Brace yourselves, Effies!
The reports from RWA's National Conference are going to be a mixed bag, and the bags are due home in a couple of days.
What do I foresee in the mix?
I suspect the usual report of writer's and VIP's trying to keep a stiff upper lip in the economy. I expect the true and worthy advice about making sure your product is absolutely perfect if you expect to sell in these choppy industry waters, and I expect some desperate celebrations on the popularity of romance novels in a depressed society.
But I am guessing that the real juice to be wrung out of the RWA National grapevine is going to make us all pucker.
Newbies are a tough sell. Newbies are going to be THE TOUGHEST SELL this year. It doesn't matter what you write, or how good you are, how many awards you win, or the ever-reliable 'who you know'.
If you are a newbie, with no publishing numbers to set of the mousetrap, you're going to be laying in wait for the dumb luck of a mouse/agent stumbling and flying onto your cocked, but empty trap. And if you get lucky enough to have her at your mercy for a few seconds before she sets off again in search of negotiable cheese, you'd better have a big voice and something pithy to say.
So, my advice to you, before you hear it firsthand, is to brace yourself for bad news, determine whether or not you have what it takes to TAKE THE MOUSE BY THE BALLS, or go the other route and find a palatable exit strategy.
It can all be summed up with one of my favorite lines from The Shawshank Redemption, "You gotta get busy livin', or get busy dyin'."
To those of you queuing up for the River Stix Tour, I bid you a fond farewell. To those of you who decide to stand upon the battlements with me, I've got your back.
Ainsley
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Jumping the Plotting Fence In My Underwear
As self-appointed leader of the opposition-to-plotting party, I hereby resign.
To those whom I leave behind on my break for the other side of the fence, I wish you luck and hope to soon see you on the outside. As I don't usually go around asking people what style of underwear they are hiding, I likewise have no idea which side of the fence any of you are on, but I'm outing myself.
Look if you dare.
(For the moment, I'm out of metaphors for closets, underwear, and whether or not one should plot in the closet or pants on the lawn. Feel free to make up your own and share it, but if you do, we'll all know where you stand and what you're wearing!)
What brought this on? Scene and Sequel, baby.
Someone finally stood up on a table, waved her arms wildly enough to get my attention, then told me that while I can be entertaining at times, in a Picasso-eye-where-your-ear-should-be kind of way, my writing is a tad too unfocused for general consumption.
Enter Mr. Bickham, Scene and Structure concept.
Result? I have a google map of the yellow-brick road, know right where to get a free apple, where the poisonous pansies grow, and the departure schedule for hot-air transportation.
Looking for me? Look up, baby. Look up.
Ainsley
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Mentors, Mentees, and Giant Cojonas
Let's get this out of the way, once and for all.
Asking a Best Selling Author to mentor a new author is absolute bull and here are just a few of the four hundred and three reasons why:
Those superstars who have the inclination to mentor...do. Many of them are so happy to fulfill this need for instruction that they actually write a book endowing their readers with all the wisdom they could organize and get past an editor.
Others take a newer writer aside and offer personal advice--the point is, these authors get to choose whom they aid. Trying to make an author take on the mentoring of anonymous newbies is like asking them to take your teenager for the summer. No one will be comfortable with the situation except for the selfish teenager who will take whatever advantage she can.
For fun, let's compare Stephen King and Nora Roberts. While Mr. King has graciously written a book to entertain and educate other writers, Ms. Roberts spends her day furiously producing novels which...can both entertain and educate other writers!
Leave her alone! Don't ask her to write one less novel this year so she can pass along her knowledge to someone who may or may not be worth five minutes of her time. Tell the newbie to go out and buy Stephens book, or any of a hundred books that will teach them the few things that can be taught, since most of what makes a BSA a BSA are the things they learned by writing--not listening, not reading, not plagairizing.
I am not yet a BSA; I'm not even a P.A.N., yet. I have at least a hundred friends in the business, however, and it ticks me off that some people are able to make the most successful among us feel guilty for not giving up their valuable time to lift a stranger off the ground, a thousand miles away, when a perfectly good set of crutches sits on a bookshelf next to this stranger's butt.
