If You Dream It, They Will Publish It? An Exercise in Dreaming Your Book Cover

A couple of years ago, I dreamed up a book cover for my novel. I spent an hour with some colored pencils and nice paper, drew and wrote and typed and pasted. I drew a lake shore, since the story is about a lake in late summer when the birches are just turning yellow. It was great fun. I even made up "blurbs," those bright one- or two-liners full of nice comments from famous writers about the story.

I put the book cover above my desk. I think I was struggling with my fifth draft then and seeing the cover made me hopeful it would someday be published.

Fast forward, book travels the rounds of agents and publishers for over a year, despair sets in, but book finally gets accepted. Editor is great, loves it, edits it, sends her suggestions. I am impressed: my novel's better than ever.
We exchange a happy flurry of emails, like people do when a baby's coming. Excitement, anticipation, overwhelm.

The book goes into production, gets typeset. Release date is planned. We ask famous writers for blurbs. We talk cover art, jacket copy. I imagine what it'll be like to hold this book in my hand in August.

Each time, this process of birthing a book is both terrifying and lovely. Each publisher is different; some communicate a lot with the writer, some don't. My editor is sending emails, telling me in the same week, "I just love this book. What a superb writer you are," and "Do you have any ideas around cover art?"

Relief. She's been microscopically involved for months and she still loves it. Gulp. Cover art?

Then I remember my book cover exercise. I dig it out of some file. It gives me ideas. I open files of photos and images, go on line for free stock images, dream my cover again. Send her some ideas, which she likes. The cover is born.

But it make me wonder: Which comes first, the dream or the published book? Does dreaming your book (and its cover) create an open door for it to be published? Some people believe that what you imagine, you bring into manifestation, good or bad. Maybe you don't buy this, but in my experience, positive imaging certainly doesn't hurt.

So, try it this week. Design your book cover. See what happens.

Exercise: Set aside an hour, grab a piece of paper or open up your desktop graphics program, and play. Make up blurbs (those two-liners from famous people) for your cover, write your jacket copy, imagine your book published.

How to Start a Law Firm | Making a Budget (and other things)

If you've been here before then you know yesterday I made a promise to you, and to me, to chronicle my journey to opening a law firm in much more detail than I had originally been doing. I am doing this both for you and for me. I'm doing it for you so you can have some real inside information, some real meat to work with, when opening your own law firm (although you are going to have to go it one day at a time with me), and so I can chronicle my experience to look back on later and let my family know what is going on (my wife and mother get emails of these posts automatically - my wife wasn't pleased with Jim McLovin as a pen name!). Maybe some day I'll make this into a book that people can actually use to open a law firm (not that the other books aren't bad, but the fluff is almost unbearable).

Okay, on to what I did today to start a law firm. First things first, right now, more than anything, I'm trying to find out what this is going to cost. As many of you have been googling to get here, what my law firm budget will be. The more I have thought about it, the more I have realized opening a law firm on a shoe string budget is possible, and might even be desirable in most cases. First, it gets you focused on what you really need, and second, when you actually get up and running it allows a lot of the money you make to go directly into your pocket, instead of your vendor's, landlord's, etc. pocket. Although I am here to help people, making a little money would be nice.

So, how to find out what your law firm expenses will be. There many ways, but two I could think of right away. The first is to look in one of those how to start a law firm books. They have a laundry list of things you just have to have to open a great law office. The second is to ask someone that has done it recently to see what you actually need, what they bought and never use, what they didn't buy and wished they'd had right away, and what everyone knows is essential. For example, we all need several things to run a law firm: a printer; a computer; business cards, malpractice insurance (most states make you have it); a bank account; an IOLTA account; at least one presentable suit; a legal research database; an internet connection; and some place to work. And in the end, that may be it.

So, today I asked. I am lucky enough to know a couple of people that just recently opened a law practice, one even in the same city as me. So I just sent out an email asking if I could talk to them. I have lunch with the one where I am next week, and the other one I'm supposed to have a conversation with this week. I'll let you know then what I find out.

