Ink Dance

by Ross, Deborah J.

  Picture this: You’re at a major con, at a late night room party with a group of editorial type folk, some of whom are not entirely sober, most of whom are jet-lagged, and all of whom are overdue for serious relaxation time. One of them lets slip a hilarious but less-than-flattering reference to an author past/present/slushpile.

  You:

  A. Whip out your cellphone and text all your friends, because why keep a good joke to yourself?

  B. Post What She Said on Twitter, complete with names, dates and places.

  C. Make a mental note to email the editor on the next business day, with the hint that you will be more than happy to keep this information secret in exchange for a favor or two.

  D. Instantly develop amnesia on the subject. If any reference to the party arises, look sheepish and mumble, “I was so tired, I can’t remember much, but it was a great party.”

  Look, editors and agents and suchlike folk are people, genre publishing is a small world, and very little stays secret. Unless there’s a credible threat of physical violence necessitating immediate police intervention, let it go. You won’t score any brownie points by becoming the fount of the latest buzz. On the other hand, you might harm someone, including the person who let slip the tale.

  Will it hurt your book’s chances of a sale and decent promotion if you repeat embarrassing details? Is gossip a professional black mark? Nope, your book will rise or fall on its merits, and everyone understands the human temptation to Pass On The Juicy News.

  Will your editor think twice before calling you with a secret, rush project? Will you get invited to the next round of let-down-your-hair parties? Perhaps ones at which anthologies or shared-world series are hatched and invitations issued?

  How would you feel if you repeated a story that, whether true or not, damaged someone’s reputation, someone you might find yourself wanting to work with in the future? Writers become editors and vice versa, editors change publishing houses, writers become publishers, editors become agents, writers collaborate and form online ventures.

  And that writer you heard the story about, the story you expunged from your memory—he might just turn out to be your best ever writing buddy.

  Note: A version of this essay appeared in 2010 as part of the “How to Trash Your Writing Career” series on Book View Café.

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  Reviews: The Good, the Bad, and the Ignorable

  A friend who recently published her second mystery novel (published, as in a New York publisher and a respectable one at that) lamented online how difficult and anxiety-provoking it was for her to read reviews of her work.

  While anticipating her first novel appearing in the bookstores, she suffered, “visions of humiliation, public contempt, vicious attacks on my writing, plot, and [background] information. I slept poorly and contemplated changing my name and moving to Belize.”

  This person is an adult, an accomplished professional, and had done her authorial homework. She’d had solid workshop experience in addition to a rigorous academic background, so she was no stranger to feedback. What is it about reviews that can turn the most secure of us into quivering jellyfish (swimming toward Belize)? Why do we give them such power over us?

  After all, anyone can write a review these days. No training or experience—or taste or perspicacity—are required. Just look at the reader reviews on Amazon.com or similar sites. Blog reviews range from insightful to malicious to blindly adoring. Nor is it necessary to have actually read the book in question. I stumbled upon a review of Lace and Blade 2 (an anthology I edited) several months before it was to be released (and since the book was Print on Demand, no ARCs had yet been sent out and no one but the publisher and I had seen the final manuscript). The review: “Not very good.” Since I knew the reviewer could not possibly have read it, I had to ask, why post such a comment? Simply to strew the Internet with negativity? To pose as knowing everything about everything? A personal vendetta against me, the publisher, or one of the authors?

  The generic nature of the comment offers a clue. Amateur reviewers can be thoughtful, articulate, and fair-minded. But they can also use the vehicle of the Internet to disguise their personal agendas. I saw this in the comments about a recently-published book from a small press that dealt (with imagination and humor, I thought) with a controversial theme. Some reviewers had the honesty to say, “This was not my cup of tea” or “I disagree with the underlying premise.” But others simply said “It’s a bad book” with so little explanation that the remark could have been applied equally well to James Joyce’s Ulysses, the Kama Sutra, and an unabridged Mongolian-French dictionary.

  Had it been my own work in question (and at times, it has been), I would no doubt have taken the generic judgment at face value. However, this instance and subsequent discussion led to a different perspective: all too often, reviewers react to their own personal shortcomings by denigrating whatever sets them off. Today’s world does not lack for hot-button issues and personal grudges.

  Of course, not all negative reviews are based on unconsidered personal prejudice towards the subject material (or even the author). A member of a writer’s workshop used to occasionally preface remarks with “Normally, I would rather walk barefoot over hot coals than read this type of fiction,” and then proceed to give a reasoned, intelligent, and helpful critique. I might go so far as to say that a review that does not discuss a book’s weaknesses is likely to be superficial at best.

  Regardless of the value of negative commentary, is it useful for the author to read such reviews? For that matter, is it useful for an author to read reviews that are unadulterated glowing praise? I suggest that it is not.

  Most people seek approval and bask in adulation, and writers are no different. We want to be told we’ve done well, that our words are glorious, timeless, stupendously wonderful, stunning, rousing, awesome, terrific, and any number of the phrases so casually thrown about. The bottom line is that we can get all this and more from our dogs.

