Author: Jeffe Kennedy

Refining Goals and Getting Out of the Boiling Water

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

I had this friend a while back who was going through a difficult divorce.

Not that they aren’t all difficult.

This particular divorce, however, was complicated by massive amounts of debt, an unemployed soon-to-be-ex-husband and the necessity of taking on more debt to free herself of the situation. The upshot was, she took a second job. Because she already had a full-time, career-path day job, the second one had to be at night. So, she would work at the day job until 4, go home and sleep a few hours, go to the night job at 11, work until 7 in the morning and go to the day job.

Right: grueling schedule.

But, she only had to do it for a while. The night job at the hospital paid very well and her debt melted away. When she finally finished paying everything off, she went shopping. I know, because I went with her and she bought all new furniture. A gift to herself.

And now you can quit the second job and get some sleep again, I said.

No. She had more things she wanted the money for. She couldn’t give up the second income just yet. Just a little while longer.

After a while, she became so accustomed to this grueling schedule that she no longer notices the sleep deprivation. Right – the frog in the boiling water analogy.

To this day, she still does the night job a couple times a week

Yesterday, Angela James wrote on the Carina blog about the dangers of becoming obsessed with our jobs. She talks about overworking and taking time to relax, too.

Her post came at an interesting time for me because the other day, I mentioned to one of my CPs that I wanted to be full-time writer girl. She asked if it really would make that much difference for me, because I rarely seem to exceed about 2,500 words/day, even if I have all day to write. Glumly, I acknowledged that she was correct.

Then I realized, what it would mean is I’d no longer be working two jobs. I’ve been doing really long days for so many years now, that I’d kind of forgotten all the ways I’ve tightened my daily schedule to make this work. Even something as sleeping an hour later and going to the gym I like better but would add 1/2 hour to the time allotted for exercise would make a difference.

Several people commented on Angela’s post that her quip about having a goal of writing a book a month made them choke. It scared me, too.

It helps to adjust my goal, that I want to be a full-time writer, not necessarily to write more, though that would be nice, but to better enjoy my life.

Make it so!

Being Smart

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

Part of the cliffside at Bandelier, the cliff dwellings I talked about yesterday.

It occurs to me that a place that’s great for carving out caves also boast it’s fair share of cracks and holes.

A few years back, I was offered the opportunity to sign with a literary agency. Kinda sorta. The agent emailed me, enthused about my manuscript and set up a time to talk on the phone. She missed that appointment and set up second time. We talked then, but things were crazy for her and she couldn’t talk long. She liked the book, but wanted me to revise. The pacing needed work, she said, and a few other things. She’d send me detailed notes on it. If I fixed those things, she had the perfect editor in mind.

I never heard from her again.

Now, I would have been pleased to revise, given something more than the vague ideas she flung out on the phone. But, the agency was very new, she was even newer, seemed kind of flakey and I could see that the agency had only ever sold to one editor at one publishing house and that particular editor had already rejected the manuscript. Now, it’s possible that could have been overcome with revision, but I never even got to have that conversation with this gal. I had a bad feeling about it all, so when she didn’t send me the promised notes, I never pursued it. Not long after that, she left the agency.

At that time I was pretty new to the fiction-publishing world. But I have been out in the business world long enough to have a pretty good idea of professional behavior. I don’t know about all of you, but my day job company makes sure we understand our business model. We have to know the requirements of our contracts and the ins and outs like conflict of interest and quality assurance. I know that if somebody tells me a deal is predicated on me making some changes based on notes they’ll send that they never do, then it was never a good deal to begin with.

This is common sense.

When we sign with our agents, we place a tremendous level of trust in that relationship. We trust that they will act in our best interests. However, much as in marriage, hopefully you place that trust based on good information in the first place and then you remember that trust doesn’t mean having your brains sucked out of your ears.

The thing to remember is that, while an agency should be acting in their authors’ best interests, they have their own interests at heart, too. Hopefully those two things coincide. Sometimes, though, a brilliant plan for short-term gain is not the best strategy for an author’s long-term career. Guess which part each player here might care about most?

Even if you have an agent, authors, there  is still no one who will care about your career more than you do.

Be smart.

Dreck and Melodrama

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

A photo of me at Bandelier National Monument this last weekend. The cliff dwellings are particularly fun to see, since you can climb up into them.

It’s interesting to sit in these caves and imagine being the person who lived and loved there. The life expectancy of the Ancient Peublo People (we are not to say “Anasazi” anymore, for those who know that term, because it’s not PC. Who knew??) who lived in this canyon was an average of 35 years. Being a good ten years older than that gave me a bit of pause.

We have such a luxury of time in our lives today.

Yesterday I posted about becoming a better writer and Ann Patchett’s analogy of cleaning the pipes. A corollary to this way of thinking, that only occurred to me later in the day, is that those early works just may never be any good. Those “searing works of unendurable melodrama” that we have to clear out of our systems may have to stay in the sludge heap of hazardous waste. Some stuff is so toxic, or just plain irredeemable, that it can’ t be purified, even by dint of repeated revisions.

