The other day, I received a lovely compliment from a reader and aspiring author, who told me how much she wants to write like me.
Flattered as I was (and I can tell you no one laps up praise more happily than I do) I quickly thanked her and hastened to add that that's the wrong idea. Because no matter which author you admire, you'll never be more her than she is. But you're the very best at writing like yourself.
The trick is, writing enough words (Raymond Chandler is said to have insisted that every writer has a million words of crap to produce before getting to the good stuff) to break through to your authentic voice. More than likely, you're imitating other voices, other styles, and/or those you perceive as big successes for about half a million of these. You spend a few hundred grand more floundering, and the last ones grinding out some pretty decent prose that's not quite ripe yet. (When I go back to my old short stories, I see the raw material for what I'm still becoming. And believe it or not, I'm grateful for the rejections that gave me more time to develop.)
At some point -- and this point comes at a different time or number of words for every one of us -- you'll start to realize where you're different from whatever else is out there. You'll recognize the things you're good at, and how you sound in your own head.
Only then, can you capitalize on the uniqueness you bring to the table. You'll wrestle that individual voice into a marketable form.
Will you sell it? There are no guarantees on that one. But there's an intrinsic reward with finding that after your proverbial million words of... let's be kind and call it compost, you've finally grown the perfect crop. Even if no one else ever reads them, you've still written them, and that's worth something.
Because how many people find their own voice in the chaos of this world?
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Monday, March 08, 2010
The Truth about Rejection (and why we keep on fighting)
I'd finished writing for the night and finished prepping for class, and was just about to head to bed. Then I decided to check my facebook one last time, and there it was, a young friend's status: "feeling insanely butt-hurt by the rejection letter I just got in the mail." I started to join the chorus of well-meaning comments after her status. I thought of all sorts of hopeful, cheerleaderish things to say. But as I typed in that tiny little box, I thought about my first rejection, that first moment when I realized the world would not shift because of the words I wrote. And I remembered the sting, the hurt, the black despair.
So I told this writer--who I've no doubt is very talented--that she shouldn't try not to feel this. And I'm telling her and myself and everyone else who does this job and takes it seriously: There is no point in pretending rejection doesn't hurt. There is no point in conjuring up a thick skin if by nature you are too sensitive to grow one. There is no point in telling yourself that this is just another part of the game (even though it is) and that this means you're playing it. There is no point in doing any of that, but what you do have to do is move through the hurt and keep yourself from stagnating. You have to wrap that grief around yourself and take it in and hold it, then channel it into fuel, fury, ferocity and fight back as hard as you possibly can. Fight by sending out another piece. Fight by sending that one out again. Fight by taking a hard look at yourself and seeing if, perhaps, they might be right, and maybe the piece needs another revision. And by all means, fight by going back to your notebook or your computer and writing something else, something new, something that can only come from you.
Because in the end, the only reason we hate rejection so much is that we so crave acceptance. We want someone to like our writing enough to publish it, to put on it their stamp of approval. We want our writing in the world, to grow and inspire and challenge and entertain. If we don't get that, we think that the work is somehow lacking, that we are somehow lacking. And the sad truth is that sometimes they are right. But sometimes, the rejection has nothing at all to do with the quality of the writing--it's just the tightness of the competition and a matter of personal tastes. I've read for some of these magazines. I know! Often, strong pieces are rejected because the editors do not agree; the piece resonates with one but not another, or one loves it, but another thinks it's too controversial, or any number of other reasons. This is why whole websites are given over to the discussion of rejections, and why countless famous writers will tell their rejection horror stories.
But of course, none of this matters when you hold that post-it note little F-You in your hands. None of this matters, and you will feel it. But if you let it, it will make you better. Hang in there.
So I told this writer--who I've no doubt is very talented--that she shouldn't try not to feel this. And I'm telling her and myself and everyone else who does this job and takes it seriously: There is no point in pretending rejection doesn't hurt. There is no point in conjuring up a thick skin if by nature you are too sensitive to grow one. There is no point in telling yourself that this is just another part of the game (even though it is) and that this means you're playing it. There is no point in doing any of that, but what you do have to do is move through the hurt and keep yourself from stagnating. You have to wrap that grief around yourself and take it in and hold it, then channel it into fuel, fury, ferocity and fight back as hard as you possibly can. Fight by sending out another piece. Fight by sending that one out again. Fight by taking a hard look at yourself and seeing if, perhaps, they might be right, and maybe the piece needs another revision. And by all means, fight by going back to your notebook or your computer and writing something else, something new, something that can only come from you.
