Happy George Harrison’s birthday! While there has always been debate about whether he was born on the 24th or the 25th of February, all that matters to me is that HE WAS BORN. And I got to be on the planet with him for many decades. I’ll always be grateful for that.

I’m also immensely grateful for my friends, colleagues, readers, and idols in the writing world.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post about whittling down the amount of literary chefs in your writing kitchen so you don’t have people leaning over your pots and dropping their hair (don’t you always think about that? I do) into your Vichyssoise soup.

“Yeah, just let me dig the Chairman of Kitchen Stadium’s hair outta here, and I’ll serve it to you…”

My husband and I made Vichyssoise soup once as our leeks were taking over the world. It was so fracking good! It didn’t look like this—only because the fanciest tureen I have is the one my grandmother used to put the Kraft Dinner in—but close enough.

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Two chefs (or rather, one chef and his wife) put that lovely meal together using the good old Canadian Living Cookbook we received as a wedding gift back in the 1890s. Yup. We didn’t spend hours online digging through questionable recipes. We went right to the source: our best, beat-up old cookbook that’s torn and covered with food. You have to peel some of the pages apart. But it’s never let us down.

But what if you need more than one other person in your literary kitchen? I had a couple of people tell me after that last post about too many cooks that they were actively looking for literary cooks: people they could build community with and share their writing.

I remember being there, and I have some ideas. If you’re just starting out (or you’ve been at it a long time), finding community in this wacky life we’ve chosen isn’t always easy.

I’m going to do a bit of cribbing from an article I wrote some years back for a website I used to run with Shawna Lemay (it was her baby, and she invited me on board), but first things first. Have you joined your local writers’ guild or federation?

STOP READING AND GO DO THAT NOW. They’re generally affordable, and offer a ton of value for not too many dollars.

I’ve belonged to the Writers’ Guild of Alberta for twenty-five years, and it’s the best dues I’ve ever paid. Not only do I get a ton of work of all kinds from them, but I have opportunities to give back, and I receive scads of useful information about job offers, residencies, meet-ups, book launches, and anything else writing-related you can think of.

Every week, they send out an email called WriteClick to their membership. Just the other day, I scrolled down past the notice of the discount you receive on my self-editing e-course if you’re a WGA member (SHAMELESS PLUG!), to find no fewer than sixteen listings for writers’ groups around the province, many of which seem to be inviting new members.

Are you anywhere near where these groups meet? If you’re not, can you get near them?

If not, there’s a Member to Member section in that same weekly bulletin. You can submit a request (if you like), looking for beta readers for your work, and offering the same in return. Beta readers (if the relationship is reciprocal) agree to read your work for free and give you an honest assessment.

In your notice, you might say at what level of writing you see yourself (emerging/mid-career/established/etc), where you live or where you’d be willing to meet, what you write, and what you’re looking for in a beta reader. I’ll bet you’re not the only one looking for this kind of kinship.

“That’s all well and good, Beach,” you might be saying, “but where else do I find people I can connect with about writing?

Here’s where I’m going do dig back in my writing archives and excerpt this piece that might be helpful. (I am not a hoarder in my physical life, but ask me about the email list I made in 2009 about that trip I was taking: I can find it in under eight seconds.) This article is about how I got to where I am in this writing life (specifically how I get the work I do), and the long-ass time it took me to get here.

And this is my point. When I was starting out, it was in person, or nothing. We live in the electronic age now. Most of the meetings I have with clients and potential clients take place on FaceTime or Skype. I can edit anywhere. I can connect with anyone virtually anywhere, and you can too.

Take from this what thou wilt and use whatever you find useful. This article is from 2013, and although I’ve had several great gigs in the interim, I stand by what I said back then.

It’s a long one so find yourself a beverage of choice and see if any of this resonates. The key word I was going for here was “proactive”.

Happy Tuesday,

K

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Looking around at the inexplicable success of books like Fifty Shades of Grey and Twilight Rip-Off #418, it might seem to new writers that the minute you publish a book, a writing community will magically fall into your lap. Fame will be sure to follow as word of your masterpiece reaches The Times Literary Supplement, and the Pulitzer People™ take instant notice. Oprah will have to revive her book club, there’ll be such a demand for your new work of art.

As you’re opening the box of your author copies, your phone will start ringing off the hook. It’ll be Shelagh Rogers herself, asking you to appear on her CBC radio program. People will start lining up at your door to help you plan launches, promote your book, get you gigs at big, important festivals, buy you wine, and generally tell you how fabulous you are sun-up to sun-down.

Um… no. There are a few people who care about your new book. Your mom is one of them. But unless your mom runs a literary promotion business, that's not of much use to you. If you've spent time with any writers, they might care too (or they might tell you they care while secretly being jealous if they're still struggling to get a book published. Some writers might yearn for the day there’s a “Shut up about your good news for five minutes” button on Facebook).

Your writing group will care, as they love you, and they've been editing the thing for years. They’re relieved that they don't have to look at it any more. Your publisher cares, and you might have one or two friends who work in bookstores and libraries. They will care. And they might buy you wine.

