It's Post #100!

I suppose I've held off posting for a long time simply because this is Post #100 and therefore should be memorable, thought-provoking, stimulating, challenging... Wait a minute. Weren't those the words we were all told were going to apply to our careers? (This space for laughing.) Anyway, I DID have a "Break Time" interlude myself, here. Lots of chocolate, a glass or two of red wine, a walk on the beach, a few Starbucks, some baseball, some football...oh, and yeah, I wrote a paragraph or two of junk that I figure now I'm not going to use anyway. But if nothing else, this getaway convinced me of a few things. Those, I'll elaborate on further in another post. In the meantime, what would you like to see yakked about here in the near future? This blog, ideally, should be a conversation, and ideally, most of the time, about writing...although in October, at least part of the conversation has to be about this as well. :-) But add your thoughts to the mix. What do we need to talk about, during this fall season? I've often thought September should be the beginning of the new year rather than January, for many reasons...we'll talk about those, too, as we go. But for some of this, I'd like to hear your questions, thoughts, concerns, dilemmas. So call your friends over and fill up the combox! We'll chat about what you ask, what I need to vent, and what strikes your fancy... More later, because some of us do, in fact, have to work sometimes. (sigh) Thoughts? Janny P.S. I have actually played with my new basketball, too. And it's awesome!

Break Time!

Maybe your life is going swimmingly right now, and you can’t imagine wanting, much less needing, to take a break of any kind from it all. Maybe you’re at the keyboard even as you read this (which isn’t all that impossible!), and before you read this, your fingers were flying over the keys with ideas popping forth so fast you couldn’t keep track of all of them…and you’re only pausing for a few minutes to read your favorite blog (hint, hint) before you go right back to that wonderful white-hot creative fire, at the end of which time you’ll have written deathless prose of a quality that will amaze even you. OR…maybe not! :-) This brief sojourn, however, isn’t so much about taking a break from work it is about breaking free in a bigger sense. Breaking out. Breaking away from old habits, if you need to and if you feel strong enough to. Breaking out of your shell around other people. Breaking out of the mold your job has put you in or out of the clique that’s getting old and timeworn. Breaking out… …of your own box. Doesn’t that thought just give you tingles? So what have you done in the past, or can you do now, to break yourself free? To take a slightly different path? What could be the first domino in a chain of change that might send you on a whole new journey or—even better—bring you back onto a path you’ve been on before, but got off, and have missed (without even knowing you missed it)? Some things that have broken people free: 1) buying that top-of-the-line bathing suit, even though you don’t have a “bathing suit” figure—and enjoying how great it makes you feel in the pool or the lake 2) jogging outdoors instead of indoors on a treadmill, sniffing the last heady scents of summer on the air—or the first crisp air of autumn 3) swallowing your self-consciousness, marching up to the counter at that exotic coffee or tea place, and ordering something outrageously wonderful without worrying about looking like a schmuck who’s never done it before 4) picking up a sketch pad and a package of crayons or water paints, sitting on the floor, and playing with color 5) walking to church, to a corner store, to the library, to the post office, to a park, even to work—anywhere you can get to without risking major life and limb damage—and talking with all the cats and dogs you see on the way 6) taking a drive in the country, or even just the suburbs, moving fast, with your favorite music cranked up to the point of pain…and singing along 7) trying your hand at something physically challenging and/or new: dancing (ballroom, line, or belly!), handball, kayaking, rock wall climbing, mini-golf, rollerblading, water ballet… …or many, many more. I started thinking about these things, and more, because today I engaged in just such a breaking-free exercise. I used a sporting-goods gift card I earned through a work-fitness program not to get something for one of my kids—which I was tempted to do—and not to plan ahead on a Christmas present buy for someone else, but instead, I used it on myself. For my very own, official NBA, indoor-outdoor basketball. With which I am going to dribble, shoot, and otherwise make a glorious fool of myself in my very short driveway. But because my falling-down garage came with a dilapidated basketball hoop on it…and because for years I’ve promised myself that when I had a basket, I would do this very thing…I decided the time, and the opportunity, had come. Basketballs are pretty reasonably priced, and they’ll even ship them to you, which means I don’t have to shell out gas money and try to finagle car time to go buy the thing…I can have someone else do that rushing around for me. Feels good? You bet it does. I’ll bet you’ve got something like that you’ve promised yourself you’re going to do. And I’ll bet you’ve promised yourself that for a long, long time. And I’ll also bet that, if you look hard at the circumstances of your life, you already have the ways and means of keeping that promise…and doing the thing you’ve been keeping in a “SOMEDAY” file cabinet. Well, today, I encourage you to take out one of those things—and check it off the list. Do it. Make it happen. And when you do, see what else it invites you to do. See how else you can break free.And then see how well you sleep tonight! Thoughts? Janny

Wanted, a little unreality...part 2. Or, Are You a Minister?

At the risk of irritating and/or offending several people who read this blog, I have a point I need to make. My writing is not a ministry. Repeat. Not. A. Ministry. My writing is a business, and a craft, and primarily, a gift and a talent, and I'm grateful for it. But a ministry? Nope. Sorry, Charlie. Not this girl. I've encountered more than one aspiring writer of faith who, when they hear other people bubbling about God “calling” them to do this, or that, or the other kind of writing, actually get a little panicky. Or even a lot panicky. Why? Because they didn't hear any calling. Because their writing isn’t “anointed.” It’s a profession, a craft, a talent, a gift…but it’s not a “ministry.” Which somehow, in a sense, makes it seem to be…not so good. Gertie Goodscribe takes up writing because it’s something she’s always loved to do, she’s good at it, and she wants to keep at it. She’s willing to work hard for the dream of seeing her own books on the shelves of the local bookstore. She’s getting closer to that reality by the day. Then she joins a group of Christian writers, and all of a sudden, the rules change. There, enjoying the writing, even being good at it, even being gifted enough to sell it, isn't what it’s all about. In fact, when the group finds out Gertie’s writing something she’s enjoying immensely, they very tenderly tell her that it’d be a good idea to look that stuff over closer, even with a jaundiced eye if need be, “just in case.” Just in case what? Apparently, to ensure she's not having fun instead of serving God. (The fact that these two things somehow don't seem to go together is, clearly, another story for another day But, I digress.) To Gertie’s dismay, she soon learns within this group that it doesn't seem to be quite Godly to just write what she loves, without thinking about all the readers who may be “looking for salvation” in her stuff. It’s not even quite okay to dream about publishing and selling…because that’s not what’s important. (Never mind that professional acknowledgment is what separates the women from the girls, so to speak; to this group, that doesn’t seem to be the case.) On the contrary: if she’s a real Christian, by golly, she will shun goals of earthly success. What matters is spreading the Gospel, which of course is why God gave her that writing skill to begin with. So her writing had, first of all, better let the world know she’s a Christian. It had better be edifying to somebody, and offending to nobody. And if it happens to sell, she’d better not make too big a deal out of it, because that might also be a worldly desire she will need to confess and surrender… Hearing all these strings attached to both her salvation and her gift, Gertie finds herself tearing up. Which is a not a good thing. Things like this are happening all around us. Things that discourage our sister writers. Things that make them feel “less” when they should be feeling blessed. Which is why my writing is not a “ministry.” And why I truly believe that calling fiction writing a “ministry,” no matter how well-intentioned, is a minefield-strewn trap that can backfire in ways that not only don’t make gains for the Kingdom…but can lose us ground. I’m anointed to tell stories. Many of us are. And there’s nothing wrong with that.Whether or not a clear Gospel message comes out of them will end up being between us, our readers, and the Holy Spirit. Which is, I believe, where it should lie. No, my writing’s not a “ministry.” And, in the context of “ministry” as I’ve seen it presented too often, I hope it never becomes one. Thoughts? Janny

