An Epiphany’s An Epiphany, No Matter How Small

…and even at almost eleven at night. 

 Well, okay, when I’m beginning this it’s only 9:50 PM. And no, I didn’t particularly intend to put off writing this long. But Wednesday night is normally Bathroom Cleaning Night, and I did owe the bathrooms a good swish and swipe…and with litter boxes in them, the floors need constant attention. (Kind of like the cats. But, I digress.) 

That is, of course, on top of the normal things one does when one gets home from work: the bubble bath (not necessarily a long soak, but a soak is necessary), the making of the dinner, the washing of the dishes…and so on, and so on. You get the idea. So here I am to blog, at last. 

With any luck at all, this will be the first day of keeping up with this thing for a change. 

My epiphany? Yes. Let’s get to that. 

I’ve had various revelations over these past several years about my particular corner of the writing life. But a frequent, and constant, aspect of a lot of this navel-gazing has been…how do I put this delicately? 

Okay, forget delicate. I’ll just come out and admit it. It’s been…whining.

I can’t do my writing because of ______, or ______, or _______. This is getting in my way, or that is, or I’m hacked off at my work situation, or I’ve got these clients who are driving me out of my tree, or… 

Yeah. That whining. 

Now, within limits, it’s not whining to admit that you’re having some challenges. And I have had…er…a few challenges over the past several years. 

I did feel on top of things for awhile there. I think. I don’t remember for sure. 

I have fleeting moments of it now and then, in between the dropping of 16-Ton weights of various types in my path. (That’s for all you Monty Python fans, and you know who you are.)

Beyond whining, however, was the real concern about whether I had the heart to write fiction any more. 

Whether I had the heart for romance was one question; but over the months, it’s become a much more basic question about a much more fundamental issue: whether, in fact, I really have what it takes to be a novelist at all. In any genre. 

I used to think I did. And then…something happened. 

A lot of somethings happened. 

I succeeded in selling a book that totally bombed, AND wasn’t really my most comfortable genre to begin with. 

I won a Golden Heart, but couldn’t sell that book. 

I joined ACFW, and promptly found a whole new set of hoops I was supposed to jump through, was slapped around for several instances of simply being myself, and… 

…I ended up in a place something like, "I guess I really don’t have the talent to write and sell a novel in today’s market. And I ain’t getting any younger, and it ain’t gonna get any easier, and…" 

But I didn’t use to feel this way. 

And today, I figured out what the root is, finally, of all this nonsense. 

It all stemmed from the day I learned that Writing Is Hard Work! 

You see, when I went to my first writers’ conference in 1988 (yeah, it really was that long ago), I didn’t know Writing Was Hard Work. I knew it took time, but hey, that was fun time. 

Even more important, I was good at it, because writing came easily to me. I had all these story ideas that were just popping all over the place. I dreamed books, for pity’s sake. And I knew—I knew—they were all good. 

I knew that even if they were a little corny, that was okay…I could make ‘em more realistic with a little tinkering. The important thing was that I not only knew I could write…I knew it was easy. I KNEW it. 

You know how Robert Redford’s character in The Natural (movie) hits that last home run that shatters the lights? That was me, as a budding novelist. I knew that eventually, I’d walk down the street and people would say, "There goes the best that ever was." 

Why? 

Because writing was easy, and I was good at it. So it was only a matter of time before I cracked the code, and sold a lot of books. 

If I’d stopped at that level of development of the craft—if I’d stopped in 1988—I probably wouldn’t have gotten to the Golden Heart stage. But in the process, I started learning…and learning…and learning. 

I learned about character arcs, and archetypes, and the 26 basic plots (or the 100, or the 8, depending on whom you talk to)…and the "hero’s journey"…and the "three-act novel," and GMC, and Snowflakes, and… 

And all of a sudden I figured out why people kept saying that Writing Was Hard Work. Because even though they all gave lip service to "Do what works for you," the fact was that they could fill three to five days from 8 AM to 5 PM with "classes" on how to do that.

And they could do this year, after year, after year…. …which certainly doesn’t translate to anything like walking to the field, putting on my spikes, and "sittin’ on red" all the way out of the ballpark. 

Here I was…a writing "natural." I could write. I could tell stories. I blew away people in my English classes, even in high school. It was easy to do that. It was fun. 

But somehow in there, somewhere in learning more about this wonderful field of putting those stories to paper…I found out that no one was a "natural." 

Not even me. 

Especially not me—the proof being, all those rejection letters I was getting. 

Never mind that my rejection letters went from form paragraphs to personalized pages. That meant I was So Close…so if I just learned a little more… 

Little did I know that that "learning" planted the seeds of this crisis I’m in now. 

Because, you see, I have all kinds of "head knowledge" now about writing—but it’s so much knowledge that over the ensuing years, it drowned me. I lost my way. I’ve been paddling as fast as I can, trying to keep up with all this stuff, trying to find the "key" that will turn the lock…because, you see, Writing Is Hard Work. Which means that, if I thought it was easy…I must have been wrong. 

Right?

I’m here to tell you that, as of today, I realize that’s a crock. 

I had been had, and didn’t even know it. 

It’s going to take me awhile to lose all that head knowledge and get back to the heart of it all. It’s going to take me a few readers to look at my stuff—people who don’t know anything about the craft—and lose themselves in a story, and rave about it. 

I’ve had that experience with one friend already. I need it with many more, I suspect. 

But today, I remembered, on a flash of insight, why I went into this business. 

Because it’s easy. And it’s fun. And I’m good at it. 

The world needs more "naturals" to step up to the plate and, with one swing, give people something they’ll never forget—and there’s nobody better than me to do that and show them all that telling stories doesn’t necessarily have to be so dangblasted complicated. 

If writing’s that hard for you, maybe you were never meant to do it in the first place. 

But for those of us for whom it’s easy? 

Maybe we "experts" should all resist the urge to clip the wings of people for whom it isn’t so 

Even if the main person for whom we need to rejoice the most, and that we need to appreciate the most, is looking back at us in the mirror. 

Thoughts? 

Janny

Screw It.

I need to update this blog, and desperately. Look for more entries as the week goes on! There’s been much to mull over in my writing life and a lot of both good—as in encouraging—and bad—as in depressing—news out there. I think I need to focus more on the former, because the latter just makes me want to throw in the proverbial towel and forget I ever heard of the publishing business…

More in a bit...

Janny

Set Free…Explained

There’s been a key change made to this blog.
You will note, in the sidebar, that my “day gig” is no longer linked here.
The reasons why are long and not worth going into.
The results, however, are.

Not to worry—I do still have a day gig. That in itself is no small feat, and we’ll leave it at that. But also make no mistake: that stuff about not having the “corporate gene”?
It’s still true. :-) And that is still good news.

