Suddenly, I'm in one of those periods where things are happening....Aussie cover came. Heard I got nominated for an independent booksellers award. And picked up for an online book club. Am working on summary and sample chapter scenes to send to my agent, David, in hopes of selling the third novel, Ballroom, on spec. I rarely talk to either my agent or my editor but have had contact with both this week, as well as publicist and foreign rights team.
And, so, for a flash, it all seems real again.
I don't want to be a velveteen rabbit - i.e., real only when somebody loves me.
I know that I am most a writer when I'm actually writing. I know it's a trap to feel like you're a writer only when people are talking about your writing.
In fact, this aspect of publishing is kind of upsetting. I've blogged about this before, how strange it is that for long stretches of time nothing happens and your book and your characters live only in your head. If you step off a curb and get hit by a car, they die with you. And then comes a week or so when people are talking to you about what you've written and that's wonderful in a way because it all feels more real. Like this is your career and not some sort of extended fantasy. Sometimes it seems like wanting to be a writer is just a grown up version of when I was twelve and lying on my bed in my parents's home looking up at a picture of the Monkees and thinking that someday I'd marry Mickey Dolenz. It seems adolescent, unrealistic, the kind of story you tell yourself to distract yourself from the fact real life ain't exactly happening for you yet.
Then something sort of changes. You get a flurry of emails or phone calls, some of them from the other side of the world, and you've married a Monkee, at least for that week...and this is troubling in a whole new way. I mean, have you seen a picture of Mickey Dolenz lately? I didn't totally know what I was asking for all those years lying on my bed looking up at my Monkees poster and I don't totally know what I'm asking for when I pursue publication, either.
Talked to Alison yesterday. She's heading to Europe with her girlfriend. I was babbling on and she reminded me that a while back we had made a promise to each other to stop when the good moments come and really appreciate them without "Yes but"-ting them to death. I laughed and agreed but inside me the urge to "Yes, but" was very strong. Yes, I earned out my advance, but it was a small advance. Yes, the Australia cover copy is great, but I'm not as sure about the American. Yes, I got nominated for something, but a nomination isn't a win. I can do this until the cows come home....or at least until Mickey Dolenz loses his hair.
Okay, a couple of days back I declared December to be lovingkindness month and I have vowed to do my lovingkindness mediation every day. I love that particular CD with Jack Kornfield anyway. And part of lovingkindness is being appreciative of times when things are moving, even if the movement makes you a bit dizzy. Being appreciative of getting what you want without letting the "Yes, but" syndrome take over. So that's the focus for December.
And in January something else will happen.
Showing posts with label novel publishing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label novel publishing. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Oy
This has been a rough week. Not only did I get this bizarre attack (dutifully described in the "ouch" entry) on a scene from the second novel, but I have also been getting a lot of feedback on the first novel as well. The finished one. The whole thing is making me feel horribly exposed.
It started like this. My publisher sent me four sets of galleys to have when I visit workshops and conferences this summer, in case I meet someone artsy who might want to blurb the book. (Well...no one wants to blurb the book. Maybe I should say someone I can persuade to blurb it.) Since it was two weeks before the Queens session I decided this was a good chance to give some friends and family members a preview. They'll have to read it at some point and I suspected it would be upsetting for some of them. I figured this way we'd have ten months for them to read it, digest it, and get used to it before the book actually came out in print. So I start sending these four sets of galley copies around.
Some people were fine. A couple of friends/family members were very supportive and complimentary. A couple were lukewarm. A few struggled, clearly bogging down in attempts to figure out who the people in the book were based on, what was true and what was fiction, etc. A couple of people were hostile in a passive-aggressive way, either opting not to read it or claiming they couldn't finish it, based on the fact it was "chick lit." I found this last response the most insulting. ...I think when men use the term "chick lit" they almost always mean it in the most dismissive way possible. Some people offered suggestions for revisions as if they didn't realize that the book has been sold and this is the version that's actually coming out in print. In short it was pretty much what writing has taught me to expect, i.e., you can't predict how people are going to react to material. Some people who you consider to be experienced readers respond in a very simplistic way, people who you think might get upset are fine, people who you never thought about reacting in a thousand years get completely ripped out of the saddle.
