Aloha writerly friends,

I'm back from the Maui Writers Conference. It was definitely hard to drag myself into the office today, but I made it. Maria refused to come home until she had evened out her tan, so don't expect her back until early next week.

In the meantime, I thought I'd pass along these five don'ts that I picked up attending a panel at the conference. The three panelists, Elizabeth Evans (Reece Halsey North Agency), Catherine Fowler (Redwood Agency) and Robert Guinsler (Sterling Lord Literistic), said these are tips every writer should abide by:

The Don'ts

1. Don't send your full manuscript off the get go. Only send what's requested in the particular agent's guidelines. (They almost always can be found online.)
2. Don't respond to a rejection letter or ask "why." Just move on.
3. Don't be rude or disrespectful—rejection isn't personal, it's just part of the business.
4. Don't submit to one agent at a time. The industry is slow so it's unrealistic for agents to assume you haven't sent it to other people (unless an agent asks for an exclusive read).
5. Don't resend a query or manuscript a day or two later with a note, "I found a mistake in my proposal and fixed it." Once it's sent, it's sent.

I hope you didn't miss us too much. I definitely missed all of you—it's hard to survive a week without my writing family. Next time I'll see if I can get the WD jet to swing by and pick everyone up. I'm sure Maria can write that into the 2009 budget.

Take care of yourself and your writing,
Brian

Check out Brian's Questions & Quandaries blog.