Because in the end, the only reason we hate rejection so much is that we so crave acceptance. We want someone to like our writing enough to publish it, to put on it their stamp of approval. We want our writing in the world, to grow and inspire and challenge and entertain. If we don't get that, we think that the work is somehow lacking, that we are somehow lacking. And the sad truth is that sometimes they are right. But sometimes, the rejection has nothing at all to do with the quality of the writing--it's just the tightness of the competition and a matter of personal tastes. I've read for some of these magazines. I know! Often, strong pieces are rejected because the editors do not agree; the piece resonates with one but not another, or one loves it, but another thinks it's too controversial, or any number of other reasons. This is why whole websites are given over to the discussion of rejections, and why countless famous writers will tell their rejection horror stories.
But of course, none of this matters when you hold that post-it note little F-You in your hands. None of this matters, and you will feel it. But if you let it, it will make you better. Hang in there.
Staggering genius Dave Eggers (I bet he gets really tired of that) talks about reading, writing, and the power of paper
My daughter Jerusha and I have been involved in a heated back and forth about my Kindle usage, which she considers nothing short of treason. I'm afraid to share this great article from the Guardian, in which Dave Eggers is optimistic about paper and ink:
"I only read on paper. I don't have an e-reader or an iPhone. I have the best time reading newspapers. I don't believe books are dead. I've seen the figures. Sales of adult fiction are up in the worst economy since the Depression."He's not s'much on the internet:
"Writing is a deep-sea dive. You need hours just to get into it: down, down, down. If you're called back to the surface every couple of minutes by an email, you can't ever get back down. I have a great friend who became a Twitterer and he says he hasn't written anything for a year."Read the rest here.
Oscar winner Mark Boal on the psychology behind The Hurt Locker
Yes, of course, I'm thrilled that a woman finally won a Best Director Oscar, but I love that so much credit for The Hurt Locker went to writer Mark Boal last night. (Was there even a mention of the guy who wrote the book The Blind Side?) Anyway, here's a great interview with Mark Boal on Vulture, and below, he speaks to the psychology of why men fight.
Overall, I think it was a pretty good night for writers. The next sound you hear: an outboard motor gunning into high gear on Sapphire's career.
Overall, I think it was a pretty good night for writers. The next sound you hear: an outboard motor gunning into high gear on Sapphire's career.
Sunday, March 07, 2010
The future of Books on iPad, courtesy Penguin UK
What I find fascinating here is how brief the segment dealing with fiction is.
Saturday, March 06, 2010
Friday, March 05, 2010
Gotta see "The Ghost Writer"
Okay, how am I NOT going to see this movie today? Two lines from the trailer that got a big "True that!" from me:
"I interview you and turn your answers into prose." An exactly correct explanation of what I do for my clients.
"Inviting the ghostwriter to the book party is like having the mistress at the wedding." Seconded.
Him (to prime minister's wife): "Didn't you ever want to be a proper politician yourself?"
Her: "Didn't you ever want to be a proper writer?"
Zing!
And I have no trouble believing: "It was the book that killed him!"
I'll let you know how it goes down.
"I interview you and turn your answers into prose." An exactly correct explanation of what I do for my clients.
"Inviting the ghostwriter to the book party is like having the mistress at the wedding." Seconded.
Him (to prime minister's wife): "Didn't you ever want to be a proper politician yourself?"
Her: "Didn't you ever want to be a proper writer?"
Zing!
And I have no trouble believing: "It was the book that killed him!"
I'll let you know how it goes down.
Thursday, March 04, 2010
The Historical Novel: An Unscientific Prognostication
I have this thing I do. When I notice my my mind bending a certain way, when I feel myself tending toward one thing and not the other, I stop and wonder if my proclivity is a purely personal one, or if it might reflect some participation in a larger trend. I've been wondering this lately as I turn more and more toward the historical novel for reading interest and pleasure.