But the aggregate of so much feedback over the course of ten days has laid me low and made me remember why I have a policy of not showing work in process to anyone who isn't a writer. Last night I went over and watching the Dancing With the Stars finale with my writing buddy Ed and his wife, my dancing buddy Schelley. He said that she is his first reader and Dawn says Steve is her first reader, but I can't imagine using a spouse as a first reader. I'm glad it works for them but I find this mystifying and wonder if I'm doing something wrong....if I show work to non-writers it seems that have trouble seeing it as a) a story and not either a confession or some secret message to them and b) my story and not theirs. I dread the moment people who know me read my work, dread the discussions which inevitably follow....so why do I have so much trouble doing what other writers seem to do easily?
Maybe it's just a matter of the material I work with, which tends to be about suburban life in Charlotte and thus easy for people to read me or themselves into. Maybe it's the fact I seem to know a lot of blocked creatives and they can't resist hijacking any story in progress and trying to turn it into the story they'd like to write. Maybe I present things in a defensive way, unconsciously looking for trouble and ergo I find it.
I honestly don't know. I just know this has been a tough week. Dawn and I have been talking a lot and it's got me thinking that feedback comes in three forms. There are the people you don't know at all - the anonymous readers who buy or don't buy the book, the critics, the reviewers, the people who rate your book on Amazon. There are the people you know slightly - the people in the community who take offense for reasons you never could have seen coming, the friends of friends who want to be writers and who thrust their manuscripts into your hands, the people you read for at workshops or conferences. And then there is that inner circle of friends and family, the twenty or so people whose reaction could have a huge impact on your life. That's the circle where you think you'd find your most support but it's where I seem to find a strange mixture of support and trouble.
At least it's almost past me. Three people have the galleys in hand right now. After I get it back from them, I'm not going to hand it out any more. I guess I'm glad I did it, and I'm definitely glad it's over.
It started like this. My publisher sent me four sets of galleys to have when I visit workshops and conferences this summer, in case I meet someone artsy who might want to blurb the book. (Well...no one wants to blurb the book. Maybe I should say someone I can persuade to blurb it.) Since it was two weeks before the Queens session I decided this was a good chance to give some friends and family members a preview. They'll have to read it at some point and I suspected it would be upsetting for some of them. I figured this way we'd have ten months for them to read it, digest it, and get used to it before the book actually came out in print. So I start sending these four sets of galley copies around.
Some people were fine. A couple of friends/family members were very supportive and complimentary. A couple were lukewarm. A few struggled, clearly bogging down in attempts to figure out who the people in the book were based on, what was true and what was fiction, etc. A couple of people were hostile in a passive-aggressive way, either opting not to read it or claiming they couldn't finish it, based on the fact it was "chick lit." I found this last response the most insulting. ...I think when men use the term "chick lit" they almost always mean it in the most dismissive way possible. Some people offered suggestions for revisions as if they didn't realize that the book has been sold and this is the version that's actually coming out in print. In short it was pretty much what writing has taught me to expect, i.e., you can't predict how people are going to react to material. Some people who you consider to be experienced readers respond in a very simplistic way, people who you think might get upset are fine, people who you never thought about reacting in a thousand years get completely ripped out of the saddle.
But the aggregate of so much feedback over the course of ten days has laid me low and made me remember why I have a policy of not showing work in process to anyone who isn't a writer. Last night I went over and watching the Dancing With the Stars finale with my writing buddy Ed and his wife, my dancing buddy Schelley. He said that she is his first reader and Dawn says Steve is her first reader, but I can't imagine using a spouse as a first reader. I'm glad it works for them but I find this mystifying and wonder if I'm doing something wrong....if I show work to non-writers it seems that have trouble seeing it as a) a story and not either a confession or some secret message to them and b) my story and not theirs. I dread the moment people who know me read my work, dread the discussions which inevitably follow....so why do I have so much trouble doing what other writers seem to do easily?
Maybe it's just a matter of the material I work with, which tends to be about suburban life in Charlotte and thus easy for people to read me or themselves into. Maybe it's the fact I seem to know a lot of blocked creatives and they can't resist hijacking any story in progress and trying to turn it into the story they'd like to write. Maybe I present things in a defensive way, unconsciously looking for trouble and ergo I find it.
