Maggie Stiefvater's Blog: Maggie Stiefvater, page 395

Jealousy, Part Two: On the Fairness! O the Fairness!

Last night, while grappling with software and cursing over a Freak Camcorder Accident for a v-log, I dashed off a post about jealousy and writers. And I’ve been seeing some interesting comments to the post, and I think what they mention is worth bringing up.

And basically, it is this: the thing about working hard to become a writer is that the amount of work you put into it rarely correlates to the amount of success that you have. Some folks work for 20 years and never get published, and some people dash off a manuscript in four months and sell it for six figures. And this strikes many as unfair. I even said that in a reply to a comment: “well, the business isn’t fair.”

But then I realized that I don’t really believe that. I just don’t think it’s fair in the traditional, ethical sense, where good people get to go to the front of the line and friendly dogs always find homes and good writing becomes a successful.

I do think, though, that in the most basic sense, publishing is very, very fair. The fairest thing out there. Because all publishing cares about is that you sell books. It doesn’t matter how long you took to write it, how well it’s written, what it’s about, if you’re a great person . . . publishing, as an over-arching being, just cares about how many copies it will sell. It’s not subjective, and that’s as fair as you can get, right?

I hear a lot of griping about celebrities writing books. They didn’t do the time! They can’t write! I bet someone else wrote it for them! But for me, this is the easiest formula to understand. Even if a memoir by the latest teen star isn’t my thing, I can guarantee you that it will be hundreds of thousands of other people’s thing. A lot of them will be people who don’t ordinarily pick up books. For a publisher, this is gold.

That’s fair.

I think a lot of unhappiness comes from a lack of self-awareness, as far as our writing goes. So many people want to write bestsellers, but, really, most books just won’t be. It has nothing to do with being well-written. There are loads of well-written books. Imagine how many books you like. Imagine how many books your sister likes. Imagine how many your father in law likes. Now imagine how many books you all three like.

That’s a bestseller. What are the odds?

And this really isn’t a negative thing, or a condemnation of books that aren’t bestsellers. I have this theory that most people’s favorite books never appear on the bestseller list (mine certainly don’t. Two of my favorites, KETURAH AND LORD DEATH and FIRE AND HEMLOCK, are so far from ever appearing on a bestseller list that is a little sad). The bestseller list is made up of books that a whole lot of people can LIKE, but they don’t have to LOVE them. Just like them enough to recommend them to their mom and their dentist. Well-written does not equal bestseller.

A lot of people are unhappy with the size of their debut deal or with their midlist career, plugging along selling a few hundred books instead of a few thousand, because they wanted to be a bestseller. I think you have to try to judge what you have in your hands. I love my first two faerie books. They’re precisely the sort of books I loved as a teen. I don’t think they’re bestsellers. I think they’re genre books with a limited appeal. Maybe not as limited as other fantasies, but still, the fantasy element is written in such a way that it will narrow the readership. And I’m okay with that.

So this all trickles down to aspiring writers and jealousy and all that. Really, my main hope is that before aspiring writers so willingly ascribe their fates to chance and luck and subjective things completely outside of their control, they’ll consider what is in their control, what is objective, and turn any negative feelings into kick-ass character development in chapter three.

On Writerly (NAY! All Creative!) Jealousy

Earlier today, I tweeted a link to this article on writerly jealousy, over at The Rumpus. It seems a lot like something I would have thought about and written — the question asker is very jealous of her writer friends, to the point where it is like “swallowing battery acid” when something good happens to them. Sugar, the blogger, dishes out an answer that would fry eggs, talking about how jealousy is only as powerful as you let it be and how the original asker’s point of view came from a false sense of entitlement.

I found myself nodding along and going YEAH! WHO ARE YOU TO BEGRUDGE THOSE PUBLISHED AUTHORS ANYTHING!?

But then, as I tweeted the link and talked back and forth with folks on Twitter, I realized that I wasn’t the fairest person to be talking about writerly jealousy. I know y’all are thinking it’s because I’m sitting in a very lovely writerly place now, and I am, but that’s not the reason. The reason is that I’m just not a jealous person (and I realize this sounds very egotistical, so bear with me as I explain). As a non-jealous person, me giving advice on how not to be jealous would be like me giving advice on how not to gamble — something else I’ve never felt the remotest affection for. I have my vices, like an addiction to sweet tea and an obsessive-compulsive streak. Both of those would be valid things for me to write about, but jealousy? No.

