Why Everybody Advises Newbie Writers to Be Persistent

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

waiting for mouseThis is our master bathroom – and Jackson waiting for a mouse.

All night and all day.

See, the bathroom cabinet there has a space in that overhang at the bottom. I can just fit about half of my hand in there, before the pinch stops me. I know this because I’ve tried. Just a few days after we moved in, I dropped the lid to a little sparkly beaded box from India that I store my belly-button jewelry in. The lid hit the floor, bounced exactly right (what are the odds?) and went up and into that space under the cabinet.

Gone forever, unless I want to tear out the cabinet.

See, the inside of the cabinet is all solid-state – even if you pull out the drawers, etc., there’s no access to the space beneath. That bottom panel is firmly affixed. Short of using a crowbar, I’m not budging it.

This also makes it a perfect escape hatch for mice being hunted by the cats.

The kitties diligently stalk and capture any mice so foolish as to steal into our garage to nibble on our valuable stuff, which is great. They then bring their prizes into the house, possibly as tributes for us, but more likely to extend the very fun game of mousehunt, which is less great. Jackson, in particular *loves* to let them go, so he can chase the mouse again. Sometimes they escape.
 
And this is where my point comes in.
 
Jackson is the most persistent cat I’ve ever known. It’s amazing to me that cats can have such different personalities – and all cats are patient hunters – but Jackson’s primary trait is persistence.
 
If he wants to be on my lap, he will jump on my lap, over and over again, no matter how many times I scoot him off, until he wears me down.
 
He fully believes he should be able to walk on the kitchen counters. He’ll sit there and cringe, hating that we squirt him with the spray bottle, but refusing to move. If we physically move him, he’s back there again as soon as we turn our backs.
 
I woke up in the middle of the night to visit the facilities, as one does, and found both kitties in there, watching the cabinet. In the morning, Isabel had gotten bored and was napping, but not Jackson. He remained fixated and alert. Not one to miss breakfast, he took a quick break and returned to the bathroom where he remained all day. He napped sometimes, but lightly, ears up to catch the slightest sound. He never gives up.
 
And he always catches his mouse.
 
This is what we mean, all of us writers, when we are asked what advice we have for newbies, when we say “be persistent.”
 
I know that this likely seems like empty advice. After all, pretty much everyone says it. It sounds like we’re saying “Yeah, you’ll get rejected fifty-thousand times and it will be like the pain of diving into a swimming pool full of razor blades, but suck it up and quit whining – you might get lucky some day.”
 
It sounds like that because there’s some truth to it. We all know that pain.
 
But, in truth, what we’re trying to tell you is: that goddam mouse has to come out at some point. If you’re not there to catch it, then no mouse for you. Doesn’t mean you won’t get other opportunities to catch mice – there’s always more opportunities. What it means is, if you have a mouse cornered, stay on it. It’s right there.
 
Yours for the taking, if you don’t wander off.
 
Never surrender!

How to Play Marco Polo Day

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

1_4 freezing fog 2Did you know that today is Marco Polo Day??

Oh, come on. Yes, you did. You celebrate every year, don’t you?

So, fellow author Voirey Linger came up with a little game for today. Here’s the repost from her site:

January 9, 1324, Marco Polo slipped the bonds of this world and drifted into history. He explored Asia, established trade routes with China, and launched a summer game loved by millions.

To celebrate his life and his game, we are launching Marco Polo day on Twitter. The rules are simple. Follow the players listed below from your Twitter account. When one of them yells MARCO you hit reply and @ them with POLO. First to respond will win an ebook. If you’re not following, you can’t win.

You can see a list of participating authors here.

As for me, three times today I will yell out MARCO! on Twitter. First to reply with POLO gets a digital copy of any of my books – including PLATINUM, which isn’t on sale until February 25.

Sounds fun, yes?

Let’s Play!

I Don’t F**cking Care If You Like It

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

1_4 freezing fog 6 cropIf you look closely, that thermometer reads 9.3 degrees F. Brr! But then the sun rose high enough, it warmed up, and all the fairy frost disappeared.

Last Friday I posted about something I learned about writing from reading Tina Fey’s Bossypants. I extracted so many great nuggets of wisdom from that book, I just have to share (at least) one more.

 Amy Poehler was new to SNL and we were all crowded into the seventeenth-floor writers’ room, waiting for the Wednesday read-through to start. There were always a lot of noisy “comedy bits” going on in that room. Amy was in the middle of some such nonsense with Seth Meyers across the table, and she did something vulgar as a joke. I can’t remember what it was exactly, except it was dirty and loud and “unladylike.”

Jimmy Fallon, who was arguably the star of the show at the time, turned to her and in a faux-squeamish voice said, “Stop that! It’s not cute! I don’t like it.”

