What are usually not valid excuses for bad behavior?

—Blaming sudden growth for non-payment of monies because of supposed ma-and-pop corner store accounting practices. Most all publishers, large and small, deal with distributors and wholesalers who keep records of books sold. It would be unlikely that any publisher would not have a fairly good idea of book sales for an individual title, no matter how busy they are. Publishers have to communicate with the entities that help them sell their books in order to keep publishing. This requires them to stay in the loop.

—Suggesting communication issues as a generic catch-all reason that absolves particular individuals of responsibility, especially in cases where it is quite clear that those who have been ill-served have been attempting to communicate and simply have been ignored. In this case, the excuse is simply an effort to stave off negative publicity.

—Putting the onus on the individual writers published by the publisher to come to them with any issues or problems related to non-payment.
This suggests a less than proactive approach on the publisher’s part and may simply be a delaying tactic.

Always remember that by the time individual writers are willing to say bad things about a particular publisher, this is usually just the tip of the iceberg, to use a cliche. Very few writers feel comfortable bad-mouthing their publisher, for fear of being seen as difficult. In cases where several writers have spoken out, you can almost always guarantee that many of those who haven’t spoken out also have issues with the publisher.

When considering a publisher, be sure to check with a sampling of writers published by that publisher, to get a sense of how consistent, honest, and fair the publisher is in dealing with writers. From a writer’s point of view, a publisher is only as good as the average experience that can be expected in dealing with them. Every publisher will have highs and lows depending on personalities and issues beyond anyone’s control.

Also remember that indie presses in particular have their eccentricities, and that each press has its strengths and its weaknesses. This is not the same thing as “bad behavior”–these are simply the quirks writers have to deal with, just as the publisher and acquiring editor are agreeing to put up with your quirks, in a sense, and you will have to decide which quirks you don’t mind and which make a publisher unattractive to you.

[SPOILER WARNING: If you haven’t seen the movie Avatar, you may want to skip this post.]

I went into Avatar knowing little about it, beyond a few accusations that it was “a ripoff of FernGully: The Last Rainforest” or “a ripoff of Dances With Wolves” or “a ripoff of Ursula K. Le Guin’s The World for World Is Forest,” and a lot of descriptions of Avatar as “so awesome, you should see it in 3D.”

Having seen Avatar, I would agree with Nisi Shawl’s take that Avatar is beautifully immersive. I haven’t been that stoned on a movie since 1982’s Blade Runner (although, when I was leaving the theatre in ’82, I didn’t trip over the stairs and reel into the walls. If someone re-releases Blade Runner in modern 3D, I suspect my head will literally burst).

I haven’t seen FernGully nor, unfortunately, have I read The World for World Is Forest, but I did see Dances with Wolves. And, yes, Avatar is an uncredited, SFX-drenched reissue of that old story (which we’ll get back to in a moment).

I also thought that writer/director James Cameron was borrowing heavily from other sources—palpably obvious inspirations I’ve rarely (if ever) heard others mention: the Dragonriders of Pern (clearly, Hollywood has finally developed the technology to bring Anne McCaffrey’s intelligent, human-bonding dragons convincingly to ‘life’) and the three major series created by Edgar Rice Burroughs: Carson of Venus, John Carter of Mars, and Tarzan of the Apes.

Burroughs’s Barsoom (Mars) series came to my mind initially because of all those multi-legged alien animals. Meanwhile, the Wikipedia description of Amtor (Burroughs’s imaginary version of Venus) might as well be a description of Cameron’s fictional planet, Pandora: “Amtorian vegetation, particularly on Vepaja, tends to be gigantic. Vepaja is notable for the enormous forests…with trees reaching into the inner cloud envelope.” If I recall correctly from my childhood reading, Amtorian forests are even the same color as Avatar’s.

However, the main reason Avatar reminded me of Burroughs’ most popular series, and the movie Dances with Wolves, was because of the way they made me feel.

Avatar, Dances with Wolves, and Burroughs’s series tap a very old human desire: the yearning for a better world. It’s a desire expressed in the myths of Eden, the Golden Age, and the Satya Yuga. It’s a desire that speaks to you whether you’re religious or agnostic or atheist; whether you’re black or white or brown; and whether you believe that the world was once a better place, or believe it never was. Who doesn’t at least occasionally want to live in a world where war is rare or nonexistent, and life is simple, and one is in complete harmony with the earth—a world where human nature hasn’t fucked everything up yet?

Avatar, Dances with Wolves, and Burroughs’s Mars and Tarzan series evoke and fulfill (or, at least, attempt to fulfill) that desire for a return to prelapsarian purity—in short, a desire for redemption. And, in itself, there’s nothing wrong with wanting to escape the bad things in life. Where these books and movies get into trouble is where they put an unfortunate racial spin on the universal desire for redemption.

In the worlds of Pandora and the imaginary Dances “Wild West” and Burroughs’ Mars and Tarzan, a white man doesn’t just find himself redeemed from his impure, inharmonious, and sinful state. He finds himself redeemed specifically from the evils of colonialism, slavery, and the other forms of oppression that whites have imposed upon people of color for centuries.

Even more unfortunately, the people of color don’t just redeem the white man from the sins of his race—they deem him their superior. John Carter is not only loved by slaves in the Old American South, he’s appointed the Warlord of the whole planet of Mars, which is inhabited largely by human analogs with red or green skin. Tarzan of the Apes is so much better than even the indigenous peoples at living in equatorial Africa, he gets to be chief of one tribe and viewed as a god or devil by others. Hell, he’s so much better than anyone else, he can single-handedly kill animals that would normally tear a lone, knife-armed human to pieces in moments. The white cavalryman of Dances with Wolves is not only fully accepted into the Lakota tribe, he gets to bugger off (with the girl, no less) before the U.S government overcomes the remaining free Sioux. On the planet Pandora, Avatar’s white male protagonist isn’t just accepted as one of their own by the non-white indigenous population. He isn’t just the unifier of their tribes. He is their savior/messiah, chosen by the goddess-consciousness of Pandora herself!

As a white person, I feel the appeal of that. I don’t like that this feeling is stirred in me, but I still feel it. I feel the desire to be forgiven for the sins of both my genetic and cultural ancestors and myself. I want to be forgiven for the evils of slavery, colonialism, and other forms of oppression. I’d love to escape responsibility for the bad things that have formed and benefited me.

