So you’ve written something wonderfully intelligent, witty, canny, and clever. You know it is, because your writing group loves it.(!) Your critique partner loves it. And it’s gotten to that point because you’ve targeted it…tailored it…refined it…until you know—you know, as in “wake me up at three in the morning and ask me, and I’ll tell you”—your marketing niches and who’s going to be the audience for your book. You have a polished synopsis. You have crafted your query letter. You’ve meticulously formatted your manuscript. You’ve edited, revised, gotten critiques, entered contests…you’ve even been invited, several chill-inducing times, to submit complete manuscripts to those Gate Keepers of the Fantasy—the editors of your dream publishing houses.
But that’s where you’ve stopped.
You’ve gotten the “good” rejection letters and received helpful guidance from authors who write for aforementioned Dream Publishing Houses; you’ve tallied myriad score sheets, gone to workshops, tried to decipher author blogs or agent blogs or publisher blogs to “read between the lines”…you’ve listened to inspiring speakers, visualized, affirmed yourself, thought positive, indulged in aromatherapy, courted your muse, and even considered hypnosis…
…everything, in fact, except sold this wonderfully intelligent, witty, canny, clever piece of fiction.
And now, you want to know why—before you take a brutally sharp, finely honed, and carefully aimed blade and slash either your pages or your wrist.
(Have I used enough paired adjective/adverbs yet, d’ya think?)
The tragedy of this is, in the end, apparently no one can really tell you why one piece of writing sells and one doesn’t. But in my particular case—in the case of one particularly fine piece of fiction over which I have done my share of bleeding—I think I’ve discerned a possible factor.
Several people in my world love this particular story. When I sent them sample chapters, they clamored and pestered me to send more and more and more. One of them, in a contest, gave me a perfect score.
(I didn’t even get a perfect score the year I won a Golden Heart. Just sayin’.)
On the other hand, several other people in my world have read parts—or all!—of this manuscript, looked up at me, and said, “Huh?”
Some of them have said, “Oh, wow, this is really good writing…but where would it sell?”
Some of them have said, “What kind of book is this, exactly?”
Some of them have said, “Well, you’ll have to take out the ______ (name your element), or this won’t sell at all.”
One of them, in an especially memorable encounter, said, “This kind of book doesn’t sell, and I’m not wasting two years of my life trying.”
But a great many more of them have said nothing at all.
Three guesses which group was composed of “publishing professionals”—authors, editors, and agents—versus which group was “readers.” Not that some of the “readers” weren’t also writers, or people who enjoyed good writing. One of them is a crit partner, one of them is a bookseller, so it’s not like they’re totally out of the loop. But of the “publishing professionals” I’ve sent this book to, over the years—people who had the power to help get it sold, or to buy it themselves—not one has found in my story the combination of elements that would prompt them to take it to an editorial committee meeting and plead its case. I can’t help but wonder why.
Maybe the answer’s as simple as the old adage about “a little knowledge.”
“Publishing professionals”—if they’re at all human—are among the first to tell you that they really have no idea what they’re looking for, sometimes, in a story. That they only “know it when they see it.” But as aforementioned “professionals,” they have to tell writers something when they’re besieged by questions about how to go about “getting attention” in the slush pile.
So…they tell us things. Some of those are helpful. Most are not—unless the only audience we’re aiming at is that comprised of other writers we know, our critique groups, or the teachers in our MFA programs.
Publishing professionals can certainly tell you how to write correctly. You’ll know how to analyze your characters, how to write a conversation that does double or triple duty, how to foreshadow and presage and drop hints and integrate backstory and wrap it all up with a tidy bow at the end into a “satisfying conclusion.”
But will you have written a whopping good story?
The kind an “ordinary” reader will pick up and devour?
I would submit, from all the available evidence I’ve seen lately…probably not.
Which can lead us, if we’re honest, to a fairly radical conclusion:
That editors, agents, and publishing professionals are no more equipped to tell you how to write a whopping good story than an “ordinary” reader with no “qualifications” is.
They know one when they see one, just like we do. but that's it.
So we need to stop writing as if they can tell us how to do this...and as if their evaluation is a true indicator of how well we're doing. Short of The Call telling us they are ready to spend money on our stuff...everything else is just so much guesswork. And should be treated accordingly.
Yeah, that notion is tough to get our brains around. It runs counter to all the “knowledge” we have, all the “sensible” processes we’ve been taught, and can bring us dangerously close to “wasting our time” if we go about things “wrong.”
But is what we’ve gotten from not wasting our time any better?
In the end, it seems, some of us have been led down the garden path into writing for the wrong people. It was done with the best of intentions, surely. And it’s something that many, many, many of us are still doing.
But it seems to me, thinking this over, that writing a really great “yarn” is like losing weight successfully: if good advice could make it happen, you wouldn’t need 10,000 books on the market allegedly “helping” you to do it.
If it were as simple as doing things correctly, it’d be like working with a really good vending machine: you put the dollar in, you get the story elements out.
Unfortunately, whopping good stories don’t come from letter-perfect, correct writing.
They don’t even necessarily come from good writing.
What they do come from—as hackneyed as it sounds, and as amateur as it can sometimes come across—is inspiration.
Inspiration is what grabs the writer and won’t let her go…and what grabs her reader just as hard, so that the two of them together take a glorious ride. But you can’t “learn” inspiration from writing classes, workshops, critiques, or professionals.
You can only get it from within.
You’ll know it when you see it and feel it.
Warning: when inspiration hits, what it won’t be is tailored, targeted, “branded,” or “satisfying” in the end; it’ll go so far beyond merely “satisfying” that it’ll take your breath—and the breath of lots and lots of people—away.
And they’ll tell their friends…
And so on…
And so on…
And so on.
And while they’re grabbing for the oxygen and jumping around the room—they won’t care if you wrote well or not.
They’ll just enjoy the glorious ride.
There’s the only readership you need to cultivate.
There’s your audience.
And you’ll know them when you find them.
May you all find these real people…these “ordinary” readers…who will make all the difference. And stop writing for the others. No matter how competent they can make you.
Competence is never brilliant. It never sets the world on fire.
My resolution this year is to write for a better audience...and keep the extinguisher handy.
Thoughts?
Janny
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Monday, January 12, 2009
Who’s REALLY Your Reader?
This question gets asked all the time, doesn’t it? It’s part of “branding” discussions for those of us who’ve been around awhile. It’s presented in intermediate (or even beginning!) writing workshops as part of targeting a manuscript’s potential audience—hence, which “line” of which publisher to send it to. It’s hammered at newbies—which, of course, we all were at one time. And we’re all clueless. We have no idea who’s going to read our books. Far as we’re concerned, everybody’s going to. So if you press us, we really can’t give you an answer. We just know we want to write books! (And yes, we do say that with a breathless, exclamation-point sort of voice. We all do. You remember.)
Are you cringing yet? Yeah, probably. Especially when you remember what came next.
“What do you mean, you just want to write books? You’ll want to know what kind of book you’re writing if you’re going to pitch it! The publishers will want to know what to call it! The booksellers will want to know how to shelve it! You ought to be thinking about this before you even start to write a word, or you’re just wasting your time! Do you really want to waste your time?”
Et cetera, et cetera, ad infinitum.
In one sense, this is valuable advice. But in another sense, it’s led to an unforeseen consequence, one that can turn a fresh, inspiring, funny, quirky, scary-good writer into just another one of the bunch; she becomes not so much a successful author as one who knows “how to write for an audience”—only that audience mainly ends up being mostly other writers.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is a problem. Because other writers, much as they love to read, are not going to be the bulk of your audience. Readers are. Readers who can’t necessarily write a coherent English sentence themselves (and we all know those people!). Readers who don’t know a comma from a semicolon. Readers who wouldn’t know passive writing if it walked up and bit them in the neck. Readers who don’t give a rat’s patootey how many words you use that end in “ly”….who don’t care about if your POV is consistent, your character arcs are in place, your three-act structure holds together, or your GMC is all charted out. They just care about a whopping good story.
Now, deciding what’s a “whopping good story” is still a subjective thing. We all know people who are wild about the Harry Potter books—while several others (myself among them) couldn’t get past 60 pages in the first one before we lost patience and gave up out of sheer boredom. Millions of people love the Twilight series—yet almost every writer I know pans them as being pretty awful writing. Jerry Jenkins’ success with the Left Behind stories, for many of us, is baffling. And, of course, one of the most monumental best-sellers of all time, The Da Vinci Code, is so riddled with errors, misrepresentations, and just plain stupidity that in some circles it’s become a textbook example of how not to write a religious/historical thriller.
And yet, as much as various writers have panned all of these successes as “bad writing”…people still buy them. And buy them. And buy them And pass them around. And talk about them. Why? Because, as one writer finally put it, “Yeah, Dan Brown may not know how to do research—but he knows how to write a page-turner!”
In other words, even knowing the writing isn’t up to snuff, and even knowing that were this work critiqued by their own writing group, it’d never pass…when the writers took off their “professional” hats and read these books—or countless others I haven’t mentioned—they enjoyed them. They may have considered them “guilty pleasures.” They may have tucked a paperback Harry Potter inside the latest Oprah hardcover selection when they were scrunched down in one of the comfy chairs at Barnes & Noble, just so people would think they were actually reading real “literature.” But the fact is, even though they “knew better,” these writers were as hooked as people who never write an original word.
What does this tell us?
The easy answer—the answer that, ironically, even writers and editors and agents come out with—is that “story trumps all.” You’ll see this on blogs, you’ll see this in publisher guidelines, et cetera. When pressed for “what you’re looking for,” a harried editor will usually just shrug and say, “Give me a good story. Give me something I can’t put down.”
Sounds simple, doesn’t it?
It’s not.
But it could be a lot simpler than we as writers make it on each other—and ourselves.
In the next post, I’ll talk a little more about what can go wrong on the way to a whopping good story…and propose some possible “fixes” to think about for the new year.
Stay tuned!
Janny
Are you cringing yet? Yeah, probably. Especially when you remember what came next.
“What do you mean, you just want to write books? You’ll want to know what kind of book you’re writing if you’re going to pitch it! The publishers will want to know what to call it! The booksellers will want to know how to shelve it! You ought to be thinking about this before you even start to write a word, or you’re just wasting your time! Do you really want to waste your time?”
Et cetera, et cetera, ad infinitum.
In one sense, this is valuable advice. But in another sense, it’s led to an unforeseen consequence, one that can turn a fresh, inspiring, funny, quirky, scary-good writer into just another one of the bunch; she becomes not so much a successful author as one who knows “how to write for an audience”—only that audience mainly ends up being mostly other writers.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is a problem. Because other writers, much as they love to read, are not going to be the bulk of your audience. Readers are. Readers who can’t necessarily write a coherent English sentence themselves (and we all know those people!). Readers who don’t know a comma from a semicolon. Readers who wouldn’t know passive writing if it walked up and bit them in the neck. Readers who don’t give a rat’s patootey how many words you use that end in “ly”….who don’t care about if your POV is consistent, your character arcs are in place, your three-act structure holds together, or your GMC is all charted out. They just care about a whopping good story.
Now, deciding what’s a “whopping good story” is still a subjective thing. We all know people who are wild about the Harry Potter books—while several others (myself among them) couldn’t get past 60 pages in the first one before we lost patience and gave up out of sheer boredom. Millions of people love the Twilight series—yet almost every writer I know pans them as being pretty awful writing. Jerry Jenkins’ success with the Left Behind stories, for many of us, is baffling. And, of course, one of the most monumental best-sellers of all time, The Da Vinci Code, is so riddled with errors, misrepresentations, and just plain stupidity that in some circles it’s become a textbook example of how not to write a religious/historical thriller.
And yet, as much as various writers have panned all of these successes as “bad writing”…people still buy them. And buy them. And buy them And pass them around. And talk about them. Why? Because, as one writer finally put it, “Yeah, Dan Brown may not know how to do research—but he knows how to write a page-turner!”
In other words, even knowing the writing isn’t up to snuff, and even knowing that were this work critiqued by their own writing group, it’d never pass…when the writers took off their “professional” hats and read these books—or countless others I haven’t mentioned—they enjoyed them. They may have considered them “guilty pleasures.” They may have tucked a paperback Harry Potter inside the latest Oprah hardcover selection when they were scrunched down in one of the comfy chairs at Barnes & Noble, just so people would think they were actually reading real “literature.” But the fact is, even though they “knew better,” these writers were as hooked as people who never write an original word.
What does this tell us?
The easy answer—the answer that, ironically, even writers and editors and agents come out with—is that “story trumps all.” You’ll see this on blogs, you’ll see this in publisher guidelines, et cetera. When pressed for “what you’re looking for,” a harried editor will usually just shrug and say, “Give me a good story. Give me something I can’t put down.”
Sounds simple, doesn’t it?
