There may be five stages of grief - but many of us linger on one stage or another. Denial is popular, Anger is overwhelming, Bargaining is a cruel temptation ... Depression may be more powerful, even, than anger. Acceptance is the elusive one.
I'm considering it right now.
The Ax and the Vase is a great novel.
It's been my teacher and my child, something that ushered me into the world of an author, as opposed to a writer. I'm proud of it, and it's a hell of a read.
But. It doesn't seem to be a a viable product.
It's been a couple of months now since any agent even requested a read, and - good as it is - frankly, I just believe it's got an uphill battle in store in publishing, and ... if my plan is to be published, I have to provide the best possible material.
Ax is ITS best possible self, but it is not a market mover right now.
I haven't entirely decided to retire it; the fact that there are more agents to query is either a problem or a tempation.
But work on the WIP has become compelling, and though my faith in what Ax IS is unshakeable, if I'm not realistic about the industry, I'm not its best steward. And that's what I want to be. So I'm thinking it may be best to concentrate elsewhere. I'm opening myself to that possibility.
Anyone who's read me much knows I'm not very precious about my darling, special work, but they also know how much it means to me to have this consideration on my mind. My commitment to Ax is not minimal, nor is my confidence. But the odds are speaking to me, and I can't pretend not to hear. That would not serve Ax and would also hobble the WIP and the rest of my works.
This way of thinking has come on me a little suddenly - but, thank heavens, it's also coming at a time when my excitement about the WIP is building. I can't say there's no intentional connection there, either. If I have the WIP to sustain my hope, letting go of Ax would be ... not less difficult. But possible.
And so - I am considering possibilities. Feedback welcome, but most of my readers here at the blog have not been beta readers of the novel itself, so I understand if the comments stay quiet or theoretical. :)
Sigh.
Showing posts with label grind. Show all posts
Showing posts with label grind. Show all posts
Saturday, March 21, 2015
Thursday, March 5, 2015
"... ... NEXT!"
I haven't been around here or Twitter a great deal lately, not only because the paying job has involved a major launch this week, of which I was a core part for several areas, but also because it's seemed to me wise to let the page enjoy a little fallow time while I have been querying again.
Not so long ago, I was thinking I might be coming to the end of a resource to find more agents to look into, but more options have cropped up, and I'm quite enjoying the process right now. More than a couple of very interesting agents indeed have bobbed up, the kind I'm surprised and/or kicking myself for not having found sooner; but the nice thing is, it's not like I'm running out of options at a point where I've got a decent head of steam going.
We've also apparently set up a regular schedule of Thursday snowstorms in these parts, and I can't help but feel a bit like Arthur Dent about the whole winter thing in this regard.
But, even coming to appreciate the unique sense of anticipation for change living in a climate with season tends to include, I seem to be hanging in there with the ongoing winter. Whatever is absent, whatever is lacking, in my life, I'm managing to cope with.
Even Thursdays.
Not so long ago, I was thinking I might be coming to the end of a resource to find more agents to look into, but more options have cropped up, and I'm quite enjoying the process right now. More than a couple of very interesting agents indeed have bobbed up, the kind I'm surprised and/or kicking myself for not having found sooner; but the nice thing is, it's not like I'm running out of options at a point where I've got a decent head of steam going.
We've also apparently set up a regular schedule of Thursday snowstorms in these parts, and I can't help but feel a bit like Arthur Dent about the whole winter thing in this regard.
But, even coming to appreciate the unique sense of anticipation for change living in a climate with season tends to include, I seem to be hanging in there with the ongoing winter. Whatever is absent, whatever is lacking, in my life, I'm managing to cope with.
Even Thursdays.
Wednesday, October 15, 2014
It's Like Wearing the Corset ...
“Fake it till you make it!”
The little piece of wisdom above has become a facile mantra for a society increaingly occupied by the hectic schedule of life as we’ve constructed it, and particularly by professional frustration and ambition in an economy not well laid out for most of us to find the types and levels of comfort we’ve also set as a general expectation.
The fake-it mantra goes along with the “dress for the job you want, not the job you have” maxim (and there is a whole blog post in that one, considering how resolutely “casual” so many workplaces have become …), and various other positive-professional mottoes we try to post in our brains and daily behavior in order to attain – basically – whatever it is that passes for financial success, as compared to where we stand right now.
“Fake it till you make it”, though, has applications and effects apart from the financial, and the older I get the more surprised I am – and pleased – at how very well it works.
There are days at both the office job that provides me regular paychecks, and at the unpaid job I maintain as an unpublished (but persistently aspiring) author, when really it’s all just a game. And that’s not a bad thing. It can make The Game easier, actually, to make it *play*. Life’s no fun if you never play – and, sometimes, play helps you do life a bit better.
If I’m not feeling satisfied or motivated or even competent at the paying gig, I’ll make a point of popping in the boss’s office with a drive-by handful of “I’ve done this and this and this for you” comments – or questions “do you need hard copies/lunch reservations/documentation for X-meeting” – and the effect is usually strongest on myself. It’s like I won the role of Moneypenny in some play – and saying the lines and getting the responses makes me feel like I’m playing it well.
So I get to *feel*, “Okay, I am not a fraud.”