Now, I doubt every other white viewer/reader of these works feels this particular desire. But, given both the perennial popularity of Edgar Rice Burroughs and the boffo box office for Avatar and Dances with Wolves, I know at least some other whites do, even if not many of us are likely to say so in a public forum.

My point is not that white people shouldn’t have these desires. Nobody has control over the feelings that come to them, after all.

My point is that we (all of us, regardless of race, gender, etc.) can and should control what we do with our feelings and desires.

And, as writers, we can and should control what we write.

If it sounds like I’m urging self-censorship, that is not what I intend.

The point I want to make is that writing is considered speech. We should consider the effect our words will have.

Does anyone really want the effect of their writing to be “patronizing unearned-redemption fantasy for whites”?

I believe this effect is not the one that James Cameron intended in Avatar. But it’s the one he did convey, to numerous viewers of every race.

I’m being naïve about Hollywood again, I suppose. But, when I was watching Avatar, I wondered what the effect would have been if the human occupying force had been more ethnically diverse, instead of mostly white. I wondered what the effect would have been if the protagonist had been a person of color. And I wondered what the movie would have been like if the whiteguy protagonist had turned out to be not very important at all to Pandora or its people, who organize a successful overthrow of the invaders on their own.

I know that, as a writer, I don’t want my readers thinking “shouldn’t she have written this differently?” I want them thinking that what I wrote is perfect and wonderful and inevitable—“it couldn’t have been done better any other way, it couldn’t have been done any other way at all!”

I know, of course, that I’m not going to achieve this goal.

But when I consider what I write, when I rewrite to eliminate the messages I don’t intend to convey, I get a lot closer to my goal.

Here’s more about both writers…

Nisi Shawl’s story collection Filter House won the 2008 James Tiptree, Jr. Award and was nominated for a 2009 World Fantasy Award. She received a second 2009 World Fantasy Award nomination for her novella “Good Boy.” Shawl is the coeditor, with Dr. Rebecca Holden, of Strange Matings: Science Fiction, Feminism, African American Voices, and Octavia E. Butler (forthcoming). Her reviews and essays appear in the Seattle Times and Ms. Magazine, and she has contributed to Women in Science Fiction and Fantasy and The Encyclopedia of Themes in Science Fiction. A former speaker at Duke University, Stanford University, Smith College, and the University of Washington, Shawl is a founding member of the Carl Brandon Society and serves on the Board of Directors of the Clarion West Writers Workshop, which she attended in 1992.

Cynthia Ward was born in Oklahoma and lived in Maine, Spain, Germany, the San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, and Tucson before moving to the Los Angeles area. She has sold stories to Asimov’s SF Magazine, Sword & Sorceress XXIV, and other anthologies and magazines. Her reviews appear regularly in Fantasy Magazine and SciFiWire.com and irregularly in other websites and publications. She is completing her first novel, a futuristic mystery tentatively titled The Stone Rain. Ward will be participating in the Tucson Festival of Books at the University of Arizona next weekend (March 13-14).

Writing the Other is based on Shawl and Ward’s critically acclaimed diversity writing workshop Writing the Other: Bridging Cultural Differences for Successful Fiction .

Back to our regularly scheduled programming… I left my favorite observations for last. I live in the Puget Sound area, so the fact that I’m a huge fan of Apolo Ohno should come as no surprise. I do appreciate a golden child whenever he or she does come along (complete with awesome attitude), so I must also confess a fondness for snowboarder Shawn White. How can we not live in awe of these two Olympians? Here is what I took away from each of them over the last couple of weeks.  

◊ Find your sanctuary. 

Who doesn’t admire Shawn White’s personal half-pipe situation? He made the decision to keep his edge by investing in a remote training facility he customized for his own needs, and clearly it paid off for him. He pulled out and perfected brand-new snowboarding tricks at this year’s Olympic games that no one could even imagine doing until last week. 

Okay, I’m not suggesting that we all go buy multi-million dollar writing labs in Antarctica that we have to visit via a private helicopter service. Let’s face it, who has the coin for that? 

But I am suggesting that, if you don’t have a good place to write regularly, you should consider finding one. Often that means taking ownership of one corner of your house, but it can also mean claiming a period of time in which you ask your friends and family to leave you alone. Sanctuary is not only about locating a designated physical space, but about finding the inner space you need to sit comfortably in your creative zone. This should include the careful consideration of your personal time and energy. 

I have a sign I picked up while on Broadway a couple of years ago. It says “Quiet on the set.” Originally I hung it on my office door handle to indicate to my family that I was recording a podcast file. And they understood that to mean I needed for people to honor my need for silence and stop barging in on my session. Now I use that “Quiet on the set” sign as an indication that I am not available because I am writing. (I also use it to mark when I’m meditating.) 

I don’t hang it out there for 8 hours at a time; usually I use the sign for up to an hour’s worth of time composing new work, but only when I know there will be people in the house. It works. 

Another thing that works for me when I write “offsite” (usually in a local coffee house) is the use of earbuds while I’m writing. I don’t even listen to music; I find music too intellectually stimulating when I write. But I wear the earbuds anyway, to send out the signal to folks in my small town that I’m not available for chatter. Where I live, you can’t throw a rock without hitting someone you know, so the chances are high you’ll run into a friend or colleague or neighbor every time you leave the house. The earbud strategy works as well. 

It’s not a selfish or bad thing to ask for sanctuary; it’s perhaps the one tool that will allow you to keep writing when conditions don’t otherwise permit it. But you have to have the nerve to insist on it. And remember, you do not need permission to take time for yourself. 

The cost of my investment? An $8 souvenir and a pair of earbuds attached to either my phone or my laptop. No, it’s not a Shawn White multiplex, but it’ll do. And it does. 

◊ Stay classy (with a nod to spec-fic writer Jay Lake, who frequently uses this term in his tweets!). 

"Apolo Ohno's speed skates" by Mark Pellegrini (2008)

Okay, I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty sure US speed skater Apolo Ohno didn’t push that other guy down in the 500-meter race last Friday night. It looked to me like he was pulling his hand away from the hip of the Canadian racer when that skater lost his blade edge and slid into the padded wall. Physics 1010 suggests that, if you’re pulling your hand away from something, you really can’t simultaneously push against it… Unless you’re superhuman, I suppose. And maybe Ohno is… 

But when Ohno crossed the finish line in second place, you could see it in his eyes: this race is not over yet. It’s because he’s learned over more than a decade of competitive racing that the sport is subjective, people will fall and mess it up for all the other skaters, and playing dirty may or may not have anything to do with it. 