You see, the pressure’s off now.
If you’ve read this blog over a long enough period of time, you know that not a small part of my time and energy has been devoted not only to learning a lot about the Catholic publishing world, but to trying to find a good niche for myself in it.
Trying, as the old saying goes, to get ahead.

But what was “ahead” in my sphere?

The logical next step in my progress in the halls of publishing would be to get into some variety of acquisitions or management.

Trouble is, folks, I ain’t management material. Not because I can’t do the job, but because quite frankly, I don’t care enough about contemporary modes of management to want to do it. Because management involves working with endless numbers of people, in endless situations where people have to collaborate, with all kinds of “team” nonsense and “stepping up” nonsense and “affirmation” nonsense, and…

Fuggedaboudit.

After long years of desperately trying to think and act as if those things are important, of desperately trying to “play nice with others,” I’ve finally decided it ain’t worth the trouble. As Popeye put it, I yam what I yam, and what I “yam” is not a “people person.”

I am an idea person. I am an information person. I am a creative person. I do things with words, with ideas, with materials.

With people? I don’t do so hot.

That’s no crime, in and of itself; but in our modern workplace, you’d think it was.

And for awhile, I bought into that. I bought into the whole notion that if you’re smart (which I am), and if you’re educated (which I also am), you owe it to yourself, not to mention the world at large, to eventually be in management. That’s where you’ll stretch your wings, make your mark, bake your brownies…you fill in the cliché, I’m tired of them. :-) But management—or at least high-level editorial supervision—might be called the golden calf we’re all supposed to want to cook for lunch.

(There, now, is that a mixed enough metaphor for you?)

Trouble is, like I said…this ideal of next-grade-up-aspiration ignores the fact that, I, like Lucy Van Pelt, love humanity…it’s people I can’t stand. Give me a book and a red pen, a pot of coffee, and a nice window to look out of and/or breathe air through, and you might never hear from me for days…unless you poke your head around the doorway and say hi. It isn’t because I don’t like you. It’s because when I’m working, I’m working…and when I’m socializing, I’m socializing.

This doesn’t mean that I don’t like having fun with coworkers, either. But there’s a catch to this: I am apparently the Jessica Fletcher of the workplace-friendship game. Not that people I socialize with die…but they tend to—er—lose their jobs.

I’m sure it’s not because of their being friends with me. (I hope.)

But I digress…

Anyhow, I have discovered over a long period of time that, while I can try and grunt and groan and do a lot of heavy lifting to impress people with what a good girl I am, what a conscientious team player I can be, and how worthy I’d be for management…

…none of it really plays into what I’m best at, where my heart is, and where I want to end this adventure when my number is called.

So what’s the point?

Exactly.

The breakthrough in this thought pattern actually came one day in a still, small voice that said to me, simply, “You can stop trying to make it in this business, you know. You already have.”

So I’ve been missing the point by “trying to get” to somewhere I already am.

Fact is, I’m not on the bottom rung of a ladder.
I’m way closer to the top than I realize…and it’s time to start acting like that.

Management, whatever it means in this business, may be a real boon to lots and lots of people. And it certainly would be a boon to any company I work in to have me manage anything.
But if that should happen, it’s going to have to happen on terms I can actually stomach.

If I can see the light ahead, and it’s an oncoming freight train…
…well, maybe I can just let that one pass, because it’s clearly not meant for me.

I can stop pushing so hard.
I can stop plugging things for the sake of cheerleading.
I can stop being anyone but who I am…which, in the end, never was a hotshot editorial management type; it was, and is, a storyteller.

I’m a novelist, thank you very much.

That doesn’t mean I can’t do anything else, but it does mean that I daren’t waste any more energy attempting to cultivate fields and grow crops I don’t, in my heart of hearts, care about. That way lies frustration, burnout, and madness…and I’m not taking it anymore.

I’m free.
Within my cube or outside it, wearing my editor’s hat or my freelance-writer superhero cape and wielding my red pen…I’m free at last. Thank God Almighty, I’m free at last. :-)

Thoughts?

Janny

Set Free

I need to get back into the habit of blogging when I’m home from the day gig, so’s my day gig won’t get hissy about my writing on their time (good point). But in the meantime, snatching a few moments here and there to write a few sentences—in between all the stuff I’m doing that’s technically also not part of my job, but something that’s expected anyway (!)—doesn’t seem to be totally a wrongheaded idea. I am, after all, encouraged to write in my Performance Journal about various things I accomplish, how I feel about changes in my job, etc., etc…

Suffice to say that, for now, there’s a new sense of freedom in the editorial cubes. I’ll elaborate in more detail later, but for me, the last post I did that was work-related (see the “missing genes” posts for explanation) was in itself an epiphany that has really, really helped move me into a new place in my writing career. I’ll talk more about this later…

Also in the meantime, check-in would be good. What’s everyone working on? What’s on the horizon? What’s your biggest gripe of late? Any really really nice writing achievements to brag about?

Write on!
Janny

Fear Not!

I’ve been temporarily sidetracked from extensive blogging during normal business hours (!), but I’ll be back posting regularly soon. I promise. Really. Just wanted to let you all know that I am, in fact, still alive and kicking.


(sigh)

Janny

Missing Genes, the final part

Finally, the gene that appears time and again in others, but not in me...the lack of which I’ve finally had to surrender to, once, for all, forever:

The “Corporate Maven.”
This final gap in my internal chemistry has probably cost me untold wealth (at least that’s what many executive-types will tell you) over the years; the battle to “acquire” it after the fact—or “act as if” in the meantime—is one I’ve waged for much of my adult working life. You see, I know that Proving Oneself to the Mighty Corporation is the way that leads to advancement, and advancement is always a Good Thing…right?

Well, for me, the answer to that is, “Not necessarily.”

I probably cooked my goose several times over, in different situations over the years, simply by being very upfront and honest with potential employers instead of speaking “corporatese” at the proper times. I remember interviewing for a job as a legal secretary in which I said that I didn’t see any particular reason why most legal secretarial work couldn’t be done in a normal eight-hour day. The lawyer I was interviewing with said, “Interesting,” which I took at face value…until I learned that he was probably trying not to laugh that my unbelievable naïveté. He was probably in the midst of billing a 70- or 80-hour week, more than likely had secretaries there from early in the morning until well past five, and he probably found it terribly amusing that I thought that legal work would, in the course of ordinary business, fit into a neat 40-hour-week time frame.

And yet…I had a reason for saying what I did. The law firm in question, as I recall, dealt primarily in commercial and residential real estate. Contracts. Closings. Yanno…all the things you normally do during a customary business day? As in…a nine-to-five schedule? So, while my statement may have sounded really stupid to him—I still believe at its heart, it was actually saying, “If this office learns how to use their time rather than wasting it, you can send everybody home at 5 and still get everything done that you need to do.”