And I also basically remind myself, “Hey. *I am not a fraud.*”
I’ve been doing administrative/secretarial work for close to thirty years now, pretty much to the exclusion of any other professional work. It’s something I enjoy, and/but changing jobs as often as I have, it’s never something I feel I know completely – which is a good thing.
One of the important parts of changing jobs is overtly playing the part of a competent professional.
Being able to do a job and demonstrating that I can do it, I have found, are vastly different things: and the latter is the wiser course.
It’s a bit like feedback from a boss; if you hear “thank you” or “can we widget this, thus” now and then, fairly consistently, it makes all the difference in knowing where you stand. Performance reviews don’t do that, never have, and never will – but the smallest acknowledgement of daily to-do’s coming along regularly provides good bearings. And that works both ways (the corporate-speak phrase “managing up” comes to mind, though without the passive-aggressive intent). Feedback of the “A, B, and C are done/need something to get X done/changed the way Y is done” variety keeps ‘em aware you’re there and functioning.
I know an author who spent something like a week wearing a corset and cooking medieval recipes out of turnips, in order to get a feel for her period. We can hardly replicate “what it was really like” – but method writing like that makes sense. It’s the same at a job. When I wear the rold of Moneypenny, I realize that not only can I walk in those shoes, but I can project that to others, and that’s a useful reminder/demonstration/feedback on all sides.
It also encourages others to TREAT me like Moneypenny – or like an author.
I approach an awful lot of my life with some form of calibrated appearance in mind. This isn’t affectation nor artificiality (it may be manipulation, though …). It’s just an actor’s heightened way of going into any scene. I dress for my job, or for time spent with my mom and stepfather, or for some specific group of friends (… or for the Conference, yes) – I behave in one venue in a way I would not in others.
Many of us do this without really thinking about it all that much. Many can’t release themselves from a single self-image (when I see women on TV who wear $600, 7-inch high heels for every conceivable occasion, heavy makeup at all times, and false eyelashes even in the middle of the day, I pity them the stultifying consistency of such “glamour”, since it cannot be special, maintained at all times; likewise men who cannot get beyond khakis and polo shirts no matter where they go bewilder me with self-imposed homogeneity).
So we all play roles. I need multiple roles, in order for any one of them to seem worthwhile or fun – being a slovenly hausfrau all day on a Saturday makes the odd Saturday night out with friends so much more fun, as does the pampering self-transformation from slovenly comfort to arch impracticality. I need time with family and time as an employee and time as a friend, and time ALONE, just laughing at my dog and cat. I need the demanding and yet transformative rituals of my day – getting up and getting dressed, as much as coming home, and getting dressed *down*.
It took me a long time to really believe I was a “real” author – not a laughable fraud. This is true of a terribly large percentage of writers, and the way the industry is configured, unfortunately, encourages this, at least in traditional publishing. Yet this isn’t on purpose – the more agents and editors I’ve met, the more delightful I’m aware that they are. These are people who get to make a living not only doing something they love – reading – but they also get to act as conduits to bring new things they love to a whole audience.
I almost can’t imagine what that’s like.
But it’s certainly true that many of the editors and agents and designers and all the newer facilitators in a publishing world no longer strictly fashioned as a paradigm of “gatekeepers” (agents) and “keymasters” (publishing houses) SAY that this is what they love about what they do. There is an undercurrent of glee – “I found something wonderful! I must have it! I must share it!” – and a very emotional kind of satisfaction in most interviews I read when I research agents, but also when I find articles and blogs and so on by cover designers and book doctors and editors who work outside publishing houses, helping authors to craft not only good work, but marketable work. There is a mutual drive for satisfaction I’ve never seen in other areas of my own admittedly limited life, but it’s pretty wonderful. The blogs I follow avidly all share this with a depth and clarity that is infectious: they keep ME going, by telling me and ten thousand others, “you should KEEP GOING.”
This really isn’t faking it till you make it, of course.
But we all still have to fake so much. We have to put on our Editorial Boots and kick the hell out of our manuscripts and plays and poems. We have to put on the Authorial Jacket (with or without the little suede elbow patches; as your preference or genre or predilections dictate) and brave the autumnal blasts of rejection and revision and education until we’re tempered. We have to wear a Marketing Hat, too – and live a bit online, and reach out, and plan, and consider, and be ready to Be Told, when it comes to supporting our work.
THIS is undoubtedly faking it, for most of us.
• Faking like we have time in the week,
• Faking like we are not scared out of our minds,
• Faking like we really feel like we know what we’re doing,
• Faking like it’s not annoying to have to do all this stuff without pay,
• Faking like the friends and family around us who
(a) overestimate the likelihood we’re going to Become the Next Bestseller, or
(b) bitterly, ignorantly UNDERestimate it
… are not discouraging beyond toleration,
• Faking like there is anything at all about writing, other than the doing of it – all alone, at a wonderful desk or curled up with a beloved furbaby – that we can stand at all.
Faking it and knowing the fakery isn’t so much a lie as a *reminder* either works better and better as I get a bit older, or I am just finally getting, at my advanced age, just how well it always would have worked.
What’s your costume, what is the swashbuckling role you play … ?
