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Angela Benedetti

Goodreads Author

Born

in San Francisco, The United States

Website

http://www.angiebenedetti.com/blog/

Genre

Gay & Lesbian, Romance, Science Fiction & Fantasy

Member Since

January 2010

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What’s your advice for aspiring writers?

Angela Benedetti Write. Write a lot. Read. Write. Take a class. Write. Read a book about writing. Write some more. Finish a story, send it out or indie pub it, and sta…moreWrite. Write a lot. Read. Write. Take a class. Write. Read a book about writing. Write some more. Finish a story, send it out or indie pub it, and start another one. Until you have a substantial body of work (like twenty or more stories published) marketing is a useless waste. If you really enjoy blogging or tweeting or whatever, and would do it anyway, then do that fun thing because it's fun, but don't do promo stuff just because you think you should. And the worst thing you can do is publish your first book, then take the next year off of writing to "promo." Don't do that.

The second worst thing you can do is let other people put limits on what you write. If you want to write a sequel to your last book, then write it. If you want to write something completely new, do that. If you want to write a story in a new subgenre, or a new genre, then do that. If you want to try something that sounds crazy, go ahead and try it. Don't write something just because you think others expect it of you, or NOT write something because you think some people might not like it. Write what you want, and worry about where to publish it after. (While you write the next thing.)

If you go tradpub -- submitting to editors and waiting for acceptance or rejection -- you'll probably be getting a lot of rejections for a while. Maybe for years. This goes with not letting other people limit you; if you want a tradpub career, keep writing and studying and writing and learning and writing and trying. If you still think a story that's gathered a dozen or twenty rejection slips is good, then indie pub it and let the readers decide. There are people making a living off of their indie pubbed books, and plenty of genres and subgenres the big publishers decided were dead are blooming again because there are readers who love them, and indie publishing is reaching them. It might be that tradpub editors don't think your work has enough of a market, but there might be plenty of readers to support indie pubbed book in that genre or subgenre or tone or form.

Or if all you have is fifty or a hundred form rejections, maybe your craftsmanship isn't up to par yet. Keep working, studying, writing.

Keep writing. (Can't say that enough.) Writing is like any craft -- mastering it takes hours and hours and YEARS of practice. Writing is the only craft, the only art, where popular wisdom says that Baby's First Project can be polished up to professional standards if you just keep reworking and reworking and reworking it. Imagine getting your first trumpet lesson ever, and learning to honk out "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star," and going immediately out to the park to play your song with a hat at your feet for tips. Or getting your first set of oil paints and doing a painting of your mother, then working on That One Painting over and over, scraping and repainting and adding and scraping and repainting, until you find a gallery willing to take it. :P That sounds dumb, doesn't it? But a large chunk of the writing community (not counting most of the published writers, but a lot of the unpublished writers and way too many teachers) encourages exactly that, the idea that Baby's First Story can be rewritten and rewritten, and polished-polished-polished until a paying market will accept it, if you just work hard enough and focus on perfecting that one story. Don't do that! Write something, send it out, write something else. You'll learn MUCH more from writing six stories than you will from writing one story and rewriting it five times. That path leads into the pit of doom! Write new words regularly -- every week if not every day. Especially if you're just starting out, learning and improving your skills should be your main goal, and you do that by writing lots and lots and LOTS of stories.

(And even when you've been at this for a while, you should still be learning and growing and improving. It never stops, you'll never have learned all there is to know, or max out all your skills.)

Schedule your writing time first. Writing means writing new words. Editing is not writing. Research is not writing. Submitting, or formatting and making a cover is not writing. Marketing and promo are most definitely not writing. Protect the writing first. If you have five hours free per week to work on your writing, spend at least four of them actually writing. All five is better, especially if you're just starting out.

Once you've got your writing time locked in, find some more time to read and learn. Read a lot of books, a lot of stories. Keep up with the genre(s) you write in, yes, but also read stories in other genres, and from other times, and from other cultures; they'll give you new styles and new techniques and new structures. Read non-fiction; it'll give you more things to write ABOUT. And schedule time for learning, for taking a class or reading a how-to book. If you want to indie pub, figure out what you need to learn -- setting up a business, formatting, designing and making covers, writing blurbs and other marketing copy, bookkeeping and taxes -- and schedule time (and money when needed) to learn each thing. Spread it out; if it takes you a year or two or more to learn all the basics, that's fine. Make a reasonable schedule based on your life and your finances. Keep writing, but acquire the skills and knowledge you'll need to be a good businessperson. Note that things like setting up a business and keeping your books and doing taxes apply to people who only tradpub, as well as indie pubbers; make sure you don't get blindsided by the IRS, or whoever your local tax authorities are!

Practice. Keep writing. And don't let anyone tell you that you should write this or shouldn't write that. If you're not having fun, you're doing something wrong. :)(less)

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Will there be a Sentinels book 4?

