Mette Ivie Harrison's Blog, page 17

It's All Fodder

It’s easy to get depressed when you get rejection letter after rejection letter. Knowing that it’s part of the process helps a little, but doesn’t take away the sting completely. And there are other parts of the writing process that are even more painful. Giving up on a manuscript and putting it aside. Rewriting a manuscript so that large chunks you love are gone. Realizing that a manuscript you’re working on is derivative—or that something far too similar has just been published by someone you never heard of.

When you are feeling like this sucks and there is no point in writing another word, I hope it’s helpful to hear things like this:

1. This is all going to make a great book someday. Either a book about a writer or a book about someone who is rejected in ways that are like a writer.

2. I’m making that editor into the villain in my next manuscript.

3. The people who rejected me are going to wish they hadn’t. (Sometimes this actually does happen.)

4. Anger and despair are just more fuel for the creative fire.

5. Now that I’ve suffered, I really get what other artists are talking about.

6. I can write characters who have been through bad stuff a lot better now.

7. If I can figure out why people do these things that hurt me, I can write better villains. And make them suffer even more when I take away everything they care about. Mwahahah!

8. I’m going to devise a fantasy world in which things like this don’t happen. And I’m going to spend a lot of time worldbuilding to show how it can be done.

9. I get to the god of my next novel and I will make all the people I create suffer the way I’ve suffered, and it will be delicious!

10. I am going to work on my inspiring talk on how to keep working hard, no matter how bad the rejection gets, and aspiring authors are going to one day give me standing ovations.

Dangers of Revising:

We tell ourselves as writers that this is how it works to write a book:

1. Write a crappy first draft.
2. Get some feedback on it.
3. Revise it.
4. Get more feedback.
5. Revise it again.

Which isn’t untrue, but sometimes I think it feels more like this:

1. Write a crappy first draft.
2. Despair that it will never be any better and put it away.
3. Try writing another crappy first draft.
4. Decide to go back to the first crappy first draft because it seems better.
5. It isn’t better, but at least it’s finished.
6. Ask for feedback.
7. Reread notes on feedback and realize that people are telling you completely different things to fix, and that you could go off in at least six different directions.
8. Try to make everyone happy.
9. Get more feedback. Everyone hates it and tells you to go back to the first version.
10. You give up and move onto the next book, because this one CANNOT BE FIXED.

If you haven’t been through this process at least once, I don’t believe you’re a real writer.

I was with a great writer’s group for years, and I improved for a long time. And then I stopped improving. I started using the comments of the other writers as a Bible rather than as guidelines. I took too many notes, and I heard their voices in my head as I revised. This was not their problem, really. It was mine, but the only way I was able to fix it was to stop going to a writer’s group for several years.

The problem is that when you hear feedback from people, especially from other writers, you are likely to hear a lot of—this is what I do when my book has that problem. Which makes sense, right? I mean, how else do you offer advice except by using your own experience as an example?

But the best teachers of writing are the ones who see what you are trying to write and show you how to do it better. Not how to be them. They strip your work down to some basic parts and show you how to play with those. They don’t take away anything that matters to the piece and somehow, they manage to keep what makes your piece unique while also making it better.

This is nearly impossible. Really, I don’t think we realize how difficult it is to do this. You have to be not only a superb writer, but a well-read writer. Someone who understands many different kinds of forms, voices, and stories. You have to be able to be humble enough to realize that not every book is a book that you could write. There are wonderful books that don’t appeal to you at all. And yet you must learn how to help someone else write a perfect book that is not your kind of book. How many writers are this smart and humble—and care enough to learn this skill? Not many.

The wrong kind of writing teacher teaches you not how to write your own book better, but how to write like everyone else. And this is tragic. I’ve seen this all too often. Someone who writes a quirky, unique book, and it is “critiqued” or “edited” by the wrong person and ends up being something that almost anyone could have written. Sure, it has the edges knocked off so that it might appeal to a wider audience. Only it doesn’t really appeal to anyone anymore because the passion is gone out of it.

If you feel like this has happened to you as a writer, my advice is to let the piece sit for 6-12 months and come back to it with fresh eyes. Even that is sometimes not long enough to fall back in love with what was going right in a piece.

