Tag: writers life

The Price of (Non-) Fame

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I suppose we all know that the writers life is not glamorous.

Gone are the days of the glossy literati, if they were ever real. No Dorothy Parkers and Truman Capotes rule over social circles. If you want to be a rock star, well, you pretty much have to be a rock star.

Or a wealthy young woman with plenty of cash to spend on clothes and time to spend clubbing, but that’s neither here nor there.

We all also know the writers life is solitary, with long hours at our desks, in our heads, thinking about people who don’t really exist. And when our stories do go out in the world, they go without us. Maybe they have a little photograph of mom or dad, to show where they came from, but really, readers experience books without the authors. The author is incidental, in the end.

If any of us nurse ideas of being recognized, of red-carpet celebrity, we should give them up now.

Neil Gaiman, who is arguably closer to being a rock star than most authors, went to the Golden Globe ceremonies the other day, because he was nominated for Best Animated Feature Film for Coraline. Neil was accompanied by his fiancee, Amanda Palmer, who is actually a rock star.

(If you read this blog regularly, you know I’ve become recently attracted to this couple — don’t worry, I’m sure the crush will fade soon.)

The best part is, when Life.com posted the Red-Carpet photo of them, the caption said:

Musician Amanda Palmer (L) and guest arrive at NBC, Universal Pictures And Focus Features Golden Globes After Party held at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on January 17, 2010 in Beverly Hills, California.

I actually didn’t post this link right away, because I thought they’d fix it, given the chorus of corrections showering them. But no.

So it goes.

At least we’ll never worry about the paparazzi.

Blamestorming

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Yesterday I was telling my mom about the implosion of this project we’re working on and how there’s a lot of blamestorming going on now.

She loves me and thinks I’m brilliant, so she thought I made up the word. Which I didn’t. It was on one of those email lists a while back along with one of my other favorites “the Dopeler Effect,” which is the tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.

At any rate, this one guy just hasn’t done what needed to be done. Maybe he just never had the ability. And now other people are being drawn into it like a giant black hole of failure. Okay, just a little black hole of failure in the grand scheme, but with tremendous sucking power, and I mean that on every level.

Meanwhile, in the online literary world, there are a couple of writers who’ve recently imploded, one published, the other trying to be, both for the same issue: reviews.

Readers and writers watched in horror as a writer reacted to a one-star review of her book on Amazon with increasing anger. She has since deleted her comments, which was the wise thing to do, but it was far too late as those of others remain.

The book review blogger, Katiebabs, has now posted this story about an unpublished writer who has posted her, yes, unpublished book on Good Reads and asked for reviews. She wants to create sufficient buzz to ensure a publishing contract. The catch is, she’s asked readers to refrain from reviewing it unless they’ll give it three stars or more. The post on Katiebabs has an interesting conversation between readers, writers and reviewers in the comments.

The thing is: we all have to meet standards in our work. It doesn’t really matter if the standard is fair or if it’s just someone else’s opinion. You can’t bully people into saying you did a good job. Or whine your way into it. “Blamestorming” is a funny word, because we’ve all been there. It’s easy to free-associate reasons for why things didn’t go the way you want them to.

We watched Earth last night. Which was stunning in its beauty and devastating in showing the indifferent cruelty of nature. I ended up crying for the deaths of a baby caribou and adult polar bear who couldn’t get at the baby walrus. It makes no sense and yet I want everyone to win.

Have I mentioned I’m a sensitive soul? Yeah, even David laughs at me, rooting for both sides.

But, like the earthquake in Haiti, it isn’t God who did it, nor was it the Devil. It just is. Some hits are harder than others — sometimes a person loses everything, sometimes your feelings are hurt or your work reputation is damaged — but we all take them.

What’s important is taking them with grace.

Loving That Road Less Traveled!

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Okay, no I’m not quitting fiction-writing.

Apparently yesterday’s post came across just a little too dire, because a number of my fiction-writing pals contacted me privately and expressed alarm.

Which is really wonderful of them.

And that’s probably why need communities like this, to keep you going when you start to flag. Business and art have such different goals, such different ways of operating that, for some of us, it’s difficult to do both well. I recently read that Jennifer Marks, who does that great song “Live,” (thanks to Kev for sending it to me) retired after her first music tour and is sticking to songwriting. Actually it’s in one of the comments on that video. We all make choices, and some prioritize quality of life.

