People are loathe to admit it, but envy is an inevitable (and unenviable) part of the writing life. I have been on both sides of the envy seesaw, and it's no fun either way. Envy has always seemed to me such a sticky-feeling emotion, the kind of thing where you need to shower just after you admit to yourself that you're feeling it. No wonder we call it by so many other words.
But Shakespeare felt professional envy, probably directed toward Kit Marlowe - in fact, he wrote sonnets about it. Fitzgerald and Hemingway had a famously rivalrous friendship - as did Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath. Melville got tired of playing second fiddle to Hawthorne...and I just read that Virginia Woolf, after reading glowing reviews of the "The Four Quartets" by TS Eliot, went out to walk in the fields and tell herself "I am I, and must follow that furrow, not copy another."
So here's the bottom line on professional envy. If you feel it...or rather when you feel it, first of all take comfort that you're in the very best of company.
Secondly, use it as an impetus to write. You can't let your friend get that far ahead of you, can you?
Thirdly, remember that this is a street which goes both ways and that at some point, if you keep writing, you will be on the receiving end of someone else's envy. It might just be a well-turned phrase in a writing workshop, it might be the Pulitzer. Either way when you notice it you're going to feel...a little sticky. Because here's the weird thing about envy. It feels no better to be envied than it does to envy other people.
When I sold my novel my friend Dawn said "The publishing process will be full of surprises. And one of them is that your friends are not going to be particularly happy for you." It's a harsh realization....for years you and your friends are lolling around in the same muddy pasture of despair. No one can get an agent, much less published. It doesn't seem possible. It seems as far away as if you were sitting there saying "Some day one of us is going to fly."
But then it happens. Someone sells her book. And the reaction is not just envy but surprise. Wait a minute. She sold her book? Actually sold it, and she has an agent and an editor and a title and a cover and all that sort of stuff? The land shifts beneath you all a little bit and it's hard not to have a jumble of emotions, with envy certainly among them.
Now here's the conundrum. If your group is full of good writers and you're committed to helping each other, the news that the first of your group has published is both an occasion for envy and, on the other hand, a boon for everyone. There's a little more of a crack in the gate....maybe your friend will ask their agent to look at your book. Maybe they'll help you when it's time to negotiate your own contract or publicize your own book.
But even if the stars align and you're able to help each other beautifully - and indeed it has happened among me and my writing friends - you still have to go through that gate one at a time. Some people have to hang back and watch their friends precede them into the land of the published and that hurts. So I guess the fourth point about envy is...
Accept it as a rite of passage. And in some ways, evidence of how far you've come. Melville envied Hawthorne because he knew him. Ditto for Shakespeare and Marlowe, Sexton and Plath, Fitzgerald and Hemingway, Woolf and Eliot. We envy people who are nearby, who seem just a step or two ahead of us in the process. The language of envy begins with "It could have been me..."
We don't feel that about people who are far above us. You don't lie on your couch and re-read Pride and Prejudice of the 700th time and envy Austin. She's Austin, for God's sake, it would be like feeling envy for an angel. So when your friends begin to improve in their writing....to publish....to win awards or be admitted into colonies, your envy is a sign that you're not that far behind them. Painful as it is, you've moved a step closer to publication.
Because if it could have been you, someday it will be.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Monday, August 24, 2009
The Myth of Daily Progress
When I was in college the local paper was the Charlottesville Daily Progress - a hopelessly chipper name for a newspaper but one which I think reflects the way we all wish life worked. In the thirtysomething years since then, I haven't encountered a lot of daily progress in my life. I plod. I trudge. I put in the hours. And I endure long periods in which it seems as if nothing is happening - there's no progress at all, much less something measurable and daily.
This is true in all areas of my life.
But the flip side is that after weeks or months of this plodding, just at the point where I am most frustrated and most certain that none of this work is leading to any real payoff, I hit a period of rapid and almost effortless progress. A little blip of time - it never seems to last longer than a week, but is more often just a single day - in which it seems I am reaping the results of all the work I plowed in earlier.