I’ve worked with wastewater treatment plants – believe me, I know.

Not everything makes it into the effluent. A whole lot of stuff has to be picked out and discarded.

None of us really wants to face this possibility, that the novel we slaved over might, well, stink. Because we devoted so much time to it we believe on a fundamental level that the time invested automatically gives the thing value. It does, but not in the readers-are-going-to-gobble-this-up way. Instead it might be in the Okay-good-thing-that’s-out-of-my-system way. Sometimes the value is all in learning to be able t set something aside.

We hate this because it’s tempting to view the time as wasted. If we can’t sell the product, then we squandered the effort. This kind of thinking is never accurate. Knowing what not to do can be more informative than accidentally hitting gold.

And as for time? We have such a bounty of it.

Washing the Pipes

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

This is the basket I put together for the LERA Enchanted Words conference last Saturday. Seemed like it was quite the hit.

Overall the conference was a great day. I loved hanging with my writing buddies and debating craft questions. Everyone went away excited and inspired, which was great to see.

Yeah, there’s a bit of a “but” in there.

I confess I have a bit of an issue with people who purport to teach how to write a bestseller. If a person is so certain of the “bestseller formula,” then I’d think they’d put their energy into writing that, instead of telling other people how to do it. There’s quite a few folk out there these days, saying they teach writers through workshops, master classes and retreats how to make the magic happen. They charge a fair amount of money for this, too.

Frankly? It feels predatory to me.

I mean, it’s great for writers to come away from a seminar like this feeling fired up, creative, inspired and ready to work. But, in the end, I truly believe that you can take all the classes you like and nothing replaces the act of writing. Writing a whole lot. Over and over until you find your own voice and rhythm.

Ann Patchett says (remember I said I’d have more quotes from her):

Art stands on the shoulders of craft, which means that to get to the art, you must master the craft. If you want to write, practice writing. Practice it for hours a day, not to come up with a story you can publish, but because you long to learn how to write well, because there is something that you alone can say. Write the story, earn from it, put it away, write another story. Think of a sink pipe filled with sticky sediment: The only way to get clean water is to force a small ocean through the tap. Most of us are full up with bad stories, boring stories, self-indulgent stories, searing works of unendurable melodrama. We must get all of them out of our system in order to find the good stories that may or may not exist in the fresh water underneath.

She continues with with pointed question:

Does this sound like a lot of work without any guarantee of success? Well, yes, but it also calls into question our definition of success. Playing the cello, we’re more likely to realize that the pleasure is the practice, the ability to create this beautiful sound – not to do it as well as Yo-Yo Ma, but still, to touch the hem of the gown that is art itself.

The people who want your money will chant NYT at you and tell you that’s success. Fair enough if you want that. Hell, I want that, too. But, despite what these teachers promise, there is no magic formula. If there was, they’d be using it themselves.

Back to washing out my pipes!

Finding the End

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

Full moon rising the other night. Just a bit of nostalgia.

I’m catching up a bit here, on photos and topics, both.

The other day (see?) I had an interesting Twitter conversation with the charming Abby Mumford. She announced to Twitter at large that she believed was done writing her novel. Then she asked how she should know if she was really done.

This might seem like a silly question. Duh – you’re done when the story is over. Thing is, when you’re writing, you don’t always know when the story is over. In fact, if you’re like most writers, the story doesn’t really end at all for you. You have this sense of the ongoing thread of your characters’ lives. Perhaps this crisis is over, but it’s not like they all fall over dead at the end, not unless you’re writing a Shakespeare tragedy.

(Even with those, the role-call of deaths in the final act begins to feel a bit contrived. Really, Will? EVERYONE??)

So, I told her that, if she’d tied up all her threads, then she was done. Even a thread that continues into the future needs a nice little knot at the end of a particular story. She thought they were, but she was feeling still unfinished. I finally suggested that she type “The End” if it made her feel better.

She did and it did.

This might seem like a false resolution, but endings, especially on first drafts, are moving targets. By the time you go back through the whole novel, cut, amplify, eliminate, massage and tighten, then ending might have moved by 45 degrees. Which is necessary, sometimes. I’ve heard that  John Irving never starts a book until he knows the last line. But I also know, from reading about his process, that he revises over and over, getting to that ending.

For me, each book is different. Usually I have to write to find out how it all ends. With Middle Princess, I’ve had a pretty good idea how it ends, but I’ve been sneaking up on that ending for days now. In the past, when I’ve gotten close to the end, the words flow in a great, ultimate rush. Not so this time. I keep telling myself it doesn’t have to be perfect, that I’ll likely change it in revision. Still, it only feeds at a measured pace. I’m tying up the knots, one by one.

Soon, I know, I’ll be done.

Not Running

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

I didn’t get good photos of the moonrise last night, but fortunately she hung around until I woke up this morning for a little repeat performance.

I haven’t been getting to run on the treadmill this week.

Yes, I know, I know, at one time in my life – hell, for a good chunk of my life so far – I would have embraced any excuse that prevented me from exercising, especially running.