The little piece of wisdom above has become a facile mantra for a society increaingly occupied by the hectic schedule of life as we’ve constructed it, and particularly by professional frustration and ambition in an economy not well laid out for most of us to find the types and levels of comfort we’ve also set as a general expectation.
The fake-it mantra goes along with the “dress for the job you want, not the job you have” maxim (and there is a whole blog post in that one, considering how resolutely “casual” so many workplaces have become …), and various other positive-professional mottoes we try to post in our brains and daily behavior in order to attain – basically – whatever it is that passes for financial success, as compared to where we stand right now.
“Fake it till you make it”, though, has applications and effects apart from the financial, and the older I get the more surprised I am – and pleased – at how very well it works.
There are days at both the office job that provides me regular paychecks, and at the unpaid job I maintain as an unpublished (but persistently aspiring) author, when really it’s all just a game. And that’s not a bad thing. It can make The Game easier, actually, to make it *play*. Life’s no fun if you never play – and, sometimes, play helps you do life a bit better.
If I’m not feeling satisfied or motivated or even competent at the paying gig, I’ll make a point of popping in the boss’s office with a drive-by handful of “I’ve done this and this and this for you” comments – or questions “do you need hard copies/lunch reservations/documentation for X-meeting” – and the effect is usually strongest on myself. It’s like I won the role of Moneypenny in some play – and saying the lines and getting the responses makes me feel like I’m playing it well.
So I get to *feel*, “Okay, I am not a fraud.”
And I also basically remind myself, “Hey. *I am not a fraud.*”
I’ve been doing administrative/secretarial work for close to thirty years now, pretty much to the exclusion of any other professional work. It’s something I enjoy, and/but changing jobs as often as I have, it’s never something I feel I know completely – which is a good thing.
One of the important parts of changing jobs is overtly playing the part of a competent professional.
Being able to do a job and demonstrating that I can do it, I have found, are vastly different things: and the latter is the wiser course.
It’s a bit like feedback from a boss; if you hear “thank you” or “can we widget this, thus” now and then, fairly consistently, it makes all the difference in knowing where you stand. Performance reviews don’t do that, never have, and never will – but the smallest acknowledgement of daily to-do’s coming along regularly provides good bearings. And that works both ways (the corporate-speak phrase “managing up” comes to mind, though without the passive-aggressive intent). Feedback of the “A, B, and C are done/need something to get X done/changed the way Y is done” variety keeps ‘em aware you’re there and functioning.
I know an author who spent something like a week wearing a corset and cooking medieval recipes out of turnips, in order to get a feel for her period. We can hardly replicate “what it was really like” – but method writing like that makes sense. It’s the same at a job. When I wear the rold of Moneypenny, I realize that not only can I walk in those shoes, but I can project that to others, and that’s a useful reminder/demonstration/feedback on all sides.
It also encourages others to TREAT me like Moneypenny – or like an author.
I approach an awful lot of my life with some form of calibrated appearance in mind. This isn’t affectation nor artificiality (it may be manipulation, though …). It’s just an actor’s heightened way of going into any scene. I dress for my job, or for time spent with my mom and stepfather, or for some specific group of friends (… or for the Conference, yes) – I behave in one venue in a way I would not in others.
“I contain multitudes” …
Many of us do this without really thinking about it all that much. Many can’t release themselves from a single self-image (when I see women on TV who wear $600, 7-inch high heels for every conceivable occasion, heavy makeup at all times, and false eyelashes even in the middle of the day, I pity them the stultifying consistency of such “glamour”, since it cannot be special, maintained at all times; likewise men who cannot get beyond khakis and polo shirts no matter where they go bewilder me with self-imposed homogeneity).
So we all play roles. I need multiple roles, in order for any one of them to seem worthwhile or fun – being a slovenly hausfrau all day on a Saturday makes the odd Saturday night out with friends so much more fun, as does the pampering self-transformation from slovenly comfort to arch impracticality. I need time with family and time as an employee and time as a friend, and time ALONE, just laughing at my dog and cat. I need the demanding and yet transformative rituals of my day – getting up and getting dressed, as much as coming home, and getting dressed *down*.
It took me a long time to really believe I was a “real” author – not a laughable fraud. This is true of a terribly large percentage of writers, and the way the industry is configured, unfortunately, encourages this, at least in traditional publishing. Yet this isn’t on purpose – the more agents and editors I’ve met, the more delightful I’m aware that they are. These are people who get to make a living not only doing something they love – reading – but they also get to act as conduits to bring new things they love to a whole audience.
I almost can’t imagine what that’s like.
But it’s certainly true that many of the editors and agents and designers and all the newer facilitators in a publishing world no longer strictly fashioned as a paradigm of “gatekeepers” (agents) and “keymasters” (publishing houses) SAY that this is what they love about what they do. There is an undercurrent of glee – “I found something wonderful! I must have it! I must share it!” – and a very emotional kind of satisfaction in most interviews I read when I research agents, but also when I find articles and blogs and so on by cover designers and book doctors and editors who work outside publishing houses, helping authors to craft not only good work, but marketable work. There is a mutual drive for satisfaction I’ve never seen in other areas of my own admittedly limited life, but it’s pretty wonderful. The blogs I follow avidly all share this with a depth and clarity that is infectious: they keep ME going, by telling me and ten thousand others, “you should KEEP GOING.”
