Mette Ivie Harrison's Blog, page 28

17 Things Not to Do When On Deadline

1. Buy books you want to read. (Books you don’t want to read are fine.)

2. Leave the house. (Ever!)

3. Invite house guests to visit. (Obvious, right?)

4. Have house cleaners come (You will be tempted to chat. Believe me, even if they are not English-speaking. You will act out scenes from your book to ask them if it is working.)

5. Get a new puppy.

6. Peruse the web to find new hobbies.

7. Use time when you are stuck to do a marathon viewing of Buffy, The West Wing, or X-Files. (They won’t help. No, really, they won’t!)

8. Google symptoms of the new disease you believe you have. (It isn’t cancer, Tourett’s, renal failure, or lesions in the brain—I swear!)

9. Decide it is time to organize your high school memorabilia because, after all, you are writing about a kid in high school, right? (No. Not your high school. Just, no.)

10. Clean out your refrigerator. (As far as I can tell, it is NEVER time to clean out the refrigerator, but YMMV.)

11. Decide to do some yoga on the bare carpet. (First of all, carpet burn. Second of all, it gives you a chance to look at the state of the carpet. Bad plan.)

12. Look for recipes on-line. (You don’t have time to cook. Trust me! Now is the time for a raw-foods diet. Not with fresh fruits and vegetables, either!)

13. Go on tumblr. (There is never a good reason to be on tumblr.)

14. Go on youtube. (Ditto above.)

15. Call a friend for help. (You will lose all your friends this way.)

16. Do laundry. (There is really no point. See #2 above.)

17. Think about what prize you will buy yourself when you are finished with the deadlined project. (You will never be finished!)

And it goes without saying: Writing a list of things not to do while on deadline!

Creating Art Isn't Selfish

It is amazing to me how much work I am willing to do when someone gives me a few little compliments.This is true even outside of my creative work. In college, a professor who gave me an A- and wrote me a few kind thoughts was likely to inspire me to spend ten times the number of hours on the next project than a professor who gave me a C.

(I wonder how much this has to do with male strategies vs. female strategies of living. Women perhaps tend not to have a stable sense of self and need more compliments whereas men perhaps tend to have a stabler sense of self and may need to be kicked to achieve.)

I am currently working with an editor who clearly loves my book. It shines through in every email she sends me, and I can hear it in her voice when I tell her about what I’m planning for future books in the series and she is breathless with excitement.I have worked with editors before, and believe me when I say that not every editor is equally thrilled to work on a book with you.

Creative types can end being manipulated into doing work for free precisely because of this reality. So often, we spend months doing our work behind closed doors. People who read it are unimpressed (especially in the beginning when we are learning the craft, but it happens plenty later, too). Or they don’t read it at all. They don’t want to waste their time.

We are eager if someone contacts us to tell us how wonderful our work is and we want to hear more of it. This is the reason that many authors end up reading reviews of their own work (which is usually a bad idea, by the way). We do school visits for that same reason. We go to book signings hoping for that feedback. We are often on social media sites because we want to hear good things about our work. We crave that warm feeling of satisfaction, of knowing that we have made someone else happy.

A lot of people (mostly men, honestly) say that in order to create art, you have to be selfish—even arrogant. Well, I am not at all sure that is true. Yes, you need to actually get the art done. That may mean saying no to some things and to some people. It also means believing that you have a story to tell, something to share that others will value, that your voice matters, and that you can create something that no one else can.

But also, in order to create art, you have to be willing to give away the deepest, most vulnerable parts of yourself to someone else you don’t even know, acutely aware that they may mock it or ignore it. Obviously, that’s not what you want. Is it really selfish to want to connect with others? To want to be paid to do your work? Is it really arrogant to believe that you have something unique to offer?

As an artist, you want to help people. You want to give people a gift of happiness, or the feeling of knowing that someone else has expressed for them just exactly what they were thinking, or someone has looked into their soul and found just the perfect deliciousness that will make them feel pleased. You want to lighten their burdens. You want to show them the pain that others feel. You want to teach. You want to offer a little laughter. You want to make a bad day easier.

I don’t think that’s selfish or arrogant at all. I think it’s glorious.

10 Ways Not to End Your Novel

1. “And then she woke up and realized it was all a wonderful dream.”

2. “Everyone died.”

