How to Fail Miserably at Writing

By Giselle Renarde

Let’s all join hands and fail together!

Giselle Renarde is an award-winning author who’s been failing at everything since 2006. Her erotica and queer fiction have appeared in nearly 200 short story anthologies and published by two of the Big Five publishing house, but don’t let that fool you. Giselle is a writer who knows how to fail—consistently and thoroughly!

In this collection of short musings from the erotic writers’ blog Oh Get a Grip, Giselle treats readers to a veritable smorgasbord of anecdotes about moving forward in the industry one fail at a time.

Have you ever had an editor tell you your entire manuscript needs to be rewritten? Three times? Giselle has. She’s experienced rejection letters, bad reviews, banned books, crappy sales, and painful missteps. If you’ve ever written a book that earned you neither money, fame nor respect, come sit by Giselle. If you have no idea what you’re doing in this business, neither does she!

Giselle’s done everything wrong so you don’t have to!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Giselle Renarde
• Release date: Aug 30, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370615216

Giselle Renarde

Giselle Renarde is a queer Canadian, avid volunteer, and contributor to more than 100 short story anthologies, including Best Women's Erotica, Best Lesbian Erotica, Best Bondage Erotica, and Best Lesbian Romance. Ms Renarde has written dozens of juicy books, including Anonymous, Ondine, and Nanny State. Her book The Red Satin Collection won Best Transgender Romance in the 2012 Rainbow Awards. Giselle lives across from a park with two bilingual cats who sleep on her head.

Book preview

How to Fail Miserably at Writing

© 2017 by Giselle Renarde

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

The essays in this collection were originally published on the authors’ blog Oh Get a Grip!

Cover design © 2017 Giselle Renarde

First Edition 2017

How to Fail Miserably at

Writing

Everything I’ve Done Wrong

By Giselle Renarde

Table of Contents

Authors Are So Neurotic

The Moment I Quit Writing Forever

Everything I Said I'd Never Do

The Fantasy of Romance

Egoyanesque

They'll Come for You Too

Write Stupid Book

I Have No Idea What I'm Doing

This Road Is Forked

Writing is a Crapshoot

You're not going to screw yourself...

Hit Me With Your 1-Star

Who Wrote This?

The Bright Side of Rejection

Authors Are So Neurotic

Let's get all deep and psychological, k?

I've got two novels sitting at the back of my hard drive. I wrote them. It took aaaaaages. Now all I need is to edit the hell out of them before sending them out to publishers or, more likely, self-publishing.

Every so often I open one of the files, thinking, This is it! I'm going at this thing, hardcore!

I read one chapter, make some changes... and then I shut it down.

I like these books. I mean, I REALLY like them. It's not like I'm putting off editing because I think it's going to be difficult and time-consuming (though, realistically, it probably will be).

So, why am I procrastinating?

Because, once I'm finished with the edits, I'll have to decide what to do with these manuscripts.

Do I send them to publishers I've worked with before? Makes sense. The possibility of getting a contract is higher at houses where I've already established roots. But maybe I should take a chance by sending them somewhere new. Is new better? The grass is always greener at that other publishing house. Oh, if I get in there, just image the distribution, the sales! Imagine finally being able to pay the rent AND eat more than oatmeal for every meal!

Except, it never works out that way.

I've been here before. I've sent my work to that perfect publisher, been accepted, and felt thrilled because this is it! This is the book that'll hit the big-time!

And then... it doesn't.

We authors have such high hopes, but they never seem to pan out. I've heard from writers contracted by the