I'm not talking about the homeless, I'm talking about the lazy. The Romance Writers of America has meetings in nearly every state, at least once a month, and those writers can lead new writers to a list of books to read, or help them find a critique group, or a loop to join, where they can find all the advice and instruction ever given on how to improve and get published. The non-BSA's who attend these meetings are happy to share this info. I know. I've been shared with and I can honestly say I wouldn't have come as far as I have without these women.
There is a line in Jurassic Park, delivered by Jeff Goldbloom, that says something to the effect that if you haven't put in your dues learning the science, you have no business picking up where others have left off.
I say, if you haven't come to practice all season, why should you be allowed to play in the game?
Ranting Matilda
Asking a Best Selling Author to mentor a new author is absolute bull and here are just a few of the four hundred and three reasons why:
Those superstars who have the inclination to mentor...do. Many of them are so happy to fulfill this need for instruction that they actually write a book endowing their readers with all the wisdom they could organize and get past an editor.
Others take a newer writer aside and offer personal advice--the point is, these authors get to choose whom they aid. Trying to make an author take on the mentoring of anonymous newbies is like asking them to take your teenager for the summer. No one will be comfortable with the situation except for the selfish teenager who will take whatever advantage she can.
For fun, let's compare Stephen King and Nora Roberts. While Mr. King has graciously written a book to entertain and educate other writers, Ms. Roberts spends her day furiously producing novels which...can both entertain and educate other writers!
Leave her alone! Don't ask her to write one less novel this year so she can pass along her knowledge to someone who may or may not be worth five minutes of her time. Tell the newbie to go out and buy Stephens book, or any of a hundred books that will teach them the few things that can be taught, since most of what makes a BSA a BSA are the things they learned by writing--not listening, not reading, not plagairizing.
I am not yet a BSA; I'm not even a P.A.N., yet. I have at least a hundred friends in the business, however, and it ticks me off that some people are able to make the most successful among us feel guilty for not giving up their valuable time to lift a stranger off the ground, a thousand miles away, when a perfectly good set of crutches sits on a bookshelf next to this stranger's butt.
I'm not talking about the homeless, I'm talking about the lazy. The Romance Writers of America has meetings in nearly every state, at least once a month, and those writers can lead new writers to a list of books to read, or help them find a critique group, or a loop to join, where they can find all the advice and instruction ever given on how to improve and get published. The non-BSA's who attend these meetings are happy to share this info. I know. I've been shared with and I can honestly say I wouldn't have come as far as I have without these women.
There is a line in Jurassic Park, delivered by Jeff Goldbloom, that says something to the effect that if you haven't put in your dues learning the science, you have no business picking up where others have left off.
I say, if you haven't come to practice all season, why should you be allowed to play in the game?
Ranting Matilda
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Writer's Voice and Where to Get Yours
Having a hard time finding your voice?
Open up your current work in progress. That's it. Open it up to any old page, or new page--even a page of which you're rather fond--and read it aloud.
Sound like you?
Not, "does it sound like you wrote it?", but
Does it sound like you? Were those words you use in your everyday conversation? If your book is historical civil war they wouldn't be, but how about the tempo, the cadence? How about the character's thoughts? Even delivered with a drawl, a brogue, or sliding off the tongue in french, did you hear yourself in there?
Do you suppose Janet Evanovich is a sarcastic woman? You bet your bippie. You can't write sarcasm like that and not be soaking in it. I think for JE to NOT write sarcasm would sound...dishonest.
Look at that page again. Not your words? Not your thoughts? Ask yourself who you were trying to impress, then stop trying to impress them if you can't recognize your own voice in what you write.
You want a voice? You have one. You just have to be honest about it.
At the first writers conference I attended, I believe it was the author Lynn Kurland told us we should just worry about writing to an audience of five--not to the masses, just to five people. She said we could even pick the people, or envision them, but we only need to be able to impress five people.
Boy, does that take the pressure off, right? Not writing to a million people you need to convince to buy your next book, not even a thousand, just five. Easy breezy.