In addition to determining my expenses, I'm revising my business plan. Not a lot has changed necessarily since the last time I wrote it but at the same time a lot has. What I'm trying to say is now that the opening date is actually within site (I wrote my business plan months ago) I can see how much additional detail and thought is needed to make sure I am going in the right direction. So today I wrote my company summary. It only took about twenty minutes, but I feel like it is already a lot more focused than it originally was.

The last thing I did today related to opening the law firm (I do have other things working on the side, kind of a passive income type of a thing) was to write a post on my Seattle DUI lawyer blog. It hasn't actually been posted yet, so don't go out there and try to find it. But I need to get a bunch of posts ready so I have a lot of material to just throw up every day and I can focus on making links to the site (if you don't know much about marketing your law firm, read the last few posts, I talk a lot about how to get your law firm website ranking high on Google and how to get quality backlinks to your law firm website). It only takes about 20-30 minutes to do a post, and I guarantee you it will pay off huge when you get your blog indexed in Google and then link it to your website (do it in this order for the best results).

That was about it for today. Tomorrow I'm going to try to put together a couple more blog posts (I have several blogs set up to link to my eventual web site), continue to put together some financial projections (part of what I'll be asking my going solo buddies is how much money I can expect to make throughout the first year of my practice), and think about the office set up I want (procedure wise).

Good luck, and talk to you tomorrow!!

Update - 10/07/09: I'm now about 4 months into my law firm business actually being up and running, and I have some financials I'm going to share with you to help you out as you begin your journey. I don't have them ready yet, because I have too much other stuff going on, but I'll get them together soon so you can have an idea of what you'll be facing when opening your practice.

Starting a Law Firm | The Big Picture

It has been quite some time since I've posted on here, and with good reason. Not much has been going on. If you've read any of my previous posts, you'd know that I recently moved from Kansas to Washington state because my wife had the opportunity to take a great job. Because we were moving out there and starting anew, I thought it would be the perfect time to take the shot to start my own law practice.

My wife moved out to Seattle in mid-July of last year, and I moved out in November, after finishing up some work at my old job (which included a jury trial which I won!). Once I got out to Seattle, I had plans of opening up a little consulting company to pass the time until I could get my bar exam results (I ended up having to take the WA bar exam - my third bar exam if you can believe that), but a strategic error has significantly slowed the progress of that consulting company.

So right now I am about five weeks away from (hopefully) getting my WA law license and opening up my own practice.

As a little background, to catch all of you up that may or may not be reading, I have been practicing for a little over 4 years now, and have a pretty wide range of experience. I started out in a general practice firm doing a little of everything, with an emphasis on criminal defense and personal injury/civil litigation. It was in a very small town which afforded me great experience but little in the way of pay. So after a year I took a job with a civil litigation boutique firm (insurance defense primarily) and worked there for about six months until the firm itself seemed to reach financial ruin (the work really dried up).

After that I took a job with a state agency, becoming their property attorney, with a large focus on eminent domain. I worked there for about a year and a half before moving out to Seattle. So I have a little bit of background in a lot of stuff.

One of the things I enjoyed about my first and last jobs was the variety of cases and people I had the opportunity to meet. Not really ever knowing what is going to happen is both scary and exciting at the same time. Because of that, I have planned on having a dual "specialty," if you will, in eminent domain and criminal defense.

Both are related in that courtroom experience is a must, and both involve high stakes negotiation (one for the sale or taking of someone's property, the other for the loss of someone's liberty). And both are also related because in a way both parties are fighting steep odds to retain something they care about. I'm not saying that all state agencies try to take property for less than what it's worth, or that prosecutor's try to get the maximum punishment all the time. But they do get it wrong. A lot. So I feel like I can be that someone that looks out for their rights and needs, and isn't afraid to take a little heat.

Now, back to this. I've read a lot of books on starting a law firm. I've read a lot of blogs on starting a law firm. And, while some have been pretty helpful, none really get to the level of specificity that I'm looking for.

I'd love to have a play by play at my disposal of what happens every day leading up to the opening of a law firm, from decision to doors open, to help really guide me through what needs to happen, what works and doesn't, and what pitfalls to avoid.

