Does Your Muse Work Weekends?

Okay, now this may sound like a silly question. After all, we all know that as writers, we pretty much have to work all the time. Between day jobs where we can't do our own writing, and families whose needs have nothing to do with writing, and all those lovely little household tasks that crowd out time for writing...some of us may be thinking, "Duh. Of course. When else is there?" (Unless you're a vampire, one of the undead, and then you don't need to sleep.) But this evening at Mass, our pastor talked about putting God first in our lives. And whether we do. Or to what degree. And if our commitment is so authentic that literally nothing keeps us from serving God. Or, if we're not doing all we can for God...for our church...for our parish...etc., then what is holding us back? It got me thinking. For those of you who ain't got religion and who stumbled upon this by accident, don't leave too fast. You can be in on this, too. If we're truly living for God... If God is truly who we're loving with all our hearts, all our souls, all our minds, and all our strengths... And God says to "keep holy the Sabbath day"... Then if our Muse works that day, is that honoring to God? Some of us would answer an immediate "Who cares?" (Those are the ones what ain't got religion and/or who may have thought this was one of those allegedly Catholic blogs that's actually a thinly disguised dissident rant blog about What's Wrong With The Church. Sorry, guys and gals, for the misdirection. If you like, you can leave now. But we'll pray for you!) Some of us would say, "But of course. I write for God. He knows this is the only time I have." Do you? And does He? Or would He rather you spend your time doing something else on the Sabbath? Have you asked Him? Do you continue to ask Him? Do you ever get so caught up in your writing that you "forget" about other Sunday/weekend obligations? Or resent them? Or find yourself working out a plot line when you're supposed to be concentrating on the Eucharistic Prayer? (Not that I would know anything about that last one. No, sir.) Before I started thinking about the balancing act we call our lives in this particular light, I would have said, "You betcher sweet bippy my Muse works on weekends. Or she's fired." Now, I'm not so sure that's always the best answer. Oh, that's a great answer for a "serious" writer. Every spare minute, we carve out for the Muse, or we are wasting that valuable time. Yeah, of course, your real life has to come first, but... Well, that's certainly the world's standard. Produce or get out of the way. And Sunday, or your particular Sabbath...in that mindset...cannot be anything more than another day of the week. If it's a day you're not at the day job, hallelujah! You're free to write! (And you'd better have your butt in the chair bright and early, too, Missy...) But we're not called to the world's standard, are we? We're called to a gold standard of putting God first. Even before the Muse. And trusting that if we do, He'll give us the time for the rest. But we have to put the time in with Him first, before that promise gets fulfilled. And in reality, if it worked the other way around, it'd be meaningless. Because then we're saying, "Okay, God, if you give me this time to write, I'll _________ for you." Notice what comes first in that bargain. And notice, just for a moment, how backwards that is. I'll probably be writing tomorrow, if that's where God wants me to be. But He might not. He might have a better place in mind. And if He does, I'm going to do my best to be aware of that, and open to it, and trust Him to provide for my Muse to do her thing when it's time for that as well. I'm not saying this is going to be easy.... I'm just going to try to be more aware of it from now on. And sometimes, possibly, my Muse may take a weekend off. Or at least a Sabbath. What will come out of my keyboard once it's surrendered to God might be very, very interesting. May just be the best work I've ever done. I'm looking forward to finding out. Thoughts? Janny

