The accidental writer

July 21, 2010 by Mohana Rajakumar (Writing Development Director)
Filed under: Competitions and Offers, Getting Published 

Mohana RajakumarThis month I find myself behind on a deadline that I agreed to nearly two years ago.

Finishing a manuscript can be a daunting task – especially when you are 30,000 words short as I am and it is not fiction but non-fiction. Not to say that writing is ever easy but when you are dependent on facts rather than imagination, the word count meter can seem as though it is crawling by.

How did I come to be the “deliverer” of a manuscript? I found a call for book proposals on a writing listserv for a series by an academic publisher. The subject interested me, even though I wasn’t an expert in it. I read up on book proposals and then created one to respond to the specifics of the submission requirements. The series editor sent back comments and additions which I agreed could strengthen the manuscript overall.

And then I was ready to start writing based on my outlined proposal. The research began. Hopefully in a few weeks I will have turned it in and have the satisfaction of completing the manuscript.

So what can you do if you’re starting out?

Well, finding a link between your interests and what a publisher is looking for can make life easier. Try joining as many well-established writing communities as possible, as that’s where people are sharing information and you can find out who is looking for what subjects.

If you’ve never written anything before, a long project may not be the place to start, since even an experienced writer (as I became by the time I found this particular project) can have difficulty with content and deadlines. It’s often best to build your experience by submitting essays or short stories for themed anthologies, say, or even, in today’s electronic world, guest blogging or starting a blog of your own.

The bottom line is that you will never get published if you don’t write something and send it out. Surprisingly, many new writers do not realise that an idea separated from text is just that. An idea.

Best wishes,
Mohana (Reading & Writing Development Director)

We are giving away 5 copies of Qatari Voices!

qatari-voices--Mohanalakshmi-Rajakumar--Carol-HendersonTowards inspiring you, we are giving away five copies of Qatari Voices, an anthology that Mohana Rajakumar co-edited and was published in April 2010 by Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing.

The 21 writers in it got their ‘accidental’ start by responding to a call for submissions to write about life in Qatar. Their original entries were published in a locally printed volume; now a few years later they are reprinted in this internationally distributed title.

How to enter: For your chance to win a copy, simply send your name, postal address and email address in the body of an email, with the subject field ‘Qatari Voices Giveaway‘ to Writers & Artists (writersandartists@acblack.com) by the closing date 31 July 2010. No correspondence will be entered into and the publisher’s decision is final.

Related posts

<b>Print this post</b> Print this post

Comments

One Comment on The accidental writer

  1. Xean Puccio on Aug 9, 2010 at 13:10pm

    2. Mohana,

    So true. Ideas may be great, but that is only one of many essential elements needed to create a fine story; as anyone who endeavors to create a tangible literary work eventually finds out. May you complete your project soon. I wish you the best of luck.

    Xean
    9/8/2010

Tell us what you're thinking





  • Why I love the Yearbook

    "Think of the Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook as your sherpa." Ian Rankin