The Skill of Failure

 

I always enjoy reading Southwest Airlines’ Spirit magazine when I’m on a flight.  I usually find an article that makes a connection with writing in some way.  March’s issue had an article titled ‘The New American Dream’ highlighting entrepreneurs who quit their day jobs in order to pursue work completely outside their chosen professions. (article here) I found it especially interesting that so many people working in tech or other high paying business related jobs quit to ‘do something with their hands.’  Craftsmanship is becoming more recognized and personal satisfaction more valued. 

But none was an overnight success. The way they handled failure ultimately made them successful. Jay Heinrichs, the Editorial Director, points out that in some fields, failure is a necessity.  “Body builders lift to failure, pumping iron until they can’t get in another rep. Judo novices learn the art of falling. Engineers push devices until they break…”   

The writing profession is built on a series of successes and failures.  We can take classes and read books on writing technique, but until we actually write and critique what we’ve written, we don’t know where we have failed and how to improve it.  We can’t be afraid to write stinky, smelly first drafts, because without those, we have nothing to perfect, nothing to be successful with.

It can be very frustrating, even heartbreaking, to spend months or years on a manuscript, only to have it rejected by a publisher or agent. Or by several.  Every writer I know has experienced it.   Some writers can’t handle rejection of their work and they quit altogether. The lucky ones are those who receive feedback from the editor and the smart ones act on those suggestions and resubmit.  The ones who haven’t learned to handle failure don’t follow through.  I have heard editors say they have made comments for specific improvements and encouraged writers to resubmit, but many don’t.  

As writers, we need a strategy for recovering from failure and using the experience to our advantage.  If the editor has made suggestions that we can live with, following through is the most effective means toward success.  Sending the manuscript for a professional paid critique is also beneficial, as long as it is a trusted source.  At a minimum, we must ensure that we have followed submission guidelines and researched the best publisher for the manuscript. We need writer friends to use as a sounding board when these disappointments leave us low or threaten to derail us.  We may need to step back briefly and gain a fresh perspective. We don’t need to push our writing to the breaking point, but we must learn to see failure as an opportunity for future success.  And we don't quit our day jobs - stress is a creativity killer.

How do you handle the disappointment of failure?  Perhaps you have a quote or cartoon or your favorite author’s bio which outlines their ultimate success after experiencing failure.  Please share it with us. We’d love to hear!

Out of the Garden, Part 7

Read the story from the beginning here.

Part 7 by Cherry Odelberg.

“I’m your grandmother, Bree.”    

“I know that, Gran. I didn’t ask who you are. What are you?”

“A widow,”  I faltered. Not just any widow, Don’s widow.  

“So? That’s no big reveal.”  

“I haven’t taken to widowhood very well.”

“There are rules about that?”

“I . . . I’ve been trying to cope, I . . .”

Bree studied me for a moment with that frank stare of today’s generation.

“I’ve been under a doctor’s care. A psychiatrist.”

“Peta thinks you’re a crazy lady?”

For a moment, I wished I could tell Bree everything--share with her the way Granny and I did when I was young. Someone should know about Peta and me, about when we were kids, and about Peta and me, and Don as teenagers. Should know about Granny and her magical stories. About my loneliness now. Would Bree believe the Her? I wasn’t even sure how to believe the Her.

“Got hold of yourself yet?” Peta intruded a second time. 

A feline yowl erupted somewhere in the vicinity of my right knee. 

“A cat!” spat Peta. “You and Don and your shared love of cats.” She sneezed. “Get it out of here.”

Silently, I collected the lid of honey from the counter and followed Hector down the hall to the bedroom.  He marched on velvet paws, tail at full mast. I sagged against the door and breathed, “I need a drink.” 

I thirst, I thought. Give me to drink. Neachtar.

I filled a tumbler with water from the master bath sink and drank. I flicked a few drops of water into the honey, and swirled the lid. On my knees, I offered it to the fragile being lying in the shoebox.

“What are you?” I repeated the question of the day.

I knew what Granny would say. Fairies, Angels, Mythical creatures, they’re real. They are all representations of someone you know and love-or fear. Maybe they are a figment of who you are, or who you dream to be.

“What are you?” I whispered again.  

Cherry Odelberg is a longtime friend of Novel Matters. She loves to play piano (so much, she teaches it) and hike in the gorgeous mountains surrounding her Colorado home. She has every readers dream job, managing a bookstore. She always adds zest and insight to the Novel Matters community. Thanks so much, Cherry!