Last Wednesday was one of those days. I was at the studio, dancing with Max and all of a sudden ("all of a sudden" as in "we've been working on these steps for weeks") everything clicked and I began dancing better. It's like in one day, in one lesson, I got drastically better. I know I wasn't just dreaming it - several other people commented on it too. And the next morning after a night of furious dreaming about dancing, in which I went through the tango routine over and over in my dreamstate, I woke up full of ideas for revision for the novel.
What is this? Why do we so rarely get real daily progress and instead get this bumpy learning curve?
I suspect it has something to do with the fact anything we're learning requires a kind of blind loyalty to the process. Periods of time in which it feels like you're wandering the dark and not getting any better. Perhaps this dark night of the soul is a necessary part of the creative process - that if creative work was more like bricklaying (i.e., full of evidence of daily progress) we would be more convinced that it is a result of our will and work and cleverness and not respectful enough of the fact that there is something more emotional and mystical about the process. We'd forget that creativity is the result of more than just putting in the hours.
You still have to put in the hours. I don't mean to suggest otherwise. You have to put in the daily hours but you have to put them in without any expectation of daily progress. It's a leap of faith. The time at the computer when it seems like nothing is happening is the primary sacrament of this strange religion we've all chosen...and the result is the periodic Wednesday when it all clicks, when one step seems to follow the other swiftly and effortlessly, when the ideas are coming faster than you can write them and when it seems, for just a matter of hours, laughably easy.
This is true in all areas of my life.
But the flip side is that after weeks or months of this plodding, just at the point where I am most frustrated and most certain that none of this work is leading to any real payoff, I hit a period of rapid and almost effortless progress. A little blip of time - it never seems to last longer than a week, but is more often just a single day - in which it seems I am reaping the results of all the work I plowed in earlier.
Last Wednesday was one of those days. I was at the studio, dancing with Max and all of a sudden ("all of a sudden" as in "we've been working on these steps for weeks") everything clicked and I began dancing better. It's like in one day, in one lesson, I got drastically better. I know I wasn't just dreaming it - several other people commented on it too. And the next morning after a night of furious dreaming about dancing, in which I went through the tango routine over and over in my dreamstate, I woke up full of ideas for revision for the novel.
What is this? Why do we so rarely get real daily progress and instead get this bumpy learning curve?
I suspect it has something to do with the fact anything we're learning requires a kind of blind loyalty to the process. Periods of time in which it feels like you're wandering the dark and not getting any better. Perhaps this dark night of the soul is a necessary part of the creative process - that if creative work was more like bricklaying (i.e., full of evidence of daily progress) we would be more convinced that it is a result of our will and work and cleverness and not respectful enough of the fact that there is something more emotional and mystical about the process. We'd forget that creativity is the result of more than just putting in the hours.
You still have to put in the hours. I don't mean to suggest otherwise. You have to put in the daily hours but you have to put them in without any expectation of daily progress. It's a leap of faith. The time at the computer when it seems like nothing is happening is the primary sacrament of this strange religion we've all chosen...and the result is the periodic Wednesday when it all clicks, when one step seems to follow the other swiftly and effortlessly, when the ideas are coming faster than you can write them and when it seems, for just a matter of hours, laughably easy.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Knowing what to leave out
There's a scene in my second novel, The Gods of Arizona, in which the protagonist reflects back on the first time she trysted with the man who ultimately broke her heart. She recalls an expensive bottle of champagne he bought and how - unlike the cheap roses of her youth - it had no color. She says "I was already beginning to understand that what we were paying for is the absense of something." I've always liked that line, since the first moment I wrote it. What often elevates a moment is the absense of something - no noise, no crowds, no hassle, no smell.
I'm thinking of this because recently I was asked two questions about writing. One was "What's the difference between a mainstream novel and a literary novel?" The other one was "How do you develop a free-flowing conversational writing style?"
The first question came out of my new writing group, where everyone but me is doing genre and where I think they often look at me a little warily since my writing doesn't conform to the precepts of more plot-driven fiction. The second question came from a friend whose style has been critiqued as overly-formal. She says she envies my style, which is very much born out of the Southern tradition of oral storytelling.