I didn’t say it that way, at least not to my recollection. (Maybe I did. Maybe that’s why he thought it was interesting. :-)) All I do know is, following that interview, the placement person at the agency seemed almost angry with me…only she never really told me why. (!) Looking back on it now, I know I probably violated the laws of Corporate Speak, costing me a great job and an employer a great employee (and the agency person a great commission). I know it’s happened before that, and I know it will happen again, as long as I’m placed in the position of feeling like I need to “take a side” and “make a stand.”

Because, you see, at heart I am not corporate.
I never have been.
And, despite repeated attempts to tell myself I could be, inevitably I end up speaking or acting in a way that, while it’s very honest and straightforward, probably shoots the tips of my corporate toes off…and I can’t stop myself from doing it.

I know. I’ve tried.

So I’m in that unenviable position of discovering, indeed, that I do want advancement and recognition and promotion and the corner office, for the prestige’s (and, let’s face it, money’s) sake of them. But when the chips are down, apparently, I’m not wired to be on the management side of the desk. Not because I can’t handle people…but because I can’t handle the personal sacrifices and compromises necessary to get there.

I’m not talking about hard-work sacrifices. Those, I can do. I’ve already proven beyond the shadow of any conceivable doubt that I’m willing to work hard. So if working hard were all there was to getting ahead, heck, I’d already have the corner office of corner offices.

No, the sacrifices I’m talking about are more like enduring a zillion little paper cuts…or swallowing many bitter pills along the way of getting the presidencies or even the managerships in the corporate culture; problem is, I’ve never been able to swallow pills—literally or figuratively. They just don’t go down, and I have to find ways to punt.

This isn’t an easy thing to come to this point and realize. But it’s a true thing. It’s an honest thing. When the rubber hits the road, I side with individuals: the worker bees, the authors, writers, artists, and/or their agents. And, as an individual, I cannot, no matter how I try, countenance the notion that a company “owns” me. No one owns me but Jesus, thank you very much. But, while yes, that is a healthy psychological attitude to have, it’s not the mindset one needs in order to progress to increasingly bigger “individual” rewards in your average company. In the end, if my possible promotion will depend on the company being able to have me at their beck and call...I’ll be a worker bee forever. Because I simply can’t do otherwise. Not without paying far too high an emotional price.


I can only conclude that the many people who can do what I cannot—can look the other way when a company stiffs a friend, can compromise, can shrug their shoulders, make cynical jokes, and get on with stuff—with seemingly no ill effects at all, have a hidden (and really useful) gene that renders them able to see what’s really happening, yet ignore it; hear things they don’t like, yet give a benefit of the doubt that would choke a horse; and act “as if” they neither heard nor saw nor experienced any of the things that, bit by bit, chip away at my soul until I want to scream.

Funny thing is, in the mental health field, ignoring what you see, telling yourself you didn’t “really” hear what you actually heard, and pretending that reality is different from your actual experience, is the definition of codependency.
And that’s a bad thing…right?

But the inability to consider a company as more important than any individual leads to…no advancement, no promotions, and the wary eye of a supervisor who may end up considering you a “loose cannon.”
Also a bad thing.
(Kinda shoots the old corporate buzz-term of “win-win” right in the foot, though, doesn’t it?)

***

So, the end result of all this navel-gazing?

I’ve got some deficiencies in areas I wish I didn’t have…for the sake of just being able to live with a bit less emotional upheaval in my heart of hearts. I wish I could run around dispensing the most positive slant on everything and everyone; I’m not made that way. I wish I could be the “it” girl in an office, not worry about whom I could or couldn’t trust, willingly gossip and chatter and flatter; I simply can’t. And I do wish, and have wished, that just once I could perfectly align my values, my gut instincts, and my beliefs about how to treat people and their work with some corporate entity that would see me as the gem I am and make me the boss, as in yesterday. :-) But that ain’t gonna happen.
So what to do?

Well, there is a silver lining here. It’s called acceptance.
Real acceptance.
Not the kind that says, “Well, I’ll work on these things,” but the kind that says, “Yanno what? Working on these things is lot of hooey. It gives me a headache, and I’m at the point in my life where it’s just too dang much work to keep trying to be something I’m not.”

In short, I’m sick of trying to mold myself, improve myself, build myself or grow myself so that I fit someone else’s idea of what success looks like. I’m at the point where I need to just be myself—and let the chips fall where they may. They’re going to anyway, even if I play all the games right. Because we all know people who played every game right, all their lives…and all they ended up with was regrets in the end.

I don’t want to be there.

I don’t want to regret what I think I don’t have. I just want to enjoy, and cultivate, and start really having fun and blessing the world with what I do.

I’ve often decided this, and then gone right back to trying to remake myself. Whether I “should” or not. But I’m just too tired to do that anymore.

That, in itself, is probably a blessing in disguise, and one I will endeavor to make the most of.

So if I’m missing a few genes, oh, well. I’m a pretty resourceful woman; I’ll cope.
(I can always stop and buy another...er...pair...at K-Mart. Right?)


Thoughts?
Janny

Missing Genes, Part 2

Very few people would deny that, say, the ability to hit a golf ball like Tiger hits it is more than just “practice, man, practice.” Most of us figure there’s more than a little genetics involved in being able to cook like Child, sing like Ramey, or paint like Monet.
But, now and then, I start to wonder if there’s some degree of genetics at work in some “smaller” things…more organic things. Personal stuff. Ever wonder about that?

For example, I mentioned last time that if there were such a thing as a “tact” gene, I was definitely born without it. I will never be an instinctively tactful person; I can work at it, but it’s not going to come naturally.

But there are a lot of other “parts” that, apparently, I lack, and people I cannot be. Like:

The “Self-esteem Fairy.” This, of course, is the person who runs around sprinkling affirmations like pixie dust. This is the person who first thought that giving grades in school damages precious little egos—yeah, we can all see how great an idea that was—and was no doubt behind the institution of those colorful Participation Ribbons for kids, so that everybody gets “rewarded” with something…no matter how “average” their performance may be. (The fact that this practice rewards mediocrity, thereby diminishing the self-esteem of the kids who really do excel, apparently escapes this chick. And why is it almost always a woman?)

I do envy this person both their desire and ability to make everyone feel wonderful about themselves—something I wholeheartedly and enthusiastically lack!—and their status, since in today’s culture, their “gift” seems to be particularly valued. However, I have yet to be able to cultivate this particular talent…which leads me to think this deficiency is chemical, rather than psychological, in origin.

Another gene, apparently, I’m missing…

The “Social Butterfly.” All my life, it seems, it’s been that when it comes to social situations, I’m the one on the outside looking in. I’m not the Girl Everybody Wants to Go Out to Lunch With. (Heck, I’m not even the Girl Everybody Invites to Lunch.) I’m not The Girl Considered to Have Fun Ideas. Sometimes, I’m not even considered The Creative One, or The One Most Likely to Keep Everyone Else Loose. And I have to admit, this lack in my life hurts.