  The question is: does unconsidered praise help us to become better writers? Does pointless and mean-spirited book bashing help us to become better writers?

  If it doesn’t, are we helping or hurting ourselves by reading either type of review?

  It is helpful when learning the craft of writing to know what has worked or not for a reader. Often the most valuable form of critique for me runs along the lines of, “You lost me here.”

  To write, we have to do just the opposite. We have to turn away from external feedback and listen to our inner voices, to discern those visions that are ours alone. Praise, because it is pleasurable, is particularly potent and difficult to disregard. Therefore, it poses a greater threat to the creative process than does outright criticism. Yes, some beginning writers crumble under harsh feedback and never write again. But even more of us shape our work and distort our vision because of praise.

  This is why many writers won’t show anyone their works-in-progress. The stories are not yet fully formed, and are therefore vulnerable to someone else’s opinion. So what’s the harm in reading reviews, once the story is published? Hopefully, that story will not be your last.

  Reviews, whether positive or negative, persist in the writer’s mind. If we have only so many years in which to spin out the stories of our hearts, can we afford even the ghost of a distraction, not to mention the hours of anguish, insomnia, and thoughts of Belize?

  We are all human. I have no expectation that I, or anyone who reads this, will successfully resist reading reviews. I hope, however, that we will take what they say cautiously, mindfully, ever aware of their illusory seduction . . . and then set them aside as best we can and get on with our real work.

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  Surviving Dry Spells

  Laura Anne Gilman offers some savvy perspective on surviving the dry spells:

  Remember, a few weeks ago, when I said that every career has its ups and downs? That not even bestsellers hit it out of the park every
time? Awards don’t always equal sales, sales aren’t always enough, readers’ tastes change, and so do publishers. Careers rise—and they fall.

  Sometimes it’s obvious. Sometimes it’s not. You might keep working, but at lower advances to match lower sales. Or you might not be able to sell another book, no matter how good, how smart, how interesting the books are.

  We all need the reminder that publishing is cyclical and that many elements are beyond our control. We needs ways of staying in touch with why we became writers in the first place. We also need survival strategies so we can pay the bills, whether we get unrelated day jobs or not.

  Years ago, Marion Zimmer Bradley said something to me in passing, only a few words, but they stuck with me. She said that along with her current commercial novel, she was writing something for her own pleasure. Most of us began writing because we loved it, and we wrote the stories we wanted to read. Our secret delights. One of the pitfalls of professional publishing is that we risk turning off that part of our writing minds. We chase the market instead of delighting our inner readers. And yet those inner readers can be our best allies during hard times. Along with fellow writers who have been there and lived to tell the tale.

  Epublishing, self-publishing, are game-changers. At least, I think they are. But what do I know? I have so little sense of the market, it’s pathetic. I know what I love to read and it isn’t always what sells. However, one thing I am reasonably sure of: publishing is in flux, and we don’t know how it’s all going to fall out. Gilman talks about a dry spell as a creative opportunity; new methods of publishing open doors. That’s one reason that ventures like Book View Café, an online author’s cooperative, where established pro writers and editors can pool their talents, publishing not only out-of-print treasures but new material, are so exciting.

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  The Magic Phone Call

  It’s the moment every struggling-to-break-in writer dreams about. You’ve sweated through revision after revision, you’ve endured and celebrated the feedback from your critique group or trusted reader. You’ve haunted your own Inbox, dreading and hoping at the same time. To your query, the editor or agent replies, “Yes, we received it. Yes, it’s still under consideration.”

  Still? Calloo callay! Agony of agonies . . .

  The waiting comes to an end, as all things must. This time, it’s not with a form rejection or even the more personalized, encouraging “almost there” notes you’ve been getting. It’s a phone call! Is there ever a time when you most want to be cool and collected, to savor each microsecond, and yet find your brain inhabited by swarms of frantic, deafening flying things? To quote one of my daughters’ favorite books: “What do you say, dear?”

  Times have changed since I found myself on the receiving end of such a glorious call. Conversations used telephone or postal mail, not email. Conventional wisdom has swung away from “first sell, then get an agent.” However, I believe the advice I was given and the ways in which I am happy I responded still apply.

  First of all, I was of the “sell first, then agent” school. I did not and still do not believe that it is impossible to sell a first novel without an agent. You don’t have to agree with me; after all, I could be wrong. I also believed that I could get a much better agent—in fact, the agent of my dreams—if I began with a novel for which an offer (from a major publisher) had already been made. It didn’t bother me in the least that an agent would pocket his or her commission without marketing the book. I know myself well enough to be confident I am right up there with the world’s ten lousiest negotiators. I also wanted an agent who would take the long view, not a single novel sale but my future long-term career.

  When that magic phone call came, I had done considerable homework. I regularly read essays by various agents in trade magazines (now you can read their blogs online). I met writers I admired and, after sufficient friendliness and trust was established, asked them about their experiences with agents. I wasn’t specifically looking for horror stories, but a sense of each agent’s philosophy, the way he or she interacted with authors. I considered how similar my work was to that of the other writer. I composed my dream list. And waited. And submitted. And waited some more. And wrote several more novels while waiting.