So, all I’m saying is, I’m trying to back off the rabid biz aspects. I’ve unfollowed a number of agents, or stopped reading their blogs, because the snark makes me unhappy.

I’m a sensitive soul, you know.

But I also sent out a query last night to a friend’s agent. In putting it together, I realized how close I really am. Obisidian has finaled in four contests and won two. Three agents and two editors have read the full manuscript. And, as one of my writing buddies pointed out, I’m still working through the top echelons. I haven’t even gone to second tier yet.

What I did do was slow down.

That was needed — I had to do the Ruthless Revision. (Oops – I might have promised not to mention it again? Sorry!) And then with the waiting while people read it. Now I just need to ramp up keeping it out there. That’s not that hard to do.

Meanwhile, I get to do the fun part, too. The writing part.

That’s what’s in my heart, no matter the genre.

Forever Stuck on the Road Less Traveled

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I may have made a mistake.

I know, I know — we can crack all the jokes we like about writing it on the calendar, etc. But I’m begining to think I really miscalculated, becoming involved in this whole genre thing.

When I first began writing, and I really trace this back to grad school, since I don’t believe childhood stories and adolescent angsty poetry really count, my work came out as essays. To get some relief from what had become the crushing pressure of my PhD in Neurophysiology program, I began taking classes with the visiting writers program.

And, oh, the excitement of those days.

I loved meeting the visiting writers, and the other students. I loved the workshops, the stimulation of it all. And they supported me in very useful ways. I learned to explore my new art. An artist’s retreat accepted me to stay for two weeks, I received fellowships and other awards.

And I was rewarded early on with publishing success.

I wouldn’t say the magazines fell over themselves to publish me, but it was fairly steady, from Redbook to Literary Mags, I published in several a year until, eight years after my first class, I held my essay collection, published by a university press, in my hands.

Then I stalled.

There were a lot of reasons. Mainly I couldn’t quite get the two nonfiction projects I was working on to gel. So I wrote a novel, Obsidian, about sex and magic. I thought, oh, I’ll sell this and the genre work will bring in the money so I can focus on the nonfiction projects.

Yeah, it didn’t work out that way. Even though one of the editors at a sci fi magazine I’d published with said that an agent would snap up a writer like me, no one has. One agent early on wrote me a letter saying how disappointed he was, because he’d loved my idea but then I’d gone and written it like some kind of literary book.

A few months later, I went to the RWA National conference, where my name tag identified me as unpublished. Because Romance Writers of America considers you published only if it’s in the genre. A month before, I’d been a featured writer on a panel at a book festival. At one lunch, I sat next to a woman I didn’t know. In fact, I did at every meal since I knew no one. I don’t remember her name — she was another unpubbed wannabe like me. At the end of the meal, she said she looked forward to reading my book. Foolishly, I pulled my essay collection out of my bag, saying I had some with me. She looked at me like I’d offered her dog shit and said, no, she meant my romance novel, whenever I got it published.

I sent my first query on Obsidian 12/20/07. Just over two years ago, for those keeping score at home. Admittedly, it wasn’t really ready for prime time then. Hindsight is 20/20. Meanwhile, a gal I know wrote a book while snowed in during December 2008, that she just sold in a three-book deal.

Jayne Ann Krentz wrote an interesting post on the FFP blog recently. She speaks frankly about writing as a business, which she’s clearly better at than I am. She says this:

DON’T GET TOO FAR AHEAD OF THE CURVE: Trust me on this. I’ve been there and done that and it rarely goes well. Back at the beginning of my career I tried to do a futuristic/paranormal. That very first manuscript had all of the elements that I now work with freely: romance, suspense and a psychic twist. I can’t tell you how many rejection slips the manuscript garnered. They all had the same theme: “Really enjoyed the writing but unfortunately there’s no market for this kind of romance.”

She could be talking about me. For some reason, no matter what I’m doing, I never quite fit neatly into what everyone else is doing. I didn’t in high school, I didn’t in my PhD program. I don’t now.

I really don’t think I’m doing it on purpose.

At any rate, I’m back where I was three years ago when I started writing Obsidian. Unable to sell my current project, I think I’m going back to nonfiction. I actually know where to take one of the two I was working on then.

