LUCK is a Four Letter Word

Bree here today, taking over Donna’s usual spot as Backstage Blogger. And I’m going to talk about my least favorite word in the world: luck.

I can’t be the only person this has happened to. After weeks (or months) of working my ass off and more weeks of chewing my nails down in a painful fashion, that glorious letter arrives: The Acceptance. Giddy joy and excitement follow, and it’s hard to keep from shouting the good news at everyone you see.

Except there’s always that one person who replies with three fateful words.

You’re so lucky!

Uh, no. No, I’m not. I was not graced with any particular overabundance of skill, talent or charisma. I did not have some fortunate confluence of events lead to success.

What I did was work. Hard.

Writing a story isn’t hard. I’ve been doing that for fifteen years, with varying degrees of success. Writing a story to sell, though, is a whole different ballgame. When I was writing for myself, the process went something like this:

• Step One: IDEA!
• Step Two: Write.

Donna and I have a whole new process now.

• Step One: IDEA!
• Step Two: Research the idea. Find out if the genre sells, and where. Find out which publishers might be looking for it, and what their guidelines are. Do they have length restrictions? Content restrictions? How would our idea have to change?
• Step Three: Decide on a venue.
• Step Four: Hash out the idea. Develop characters. Develop background. Find out if the heroine’s Aunt Sally is addicted to bourbon. Find out if the hero’s brother likes to race classic cars. Update our Wikipedia where we keep all information on characters, stories, plots and worlds.
• Step Four A: In case of paranormal, Urban Fantasy, build a world, rules for magical creatures, rules for magic, a political structure and everything else that might be necessary.
• Step Five: Make sure the hashed out idea still fits with the chosen venue. If it doesn’t, Go To Step Two.
• Step Six: Write.
• Step Seven: Research formatting guidelines.
• Step Eight: Ask Critique Partner for input on flow/pacing. If things aren’t on track, Go To Step Four.
• Step Nine: Revisions, rewrites, additional scenes.
• Step Ten: Double-check formatting guidelines while Donna does line edits.
• Step Eleven: Triple-check formatting guidelines while Bree approves line edits.
• Step Twelve Submit to publisher.

Wow, it looks even more intimidating written out like that. But that’s what we do, every damn time. It’s work. It’s hard work. It’s exhausting, sometimes it’s annoying, but it’s worth it for one reason: we still love Step Six (the writing) and the other eleven steps have been pretty useful in making sure that the end result might get to see the light of day.

Now I’m not saying this is the only way to do it. I’m not saying you have to put our insane level of detail into every story…that’s our roots as Table Top Gamers showing, I imagine. But I am saying this: if luck were involved, it would be a lot less work.

Maybe I need to have my dream conversation. Some day someone will congratulate me, but instead of wishing me luck they’ll say something else. Like maybe:

God, go take a nap, woman!

I sure the heck could use one.