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
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Monday, April 13, 2009
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until I got together with some folks in the Indiana group and had my attention brought to the fine print that said, “…unpublished in the last seven years.”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
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
Thursday, March 12, 2009
"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.)
"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.)
Saturday, March 07, 2009
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
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
Tuesday, March 03, 2009
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
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
Thursday, February 12, 2009
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
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
Thursday, February 05, 2009
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
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
Thursday, January 15, 2009
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
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
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
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