This is writer Nisi Shawl’s last post for Booklifenow, and I hope you’ll join me in thanking her for her great posts, this one included. Nisi is the co-author of Writing the Other, with Cynthia Ward, who will be contributing a last post later this week. I’m very grateful to both of them for such thoughtful and useful words. – Jeff

A subscriber to the Carl Brandon Society list serve asked for specific criticisms of the Spinrave recently published in Asimov’s SF Magazine. That is work. Just reading it is an effort, let alone trying to translate into something resembling sense. Hence my response below to the request for “specific criticism”:

“Okay, I would take the time to analyze the article if someone paid me for it. My rate is $50/hour.

“As a sort of free sample, I’ll say I agree essentially with (another poster to the list serve): consider the source. The source being Norman Spinrad, who not only doesn’t know anything about the subject upon which he bloviates for page upon page, but who seems to be inordinately proud of his ignorance. Norman is like this. My short response: tldr.

“I will also add that his positioning of Mike Resnick, a very good writer, as an African writer, is so insanely disorienting as to induce vomiting. And comparing him to Octavia E. Butler, who never, as far as I am aware, ever claimed to be an African writer, is an action on a par with opening a chest full of tokens and rummaging around blindfolded in it, and pulling one out at random to toss onto the hearth of rhetoric.”

The subscriber requesting explication declined my help. He thought my fee was too high—though another poster advised me to double it—and made do with the numerous other posts available on the subject.

Among them we find N.K. Jemisin, who deals with one specific point. It takes her 500 words, not counting her contributions to the post’s comment threads. Imagine if she had attempted to render the entire Spinrave comprehensible. How many short stories and/or novels of hers would we be doing without while she whacked her way through his thorny densenesses?

My offer stands.

Ante Spinrave, I expected to devote the whole of this final guest post for Booklife to analyzing a panel I recently pulled off at Radcon, an SF convention held in Eastern Washington. The panel was titled “Writing and Racial Identity.” Besides myself the participants were Eileen Gunn, Alma Alexander, and Bobbie Benton-Hull. Here’s the description I gave programming:

“What does your race have to do with what you write? Depending on your race, are certain topics forbidden to you? Obligatory? None of the above? If your race matters, how do you know what it is? By what people see when they look at you, or by what you know of your genetic background? By your cultural upbringing? By what you write?”

We had a grandly civil hour-long discussion about how our racial identities did and did not contribute to what we wrote, did and did not determine what we wrote, about how we dealt with others’ expectations of us as writers based on what they knew and/or assumed about our racial identities, how we constructed those identities for ourselves with our writing and in other ways. I loved that we spoke as equals, according each other and the subject all due and appropriate respect.

Because it is a complex subject, one that deserves careful thought.

One white panelist related a classroom encounter with Faulkner in which her instructor held up this famous white male’s avoidance of a black female character’s interior life as an ideal to emulate; to write some things she has written, the panelist has had to unlearn what she’d been taught. Another spoke movingly of the ethnic and religious distinctions that formed the core of her upbringing in Central Europe. I wondered aloud if my difficulty placing stories with white protagonists was due to editors wanting “more black for their buck;” that felt risky to me, since one of the field’s top editors sat in the audience’s front row, not five feet from my face.

Our fourth panelist had been raised as an American Indian and spent her life knowing absolutely that this was who and what she was. Then she discovered through genetic testing that her biological heritage is a mix European and Sub-Saharan African. No American Indian. She still struggled with integrating this knowledge at the time of the panel, framing her thoughts on her identity as a question, referencing a female character in the movie “Dances with Wolves.”

It was all most interesting to me. Way more interesting than the Spinrave. In my description and in my moderation I had aimed to show that race is an issue that affects writers of all backgrounds, all races, that racial identity is labile, is inflected by more than one sort of information, and in turn has complex and complicating effects on what we say, how we say it, who we say it to….We touched on each of these subjects with a sure touch, though in some instances only a brief one. There’s so much to talk about.

There are so many smart people to include in the discussion. I want to hold this panel again someday soon. Maybe at WisCon? The panel will give its participants and our audience much to think about. And they will think, and do research, and speak carefully. And it will make sense.

In the meantime, check out this essay by Shawl on “Appropriate Cultural Appropriation.

For some of us, the attractions of another’s culture can hardly be overrated. Within the context of speculative fiction’s reputation as “escapist” literature, getting away from one’s own traditions and background may seem like a good idea. Surely to find that much-prized “sensawunda” sought by genre afficionados, we must leave behind what British fantasist Lord Dunsany called “the fields we know?”