I have learned one thing, that querying and selling have to be background activities. You can make yourself crazy if they’re your main focus.

It might be precious to say, but it forever and always must be mainly about the writing.

My Number One Pal

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I’m working on being kinder to myself.

I know this sounds like a no-brainer, but it’s not for me. I get in these modes where I find I’m flogging myself for more work, faster, better. This is exacerbated by my community of writers who focus heavily on word count, some doing 4,000 words per day, another doing 20 pages per day.

I’ve found that I can reliably produce 1,000 words per day. I can do more than that sometimes, but not for more than, say, a week or do. But 1K works for me, what with the full-time career and other commitments.

Also, for the past year or so, I’ve been writing this blog. I started out trying to post every day. I didn’t make that goal. I posted 247 times in 2009. That’s 67.7% for those keeping score at home. Almost spot-on 2/3. And you know how the song goes, two out of three ain’t bad, right?

Fairly early on, I began taking Sundays off from the blog. Day of rest and all that. I’d like to tell you I spend the time studying philosophy or reflecting on my spiritual journey, but really it’s more about obtaining fancy coffee drinks and lolling. When I figure out how to make a religion out of this, you all can sign up.

Most days, I post to the blog first. I exercise, then try to keep the blog post to 1/2 hr. I started out trying to keep it to 300-350 words, but I find normally I write about 500-600. That seems to be where I end up. Then I switch to my book or WIP.

Work in Progress, doncha know.

I never called it that before I hooked up with the romanceys. The lit types always refer to their book or their collection, whether it’s done or not. It’s an interesting distinction. For the lit types, it’s always a book, pubbed or not. For the romanceys, it’s a WIP until it’s pubbed. Or maybe contracted.

Anyway, until just recently, I only counted my 1K for working on my book. And then I realized that, not unlike calling a book a WIP, I was devaluing what I write here. As if this is not part of my writing life, not part of keeping the writing juices flowing and honing my skills. Which it absolutely is.

Otherwise, it’s not worth doing.

So I revamped my Progress Count spreadsheet to include my blog word count at the beginning of this week. What? Of course, I have a spreadsheet, in which I track progress on everything I’m working on. Yes, it has formulas and calculates completion dates from today’s date. I celebrate this slice of Virgo in me and let her do these things to keep her happy.

This is why I know my blog tends to be 500-600 words. Which, when I get to count it, means I’m already more than halfway to my daily goal by the time I finish posting.

Which makes me feel good.

Then, when I turn to my book — right now it’s a novella — I’m already halfway there. And interestingly, I put in 1K words on that every day except for one, when I stopped at 891 because work called and I never it made it back. Right now I’m only 135 words shy of making 7,000 words for the week. I’ll likely do more than that, since I’ll work on the novella today.

People often refer to the carrot and the stick method of motivating themselves, usually meaning a combination of treat and punishment. This is actually a misinterpretation of the original saying, which referred to the practice of tying a carrot to the end of a stick and dangling it before a donkey’s nose to keep him moving forward. In that scenario, the carrot is forever out of reach.

With this approach, I gave myself credit, and carrots, early on in the process. And, son of a gun, it worked!

And the writing? It’s good, too.

Serendipity and the Whole Enchilada

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“Is soup for lunch okay with you?” David asked me.

I said that sounded fine.

“But is that what you really want?”

“No, I want Harrys blue corn turkey enchiladas, but soup is fine.”

David jumped on the idea, though and soon we were in the car headed to Harry’s Roadhouse (thanks to roadfood.com for the pic!), just down the way. Never mind that I’m supposed to be on the post-holiday diet. Or that we ate at Harrys only a week ago. In fact, we’ve been eating there about once or twice a week. We were both feeling blue for no good reason. I’d dreamed the night before that one of the agents who has my manuscript told me all the reasons it wasn’t any good and would never sell. David is watching his last few days of vacation slip by before the semester cranks into gear again. We both felt like a bug was working on us.

So we went to Harrys and waited only a few minutes for a table.

The hostess seated us in front of a window and began scrolling down the shade to cut off the southern sunlight streaming in.

“Don’t do that for us — we like it,” I said. She looked startled and said “okay,” but left it down. So, I opened it again. The man at the table next to us was staring hard at me and started to get up. David and I both thought he was going to be mad at me for opening the shade again.

