These thoughts will be few since your girl is pretty much brain dead. My publisher sent 150 Advance Reader Copies of the book down to Greenville, SC for the Southern Independent Booksellers Association trade show and yours truly went down to try and stir up some interest. I spent two hours moving from one table to another at an industry lunch, waving a copy of my book in the air and trying to give them a five-minute summary of why they should stock the book in their stores and hand sell it to their loyal customers.
It was fun and informative. At the author lunch before I met a gaggle of other writers - always a treat - including the woman who wrote Wind Done Gone, the Gone With the Wind parody that stirred up so much controversy a few years back. Very nice woman, actually kind of low key - just further truth that even politically hot writers, those which seem to be courting trouble, are actually introverts and recluses at heart. Then into the luncheon where I went through my spiel over and over until they called time.
Of the 150 books we gave out all but 5. Hard to say if it helped. I'd like to think it did. But like so many of these things, it was largely a blur of new people with no real way to tell which of them will turn out to be helpful to my little baby career. But as a first publicity outing, I feel it was successful....and it's just a relief to have the first one over and done with. What is it Macy Gray said about cherries on Dancing With the Stars?
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
SIBA
If you don't know what that means, you're not alone. It stands for Southern Independent Booksellers Association and I'm going to Greenville on Saturday for their big conference. Apparently I'm set to participate in a sort of speed dating situation where authors sit at tables and every two minutes a new bookstore owner sits down in front of you and you've got 120 seconds to describe your book. These are the people who aren't Borders or Barnes and Nobles...the smaller bookstores who, if they like you, might hand sell you book or recommend you to a book club or even invite you in for a signing.
So it matters and it's a little fraught.
I'm excited about it. Slightly nervous, true, but mostly excited. My publishers think I'm a raving extrovert and in comparison to most writers, this is probably true enough. But my extroversion comes at a cost...in other words, I'll be exhausted at the end of it, drained in that sort of soul-level way that only reading or talking about your work can cause.
This is sort of the equivalent of an early political primary for me....a chance to work a few of the kinks out of my pitch, a chance for me to see how well I hold up in this sort of sales environment, a chance to see how people respond to the concept of the book. Keep all fingers and toes crossed, please. I'll post Monday and let you know how it went!
So it matters and it's a little fraught.
I'm excited about it. Slightly nervous, true, but mostly excited. My publishers think I'm a raving extrovert and in comparison to most writers, this is probably true enough. But my extroversion comes at a cost...in other words, I'll be exhausted at the end of it, drained in that sort of soul-level way that only reading or talking about your work can cause.
This is sort of the equivalent of an early political primary for me....a chance to work a few of the kinks out of my pitch, a chance for me to see how well I hold up in this sort of sales environment, a chance to see how people respond to the concept of the book. Keep all fingers and toes crossed, please. I'll post Monday and let you know how it went!
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Four things I can do
Writing makes people nuts. Well, actually, I think both writing and publishing make people nuts. So much of it is out of your control.
A friend just called me, almost in tears. She is about to sign with an agent - supposedly a happy moment - but she isn't sure if she's going with the right person. There are some big red flags. She said "This is the only person in fifteen years of trying to get an agent who's ever wanted to represent me so the only person has to be the right person, wouldn't you say?" I'm not sure how I feel about that, but we tried to talk it through and come up with a list of questions she might ask this agent before she signed with her but the conversation was disjointed and probably not helpful. She was too nervous to process options or to weight out the pluses and minues of different deals.
So....in this topsy-turvy industry where missteps are inevitable and disappointments are numerous what can we do to stay sane and reasonably focused? It's different for each writer, I suspect, but here's what I do.
1. I focus on what's working. In my case, right now, a lot of that has to do with the foreign sales for the novel and the people I'm in contact with at the various presses. Hell, it's exciting and rewarding to be able to even say "my German editor" and even more so if the person who holds that title seems helpful and nice. The foreign rights sales have been sort of a balm for the apsects of publishing in the US which are more brutal. This isn't anyone fault, it's just a result of New York being such a big, bad world with so many books coming out that it's hard for a first time writer to feel valued and acknowledged. So, I like focusing on the foreign publishing houses which are, frankly, more like I thought the whole thing was going to be.