The worst risk of revision is always that you will end up abandoning a piece completely because you lost the part of yourself that wrote it. I don’ t know how to get that back. I know there are some writers who claim that they never give up on a piece of writing.

I am a little envious of this, because I feel like those writers have more confidence—or something—than I do. I give up on books. A lot. I forget what it was I was doing when I talk to too many people about my book, and that is something that I have begun to guard a little more closely against. Maybe it sounds like a superstition, but I believe too many eyes on a book takes something away from it.
 

How to Write A First Draft Fast

I am not a clean first drafter. I write fast and dirty. I don’t know what is going to happen at the end of the book when I begin. I only have a general idea of the story and the world and the main characters. So how do I do it?
1. I trust my subconscious. Even if there’s no reason to trust it. Just write and see if it works. I’m not saying it will every time, but a lot of the time, your subconscious is smarter than your conscious mind.
2. I don’t stop to look up facts unless I absolutely have to. You don’t usually need to spend ten hours researching something in a first draft. You have no idea if that part is going to stay in the book or not.
3. I remember a first draft is for broad strokes. That means I don’t worry about the small stuff. I don’t craft beautiful sentences. I don’t worry about great cliff hangers.
4. I don’t care about starting with the right first chapter. The book is going to change a lot, so don’t worry about what is the right, gripping first sentence. Don’t worry about attracting readers or editors or agents right now.
5. I spend some time trying to get to know my narrator. To me, the narrator matters the most in the book. This means that I will sometimes write a few chapters of back story (not meant to be included in the book) that are mostly for me so that I know what is at stake for the narrator. Yes, something big has to be at stake for your narrator.
6. I remind myself no one will ever see this draft. It’s just for me, not for other people.So if I don’t want to write description or dialog tags or stage movements, I don’t have to. Everything can happen with talking heads (it usually does for me) and that’s great.
7. I give myself permission to do it wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Seriously, very wrong. I can’t be embarrassed because I already know how stupid I am. The one person I never try to fool is me.
8. I try things that I know I don’t have the skills to do. I push myself because I’m just playing around.
9. I don’t go back and reread or edit as I go. OK, yes, I will go back and swiftly reread the last few pages I wrote before, and I might spend 10 minutes fiddling, but no more than that. Just keep pushing through.
10. I don’t let anyone read my first drafts. If someone walks into the room, I close my computer or angle it away. This helps protect my fragile writer self who needs to be private.
This method may not work for you at all. I don’t mean to suggest that every writer should draft this way. But if you are someone who has been told to write outlines and that just doesn’t work for you or if it feels stifling (as it does to me), you might try some of these tips and adapt them to your own style of drafting to good effect.

What is Your Character’s Loss?

A man I used to know only a little used to introduce himself to everyone he met with this story: He was driving from California to Utah because they were moving and he had three children in the car. The youngest child, about 9, was sitting in the front seat. It was dark and the youngest child fell asleep, so he reached over and undid the seatbelt so his son could be more comfortable.

A few minutes later, he fell asleep at the wheel, bumped off the road, rolled the car, and his son was catapulted from the car because he did not have a seatbelt on, and this son died. The man felt so much guilt for his part in the death of his son that he had to tell it to everyone he met, to get a kind of up-front forgiveness or maybe to feel like he wasn’t getting their friendship or kindness unfairly.

I have never forgotten this story, and when I think about creating characters, I often think about what is the story that this character would tell to everyone. What is the deep loss in their past that they cannot forget or forgive themselves for? And are they the kind of person who tells that story again and again or are they the kind that can never speak of it, that buries it deep, hoping without hope that it will go away?

Your Chances For Publication

I read a post recently by an author who insisted that it was just unreasonable to tell people to wait for a traditional publication deal because that was basically impossible.

It’s not impossible.

Yes, it takes a lot of work.

Yes, it can take a lot of time.

For me, it took 20 fully finished manuscripts that were rejected before #21 was accepted. So forgive me if I have a hard time feeling sorry for people who give up after their first finished novel isn’t accepted.

And if you’re wondering if I got those 20 books published after #21, the answer is a resounding no. Why? Because they weren’t good. I’m not saying they were worthless. I learned things. I was trying things out. I’m proud of myself for writing those books. But they aren’t remotely publishable.