Picks and Pans off the Summer Bookshelf

So what are we reading besides the blog? :-) No, I’m not going to go into the anniversary of 9-11—there’ll be more than enough of that on other channels to keep you busy, if that’s the way you want to spend some time. But for our purposes this morning, it’s time to catch up on the reading we’ve been doing, or trying to do, of late. Tried to read: The Thirteenth Tale, Diane Setterfield. This story starts out promisingly enough, even charmingly, in that quirky sort of way that ‘literary fiction’ likes to call its own. (Whether or not this is considered ‘literary’ is immaterial. If it quacks like a duck…) But then, the endless story of the wild twins and their nonsense goes on, and on, and on, and…I finally said, “Enough, already” to these amoral, maladjusted people and their exploits. Frankly, the 157 or so repetitions of how “special” and “unique” and “remarkable” they were for simply being born unconscious of anyone else’s importance or value in the world (which means—hello?—they were mentally ill!) had exactly the opposite effect: it didn’t make me sympathetic or even fascinated by them as much as it merely made me irritated with everyone around them who enabled them. At that point I knew it was time to climb out of the byzantine, self-indulgent litany and put the book back on the shelf. I understand this is presented as a long, complex, layered story, and I only went halfway through it. However, at the halfway point, I was increasingly getting that sinking feeling one gets when a “highly touted” book is 105 pages’ worth of story told in 400. (“Boys and girls, can you spell ‘overwritten’?”) Those of you who have finished this thing may have a totally different picture of it, but I’ve learned over and over again that when I ignore that sinking feeling, the book ends up hitting the wall anyway. So I saved my arm, the book, and the wall the trouble and put it back into the library. (I was just glad I hadn’t bought it.) Tried to read: Widows and Orphans, Susan Meissner. This really sounded promising, to the point where I did buy it through the book club. I love mysteries, I love suspense, and this was presented as having both…so I dove right in, despite seeing pictures of Asian characters on the cover and thinking, “Oh, no, not something about Chinese adoption…!” Please understand, I have nothing inherently against that kind of story (or the character types involved). But had it been hinted in the book’s presentation that there was a foreign element involved, or that someone had to go halfway across the world to start the plot, I may have passed—only because that’s not first on my list of the kind of story I like to read. And had it been hinted that the heroine, whom one meets first, is less concerned about other people than she is about her own inconvenience…well, suffice to say I felt nothing after the first chapter. I wanted to feel something positive for these characters. I didn’t. In fact, in short order, I got fed up with the heroine, who wavered so close to whining in Chapter One that I didn’t want to spend any more time with her and wait for her to go into full-blown self-indulgence. (Notice a pattern here?) If the reader grits her teeth during the first chapter, for that reader, the writer has failed. ‘Nuff said. Tried to read: Can’t Wait to Get to Heaven, Fannie Flagg. This, once again, sounded charming. I’d never read Fannie Flagg, who sells and sells and sells, so I thought I’d give this one a try. And for a good ways into the book, it’s a cute piece. Lots of humor, lots of down-to-earth characters, absorbing and pretty true to life. And then, the character gets to “heaven”—where she’s only stopping temporarily, mind you—and the thing goes into utter touchy-feely counter-religious “unitarian” nonsense. I won’t spoil the “surprise” for those of you who may want to wade through this—but just be forewarned, the “people you meet in heaven” in this book are liable to make your blood boil. Think George Burns in Oh, God!, only taken to a sacrilegious extreme for the sake of “humor,” and you’ll get the idea. That blatant disrespect for faith, in a book that could have taken a lighter hand, made it impossible for me to read on. I wanted to, but I’ve gotten to the point in my life where when or if an author insults my faith, however innocently it’s “intended,” I get too irritated to want to finish the story. In that respect, yanno, the author has failed…in that, unfortunately, she’s reminded me it’s only a book, and a book in which she’s taking a perverse and screwed-up doctrinal stand. (Call it preaching in reverse, I guess.) Once again, I was glad it was a library book! Lest you completely despair that I liked anything over the past few weeks, however, here are a couple of picks: THE ELEVATOR, Angela Hunt. Three women trapped in an elevator, in the path of an approaching hurricane, soon learn they’re bonded in ways none of them expects. Gritty and compelling, so much so I read it in 24 hours. (Ah, the joy of a weekend with a new book!) The few details about setting that I found confusing and/or unresolved don’t hurt the story overall; it’s a keeper. THE HAUNTED RECTORY, Katherine Valentine. Katherine Valentine is a successful author of the Dorsetville books, which seem to be an attempt at being the Catholic answer to Jan Karon’s Mitford series; I say “seem to be” because I never got into Dorsetville. I tried. I read a few pages into one of the books, stifled a yawn, and put it back. People think “nothing happens” in the Mitford books, that all they are is a presentation of small-town life, so if you just start turning the lens around the street of a small town, it’s automatically fascinating…but suffice to say they’ve got it wrong, and IMHO Valentine’s got it wrong with Dorsetville. But this one? A whole ‘nuther story, literally. Pick this one up for more than the cute play on words involved in the “St. Francis Xavier Hookers” (a group of women who hook rugs, of course!). Pick this one up for a chilling, realistic, and yet hopeful portrayal of Satanic power, of possession, and of all-too-realistic people struggling against the depths of darkness. You may not want to read this one more than once—it’s that kind of book, if you know what I mean—but you’ll probably want to pass it on to others. If I’m advising Katherine, I’m telling her to stick with the St. Francis Xavier hookers for a few more books. They’re great ladies, and Fr. Rich Melo is one of those wonderful things—a true Catholic priest, a man who struggles to believe but who nevertheless, when the chips are down, acts faithfully and consistently as the kind of priest we’d all like to know. The author’s hit a stride here that she’d be well advised to keep on with! More to come—I read way more than I seem to be able to write about, unless I put my mind to mini-reviews as part of this blog. But since I don’t really want to become a book reviewer by trade, I’d love to see you all chime in as well. What are you trying to read? What did you set aside? What’s the latest wall-banger, or what’s got you staying up past your bedtime? Inquiring minds want to know, and fall is prime getting-back-into-the-TBR pile for many of us. Share your finds with the world! Thoughts? Janny

WOW, WOW, and WOW again

Talk about a pertinent addition to our conversation! Just stumbled upon this today while browsing Google looking for...well, you can probably tell what I was looking for, and if not, I'll be glad to elucidate after we do this Required Reading for the day. I couldn't have said this any better, British or not. It's just a pity that even though he gave this presentation some time ago, that so much of it, alas, is still true... But read this. It's long, but trust me, it's worth it. In spades. And if you've a heart to do so, share it. It's worth the trip. Awesome, awesome, awesome, and Amen! Janny

Beyond Imagining

Last week, I gave a coworker a copy of Voice of Innocence (commonly known among the cognoscenti as “the Lachlan book”) to take home and read. This during a time when no agents or editors have this latest incarnation, nor do I have a list of agents and editors ready to look at it. I’ll get to that list as I go; work has been a real energy-drain of late, trying to get an encyclopedia out into production and having it take way too long. But it also dawned on me that there’s a reason for a certain inertia in the submission and resubmission and querying and requerying process. 