3. Just before the bomb went off, I sat down and contemplated my life.

4. He found out everything he had believed before was a lie.

5. And the character’s real name was—Lee Harvey Oswald.

6. Life has no meaning, and she knew it then. The end.

7. He stabbed his beloved as the madness took him over.

8. The villain turns over a new leaf and joins the good guys.

9. No one has ever died during the whole course of the book. They all come back to help with the final ending.

10. The whole book has been written with certain genre expectations, and then ends with another genre’s expectations entirely.

Stronger . . . and Weaker

I hear a lot of people talk about how glad they are that they went through difficult challenges because it made them stronger. They learned what they needed to learn about life. They are now able to do things they weren’t able to do before that they wanted to do. They’ve grown in spiritual dimensions.

It makes me wonder sometimes what is wrong with me. I’ve been through difficult things, but did they make me stronger? I am not entirely sure.

I can now run a mile in under 7 minutes. I can finish an Ironman distance triathlon. Surely that counts as being stronger, doesn’t it? It’s a measurable way of showing that I am stronger.

And yet—before, I didn’t need to do those things to feel good about myself. They were so far down my bucket list that I didn’t know they were there.

I know how to live through bad stuff better now that I did before. I know that some people can be counted on and some people can’t. You won’t always know which is which until the moment happens. I know that even the best of friends can only help for a little while, and for a little bit anyway. No one can really carry that burden for you.

But mostly what I have learned is that I am not as strong as I thought I was. Is that a kind of strength? Stuff can happen that will break me, at least for a while. Maybe a long while. I can’t stop it from happening. I can’t be smart enough or good enough or strong enough to make sure that the bad stuff doesn’t come my way. It will come.

So am I stronger than I was before? Or just more aware of the weaknesses?

It feels like I have more weaknesses than I did before, but it’s possible that I’m only more aware of them now. For some of the weaknesses, that is true.

But I also think there are parts in me that are wounded, that I don’t think will ever be whole again. I know how to hide them. I know how to protect them. I know how to work around them.

Mostly, I think that I am a different person than I was before, more adapted to the conditions of my now-life than my then-life. Not better, not worse, just different.

10 Ways Not to Begin Your Novel

(According to Me)

1. With your main character waking up.

2. With a long prologue telling the backstory of your epic fantasy.

3. With a fight sequence/grand battle where none of the characters have been introduced before.

4. With the death of a character we never got to care about.

5. With a bunch of names no one can pronounce.

6. With your character looking in a mirror to give her a chance to describe herself physically to the reader.

7. With the story of the main character’s birth.

8. With a long, descriptive passage.

9. With a teacher explaining how the world works.

10. With a section of the climax, which then requires half of the rest of the book to explain in flashback.

Play Your Heart Out

Yesterday I went to my daughter’s “solo and ensemble” recital at the local junior high school.It was one of the most inspirational moments of my week. I literally found myself tearing up as these teens played their hearts out. Even the ones who were terrible I felt great inspiration from. Let me explain a little bit about why I think that happened, and what the situation was:

There were 10 teens involved, and each had practiced a single piece for a significant length of time. Their teacher was there, but two impartial judges had also come to grade each student. They had to have either an accompanist or a fellow student to play with, to prove they could play in sync, on rhythm, and in key. I was my daughter’s accompanist and I am no musician by any stretch. I took several years of piano lessons as an adult, but I only play occasionally now, and I had to practice a lot to manage this, and had the help of my daughter’s private teacher.

Every student there was afraid. Some had shaking hands. Some could hardly speak above a mumble. Three lost their places in the music (two of them with music in front of them) and had to start over, leaving their accompanist to fumble along with them. Two were so horribly off key that the resonance in the room hurt my ears. And all of them were beautiful examples of persistence and doing what doesn’t come easily. I suspect they all knew they had made mistakes, and yet they kept going.

I have long been a proponent of finding hobbies you are bad at. Seriously, I think this is a great test of character. It is so easy to get good at one thing and just keep doing that one thing. We call this a job. And most of us tend to have hobbies that don’t require a lot of effort, and certainly not much humiliation. Humiliation is what you don’t have to go through when you’re an adult, right? You’re over that. You tell stories about being an idiot when you were a teen.

Well, I don’t think that’s the way it should be. Adults have a lot to learn from teens. One of the reasons I write for teens is that I aspire to be like that again. In accompanying my daughter, I wasn’t quite putting myself on the line to be judged, but there was certainly the risk of embarrassing myself in front of other parents, the teacher, and the judges. Last year, the judges did comment on my daughter’s score sheet that her accompanist hadn’t helped her case. Ouch! That stung!