(As a total aside, one of my all time movie scenes is from The Big Easy, when Dennis Quaid gets his cop cousins to “arrest” Ellen Barkin while she’s out jogging and bring her to a family party. Ellen is in her jogging shorts and sports bra, all sweaty in the New Orleans humidity and his mother looks her up and down, drawling “did he get you out of the bathtub, sugar?” Ellen says, “No, I was running.” And the mother, played by New Orleans native, Grace Zabriskie, gives her this LOOK and repeats “Running.” It’s a brilliant moment, how much incomprehension and pity for the dumb yankee Grace packs into one word.)

At any rate, I messed up my back a teensy bit – I think I compressed my sacrum and pinched a nerve while sea kayaking on the Bioluminescent Bay (still totally worth it) – and my in-house physician (David) says it would be better for me not to run for a few days. I have to admit he’s right. Running usually loosens up my back, but after doing a very low-key run on Monday, my lower back tightened up so much I couldn’t bend over. Which, I’m pretty sure, is a Bad Sign.

(I was also instructed not to wear heels of any sort, but that’s just too painful to discuss.)

(I’m clearly feeling quite parenthetical today.)

So he’s been treating me and that helps a bunch. But it’s interesting to note how much I miss my morning workout. No running. No weight-lifting. It’s not like I’m ahead of schedule without it either. I get up at the same time, but apparently I just blog more slowly or something.

Alas.

Maybe I can run tomorrow.

Running. Heh.

The Critical Step

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

Sometimes I wish I could make the photos really big, so all the subtle variations stand out. Guess you’ll just have to come sit on my porch. I’ll give you a blanket and a mug of mulled wine.

My waxer is a lover of sexy books and an aspiring writer.

Isn’t everyone’s?

I know, I know – it kind of sounds like an episode of Californication. My waxer – I’ll call her Angelica – is the polar opposite of Marcy. Angelica is an Amazonian redhead, with this very glam look and an incredibly sweet heart. She has a thing for firemen and runs her salon with style and aplomb. She once wrested my Kindle from me and wrote down the title and author of every book I had on it. She’s read my books and asks me questions about writing hers.

She’s at that stage where she’s still playing with it. She’s done the thing where she’s read the really awful book and thought “I could write something way better than this.” She asks me questions about my process, like if I write a book from beginning to end (I do) and how much I go back to revise (easily a month’s worth of writing time). All of this in the approximately ten minutes it takes her to give me a Brazilian. She’s not only skilled, does a perfect job – she’s also really fast.

I see her about every six weeks and two appointments ago, she told me her sister suggested that she take a one-week course on romance-writing at the Iowa Writer’s Program. I had no idea they were offering one now – go figure. I do know a fair number of writers who graduated from that program though and I have a pretty good idea that it wouldn’t be cheap. I told her it might be a great experience, but that there’s so much available online and through local RWA chapters, that she should consider starting there first. In fact, I said, the New Mexico local chapter, LERA, is having a one-day conference in November (now this Saturday) where we’re bringing in a gal to teach deep editing techniques. I told Angelica she should come; I tried to get her to mark out the day in her appointment book.

And she totally balked. She didn’t really have five opening chapters. She wasn’t ready to learn to edit. Her work isn’t at a place where anyone else can look at it. It didn’t matter that I told her she had three months to put those five chapters together, that only she would see it and that learning to look critically at your work is a huge step.

She wasn’t ready and I let it go.

So, then, the most recent appointment, she said her sister told her she’d read about all these people who self-published their books and made millions and what did I think of that? Could that be a viable option for her?

I tell you, these stories about the Amanda Hockings of the world are attaining the level of urban myth.

So, yes, I tell her – things like this have happened for people. But they are isolated cases (I didn’t mention that they’re also regularly and wildly distorted) and that the people who seem to be doing the best with self-pubbing are those writers with either established audiences or backlists of already polished work. I asked her if she’d encourage someone to open a salon who’d never worked in a professional capacity before and she got my point.

Now, I hope I don’t sound negative about self-publishing here, because I think it’s becoming a great option for many writers. But it’s disturbing to me that some people are seeing it as an option to skip the critical step. Not the crucial one, though it’s that, too, but the many-layered process where you learn to critique your own work, to assimilate the criticism of others, to incorporate editorial input that shapes the story and to view the work in light of the readers’ expectations and the marketplace.

Yes, this is the painful and awful part of being a writer. I really don’t blame anyone for wanting to skip it.

It would be a lovely world if we could write our stories and they would emerge full-fledged and perfect, ringed by rainbows and escorted by white ponies with ribbons in their tails.

This is not that world.

So, what I tried to get her to see is that she needs to apply all the work she put into becoming a terrific aesthetician – and she’s one of the best I’ve ever encountered – and to building her business and creating a well-run salon, and put that into becoming a writer. You don’t need a certificate from a fancy writing school, but you do have to work at it.

And, if you’re not ready to show it to people for critique, you’re not ready to publish it.

No golden tickets to fame and fortune, alas.

Though I wouldn’t mind one of those white ponies with the pretty ribbons.