One name for it might be fatigue.

 Or, taken to its extreme…a kind of despair.

I discovered this, interestingly enough, when the coworker wrote me a quick note after she’d sneaked a look at the first 10 pages of it (there’s a strong temptation to having a manuscript on one’s desk!). 

Her e-mail simply said, “WOW!” 

And it took me almost completely by surprise. 

Now, why should praise for a work that is the Book of My Heart take me by surprise? 

Don’t I know that story is horking good? 

Don’t I know that, placed up against much of what’s already on the shelves, this book would—pardon my French—kick ass? 

Well…no. Frankly, I don’t.

Not at the level I need, or want, to have a handle on. 

This isn’t false modesty talking. This is the realization by a battle-scarred veteran that it’s been a long time since a story that really matters has provoked a “WOW!” out of anybody but perhaps, maybe, a minion or two. 

And when I got that WOW, it brought home to me all over again the value of fresh eyes. 

And how fresh mine aren’t. 

And how much that’s hurt me over the past few years.

I’m not talking so much about a lack of self-esteem when it comes to writing. I’m talking about something deeper, something much more pernicious and pervasive and destructive. I’m talking about, for all intents and purposes, the loss of hope. 

And I didn’t realize how much I’d lost hope until Gina was jumping up and down with glee about how great this book was, and how we HAVE to get it published, and we’re GOING to get it published, and all we need is a plan.... 

The sad thing is, there was a time when I was right on that bandwagon with her. 

You know, when I was seventeen and idealistic (and twenty-four and idealistic, and thirty and idealistic), I knew I was going to make it as an author. 

When I married, my husband supported me in this, to the point where we darned near lost everything because we were convinced that my big break was just around the corner, so I stayed home with the kids and I wrote and I entered contests and… ….and I got broker and broker, until I finally had to go out and get a day job. 

That can, and does, feel like a failure to many of us. It’s not, but it does cause a little part of that big, bubbly, sparkly optimistic hope we have inside to break off and fade away. Because we’ve had to “give in” on at least one front. 

Then we go and join writing groups, so we’ll get “tough” and “businesslike.” And learn what “real writing” is. And we get our words chewed up and reassembled and spat back at us. 

A lot of that is necessary. A lot of it is good learning. But a lot of it also means that we “give in” on some additional fronts. 

We start learning about guidelines, and we “give in” on some of the ideas we have that “won’t sell.” 

We learn about the market, and about dos and don’ts of certain publishers, and we “give in” and clear our writing of some of the taboos. 

And each time we do these things, it breaks off additional little pieces of our original, fresh, heart-thrumming work…and more of that big, bubbly, sparkly dream we have starts to fade at the edges. 

Then, the miracle happens. We win a major award, as I did. And we think we’ve made it. We’re sure we’ve learned the secret handshake now. It’s going to happen. That dream is at last going to come true. We can taste it, it’s so close. We can smell the ink on the contract. 

And then we call an editor who supposedly has our award-winning manuscript on her desk, only to learn that she has to go track it down “at the bottom of a pile” in one of the publisher’s spare rooms. 

After that publisher, and that editor, specifically asked for that manuscript. 

At that point, not only does our big, sparkly bubble of optimism break…but we can find ourselves not knowing how to make more bubble formula so we can blow another one. 

Yeah, that’s how the business works. But that, my friends, is also a large section of the yellow brick road to writer despair. 

No, it won’t kill a career. And, no, it won’t kill a writer. 

Or will it? 

You see, I’ve been doing all the “right things” for so long now, and getting soooo close for so long now—but never really making it—that I have wondered, more than once, what the use is of continuing. 

Statistically, maybe I haven’t done the work necessary to “quit” by some people’s standards, and certainly even by my own former ones. And when asked if I’m going to quit writing, the answer is usually no. But when I got that reaction from my coworker, I realized to my horror that I’ve already quit something far more important… I’ve quit believing. 

I am to the point where I’m having trouble wrapping my brain around the idea of success as an author anymore. I honestly don’t think about writing day and night—not so much because I have no energy to do it (which is partly true), but because part of me is sick and tired of watching the words flow onto the page, getting good feedback, getting close…but never seeing the work get out there where someone else other than a handful of people is ever going to see it. 

I have rights back to a book that never had a chance to begin with, and I have bits and pieces of other books that have promise but have been through so many wringers themselves that they’re almost unrecognizable.

In the process, I as a writer—and as a potential author—have been through my own wringer, one I have only just begun to glimpse the damage from. And it’s a sobering sight. 

The truth of the matter is, much as I have put on an enthusiastic “plugger” face to the world, in my heart of hearts I no longer recognize much more than the dimmest possibility that this one, beautiful, emotional, socks-knocking book of my heart will have any better of a chance than any of the bits and pieces I’m trying to cobble together. And if something that you love passionately doesn’t have a chance…what’s the hope of all the rest of it?

In short, what’s the point?

To entertain myself? I can think of easier ways to do that. 

To have a rollercoaster emotional experience? I’m a Cubs fan. ‘Nuff said.

I’m not a big believer in whining as a creative endeavor. Nor, overall, do I enjoy reading other people’s whining. But I don’t believe that this realization—this sensation of “You know, I truly cannot imagine selling this wonderful book…it’s beyond my comprehension that anyone’s going to actually buy this before I die...and that's scary”—is whining. I think it’s something way bigger than that. 

I think it’s something more of us suffer from than any of us want to admit. 

And one of us is tired of putting on the happy face and pretending otherwise. 

What I’m going to do about this is still an open question. Because the one bright light in this tunnel is…this coworker has a contact at one of the major publishers I would just about sell my teeth to get into. So her idea is she reads this book and we mount an offensive to get it through the door, by means of the friend she’s already made at this big house. 

But somewhere in the pit of my stomach, this feels like the last hope this book has. And somewhere also in that same pit is an awful certainty that “that trick isn’t gonna work any better than any of the other routes I’ve already tried.”

I don’t want to become the Augustinian and take on the attitude, “I never expect anything, so then I’m never disappointed.”

 I believe, quite frankly, that that’s self-deception. That’s saying what I’m saying above, but refusing to admit that it hurts. That's another kind of death, and I don't want to go there. 

I want to keep feeling. And believing. So the scary question has now become…how?

Thoughts? 

Janny

Hearing is Believing...Or Is It?

