It seems like everywhere you look around on line the news about publishing is a real downer. Numbers are down, reading is down, agent responses are down. Writers are finding it hard to keep up with all that's going down!
So what's a writer to do? What else? Keep writing, baby.
Okay, so you may have to do it with a new aim, a new direction, a new medium but if you think about it, that can be exciting too. It may not have the opportunity for the kind of financial gain many of us have dreamed of but there is still that whole - I write because I have to, I write because I can't NOT write factor which, as much as I love the day the check arrives, is the big takeaway for most writers in the long run. People will still be using words for at least a little while now ;)
and words are your domain. Use them. Keep stringing them together. Keep honing your craft and keep your eyes open for opportunities to apply all that.
The way to keep up is not to slow down. The way to Stay Up is to Never Give Up!
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Life's Too Short Lists - What's on your plate?
Years ago I heard Susan Elizabeth Phillips give this advice to writers - do your career a favor and stay off your editor's "Life's Too Short" list. As in, Life's too short to put up with this person.
I have tried to conduct my career that way, sometimes seeing people who are a whole walking Life's Too Short List unto themselves get ahead and grab great deals or good PR or spots on panels advising others or whatever. They rarely last, but still, it stings.
But that's not the point. Yes, if I were a better person and a more conscientious writer, that not the point part would be edited out. Guess I'm a bit petty and lazy.
THE POINT is Life IS too short for a lot of things and this weekend, I got out a blank journal and started making a list.
Life is Too Short - to eat garbage.
A revelation came to me when we went to Paul's Fruit market full of locally grown lovely fruit and veggies then on our way home made a stop at Taco Bell and felt blah the rest of the day.
I live in a city (and a country, for that matter) where amazing, wonderful, healthy, interesting and plentiful foods are available year round. Not always cheaply but then if I ate less and ate better, the benefits would outweigh the costs (and I might not outweigh a small Volkswagon!)
Monday made eggplant/zucchini/shallots/mushrooms/roasted tomatoes/garlic and rigatoni.
Yesterday ate BBQ from a guy by the side of the road yesterday (yes, that counts, it was REAL meat (he only made smoked pork butt - oh and lots of jokes about people taking a bite out of his butt etc. I took it from the hands of the guy who cooked it, and it was pretty darn good.
Today - don't know what on my plate but it won't be junk. Life's Too Short.
This no garbage philosophy can apply to writing, of course, and reading. Maybe I should write less and be happier with the quality. Well, good news, I've been doing that, which may also contribute to weight loss because I haven't gotten a contract this year! Trying to look at it all in a new way...
What's on your Life's Too Short to... List?
I have tried to conduct my career that way, sometimes seeing people who are a whole walking Life's Too Short List unto themselves get ahead and grab great deals or good PR or spots on panels advising others or whatever. They rarely last, but still, it stings.
But that's not the point. Yes, if I were a better person and a more conscientious writer, that not the point part would be edited out. Guess I'm a bit petty and lazy.
THE POINT is Life IS too short for a lot of things and this weekend, I got out a blank journal and started making a list.
Life is Too Short - to eat garbage.
A revelation came to me when we went to Paul's Fruit market full of locally grown lovely fruit and veggies then on our way home made a stop at Taco Bell and felt blah the rest of the day.
I live in a city (and a country, for that matter) where amazing, wonderful, healthy, interesting and plentiful foods are available year round. Not always cheaply but then if I ate less and ate better, the benefits would outweigh the costs (and I might not outweigh a small Volkswagon!)
Monday made eggplant/zucchini/shallots/mushrooms/roasted tomatoes/garlic and rigatoni.
Yesterday ate BBQ from a guy by the side of the road yesterday (yes, that counts, it was REAL meat (he only made smoked pork butt - oh and lots of jokes about people taking a bite out of his butt etc. I took it from the hands of the guy who cooked it, and it was pretty darn good.
Today - don't know what on my plate but it won't be junk. Life's Too Short.