Since I don't really think one of those exists out there, I'm going to make one for the next round of attorneys who want to start a law firm but have no idea how. I won't be trying to sell you anything (although I will let you know where I get my products from). The point of this is not to make money, but to chronicle my journey moving forward and to allow you to see what it actually takes to open a law office on your own.

Here's to moving forward!!

What's the "Me" in Memoir?--Avoiding Overwriting When You're Writing about Your Life

Memoirs--sometimes they feel to us writers like we're talking to ourselves, not seeing the forest for the trees. But isn't that what memoir is? Or is it?

What exactly is a memoir? And how does a writer become "the writer" and not "The Writer" (see last week's post, below, on the dangers of The Writer's presence in books)?

A reader from Louisiana wrote this about last week's post and writing exercise: "I don't really know what a memoir is supposed to be. Am I not suppose to write about my experiences, what I saw, felt, and thought? Have I been writing all this too much as an ego trip? Should I tell the story as if it is someone else, using the word she rather than I? Should I just forget thinking of it as a book, write it simply for a possible interested family member after I'm gone?"

Excellent question. It was triggered by this writer's concern that she was supposed to absent herself from her own story, and how was that possible? I wrote last week's post (see below) about writers who are way too present in their stories, who take on two roles: (1) they sit the center-stage to tell their story AND (2) they stand on the sidelines to interpret the story for us readers.

In memoir, you are the main character (makes sense, doesn't it?). You fill the center-stage role. But if you are nervous about whether readers will "get" the message of your story, you might be tempted to be the stage manager as well. This is the mistake.

Alison Smith, author of the wonderful Name All the Animals, wrote about becoming aware of her role in this memoir. Her original drafts were more about her brother's sudden death than about her own life, but she soon realized she was leaving herself out of her own story. The death was the memoir's "triggering event" (in book-writing language, what started the story). How the death affected Alison and her family was the story itself. She had to assume the center-stage role. Memoir is about me.

But it's not about me plus ME (center stage plus stage manager). The writer is important, but not The Writer.

Alison never tries to put herself between the reader and her story. She isn't constantly interpreting what's happening, making sure the reader gets it. Some writing instructors call this "overwriting"--you are writing, then you are making sure we get it by repeating what you just wrote, saying it in another way--overwriting your words. "Betty ran her finger down the wall and checked for dust." What does that tell you? She's neat, fastidious even, obsessive maybe. The writer doesn't need to add "Betty was obsessed with cleanliness."

Yes, in a memoir you feel, think, say, do. But instead of adding more about why you are feeling, thinking, saying, and doing the thing, you just let the story show it. You don't need to interpret if the actions are strong. We get it.

Another way to look at this: Actions, events, and dialogue shows us. No need to tell us, as well.

Keep yourself in your memoir, by all means. But take out The Writer who is on the sidelines, stage managing, telling us what it all means. Confusing and unnecessary at best; obnoxious at worst.

Read some examples if you want. A few great memoirs that feature a strong main character (the writer) but no interpretation (The Writer) for the story are:

Alison Smith's Name All the Animals

Vivian Gornick's Fierce Attachments

Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes

Dani Shapiro's Slow Motion

Nuala O'Faolain's Almost There

Closely read a chapter. Notice if you feel the author's presence interpreting the actions and being too present in the story--taking away from your engagement with the book.

Freelance Writer Trying to Thrive? Read This!

I finished a big freelance editing project today so I treated myself to a bowl of popcorn, a movie, and a good read: the altogether quirky My So-Called Freelance Life by anti 9-5er and freelance writer, Michelle Goodman. Lots of great advice, and Michelle's entertaining style takes a potentially boring subject to new heights.

I loved her frank assessment of freelancing--you can't live in la-la land, hoping for the creative gold all the time, so grab some bread-and-butter work while you're working toward your dream.

Are you struggling to thrive as a freelancer in this economy? Visit her online at http://www.anti9to5guide.com/ and let me know what you think.

Building a Solid Story--Moving to a Reader-Centric Viewpoint in Your Writing

Today in my class at the Hudson Valley Writers' Center in Westchester Co., NY,we talked about moving from a writer-centric viewpoint to a reader-centric one. It's a natural part of a writer's evolution. A maturing, where we begin to see why someone else would read our book (besides our mother, best friend, and partner/spouse). In other words, we begin to write for a reader.

