71 posts tagged “writing”

Failure is inevitable... Show us some failure.
Submitted by Connie.

The funny thing about failure: it's usually indistinguishable from success until the last possible moment.  All those sports success stories--just a heartbeat away from failure.  It's the cruel thing about failure, too.  You're ready to succeed, right up until the moment you're staring failure in the face.  Writing is no different.  There's every chance someone will want to publish your story/buy your book/offer you representation/give you an award, right up until they don't.  As proof, I offer my current submission roster, as tracked on Duotrope.com.

Some days it's hard to stare that list down, and not necessarily because of the "Rejection, Form" entries.  Often the "Pending Response" listings are harder to take.  Success or failure waiting to happen.

I don't know why people feel like they have the right to question me about my wardrobe, but they do.  At least once a month I have to field a question from someone I barely know about why I mostly wear black clothes, as though there were a single reason for anything I do.  So, here are some highlights.

1. I like black.

2. Black is slenderizing.

3. It reflects the darkness of my soul.  (Really, that's what people want to hear.)

4. I'm a writer, not a fountain pen technician.  Not infrequently, refilling my Pelikan is messy.  Sometimes even writing with my Pelikan is messy.

5. Every day there's a funeral, I never know when I might need to go to one.

6. Black hides mistakes.  Except for mistakes made with chlorine bleach.

7. I'm somewhat clumsy.

8. I work around office equipment that produces icky black things like toner.

9. Sippy, who likes to use me as her own personal nap spot/scratching post/scent marker.

10. Flanny, who is a dirty dirty dirty little cat.

Sometimes you get a rejection that makes you erase the play board and start over. 

I drank too much coffee yesterday and was awake too late, thereby putting myself at risk of the dreaded unexpected late-night e-mail rejection.  It was one of those rejections that's hard to set aside, because it was personalized and it came from a place I'm already familiar with: obvious writing talent and not a commercially viable project.

I know this about the book I've been querying.  It's too big, too convoluted, a bit too smart to be straight genre, but I love the book.  I want people to read the book, but I'm not without a certain amount of pragmatism.  After eleven rejections, knowing what I know, I'm putting this one on indefinite hiatus.  It's time to move on.

The next book I'm querying is distinctly more commercial, so at least I don't have that hurdle, but that whole issue is weighing on me pretty heavily as I try to decide what project to work on next.  I always have about half a dozen things waiting in the wings, but as I work on a decision, I thought I'd ask my Voxy neighbors what kind of things you're interested in reading these days.  What sorts of stories, issues, people are you interested in?

It's not just the case in knickknack stores--it's true about writing, too.  Thanks to a timely reading by the esteemed Val, I've concluded that the first chapter of my aforementioned fantasy novel is busted.  I broke it, probably with too much revising, editing and a little over-vigorous "polishing."  I've always known this about my rather pathetic attempts at poetry.  My first and second drafts are usually pretty good, but never really good.  My third and fourth drafts are usually crap.  I don't know why, that's just how it is.  It has not ever been that way with my fiction, but perhaps that's only because my fiction is sturdier, more able to stand up to 20 or 30 drafts before it crumbles under the sheer weight of my tinkering.  Now I know.

As of today, I've got about a week to go back and unbreak that first chapter in time to query the book on March 11.

Luckily, the boss is away for the rest of the week, so I'm in the clear for a couple of 8-hour writing days.

Cortez is reported to have burned his ships in order to destroy in the minds of his crew the possibility of retreat.  (Historians still debate whether he burned them, scuttled them, or simply ran them aground.)  Whether he did or didn't, Cortez didn't invent the idea of burning your ships.  In the 3rd Century BC, Chinese general Xiang Yu burned his ships at the River Yangtze.  He took it one step further.  He destroyed his troops' cooking pots, as well, as a motivator for conquering their enemies.  There was no way back and they had to win to survive.  You might expect mutiny after something like that, but Xiang's ploy worked.