This might well be due to my personality: I do tend to sit back and listen first, and jump in with both feet later; because I do that, people may think either that I’m a snob, or that I don’t like them, or that I prefer my own company 99% of the time. From time to time, any or all of these assumptions might be true (!), depending on the person, but that doesn’t diminish the sense of loss I feel when people don’t even think to ask me if I’d like inclusion. Odds are, I would. I’m just shy enough—and I’ve just been burned by rudeness enough times—to want them to go first. My experiments, and experiences, at “insinuating” myself into groups turn out, at best, lukewarm…and I’m rarely over the feeling that I’m a sixth wheel somehow. (Yeah, sixth. As in the one that’s not even necessary in an emergency.) After you go through enough of these experiments, you get the hint: apparently, I lack a key social gene, and that’s a shame. Because there are very few things I love better than making people laugh—and I think that, should I get invited out for a few more lunches, there might be a lot more smiles in the offing for everybody.

The final gene, however, that I’ve discovered missing…well, that’s a bigger one. And that matters more. But realizing its lack has led me, finally, to a place I needed to be all along—one I actually was in all along, and just didn’t want to admit it. But this place is a place of peace, and I really, really need that kind of peace in my life at this point.
So I’ll talk about that one…next.

Thoughts?
Janny

Missing Genes

No, this isn’t scrib about the pair of pants you left in the dryer!

It’s actually wondering, which I’ve been doing a lot lately, about what seem to be key—and in some cases, embarrassingly obvious—elements in human chemistry that other people possess, yet I lack. I’m beginning to think Nature shorted me several genes in there that she gave other people, and I can’t help but wonder why.

Like…for instance…

The tact gene.

I never cease to marvel at the people I know who seem to edge into tactful behavior as naturally as breathing. While I struggle to keep my eyes from rolling into the back of my head, and bite my tongue to keep from saying the things I desperately want to say, these people find the exact right words to convey the same thing nicely.

Not that this effort doesn’t occasionally backfire, of course. If you’re trying to tell someone, prior to their going out the door, that lime-green and pomegranate together in the same outfit might cause onloookers fits of nausea, framing it in terms of their “unique use of wardrobe color” isn’t going to serve anyone. What’s worse, later on, some of these people will come back and say, “For Pete’s sake, why didn’t you tell me how awful I looked?”

But how to say it? Aye, there’s the rub.

I’ve always been in favor of “direct” as a communication style. This doesn’t mean “brutal” (we all know someone who thinks of herself as “brutally honest” when, in fact, she’s cruel and insulting); it just means, “The message I intend you to get, I don’t want you to miss.” To me, it’s way more loving to “speak slowly and use small words,” even if those words might sound brusque or harsh, than to risk the message going completely over their heads.

Yet I wonder if that’s not a weakness on my part. A way I just didn’t completely “grow up” and learn how to “talk nice.” When I see so much overwhelming evidence around me of people who seem to be able to frame “Your son is a terrorist” into “My, he truly seems absorbed in something way bigger than he is”…I wonder.

Tact’s not the only thing I figure I missed out on early in the Dishing Out Lovely Attributes department. I’ll get to a few more of them in the next post. In the meantime…

Thoughts?
Janny

…And Then There Are The Others…

It’s always great, and sometimes even moving, when you’re watching a movie or TV show or reading a book and come upon little nuggets that make the scene worthwhile—that rise above the norm, that give you more meat than the usual “Hi, how are ya” types of interchange—such as the couple of quotes we’ve mentioned from Stranger Than Fiction. Kind of renews your faith in writers and scriptwriting, at least in the broadest universal sort of sense.

Unfortunately, then there are the other lines that do the opposite.

I’m not talking about lines written for deliberate shock value, outrage, or humor, although heaven knows we’re up to our proverbial eyeballs in vulgar, lowbrow sarcasm and just plain filth that passes itself off as “humor” nowadays. (The sad thing is, it gets away with doing so because many of our kids, growing up with Simpsons and South Park [despite our best efforts!], laugh uproariously at things that, a generation earlier, were called sophomoric—and that didn’t mean they belonged in a college student’s lexicon.) On the contrary…the line I encountered this past weekend was in a movie that was aimed at an audience light-years away from the bathroom-humor crowd. Which is what made it all the more jarring.

The movie was The Holiday—not the classic Holiday with Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn (one of my all time favorites) but the more recent movie, with Kate Winslet and Cameron Diaz. For those of you who don’t know the story, the premise involves two women, an ocean and a lifestyle apart, whose love lives are in shambles; they each decide they need a change of scene, exchange houses for the Christmas holiday, and—naturally—in those new situations, find the loves of their lives. It’s romantic, and of course, it pushes a lot of delightful “buttons,” all the way from two adorable kids (No, really. Truly. Adorable. And I hate kids in romantic movies.) to a script that’s on the whole pretty squeaky-clean.

…except for one setup that I still haven’t forgiven the writers for, one I’m surprised Ms. Diaz was willing to do with a straight face.

The scene occurs after the house exchange has happened; at that point, Ms. Diaz’s character, Amanda, is settling in to a cottage somewhere in Surrey…and discovering that the “peace and quiet” she thought she sought is actually boring her out of her mind. Enter her hero-to-be, the original occupant’s brother, who arrives more than a little drunk and clearly expecting to crash at his sister’s place. After a few catchup explanations, Amanda invites the brother to sleep things off there, prepares to go get him a blanket and a pillow and put him on the couch—the usual things. But then, suddenly and for no real solid reason…the brother kisses her. And she likes it, and asks him to do it again.

And then the next thing out of her mouth? “Well, yanno, with this situation—I mean, we’re never going to see each other again, I’m leaving, and you’re really good-looking…I think we ought to have sex.”

To which my daughter and I said, in unison, “HUH?”

Of course, the brother’s more than willing to take her up on it—which in this age of STDs, is at best disingenuous—and they proceed to act accordingly. Not on screen, at least. We get the usual morning-after scene, we get Amanda reassuring this guy she’s not going to fall in love with him, yatta, yatta, yatta. (Considering she’s just broken up with a guy she was living with the day before, the odds are that she doesn’t know how to love anybody, period. But I digress.)

The problem was, no matter how they “salvaged” the story or kept it PG-rated at that point, the damage was already done. We went from feeling gently amused and laughing at the heroine’s crazy Type A behavior to sputtering at the screen in indignation and incredulity. Or, as my daughter put it, “What a whore!” (Which I thought said it all quite well.)

I doubt this is the reaction the writers wanted from a twenty-something who otherwise is caught up in the romance of the thing. I really doubt they wanted us muttering for the next few minutes to ourselves about women who are too stupid to live. Nowhere else in the movie do they stoop to pandering; so one has to ask oneself, why then? Why there? Why that dialogue/scene at all?