"Historical novel" is a broad category, so let me give my recent bent some specificity when I say that stopping by my local bookstore recently I passed over contemporary nonfiction (which I enjoy), and contemporary fiction (which I write), and picked up instead Kate Grenville's The Lieutenant (about an 18th-century British marine who is among the first colonists in Australia). As I passed by other books to pick up this one, I sensed something in my choice: something that wanted not just novelty, but a particular kind of experience that modern media, with all its access, all its video and audio and links and wikiness and mashes, couldn't give me: the best possible access to a world older than my own. And it struck me that if my urge might be more than personal, and instead part of a larger impulse, that the historical novel should continue to do very well in the years ahead.
For those of us who write novels about the contemporary world, it is sometimes hard to compete with, well, the contemporary world, which is already doing a rather remarkable job of documenting itself through various media. But the world of the past, of Sydney Harbor when it was nothing but mangrove and a few huts, is--for this writer at least--much better summoned by older techniques. Interactive pastiche would only serve to remind me that I am NOT in the 18th century; old-fashioned storytelling gives me a better chance of appearing to participate in a world that no longer exists (and, of course, this isn't because storytelling is less constructed than a remix on YouTube, but because by now it is such an old construct it is nearly invisible. Eventually this will happen to new media, too. But not yet--or at least not yet for this reader).
And then there is my strong desire to "participate in a world that no longer exists." I find the strength of this urge, at this moment, interesting. I suppose it could signal nothing more than a chicken-hearted retreat, on my part, from the modern world, but it feels more like this: that the modern world, so busily and so relentlessly and so easily representing itself, frankly begins to pall a bit, and I turn with admiration to those writers who take the painstaking trouble to conjure up an older world in an old form, while still telling me important things I would like to know, right now, about being human, alive, thinking and feeling. I find this . . . refreshing. I find this curiously . . . original. It's not something just anyone with an iPad can do.
And so I make my unscientific prognostication, based on no research whatsoever but on the simple awareness that I am in no way unique, and that it's likely that if I am buying something, other people are buying it too: the traditional, historical novel as a genre will in the foreseeable future continue to rock.
What do you think?
"Historical novel" is a broad category, so let me give my recent bent some specificity when I say that stopping by my local bookstore recently I passed over contemporary nonfiction (which I enjoy), and contemporary fiction (which I write), and picked up instead Kate Grenville's The Lieutenant (about an 18th-century British marine who is among the first colonists in Australia). As I passed by other books to pick up this one, I sensed something in my choice: something that wanted not just novelty, but a particular kind of experience that modern media, with all its access, all its video and audio and links and wikiness and mashes, couldn't give me: the best possible access to a world older than my own. And it struck me that if my urge might be more than personal, and instead part of a larger impulse, that the historical novel should continue to do very well in the years ahead.
For those of us who write novels about the contemporary world, it is sometimes hard to compete with, well, the contemporary world, which is already doing a rather remarkable job of documenting itself through various media. But the world of the past, of Sydney Harbor when it was nothing but mangrove and a few huts, is--for this writer at least--much better summoned by older techniques. Interactive pastiche would only serve to remind me that I am NOT in the 18th century; old-fashioned storytelling gives me a better chance of appearing to participate in a world that no longer exists (and, of course, this isn't because storytelling is less constructed than a remix on YouTube, but because by now it is such an old construct it is nearly invisible. Eventually this will happen to new media, too. But not yet--or at least not yet for this reader).
And then there is my strong desire to "participate in a world that no longer exists." I find the strength of this urge, at this moment, interesting. I suppose it could signal nothing more than a chicken-hearted retreat, on my part, from the modern world, but it feels more like this: that the modern world, so busily and so relentlessly and so easily representing itself, frankly begins to pall a bit, and I turn with admiration to those writers who take the painstaking trouble to conjure up an older world in an old form, while still telling me important things I would like to know, right now, about being human, alive, thinking and feeling. I find this . . . refreshing. I find this curiously . . . original. It's not something just anyone with an iPad can do.
And so I make my unscientific prognostication, based on no research whatsoever but on the simple awareness that I am in no way unique, and that it's likely that if I am buying something, other people are buying it too: the traditional, historical novel as a genre will in the foreseeable future continue to rock.
What do you think?