But guess what else it does. It puts you into a nice intimate little circle of associates with whom you can finally be completely honest. Think a character is a turd? Let another character call him a turd. Let your characters be honest and call a turd a turd. Think a character is going to hell for his morals? Say it. Be bold. Be judgemental. Be biased. Be snide. Be paranoid. But be honest.
Another place you're supposed to be flat out shameful and shameless is at your friendly neighborhood shrink's office. Right? So put your characters on that couch and let them spill their guts. Let them rant.
And when they are all done ranting, throw those ethics out the window 'cause you're a quack anyway, and share their dirty little secrets with the reader. Let the honesty flow, babe. Shout it from the rooftops; whisper it through a hole in the fence.
Spill, baby, spill. And when you're done, you will hear something familiar...the sound of your own VOICE.
Ainsley
Open up your current work in progress. That's it. Open it up to any old page, or new page--even a page of which you're rather fond--and read it aloud.
Sound like you?
Not, "does it sound like you wrote it?", but
Does it sound like you? Were those words you use in your everyday conversation? If your book is historical civil war they wouldn't be, but how about the tempo, the cadence? How about the character's thoughts? Even delivered with a drawl, a brogue, or sliding off the tongue in french, did you hear yourself in there?
Do you suppose Janet Evanovich is a sarcastic woman? You bet your bippie. You can't write sarcasm like that and not be soaking in it. I think for JE to NOT write sarcasm would sound...dishonest.
Look at that page again. Not your words? Not your thoughts? Ask yourself who you were trying to impress, then stop trying to impress them if you can't recognize your own voice in what you write.
You want a voice? You have one. You just have to be honest about it.
At the first writers conference I attended, I believe it was the author Lynn Kurland told us we should just worry about writing to an audience of five--not to the masses, just to five people. She said we could even pick the people, or envision them, but we only need to be able to impress five people.
Boy, does that take the pressure off, right? Not writing to a million people you need to convince to buy your next book, not even a thousand, just five. Easy breezy.
But guess what else it does. It puts you into a nice intimate little circle of associates with whom you can finally be completely honest. Think a character is a turd? Let another character call him a turd. Let your characters be honest and call a turd a turd. Think a character is going to hell for his morals? Say it. Be bold. Be judgemental. Be biased. Be snide. Be paranoid. But be honest.
Another place you're supposed to be flat out shameful and shameless is at your friendly neighborhood shrink's office. Right? So put your characters on that couch and let them spill their guts. Let them rant.
And when they are all done ranting, throw those ethics out the window 'cause you're a quack anyway, and share their dirty little secrets with the reader. Let the honesty flow, babe. Shout it from the rooftops; whisper it through a hole in the fence.
Spill, baby, spill. And when you're done, you will hear something familiar...the sound of your own VOICE.
Ainsley
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
The Three Year Threat
I am a snob.
Perhaps some of you knew that already, but this is news to me. Or perhaps my awareness of it comes and goes. If so, it has come again. I am a writer-snob.
Everyone is proud, in a way, of their personal writing process. For example, my all-or-nothing personality dictates my rituals. I must either be completely immersed in my story, or not give it much thought at all. Lately I have realized that the former is becoming more and more rare, and at this rate, I will finish my next book in about...three years.
Aaaaaah!
I have been boycotting writing goals, thinking that would invite more late night manic mudslides of production. My mud, however, has been awfully dry of late. Dirt, really.
So, I've got a small trowel and bucket. Artistic Pride be damned.
Three years. Really!
Ainsley on the rebound
Perhaps some of you knew that already, but this is news to me. Or perhaps my awareness of it comes and goes. If so, it has come again. I am a writer-snob.
Everyone is proud, in a way, of their personal writing process. For example, my all-or-nothing personality dictates my rituals. I must either be completely immersed in my story, or not give it much thought at all. Lately I have realized that the former is becoming more and more rare, and at this rate, I will finish my next book in about...three years.
Aaaaaah!
I have been boycotting writing goals, thinking that would invite more late night manic mudslides of production. My mud, however, has been awfully dry of late. Dirt, really.