The Only Thing We Have To Fear Is...II

...Or, You Get What Comes With It As my former hairdresser always put it, “Be careful what you wish for. Because if you get it, you get what comes with it.” Quite frankly, I would submit that that—rather than sheer gutlessness—is actually what keeps many of us from pursuing the path of courage I mentioned yesterday. Because asserting yourself means you have to take “what comes with it.” Sometimes, that can be terrifying. Or expensive. Or both. Long ago, I held a position where I was doing corporate newsletters for a major career consulting firm on a contractor basis. The CEO of the company was a pretty nice guy, as CEOs go, but he also had some typical CEO-type blind spots, and one of them was that he had no clue how to deal with me as a contractor. In his worldview, I was just an administrator of a satellite office out of Chicago, and so he kept trying to treat me like any other admin: expecting me to come and work Convention for the company for no extra pay, being slow to pay me for my contract work…you get the picture. Finally, I’d had enough of his office treating me like a second-class citizen; I’d had enough of never knowing when checks were coming, being lied to about when they’d been sent, and him expecting me to work 12-hour days at a Convention when that wasn’t even my job to do. But before I went into confrontation with this guy, my mentor, a career advisor with this organization, said to me, “Yeah, you’re right. And yeah, you need to tell him this stuff. But just know that when you make this stand, he may disagree. He may decide it’s just not worth the hassle to deal with you. So you have to be prepared to walk away.” This was a scary prospect, because I had no other income. But having income that you can’t depend on is almost as bad as having none at all…and so I went into battle with the guy. I sent him a polite letter and invoice indicating that he still owed for previous newsletter months, and so until he paid that bill, his office wouldn’t receive their mailing that month. To take such a step with a CEO of a company is not being “nice.” I knew that. And I knew when he called me, loaded for bear, I was going to get an earful about how “nice” I wasn’t being. The funny part was, though, that he started his diatribe with something along the lines of “I’ve never before had an employee do this—” At which point I politely interrupted, “You haven’t had an employee do that this time, either, Mr. Big. I’m not your employee.” At which point he sputtered, so I calmly continued. “Do you pay me a salary? “Well…no.” “Do I work in your office?” “No.” “Do you pay any of my medical benefits?” “No. “Do you pay toward my pension?” “No.” “Do you pay Social Security tax on me?” “Uh…no.” “Then guess what?” The bottom line was, what my career advisor friend had predicted would happen did, in fact, happen. Mr. Big decided that this “just wasn’t working,” and that he would bring the newsletters in-house. He had a potential editor already in mind for them, as a matter of fact, and it would just be “better” if they were in New York at corporate headquarters. (It wasn’t, of course. The person he hired was an artist, not an editor, and we went from a 14- to 16-page house organ chock-full of human interest stories to a 4-pager with some pretty clip art, but no photos, no personal stories, wooden writing, and four obvious typos in the first issue. To say it was a lame replacement would be being kind.) The impact upon my life was immediate. I got paid for the final newsletters I did, and then my association with that organization, and the money that came with it, was over. So was the hassle. But so was the security, sketchy though it was at times. And that, above all, is what terrifies most of us. Keeps us silent. Keeps us hedging our bets. Convinces us that a crumb off the loaf is better than nothing. We know that if we stand up for ourselves, we’ll get what comes with it. And sometimes, what comes with it can hurt. We may have to walk away from a book sale, when that’s all we’ve wanted for our entire lives…and we don’t know if we’ll ever get another chance. We may get vilified by “authorities” in our lives for being “too big for our britches.” We may even lose friends over taking a stand they didn’t take. And so the little voice in our head screams at us, and we knuckle under. We get that sick feeling in the pits of our stomachs—the one that tells us when we’ve sold ourselves short—but we rationalize it. We tell ourselves “no one” can do any better as a beginner, as a first-time author, with an industry as overcrowded with product as ours is, etc., etc., etc. We tell ourselves that there are thousands of people willing to take our places if we don’t buy in. And that slot will be filled with no skin off the publishers’ noses. All of that, in part, is true. But once again, it’s true because we’ve allowed it to be so. If we stopped contributing to our end of that equation, however, the same thing would happen that happened to that unfortunate CEO. He got an inferior product. He got complaints from the field. And he got, ultimately, much less than he could have had if he’d just been willing to meet a fellow professional on an even playing field. The question is, how many of us are willing to stand up to fear. To refuse to give it quarter. To act like adults, instead of scared children, and stop treating publishers, editors, or agents like “authority figures” when in fact, what they are is buyers of our products. In other words, customers. Of course, the name of the game is keeping customers happy. But I submit that we can keep customers happy without giving away our pride, our self-esteem, or the store. If we knuckle under too many times, it’s no longer a buyer/seller relationship, but a master/slave one. And none of us deserves that. We just have to be adult enough to take what comes with it. In the end, what comes with that stand is richer than we can imagine in our wildest dreams. I now have a way better job, and way better freelance writing gigs, than that corporate newsletter ever was in its best days. But to get to that place, I had to leave the old one behind…and take what came with it. Are we game? Janny

...Not nearly as dangerous as I thought I was!

The Only Thing We Have To Fear Is...