This may be significant, or it may mean nothing. But it got my attention, so see what you think. To wit: Recently, I heard yet another of the many paeans of praise, after the fact, for The Sopranos. Now, I never watched the show for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that if I want to spend a couple of hours a night listening to the “f” word, I can do it through myriad means online, anytime. (Spare me the arguments about “That’s how real people talk,” or even “That’s how these people talk.” The real people I know don’t talk that way, and the Mafia do a lot of things I don’t want in my living room. ‘Nuff said.) But enough people around me were fans of it, including a local radio personality who brought up the fact that the reason he loved the writing of the show so much is because of how good the dialogue was. Now did he love it because the characters used witty repartee? Nope. Did he love it because it sparkled, because it “clicked,” because it hummed along almost lyrically? Nope. He loved it so much because it sounded like real people talking. Complete with “ummms” and “ahhs” and flubbed up and misused words. As he put it, “No one else on TV or in the movies does that. All the other dialogue in most things sounds fake. It’s too perfect. People never trip over a word, they never get tongue-tied, they never say one word when they’re thinking of another one, except if they’re going for comedy. But in real life, everybody does that. So these writers made you feel not like you were watching a script, but like you were watching real people just go through their lives, mistakes and all. That’s genius.” It might be genius in this guy’s eyes. But it’s also pointedly, diametrically opposite of the way we’ve all been told to write dialogue. If I’ve heard it once, I’ve heard it a thousand times. In fiction, dialogue should perform more than one function. Ideally, it shouldn’t be just “the way people talk,” it shouldn’t have those embarrassing lapses in it (unless, as the man said, you’re going for a deliberate effect), and it shouldn’t have “ums” or “ahs” or all that stuff. The idea is to make it sound like real people talking…only streamlined. A little cleaned up, if you will. Ideally, then, dialogue gives the illusion that you’re with these people in real life, only it doesn’t waste your time with real-life hemming and hawing. So who’s right? Or are we both? And who’s actually writing people that sound like real people? This isn’t the first time I’ve run into the “dialogue” question, either. My son once remarked that “your characters tend to talk like you do. They sound like you, Mom.” That was a mixed critique at best. On one hand, of course, I was writing people like me: people who saw the world the same way I did, who spoke with a similar vocabulary, etc. I was “writing what I knew” in that sense. In another sense, of course, that’s a killing indictment of a work. If all the characters sound like you, they’re not people in their own right, and that means you have some work to do. My only consolation on this point is that I have lots of company in this fault. Lots and lots of people are guilty of this, and some of us get away with it. I was trying to read a novella once where in one story, I literally could not tell the characters apart. To this day, I can’t tell you those characters’ names or anything about them, because they had no distinguishing “voices” on the page—and I didn’t stick around reading long enough to give them time to develop same. Had this book not been by a multipublished and bestselling author, I would assume, it might not have made it out of the gate. But the fact that it was, and it did, makes the offense even worse. The good news is that this kind of problem is easily fixed, with enough creativity and time spent inside characters’ skins. But the first “problem” mentioned here has me wondering. Obviously, a screenplay can get away with “sloppier” dialogue in the sense that the experience a viewer has is more multilayered; while they’re listening to Tony Soprano come up with a malapropism, it’s a part of the total viewing experience. I suspect we don’t have that luxury in books, where the flat words on the page have to do so much more for a reader than the words of dialogue have to do on a screen. But I do have to wonder if, because of things like the writing on certain television shows, we’re coming to a point where we’re going to be asked to make our characters, in a sense, less articulate and more “real.” Is there a method by which we can, literally, do both? Have articulate characters speak dialogue that accomplishes what we’ve all been taught it’s supposed to do…while the people still sound real and not “fake” or “too perfect”? Thoughts? Janny

Thirty Years in the Carpenter’s Shop—Or, Hidden Preparation

Several of us have been thinking lately in terms of “breaking out” in our writing lives. No, not in poison ivy, although it is that season. But in terms of making some Big New Things Happen in our writing and our approach to same. As in, “This will be my breakout book.” Or, “It’s time I broke out of this rut.” Or, “Now that I’ve broken away from this genre…now what?” Some of us get a little panicky at this point, and with good reason (at least in our own minds). Many of us, after all, are of the Day Planner generation—if we’re not being productive (i.e. jumping right into the next book the moment we type THE END on this one), we’re wasting time, and we cannot afford to do this! We “owe” the world productivity for taking up space (!), and we owe our God the maximum output from the gifts we have. (Who can forget Erma Bombeck’s line, so frequently quoted, about hoping that she didn’t have a speck of talent left at the end of her life, because she used it all up? ‘Nuff said.) Some of us, however, get panicky for another reason entirely—the not totally unfounded fear that the writing and publishing world is passing us by. And not because we’re writing to a trend that’s going to be “so yesterday” by later this afternoon, but because we are surrounded by other writers who are selling, some of them at a rate that leaves us breathless. One particular writer I know has gone from getting her first contract last fall to being able to finish her e-mail signature with a list of three or four books already contracted, and another one pending. I get whiplash just thinking about it. When this kind of thing happens, I feel many other things, too. None of them good. I start out somewhere around “Ohmyword.” From there, I go quickly to “For Pete’s sake, leave some contracts for someone else,” and it’s only a short trip before I land somewhere in the skids of “Well, obviously, I missed the secret handshake meeting again.” (Otherwise known as the Slough of Writer Despond.) Now, putting aside for a moment whether I should be rejoicing for this woman (of course) and what’s keeping me from doing so (easy answer, tough problem to lick)…what’s putting me into said despond slough? The fact that I don’t have four books ready to go. To anyone. Anywhere. In any shape. And I won’t have that many ready to go for quite some time…especially since I’m doing some “breaking out” of my own. And there’s the rub. We who experience these jealousies, panics, and whiplashes are both forgetful of, and overly conscious of, the element of being prepared to move to that next step. Laying groundwork. Doing research. Learning new ways of approaching our art. Refilling the well. Tending to our spirits. Resting. Writing. Experimenting. Finding, perhaps, a new creative rhythm and voice. And we forget—or we want to deny—that all of that takes time. Why? In a word, because we’re scared we don’t have that time. The publishing world continually reinforces this notion of scarcity: not enough time, shrinking markets, diminishing opportunities for those who aren’t poised on the very edge of caffeine, ready to leap. Serendipity is amenable to dipping her hand into the magic dust and sprinkling it on us, but we gotta be out there for it to happen. Preparation work isn’t the work that gets us out there. It’s work that’s done within. In our own writers’ caves, if you will. But Serendipity doesn’t make cave calls, and we all know it. So we’re torn. We want that magic dust, and we want it to be the real thing, but we begrudge spending time in a fallow place while our Muse regroups herself. We don’t want to noodle around with six or eight or fifteen or twenty-three or fifty-seven ideas that don’t go anywhere; we want to get right to that magic #412 idea—the one that’s going to be The Book That Makes Our Name—as soon as possible, preferably yesterday, thank you very much, and while you’re at it, yes, I would like fries with that. And make it snappy. Too bad that’s not how craft really works. Success in the writing craft, as in most other areas, truly is a matter of “preparation meeting opportunity.” (And dumb luck, and the stars aligning, and the secret handshake, and…oh, wait. Never mind.) But we need to understand the true nature of “preparation” if we’re going to hit our own dose of magic dust. Preparation is dog work. It’s time-consuming. Sometimes, it’s frightening. Certainly, it’s unpaid. But it’s really, really necessary to take enough time to lay the right foundations. To make sure we’re working toward what our true place, our true voice, and our true niche in the craft is, not necessarily what all the “experts” tell us we “ought to” do. But it’s hidden work. And, at times, it can look like we’re doing “nothing” to get ourselves ahead. As a consequence, sometimes that outside world is going to ask us pointed questions. Or we're going to ask ourselves the pointed questions and worry because of what we think that world is thinking of us. But if we’re truly going to “break through,” we dare not try to shortcut the process. If we doubt this, all we have to do is look at the Lord and Master himself, who took thirty years to prepare for His “real” work. Think about that. Thirty years. How many of us have that kind of patience? That wasn’t thirty years of practice-preaching in pulpits, teaching VBS, or working in a soup kitchen, either—works that, had they existed, would have been good preparation for the life of itinerant preacher and healer. On the contrary; Jesus not only didn’t hang around the synagogue day and night and get labeled a “holy person,” but if anything, He did the opposite: He hung around Dad’s workshop and built tables and shelves and cabinets. Talk about a fallow period! And what happened when He finally left the woodworking tools behind and started calling fishermen? His own hometown pooh-poohed him for exactly the reason that we’re talking about: He was Mary and Joseph’s son, just a carpenter, nothing special. Who did He think He was? Well, of course, what mattered wasn’t what His hometown thought of Him. Or even what He thought He was. What mattered was what God His Father was preparing Him to be. And what He was preparing to be, and to do, was something no one else could do—something that gave life to all the rest of us. If that wasn’t a magnificent “breakout,” nothing was. We, too, can provide our own kind of “life” for people with the words we write. We, too, have the capability to tell stories we haven’t yet imagined. But we have to be willing to wait for them to come. To resist the temptation to jump out of the cave and try to do the Big Thing too fast, too soon, or in a way that isn’t true to the writer God made us to be. We have to be willing to sacrifice the good for the best, something that’s never easy…especially not in what seems to be an ever-more-competitive and ever-narrower world like writing and publishing. But if we can calm ourselves, yield that crazy world and our crazy craft to God and let Him handle it, I truly believe we have a much better chance of finding the wide, open road that we’re meant to walk and the niche we’re meant to fill. It’s a big challenge, but He’s up to if it we are. The question is, how “hidden” are you willing to be? How abandoned to what He wants you to do? If He were to tell you it was going to take thirty years to get you to where He wanted you to be as a writer, would you be willing and able to let Him take that time? Thoughts? Janny

