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Safe Distance
[Usually I write about writing. But what is writing about if not life? This post is a window into mine. Don’t look too hard for the writing wisdom here. Sometimes the story is enough.] Like so many others, we couldn’t turn away. At first we eyed it with simple curiosity, my 18-year-old son and I – the fire teasing above the horizon, peering down the foothills at the houses below. But then the wind picked up the fire dripped down the mountainside like angry red tears and the curiosity fell away, replaced by unvoiced fear. We had been watching from a ridge a half-dozen miles away – a safe distance –…
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What To Do When You Get Your Editorial Memo
Ping. An email just arrived. The one you’ve been waiting for. The one you’ve been dreading. The subject line is three words long. Your editorial memo! The exclamation mark almost makes those words seem benign. Cute, even. But you know what the words are hiding. Red ink. Six weeks ago you sent your finished manuscript (the seventh draft, if you don’t count the first five) to your editor. And now it’s back. With notes. Comments. Suggestions. Demands. What’s a writer to do? Here. I’ll help. Step 1: Stare at the email without opening it for at least 10 minutes or until just before your hands begin to shake uncontrollably. Step…
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Go Away Publishing Industry. I’m Writing.
It’s entirely possible that what you know about the publishing industry is killing your chances of being published. I’m not referring to perky and/or snarky agents* who tease you forward with a one-in-a-thousand opportunity they call “querying,” or clueless editors* who wouldn’t know brilliant literature if it bit them in the Franzen. I’m not talking about the endless hoops writers have to jump through whether chasing the graying hope of traditional publishing success or the shiny silver promise of self-published glory. I’m not talking about the dearth of bookstores or the preponderance of ebooks or the utter unpredictability of bestsellers. I’m talking about the thing that lies beneath all these…
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Listen Carefully, Your Manuscript Stinks
Your manuscript doesn’t speak English. (Or American. Or Australian. Or Esperanto. Or whatever you call your native tongue.) It speaks Manuscript. This is why all the threats you sling at it in your native tongue go unheeded. (Well, that, and the fact that it doesn’t like being threatened. It can read your tone even if it doesn’t understand your words.) And while yelling at your manuscript may help release existential angst (Cue “Shout” by Tears for Fears), increased volume still doesn’t result in increased comprehension. When you’re having a novel crisis, it could be simply because your novel is truly awful. (Give it hemlock.) Or it could be that you’re…