First, a little housekeeping! I did misread the calendar. Yesterday was the feast of St. Cyril...last Thursday was the feast of St. Aloysius Gonzaga. Think the man ever dreamed so many people would know his name every March? (hee hee) Can't imagine how I made such an egregious mistake, since my day gig is all about making sure to AVOID egregious mistakes. (I just love that word "egregious.") But, onward and upward. Was having an interesting conversation this week about publishers' interests versus authors' interests--and why in the world they have to be "versus" in the first place--when the notion once again reared its ugly head that publishers have all the control, authors have none, and that's why things sometimes turn into the messes they do. But is that truly the case? I submit not. Or at least, I submit that it doesn't have to be. But it can only change if we're willing to stop being so danged scared of our own shadows. For years, I've seen authors--both the unpublished and the already-published--walk around on eggshells, afraid of the slightest thing. They're afraid to ask an agent for a status report after six months without a word. They're afraid to ask an editor for a status report after a year (!). They're afraid to ask for changes in a contract. They're afraid to ask that a royalty statement be printed in English. They're afraid to say anything that might be misinterpreted in an e-mail, in an elevator, or even in the privacy of a conversation among friends. But most of all, they're afraid to be honest about a lot of personal experiences...when honesty might actually help a lot of people in the long run (including themselves). But honesty sometimes means that what you say could sound negative to someone, some time, in some instance. So, no matter how true it is, they hold back. Why? Because someone, some time, might overhear it, get offended, the next thing they know, they'll be "blacklisted" forever in the writing business. All that anxiety, and all so unnecessary. Some years ago, a prominent male author was in a public interview situation (a press conference? book signing? whatever) where news had just broken that he'd left one publisher to sign his next book with another. In the process of talking about why he'd left, he simply said outright that one publisher gave him a better deal than the other one. He hadn't felt that the first one was ready to go to the mat quite as strongly with his second book as his new publisher would. They'd offered more money, they'd offered him a better marketing plan, etc., etc., etc. The reaction from most of the marketplace? "You go, guy." The reaction from RWA? "OHMYGOD!" Rampant horror. Rampant dissing of the man involved, indignation that he would act so "unprofessionally," etc. Did the publishers care? Heck, no. They smiled, went about their business, and life went on. Now why the disconnect? It sounds sexist to say so, but I suspect it's because RWA is predominantly made up of females. And for some reason, the female mind seems to prize "niceness" above all else in the world--even in business. Males, as we all know if we live with them, put "niceness" way down the list of things to even think about, much less worry about, especially in the marketplace. (!) A man's world is dog-eat-dog, may-the-best-man-win, and if you don't like what I say about you...oh, well. Maybe you'll learn from it and do better by your next customer. Which is nothing more nor less than a) perfectly good business sense, and b) the way the free market operates. You treat me well, I'll stay with you. Someone else comes along who's prepared to treat me better...well, you just may lose me as a client. C'est la vie. No one holds a grudge against you if you take your business to Dominick's instead of Kroger's when Dominick's gives you a better deal. You can even go back to Kroger's when they have a sale, and the checkers will happily wait on you. They may even smile at you. In any event, they sure won't "blacklist" you or "blackball" you or consider you "less than a reliable businessperson" for shopping around to get the best deal for yourself. They'll be happy they provide the best deal, and they'll leave it at that. So why is the writing world, in so many circles, considered so different? "Publishing is a small world," is usually the answer that comes back. "It's a small community. You do something nasty to someone in it, and word will get around, and you'll appear less attractive to everyone else in it. And THEY'RE ALWAYS LISTENING!!!!!" (Note: in the real world, that last sentence is considered a treatable mental illness. 'Nuff said.) I can understand if you actually do nasty things, how they'll come around to get you. Even men will waste no mercy on someone who (pardon my French) screws 'em over. But a good healthy attitude of do-unto-others gets out of control when we start defining "nasty" as including everything that has the remotest possibility of offending someone, somewhere. --like asking a clueless question at a writers' conference. (Hello? Aren't writers' conferences supposed to be for learning? So how do we do that if we don't ask?) --like failing to "dress for success" when it's called for. (Like anyone really knows what that is, or when the instances are. But heaven help you if you actually think that blue jeans can be professional attire, anywhere, at any time.) --like (horror of horrors) daring to say out loud that Suzy Millionseller's latest book was less than stellar, and that you didn't much care for her previous two, either. --like (double horror) saying that the romance genre--or any genre of which you're a part--doesn't always hit a home run. That some books out there are just plain stupid. That some of them are pornographic, in the good old-fashioned sense of the word that we all "know when we see." And that, far from "empowering" women, many of these books set up women to believe that if they just play their physical card effectively enough, they'll "tame" an alpha man and make him their slave. (Yeah, right. Now there's a healthy basis for happy-ever-after.) --or, like (worst horror of all) daring to say out loud that one publisher was willing to pay you more than another, and so--nothing personal--you're jumping ship. Or that Mr. High Powered Agent may be high powered for some people, but he didn't do right by you. Or that you sure wish those royalty statements you get from Major Market Bow Down and Thank Your Lucky Stars Publisher were actually written in a language normal human beings could understand...so you could know for sure if they were really paying you what they're supposed to be paying you. Yes, there will always be stupid people out there in publishing, just like there are stupid people out there in all the other occupations we inhabit. And rude people. And snotty people. And people who walk all over someone else to get to where they're going. Those people deserve whatever they get. The majority of us, however, are not stupid, rude, cruel, snotty, or manipulative. Yet we can be made to feel any of those, or a combination of them, if we start speaking out too loud, too publicly, or too impolitely...by standards that would dismiss most churchwomen as impolite. And that's insanity. The reason authors have no control, quite simply, is because they take none. Because they're convinced it's somehow not "nice" to take the power. Or to ask someone else about it. Or to spread the word when they don't get treated well. I can tell you from this side of the desk, trust me...if you're good enough, and a publisher wants your work, you can ask for a lot of things, and you just might get them. Go for it. See what happens. And off the record, every editor I've ever talked with will tell you the same thing. But I don't know more than a handful of authors who truly believe it. Just as one example--we in romance celebrate that now, authors don't "have to" use a pseudonym at the big houses. Isn't that wonderful? Hardly. We ought to be ashamed of ourselves for not insisting upon it years ago--not celebrating when the publishers were finally "gracious" enough to give us what was ours to begin with. And the fact is, certain authors did always have that right...because they were willing to walk away if it wasn't given to them. In short? Abusive boilerplate contracts, bad royalty statements, sloppy bookkeeping, lack of promotion, or broken promises happen because no one says, "No, I'm sorry, that's not good enough." Or even "Wait a minute." It's because so many of us are so desperate to see our names on the cover of a book...we'll sell out for the proverbial "$1.49 and a kitten." And keep our mouths shut about the rest of it. But that's not just dumb; that's perpetuating a standard of behavior that would be considered bad business behavior in pretty much any other industry, among pretty much any other people. One of the few authors I've ever heard of who had the courage to say "No, thank you, that's simply not enough money," and hung up the phone, not only didn't get blackballed--she got Zebra calling her back in less than three minutes with a better offer. On a first-time contract. Without an agent. It can be done. It has been done. But when someone does it, we write it off as an "exception." As "luck." Or, worse, we react with horror instead of admiration. We diss the author in question, instead of taking a page from his or her book and being unwilling to give up the power we do have--which is the power of having a product that, like it or not, publishers need. If we all said "No" tomorrow, we'd all get better deals the day after tomorrow...because they've got to have product to survive. Yes, we need them to sell it. But they also need us to create it. So what are we so afraid of? Fear is a lousy reason to do anything, especially in our writing careers. Let's screw up our courage, determine what we need and what we're willing to sacrifice, and then stick to our guns. And let's encourage other people to do the same. Who knows? If they're really "always listening," maybe they'll catch on fast! Thoughts? Janny

So what day is it again?