I honestly don't know. I just know this has been a tough week. Dawn and I have been talking a lot and it's got me thinking that feedback comes in three forms. There are the people you don't know at all - the anonymous readers who buy or don't buy the book, the critics, the reviewers, the people who rate your book on Amazon. There are the people you know slightly - the people in the community who take offense for reasons you never could have seen coming, the friends of friends who want to be writers and who thrust their manuscripts into your hands, the people you read for at workshops or conferences. And then there is that inner circle of friends and family, the twenty or so people whose reaction could have a huge impact on your life. That's the circle where you think you'd find your most support but it's where I seem to find a strange mixture of support and trouble.
At least it's almost past me. Three people have the galleys in hand right now. After I get it back from them, I'm not going to hand it out any more. I guess I'm glad I did it, and I'm definitely glad it's over.
Friday, March 20, 2009
Why I want to wear the turquoise dress
Went to see my therapist this morning and spent the session talking about what I'll need to do to get emotionally ready for when the book comes out in January. She sent me away with two tasks - one, to describe why I want to be an author and two, to list the things that are going well about the process. My struggles to accentuate the positive are well-documented in this blog so I've decided in this entry to discuss the first task.
So why do I want to be an author? The thing is, being an author is very different that being a writer. I always think of writer as being present tense verb-driven, i.e., someone is a writer because they write. You are an author because you have written. The word implies a finished product, probably in the form of a published book. It's more about the role you play in the world after the book is written. It's about being seen, reviewed, critiqued, idolized or rejected. It's struck me lately that the world "publication" means just what it sounds like it means - you're moving a book (and its author) from the private realm to the public realm.
And that's what I'm struggling with, this upcoming move from the world of the writer, which is private, to the world of the author, which is public. As I've said before I see my experience as a dancer as a chance to practice being more public. You can certainly dance just for the fun of dancing, with your friends or in a studio with an instructor and many good dancers never take it further. They opt not to compete - just as many good writers never seek publication. It's not like it's absolutely mandatory for any creative person to ever go public with their art. In fact, you could argue that there's a deeper beauty in not going public because you're left with the sheer joy of the activity. I know the joy of writing. I know all about that faint tingling feeling you get across the top of the skull when the work in possessing you - when it feels like you're falling. You don't have to publish to you get that feeling. In fact, publishing carries you farther away from that feeling.
So.....why be an author?
When I was getting ready to take the stage in the dance competition last weekend I saw a woman I sort-of know waiting to take her own turn on the stage and she looked terrified. She glanced at me and muttered "I don't know why I do this to myself" and indeed you can make a good argument never to do this sort of thing to yourself. Why expose yourself to the pain of being ridiculed or judged? The performance aspect of my work, whether it's dancing or writing, is never going to be as emotionally rewarding as the creative aspect...it's probably going to be a best a mixed experience and possibly a downright humiliating one.
So....why I doI want to be an author?
Here are some of my reasons:
Money ( a puny reason)
Fame (ditto - not because money or fame are puny, but because novel writing is an unlikely path to either)
I'll feel important
People will listen to me
At long last I'll be sitting at the cool kids table
I will be participating in the global exchange of ideas.
Because it's the only item on the list that doesn't make me sound like a total fool, let's ponder the last point. I was envious when I saw my friend Alison's bookshelf with the foreign editions of her novel and each time I to into a bookstore in Europe I am struck with a similar envy for the American authors whose books are on sale there. I've always wanted to be able to call myself a citizen of the world and what better way to earn that title than with international publication, the dizzying idea that someone will be sitting in a coffeeshop in Siena or Munich or Rotterdam reading my book? It's my small chance to participate in the global exchange of ideas. Just thinking of it makes me so happy I want to weep.