This really isn’t faking it till you make it, of course.
But we all still have to fake so much. We have to put on our Editorial Boots and kick the hell out of our manuscripts and plays and poems. We have to put on the Authorial Jacket (with or without the little suede elbow patches; as your preference or genre or predilections dictate) and brave the autumnal blasts of rejection and revision and education until we’re tempered. We have to wear a Marketing Hat, too – and live a bit online, and reach out, and plan, and consider, and be ready to Be Told, when it comes to supporting our work.
THIS is undoubtedly faking it, for most of us.
• Faking like we have time in the week,
• Faking like we are not scared out of our minds,
• Faking like we really feel like we know what we’re doing,
• Faking like it’s not annoying to have to do all this stuff without pay,
• Faking like the friends and family around us who
(a) overestimate the likelihood we’re going to Become the Next Bestseller, or
(b) bitterly, ignorantly UNDERestimate it
… are not discouraging beyond toleration,
• Faking like there is anything at all about writing, other than the doing of it – all alone, at a wonderful desk or curled up with a beloved furbaby – that we can stand at all.
Faking it and knowing the fakery isn’t so much a lie as a *reminder* either works better and better as I get a bit older, or I am just finally getting, at my advanced age, just how well it always would have worked.
What’s your costume, what is the swashbuckling role you play … ?
Thursday, July 17, 2014
Collection
Does Janet Reid have the recipe for The Secret Sauce of Acceptance in publishing? Tune in to find out! (Side note: "the glacial embrace of rejection" is the best phrase any of us can expect to read today. She's a good writer herself, this agent.)
Pour La Victoire has another wonderfully detailed (with photos!) post about her latest preservation effort. This time, a pair of very shiny silver evening shoes from the 1920s. This will bring me shortly to my next fashion/style post, on metallics.
Pour La Victoire has another wonderfully detailed (with photos!) post about her latest preservation effort. This time, a pair of very shiny silver evening shoes from the 1920s. This will bring me shortly to my next fashion/style post, on metallics.
Thursday, November 7, 2013
Music or Noise
Clattering a cup full of ice this morning, as the drink machine began its cruel, whining refill, I was thinking what a loud place the world has become.
There’s been a brick-repointing project of some sort going on (interminably) at the office. For over a week now, not only the beeping of the crane, but the grinding of drills stripping out the old concrete to make way for the new between our bricks. Yesterday, the work made its creeping way toward our area, and today the roar and groan and beep and grind has taken an increase in pitch, and become a far more screeching affair. Hideous.
Our wildlife, unsurprisingly, has taken a powder – and, even if it were here, taking a moment or two by the windows to look out on the blue heron or to spy an eagle or deer wouldn’t be worth it, when right next to the window there is a crane basket occupied by guys who just want to do their job and not get stared at. It’s a small thing, not having that minute in the day to just step away from the desk, but all this time into this extended project, it’s telling at least on my nerves, and I no nobody else in the building is any more enamored of the process than I.
One small side effect of this issue is the resultant en masse response of resorting to ear buds. Even I own some now – luddite that I am – but I’ve never been a fan of wearing my music on (or in) my head. Back in the days of earphones, the headbands gave me headaches, and the earphones themselves generally pressed on the whorls of cartilage in my ears, and that hurt. Now that it’s buds, they irritate me too, and as amazing as the sound quality can be, having foreign objects in my ears seems to be something I’m far from habituating myself to.
Foo Fighters, though, and Judas Priest are *almost* well suited enough to manage the awful noise, though. And so, in order to overcome noise I can’t tolerate I jam noise I’ve chosen right into my cranium, and try to tolerate the delivery system instead.
So far, I don’t think I’ve managed to wear the buds longer than an hour, and at this point it’s a question of which NSAIDs will stay ahead of which particular noise and vibration headache I will allow.
Let it be said that, for my money, Fatboy Slim’s “Weapon of Choice” may not be everybody’s cuppa, but I still like it better than power tools. Even if some wouldn’t even be able to tell the difference.
Highly effective: “Hell Bent for Leather”. Ice Cube’s “We Be Clubbin’”. Run DMC’s “My Adidas”. New Order’s “Shellshock” (you know, it never IS enough until your heart stops beating). Fatboy Slim (and not even THAT mix, y’all!).
Less so: Tiësto. Shakira. Anything by Lacuna Coil, The Gathering, Amy Winehouse.
This wildly useful expertise is yours to use, all for free. Implement such knowledge with care, fella babies.
There’s been a brick-repointing project of some sort going on (interminably) at the office. For over a week now, not only the beeping of the crane, but the grinding of drills stripping out the old concrete to make way for the new between our bricks. Yesterday, the work made its creeping way toward our area, and today the roar and groan and beep and grind has taken an increase in pitch, and become a far more screeching affair. Hideous.