If you are an alum of Gonzaga University… My calendar at home says today is your feast day! But all the online sources say it was last Thursday. Such is the nature of online information versus print versus… Sheesh! In other news, your favorite blogger (me) has been sidelined temporarily due to an extravagant workload in the day gig, as well as some past crises on the home front. Things are relatively calm at the moment, although I'm broke…still waiting on a freelance check. Will write more when time permits! Janny

Be Careful What You Pray For, Final Chapter...

or, That Sinking Feeling It’s been an interesting week. For awhile now, I’ve been in a writing funk, as you all know. Some people would pooh-pooh the idea of a funk if they’ve been able to write blog entries, and there’s something to be said for that. I can write blog stuff, I can write e-mails…I’m not totally blank. But for awhile I’ve been wondering if my day gig has completely wiped out my creative abilities. If I spend so much time fixing other people’s stuff and making sure it’s good to go that when I’m finally at the keyboard to do my own thing…there’s no “thing” left to do. The energy, the spark, and the creative juices are dry, because I’ve poured them out on someone else. It’s always been a thought worth considering. In fact, before I took this gig, I did some hard thinking about it, part of which was debunking and/or getting past the notion of “Those who can’t, edit,” and seeing the move as “selling out” because I couldn’t “make it as a writer.” The reasons for all that being untrue are myriad, and I won’t go into them now. But I sit now in a different chair, with a different perspective from behind the desk…for altogether different reasons. I've run into a couple of incidents at work this week that have left me feeling unsettled, and I'm considering carefully, and yet again, what I decided to do with my life way back when I was ten. That, after all, is when I first read a book about the publishing business and decided I wanted to “do that” when I grew up. “That” being, specifically, being a book editor. Which I am now. But which I’m now wondering about as a choice—if for no other reason than to figure out a better way to apportion my energies so something is left for me. (!) 'Tis a dilemma, to be sure. And I don't doubt that it's contributed at least a little bit to aforementioned writing funk. The only question now is, what's to be done about it. Thoughts? Janny

The View from the Other Side…

…of the desk, that is. The recent discussion on Agent Kristin’s blog about “the client from hell” versus “the dream client”— plus some recent interactions with one of our authors — got me thinking (and you know how dangerous that is). For those of you who wonder what things get under a writer-cum-editor’s skin when she’s wearing the editorial hat…let me give you a few: 1. Forgetting who I work for — namely, the publisher. Yes, putting together a book is a collaborative venture, and ideally, we all get along thick as thieves. But that doesn’t mean that designating me “your editor” equates to “your (personal) employee.” Calling me up and dictating to me the next tasks I need to do for you as if I’m a bloody clerk (!) will only set my teeth on edge. And trust me, you don't want your editor's teeth on edge. 2. Not meeting your deadlines, especially if it happens again and again on the same book. ‘Nuff said. 3. Failing to get required permissions for any use of copyrighted material before you send it in. That means photos, song permissions, and the whole shot. That’s in your contract, and it’s your responsibility. (See #1 above about trying to foist it off on me.) 4. Turning in any work that’s not final-draft quality. If you need four drafts to do your best work, resist the temptation to slide by with your third. Yes, I’m a great editor. No, that doesn’t mean I enjoy rewriting books for people. And no, you are not the exception. 5. Being incommunicado for any length of time at a crucial juncture. This includes when I’ve sent you proofs and I have a deadline for their return; when I have questions that must be answered for text to be correct; when or if you’ve written something that just plain doesn’t make sense. It’s difficult to understand in this day and age why an author wouldn’t have some kind of e-mail service, but if you don’t, please provide an accurate phone number or other means of communication by which we can actually, truly reach you. 5a. Doing any of the above, and then complaining that your book may not come out on time. 6. Thinking that because you bring in tons of money for the company, you have a free pass. Corporate types are willing to bow and scrape if you bring in molto dollars; however, those dollars do not filter down to your editor. I get paid the same thing whether you’re a wonderful, dream author or you’re a pain in the butt, and my editing will be the same high quality regardless. I just ain’t gonna like it nearly as much…and I may find ways not to take on your next project if you become aforementioned pain. Note: #6 applies doubly if you’re anyone who ought to know better. In our particular case, these people are often ordained and/or consecrated clergy and religious…who really ought to know better. Once again, ‘nuff said. Next time…what do I want as an author when I deal with an editor on my stuff? Stay tuned! Janny

A Thousand Pardons!

I have no excuse for such a gap between posts except...a copywriters' seminar on Thursday, housecleaning on Friday, a new assignment from my freelance job, singing in church on Sunday morning, the Memorial Day cooking-out, working on trying to write again, and celebrating my 25th wedding anniversary TODAY. (Or maybe more accurately, tonight, once I'm home from work. ) So other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, I haven't done a danged thing. Talk at you all tomorrow, I dearly hope! Janny

Be Careful What You Pray For, Third Part…or, No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