K.I.S.S.

I have been, with great glee and malice aforethought, violating one of the key principles of blogging: I’ve written loooooooong pieces that take awhile to read. This, my friends, is a no-no. At least according to most blogging experts out there. (Never mind the oxymoronic idea of "blogging experts" when Microsoft doesn’t even recognize “blog” as a word yet. If the Evil Empire says what you do is not a word, can you still be an expert?) Anyway, these self-proclaimed experts explain to us now that people accustomed to doing things online have very, very short attention spans. Think “gnat.” Now, a gnat doesn’t hang around for very long in any one place. It’s got places to fly, people to annoy, crevices to hide in. Apparently, the same is true of most people reading blogs. (Well, okay, maybe they don’t fly much, but a lot of ‘em hide in crevices—that much is apparent by reading their comments. The “annoying” part goes without saying.) They have little time to “waste” sitting down reading a long, drawn-out piece of wisdom. Hit ‘em fast, hit ‘em with valuable information right off the bat, because their eyeballs aren’t going to be on your site for longer than 16.8 seconds before they lose patience and they’re off to the next click. Unless, of course, your blog says anything about scandal, gossip, links where people can get FREE STUFF, or is so inflammatory that people spend longer than 16.8 seconds just so they can click into your comments section and tell you what an idiot you are (language cleaned up for the sake of all of us). So my blog is breaking all the rules. Because this entry, as you can see, is already too long. You’ve probably already lost patience with me and are saying, “Oh, for heaven’s sake, she’s babbling again, get the woman some Prozac.” Well, you might be right. I am babbling. But it’s because I’m in a particularly snarky mood this morning, it’s Wednesday and I don’t want to be here at work checking other people’s stuff when I could be writing my own. It’s also blazing ridiculously hot, I had to stop on my way out to work this morning to clean catstuff off the carpet (eeewww), and… Yeah, I know. Prozac. Anyway, to keep this short and sweet: those of you who have my website address on your links may need to change it shortly…I’m changing web page providers, redoing everything, and that old link was supposed to expire as of July 31. Which, as we can see by the clock on the wall, has passed, and it’s bloomin’ August already. Which is as good a time as any, considering it’s my birthday month and all, to give myself the present of a new website. In the meantime, please tell everybody you know to come over here to Catholic Writer Chick and they can browse to their gnats’ eyes’ content! But what do you really think? Is short the only way to go? Or is there still a group of people out there who want to read steak, not sizzle, and don’t mind knowing there’s a blog or two out here with substance to it? Who don’t mind pouring a cup of coffee, clicking on the link, and seeing what diabolical stuff the CWC is up to today? (This is a hint. Tell everyone you know to come over here. Oh, did I say that already?) :-) Let me know. In the meantime, stay tuned for some chatter about What We’re (Trying To) Read At The Moment… Write on! Janny

Base-Hit Style Book Pitching…or, Hit ‘Em Where They Ain’t

People who “speak baseball,” as we do in our house, have a wealth of slang particular to that sport and some terminology that can be—to put it mildly—a little confusing. Case in point: you may see us comment on an infield groundout by calling it what sounds like an “Atom Ball.” This can be fairly alarming…until you realize that what we’re saying is “at ‘em ball.” It refers to a ball that’s smacked pretty well, but right at an infielder; the frustrating result is that the batter has nothing to show for a well-hit ball but a routine ground ball or shallow line-drive out. Which is why another common baseball slang phrase is, “Hit ‘em where they ain’t.” If you smack a ball to the spaces between fielders, you end up with a much better result. “Nice,” you say. “Good idea. But what in confusion does it have to do with writing or pitching a book?” Well, call me dense, but I just realized recently that the answer to that question: a lot. This conclusion didn’t come easily. (Witness my reference to density.) It’s come very recently, after a long time slogging away in the trenches of writing, trying to identify where my writing fits into the marketplace, trying to decide what genre I write, trying to tailor my pitches to the agents and editors who handle my kind of work, etc., etc., etc. For years and years, I’ve believed in the ancient wisdom of the previously published: find a publisher who does your kind of book, and pitch it there. In fact, the narrower you can make this focus, the better: if you can find the editor who bought the last five or six books just like yours out there, and pitch her, that’s even better…and if you find an editor or a house that publishes an author you sound uncannily like, or whom you emulate, that’s like hitting the proverbial pot of gold and rainbow. Go for it, and you’ll be snatched up instantly—or at least have a better chance of getting your foot in the door. Sounds like great advice, right? Too bad it’s not. In fact, those are exactly the people to whom you do not want to send your book. Why not? Let me explain. You love Suzy Potboiler. You gobble up everything she writes. You dream about her characters. You reread her stories until the books are dogeared. And when you grow up as a writer, you want to be as good as she is. Fast forward a few years…and you’ve become a really good storyteller yourself. In fact, people now tell you your work sounds amazingly like S.P. It’s yours, of course—but it’s the same genre, it has a similar tone, you write to a similar word length…in other words, if Suzy ever misses a stride, you want to be the princess in waiting. To give her publisher the hint, you pitch your book there; if she’s prolific, you pitch your work to all her publishers. But no matter how you try, you can’t break in with her publishers, and you can’t get her agent to give you the time of day. Why would that be? They like what Suzy does, right? So shouldn’t they like your stuff just as much? Shouldn’t you be on that gravy train, too? Nope. Because they don’t want another Suzy. They want a Mabel. Or a Dorothy. Or a Colleen. Or a Meg. Not another Suzy. Two Suzys dilute the market. They confuse readers. People want to know what the difference is…or, worse, they forget. And forgetting a trademark, a name, or a label…this is serious in the book business. But a Suzy, and a Mabel, and a Dorothy? These gals write all different sorts of books. For different readers, and different buyers. And the wider swath a publisher can cut across the reader base…the better they like it. So, no, the place to pitch your work isn’t where Suzy pitches and sells hers. It’s at her competition. And this, boys and girls, is “hitting ‘em where they ain’t.” You see, for years, Also-Ran Publisher has been kicking themselves that when Suzy’s stuff came across the transom, they didn’t see it for the genius it was. The editorial assistant who gave it thumbs-down, of course, is no longer working for ARP. But neither is Suzy writing for them, while she’s making gazillions of dollars for Trite and True house down the street, and it bugs ARP every time Suzy hits the bestseller lists. What they’d love to find is another Suzy, but there isn’t another Suzy out there… Or is there? You see where we’re going here, don’t you? Think this week not about pitching where “they’ve already bought books like” yours…but where you haven’t seen books quite like yours yet. Certainly, stay within your genre, or within the range of the broad-brush “type” of book you want to sell. But don’t try to break into a place that does what you love by being more of the same. That’s hitting “at ‘em” balls, and you’ll never get out of the infield. Because they don’t need two of any storyline, any author, or any type of book that’s too much like another one in-house already. If you love Mary Higgins Clark, like I do, in other words…that means that your aim shouldn’t be to end up at Simon and Schuster alongside her. Mine was. For years. It isn’t anymore. Because Simon and Schuster doesn’t need another Mary Higgins Clark. They’ve already got one. It’s taken me all these years to figure this out, but I think I’ve got it now. I think it’ll be just as sweet to be Penguin’s answer to Mary Higgins Clark. Or Random House’s. Or Doubleday’s. Or maybeThomas Nelson’s. Or…a publisher or agent I haven’t even thought of yet, but who’s thinking of me. Who’s sitting there, thinking, “What I’d really love to see is a cross between Mary Higgins Clark and Karen Kingsbury. You know…a little suspense, a lot of emotion...” Note to said publisher or agent: e-mail me. I’ve got a book that’ll knock your socks off. Come to think of it, I’ve got a better idea. I’ll be pitching you shortly. And you’ll be glad I did. Janny

