February 8, 2010

Ray Bradbury’s ZEN IN THE ART OF WRITING

The strength of Ray Bradbury’s ZEN IN THE ART OF WRITING: ESSAYS ON CREATIVITY is the insight he provides into the art and psychology of being a writer.  This is not a how-to-write or how-to-get-published book, and if you go into it with those expectations you will be disappointed.

Bradbury talks about his own journey as an artist, and provides advice on how to keep the writing muse alive and happy.  Whenever I feel blah as a writer, I find picking up this book and reading an essay or two shakes me out of it quickly.  Here’s what he has to say about the joy of writing:

…if you are writing without zest, without gusto, without love, without fun, you are only half a writer.  It means you are so busy keeping one eye on the commercial market, or one ear peeled for the avant-garde coterie, that you are not being yourself.  You don’t even know yourself.  For the first thing a writer should be is–excited.

He also makes the best argument I’ve read (and I’ve read way too many writing craft books) for why it’s important to write a thousand words per day:

Quantity gives experience.  From experience alone can quality come.

All arts, big and small, are the elimination of waste motion in favor of  the concise declaration.

The artist learns what to leave out.

The surgeon knows how to go directly to the source of trouble, how to avoid wasted time and complications.

The athlete learns how to conserve power and apply it now here, now there, how to utilize this muscle, rather than that.

Is the writer different?  I think not.

Bradbury also provides wonderful advice for brainstorming story ideas, but you’ll have to read the book to find out about that (look for the essay “Run Fast, Stand Still…”).

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January 17, 2010

Epic discussion about “Agents Know Markets” on Dean Wesley Smith’s website

If you haven’t been reading Dean Wesley Smith’s “Killing the Sacred Cows of Publishing” posts, you’ve been missing out.  There’s an epic discussion going on right now about the topic of “Agents Know Markets.” Make sure to read the entire comments section, for Laura Resnick and Dean Wesley Smith go over 20 years of experience in the fiction writing business there in long comments.  Almost as good as sitting next to them in a bar while they chat.

Here’s a small sample of his article.  But go read the entire thing!   In this section he’s explaining that “Agents are human.”

See, the real truth about publishing is that it only takes one. Put that phrase over your marketing desk. IT ONLY TAKES ONE.

One editor to fall in love with your work, to push your work through all the roadblocks in a publishing house, to turn an unlikely book into the next bestseller. But if you have to run everything through the “taste meter” of your employee, you are adding a second level of acceptance to a book that often makes selling just flat impossible. It is hard enough in this business to have one person fall in love with your book, it’s damn near impossible to have two in a row. So by following an agent’s “taste meter” you are dooming a lot of work.

As a special bonus in this post, Smith and Resnick discuss how to survive as a fiction writer until you can find a good agent.

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January 14, 2010

Pushcart’s COMPLETE ROTTEN REVIEWS AND REJECTIONS

I think what I love most about Pushcart’s COMPLETE ROTTEN REVIEWS AND REJECTIONS, edited by Bill Henderson & Andre Bernard, is that it lifts the veil of mystery between writers and the publishing world, and shows us just how human we are all are despite our attempts to become omniscient.   Mistakes get made.  Critics and editors get cranky and misunderstand an important book.  Writers insult other writers.

Any writer who is feeling timorous about submitting his or her work should consider reading this book.  Reading the nasty reviews and rejections other writers have received was an excellent antidote for self-pity.  The book also provides a peek into history, since Bill Henderson made an effort to include rotten reviews going as far back as 411 BC.

I don’t want to spoil the fun of what is inside, so instead I’ll quote from the back cover:

…Alice in Wonderland was greeted with “a stiff overwrought story.”  Reviews of Moby Dick cited Melville for “tragic-comic bubble and squeak.”  Classic rejection slips were delivered to John Le Carre’s The Spy Who Came In from the Cold: “You’re welcome to Le Carre–he hasn’t got any future,” and Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita: “I recommend that it be buried under a stone for a thousand years,”…

My one gripe is that the book has no index, and since the excerpts are not arranged chronologically or alphabetically, I have to randomly flip around to find the author or quote I’m looking for.

This book combines the three separate Pushcart editions of ROTTEN REVIEWS, ROTTEN REVIEWS II, and ROTTEN REJECTIONS.  So you’re getting three books for the price of one.  A great bargain.

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December 30, 2009

Filmmaking Contest Judged By Peter Jackson

If you like doing filmmaking, here’s a contest you’ll want to consider.  I’m going to cut and paste some of the info from the website here:

If you dream of being a great filmmaker, this could be your big break. Capture the spirit of 100% Pure New Zealand in a 3 minute short film and win the attention of Academy Award winning director Peter Jackson.