Angela Benedetti Yes. :) The boys are being stubborn right now, but I have about 25K words of the next book done. At this point, I'm still poking around, trying to fig…moreYes. :) The boys are being stubborn right now, but I have about 25K words of the next book done. At this point, I'm still poking around, trying to figure out what to do. (No, it's not usually this hard. Like I said, they're being stubborn. [side-eyes the guys]) But yes, there'll definitely be more.(less)

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Idamus Yay :D
Jul 15, 2014 04:54AM · flag

Angela Benedetti :D

Keeping in mind that this could end up completely trashed before I'm done, here's the current opener:

===========

Rory Ellison ignored the muttered cu ...more
Jul 15, 2014 05:12AM · flag

Idamus Any news?
Aug 31, 2018 07:21PM · flag

See all 3 answers from Angela Benedetti…

Combine Editions
Angela Benedetti’s books

Average rating: 3.64 · 1,826 ratings · 304 reviews · 25 distinct works • Similar authors

	A Hidden Magic (Sentinels #1) 3.68 avg rating — 186 ratings — published 2010 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Executive Lounge 3.74 avg rating — 162 ratings — published 2013 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Emerging Magic (Sentinels #2) 3.84 avg rating — 57 ratings — published 2012 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Gift 3.30 avg rating — 44 ratings — published 2010	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Candy Courage 3.42 avg rating — 31 ratings — published 2009	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Captive Magic (Sentinels #3) 3.72 avg rating — 25 ratings — published 2013 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Unfinished Business (Sentinels #1.5) 3.44 avg rating — 25 ratings — published 2010	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Hell Is in the Details 3.55 avg rating — 22 ratings — published 2010	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Reach Out and Touch (Sentinels #1.6) 3.35 avg rating — 20 ratings — published 2010	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Chasing Fear (Sentinels #1.7) 3.18 avg rating — 17 ratings — published 2007	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Angela Benedetti…

25 posts
Angela Benedetti's Blog

Looks Like Astroturfing, Quacks Like Astroturfing...

I got a book recommendation in my e-mail from someone I have friended on Goodreads. Okay, that happens occasionally. I click through to check out the book.

What I see is that only one other person I know has reviewed it, and they're just boinging because it's out, rather than talking about the book itself. There are a bunch of reviews from people I don't know. Okay, I can work with that, usually, a Read more of this blog post »

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Published on March 12, 2014 09:15 • Tags: astroturfing, doing-it-wrong, marketing, new-release, reviews, street-teams

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Series by Angela Benedetti

Sentinels (3 books)
by

Angela Benedetti (Goodreads Author)

3.65 avg rating — 330 ratings

Topics Mentioning This Author

topics	posts	views	last activity
100+ Books in 2025: Lily's 100+ Book Challenge List 2009	47	264	Jan 06, 2010 08:48PM

Angela’s Quotes

“The fact of the matter is that readers and audiences are never blank slates: individuals see in a work whatever they need to see at that moment.”
― Christopher Bram, Eminent Outlaws: The Gay Writers Who Changed America

tags: writers

4 likes

“English teachers, workshops, and myths try to make writers slow down. We are the ONLY ART on the planet that tells young artists to not practice and do less to get better. Head-shaking in its stupidity. And new writers buy into that.”
― Dean Wesley Smith

tags: improvement, inspirational, practice, productivity, skill-building, working, writing

0 likes

“But 'I worked hard on this' doesn’t exempt you from criticism. Those harsh reviews aren’t about anyone being out to get me. It’s not an Authors vs. Reviewers thing. It’s people taking the time to express their opinions because they care about this stuff."

[Us vs. Them vs. Grow the Hell Up (Blog post, September 1, 2013)]”
― Jim C. Hines

tags: authors, books, criticism, freedom-of-expression, opinions, reviewers, reviewing

6 likes

“I’ve said for years — ever since I figured out how to write Goblin Hero — that it’s important to give yourself permission to write crap. Perfection is the destroyer of art. It’s paralyzing. Art, whether it’s writing or painting or anything else, requires risk. And risk means you’re going to make mistakes. Sometimes you’re going to fail.”
― Jim C. Hines

tags: art, perfection, writing

2 likes

“If your social consciousness seems stuck in 1975, 2014 is gonna be a rough ride.”
― John Scalzi

tags: feminism, homophobia, political-correctness, racism, sexism, social-consciousness, social-justice

34 likes

More of Angela’s quotes…

Angela’s Friend Comments

Comments (showing 1-5) post a comment »

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message 5: by Angela

Jan 04, 2011 12:09PM

Sean wrote: "been a while...just want to see how is everything with you and how is your project going with second book on Sentinels series? :)

Hugss,
Sean"

Hey Sean! [wave] That's been on the back burner for a little while; I've been working on some other things. I have one more short story to finish, then I'll be back to it. :) Thanks!

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message 4: by Angela

Jan 03, 2011 05:29PM

Mandi wrote: "Thanks for the add!"

You're very welcome! [wave]

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message 3: by Mandi

Jan 03, 2011 04:51PM

Thanks for the add!

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message 2: by Angela

Jan 15, 2010 03:53PM

Charles wrote: "Hi. Good to see you over here at Goodreads. THanks for the kind words on Write With Fire. Glad you enjoyed it."

You're very welcome; it was definitely worth reading.

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message 1: by Charles

Jan 14, 2010 12:18PM

Hi. Good to see you over here at Goodreads. THanks for the kind words on Write With Fire. Glad you enjoyed it.

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