Tell Me a Story

Whenever I tell people what I'm about to tell you, it feels like I've opened the closet door, and the skeleton has clattered to my feet. I hope you'll think only a little less of me when I confess: I listen to audiobooks.

In my English-major days, I never dreamt of it. That would be like skipping the book and watching the movie. Or like reading the Cliffs Notes for Moby Dick.

Only wait - I did read the Cliffs Notes for Moby Dick. I did it because I was cornered: I had five literature classes, and was assigned to read a novel a week for each one. If you know anything about my reading style, you know I might better have majored in Physics, because I was more likely to discover Cold Fusion than to read five novels in a week. Ever.

It was a similar desperation that drove me to audiobooks.

I was a young mom, with a home-based night job that kept me entering data long into the next morning, and then left me cross-eyed the following day. With a toddler. And no time to read.

A story-deprived life is no life at all.  And besides, something had to keep me awake so I could enter the data. For a while, it was a whacked out radio announcer named Art Bell, who interviewed UFO abductees and werewolves. But even Art Bell went to bed before I did.

Enter Blackstone Audio. In those days, you could go to their website and stream their books - for free, sometimes - over the internet, and they had authors like John Gresham and Maeve Binchy, and those two can keep you awake for hours. Free books, and they helped me stay up and make money. People have gotten hooked on cigarettes for less reason.

I eventually quit the job, but by then, my relationship with audiobooks was established. I found I could exercise and take in a Ray Bradbury story. I could clean house and hear what Malcolm Gladwell had to say.

I could light a candle, lower the lights, lay back in a warm bubblebath, and close my eyes while someone with a wonderful voice read me an absolutely delicious story.

Can you tell? I love that best of all.

Now that my life is busier than it ever has been, I need my audiobooks more than ever. Otherwise I'd starve on only the few minutes in bed I'm awake before I drift off to an exhausted sleep. In effect, I'd practically give up reading altogether. And a story-deprived life is no life at all.

Now Amazon has a nice little thing they call Whispersync, which allows me to read for those few minutes before I fall asleep, picking up right where the audiobook last left off, and then starting the audiobook in the morning right where I stopped reading.

But it's more than mere necessity, this vice of mine.

I'll tell you a secret: Some readers perform the character's voices in ways that make stories even more delicious. The History of Love by Nicole Krauss is like that. So is The Help by Kathryn Stockett. Or The Silence of Bonaventure Arrow by Rita Leganski.

How about you? Do you listen to audiobooks? Got any favorites, any with wonderful voices?

Please do tell. I'd love to find another story for my candlelit bubblebath times.

Monday Movies with Novel Matters

Jodi Picoult is one of the best selling authors today, both in the US and internationally. She's published more than 20 novels, all that deal with cutting-edge topics, and many of which have been best sellers. In this interview, she talks about her characters, her research, and future books she'd like to write. We hope you enjoy.

What did you most get out of this interview that you could apply to your own writing? Do you have a favorite Jodi Picoult novel?

Out of the Garden - Part 6

Read the story from the beginning here.

Part 6 by Megan Sayer

Peta’s words winded me like a blow to the chest. I breathed deeply, holding the summer air in my lungs until my heart regained its rhythm, then breathed out slowly in a low, guttural sigh.

A hundred thoughts fought like dogs within me—Tea leaves on the floor. The dustpan. Pantry. Focus. Breathe.

Surely the fragile creature in a shoebox needed me more than ancient history needed reviving, but what to do? The clock ticked its wordless seconds, and through the window came the hum of idle chatter from the garden. I felt my shoulders relax; the guests were settled. I found the broom, swept the spill.

Breathed.

Margaret doesn’t eat sugar. How could I forget?

I hunted through my china cabinet for a saucer that once belonged to my—our—grandmother and twizzled some honey into it for the tray.

Breathe.

Margaret had been on a sugar-free diet for two months, and raved about weight loss and health benefits, about the natural healing properties in good organic…

Neachtar.

Honey is made from nectar. Could it help the Her? I rummaged quickly and rescued an old jar lid from the back of the pantry, just the size to cradle a teaspoon of honey. Surely just enough time…

Gentle laughter sounded outside, overlaid by the sharp, biting laugh of Peta. Her parting words pricked my soul again, an aftershock of memory.

Just don’t forget what you are.

“I know exactly what I am!”

A cough sounded behind me. I hadn’t heard the screen door open.

“Mom sent me to check you were okay.” My granddaughter’s bored expression had been replaced by curiosity. Her eyes flicked to the honey in my hand.

“So what are you then, Gran?”