So why did I go back this year? Well, I might have preferred not to, but when my daughter asked me, I threw myself into it—perhaps a little reluctantly. The more we practiced together, the more I was determined to get better. And when I played in front of an audience, I was further spurred to more practice. There is something really satisfying about doing something passably that you know you had to work hard for. In stretching yourself even if it doesn’t really matter to you in the long run.

Other writers, musicians, film makers, artists of all kinds, and even people who aren’t artists, could learn to do this a little more. I’m not saying not to worry about embarrassing yourself. I know you’re going to worry about that, and it’s a good thing. It makes you work just a little bit harder if you know you’re doing a race in three months and you want to lose a little weight before you show up in those tight running pants and top.

But play your heart out! Run your heart out! Write your heart out! Film and create your heart out!

Think of that teen who was playing so off key that the room shook with it, and yet who kept her focus on her instrument and her sheet music. She had to do it, even if she wasn’t good at it. She did her absolute best under the circumstances. And she’s my hero, who I aspire to be on my best days. I want to do what I do badly with that much attention, focus, and determination. If I can do that with anything, how much better will I be at my writing?

Authors Are Real People

The authors you think are so “big” that they have become celebrities— they’re real people. They have real lives and real pain, just like you do. Please remember this when you interact with authors either in real life or online.

When authors see a nasty review, they cry real tears. They remember nasty reviews, too, so if you ever meet an author who you have reamed in public, don’t expect to be greeted kindly. It’s not because the author is rude. It’s because you hurt them, and they are a human being with feelings.

When you imagine that life changes suddenly with publication, think again. Authors still have to wake up every morning, make their own breakfast, and do the laundry. No author I know of has au pairs, live-in housekeepers, or other staff. Some—the very biggest—have assistants to deal with fan mail or organizing appearances. They don’t have live-in masseuses and they don’t have anyone who writes for them. They really don’t. All those words they have to put on the page themselves.

Authors have family problems. Their children/spouses/parents/siblings aren’t perfect and they have to deal with all of that on a regular basis, in addition to being an author. While you are complaining about the ending of their last book, remember that author may be dealing with a suicidal child or a parent with Alzheimer’s or a sibling in rehab for the sixth time.

Author’s families don’t suddenly love them more because they were published. Most of the time, their families don’t care even one little bit about publication. And possibly, that’s the way it should be. But it means that authors aren’t treated like royalty regularly. They may have stains on their clothes and they buy off the clearance rack. They like a kind word like anyone else.

Published authors deal with all of the same fears that unpublished authors do, and most of them are magnified by a factor of ten. The fear of the blank page, the fear of not meeting publisher/editor/agent/audience expectations, the fear of embarrassing yourself. These fears can be absolutely crippling. They can prevent the books you want to read from being written at all. I guarantee you, the author in question is a lot more upset about this than you are, no matter how much you love their books.

When you figure that you can get an illegal download of an author’s next book, you are hurting their bottom line enough that they might not get to write the book after that in the series. Telling an author they can self-publish doesn’t really help, either. They may or may not want to learn how to do that, be able to afford the upfront costs involved in self-publishing. And if they weren’t making money off books because people were downloading illegally before, why should that change if they self-publish?

The amount of money you think authors are making, divide by a factor of about a hundred. That’s how much they’re really making. And they have to pay a lot of expenses out of that you aren’t even thinking about. Agent fees, the cost of office space, the copies of their own book they bought in hopes it would be worth it, a tax accountant, travel expenses, cost of membership in organizations that your business pays for you, cell phone bills, and on and on.

When you are thinking about selling the ARC you scored on ebay, remember that the author made no money on that book. Authors typically make about $1 on the sale of a hardback (possibly $2, depending on terms and the price you pay). For a paperback, the cost per book is less than 50 cents most of the time. Scholastic book sales may sound like a great thing, but authors sometimes make less than 5 cents per copy there. It’s a great deal for you, but consider the author, as well. B&N and amazon sales often mean the author makes a lot less, as well.

Authors sometimes have a day job and sometimes don’t have a day job. If they have a day job, they are fitting in writing around the time that normal people simply relax and watch television. If they don’t have a day job, they are constantly worried about money.

Authors don’t get paid on the same time schedule that you do. Normally, they see royalty checks once every six months. They may get an advance once every other year—if they are lucky. Many books go out of print these days within a year or so. This means that authors don’t know how much they will make and often have to assume they won’t make anything more than the advance.