This no garbage philosophy can apply to writing, of course, and reading. Maybe I should write less and be happier with the quality. Well, good news, I've been doing that, which may also contribute to weight loss because I haven't gotten a contract this year! Trying to look at it all in a new way...
What's on your Life's Too Short to... List?
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Words Is Sneaky
I don't mean the way words sometimes say things we didn't intend, or that we DID intend but thought we were so clever that we had tucked the meaning down deep inside but it came shining right through anyway. That would be tricky. Make no mistake -- words is tricky.
But they are also sneaky. As in they sneak up on you. Usually when you are doing things that make it hard to catch them. Like when you send a note to an editor and say "I have this great idea for a book that would be a great idea for a series, would you be interested?" and the editors says "yes". That's when the words -- not necessarily the words you expected -- will start swirling, and stewing, and simmering and brewing. Glug. Glub. Blub. Surprise!
They have formed themselves into a whole 'nother story and climbed from the primordial ooze that is the writer's mind fully formed. Well, as formed as words ever get, which is pretty loose. Sometimes they stand there demanding attention until you crawl into your chair and decide to get them in shape. Sometimes the take off and carry you right along with them. Sometimes they growl at you and snap and slither under the porch and you know those words and their story will be with you a while before you can poke them enough to get them out and onto the page.
Writers talk about books being like children? Well, they are (not that my children ever slithered under the porch but as teens, they did scurry into their rooms for extended periods of time) Words, like kids, keep you up nights, thought. They make you laugh and cry and doubt yourself. They don't always behave the way you'd like.
So be warned. Words is sneaky. They may be lurking around you right now, waiting for a moment to start ganging up on you.
Annie sighs and thinks of that great idea she pitched the editor that she can't seem to write the first scene for then at the book that she IS working on that is SO NOT what she wanted to do in so many ways.
Sneaky, I tells ya.
But they are also sneaky. As in they sneak up on you. Usually when you are doing things that make it hard to catch them. Like when you send a note to an editor and say "I have this great idea for a book that would be a great idea for a series, would you be interested?" and the editors says "yes". That's when the words -- not necessarily the words you expected -- will start swirling, and stewing, and simmering and brewing. Glug. Glub. Blub. Surprise!
They have formed themselves into a whole 'nother story and climbed from the primordial ooze that is the writer's mind fully formed. Well, as formed as words ever get, which is pretty loose. Sometimes they stand there demanding attention until you crawl into your chair and decide to get them in shape. Sometimes the take off and carry you right along with them. Sometimes they growl at you and snap and slither under the porch and you know those words and their story will be with you a while before you can poke them enough to get them out and onto the page.
Writers talk about books being like children? Well, they are (not that my children ever slithered under the porch but as teens, they did scurry into their rooms for extended periods of time) Words, like kids, keep you up nights, thought. They make you laugh and cry and doubt yourself. They don't always behave the way you'd like.
So be warned. Words is sneaky. They may be lurking around you right now, waiting for a moment to start ganging up on you.
Annie sighs and thinks of that great idea she pitched the editor that she can't seem to write the first scene for then at the book that she IS working on that is SO NOT what she wanted to do in so many ways.
Sneaky, I tells ya.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Spring Cleaning your Brain
Today it finally dawned on me that I need to get rid of a lot of stuff that has been cluttering up my mind. It's not all rubbish but it's just not useful to me anymore, if it ever was.
I am going to start with all the writer's advice online that claims they have the sure fire way to write a book that will:
1)grab an editor's attention and lead to that fab book deal of your dreams
2)be a surefire bestseller
3)prove you are a good writer and not some hack like those people with millions of books in print and a huge readership.
Right now the buzz topic is the first page - a while back it was the first sentence - and how you have to basically perform magic on the first page and all short of that is unworthy. Then writers who I assume are a-ok and certainly have some books to their names proceed to tell us how to do that. Here's what not to do (no prologue, no weather, no introspection, no action, no dialog whatever), here's what you have to do (make reader care from the first syllable, get setting, character backstory, tone of book, emotion, action, hooks, cure diseases, share secrets of great wealth in the first sentence, first page).
