You Don't Know Nothing

Most Honorable Sir,

We perused your MS.
with boundless delight.  And
we hurry to swear by our ancestors
we have never read any other
that equals its mastery.
Were we to publish your work,
we could never presume again on
our public and name
to print books of a standard
not up to yours.
For we cannot imagine
that the next ten thousand years
will offer its ectype.
We must therefore refuse
your work that shines as it were in the sky
and beg you a thousand times
to pardon our fault
which impairs but our own offices.
-- Publishers
Rejection letter from a Chinese publisher; from
Louis Zukofsky's "A"

On Monday, Debbie listed a relative few out of a long list of writers who were refused by publisher after publisher, agent after agent. Here's another:

Laura Van Warner wrote her first novel while working as an assistant to Doubleday senior editors Loretta Barrett and Betty Prashker. Both editors suggested she stick to her day job and forget the writing, as she clearly had no talent.

If you haven't read Laura Van Warner, look her up on Amazon. She's doing okay.

There's a special brand of discouragement that comes along with being a writer. Literary agent Harriet Wasserman once said of her longtime client, Nobel Prize winning novelist Saul Bellow:

“For Saul, every book is his first book, and he is always the first-time writer welcoming reinforcement.” 

Few people really know themselves. We crane our necks to look inside and to our despair, we see a void. Why kid ourselves? We know nothing about writing.

But you don't know nothing.

To prove it, let me list a few things you do know, once you think about them:

1. You don't have to be a natural. Any lousy writer can get good at writing if they keep on writing long enough. Gustave Flaubert once said, "I have never been so conscious of how little talent is vouchsafed me for expressing ideas in words." Graham Greene said it more plainly: "I have no talent."
2. You do have to have a heart on fire. You have to care enough to keep going long enough to get good. 
3. You may never see a novel of yours on the New York Times Best Seller List. Then again, you might. The fact is (assuming you keep writing) you don't know, either way. 
4. It doesn't matter if you never see a novel of yours on the New York Times Best Seller List. You've had your head turned inside out and right-site round by authors few others have ever heard of. And those authors probably have a lot to do with why you dream of being an author. Like them. Obscurity's not so bad. 
5. You'll never get rich on obscurity. Like many obscure authors, you'll have to work out some mix of struggling, living simply, and finding work. If you find work, try to find something that feeds the muse. Or that leaves your mind free to plot your novel during the day and your evenings free so you can write your novel. If you can't do the above, you must find work that sets your heart on fire. 
6. You have to have a heart on fire. 
7. And above all, you must find a way to write. You know too much not to. 

Creating Our Own Luck

This week, I was cruising Pandora and came across this oft-misquoted comment on the RKO screen test of Fred Astaire, one of my favorite actors:  “Can’t act, slightly bald, also dances.” Six little words that could end an acting career before it begins.  Luckily for Fred, David O. Selznick felt his screen test came off horribly, but Fred’s charm came through all the same and he was willing to take a chance on him. Fred was a tireless perfectionist whose grace and poise made his dancing appear effortless.  He was considered by many to be the greatest popular music dancer of all time, winning multiple Emmys, an Oscar nomination and an honorary academy award.  

When you’ve been writing for a long time without seeing your work in print, success can seem capricious and wholly dependent on sheer luck.  Sure, some people are at the right place at the right time, like Lana Turner who skipped typing class at age sixteen and was discovered by a talent agent at a malt shop on Sunset Boulevard.  But that’s akin to buying the winning lottery ticket, and we all know the odds of that happening.  No, success is a mixture of many variables, as we can see in these highly successful books that almost didn’t see publication. 

• · A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle was rejected by 26 publishers.  They felt it was too different for the 1960s as a science fiction novel featuring a female protagonist.  She happened to meet a guest at her mother’s tea party who knew a publisher and the connection led to a contract. Lucky? You could say so, but she was fully prepared with a polished manuscript when the opportunity presented itself and the right publisher came along. 

• ·Carrie by Stephen King was his fourth completed manuscript and rejected by 30 publishers.  He tossed the manuscript in the garbage, but his wife dug it out and encouraged him to keep trying.  It helps to have someone who knows your writing and really believes in it.  Listen to the people you trust about your writing, and it’s not always family or friends.

•  Chicken Soup for the Soul by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen was rejected 33 times, primarily because anthologies were not selling and the book was a little too positive.  Their persistence paid off, however.  Sometimes genres are cyclical and though the timing may not be right now, they cycle back around.  The creators also tapped into a new market with a fresh idea.