To enter simply download the brief, write your screenplay, submit your form by the 15th of January 2010…

Five finalists will be flown to New Zealand in January 2010 to shoot their short films with the help of Academy Award ® winning producer Barrie Osborne. The winning film will be selected by Peter Jackson.

Go to Your Big Break website to enter.  Good luck if you enter!

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December 18, 2009

Dean Wesley Smith’s essay “Can’t Make Money in Fiction”

I don’t want to steal Dean Wesley Smith’s thunder, so all I’m going to say is that if you want to get a better understanding of money and fiction writing, go read his essay on “Killing the Sacred Cows of Publishing:  Can’t Make Money in Fiction.” He does a great job explaining why it is possible to make a living as a fiction writer.

And if you disagree with him, go add a comment to his post.  He loves a good argument.

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December 8, 2009

The Unpredictability of Book Sales

While browsing at a bookstore on Sunday, I found a copy of Audrey Niffenegger’s HER FEARFUL SYMMETRY shoved carelessly between two picture books in the children’s section.   The sight of it got me thinking about how unpredictable book sales can be.

Just this past March, Niffenegger got an advance of $5 million for HER FEARFUL SYMMETRY (here’s the New York Times article on the sale).   Then I saw an article in late October by Kate Ward in Entertainment Weekly about “Bookselling Blues.” Here’s the quote:

Some books are outright flops, not to put too fine a point on it. Her Fearful Symmetry, Audrey Niffenegger’s follow-up to The Time Traveler’s Wife, has sold only 38,823 copies; the new Mitch Albom book, Have a Little Faith, is at 148,974 copies. But despite numbers like these, the industry remains hopeful.

We won’t know until late January and February how book sales did this holiday season.  Sometimes a book starts off slow, then builds momentum, so perhaps HER FEARFUL SYMMETRY will follow that path.   I’ll be checking out the sales numbers for 2009 to find out how various big-name authors did.  How much effect will the recession have?

But it’s always disconcerting to realize that one can get a huge advance, such as the $8 million Charles Frazier got for his second novel, and then have the book do poorly in sales despite having a large marketing budget from a NYC publisher.  Sure, the money is nice (needs to be carefully invested though), but having a book undersell is no fun, especially when it’s time to try and sell the next manuscript.  These days bad Bookscan numbers follow an author around like a bad credit rating.

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December 6, 2009

Make Goals and Take Action in 2010

Before we know it, 2010 is going to be upon us.   So I want to devote this post to encouraging people to take time over the next three weeks of December to dream about what they want, and then come up with a detailed action plan of how to get there.

I’ve noticed it’s the action part that often trips us up in pursuit of our goals.  Action plans tend to get left out when New Year’s resolutions get made.  Which is a shame, since we’re capable of more than we realize once we know what we should be doing.

I’m going to provide an example of the 5-year goal & action exercise.  Both BOOKLIFE by Jeff VanderMeer and HOW TO GET OUT OF DEBT by Jerrold Mundis have this particular exercise in their books.  Mundis’ book also has many other planning exercises readers can try 0ut as well.

Step 1: Spend quiet time thinking about what you’d like to be doing and how you’d like to be 5 years from now.  Write everything down on a piece of paper.  Then go back to your list, and try to be specific if you can (for example, “be an author” is a bit vague, while “publish 2 novels and 10 short stories” is more specific).  Goals are like a seesaw in trying to keep away from vagueness (i.e. “be happy”) versus unrealistic specifics (i.e. “marry Alan Rickman by 2012″).

A real Step 1 goal I had a few years ago:  Completely pay off all the credit cards in five years.

Step 2: Choose the three to five goals dearest to your heart.   Now come up for each of them a subgoal that is doable in one year.

Step 2 example:  1) Learn how to deal with debt, 2) track my finances, and 3) stop the credit card balances from increasing.

Step 3: Now ask for each 1-year goal, “What actions can I take this year that will bring me closer to my goal?

Step 3 example:  1) Find and read best books on debt and how to get out of it, 2) lock credit cards away, 3) learn how to do budgets, 4) do budgets each month, 5) brainstorm ways to save money and earn more money.

Step 4: Now ask, “What can I do this month towards my 1-year goals?”

Step 4 example:  1) Find and read best books on debt, 2) lock credit cards away.

Step 5: Now ask, “What can I do this week towards my 1-year goals?”

Step 5 example:  1) Research books on debt at the library, and 2) lock credit cards away.

Actions are cumulative, like pebbles rolling down a stone-strewn mountain to trigger a landslide.  Each small action I took to get the credit cards paid off had cumulative effects over time.  I learned how to control my credit card usage.  Created spending plans and spreadsheets that tracked how I spent money in about 25 different categories.  And had to make many other small changes in my behavior.

It never ceases to amaze me how tiny actions taken on a daily basis can lead to big changes in a few years.  I encourage readers to give this method a try and let me know in December 2010 how it went.  Good luck!