2. I try to get into writing colonies, conferences, groups - anything where I don't feel so alone and stranded. I would have run off the rails a long time ago if so many of my friends weren't writers.
3. I begin new projects while existing ones are in the pipeline of sales and publications. Otherwise you get to intently involved in how the publishing process is going, what you're being paid, how much rejection there is out there, all those yucky things you can't control.... Having a new project underway makes the one currently being published less important to you and that's a good thing.
4. I read. It reminds me that I love books. Reminds me why I'm doing this.
I won't lie. It's still hard. But these four things do help.
A friend just called me, almost in tears. She is about to sign with an agent - supposedly a happy moment - but she isn't sure if she's going with the right person. There are some big red flags. She said "This is the only person in fifteen years of trying to get an agent who's ever wanted to represent me so the only person has to be the right person, wouldn't you say?" I'm not sure how I feel about that, but we tried to talk it through and come up with a list of questions she might ask this agent before she signed with her but the conversation was disjointed and probably not helpful. She was too nervous to process options or to weight out the pluses and minues of different deals.
So....in this topsy-turvy industry where missteps are inevitable and disappointments are numerous what can we do to stay sane and reasonably focused? It's different for each writer, I suspect, but here's what I do.
1. I focus on what's working. In my case, right now, a lot of that has to do with the foreign sales for the novel and the people I'm in contact with at the various presses. Hell, it's exciting and rewarding to be able to even say "my German editor" and even more so if the person who holds that title seems helpful and nice. The foreign rights sales have been sort of a balm for the apsects of publishing in the US which are more brutal. This isn't anyone fault, it's just a result of New York being such a big, bad world with so many books coming out that it's hard for a first time writer to feel valued and acknowledged. So, I like focusing on the foreign publishing houses which are, frankly, more like I thought the whole thing was going to be.
2. I try to get into writing colonies, conferences, groups - anything where I don't feel so alone and stranded. I would have run off the rails a long time ago if so many of my friends weren't writers.
3. I begin new projects while existing ones are in the pipeline of sales and publications. Otherwise you get to intently involved in how the publishing process is going, what you're being paid, how much rejection there is out there, all those yucky things you can't control.... Having a new project underway makes the one currently being published less important to you and that's a good thing.
4. I read. It reminds me that I love books. Reminds me why I'm doing this.
I won't lie. It's still hard. But these four things do help.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Power Versus Precision
It's no secret that I love quotes about writing - and I love quotes about other things that seem to secretly apply to writing even more. Witness what Billie Jean King said about tennis (another quote from the new writing book I'm reading called "Bang the Keys"). She was talking about serving and how most novice players try too hard to get their serves in the box...how they stand there dinking one ball after another carefully over the net, nervously trying to hit the square and figuring they'll add power to their serves after they get their aim right.
She says it works the opposite - that you must serve with power from the start, even if your balls go horribly awry. (Actually I don't think BJK used the term "horribly awry" - that's my contribution.) Because you can add precision in later, as you go along, but if you don't develop power from the get-go, it's almost impossible to add it in later.
The same thing holds true for writing. First drafts - and probably second and third drafts as well - should be wild and free and a little imprecise. When my friends and I read each other's early drafts we always mark in a few "Maybe too much" or "A little over the top" or "Cut?" comments - they're a sign the writer has done her first draft job and let her mind go wild. You can always rein things in later and make scenes more sensible and neat and precise.
But it's almost impossible to do the opposite. If you start out small and careful you stay small and careful. Too protective of your beautifully polished prose to risk taking a chance - just as I suspect King's tennis students would find it hard when, after months of serving "successfully," i.e., in the box, their belated attempts to develop power mean they're suddenly knocking the ball out of bounds.
Ultimately - whether you're talking writing or tennis - you need both power and precision. But it's easier to move from power to precision than it is to move from precision to power. So serve the first draft as hard as you can. You can worry about where the boundaries are later.