Megan Sayer is a long-time friend of Novel Matters. Given that she lives in Tasmania, Australia, it's surprising that 5 out of 6 of us have met her in person and have fallen in love with her. She says she's addicted to fiction, which doesn't surprise us one bit, especially now that we've seen her writing. She's also a wife and mum (speaking Australian!) of 3 beautiful children. You can read more from Megan on her blog at MeganSayer.com and get to know her on FaceBook. She's finished one novel and is working on a second.

Thank you, Megan!

Your Brain on Novels

When Sharon wrote about the reader's state of mind on Monday, she wasn't thinking about that soft, squishy stuff inside our skulls.

But I am. 

Cognition and its workings are a bit of a hobby for me. When I nosed around for some science of reading stuff, I found an enlightening (pun intended) article.

Let me start by saying that my new goal as a fiction writer is to light up brains. That's what good fiction does according to "Your Brain on Fiction" by Annie Murphy Paul in the NY Times. The fMRI machine is giving us a glimpse of how the brain reacts to all of the old chestnuts of writing we've been practicing.

For instance, if someone laying in a fMRI machine reads a cliche, the result in the brain is absolutely nothing. No lights. No rush of blood. Darkness. But if the person reads a metaphor, like "the singer had a velvet voice," the part of the brain that processes texture/touch lights up. 

Lights up!

And those strong (specific) nouns and vivid verbs we've been harping on lately, they light up the visual cortex by creating a picture for the reader to "see."

Even nouns associated with smell, like "perfume," "coffee," and "popcorn" turn the lights on in the olfactory part of the brain. This is wild, and yet, so understandable for those of us who read voraciously. (I hankered for pork ribs while reading Gap Creek.)

"The brain, it seems, does not make much of a distinction between reading about an experience and encountering it in real life; in each case, the same neurological regions are stimulated." 

It gets even better. As fiction writers, we can give the reader a vicarious experience that teaches to be more empathetic and social. 

And here's why: 

"Fiction — with its redolent details, imaginative metaphors and attentive descriptions of people and their actions — offers an especially rich replica. Indeed, in one respect novels go beyond simulating reality to give readers an experience unavailable off the page: the opportunity to enter fully into other people’s thoughts and feelings...that individuals who frequently read fiction seem to be better able to understand other people, empathize with them and see the world from their perspective."

For me, this means word choice does matter, that exquisitely crafted characters and stories are worth the time I invest, and that we have scientific proof of what we've known all along: Storytellers play an incredibly important role in the preservation, enhancement, and healing of societies.

How does this information change the way you think about your craft?

A Reader's State of Mind

There aren't very many books I'll read a second time, but the few I've opted to re-read seldom disappoint. Only rarely do I ask myself, "What was I thinking?" when that second read does disappoint.

Even more rare is the book I'll give a second chance when the first attempt fell flat. I did that recently, and I blush to tell you the title. It was Marilynne Robinson's debut novel, Housekeeping. Housekeeping won several prestigious awards, and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in fiction. Marilyn Robinson's second novel, Gilead, did win the Pulitzer.

So what was my problem the first time I attempted to read Housekeeping? I'd heard so many great things about the novel from all the writers I interact with, but I just couldn't get into it. Still, I held onto it, thinking someday I'll give it another try. Well that "someday" came a few weeks ago, and from the opening page I was hooked, and asked myself countless times throughout the reading, "What on earth did I miss that first time?" The answer: "I have no idea."

I've tried to evaluate my state of mind when I made that first attempt three years ago, to see if there are clues as to why I didn't like it then, but there's not enough that's different in my life from then 'til now to explain it. I'm just glad I did give it a second chance, because I really liked the story. Or at least I very much liked the writing. The story certainly had its dark side, but there was enough good about the writing that I was willing to stay with it for the duration . . . this time. And who knows, maybe the bottom line is that the dark side of the story was too uncomfortable for me three years ago.

The point is, it's not very often a reader will give a writer a second chance when we fail to grab them the first time around. When I'm looking for a book to read/purchase, I'll read two, maybe three paragraphs of the opening page at the most, and if I'm not intrigued enough to keep reading at that point, I put that book down and go on to the next. Strong openings, particularly opening sentences, are so important. As you write and edit your opening pages, keep that in mind. We have precious few seconds to hook a reader, and even less to hook an agent or editor. Hone that opening page to the sharpest precision, but the subsequent writing must be equally enticing to keep the reader engaged. Keep your writing tight, your characters engaging, your story on target, each scene important, or the reader will be on to the next book on her list.

Is there a book you've given a second chance, and wondered what you missed the first time around? Or if you've once given up on a book, is that it, no second chance?