Weary of It All

I feel a little lonely and more than a little tired this particular morning, as a Catholic Christian writer. 
This feeling comes and goes, depending on the cultural currents around us. But two recent incidents made it come to the fore in especially vivid relief. 

 The first one came when I was reading my way through a novel called Any Bitter Thing by Monica Wood. The book has a promising setup: a woman recovering from a serious accident begins to discover stuff about her life that will change her forever. 

I love stories where stuff gets revealed, secrets are told, and people’s lives change as a result. So it sounded like it’d be a horking good read. 

What was even more promising was that one of the major protagonists in this book was a Catholic priest, a man who took custody of the heroine as a child, when she was in need of someone to step into her life and provide stability. 

He was written wonderfully…for awhile. Unfortunately, the author then took the cheap, easy, and all-too-predictable path. (I guess she couldn’t hold out forever.) 

She had a character talking with Fr. Mike ask, “Father, do I have to obey all the Church laws? Even the stupid ones?”

 

 Well, you know what the “stupid ones” are, don’t you? 

 Yeah. Anything to do with sex. The contraception prohibition, among them. And, of course, a contemporary author wouldn’t be worth her salt if she didn’t hint that stuff like not letting women be priests and/or not letting priests marry (this space for violins), among other things, are just so terminally backward that they also fall under the “stupid” category of Church law.

Now, this was disappointing enough. But when this character gets done having her say, what does Fr. Mike do?

 

He could have used this as a wonderful teaching moment. Heck, he could have even just fallen back on “we’re not called to know all the answers, we’re just called to obey,” which is not only perfectly Catholic and perfectly Christian, but a perfectly okay response even in many secular situations. (Think military and/or medical settings, if nothing else.) 

He could have talked about faith. About God giving strength to people to do things on faith that, on the surface, may not make sense in human terms. 

So how did he answer her? He commiserated, chuckled, and finally confided, “Actually, you know what? Don’t tell anybody, but…I agree with you.” 

And I tossed the book across the room. 

 Frankly, I've gotten to the point where I’d just about sell my soul—figuratively, at least—for someone, anyone, to write and publish some faithful Catholic characters for a change. 

Not the overly-pious end-times crazies that pop up in some of the apocalyptic literature—that’s just as bad as going the other way. But a few ordinary, everyday, next-door-neighbor types wouldn’t come amiss. 

Failing that, I’d be willing to take characters who were at least neutral. Who were willing to say something like, “Well, there’s a lot I don’t understand, but since I’m in this Church, I do the best I can to be faithful to her.” 

Or if they’re not in the Church, to say something like, “Well, I don’t believe that way, but a lot of people grew up with those beliefs and they turned out all right…so it probably isn’t all that bad.”  

That may be damning with faint praise, but even that is better than the endless nudge-nudge, snicker-snicker, isn’t-this-just-like-those-stupid-reactionary-Papists stuff. 

Especially when it comes from characters who are supposed to be on our side. 

Where are all the characters who aren’t chafing against “stupid rules,” who aren’t badmouthing the Church when things get a little challenging, who aren’t kicking against the goad? 

Where are the priests willing to stand up for Mother Church? 

In real life, they’re out there. They’re some of the most wonderful people you’ll ever meet. They’re perfectly normal, too, amazingly enough—reasonably intelligent, informed on current events, participatory in their modern worlds, with healthy senses of humor and healthy senses of realism. It’s not like they’re all living in caves. So why don’t they ever show up in stories?

 

One might be tempted to assume that one didn’t show up this time because this book is secular literature, but the problem goes deeper than just secular versus “spiritual.” Some so-called spiritual writers offend equally, and sometimes in more egregious ways yet. 

The plain fact of the matter is that in our culture, it’s considered not opinion, but fact, that “Catholic Church rules are stupid.” And, like any propaganda does, that skewed perspective has had the effect of convincing many people that the idea behind Catholicism is “Just be nice, the rest doesn’t count;” or that the Catholic Gospel is less concerned with conversion than with liberating people from oppression, saving trees, or turning a blind eye to lawbreaking in the name of “loving Jesus.” 

None of this is true. 

None of this is authentic Catholicism. 

It’s not even good Christianity, for that matter. 

But it persists, and the more even fictional characters reinforce these predictable, ignorant bigotries, the narrower the field gets for all of us.

I experienced this narrowing in the second incident that set me apart.

I found a new Christian publishing house starting up, got along famously with the editorial people I contacted there, and asked them if they were willing to do reprints. Turns out they are, so I submitted From the Ashes to them…which, as you might expect, is Christian fiction from a Catholic viewpoint.

Now, the last time I looked, Catholicism was still based in Jesus Christ. Which, by definition, makes it Christian. But I was told very nicely by the editor in charge that if I wanted to have that book reprinted by her house, I’d need to remove the “Romanism” from it, because she is aiming at a broader reader base that is more heavily Protestant.

On the surface, this sounds like an innocent enough request. After all, she knows her potential market, right?

But is it really all that innocent? 

Or is it rather a matter of a huge number of Protestants buying into a picture of Catholicism that they've been fed by secular media as “what Catholicism is about,” and dismissing us and/or being offended accordingly?