And then there's another point, also a little grandiose, but here goes. Once I was sitting at a sushi restaurant working on a manuscript and the waitress asked me if I was a writer, as waitresses often do. I said yes and she said "I love to read" and for a moment her face was flooded with happiness and hope. She was a dark, nearly goth looking little girl, with bitten down fingernails with green polish, someone who was trying really hard to be tough and cool but when she said "I love to read" everything in her turned porous and I could see the real person inside and she looked me right in the face, in the way few people look at each other, and she whispered "Reading sustains me."
That's it. That was all. She turned away, shut back down. But I've never forgotten her. She was right. Reading sustains people and thus writing sustains people. It's important work.
And this would be a nice way to end my list of "reasons I want to be an author," with the ideas of sustaining young gothic waitresses and participating in the international commerce of thought. A smart person would stop typing right here. But I think I'm doing an injustice to myself if I don't consider the reasons at the top of the list equally valid. The ones that sound shallow like fame and money and being important and having people listen to me. Because I want those things too. Of course, of course....I write because I love to write just like I dance because I love to dance. But there is also a time when you step forward onto the lighted stage and show yourself. When you admit how much you want it and you risk being judged. Not everyone has to go public, but I have to do it because if I'm drop-dead honest with myself it's part of the reason that I write. It's time for me to put on the turquoise dress and get comfortable with the fact that people are going to see me. I think I can get used to it. I don't think I have any choice.
So why do I want to be an author? The thing is, being an author is very different that being a writer. I always think of writer as being present tense verb-driven, i.e., someone is a writer because they write. You are an author because you have written. The word implies a finished product, probably in the form of a published book. It's more about the role you play in the world after the book is written. It's about being seen, reviewed, critiqued, idolized or rejected. It's struck me lately that the world "publication" means just what it sounds like it means - you're moving a book (and its author) from the private realm to the public realm.
And that's what I'm struggling with, this upcoming move from the world of the writer, which is private, to the world of the author, which is public. As I've said before I see my experience as a dancer as a chance to practice being more public. You can certainly dance just for the fun of dancing, with your friends or in a studio with an instructor and many good dancers never take it further. They opt not to compete - just as many good writers never seek publication. It's not like it's absolutely mandatory for any creative person to ever go public with their art. In fact, you could argue that there's a deeper beauty in not going public because you're left with the sheer joy of the activity. I know the joy of writing. I know all about that faint tingling feeling you get across the top of the skull when the work in possessing you - when it feels like you're falling. You don't have to publish to you get that feeling. In fact, publishing carries you farther away from that feeling.
So.....why be an author?
When I was getting ready to take the stage in the dance competition last weekend I saw a woman I sort-of know waiting to take her own turn on the stage and she looked terrified. She glanced at me and muttered "I don't know why I do this to myself" and indeed you can make a good argument never to do this sort of thing to yourself. Why expose yourself to the pain of being ridiculed or judged? The performance aspect of my work, whether it's dancing or writing, is never going to be as emotionally rewarding as the creative aspect...it's probably going to be a best a mixed experience and possibly a downright humiliating one.
So....why I doI want to be an author?
Here are some of my reasons:
Money ( a puny reason)
Fame (ditto - not because money or fame are puny, but because novel writing is an unlikely path to either)
I'll feel important
People will listen to me
At long last I'll be sitting at the cool kids table
I will be participating in the global exchange of ideas.
Because it's the only item on the list that doesn't make me sound like a total fool, let's ponder the last point. I was envious when I saw my friend Alison's bookshelf with the foreign editions of her novel and each time I to into a bookstore in Europe I am struck with a similar envy for the American authors whose books are on sale there. I've always wanted to be able to call myself a citizen of the world and what better way to earn that title than with international publication, the dizzying idea that someone will be sitting in a coffeeshop in Siena or Munich or Rotterdam reading my book? It's my small chance to participate in the global exchange of ideas. Just thinking of it makes me so happy I want to weep.
And then there's another point, also a little grandiose, but here goes. Once I was sitting at a sushi restaurant working on a manuscript and the waitress asked me if I was a writer, as waitresses often do. I said yes and she said "I love to read" and for a moment her face was flooded with happiness and hope. She was a dark, nearly goth looking little girl, with bitten down fingernails with green polish, someone who was trying really hard to be tough and cool but when she said "I love to read" everything in her turned porous and I could see the real person inside and she looked me right in the face, in the way few people look at each other, and she whispered "Reading sustains me."
