Is Writing a Really Good Book Enough?

I did a chat with the FFP gals last night and for the first time I was tempted to say one of the things I hear authors say that really annoy me.

One of the gals asked how to get published with Carina Press, because they're really difficult to get in with. I wanted to say, well, they're really picky and are pushing for a high-quality brand, so write something very good.

As regular readers know, I hate it when authors give publishing advice along the lines of "write a really good book."

I dislike this advice for three reasons:

1. It's self-evident. OF COURSE you have to write something good. Nobody tries to write bad stuff. Sometimes we don't push the story or the characters as hard as we should. Sometimes we don't revise enough, or polish enough. But everybody wants their stories to be good. This is akin to the advice to send in your best, most polished work. It implies that there's some kind of external, quantifiable standard for that. Wouldn't it be nice if writing was like chemistry and the document changed into a different color when you hit the correct amount of revision? Bing! Now it is GOOD.

Yeah, dream on.

2. It's pompous. I know I've been on this tear lately, but it's obnoxious when authors preen and suggest to the questioners that, to follow in the author's footsteps, the would-be just needs to gain that level of awesomesauce. If you say "to do what I did, you need to write a really good book" implies that your talent and skill just rises above everyone else's like it's ensured by the laws of physics.

And it's not true, because:

3. It's not enough to write a really good book. It has to be the right story, told in the right voice, that pleases the right editor, who convinces the right marketers that the right readers are out there to buy it.

So, I restrained myself from popping out the easy answer. Instead I told them what kind of stories Carina likes. I told them what my editor looks for and what my process was. I offered some leads to research their acquisitions editors, because I believe knowledge and networking always gives more power.

And I'm going to work on that answer.

Sunsets, Lenses and Second Opinions

This is the same sunset that I posted a picture of on Tuesday. I took the two photos only minutes apart, but with different lenses.

I would say that I was being a good kitty and practicing to see what different lenses would do, but in truth, I forgot the telephoto lens was on there instead of the broader landscape lens. Some of the difference is that the telephoto lens focused in on a smaller part of the sky. But you can also see that the longer focal length (shorter focal length? My college physics professor is shaking his head) changes the perspective so that different shapes and colors predominate.

It's common advice these days to always obtain a second opinion on medical diagnoses. In fact, articles recommend that, if your doctor doesn't like the idea of you getting a second opinion, then that's a big red flag. Patients can be misdiagnosed 25 to 50% of the time, depending on whose numbers you look at. Is this because 25 to to 50% of doctors are idiots? Well... Okay, no no no, it's not. It's because everyone brings a different lens to the table. Where one person sees the whole sky, another sees just one peak against a wash of crimson.

This is why having a writing group or multiple critique partners can be very important. It's not that half of them could be flat wrong. (Well, depends on the CP, eh?) It's more that each reader sees the story through a different lens. What's a glaring problem to one, another breezes right past. It's important to carefully consider the feedback a reader gives you, just as you would a medical diagnosis, but it's equally important to evaluate it in context of how other readers see it.

I was in a writers group for many years where one member would change every single thing anyone criticized about her story. We worked mainly short stories and essays in that group, so the revision process was fairly fast. She brought the same story back to the group several times, looking for that perfect, thumbs-up moment. Finally, on somewhere around the fourth time she brought it to the group, someone pointed out that, as a critique group, someone would always find something for her to fix. This idea she had in her head that at some point we would declare it scintillatingly perfect would never occur. That only she could decide when it was done.

In the end, only one perspective is the definitive one: whichever sings to you.

Creation, Destruction and Writing

A lot of writer's blogs give writing advice.

I'm not entirely comfortable with this.

Never mind the whole question of at what point in your career are you really qualified to offer advice on the art and craft of writing. I really couldn't say. But I notice that people often pass around the same "lessons" on how you should do things. Frequently this kind of teaching is repeating what someone has told them, rather than from experience.

We used to run into this kind of thing with Kung Fu.

