The Lure of the Shiny

The good news? This isn't a post about politics, or Harvey Weinstein, or anything really unpleasant. The bad news? I don't know. Maybe it's not bad news at all. In fact, there really isn't much news at all.

Saturday was a good day for writing. I am now heading into the final hundred pages of the RiP. I'd love to have this back in Agent Carrie's hands on November 1, but that may be a bit of a tall order. I'm not the fastest writer in the world, and there's still some rejiggering to do, but progress!

While I was getting myself organized Saturday morning I had myself briefly tempted by the lure of the shiny--appropriate, since one of the chapters I was working on involved a father-daughter fishing expedition. Whilst searching through my papers trying to find a section I had rewritten (as much as it's a waste of paper and a consumption of rather expensive printer ink, I really like to have a hard copy for rereading/editing; it's much more fun to mark up), I found a printout of an outline I had sent to Carrie for the WiP last year--and gazed upon it with all the longing an eighth grade boy feels for his first crush. I wanted nothing more than to dive back into that manuscript, which is going to need one hell of a lot of work before I can even consider sending it to Carrie. It must be time to start working on it, those characters have been creeping back into my brain.

What is it about the new that is so attractive? I really like the RiP--again. And it had a nibble last year, which means someone at a publishing house really liked it, too. That glimpse of words with my main character's name on the WiP, though, was almost enough to make me say, "I can work on both of these at the same time; go for it!" I'm not sure I can, however, and it may not be wise to try it, though in truth, rewriting one thing and reading/making editorial notes on another are not the same thing, and require different parts of the brain muscle.

I've often said that the way I keep motivated is that I want my stories published, want someone to read them, and that the only chance of that happening is to finish what I start. Now, I can add this to the Kick-in-the-Pants toolbox: Want to work on that new shiny? Finish that thing you've been working on for weeks/months/years.

How do you resist the lure of the shiny new thing?

Music! I think I've posted this one before, but maybe not. It's on my mind lately, for reasons I can't explain. It never made it onto an official studio record, but if it had, it probably wouldn't have sounded as alive as it does on this rehearsal. Enjoy!

For Love Or Money

Back at the beginning of the month, when so many of you participate in the Insecure Writer's Support Group (IWSG), Nick Wilford posted about something many of us worry about: money. It's something a lot of us worry about, especially in tough financial times. Early in the post, Nick said:

"I know that very few writers go into the game hoping that they will clean up--if they do, they're either doing it for the wrong reasons or they're suffering under an illusion."

I found myself stewing over that line a little bit, to the point where, two weeks later, I have to comment on it further. The line bugs me. Note this is not to pick on Nick. I like Nick; I just happen to disagree with him, at least in part.

Success in the arts is often presented as an either/or thing. If you hang around any writing forum, it's only a matter of time before someone posts a poll that asks, "Would you rather be a critical success and have very few sales, or sell a lot of books and be panned by the critics?" Essentially, the question is are you in it for art, or for money? My answer: why not both?

So many of us are afraid to admit the truth: we want money. Lots of it. We want to dive into it, like Scrooge McDuck, we want a vault like Harry Potter's. But few are willing to admit. If we do, we're mercenaries. We're hacks. We're not artists anymore. Few are willing to wear that label.


The truth is, once I started to see that maybe, just maybe, I could write pretty well, I started to hope, to dream. Dreaming that I could make it big, dreaming that I could clean up. Hoping I could sell enough to get a new car. Take the wife and kids on a proper vacation. Put a new roof on the house, replace some crummy windows, remodel the kitchen. I'd like to not have to worry about money--is that such a bad thing? Not in my book. Is it why I write? No. I write for assorted other reasons, some of which I can't express easily However, money is part of the equation, particularly when it comes to seeking publication. Does this make me a bad guy? A sell out? I certainly don't think so, but I'm kind of biased here.