It’s not impossible to be published traditionally. It’s really hard, and it may take a long time. But that’s not at all the same thing.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t self-publish. I know it’s a new world. I have read some excellent self-published books and am trying not to have a chip on my shoulder about self-publishing. I suspect it’s the right choice in certain situations, like if you are a crack marketer or you know a particular niche market.

But don’t do it because you think it’s your only choice and that traditional publishing isn’t open to new voices. It is. It absolutely is. Agents and editors are hungry for new voices. They are still reading slush piles and still finding people to publish there.

And before you say that I had a bunch of connections and that’s why I was published, remember that my first book was found in a slush pile. I wrote that letter to “Acquisitions Editor” without a name because that’s what the Writer’s Market book I was using told me to do.
It happens still. It happens a lot more to people who are working hard and are willing to give up on the old book and work on a new one.

Again and again and again.

Success comes to those who have the biggest capacity for failure.

How to Write A First Draft Fast

I am not a clean first drafter. I write fast and dirty. I don’t know what is going to happen at the end of the book when I begin. I only have a general idea of the story and the world and the main characters. So how do I do it?

1. I trust my subconscious. Even if there’s no reason to trust it. Just write and see if it works. I’m not saying it will every time, but a lot of the time, your subconscious is smarter than your conscious mind.

2. I don’t stop to look up facts unless I absolutely have to. You don’t usually need to spend ten hours researching something in a first draft. You have no idea if that part is going to stay in the book or not.

3. I remember a first draft is for broad strokes. That means I don’t worry about the small stuff. I don’t craft beautiful sentences. I don’t worry about great cliff hangers.

4. I don’t care about starting with the right first chapter. The book is going to change a lot, so don’t worry about what is the right, gripping first sentence. Don’t worry about attracting readers or editors or agents right now.

5. I spend some time trying to get to know my narrator. To me, the narrator matters the most in the book. This means that I will sometimes write a few chapters of back story (not meant to be included in the book) that are mostly for me so that I know what is at stake for the narrator. Yes, something big has to be at stake for your narrator.

6. I remind myself no one will ever see this draft. It’s just for me, not for other people.So if I don’t want to write description or dialog tags or stage movements, I don’t have to. Everything can happen with talking heads (it usually does for me) and that’s great.

7. I give myself permission to do it wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Seriously, very wrong. I can’t be embarrassed because I already know how stupid I am. The one person I never try to fool is me.

8. I try things that I know I don’t have the skills to do. I push myself because I’m just playing around.

9. I don’t go back and reread or edit as I go. OK, yes, I will go back and swiftly reread the last few pages I wrote before, and I might spend 10 minutes fiddling, but no more than that. Just keep pushing through.

10. I don’t let anyone read my first drafts. If someone walks into the room, I close my computer or angle it away. This helps protect my fragile writer self who needs to be private.

This method may not work for you at all. I don’t mean to suggest that every writer should draft this way. But if you are someone who has been told to write outlines and that just doesn’t work for you or if it feels stifling (as it does to me), you might try some of these tips and adapt them to your own style of drafting to good effect.

The Rules of Fantasy

Writers spend a lot of time writing rules of fantasy, and then even more time figuring out a way around those same rules.

Is this just perversity?

I don’t think so. I think that we all know instinctively that this is the way that mastery of any discipline works. First, you learn all the rules. Then you go about systematically figuring out how to break them.

It’s one of the reasons that it can be confusing to writers who are being taught “the rules” to see so many more advanced writers breaking all those rules.

The “rules” are invented to explain certain forms and processes on a simplistic level. Once you understand that level, you see how you can manipulate those forms and processes on another level entirely. That’s why they say that once you understand the rules, you don’t need to follow them anymore. Although that makes it sound like the rules aren’t really true.

And they aren’t. But they are. At the same time.

Rules are useful ways of describing things in thumbnail form.

But if you’re a pianist and you always follow the rules, you are likely to be boring. If you are a composer and you follow the rules, you may sound a little derivative. Not inventive. Not mind-blowing.

And yet, when you know the rules, you instinctively see the difference between people who break the rules because they have no idea they exist and people who break the rules because they’re messing with your head and your expectations. And how you appreciate the latter!

Wreck the rules! Destroy them! Build them up again!