It’s not.
But it could be a lot simpler than we as writers make it on each other—and ourselves.
In the next post, I’ll talk a little more about what can go wrong on the way to a whopping good story…and propose some possible “fixes” to think about for the new year.
Stay tuned!
Janny
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Thursday, December 04, 2008
The Author as Anachronist
Over the years, I've gotten some interesting feedback on my heroes' and heroines' characters; especially, of late, is mention that my heroines tend to act older and more mature than their stated years. My crit partner charmingly called the heroine of Voice of Innocence a little too "tweeds and tea" for being 28. I thought the young woman was fine, and I could come up with various reasons why she was the way she was...but until this morning, it didn't really dawn on me that there's a much more straightforward reason I write young women the way I do.
It's because of Mary Higgins Clark. That's how her heroines are, and I've completely internalized that type of character.
Over the years, MHC has consistently written young women who are, for lack of a better word, "well-bred." Many of them come from some family money, or have some family "class" connections, which inherently set them a touch above the riffraff. She doesn't have to make a point of it, of course…her heroines' occupations speak for themselves. She's got several lawyers, reporters (both print and TV), she's got daughters of actors who are themselves creative people, etc. Even the heroines who are "only" wives and mothers are people who have had Ivy League type educations, come from the rich corridors of New England or New York, have family who are educated, or the like. If her heroines come up from poverty, they've made it their life's work to disavow any connection with their "white trash" backgrounds and rise above them—sometimes successfully, sometimes not so much, in that sometimes their drive becomes their fatal flaw. But in all cases, the women she writes about are intelligent, resourceful, tough, and mature beyond their years.
So, considering how often I've reread MHC books, it's not surprising at all that my heroines are as anachronistic as hers are. And MHC's are anachronistic, make no mistake about that. I like them that way, but I have to admit that not a few times, I've found myself reading a cultural reference one of her young heroines makes and thinking, "How many women her age would think that? How many women her age actually would even know what that meant?" She has her heroines knowing old show tunes—or old standards, be they musical, cinematic, or literary—with alarming regularity. She has them look at the world almost with the kind of lens one sees in "classic movies."
This can turn into a problem, unchecked. In one particular instance, it has. At one point or other, in most MHC books, her heroine (or sometimes a hero) will come out with the phrase, "Approbation from Sir Hubert is praise indeed." Usually this is used in a dry, almost sarcastic way, to indicate that the person they're actually referring to isn't easily pleased.
Now, I'm assuming that's Shakespeare. And I'm assuming that in the early books, since her heroines had your traditional high-class liberal arts education, even a young woman in her 20s could be argued to have decided to use that phrase as her own unique slang. But the problem ensued when MHC used it again...and again...and again. Now, it's almost embarrassing to encounter it in a book, since she's put those words into diverse characters' mouths for so long that it can no longer be attributed to true characterization as much as it's simply a pet phrase the author likes a lot. When something becomes that obvious...it's time to cut it.
That quibble aside, I recognize now that MHC's making her heroines the way she does is so comfortable to one who "speaks her language"—as I do!—that it would not be out of the realm of possibility for me to emulate that trait in my own work.
Which is, apparently, precisely what I've done.
As I said, I tend to like my characters that way. I like what might be called "throwback" characters—people who understand morality, manners, and some degree of refinement. I'd like to see more young women act in the way MHC heroines act and appreciate the old-fashioned cultural references they appreciate. So if one writes fiction to portray a world the way one would like to see it rather than the "real world" one actually wrestles with—then I'm golden. The only problem I have is walking that tightrope of trying to write people I can like versus people others will actually identify with. The two, I've found to my chagrin, are not often the same….
But at least knowing the root of this now makes much more sense. All I need to find now is a publisher who's always wanted a MHC clone and I'll be "in clover." (Yeah, I know, I can't stop myself.) If not...I have a dilemma. How to write characters who don't utterly dismay me—and yet with whom readers of any age can identify.
Thoughts?
Janny
It's because of Mary Higgins Clark. That's how her heroines are, and I've completely internalized that type of character.
Over the years, MHC has consistently written young women who are, for lack of a better word, "well-bred." Many of them come from some family money, or have some family "class" connections, which inherently set them a touch above the riffraff. She doesn't have to make a point of it, of course…her heroines' occupations speak for themselves. She's got several lawyers, reporters (both print and TV), she's got daughters of actors who are themselves creative people, etc. Even the heroines who are "only" wives and mothers are people who have had Ivy League type educations, come from the rich corridors of New England or New York, have family who are educated, or the like. If her heroines come up from poverty, they've made it their life's work to disavow any connection with their "white trash" backgrounds and rise above them—sometimes successfully, sometimes not so much, in that sometimes their drive becomes their fatal flaw. But in all cases, the women she writes about are intelligent, resourceful, tough, and mature beyond their years.
So, considering how often I've reread MHC books, it's not surprising at all that my heroines are as anachronistic as hers are. And MHC's are anachronistic, make no mistake about that. I like them that way, but I have to admit that not a few times, I've found myself reading a cultural reference one of her young heroines makes and thinking, "How many women her age would think that? How many women her age actually would even know what that meant?" She has her heroines knowing old show tunes—or old standards, be they musical, cinematic, or literary—with alarming regularity. She has them look at the world almost with the kind of lens one sees in "classic movies."
This can turn into a problem, unchecked. In one particular instance, it has. At one point or other, in most MHC books, her heroine (or sometimes a hero) will come out with the phrase, "Approbation from Sir Hubert is praise indeed." Usually this is used in a dry, almost sarcastic way, to indicate that the person they're actually referring to isn't easily pleased.
Now, I'm assuming that's Shakespeare. And I'm assuming that in the early books, since her heroines had your traditional high-class liberal arts education, even a young woman in her 20s could be argued to have decided to use that phrase as her own unique slang. But the problem ensued when MHC used it again...and again...and again. Now, it's almost embarrassing to encounter it in a book, since she's put those words into diverse characters' mouths for so long that it can no longer be attributed to true characterization as much as it's simply a pet phrase the author likes a lot. When something becomes that obvious...it's time to cut it.
That quibble aside, I recognize now that MHC's making her heroines the way she does is so comfortable to one who "speaks her language"—as I do!—that it would not be out of the realm of possibility for me to emulate that trait in my own work.
Which is, apparently, precisely what I've done.
As I said, I tend to like my characters that way. I like what might be called "throwback" characters—people who understand morality, manners, and some degree of refinement. I'd like to see more young women act in the way MHC heroines act and appreciate the old-fashioned cultural references they appreciate. So if one writes fiction to portray a world the way one would like to see it rather than the "real world" one actually wrestles with—then I'm golden. The only problem I have is walking that tightrope of trying to write people I can like versus people others will actually identify with. The two, I've found to my chagrin, are not often the same….
But at least knowing the root of this now makes much more sense. All I need to find now is a publisher who's always wanted a MHC clone and I'll be "in clover." (Yeah, I know, I can't stop myself.) If not...I have a dilemma. How to write characters who don't utterly dismay me—and yet with whom readers of any age can identify.
Thoughts?
Janny
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
The “Q” Word, part 3
Okay, here we go. At last, the final installment.
(Brings to mind, “Space: the final frontier,” doesn’t it?...)
When we last left our trepid (as opposed to intrepid, as I’ve never been accused of resembling a Dodge) author, she had lifted the lid on a Pandora’s Box of success as an inspirational writer: winning second place in a pretty major contest for a manuscript that was, basically, an experiment. That book ultimately went on to become my first published novel, the story of which could easily take up another three or four blog posts. But the impact of that sale, momentous as it was on the surface, worked some havoc into my previously well-ordered writing life and, I believe—unfortunately—took it off track.
Part of that derailment happened because, as I mentioned, I internalize other people’s expectations to an extraordinary degree for a person who’s normally the “devil’s advocate” in almost any situation. One of the great conflicts of my life, one I thought I was going to deal with in my first marriage, has been a longing to Just Belong Somewhere. To just Be One Of The Girls. I’ve never really been that. I’ve always been the one with the “unique insights” or the “other angle” or the “voice of reason” or even “conscience.” I tried to leave that brand of self behind and become the Perfect (Conventional) Christian Wife in that first marriage. It didn’t work…for many reasons, none the least of which was that the man I picked for a husband wasn’t, in the end, good husband material. But I so wanted to be a good little “Maxwell Housewife” (remember that commercial?) that I swallowed down a lot of who I really was, for a long time, in the desperate attempt to “fit in.” In the end, of course, none of it worked, because anytime we try to “be” something we’re not at the core, the core eventually pushes its way back up to the surface—at which point we have two choices, and only one leads to a mentally healthy existence. :-)
Unfortunately, some of us learn a good lesson in one aspect of our lives but then don’t carry that lesson through to the whole. And that’s what happened to me where my writing was concerned.
It’s hard to explain this without either writing thousands of words or sounding like some kind of wimp, but I’ll try.
Once upon a time, I was a happy secular romance writer. I believed I had found a place to fit in, a genre in which I was going to succeed, and a group of people who would cheer me on every step of the way. Then…things started to change. I began getting repeated rejections and hearing repeated critiques that hinted that maybe I actually didn’t write romance at all. Or at least not contemporary sweet romance…which made me feel a bit unsteady on my writing feet. After all, if what you’ve been telling yourself you do for years and years isn’t what you’re actually doing…is it the fault of your own perception, or is it bad advice? I honestly didn’t know. I was getting advice from people who “ought to know”—writers who wrote for lines I wanted to break into. I figured they were as good as anyone to give me a barometer of where I was going to fit in the genre…only they all said different things. Very different things.
When I read my Golden Heart book first chapter to my RWA group, three Silhouette Romance authors point-blank told me, “This is clearly your voice, and this is a Silhouette Romance.”
When I subjected my romantic suspense to various reads and readers, I got even more confusing feedback. That book has been called everything from a straight romance to a mainstream inspirational romantic suspense to a mainstream novel to women’s fiction to a paranormal to…well, you get the idea.
One writer whose opinion I respect read some of my stuff and told me I ought to think about writing historicals, specifically Regencies, because I have just the hint of “wry” in my writing that would go well in that genre…and a style that tends to the more lyrical and would suit the tone of a historical novel much better than a contemporary.
And then out of nowhere, I came up with a chick-lit voice—with its accompanying comedic tone—that I found myself able to “drop into”—once again, for short periods of time. (Not sure if I could maintain it for a whole book, but then again….)
And then, of course, there was the inspy side to my writing. The spiritual side. The box into which I was getting shoved with ever more (gentle) force simply because I write “clean,” I write characters who go to church, and I had, in fact, published an inspy…and everyone knows that you shouldn’t try to sell too many radically different kinds of stories out of the gate, because if you do that, publishers won’t know what your audience is, or your “brand” is, and…
Along about this time, the romance genre took off in some completely off-the-charts directions, and I told myself, “Well, clearly, I can’t be a part of a genre that’s going to do what this is going to do. So that’s it for romance for me. I obviously don’t write romance. I need to find what I do write.”
Only then the question posed itself: how was I going to decide that?
Some people “can” only write one thing. Their voice is so clearly, so strongly one thing or the other, that you can’t imagine them anywhere else. But apparently I am not that writer; I’ve seen it for myself in the different kinds of writing I do for romantic suspense or “woo-woo” versus the sweet, funny, and innocent tone of my first book. But where was my strongest voice? Where was I most talented? And then, as a Catholic Christian, I started asking what I should commit to writing…and where my voice should be used, and how…
I’m sure you know what’s coming. The moment that “s” word entered into the mental negotiations, I effectively paralyzed myself. I didn’t know that’s what I was doing; I had an uneasy feeling about trying to reframe my form of expression and the stories I told, but I increasingly began to feel like that was my “duty” somehow. I increasingly have come, in the last couple of years, to tell myself I “need” to write “godly”…or there’s something off kilter in my Christian commitment. And I sure as heck didn’t want my writing to be a bad witness!
But…
The problem was, and is, that I never came from the place where my writing was ever supposed to be a “witness” in the first place. Yes, I believe I do everything for the glory of God; but previously, I considered secular writing perfectly okay, in that I never glorified anything ungodly. I may have dealt with ghostly voices, or spirits, or otherworldly manifestations—but I never portrayed them as something a character based her faith life on. My writing may have had characters swear or use rough language—but those were situations in which most people I know would have used those words. I wrote what I knew, I didn’t write anything dirty, and I told a good story…and for years, that was enough.
But then…I started wondering. And I started “being convicted” on all kinds of things I’d been writing—not because they were necessarily “wrong,” but because they weren’t reflective of a “spiritual” person’s writing…or so I thought. My characters were ordinary people. But maybe they needed to be much more than that, if I were going to be “true” to my faith in my writing.