This isn't about compromising your ideals. It isn't about not telling your truth. It's about becoming less self-focused.

An odd idea, for us writers. Aren't writers supposed to be self-focused? After all, that's where we get the juice--from our lives and our imaginations.

When I got my novel manuscript back from my editor (see my overwhelmed post below), I realized the book was a stranger to me. I was no longer on center stage, as The Writer. The story had now become my reader's. I almost didn't remember writing certain parts. These, of course, were the parts my editor liked best.

What happened? In the editing and revising stages, I'd moved out of the "room" and all that remained was my story--and an open door, welcoming my reader.

I hate books--and wonder how they ever got published--where the writer is The Writer, on his or her soapbox, telling us what to think about every moment in the story. Don't you? But how do you, the writer, get out of the room where your story lives? How do you convince yourself that it doesn't need you there, acting as interpretor for your own story?

Know what I'm talking about? It's insidious...our need to interpret our stuff for our readers.

This week, pick a piece of your writing that's at least a month old. Read a page out loud. See if you can be surprised by something in there, maybe not remember writing it. Like it, even. Are you The Writer or the writer?

My New Novel Is Coming Out--And I'm Trying to Breathe Deeply!

I just got the big packet every writer waits for--edited pages of my soon-to-be released novel, Qualities of Light. My super-duper editor, Katherine Forrest, sent them to me for a look over and corrections. Katherine is so good at what she does and I value editors highly, but still there's a bit of a catch in the breath when I open the package and see what needs changing. She tells me over and over in the cover note, "This is a really fine novel," and then makes her suggestions.

I'm used to this. I've been a professional editor since 1986. It's part of the job. An editor only hopes for a cooperative writer, who can hold her original vision for the book--and release it for a better one.

So I took a big breath, undid the tape, shook out the contents.

She loved it! Wow...

And she had great (great!) suggestions. Tiny places to tweak, small moments to clarify, little adjustments here and there. It is making the novel really sing.

After I read through everything, accepting 99.9 % of Katherine's suggestions, I looked back in my writing notebook at my présumé exercise. I wrote it three weeks ago, on one of those snowbound days of deep writerly despair, when I didn't really believe my novel would be published, ever, ever. The présumé said this:

"April 15, 2009: Everything is moving along beautifully with my novel and publication. Katherine's edits are amazing, I'm grateful for all her insights and suggestions, and we're in good communication."

April 15, huh? Guess I was behind the timetable of the universe. Not a surprise. Présumés often happen early, in more delightful ways than we can imagine. They work because they let us let go. Once we let go the stranglehold on our creative project, lots of amazing "coincidences" occur.

You don't have to believe me. For this week's exercise, just try the présumé you didn't do last month (see post below) and make it short, sweet, and focused on something you really want to happen in your writing. Just a couple of sentences, written in present tense, as if you are looking back from a future date and feeling great about what's happened. You can post your présumé here, so we can cheer you on!

Common Sense Tips for Writers from Editor Adele Annesi

Adele Annesi, author of Writing Lynx, a wonderful resource for writing sites, wrote me:

"Of the many writing-related blogs, [yours] is one of the few that deals with the grist of novel-writing in a way writers can relate to and see results.

"When we're in the midst of writing, it's hard to see the forest for the trees, and we easily miss what would otherwise be common sense. It's great that someone else is there with tips to aid the process — at least agents are now looking past my query letters."

Adele has published and won awards for her writing; from her years of experience as a professional editor, she wanted to share these common sense tips for writers:

For narrative: Write with your experience, not about it (especially for people with a journalism or nonfiction background, writing needs to be writing, not reportage).

In a similar vein, tell a story; don't report the facts.

For varied points of view: Make sure to "inhabit" all your characters, and use a different voice for each to distinguish one from another.

About dialogue: In a Hemingway kind of approach, most dialogue is about what we don't communicate, not about what we do communicate.

Thanks, Adele! Be sure to visit Writing Lynx and take advantage of this resource-rich site (http://writinglynx.blogspot.com/).