Amy dropped what she was doing, went black in the eyes for a second, and wheeled around on him. “I don’t fucking care if you like it.” Jimmy was visibly startled. Amy went right back to enjoying her ridiculous bit. (I should make it clear that Jimmy and Amy are very good friends and there was never any real beef between them. Insert penis joke here.)

With that exchange, a cosmic shift took place. Amy made it clear that she wasn’t there to be cute. She wasn’t there to play wives and girlfriends in the boys’ scenes. She was there to do what she wanted to do and she did not fucking care if you like it.

I was so happy. Weirdly, I remember thinking, “My friend is here! My friend is here!” Even though things had been going great for me at the show, with Amy there, I felt less alone.

(Fey, Tina (2011-04-05). Bossypants (Kindle Locations 1436-1441). Reagan Arthur Books. Kindle Edition.)

That chapter is subtitled “One in a series of love letters to Amy Poehler.” Now, I’ve long loved Amy Poehler’s comedy, too, but this made me adore her just that much more.

I think this makes a good mantra for writers. I’m going to take an extra step and say particularly for female writers. I know the guys suffer much of the same stuff we do – the critics, the rejections, the uncertainty. But I really do believe that, as females, we are strongly programmed by society to be likable. Women who are judged unlikable (Hillary Clinton, for example) are excoriated for it – a judgment that overshadows their other accomplishments. We learn very early that we are meant to be pretty, polite and affectionate. We might enjoy being those things, but feeling the pressure to be that – with little room for anything else – can really get to you over time.

Especially when you’re an artist. It’s hard (maybe impossible?) to make good art when you’re worried about people liking it. You might have to think about that stuff when it comes to marketing, but there’s no place for it when you’re creating. And, I think, it’s really hard for women to get away from that consideration.

So, this is a liberating thing.

Say it with me, kids.

I don’t fucking care if you like it!

I knew you could.

How (Not) to Write a Mainstream Success

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

1_4 freezing fog 4We get these freezing fogs in Santa Fe that turn the desert into a fairyland of ice crystals. Just extraordinary to see.

 As every reader delights in, I received several books for Christmas – along with gift cards for even More Books. Two that I specifically asked for (via my wishlist) were Tina Fey’s Bossypants and Gillian Flynn’s Sharp Objects. On Christmas Eve, my aunt, who wasn’t with us, IM’d my mom to ask if I’d received the Kindle book she’d sent. My mom said she didn’t know, but that she’d gotten me a paper copy of Sharp Objects for my stocking, that my aunt had better not have gotten the same book and what was it? My aunt said “Bossypants!” and my mom was all offended that her sister called her that. My mom didn’t figure out until Christmas morning that this was not a sisterly insult, accurate though it may be, but the title of the Kindle book, which I did, indeed, receive.

Hysterical, I think.

That said, I really enjoyed Bossypants. I admire Tina Fey so much. In fact, I should put her on that list of people interviewers always ask for about which living people I’d like to have dinner with. Right now I’m picturing Tina Fey, Amanda Palmer and Neil Gaiman at my table.

Too bad they’ll make me look like a blithering idiot.

At any rate, Tina Fey is a sharp, witty and insightful writer. They book is more a collection of essays that all bring insight into how she developed the career she has today. I think people in any field, male or female would be interested, but she has so much to offer females in creative professions – regardless of the medium – that I’d almost call it a must read.

I plan to be quoting various tidbits from it in the future.

But the part that really stood out for me at this moment, that I typed into messenger for one of my writing buddies as soon as I got home, was about her show 30 Rock.

Now, I love 30 Rock. You all know I don’t watch much TV, but I’ve watched as much of 30 Rock as I can (via Netflix). Like Tina, it’s funny, sharp, insightful and full of sly jokes. I would call it one of the best shows on TV, except that I’m so not an arbiter of such things. At any rate, she said this about it:

We weren’t trying to make a low-rated critical darling that snarled in the face of conventionality. We were trying to make Home Improvement and we did it wrong. You know those scientists who were developing a blood-pressure medicine and they accidentally invented Viagra? We were trying to make Viagra and we ended up with blood-pressure medicine. No matter how many times we tried to course-correct the show to make it more accessible – slow the dialogue down, tell fewer stories per episode, stop putting people in blackface – the show would end up careening off the rails again. In my limited experience, shows are like children. You can teach them manners and dress them in little sailor suits, but in the end, they’re going to be who they’re going to be.

And wow – did that hit home for me, as a writer.

It did for my writing buddy too. She and I even had a mission going for a while called “Project Mainstream,” where we each tried to develop a really mainstream, conventional idea for a book, that would be, well, Home Improvement. Project Mainstream did not go well. She’s doing better than I am, however. But we realized several things about ourselves in this effort.