Future and Past

I think it’s really useful to look back on the past and use it as a template for the future.

All the stuff that you imagine will change your life and make it so much better, and that will give you the validation you imagine you need—it’s not what you think it is. You know this because you’ve already seen it in the past. You remember getting something you thought you wanted and realizing it either wasn’t quite what it was cracked up to be, or that you had changed and become someone who wanted something else, or something more.

This is normal.

But it shouldn’t make you depressed or feel that you should stop trying for important things.

On the other hand, it should make you look around at the life you currently have and realize that there are things already there that make it wonderful, just as it is.

A lot of life is in the everyday choices and pleasures.

For me:

Reading a perfect book.

Meeting someone who is really as awesome in real life as I’d imagined.

Struggling with my writing.

One reader who sends a little note saying how much she loves my book.

Going out with people who actually love me as I am now, and are not waiting until I ‘level up.”

Imagining a great future. There is a pleasure in imagination that I am not sure any reality lives up to. And I refuse to give up my pleasure in imagination just because of that.

Networking

What it is:
1. Meeting people who are interesting.
2. Meeting people you like and who like you.
3. Meeting people who have similar passions.
4. Hanging out with people you have met before, at the bar, at the pool, or wherever you are.
5. Asking people to do you a favor, like writing a blurb or coming to a conference you are in charge of.
6. Asking for advice from friends who are further along in the business than you are.
7. Allowing friends to introduce you to their contacts, and doing the same for others when it is appropriate.
What it isn’t:
1. Pressuring people because they “owe you.”
2. Thinking that every person you meet must have an immediate, visible in to something that you want to do with your career.
3. Scoping out a room and seeing who the “important” people are, surrounded by others, and targeting them.
4. Interrupting conversations already in progress with people you feel like you “need” to talk to.
5. Buying drinks or bringing/sending gifts to people you want to impress. (This is so tacky, and borders on the creepy).
How it works for you:
1. Things happen. The stars align. I literally do not understand this, but it has happened to me twice now and resulted in book contracts. I didn’t push it. People came to me and asked me to write something, and I did, and it sold.
2. People remember you. They think of you when opportunities come up.
3. Don’t push it. The more you push, the more the possibilities will slide away.
How it doesn’t work for you:
1. Someone owes you a favor and you demand it right now.
2. You end up getting a blurb for your book that sounds good but is actually a hidden zinger or has no substance.
3. People realize that you give blurbs to anyone who asks, so they mean nothing and your name becomes associated with poor quality.
4. You become known as a jerk in the business.

Luck in the Biz

I hear a lot of authors who made it big out of the gate talk about the lessons they learned. Mostly, these seem to be lessons about how to do exactly what they did because all they know is that what they did=a happy result.

I am not saying that authors who make it big that way didn’t work hard. Or that their lessons are wrong per se. I’m not saying that no one should listen to them. But I do think it is useful a lot of the time to listen to authors who have been in the game a long time, who have seen a lot of other authors write on perfect book and no others, slowly give up after being a midlister for a few years, hit big sales ten years after a debut, and a lot of other cases.

Here are what I hear from these authors:

1. Luck is a big part of making it big.

2. You don’t control hitting the right market with the right book at the right time.

3. You control doing your best every day and continuing to try new things.

4. You control reinventing yourself with every book.

5. You control networking with people who might make a difference.

6. There isn’t a formula for the “perfect” book. (And anyone trying to sell you that formula is, well, earning their money doing something other than writing the perfect book themselves, shall we say).

7.You control having a good agent. The more books you sell, the more you know what a good agent is.

8. You control having a good editor. Maybe not with your first book sale, but after that, when you have a good agent, you should bring up any concerns with your editor. Editors can be changed.

9. Book deals that aren’t to your advantage can be cancelled. This means that if you hate working on the book you’re contracted on, you can sometimes buy out—and this may in fact be the best thing for your career.

10. Never EVER let someone talk you into signing away your rights to your career. You might be surprised at what I’ve seen in contracts. This actually happens. Have some faith in yourself and in your future.

Never imagine that you have no control. But also don’t imagine that you can just look at one author’s path and see how to “make it big.” That only worked in that one time in the history of the world. It’s not going to work like that again. Which isn’t to say it’s all luck or random chance. It’s not.