And that made me start wondering why I’m not generally a jealous person. Because I do seem to remember, once upon a time, knowing quite a bit about being jealous. I was one of five kids, and monsters of the green-eyed variety tended to arise when one sibling got to ride in the front seat and I didn’t, or when someone got to stay up late and I didn’t, or someone got an extra present at Christmas (oh yes, we counted).

This is where it starts to click for me. Really, the reason why I got jealous as a kid is because I didn’t understand why my brother or sister got something that I wanted and I didn’t. It was out of my hands, a benefit gifted by a capricious, inscrutable parent, a surprise windfall that landed in someone else’s lap instead of mine — all because they happened to be standing closer to the prize than I. Everyone should have had an equal shot, but that didn’t matter when they were handing out the goodie bags.

Sugar, over at the original article, tells the original asker that she thinks jealousy stems from entitlement. “A large part of your jealousy probably rises out of your outsized sense of entitlement. . . There are a lot of people who’d never dream they could be a writer, let alone land, at the age of 31, a six figure book deal. You are not one of them.”

But, the fact is, I’m 29, and I will have six novels published by the end of this year. Richelle Mead is 34. Lauren Kate is 30. Stephanie Meyer is 38. There are a lot of authors who have become wildly successful by age 31, so it’s not really an impossible dream, to be published by 31, not anymore. That dream isn’t just a product of entitlement.

I think this is why jealousy is such an issue among writers. The dream seems more achievable than ever and still, it doesn’t pan out for everyone. It’s like being one kid in a family of five of them — why did SHE get to sit in the front seat this time!? There’s really this sense that luck rules the publishing industry. There’s this idea that someone got published because they met the right editor at the right conference. They had the right idea when a trend was hot. They submitted a manuscript right before an agent had a vacation in Aruba and the agent signed them because forever their work reminded her of beaches.

But if you believe that, it will eat you alive, wondering why it couldn’t have been you who hit that lucky strike. Why did the publishing gods gift that deal to someone else?

I think this is why I’m not a jealous person, as an adult. Very early on as a teen, I decided to take complete control of my fate (actually, being a control freak is one of my vices). Mostly, I wanted to be able to take credit for my successes (and oh, was I determined to have them), and if I believed that luck was guiding my hand, that meant I had to give luck the credit. But taking ownership of my destiny meant that my failures were my fault as well. My query was sloppy. My characterization was lax. My concept wasn’t commercial enough. The fault was mine, but I was okay with that — because it meant that when I fixed them, success was inevitable.

That’s right. I believed it was inevitable. I remember telling my husband when I was 19 that I was a poor history major at the moment, but one day, I’d be a rich and famous author and would keep him in the manner to which he’d soon become accustomed.

So I guess, as a non-jealous person with no right to dole out advice on jealousy, this would be my advice, nonetheless: take ownership of your destiny. Own your faults and your successes, and let others own theirs. It’s hard to be jealous of someone who you know worked for what they got. Harry Potter’s a great example — Ron’s always a little jealous of Harry, because his scar and his status was an accident, outside of Harry’s control. But no one’s ever jealous of Hermoine’s skill in magic. We know she fought for it.

As mystical and uncontrollable as this business seems from the outside, I can tell you from the inside that most everything happens for very valid reasons, and most of those are totally within your control. It’s far more about attending those potions classes than it is about being around when Voldemort rings the doorbell.

Secret Musician #2 REVEALED!

Man, one of my favorite things about my job as it stands is that I get to mess around with music more than I thought humanly possible. I love finding new music, and I love making music, and when I can combine the two with book-making, well. I felt rather cheeky last year when I approached musicians about possibly setting some of Shiver's lyrics to music, and I was thrilled when both of the artists I asked said yes. One of them, as readers will already recall, was Jonas & Plunkett (Their version is here).

The other musician is one that I found, in a backwards way, through my writing. I had done a school visit at a Northern Virginia high school back when Lament came out (so, 2008. I was a baby writer). The creative writing teacher asked me if I wanted to come to the senior high's open mic night. Apparently, students felt free to climb on stage and share music, poetry, and whatever else could be shared on a stage.

I wanted to say no.

I have been a musician for a very long time and I have been to enough open mic nights to know that, generally, they are painful things. They are like family reunions. The concept seems great. But they always go on and on and someone always gets food poisoning. But I was a baby writer, so I agreed.