For years, I’ve enjoyed a certain ability to help people with their writing. I have some skill in editing, some skill in storytelling, a pernicious and truly frightening grasp of spelling and grammar…and I don’t hesitate to use them. But I didn’t come to this spot overnight. And no one does. Which leads me to a few words about an incident I had over the weekend. If you spend enough time online, you get to know people. Their styles. How they work, if they work, if they really care about writing or if they’re just hanging out. Doesn’t take much more than oh, say, three or four excursions into a chat with someone to tell where they are on the Writer Spectrum. Some of us don’t care if we write for anything but our own amazement, and that’s fine. Many times, these people who’ve decided to do this thing for fun are among the happiest of us (!)—but also, curiously enough, they can tend to be the most understanding of the ups and downs of the writing life, and just how hard it can be to make it in this business. Maybe that acute understanding is precisely why they don’t pursue it as a business/career. They know how hard it is, and they don’t want to work that hard. God love ‘em—they do us all a great service with their positive attitudes, their sheer enjoyment, and sometimes their safe shoulders. (Not to mention their occasional chocolate!) Then there are all the rest of us. We want to sell our work, to progress in the craft of writing so that we eventually get a) past the form rejection postcards, into the b) realm of longer notes, encouraging and sometimes even signed by an editor…and inviting us to send something else (!), and finally, c) to a sale. Or many sales (from my keyboard to God’s ears). Those of us in this group are also in a wide spectrum of ability and experience. We’re all over the place. But there are certain things we learn, over time. We learn that our high school English teachers didn’t necessarily know whether we could write. Those who thought we could, and those who told us we couldn’t, are often equally right. It’s what we start doing after high school that ends up counting. :-) We learn that if we’re ever going to grow as writers, someone besides our mothers and best friends needs to read what we do and offer us feedback. We learn that sometimes that feedback isn’t very polite, or doesn’t spare our feelings. If we’re lucky, we learn that our worst “enemies” probably help us grow the most. We learn that sometimes that feedback is just plain wrong, but it’s still worth listening to because it can often point to a potential reader problem. We learn which people in our lives are really good at pinpointing what will improve and strengthen our work, and which of them aren’t really good at that…yet. (This doesn’t mean they might not get good at it. This whole craft is a work in progress.) But above all…we learn that writing is work. Note: this doesn’t mean it’s not fun, or that it need be drudgery, or that it has to somehow “hurt” to be “real art.” Few things are more irritating than hearing either whining about how “hard” the “artist’s life” is, or how now that you’re “serious” about writing, “it’s not fun anymore.” If you’re hurting, see a helper. If it’s not fun, get out of the pool. Sometimes that’s the kindest thing you can do for yourself, not to mention everyone else. But make no mistake about the other side of this, either. Writing is work. It’s hard work. It’s the second-most fun you can have with your clothes on (music is first), but it’s also work. Succeeding in this work takes time. And commitment. And effort. It also takes something the athletes among us know well—something called coachability. And that’s where many people fall down on the job. They simply aren’t coachable. If you tell them their writing needs work, they tell you they’ve done that work. Only problem is, the writing shows no improvement. Which means that somewhere, there’s a disconnect. Somewhere in there, they’re lying to themselves. And that special form of denial is not a good place to spend your writing life. I had an incident over this weekend that illustrates this to a tee. A particular writer acquaintance of mine sent me a message late Saturday night asking for advice/help/etc. We had a long IM conversation, during which I got sent a link to the potential publisher she was thinking of…and then a second link that I thought would take me to another publishing site. Instead, it took me to a chat room where she was hanging out with her friends. Now, keep in mind, this is 11:30 PM and counting. And I’ve been up and on the road that day since 5 AM. I’m in fact in my hotel, winding down after Day One of some family stuff. Good family stuff, but still…tiring. I don’t mind talking writing for a few minutes before I go to bed. And that’s what I thought I was doing…talking one on one with this gal. For a few minutes. Instead, I end up in this room with these people yakking—people who obviously think I’m there for a visit!—and I’m wondering where the focus of the first gal went to. So after pretty much resisting sticking around in the chat room, I exchange a few other words of advice with her, and we call it a night, okay on both sides. Or so I think, until I get home from my trip, boot up my e-mail and discover this woman has written me to tell me that I have done something not even a destructive parent could…I have convinced her she has no talent. So after claiming 50 finished books, she is going to stop. She's going to destroy it all, and stop writing forever, because she obviously is never going to be published, because no one cares for anything she'd want to say. Boys and girls, can you spell overreaction? What had I said to so totally finish her off? That she needed to go back to her synopsis, strip back everything that wasn’t central to her story, and see what she had left. She had gone into numerous side trips, most of which were backstory, and I told her that. I also said something along the lines of, “No one is going to care about your characters unless you give us a reason to. So find those reasons. Tap into those. There’s your story, not all this detail about haunted castles and ghosts and curses and all the other stuff. Latch onto the story.” I had good reason to say this. She had supposedly sent this material to 30 other places, editors and agents, and she couldn’t figure out why none wanted it. So I told her. I wasn’t necessarily gentle about it, but neither was I brutal. I was frank. The way I always am…and most of all, the way this gal knows I am, because she knows me. And I probably was less patient with her than I could have been, had it not been 11:30 PM (when my body thought it was 12:30 AM!), had I not been basically led down the garden path into this chatroom, where I had no intention of being… …and if this whole thing wasn’t just another manifestation of this gal’s lack of ability to take advice and actually use it to improve. You see, she was going to use my editorial services, not too very long ago. She was going to pay for them and everything. (!) As soon as she got a certain check she was waiting on, we were going to go for it. That was December of 2005. She never executed that agreement. Prior to that, she sent me a query letter and synopsis and asked my feedback. I was glad to give it. Only problem was, prior to her getting the feedback, she sent the thing off, flaws and all. And then she was surprised when it was rejected. She has received critiques from many of us, specific, pointed stuff, aimed at helping her get better. Only when she submits her material to us again, supposedly revised…it’s no better. This woman claims that at times she’s spent 12 hours a day at the keyboard. But 12 hours a day at the keyboard is just exercise, and not very good exercise at that, if you can’t discipline yourself to stop believing your friends who say your work is “wonderful” and start believing people who are really trying to help you, even if what they’re telling you will only “slow you down” to put into practice. The fact that those people see the same errors over and over again should tell you something. And that something isn’t that those people are too picky. Nor is it that anyone is saying you have no talent. But raw talent does nothing for you unless you’re willing to be coached. Really willing to be coached. You also need to be willing to take the time to grow. Not to try to force it, to try to adhere to some timetable you have in your head, or the like. Goals are fine, but they take time to get to. And if you're not willing to give yourself and your work that time, you'll only spin your wheels. As my dh and I learned long ago in music school, it’s not just how long you practice. It’s how well. It’s how intelligently. If you claim to want publication, part of that intelligence is a generous dose of humility and patience to go with a work ethic that could shame a Puritan. If you can’t muster up the intelligence, the humility, the patience, the work ethic and give it all time enough to take root, for growth to occur…maybe the answer is that you really do need to quit the "business" end of this and just do it for entertainment. But the one thing you don't have the right to do…is blame someone else for that. Needless to say, I won’t be trying to help this person anymore. That’s a shame, but it’s also freeing. As I said to my own crit partner, “There may be a lot of clueless people in the writing world—but boy, is it nice to know I don’t have to fix ‘em all!” Amen, and amen. Life's too short to play denial games. If you aren't going to run with the big dogs, it's okay to rest on the porch. Just don't project onto other people reasons for decisions you make yourself...either by your conscious effort or by your unwillingness to do the work needed to get to where you say you want to go. Thoughts? Janny

Now if I just knew where New Scagglethorpe is...