A professor in behavioral economics at MIT recently conducted an experiment in decision-making that mirrors the aspect of burning ships.  Participants in the experiment played a video game in which they could earn real money by being willing to destroy other opportunities for earning money.  The problem was that most participants in the study couldn't bring themselves to destroy those opportunities, even if it diminished their returns.  They couldn't burn their ships.

What does that have to do with writing?  Today I'm convinced it has quite a lot to do with writing.  Yesterday, in keeping with the theme of the week, I received another rejection on a short story.  Looking at the rejection, however, I didn't feel my usual set of frustration and sadness.  Instead, I had a little epiphany.  The story, honestly, wasn't one of my better ones, but I'd gone on putting the energy into submitting it, because I couldn't let it go.  It was downright silly to waste any more time on it, when I didn't think it was that good.  I just had some sort of sentimental attachment to it, because I wrote it.  So, I simply pulled it off my submission roster.  I felt better immediately and I can put that energy into preparing to submit a different story.

At the risk of sounding like I believe in this sort of thing, I'll note that shortly after I made that decision, I got an acceptance for another story in the mail.  I don't believe the two are related, but I do believe that sometimes you have to burn a manuscript to move forward.

It's already been that kind of week.  I got my annual review yesterday and my boss gave me "exceptional" marks on all categories.  That's me: Redzilla the Exceptional Secretary. 

I am not currently Redzilla the Exceptional Writer, because along with my exceptional marks as a secretary, I got three (3) rejections yesterday.  I'll return when I feel more like an Exceptional Blogger.

After a thorough-going policy meeting with my dear friend Spucko, we are prepared to release our white paper report on what the hell is wrong with the fantasy genre these days.  It breaks down into two basic categories:

Character Occupations:
Pick up any fantasy trilogy and fantasy trilogy in the making and they all seem to be about wizards or professional thieves.  I realize it's fantasy, but give me a break.  Where does all the food in these stories come from?  Who digs the ditches?  Does it just reflect an assumption on the part of fantasy readers that these are the only "interesting" occupations for characters in fantasy novels?  Does that reflect an assumption that most jobs in the real world are too boring to be featured in fiction? 

Take a quick perusal through some of the bestselling new fantasy, though, and you'll quickly discover a dearth of farmers, accountants, and wet nurses.  Sarah Monette's Melusine Trilogy?  Main character is a professional thief/assassin.  His brother?  A wizard.  Scott Lynch's Locke Lamora Trilogy? Main character is a professional thief. Susanna Clark's Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell?  Main characters are all wizards.  Here's the thing: what the eff is the magic for?  Mostly it seems like the magic is only used to fight with other wizards, like magic is just some ethereal video game where the wizard-nerds are trying to pwn each other.  You might as well write about guys who carry around guns and shoot at each other if that's all the magic is good for.  Hell, you might as well write about vampires while I die a slow death from boredom.

I don't claim to be some kind of genius, but at least I'm making an effort, people.  My fantasy novel has characters with actual occupations: soldier, priest, midwife, candy maker, seamstress, government bureaucrat.  Why aren't these people worthy of having their stories told? 

Trilogy Death:
It's become de rigueur in the fantasy genre for everything to develop into a trilogy, even if the writer doesn't have enough material for it.   In the publishing industry there are many stories of fantasy writers who upon finally receiving an offer from a publishing house, are asked to turn their novel into a trilogy.  That apparently is where many of them go wrong.  Instead of writing three separate books with three separate story arcs, the writers tend to turn their one novel into three novels. 

Unfortunately, what happens is this: Book One starts off promising, with good character development, a compelling story arc and an active plot.  Then, when the ending comes, the author cheats you by shaving off the last chapter or whatever so the book has a bit of a cliff hanger.  Book Two answers the cliff hanger and then tries to toddle forward into a continuation of the previous story arc.  Oh, sure, sometimes the writer will introduce new developments, new characters, new angles.  Often, however, the writer simply kills off the main character's love interest in order to produce a crisis.  By the end of Book Two, it's clear the story is played out, but still limping along gamely.  Book Three is more tragedy than trilogy, because it's just sad to see how threadbare the plot is, like a good movie turned into a television series, where the same basic story element is replayed over and over.  (Think The Fugitive.)  The characters aren't developing anymore and after you've read the book, you can't remember what happens.