It may come down to the simple fact that Hollywood doesn’t know how to express attraction, romantic sparks, or a carefree attitude toward life except by having their characters engage in free and easy sex. It may have been a temporary brain spasm on the part of the writers. It may be that they literally didn’t know how else to bond these people on screen, so they took the cheap shortcut.

What it does mean, sadly, is that no one had the good sense, the talent, or the taste to step back from the script for a moment and say, “Whoa, wait a minute, this is not going to work!” Which baffles me, since in the context of the rest of the screenplay, the writers hit home run after home run. So why did they let that major-league fly ball just drop through their hands in favor of the cheap injection of sex?

I don’t know. I still don’t know. But for all the world, I want to write those screenwriters and say to them, “Look, you don’t have to do things this way to prove you’re not religious-right nutjobs. This was just plain stupid in any context, even yours. Next time, use the red pencil God gave you and make yourselves do something more creative.”

The only reassuring thing about that scene, I suppose, was my daughter’s reaction to it. Not moral outrage. Not tsk-tsk. Not wink-wink, nudge-nudge. Just plain irritation and disgust at a character who threw herself around so cheaply. Which, in reflection, is a good thing for a twenty-something to be thinking about thoughtless sex with a stranger: “Not on my watch, thank you very much.”

If that was the lesson these screenwriters were trying to teach…they succeeded. But somehow, I doubt their motives were anything near that lofty. And that’s too bad. Because romantic, lighthearted, positive, and uplifting movies deserve better than heroines written in at any part of the story as little more than whores. It’s time someone in the entertainment business learned to trust their audiences enough to leave some things out that ought not to be there in the first place. We’ll still enjoy the story. Some of us will enjoy it more for that restraint, and we’ll keep coming back to those people for more stories…

…which I always thought was the whole idea.
Isn’t it?

Thoughts?
Janny

Words to Live By, Part II

Last time, I touched on a great line from Stranger Than Fiction about “making the world better…with cookies.” Seems to me that about captures a lot of our lives, and indeed, it was meant to—as evidenced by the rather ham-handed emphasis on the Point Of The Movie at the end. Which you already caught onto, if you’d been at all attentive for the 100 or so minutes of the film that came before it…

But there’s one more great line. And I think it’s a great line to start out a new week with.

At one point in the movie, our hero is staying with an acquaintance from work, and they’re talking about what he would do if he found out he was dying “in the near future.” After much wheedling, talking about superpowers (!), and the like, when the rubber meets the road, the character finally blurts it out:

“I’d go to Space Camp.”

Our hero is astonished. Isn’t Space Camp just for kids?
“Oh, no,” his friend assures him. “You’re never too old for Space Camp.”

I think if there’s any banner a writer, especially a novelist, can fly over her particular ship, it ought to be something like that.

Interestingly enough, it turns out you never are too old for Space Camp.
As, in reality, you’re truly never too old for a lot of things. (Just ask Susan Boyle.)
But most of us forget this. To our peril.
Some of us…remember in time. Many of us don’t.

Let’s us, this week, be among the people who remember it.

You’re never too old for Space Camp. But you can wait too long for it.
So, whatever your Space Camp is, stop waiting for it. Start now. Do it this week.
And then come back here and tell us all about it.

Thoughts?
Janny

Words to Live By, Part I

Last evening, I got two pleasures I rarely enjoy.
First, I dug the first of my garden; if everything comes up that I planted last night, by August, I may be inviting you all over for strawberry shortcake.
Second, I sat down to watch a movie.

Yep. A whole movie, with no popping up for commercials, no pauses to go and do a quick cleanup of the supper dishes…just me and homemade meatloaf and the couch, for two solid hours.

Even without homemade meatloaf, that would have been good stuff. But I was also watching a movie I’ve seen once before and wanted to see again—to find out if my first impression had rung as true as I thought.


The movie was Stranger Than Fiction, a story with one of the great creative premises in the world, one I still wish I’d thought of and written down first.


I saw this movie originally in the theater (another rare pleasure) with my son and daughter, and I was most flattered when Matt told me that the author character reminded him of me. (!) Except for the chain smoking, I would love to be that character. Especially the skinny part…

But I digress.

I found the movie more affecting the second time around. More human. More touching. And I could, obviously, see the foreshadowing of crucial scenes now that I knew they were coming. (I still don’t buy the romantic relationship of our hero and a heroine I pretty much wanted to b***h slap the first time…but that’s a whole ‘nuther story, too.)

The pleasant surprise about this movie this time, for me, was a couple of good words of wisdom, especially nice to hear at a time when it can be hard to hold onto wisdom and perspective.

When Christian values are under attack on all sides; when the Constitution is pretty much being walked all over by our present leader of the free world, without challenge from the media and without the vocal criticism that came to his predecessor for “offenses” that are kindergarten-level by comparison; and when the world around us seems to have gone absolutely berserk in its lemming-like rush to oblivion, to nihilism and to the godless void that focuses on “feelings” as arbiters of good and evil…it’s hard to keep perspective.

It’s hard to have any faith that what you did today is going to have any impact tomorrow; it’s hard even to know, sometimes, what you should be doing versus what truly needs to be someone else’s fight. The fights are myriad and endless; every time you turn a corner, someone else is pleading for action on your part and screaming scary consequences of your failing to act strongly, right now, and this instant, whether you’ve ever felt called to act in those particular ways before or not.

At times like this, it’s good to remember things like what the heroine said in this movie. How she came to realize that, even though she was at Harvard Law School because she wanted to “make the world better”…that what she really loved to do was bake.
She finally relates that, after being on the verge of flunking out, she realized something: that she could “make the world better…with cookies.”

And I thought, ain’t that the truth.
As a writer, I can’t tell you how many times I day I wonder if what I do ever makes a dent. Even though I edit some pretty effective literature, it’s hard to see how our little books are going to make a dent in the prevailing mythology by which so many people live. And when I consider my little fiction stories…it’s harder yet to feel like they matter.

But then I sit back on the couch, and I drain my wineglass, and I realize—a movie has just made my life better. It’s just given me both insight and comfort, in a line that was probably put in more for whimsy, maybe even for laughs, than for any statement about the profound nature of little things in life

That statement is, in fact, made at the end of the movie, in a way that makes it impossible to miss. Just in case the moviegoer was too dense to catch it the first time. But if you weren’t…if you were paying attention…you got the message of the movie way earlier than the narrator “told” you it.

Which made it all the sweeter.
Especially since I, too, love to bake. :-)

So here’s to making a difference with cookies. Or novels. Or movies.
Or “merely” by raising kids with aforementioned Christian values, with enough smarts to know when they’re being had and enough energy to fight for future generations if they have to.

And never, ever forgetting that with one cup of cold water, we can and do change the world.