Two different questions but it occurred to me that they have the same answer. To some degree, fiction is made literary by what the author leaves out. Suppose you have a scene where a secretary marches into the office of her boss and demands a raise. The boss, when he catches wind of her mission, gets up from behind his big desk and closes the door. The mainstream author will tell the reader why he the closes the door - he doesn't want the rest of the workers to overhear their conversation, he knows he's getting ready to get blackmailed, the secretary is his long-lost illegitimate daughter, whatever.....The mainstream writer will saying something along the lines of "Mr. Banks got up to close the door, conscious that the busybody Miss Crebs was lurking to eavesdrop." The literary writer will just say. "He closed the door," thus forcing the reader to work a little harder. Why did he close the door? The author is telling you quite clearly what is happening but she's stopping short of telling you why it is happening. There's a sliver of ambiguity in the scene that makes it inherently less literary.
And as for a smooth writing style....I think that's all about knowing what to leave out. Not constantly stopping the narrative to explain everything. Like being literary, the oral stream-of-consciousness style depends on the reader paying attention and making some connections without the narrative stopping to point them out. The person who asked me this question has a laborious style primarily because she comes out of the academic system. She can't say anything without explaining how she knows it - without practically offering footnotes. These constant small asides to dump in information - with little regard for how necessary that information is and even less regard for whether or not this tutorial style is insulting to the reader - slows her narrative pace to a crawl.
The bottom line? I think no matter how well a scene is written it's worth taking a minute in editing to think about what could be cut. Striking out what's implied, what's non-essential, what's simply in there to show off how much the author knows....and then further realizing that a little strategic ambiguity can be the author's friend. As I said before in the entry "The literary tango" it's a risk to invite the reader into the creative process and trust them to be able to make connections and pick up on implications without constantly beating them over the head with explanation. But it's a risk that often pays off.
I'm thinking of this because recently I was asked two questions about writing. One was "What's the difference between a mainstream novel and a literary novel?" The other one was "How do you develop a free-flowing conversational writing style?"
The first question came out of my new writing group, where everyone but me is doing genre and where I think they often look at me a little warily since my writing doesn't conform to the precepts of more plot-driven fiction. The second question came from a friend whose style has been critiqued as overly-formal. She says she envies my style, which is very much born out of the Southern tradition of oral storytelling.
Two different questions but it occurred to me that they have the same answer. To some degree, fiction is made literary by what the author leaves out. Suppose you have a scene where a secretary marches into the office of her boss and demands a raise. The boss, when he catches wind of her mission, gets up from behind his big desk and closes the door. The mainstream author will tell the reader why he the closes the door - he doesn't want the rest of the workers to overhear their conversation, he knows he's getting ready to get blackmailed, the secretary is his long-lost illegitimate daughter, whatever.....The mainstream writer will saying something along the lines of "Mr. Banks got up to close the door, conscious that the busybody Miss Crebs was lurking to eavesdrop." The literary writer will just say. "He closed the door," thus forcing the reader to work a little harder. Why did he close the door? The author is telling you quite clearly what is happening but she's stopping short of telling you why it is happening. There's a sliver of ambiguity in the scene that makes it inherently less literary.
And as for a smooth writing style....I think that's all about knowing what to leave out. Not constantly stopping the narrative to explain everything. Like being literary, the oral stream-of-consciousness style depends on the reader paying attention and making some connections without the narrative stopping to point them out. The person who asked me this question has a laborious style primarily because she comes out of the academic system. She can't say anything without explaining how she knows it - without practically offering footnotes. These constant small asides to dump in information - with little regard for how necessary that information is and even less regard for whether or not this tutorial style is insulting to the reader - slows her narrative pace to a crawl.
The bottom line? I think no matter how well a scene is written it's worth taking a minute in editing to think about what could be cut. Striking out what's implied, what's non-essential, what's simply in there to show off how much the author knows....and then further realizing that a little strategic ambiguity can be the author's friend. As I said before in the entry "The literary tango" it's a risk to invite the reader into the creative process and trust them to be able to make connections and pick up on implications without constantly beating them over the head with explanation. But it's a risk that often pays off.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
The last happy day you'll ever have
Last night there was big news at my writing group. The leader of the group, who has been writing both fantasy and romance for years, signed with an agent from the large and well-regarded Writers House. It's a huge event, a watershed. I brought her flowers. She was excited and still a little in shock. The contract had just gone into the mail that day.