Our wildlife, unsurprisingly, has taken a powder – and, even if it were here, taking a moment or two by the windows to look out on the blue heron or to spy an eagle or deer wouldn’t be worth it, when right next to the window there is a crane basket occupied by guys who just want to do their job and not get stared at. It’s a small thing, not having that minute in the day to just step away from the desk, but all this time into this extended project, it’s telling at least on my nerves, and I no nobody else in the building is any more enamored of the process than I.
One small side effect of this issue is the resultant en masse response of resorting to ear buds. Even I own some now – luddite that I am – but I’ve never been a fan of wearing my music on (or in) my head. Back in the days of earphones, the headbands gave me headaches, and the earphones themselves generally pressed on the whorls of cartilage in my ears, and that hurt. Now that it’s buds, they irritate me too, and as amazing as the sound quality can be, having foreign objects in my ears seems to be something I’m far from habituating myself to.
Foo Fighters, though, and Judas Priest are *almost* well suited enough to manage the awful noise, though. And so, in order to overcome noise I can’t tolerate I jam noise I’ve chosen right into my cranium, and try to tolerate the delivery system instead.
So far, I don’t think I’ve managed to wear the buds longer than an hour, and at this point it’s a question of which NSAIDs will stay ahead of which particular noise and vibration headache I will allow.
Let it be said that, for my money, Fatboy Slim’s “Weapon of Choice” may not be everybody’s cuppa, but I still like it better than power tools. Even if some wouldn’t even be able to tell the difference.
Highly effective: “Hell Bent for Leather”. Ice Cube’s “We Be Clubbin’”. Run DMC’s “My Adidas”. New Order’s “Shellshock” (you know, it never IS enough until your heart stops beating). Fatboy Slim (and not even THAT mix, y’all!).
Less so: Tiësto. Shakira. Anything by Lacuna Coil, The Gathering, Amy Winehouse.
This wildly useful expertise is yours to use, all for free. Implement such knowledge with care, fella babies.
Wednesday, May 8, 2013
Work
The days continue to be pretty challenging, but today seems to have been a turning point, or at least one among many which was less painfully out of my control. For a couple of months, things have been at a level of busy the word only glancingly begins to evoke. For the past two and a half weeks. the volume's been turned up to eleven - ten and a half hour days, keeping my online status at "busy" constantly, battling a dizzying array of priorities, feeling good just to manage adequacy.
I kicked today's BUTT, though. Today I scratched off some other people's priorities, as well as a *nicely* significant whack of MY urgent to-do's. Review of points of contact - done. Security review - done. Transactions reconciled - done. You wanted a meeting? Done, my friends. Initial forays into The Next Big Things coming down the pike - done. Final confirmations for the imminent monster of a big thing already breathing down my neck? So done, done, done, done, done, done, and done - and updates send to everybody too. And, to top those things, a nice little "done" checklist for the top boss. I even dang near managed to take on a print shop job - had it licked by the time ... one of my partners in crime said she was taking it off of my plate. I almost felt "darn" about losing the thing, having nailed it upon some trial and error.
One of the best things about today was not only getting out on time (no lunch, but no late hour either), but also getting to reach out to a number of my favorite, and most reliable partners. One of the best, who is coordinating a massive video conference event. Two of the nicest to work with, for those Next Big Things, through the rest of 2013. And another arm out, reaching for guidance on how to manage something I've been asking to take on for some months now. Think we've got the right contact at last, and she even answered my initial entre' before I left the office.
This time next week, I will still be quite exhausted, but it won't be a bad thing. I'm grateful it's gotten to the turning point now. And looking forward to the day off I've given myself when the looming thing is finally over. SHEW.
I kicked today's BUTT, though. Today I scratched off some other people's priorities, as well as a *nicely* significant whack of MY urgent to-do's. Review of points of contact - done. Security review - done. Transactions reconciled - done. You wanted a meeting? Done, my friends. Initial forays into The Next Big Things coming down the pike - done. Final confirmations for the imminent monster of a big thing already breathing down my neck? So done, done, done, done, done, done, and done - and updates send to everybody too. And, to top those things, a nice little "done" checklist for the top boss. I even dang near managed to take on a print shop job - had it licked by the time ... one of my partners in crime said she was taking it off of my plate. I almost felt "darn" about losing the thing, having nailed it upon some trial and error.
One of the best things about today was not only getting out on time (no lunch, but no late hour either), but also getting to reach out to a number of my favorite, and most reliable partners. One of the best, who is coordinating a massive video conference event. Two of the nicest to work with, for those Next Big Things, through the rest of 2013. And another arm out, reaching for guidance on how to manage something I've been asking to take on for some months now. Think we've got the right contact at last, and she even answered my initial entre' before I left the office.
This time next week, I will still be quite exhausted, but it won't be a bad thing. I'm grateful it's gotten to the turning point now. And looking forward to the day off I've given myself when the looming thing is finally over. SHEW.
Thursday, May 2, 2013
Quote, Interrupted
“Writing is a way of talking without being interrupted.”
― Jules Renard
This quote cropped up in my random reading this evening, and it struck me negatively for some reason. I couldn't put my finger on it at first, but quickly realized that, beyond simply reducing an entire universe of communication to a selfish world of useless indulgence, it's fundamentally in error.