When you ask an author to make an appearance for free—because you are selling their books or are allowing them to promote themselves—imagine if you had to make free appearances for your job. Maybe you do it and maybe you don’t, because you have to to keep it. But how happy are you about it?

When you make fun of an author’s appearance (particularly a female author), be aware that this person looks at herself in the mirror every day and hates what she sees. She knows already that she doesn’t look like a model. That’s why she went into a profession that was supposed to allow her to stay invisible. She isn’t invulnerable to criticism and her feelings are hurt. She may decide never to do an appearance again. She may decide never to write again.

Authors whose books are made into TV shows or movies likely do not get any say in the adaptation. Complaining to them is not only hurtful, but useless. They also probably didn’t get as much money as you think. Hollywood treats writers terribly for the most part.

Authors are real people, just like you. They are good at some things and bad at some things. They got into the writing gig because they are good at writing. They may be bad at a lot of other things, including meeting strangers in large numbers, speaking to a crowd or a small group, making small talk, doing their own taxes, selling their own books and figuring out the change you’re supposed to get from a $20 bill, eating well, exercising, dancing, playing with small children (even if they are children’s authors), or smiling.

A Critique Will Hurt

I do occasional critiques at what I have been told numerous times is an insanely low price. I don’t make a big deal out of it, don’t often advertise it. I have my own writing to do and don’t want to change the basic balance of my own creative time versus time for others. But I keep my price reasonable because I do want to give back. There are few chances for people to get a critique, a real, full-novel critique from a professional. You can go to conferences and get a pitch session with a professional or you can sometimes get people to read the first few pages. That’s it. I remember when I was starting out that I would think, but you haven’t gotten to the good part, that it wasn’t fair just to read a few pages. Some stories take time to unfold. Right?

But there are times when I spend hours reading a full manuscript and marking it up with comments, then writing a long letter explaining what I think is working and what I think isn’t working. I always start with the good stuff (and in my experience, there is always good stuff) and then more to stuff for improvement. Then I try to end with a paragraph about where I think this could be sold, what I think the marketing potential is, some specific recommendations for agents or publishers or similar work.

Most of the time, people want criticism. They want it because they’ve reached a place where they don’t know where else to go. They have their own groups, but sometimes there’s a plateau you hit with a group and people start telling you the same thing. Then you send it out and you get rejections or requests, but no offers for representation. You think you’re really close and you want to get closer. Those people are so glad to know what to do to get closer. And they lap up the encouragement, and sometimes they come back.

And then there are the people who didn’t want a critique to begin with. They wanted to be told that they are doing everything right. I suspect they want to be told that the publishing industry is crap and that they should self-publish because they’ll never get really good stuff published traditionally. Or something. I don’t know what they want because I really don’t get it. They complain to me that I didn’t even read their manuscript. Or that I hired it out to some of my minions. Like I have minions. Ha! I know a few authors who have assistants, and let me tell you, they are a lot bigger than I am.

If you don’t want to learn and grow, don’t ask for a critique. If you disagree with the critique you’ve been given, you have every right to do that. Not everyone is going to like the same books you like. So they may have a different view of what the perfect book is. I disagree with my agent and editors plenty about perfect books. But I still listen and respect their opinions.

When you go to a doctor, you expect to pay him even if you don’t like what he says, don’t you? You even end up paying a doctor if s/he is completely wrong about your diagnosis, though I don’t know if this is a good thing. You’re paying for a doctor’s time. That’s what you do when you pay for a critique. You’re paying for someone’s time. But I worry that the more people ask for a critique without understanding the time and effort it takes, the fewer and fewer professionals out there will be willing to give them. I wish it wasn’t so.

Why Dead Last Isn't So Bad

I was talking to a complete stranger at the swimming pool yesterday, as you do when you have to share a lane and you (the girl) end up being a lot faster than he (the younger, rather muscular guy) is. And he wants to know why you’re faster and what your tips are for him to get faster. And you try to figure out how to explain to someone what you have learned mostly through muscle memory and practice over the last 30 years of your life.

I gave him my best advice, and suitably frightened him about his upcoming half Ironman race which is, in my opinion, the toughest race bar none on the planet (although I haven’t actually done ALL of them, of course). In particular, the swim is in a reservoir where it turns out if you’re lucky the temperature is 50 degrees and your extremities will be rock solid ice by the time you attempt to mount your bike and you have to use your teeth to change your gears. (If you're unlucky, the winds are so bad that you don't care what temperature the water is because you're pretty sure the water never ends and you watch as the rescue boats start to sink and the buoys marking the course disappear.)