That’s wrong. It’s a mistake. And the worst part of all is, it’s a huge blind spot that may come back to bite us when there are bigger battles to fight.

Our culture is literally racing toward dismissing anything pure, moral, and decent in favor of the impure, the immoral, and the indecent. If we needed any more evidence of that, the following piece of tripe I encountered in PW (Publishers Weekly) spells it out in rather chilling terms.

It’s an excerpt from a review in the June 11, 2007, issue. The publication in question is a comic book/graphic book called Misery Loves Comedy, by a certain Ivan Brunetti. Apparently, boys and girls, comic books ain't what they used to be. Not if you can believe a review that says, in part:

“Brunetti constantly offers up the worst possible image of himself alongside his portraits of a despised society. His festival of self-loathing, sexual depravity and brutal cynicism, is, however, amazingly clever and incisive. Whether from the point of view of a miserable comics artist and workaday hack, a nihilistic Jesus Christ or a raging ‘feminazi,’ these rants are fascinatingly convincing, readable and smart.”

We have already reached a phase in our culture where “self-loathing, sexual depravity and brutal cynicism” are considered “clever and incisive.” And yet, here I am with a clean, wholesome book to sell, submitted to where ideally it should fit right in...yet it is somehow not quite “right” for a “Christian” fiction market. Its Catholic identity makes it somehow...flawed. Risky. Possibly even dangerous.

Words fail me.

Note to my Christian publishing sisters: As erotic depravity takes over romance fiction, and comic book writers get praise for the kinds of things cited above...Catholics ain’t the ones you ought to be worried about.

We have bigger fish to fry. But it’s going to get real lonely in that frying pan pretty soon if we don’t have the sense to start frying them together.

Thoughts?
Janny

A Brief Pause for a "Catholic" Commercial...

...from a very articulate Protestant. Great stuff! Me, I'll pray for this guy's conversion to the Roman Church, if for no other reason than that he has his head on extraordinarily straight. That cannot be said, alas, for many of the USCCB...to mention the misguided (brain damaged?) souls over last forty years who have yammered about the "Spirit of Vatican II" while importing clowns and other nonsense into the liturgy. In the Church I love, all too often, the old Pogo comic quote comes to mind: "We have seen the enemy, and they is us." So, as this gentleman so eloquently put it, it's good news for all of us when the Catholic Church starts acting like the Catholic Church again. Viva il papa! More to come, Janny

Voice, Part II—Or, One Path To Finding Yours!

My original notion on this topic, it turns out, is correct. Everyone wants to have a unique writer’s voice, but no one is quite sure just how to go about getting one. So how do you know what your particular “voice” is? How do you identify it? How do you know it when you hear it? And can it change? Last question first, because this particular question seems to be a biggie. Short answer? Yes…to a point. I wouldn’t have said this a few years ago. I would have said, “No. The way you write is the way you write, you’ve got one voice, and no matter how you try, you aren’t going to sound dramatically different.” Then, just for a lark, I tried a chapter of a light, frothy “chick lit” type book just to see if I could carry off zany, comedic and a little edgy. And the feedback? “Wow! What a great chick lit voice you have! You’ve really found your niche.” There’s only one trouble with that assessment. I heard exactly the same thing when I wrote a traditional romance with a cute/funny meet…and a romantic suspense with more than a touch of the ghostly. I heard like feedback on the depth of emotion I brought to a “death” scene…and the pure sweetness of a happy ending (at last). I’ve written romantic suspense, I’ve written traditional romance, I’ve written inspirational fiction, I’ve written nonfiction, and I’ve dabbled in aforementioned chick lit stuff. And no matter what I do, someone will say to me, “Oh, now, this…this is your voice. You need to just concentrate on this.” I’m a veteran writer. I’ve been at this game for a long, long time. You’d think I’d know what I’m doing. You’d think I’d really know my strengths by now. But the fact is, if I turn my hand to something, I often can “fake my way” through it, pretty convincingly, if the feedback is to be believed. Probably we all can. So is it any wonder that we’re all so flummoxed? The unfortunate (and confusing) fact is, “who we are” as writers sometimes will change. Anyone who’s ever taken a Myers-Briggs or other personality test knows that your results can differ dramatically depending on the mood you’re in, whether you’ve had enough sleep, the atmosphere in which you’re taking the test, and such things. (I personally have tested ENTJ, but some of the “results” are so close that if you tip it one way or the other, I’ll end up ISTP or even ISFJ—although I can’t quite imagine myself throwing over that logical “T” for an “F”, somehow.) If something as basic as personality can reflect in different ways depending on external factors, then it stands to reason that an author’s voice may in fact show itself as two or three startlingly different “voices.” So how do you distill down to one? Or should you? Once again, the short answer, yes—find the one place where you’re always “singing” in words, and stay in that spot long enough to distill it…if at all possible. I say that because you may not be at the point yet where you know which “voice” is truly yours. You may just not have written enough yet. Or tried enough different things yet. Or totally enthralled or disgusted yourself enough yet to know what, for sure, you at least don’t want to sound like! But you will. One day, you’ll be writing something, and the sparks will fly out of your fingers, and a shiver will go up your spine, and you’ll know you’re Onto Something. That “something” will be the action of telling your own stories, in your unique author voice. And there ain’t nothing like the real thing. Notice I don’t say you’ll be writing in your unique “style.” An author can write different styles of work, yet still have the same voice. I think regular readers of this blog could probably find familiar “resonances” with it in anything I wrote. Heck, I can find resonances between this and most letters and e-mails I write. That proves I’ve written enough millions of words that certain ones just pop out of my fingers more readily than others, in certain orders, with a certain rhythm and pace. All of that is style, which is one component of voice…but voice is something even deeper, even more distilled than style. It’s an essence. And you can get at it, if you’re willing to be fearless and play a little. So fasten your seat belts, because this is where it gets fun. My favorite, all-time, number one way to do any kind of serious writer exploration is by talking things out. I do this at a couple of points in the work. The first point is during the writing itself, or even prewriting. The best venue to do this talking, for me, is in the car. I take a long drive alone, and after I’m on the road perking along, I pose whatever my story question of the minute is, and then think about it out loud. I think in character sometimes; I think as narrator at others. I’ve talked out dialogue, plot knots, conflict, motivations…any number of things for my stories and characters, basically by having a conversation with myself. (This is why driving in the city, for these purposes, is perfect. Unless your windows are wide open and you’re in stop and go traffic, you can expound away quite freely and people just think you’re singing with your radio.) (Which I also do!) Some people do this with a tape recorder, but I don’t. Not only do I freeze up if there’s a machine going, but I don’t need to record it—after I’ve rehearsed it out loud enough times, I’ve got it imprinted in my brain somewhere, and I can literally come home and write it pretty much word for word. In my life here, out of city traffic, I don’t take long rides in the car as often as I used to. So sometimes to accomplish this talking-thinking-out-loud, I have to wait until the house is empty, sequester myself in my office and chatter away in much the same fashion. It’s slightly less effective that way, but in a pinch…it’ll work. The second form of “talking out” takes place once there’s something on the page. In this second form, you take a portion of the WIP and read it out loud, by yourself, to yourself. With expression, animation, and whatever you want to put into the danged stuff. Because I guarantee that when you do this, two things will happen: —you’ll enjoy some parts of the writing way more than others, and —you’ll stumble over some parts of the writing way more than others. They will literally be hard to read. Your tongue will get tangled, or you won’t like the sound of something, or you’ll keep hesitating before you say a certain sentence or phrase. Your job then? To go back and fix those places until they roll nicely off the tongue. It’s both as simple, and as complex, as that. Simple because sometimes all you need to do is change one word, and the sentence or scene works. Complex because in the process of figuring out what makes you stumble physically over a passage, you’re also discovering places where you’re not truly “in good voice.” Something in the work doesn’t resonate with you, so you have trouble getting through it. But when you go back and fix it so it flows…? This exercise ends up building your voice two different ways. First, it gets you accustomed to how your writer’s voice sounds, reads, and flows. Second, it helps you improve your writing craft—the actual craft—without your having to come within five miles of a potentially devastating, confusing, or nonsensical critique from someone else. Anyone else. As big a fan as I am of critiques, “voice” is one area they can really mess with…so it’s best at these times to Fix Things Yourself. (If you’re perplexed how to fix concrete, nuts-and-bolts stuff, of course, get some help if you want it. On the other hand, after enough of these sessions, you may find you don’t need nuts-and-bolts help so much anymore, either.) In a nutshell, that’s my voice-finding method in its clearest, most straightforward form. Sounds almost too easy, doesn’t it? Trust me on this. After years of writing just this way, I can vouch for the fact that this is simple, not easy. You may find it frustrating, almost impossible, at first. You may think, “I’m not an aural learner. I’m visual.” (Visual is OK. Use your flow charts, your highlighters, your index cards. Those are nuts and bolts. This is different.) Or, “I don’t read well out loud. Won’t I just do more harm than good?” (Answer? No. Because part of what penetrates the layers of writer-speak to the point where you’re using your writer’s voice, and you know it, will be the gradual release of inhibitions toward the spoken/read word that many of us have, especially our own spoken/read words. That’s why this is as much a challenge to play as to work.) Yeah, it’ll be fun. Yeah, you’ll work hard. Yeah, I want to know what you think of this…after you’ve tried it. You might surprise the both of us. More to come! Janny