Over time, as a result of selling one inspirational novel and being surrounded by loving, talented Christian writers—coupled with going to work in a Catholic publishing house where our entire mission is “what the Church teaches and why”—I came to believe that there were simply story types, storylines, and storytelling styles that I would no longer be able to use if I were to be a consistent Christian witness.
With that, one brick went up in a creative wall.
Then, I vowed I’d never try to sell to Harlequin again, because they came out with an erotica line and I couldn’t “be a part” of a house that would do that.
And another brick went up.
Then, I realized that many of my previous fellow genre writers were writing, in a word, smut—and soon, I found myself having difficulty with more than merely not selling to Harlequin; I in effect couldn’t even participate in a genre that could tolerate that anymore.
And another brick went up.
Then, I thought…well, I’ve sold one inspy, so that means I may have a foot in the door of that market. But that then meant that I needed to make sure the spiritual content of my books was Christian, and made no bones about it. I needed to have characters who viewed the world through a Christian lens…all the time. I needed to show them praying, to have them refuse to believe any “spirit” that wasn’t “tested”…to have them going to church and that be integral to the plot of the book.
And another brick went up.
Then, I began to notice—and bemoan—the lack of contemporary Catholic fiction out there. I was a good Catholic, I was a good writer…that must mean that I was supposed to start focusing my fiction on Catholic themes. I was not an evangelical—so what was I doing watering down the Catholic identity of the books? No, I needed to put in more “Catholic references.” I needed to put together my stories in such a way that people had no doubt where my characters stood.
And another brick went up.
Then, I realized there were really no outlets for publishing Catholic contemporary fiction. So here I was, in a Catholic publishing house, the perfect person to bring fiction into this place…only that wasn’t in their plans, and won’t be for some time to come, if ever. So even if I wrote something good, solid, entertaining, and doctrinally steady—or if I knew someone who had, and desperately thought their book should be out there—my employer wasn’t going to be the place where I could even edit that kind of book, much less publish one of my own.
And another brick went up.
Then, I went to ACFW with the idea that I could reinvent myself.
That I could get an agent, or an editor, to “take me on” with something I already have, or something I could “make fit” if I needed to. And I proceeded to commit to doing so.
And then I woke up that Saturday, with that letter in my hand, and realized I had painted myself into the proverbial corner. Or bricked myself in, actually.
Now, you may wonder how a person can deliberately hem herself in this way. You may wonder how my writerly common sense didn’t take over and say, “Yanno, you’re not that kind of writer, so quit trying to force yourself to be one ‘brand’ or another.” I can tell you why, in a nutshell: the uncertainty of too many rejections and too many conflicting opinions on where my talents lay. I had all the good intentions in the world…to find a place to “fit in” once more.
Not to express myself or tell my stories. To tell stories these people would approve of, would buy, would publish. I felt no other choice available to me, as a Christian. I wouldn’t dare just write secular any more. I couldn’t. Not and be a witness…right?
That’s how it came to be that, wanting so badly to “fit in” somewhere, I sold myself out.
When I found a welcome among Christian fiction writers, I decided I just needed to learn how to work with the inputs restricting me on one side (“Be careful! “shucks” is a euphemism for worse things! And that goes for “drat,” “darn,” “golly,” “gee whiz,” and what kind of Christian are you if your characters even think those words????”) and demanding more of me on the other (“CBA fiction is not Catholic fiction, and you’re gonna have a hard time selling Catholic characters to it, so tone down the Catholic content”).
The problem was…in my heart, I didn’t want to—and in fact, couldn’t—“write to a market” that restrictively. I simply wanted to write plain, old-fashioned, horking good stories…in my own style, with my own voice, my own word usages and my own worldview.
With the Guideposts submission, I thought I had a niche I could fill and be happy with. But point of fact is, I was trying to play fast and loose, even with that. I was taking something that I figured I “could work with” to use as a way to break into what I saw as a heck of a good market; only I knew, in my heart of hearts, that the thought of trying to write those books the way I was proposing them made something in me sink, made something in my stomach knot, and made me worry about whether I’d have it in me to fulfill a contract if I did get one.
But I so wanted to belong, I was willing to try. And that’s what it was about, once again…just as it had been in my first marriage.
I so wanted to find a way to be “let in” to the place where the “big kids” were playing. I wanted to find a place where I could “land,” with my own particular style, my own holiness, my own quirks and crazinesses, and have them be at least tolerated well enough that I could once again have a book cover with my name on it. That was the bottom line. To try anything once, just to see what worked…and then find a way to work with it.
But for me, real, edge-of-the-seat, fire-in-the-belly creativity isn’t about finding a way to work with a piece of fiction. It’s not about finding something serviceable to sell. It’s not about putting together a story that glorifies some publisher’s vision of God…or preaches Jesus in a particular way…or reveals some deep truth I need to learn and want to share with the world. My fiction can do all those things. But starting out to do that from the get-go? That, I can’t do. I thought I could. I was wrong.
For me, it has to be about nothing but story. And story is what I’ve completely lost in all that feedback, all that selling and editing and reworking and experimenting and retelling and revising. Because of all the things I have available that I could work on to sell to the Christian market, the bitter truth is, I don’t care enough about any of them to finish them now...I might never care enough to finish them…and I have no other ideas that are “suitable” or “godly” enough to get past the gatekeepers in that market.
In other words, boys and girls…I’ve hit the breaking point. Thank God.
Even though it was painful to hit it.
Even though I loved meeting the Guideposts editor.
Even though I would still love to sell them, or another Christian publisher—or even a Catholic fiction publisher—something, someday.
That someday just isn’t going to be soon…because I’m quitting.
That was what I resolved at the sink that Saturday afternoon—that it’s time I stopped doing this to myself. Stopped trying to write what everyone tells me I’m talented at, and go back to writing what I dang well feel like. Stopped worrying about whether my writing is “suitable” and just make it great. Stopped doing what I think I ought to do, or should do, or have a duty to do, and go back to doing what I love to do.
In short, I quit being a Catholic Christian writer.
I’m going back to just being a writer who is a Catholic Christian.
A writer who can tell a horking good story, one that’ll make the hair on your neck stand on end, make you sob at the page or make you laugh yourself out of your chair…but only if it’s already worked that magic on me.
So I’m done.
Done with doing anything but what will make me shiver, or jump out of my seat pacing with the emotional turmoil I’m putting myself through, or cut so close to the bone that I cry when I read what I write, even as I’m writing it. Because anything else, boys and girls…is no longer worth doing at all.
Anything less, I have to stop doing.
Now.
This moment.
And forever.
Hopefully, the big kids will still let me play.
But even if they don’t, I can’t make myself over into someone they’ll allow in.
Not today.
Not tomorrow.
Not now.
Not ever.
I QUIT.
(Hallelujah!)
Thoughts?
Janny
(Brings to mind, “Space: the final frontier,” doesn’t it?...)
When we last left our trepid (as opposed to intrepid, as I’ve never been accused of resembling a Dodge) author, she had lifted the lid on a Pandora’s Box of success as an inspirational writer: winning second place in a pretty major contest for a manuscript that was, basically, an experiment. That book ultimately went on to become my first published novel, the story of which could easily take up another three or four blog posts. But the impact of that sale, momentous as it was on the surface, worked some havoc into my previously well-ordered writing life and, I believe—unfortunately—took it off track.
Part of that derailment happened because, as I mentioned, I internalize other people’s expectations to an extraordinary degree for a person who’s normally the “devil’s advocate” in almost any situation. One of the great conflicts of my life, one I thought I was going to deal with in my first marriage, has been a longing to Just Belong Somewhere. To just Be One Of The Girls. I’ve never really been that. I’ve always been the one with the “unique insights” or the “other angle” or the “voice of reason” or even “conscience.” I tried to leave that brand of self behind and become the Perfect (Conventional) Christian Wife in that first marriage. It didn’t work…for many reasons, none the least of which was that the man I picked for a husband wasn’t, in the end, good husband material. But I so wanted to be a good little “Maxwell Housewife” (remember that commercial?) that I swallowed down a lot of who I really was, for a long time, in the desperate attempt to “fit in.” In the end, of course, none of it worked, because anytime we try to “be” something we’re not at the core, the core eventually pushes its way back up to the surface—at which point we have two choices, and only one leads to a mentally healthy existence. :-)
Unfortunately, some of us learn a good lesson in one aspect of our lives but then don’t carry that lesson through to the whole. And that’s what happened to me where my writing was concerned.
It’s hard to explain this without either writing thousands of words or sounding like some kind of wimp, but I’ll try.
Once upon a time, I was a happy secular romance writer. I believed I had found a place to fit in, a genre in which I was going to succeed, and a group of people who would cheer me on every step of the way. Then…things started to change. I began getting repeated rejections and hearing repeated critiques that hinted that maybe I actually didn’t write romance at all. Or at least not contemporary sweet romance…which made me feel a bit unsteady on my writing feet. After all, if what you’ve been telling yourself you do for years and years isn’t what you’re actually doing…is it the fault of your own perception, or is it bad advice? I honestly didn’t know. I was getting advice from people who “ought to know”—writers who wrote for lines I wanted to break into. I figured they were as good as anyone to give me a barometer of where I was going to fit in the genre…only they all said different things. Very different things.
When I read my Golden Heart book first chapter to my RWA group, three Silhouette Romance authors point-blank told me, “This is clearly your voice, and this is a Silhouette Romance.”
When I subjected my romantic suspense to various reads and readers, I got even more confusing feedback. That book has been called everything from a straight romance to a mainstream inspirational romantic suspense to a mainstream novel to women’s fiction to a paranormal to…well, you get the idea.
One writer whose opinion I respect read some of my stuff and told me I ought to think about writing historicals, specifically Regencies, because I have just the hint of “wry” in my writing that would go well in that genre…and a style that tends to the more lyrical and would suit the tone of a historical novel much better than a contemporary.
And then out of nowhere, I came up with a chick-lit voice—with its accompanying comedic tone—that I found myself able to “drop into”—once again, for short periods of time. (Not sure if I could maintain it for a whole book, but then again….)
And then, of course, there was the inspy side to my writing. The spiritual side. The box into which I was getting shoved with ever more (gentle) force simply because I write “clean,” I write characters who go to church, and I had, in fact, published an inspy…and everyone knows that you shouldn’t try to sell too many radically different kinds of stories out of the gate, because if you do that, publishers won’t know what your audience is, or your “brand” is, and…
Along about this time, the romance genre took off in some completely off-the-charts directions, and I told myself, “Well, clearly, I can’t be a part of a genre that’s going to do what this is going to do. So that’s it for romance for me. I obviously don’t write romance. I need to find what I do write.”
Only then the question posed itself: how was I going to decide that?
Some people “can” only write one thing. Their voice is so clearly, so strongly one thing or the other, that you can’t imagine them anywhere else. But apparently I am not that writer; I’ve seen it for myself in the different kinds of writing I do for romantic suspense or “woo-woo” versus the sweet, funny, and innocent tone of my first book. But where was my strongest voice? Where was I most talented? And then, as a Catholic Christian, I started asking what I should commit to writing…and where my voice should be used, and how…
I’m sure you know what’s coming. The moment that “s” word entered into the mental negotiations, I effectively paralyzed myself. I didn’t know that’s what I was doing; I had an uneasy feeling about trying to reframe my form of expression and the stories I told, but I increasingly began to feel like that was my “duty” somehow. I increasingly have come, in the last couple of years, to tell myself I “need” to write “godly”…or there’s something off kilter in my Christian commitment. And I sure as heck didn’t want my writing to be a bad witness!
But…
The problem was, and is, that I never came from the place where my writing was ever supposed to be a “witness” in the first place. Yes, I believe I do everything for the glory of God; but previously, I considered secular writing perfectly okay, in that I never glorified anything ungodly. I may have dealt with ghostly voices, or spirits, or otherworldly manifestations—but I never portrayed them as something a character based her faith life on. My writing may have had characters swear or use rough language—but those were situations in which most people I know would have used those words. I wrote what I knew, I didn’t write anything dirty, and I told a good story…and for years, that was enough.
But then…I started wondering. And I started “being convicted” on all kinds of things I’d been writing—not because they were necessarily “wrong,” but because they weren’t reflective of a “spiritual” person’s writing…or so I thought. My characters were ordinary people. But maybe they needed to be much more than that, if I were going to be “true” to my faith in my writing.
Over time, as a result of selling one inspirational novel and being surrounded by loving, talented Christian writers—coupled with going to work in a Catholic publishing house where our entire mission is “what the Church teaches and why”—I came to believe that there were simply story types, storylines, and storytelling styles that I would no longer be able to use if I were to be a consistent Christian witness.
With that, one brick went up in a creative wall.
Then, I vowed I’d never try to sell to Harlequin again, because they came out with an erotica line and I couldn’t “be a part” of a house that would do that.