  At last came a call from my editor. “I’ve finished reading your book,” she said. “I love your work.”

  Pause.

  I squeaked, “Does this mean . . .” Oh god, I’m going to sound so stupid if I’m wrong! “. . . you want to buy it?”

  She laughed.

  The world turned inside out. Oops, I have to be careful saying that around fantasy and science fiction readers. It might have a literal meaning. But you get my point. With very little oxygen reaching my brain, I stammered, “This is so wonderful, I can hardly breathe. I’m so glad you like it! I can’t think about numbers . . . you’ll have to discuss that with my agent.”

  “Great. Have him call me.”

  In stupefaction, I hung up the phone. What had I done? I didn’t have an agent! All I knew was not to commit to any contract specifics.

  I picked up the phone and dialed the office of the agent at the top of my list. He was in. He was happy to take my call. “I’ve just gotten an offer from Publisher for my first novel,” I said. “I’ve heard wonderful things about you from Author A, Author B, and Author C. Could you . . . er, um . . . negotiate the contract for me?”

  “Only if we establish agent-author representation. For all your books.”

  “Oh. Yes, please.”

  Then he laughed. Although I’m delirious with joy, I’m feeling a bit idiotic. Why is everyone laughing at me?

  It turned out that those same authors had been telling him about me, and he’d been waiting until I had a finished book that he could represent.

  Lessons: Do your homework. Learn the field. Keep writing while you wait. Respect your strengths and weaknesses. Be friendly. And never ever negotiate with your brain on endorphins.

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  Letting Go, Moving On

  One of the most difficult situations faced by any writer who is serious about being a professional is when a project never sells. It could be a short story or a novel or a series. It could happen early in your career or after you’ve established yourself with a solid sales record. If it hasn’t happened to you, it will.

  Almost all beginning writers try stories that don’t work (not even counting those we don’t finish!) We send them out and receive form rejection letters, with no clue as to why our stories weren’t accepted or how to improve them. Unless the editor is exceptionally dedicated to encouraging new writers (Marion Zimmer Bradley was legendary for explaining why she rejected stories), they simply don’t have time for individual responses. Moreover, it’s not the job of an acquiring editor to critique submissions. Jokes about what to do with the ever-increasing pile of rejection letters abound. The best thing I heard about the can’t-sell-anything stage was that if I was not stacking up rejection letters, I wasn’t doing my job. Frustrating as it is, this experience has something valuable to teach us: Lesson One: Not Every Story Sells.

  By far, the vast majority of these early rejections are due to the stories themselves. There’s a threshold of quality for publication-level writing (and it has changed over time). Reaching that level does not guarantee a sale, of course. It’s a necessary but not sufficient factor. This is hard to hear when we’re first starting out; we’re in love with our stories and can’t imagine why everyone else does not feel the same way. (This is an excellent reason not to use your doting Aunt Betty for feedback. You want your delusions shattered, not inflated.) Lesson One, Subset One: Not Every Story You Write Will Be Good Enough.

  Part of a writer’s maturation process is accepting that sometimes you hit the mark and sometimes you don’t. You do the best you can with each story, striving to make each one better. With each flop (and also with each success, when it comes), you take what you’ve learned and use it to tack
le the next story. The worst thing you can do is to write a whole novel based on an unsuccessful short story (or a sequel or series based on an unsalable novel). If the foundation is faulty or weak, the entire structure cannot be any better. Lesson One, Subset Two: Don’t Try To Build Your Career On Crap.

  If this sounds harsh, it’s because of how painful it is to let go of those early efforts. Nobody wants to hear that. These stories are our dreams, our darlings, the children of our minds. I’ve known authors who spend years and years—decades, even—on that first novel. Sometimes by the time they finish they’ve improved enough so they stand a chance of writing a new novel of publishable quality. But they’re welded to the meandering, overwritten, inconsistent, self-indulgent screed they’ve poured so much work into. Even worse, they may have committed themselves to its sequel/s. They work and re-work that first novel instead of going on to something fresh, something that reflects everything they’ve learned. It’s like trying to revise a fourth-grade essay into a doctoral dissertation.

  Some stories stay in the trunk forever, and deservedly so. Others come back to tease us. I joke that my early novels are a treasure-trove of short story ideas. It is also possible for an experienced author to take an early attempt, rewrite it to their current level of skill, and have something worthwhile. It takes a high level of critical judgment, not to mention ruthlessness, to be able to do that, and almost always a substantial amount of time must elapse for the necessary detachment.

  What works? What doesn’t? When we’re early in the learning curve, we can’t tell. That’s why outside feedback, whether from rejection letters, critique groups, or a paid mentor, is so valuable. These people can give us a measure of where that story is with respect to that threshold for professional publication. However, the hard part, the clawing-out-your-heart part, is up to us. We have to take those failures and set them aside. Grieve, sing a dirge, burn them, do whatever we need to do to let go. Moving on to the next story and then the next is how we grow.