This movie also has another great line in it…which I’ll blog about in Part II, for the sheer fun and the sheer uplift it’ll give us all (I hope).
Stay tuned!

Thoughts?
Janny

Better Things to Do Than Be Bullied

It is my fervent hope and prayer that you and your children have not been shamed, threatened, and otherwise coerced into participating in National Day of Silence (otherwise known as National Bully Day), an unfortunate instance of our culture's having the idiocy to cooperate in advancing the repression, cultural indoctrination, and outrageous discrimination that is part and parcel of the homosexual lobby. The fact that this has even been considered for a MOMENT to be a legitimate use of school time is an insult to people of integrity, morality, and conviction; the fact that school administrators are going along with it is the clearest sign of all that our school system in this country is terminally ill, and the sooner we dissolve the public school system in favor of something else, the better off we will be.

BUT...
There's still hope.
Real hope, not that counterfeit nonsense coming out of Washington.
Where?

Here.
Watch the Comcast video, read the page, and see if it doesn't choke you up.
Go ahead. I dare you.

This school literally saved my daughter's life...and it goes without saying what it did for my son. So, although the place has had its faults--I'm there.

I hope lots of you will be, too.
It's a whole lot more productive use of your time than being kowtowed into "silence."

Janny

Way Too Much Fun

Yes, I know it's impossible to have too much fun, but this comes close. I know I, for one, am having a ball...bringing back my days of reviewing stuff for Wild Rose, only much less pressure!

Stop in if you're brave enough to give it a try...

Janny

So when people start pitching YOU…

You know it’s been too long since you’ve posted, when people come out of the proverbial cyberspace woodwork saying things like, “If you need ideas for posting, here’s some stuff to write about.”

I had that happen over this past weekend, and it’s a sobering experience.

Actually, I wasn’t sure whether to be flattered (someone thinks that if I post about their subject, it’ll get attention!) or insulted (what, you think I don’t have enough ideas on my own?) I did have to reassure the person involved that I had plenty of ideas for stuff to write about…it was taking the time to organize said ideas into some kind of post and get it here that was the problem. (!!)

But it does bring attention to the unfortunate situation of being a Writer Chick yet not writing enough on this blog to let people know I still know how to do it. :-) Well, yes, there are reasons for this situation. Many good ones, in fact.

One reason is the Book From Hell I’m presently editing in the day gig.

Now, don’t misunderstand me (as people seem to be doing a lot lately)…it’s not that the book itself is hellish. It’s only that the book is about complex subject matter, it’s very detailed, and it takes a great deal of attention and energy to make sure one is Getting It Right As Much As Possible. I know there will still be glitches when it goes out, which is always galling. But for right now, until next Monday when we really need to get it to production, I’ll be doing my best to make sure as few of those glitches happen as possible. I have a full manuscript from a proofreader to go through, plus an index to paste in and format today, so my little fingers and brain will be more than occupied enough for the angels, thank you very much.

Another reason is that I spent what writing time I could carve out of the freelance wilderness putting together an entry for ACFW’s Genesis contest, something I didn’t even think I was eligible for until I got together with some folks in the Indiana group and had my attention brought to the fine print that said, “…unpublished in the last seven years.”

I have to say that truthfully, most of the time I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at the fact that yes, I’ve been unpublished in book-length work for long enough now that, in many contests, I have the same standing as someone who’s never sold a book at all. In this case, I chose to laugh, in the sense that at least it will enable me to get VOI back into a place where more eyes can see it, more people can appreciate it, and maybe some wonderful editor will look at it and say, “Where has this woman been all our lives? How much more has she written? Can we buy it all?”

(N.B. to those of you who don’t know this by now…when I dream, I tend to dream big. It’s a weakness. Deal with it.) :-)

So that, by way of explanation as to where the long, thoughtful blog posts are. Honestly? I get ideas for thoughtful blog posts about three times a day; I have scarce time in which to actually type them out and get them coherent, however, and that’s why you haven’t heard from me…not because I don’t have ideas to blog about.

And that brings to mind the second issue that may have prompted this kind of “helpful input” —a misunderstanding of just what my blog is meant to be about. Maybe because it’s listed in Catholic blog directories, some people might have the wrong idea about how I gather, find, or choose what I write about here.
So let’s get something clear: if you are a Person with a Cause, have seen that I do in fact write rather well, and think this place might be a great spot for me to act as your “mouthpiece” ...I have a piece of advice for you: save your breath and your fingers.

Rest assured that for every post you read here, there are a dozen more ideas going through in my head that I could write about…and sometimes have even started to write about…only to have a different one float to the surface because that’s what is the most compelling to me at the time.

Which is, in the end, what this is about. Lest we forget. :-)

I “ghostwrite” as a freelancer now and again, a profession in which one’s personality and style are submerged beneath someone else’s byline. So this place I doubly treasure as being all mine. This is where I can shine. This is where I can squawk, or do a happy dance, or expound, but most of all, where I can be me, and it’s all original.

I’m sorry if some of you may find this myopic approach disappointing…but, the fact is, this is not a public service blog. By and large, it’s not going to deal with topics people suggest (unless they’re questions about writing, which are pretty much always welcome). There are many things this blog is; one thing it is not is a bulletin board upon which, if you send me enough URLs and suggestions, I’ll start blogging about what’s important to you.

Because that, quite simply, ain’t the idea here.

Don’t get me wrong. If you ask me a direct question, I’m liable to answer it. And I love to see people happen by, and if something I write makes you want to spread the word about this blog or point other people to it, please do!

But make no mistake—this is my spot. It’s not being surrendered to anyone, no matter how noble their intent, for their thoughts, their ideas, their ideologies, or their causes.

Ain’t gonna happen. Not now, not ever.

I’m not a Catholic Writer Chick reflecting the world and broadening people’s perspectives for the sake of “edifying all of us.” There are plenty of other places where, if you want, you can get edification. If edification happens here, that’s all to the good. But it’s not by design. Just as I don’t write my stories so that people will “find salvation” through them, I don’t write a blog so that people will “become aware .”

I’m the Catholic Writer Chick At Large for other purposes and aims: I observe, I participate in, and I attempt to enjoy the world around me, while processing it all on the only terms I truly understand…

…my own.

So be it.

Thoughts?
Janny

"They're Playin' Bas-ket-baaaalllll..."

...and it came to pass, in the gray days of March, that the Lord looked down on his American people and said:

"Hey, word up, there's nothin' happenin' down there. This is neither spring, nor winter, neither hot nor cold. It is not good to have man living in these doldrums of halfway between.