And another brick went up.
Then, I realized that many of my previous fellow genre writers were writing, in a word, smut—and soon, I found myself having difficulty with more than merely not selling to Harlequin; I in effect couldn’t even participate in a genre that could tolerate that anymore.
And another brick went up.
Then, I thought…well, I’ve sold one inspy, so that means I may have a foot in the door of that market. But that then meant that I needed to make sure the spiritual content of my books was Christian, and made no bones about it. I needed to have characters who viewed the world through a Christian lens…all the time. I needed to show them praying, to have them refuse to believe any “spirit” that wasn’t “tested”…to have them going to church and that be integral to the plot of the book.
And another brick went up.
Then, I began to notice—and bemoan—the lack of contemporary Catholic fiction out there. I was a good Catholic, I was a good writer…that must mean that I was supposed to start focusing my fiction on Catholic themes. I was not an evangelical—so what was I doing watering down the Catholic identity of the books? No, I needed to put in more “Catholic references.” I needed to put together my stories in such a way that people had no doubt where my characters stood.
And another brick went up.
Then, I realized there were really no outlets for publishing Catholic contemporary fiction. So here I was, in a Catholic publishing house, the perfect person to bring fiction into this place…only that wasn’t in their plans, and won’t be for some time to come, if ever. So even if I wrote something good, solid, entertaining, and doctrinally steady—or if I knew someone who had, and desperately thought their book should be out there—my employer wasn’t going to be the place where I could even edit that kind of book, much less publish one of my own.
And another brick went up.
Then, I went to ACFW with the idea that I could reinvent myself.
That I could get an agent, or an editor, to “take me on” with something I already have, or something I could “make fit” if I needed to. And I proceeded to commit to doing so.
And then I woke up that Saturday, with that letter in my hand, and realized I had painted myself into the proverbial corner. Or bricked myself in, actually.
Now, you may wonder how a person can deliberately hem herself in this way. You may wonder how my writerly common sense didn’t take over and say, “Yanno, you’re not that kind of writer, so quit trying to force yourself to be one ‘brand’ or another.” I can tell you why, in a nutshell: the uncertainty of too many rejections and too many conflicting opinions on where my talents lay. I had all the good intentions in the world…to find a place to “fit in” once more.
Not to express myself or tell my stories. To tell stories these people would approve of, would buy, would publish. I felt no other choice available to me, as a Christian. I wouldn’t dare just write secular any more. I couldn’t. Not and be a witness…right?
That’s how it came to be that, wanting so badly to “fit in” somewhere, I sold myself out.
When I found a welcome among Christian fiction writers, I decided I just needed to learn how to work with the inputs restricting me on one side (“Be careful! “shucks” is a euphemism for worse things! And that goes for “drat,” “darn,” “golly,” “gee whiz,” and what kind of Christian are you if your characters even think those words????”) and demanding more of me on the other (“CBA fiction is not Catholic fiction, and you’re gonna have a hard time selling Catholic characters to it, so tone down the Catholic content”).
The problem was…in my heart, I didn’t want to—and in fact, couldn’t—“write to a market” that restrictively. I simply wanted to write plain, old-fashioned, horking good stories…in my own style, with my own voice, my own word usages and my own worldview.
With the Guideposts submission, I thought I had a niche I could fill and be happy with. But point of fact is, I was trying to play fast and loose, even with that. I was taking something that I figured I “could work with” to use as a way to break into what I saw as a heck of a good market; only I knew, in my heart of hearts, that the thought of trying to write those books the way I was proposing them made something in me sink, made something in my stomach knot, and made me worry about whether I’d have it in me to fulfill a contract if I did get one.
But I so wanted to belong, I was willing to try. And that’s what it was about, once again…just as it had been in my first marriage.
I so wanted to find a way to be “let in” to the place where the “big kids” were playing. I wanted to find a place where I could “land,” with my own particular style, my own holiness, my own quirks and crazinesses, and have them be at least tolerated well enough that I could once again have a book cover with my name on it. That was the bottom line. To try anything once, just to see what worked…and then find a way to work with it.
But for me, real, edge-of-the-seat, fire-in-the-belly creativity isn’t about finding a way to work with a piece of fiction. It’s not about finding something serviceable to sell. It’s not about putting together a story that glorifies some publisher’s vision of God…or preaches Jesus in a particular way…or reveals some deep truth I need to learn and want to share with the world. My fiction can do all those things. But starting out to do that from the get-go? That, I can’t do. I thought I could. I was wrong.
For me, it has to be about nothing but story. And story is what I’ve completely lost in all that feedback, all that selling and editing and reworking and experimenting and retelling and revising. Because of all the things I have available that I could work on to sell to the Christian market, the bitter truth is, I don’t care enough about any of them to finish them now...I might never care enough to finish them…and I have no other ideas that are “suitable” or “godly” enough to get past the gatekeepers in that market.
In other words, boys and girls…I’ve hit the breaking point. Thank God.
Even though it was painful to hit it.
Even though I loved meeting the Guideposts editor.
Even though I would still love to sell them, or another Christian publisher—or even a Catholic fiction publisher—something, someday.
That someday just isn’t going to be soon…because I’m quitting.
That was what I resolved at the sink that Saturday afternoon—that it’s time I stopped doing this to myself. Stopped trying to write what everyone tells me I’m talented at, and go back to writing what I dang well feel like. Stopped worrying about whether my writing is “suitable” and just make it great. Stopped doing what I think I ought to do, or should do, or have a duty to do, and go back to doing what I love to do.
In short, I quit being a Catholic Christian writer.
I’m going back to just being a writer who is a Catholic Christian.
A writer who can tell a horking good story, one that’ll make the hair on your neck stand on end, make you sob at the page or make you laugh yourself out of your chair…but only if it’s already worked that magic on me.
So I’m done.
Done with doing anything but what will make me shiver, or jump out of my seat pacing with the emotional turmoil I’m putting myself through, or cut so close to the bone that I cry when I read what I write, even as I’m writing it. Because anything else, boys and girls…is no longer worth doing at all.
Anything less, I have to stop doing.
Now.
This moment.
And forever.
Hopefully, the big kids will still let me play.
But even if they don’t, I can’t make myself over into someone they’ll allow in.
Not today.
Not tomorrow.
Not now.
Not ever.
I QUIT.
(Hallelujah!)
Thoughts?
Janny
Thursday, November 06, 2008
The “Q” word, part 2
Okay, I won’t say there’s been panic in the streets…but close. (Yeah, I flatter myself. My crit partner’s paying attention…and maybe three other people. But, hey, it counts.) That’s worth looking at in and of itself. Which we will do, as we go along.
First of all, though, let me say a couple of things about the word “quit.”
Very few four-letter words inspire the same knee-jerk reaction from writers as that one does. I mean that literally. You can hang around writers who’ll cheerfully pollute their (and my) airspace and ears with cusswords of all variety—colorful, even scatological—over the slightest thing…with a smile.
But you mention the word quit, and their blood runs cold.
Or they look real, real nervous.
Or they get defensive, maybe even condescending.
Or they pretend they didn’t hear it.
Or…they laugh. Sometimes derisively, sometimes…not so much so.
Because quitting writing is something real writers never do. At least not real writers who also eventually expect to get published in some recognizable form in the English- (or any other language-) speaking world. This is a given.
This is also a fact. If you quit, those words will not only never get on your computer screen…they’ll never get to a reader. Any reader.
Ergo, since no one has yet mastered the technique of sending brilliant prose via brainwaves to an editor whose brainwaves will pick it up without typos...the act of quitting, stoppage—even taking a break, for heaven’s sake—means you’re one day (or a lot of days) farther away from gaining space on the page, the bookshelf, and the marketplace.
So of course, if one wants to have one’s name on a book cover, the first advice one has to remember to follow is Finish the Dang Book. Which means Not Quitting.
Fast-rewind to our previous installment of this chat, however, and you will see that this particular writer has an impressive track record of perseverance.
I mean, for heaven’s sake, I joined RWA in 1988 for the express purpose of entering the Golden Heart competition—because I wanted to win that thing so badly I was willing to part with hard-earned dollars to actually join an organization.
Those of you who know me know what a step that was. In high school, I was a great “joiner.” I was in lots and lots of extracurricular activities—but that’s the clue. They were activities. I did them with people who were already my friends. So for me, at the age of 36, to jump into a professional writers’ organization in which I knew not a soul...well, let’s say it was an act of what felt like colossal chutzpah at the time, not to mention almost dizzying optimism.
Lots of water has gone under that particular bridge in the ensuing years, but one thing that remains out of all of it is that I’m not usually One Who Quits easily.
So, you may ask, why quit now?
When I have one published book that slipped neatly under my belt, and now has slipped just as neatly out of that belt and is back in my hands to sell…someday…again?
When I’ve won a major writing contest, even if it was years ago?
When I’m probably just that one more submission away?
Putting aside the ack-ack response to that last sentence :-), let me elucidate.
I am quitting being the writer I am now.
I am quitting that so I can go back to being the writer I used to be.
Okay, now you’re scratching your heads, but at least you’re not tearing any more hair out. I hope.
So what do I mean by the above?
Rewind again…to 1998, when I was a Golden girl. If you woke me from a sound sleep at that point in time and asked me my goal, I would have said, “A three-book contract with Silhouette Romance.”
I knew where I was headed, and I had no doubt I would get there.
But then some things started to happen.
It takes some of us a long time to internalize others’ expectations, but it takes me almost no time at all. Some of them, of course, I can resist. But others...find their way in.
Because I wrote clean books, with no sex on the page, I was starting to notice the winds of change toward fewer and fewer of those kinds of books...and more of the steam I had no intention of writing.
It was about that time that someone suggested for the first time that I write inspirationals—because they were “clean.” This notion, I pooh-poohed out of the gate...for a number of very good reasons, most of which had to do with my Catholic roots, and some of which had to do with the truly hinky lack of quality I was seeing in so-called inspirational romances at that time.
To be blunt, early on, those books weren’t very good. I didn’t like them, I didn’t know anyone who did, and so I’d be darned if I’d sell to one of those markets—even if I could break in somehow, which I doubted. Since my characters liked to dance, go to movies, play cards, drink wine, and were even known once in a while to say a “darn,” a “gosh,” or a “shucks”....well, there wasn’t a chance in Hades I was going to get one of my little books accepted by a standard inspy house any time that I could see, not without gutting most of what my characters were otherwise free to do in the real world. :-)
But the suggestion stayed with me.
Through more and more rejections of my sweet, traditional romances...
Through rejections of my dark, murky romantic suspenses...
All the way up to the day when I thought, “Oh, okay. What the heck. Let me see if I can try one of those things.” But I wasn’t going to start from scratch; I felt I had a much better shot if I took one of my already squeaky-clean books and...gave it an extra dimension.
I did it as a lark. Honest.
And then, liking the first three chapters of what I’d done, I thought, “What the heck,” and entered the Faith, Hope, and Love RWA Chapter’s inspy contest with it.
And it won second place.
Second place.
To which—had I been prone to say such things then—I would’ve said, “Woot!”
This was something that thrilled me to the skies. Heck, getting good scores on a contest always does that for me—but to get good scores in a contest with your first try at one of those weird little “religious” books that you swore up and down you couldn’t write?
That made me start thinking...
What if I, in my heart of hearts, was actually an inspirational romance writer?
Little did I know that I was opening a Pandora’s box by even asking that question. By even thinking myself into that framework...exploring it...and wondering if that would be, indeed, where I was going to “make it.”
In retrospect, I have come to realize that that question led me down a desperately wrong path. Maybe not a wrong path for anyone else...but a wrong one for me.
Why and how it did so, I’ll talk about in my next post.
More to come,
Janny
First of all, though, let me say a couple of things about the word “quit.”
Very few four-letter words inspire the same knee-jerk reaction from writers as that one does. I mean that literally. You can hang around writers who’ll cheerfully pollute their (and my) airspace and ears with cusswords of all variety—colorful, even scatological—over the slightest thing…with a smile.
But you mention the word quit, and their blood runs cold.
Or they look real, real nervous.
Or they get defensive, maybe even condescending.
Or they pretend they didn’t hear it.
Or…they laugh. Sometimes derisively, sometimes…not so much so.
Because quitting writing is something real writers never do. At least not real writers who also eventually expect to get published in some recognizable form in the English- (or any other language-) speaking world. This is a given.
This is also a fact. If you quit, those words will not only never get on your computer screen…they’ll never get to a reader. Any reader.
Ergo, since no one has yet mastered the technique of sending brilliant prose via brainwaves to an editor whose brainwaves will pick it up without typos...the act of quitting, stoppage—even taking a break, for heaven’s sake—means you’re one day (or a lot of days) farther away from gaining space on the page, the bookshelf, and the marketplace.
