaps.
  6. Revise your chapter draft.

The basic ideas is providing a loose enough structure to allow your mind to wander, to write in such a way that the most important ideas and stories naturally rise to the fore. However, these organic stories will fall flat without an overarching structure, and as such the outline should evolve gradually as the stories are added, revised, and finalized.

I’ll spend some time over the coming weeks delving into the specifics of each step in writing a nonfiction chapter.

Rethinking Newsletters

Posted on by Ed Cyzewski

I used to approach my monthly e-mail newsletter as if it was a journal–a place to write articles, essays, short essays, and updates on my current writing projects. Part entertainment, part personal update, and part marketing tool, it has never really settled into a consistent groove.

When I didn’t have any writing projects, it was a breeze to stay on top of it, but now with several book proposals and contracts in the air, I’m having a hard time keeping up with the journal format. As it is I try to blog once every 3 days, which is a decrease from my part practice of daily updates. In other words, I’m trying to do a bit less, while making sure the quality stays high.

And so I think the way to go with this newsletter is to keep the brief updates, but then provide a series of links to my favorite blog posts over the past month. That means my friends who keep up with my blog will get a little extra info, while those who only receive the newsletter can stick to the highlights. And if they don’t have the time to read everything, they can just pick and choose the links that work for them.

I think I can sustain this over the long term, while making it a good set up for readers. Having said that, I’m always open to suggestions.

If you’d like to sign up for my newsletter, drop me a note at edcyzewski (at) gmail (dot) com.

Using Twitter to Sharpen Your Writing

Posted on by Ed Cyzewski

I starting using Twitter, a micro-blogging service where users post 140-character updates, about a month or so ago.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned through Twitter, it’s the importance of keeping your sentences compact.

For a writer this is an incredibly useful exercise–trimming the fat from otherwise bloated sentences.

Stronger verbs, effective punctuation, and meaningful metaphors: all are front and center for Twitter users.

In fact, I eliminated many unnecessary words from this post by keeping each line to 140 characters.

Whether using Twitter to keep in touch with friends, businesses, clients, or publications, it’s a fun new media tool.

And if you want to sharpen your writing, it’s a good way to strengthen your writing.