Posts
By Lonnie Cruse
I've been working on my WIP for a couple of months. Okay, nearly four months. Sigh. And it hasn't been going well. I mean, I love the basic story line, but the manuscript in general wasn't working. Meaning I wasn't half done and there was absolutely no where to go next.
So, recently I parked myself in the futon on the sun porch and ripped that sucker to pieces. Moved paragraphs. Moved entire chapters. Put two minor characters into far more difficulty than they wanted to deal with. I'm a bit squeamish about doing that, I like happy characters, and one of them doesn't deal well with difficulty. But sometimes a writer just has to get tough with her characters. Has to submit them to challenges and problems above their abilities, then sit back and watch them dig their way out of it.
I also killed off a character who needed killing. I'm merciless in that area.
One of the worst problems with moving paragraphs and chapters and inserting new stuff is that a whole lot of the old stuff no longer fits. I can't deal with that. Really can not. So, I cut and paste it at the end of the manuscript, then hit "save" so I know it's there IF I need it. Most likely I'll be happy to highlight and delete that stuff when I'm done, but for now, it's my security blankie. I'm not it letting go. At all.
When I'm writing, I can not wait to get the manuscript done and start editing because I know I have the story down. I can relax and just catch/fix errors or fill plot holes. Editing is so much easier. NOT!
When I'm editing, I can not wait to get back to writing a first draft because the ideas come as needed, and editing is sooo hard because I read over mistakes and I've already read this story a zillion time and I'm getting bored with it. First drafts are so much easier. NOT!
NOTHING about writing is easy. Trust me. And if you meet the same author I did at a conference last year (who shall remain nameless, no need for law suits) who says she writes a book in ONE draft and turns it in to her publisher, ready for print, don't believe her. And try not to kill her. She's most likely one of those women who had NO stitches after childbirth and the baby slept all night from day one. I've always wanted to kill any of those I've met along the way as well.
Writing takes a lot of time and a LOT of thought. Write a scene. Seems great, so we're on a roll. Later, write another scene. Wait. Something's wrong with it, but we have no clue what. So we take a walk, or load the laundry, or better still, take a shower, and in said shower, lightning strikes. We NOW know what is wrong with that scene AND how to fix it. NO way to write it down so we scrub fast, dry off fast, and dash for the computer or writing pad. And it works. Might require cutting/pasting whole paragraphs or chapters. Might require killing part of the manuscript off (if you can't face that, try pasting it at the end and by the time you get there, you'll be able to do the deed.) Might require putting your favorite characters into deep doo. They won't like it. You won't like it. After all, they live inside you, and they can really ruin your sleep. Do it. Be brave. Rip it up. Snort about it. Keep going. Don't give up, if you love the story. Because if you love it, it's worth writing. Sigh, and editing.
Friday, April 11, 2008
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Confessions of an Ex-Spelling Bee Champ
Elizabeth Zelvin
Funny thing: I remembered the title of Alix Kates Schulman’s seminal feminist book about having been a prom queen as Confessions, not Memoirs, though when that title drew a blank on Amazon, I googled her and found that I was wrong. In American culture, we have a peculiarly ambivalent attitude about being good at something. We adore those with talents and accomplishments, but we expect them to disavow at least some of the pride and pleasure they may feel in their success.
I wish I could say I went through the half century between when I first claimed I wanted to be a writer and getting an offer for my first novel oblivious to what other people thought. But I fall somewhere along that vast continuum between saints filled with spiritual humility and narcissists who are certain they’re the Great I Am. Confession Number One: I care what people think. I hated being an unpublished writer perhaps less because it made me doubt myself than because I feared that others would conclude my writing wasn’t good enough.
I learned many valuable life lessons from my mother, an energetic high achiever who went to law school in 1921 and got a doctorate at the age of 69. But she never taught me how to fail. My mother faced the world with confidence, no matter what, because she could always say, “I am a lawyer.” Yet she didn’t practice law successfully. Like most of the handful of women lawyers of her generation, she had to find a niche on the sidelines, in her case writing and editing legal books. But so powerful was the illusion created by her sense of her own identity that she was always “my mother the lawyer” to me.
My father, a lawyer too, was one of those crossword puzzle demons who did the Sunday New York Times puzzle in ink every week. When I asked what something meant, he would say, “Look it up.” In those days, this meant not a quick romp through Google but dusting off the Webster’s Unabridged or worse, plodding down the wooden stairs to the cold basement to consult the encyclopedia. We had a full set of the Encyclopedia Americana, though in adult life I acquired a set of the 1962 Britannica and clung to it long past its usefulness. We were all natural spellers who played fierce family games of Scrabble when it first came out. I still remember the sense of triumph I felt—I must have been nine or ten—when I gave the correct spelling of “exhilarated” after my mother insisted that middle “a” was an “i” and my dad thought it was an “e.” We settled the argument by looking it up, and I felt—exhilarated.
At my junior high in Queens, we were invited to participate in the National Spelling Bee. It wasn’t televised in those days, but it was still a big deal, especially as it was sponsored by Scripps-Howard newspapers and therefore got good media coverage. It’s still the Scripps National Spelling Bee, and word lists going back to 1950, five years before I competed in it in seventh grade, are still in existence.
I had never had a significant failure in those days. I got high grades on tests and was praised by teachers, and I did well enough in sports to please my intellectual family. I easily won the seventh grade spelling bee and then the whole school’s, competing against older kids in the eighth and ninth grades. I remember studying long lists of abstruse words with more pleasure than anxiety. It was no big deal: if I’d seen it, I could spell it. I instinctively fell into the pattern of spelling with pauses between syllables to break each word down into manageable parts.
I remember my classmates—a group of bright and talented kids who went through junior high together as “the SP orchestra class"—breaking into spontaneous applause as I returned to the classroom after winning the schoolwide bee. It had been announced on the PA system. They did the same when I won the competition for the whole school district. I recently found the place in my adolescent diary where I’d written excitedly: I WON THE DISTRICT SPELLING BEE!!! Confession Number Two: I was proud of my achievement. Why shouldn’t I be?
Then came the New York citywide spelling bee. Reader, I lost it. I fell afoul of not one of the difficult words I’d studied but a simple one I’d never heard before: “intermittent.” I got that second “e” right, but I failed to double the “t,” and that was it. No trip to Washington DC to compete in the national finals against kids from all over the country. And no applause when I slunk back into the classroom that afternoon.
I never misspelled “intermittent” again. In fact, for many years I assured people that I hadn’t misspelled a word since 1955. It’s still true if you don’t count a neurological glitch I’ve developed recently: a twist between brain and fingers on the keyboard that makes me type the wrong homonym (eg “there” for “their” or “they’re,” “too” for “two” or “to”) or even a similar word (eg “residence” for “restaurant”).
And for many years, going through the vicissitudes of life, I didn’t get that applause that rewards success, that joy of winning that our culture so treasures—until now. Yep, this is about my Agatha nomination for Best Short Story for “Death Will Clean Your Closet.” This time, the outcome of the final round won’t depend what I do at Malice Domestic, where the winner is selected. The challenge is in the competition--two proven mystery stars and a friend--and the personal tastes of the voters. There's no way to predict if I'll win. But the nomination feels every bit as good as winning the district spelling bee. And this time, that may be win enough for me.
Funny thing: I remembered the title of Alix Kates Schulman’s seminal feminist book about having been a prom queen as Confessions, not Memoirs, though when that title drew a blank on Amazon, I googled her and found that I was wrong. In American culture, we have a peculiarly ambivalent attitude about being good at something. We adore those with talents and accomplishments, but we expect them to disavow at least some of the pride and pleasure they may feel in their success.
I wish I could say I went through the half century between when I first claimed I wanted to be a writer and getting an offer for my first novel oblivious to what other people thought. But I fall somewhere along that vast continuum between saints filled with spiritual humility and narcissists who are certain they’re the Great I Am. Confession Number One: I care what people think. I hated being an unpublished writer perhaps less because it made me doubt myself than because I feared that others would conclude my writing wasn’t good enough.
