A while back I wrote a well-received article outlining the books I’d Have, Hold, Read, and Re-read were I a newbie, a fledgling writer, had I known at the outset -- page 1 paragraph 1 -- what came to light only after five years of serious study and fiction writing.

Pat Walsh... shuns the myths and dispenses realities. His information is practical, of immediate use at all levels.

I had purchased over fifty books on the craft of writing and the publishing industry, everything from Strunk & White to How to Be Your Own Literary Agent. What I really should have done with all that time was WRITE NEW PAGEs. Two years ago I looked at my six-foot high bookshelf and decided just three works, taken to mind and heart, would be more than enough wisdom to guide any Newbie in writing the first novel.

The three books, in order of use: Terry Brooks: Sometimes the Magic Works; Stephen King: On Writing; and The Writer’s Handbook, an annual publication of The Writer magazine.

Earlier today I decided one additional book on the writing craft would save much heartache and hasten success, a work to be read after Mr. King and draft two.

You’re saying, “See, Chuck, given more time, you realized your list was too short.” Well, not exactly. The work in question was just released (May 31, 2005). Lucky for writers on a stretched budget, it’s a five-by-eight inch trade paperback.

The book is by the founding editor of a relatively new, small press Mac-Adam/Cage, and peppered with the editor’s dry wit. M/ C’s novels have garnered many accolades in just six years on booksellers’ shelves. You’re probably familiar with either Mark Dunn’s Ella Minnow Pea or Audrey Niffenegger’s The Time Traveler’s Wife. Both were first published in hardback by M/C, “Independent publishing at its best.” The author of the new addition to my Newbie list is Pat Walsh, who often summarized M/C’s mission statement by saying, “We specialize in debuts.” The title (from Penguin, not M/C) would seem to reek of marketing department intervention. Not so. The work follows the title, literally.

Ready? Give this a good chew:

78 Reasons Why Your Book May Never Be Published and 14 Reasons Why It Just Might. 78 Reasons takes you through page 165, 14 Might then run to the end, at page 191.

Yes, run out and buy it. Highlighter in hand, read the Introduction, then the next 165 pages. Save the last 25 for review a week later. The 14 Reasons are reiterations of caveats laid out in the May Never list.

My urging not enough to exchange your plastic for Pat Walsh? Try this: 78 Reasons is writing and publishing viewed through an open window on the other side of the street, where they hold the Christmas party we’re never invited to, many floors above the dungeon where the advance check is cut. Yeah, okay, we deal with that side of the street every day and don’t much like it. But, wait. Instead of softening his directives with fairy dust, with the platitudes and long, euphemistic explanations we’ve heard over and over but never really trusted, Mr. Walsh slaps the reader up side the head. He’s blunt. Not rude. Not crude. B-L-U-N-T. (For those desiring a p.c. adjective, substitute “refreshing” or “to the point.”) He’s direct about lousy writing and he’s forthcoming about the haphazard processes of the publishing industry.

Sample these Reasons: You Do Not Kill Your Little Darlings; You Go To Writers’ Conferences for the Wrong Reasons; The Slush Pile, Like the Publishing Industry, Does Not Make Sense; You Accidentally Went into the Junk Mail Business; You Scare Away Agents; You Do Not Know What Most Writers Do Not Know; You Do Not Go on to the Next Book.

Do any of the following bytes of wisdom contradict the gospel in your writers group?

• Page xxiii: “The writer who focuses on fundamentals – primarily developing the quality of the writing – will triumph over the writer who spends all his time researching catchy cover-letter copy, sending out bushels of unripened manuscripts, and reading up on zany marketing ideas.”
  
  
• Page 50: “Don’t try to spice up your dialogue by adding too many synonyms for said…. Also, do not stick a hokey modifier on said to add color.”
  
  
• Page 76: “It is really not your job to sell books.”
  
  
• Page 77: “You are the ball, vital but inert.”
  
  
• Page 83: “As long as there have been writers with money, there have been people willing to take it.”
  
  
• Page 116: “You can never forget that it is in the publishing industry’s best interest to reject you, discourage you, and ignore you.”
  
  
• Page 117: “Cover letters [queries] are almost always too long.”

Pat Walsh gets to the point, supports it, goes on. He was a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle for many years. It shows. He shuns the myths and dispenses realities. His information is practical, of immediate use at all levels.

I once corresponded with Pat Walsh. He immediately requested my entire manuscript in response to a query and 25 pages for my first novel (January, 2002). He then took five months to decline. No hard feelings, Pat. 78 Reasons redeems you.

This is Chuck's fourth published article. On the fiction side, he has penned 42 short stories and a novel over the last two years. During 25 years as an insurance agent, he's enjoyed a ring-side seat beside the lives of many complex characters.

Copyright © 2005 Chuck Emerson. All rights reserved. Used with permission.