A Writer’s Voice—Or, I Know It When I Hear It

Voice. Surely no subject (except maybe the Holy Grail, or the elusive "will of God for my life") has been so misunderstood, had more mistaken info bandied about concerning it, or been a greater mystery to all and sundry than the subject of a writer’s “voice.” I once had a person ask me, “When I’m writing about the heroine, then I’m writing in her voice. And in the hero, I’m writing in his voice, right? So what do they mean when they talk about my voice? I’m not supposed to put my voice into stuff, am I?” Upon further questioning, I discovered that this poor newbie writer soul had somehow deduced that the writer’s “voice” had to do with dialogue. In reality, she wasn’t far enough along the craft road yet to realize what people meant when they talked about “voice” rather than “how characters sound when they talk”; in cases like that, you can only steer someone toward where they can get more answers and explanation, and then hope it eventually sinks in. The other side to that coin, however, happened this morning. Our local classical music station played a theater piece by Bizet—not from Carmen, but from another production for which he had also written music. Within the first minute or so of hearing it, even though I’ve never heard this piece before, I knew it was Bizet, and I would have known that even without the announcer telling me it ahead of time. How? Because of the composer’s voice. The orchestration of woodwind lines, in this instance—their particular melodic and harmonic combinations—was a dead giveaway. I’d heard Bizet do those same things in other pieces; those things are part of his orchestral “language.” If you will, they’re his vocabulary, his word usage, and his turn of phrase. Same with Beethoven and his endless codas. (Nice boy, but he can’t finish anything.) Same with Tchaikovsky and his “clouds of rosin.” (Translation: lots and lots of running passages played by lots and lots of strings!) Now, I know these “voices” partially because I’m an educated musician, but also I’ve listened to thousands of hours of all kinds of music. This is uncannily like the training we do as writers, in which we’re told to “read widely.” So we do. In the process, we read millions of words by lots of different people. We learn who we can't put down, who leaves us indifferent, and who we fervently hope will never land another contract. We learn, in other words, whose voices we enjoy. After long consideration, and much second-guessing and trying to read between the lines of rejection letters (a totally fruitless endeavor, by the way), I’ve finally come to the conclusion that voice is everything. Period. Editors and agents mention voice, of course, when they talk about why books get their attention—but they mention it as only one in a laundry list of items they “look for.” In reality, however, no one “looks for” anything in a manuscript; one listens for it instead. Which is why, in the end, what sells our books is not the beauty of our plot line, the heroism of our protagonist, or the complexity of our mysteries…but how we tell the reader about all these things. Or, put another way, how they sound. Psychologists and reading experts have lots of multi-syllable terminology to describe and label this process, but in essence, when you read, something in your mind “speaks” the words to you. Your mind either likes the sound of what it hears, or it doesn’t. That’s the “spark” that grabs you…or the lack of same that leaves you cold. And, yes, it’s as individual as your fingerprint or stride—which is why an editor, when pushed to the wall, can only shrug and say, “I can’t really tell you what grabs me until I see it.” Translate that as “hear it,” and you’re on to something. Most of us don’t have concrete “writing” reasons for liking certain authors. We just do. The reason, boiled down, is that their voices speak to us in ways we enjoy. Only in analysis after the fact do we put official-sounding “professional” writing terms to the elements involved. But in the beginning, it’s a sensory and emotional decision, and nothing more nor less than that. If the voice of a work speaks too slowly, seems to drag or be too shallow, you’ll get bored and distracted. If the voice is too frenetic or harsh, you have to set the book aside—either temporarily, to “catch your breath,” or permanently, because you just find the story too “rattling.” If the voice sounds too cloying, or whiny, or evokes too much pathos for what you find appropriate, you feel as if the author is in a sense “telling lies” to you; she’s speaking in terms you know are not true. Books that "fail" us in these ways end up in your giveaway pile. But if the voice of the writer employs pleasing sounds (words that “roll off your tongue” well), relates the story in a rhythm compatible with your own internal auditory preferences (a pace at which you can travel easily), and resonates with you internally (and ending that satisfies you)—guess what? You’re probably going to like that book. That combination of elements is what makes a “keeper” as well…because that pleasant “reading” auditory experience is one so enjoyable most of us like to repeat it, and sometimes we’d rather go back to a familiar well and drink from it again than take the risk of drinking from a new source. Which is why once you find an author you enjoy, you tend to want to read everything she’s written—just to see if the experience is equally satisfying every time. Which also, to me, finally explains the sense behind “branding” as well. It’s not, as the experts keep telling us, so much that “readers like to know what to expect.” On the contrary: as a reader, I love being surprised by an author. But I like to be surprised in a way that resonates with me, a way I understand, a way that seems “true,” and a way that doesn’t require me to change the way I listen to the author’s story too very much. That means I need the author to speak to me in a consistent voice.If she does, I’m loyal to her and spread the word. If she doesn’t, I’m confused. And confusion, for an editor or agent, means working harder than necessary to listen to a story…which is why, if they find my voice unclear or unappealing in any way, it’s easier just to send the rejection slip and move on to something that may speak to them more clearly. Voice. It’s everything. It’s the spark. It’s the difference. But how to develop your own? And how to target where your listeners are? Stay tuned. We’ll talk about that next time. Janny