I learned many valuable life lessons from my mother, an energetic high achiever who went to law school in 1921 and got a doctorate at the age of 69. But she never taught me how to fail. My mother faced the world with confidence, no matter what, because she could always say, “I am a lawyer.” Yet she didn’t practice law successfully. Like most of the handful of women lawyers of her generation, she had to find a niche on the sidelines, in her case writing and editing legal books. But so powerful was the illusion created by her sense of her own identity that she was always “my mother the lawyer” to me.
My father, a lawyer too, was one of those crossword puzzle demons who did the Sunday New York Times puzzle in ink every week. When I asked what something meant, he would say, “Look it up.” In those days, this meant not a quick romp through Google but dusting off the Webster’s Unabridged or worse, plodding down the wooden stairs to the cold basement to consult the encyclopedia. We had a full set of the Encyclopedia Americana, though in adult life I acquired a set of the 1962 Britannica and clung to it long past its usefulness. We were all natural spellers who played fierce family games of Scrabble when it first came out. I still remember the sense of triumph I felt—I must have been nine or ten—when I gave the correct spelling of “exhilarated” after my mother insisted that middle “a” was an “i” and my dad thought it was an “e.” We settled the argument by looking it up, and I felt—exhilarated.
At my junior high in Queens, we were invited to participate in the National Spelling Bee. It wasn’t televised in those days, but it was still a big deal, especially as it was sponsored by Scripps-Howard newspapers and therefore got good media coverage. It’s still the Scripps National Spelling Bee, and word lists going back to 1950, five years before I competed in it in seventh grade, are still in existence.
I had never had a significant failure in those days. I got high grades on tests and was praised by teachers, and I did well enough in sports to please my intellectual family. I easily won the seventh grade spelling bee and then the whole school’s, competing against older kids in the eighth and ninth grades. I remember studying long lists of abstruse words with more pleasure than anxiety. It was no big deal: if I’d seen it, I could spell it. I instinctively fell into the pattern of spelling with pauses between syllables to break each word down into manageable parts.
I remember my classmates—a group of bright and talented kids who went through junior high together as “the SP orchestra class"—breaking into spontaneous applause as I returned to the classroom after winning the schoolwide bee. It had been announced on the PA system. They did the same when I won the competition for the whole school district. I recently found the place in my adolescent diary where I’d written excitedly: I WON THE DISTRICT SPELLING BEE!!! Confession Number Two: I was proud of my achievement. Why shouldn’t I be?
Then came the New York citywide spelling bee. Reader, I lost it. I fell afoul of not one of the difficult words I’d studied but a simple one I’d never heard before: “intermittent.” I got that second “e” right, but I failed to double the “t,” and that was it. No trip to Washington DC to compete in the national finals against kids from all over the country. And no applause when I slunk back into the classroom that afternoon.
I never misspelled “intermittent” again. In fact, for many years I assured people that I hadn’t misspelled a word since 1955. It’s still true if you don’t count a neurological glitch I’ve developed recently: a twist between brain and fingers on the keyboard that makes me type the wrong homonym (eg “there” for “their” or “they’re,” “too” for “two” or “to”) or even a similar word (eg “residence” for “restaurant”).
And for many years, going through the vicissitudes of life, I didn’t get that applause that rewards success, that joy of winning that our culture so treasures—until now. Yep, this is about my Agatha nomination for Best Short Story for “Death Will Clean Your Closet.” This time, the outcome of the final round won’t depend what I do at Malice Domestic, where the winner is selected. The challenge is in the competition--two proven mystery stars and a friend--and the personal tastes of the voters. There's no way to predict if I'll win. But the nomination feels every bit as good as winning the district spelling bee. And this time, that may be win enough for me.
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Bookseller and Psychic Sleuth: Interview with Lorna Barrett, aka L.L. Bartlett
by Sandra Parshall
Lorna Barrett debuts this month with Murder Is Binding, first in the Booktown cozy series from Berkley Prime Crime, featuring a New Hampshire bookseller. The writer isn’t a newcomer, though. She published her first novel in the Jeff Resnick psychic sleuth series, Murder on the Mind, in 2005 as L.L. Bartlett, and she has a second installment, Dead in Red, coming out in June. Her real name is Lorraine Bartlett, and she lives in Rochester, NY, with her husband and their four cats. Visit her web sites at www.lornabarrett.com, www.llbartlett.com, and www.lorrainebartlett.com.
Q. Give us your quick pitches for Murder Is Binding and Dead in Red.
A. Murder Is Binding: Two sisters, books, recipes, murder. Who knew the world of used and rare books could be so dangerous?
Dead in Red: Jeff has new digs, a new girlfriend--and a totally new life. That includes coping with the psychic flashes that drive him to seek out a bartender’s killer, and worse, confronting his guilt for compromising the safety of people he cares about.
Honestly, I haven’t pulled together “real” pitches. I’m terrible at it. I’m terrible at writing a synopsis. (I apologize for the above.)
Q. How would you compare the experience of writing as Lorna Barrett to writing as L.L. Bartlett? Do you shift into a different emotional space or mindset?
A. I tend to think of “Lorna” as this abstract person when I promote--but when I’m writing, it’s just me and the keyboard (and a cat or two).
I shift point of view; the Jeff Resnick books are written in first person, and the Booktown Mysteries are writtenin third person point of view. I also shift genders--or rather I have to focus on thinking like a guy for the Jeff books, and thinking like a business woman for the Booktown books. I have a deeper connection with my Jeff Renick series simply because I’ve been with the characters a lot longer. (I’ve completed five books in the series. It’ll be some time before all the books see print.)
Q. Both books will be new at about the same time. Do you plan to promote them together or do completely separate signings, etc.?
A. Both. I’ve had separate bookmarks made up for both books, and I’ve had postcards made up that showcase both books. The postcards will be sent to out-of-town fans/booksellers/libraries. I’ve sent bookmarks to readers, conferences, and reader groups.
Q. You have a fairly rigorous schedule for the Lorna Barrett books, don’t you? How much time do you have to write each book? Has it turned out to be easier or more difficult than you expected?
A. I have nine months between books. It’s been a lot harder than I envisioned. Now that I no longer have a day job, I seem to have a lot more distractions. I devote a lot of time to my elderly parents, which also cuts into my writing time.
Q. Does promotion make a serious dent in your writing time? Have you found a way to overcome that? (If you have, I can name several thousand writers who would payfor the secret!) Do you think it will at least be easier to manage this time, since you’ve been through it before?
A. Some weeks I devote far more of my time to promotion and networking than I do to writing. I don’t like to travel, so a lot of my time is spent looking for promotional opportunities on the Internet. I send out a lot of material to individual readers, conferences, and book groups. Sometimes I think I’m personally keeping the US Postal Service in business.
Q. Did one of your own cats serve as the inspiration for Miss Marple, the bookstore feline in Murder Is Binding?
A. Yes, my late cat Cori. I was surprised when the artist commissioned to do the cover of Murder Is Binding included a gray cat. It looks nothing like Cori did, but the sentiment was there. Miss Marple tends to steal every scene she appears in. I have a page up on my website devoted to Cori. http://www.lorrainebartlett.com/lorraine/pg.cori.html
Q. Have you picked up any interesting tidbits about bookselling while doing research for your Berkley series? Anything you didn’t know before?
A. I’d been selling used books in my booth at a local antiques arcade for several years before I contracted to do the series. I interviewed the community relations manager at my local Barnes and Noble and she shared a lot of wonderful (and some frightening) anecdotes about working in a bookstore. Rather than get into the nitty gritty of bookselling, I prefer to concentrate on the relationships between the characters. In a cozy, you tend to have a lot of characters, and making sure each has a unique voice is a challenge.
Q. In Murder on the Mind and Dead in Red, you write from a male POV, and the main relationship in the books is between two brothers. What drew you to explore the way brothers interact? Did anyone you’ve known inspire
either character?
A. I’ve always been a fan of “buddy” stories. (The Classic Star Trek “triad,” Starsky & Hutch, Sam and Al in Quantum Leap.) When I decided to write from a male point of view, I wanted the characters to have more at stake than just friendship, so I made them brothers with a lot of baggage. It didn’t hurt that I grew up with two brothers. I got to observe firsthand the ups and downs of that kind of a relationship.
I didn’t base either character on any one person. They both came to me as unique individuals. I wish that would happen more often.