The Literary Gothic: Why I Love Scary Stories
So it's official: I just got my teaching assignment for the summer, and it's a class in The Literary Gothic. This is a class I created for the Humanities program, ironically because I'm teaching it in a prison, and they don't have access to that many books. I always have to be creative when working with their inventory, and Lit Gothic was one of the easier sells. It's also a fun class to teach in a prison, for a variety of reasons, some of which you'll get to hear in the next few months.But it got me thinking: why do we love scary stories? What is it about the Gothic that gets us? Out of every kind of literature, I always end up gravitating towards a literary sort of horror, along the lines of Henry James's The Turn of the Screw, or Bram Stoker's Dracula. And Poe. Wow, talk about a literary crush. I could dig him up and marry him.
What I most love about the Gothic is the way it deals with the psychological. I love the way it takes our anxieties and toys with them, the way it teases and pokes and prods. I also love its dark possibilities, the sense of mystery that lurks in those dimly lit hallways and those thick, dark woods. And it's the one realm of literary fiction where a writer can get away with bringing in the supernatural and not immediately get slammed. Through the Gothic and its war between dark and light, a writer can more comfortably explore issues of spirituality and religion.
And if you're looking for a quick, fun read, it's worth taking a trip in time back to 1764 and Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto, which is widely thought to be the first Gothic (although I argue against that claim in my class, shhhh). It's a nutty book, as most prototypes are, and filled with what we would now call Gothic cliches. But you just gotta love a book that starts off with a groom being crushed on his wedding day by a giant helmet. And then there's his father, the evil prince, who corners his son's betrothed with the ominous "Since I cannot give you my son, I offer you myself . . . "
The Last Station is all about truth, love, and Tolstoy
My son Malachi is in town for a few days, and we're trying to see a bunch of movies for which I haven't had time and he hasn't had money. I've recently been on a Kindle-induced Tolstoy binge, so I especially loved The Last Station...
Christopher Plummer and Helen Mirren are up for Oscars as Mr. and Mrs. Tolstoy. It's a great script, beautifully executed. Laughed, cried, couldn't wait to get home and read more Tolstoy.
Christopher Plummer and Helen Mirren are up for Oscars as Mr. and Mrs. Tolstoy. It's a great script, beautifully executed. Laughed, cried, couldn't wait to get home and read more Tolstoy.
Tuesday, March 02, 2010
Storytelling Smackdown: Avatar vs. A Serious Man
Predating our recorded history, storytelling has been part of what makes our species unique. Our stories help us make sense of the world around us and build our confidence by assuring us that even the humblest person can find the strength to overcome daunting troubles. Reading, listening to, or watching stories relieves stress, reaffirms core social beliefs (often telling us that love, family, and friends truly matter), and underscores heroic values, such as loyalty, self-sacrifice, courage, and hard work.
As a writer of commercial genre fiction, I argue that that's a noble tradition and something our audience has a right to expect from us. We may be able to "get away with" straying or (sometimes) be rewarded with critical acclaim for dramatically altering the story landscape, but it's tough to endear oneself to a large audience that way.
Case in point: two recent Academy Award Best Picture nominated films, James Cameron's Avatar, which for all its nifty special effects is as heart an old-fashioned, ultimately triumphant hero's journey, and the Coen's Brothers' film, A Serious Man, which defies audience expectations by showing us a poor, downtrodden schmuck who never does rise up against the massive injustices heaped onto him by God and his weird family alike.
I left the theater completely inspired after viewing the first. Shouted "What the Heck?"(okay, I said worse, but I'm not copping to it in print) upon reaching the ending (meaning the movie's "ending," not the story's, because it didn't have one) of the second. Though I've loved the majority of the Coen brothers' past efforts (O, Brother, Where Art Thou? and No Country for Old Men are two of my all-time favorite movies) to and found the characterization of A Serious Man very well done, this film, for my taste, felt maddeningly self-indulgent.
Now, I think it's fine for a writer to challenge readers (or viewers.) I love being forced to reconsider a long-held opinion, knee-jerk prejudice, or to see the world from a wholly-unexpected viewpoint. Within the parameters of the storytelling framework, we have the power to illuminate all sorts of dark places in a way that still offers the powerful cathartic experience thousands of years of evolutionary culture has trained us to expect.
But at the end of the day, if you're going to indulge anyone, shouldn't it be the people who are plunking down their hard-earned dollars rather than yourself? Don't we owe our audience not necessarily a happy, but a satisfying, emotional experience?