So, I've got a small trowel and bucket. Artistic Pride be damned.
Three years. Really!
Ainsley on the rebound
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
"SUBTLETY," I shouted.
Let me just say, since there really is no way you can actually stop me now, that I have once again fallen truly, madly, deeply in love with the written word.
On some digest this morning I was seduced to a blog site written by Caren Johnson, lit agent, where she had invited writers to send her a line or two of quality writing out of their wips or completed mss. I missed out on the window, but I did read the critiques she'd given. I also read the beginning of the blog explaining what she considers to be quality writing.
Quality writing.
Hmm, I said.
Quality writing as opposed to quality punctuation, grammar and formatting? As opposed to high concept in-your-face action?
Hmm, I said again.
Quality writing, I discovered, is actually the beautiful stuff I fell in love with all those years ago when I read "Ethan Frome" and wanted to hitch along on a suicide ride, when I wept next to Heathcliff in that silly box-of-a-bed in the middle of the night. And here's the kicker: As it turns out, I don't have to write like an Austin, Wharton, or Bronte in order to write beautifully. And neither do you.
Quality writing is from the soul. It's inspiring and inspired. It's the difference between telling a story and painting a story, but it's even more than that.
It is taking the time to think about what you're trying to say, allowing yourself to feel it, then finding the perfect words to express it. I can't write quality sentences if I am cranking out a word count for a production goal. I can't write quality while outlining a character's GMC, or plotting the greatest romance of the month.
Quality writing is seeing and feeling what lies beneath the story we're telling. It's the secrets kept between the molecules in the air. It's the stuff we can see only with the night vision goggles on. It's there. The writer is the only one who can see it, and she must tell everyone the monster is right in front of us without letting the monster know that she knows.
It's SUBTLETY; anything so subtle others may not see it, but important enough that no one should miss it. It's the potential in Ethan Frome's shoulders that will never be realized because of his "smash up". It's the futility of the winter sun trying to shine through an arctic wind. It's opposition you never notice, tension deep within the stem of a flower that keeps its head up. It's the chemistry inside the same flower that allows it to turn its head, ever so slowly and indiscernibly, toward the sunshine.
Quality writing points out the secrets all around us, secrets God was not going to tell us if we didn't think to ask, or look for ourselves.
If you want to discover if you have left quality writing behind, do what I did. Race to your latest wip and search for three or four lines of quality writing you could post to Caren Johnson (as if it weren't too late to do so) so that she might comment on it.
Want to feel better? I skimmed through ten pages and couldn't find anything worthy.
Want to fix it? Want to warm up your quality writing muscles? Grab a box of tissue and a copy of Ethan Frome. (I wept before I ever reached page two--the way one weeps over poetry, or perfect Christmas snow. I wept for the hope that I might be the producer of such beauty.)
The great thing about Edith Wharton, by the way, is that she is more easily read than Austin, but writes so beautifully you know you're elbow-deep in a classic, and you finally understand what the term "classic" means.
Ainsley the Subtle
On some digest this morning I was seduced to a blog site written by Caren Johnson, lit agent, where she had invited writers to send her a line or two of quality writing out of their wips or completed mss. I missed out on the window, but I did read the critiques she'd given. I also read the beginning of the blog explaining what she considers to be quality writing.
Quality writing.
Hmm, I said.
Quality writing as opposed to quality punctuation, grammar and formatting? As opposed to high concept in-your-face action?
Hmm, I said again.
Quality writing, I discovered, is actually the beautiful stuff I fell in love with all those years ago when I read "Ethan Frome" and wanted to hitch along on a suicide ride, when I wept next to Heathcliff in that silly box-of-a-bed in the middle of the night. And here's the kicker: As it turns out, I don't have to write like an Austin, Wharton, or Bronte in order to write beautifully. And neither do you.
Quality writing is from the soul. It's inspiring and inspired. It's the difference between telling a story and painting a story, but it's even more than that.
It is taking the time to think about what you're trying to say, allowing yourself to feel it, then finding the perfect words to express it. I can't write quality sentences if I am cranking out a word count for a production goal. I can't write quality while outlining a character's GMC, or plotting the greatest romance of the month.