• ·The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter began as self-published.  She began in her 20s but when the book wasn’t published, she printed it herself and gave copies to family and friends.  A publisher saw a copy of the book and was willing to take a chance on it, which led to a whole series of illustrated children’s books. Again, perseverance paid off, but being proactive and taking the steps available to her finally got it into the right hands.

• ·The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank had a tenuous route to publication.  Anne’s father, Otto, was the only family member to survive the war, and he was given Anne’s diary by a family friend who rescued it when they were captured.  Her father hesitated to seek publication for the diary, going so far as to censor some passages that he felt weren’t flattering to family members.  But in the end, he believed that it should be read in its entirety by as many people as possible.  At so many points, this book could have faltered.  But when we have a book of substance about things that move us, we work to get it into the hands of readers.  When we have something authentic to say, people know and we gain credibility which creates impetus.

We need to remind ourselves that if we think some authors make success look easy, it’s not.  We’re not seeing the whole story.  Perseverance, preparedness and professionalism are necessary for every writer with a great idea and a love of story. 

We should continue to educate ourselves and remain teachable.  Learn to accept and consider criticism.  Make and maintain connections with other writers and attend writers’ conferences which may put us in contact with agents, editors and publishers.   In this way, we can create some of our own ‘luck.’ 

Are you sitting at the malt shop like Lana Turner, hoping to be discovered, or are you the tireless hoofer who puts himself out there for a screen test?  How do you create your own 'luck?'

Lessons From the Cheap Seats Part II

I'm a slow learner.

When it comes to being a writer I'm the slowest.

If this were a road race, you'd be tempted to run back to where I was and poke me with something sharp.

S.L.O.W.

As in it takes me years to do what other writers manage in a matter of months.

Like writing a novel.

I've been working on this one novel for about 3 1/2 years now. Awhile ago, I thought it was finished.

I was wrong.

I gathered it back to myself, edited, reworked much of it, then thought it was done.

Wrong again.

I repeated this tedious process several times.

I was certain the novel was finished. Complete.

New York has proven I was, once again, wrong.

Rejection bites.

And returning to the novel I was so sure I had already finished felt a great deal like humble pie. Which is fine, I eat that stuff regularly. After so many years as a writer, I have no ego anymore.

So, this is where things were for me when I was invited to have dinner with a group of highly successful and very well published authors. (This was the weekend I spent riding on Lesley Livingston's coattails.)

Mostly we didn't talk about books, writing, or the publishing industry. If someone mentioned what they were working on, or asked someone about their new book, it was titularly--an aside--and the conversation moved swiftly past and onto more exciting topics like hockey, living in France, embarrassing relationship faux pas, and the time I punched out a mime in New York City.

They didn't treat me like a failing wannabe author (which is very much how I felt about myself).

So, when Guy Gavriel Kay turned to me and said, "Tell me what's going on with this book you've written." I pretty much barfed out the whole ugly truth. Years of writing and getting it wrong. Years of NY agents saying things such as, "You're a fantastic writer, but pass."

He nodded several times and said simply, "That's not at all unusual. It sounds like you're going to do very well someday."

That was it. That was all he said.

And it was enough. Because he was Guy Gavriel Kay. I read his stuff in when I was in high school. He has eleventy-hundred novels published. And he basically said, "You're normal. Keep going."

I'm a mess. My work is a mess. I continue to rework the same novel I've been working on since the dawn of humanity (it feels like),  I've been rejected and/or ignored by some of the best in the business.

Normal.

I keep going.

What keeps you going as a writer?

Art as Judge

Every novel contains a central moral presumption. That's because every author comes to his or her work with a set of beliefs about how the world should work and what happens when it doesn't. So, even if the author doesn't make a note of the moral presumptions in his work and tape it to his monitor, he still writes a story infused with, even guided by, his take on the world machine. Things like...

Equal justice makes a society humane.

Regret prevents us from living meaningfully.

Beauty is on the inside or nowhere.

The bad guy should pay for his evil deeds.


Happiness at the expense of others is fragile and dangerous.

I've read several novels recently that have pointed a finger at me. You might think that I would find this a bit like wearing a wool sweater in July. Not at all. I enjoyed the experience immensely because the author didn't write about an issue but about characters, fully developed and real, living inside the issues, wrestling with complex moral questions within the context of enthralling stories.

I noticed that in each story the stakes--emotional, psychological, or physical--were high. Squirmy high. Nose-bleed high.

I just finished reading The Light Between Oceans by ML Stedman. A childless couple (2 miscarriages and one stillbirth) live on a rock of an island off the coast of southwestern Australia. The husband keeps the lighthouse. The wife considers a life without children as a great black void. But...a dinghy comes to shore with a wailing infant and a dead man. The dutiful husband is eager to make a report. The wife convinces him to wait, and then to take the child as their own. On their first trip to shore nearly two years later, they discover that the mother is alive. And so the working out of the moral premise begins.