When the reporter from NBC asked him about it later, he was honest: he thought it was a bad call. But did he whine and complain that the Canadian judge was playing favorites? No. He ultimately said, laughing, “I just need to skate faster!” 

How cool is that?

Remember the Tonya Harding-Nancy Kerrigan scandal from the 1994 Winter Olympic Games at Lillehammer? I could see why viewers might hold a bad opinion about Harding; she behaved pretty immaturely and, when the truth came out about the conspiracy to assault Kerrigan, that sealed the deal. It’s widely agreed: Harding performed an unforgivable act of corruption.

But if you recall, Nancy Kerrigan wasn’t especially classy about taking her silver medal that year, either. At the awards podium, she didn’t show an appropriate amount of honor and respect to Oksana Baiul, who she clearly felt took “her” gold. 

Sorry Nancy, but this is not the attitude of a superhero.

Miss Kerrigan, take note: Last week, Canadian figure skater Joannie Rochette’s mother died before Joannie’d had a chance to take the ice. Rochette went on to skate her personal best and took away a bronze. Now that’s what I call gracious and classy to the end. 

How does this pertain to writers? 

If you see a writer you don’t admire winning a prize, you should still give them credit and move on. The awarding of prizes, like the adjudication of short track speed skating, is subjective. Sometimes the rulings will be fair, sometimes they won’t. Coming out publicly with your displeasure gives the appearance of sour grapes, but even more importantly, it doesn’t make it more likely that you’ll publish your work in that venue or others now or in the future. 

I’ve seen writers tear down other writers in this way and it’s so painful to watch. Listen, if you’re bitter enough, and you make your bitterness public enough, editors may even avoid working with you. Remember, they read everything… including the boards on the web. 

The truth is that sometimes judges do call a fair match and if you’re surprised, it might be because you, as a writer, are not open-minded or sophisticated enough in your craft and process to see that there are many, many ways to do something right.  And sometimes, as Ohno points out, that’s just the breaks of the game. There’s also the very real possibility that our work is really not as good as that of the writers we dislike. Who among us are that objective about our own work? I’d guess close to 0%. 

You could mire yourself in criticism of other writers, slander contests, pass judgment on the judges themselves… or you could use the unfavorable outcome as your motivation to do your personal best next time. What did Ohno do? He shed the loss, focused his energy on the following relay, and assisted his team in bringing home a bronze medal. What did Rochette do? She pushed through the pain and performed for all the right reasons, without using her grief as a crutch. 

Now that’s staying classy. 

Thank you so much for reading. Don’t miss out on my previous posts this week, as well! TGIF, 

Tamara  

Everything I’ve learned about writing this year I’ve relearned by watching the Olympics [series Part One] 

Everything I’ve learned about writing this year I’ve relearned by watching the Olympics [series Part Two] 

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Tamara Kaye Sellman Tamara Kaye Sellman is director of Writer’s Rainbow Literary Services. 

 Photo credits: Images used in this post are the property of Tamara Sellman or have been licensed for blogging use under the public domain or the Creative Commons.

◊ Expect to earn your medals every time.

Snowboarder Lindsey Jacobellis kinda blew it in Torino. She hotdogged her way to a second place in women’s snowboard cross when she had the gold medal practically around her neck on that last slope.

Jacobellis has had to live that down for the last 4 years and went to Vancouver hoping to redeem herself. It didn’t quite happen: this year, she DQ’d in prelims and had to duke it out for 4^th place, even though her odds of taking home a medal were just as certain as they had been in 2006.

I’m not judging. It’s gotta be tough to perform in such a public mainstream arena because, frankly, if you fail, everybody knows about it. Even people from the mainstream, who really don’t know the bigger score in such a specialty sport. For Jacobellis, it’s her 2009 first place ranking in World Cup ladies snowcross that folks overlook while calling attention to her failure in 2010.

Writers have it slightly better: if they fail, usually they just get rejected and no one but the writer and the prospective publisher are the wiser. Still, failure can be self-destructive. There isn’t a writer alive who has been rejected who doesn’t see “No” as evidence of failure.

But failure isn’t always what it looks like. Sometimes a good writer doesn’t fail so much as they lose to another–usually better–writer in competition for the same publishing real estate.  As an editor, I’ve had to reject perfectly successful stories from good authors because other authors have already beaten them to the punch. It’s unfair and editors hate to have to send good writing away, but it happens.

The bigger, more common reality, however, is not the tragic story of the near-miss, but this: just because you have published one manuscript does not guarantee that you will publish all of your manuscripts. Every time you submit your work, you enter it into conditions which you can’t completely predict or control. Just because you may have landed your work with one publisher doesn’t mean you’re going to walk into a publishing house in the future and sign the dotted line with your next manuscript without first submitting your new work to intense scrutiny. Your next manuscript, and the one after that, and so forth, will have to earn its way and survive on its own every time.

That’s not to say there aren’t some conditions you can control: your effort to make your manuscript the best ever, your careful consideration of markets, your voice and style are things you can focus on to improve the success rate of an individual piece sent out into the world to find its place.

But there are always going to be conditions you can’t control: the competition, the amount of space available for work like yours, the practical needs of an editor that go beyond the value of a well-written manuscript. The sooner you make your peace with this reality, the better.

Lindsey Jacobellis didn’t fall out of the snowboard cross universe because she failed at the Olympics, after all. She just didn’t win that particular race in Vancouver, just as you will not publish every single manuscript you submit to that particular publication. What to do? Keep going and remember, you win some, you lose some.

◊ Sometimes you have to ski blind.

German sisters Susanne and Maria Riesch had big hopes of sharing the podium this year in alpine skiing. Maria took the gold, while Susanne ended up in a collision that cost her the chance to join her sister.

Susanne’s “failure” mirrored the “failures” of many other world-class skiers at this year’s Olympics. Deteriorating slope conditions and visibility issues were a major contributing factor for many, with luck being a larger-than-usual part of the equation. It’s risky business, skiing when you can’t see ten feet in front of you.