I studied and helped teach some of the Taoist arts for about 15 years. The three major internal arts, Tai Chi, Pakua and Hsing-I, are often presented as arts for lifetime practice. Like most arts, it takes time to learn the forms, the movements and the rules. Then you practice. Over time, you make it your own. Like most Taoist approaches, results are measured by your internal barometer. There are no real external markers for success.

Of course, our society isn't much for long-term anything and we're all about external markers of success.

Thus the weekend seminars where people learn Tai Chi, and then go teach it. To me this is a lot like passing along writing lessons that aren't from actual experience.

So, I rarely give writing advice, except to talk about an experience.

I'm breaking that rule today.

I notice a lot of people complain about getting stuck in their manuscripts. Always at the same place. For some it's starting, for others finishing. A lot of people hate the middle.

This isn't just about writing a novel, it's about dealing with all of life.

So, I give you the cycle of the five elements here. If you're familiar with this sort of thing, you'll know the principles of the five elements form the foundation for much of the Oriental philosophies. Yeah, I'm lumping India in with the Orient.

Here's a nice simple chart. There are some abysmally complex ones out there, but we're keeping this simple. So a basic way to read this is, water grows wood, wood burns into fire, fire reduces to ashy earth, earth transforms into metals and metals reduce back into simple water. Don't get caught up in the logic - suffice to say their idea of "metal" is a bit different.



Instead, look at it this way.


No, I'm not just randomly substituting. Birth is like water, like the primordial sea that is the beginning. Wood is growth, like the forests, plants and vines covering the world. Maturity is the fire, the balance between growth and decline. It can be nurtured to last a long time or can be a flash and disappear. Earth is the decline, the sinking back of growth into the ground. Death is the endpoint that cycles back into birth.

That's one of the points. This isn't a straight line; it's a circle. Death makes birth possible.

You can match this to the seasons, too: Spring is birth, followed by summer, a moment or forever of midsummer, the decline of autumn and the death of winter - which gives way again to spring.

So, at last, my point:

We can apply this to writing our stories and novels. The analogy should be clear by now. You have your beginning that sets the stage, the growth of the story, the middle, which often contains the turning point, then the the decline, the wrapping up of the story and the ending.

Most of us are better at some points in the cycle than others. In our hearts, we already know which parts of life we struggle with. Some can start things; some can't end them. Some get stuck between growth and decline with no understanding of what to do with it.

One writer-friend of mine has a hard time with decline, for example. She hates to let things go. Once they're already declined, she can let them go into death, but she has a tendency to try to keep things from declining. That's where she gets stuck.

Me? I don't like killing things off. I like things to last forever. So I practice. I try to embrace the end of things in my life. Kill it off and let it go.

I'm not necessarily good at it.

Ah, but the birth that follows is a glorious thing.

In Progress

And they said it wouldn't get done...

(For the "before" picture, see here.)

Special bonus points if you can spot the New Mexican wildlife in the background. (And no, I didn't notice she was there when I snapped the photo.)

I always liked the idea of Sundays as a day of rest. Or, rather, I like that concept, as in Orthodox Juadism of setting aside an entire 24-hour period away from the work and busyness of life. To contemplate the nature of God or the universe. To study. To rest and reflect.

I also like the idea of being cloistered for religious contemplation and I'm not about to do that either.

Sunday is almost always catch-up day for me. It certainly was yesterday. I cleaned both the house and the front and back gardens. Fortunately this also counts as exercise. But I did begin the day with writing. Writing only on my novel. I typically don't post to the blog on Sundays. That's one little rest I give myself as a matter of ritual.

Sundays are also different writing days, because my Progress Count spreadsheet resets itself. I begin by wordcounts anew for the following week. There's this pristine quality to it because Sunday is the only day that progress for the day matches progress for the week. It would make more sense if I showed it to you and I'm not going to do that because people tend to freak out when I show them my spreadsheets.

My own little way of being anal.

On Saturday I went to a meeting of the Land of Enchantment Romance Authors (LERA) and this multi-published gal gave a presentation on her method of pre-plotting a novel. She does sticky notes. She does 3X5 cards. Then she types it all into a massive flow chart, scene by scene, prints out the pages and glue-sticks them together to make an accordion-fold map. It's her process and it works for her.