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December 6, 2009

Question of the Week: Why comments off?

Q:  Why do you turn comments off on old posts so quickly?

A:  Spam (cue Monty Python singing “Spam Spam Spam…”).   By turning comments off on old posts, I keep my spam at manageable levels.   If anyone ever yearns for discussions about writing that go on for years, the forums at Absolute Water Cooler are a fantastic resource.

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December 3, 2009

Jerrold Mundis’ HOW TO GET OUT OF DEBT

Freelance writer Jerrold Mundis wrote my favorite book on how to deal with writer’s block, BREAK WRITER’S BLOCK NOW, which I blogged about last year.   Well, he also wrote my favorite book on how to deal with debt and cash flow, called HOW TO GET OUT OF DEBT, STAY OUT OF DEBT, AND LIVE PROSPEROUSLY, Revised Edition.

I’ve heard it said that a writer needs to pay off all unsecured debts (such as credit cards) and save up a year’s salary before quitting a day job.   HOW TO GET OUT OF DEBT can help with any debt problems and also provide guidance on tracking monthly expenses to start saving.

The methodology of the book is based on the principles and techniques of Debtor’s Anonymous (DA).   Mundis was a counselor for DA for a number of years before he wrote the book.   So the book focuses on keeping it simple–the psychology of debting, taking care of debt, and making budgets.  If you’re looking for a book on investing, this isn’t it.

I read the book over a year-and-a-half ago, and tried out the techniques.  They worked very well.    All our unsecured debts are now paid off, for which I’m very grateful to DA (for developing the methods in the first place) and Mundis’ book.

The one part of the book I disagreed with was completely getting rid of all credit cards.  I kept just one credit card, locked away, and learned to save up the money to pay for a purchase before putting it on the credit card.  However, if someone cannot keep from abusing credit cards, I can understand why Mundis urges all credit cards must be canceled.

The book is also interspersed with tales of Mundis’ life as a freelance writer (writing both novels and non-fiction).  Since he’s made his living that way for almost his entire career, these brief asides made for fascinating reading.  Here’s an example:

… I spend the morning developing an idea for a magazine article, type up a proposal, and send it off to an editor.  That is an action I can take, that part is mine.  What happens afterward–the result–is totally beyond my control.  The editor may give me the assignment.  She may ask me to rework the idea and submit it again.  She may reject it but ask me to submit others.  Or she may reject it without comment….

It is the very concern with results–usually played out in an imagined negative scenario–that inhibits most of us from taking action in the first place…. Thus, paradoxically, we eliminate any possibility of a positive result because of our fear of a negative result; we never achieve what we desire because we don’t take the action that might turn that desire into reality….

The above two paragraphs are a handy quote to share with anyone who has had trouble with submissions block.

There are other behavioral techniques that Mundis briefly discusses towards the end of the book that can be used to improve one’s productivity as a writer.   An unexpected fringe benefit.

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December 1, 2009

Jeff VanderMeer’s BOOKLIFE

I heard about Jeff VanderMeer’s BOOKLIFE: STRATEGIES AND SURVIVAL TIPS FOR THE 21ST-CENTURY WRITER through word of mouth, and so picked up a copy.  There aren’t that many books out there right now that tackle in depth the usage of social media by writers to promote their work.  Also, VanderMeer’s own website had been pointed out by others to me as an example to study, so I definitely wanted to know what he had to say.

First off, I think  VanderMeer’s separation of a writer’s life into a “public booklife” and a “private booklife” is a terrific idea.   It’s especially needed in this era of social media and cell phones.  Knowing where to set boundaries can make the difference between burnout and long-term productivity.

I’m going to let him explain in his own words why he created the two definitions:

This point I cannot emphasize enough:  your Public Booklife and your Private Booklife work in tandem…but you must separate them out for balance and peace of mind.  Writers get into trouble otherwise.  For example, the minute you start thinking about how to market or leverage something while writing it, you’ve lost the focus you need to make your work reach its full potential.  Many of the ideas in this book are ultimately about strengthening your ability to be two different creatures at very different times.

I found I preferred to read the book backwards, starting with II. Private Booklife, then Booklife Gut-Check, and then finally I. Public Booklife.   My reason for doing so (I did actually start out in Section I., then switched to II.) was because I needed more time to think about who I was as a writer before being able to figure out what would and would not work for me as VanderMeer discussed the myriad choices now available for public relations in the Public Booklife section.

Because I’m jaded as a reader of books on writing, I found the best stuff was in Public Booklife, Booklife Gut-Check (in particular the discussion on multitasking and fragmentation), and hidden away in the extensive appendices.  I ended up taking notes as I read those sections because they kept triggering brainstorms.

This is a very helpful book for writers considering how much time and money to spend on efforts to create a “platform.”

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