For examples, just let me turn to the two I mentioned above.  Sarah Monette's Melusine Trilogy.  By Book Two, main character's love interest has been murdered, the main character and his brother are sort of stuck in their relationship, and there's a revenge sub-plot.  I can't remember what happened in Book Three and I only read it two weeks ago.  (Except what I do remember is that the one freaky plot twist Monette introduces--brother's sexual attraction to the main character--goes exactly nowhere.)

Scott Lynch's Locke Lamora Trilogy.  Now technically it's not a trilogy yet, but I suspect that's only because the third book hasn't been published yet.  And I'm trying to be fair here, because the author photo reminds me of my ex-boyfriend Killer Geek.  All that aside, guess what happens?  Main character's love interest is murdered.  There's some revenge-like subplot in Book Two, but the main plot is terribly flimsy.  The character relationships stop developing.  Am I eager to read Book Three?  Not even a little bit.

In short, although things are not looking rosy in the fantasy genre, we have made the first step: diagnosing the problem.

You know how I can tell?

It was foggy this morning and 45.  After so many weeks of 15 degree mornings with tundra-like blasts of wind, 45 and foggy is like frolicking around in a sauna.

The garbage man and I smiled at each other.  Our city has manual garbage trucks, with two guys riding on back to empty the cans.  I see this same guy every Monday, running the route about four blocks from my house.  It's a quiet, narrow street and I almost always cross right behind the garbage truck.  (You see how predictable my life is?)  Garbage Guy is about 22, skinny, and he wears a Jayne Cobb hat in the winter.  Today I crossed the street behind the truck just as he was returning an empty garbage can to the curb.  We passed each other just as he jumped back on the truck, and for whatever reason we gave each other a huge grin.  Wonder what he was listening to on his headphones.

Stumpy Skwerl was sitting on my window ledge when I got to my office.  He's missing all but about 2 inches of his tail and I often leave him my apple cores on the window ledge.   As a promise for later, I set my apple on the inside of the window ledge so he'll know to come back after my morning break.

I sent off a query to an agent who reps a good friend of mine, so if nothing else, I feel pretty sure he'll ask to see the manuscript. 

Plus, I actually feel pretty good about the manuscript today.

Yup, gonna be a good day.  Hope you have one, too.

At long last, Dana Fredsti is here to blog about her experience getting her first novel published.  Dana is a mystery novel, short story and screenplay writer, B-movie actress (okay, C movie actress), zombie aficionado, exotic and domestic feline advocate, swordfighter, wine lover and beach glass junkie.   You can visit her online at DanaFredsti.com. 

Getting published is not an easy thing.  And how’s THAT for a most simplistic stating of the obvious statement you’ve read in a while?  But it’s true.  I’m sure there are publishing urban legends the equivalent of Lana Turner being discovered in Schwab’s Drugstore; some of them might even be true.  But most of the time the instant success stories are fabricated by publicist spin-doctors.  The kid who wrote Eragon, for instance, self-published the book and promoted it relentlessly with the help of his family, building up a readership at fantasy conventions and such before being noticed and then picked up by a major publisher.   Good for him, btw!    

The first draft of MURDER FOR HIRE: The Peruvian Pigeon (henceforth referred to as MFH) was written in a month, by my best friend Maureen and myself.  We alternated chapters and character POVs and wrote the entire thing longhand.  I had semi-legible handwriting back then (it’s since deteriorated into ‘I should be a doctor’ illegibility) and Maureen printed instead of using cursive, so it wasn’t too hard to transcribe it with my step-dad’s then state-of-the-art word processor.  He had a snazzy dot matrix printer.  Remember those?  The ones that used the paper that came in perforated folds and you had to separate each page and remove the side strips? Yes, folks, that’s how long ago we wrote the first draft.  There were a few gaping holes in the story; places where we’d scribble ‘need action here!’ or ‘this doesn’t make sense. Fix!  But we pretty much had what we thought was a pretty smokin’ first draft.   In fact, we thought it was so good, we sent out a slew of query letters before we’d even typed the thing up.  We figured we’d have a few months before hearing back from any of the publishers (this was back in the days when you could still send manuscripts directly to publishers and have a shot at it being read), which gave us plenty of time for typing and tweaking.  Imagine our surprise -- and panic -- when we got a reply with a request to see the entire book from an editor with St. Martin’s Press less than a week after sending out the first batch of queries.   