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is: Empress Janet the Surreptitious of New Scagglethorpe Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

Why I Love the Marx Brothers, vol. I

...was watching a bit of A Night at the Opera on my daughter's computer (I am a technological baby, and it never ceases to amaze me that we can watch movies on a laptop! Hello!), and came away wondering why it is that I can watch most Marx Brothers movies over and over again, to the point where I know most of the lines...but I still laugh. (Wanna see this in action? Just say “Help is on the way!” at the right time. Trust me on this.) There are a number of reasons for this that have to do with my personality, of course. I just love their brand of humor. I especially love Groucho. (Like, who doesn't love Groucho?). He can set me off with one arch of those classic eyebrows, not to mention the one-liners… Why aren’t people funny like that anymore? You have to wonder. Have we really grown so “sophisticated” as a culture that we can’t appreciate classic Marx Brothers humor? I don’t think so, because the last time I rented this movie from a video store, the guy behind the counter—considerably younger than I—took one look at the title and said, “Ahhh, one of the great ones.” After which we both said, in unison, “The stateroom scene!” I take heart that every new generation seems to rediscover the Marx Brothers, if they’re lucky enough to have smart parents and/or friends who introduce them…although it’s sad that they have to be “introduced” at all to this classic comedy. I mean, we have Comedy Central on cable that’s devoted to nothing but being funny, right? So shouldn’t they be showing those movies as routinely as breathing? They’re not—for reasons that baffle me, if indeed they have any—so it remains to those of us who “know” to introduce the kids to this kind of humor. And it seems to me we’re doing them a service every time we do. Why? Because those were the days when comedy was still fun. Because as double-entendre laden as Groucho’s flirting always was, it never crossed the line of decency. Because Harpo could fall all over a pretty girl—literally—and it was perfectly innocent. Because Chico was free to talk with an accent all the time—a good Jewish boy, faking a hard Italian accent (!)—and no one thought it “ethnically insensitive.” Above all, though, this kind of humor needs to keep being interjected into the marketplace to counter all the crap. Because in those days, they all knew they didn’t really need to use even one word of strong language to make anyone laugh. Because Margaret Dumont, God rest her, was the “straight man” to end all straight men. She didn’t need to use any phony devices to telegraph to you that “this is funny, so you’re supposed to laugh now.” You knew it was funny. You didn’t have to be told. Kids of all ages need to be reminded that you don’t have to say naughty words to be funny. That being funny doesn’t have to happen by means of being cruel to someone else. That “snotty” and “clever” are not the same thing. And that bodily functions cease being a source of humor somewhere before seventh grade, so if you’re still laughing at them… They need to know that before Borat said outrageous things for laughs, Groucho was saying better ones. They’re still better, and they’ll always be better, if for no other reason than you can watch a Marx Brothers movie and not feel like you have to take a shower afterward. Wish I could say the same for most of Comedy Central. Thoughts? Janny

Actually, there really was supposed to be something else here...

...but I couldn't get the code to paste it in right! And yes, it was one of those days. :-) Argh, Janny

Be Careful What You Pray For, Continued

To answer the questions about the career/job/stuff that I mentioned before... all I can say is, the particular thing that popped up and whomped me upside the head may not be as good as it looked to be at first. Long story short, I was reading Publishers Lunch (which as writers you all should, IMHO, if for publishing gossip if nothing else) right after having prayed for something to "shake up" my work life...and in the jobs section was an Associate Editor position at one of the five or so places that I literally would drop everything to join. After I picked my jaw up off the floor, I started buzzing around like crazy. I think I buzzed all afternoon. I was so buzzed I nearly went in and talked to my supervisor along the lines of "I'm looking at this new thing, how bad do youse guys wanna keep me?" This would not have been a great thing to do, but fortunately in my case, neither would it have been the disaster it might have been in other places. :-) Then I reread the job description and started to see red flags. One of them was a heavy emphasis on "direct mail campaigns" and marketing. Another was a mention of "helping editors with correspondence." (Hello? That's an editorial assistant or secretary's job, not an "associate editor's.") Another was mention of the need for proficiency on Microsoft Office software, Outlook, Excel, etc. Now I can tell you something about my job. It's NICE that I know Excel...but I don't need it. I use Outlook for e-mail, which is a piece of cake. I use Word, of course, for the bulk of editing work...which while counterintuitive in so many ways, at least isn't unworkable like so much other software I could mention. But the job description I answered for this position didn't ask about Excel, didn't mention direct mailing, and didn't talk about "assisting" anyone with "correspondence." So I broke down and sent an e-mail to the HR people at this employer, asking for clarification. They can do one of three things. They'll either ignore it entirely because it doesn't have the resume and salary history attached, so they won't even bother to READ it... They'll send me back a form e-mail thanking me for sending my application and telling me they'll only contact me if they want to hear more... Or they'll actually answer the questions I asked. If they do the third one, a) they really are a place I wouldn't mind working at, in that they treat people as human beings... and b) I'll actually have enough information to decide if I want to put in a resume in the first place. I suspect, however, that more likely the first or second will apply. Which, considering I wouldn't even do the job in the first place on anything but a telecommuting/remote/traveling basis anyway, probably means this thing is dead in the water. However, that doesn't mean that God isn't looking to perk up my work life in some OTHER way...something that this could lead me to, or through, to another turn entirely. So keep watching, and waiting....and I'll post if any other lightning strikes my bottle. Janny

A small collection of goodies...