And shock of shocks, it was not painful. In fact, it was the opposite. In fact, there was a musician there I was so sure was going to be famous someday that I wrote his name on my hand with my signing Sharpie so I would remember to google him in a few years.

And that's Secret Musician #2. I tracked him down, nearly three years later, and found out that he was just working on recording an album. I asked him if he would be interested in recording a version of "Summer Girl." And he said yes. A couple months later found us in the studio, me recording my music for the FOREVER trailer, and he recording "Summer Girl."

I'm very pleased to be able to share Sulaiman Azimi's version of "Summer Girl." I wanted to do a proper video teaser of it, but I caught a cold at BEA, and I am feeling indolent and terrible. I am actually wearing an orange t-shirt and a purple plaid button down at the moment, and if that doesn't convince you of my dreadful feelings, I don't know what will. So instead of doing something new, I remixed my very first stop-motion project, with Sulaiman's song attached.

If you love it, PLEASE support Sulaiman by going to itunes or Bandcamp and buying it (you can get it for 50% off at Bandcamp using the code 'forever'). And do follow him on twitter (@sulaimonster) or check out his website: www.sulaimanazimi.com so that you can keep tabs on when his album comes out. He'll also be at the launch party in Tyson's Corner, VA, for FOREVER.



Hope you guys love it, and I'll leave you with a very brief Q/A with him!

MAGGIE: I approached you pretty much out of the blue about Shiver. I remember thinking “this guy is going to think I’m such a stalker.” What was really going through your head when you got that e-mail?

SULAIMAN: I was just surprised you remembered my name from an open mic so long ago. I replied to your email with a picture of Shiver and Linger and a receipt next to it, haha. I couldn't find Shiver or Linger at Barnes and Noble until I found like 30 of them on their own separate shelf. At that point I was thinking "Whoa." I was and still am very excited about the putting music to these wonderful books.

MAGGIE: Well, "Sulaiman" is sort of impossible to forget. Sort of like "Stiefvater." Something about starting with an S and being hard to spell. So, I know that you read SHIVER before you started writing the music for “Summer Girl.” How much did your reading inform your composition process?

SULAIMAN: I kept coming back to the first ten or so pages. I wrote the music based off of a feeling I got from the beginning of the book. By the time I got to the "Summer Girl" lyrics, it was done. I got to hear a song in my head when reading that part.

MAGGIE: Which is amusing to me, because that's how I wrote the lyrics — by inventing a tune in my head while I stared at the computer screen, and then writing lyrics for it. So I reckon that makes you the second person ever to read that page that way. Talk to me about how you compose. I tend to start writing almost all my tunes while standing at my kitchen counter, but I understand this is not the only way.

SULAIMAN: You won't believe me, but I wrote "Summer Girl" in my kitchen. And you're right, its not the only way because I write songs in every room in my house, except the laundry room.

MAGGIE: I would believe you, on both counts. It's a universal truth that proximity to cookie dough increases creativity and proximity to laundry detergent squelches it. I notice that you share some Sam-like features. Do you think that you’re like him, at all? Also, will you ever shave that beard?

SULAIMAN: Yeah, we're both totally adorable and we play the guitar. I was sad to find out he doesn't have a beard though. I definitely thought that since he's a wolf and all that'd make sense. I trimmed mine a week ago, I'm feeling pretty good about it.

MAGGIE: What’s next for Sulaiman Azimi?

SULAIMAN: We're working hard on a record and "Summer Girl" will be featured on it! The album is called The Music of Sulaiman Azimi and it's due this Summer 2011. It'll be available alongside "Summer Girl" at SULAIMANAZIMI.COM (bookmark it!) and please follow me TWITTER.COM/SULAIMONSTER for some hilarity. I want to thank y'all for the opportunity of putting Summer Girl to life.

New York, in Stolen Pictures

So I have been quiet this week because I was in New York City for BEA and events with Meg Cabot & Libba Bray. If you're not familiar with BEA, its proper name is Book Expo America and it is a giant (25,000 people giant) book conference for booksellers and librarians and publishers to talk about the books that are coming out that year. It's massive, full of publisher giveaways, and is designed to make authors rock and groan in a fetal position. Which is to say that it's a great thing.