This prompted a three day and night marathon of revisions and filling in those holes as we typed it up.  I did the actual typing because I was the better typist.  Maureen sat in a chair next to me and added her opinions/commentary as I typed.   We were hopped up on chocolate and/or Beringer white zinfandel for most of the marathon. The sugar/caffeine/alcohol cocktail combined with sleep deprivation made us very loopy by the last night (and all of this no doubt account for some of the things that made their way into the finished first draft).  I still remember typing madly at 3am by the light of the word processor and a small desk lamp when Maureen suddenly said in a singsong voice, “Dude, if you were a supermodel, would you rather be Cindy Crawford or Paulina what’s-her-name?”  After staring at her in disbelief, my reply was a borderline hysterical “I don’t know! I don’t know!” before turning back to the computer and continuing to pound the keys like some insane pianist.   Maureen, btw, preferred Cindy Crawford.  I still haven’t made my choice.  

I’m sure it won’t come as a surprise to anyone that St. Martin’s Press politely declined to publish the first incarnation of MFH. Maureen and I are still both a bit mortified we thought it was even close to publication-ready when we sent it in.   But talk about a wasted opportunity.  The mystery market wasn’t glutted at the time, we’d gotten a crack at a major publishing house without even trying…and we blew it because we didn’t have the common sense to make sure our finished product was a: finished and b: well written before sending off query letters.  Points for hubris, same points taken away for stupidity.  

It took me approximately 16 years from the time the first draft was written to get MFH published.  During that time span the manuscript was: stuffed in a drawer (or the electronic equivalent) for a few years; underwent massive rewrites at least 5 times; waited patiently while query letters and the first three chapters went out to agents and publishers; collected many rejection letters, and was occasionally sent  out in its entirety to interested parties.  Sometimes it was returned with polite ‘no thanks, not what we’re looking for’ and twice it was returned with ‘we like it, but it needs work in these areas.’  So I’d do rewrites and try to fix the problem areas indicated, but could never get it to the point the interested parties actually wanted to publish it.    

During this same 16 year period I had short stories and essays published and a couple of screenplays produced, but I couldn’t seem to break through the wall of book publishing. I really wanted to get MFH published and had built a pretty solid emotional and creative barrier that got in the way of really committing to another novel project.   My break finally came because of a writer friend, Brad Linaweaver, who’d read every draft of MFH (except for the first one, which is buried in a secret crypt never to again see the light of day) and thought it deserved to be published.  He championed it to James Rock with James Rock Publishing Inc. and after a long wait during which James Rock read two incarnations of MFH, it was accepted for publication in February 2007.    It was a long road to publication, but so worth it to finally hold the finished bound copy!   Now I’m on the long road of publicity, but that’s a story for another day.

Please feel free to post any questions you have for Dana, and she'll be around to answer them.  Meanwhile, The Peruvian Pigeon is for sale at amazon.com and other fine retail establishments.  Thanks, Dana!

  

As I mentioned many months ago, my good friend Dana Fredsti has recently had her first novel published.  As part of her book promotion, she's doing a blog tour, and on Saturday, she'll be coming to my blog!

So, be sure to come visit on Saturday to check out Dana's guest blog post.  I don't know what she'll be talking about, but I guarantee it'll be interesting.  After all she's a former B-movie actress who volunteers at a big cat refuge, and she just had her first novel published.  Lots of possibilities.  Plus, I believe there will be some sort of give-away for select commenters.  Perhaps a copy of her book.