That's it. That was all. She turned away, shut back down. But I've never forgotten her. She was right. Reading sustains people and thus writing sustains people. It's important work.
And this would be a nice way to end my list of "reasons I want to be an author," with the ideas of sustaining young gothic waitresses and participating in the international commerce of thought. A smart person would stop typing right here. But I think I'm doing an injustice to myself if I don't consider the reasons at the top of the list equally valid. The ones that sound shallow like fame and money and being important and having people listen to me. Because I want those things too. Of course, of course....I write because I love to write just like I dance because I love to dance. But there is also a time when you step forward onto the lighted stage and show yourself. When you admit how much you want it and you risk being judged. Not everyone has to go public, but I have to do it because if I'm drop-dead honest with myself it's part of the reason that I write. It's time for me to put on the turquoise dress and get comfortable with the fact that people are going to see me. I think I can get used to it. I don't think I have any choice.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Feeling Like a Cop
Somebody once told me that being a writer is like being a cop - long stretches of boredom periodically punctuated with little blips of pure terror. That's been re-proven to me in the last couple of days.
To recap: I have one book "in the works" that my agent sold about a year ago and which is due to publish about a year from now. In other words I am at the exact midpoint of a two year publication process. I have no idea why it takes this long. My editor required virually no rewrites and just a couple of small additions which I had in within a month of the purchase. But never mind, everyone assures me that this is how the process works. So in the meantime I'm sitting in my squad car, eating donuts and casing the joint.
Uh oh....movement. This could be good or bad but either way it feels a little surreal because after hours and days and weeks and months Something Is Getting Ready to Happen.
There's two reasons why this shouldn't surprise me. For starters I know that the publishing world works like this. On the Thursday before Christmas someone at my publishing house wrote me an email saying they needed a picture of me for the catalogue. A picture with all these stipulations about pixel size and high def and all these photographic terms I didn't get....but suffice to say not the type of picture a friend takes out in the yard with her iphone. A very high tech specific type of picture and they needed it the next day.
Luckily, I had exactly what they were looking for, since just the month before I'd been at MacDowell Colony and part of the deal there is that they send a very nice photographer named Jo around to take professional pictures of the artists "at work." In some cases, I imagine this could lead to cool pictures - a violinist or sculptor at work might actually be an interesting sight to see. But what could be more boring than a picture of a writer writing? Jo had been doing this for years and she was great - helped me to relax, kept snapping while we were chatting. And the the result was several nice pictures of me gazing out at the distance with a kind of alertness, sort of like the expression of a coon hound on the scent. I bought a few copies of them, one for my mom for Christmas. So I happened through the wildest of coincidences to have a recent picture of the type they needed but this is just how it all works. You don't hear from anybody for forever when you get an email on Thursday saying they need something by Friday. Nothing....nothing.....emergency.....nothing.
The second reason I should have seen this present situation coming is that I invited it on myself. I want to sell my second book, the one I'm working on now and I would dearly love to sell it off a proprosal and sample chapters, i.e., to get enough money in the hopper to sustain me while I finish the book. Not only would this help my cash flow situation (which is at present pretty stagnant) but it would also ensure that the second book would be locked and loaded and ready for release fairly soon after the first one. My fantasy is that the first book will be popular with book clubs - I think it's slanted toward that kind of reader - and I know from past experience with my own book club that once people read an author that they like to read something else by that author in pretty short order. My book club got on jags where we'd read four or five books by the same person in a row and I don't think that's uncommon. So it makes sense to me that by the time Love in Mid-Air is ready to go into paperback, I should have The Gods of Arizona ready to come out in hardback. Which means it's time to get moving.
Of course a lot of things that make sense to me don't seem to fly in the world of publishing so I ran this idea by my agent without particularly high hopes. Sent him an email yesterday asking if he'd like me to come up with a proposal and sample chapters for the second book with the idea of showing them to my existing editor. The second book is a sequel to the first so it's hard to imagine she wouldn't be willing to at least look at the proposal....