Rarely do they recognize that many, many well reviewed and mega selling books don't do these things, so they do not study HOW these books work w/o the benefit of their quick tip list for how to write a first page. Not all books are the same and not all readers want the same thing.
First page anxiety has me frozen. The stupid thing is the advice is being pushed by writers I don't read or actually respect in a big way (not saying they don't deserve respect, saying they are not my cuppa and not one of the ones who is inside my head has a big enough career for me to say - well, they must KNOW what they are doing). So it has to go.
Out the window.
It feels a little roomier in here already!
I will write the first page and then the next and then the next and then....
I am going to start with all the writer's advice online that claims they have the sure fire way to write a book that will:
1)grab an editor's attention and lead to that fab book deal of your dreams
2)be a surefire bestseller
3)prove you are a good writer and not some hack like those people with millions of books in print and a huge readership.
Right now the buzz topic is the first page - a while back it was the first sentence - and how you have to basically perform magic on the first page and all short of that is unworthy. Then writers who I assume are a-ok and certainly have some books to their names proceed to tell us how to do that. Here's what not to do (no prologue, no weather, no introspection, no action, no dialog whatever), here's what you have to do (make reader care from the first syllable, get setting, character backstory, tone of book, emotion, action, hooks, cure diseases, share secrets of great wealth in the first sentence, first page).
Rarely do they recognize that many, many well reviewed and mega selling books don't do these things, so they do not study HOW these books work w/o the benefit of their quick tip list for how to write a first page. Not all books are the same and not all readers want the same thing.
First page anxiety has me frozen. The stupid thing is the advice is being pushed by writers I don't read or actually respect in a big way (not saying they don't deserve respect, saying they are not my cuppa and not one of the ones who is inside my head has a big enough career for me to say - well, they must KNOW what they are doing). So it has to go.
Out the window.
It feels a little roomier in here already!
I will write the first page and then the next and then the next and then....
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Stolen Moments
It's April Fool's Day. I'm a writer. That's like an engraved invite to be totally outrageous in posting, well, anything today. I sat here for an hour trying to think of something funny and... nope. Nothing. Because right now my life is stressful and a bit uncertain. I don't laugh much anymore. The circumstances (that I know will pass, but still, they are here right now kicking my behind and weighing on my mind - no that does not mean my mind is in my behind!). They are not stealing my greater joy, but they are stealing moments of laughter, of sweetness, of productivity, of hope. IOW I am no fun lately.
I was going to go on about that but then as I was posting an email came through - a friend who's husband has been in the hospital for the better part of a year now wanted prayers for her mother in law who has cancer. Suddenly my problems seem pretty silly.
So instead of whining about the moments being stolen by thoughtless people, by the realities of the economy, by the shifting publishing marketplace, the shortcomings around my home and the distance between me and my family (who I'm convinced could make me laugh again, even if they didn't do anything but show up!), I am on my knees in gratitude for stolen moments. How wonderful that I do not feel the need to steal away from my life to grab at things that will never really make me happy. How precious to be in a position to pray for others. How sweet is this day.
Nothing can steal this realization from me - God is good and I am His.
I was going to go on about that but then as I was posting an email came through - a friend who's husband has been in the hospital for the better part of a year now wanted prayers for her mother in law who has cancer. Suddenly my problems seem pretty silly.
So instead of whining about the moments being stolen by thoughtless people, by the realities of the economy, by the shifting publishing marketplace, the shortcomings around my home and the distance between me and my family (who I'm convinced could make me laugh again, even if they didn't do anything but show up!), I am on my knees in gratitude for stolen moments. How wonderful that I do not feel the need to steal away from my life to grab at things that will never really make me happy. How precious to be in a position to pray for others. How sweet is this day.
Nothing can steal this realization from me - God is good and I am His.
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