Anyone else care to weigh in on either the question or the films?
Monday, March 01, 2010
Sherman Alexie and the Loving Spoonful (a publishing parable)
I've heard this little parable in various versions -- rabbi, priest, monk, generic seeker -- and I'm thinking we need to adapt it to the publishing industry:
A thousand years ago at my first BookExpo in LA, I stood in a long line waiting for Sherman Alexie's autograph on his novel Indian Killler and a collection of stories, The Toughest Indian in the World. He'd served as a judge for the Barnes & Noble Discover Award a few years earlier, and my debut novel was close-but-no-cigar. I'd been smitten with him since The Business of Fancydancing, so it was a serious thrill for me to think he might have read even part of my firstborn book.
"Mr. Alexie," I blurted when it was my turn, "I'm Joni Rodgers. I wrote this book called Crazy for Trying...about the Blackfoot guy...and it was in the Discover thing?"
"Joni!" He got up from behind the table and swept me into a big hug (swoon) as if I were his long-lost cousin. Then he turned to the long line of booksellers and said, "Have you met Joni Rodgers? Her first novel was about a Blackfoot. Joni, what are you working on now?"
I said my second novel was being released by a lesbian micro-press and my memoir had just sold to Harper Collins. Mr. Alexie deftly got the conversation rolling between me and the booksellers as he went back to signing. I have no idea if he actually recognized my book or not, but my confidence soared when this author I'd long admired treated me like a peer. And it gave me a whole new level of credibility in front of the booksellers.
That moment meant a lot to me, but I'd be surprised if Sherman Alexie even remembers it. I suspect that's just how he is; that moment has probably played out hundreds of times with hundreds of emerging writers who admire him. It's a perfect example of how an established author reaches out his long-handled spoon and makes the whole culture of publishing just a little bit healthier.
Appropriate Monday grooviness: Lovin' Spoonful "You Didn't Have to Be So Nice" (This one's for Sherman.)
A monk asked God to show him heaven and hell. First, God showed him a banquet table laden with a great feast. But the people at the table were shrunken and famished. They had spoons melded to their fists, and the handles on the spoons were longer than their arms, so the people couldn't put the food in their mouths.Over a blog posse lunch at El Pueblito in downtown Houston yesterday, we were discussing how great it is when authors lift each other up when the opportunity presents itself, and we agreed it's something we want to do more of in this space.
"This is hell," said God.
Then he showed the monk an identical table with an identical banquet and the same spoons with impossibly long handles. But the people assembled were healthy and strong, laughing and feasting.
"This is heaven," said God. "They learned to feed each other."
A thousand years ago at my first BookExpo in LA, I stood in a long line waiting for Sherman Alexie's autograph on his novel Indian Killler and a collection of stories, The Toughest Indian in the World. He'd served as a judge for the Barnes & Noble Discover Award a few years earlier, and my debut novel was close-but-no-cigar. I'd been smitten with him since The Business of Fancydancing, so it was a serious thrill for me to think he might have read even part of my firstborn book.
"Mr. Alexie," I blurted when it was my turn, "I'm Joni Rodgers. I wrote this book called Crazy for Trying...about the Blackfoot guy...and it was in the Discover thing?"
"Joni!" He got up from behind the table and swept me into a big hug (swoon) as if I were his long-lost cousin. Then he turned to the long line of booksellers and said, "Have you met Joni Rodgers? Her first novel was about a Blackfoot. Joni, what are you working on now?"
I said my second novel was being released by a lesbian micro-press and my memoir had just sold to Harper Collins. Mr. Alexie deftly got the conversation rolling between me and the booksellers as he went back to signing. I have no idea if he actually recognized my book or not, but my confidence soared when this author I'd long admired treated me like a peer. And it gave me a whole new level of credibility in front of the booksellers.
That moment meant a lot to me, but I'd be surprised if Sherman Alexie even remembers it. I suspect that's just how he is; that moment has probably played out hundreds of times with hundreds of emerging writers who admire him. It's a perfect example of how an established author reaches out his long-handled spoon and makes the whole culture of publishing just a little bit healthier.
Appropriate Monday grooviness: Lovin' Spoonful "You Didn't Have to Be So Nice" (This one's for Sherman.)
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