1. She and I make the worst possible coaches for each other in this. We both take stories careening off the rails. Every. Damn. Time.

2. I’m miserable at trying to do this, because every time she’d point out that some plot element wasn’t mainstream, I’d start snarling in the face of conventionality.

3. In our heart of hearts, neither of us *really* wants this. We couldn’t bear dressing our kids in little sailor suits and we don’t fundamentally give a flip about manners. Before long, we were stripped down with them in the mud puddle, making castles.

When I sent her this snippet from Bossypants, her immediate response was, “But isn’t 30 Rock a really successful show?” Which is an interesting point, too. I would certainly have said so. In the world of television though, the ratings barely get them by. She says they had 5 million viewers in the first season. At its height, Friends was getting 25 million viewers per episode.

This is a whole ‘nother kettle of fish from the writing world, no doubt. For contrast, Twilight has sold 100 million copies, all told – equivalent to four episodes of Friends. Hunger Games had an initial print run of 200,000 copies and has sold in the neighborhood of 800,000 copies now. In ten years, Neil Gaiman’s American Gods has sold 1 million copies in 22 languages worldwide.

See what I mean?

I’ve heard the unofficial number of 15,000 copies sold to be considered a successful book in NYC.

It all calls up the question of what we consider to be a successful effort. Tina Fey set out to make Home Improvement. With Project Mainstream, my writing buddy and I were shooting for something similar. Maybe not Twilight, but Hunger Games would be nice. Hell, we’d be delighted with much less.

But in our heart of hearts? It’s castles in the mud that make us the happiest.

How Breaking Old Habits Brings New Excitement

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

new office 2 new officeI reorganized my office over the weekend.

I know, I know – this is hardly earth-shattering news. But you all know how it is. I spend in the neighborhood of half my day in this room, between my day job and the writing career. To rework it after several years has a profound effect on my life. Plus, I like the change much better than I’d expected to.

See, the day after Christmas, I went online and bought myself a treadmill desk. All of you out there looking for those great articles about the DIY treadmill desk or the cheapie alternative? You will not find it here. Yes, I looked at all of those articles and people gave me great advice. But, in the end, I wanted a long-term solution that I could live with for my roughly half a day that I’d spend with it. I’ll do a post on my solution when it all arrives (not for several weeks), but the short version is that I’m getting a hydraulic desk that I can raise and lower, so I can either sit or stand or walk while working at it.

The new desk is significantly bigger than my current desk, so I knew I’d need to rearrange. Especially if I wanted to keep my window view, which was a high priority for me. Since I couldn’t have my new treadmill desk yet, I could displace that excitement into a bit of New Year’s new office energy.

Basically all I had to do was flip the furniture from one side to the other. Here’s how it looked before:

Storyboard 2My story board was propped on a little table to the left of my desk.

Writing deskAnd – well, it turns out I don’t have a good picture of the other side, but all my computer/day-job related stuff (printers, scanners, files) were to the right. When we moved in, I set it up that way because there’s a handy-dandy power strip along that west wall. It seemed logical to put all the plug-in stuff next to it. But the problem with that kind of thing is the power strip location drove everything else. Which turns out to have been not the best choice.

Part of this comes from changes in technology, but all that STUFF is now to the left of my desk, which you can see in the very top pic. The equipment is all smaller, combined, with fewer cords. I also like the serendipity of how the painting of the view out a window to the ocean kind of carries over from my real window with the desert view.

Now the corner is much more all about my writing face. I love how my story board is now right there – and I can swivel in my chair to see it and contemplate. (It’s set up for the Phantom e-serial now, so if the act structure looks different now – for those alert blog readers who notice such things – that’s why.)

I don’t know if it shows in the pictures, but the difference in the feel of the space, the feng shui, if you will, is startling. More, I find the change has stimulated me. See, habits can be good things. The terrific thing about habits is they carry us through tasks that don’t require thinking. Like learning to drive. At first it felt like ten-thousand things to think about – clutches, accelerators, brakes, steering wheels, turn signals, wipers, lights, fifteen-million other drivers in a mad whirl – but over time that becomes automatic. We can drive our entire commute without really thinking about it, which lets us pay attention to things like audiobooks. But this energy-saving feature of our natures comes with a cost – it’s easy to miss stuff this way. Who among us has not been driving down the highway and suddenly realized half an hour has gone by that we don’t remember? What did we miss?

Deliberately breaking a habit can bring new awareness and stimulation. Just being in my reversed space makes me have to think about where the phone is, where something is now kept. I feel excited and ready for new things.

Plus? Treadmill desk!