Writing is almost never formed in a single, glutting, go. It is by nature almost nothing BUT interruption. Few authors, scriptwriters, essayists, working in ficiton or non, in short form, long form, poetry, or even graphic work - nor any other writer - creates an entire piece in one sitting, without revision. Ever. For the sake of the reader, writing almost *must* be interrupted, and for the sake of the author's message, story, issue, interest - likewise. For clarity - interruption. For entertainment - interruption (who can build tension, perfectly, with nary an edit?). For every possible purpose - staying on point, getting the story told well, evoking a setting (fiction or non, we're always *somewhere* when we read) - interruption.
Writing is the art of perfecting your OWN interruptions. Of learning to use them - the down times between having the actual moment to write. Of winnowing inspiration by the process of editing - learning how to use the interruptions in time, the interruption of revision, the interruption of feedback, refining, polishing. Writing is the *cultivation* of interruption, in order to write well, to engage.
Talking without being interrupted is just self indulgence. It isn't writing. Not good writing.
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
Schroedinger's Query
Last night on Twitter, an agent I've recently queried said she was reading something she found so hard to put down that she might have to break her two year stretch without signing a new author.
Now, I know she's received hundreds of queries just in the week and a half since I threw my submission in the pile. I also know that the one she's reading might not be that recent - slush piles being what they are, it can take some agents months to read what they even decide to read at all. There's no reason for me to think that I'm responsible for her excitement.
Even so, until I know for sure ... I'm in a state of perfect potential - the cat can simultaneously be dead and alive, as far as my experience is concerned. Quantum state query. It's also simultaneously exciting and sobering!
***
In truth, I have been a particularly slow author about my work during this past six months. I completed the revisions before last October's JRW Conference, but the rate of my submissions is significantly less than it was when I first (thought I had) finished the MSS. This isn't because I have lost confidence, by any means - and I can't honestly complain that it is because I'm "just too busy" - I'm as busy as I was before, but I may be being more dismissive, in terms of the process of elimination. I may fear I'm too old. I may just have become slightly inured to the role of Unpublished Author.
But Ax is a great novel. Not Great Novel - but a great read, a ripping yarn. It deserves, perhaps, a better steward than I have been, at least of late, with my lazy advocacy. It will "get out there" ... but not without my getting it there.
***
So ... I have to edit this post to point out that I realized some obvious facts after writing it - and the cat, unfortunately, is dead indeed.
At least, this particular cat. It's possible there's another box lying around in the world SOMEwhere (though if Carole Blake has gone two years without a new client, I'm thinking at least this query might be short on Possible-Cats).
But the thing is ... she was saying she had something she could not put down (clue #1) AND was talking about signing someone (clue #2). The thing is, yes - I've queried her recently. However, I have NOT sent her a partial nor a full. She has exactly what Blake Friedmann's submissions process requests: query, synopsis, three chapters. Boom.
The likelihood of an agent getting that far ahead of a preliminary like that is vanishingly slim, if not outright imaginary, of course. An agent with the experience of Carole Blake? I'd suspect none-at-all fits the bill more precisely.
Even so. One more query. One more rejection in waiting, I would think - and she's already been so very kind as it is, particularly with me kissing up publicly. One more step on a path I'm not ready to quit.
Even if I am rather slow strolling along it.
Now, I know she's received hundreds of queries just in the week and a half since I threw my submission in the pile. I also know that the one she's reading might not be that recent - slush piles being what they are, it can take some agents months to read what they even decide to read at all. There's no reason for me to think that I'm responsible for her excitement.
Even so, until I know for sure ... I'm in a state of perfect potential - the cat can simultaneously be dead and alive, as far as my experience is concerned. Quantum state query. It's also simultaneously exciting and sobering!
***
In truth, I have been a particularly slow author about my work during this past six months. I completed the revisions before last October's JRW Conference, but the rate of my submissions is significantly less than it was when I first (thought I had) finished the MSS. This isn't because I have lost confidence, by any means - and I can't honestly complain that it is because I'm "just too busy" - I'm as busy as I was before, but I may be being more dismissive, in terms of the process of elimination. I may fear I'm too old. I may just have become slightly inured to the role of Unpublished Author.
But Ax is a great novel. Not Great Novel - but a great read, a ripping yarn. It deserves, perhaps, a better steward than I have been, at least of late, with my lazy advocacy. It will "get out there" ... but not without my getting it there.
***
So ... I have to edit this post to point out that I realized some obvious facts after writing it - and the cat, unfortunately, is dead indeed.
At least, this particular cat. It's possible there's another box lying around in the world SOMEwhere (though if Carole Blake has gone two years without a new client, I'm thinking at least this query might be short on Possible-Cats).
But the thing is ... she was saying she had something she could not put down (clue #1) AND was talking about signing someone (clue #2). The thing is, yes - I've queried her recently. However, I have NOT sent her a partial nor a full. She has exactly what Blake Friedmann's submissions process requests: query, synopsis, three chapters. Boom.
The likelihood of an agent getting that far ahead of a preliminary like that is vanishingly slim, if not outright imaginary, of course. An agent with the experience of Carole Blake? I'd suspect none-at-all fits the bill more precisely.