Q. What kind of comments have you had from readers about your portrayal of male characters? Have you had any feedback from your husband or your own brothers?
A. A lot less than I would’ve thought. Being published by a small press probably had a lot to do with that. Most of my readers have been women--which is not surprising, since women buy more books than men. They’re attracted by the relationship between the brothers, and between Richard and his significant other, Brenda.
My husband is long-suffering. He helps me assemble my promotional material (he’s a former graphic designer) and he proofreads my work. He doesn’t like to offer criticism. I don’t believe either of my brothers have even read my first book, despite the fact I dedicated it to one of them. They’re just not fiction readers. I was hurt, but I got over it.
Q. Your Jeff Resnick books are set in Buffalo, the Booktown mysteries in New Hampshire – both places with cold, cold winters and tons of snow. Does the harsh winter play any part in your stories, either the books you’ve already written or those you’re planning?
A. Winter played a part in Murder on the Mind, my first published novel. One Buffalo book group pleaded for me to set the next installment in summertime. Little did they know, I’d already done it. Since I’ve never experienced winter in New Hampshire, I’ve decided to stick to warmer times of the year. The first book takes place in September; the second in April, and the third in the summer. (I’m still working on the timing of that one.)
Q. Tell us about your road to publication. Along with the disappointments, can you remember any incidents or feedback that encouraged you to keep going?
A. My Sisters In Crime chapter, the Guppies, has been a constant source of inspiration and enthusiasm. More than once I wondered if I had it in me to persist. The entertainment industry as a whole, be it acting, singing, writing, etc., is a tough business to crack. You’d better get used to rejection. Something that’s easier said than done.
Q. What aspects of writing craft have you struggled with? What do you consider your strength as a writer?
A. I struggle with writing “long.” My contracts say I will write a book of a specific length. I tend to write short. Jeremiah Healy said I have a “stark, spare style.” He’s right. I took to heart Elmore Leonard’s advice to leave out the parts people skip. That means I often end up rewriting to add in one or two more subplots after I’ve written my first draft of a book. Then I’ll have to go back to pump up the description. I had pacing, Pacing, PACING drilled into my head by an early mentor. It makes for a fast read, if nothing else.
My greatest strength is never giving up. That makes it quite difficult to face the fact that certain of my unpublished novels must remain so--at least for the foreseeable future. I’m not a patient person, and my characters keep calling to me from the closet shelf, telling me not to forget them--reminding me that I once loved them best.
Q. What writers have you learned from? If you could meet any writer you admire, who would it be?
A. Maybe it sounds corny, but I’ve learned more from my critique partners than any class or book that I’ve read, be it fiction or how-to. Discussing what works and what doesn’t work with fellow writers has been a wonderful experience. That said, you can’t remain in one group forever. And, I don’t even belong to a group anymore. These days I share my work--entire manuscripts--with other (mostly) published authors. I no longer like to critique a book/story in a piecemeal fashion.
I’m not a celebrity chaser, so there’s no big name I’m eager to meet. That said, I want to meet two of my fellow bloggers on Writers Plot--Kate Flora and Jeanne Munn Bracken. We’ve never met in person. I’m looking forward to having dinner with them sometime in the near future.
Q. What advice do you have for aspiring writers?
A. Keep writing. Keep sending out queries. Keep striving to improve your work. That’s how you get published.
Lorna Barrett debuts this month with Murder Is Binding, first in the Booktown cozy series from Berkley Prime Crime, featuring a New Hampshire bookseller. The writer isn’t a newcomer, though. She published her first novel in the Jeff Resnick psychic sleuth series, Murder on the Mind, in 2005 as L.L. Bartlett, and she has a second installment, Dead in Red, coming out in June. Her real name is Lorraine Bartlett, and she lives in Rochester, NY, with her husband and their four cats. Visit her web sites at www.lornabarrett.com, www.llbartlett.com, and www.lorrainebartlett.com.Q. Give us your quick pitches for Murder Is Binding and Dead in Red.
A. Murder Is Binding: Two sisters, books, recipes, murder. Who knew the world of used and rare books could be so dangerous?
Dead in Red: Jeff has new digs, a new girlfriend--and a totally new life. That includes coping with the psychic flashes that drive him to seek out a bartender’s killer, and worse, confronting his guilt for compromising the safety of people he cares about.
Honestly, I haven’t pulled together “real” pitches. I’m terrible at it. I’m terrible at writing a synopsis. (I apologize for the above.
Q. How would you compare the experience of writing as Lorna Barrett to writing as L.L. Bartlett? Do you shift into a different emotional space or mindset?
A. I tend to think of “Lorna” as this abstract person when I promote--but when I’m writing, it’s just me and the keyboard (and a cat or two).
I shift point of view; the Jeff Resnick books are written in first person, and the Booktown Mysteries are written
Q. Both books will be new at about the same time. Do you plan to promote them together or do completely separate signings, etc.?
Q. You have a fairly rigorous schedule for the Lorna Barrett books, don’t you? How much time do you have to write each book? Has it turned out to be easier or more difficult than you expected?
A. I have nine months between books. It’s been a lot harder than I envisioned. Now that I no longer have a day job, I seem to have a lot more distractions. I devote a lot of time to my elderly parents, which also cuts into my writing time.
Q. Does promotion make a serious dent in your writing time? Have you found a way to overcome that? (If you have, I can name several thousand writers who would pay
A. Some weeks I devote far more of my time to promotion and networking than I do to writing. I don’t like to travel, so a lot of my time is spent looking for promotional opportunities on the Internet. I send out a lot of material to individual readers, conferences, and book groups. Sometimes I think I’m personally keeping the US Postal Service in business.
Q. Did one of your own cats serve as the inspiration for Miss Marple, the bookstore feline in Murder Is Binding?
Q. Have you picked up any interesting tidbits about bookselling while doing research for your Berkley series? Anything you didn’t know before?
A. I’d been selling used books in my booth at a local antiques arcade for several years before I contracted to do the series. I interviewed the community relations manager at my local Barnes and Noble and she shared a lot of wonderful (and some frightening) anecdotes about working in a bookstore. Rather than get into the nitty gritty of bookselling, I prefer to concentrate on the relationships between the characters. In a cozy, you tend to have a lot of characters, and making sure each has a unique voice is a challenge.
Q. In Murder on the Mind and Dead in Red, you write from a male POV, and the main relationship in the books is between two brothers. What drew you to explore the way brothers interact? Did anyone you’ve known inspire
either character?
I didn’t base either character on any one person. They both came to me as unique individuals. I wish that would happen more often.
Q. What kind of comments have you had from readers about your portrayal of male characters? Have you had any feedback from your husband or your own brothers?
A. A lot less than I would’ve thought. Being published by a small press probably had a lot to do with that. Most of my readers have been women--which is not surprising, since women buy more books than men. They’re attracted by the relationship between the brothers, and between Richard and his significant other, Brenda.
My husband is long-suffering. He helps me assemble my promotional material (he’s a former graphic designer) and he proofreads my work. He doesn’t like to offer criticism. I don’t believe either of my brothers have even read my first book, despite the fact I dedicated it to one of them. They’re just not fiction readers. I was hurt, but I got over it.
Q. Your Jeff Resnick books are set in Buffalo, the Booktown mysteries in New Hampshire – both places with cold, cold winters and tons of snow. Does the harsh winter play any part in your stories, either the books you’ve already written or those you’re planning?
A. Winter played a part in Murder on the Mind, my first published novel. One Buffalo book group pleaded for me to set the next installment in summertime. Little did they know, I’d already done it. Since I’ve never experienced winter in New Hampshire, I’ve decided to stick to warmer times of the year. The first book takes place in September; the second in April, and the third in the summer. (I’m still working on the timing of that one.)
Q. Tell us about your road to publication. Along with the disappointments, can you remember any incidents or feedback that encouraged you to keep going?
A. My Sisters In Crime chapter, the Guppies, has been a constant source of inspiration and enthusiasm. More than once I wondered if I had it in me to persist. The entertainment industry as a whole, be it acting, singing, writing, etc., is a tough business to crack. You’d better get used to rejection. Something that’s easier said than done.