So of course, if one wants to have one’s name on a book cover, the first advice one has to remember to follow is Finish the Dang Book. Which means Not Quitting.
Fast-rewind to our previous installment of this chat, however, and you will see that this particular writer has an impressive track record of perseverance.
I mean, for heaven’s sake, I joined RWA in 1988 for the express purpose of entering the Golden Heart competition—because I wanted to win that thing so badly I was willing to part with hard-earned dollars to actually join an organization.
Those of you who know me know what a step that was. In high school, I was a great “joiner.” I was in lots and lots of extracurricular activities—but that’s the clue. They were activities. I did them with people who were already my friends. So for me, at the age of 36, to jump into a professional writers’ organization in which I knew not a soul...well, let’s say it was an act of what felt like colossal chutzpah at the time, not to mention almost dizzying optimism.
Lots of water has gone under that particular bridge in the ensuing years, but one thing that remains out of all of it is that I’m not usually One Who Quits easily.
So, you may ask, why quit now?
When I have one published book that slipped neatly under my belt, and now has slipped just as neatly out of that belt and is back in my hands to sell…someday…again?
When I’ve won a major writing contest, even if it was years ago?
When I’m probably just that one more submission away?
Putting aside the ack-ack response to that last sentence :-), let me elucidate.
I am quitting being the writer I am now.
I am quitting that so I can go back to being the writer I used to be.
Okay, now you’re scratching your heads, but at least you’re not tearing any more hair out. I hope.
So what do I mean by the above?
Rewind again…to 1998, when I was a Golden girl. If you woke me from a sound sleep at that point in time and asked me my goal, I would have said, “A three-book contract with Silhouette Romance.”
I knew where I was headed, and I had no doubt I would get there.
But then some things started to happen.
It takes some of us a long time to internalize others’ expectations, but it takes me almost no time at all. Some of them, of course, I can resist. But others...find their way in.
Because I wrote clean books, with no sex on the page, I was starting to notice the winds of change toward fewer and fewer of those kinds of books...and more of the steam I had no intention of writing.
It was about that time that someone suggested for the first time that I write inspirationals—because they were “clean.” This notion, I pooh-poohed out of the gate...for a number of very good reasons, most of which had to do with my Catholic roots, and some of which had to do with the truly hinky lack of quality I was seeing in so-called inspirational romances at that time.
To be blunt, early on, those books weren’t very good. I didn’t like them, I didn’t know anyone who did, and so I’d be darned if I’d sell to one of those markets—even if I could break in somehow, which I doubted. Since my characters liked to dance, go to movies, play cards, drink wine, and were even known once in a while to say a “darn,” a “gosh,” or a “shucks”....well, there wasn’t a chance in Hades I was going to get one of my little books accepted by a standard inspy house any time that I could see, not without gutting most of what my characters were otherwise free to do in the real world. :-)
But the suggestion stayed with me.
Through more and more rejections of my sweet, traditional romances...
Through rejections of my dark, murky romantic suspenses...
All the way up to the day when I thought, “Oh, okay. What the heck. Let me see if I can try one of those things.” But I wasn’t going to start from scratch; I felt I had a much better shot if I took one of my already squeaky-clean books and...gave it an extra dimension.
I did it as a lark. Honest.
And then, liking the first three chapters of what I’d done, I thought, “What the heck,” and entered the Faith, Hope, and Love RWA Chapter’s inspy contest with it.
And it won second place.
Second place.
To which—had I been prone to say such things then—I would’ve said, “Woot!”
This was something that thrilled me to the skies. Heck, getting good scores on a contest always does that for me—but to get good scores in a contest with your first try at one of those weird little “religious” books that you swore up and down you couldn’t write?
That made me start thinking...
What if I, in my heart of hearts, was actually an inspirational romance writer?
Little did I know that I was opening a Pandora’s box by even asking that question. By even thinking myself into that framework...exploring it...and wondering if that would be, indeed, where I was going to “make it.”
In retrospect, I have come to realize that that question led me down a desperately wrong path. Maybe not a wrong path for anyone else...but a wrong one for me.
Why and how it did so, I’ll talk about in my next post.
More to come,
Janny
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
The “Q” Word
Over this past weekend, I opened one of those envelopes we all hate: the SASE with the single sheet of paper in it, saying, “Thanks, no, thanks.” In short, Guideposts Books rejected Rainman’s Bride…and the editor said nothing about any of the other books that I had proposed as a trilogy with RB, only encouraged me to consider Guideposts with my future writing.
Now, for those of you who don’t know the drill, that encouragement is good news…but only to a point. It could have been worse—the letter could have closed with one of those say-no-evil sorts of endings that neither encourages you to submit anything else nor enjoins you never to darken the door again, just wishes you “luck” in your writing career (which most authors, being naturally paranoid, will look at and wail, “She hates it! She hates me!”).
Or, it could have been much blunter and conveyed the editor’s dislike for something particular about your work or your style—thereby effectively shutting the door on you for any further conversations. (And yes, I have gotten letters like that!) So in that context, being told to feel free to consider them again for other work is encouragement of its own sort.
It also must be said, in fairness to the editor in question, that she did not send a form letter. Far from it. This was two to three paragraphs in which she told me, quite specifically, what she liked and didn’t like about the premise and the story. So in that sense, it’s kind of like that MasterCard commercial: there are some things money can’t buy. In that context, there are authors out there who would kill for that much detail in a note from an editor, and the sage multi-pubs among us would be nodding their heads in agreement: Yes, this is very good. Personalized, detailed, it means you’re very close.
Trouble is, I was getting letters like this back in 1988. And sage multi-pubs were nodding their heads meaningfully then.
Twenty years ago.
So I think it’s only fair to wonder, at a point like this, just how long one can be in very close land before one has to face the possibility that one really hasn’t gotten any better in twenty years…or that one really is only kidding oneself.
That’s not a question you want to be mulling on a Saturday afternoon.
The added complication in this mix, of course, is that this work in question wasn't exactly "recent" work. What I did was take a pretty darn good book (Golden Heart good, in fact), tweak it, polish it up a bit, and send it along. I've toyed with completely rewriting this book several times; every time I do, however, I get into it and start thinking that if it was good enough to win a national award ten years ago, doesn't that mean it's good enough to sell...to the right place...today?
Apparently not. Because in the subsequent time I’ve been submitting it to various places, it’s gotten reactions ranging from polite indifference to a return with grammar markups on it (!) to—probably the most interesting one—a multi-page “rant” from a publisher who all but advised burning the thing and starting over.
What it hasn’t gotten is a read sympathetic enough to merit the letter that says, “…should you elect to make this change, and this one, and this one, we’re inclined to go to contract.”
It’s bad enough when one’s ten-year-old work is treated this way, but when work that’s more recent than that—or work that is revised and redone, based on the much-improved talent one has now—also gets a similar reception...
Well, it's not like I've never "quit" before.
Many authors do. Or want to.
We get to some point or other in this endless cycle of euphoria and despair/disgust where we don’t want to do this to ourselves anymore. We don’t want to keep hoping. We don’t want to keep pursuing a dream that seems “stalled out” at a point two decades old.
So we quit.
And that is what I’m going to do.
I decided that Saturday afternoon at the kitchen sink.
Again, maybe not an optimum situation in which to make an important decision about one’s writing. But I’ve spent a generous amount of time thinking stories through, mulling over plot problems, and dreaming of success at the kitchen sink—so when I come to an important crossroads, thinking about it with my hands in water is not necessarily a bad way to go.
But before you howl too loud...
Hold tight and I’ll explain what “the Q word” is going to look like in my life.
In the next post.
Stay tuned!
Janny
Now, for those of you who don’t know the drill, that encouragement is good news…but only to a point. It could have been worse—the letter could have closed with one of those say-no-evil sorts of endings that neither encourages you to submit anything else nor enjoins you never to darken the door again, just wishes you “luck” in your writing career (which most authors, being naturally paranoid, will look at and wail, “She hates it! She hates me!”).
Or, it could have been much blunter and conveyed the editor’s dislike for something particular about your work or your style—thereby effectively shutting the door on you for any further conversations. (And yes, I have gotten letters like that!) So in that context, being told to feel free to consider them again for other work is encouragement of its own sort.
It also must be said, in fairness to the editor in question, that she did not send a form letter. Far from it. This was two to three paragraphs in which she told me, quite specifically, what she liked and didn’t like about the premise and the story. So in that sense, it’s kind of like that MasterCard commercial: there are some things money can’t buy. In that context, there are authors out there who would kill for that much detail in a note from an editor, and the sage multi-pubs among us would be nodding their heads in agreement: Yes, this is very good. Personalized, detailed, it means you’re very close.
Trouble is, I was getting letters like this back in 1988. And sage multi-pubs were nodding their heads meaningfully then.
Twenty years ago.
So I think it’s only fair to wonder, at a point like this, just how long one can be in very close land before one has to face the possibility that one really hasn’t gotten any better in twenty years…or that one really is only kidding oneself.
That’s not a question you want to be mulling on a Saturday afternoon.
The added complication in this mix, of course, is that this work in question wasn't exactly "recent" work. What I did was take a pretty darn good book (Golden Heart good, in fact), tweak it, polish it up a bit, and send it along. I've toyed with completely rewriting this book several times; every time I do, however, I get into it and start thinking that if it was good enough to win a national award ten years ago, doesn't that mean it's good enough to sell...to the right place...today?
Apparently not. Because in the subsequent time I’ve been submitting it to various places, it’s gotten reactions ranging from polite indifference to a return with grammar markups on it (!) to—probably the most interesting one—a multi-page “rant” from a publisher who all but advised burning the thing and starting over.
What it hasn’t gotten is a read sympathetic enough to merit the letter that says, “…should you elect to make this change, and this one, and this one, we’re inclined to go to contract.”
It’s bad enough when one’s ten-year-old work is treated this way, but when work that’s more recent than that—or work that is revised and redone, based on the much-improved talent one has now—also gets a similar reception...
Well, it's not like I've never "quit" before.
Many authors do. Or want to.
We get to some point or other in this endless cycle of euphoria and despair/disgust where we don’t want to do this to ourselves anymore. We don’t want to keep hoping. We don’t want to keep pursuing a dream that seems “stalled out” at a point two decades old.
So we quit.
And that is what I’m going to do.
I decided that Saturday afternoon at the kitchen sink.
Again, maybe not an optimum situation in which to make an important decision about one’s writing. But I’ve spent a generous amount of time thinking stories through, mulling over plot problems, and dreaming of success at the kitchen sink—so when I come to an important crossroads, thinking about it with my hands in water is not necessarily a bad way to go.
But before you howl too loud...
Hold tight and I’ll explain what “the Q word” is going to look like in my life.
In the next post.
Stay tuned!
Janny
Thursday, October 30, 2008
“At Home” in Indiana?
I’m one of those souls blessed, and cursed, with what can only be called a form of wanderlust. When I was growing up, we never went anywhere…except for a very occasional one-day trip to Indiana Dunes. My father apparently considered that enough “vacation” for the family. He took my brother to an occasional Cubs’ doubleheader—when those things used to be regular occurrences, on selected holidays—but, of course, my mother and I never went along on those trips.
That’s how it came to pass that, until I went to New York over one college spring break, I’d never been farther away from Chicago than a few inches over the Wisconsin and/or Indiana state lines. People who had summer cottages three, four, or ten hours away? Alien life forms, for sure. Families who thought in terms of “where are we going this year?” Speaking a foreign language.
So I’ve grown up figuratively Down on the Farm and couldn’t wait to escape—which explains why I’m one of those people who, if she is at an airport, a train station, or the like for whatever reason, longs to simply walk up to the counter and buy a ticket out of town. Wouldn’t even much matter where.
But the flip side of that wanderlust is a paradoxical mirror-image sentiment: the obsession to find “the best place” to live, put down roots, and stay there…perhaps even at the exclusion of trips to see the Rest of the World.
From time to time, you’ll hear it said that if you truly found the right place to live, you would be “on vacation” every day, in a sense, and thus have no real desire to spend any time anywhere else. Sounds great, doesn’t it? Life as a permanent vacation?
Getting to that ideal place, however, can be trickier than it sounds.
Back in the Chicago area, to live in a place I would have considered “ideal,” I would have had to have the income of a brain surgeon, (the late) Johnny Cochrane, or a drug dealer (or maybe all three). Even if one did manage to score the coup of getting the income in place, finding a great house in a great location, and protecting one’s environment so that some bright-eyed developer wouldn’t end up putting a strip mall behind one’s back yard…the hidden cost of a “perfect” place in an area like this is the lack of time to actually enjoy it. Many suburbs in the Chicago area are practically legendary as vast stretches of breathtaking neighborhoods that, during weekday daylight hours, are ghost towns. The irony of the fact that, during the week, the “help” spent more time in these gorgeous homes than their owners did was inescapable…and illuminating. Seeing such a thing, a normal person starts to think, “What’s wrong with this picture?”