I thought about what I would do, if someone asks me to present on my process. Since a lot of that process involves staring into space, I don't think it would make for an interesting presentation. (Gardening, incidentally, is excellent for this kind of process.) I could, however, show people my spreadsheets.

This gal tartly noted that she gets checks in the mailbox for her work, as an argument to the folks who thought her technique seemed over the top. She feels this organization is key to her success. The pre-plotters have a knack for making those of us who dream our way through our books feel, well, like slackers.

That's why I have my spreadsheets, I realized. I track my target finish date - yes, I use functions in Excel to calculate my projected wordcount and current rate of progress against today's date. And I have the cells conditionally formatted to be yellow and say "not yet" or green for "yes!" depending on whether I've met the goal that cell represents.

Say what you will about rats pulling levers to get cheese cubes: I love to watch my cells turn green.

Is this a little bit nutty? Well sure, or people wouldn't freak out to see it. Does it work for me?

I sure think so.

I mean, I'm not getting checks in the mailbox. Not yet. But someday that will be a Yes!

Besides, I prefer direct deposit.

Edumacation

A writer friend of mine who won a scholarship to Breadloaf, reported on her return that she'd turned down the critique from the famous author that was part of prize. My friend's novel had won a contest and the famous author was to read it and give her feedback at the conference.

"But I told her I felt I was beyond that now, that I didn't need more critique. So we just talked in general, about life and the business."

I think it startled us all a bit at the time -- her writers group -- because it seemed, well, arrogant. Our friend felt the other author wasn't any better than she was. Our friend wanted to be one of the pantheon, not one of the supplicants.

Don't we all.

It's a good question: when do you stop taking classes? When have you "made" it and no longer need anyone else's input?

Faith Hunter, whose books I really enjoy, posted on Facebook this morning that she has published "20 books and I feel like [Skinwalker] is the first." She's living Madonna's "Like a Virgin," she says, because she feels this one might be IT.

One thing I've noticed over time is that the published authors agonize as much as the trying-to-get-published ones. That's how life is. The ancient Greeks said you couldn't "rest on your laurels," referring to the crown of laurels awarded in athletic competitions. You only are what you're doing right now. Credit for past accomplishments depreciates rapidly over time. Before you know it, you're in a "What Happened to..." feature. Presuming you were ever interesting enough to rate that much.

Continuing to grow and learn is part of this.

There's also an idea that an artist can be contaminated by classes or writing workshops. That the originality of her work can be damaged forever. I do believe this can happen, like the phenomenon of the MFA workshopping, which tends to produce writing of a particular literary style, to the point that you can recognize writers from a particular MFA program by the "sound" of their work.

I'm currently taking an online class on plotting. This is in line with my recent efforts to see how I can change my writing style at will. As a writer, I never plot things out ahead of time. I have a general idea of where the story is going, but how I get there is always a surprise.

But I'm not liking this class at all.

And I'm torn: is it because I'm resisting changing my approach or is it because the class really is functioning at a level below my skills? One gal I know already quit the class for this reason. I'm still wondering if I should at least complete the lessons, basic as they may seem, for the exercise of it. But every time one of my classmates exclaims "oh THIS is why I could never finish a book!" I wonder.

It's a constant choice, when to be confident and when to accept that you can improve. Maybe we need our own little mantra for this, praying for the wisdom to know the difference.

The Rest of the Story

So, I've found myself explaining to various wonderfully supportive friends and family types how the whole "refining my craft vs. selling out" crisis is going, over IM and email.

I figure I'll write out the update here, then I can tell people just to go read my blog, which saves me typing the same stuff over and over, and has the bonus of irritating people, because I've found most people really hate being told to read my blog. It's the techno version of "come over and see my slide show of my vacation and I'll tell you about it then." Beware of expressing idle interest in someone else's obsession -- you'll regret it sooner or later.

For those listeners at home who may just be tuning in, I've been working this last week on trying to discern where the two different voices are in my novel, that this agent identified as conflicting with each other, to the detriment of the book. One is a more commercial voice and one more literary. Guess which has to go?