So I sent my agent an email and he wrote back pronto and said yeah, to come up with a proposal and sample chapters and we'd take it from there. And now I'm in a tizzy. Not so much the samples - I got a couple of chapters in pretty good shape for my reading at MacDowell, but writing a plot summary is tough. I asked for this job but when he said yeah, go ahead, I felt a little freaked out. Makes no sense, I know, but welcome to the glamorous world of being a novelist. I'm excited. I'm edgy. I want to show the second one. I'm scared to show the second one. I have plenty to show. I don't have enough to show. I want them to commit to me. I don't want to be locked in. Sometimes I think I became a writer only because I'm not sure how to spell the word "schtizophrenic."
To recap: I have one book "in the works" that my agent sold about a year ago and which is due to publish about a year from now. In other words I am at the exact midpoint of a two year publication process. I have no idea why it takes this long. My editor required virually no rewrites and just a couple of small additions which I had in within a month of the purchase. But never mind, everyone assures me that this is how the process works. So in the meantime I'm sitting in my squad car, eating donuts and casing the joint.
Uh oh....movement. This could be good or bad but either way it feels a little surreal because after hours and days and weeks and months Something Is Getting Ready to Happen.
There's two reasons why this shouldn't surprise me. For starters I know that the publishing world works like this. On the Thursday before Christmas someone at my publishing house wrote me an email saying they needed a picture of me for the catalogue. A picture with all these stipulations about pixel size and high def and all these photographic terms I didn't get....but suffice to say not the type of picture a friend takes out in the yard with her iphone. A very high tech specific type of picture and they needed it the next day.
Luckily, I had exactly what they were looking for, since just the month before I'd been at MacDowell Colony and part of the deal there is that they send a very nice photographer named Jo around to take professional pictures of the artists "at work." In some cases, I imagine this could lead to cool pictures - a violinist or sculptor at work might actually be an interesting sight to see. But what could be more boring than a picture of a writer writing? Jo had been doing this for years and she was great - helped me to relax, kept snapping while we were chatting. And the the result was several nice pictures of me gazing out at the distance with a kind of alertness, sort of like the expression of a coon hound on the scent. I bought a few copies of them, one for my mom for Christmas. So I happened through the wildest of coincidences to have a recent picture of the type they needed but this is just how it all works. You don't hear from anybody for forever when you get an email on Thursday saying they need something by Friday. Nothing....nothing.....emergency.....nothing.
The second reason I should have seen this present situation coming is that I invited it on myself. I want to sell my second book, the one I'm working on now and I would dearly love to sell it off a proprosal and sample chapters, i.e., to get enough money in the hopper to sustain me while I finish the book. Not only would this help my cash flow situation (which is at present pretty stagnant) but it would also ensure that the second book would be locked and loaded and ready for release fairly soon after the first one. My fantasy is that the first book will be popular with book clubs - I think it's slanted toward that kind of reader - and I know from past experience with my own book club that once people read an author that they like to read something else by that author in pretty short order. My book club got on jags where we'd read four or five books by the same person in a row and I don't think that's uncommon. So it makes sense to me that by the time Love in Mid-Air is ready to go into paperback, I should have The Gods of Arizona ready to come out in hardback. Which means it's time to get moving.
Of course a lot of things that make sense to me don't seem to fly in the world of publishing so I ran this idea by my agent without particularly high hopes. Sent him an email yesterday asking if he'd like me to come up with a proposal and sample chapters for the second book with the idea of showing them to my existing editor. The second book is a sequel to the first so it's hard to imagine she wouldn't be willing to at least look at the proposal....
So I sent my agent an email and he wrote back pronto and said yeah, to come up with a proposal and sample chapters and we'd take it from there. And now I'm in a tizzy. Not so much the samples - I got a couple of chapters in pretty good shape for my reading at MacDowell, but writing a plot summary is tough. I asked for this job but when he said yeah, go ahead, I felt a little freaked out. Makes no sense, I know, but welcome to the glamorous world of being a novelist. I'm excited. I'm edgy. I want to show the second one. I'm scared to show the second one. I have plenty to show. I don't have enough to show. I want them to commit to me. I don't want to be locked in. Sometimes I think I became a writer only because I'm not sure how to spell the word "schtizophrenic."
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