Quality writing is seeing and feeling what lies beneath the story we're telling. It's the secrets kept between the molecules in the air. It's the stuff we can see only with the night vision goggles on. It's there. The writer is the only one who can see it, and she must tell everyone the monster is right in front of us without letting the monster know that she knows.
It's SUBTLETY; anything so subtle others may not see it, but important enough that no one should miss it. It's the potential in Ethan Frome's shoulders that will never be realized because of his "smash up". It's the futility of the winter sun trying to shine through an arctic wind. It's opposition you never notice, tension deep within the stem of a flower that keeps its head up. It's the chemistry inside the same flower that allows it to turn its head, ever so slowly and indiscernibly, toward the sunshine.
Quality writing points out the secrets all around us, secrets God was not going to tell us if we didn't think to ask, or look for ourselves.
If you want to discover if you have left quality writing behind, do what I did. Race to your latest wip and search for three or four lines of quality writing you could post to Caren Johnson (as if it weren't too late to do so) so that she might comment on it.
Want to feel better? I skimmed through ten pages and couldn't find anything worthy.
Want to fix it? Want to warm up your quality writing muscles? Grab a box of tissue and a copy of Ethan Frome. (I wept before I ever reached page two--the way one weeps over poetry, or perfect Christmas snow. I wept for the hope that I might be the producer of such beauty.)
The great thing about Edith Wharton, by the way, is that she is more easily read than Austin, but writes so beautifully you know you're elbow-deep in a classic, and you finally understand what the term "classic" means.
Ainsley the Subtle
Friday, December 19, 2008
Reflecting Forward
A rare quiet moment to reflect...forward.
2008 is still hovering around us, like Old Father Time circling the drain, waiting for his replacement so he can move on. I wish, however, he would linger just a bit longer that I might catch my breath and share a quiet moment with him before he goes.
2009 is waiting in the velvet curtains for his turn in front of the crowd and my thoughts race, as his might race, to the possibilities whispering in those 365 days sitting on the edges of their seats.
I want to be prepared. I want to know my lines, not play improv. I want to be braced for the music. I don't want to miss a minute.
And so I set a goal, a lofty goal, like a grand floral arrangement in a four-foot- tall fluted vase placed carefully, but nervously on a narrow pedestal. It is time to let go, to see if it will stay put, to see if it holds its place throughout the performance.
My goal is not some tussy-mussy of daisies and baby's breath arranged in a sturdy low bowl and placed in the center of a 60 inch table. It is wild branches with heavy berries that pull at their perch so they might wreak havoc with the white carpet below. It is a delicate blossom worth an untold fortune dangling at an unnatural height screaming "I will not go silent into that good night!"
Take a risk. As you look into your own future, do you imagine being impressed with something safe and staid? Or do you see yourself performing a bit of shock and awe of your own?
Ainsley
2008 is still hovering around us, like Old Father Time circling the drain, waiting for his replacement so he can move on. I wish, however, he would linger just a bit longer that I might catch my breath and share a quiet moment with him before he goes.
2009 is waiting in the velvet curtains for his turn in front of the crowd and my thoughts race, as his might race, to the possibilities whispering in those 365 days sitting on the edges of their seats.
I want to be prepared. I want to know my lines, not play improv. I want to be braced for the music. I don't want to miss a minute.
And so I set a goal, a lofty goal, like a grand floral arrangement in a four-foot- tall fluted vase placed carefully, but nervously on a narrow pedestal. It is time to let go, to see if it will stay put, to see if it holds its place throughout the performance.
My goal is not some tussy-mussy of daisies and baby's breath arranged in a sturdy low bowl and placed in the center of a 60 inch table. It is wild branches with heavy berries that pull at their perch so they might wreak havoc with the white carpet below. It is a delicate blossom worth an untold fortune dangling at an unnatural height screaming "I will not go silent into that good night!"
Take a risk. As you look into your own future, do you imagine being impressed with something safe and staid? Or do you see yourself performing a bit of shock and awe of your own?
Ainsley
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