Great story. It made me ask if I was living happily at the expense of others. Not comfortable to ask or answer.

Has art dared to judge you? What questions has art asked that made you squirm? Are you buying this moral presumption thing?

The Pain of Promotion

I recently read a novel by an author I’d not read before, first name Annette. I selected it late one night from the sale pages of Christianbook.com when I’d run out of things to read. The first thing that caught my attention was that it was published by NavPress, the house that published my first two novels, so I read the opening pages and was intrigued enough to order it. The novel was surprisingly good, a refreshing find, completely out of the box for CBA, which instantly made me turn back to see the publication date. Aha. It was published in 2006. In my opinion, CBA has tightened its net, so to speak, in the intervening years, and I’m not sure this book would find a home in CBA these days. For more on that, you should read Latayne's excellent post from Friday, regarding Christian Fiction.

Coincidentally, I had an interesting conversation with a longtime employee of the Christian bookstore in my little town (anyone hear Simon & Garfunkel singing?) when I took more of my books in, which they graciously sell. Lynda is very complimentary of my fiction, because she feels it is real, addresses real issues, isn't neatly tied up in the end, and shows the reader she isn't alone in her struggles. But I haven't been able to get a CBA contract since 2008, so there you are.

 Annette did a remarkable job of writing a male protagonist (we discussed writing opposite-sex characters on this blog in August). She wrote real-world characters you could truly identify with, who had goals beyond getting the girl/guy next door, and problems that look a lot like mine. Problems that don’t always have good solutions. I applauded her guts and her ability, and sent her an email saying how much I’d enjoyed the novel. Her response kind of blew me away. She gave me permission to share some of what was contained therein.

Annette is the author of 13 novels, the first published in 1997. It sold roughly 140,000 copies. The others, combined, sold about the same number. Combined or not, I was struck with Serious Envy when I read her sales numbers. I’ve never come close to that, nowhere near, though I never stop working at it.

But it was her next statement that blew me away. She wrote, “As for why I stopped writing …”

Excuse me?!?

Stopped writing?!?

With that kind of success?!?

Yes. Stopped. She had three main reasons:

First, I absolutely cannot bear promoting. I'm quite private, more so as I've gotten older. (I'm 54). I am the only person I know not on Facebook. When I began writing, promotion meant speaking a bit, doing book signings, giving out bookmarks. I did do a blog for a bit, and didn't mind that. But now...I just can't do all that is expected and needed of an author. When I weighed the pain of promoting vs the joy of writing for publication, writing did not come out on top.  I do not see how someone unwilling to promote can publish today.


Second, writing was never a calling for me. I loved it. It came easily and naturally for me, and I had a talent for it. I read a few how-to books and subscribed to Writer's Digest, but I never took a writing class. I attended my first conference after I'd had 7 books out. It wasn't something I longed for or dreamed about. I was a voracious reader, but really never thought being an author was in the realm of reality. It was an amazing surprise.

But my true calling? Hospice nursing. I've been an RN since age 20. It is what I was born to do. It is where I have served, where I have done my best work. It was easy to let writing slip away when it wasn't my only thing, or even my main thing.

“My only thing, or even my main thing.” That line really struck me. Because aside from my relationship with family and God, writing IS my main thing and has been for 27 years. No, it doesn't begin to compare to hospice nursing or any number of other professions that truly help people, but it is my passion. Aside from unforeseen circumstances, I have no intention of stopping. But I completely get what Annette is saying. Debbie also wrote a great post last week on the truth about introverts. Many writers are introverts – and some are shy, to boot, as Lori Benton pointed out. That certainly describes me. So when Annette said she couldn’t bear self-promotion, I could relate so well. And yet, as she spelled out so clearly, someone unwilling to self-promote these days won’t get far as an author.

The environment we find ourselves in as writers today is somewhat of a dichotomy. On one hand, publishing opportunities are greater---and less costly---than ever before, if one is willing to go the independent route. Now that many authors are choosing to go independent, even those who have been multi-published traditionally, the stigma of self-publication has diminished.

On the other hand, going independent means the full weight of promotion falls to the author. And for those of us---which basically is all of us---who dislike self-promotion, it makes the writing life that much harder. Building a readership is like tossing a stone into water and watching the ripple spread out from the initial splash. Turning that ripple-effect into a tsunami is the goal, but how do you do that?

Bloggers and social media participants have formed an impromptu co-op, if you will, helping promote the work of other writers along with their own, but it still creates only a small ripple in a huge pond. And all that promotional work cuts deeply into the author’s writing time. One or the other is going to suffer.