But anything worth doing requires an assumption of risk, and those who take the chance–though they are likely to fail big–are also likely to win big.

So it goes with writing. It’s important for writers to stretch their skill sets beyond what they know they can accomplish. Leading a successful writing life is not only about publishing every piece you’ve ever written. After doing this a while, you can find yourself in a rut on the safe path, where you risk parodying yourself. Writers who dare risk to stretch their skills also take a chance at failing big. 

Chicago mystery author Sarah Paretsky ventured from her VI Warshawski series to write Ghost Country, a magical realist departure which, though it received high acclaim, did not seem to go over well with her established readers. She took a risk and lost some readers, but found others. For instance, I had not read a single of her mysteries before I read Ghost Country, and I found I really liked her street-level feminist narrative style. I’d read Paretsky again. No doubt Paretsky learned some things about herself as a writer in the bargain, things that may have improved her VI Warshawski series.

I have my own–though far more humble–experience with taking risks with my writing. I took one summer off from my writing group and wrote a weird story I couldn’t categorize (I learned later it was magical realism). I took it to my writing group in the fall; they hated it (except for the one fan of magical realism). But I blindly stuck to my guns and sent it out into the universe anyway. It became the first short story I ever published, and it earned me a Pushcart prize nomination and Rosebud magazine’s accolade as one of their best published stories for that year. Who knew? Not me. I was “writing blind,” but the reward I took away was all I needed to keep going, to keep writing even when a rejection from one of my favorite magazines came only a couple of weeks after I’d found a home for that first oddball story.

Remembering that risks can often lead to great rewards can be motivation enough for writers. And don’t forget; you’re less likely to break a leg while trying something new! Even if you don’t succeed right out of the gate, you’ll still have more opportunities to turn your luck around. The Riesch sisters will compete again for the shared podium, Sara Paretsky continues to be successful, whether writing mysteries or something else entirely, and I’ve published more than one piece of writing since that fateful day in 1996, so take heart: assuming risk may not guarantee success but it will guarantee opportunity.

Coming Friday: “Find your sanctuary” and “Stay classy.” See you then! 

Tamara 

Everything I’ve learned about writing this year I’ve relearned by watching the Olympics [series Part One]

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Tamara Kaye Sellman Tamara Kaye Sellman is director of Writer’s Rainbow Literary Services. 

 Photo credits: Images used in this post are the property of Tamara Sellman or have been licensed for blogging use under the public domain or the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

Anticipating the content of my posts this week has been rather challenging: there’s so much to write about! But it came to me on Saturday as I realized my interest in the Olympics was beginning to wane. 

I’d seen all I needed to see of curling, short track speed skating, downhill, bobsled, snowcross and the like. But the Olympics always linger in my mind long after the network has packed up its cameras and talking heads and returned to regularly scheduled programming. 

Witnessing (live or on TV) the prowess of the world’s athletes is always inspiring to me. I grew up in a sports household (baseball, basketball, track and field, gymnastics, soccer, football, softball, volleyball, tennis have all been played with regularity by at least one member of my immediate family), so I’m already in the practice of appreciating the work that goes into excelling at sports. 

But the world’s finest athletes perform with a caliber and grace that takes human experience beyond what it means to be fit or a sound competitor. These are the titans of the modern day, and like the titans of the past, the masses can’t help but idolize them as the demi-gods they truly are. 

This week, I offer the series, “Everything I’ve learned about writing this year I’ve relearned by watching the Olympics” in three parts. As writers, we have cobbled together our own hopes and dreams for becoming the future titans of the literary world. We have much to learn from athletes, and this Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, I’ll give examples that show how writers can learn from the trials of Olympians.

Today I’ll talk about discipline and perseverance. 

◊ Say no to say yes. 

"Madrid Snowzone" by Saliendo del Cajón (2007)

Every single Olympian had to set aside large chunks of their life in order to prepare for competition, often relocating to train at a facility far from home. They also made the conscious choice to give up certain things, like favorite foods or TV or seeing their family, in order to do so. 

Writers have it a little bit better than that: they don’t have to leave behind their entire family for months on end to go to a special facility to write. Granted, writers may take a week off here or there and go on a writing retreat. But they can also opt for a home office or a coffeehouse or the daily commute on the train to achieve their dreams and return to home’s comforts every day. 

There are some things writers need to give up in order to have a writing life, though: time and energy. Novels don’t finish themselves, after all. A hockey player may need to skate sprints or block pucks repeatedly for hours; so will a writer need to put her butt in the chair and write as much and as best as she can. Some days, it will come easily; other days, the work will be excruciating. The rule is, for both the athlete and the writer, to keep going. Discipline and focus are the tools that empower folks to say no in order to say yes. 

Next week, if you are almost done with a short story first draft, say no to that Oscar party (and set your DVR) so you can say yes to finishing the draft.  Got a batch of revisions you need to complete by Friday, but you don’t have time? Make it a priority anyway: cancel the book club you were going to visit midweek to cull time to implement your manuscript’s changes. Get up early to revise your manuscript on your day off. Take your work out in the sun with you, should good weather happen for you this week. 

Keep your eyes on the prize and don’t let things that really don’t matter get in the way. You can watch the Oscars later; you can send your reading comments ahead of time to the book group; you can get your work done and enjoy the sun. This is how success happens: by setting priorities, staying focused, and being flexible. It all starts with saying no and meaning it. 

◊ Remember that not everyone will appreciate what you do. 

"Curling stones on rink with visible pebble" by Felix (2007)

I fell in love with curling while watching the 2002 Olympics in Park City. I still love its strategy and precision, the dedicated teamwork, the sport’s intellectual nuances. 

No, curling’s athletes may not be rock-solid muscle machines, but they perform with amazing finesse, possess hawk-like vision, and show more dedication to their dreams than many people I know. Still, they get a lot of flak from the press for not appearing to be rock-solid muscle machines. 

Why? Because it’s hard to understand curling’s challenges just by watching. You can’t see the benefit of training in their bodies, though it’s there. Badminton, marksmanship, golf, and ping pong are also difficult sports, but they don’t necessarily get the same respect from the viewing audience that skiers and runners and swimmers do. 

But curlers and marksmen and ping pong players and golfers and badminton teams don’t really give a hoot about what the audience thinks. To have fans cheering for them is merely the icing on the cake; ultimately, these kinds of athletes are not doing it for the fans, they’re doing it because they have well-tuned skills and want to compete with the best of the best. 