Q. What aspects of writing craft have you struggled with? What do you consider your strength as a writer?
A. I struggle with writing “long.” My contracts say I will write a book of a specific length. I tend to write short. Jeremiah Healy said I have a “stark, spare style.” He’s right. I took to heart Elmore Leonard’s advice to leave out the parts people skip. That means I often end up rewriting to add in one or two more subplots after I’ve written my first draft of a book. Then I’ll have to go back to pump up the description. I had pacing, Pacing, PACING drilled into my head by an early mentor. It makes for a fast read, if nothing else.
My greatest strength is never giving up. That makes it quite difficult to face the fact that certain of my unpublished novels must remain so--at least for the foreseeable future. I’m not a patient person, and my characters keep calling to me from the closet shelf, telling me not to forget them--reminding me that I once loved them best.
Q. What writers have you learned from? If you could meet any writer you admire, who would it be?
A. Maybe it sounds corny, but I’ve learned more from my critique partners than any class or book that I’ve read, be it fiction or how-to. Discussing what works and what doesn’t work with fellow writers has been a wonderful experience. That said, you can’t remain in one group forever. And, I don’t even belong to a group anymore. These days I share my work--entire manuscripts--with other (mostly) published authors. I no longer like to critique a book/story in a piecemeal fashion.
I’m not a celebrity chaser, so there’s no big name I’m eager to meet. That said, I want to meet two of my fellow bloggers on Writers Plot--Kate Flora and Jeanne Munn Bracken. We’ve never met in person. I’m looking forward to having dinner with them sometime in the near future.
Q. What advice do you have for aspiring writers?
A. Keep writing. Keep sending out queries. Keep striving to improve your work. That’s how you get published.
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Advance and be recognized
Sharon Wildwind
Let’s take a look at both ends of the book-publishing pipeline. At the entrance end, an author is paid an advance as soon as she sells a book.
“First-book advances and rates-per-word for short-stories have not changed significantly in 30-40 years. A minimum wage job in Massachusetts [in 2007] pays a touch under $15,500/year. Average advances for fiction are still below $10,000. Average first advance is more like $5,000, even from a major publisher.”
~Dr. Steve Kelner, writer and motivational speaker
Actually, in many parts of genre publishing, the advance is more like $1,000 to $2,000 per book; in some cases as low as $500.
Whatever the advance, the author is expected to earn out the advance money before she gets any royalties.
At the pipeline exit, not all books sold count toward earning back the advance and/or royalties. You’re probably familiar with the idea of holding royalty money against returns. Here’s how it works.
Bookstores order books on consignment for a specified period of time, often 30 days. Let’s simplify the numbers. Suppose a buyer for a chain bookstore orders 100 copies of a new book, to arrive for April 1. That bookstore doesn’t have to pay for the books for 30 days. So, on about April 25, the employees go through the stores and collect up the books that haven’t sold. It was a good month. Forty out of the 100 books sold.
The employees take those remaining 60 copies back to the work room and tear off the front covers. It’s called stripping a book. If you look on the back cover of a book—usually a paperback—you’ll see the letter “S” in a small triangle. That indicates a book can be stripped. The employee shoves those 60 covers in an envelope and mails them back to the distributor.
The actual books themselves, now shivering in a corner without their covers, go to the landfill, or paper recycling, or enter a black market system they are sold as used books at a greatly reduced price.
While one set of employees is stripping book covers to return them, another set of employees is ordering books for May. Since April was a good sales month for our title, they order another 100 copies.
Come April 30, the book store has none of the April consignment left and owes the distributor for the 40 books that were sold, but not a thing for the 60 books that were stripped.
May, unfortunately, is not such a good month. Toward the end of May, only 15 copies of the second 100 consigned books have sold. Eighty-five copies are stripped and the person ordering books for June doesn’t order any more of that title. The book is essentially dead as far as that chain of bookstores goes.
Two-month total:
200 books shipped on consignment.
40+15 = 55 books sold. The author is due royalties on these books.
200 - 55 = 145 books destroyed.
Even for those 55 books sold, the author may not see the money for 1 to 2 years because many publishers hold back any money due until they are sure that there won’t be any more books stripped and destroyed.
The big buzz on the mystery lists in the past week was an announcement by HarperCollins that they are forming a new division where business practices will be different. First, the authors will get no advances. Second, this division will not allow any returns. If a bookstore orders 200 books on consignment; it pays for 200 books. Third, HarperCollins and the author split the profits 50/50 and the author doesn’t have to wait for returns to be charged against royalties.
At this stage the HC announcement is akin to coming home and finding something mysterious baking. It smells pretty good, but you can’t tell from peering in the oven if your partner has made a nice dessert or your child has a science fair project in production.
All we know so far is that HarperCollins will risk 25 titles a year on this new venture, that e-books and audio books have have been mentioned as formats along side the printed versions, and that Robert Miller, the man who will head the new venture, has been quoted in Publisher’s Lunch as saying, “We may evolve after we start.”
Eventually, something will break the traditional pipeline of advances at one end and returns at the other end. In fact, when the break comes, it will probably be more than one something, more likely a gusher of alternative business models, based on technology and a plurality of markets. It’s going to be interesting to see how the HC proposal plays out.
-----
Writing quote for the week:
It is not the employer who pays the wages. Employers only handle the money. It is the customer who pays the wages.
~Henry Ford, auto manufacturer
Let’s take a look at both ends of the book-publishing pipeline. At the entrance end, an author is paid an advance as soon as she sells a book.
“First-book advances and rates-per-word for short-stories have not changed significantly in 30-40 years. A minimum wage job in Massachusetts [in 2007] pays a touch under $15,500/year. Average advances for fiction are still below $10,000. Average first advance is more like $5,000, even from a major publisher.”
~Dr. Steve Kelner, writer and motivational speaker
Actually, in many parts of genre publishing, the advance is more like $1,000 to $2,000 per book; in some cases as low as $500.
Whatever the advance, the author is expected to earn out the advance money before she gets any royalties.
At the pipeline exit, not all books sold count toward earning back the advance and/or royalties. You’re probably familiar with the idea of holding royalty money against returns. Here’s how it works.
Bookstores order books on consignment for a specified period of time, often 30 days. Let’s simplify the numbers. Suppose a buyer for a chain bookstore orders 100 copies of a new book, to arrive for April 1. That bookstore doesn’t have to pay for the books for 30 days. So, on about April 25, the employees go through the stores and collect up the books that haven’t sold. It was a good month. Forty out of the 100 books sold.
The employees take those remaining 60 copies back to the work room and tear off the front covers. It’s called stripping a book. If you look on the back cover of a book—usually a paperback—you’ll see the letter “S” in a small triangle. That indicates a book can be stripped. The employee shoves those 60 covers in an envelope and mails them back to the distributor.
The actual books themselves, now shivering in a corner without their covers, go to the landfill, or paper recycling, or enter a black market system they are sold as used books at a greatly reduced price.
While one set of employees is stripping book covers to return them, another set of employees is ordering books for May. Since April was a good sales month for our title, they order another 100 copies.
Come April 30, the book store has none of the April consignment left and owes the distributor for the 40 books that were sold, but not a thing for the 60 books that were stripped.
May, unfortunately, is not such a good month. Toward the end of May, only 15 copies of the second 100 consigned books have sold. Eighty-five copies are stripped and the person ordering books for June doesn’t order any more of that title. The book is essentially dead as far as that chain of bookstores goes.
Two-month total:
200 books shipped on consignment.
40+15 = 55 books sold. The author is due royalties on these books.
200 - 55 = 145 books destroyed.
Even for those 55 books sold, the author may not see the money for 1 to 2 years because many publishers hold back any money due until they are sure that there won’t be any more books stripped and destroyed.
The big buzz on the mystery lists in the past week was an announcement by HarperCollins that they are forming a new division where business practices will be different. First, the authors will get no advances. Second, this division will not allow any returns. If a bookstore orders 200 books on consignment; it pays for 200 books. Third, HarperCollins and the author split the profits 50/50 and the author doesn’t have to wait for returns to be charged against royalties.
At this stage the HC announcement is akin to coming home and finding something mysterious baking. It smells pretty good, but you can’t tell from peering in the oven if your partner has made a nice dessert or your child has a science fair project in production.