I used to say I liked to be close to the city for the sake of “culture,” “concerts and plays,” and the like—until I asked myself how often we actually did those things. The fireworks downtown, maybe twice or three times; we went to one opera, no plays, no concerts. It was embarrassing to realize that this great “cultural” life I claimed was so important to be a part of, I wasn’t even using…but it was freeing as well. If you don’t “have to” be tied to a city for any particular reason, you can live anywhere, including a place where it doesn’t take you 25 minutes to drive three and a half miles.
Inertia is a tough thing, however—as is a job for the primary breadwinner located smack-dab in the city center. It’s a rotten tradeoff: you go to where you can breathe the air, see the stars, and afford a decent house…but you pay for it by commuting 4 hours a day to that job.
Until you lose that job…and suddenly, everything changes.
Long story short, we had a job in Chicago vaporize, one in Indiana appear, and so—swallowing my inborn revulsion to embrace all things Hoosier—I signed on the dotted line. (Although I will admit, I passed up this job listing at least once because I didn’t want to move to “godforsaken, where in the h*** is Huntington, Indiana?”) I got here on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, in the black of early-winter evening, was esconced in the Parish Center of a local church, was pointed in the general direction of the new office, fed dinner, and bidden goodnight…and I was on my way.
Fast forward to now, and an odd thing is occurring. I’m beginning to see that one has to be careful what one wishes for—because one might get it, in the most unlikely place one could imagine.
For the first several months I was here, when I was trekking back and forth between the still-unsold house in Illinois and the various apartment places I landed in as temporary housing in Huntington, I wondered approximately once a week what kind of insanity had prompted me to do this. I would get home from Illinois and just sob for a couple of hours. No doubt part of the emotional turmoil was missing the family, the cats, or just the fact that our ties were rapidly being cut with a church we’d been in for 17 years and an environment that was at least familiar…but interwoven in that conflict were a whole bunch of generous “pluses.”
I lived in a place where I commuted 5 minutes to work.
I lived in a place where I could walk to church, to the library, and to a grocery store…among other places.
I lived in a place where, bare minutes out of town, I had not one but two major reservoir/lake picnic and camping areas—including one with a swimming beach—reachable by country roads lined by woods.
I lived in a place where I was close enough to Fort Wayne to get a “mall fix” but far enough away that when I’m not in the mood for a mall—which is often!—I don’t have to contend with the incessant traffic of those who love them.
I lived in a place where most people in the local shops didn’t let you get away without a conversation.
I lived in a place where, for the last year of my son’s baseball career at Michigan, I was a full hour and a half closer to him than I was in Illinois.
And best of all, I lived in a place—eventually—that is as physically close to my “dream house” as I’ve ever been…a house I couldn’t even dream about paying for in Chicago.
When the rest of the family got here, and we began the real adjustment process—otherwise known as “no, we’re not living in Chicago anymore”—of course, things were a bit rocky once again. And more than once, after having visited some neat place in Illinois for some fun reason, I’ve wished that I could just transplant what I have here…back there.
But I knew I’d turned a corner of sorts when I drove to Illinois one Sunday to sing at a special anniversary Mass—requested by my former pastor—and realized, once I got to the church, that I was really glad I would “get to go back home to Indiana” that night.
Back home to Indiana. Four words that I never thought in a million years would be reassuring to me. Four words that I never, ever imagined would come out of my mouth. Four words that I still can’t believe I say.
But four words that are starting to really feel comfortable. Strange, yet comfortable.
Don’t get me wrong. You can take the girl out of Chicago, but you don’t take the Chicago out of the girl that easily. Any glance at the links here will tell you that. :-)
But, living as I am a “red” girl finally in a largely “red” state…has produced an ease of spirit I can’t say I’d readily want to give up. And I know this because, at one point in here, a job possibility actually opened up for my DH to go back with his previous employer on a contract basis…for scandalous money, in terms of what we really could use here. And it was tempting to jump at it.
Until we realized that would mean we’d have to live a commuter marriage again—because we couldn’t give up my job here and still make ends meet, even on what the potential contract job would give him. We had no reassurances that the contract job would last any particular length of time; it was a “permanent” position…but so was the one he was laid off from after 21 years. And knowing that we’d go from everyone living together to, once again, one of us having to set up new housekeeping somewhere else…with all that that entailed…
…we couldn’t do it. PM stepped back from it, making the decision to stay here and commit himself to his new career rather than trying to “play both sides of the fence”…and we are now rooted to our spot, for better or worse, for the duration.
I still don’t consider this necessarily the ultimate “perfect” place to live, not by any stretch of the imagination. I’d love to be on water. I’d love to be in the Snow Belt.
I’d love to be further north, with more pine in the woods than oak. And as far as “embracing all things Hoosier” goes…that ain’t gonna happen any time soon. In fact, I’ve taken to referring to this place as “the far east side of Chicago.” It makes things a lot easier to take. :-)
But when I drive down Route 24 to go sing at the beautiful new performance hall at IPFW…
…or I go swimming in the reservoir…
…or I take a jaunt uptown to look in the shop windows…
…or I walk to my church and, once again, am convinced it’s the most beautiful church I’ve ever seen…
…I do feel “at home in Indiana.”
And…in Chicago…not so much anymore.
Scary? Yes. I don’t know if I’m ready to consider the possibility of never being back in Illinois again…or living the rest of my life here, as opposed to any other “near perfect” place.
But for now, one day at a time, it’s not all that bad.
For right now, it’s home.
Thoughts?
Janny
That’s how it came to pass that, until I went to New York over one college spring break, I’d never been farther away from Chicago than a few inches over the Wisconsin and/or Indiana state lines. People who had summer cottages three, four, or ten hours away? Alien life forms, for sure. Families who thought in terms of “where are we going this year?” Speaking a foreign language.
So I’ve grown up figuratively Down on the Farm and couldn’t wait to escape—which explains why I’m one of those people who, if she is at an airport, a train station, or the like for whatever reason, longs to simply walk up to the counter and buy a ticket out of town. Wouldn’t even much matter where.
But the flip side of that wanderlust is a paradoxical mirror-image sentiment: the obsession to find “the best place” to live, put down roots, and stay there…perhaps even at the exclusion of trips to see the Rest of the World.
From time to time, you’ll hear it said that if you truly found the right place to live, you would be “on vacation” every day, in a sense, and thus have no real desire to spend any time anywhere else. Sounds great, doesn’t it? Life as a permanent vacation?
Getting to that ideal place, however, can be trickier than it sounds.
Back in the Chicago area, to live in a place I would have considered “ideal,” I would have had to have the income of a brain surgeon, (the late) Johnny Cochrane, or a drug dealer (or maybe all three). Even if one did manage to score the coup of getting the income in place, finding a great house in a great location, and protecting one’s environment so that some bright-eyed developer wouldn’t end up putting a strip mall behind one’s back yard…the hidden cost of a “perfect” place in an area like this is the lack of time to actually enjoy it. Many suburbs in the Chicago area are practically legendary as vast stretches of breathtaking neighborhoods that, during weekday daylight hours, are ghost towns. The irony of the fact that, during the week, the “help” spent more time in these gorgeous homes than their owners did was inescapable…and illuminating. Seeing such a thing, a normal person starts to think, “What’s wrong with this picture?”
I used to say I liked to be close to the city for the sake of “culture,” “concerts and plays,” and the like—until I asked myself how often we actually did those things. The fireworks downtown, maybe twice or three times; we went to one opera, no plays, no concerts. It was embarrassing to realize that this great “cultural” life I claimed was so important to be a part of, I wasn’t even using…but it was freeing as well. If you don’t “have to” be tied to a city for any particular reason, you can live anywhere, including a place where it doesn’t take you 25 minutes to drive three and a half miles.
Inertia is a tough thing, however—as is a job for the primary breadwinner located smack-dab in the city center. It’s a rotten tradeoff: you go to where you can breathe the air, see the stars, and afford a decent house…but you pay for it by commuting 4 hours a day to that job.
Until you lose that job…and suddenly, everything changes.
Long story short, we had a job in Chicago vaporize, one in Indiana appear, and so—swallowing my inborn revulsion to embrace all things Hoosier—I signed on the dotted line. (Although I will admit, I passed up this job listing at least once because I didn’t want to move to “godforsaken, where in the h*** is Huntington, Indiana?”) I got here on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, in the black of early-winter evening, was esconced in the Parish Center of a local church, was pointed in the general direction of the new office, fed dinner, and bidden goodnight…and I was on my way.
Fast forward to now, and an odd thing is occurring. I’m beginning to see that one has to be careful what one wishes for—because one might get it, in the most unlikely place one could imagine.
For the first several months I was here, when I was trekking back and forth between the still-unsold house in Illinois and the various apartment places I landed in as temporary housing in Huntington, I wondered approximately once a week what kind of insanity had prompted me to do this. I would get home from Illinois and just sob for a couple of hours. No doubt part of the emotional turmoil was missing the family, the cats, or just the fact that our ties were rapidly being cut with a church we’d been in for 17 years and an environment that was at least familiar…but interwoven in that conflict were a whole bunch of generous “pluses.”
I lived in a place where I commuted 5 minutes to work.
I lived in a place where I could walk to church, to the library, and to a grocery store…among other places.
I lived in a place where, bare minutes out of town, I had not one but two major reservoir/lake picnic and camping areas—including one with a swimming beach—reachable by country roads lined by woods.
I lived in a place where I was close enough to Fort Wayne to get a “mall fix” but far enough away that when I’m not in the mood for a mall—which is often!—I don’t have to contend with the incessant traffic of those who love them.
I lived in a place where most people in the local shops didn’t let you get away without a conversation.
I lived in a place where, for the last year of my son’s baseball career at Michigan, I was a full hour and a half closer to him than I was in Illinois.
And best of all, I lived in a place—eventually—that is as physically close to my “dream house” as I’ve ever been…a house I couldn’t even dream about paying for in Chicago.
When the rest of the family got here, and we began the real adjustment process—otherwise known as “no, we’re not living in Chicago anymore”—of course, things were a bit rocky once again. And more than once, after having visited some neat place in Illinois for some fun reason, I’ve wished that I could just transplant what I have here…back there.
But I knew I’d turned a corner of sorts when I drove to Illinois one Sunday to sing at a special anniversary Mass—requested by my former pastor—and realized, once I got to the church, that I was really glad I would “get to go back home to Indiana” that night.
Back home to Indiana. Four words that I never thought in a million years would be reassuring to me. Four words that I never, ever imagined would come out of my mouth. Four words that I still can’t believe I say.
But four words that are starting to really feel comfortable. Strange, yet comfortable.
Don’t get me wrong. You can take the girl out of Chicago, but you don’t take the Chicago out of the girl that easily. Any glance at the links here will tell you that. :-)
But, living as I am a “red” girl finally in a largely “red” state…has produced an ease of spirit I can’t say I’d readily want to give up. And I know this because, at one point in here, a job possibility actually opened up for my DH to go back with his previous employer on a contract basis…for scandalous money, in terms of what we really could use here. And it was tempting to jump at it.
Until we realized that would mean we’d have to live a commuter marriage again—because we couldn’t give up my job here and still make ends meet, even on what the potential contract job would give him. We had no reassurances that the contract job would last any particular length of time; it was a “permanent” position…but so was the one he was laid off from after 21 years. And knowing that we’d go from everyone living together to, once again, one of us having to set up new housekeeping somewhere else…with all that that entailed…
…we couldn’t do it. PM stepped back from it, making the decision to stay here and commit himself to his new career rather than trying to “play both sides of the fence”…and we are now rooted to our spot, for better or worse, for the duration.
I still don’t consider this necessarily the ultimate “perfect” place to live, not by any stretch of the imagination. I’d love to be on water. I’d love to be in the Snow Belt.
I’d love to be further north, with more pine in the woods than oak. And as far as “embracing all things Hoosier” goes…that ain’t gonna happen any time soon. In fact, I’ve taken to referring to this place as “the far east side of Chicago.” It makes things a lot easier to take. :-)
But when I drive down Route 24 to go sing at the beautiful new performance hall at IPFW…
…or I go swimming in the reservoir…
…or I take a jaunt uptown to look in the shop windows…
…or I walk to my church and, once again, am convinced it’s the most beautiful church I’ve ever seen…
…I do feel “at home in Indiana.”
And…in Chicago…not so much anymore.
Scary? Yes. I don’t know if I’m ready to consider the possibility of never being back in Illinois again…or living the rest of my life here, as opposed to any other “near perfect” place.
But for now, one day at a time, it’s not all that bad.
For right now, it’s home.
Thoughts?
Janny
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
The Religion of Eeyore?