Where Nick is right on the money (so to speak) is this: if you get into this expecting to clean up, you're operating under an illusion. Especially if you're doing your homework and understand the economics of writing at this point in time. If you base your retirement plan on having a couple of big bestsellers--really big bestsellers, like James Patterson bestsellers--then, yes, you're doing it wrong. There's nothing wrong with dreaming it, though. Dreaming is what we do, isn't it?

Thanks as always for reading, and thanks for commenting. Have a great weekend!

Still The Same

First, some music, taking you way back to 1978....

 

 

Wow, I haven't been into Bob Seger since…well, I've never really been into him all that much; I liked few of his songs when I was younger, but it didn’t take long for songs like Betty Lou’s Getting Out Tonight or Her Strut to lose their appeal, and don't get me started on Old Time Rock and Roll. If I see one more Risky Business, Tom Cruise-dancing-in-his-underwear parody, I might pop a blood vessel in my brain. Still, there are a couple of Seger songs that are not Automatic Dial Turners (heh, showing my age. I guess that would be ‘button pusher’, not dial turner these days), and this one is not inappropriate given the subject matter.

On a fairly regular basis, people throw out on forums and blogs the dread question, "What motivates you to write?"  This is most typically asked when they’re feeling particularly down about things, or have hit the ‘saggy middle’ of their work. My answer has pretty much always been the same, and I did a post about this once before. Since didn’t label that post, I can’t find it now, so I’ll summarize: My motivation is that I want you to read what I write, and I want you to buy what I write. The only way for that to happen is for me to keep writing, to get it done, and make it good. That hasn't changed from the first time I wrote it, and it still hasn't changed. It's still the same.

What's also still the same, however, is the problem I have reading my writing. A few weeks back I received a critique on Barton's Women from one of my valued crit partners. It took me a good twenty-four hours to work up the nerve to do more than skim the e-mail through squinty eyes (yeah, it makes no sense, but that’s how I always look at those critiques--through squinty eyes or kind of sidelong, or sometimes both). Now, there were some very, very nice things said, and the things cited as issues were all fair and, if when worked on by me, will make this manuscript even better. Now it’s up to me. It’s time to read it again, make more notes, and do some rewriting. And yet….

And yet, though 3+ weeks have passed, I find myself really struggling to crack the manuscript open and start the process. It's not because I hate the manuscript--quite the contrary, I think it's good. Unlike the name I’ve given to this blog, and my general approach to so much in life, I think Barton’s Women is good. Get-an-agent good. Hook-an-editor good. I’ll be honest, when I was writing the first draft, I didn’t love it as much as Parallel Lives, but I’ve believed for quite some time that this has much more potential for commercial appeal. (I could be deluding myself, of course, but I don't think I am on this one). It's also not because I don't like the work of revising. Quite the contrary. While revising doesn't necessarily match the exhilaration that can come with whirlwind drafting, the act of crafting brings a different sort of satisfaction. I like watching word counts expand and contract. I like the feeling of knowing I just sanded off the rough edges from a scene and have made it smooth and not likely to give splinters when you run your hand over it. There’s drafting, which to me is more of a rush, and crafting, which is a

slower sort of satisfaction.

The simple truth is, I just really hate reading my writing. Part of it is simple fear that another read is going to smash my dreams of agents and editors, of book deals and readers. It’s embarrassing, somehow, in a way I can’t explain. When I got my copy of Summer’s Double Edge, I read every story in the book (they’re quite good, by the way)--except my own. I looked at it, and reveled in my title and name in print, but I didn’t read it. I can’t. Even though I think that story’s good (and it was a lot of fun to write), and it’s been deemed worthy by an editor and been positively received by folks who’ve read it, I don’t want to read it.

I know, I know, you’re saying, “Get over yourself already.” I will. In fact, I have a half hour to spare in my day today, and I have the first 50 or so pages printed out, so it looks like it’s time. Just let me make some coffee first (hah ha, kidding!). Thanks for reading, and have a great weekend.