This bodes true for writers as well: poets of rhyming verse, experimental prose aficionados, bloggers, folks who bend genre, children’s authors, short story writers, citizen journalists, and many, many others. How many times have you heard a nonwriter say, “Well, I could’ve written that!” Except that they didn’t. Because, really, they can’t. They have no real idea how hard it is to do what these writers do. So writers who vary from the popular, bestselling forms may have to endure a lot of judgment from people who really don’t know better. 

It’s not easy to write anything, whether it’s a bestselling novel or popular genre or flash fiction or a villanelle. It’s even hard to write a bad manuscript! But it’s even harder to write well when the culture around you doesn’t truly appreciate your chosen form. 

You have to find a way, like the curlers, to slough that off. The way to do that is to hang out with like-minded others, honor the leaders in your chosen form and genre, stay focused on what it is you want to accomplish, study from the masters at every opportunity, and then give it your level best. You may never find a huge fan base for what you write, but just as there are fans for curling, there will be fans for what you have to say as well. 

Coming Wednesday: “Expect to earn your medals every time” and “Sometimes you have to ski blind.” See you then!

Tamara

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Tamara Kaye Sellman

Tamara Kaye Sellman is director of Writer’s Rainbow Literary Services. 

Photo credits:Images used in this post are the property of Tamara Sellman or have been licensed for blogging use under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license. 

I intended Booklife as a helpful guide that combined advice on how to navigate your way through the myriad of potentially distracting and useless tools and opportunities provided by the internet with modern advice on a host of more personal issues related to writing and being a writer, based on 25 years of experience. Crispin saw it at least in part as potentially manipulative or cynical, and placed it in the context of the many new “get-rich-quick” books that detail how to do internet marketing and the like.

After a more careful examination of her essay, however, I came to the conclusion that a difference in defining terms like “contact” might be part of the problem–that, in fact, whether you were to call someone a “contact” or an “ally,” the same points applied: in all of your dealings with other people, whether about your work or generally, be a sincere human being.

Of course, there’s also the uncomfortable truth that no one is ever going to perceive your book exactly the way that you intended for it to be perceived. In coming into contact with the world the text changes, given an additional dimension by readers. Nor do I think Booklife is perfect–part of the point of the book is to continually test it, to not only use it but to also define yourself as a writer by what you disagree with in the text.

That said, I decided it would be interesting to interview Crispin about issues related to the modern writer’s life and Booklife. The results are great—rock-solid advice and insight.

At least one of her answers deserves special emphasis, since I think it’s becoming a major problem in the largely hierarchy-blind world of the internet: “I do worry a little that the modern age has taken the failure stage out of the creative process. Now if you can’t get your manuscript published, it’s because the publishers are cowards, can’t see your genius, and you can self-publish it (and then send out slightly crazed emails to critics). There is a lack of humility, a failure to recognize that getting knocked on your ass is actually good for you.”

There’s also nothing in her answers that I would disagree with; indeed, there’s nothing in Booklife that would intentionally contradict the idea of focusing on the craft and art of fiction over the need to promote your work. Does that mean I won’t be making some changes in the second edition? Not at all, and one of those changes will be to add an introduction to the Public Booklife section that references Crispin’s Smart Set essay, and makes doubly or triply clear the context in which I am providing that information.

So, without further preamble, an interview with Jessa Crispin—with sincere thanks to her for doing the interview.

How do you personally use new media? And do elements of new media help define you as a writer and editor? (I’m thinking in part of how Bookslut has shaped your image online.)

Jessa Crispin: Before Bookslut, there was no me as a writer. Other than high school newspaper stuff, I had not done any public writing. The Bookslut blog was, I think, literally the first writing of mine published since I was 17. And I didn’t have a drawer full of stuff, either, the impulse came as part of Bookslut. As a result, the idea of me as a writer is very tied into the blog, because that’s where I show up the most. My writing style was shaped online, which is maybe why almost all of my freelance writing is for websites: NPR.org and TheSmartSet.com, where I am their books columnist, the occasional other venue.

You indicated in your Smart Set essay that referenced Booklife that some of your students need reminding that the most important thing is the writing. Do you also have students who seem too unwilling to engage an audience, despite perhaps being ready to submit their work? If so, what do you tell those writers?

I should clarify that I don’t myself have students. I’m brought in occasionally to answer questions that writing students might have, to crush their hopes and dreams about making a living off of writing as soon as they leave their MFA program, but I have never really taught on my own other than a day workshop or what have you. But I have in my life met published writers who are very sketchy about engaging with an audience. They think the book should stand for itself, and that the publicity, the readings, the interviews, the blogs are all pointless.
Which is fine when you’re Cormac McCarthy, but last I checked there was only one of him. I don’t think that’s a horrible mindset, some people just aren’t interested, and are fine taking the hit in sales that causes. Maybe they have a day job that they don’t mind doing, that actually feeds their creativity. The writers, however, who don’t want to do the publicity drag but are also pissed off that the world does not instantly recognize their genius and throw money at them, they need to rethink things.

When do you think a writer crosses the line between helping a publisher sell their book and entering into a cycle destructive to their creativity?

When it starts eating into everything else that you do. When it’s always gnawing at the back of your brain, “Maybe if I talked to this person,” “Maybe if I rewrote this press release.” And when you start to turn into a dick. I have received nasty emails in my day from authors and publicists, demanding an answer as to whether their book would be reviewed or not. At the time, I was getting 30 to 40 books a day, and it would take me hours to email each one individually and let them know the book had been received, then whether or not it was selected for review, etc. At some point you have to realize that you can’t control what’s going to happen to the book, and start thinking about what project might distract you from this.

But speaking of entering a cycle destructive to their creativity:
we’ve seen writers become really unhinged last year, responding to their critics in these really embarrassing ways. Alain de Botton, Alice Hoffman, whoever else. A writer wrote one of my reviewers who had been critical of him and called her a “cunt.” That’s destructive to his creativity, because if I ever run into him, I am going to tear out his throat with my teeth.

In your Smart Set essay, you talk about a writer needing “allies” in contrast to “contacts.” I like the term ally because it gets across what I intended to convey about “contact”, but how would you personally identify manipulation as opposed to dealing with someone on a human level? (And does this mean that writers should always deal with people like reviews editors and bloggers through proxies?)