Have you found a way to balance writing with promotion, and have you found a promotional tool that’s been successful for you? Is the fear of promotional responsibilities enough to give you pause as a writer, or perhaps deter you from going independent? What, if anything, would make you put down your pen for good?

Redeeming Lost Things with Voices

I am mourning today the loss of a great novelist, Tom Clancy, whose novels – and the movies derived from them – are among my favorites. In fact, he is in part responsible for my own novels, because my husband’s urging to “write what you know” included the examples of John Grisham and Tom Clancy. 

(And of course one thing I knew quite a bit about was Mormonism, and my husband’s encouragement and insight encouraged me to write my first novel, Latter-day Cipher, a murder mystery whose plot and clues were derived from little-known peculiarities of that culture.)

I began writing with a formula that works:  An author knows things that the audience doesn’t know, and writes about them.

However, the relative success of the formula depends just as heavily on another factor:  The author’s ability to keep the audience interested while he or she tells about those things.

Those two elements--transmitting new knowledge or insight, and doing it memorably—do not guarantee the effectiveness (however that might be defined) of a book.

I’ll get personal here. One of the most perennial criticisms of “Christian fiction” is that books in that genre often lack those two elements. One reason might be is that CF is considered “safe” for an audience that might want stimulation and/or insight, but they often don’t demand that it be done memorably.

It’s called preaching to the choir. Telling them things that won’t make a difference. And often in a way they’ll forget right away.

What we see as a safe place, as former lesbian atheist and now Christian Rosaria Butterfield, author of Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert observes, looks very scary to thinkers.

I miss being in the company of risky and complex thinkers, people who are invested in our culture and who challenge me to think to the edges of my comfort zones. I believed then and I believe now that where everybody thinks the same nobody thinks very much.

I wrote my friend Rosaria and told her I was quoting her in this blog. I explained NovelMatters to her this way:

I blog there with five other rather unconventional Christian novelists. In fact, we're so unconventional that most of us are about to write ourselves out of the "Christian fiction" genre.

And yet we are wondering – and we ask you, our readers-- if it is a lost genre that needs redemption like all other lost things with voices; and if so, what is our part in that?

Protecting the Quiet

Today I spent two hours teaching a class on health care. I had a great time. Slipped under the door when I came home, exhausted. Like Debbie, I am an introvert.

A week ago, my husband spent two hours teaching high school metal shop classes how to make sculptures in wire.  Floated home three feet off the ground. You're right: He's an extrovert.

And no, I doubt my own experience would have been much different if, like him, I'd been teaching about my art. I still would have had to talk to many, not to one or two, and I still would have had to keep it up for a very long time.

In your comments to Debbie's post on Monday, several of you admitted to a lifelong struggle to change your nature. I have struggled like you, and like you, I have learned over the years to put on a decent show - for a time.

 And as it has for some of you, Susan Cain's book, Quiet, came to me as a gift and a blessed relief. Someone understood, at last, in black and white, and at long last, gave me permission to stop trying to fix myself.

I read Quiet exactly six months from the day I began an experience that would prompt me to re-frame many things that had caused pain in my life. Among those things was an inward orientation that I now realize was the very thing that allowed me to write my characters from the inside out, and that also allows me to learn well a line of work that demands empathy.

Writers who happen to be introverts (and that may be all writers) find themselves in awkward positions once they are published. Debbie mentioned the hoped for/dreaded book signings and media interviews: even relatively unknown authors are suddenly expected to behave like extroverts.

I suspect when you are a writer within the Christian publishing world, it's a bit worse. The market is smaller, and authors are left more in charge of their own publicity. Not only that, but these authors go to church. Perhaps some of you thoughtful, observant quiet types have noticed how many of the world's cultural expectations slip un-noticed under the church doors - and in-between the pages of our books.

Susan Cain brings up one of the most insidious:

"Contemporary evangelicalism says that every person you fail to meet and proselytize is another soul you might have saved." 

No wonder our stories have to have such purpose. What literary value can stand up to the imperative salvation of our readers' souls?

And while we're on the subject, what is it we do, locked alone with our thoughts, that's more important than all of the programs that require our participation? Cain quotes an introverted pastor's lament:

"There (is) no emphasis on quiet, liturgy, ritual, things that give you space for contemplation.”

And yet, if we are to write stories worth reading...

If we are to live lives worth living, we need these things.

I am lucky enough to have a room of my own, a private office where I can come and close the door when I have to. It is here that I curl up with my prayer app (Common Prayer for the geeky introverts among us), with my books, with my thoughts and supplications.

What about you? Have you managed to protect the quiet in your lives?

Do tell us how. We need to know.

And we love to read what you have to say.