"So let us shaketh things up a bit. Let us make of March a special time, that shall be henceforth known as 'Madness.'* At this time, men shall procure a roundball, made of leather, filled with the breath of the wind, and shall bring it to a 94-foot hardwood court. There, they shall string cotton beneath a wide orange cylinder of metal, one at each end of the court, at a height of ten feet from the floor. And groups of men shall band together, and shall make it a mission to launch the roundball through the cylinder, so that it makes a special music through the cotton cords. And yea, verily, when the roundball passeth through the cotton net, there shall be rejoicing and great jubilation in many lands.

"They shall do this in the city; they shall do this in the country. they shall do this in the small town, in the places time forgot. They shall do this in the Ivy League and in the Midwest Athletic Conference, on the Atlantic coast and in the heartlands; in the Mountain West and the Pacific lowlands; and the people shall behold it and marvel.

"And let us make this an annual feast, a time when small men can dream big dreams. Let us celebrate and rejoice, and make merry, when the Big Dancing begins. And let March be forever blessed with this glorious festival of team colors and cheerleaders, slammin' and jammin', 'diaper dandies' and buzzer-beaters...to bring joy and craziness to all my people."

And God saw it...and it was very good.

Leading up to the Big Dance, the Big Ten Men's Basketball Tournament starts today, with Dem Wildcats playing at noon Eastern, and Dem Wolverines playing at 2:30. They BOTH deserve to go dancing, but...first things first.

Let there be Roundball!!!!!!!

Janny

(*Yes, we are aware that the IHSA claims that Illinois High School Basketball was the original "March Madness," and we have no doubt whatsoever that this is true, as we can remember this term from way before it was used for the NCAA Tournament. We have merely exercised a little poetic license here, and trust that the reader will be accommodating.)

The Deep Wall of Sadness

Some of you will read this title and think, “Huh?”
Some of you will read it and think, “Oh, no. The CWC has had another disaster!”
Some of you—bless your hearts!—probably think this is a typo.
That the title should be “well” of sadness. After all, everyone knows wells are deep, and walls…are not.

You’re partly right.

First of all, though, not to worry—the CWC hasn’t had another disaster hit. Well, okay, let’s amend that. The CWC has become embroiled in not one, but two legal encounters of the close kind, but neither of these is likely to end in disaster. They’ll be a pain in the butt, they’ll stress her out, but they’re not likely to end in disaster, just immense piles of paper that signify nothing. (Would that I were a lawyer, and got paid by the syllable. Obviously, they do.)

But stress, evil as it is in this case, is not what’s making up the wall of which I speak.
What is making that up is a little more delicate.

Over the past several months—okay, years—I’ve been in a creative funk. I’ve worked through some of it. I’ve even done some rather nice revisions on older work. But when it’s come to creating new work…I’ve gone dead cold.
Colder than I’ve ever been in my life.
And that’s a scary feeling.
So scary that literally, it has me unable get any momentum writing fiction again.

I can do it for short periods of time.
I can write a few new scenes.
I can come up with pieces of story ideas.
I can even write synopses for new work.
But when it comes time to dig in and really write…I fail.
I start well, and then everything stops.
Either I don’t care about the people I’m writing about…
Or I don’t care about their story…
Or I do care about both the people and their story, I just don’t believe I can write it.

And I’ve been spending no little time in this blog trying to ascertain why that is.

If this were not so sad, it would be funny. I don’t even believe in writer’s block...I’ve said that a hundred times.
But there's something there that checks me when I try to get up and running. I can feel it. I try to sit down and get up some writing speed and energy, and I stop myself cold. I can’t get around this. It’s a wall.
A deep, cold, sad wall.

Something’s frozen off in me, something that used to be alive and kicking and always thinking of ideas. I used to swear I could come up with half a dozen books just from the storylines of the Celtic songs I listened to.
Now, I think of that sentiment and cringe.

I actually tried being a romance editor for awhile, and I had to stop it…because I couldn’t stand romance anymore. I couldn’t stand reading love stories. Any kind.
Because, deep inside me, there’s this plaintive voice saying, What’s the point?
Not only is the falling-in-love part not holding my attention anymore...but the romance of writing itself has flown the coop as well.

Sounds like someone’s coming off a bad love affair, right? Or worse? Only I can’t say that. I’m living in the midst of a long-term marriage. My relationship hasn’t broken up. My kids haven’t gone to prison. Nobody’s terminally ill in the family. I’m living in a great 100-year-old house, I’m doing a job I’m good at, I’m getting some freelance nonfiction work, I’m singing with a good choir at IPFW…

But somewhere in here, I’ve lost a romantic spark. Somewhere in here, I’ve lost a great deal of magic. Maybe I’ve just had to fight too damn many battles, beat back too damn many wolves from the door, and be too damn tough for too damn long. (Sorry for the rough language, but sometimes the bluntest Anglo-Saxonisms really are the best.)

Maybe going through the trauma of being sure my marriage was dead in the water, only to confront some demons, see them wrestled to the ground, and make the long, arduous trip back through learning how to love my husband again…took all the romantic sparks clear out of my eyes. (And yeah, it’s okay for me to say this out loud. My husband knows exactly where we stood then versus where we stand now, and we're in this together.) But oddly enough, I did some of my best, most romantic writing during the precise period of time when I was going through some of the worst personal emotional minefields you can imagine. I had to write…it was my way to stay sane.

So what has happened to my liking for, and ability to write, love stories—or for that matter, any kind of stories—now?
Did it die while I took care of my mother, scrambled to pay off her debts, borrowed just to get her buried?
Did it die when I kept struggling to hold ends together, only to have them keep slipping on me?
Did it die when I pulled up stakes and came to one of the last places on earth I ever thought I’d be?
Did it die when the biggest dream I’ve ever had—seeing my son play major league baseball—faded to black?
Or did it die because so much of what I’ve associated with writing fiction was tied up with RWA…and RWA and I have parted company on far from the best of terms?

I can’t honestly tell you why. I only know that every time I try to write, something chilling drops over my fingers and over my brain and I freeze. I wrote from hope before (the real thing, before it became a cheap political buzzword), sometimes nothing but hope. But now? The enthusiasm and fire that propelled my Muse seems to have packed up and left.

Something weary, something cynical, creeps into my writing now, and the people I want to write as warm and “nice” come out as wary, jaded smart-alecks. Part of me doesn’t even want to write “nice”…because something in me despises that in those characters. So I don’t write them that way, and I don’t tell their stories.

And that’s heartbreaking. Because I could do it once. I did it very well, several times in the past, in past manuscripts and in a pubbed book. I wrote sweet, funny, and genuinely nice people, and I cared about them, and I still do care about the ones who are like that in my old stories.
But I can’t seem to write them again. Or if I start to…I stop.
I hit a wall, almost immediately.
And I get very, very discouraged at the thought that I don’t know where to go from here.