She says it works the opposite - that you must serve with power from the start, even if your balls go horribly awry. (Actually I don't think BJK used the term "horribly awry" - that's my contribution.) Because you can add precision in later, as you go along, but if you don't develop power from the get-go, it's almost impossible to add it in later.
The same thing holds true for writing. First drafts - and probably second and third drafts as well - should be wild and free and a little imprecise. When my friends and I read each other's early drafts we always mark in a few "Maybe too much" or "A little over the top" or "Cut?" comments - they're a sign the writer has done her first draft job and let her mind go wild. You can always rein things in later and make scenes more sensible and neat and precise.
But it's almost impossible to do the opposite. If you start out small and careful you stay small and careful. Too protective of your beautifully polished prose to risk taking a chance - just as I suspect King's tennis students would find it hard when, after months of serving "successfully," i.e., in the box, their belated attempts to develop power mean they're suddenly knocking the ball out of bounds.
Ultimately - whether you're talking writing or tennis - you need both power and precision. But it's easier to move from power to precision than it is to move from precision to power. So serve the first draft as hard as you can. You can worry about where the boundaries are later.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Stealing from your own life
I like books about writing and recently I got a new one, "Bang the Keys" by Jill Dearman. She's more in the floaty school of writing instruction, more Julia Cameron than Gotham City Writers Group. In other words, more apt to write about meditating to get in touch with the unconscious of your characters than the architecture of plot.
Both matter. It's a good book.
But I was struck by a quote she gave from the filmmaker Pedro Almodovor, who wrote and directed Bad Medicine, a movie I watched with Phillip last year. Almodovor was talking about using his own life as material for his films and he said:
"Anything that is not autobiographical is plagiarism."
I laughed aloud at that. I assume he is kidding, but probably not by much. Almost all writers borrow heavily from their own lives and the lives of people around them....but mostly, I would guess, from their own. At least in terms of feelings. You might not have fought in the Vietnam war but if your soldier-character is feeling frustration, you'd better know how it feels to be frustrated. Better be able to tap into the last time you felt that particular emotion, the thoughts that led up to and away from the feeling, the way it manifested in your body.
Another thing I've heard - not sure where but I think it may have been Julia Cameron. Something about how writing is more about getting things down than it is about thinking things up. I'd phrase it a little differently, saying that there are essentially two schools of writers: those who get things down and those who think things up. I'm obviously more in the first school but my new writing group has brought me into contact with genre writers who are more clearly "creative" in the sense most people use the word - i.e., they sit there and make things up. They make up whole worlds with different laws and money and genders and physical constrants. I'm not sure if they base the people who populate these worlds on their own emotions or not.
Maybe something worth asking at the next meeting.
I'll be drummed out of this group soon, no doubt. I have no luck with writing groups. I think my questions irritate people.
Both matter. It's a good book.
But I was struck by a quote she gave from the filmmaker Pedro Almodovor, who wrote and directed Bad Medicine, a movie I watched with Phillip last year. Almodovor was talking about using his own life as material for his films and he said:
"Anything that is not autobiographical is plagiarism."
I laughed aloud at that. I assume he is kidding, but probably not by much. Almost all writers borrow heavily from their own lives and the lives of people around them....but mostly, I would guess, from their own. At least in terms of feelings. You might not have fought in the Vietnam war but if your soldier-character is feeling frustration, you'd better know how it feels to be frustrated. Better be able to tap into the last time you felt that particular emotion, the thoughts that led up to and away from the feeling, the way it manifested in your body.
Another thing I've heard - not sure where but I think it may have been Julia Cameron. Something about how writing is more about getting things down than it is about thinking things up. I'd phrase it a little differently, saying that there are essentially two schools of writers: those who get things down and those who think things up. I'm obviously more in the first school but my new writing group has brought me into contact with genre writers who are more clearly "creative" in the sense most people use the word - i.e., they sit there and make things up. They make up whole worlds with different laws and money and genders and physical constrants. I'm not sure if they base the people who populate these worlds on their own emotions or not.
Maybe something worth asking at the next meeting.
I'll be drummed out of this group soon, no doubt. I have no luck with writing groups. I think my questions irritate people.
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