No, I don’t think that there should always be proxies. But how I would identify manipulation: There are always going to be people who come at you with an agenda. They want something, they are going to figure out a way to get it, and then they’ll either disappear or they’ll try to stomp around on you before they go. It’s the difference between treating someone like a human being—”Hey, I like what you do, maybe you’ll like what I do”—and as a tool—”Hi, my name is so-and-so and I am hoping you can assist me in advancing my career.”

I was having a conversation with a writer the other day, and he stated that the best things are always by-products. Happiness is a by-product, and I loved that he said that. You can plot your journey to success or happiness or wealth or whatever it is you’re looking for, but if you’re too focused on the end result, you’re going to miss anything good going on around you. (There’s also the fact that the end result will keep moving if you live like that. Okay, I got a four figure advance, now next time I want twice that, bigger press runs, and a New York Times review, then I will feel successful.) Not that we should all sing songs around the campfire and braid each other’s hair, but there has to be a combination of the two, forward motion and goal planning, but while taking a look at the people around you.

How much of an introvert or extrovert are you, and how does it affect your writing career?

I am an introvert with brief flashes of extreme extrovertism. There are generally one or two patches out of the year with intense travel, interviews, running around going to parties, and then after that I need the rest of the year to hole up and get work done.

Are there attributes a fiction writer either has or doesn’t have, that can’t be taught?

Yes, of course. Curiosity, wisdom, sensitivity…

In Booklife, identify curiosity, receptivity, passion, imagination, discipline, and endurance as the pillars of your personal booklife. Which of those attributes do you think are most valuable, and what would you add to them?

Everyone’s tool kit is different. But it’s mostly about proportion.
How much of this is being driven by my ego, how much am I influenced by wanting to fit in, how much work am I willing to dedicate to this.

What does the term “permission to fail” mean to you?

I had been reading this biography of W. Somerset Maugham, and for some reason in my head I had always believed that he met with instant success. It’s true he was successful quite young. He was breaking West End London theatre records, was writing bestsellers. But he also went through a period of serious rejection. He couldn’t get a play made to save his life, his autobiographical novel could not find a publisher.

And so he kept refining his craft. He finally found a mode of playwriting that suited him and was successful, and his autobiographical novel was refined into the pristine Of Human Bondage.

Without his early failure, we would not have that novel. I do worry a little that the modern age has taken the failure stage out of the creative process. Now if you can’t get your manuscript published, it’s because the publishers are cowards, can’t see your genius, and you can self-publish it (and then send out slightly crazed emails to critics). There is a lack of humility, a failure to recognize that getting knocked on your ass is actually good for you.

Are there modern tools for writers that you feel actually hinder or put blinkers on creativity?

Everyone gets their energy from different sources. What’s good for one person will be completely devastating for another. So no, I don’t think I can make a blanket statement about Facebook being evil, while Twitter is the light and good.

A lot of this has to do with the writer’s own self-awareness. And god, we all know people who don’t seem to have any whatsoever. I don’t know, do you really need a book to tell you that if you’re spending six hours a day fiddling around online to avoid doing your own work you should stop that?

In accepting the modern internet-driven paradigm of “writer,” have we lost anything?

Lost, no. Things just change, it’s not necessarily good or bad.

What is it about writing and books that you most love?

I grew up in a tiny town with no movie theater, no MTV, no distractions except for the library. I have always filtered the world through books, and I still do to a large extent. Writing is just an extension of that.

If you had to give a beginning writer five minutes of general advice, what would you focus on?

You have to do the work. Not just sitting down and writing, but educating yourself, finding venues that suit you, figuring out where you get your strength and then following that.

One of Matt Staggs’ links last week was to a New York Times Book Review piece on Jaron Lanier’s book You Are Not a Gadget. I haven’t read the book, but the description of its main points really resonated with me, especially because I’m currently taking a break from Facebook and my personal blog.

This part of the review made perfect sense to me:

Mr. Lanier, a pioneer in the development of virtual reality and a Silicon Valley veteran, is hardly a Luddite, as some of his critics have suggested. Rather he is a digital-world insider who wants to make the case for “a new digital humanism” before software engineers’ design decisions, which he says fundamentally shape users’ behavior, become “frozen into place by a process known as lock-in.” Just as decisions about the dimensions of railroad tracks determined the size and velocity of trains for decades to come, he argues, so choices made about software design now may yield “defining, unchangeable rules” for generations to come.

This argument and others from his book mirror my own concerns about new media. Even as I’ve embraced much of what new/social media has to offer, I also strongly recommend, in Booklife and in my lecture for MIT, thinking about what you’re doing and remembering the importance of balance. In particular, these points:

(1) New media tools like Facebook and Twitter are exactly that—tools. They are not strategies. Just getting on Facebook, creating a blog is not a strategy or a plan. I can’t repeat that enough.

(2) It’s when you mistake the tools for a strategy that you begin to not only become tactical and reactive but also limited in your thinking because of the limitations of the tools.

(3) The most successful writers in the future will be the ones that stop responding in Pavlovian fashion to our current need for that little food pellet in the form of a response to a Blog entry, Twitter line or a Facebook status message.

(4) Further, the tools which you help realize both a creative project and create interest for it are constantly changing. Thus a focus on the tools is a focus on what will all too soon be the past.

(5) A focus on tools thus also means that you are in some ways limiting your options by letting the limitations of the tool and the preconceptions the tool engenders shape your project. Don’t let your imagination become a lackey to a new media tool. If a tool controls your actions, it to some extent controls your imagination.

Lanier’s book also seems to make strong arguments about not supporting mob behavior on the internet, something that we’ve seen too often—in which sheer force of numbers seems to win an argument, even when there hasn’t been true or logical discussion of the issues. Nuance suffers and the facts tend to become distorted.

Food for thought–and a book I’ll be picking up shortly. Amazon has an interesting interview with the author here.

One thing about my recent five-week book tour behind Finch and Booklife that I particularly loved was getting to read in so many great independent bookstores. Indies are extremely important to the well-being of book culture and often serve as strongholds for author events. This month, Indiebound has listed Finch as one of its Indie Notables, something I’m very proud of.