Even so. One more query. One more rejection in waiting, I would think - and she's already been so very kind as it is, particularly with me kissing up publicly. One more step on a path I'm not ready to quit.
Even if I am rather slow strolling along it.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Partial
Now that I have gotten another request for a partial, I can acknowledge how very much I really have missed requests for partials lately. It's all very well to be able to take rejection - but I am a damned good writer, and I don't do this querying dance just to be all by myself with my damned good stories.
I have enough life set out before me to handle by myself. It's time my writing got a whole lot less solitary. I can NOT be the only person getting gratification out of my work. Because if I am, it really is only work.
If I'm not, it gets to be entertainment. And the idea of entertaining people genuinely tickles me. This story is so GOOD. It's exciting and interesting, and all but untold in American publishing. And the next one - more of the same, in the marketing sense, but so much new too, in the characters, setting, and span of generations. And the third ... I think might even almost be romantic, and funny; and it is so personal for me. All of them are.
***
It's hard for me to acknowledge how harrowing writing can be. But I know myself. I know my ability to endure massive quantities of stress, and pretend I don't know it is there, because to complain about it only dares things to get *really* bad. I know my tendency to acclimate to a state of things which isn't optimal. I did it at my last job, for two years. I can't deny a certain kind of denial - even if I think it is the right tool for me, to cope and to bouy above outrage, or depression, or my simple, fundamental laziness.
And querying can try your soul. At the back of my throat, the tiniest twinge of a desire to just let go and sob is teasing me. I finally got another request for a partial.
I needed that.
I need a whole lot more than I like to admit.
I have enough life set out before me to handle by myself. It's time my writing got a whole lot less solitary. I can NOT be the only person getting gratification out of my work. Because if I am, it really is only work.
If I'm not, it gets to be entertainment. And the idea of entertaining people genuinely tickles me. This story is so GOOD. It's exciting and interesting, and all but untold in American publishing. And the next one - more of the same, in the marketing sense, but so much new too, in the characters, setting, and span of generations. And the third ... I think might even almost be romantic, and funny; and it is so personal for me. All of them are.
***
It's hard for me to acknowledge how harrowing writing can be. But I know myself. I know my ability to endure massive quantities of stress, and pretend I don't know it is there, because to complain about it only dares things to get *really* bad. I know my tendency to acclimate to a state of things which isn't optimal. I did it at my last job, for two years. I can't deny a certain kind of denial - even if I think it is the right tool for me, to cope and to bouy above outrage, or depression, or my simple, fundamental laziness.
And querying can try your soul. At the back of my throat, the tiniest twinge of a desire to just let go and sob is teasing me. I finally got another request for a partial.
I needed that.
I need a whole lot more than I like to admit.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Query-LESS
Ack.
Unless that agency specifies, "please do not query agents directly."
*Pleh*
Electronic form it is. But with *significantly* less optimism.
Unless that agency specifies, "please do not query agents directly."
*Pleh*
Electronic form it is. But with *significantly* less optimism.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Histfic
One of the most frustrating things about writing in my genre is that, when it comes time to shop and query, many of the authors whose agents I'd do best with, in terms of "matching" their catalogue, are located in Europe. I know I should just query; the world is growing smaller every day, electronically. It shouldn't be an obstacle.
But something in me protests, good grief - I should be able to do this domestically.
I think to myself, intrinsically, that doesn't necessarily have any meaning. If I get an agent in the U. K. - it's still getting myself an agent, isn't it? But I do fear the translation of a contract over borders, even if not across the miles themselves. (I'm long accustomed to having miles between myself and some object of interest ... but not actual international borders. Bless the US for being such gigantic country.)
I need to be *doing* - so, if I must yoo-hoo across the pond, that is still DOING, which is what counts. And so, on we go.
Even as I mentally try to compose my sweet note to the lovely Susann Cokal, asking her whether she thinks it might be worth quering her agent, too. Given my differences from Susann, I would imagine I'd not be a hot property. But it ought to be a question worth posing ... another DO for the list.
*Sigh*
But something in me protests, good grief - I should be able to do this domestically.
I think to myself, intrinsically, that doesn't necessarily have any meaning. If I get an agent in the U. K. - it's still getting myself an agent, isn't it? But I do fear the translation of a contract over borders, even if not across the miles themselves. (I'm long accustomed to having miles between myself and some object of interest ... but not actual international borders. Bless the US for being such gigantic country.)
I need to be *doing* - so, if I must yoo-hoo across the pond, that is still DOING, which is what counts. And so, on we go.
Even as I mentally try to compose my sweet note to the lovely Susann Cokal, asking her whether she thinks it might be worth quering her agent, too. Given my differences from Susann, I would imagine I'd not be a hot property. But it ought to be a question worth posing ... another DO for the list.
*Sigh*
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Tip
For my writer friends. When it's time to start querying, either bookmark these sites, or search "agencyname, this keyword" using these terms:
Absolute Write is invaluable for providing feedback and information about QUERYING agencies, from and between writers.
Query Tracker shows tabs from each agent/agency searched which summarizes the genres they accept, and authors under representation with links to their amazon pages. This latter is extraordinarily helpful in researching an agency's catalogue, and whether they're right for your work.