An interesting comment came through on my previous post about the enthusiasm of Scott Hahn—to the effect that no doubt, his “on fire” nature came out of his Protestant roots.
Catholics, it seems to many people, are not “on fire” for anything; Catholics, it seems to many people out there, are kind of glum, cynical, lazy, dull, depressing, sad…
Catholics, it seems to many people, are not “on fire” for anything; Catholics, it seems to many people out there, are kind of glum, cynical, lazy, dull, depressing, sad…
Yeah. Kinda like our friend here.
Well, yeah, there are some glum Catholics. For good reasons, in most cases. But, no, the reasons aren’t contained within the Church, her teachings, or her character itself. The reasons are a bit closer to home — like, say, Nancy Pelosi and Ted Kennedy. With people like that claiming to be in our Church, who needs enemies? Think on that too long, and you will get glum.
But what Archbishop Noll said so long ago is true. It has always been true, and it will always be true. The Catholic religion—faithfully followed—is a religion of joy. So if you’re encountering joyless Catholics, it ain’t because they’re “too Catholic” or “too constrained by rules and regulations,” or such. If anything, it’s because they’re holding themselves back from the real joy that comes from total surrender, from embracing Christ in His Church, and from being embraced in turn by the world’s biggest family, with God as its Head.
You see, the best kept secret in the world is that being Catholic is really easy. It’s easily the simplest way to be a Christian. The most supported. The most rewarded, and rewarding, and grace-filled. But that secret is so murked up nowadays with people who make false claims about Catholicism, or who muddy it up with their own agendas, that “my yoke is easy and my burden is light” can, at times, sound like a bad joke to the people in the pews.
But it doesn’t have to be thus. At its heart, it isn’t. At its heart, Catholicism is simple, one, holy, catholic, and apostolic. And the more one learns about this Church, the more one comes to love her, and her Spouse, more deeply.
“Getting” that might just make even Eeyore smile.
But what Archbishop Noll said so long ago is true. It has always been true, and it will always be true. The Catholic religion—faithfully followed—is a religion of joy. So if you’re encountering joyless Catholics, it ain’t because they’re “too Catholic” or “too constrained by rules and regulations,” or such. If anything, it’s because they’re holding themselves back from the real joy that comes from total surrender, from embracing Christ in His Church, and from being embraced in turn by the world’s biggest family, with God as its Head.
You see, the best kept secret in the world is that being Catholic is really easy. It’s easily the simplest way to be a Christian. The most supported. The most rewarded, and rewarding, and grace-filled. But that secret is so murked up nowadays with people who make false claims about Catholicism, or who muddy it up with their own agendas, that “my yoke is easy and my burden is light” can, at times, sound like a bad joke to the people in the pews.
But it doesn’t have to be thus. At its heart, it isn’t. At its heart, Catholicism is simple, one, holy, catholic, and apostolic. And the more one learns about this Church, the more one comes to love her, and her Spouse, more deeply.
“Getting” that might just make even Eeyore smile.
Thoughts?
Janny
Thursday, October 09, 2008
One Down, One (or More) To Go
Well, today the proposal for Rainman’s Bride—and its accompanying spinoffs—goes out the door to Beth Adams at Guideposts Books. This is the signal, boys and girls, for everyone to start praying hard…because I truly feel that Guideposts’ “happening” to decide to expand their fiction line (s) to go into the trade market in a big way is a wide-open door for me. Added to that the fact that Beth and I got along like gangbusters at our ACFW appointment—well, let’s say that as much as I’m afraid to hope for anything anymore, this opportunity has tempted me to start believing again. I truly believe that Guideposts is as close to an ideal match for my style as it gets; time and experience will tell. But it’s time to get that Golden Heart book out on the shelves where lots more people can read it!
The next project to pitch is Voice of Innocence, which I’ll be putting together a proposal on and pitching to an agent electronically. This doesn’t stop the pitching for that piece, but it may end up being the last stop it needs to make…until it sells. Let’s hope so.
OTOH, I’m having nagging doubts about this piece, I will admit—if for no other reason than it’s met with such resounding indifference in the agent marketplace. Yet when I entered it in a contest where booksellers judged, they gave it overall high ratings, including one perfect score. One particularly poignant comment came off those contest sheets, from the bookseller who said, “I want to meet this author, and I want to read this book.” To which I murmured, “From your mouth to God’s ears, honey.” All comments were anonymous by nature, but I wished I knew who and where this bookseller was…I would have e-mailed her, or maybe even gotten on the phone, and asked her if she knew any literary agents with taste like hers!
So it’s a mixed bag this morning, but the good news is I’m bringing myself one step closer, on at least one front. Now, does anyone know Guideposts’ response times????
Staying the course (as best she can),
Janny
The next project to pitch is Voice of Innocence, which I’ll be putting together a proposal on and pitching to an agent electronically. This doesn’t stop the pitching for that piece, but it may end up being the last stop it needs to make…until it sells. Let’s hope so.
OTOH, I’m having nagging doubts about this piece, I will admit—if for no other reason than it’s met with such resounding indifference in the agent marketplace. Yet when I entered it in a contest where booksellers judged, they gave it overall high ratings, including one perfect score. One particularly poignant comment came off those contest sheets, from the bookseller who said, “I want to meet this author, and I want to read this book.” To which I murmured, “From your mouth to God’s ears, honey.” All comments were anonymous by nature, but I wished I knew who and where this bookseller was…I would have e-mailed her, or maybe even gotten on the phone, and asked her if she knew any literary agents with taste like hers!
So it’s a mixed bag this morning, but the good news is I’m bringing myself one step closer, on at least one front. Now, does anyone know Guideposts’ response times????
Staying the course (as best she can),
Janny
Thursday, September 11, 2008
One More Awesome Video before I Write Again...
To me, obviously, you can insert the word "Christians" into this and it works just as well. :-)
Janny
Monday, September 08, 2008
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Press On!
In times of deep discouragement you should never make a change, but stand firm in the resolutions and decisions that guided you the day before the discouragement.
— St. Ignatius of Loyola
More to come soon....
Janny
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Just. Shut. Up. (Part I)
Let’s face it. You take one look at the title above, and you figure the Catholic Writer Chick is probably hacked off about…something.
Well, yes and no. :-)
Fact is, something did fry my bacon this week, but that issue will be dealt with in another post. This, however, is simply a quick and dirty complaint.
Or maybe…shall we say…a suggestion?
Please…
PleasepleasePLEASE…
If you are putting together a blog, website, or other online station where I’m likely to land and stay awhile to read, please resist the urge to use the “playlist” feature to piggyback music onto the reading experience.
PLEASE.
I don’t mean to sound like a curmudgeon here. Heck, I’m a musician. You’d think I’d love to sample the music that other bloggers enjoy, and listen while I read...right?
Well, actually, not so much. Here’s why.
The first, and most obvious, reason is that my tastes in music and yours are probably not the same. In some cases, I wouldn’t be caught dead listening to the music I find on blogs. So the blog itself—the writing—is often compelling, witty, entertaining, or otherwise extremely enjoyable…but I can’t enjoy it because in my face is some rattly noise that sets my teeth on edge.
This does not encourage me to stay and page through your blog; it encourages me to get away, and fast. To be blunt, creating a setting that makes people want to escape…is rather counterproductive to the idea of blogging in the first place.
The second reason—one more specific to me—is that unlike many writer/readers, apparently, I am not wired to be able to write or read with music playing in the background, especially very active music. Even music I enjoy—actually, even more so, with music I enjoy—I simply cannot do those two things at once. I can edit with music in the background, as long as it’s fairly quiet and fairly subtle: think classical here, or the most subdued Celtic folk. But trying to create something? Or trying to read things I’ve never read before?
Let’s put it this way. My hearing is extremely sensitive, to the point where if there’s music playing around me, no matter how quietly, my brain gravitates to it like a cat to canned tuna. I have bought not one, but two, “white noise” machines in the past several years, just for the purpose of blocking out external sounds while I’m trying to concentrate. They work, I relax, and the brain stays clear.
But I can’t plug in my white noise machine when I’m surfing the Net…especially not when your music completely takes me by surprise.
No doubt some of you are muttering, “Well, you dolt, just mute the stuff.” Easier said than done; in every blogging/playlist platform, the ways to do this can vary slightly. So making your readers hunt for which link is the “magic key” is, to say the least, inconveniencing them.
Some of you add insult to injury in this matter as well: one particular blogger (who shall remain nameless) didn’t help matters by tossing off a remark about “those of you who are too stupid to figure out how to turn off the sound.”
Lemme get this straight, then; not only am I subjected to your taste in music just by clicking on your link—but should I find it tricky to escape having this stuff shoved at me, then I’m stupid, too?
Yeah, that makes me want to come back!
The late, great Uncle Bobby at WGN Radio used to say, “It’s easier to stay out than to get out.” He was referring to trouble, of course—in all its varied forms. But in this case, that “proverb” seems to apply equally well. Want to avoid irritating your readers, inconveniencing them, or giving them an excuse not to read your blog? Simple. Keep it simple, keep it straightforward…and keep it quiet.
Many, many, many of us will thank you for it.
Thoughts?
Janny
Monday, July 21, 2008
Perking along!
What’s for Dinner?
The menu at Glenfarg over the past week:
- Chuck Wagon Chow...if you don't know what this is, I'll post the recipe. :-)
- What my dad used to call "Concoction" and what I call "College Student Spaghetti": the most unbelievably simple recipe on God's green earth. It's 1 medium onion, chopped and sauteed in butter until transparent; one 6-oz. can of tomato paste; and cooked, drained spaghetti. Combine, salt to taste, and watch it disappear! Perfect for Fridays in Lent. :-)
- Pork steak simmered with garlic, chopped onion, fresh sage, and frozen french cut green beans. In the last three minutes, add 1 package of Oriental flavor Ramen noodles--break up the noodles, add a bit of water, and sprinkle the seasoning from the packet overall. Works with chicken just as well!
- And, of course, the usual grilled delights: yesterday we had thin, lean beef steak, cheddar dogs, and turkey burgers with all the trimmings, plus potatoes, garlic, and broccoli roasted in foil on the coals. Can it get any better than that?
As for the rest of the weekend, it was spent the way weekends should be spent: mostly, working in the yard, interspersed with sessions of watching baseball in lovely air conditioning. This was, of course, after we puttered on Saturday chasing dust bunnies...
Hey, it's not a frantic life, but it's mine. :-)
Tonight? We putter in office, probably chasing some more dust; we work on writing tasks; and we watch THE CLOSER.
And then it'll be Tuesday!
Perking along,
Janny
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
Monday, July 07, 2008
What’s For Dinner?
Leftover Stuffed Green Peppers...featuring ground turkey, tomato sauce, onions, garlic, and homemade bread crumb topping. Yum and a half!
(This is, of course, pending what happens now that Daughter is back at home after being out and about for the 4th of July weekend. There may be punting if I get home and what was left over...isn't anymore!)
For dessert: chocolate chip/chunk and pecan bar cookies. Double yum!
If I'm really, really good, I'll eat fewer of them and more of the fresh fruit I bought...
More to come in a bit!
Janny
Wednesday, July 02, 2008
Of All Stars, Pot Roast, and...To Be Continued
You Need to Do This!
Well, okay, let’s put it this way: if you want to reward some truly outstanding baseball performances this year, go to the All-Star voting site, click in on the NL ballot, and vote for Cubs. Specifically, vote for Kosuke Fukodome, Geovany Soto, Alfonso Soriano, Mark deRosa, Ryan Theriot, and Derrek Lee “Fuk” deserves to start the All-Star Game if anyone does; Soto more than likely will, barring a complete breakdown in the voting; and I truly believe Derrek Lee deserves way more respect than he gets. Theriot and DeRosa would be really nice to have on the squad as well, and Soriano…goes without saying. But voting ends at midnight TONIGHT…so do it while you have the chance! (This diehard Cubs fan will thank you.)
What’s For Dinner?
Pot Roast, slow-cooker style. One beef roast (a couple of pounds), one-half of a medium sized sweet onion (rough chopped), a half-pound of mini carrots, a half-cup or so of mixed frozen pepper and onion mix, a can of chopped tomatoes, one stalk (about 5 leaves) of fresh sage, two bay leaves, kosher salt, lemon pepper, and about a quart or so of water to simmer it all in. It’s on LOW at the house now. Should be ready for my lucky husband’s lunch today as well as stay warm for dinner for me. Y’all come over! If I need to stretch it, I’ll bake a couple of potatoes to ladle it over. :-)
And yes, I do have something else to write about today as well...to follow shortly! In the meantime, go do your baseball civic duty!
Janny
Tuesday, July 01, 2008
The Writer Chick Cooks...
What’s for Dinner?
Pasta!