This has happened before. No, really. I’m a sunshine kind of gal. I love nothing better than to sit in the sun. It’s a mystery to me why people in restaurants ask to sit by the window and then ask for the shade to be drawn. An even greater mystery: the shade pulling request is always accomodated over the shads open request. Why? Why? Why? People act if I’m unreasonable when I say I’d like them open. Shade closing always trumps other desires. Rodent people rule the world.

But I digress.

I realized I knew the man staring at me — had known him all my life. I called them Uncle Tom and Aunt Susan when I was a little girl. Their third child, Andrew, is the “envy baby” — born nine months after I was, because next-door neighbor Susan on the base in Selma was so inspired by my birth.

My “what are you doing here?” was quickly replaced by the realization that, duh, they were on their way from Colorado Springs to Tucson, to the house they’re renting for three months, once again next door to my mom and her husband, Dave.

We talked over lunch — no need to move our little two-tops even. We were all amazed at the serendipity of meeting up. Though I told them I hadn’t missed that they planned to blaze on through Santa Fe without saying anything to us.

I called my mom to tell her on the drive home, but she was already on the other line with Susan.

Tom and Susan pronounced it a good omen for their sojourn to Tucson, that so many pieces fell into place for us to be at lunch next to each other. David and I returned home, much lightened for the good company.

It’s something for me to remember, that for all the times I’ve feared I’ve missed opportunities, for all the rejections that seem like the end of the trail, that the universe delivers gifts also.

When it’s meant to be, it will be.

Magic Bunny Ears of Fire

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When I saw the contrails light up with sunset fire the other night, I knew then what I would call the blog post for it.

Various things (read: deadlines, phone calls and meetings) conspired to keep me from posting this for a couple of days. But I’d been turning the phrase over in my head. Magic bunny ears of fire. I don’t know why. I liked the cadence of it and the image. The whimsy. It entertained me to wind the words around.

This, more than anything else, is the way in which writers are crazy.

When a writer has that far-off fuzzy look? Never ask what she’s thinking, because she’ll say something like: I’m thinking about the phrase “magic bunny ears of fire.” Which I suspect would be a conversation-killer.

Of course, if we’re in a sensible frame of mind, we won’t answer that way. My standard is something like: oh, I’m just noodling over what I’m going to write on my blog.

Magic bunny ears of fire!

And, in another way that I suspect most writers do, this phrase matched up in my head with a song lyric from They Might Be Giants: Sapphire bullets of pure love.

I’m thinking of a story now, surreal and whimsical, where sapphire bullets of pure love rain through the magic bunny ears of fire.

And THIS, my friends, is why so many of us are incapable of writing to market. Can you imagine pitching this image to an agent or editor?

No no no.

But I might write it anyway.

Otherwise the Magic Bunny Ears of Fire will never leave me alone…

Deadlines and Lifelines

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So she was considering in her own mind (as well as she could, for the hot day made her feel very sleepy and stupid), whether the pleasure of making a daisy-chain would be worth the trouble of getting up and picking the daisies, when suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her.

There was nothing so very remarkable in that; nor did Alice think it so very much out of the way to hear the Rabbit say to itself, `Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be late!’ (when she thought it over afterwards, it occurred to her that she ought to have wondered at this, but at the time it all seemed quite natural); but when the Rabbit actually took a watch out of its waistcoat-pocket, and looked at it, and then hurried on, Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to take out of it, and burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and fortunately was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge.

Of course you all know that’s from the opening of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. It’s a great set-up. Alice, the human, is feeling sleepy, stupid and lazy. The bucolic wildlife is racing around with important appointments.

It’s clearly unnatural, a rabbit with a watch, running late. That’s how we know the world is turning upside-down. If the rabbit was chewing on daisies and Alice running late, that’s perfectly natural.

Or is it?

Allison posted an interesting blog the other day about the struggling writer and spousal support. Not necessarily financial support, though that’s part of it. More the whole “does he support your writing” question.

And, yes, this is going to be totally about women writers and their male companions.

One thing Allison mentioned is the spousal deadline. This is surprisingly common. I can think of five women offhand whose men have “allowed” them to try the writing thing for a given amount of time, after which, if they haven’t succeeded, they must stop.

No, not all of these women are writing instead of working, though some are.

No, not all of these women are unpublished; they just aren’t necessarily raking in the money.