All we know so far is that HarperCollins will risk 25 titles a year on this new venture, that e-books and audio books have have been mentioned as formats along side the printed versions, and that Robert Miller, the man who will head the new venture, has been quoted in Publisher’s Lunch as saying, “We may evolve after we start.”
Eventually, something will break the traditional pipeline of advances at one end and returns at the other end. In fact, when the break comes, it will probably be more than one something, more likely a gusher of alternative business models, based on technology and a plurality of markets. It’s going to be interesting to see how the HC proposal plays out.
-----
Writing quote for the week:
It is not the employer who pays the wages. Employers only handle the money. It is the customer who pays the wages.
~Henry Ford, auto manufacturer
Monday, April 7, 2008
A Tale of Vengeance, A Tale of Heredity
by Julia Buckley
The subject of this article in a self-made disguise (his main medium is silly putty).
One day I bought my son a blank journal so that he could occupy himself while I worked at his brother's school event. He took the journal into a corner and began to write. He created his own cover, a dedication page, an ISBN number, and a price (two dollars and thirty cents). He launched right into a novel with this compelling and vaguely Dostoevskian beginning: "It all started with my father. He was a general of war." He wrote and wrote and wrote in his little corner of the school cafeteria, and he didn't stop until he had a complete novel, which he entitled The Vengeance Story.
I should mention that Graham is nine, and that is why I considered his feat so remarkable (and I still haven't gotten over that first line).
The story centers around the narrator, whose father was killed by a man named McJerk when the narrator was only two years old. Since then, he has cultivated a burning desire for revenge. I could learn a writing lesson from my son: his story is all action, all the time. The cover sports a variety of weapons that the narrator uses against the unfortunate (but undoubtedly evil) McJerk.
After his father's death, the narrator says that life is very hard for him and even more so for his mother, who has a difficult time raising this angry child. His mother dies when he is fifteen, and the narrator is briefly suicidal; he decides instead to consult a psychiatrist. Take note, Liz Zelvin: my son's narrator writes that "after a year of psychology, I was okay." Hurrah for psychology!
When the narrator first encounters McJerk, they are in a library. Our hero uses a giant dictionary to strike his foe, and then a chair. Then they are thrown out by a librarian. Hurrah for librarians!
However, the narrator continues in his quest for McJerk, and purchases "an assault rifle . . . but something happened to the gun; it was broken. So I purchased an AK-47. It was the biggest gun they had."
Ironically, I never let my sons read my books, because I feel that they are too adult for them, and potentially too violent. Therefore, I can safely say that this book is not at all influenced by the books written by me, but probably much more so by the many adventure movies Graham has seen.
Still, I found many distinctive aspects of his story, and the most striking thing is that he wrote it--with all of its separate chapters leading up to a final conflict and a denouement--all in one sitting. Wrote it, you might say, almost obsessively, which is exactly the way that I write. Once that central idea is in place, I need to write copiously for fear that I will lose my place or forget something.
I am curious to know if a person can inherit their actual writing style. I once read that both Dostoevsky and Van Gogh (both extremely prolific writers) had the same type of epilepsy, and which potentially caused their desire to write--that is, their brains dictated the volume of their work.
I wonder if heredity supplies similarities between a person's creative mind and that of her (or his) children. In any case, I'm thrilled with the fact that my son simply decided one day to write an entire book, and then did so. I'll leave you with a thrilling action sequence from The Vengeance Story:
"The hill got higher and higher until there was a bridge. I hid under a bush after knocking him on the ground. He got up and had his gun out; he passed me and I popped out and said 'Stop!'
As you guessed, he hit the gun out of my hand. So I tripped him and chased him across the creaky bridge and kicked him in the face. The hill was so high it was almost a small cliff . . . and then he snuck a knife from his pocket . . . "
copyright Graham Buckley 2008
The subject of this article in a self-made disguise (his main medium is silly putty).One day I bought my son a blank journal so that he could occupy himself while I worked at his brother's school event. He took the journal into a corner and began to write. He created his own cover, a dedication page, an ISBN number, and a price (two dollars and thirty cents). He launched right into a novel with this compelling and vaguely Dostoevskian beginning: "It all started with my father. He was a general of war." He wrote and wrote and wrote in his little corner of the school cafeteria, and he didn't stop until he had a complete novel, which he entitled The Vengeance Story.
I should mention that Graham is nine, and that is why I considered his feat so remarkable (and I still haven't gotten over that first line).
The story centers around the narrator, whose father was killed by a man named McJerk when the narrator was only two years old. Since then, he has cultivated a burning desire for revenge. I could learn a writing lesson from my son: his story is all action, all the time. The cover sports a variety of weapons that the narrator uses against the unfortunate (but undoubtedly evil) McJerk.
After his father's death, the narrator says that life is very hard for him and even more so for his mother, who has a difficult time raising this angry child. His mother dies when he is fifteen, and the narrator is briefly suicidal; he decides instead to consult a psychiatrist. Take note, Liz Zelvin: my son's narrator writes that "after a year of psychology, I was okay." Hurrah for psychology!
When the narrator first encounters McJerk, they are in a library. Our hero uses a giant dictionary to strike his foe, and then a chair. Then they are thrown out by a librarian. Hurrah for librarians!
However, the narrator continues in his quest for McJerk, and purchases "an assault rifle . . . but something happened to the gun; it was broken. So I purchased an AK-47. It was the biggest gun they had."
Ironically, I never let my sons read my books, because I feel that they are too adult for them, and potentially too violent. Therefore, I can safely say that this book is not at all influenced by the books written by me, but probably much more so by the many adventure movies Graham has seen.
Still, I found many distinctive aspects of his story, and the most striking thing is that he wrote it--with all of its separate chapters leading up to a final conflict and a denouement--all in one sitting. Wrote it, you might say, almost obsessively, which is exactly the way that I write. Once that central idea is in place, I need to write copiously for fear that I will lose my place or forget something.
I am curious to know if a person can inherit their actual writing style. I once read that both Dostoevsky and Van Gogh (both extremely prolific writers) had the same type of epilepsy, and which potentially caused their desire to write--that is, their brains dictated the volume of their work.
I wonder if heredity supplies similarities between a person's creative mind and that of her (or his) children. In any case, I'm thrilled with the fact that my son simply decided one day to write an entire book, and then did so. I'll leave you with a thrilling action sequence from The Vengeance Story:
"The hill got higher and higher until there was a bridge. I hid under a bush after knocking him on the ground. He got up and had his gun out; he passed me and I popped out and said 'Stop!'
As you guessed, he hit the gun out of my hand. So I tripped him and chased him across the creaky bridge and kicked him in the face. The hill was so high it was almost a small cliff . . . and then he snuck a knife from his pocket . . . "
copyright Graham Buckley 2008
Saturday, April 5, 2008
Buy This Book!
by Darlene Ryan
The publishing industry much like television networks and movie studios, uses endorsements as a way to entice you to buy their product. Sometimes that endorsement is a positive comment from a well-known publication like Publisher’s Weekly, Romantic Times or People. Sometimes it’s a recommendation from a respected author who writes in the same genre. For example, Karen E. Olson’s Day of the Dead has an endorsement from Lee Child. Carrie Vaughn’s Kitty Goes to Washington is recommended by Charlaine Harris.
The right words from the right person can give a tremendous boost to a writer’s career--just ask any author whose book has been picked for Oprah Winfrey’s book club.
“Brilliant use of paragraphs!”
The first place to start is with your editor. See if she’s planning for ask anyone for a recommendation before you do it.
Next, talk to your agent. He may have the connections to get your book into the hands of the author who inspired you to start writing or the one whose own book is burning up the bestseller lists.
“Outstanding chapter breaks!”
Some writers don't mind asking other writing friends for some good words about their book. But don’t put someone on the spot. Make the request in an email or a letter. And don’t hold a grudge if a friend says no.
If you write under more than one name don’t use one persona to endorse another. All that will do is make you fodder for every snarky blogger out there—including me.
Any kind of enticement from chocolate to cash is a bad idea. So is groveling. So is guilt. So is sucking-up. The best approach is a straightforward, professional request. Keep it short, polite and honest. Don't use the author’s first name if you don’t actually know her. And say thank-you.
“Great Spelling! Nice margins!”