More than likely, aforementioned cheese ravioli with a little garlic-and-tomato sauce, a bunch of spinach (or two), and lots of parmesan cheese...
(So how many guests should I plan on? )
More in a bit,
Janny
Friday, June 27, 2008
Today's Writerly Kitchen Musing...
What’s for Dinner?
Chicken Salad: chicken, celery, onions, dill pickle, poultry seasoning, mayonnaise...served open-face in sandwiches or just plain by itself!
...that is, if I don't decide to do cheese ravioli instead!
Whatever you have, wash it down with a glass of killer wine.
Janny
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Beware! Writer in Kitchen!
What’s for Dinner?
Cornmeal-coated Perch Fillets, sautéed in olive oil and served with…well, that part’s to be determined. But I do know There Will Be Fish.
(This space for drooling)
Yup, you’re seeing what I hope will be a new feature here at CWC, and something to take our minds off all the associated writer-angst that so often fills these pages, and our everyday writing existences. What better to cheer us all up than FOOD?
(Hey, as a good Italian mother might say, “Ya gotta eat.”)
If I actually have a recipe for what I mention, I’ll include it. But I’m one of those instinctive cooks who measures by the “pinch” and “handful” and “when it looks like enough…” so don’t hold me to teaspoons and tablespoons unless it’s someone else’s recipe!
My favorite cook at the moment: Barefoot Contessa.
More to come, but in the meantime, what’s for dinner at your house?
Janny
Monday, June 23, 2008
“Hammered”…and Not
One small aside on the title of this post: a few weeks ago, I remarked to my dh something along the lines of anticipating being “hammered” on the job, and he sweetly observed that it was about time I had the sense to drink my way through this gig.
I set him straight, but not without difficulty. And it is a nice thought, albeit it would make staying awake in mid-afternoon tougher than it already is. (!)
Anyway, this is one of those rare interludes in the publishing biz—when an editor has projects in the hopper, but for the moment, the next steps involved in said projects are something for which she’s not responsible, something someone else has to accomplish. This likeable state of affairs usually occurs a couple of times a year; it can last anywhere from a few days, or less, to a few weeks. Such lulls are usually preceded by the kind of couple of weeks I just went through, hence the reference to being “hammered.”
As in, “put the hammer down.” As in working oneself, literally, to the point where one’s eyes no longer function. I arrived at that point last Thursday afternoon. Fortunately, the most intense part of the work I had to get done…was done. By Friday morning, I had turned over one of the last Fall books to Production; I still have one out there that’s going to require some detail work and some waiting, and I have one last manuscript to start on this afternoon—but this book should be short, sweet, and fairly simple to do, which means I should make my deadlines with time to spare…
So I finally have time to put some blog posts up for a change. Which will be good news to that pair of you out there who are regular readers. :-)
In the meantime, what are we reading this summer? Or writing, if we’re lucky enough that the Muse has not gone en vacance somewhere and left us holding a blank screen?
And what else are we looking forward to this summer by way of nonwriting fun?
Thoughts?
Janny
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
"All Brian Tracy's Fault," part II
And then we came to the second part...
First of all, I feel a disclaimer is in order. If you happen to have stumbled upon this entry by Googling Brian Tracy, you need to know up front that actually, I have nothing personally against Brian. I’ve been listening to him since Earl Nightingale first introduced him on the old “Insight” series of tapes from the Nightingale-Conant Company (and they were cassette tapes, an admission which dates both me and Brian, although not necessarily in that order). That first speech I heard—about the difference between high achievers and those who fell short—was delivered at a rapid-fire pace that conveyed either a) a breathless passion for the subject matter, or b) a script with too many words to fit in the allotted time period …
…or both. :-)
I just knew that that frenetic, enthusiastic young man had a message that was inspiring, convincing, and challenging all at once. I bought it. And that, in the long run, has become my problem.
Brian, and most motivational gurus like him, preach one consistent theme when it comes to work: “Do what you love.” To this day, I can hear his voice in the back of my head saying, “If you don’t love your job enough to want to be the best at it, get out of that job and find something you do love. Life’s too short to waste it doing something you don’t love.”
But the best part about that was the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. If you found what you loved to do and became the absolute best—indispensable, in fact, at that job—good money would absolutely follow. Some of you scoff at this, but in the 80s, this was leading-edge. This was what all the business/career/self-actualization books said.
Trouble was, it’s never happened.
When I first got out of school, I was convinced my husband and I would both make our living as musicians. We graduated from good schools, we were good at what we did, and we were in Chicago, a place that offers myriad performing opportunities. So we went on auditions—one memorable one in particular, a Civic Orchestra audition my brand-new husband went to on the day after we got back from our honeymoon. (He probably played with a big smile on his face, but the judges didn’t know…they were behind a screen. :-) ) I, too, did audition circuits—to the point where the people at some of these places may well have muttered, “Oh, no, not her again.”
This, mind you, was around moving twice, having a baby, and all the rest of that newlywed-stuff. And I did keep singing; I joined an early music ensemble that sang Palestrina and other great stuff all over the Chicago area.
Of course, none of this paid. Which became a whole ‘nuther problem.
Oh, don’t get me wrong. I did get the occasional stipend for a wedding or the like. But most people think singing is easy, and so except for union professionals who work major opera houses or the like, singers as a whole are lucky they make grocery money, even in major cities. Most of them actually live on teaching lessons and directing church choirs, not the performing itself. And there are only so many church gigs to go around, even in a city like Chicago.
So music wasn’t paying, not in any way remotely close to the “abundance” that was supposed to come from doing what I loved in an excellent fashion.
Much the same thing happened in the writing trade. After staying home with kids for years, writing and polishing fiction, I had a nice collection of rejection letters but very little else. Finally, faced with losing everything, I went out into the work world and found (what I thought was going to be) a great job being an administrator and newsletter editor. The sky was the limit with this organization…or so I thought.
Unfortunately, that sky turned out to be a heavy overcast as well.
So it’s not like I haven’t tried the formula, in various guises: full time. Freelance. Contractor. I’ve been a newspaper columnist, written for magazines, and tutored writers “on the side.” I even did one of those slightly-shady “term paper” jobs for awhile. But the bottom line still was that I worked for years providing “excellence” for people who went on European vacations, lived in neighborhoods I could only dream about, or sponsored Romanian orphans, while I worried about whether I could hang onto a two-bedroom townhouse and keep my utilities on.
So was the promise hollow all along?
And what do I do if it is?
If I talked to Brian about it, he might well say, “Have you truly given this your all? Have you done your best 100% of the time? Are you willing to pay any price, go any distance, to be the best?”
To which I’d have to say Yes. Maybe I haven’t been able or willing to hop on a plane at the slightest provocation to do endless “informational interviews.” But I have hopped on planes to go to writers’ conferences where I’ve networked…which in essence is the same thing. And yes, I’ve practiced visualization. And affirmation. I’m a positive-attitude person enough to choke most people I know. So this isn’t “not happening” because I give up too easily.
Trust me on this. :-)
I entered the Golden Heart for ten years before I even finaled, and that year I not only finaled but won. Persistence ain’t my problem.
So what is?
Here I am, in a career I’m still giving my all…and the brass ring keeps going to someone else. I’m still struggling just to pay my bills. European vacations? Providing for orphans? Don’t make me laugh. And it ought not to be this way.
So I’m wondering…what does Brian say to people when that happens?
Does he plead exceptions to the rule?
Or did I just waste my time for the last twenty-some years, chasing dreams that had no chance of ever paying off the way I’d been promised they would—sold to me by a man (and many others like him) who’s made multimillions off telling me I just need to “work harder” and “believe better”?
Many of us already think professional motivators are selling nothing more than snake oil. That they know a certain percentage of us will never get where they promise, no matter how hard we work, smart we make ourselves, or persistently we try. As long as some of us make it big, that’s good enough for them to keep peddling that same oil to the rest of us, and they don’t much care about the results.
I don’t want to think that way, for many reasons.
But I do have to wonder.
Thoughts?
Janny
First of all, I feel a disclaimer is in order. If you happen to have stumbled upon this entry by Googling Brian Tracy, you need to know up front that actually, I have nothing personally against Brian. I’ve been listening to him since Earl Nightingale first introduced him on the old “Insight” series of tapes from the Nightingale-Conant Company (and they were cassette tapes, an admission which dates both me and Brian, although not necessarily in that order). That first speech I heard—about the difference between high achievers and those who fell short—was delivered at a rapid-fire pace that conveyed either a) a breathless passion for the subject matter, or b) a script with too many words to fit in the allotted time period …
…or both. :-)
I just knew that that frenetic, enthusiastic young man had a message that was inspiring, convincing, and challenging all at once. I bought it. And that, in the long run, has become my problem.
Brian, and most motivational gurus like him, preach one consistent theme when it comes to work: “Do what you love.” To this day, I can hear his voice in the back of my head saying, “If you don’t love your job enough to want to be the best at it, get out of that job and find something you do love. Life’s too short to waste it doing something you don’t love.”
But the best part about that was the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. If you found what you loved to do and became the absolute best—indispensable, in fact, at that job—good money would absolutely follow. Some of you scoff at this, but in the 80s, this was leading-edge. This was what all the business/career/self-actualization books said.
Trouble was, it’s never happened.
When I first got out of school, I was convinced my husband and I would both make our living as musicians. We graduated from good schools, we were good at what we did, and we were in Chicago, a place that offers myriad performing opportunities. So we went on auditions—one memorable one in particular, a Civic Orchestra audition my brand-new husband went to on the day after we got back from our honeymoon. (He probably played with a big smile on his face, but the judges didn’t know…they were behind a screen. :-) ) I, too, did audition circuits—to the point where the people at some of these places may well have muttered, “Oh, no, not her again.”
This, mind you, was around moving twice, having a baby, and all the rest of that newlywed-stuff. And I did keep singing; I joined an early music ensemble that sang Palestrina and other great stuff all over the Chicago area.
Of course, none of this paid. Which became a whole ‘nuther problem.
Oh, don’t get me wrong. I did get the occasional stipend for a wedding or the like. But most people think singing is easy, and so except for union professionals who work major opera houses or the like, singers as a whole are lucky they make grocery money, even in major cities. Most of them actually live on teaching lessons and directing church choirs, not the performing itself. And there are only so many church gigs to go around, even in a city like Chicago.
So music wasn’t paying, not in any way remotely close to the “abundance” that was supposed to come from doing what I loved in an excellent fashion.
Much the same thing happened in the writing trade. After staying home with kids for years, writing and polishing fiction, I had a nice collection of rejection letters but very little else. Finally, faced with losing everything, I went out into the work world and found (what I thought was going to be) a great job being an administrator and newsletter editor. The sky was the limit with this organization…or so I thought.
Unfortunately, that sky turned out to be a heavy overcast as well.
So it’s not like I haven’t tried the formula, in various guises: full time. Freelance. Contractor. I’ve been a newspaper columnist, written for magazines, and tutored writers “on the side.” I even did one of those slightly-shady “term paper” jobs for awhile. But the bottom line still was that I worked for years providing “excellence” for people who went on European vacations, lived in neighborhoods I could only dream about, or sponsored Romanian orphans, while I worried about whether I could hang onto a two-bedroom townhouse and keep my utilities on.
So was the promise hollow all along?
And what do I do if it is?
If I talked to Brian about it, he might well say, “Have you truly given this your all? Have you done your best 100% of the time? Are you willing to pay any price, go any distance, to be the best?”
To which I’d have to say Yes. Maybe I haven’t been able or willing to hop on a plane at the slightest provocation to do endless “informational interviews.” But I have hopped on planes to go to writers’ conferences where I’ve networked…which in essence is the same thing. And yes, I’ve practiced visualization. And affirmation. I’m a positive-attitude person enough to choke most people I know. So this isn’t “not happening” because I give up too easily.
Trust me on this. :-)
I entered the Golden Heart for ten years before I even finaled, and that year I not only finaled but won. Persistence ain’t my problem.
So what is?
Here I am, in a career I’m still giving my all…and the brass ring keeps going to someone else. I’m still struggling just to pay my bills. European vacations? Providing for orphans? Don’t make me laugh. And it ought not to be this way.
So I’m wondering…what does Brian say to people when that happens?
Does he plead exceptions to the rule?
Or did I just waste my time for the last twenty-some years, chasing dreams that had no chance of ever paying off the way I’d been promised they would—sold to me by a man (and many others like him) who’s made multimillions off telling me I just need to “work harder” and “believe better”?
Many of us already think professional motivators are selling nothing more than snake oil. That they know a certain percentage of us will never get where they promise, no matter how hard we work, smart we make ourselves, or persistently we try. As long as some of us make it big, that’s good enough for them to keep peddling that same oil to the rest of us, and they don’t much care about the results.
I don’t want to think that way, for many reasons.
But I do have to wonder.
Thoughts?
Janny
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