But yours is one of thousands of books being published this year. You can't expect that big festivals will call you up out of the blue to headline with Margaret Atwood. They’ve never heard of you. Writing groups will not come around begging you to join.

Don't imagine that bookstores you've never set foot in will come knocking on your door, asking you to come do a reading. Despite all the recent blahblah about what dire straits the publishing industry is in, the fact is that there are more books published in any given year than anyone can be expected to read. Festivals and reading series have their pick. They need paying bums in seats just like every other cultural event, and they need to go for the writers who will guarantee those bums in those seats.

Because I have a new book this year [edit: The Last Temptation of Bond, 2013 is what I’m referencing here] that seems to be doing fairly well (she knocks herself on the side of her wooden head), I’ve been very fortunate and have managed to land a few important festivals, teaching gigs, and reading series with the help of my publishers. But nearly the second I announce the whatever-it-is, the questions start coming. "How did you get that gig?" is one of the most common ones I'm asked by emerging writers. I think the assumption is that I must have some secret "in" with whatever festival or reading series the writer is asking me about. "How can I get that gig, too?"

Ready? I'm going to reveal The Big Secret™.

Rewind the clock five or twelve or fifteen or thirty or fifty years to when you first began writing. Begin building relationships and friendships with other writers, with librarians, bookstore owners (and employees), publishers, and people who work at literary journals. Subscribe to those literary journals. Volunteer for one.

Get yourself a web presence. A Facebook page is the easiest thing in the world to get together. Don’t resist it. Just do it and learn how to use it. You need it. Your future readers need to be able to find your books. They don’t know you exist yet, and it’s largely up to you to tell them.

Spend time making yourself known in literary communities. Go to readings. If there's nothing going on where you live, drive somewhere where there is. Spend a little money getting to readings by people you admire, even if you have to go out of your way and beyond your budget to do so. That’s why gawd invented Visa; we all know that. Introduce yourself to the readers you’ve come to hear. Friend the authors on Facebook if they invite you to, but mean it. Buy the authors' books (you want them to buy yours when you launch, don't you?). Read those books and say something nice (but sincere) to the authors afterward.

Sign up for a workshop run by a writer you admire. Read their books before you take their class. Put your heart into it, make friends, and stay in touch afterward with the instructor (if invited to do so) and your fellow participants. Take every chance offered to listen to seasoned writers: in workshops, at lectures and readings, at universities. Access the writer-in-residence in your local library or college.

If a local writer offers you a couch to sleep on in the city where you're reading, take them up on it and buy them dinner. Send them a card afterward, or leave a bottle of wine and a copy of your book in the guest room for them to find later when they go down to change the sheets. Find out who’s friendly toward readings in your town, and if you can, help visiting writers get a reading if they ask you. Offer them a bed.

Promote your stuff on social media (yes, really), but balance your good news by announcing the good news of a friend the next day. Mean it.

Relationship building in the literary world is not a shmooze-fest. Believe it or not, we writers can tell when we're being played or sucked up to for our connections. We don't really like it. We want long-lasting connections too: not fly-by-nighters who will hang around us long enough for us to do something for them and then flit off just as fast. We want new friends as well, and to be appreciated by people who aren’t into us because we might be able to help them get some big gig.

If you see me at a festival or reading, introduce yourself to me. Just be who you are, and tell me about your book. I want to hear about it. If you've not read my work, don't lie and say you have, and for heaven’s sake, don’t apologize for not having done so. It's fine if you haven't. My feelings won't be hurt; you can't read everything.

Don’t drop my name on job applications or submissions to publishers unless I’ve told you it’s okay to do so. A lot of the time, it will be, but let me offer that. Don’t take it for granted. If you’ve been nice and sincere to me, chances are that in the future, you will pop into my head when I hear about something in the literary world for which you might be particularly suited. I will be more inclined to write a letter for you, or act as a reference, or call someone up to say that you’re the right person for the gig if you’ve been kind, honest, and friendly, and have done your best to form a relationship with me (no matter how casual).

Badmouthing other writers, editors, or publishers with me is the worst thing you can do. That writer might be one of my closest friends. If you’ve been rejected by a publisher who I know writes the most encouraging rejection letters in the industry, don’t tell me how awful the rejection was and what a jerk the woman was who wrote it. Chances are pretty good that I have a passing acquaintance with that publisher. We might even be close friends. Chances are that I’ve been rejected by them, and will be fairly sure that you’re not being honest about the tone of the letter you got. There’s no quicker way to alienate me than to speak ill of other writers in my presence. You never know who has entered my orbit, or what they may mean to me.

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Over the years, you can amass a group of people who care about you and your work. Some of those people will even grow to love you. If you've made a lot of friends in the literary world, and if you've done it sincerely and with an honest, open heart, those connections will help you out down the road in ways you couldn't have imagined. These people will not fall into your life. It takes years and years to develop these friendships and relationships. Don't assume they will simply happen to you just because you published a book.

Work hard. Be a nice person. Show up. That's the secret. That’s how I got that gig.

Where are all MY chefs?