You can find some longer descriptions of indies in my book tour reports for Omnivoracious, but below the cut I’ve written downpersonal impressions of the indie bookstores I visited during the tour–including some little-known facts about each. A huge thanks to each and every one of them.

I’m also rolling out the new Finch negative campaign ad video (see above). Friends and fans from all over the world contributed to the video. After some bugs in moviemaker, Matt Staggs stepped in to finish it, including doing the voice-over. If you like the book, please feel free to post the video and a link to Indiebound this month, along with your own praise of the indies. Thanks.

BETWEEN BOOKS (Claymont, DE) – Tucked away in a strip mall and run by Greg Shauer for the last 30 years, Between Books is the ultimate science fiction/fantasy bookstore. Greg doesn’t do returns, and so you can find all kinds of hidden treasures. I felt lucky I only had about half an hour to browse, because I could easily have spent a thousand dollars or more. The ambiance of the store is both inviting and wonderfully jam-packed with books—and Star Wars mobiles and all manner of other genre-related paraphernalia, including comic books. The place has the feel of a shrine as well as a bookstore, and the laidback, friendly Greg is a living reference text on genre fiction. In short, Between Books has substance and heft for hardcore fans while still being welcoming to a casual SF/fantasy reader. The place looks like it should smell musty, with weak sunlight penetrating and mixing with fluorescent lights to reveal floating golden dust, but it only resembles an old library. Little-known fact: The bookcase in the back left corner of Between Books conceals a passageway to a series of tunnels that lead to a uber-library deep beneath the earth. Over the years, the Claymont artist community has built a cultural bomb shelter in the space. If the end of art as we know it ever occurs, still there will be a safe place.

THE BOOK ESCAPE (Baltimore, MD) - More of a bookmine than a bookstore, this is one of those classic places that you feel will still be there in a hundred years. Looking through the store is a constant process of discovery and delight. It manages to be as comfortable as someone’s livingroom and as scholarly as a library. Here you do see the dust motes dancing and hear the creak of wooden planks under your feet. The area for readings has a similar sense of comfort, with the audience gathered around in a variety of wooden chairs. Little-known fact: Likenesses of ravens have been lightly carved into the underside of every bookshelf. But Poe’s body is not buried in the basement, despite local legend.

BOOK SOUP (Los Angeles, CA) – Cramped with overflowing plain wooden shelves and tables piled high with books, Book Soup on the Sunset Strip has an eclectic selection—just their music essays section is stunning and unique. Counterbalancing the bibliophile-pleasing clutter, Book Soup has an uncanny knack for placing, for example, a whole display of Europa Editions in front of those readers addicted to such pleasures. The staff is sharp and attentive. Book Soup has an underlying scent of sawdust that, were it to permeate the air above the sidewalk outside would tell passersby “bookstore” as readily as any sign. Little-known fact: When he wants some anonymity, former Vice-President Al Gore dons a cloak and a beret, attaches a Dali mustache, and flits through Book Soup to a room in the back specially reserved for celebrities in disguise. In this back room, Book Soup employees have set up a world-wide command-and-control, using as intelligence points other independent bookstores. While eating a peanut-butter-and-banana sandwich and sitting in a comfy chair, Gore monitors these “bookpoints”.

CHAPEL HILL COMICS Shop(Chapel Hill, NC) – Clean, crisp, and immaculate, with lots of open space and ringed by large stuffed animal monsters, Chapel Hill Comics dispels the usual image of a comics store as cramped and close. Owner Andrew Neal runs a tight ship, knows his stuff, and provides a whimsical and enjoyable browsing experience. The effect is a bit like walking into a world of visual delights. Neal knows modern comics buyers are a diverse group, and the store reflects that knowledge in both style and stock. Another store in which I could have spent a lot of money. Little-known fact: The stuffed animals that ring the store come to life afterhours, animated by the souls of those who in life disdained comic books. Fated to read throughout the dead hours of the night in the Chapel Hill Comics Shop, they find that this purgatory is unexpectedly enjoyable. In the morning, they stare down with envy at customers pawing pages.

CLAYTON BOOKS(Clayton, CA), CA) – Inviting, bristling with books, Clayton is run ship-sharp by Joel Harris, with Vinitha Fredenburgh impressive re the depth of research on incoming authors. A great general bookstore committed to writer events, Clayton Books exudes professionalism and verve. The children’s section is particularly robust. A writer could get used to hanging out in this place. Little-known fact: Joel Harris has secretly made Clayton books not only mobile but amphibious. Should the strip mall in which the store is located ever fail, he will push a button and Clayton Books will lurch onto its foot-treads and make its way, by hill and by lake, to some new, pristine location.

COPPERFIELD’SPetaluma, CA) – Set like a jewel in the middle of Petaluma’s downtown shopping area, Copperfield’s has the space to offer a wide variety of selections, including a downstairs. Brightly lit and festive, the place is the quintessential large indie bookstore—with a knowledgeable staff, places to sit, and a sense of both history and a commitment to the future. Ray, one of the managers, is as savvy and cheerful as they come, with a special affinity for comics. In Copperfield’s you can find a great selection of graphic novels alongside a commitment to the best in literary mainstream fiction. Little-known fact: Ray has arranged the graphic novels section in such a way that it conveys a message in code to Alan Moore, or to any of the army of Alan Moore’s minions that have been sent out across the world to collect such messages. To the rest of us, it means nothing, alas.

FOUNTAIN BOOKSTORE (Richmond, VA) – Run by Kelly Justice, Fountain Bookstore features a crack staff and a handpicked selection of great fiction and nonfiction, in a snug but comfortable space smack dab in the middle of downtown Richmond. If you do a reading in Fountain and your book includes mushrooms or comes with a soundtrack, expect to see a shrine of mushrooms when you enter, and the soundtrack playing in the background. If you mention an arcane name like “Jodorowsky,” expect to hear strange movie titlesand stranger trivia. Little-known fact: Late at night, the Fountain Bookstore shifts from location to location around the world. Sometimes you can find it tucked away in a back alley in Buenos Aires. Other times, it turns up after dark in a crowded shopping boulevard in Berlin or even Istanbul. This is why you so frequently see the staff reading tourist guides and brushing up on their French and other languages. These travels are building toward some greater purpose involving the empty basement of the store, but Justice stays mute on the subject.