Some wonderful stuff from cyberspace: Danielle Bean, Catholic mom and blogger, tickles the funnybone with this heartfelt question...who ate all the chocolate? I am a great Ann Coulter fan (her occasional off-the-deep-end stuff notwithstanding), and this is reason for hope. And another couple of reasons... And finally, a book that could change your life. It's still working on mine. Results TBA. Other than the fact that I'm a Bulls fan, and therefore, it's not a good day...it's a good day. All we need now is a four-game win streak. (Which if we can do it will make NBA history...which, I think, will fit this young, scrappy team wonderfully.) Surely we can do that against a team we beat three out of four during the regular season? (sigh) More later... Janny

Be Careful What You Pray For!...and some Good News, Indeed

Be careful what you pray for… …you’re liable to get it! 

More on this later, but suffice to say if you pray for something “new and exciting” to happen in your career, as I did yesterday during Mass, be prepared for just about anything to come your way. Some of it will leave you flabbergasted, a little confused, and more than a little dazed...and some of it may require you to do some heavy thinking. As I'm doing. :-) 

And be prepared to test anything that does come along, because Satan’s aware of our prayers, too, and he likes to counterfeit us and/or lead us astray if he can… 

 Meanwhile, there’s great news from the former-Prod side of the fence: another evangelical has found his way home! 

Of course, he's getting a lot of heat for this. As would be expected for a man in a high-profile position. 

And of course, some of the attacks are ridiculously simpleminded; they reflect nothing more in some cases than some very active anti-Catholic prejudices, warmed over and served up yet again. 

There are some very, very tired arguments out there against Catholicism--most of which are based on erroneous impressions, second-hand accounts, or half-truths. 

But the longer many people spend looking into Catholicism, the more they come to love it. And that's ALL good. :-)

Anyway, pray for HIM if you think of it. He'll need lots of us holding him up in prayer. 

And if you think about it, go to his blog and welcome him to the family, just as it suggests in this link. 

More later! Janny

You might want to...

...check these people out. Another market for those of us who write Christian, wholesome, clean, uplifting, positive...and so on, and so forth. They have a couple of contests going which I may be entering, and they are delightful people. :-) Be sure to tell them where you saw this link! http://www.sunpenny.com/index.html Janny

The answer at last!

Now, you really have to love this one...

Janny

Now, This is Cool...and True

...and it has been ever thus.

Hey, it’s not my fault! I come by this honestly. Really.

Ever since OSV’s friend Janet Smith used the phrase “genetically irritable” to describe her cantankerous nature—something I instantly identified with!—I’ve been pondering a question about who I am, and why I’m wired the way I am. The question usually goes along the lines of “Why am I so cantankerous?” Or “Why do I always seem to see things differently than the majority?” Or “Why am I always the one who says ‘the emperor has no clothes on’?” “Why can’t anyone else see this this way???” All these questions, I’ve been asking myself for years, because I have this interpersonal handicap. St. Paul had his thorn in the flesh…I’ve got mine. I don’t “do” group-think well. If a majority of people think something, almost invariably, I believe the opposite. (I’m probably the only person in America who, all through the OJ trial, kept saying, “He’s being framed.” That’s how bad this is.) 99% of the time, I never cared for the #1 hit songs on the hit parade (now, there’s a phrase that’ll date me!). I either liked the “B” side of the record (another phrase that’ll date me)—or I’d heard another cut from the artist that I liked WAY better than the monster hit. Or, a third possibility that occurred more times than I can count: I didn’t even like the artist to begin with. In some cases, “loathe” was not too strong a word. I’ve never watched Survivor. I’ve never watched American Idol. I consider such things a colossal waste of time. I never watched Seinfeld until my kids started watching it in reruns. Same with The Simpsons. And the jury’s still out as to whether either of those, or any of a thousand other hit shows out there, are worth spending time on. Ditto for the majority of movies that come out lately…and I love movies. But there are only so many bathroom or gutter jokes you want to hear when you’re past seventh grade. All that could be dismissed as just my tastes being out of the mainstream. But, oh, if it were only that simple. And if only I still got rewarded for “unique insights” with As on my papers, like I got in grade school and high school and college. But when you grow up, “unique insights” don’t make you friends. You aren’t “unique” anymore…you’re “out of step.” You “just don’t get it,” you don’t “understand,” you “need to loosen up,” or, in the worst case scenarios, you get called nasty names. In rare instances, you get credited for being a “conscience.” I got that a couple of times. It was wonderful. But it’s also lonely. Just ask Jiminy Cricket…we may have to “let our conscience(s) be our guide,” but that doesn’t mean we want to invite them over for drinks after the show. (They probably wouldn’t have liked the show anyway.) So what’s a contrarian to do? My life coach suggested some new ways to think. To try to get myself to understand and appreciate the group dynamics in my writers’ organizations, at work, wherever. To use that steel-trap brain of mine to think ahead about what I’d say and how I’d say it. To tailor my words so that other people are “right,” and I’m only being “helpful.” And I tried, really, I did. I still do. People have no idea how many bite marks there are in my tongue; I spend a lot of time reframing things before they even come out of my mouth. But what comes out, either of mouth or keyboard, invariably still is more contrarian than it is conciliatory. At last, though, I may have an answer for why this is happening. This may not even be a thorn in the flesh…as painful as it is at times. This may, in fact, be exactly what I’ve been called to be from the beginning, and if I start thanking God for it instead of trying to figure out how to “fix” it, there may be exciting things ahead. When did I come to this miracle conclusion? Well, Janet Smith’s tongue-in-cheek label helped. I won’t deny that. But then I realized this goes deeper even than a wry observation about how I’m “wired.” This goes, ladies and gentlemen, clear to my patron saint. Now, before you go running off to see who my patron saint is, I’ll save you the trouble. It’s Bartholomew. Otherwise known as Nathaniel. No, I’m not named either of those things, obviously. But Bartholomew/Nathaniel’s feast day is…my birthday. So in at least one sense, that makes him my patron saint. If I’d just remembered that, and put it together with the account we have of him in Scripture, I would have understood this hard-wiring of mine so much better. Walk back with me in time to the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry, when He’s calling the disciples. He taps Philip on the shoulder and says, “You.” What does Philip do? He runs to get his brother, of course. His brother…Nathaniel. What follows is one of my favorite passages in all of Scripture. For the first thing that Nathaniel says, when he finds out that Philip is so excited about this guy from Nazareth…is contrary. “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” In that passage, that's pretty much a rhetorical question. It’s supposed to wake Philip up. Give him a whomp upside the head and tell him, “You ninny. That can’t be the guy.” (Or…”You ninny. The emperor’s still naked.”) I’ll leave you to rummage into the second chapter of John’s Gospel and read the rest for yourself, but I never fail to chuckle when I read those words. Because I’m right there with Nathaniel. I’m the one saying, “Wait a minute. Are we sure this guy’s for real? What did he say that convinced you? Who told you? How do you know?” And, blessedly, I’m also right there when Jesus looks at the contrarian and says, “You are without guile.” Jesus knows me. He knows what you see…is what you get. With Nathaniel, and with me. So, you see, I come by this whole thing honestly. It’s straight from Scripture, from my patron saint. And it’s not a flaw. It’s not a thorn. And I can stop trying to correct it. I can thank God for it. I can rejoice in being a contrarian…and see what happens next. Because the very thing I may have been looking at as a flaw, as a personality fault, or as a burden, may in fact be something else entirely. It may have been a birthday gift that, until now, I was too blind to see for what it is. It may be something truly special. Something that, now that I’m changing course and considering it a blessing…may turn out to be something so powerful it'll knock my contrarian socks off. How about you? Does this ring any bells? What “gifts” might you have…in disguise? Looking forward to unwrapping things further, Janny