Later I was telling a (very seasoned) writing friend about the event. I said I'd brought Nancy flowers and my friend replied "Well you should have because...."
And then we said in unison "Because this is the last happy day she'll ever have."
We're actually not as cynical or as ungrateful as that statement would imply. But there is something poignant about that moment in which a dream starts to become reality. Part of it is the very obvious truth that reality never matches the fantasy....Whenever you anticipate an event such as going off to college, your first trip to Europe, getting married, having a baby you can't help but build up this whole dream around the event. Then when it happens it's good....it's just not good in the way you thought it would be good. You're home from the hospital but so sore you can't stand, sit, lie, or walk. Your dorm room is approximately 22 square feet. You new husband gets drunk and throws up the first night of your honeymoon. The cabdriver who picks you up at the Madrid airport looks nothing at all like Antonio Bandares. The fantasy has to make way for the more compromised and complex reality and that happens in publishing too. Getting an agent and a publisher aren't the end of the game, they're the beginning - the first flick of a domino that sets off a series of choices and you'll never know (never!) when you've made the right one.
And then there's the more interior issue as well....getting your dream in a way means losing your dream. You simply don't have a dream anymore. Something has to rush in and fill that space where are the anticipation and yearning lived for years but - at least in my case and probably in lots of people's cases - the new thing doesn't arrive all at once. So, in the meantime, getting what you want feels oddly hollow.
I didn't say all this to the woman in my writing group. I handed her the flowers and said "Congratulations."
Which, in the land of writers, translates to "good luck."
Later I was telling a (very seasoned) writing friend about the event. I said I'd brought Nancy flowers and my friend replied "Well you should have because...."
And then we said in unison "Because this is the last happy day she'll ever have."
We're actually not as cynical or as ungrateful as that statement would imply. But there is something poignant about that moment in which a dream starts to become reality. Part of it is the very obvious truth that reality never matches the fantasy....Whenever you anticipate an event such as going off to college, your first trip to Europe, getting married, having a baby you can't help but build up this whole dream around the event. Then when it happens it's good....it's just not good in the way you thought it would be good. You're home from the hospital but so sore you can't stand, sit, lie, or walk. Your dorm room is approximately 22 square feet. You new husband gets drunk and throws up the first night of your honeymoon. The cabdriver who picks you up at the Madrid airport looks nothing at all like Antonio Bandares. The fantasy has to make way for the more compromised and complex reality and that happens in publishing too. Getting an agent and a publisher aren't the end of the game, they're the beginning - the first flick of a domino that sets off a series of choices and you'll never know (never!) when you've made the right one.
And then there's the more interior issue as well....getting your dream in a way means losing your dream. You simply don't have a dream anymore. Something has to rush in and fill that space where are the anticipation and yearning lived for years but - at least in my case and probably in lots of people's cases - the new thing doesn't arrive all at once. So, in the meantime, getting what you want feels oddly hollow.
I didn't say all this to the woman in my writing group. I handed her the flowers and said "Congratulations."
Which, in the land of writers, translates to "good luck."
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
I get by with a little help...
Just had a long conversation with my friend Dawn. I sent her a copy of the much-maligned second book, The Gods of Arizona. She read it and called me while in the car with her two young sons. Even under these conditions - rambunctious boys in the back seat periodically announcing that they needed to pee, Boston to NYC traffic, the manuscript not in front of her - she provided a cogent and comprehensive analysis of what I'll need to do to take the book to the next level.
One important thing is that she liked the book. My confidence is shaken and I need to hear that right now. But just as important, she saw where it needed to be strengthened and had some ideas on how I might accomplish that.
I feel renewed. Like a have a definite and doable plan for revision. Now I just have to figure out how I can get away for a few weeks and really devote myself to the task. Too late for fall writing colonies. An escape to my friend Laura's house perhaps? She has always made it available to me and it's quiet and beautiful there.
What would I do without my writing buddies? Would I even be able to write?
One important thing is that she liked the book. My confidence is shaken and I need to hear that right now. But just as important, she saw where it needed to be strengthened and had some ideas on how I might accomplish that.
I feel renewed. Like a have a definite and doable plan for revision. Now I just have to figure out how I can get away for a few weeks and really devote myself to the task. Too late for fall writing colonies. An escape to my friend Laura's house perhaps? She has always made it available to me and it's quiet and beautiful there.