Dear Ms Important Writer,
I'm writing to ask if you will consider reading my mystery novel, The Stalker, for a cover quotation. I would appreciate any recommendation you may decide to make for readers.
May I send you an advance reading copy?
Thank you.
Regards,
A. Newbie Author
Don’t lurk over the mailbox or your computer waiting for a response. Well-known writers get a ton of mail and they have deadlines, dentist visits, bad hair days and small children that projectile vomit. And remember, it may have been hard for you to ask, but it’s even harder to come up with a nice way to say no. So be gracious if you’re turned down. Follow-up with a thank you even if what you really want to say is, “Stick it in your ear you snotty hack!”
“This is definitely a book!”
And lastly, if the famous author does give you an endorsement don’t give his address to all your writing friends so they can ask for a plug for their books. (Not even if they offer you your body weight in chocolate.)
Friday, April 4, 2008
Li - tra - cha . . . or . . . lit tah rare eeee . . . what is it?
By Lonnie Cruse
There is usually an ongoing discussion (or war of words) by readers on book discussion lists as to what constitutes literature or makes a book "literary. " Works by Jane Austin, and, of course, our literary "father," E. A. Poe, are generally considered to be great writers of literature. But what about modern day books? With so many types of books, mystery, romance, western, general fiction, etc, not to mention all the sub-genres (just in mystery there is hard boiled, cozy, etc, and cozy is broken down into lots of sub-sub categories like gardening, sewing, cooking, sigh) what constitutes literature? And who writes it?
Frankly I don't have a clue. Do you? But I would think it would be books that could stand the test of time. Books so well written that they stay with us for a very long time, shelved where we can behold them with our eyes as we dust, or remember the stories in our minds.
Shirley Jackson is one of those authors for me. Dead and buried in the mid-Sixties, Jackson's short story, THE LOTTERY is still taught in colleges across the country as an example of how it's done. Done well. I read her book, WE HAVE ALWAYS LIVED IN THE CASTLE, twice just to be sure I didn't miss anything. Wow.
Jackson "apparently" had mental and/or emotional problems and I sometimes wonder if those supposed problems allowed her to write as bravely as she did, ALWAYS surprising me at the end, no matter how well I thought I'd come to know her style, because she seemed to have no self-imposed barriers. No, she didn't write graphic sex, violence, or language. I mean barriers to what happened to her characters or where she took them . . . and took the reader.
So, what's your idea of great literature? What constitutes literary for you? For me it's a book that is still loved and read whether it's decades or centuries after it was first written. Or months.
Modern day? ANY author whose story sticks with me after I've read the words THE END, put the book away, and I find myself thinking about the story and the characters while I make the bed or stir supper. Wondering if there will be another in the series, and where the characters will go from there. Wondering if I can wait that long or if I should go camp on the author's door step until she/he passes me a print-out through the door to read. A REAL advance reader's copy. Hmmm, wonder if Barbara D'Amato is at home today? Bill Crider? Donna Andrews? Just three of my all-time faves. Tony Hillerman? Nah, he'd likely call the Tribal Police on me. Hmmm. Anne Perry lives in England and I don't have enough frequent flyer miles. Newbie Tasha Alexander is just south of me in Nashville.
'Scuse me, I've gotta go pack. Thanks for stopping by. Think I'll just peek out my living room window and see if anyone is sitting on MY front porch.
There is usually an ongoing discussion (or war of words) by readers on book discussion lists as to what constitutes literature or makes a book "literary. " Works by Jane Austin, and, of course, our literary "father," E. A. Poe, are generally considered to be great writers of literature. But what about modern day books? With so many types of books, mystery, romance, western, general fiction, etc, not to mention all the sub-genres (just in mystery there is hard boiled, cozy, etc, and cozy is broken down into lots of sub-sub categories like gardening, sewing, cooking, sigh) what constitutes literature? And who writes it?
Frankly I don't have a clue. Do you? But I would think it would be books that could stand the test of time. Books so well written that they stay with us for a very long time, shelved where we can behold them with our eyes as we dust, or remember the stories in our minds.
Shirley Jackson is one of those authors for me. Dead and buried in the mid-Sixties, Jackson's short story, THE LOTTERY is still taught in colleges across the country as an example of how it's done. Done well. I read her book, WE HAVE ALWAYS LIVED IN THE CASTLE, twice just to be sure I didn't miss anything. Wow.
Jackson "apparently" had mental and/or emotional problems and I sometimes wonder if those supposed problems allowed her to write as bravely as she did, ALWAYS surprising me at the end, no matter how well I thought I'd come to know her style, because she seemed to have no self-imposed barriers. No, she didn't write graphic sex, violence, or language. I mean barriers to what happened to her characters or where she took them . . . and took the reader.
So, what's your idea of great literature? What constitutes literary for you? For me it's a book that is still loved and read whether it's decades or centuries after it was first written. Or months.
Modern day? ANY author whose story sticks with me after I've read the words THE END, put the book away, and I find myself thinking about the story and the characters while I make the bed or stir supper. Wondering if there will be another in the series, and where the characters will go from there. Wondering if I can wait that long or if I should go camp on the author's door step until she/he passes me a print-out through the door to read. A REAL advance reader's copy. Hmmm, wonder if Barbara D'Amato is at home today? Bill Crider? Donna Andrews? Just three of my all-time faves. Tony Hillerman? Nah, he'd likely call the Tribal Police on me. Hmmm. Anne Perry lives in England and I don't have enough frequent flyer miles. Newbie Tasha Alexander is just south of me in Nashville.
'Scuse me, I've gotta go pack. Thanks for stopping by. Think I'll just peek out my living room window and see if anyone is sitting on MY front porch.
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Recovery and Transformation
Elizabeth Zelvin
I’ve been planning my book tour, an essential activity for an emerging writer. I’m finding some of the venues myself, but my publicist is working on the midwestern leg of the trip. When she first proposed the itinerary, I thought the biggest challenge would be breaking the news to my husband that he’s going to Indianapolis. He’s coming with me for that segment of the tour because he has family, my in-laws, in Ohio, but he’s the kind of New Yorker who gets very, very antsy when he has to cross the Hudson. But when I allowed myself to imagine what it would be like to stand by a table piled with my books near the door of a Borders in a mall in Illinois, I began to wonder how on earth I could persuade those ordinary folks out there in the heartland to plunk down their money on the premise that they might enjoy a book called Death Will Get You Sober and come to care about a a guy they’ll first meet on the Bowery coming off a bender.
I enjoy public speaking, and I’ve never doubted I’ll have plenty to say at bookstore discussions. There’s all that backstory about my characters that I took out over the course of many revisions. And I have lots of stories about the Bowery in the old days when I ran an alcohol treatment program there that didn’t make it into the book. But it’s occurred to me that maybe I shouldn’t start there. Maybe I’d better begin with why I wanted—want—to write about recovery. It’s simple: recovery is transformational.
I once knew a nursery school teacher who had her class do a butterfly project every year. They’d watch the caterpillar form its chrysalis and wait for the brightly colored butterfly with its glorious wings to emerge. At the end of the term, she’d take them to the park so they could release the butterflies and see them fly free. Sometimes it’s kind of like that when an alcoholic finds recovery.
Before two guys named Bill W. and Dr. Bob came up with the idea for Alcoholics Anonymous in 1935, alcoholism was truly a hopeless illness—though it was seen as a moral weakness, not an illness—whose outcomes were inevitably “madness” (depression, delirium tremens, irreversible dementia) and death. AA offered another choice: stop drinking for just one day, admit you need help, find some kind of spiritual path, get rigorously honest about your own shortcomings, make amends for the harm you’ve done others, and help another alcoholic. In other words, all you have to do is stop drinking and change your whole life. As they say, the program works.
The real-life agency where I worked for more than six years was greatly appreciated by the surrounding community. It had cleaned up the notorious Third Street Shelter and turned the kind of guys you’d be scared to pass on the street at night into citizens with pride and dignity, ambitions and dreams. Not all of them, but some. The agency used to invite the whole neighborhood to a holiday party. At one of these, a woman asked me what the success rate was. I answered honestly: 15 or 20 percent. It’s hard to kick drugs and alcohol and turn your life around, especially since America doesn’t exactly lift its lamp beside the golden door any more. Some people are never satisfied, and this woman was one of them. “That’s not very much,” she said. I said, “We consider every one a miracle.”