David, the love of my life, offered to have me read it aloud to him. This is a big favor, because he doesn't really read fiction. I did once read the entire Ender/Speaker for the Dead series to him over a summer of road trips. Now that we have more comfortable incomes we usually fly places and have very few road trips.

So, I printed out the first couple of chapters, read them to him and he stopped me anytime he lost the thread of the story or thought it got vague. Which ended up being a lot. It's a good thing he loves me because at one point when he stopped me, I snapped "What? I don't get ANY description?!?"

But I marked all those sections and our relationship survived and was fully repaired over cocktail hour. It's funny, because the agent told me that if I could make the fixes, she'd love to see it again, but that she also understood that this was the "hardest and most emotionally frustrating part of the process." And she wished me luck. Turns out I needed it.

The next morning, I sat down to revise. And decided pretty quickly that David was an idiot who had no idea what he was talking about. All the stuff he picked out was really good stuff.

Just then, an email arrived from a contest I failed to final in, with comments from the judges. Now, I've pretty much stopped reading judge's comments. I enter the contests for the opportunity to put my novel in front of editors and agents if I final. If I don't final, most of the time it's because at least one judge REALLY HATED my book. Like giving me a 50% score hated. Usually the other judge will give me a nearly perfect score. So between the two, I don't get super-useful feedback. Just the love/hate thing.

But I decided to look at these comments, to see if any of theirs coincided with what David identified. These scores turned out to be unusual because all three judges ranked me highly, with just enough points taken off to keep me from finalling. And they ALL picked on the exact thing the agent pointed out. And their comments? Yes: exactly the sections David thought slowed the story.

Another writer friend told me she read her novel to her tattoo-artist boyfriend, who was not a reader, but spends his days talking to people. She says "I'd want to kick him when he'd stop me and say 'what? wait? what?' But he was invariably right.'"

There's been discussion lately on the FFP loop, about finding someone to critique your work who understands your particular sub-genre. Several people have chimed in that their best critiquers don't write anything remotely the same, but they know a good story.

I lost a page and a half in the revision of Chapter 1. I read it again to David and he didn't stop me once. He was surprised when I stopped at the end of the chapter, he was so caught up in the story.

So, yes, it's painful. But I see that I can do it now. One of the judges clearly also writes in first person and she warned me to watch out for "I wondered," "I thought," "I saw," "I heard" and "I noticed," as constructions that yank the reader out of deep POV (point of view). She means that it brings in the narrative voice and the reader loses the sense of being in the character's head. She's dead right. I've been searching for those phrases and they cluster in the "slow" sections. Alas.

I suppose it's part of life, that you never stop discovering new flaws. As you get things polished and handled, new problems are revealed.

Guess I won't run out of stuff to do!

Not Meant to Be

When I started this blog, I made myself a deal that I could blog about whatever was on my mind at that moment.

This was mainly intended to cut myself some slack and relieve some of the pressure that I imagined posting every day would create. After all, I have rules about my other writing: how much I need to write every day, what I can work on. All designed to keep me focused and moving forward. For the blog, while I keep a list of ideas for those days when my mind is blank, I thought it would be easier just to "let" myself write about whatever struck my fancy.

It's become a very different exercise over time. Several times, I've hesitated to write what was on my mind, because I thought it might annoy people or because it felt too intimate to throw out there. At those times, I reminded myself of my rule, which now had a double edge. Not only could I write whatever was on my mind, I should. It's been interesting, because those things I most hesitated to throw out there are the ones that people have commented on most. And usually not in a mean way.

My friend commented that this is like public journalling. And while I bridle at that idea, I think she has a point. Perhaps all personal essays are a form of public journalling. While I don't regard myself as an especially confessional person, it is important to me to explore life through writing. My head is the only one I get to be inside, so I am my own experimental subject. Subject A. All of my observations are terribly subjective and I have an "n" of one.

Alas.

A couple of readers have commented that lately I "sound" weary or stressed. My first reaction was to clean that up. Some of it is vanity, I suppose, wanting to present a good front. I also want this to be interesting and I suspect my angst isn't all that fascinating.

