Ready to Fly?

The sparrows who live in the bird house outside our kitchen window have birthed two sets of babies already this summer.

We were surprised at how quickly the babies grew and flew from the nest. After a week or two of constant tweeting and fluttering outside our window, suddenly one day, we awoke to silence and stillness. The birds were gone, already almost full size, ready to survive on their own.

How do we know when our books are ready to fly? We've prepared for their birth, nurtured and cared for them with loving dedication, but how do we know when we should push them from the nest into the wide world of agents and editors?

As I've traveled the blog, facebook, and twitter realms I've heard many laments about writers sending their books out too soon. Agents often remark that one of the top reasons for sending a rejection is because the writing ability is not strong enough.

Here's a quote from Rachelle Gardner: In the fiction queries I receive, the execution is the biggest reason for rejection. Some people have terrific ideas for stories that sound like they’re going to knock my socks off. But when I start to read, I realize this is probably the first draft of the first book they’ve ever tried to write, and they haven’t actually taken the time to develop their craft prior to submission. (Truthfully, it bums me out, because often the ideas are really good.)

Recently, I cleaned out a closet and came across the first five novels I wrote. As I browsed through them, I couldn't even remember writing one of them, probably my first one. All it took was one glance at the first page to see large paragraphs of background dump and setting description to know that baby had never been ready to fly. Thankfully, I never pushed it out.

But how many of the others did I send out too soon? Probably most of them. With each book I continued to study the craft of writing. And with each book, I continued to practice all of the things I was learning. But none of them ever reached a truly mature stage. They were all just part of the necessary process of growing.

Sometimes we can do everything possible to nurture our writing (everyone left great ideas in the comments of the last post about how to do that!). But ultimately, even with all of the food we shove at our writing, growth is slow and happens over time.

Maturation in our writing is not something we can rush. It's easy to get excited about the next stage--seeing our babies fly. But it hurts when we push them out only to see them fall flat, get stepped on and rejected. Sending a manuscript to a crit group or professional editor might be a way to make a practice attempt to see how close we're getting.

So how do we know when our writing is ready to fly? Here's my thought: if we've crafted the story well, if we've nurtured our writing skills, and we've allowed time and practice to mature us, then perhaps we're just about ready to stretch our wings and give it a try.

What do you think? Have you ever sent your work out too soon? How do you know when your work is ready to fly? I'd love to hear your opinions.

Have a Happy Fourth of July!