I’ve been planning my book tour, an essential activity for an emerging writer. I’m finding some of the venues myself, but my publicist is working on the midwestern leg of the trip. When she first proposed the itinerary, I thought the biggest challenge would be breaking the news to my husband that he’s going to Indianapolis. He’s coming with me for that segment of the tour because he has family, my in-laws, in Ohio, but he’s the kind of New Yorker who gets very, very antsy when he has to cross the Hudson. But when I allowed myself to imagine what it would be like to stand by a table piled with my books near the door of a Borders in a mall in Illinois, I began to wonder how on earth I could persuade those ordinary folks out there in the heartland to plunk down their money on the premise that they might enjoy a book called Death Will Get You Sober and come to care about a a guy they’ll first meet on the Bowery coming off a bender.
I enjoy public speaking, and I’ve never doubted I’ll have plenty to say at bookstore discussions. There’s all that backstory about my characters that I took out over the course of many revisions. And I have lots of stories about the Bowery in the old days when I ran an alcohol treatment program there that didn’t make it into the book. But it’s occurred to me that maybe I shouldn’t start there. Maybe I’d better begin with why I wanted—want—to write about recovery. It’s simple: recovery is transformational.
I once knew a nursery school teacher who had her class do a butterfly project every year. They’d watch the caterpillar form its chrysalis and wait for the brightly colored butterfly with its glorious wings to emerge. At the end of the term, she’d take them to the park so they could release the butterflies and see them fly free. Sometimes it’s kind of like that when an alcoholic finds recovery.
Before two guys named Bill W. and Dr. Bob came up with the idea for Alcoholics Anonymous in 1935, alcoholism was truly a hopeless illness—though it was seen as a moral weakness, not an illness—whose outcomes were inevitably “madness” (depression, delirium tremens, irreversible dementia) and death. AA offered another choice: stop drinking for just one day, admit you need help, find some kind of spiritual path, get rigorously honest about your own shortcomings, make amends for the harm you’ve done others, and help another alcoholic. In other words, all you have to do is stop drinking and change your whole life. As they say, the program works.
The real-life agency where I worked for more than six years was greatly appreciated by the surrounding community. It had cleaned up the notorious Third Street Shelter and turned the kind of guys you’d be scared to pass on the street at night into citizens with pride and dignity, ambitions and dreams. Not all of them, but some. The agency used to invite the whole neighborhood to a holiday party. At one of these, a woman asked me what the success rate was. I answered honestly: 15 or 20 percent. It’s hard to kick drugs and alcohol and turn your life around, especially since America doesn’t exactly lift its lamp beside the golden door any more. Some people are never satisfied, and this woman was one of them. “That’s not very much,” she said. I said, “We consider every one a miracle.”
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Reading Past the Envy
Sandra Parshall
I’m often surprised at how many other writers believe all bestselling novels are bad books. I know writers who won’t touch a bestselling novel, on the assumption that any book that appeals to the masses must be junk and any writer who has made a long, slow climb to good sales has sold out, cheapened his or her product to make money.
The harshest critics, the most resistant readers, any bestselling author will have are aspiring writers and published writers who feel they aren't as successful as they deserve to be. A writer unsatisfied with his or her own status will take grim satisfaction in tearing down the books of a bestselling author. We can't change the fact that millions of people love that author's work, but we can convince ourselves that all those people are stupid or deluded for loving it.
Envy is the monster that camps out in our souls and gnaws away at us until we’re incapable of taking pure pleasure in anyone else’s work – the kind of pleasure that led us to become writers in the first place. We say the bones of the story are showing (something we would never allow in our own work). We scoff at the author for overusing favorite words (a sin we never commit), as if that habit alone ruined the book. We wail that aspiring writers trying to get published and lesser-known writers struggling to stay published are held to a higher standard while bestsellers can coast and break all the rules and still be assured of success.
I’m as guilty as anyone else of saying and thinking such things. I can do self-torture as well as anybody I know. (Ask my husband. Ask my friends Carol and Cat and Babs. They’re the ones nodding and muttering, “Ain’t that the truth” as they read this.) But in saner moments I try to refocus, look past the obvious flaws and learn from what the popular authors are doing right. Believe me, anyone whose books sell hundreds of thousands of copies is doing something right.
What bestselling writers all have in common is the ability to tell a story in a dynamic fashion. They may not be great stylists, but they are entertaining. This is the one skill that beginning writers -- and many who have been writing for decades without success -- often cannot master. The story doesn't have to be perfect. The characters don't have to be stunningly original. The plot might be over-the-top, outlandish (I think The DaVinci Code fits that description, and so do almost all of James Patterson's novels). But the author has the magical ability to tell a story in a way that will keep readers turning the pages.
Members of a mystery e-list I belong to have lately been arguing over whether Agatha Christie was "weak" in any aspect of writing. Some devoted Christie fans see her books as flawless and any criticism raises their hackles. Personally, I think Christie's books are shallow, with one-dimensional characters and static protagonists. I prefer modern crime writers like Thomas Cook, Dennis Lehane, Tess Gerritsen, Laura Lippman, Ruth Rendell, who try to produce complex stories with complex characters, even though they’re not always fully successful. Yet Christie is still read, her books are all still in print throughout the world, films and TV programs are still being made of them, and she is considered the queen of mystery. Obviously, Christie did something right. She entertained readers who wanted to be kept guessing right up to the end. I can learn something from her about constructing a puzzle and weaving in clues and red herrings. I can’t learn anything from focusing on Christie’s flaws and grumbling that she doesn’t deserve her apparently eternal success.
It’s sad but true that the more a writer writes, the more critical a reader she becomes. It’s hard to enjoy a book when part of your mind is trolling for faults to gloat over. It’s hard to banish jealousy from our hearts and accept that not everyone, perhaps not ourselves, can be wildly successful. All we can do is write as well as we know how, without imagining the book bumping the latest Patterson out of the #1 spot on the NY Times bestseller list. We can try to enjoy the writing itself. Isn’t that, after all, the reason we started doing this in the first place?
I’m often surprised at how many other writers believe all bestselling novels are bad books. I know writers who won’t touch a bestselling novel, on the assumption that any book that appeals to the masses must be junk and any writer who has made a long, slow climb to good sales has sold out, cheapened his or her product to make money.
The harshest critics, the most resistant readers, any bestselling author will have are aspiring writers and published writers who feel they aren't as successful as they deserve to be. A writer unsatisfied with his or her own status will take grim satisfaction in tearing down the books of a bestselling author. We can't change the fact that millions of people love that author's work, but we can convince ourselves that all those people are stupid or deluded for loving it.
Envy is the monster that camps out in our souls and gnaws away at us until we’re incapable of taking pure pleasure in anyone else’s work – the kind of pleasure that led us to become writers in the first place. We say the bones of the story are showing (something we would never allow in our own work). We scoff at the author for overusing favorite words (a sin we never commit), as if that habit alone ruined the book. We wail that aspiring writers trying to get published and lesser-known writers struggling to stay published are held to a higher standard while bestsellers can coast and break all the rules and still be assured of success.
I’m as guilty as anyone else of saying and thinking such things. I can do self-torture as well as anybody I know. (Ask my husband. Ask my friends Carol and Cat and Babs. They’re the ones nodding and muttering, “Ain’t that the truth” as they read this.) But in saner moments I try to refocus, look past the obvious flaws and learn from what the popular authors are doing right. Believe me, anyone whose books sell hundreds of thousands of copies is doing something right.
What bestselling writers all have in common is the ability to tell a story in a dynamic fashion. They may not be great stylists, but they are entertaining. This is the one skill that beginning writers -- and many who have been writing for decades without success -- often cannot master. The story doesn't have to be perfect. The characters don't have to be stunningly original. The plot might be over-the-top, outlandish (I think The DaVinci Code fits that description, and so do almost all of James Patterson's novels). But the author has the magical ability to tell a story in a way that will keep readers turning the pages.