But I go back to the rule. Life isn't always about the perkitude.

Last night my dream prom date rejected me. I got The Email, which is the antipode of The Call. If it's true that the agents call only if they're interested, then it's equally true that, once they have your full manuscript and are deciding whether to represent you, they only email if it's a no.

It's a long an detailed email, full of really useful feedback and some less so. This is one of the hardest parts of the writing business, deciding which criticisms to take and when to stick to your own belief in what you're trying to do. It's easy to be too stubborn, to refuse to change in the face of good advice. You also run the risk of trying to be everything to everyone, following everyone else's direction until what you've written is, at best, no longer your own, and at worst, a muddled mess of nothing.

The wonderful author Cynthia Eden (who has a new book coming out that she's giving away, so I'm giving her a shameless plug here) gave me some good advice. She said she uses the rule of three: that if she gets the same criticism three times from different sources, she takes a hard look at it. This is maybe simple advice, but it comes at a good time for me.

I still have my other potential prom date, so we'll see how that goes. We'll see what her criticisms are, as she did indicate she had things for me to fix. Which is fine, if they'll really improve the book and if her plan is a good one.

The worst thing about not getting invited to the prom, is the fear that you'll never get to go. Which is, of course, a complete loss of perspective. There are other proms, other dances. Hell, you can put on a pretty dress and dance in your living room. Just because you thought something was coming together in a seredipitous way, that it might be meant to be, doesn't mean it is.

My friend, the writer Julianne Couch, says she doesn't believe in "meant to be." In the same breath she worried about a piece of carpet being unhappy, since it was uselessly stored in her garage. "You don't believe in fate, but you believe in the sentience of inanimate objects?" I asked her. She blinked at me and said "Yes, I just don't believe in the big animate carpet in the sky directing our lives."

I don't either. Carpet is carpet. I think it's fair to say it's "happiest" when its doing a carpet job. I write for much that same reason. And I'm reliably informed by writers who write for a living that I'm lucky that my salary is not connected to what I write; I have a freedom they don't have.

Today, Subject A will revisit her goals as a writer. Interesting that my heroine is always seeking to answer the same question: what do I really want?

So many things.

"Keep your temper," said the Caterpillar

Advice is a funny thing. You have to be careful who you get it from. Or perhaps, it doesn't really matter who you get it from, as long as you know which advice to pay attention to and which to jettison. Of course, the advice givers all seem to whole-heartedly believe their advice is the best. They'd like you to think so. As I grow more cynical over the years, I've come to believe that some people deliberately give bad advice. Maybe it would be kinder to say: advice that they've tailored to match what they think you should be doing.

There's an art to knowing who to listen to. Maybe an art to knowing who to ask and a craft to knowing who to listen to. On a writers loop I receive, one gal asked for advice from pubbed authors on a contest she was considering entering for unpubbed authors. It was clear she'd mistaken the rules and several other unpubbed authors chimed in helpfully, because they also intended to enter the contest and pointed out her misunderstanding. The original questioner came back that she had asked only the pubbed authors and would only listen to their advice.

The best part of this is that "pubbed" in this context refers only to romance novels. RWA recognizes you as a published author only if you've published in the genre. So my university press essay collection aside, my years of short stories, essays and articles in magazines, journals and anthologies aside, within the genre halls of RWA I am once again unpubbed. Or, as the more unkind say, a wannabe.

This is ironic to me, because I can only imagine a scene in which a "literary" writer informs a romance author that she's unpubbed because she has only published genre fiction. While many may believe that, it seems unlikely they'd take a snobbish enough stance to make it a rule. Which makes this a form of reverse-snobbery.

All of this is by-the-by. It is what it is and I really don't mind. But I do think the newbies (on the kindness scale, this falls somewhere between unpubbed and wannabe -- never mind the ghastly euphemism "pre-pubbed") should take advice with a grain of salt and a hunk of magic mushroom.

Just because someone is willing to give you advice doesn't mean they want you to succeed.

Now THERE is some good advice for you!