Now, I was at BEA two years ago when SHIVER was about to come out, and I remembered the insanity, so I didn't bring my camera this time. So that means that the only photo in this entire post that is mine and not stolen from someone at Scholastic is this one, taken with my phone:


That would be just some of the bags that booksellers brought to the show. To fill with books.

I was feeling a bit queasy about BEA this year, because Scholastic let me know that they would be giving away advanced review copies (ARCs) of both FOREVER and of THE SCORPIO RACES. Which meant that after months of my manuscripts being carefully secluded from public eye, they were both being unleashed at the exact same moment. The sudden unveiling of my work brings out all kinds of neurotic characteristics I don't normally have. Like self-googling. And haunting Goodreads. And stopping in my tracks whenever I hear someone say "forever" or "scorpio."

I tried to make myself less neurotic with the knowledge that only a very few people would have copies of the books.

Head of publicity (@TVS_557 on Twitter) helpfully sent me a photo of the Scholastic booth on the first day of the show:




Okay, maybe more than a very few.

My publicist sent me a photo a few minutes later:


It was like there had been . . . wildebeests. Or piranhas. Or bloggers.

Pause for self-googling on cell phone. Has anyone read the end of FOREVER yet? Does anyone know what THE SCORPIO RACES is about yet? DAMN, there is bad reception at the Javits Center. Moving on . . .

Later, I had a signing session at BEA and signed THE SCORPIO RACES for an hour straight. Oh yes, my neurotic meter, she's ticking. But that wasn't all! I also had two "This is Teen" events with Meg Cabot and Libba Bray. There were a few people at the one at the Scholastic Store:


We took questions from the audience and talked about our books (I talked about how I came up with one of the dire scenes from FOREVER). Meg and Libba are both a lot of fun (also, Libba is evil, which I appreciate), so I reckon that the next four events with them (San Francisco, Boston, and Chicago in June, and Miami in July) are going to be equally delightful.


The other fantastic thing that happened in NYC was a "This is Teen" blogger meet and greet. The fantastic thing about this? Well, every once and awhile, I remember acutely what life was like last year, two years ago, four years ago, etc.

Like -- the signing at BEA was odd because I remembered very well the first time I'd been to the conference, back when I was a shaky, nervous author hoping that SHIVER might make a name for itself in the YA world.

Going to Savoy for lunch with my Scholastic publicist was weird, because I remembered the first time I'd ever come to NYC and had lunch at Savoy with my now editor, David Levithan. He'd told me "now, we can't promise that Shiver will be a bestseller" and I remember saying, "That is an OPTION!?" 

And the blogger meet and greet was weird too. Some of these bloggers that I was rubbing elbows with were supporters of my books back when it was just LAMENT in 2008. I still remember some of their reviews of LAMENT, my first blog reviews ever, and just how deliriously excited I was to see them. Look at me, I thought, getting reviewed alongside Scott Westerfeld and Libba Bray and all these other YA greats . . .

It has been a crazy three years.

Imagined Conversations in Dutch

DUTCH PUBLISHING PERSON #1: Do you remember how we published Maggie Stiefvater's novel LAMENT last year?

DUTCH PUBLISHING PERSON #2: Fondly.

DUTCH PUBLISHING PERSON #1: Remember, we retitled it HEARTBEAT.

DUTCH PUBLISHING PERSON #2: Great title.



DUTCH PUBLISHING PERSON #1: I know, right? We're publishing the sequel, BALLAD, this year. What should we call it?

DUTCH PUBLISHING PERSON #2: Toughie.

DUTCH PUBLISHING PERSON #1: Hard to follow up that first act.

DUTCH PUBLISHING PERSON #2: Why try?

DUTCH PUBLISHING PERSON #1: Exactly! I was thinking we should call it: HEARTBEAT.

DUTCH PUBLISHING PERSON #2: Great title.

Impromptu Facebook and Twitter Contests for FOREVER!

So, as I may have mentioned, this week I am at BEA, which is a giant conference for booksellers. It involves things like publishers talking to booksellers and librarians about their upcoming books, and also advanced reader copies of said books. While I was there, look what I managed to snag two of:

Because I am the kindest, fuzziest author ever, I am going to give these two away. And I'm going to do it on Facebook and Twitter. The rules are revoltingly easy this time.

To enter for the Twitter copy, change your Twitter profile pic to the FOREVER cover. Then go to the contest site HERE and enter your twitter name. The cover has to stay up on your profile all week, until June 3rd, when the contest ends. A winner will be picked randomly. TA da!