Then I mentioned that I have actually written a book about training for triathlon called Ironmom, that I have helped my husband and kids get through races. I said that when it’s your first race at that distance and you’re doing something really ambitious, you should make sure your only goal is to finish, and not push so hard that you end up on the side of the road waiting for an ambulance.

He said, “I’m fine as long as I don’t finish dead last.”

And what is wrong with dead last? My oldest daughter was dead last in her first Olympic distance triathlon a couple of years ago. She was so far behind everyone else that they were coming up behind her, taking down the cones that marked the course. The aid stations were deserted (though they did leave a few cups of water on the tables). The finish line was already taken down, and the photographer had left. The awards ceremony was over, and my husband had to go up to get her medal before they took those away, too.

She was dead, dead last, and I have never been prouder of her. She won first place in her age group. Why? Because no one else her age was doing that distance. She was the only 16 year old who could manage to finish a full Olympic race. And she did it without support or people cheering her on the sidelines. She did it without giving up and walking. She walked every five minutes for one minute like clockwork, and she ran the rest as fast as she could go. She smiled like a baby when she finished, and she smiled all the way through. I’ve never seen someone who smiled through so much pain. I admire her for so many things, but that is one that sticks in my mind.

There is nothing wrong with finishing dead last. If you’ve never stayed at an Ironman race to watch the final people crossing the finish line just before midnight, you are missing out on the whole point. Sure, the pros finish in 8 or 9 hours. Yes, they are inspiring. Yes, they have perfect bodies. But near midnight, you get to see the real heroes. You see the people running with a prosthetic leg. You see the eighty year old grandmother who knows this is her last race. You see the guy diagnosed with (Jon Blazeman) Lou Gehrig’s disease who won’t live to come back next year. You see an older couple who is renewing their marriage vows at the finish line, who has gone every step (and every stroke and every pedal) of the race together. You see people who are carrying an extra two hundred pounds to the finish line.

Dead Last is a badge of honor, and don’t you forget it!

When Your Brain is Not Reliable

All through high school and college, I considered my memory to be impeccable. I trusted myself implicitly. I don't mean that I thought I knew everything. I didn't. But when I put information into my brain, it was reliable in offering that information back to me. I whizzed through college in part because I memorized things easily and wrote quickly and well when it came to essays. I tested out of a lot of subjects, as well.

When I went to graduate school and got married, I still relied on my own feelings and impressions. If I was worried about something, I figured that was because it mattered, and I should pay attention. I stayed up all night every once in a while because I was thinking about serious, important stuff. I could figure things out if I tried hard. My brain was dealing with subliminal clues and seeing ahead clearly. If I thought there was a problem, there must be a problem. If I only worked at it, I could figure out the answer.

And then I hit 35. I was deeply depressed for about 5 years, and my kids turned into teenagers. And my relationship with my brain changed completely. In addition to the very real problem of not being able to remember things easily anymore, I had several experiences in which I checked my memories of an event with historical, paper records, and discovered that I was wrong. Things like facts about my GPA and test scores in high school, which I was sure I would remember. But also other things like nuances about a remembered conversation or argument. And my kids were always helpfully reminding me that they remembered things differently than I did, as well.

After a long stretch of problems with insomnia mostly related to imaginary problems that I kept circling around and around trying to solve, I came to accept that my brain was, in fact, not reliable. I don't know if this is only a truth of being older and having a less effective brain or if, perhaps, it was never as reliable as I thought it was as a teenager and early 20 year-old. It seems to me that both are equally possible. But it doesn't really matter. Because I've reached the point where I don't believe that anything is actually “true” in the way that I once thought it was. I certainly don't think that I am ever “right” or that there is really any point in being “right” anyway.

Mostly, I don't try to find out what is right and wrong anymore. I try to understand other people and a little bit of the vastly different lives that other people live and I can only catch a glimpse of. And when my brain goes high wire into anxiety mode, I remind myself that it's likely wrong. I don't act on impulse because I don't trust myself to act on impulse. I always give it a few days, a few weeks, a few months to see how things settle out. Because how I feel is not the same as what is real. I suppose this might sound pathetic or like I am weak, indecisive, and afraid of my own opinions. It's really less that than it is the realization of the size of the world and the smallness of my perceptions.