I suspect this comes from a number of things. Our culture and the male members of it, in particular, are heavily fixed on goals and deadlines. It’s possible these guys think they are being supportive, by helping to create an outside deadline, a framework for measuring success. I think there’s also an element of the husbands feeling like they need to curb the frivolous activities of their wives. Don’t tell me that’s not true: I’ve heard men say it.

We do it to ourselves, of course, too. One gal I know gave herself a year to become a successful writer. Yes, that’s from typing her first word. When she didn’t make her goal, in a fit of despondency she asked me how long I’d given myself.

As long as it takes,” I told her.

As I’ve mentioned, everyone right now is about NaNoWriMo. A writing friend asked me if I was participating and I told her I don’t need more pressure in my life. She said she does — she needs the motivation. She is also one who’s published with an epress, has two young children and whose husband has asked her to stop. A big craze right now is a program called Write or Die. It’s a program that monitors how fast you’re typing and buzzes you if you slow down. If you stop, it will actually start deleting your text.

It all comes down to the eternal question of how you measure success, I suppose.

It was funny to me, the friend who asked how long I’d given myself, because I’ve already acheived some writing success by several measures. Not ones that she thought were relevant, but ones that are important to me.

I live my life by deadlines. As most Americans do. My work deadlines are the kind that, if I don’t make them, I can jeopardize a $24 million contract. For me, writing is a different world from that. I can see a day when, if I’m making approximately my salary by delivering a book on time, then that deadline will matter.

Until then, I’m a fan of write and live.

Not So Zen

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I suspect that I’m frivolous.

Or shallow, at the very least.

Easily swayed by immediate gratification.

There’s this whole idea that if you enjoy the gratification of doing something well, then that’s ego and dangerous to continue.

So, for example, knife-throwing. I know! Exactly what you were thinking, too, right? If you’re truly Zen, or one with the Tao, or enlightened or what have you, then you enjoy the moments that you miss the target just as much as when you hit the bulls-eye. The thrill of a perfect throw means nothing, if you’re truly throwing the knife from a pure heart. The act of throwing is everything. The end result nothing.

Clearly I’m not so enlightened.

I confess to loving the gratification. And I find myself gravitating towards whatever’s giving me the most gratification at any given time.

Right now, it’s work. I’m workin on a project that I helped to create. That I set out years ago to help envision, hire the personnel for, plant the seeds in peoples’ ears — kind of a gross mixed-metaphor there — and coax into life. And people treat me like I’m insightful and they want my expertise.

I know I shouldn’t want it.

But I do.

A couple of areas of my life feel less gratifying right now. One I’ve labored at and some people are unhappy and others are happy for things to go smoothly. Which isn’t a recipe for feeling appreciated. You get flak from the one group and nothing from the other.

And we all know that writing is one of those things where you labor unnoticed for 99% of the time and are showered with admiration for the other 1%. Starving in a garrett and all that. Much more drama than anything else.

There’s supposed to be a pleasure in knife-throwing that exceeds the desire for a perfect result. Peace in the moment. Joy in the attempt.

But, oh my, I just love it when I hit the bulls-eye.

Curse of the Interwebs

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I’ve been at 97% for nearly two weeks now.

Twelve days, to be precise, including today. Yeah, it’s one of those so-close-and-yet-so-far things.

I’ve edited, redrafted, rewritten and composed 302 pages of a projected 310. I know — I should be able to finish this in one day of solid work.

Alas.

It’s been a long day for me. Long enough that it’s nigh on midnight on the clock where I am, later by the clocks back at home. And long enough that I started this blog post this morning on the airplane, then decided I should be working on that last three percent instead.

Now I’m at 98%. Which feels pretty damn great.

And my heroine passed the big test in an unexpected way. (No, neither of us had any idea how she was going to solve the current riddle.)

1% on on a three-hour crowded flight to Seattle. Worth the price of admission.

When I landed, happy with my progress, somewhere around 200 email messages had filled my Blackberry. I loop I’m on had blown up with one unhappy person saying wild things — “flaming,” by the current lingo. I ended up in baggage claim with my laptop perched on my lap, my Blackberry in hand, trying to do several things at once on each.

My mom keeps asking me, if the airlines get internet, will I use it?

I’m thinking, over a thousand words written, another 1% closer. Coincidence?

No no no…