My husband has a touch of a disorder they call dysthymia. For those of you who don’t know what this is, it’s a persistent sadness that permeates a person’s entire being. It’s closely related to depression (which he also has), but it’s slightly different in that a person can live with dysthymia for years and be functional; he just doesn’t get any joy out of anything. He would no sooner wake up thinking, “What can I do for fun today?” than the devil would wake up thinking, “Which virtue can I practice first?” Consequently, people with dysthymia live in a kind of perpetual fog. They’ll go along with plans other people make, but it’s beyond their scope to do much on their own that isn’t work, sleep, or other forms of routine.

Unfortunately, I see this disorder now taking over my writing. Sapping it of energy. Robbing it of a reason to be. Making me lose patience with boy-meets-girl, or even boy-saves-girl-in-jeopardy (or the other way around!). I don’t want this deep wall of sadness to be the way my fiction writing career ends…but right now, I’m in that gray cloud without a clue how to get out of it. Nothing seems to work, at least not on a long-enough term basis to make me think the worst is actually over and that the light at the end of the tunnel is not the proverbial freight train.

So is this where it stops? Or is there a way out?
I know what the way isn’t. It isn’t to write “one word at a time.” Because I’ve done that. One word, one page, a bunch of pages…and then it stalls out. And it’s happened too many times for me to think I can try the same thing again and expect a different result.

So…
Thoughts?

Janny

Slammed!

No, I haven’t been physically body-checked into the boards…but I have been up to my eyebrows in work of late. Yanno that other post about how the freelance work was coming in, and people were starting to ask for me to do stuff….? Yeah, that work.

Not to fear. I will be posting in more detail soon. In the meantime, talk amongst yourselves in the combox. Throw me some new ideas for stories. Or just commiserate. I’ll be over here if you need me…


Janny

Same Song...New Verse?

For those of you who remember such things, or who pay attention to archives, I’ve mulled over the subject of this entry before...

Only this time, the focus is slightly different, and more personal.

In order not to spill beans I ought not to, I won’t go into too many specifics about the precipitating factors contributing to my present restlessness at my “day gig” desk. Suffice to say that a recent evaluation of my talents and contributions did not yield results I hoped for…and it has made me rethink a lot. It has made me question, not for the first time, whether I’ve been on a path God wanted me to take or am going in the wrong direction.

I’ve come to an interesting hybrid conclusion: the answer is…both.

I say this because, now that the suspense of wondering, “Will they—won’t they?” is over, and I know that where I stand now is about where I was afraid I’d be standing at this point…that it's time to face the fact that I may well have outgrown what is open for me to do here.

It was inevitable: if there’s one common element behind every job-departure I take, it’s boredom. I simply end up being unable to bear an unending future of the same. And that disheartening feeling is happening more and more to me in this particular landscape—and I’m not talking about the rolling plains of Indiana, either.

Unfortunately, on one hand, it’s where I’ll be standing for some time yet to come.

Fortunately, on the other hand, I may not be standing here for an unending future.

Suddenly, as if a dam has broken, the manner in which I’ve been toiling for the last four (plus!) years has started to pay unexpected dividends. After much, much time and effort invested in building the foundation of the beginnings of a true freelance career…it’s finally starting to take off for me.

Due, in no small part, to the immense boost in my abilities and—more importantly—self-confidence that has been engendered by my being here.

In other words…I’m in that delightful position at the moment where, for the first time, people are beginning to seek me out for freelance work. Potential clients are beginning to come to me and say, “We’re impressed with what we’ve seen so far; do you think you’d be a good match for us?”

And I cannot help but believe that I wouldn’t have this great potential beginning happening now if I didn’t take that leap of faith into said Indiana plains then.

So, as one memorable soul put it at ACFW a couple of years back, “It’s all good.”
It’s both…and.

Doesn’t that have a great ring to it?

To me, it has the ring of dreams about to come true.

Thoughts?

Janny

Waiting For "The Big Break": Is 40 Years Too Long?

Yeah, yanno…well, there’s patience, and then there’s patience. If you don’t know the difference between those two words, you probably haven’t been a writer very long. (!)
We send out a query…and we wait.
We send out a partial…and we wait.
We send out full manuscripts…and we wait.
We send out short stories…
Or workshop proposals…
Or grant applications…
Or resumes for good plum writing jobs…
…and we wait.

Of course, some of us don’t have to wait quite as long anymore, with the advent of electronic submissions and the speed of response that comes along with them.
The good news is, well, that the good news can get to you faster. Submissions of queries, partials, fulls, and editorial decisions, when they go well, can result in books produced at a pace that feels like the speed of light.
The bad news is, those rejects hit our e-mail boxes a lot faster, too. You can literally submit now and get rejected within 24 hours…or less. I know. I have.

But as familiar a tradition as The Long Wait is for most of us in the writing biz, I’m thinking today in terms of a different kind of patience entirely.

Today is the 60th birthday of a colleague at work. That, combined with the sudden, shocking death of another former colleague at a mere 50, got me thinking.

I’m going to be 57 years old in August.
I submitted my first piece of writing to a contest when I was 17.
So, in one form or another, I’ve been considering myself an “up and coming” writer for going on 40 years.

Forty years.
I’m thinking maybe the “up and coming” label doesn’t fit anymore.

It’s hard to surrender to the plain fact that I’m no longer 17. I can look and act younger…and I do. (We’re not talking maturity levels here.That’s a whole other dish of tabasco sauce. Just sayin’.) But it is hard to realize that, at this point in my life, there may be things I’ll never do.
One of those may be Getting The Big Break.
And that’s a sobering thought.

If I get to the end of my life, whenever it comes, and I haven’t sold another book…or resold the rights to the first one…
…haven’t achieved entry into any of my target publishers…
…haven’t gotten any closer to it than I am now…
Then what?
Will my life have failed on some fundamental level?

At what, then, will I point to with pride and say, “No. No failure here”?

After all, I haven’t spent every waking minute of those ensuing 39-1/2 years writing. I’ve spent a lot of it yelling at athletic events (!)…or singing…or caring for people—and animals!—who needed taking care of. Not to mention the usual shopping, cooking, cleaning, washing, drying, dusting, polishing, mowing, digging, weeding, praying…etc.

That being said, I have probably written easily a million, if not several million, words by now. Stories that have improved over the years, material in an amount that’s probably pretty impressive when sandwiched around all the aforementioned “life happening when you were making other plans” kind of stuff.

But I do wonder now at what point “hanging in there” and “getting better” and “staying at it” and “persevering” become foolishness. When almost 40 years of “waiting for the big break” becomes not proof of your dedication, but a sad joke—pacing a lifetime widow’s walk, scanning the horizon for a ship that will never come in.

Is there a point at which one needs to stop hoping and assuming it will come eventually—a point at which The Big Break has already passed one by, looking for a younger, more energetic or more “hip” aspirant to favor instead? Is a gray-haired middle-aged woman even eligible for The Big Break anymore?

I can’t help wondering.

Thoughts?

Janny

Who’s REALLY Your Reader…Part 2

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