MALAPROPS BOOKSTORE (Asheville, NC) – Featuring a café and located in the middle of the cultural Mecca that is downtown Asheville, Malaprops crams an amazing number of books into a relatively small space while rarely seeming cramped, perhaps because the lighting provides few places for shadows to accumulate. The store aggressively promotes staff picks and author events, doing a good job of promoting local writers. Little-known fact: The owner of Malaprops has a strict rule regarding employee hires—they must be able to do ballroom dancing. Twice a year, each employee must enter the Asheville Ballroom Dancing Extravaganza for the greater glory of the bookstore. This fact, however, is the reason that so many employees in the store appear to be walking on air.

POWELL’S BOOKSTORE(Portland, OR) – Whether it’s the main location or the Cedar Hills outpost, Powell’s exudes indie cool. Powell’s Central is so big you can walk lonely as a ghost through its stacks, taking in by equal measure the smell of dust and must, the scent of coffee and cinnamon coming from the café, and the freshness of the cold that periodically blusters in during the winter from the front doors. There are four stories or more of books here, all carefully catalogued and shelved, with a great selection of local zines and authors tucked away in a corner. Wherever you go the stacks tower over you, and you know you are in the presence of both the hip and the venerable. Little-known fact: If you were to remove the roof from Powell’s and stare straight down from the air, you would discover that the positioning of the stacks creates the exact same symbol that figures so prominently in John Dee’s Ars Magica. Further, you would see that Powells’ owners have hidden their gold in compartments in the tops of the supporting walls.

UNIVERSITY BOOKSTORE (Seattle, WA) – The figurative and literal giant Duane Wilkins claims the University Bookstore as his kingdom, taking great care with and displaying great affection toward his selection of genre titles. You can find just about anything you want in the University Bookstore, but Duane’s made a special redoubt of the SF/fantasy section, stocking not just the usual suspects but indie press material. Chameleon-like, he’s got one eye on the history of the genre and one on the future. Here’s a bookstore, multi-leveled, in which you will find the unusual and the unexpected should you venture to other sections. Bright and crisp, yet still undeniably bohemian and indie, the University Bookstore belongs to that amazing strip of college stores, bars, and restaurants that makes this part of Seattle so attractive for an afternoon of browsing. Little-known fact: Sometimes Duane Wilkins is writing a hundred-year history of the genre based in part on the secret notebooks of H.P. Lovecraft and August Derleth. What he knows that others don’t fills him with a secret sense of satisfaction akin to glee that he tries hard to hide. Sometimes you’ll hear him muttering “L. Ron Hubbard was an arse,” but this is unrelated to his clandestine project.

This week as the book tour winds up, I’m at the Fountain Bookstore in Richmond, Virginia, the Chapel Hill Comics Shop, and Manuel’s Bar in Atlanta. Check the schedule for more details. – Jeff

Although the daydreams of a young writer seldom involve bad luck but are castles in the air, pleasantly sprinkled with stardust, she soon becomes acquainted with many inhabitants of the Land of Luck, some of them lovely and some twisted and harsh. It is impossible to live a writer’s life without some meeting up with bad luck. It is possible to create one’s own good luck.

Bad luck arrives in the shape of those things that happen to books that writers have not caused and cannot control. Bad luck is random, sometimes catastrophic, a source of frustration, and hard on unfortunate souls who have a too-permeable skin that refuses to transform into protective chitin. In my experience, such ill luck can come from any or many directions — as, poor book design, a publisher who collapses and slashes imprints and cuts staff, an editor’s private woes that spill over into work, and events of historic scope.

In 2001, bad luck swirled up around a book of mine called The Wolf Pit. First, the editor departed the house unexpectedly, leaving the unfortunate book an “orphan” up for adoption. Second, the book was postponed until mid-September. It made an appearance in the world not long after 9-11, a day
of destruction that made worrying about a new novel feel silly and wrong. Bookwise, the result of such an event was to launch a craze for nonfiction books about terrorism and the Arab world and to put a tight squeeze on the review space available to novels. Third, the book appeared on the publisher’s fall list in the wake of Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections. Franzen and his encounters with Oprah — or his Bartleby-like refusals to encounter — seemed to consume much of the remaining oxygen at Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.

While two out of those three happenings are a bit unusual, the fact of uncontrollable bad luck is common among writers. If I look around at friends, I see one writer with an especially memorable case: his novel was six weeks away from being made into a movie with Jack Lemmon and James Garner when Lemmon abruptly dropped out, scuppering the project. What a difference such visibility might have made to his career! Another friend who recently chose to move from one publishing house to another has been told that the new publisher can pay neither the second half of his advance nor his tour expenses. Meanwhile, his editor has fallen under the cost-cutting axe. A third friend is coming to realize that an editor simply does not like the subject matter of her novel, even though he had discussed and approved a detailed proposal. Alas, the partial advance has already been spent on living expenses.

None of these events or changes could be halted by a writer; not one could be foreseen. In each case, bad luck’s causes and nature were unexpected, its messages as arbitrary as the gnomic predictions that come to us in fortune cookies. Bad luck was simply to be endured, for the most part, though damage control might salvage something. In the case of my 9-11 book, I managed to improve my own feelings about the situation by writing some editors a letter to ask whether they would consider reviewing a book that had been overlooked during that tumultuous fall. This strategy helped in terms of gathering many reviews, although they arrived very late — really too late to help in a landscape where books are quickly returned by booksellers. The book did, however, go on to nab one piece of good luck, winning the Michael Shaara Award for 2001.

An opposite to overpowering bad luck exists — an overwhelming good luck that is suddenly shed on an author when a publisher chooses to invest mightily in a particular book and then to push hard. Because the number of books produced is so high, a push often strikes even the recipient as arbitrary and surprising. Few books are lead books. In addition, celebrities of various sorts have their own large luck, compelling the devotion of many publishers.
But what writers mean when they talk about good luck is far simpler.

For most writers, particularly mid-list writers, good luck in publishing springs from the work itself. Persist, and eventually requests arrive from editors at magazines and presses. Awards come, as well as what is better: the gift of respect from those writers and editors a writer admires. By not losing hold of the joy that gives birth to creation and by keeping faith with the vocation, a writer can flourish despite the pesky tweaks and harder blows of ongoing randomness and bad luck. A writer makes friends and advocates for the work by doing the work and sharing her words. And that is as it should be because literature declares by its very existence that other people matter.