Members of a mystery e-list I belong to have lately been arguing over whether Agatha Christie was "weak" in any aspect of writing. Some devoted Christie fans see her books as flawless and any criticism raises their hackles. Personally, I think Christie's books are shallow, with one-dimensional characters and static protagonists. I prefer modern crime writers like Thomas Cook, Dennis Lehane, Tess Gerritsen, Laura Lippman, Ruth Rendell, who try to produce complex stories with complex characters, even though they’re not always fully successful. Yet Christie is still read, her books are all still in print throughout the world, films and TV programs are still being made of them, and she is considered the queen of mystery. Obviously, Christie did something right. She entertained readers who wanted to be kept guessing right up to the end. I can learn something from her about constructing a puzzle and weaving in clues and red herrings. I can’t learn anything from focusing on Christie’s flaws and grumbling that she doesn’t deserve her apparently eternal success.
It’s sad but true that the more a writer writes, the more critical a reader she becomes. It’s hard to enjoy a book when part of your mind is trolling for faults to gloat over. It’s hard to banish jealousy from our hearts and accept that not everyone, perhaps not ourselves, can be wildly successful. All we can do is write as well as we know how, without imagining the book bumping the latest Patterson out of the #1 spot on the NY Times bestseller list. We can try to enjoy the writing itself. Isn’t that, after all, the reason we started doing this in the first place?
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
The Color of Blogging
Sharon Wildwind
I’ve spent the past week drowning in color thanks to a magazine called Artful Blogging: Visually Inspiring Online Journals, published by Somerset Studio®. Volume 2, #3 features 23 women who communicate with the world through visual arts blogs.
Their images and use of color is stunning, whether it’s a house in Florida filled with red, yellow, and white pottery, or a charcoal study of black, bare tree branches against a grey-purple winter sky.
Their stories read remarkably similar.
My family, as terrific and supportive as they are, don’t “get it.” They don’t quite understand why I’m compelled to spend hours a day caressing cloth, or slapping paint on canvas, or gluing ephemera in tiny boxes.
One day I discovered blogging. I thought, I could never do something like that, but my teckie-minded husband/12-year-old son/neighbor down the street showed me the basics. I started with this simple little blog.
Someone wrote me back! She understood what I was doing! The world opened up for me!
Now . . . I sponsor a painting-a-week challenge and we get between 500 and 1,000 entries each week. . . . We raised a huge amount of money last year for charity through our art. . . . I have an on-line tribe, who is there for me no matter what. . . . I get up every morning at 4:30 to blog. . . . I travelled across the country to meet two women I’d met on line, and we went out and papered the town with guerilla art one afternoon. . . . I’ve learned what real beauty there is in the world.
First of all, I’m one heck of a lot jealous.
With a few word substitutions, those same stories apply to writers, only we have a devil of a time turning what we do into visual art. “My critique partner made a suggestion for the most perfect use of the gerund I’ve ever seen,” can not be successfully illustrated, no matter what medium you choose. In fact, most of us, even though we use them every day, have trouble even articulating what a gerund is.
A gerund, for those of you now curious, is a word, ending in -ing, used as a noun. Not to be confused with a present participle, which also ends in -ing, but is used to complete a progressive verb or act as a modifier.
You try illustrating that in paper clay!
Second of all, I was calmed and comforted. The time I spent in this world of art blogs gave me a break from news of war, environmental disasters, and rising food prices. None of the images were disturbing. I wasn’t likely to have nightmares from looking at them. People expressed joy. They reveled in being talented women, who were taking their art and life literally into their own hands. Boy, did I feel inspired after a couple of hours in that world!
Finally, I felt disturbed and I’m not sure how to work through this feeling. These are all blogs of excess. No matter how great the sale, it costs real money to accrue thousands of pale blue buttons, a houseful of colorful pottery, art supplies, or the digital cameras and computers needed to assemble and publish the blogs. Would the poorest of the world’s poor, if they could see these same blogs, have the same joyful response to the art that I did?
Yes, it’s terrific that we—whether the we be writers or visual artists—come together as a on-line tribe. The e-contacts truly do nourish the soul, but what about our off-line commitments? All care-and-concern groups, whether it be churches, or food banks, or people who read to seniors, are declining, in some cases disappearing, for lack of volunteers. There is a huge surge in gated communities, where residents want to raise their children, “among the right kind of people.” Even on so called public transport, most riders ride in their own little cell phone, ear bud, text-messaging world. In reaching out to the large blog community are we, in fact, creating more isolation in our local communities? I have no idea.
Art credits:
Lake Martin, New Iberia, Louisiana ©Beth Guillet, and used with her permission.
Flowers and words and Tilden and Thumbelina ©Sharon Wildwind
_____
Writing quote for the week:
If you want to write well, play with color and texture. Play in water. Have a space in your writing area where there are no words, only colors, shapes, relationships. Meditate on that space every day. Change what’s in at least once a month.
~Sharon Wildwind, mystery writer
I’ve spent the past week drowning in color thanks to a magazine called Artful Blogging: Visually Inspiring Online Journals, published by Somerset Studio®. Volume 2, #3 features 23 women who communicate with the world through visual arts blogs.
Their images and use of color is stunning, whether it’s a house in Florida filled with red, yellow, and white pottery, or a charcoal study of black, bare tree branches against a grey-purple winter sky.
Their stories read remarkably similar.
My family, as terrific and supportive as they are, don’t “get it.” They don’t quite understand why I’m compelled to spend hours a day caressing cloth, or slapping paint on canvas, or gluing ephemera in tiny boxes.
One day I discovered blogging. I thought, I could never do something like that, but my teckie-minded husband/12-year-old son/neighbor down the street showed me the basics. I started with this simple little blog.
Someone wrote me back! She understood what I was doing! The world opened up for me!
Now . . . I sponsor a painting-a-week challenge and we get between 500 and 1,000 entries each week. . . . We raised a huge amount of money last year for charity through our art. . . . I have an on-line tribe, who is there for me no matter what. . . . I get up every morning at 4:30 to blog. . . . I travelled across the country to meet two women I’d met on line, and we went out and papered the town with guerilla art one afternoon. . . . I’ve learned what real beauty there is in the world.
First of all, I’m one heck of a lot jealous.With a few word substitutions, those same stories apply to writers, only we have a devil of a time turning what we do into visual art. “My critique partner made a suggestion for the most perfect use of the gerund I’ve ever seen,” can not be successfully illustrated, no matter what medium you choose. In fact, most of us, even though we use them every day, have trouble even articulating what a gerund is.
A gerund, for those of you now curious, is a word, ending in -ing, used as a noun. Not to be confused with a present participle, which also ends in -ing, but is used to complete a progressive verb or act as a modifier.
You try illustrating that in paper clay!
Second of all, I was calmed and comforted. The time I spent in this world of art blogs gave me a break from news of war, environmental disasters, and rising food prices. None of the images were disturbing. I wasn’t likely to have nightmares from looking at them. People expressed joy. They reveled in being talented women, who were taking their art and life literally into their own hands. Boy, did I feel inspired after a couple of hours in that world!
Finally, I felt disturbed and I’m not sure how to work through this feeling. These are all blogs of excess. No matter how great the sale, it costs real money to accrue thousands of pale blue buttons, a houseful of colorful pottery, art supplies, or the digital cameras and computers needed to assemble and publish the blogs. Would the poorest of the world’s poor, if they could see these same blogs, have the same joyful response to the art that I did?Yes, it’s terrific that we—whether the we be writers or visual artists—come together as a on-line tribe. The e-contacts truly do nourish the soul, but what about our off-line commitments? All care-and-concern groups, whether it be churches, or food banks, or people who read to seniors, are declining, in some cases disappearing, for lack of volunteers. There is a huge surge in gated communities, where residents want to raise their children, “among the right kind of people.” Even on so called public transport, most riders ride in their own little cell phone, ear bud, text-messaging world. In reaching out to the large blog community are we, in fact, creating more isolation in our local communities? I have no idea.
Art credits:
Lake Martin, New Iberia, Louisiana ©Beth Guillet, and used with her permission.
Flowers and words and Tilden and Thumbelina ©Sharon Wildwind
_____
Writing quote for the week:
If you want to write well, play with color and texture. Play in water. Have a space in your writing area where there are no words, only colors, shapes, relationships. Meditate on that space every day. Change what’s in at least once a month.
~Sharon Wildwind, mystery writer
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