Publishers Marketplace provides a truly deluxe presentation of recent sales, clients under representation and (often) specifics of an agency's catalogue, and specifics regarding querying (email, websites).
Never. Ever. EVER. Fail to look carefully at an agency's website for submission guidelines and sale, catalogue, author information. Most of the agents you really want to work with will highlight the heck out of these things, and pay close attention to sales in particular - you want an agent whose presence in publishing is still alive, is vital enough to provide you representation with a pulse. Consider how hard it is to navigate a site, and how a relationship with the people who built it might resemble the workings of the site itself. Think about what is most heavily emphasized and featured, and how well that suits you. Listen to what people say, outside the site itself. Think for yourself. Querying isn't about being desperately grateful for any and all attention; it is like job hunting: you're screening AGENTS as much as they're screening YOU. Remember that.
And send out acres of lovingly crafted queries - per EVERY single particular stipulated by each individual agent. They all want different things, and it's a pain in the behind, and it's an organizational nightmare. You have dozens of queries to work with - wah - it's so HARD to do each and every one individually, differently, hewing to every last picky requirement.
Do it anyway. Agencies have HUNDREDS, even THOUSANDS to read through; there are individual agents fielding upward of eight thousand queries in a year, kids. People who don't follow the guidelines they request to make that process easier and more navigable for themselves just provide agents reasons to delete, reject, or *resent* their queries. Don't do that.
For an administrative professional, it's funny - querying is an ideal project. The varying demands, the infinitessimal details, the checking and rechecking, the qeueing-up, the firing out, the following UP. It's all an organizational process, a project management challenge.
Writers: you are your own secretaries.
Be good at it. It makes life easier for the agents you're hoping to impress - and they LIKE that - and it makes life easier for YOU, in the end. And that's worth the work. Even if it is unpaid work - it might pay off when you do things right, and impress that perfect person, who will passionately advocate for you with the right houses.
Get to it, kids. Follow the bullets above, too, and it'll be a little easier.
- publishers market place
- querytracker
- absolute write
Absolute Write is invaluable for providing feedback and information about QUERYING agencies, from and between writers.
Query Tracker shows tabs from each agent/agency searched which summarizes the genres they accept, and authors under representation with links to their amazon pages. This latter is extraordinarily helpful in researching an agency's catalogue, and whether they're right for your work.
Publishers Marketplace provides a truly deluxe presentation of recent sales, clients under representation and (often) specifics of an agency's catalogue, and specifics regarding querying (email, websites).
Never. Ever. EVER. Fail to look carefully at an agency's website for submission guidelines and sale, catalogue, author information. Most of the agents you really want to work with will highlight the heck out of these things, and pay close attention to sales in particular - you want an agent whose presence in publishing is still alive, is vital enough to provide you representation with a pulse. Consider how hard it is to navigate a site, and how a relationship with the people who built it might resemble the workings of the site itself. Think about what is most heavily emphasized and featured, and how well that suits you. Listen to what people say, outside the site itself. Think for yourself. Querying isn't about being desperately grateful for any and all attention; it is like job hunting: you're screening AGENTS as much as they're screening YOU. Remember that.
And send out acres of lovingly crafted queries - per EVERY single particular stipulated by each individual agent. They all want different things, and it's a pain in the behind, and it's an organizational nightmare. You have dozens of queries to work with - wah - it's so HARD to do each and every one individually, differently, hewing to every last picky requirement.
Do it anyway. Agencies have HUNDREDS, even THOUSANDS to read through; there are individual agents fielding upward of eight thousand queries in a year, kids. People who don't follow the guidelines they request to make that process easier and more navigable for themselves just provide agents reasons to delete, reject, or *resent* their queries. Don't do that.
For an administrative professional, it's funny - querying is an ideal project. The varying demands, the infinitessimal details, the checking and rechecking, the qeueing-up, the firing out, the following UP. It's all an organizational process, a project management challenge.
Writers: you are your own secretaries.
Be good at it. It makes life easier for the agents you're hoping to impress - and they LIKE that - and it makes life easier for YOU, in the end. And that's worth the work. Even if it is unpaid work - it might pay off when you do things right, and impress that perfect person, who will passionately advocate for you with the right houses.
Get to it, kids. Follow the bullets above, too, and it'll be a little easier.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Not Yet
I'm just not in the mood right now for the daily job site check. Later, yes. But not now.
Now, I am finalizing my list of authors to really consider finding agents for, thence to query. I know I need to gold-star those who do foreign rights, but will query all these on my list, and tailor the letters. My query is good - and the work is so much better.
So far, sixteen definites to contact, with one in particular a woman (and one of the few who's taking on territory outside ancient Rome, at that). That one gets a special letter too - "you took on one woman writing about the Crusades ... ".
BLEAH I say.
Bleah.
Now, I am finalizing my list of authors to really consider finding agents for, thence to query. I know I need to gold-star those who do foreign rights, but will query all these on my list, and tailor the letters. My query is good - and the work is so much better.
So far, sixteen definites to contact, with one in particular a woman (and one of the few who's taking on territory outside ancient Rome, at that). That one gets a special letter too - "you took on one woman writing about the Crusades ... ".
BLEAH I say.
Bleah.
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