To enter for the Facebook copy, change your FB profile pic to the FOREVER cover. Then go to the contest site HERE and enter your facebook profile (it's okay if it's private). The cover has to stay up on your profile all week, until June 3rd, when the contest ends. Ta DA again.


Here's the image for you to grab: 

You can enter both. It ends June 3rd.

ETA: International folks can enter, but you MUST have a U.S. address I can mail it to. (this is ARC rules, not mine)


I think that's all the rules and things. I will have cool things to say when I get back from BEA, I promise.

Oh, oh, and tonight I will be at the Scholastic Store in NYC, signing books with Meg Cabot and Libba Bray at 6:30 p.m., so if you're around, come see me!

In Which I Do My Most Disgusting Video Yet

Because of this book:



Why, yes, that is a quote from me on the front cover. It says:
"Love buried in cemeteries, horror hidden behind masks, and the whispered language of blood. I adore this book."

What is THE SCORPIO RACES really about?

So, in case you were losing sleep wondering what THE SCORPIO RACES is about, Scholastic has just released their Fall Librarian Preview, and I talk all about it:

www.scholastic.com/librarianpreview

(Hint: I'm near the end)

Teaser Tuesday!

I've been doing Teaser Tuesday snippets over on Twitter and Facebook for the past couple of weeks and realized that I had been meanly excluding my blog. So I figured I would remedy that by gathering all of the teasers I have posted so far for FOREVER and putting them in one place.

Here are the teaser sentences I've posted so far:

Week 1: “Grace,” I whispered. “This isn’t how it ends.”

2: "Cole," I breathed. "What have you done to yourself?"

3: I had no real idea where I was, but I knew this: I was nowhere near Mercy Falls.

4: I said, “Uh — six minutes since I found him. He’s not breathing.”

5: “Just tell me. Is there something going on between you two?”

FURTHER TEASERS!

I have a 12 hour and 36 minute long playlist for FOREVER, since there are 8 weeks until FOREVER comes out, here are the top 8 songs with the most plays (I listened to most often while writing).

8. "Lille" - Lisa Hannigan
7. "First Floor People" - Barcelona
6. "Gutter" - Paper Route
5. "Comes and Goes (In Waves)" - Greg Laswell (iTunes LIES. This was the song that influenced me the most)
4. "Devil You Know" - Pinback
3. "Honey Honey" - Feist
2. "Sandra's Theme" - Danny Elfman
1. "One Last Message" - Andrew Lockington

FURTHER, FURTHER TEASERS

Things I have said about FOREVER: "It has happier moments than either of the two books . . . and SADDER MOMENTS than either of other two books."

FURTHER, FURTHER, FURTHER TEASERS

Me reading the first chapter of FOREVER.




Well, you just don't get more teasery than that.
/Maggie out

Winners! winners! Winners!

I know y'all don't care about any intro to this, so I will merely cut to the chase and post the winners of the giant FOREVER contest!

We had over 800 entries for the first five prizes, and over 200 for the last two, so thank you, guys, muchly, for spreading FOREVER love across the internet! 

Signed bookmarks: starryeyedjen, Sarahjane Larkin, aleib1, safaripoet, and Dana Joyce Moore

Wolves from the FOREVER trailer: MrsChristensen, Donna.Stelloo, ILikeTheseBooks, inee_, mouse909, and Megan Thiesse

So, winners of bookmarks and wolves, email me: StiefvaterReaderMail AT gmail.com (remove AT and put in @). Make sure you put CONTEST WINNER in the subject line, and in the e-mail, make sure you include your mailing address and what you've won. It makes prizes arrive a lot faster when I don't have to rely on my sketchy memory.

And the winners of the top 5 prizes:

Linger Tank Top Winners: Taylor_LeAnn_, wildshea, Cuda Fuad, and Ambur Hostyn 

Doodled in copy of Linger: cc.landess

A Shiver Keepsake Box with Goodies: Anita Ward

An ARC of THE SCORPIO RACES: Hailey R.

An EARLY COPY OF FOREVER:  freakout

And in perfect timing, I just got in my ARCs of THE SCORPIO RACES, so I'll be able to mail that out sooner than I expected. All of the prizes should be mailed out by the 30th at the latest.

A huge congrats! Thanks, guys!