Supporting Each Other…or...Not

Was perusing the blogosphere today and came across this on the BookEnds blog: http://bookendslitagency.blogspot.com/2007/04/writers-revenge.html …and read the comments. And was dismayed. But, sadder still, wasn’t shocked. Or surprised. Being discussed was the issue of writers who pick on each other, undermine each other, snipe at each other, turn on each other…etc. What you might call your garden variety of “Writers Behaving Badly.” And it seems everybody’s got a tale to tell in this regard. Some of them were legitimately brutal. Some of the perpetrators would deserve nothing more than to be kicked out of the creative writing realm and barred forever from any contact with students, mentorees, or even fellow writers. But then again, others fall into a gray area. The gray area of “What I consider legitimate criticism, or merely a business decision, you could think is abuse and bad behavior.” Or, worse, “What you consider bad behavior isn’t bad…it just didn’t tell you what you wanted to hear.” I’ve been on at least one person’s “Writers Behaving Badly” list in the past year. And I didn’t snipe at anyone to get there. I didn’t undermine a single other soul to get there. I didn’t pick on anyone. All I did was express a belief I had. A belief that, in my professional organization, as well as in the writing world in general, apparently isn’t “okay” to hold. Because I did that, according to many, many posters, the best thing that could have happened to me was pretty much unprintable. I’ve also had people jump down my throat for a legitimate critique after claiming that’s what they wanted. I’ve had people tell me, “My creative writing teacher says it’s fine not to punctuate anything or capitalize anything. That’s my voice.” (Answer to that one? Your creative writing teacher might be an incompetent idiot.) Or, “All the _______ (you name the genre) books I see have this in them, so why can’t I do it, too?” (Answer to that one? You did it, all right, but you didn’t do it well yet, and I’m trying to help you do so.) Or, “How dare you tell me this isn’t good enough to get published? Big Name Vanity Publishing Company (or Small Penniless Press) says I’m the next shining star!” (Answer to that one? Follow the money. ‘Nuff said.) So consider this a cautionary note from one side of the trench…not to necessarily jump onto a bandwagon too fast when you’ve only heard one side of the “crit groups stink” or “only readers count, other writers are just jealous” sentiments. For every person who knows how to take legitimate criticism and work with it, there are a hundred who think you’re being “mean” or “dumb” or “arrogant.” And you’ll get labeled that way…and talked about that way…and sometimes, that kind of talk can hurt your career. It can certainly hurt feelings. Which is what some of these complainers forget: that the people they at times take such pleasure in vilifying are also human beings, with feelings, and with the same desire to succeed, and to look good doing it, that they have. Yes, protect yourself. Yes, have the guts to stand up to an abuser and tell him or her to take a long walk off the nearest short pier. But don’t let a few bad, rotten apples in the field scare you off letting anyone see your work, critique it, edit it, or brainstorm it with you. No one knows how to improve a writer like another writer. If you want undiluted praise, give your stuff to your friends. If you want to improve, however, odds are much better of doing so if you share it with another writer and mutually learn from the experience. My take, Janny