What would I do without my writing buddies? Would I even be able to write?
Friday, August 7, 2009
Please forward all future mail to Sydney....
So much of what you learn in publishing (and I use the word "learn" loosely since this is a maddeningly slippery world with rules that seem to come and go at random) you learn the hard way... i.e., by experience.
But in the middle of the hard knocks I've had over the last couple of weeks has been a huge ray of sunlight. I got news that the Australian/NewZealand rights sold and that they were going to publish quickly - one day after the book comes out in the US, in fact. So I wrote them offering my author photo, bio, the info I've created for my American website, etc. They were so grateful and so sweet...they said "Our American authors never contact us with anything. If we want these sorts of things for publicity we really have to go looking for them."
So I thought "Hmmm....maybe my other foreign publishers would like this stuff. I could at least offer." I got their email addresses from the foreign rights department of my American publisher and contacted them. Same story. Delighted to hear from me. Grateful for anything I could send.
This has resulted in three things - tighter relationships with my foreign publishers, which I think is bound to help me somehow in the future, a little ego boost in the middle of a lot of ego knocks, and a further understanding that a writer who takes it upon herself to try and help market her book can indeed make an impact.
Feeling helpless sucks. And so much of this process makes you feel helpless. Creating little inroads - even if they lead to Rotterdam and Pisa and Perth - has made me feel (literally) worlds better.
But in the middle of the hard knocks I've had over the last couple of weeks has been a huge ray of sunlight. I got news that the Australian/NewZealand rights sold and that they were going to publish quickly - one day after the book comes out in the US, in fact. So I wrote them offering my author photo, bio, the info I've created for my American website, etc. They were so grateful and so sweet...they said "Our American authors never contact us with anything. If we want these sorts of things for publicity we really have to go looking for them."
So I thought "Hmmm....maybe my other foreign publishers would like this stuff. I could at least offer." I got their email addresses from the foreign rights department of my American publisher and contacted them. Same story. Delighted to hear from me. Grateful for anything I could send.
This has resulted in three things - tighter relationships with my foreign publishers, which I think is bound to help me somehow in the future, a little ego boost in the middle of a lot of ego knocks, and a further understanding that a writer who takes it upon herself to try and help market her book can indeed make an impact.
Feeling helpless sucks. And so much of this process makes you feel helpless. Creating little inroads - even if they lead to Rotterdam and Pisa and Perth - has made me feel (literally) worlds better.
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Trying again
Last week was a setback. My editor didn't like the second book. So I went to the beach to hide out for the week in my mom's condo....to sit on the sand and read through the manuscript and think about what to do next.
And it worked. It was kind of funny in a way because the beach was so windy and here I come over the dunes with my SPF 912 sunscreen and my folding chair and Diet Coke and huge manuscript held together with a rubber band. The book was literally in danger of blowing away. And I just started reading. I came to some conclusions about how to handle the decisions facing me - what book to write next, who it show it to, etc. But the biggest thing is that in reading through the manuscript I was reminded how much I liked it. I was proud to have written it. Just realizing that was a kind of benediction.
So I'm back in Charlotte with some ideas for revision - revisions I want to make, recommended by no one else - and the sense that I want to go back into the book. For now I feel calm and focused. I say "for now" not to curse myself but to acknowledge that staying calm and focused is no easy feat in this line of work. But for now I feel good.
And it worked. It was kind of funny in a way because the beach was so windy and here I come over the dunes with my SPF 912 sunscreen and my folding chair and Diet Coke and huge manuscript held together with a rubber band. The book was literally in danger of blowing away. And I just started reading. I came to some conclusions about how to handle the decisions facing me - what book to write next, who it show it to, etc. But the biggest thing is that in reading through the manuscript I was reminded how much I liked it. I was proud to have written it. Just realizing that was a kind of benediction.
So I'm back in Charlotte with some ideas for revision - revisions I want to make, recommended by no one else - and the sense that I want to go back into the book. For now I feel calm and focused. I say "for now" not to curse myself but to acknowledge that staying calm and focused is no easy feat in this line of work. But for now I feel good.
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