But what if the realms beyond these fields are populated? One person’s terra incognita is another’s home. What are we to make of the denizens of these exotic lands? And what will they make of us, tramping through their yam patches in search of the ineffable, and frightening their flocks with our exclamations over their chimeric beauty?

To collapse the metaphor, readers looking for something “different” in fantastic fiction, and authors who attempt to supply them with it, often turn to mythologies, religions, and philosophies outside the dominant Western paradigm. Then, not too surprisingly, people who practice these religions or espouse these philosophies or descend from those who constructed these mythologies object. Their culture, they complain, is being misrepresented, defaced, devalued, messed with. Stolen. Often, said culture is the only resource remaining after colonialization has removed all precious metals from the ground, or the ground from under its former inhabitants feet, or, as in the case of the African slave trade, when it has assumed ownership of those feet themselves.

Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward are guestblogging here on Booklifenow all this week. Their book Writing the Other is a remarkable exploration of character, situation, and perception. It’s a recommended text in Booklife – JeffV

Cynthia and I want to begin our joint stint as guest bloggers here by sharing an excerpt from Writing the Other: A Practical Approach, the book we wrote together based on the workshop we co-teach. The excerpt will help you get into the spirit of our upcoming posts, which are going to riff on related topics

First, we’ll define a couple of the terms we use:

The unmarked state—Possessing demographic characteristics considered “unremarkable” by the dominant culture.

ROAARS—This is an acronym we created to talk about a group of differences from the unmarked state that are, in this culture, considered to be deeply significant differences. These differences are: Race, (sexual) Orientation, Age, Ability, Religion, Sex.

Keep those concepts in mind as you read the book excerpt below. – Nisi Shawl

Parallax: Who is Looking at Whom?

Parallax is an astronomical concept that we’ve adapted to literary usage. The original idea can best be illustrated by performing a short, easy experiment.

Gaze at an object some distance away. If you’re indoors, look for something across the room from where you sit or stand: a picture on a wall, or a book on a shelf, perhaps. If you’re outside, choose an object in the middle distance: a tree, or a building not too far off, rather than a mountain, for instance. Hold one finger up so that it covers whatever it is you’re looking at. Now close your left eye. Open it again and close your right. Does your finger seem to shift in relation to the object you picked? That’s because of a shift in parallax. The slight change in the perspective from your left to your right eye results in an apparent change in the position of what you’re looking at. And the perceptual change is larger when you’re looking at something closer to your eyes—your finger—than something more distant—the picture or book in the background.

In terms of “Writing the Other,” slight shifts in your viewpoint characters’ positions vis-à-vis the unmarked state will change how they look at the world, at themselves, and at the concept of the unmarked state.

In fact, in addition to the dominant culture’s version of the unmarked state, each of us carries around our private take on what is “normal.” This definition adheres much more closely to our own specific characteristics.

Sometimes people apply this definition so inappropriately it’s almost funny. When Nisi first came to Seattle, she hired a cab driver to take her around to all the places she was considering renting. The driver was a white male with long, slicked back hair. He looked like he weighed 80 to 100 pounds more than she did. A crucifix dangled from his rearview mirror. Over the course of the afternoon they spent together, he advised Nisi as to what parts of town she should avoid: the Central District, for instance, an historically black neighborhood. As for Capitol Hill, known for its unconventionally clothed and behaved inhabitants—“You don’t even want to know what they get up to around there,” the driver claimed, referring, probably, to the prevalence of same-sex couples.

Remember, Nisi is black, and has slept with other women. So why would this man expect her to be uncomfortable in these neighborhoods? Well, because he was uncomfortable there. Obviously Nisi was just like him, because she was a good person: she’d been polite to him, laughed at his jokes, and conformed in plenty of other ways to his expectations of how a good person acts. He had, in the words of linguist MJ Hardman, conferred “honorary whiteness” on Nisi (personal communication).

Depending on their immediate context, your characters may perform similar mental acrobatics when thinking of those they come in contact with—or when thinking of themselves. They may identify with the dominant unmarked state though lacking its characteristics, or they may reject it—conditionally and partially, or without reserve. They may be conscious of privileges they lack or possess due to their ROAARS traits.

In the 1980s, Cynthia read a story in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. The title of it escapes her, but she will never forget the actual story. It may be the most astonishing work of fiction she’s ever read—although not for a good reason. The flaw she finds so memorable is a flaw that illuminates parallax.

The story was set in Maine. The protagonist was a straight Maine lobsterman. His best friend was a gay male bed-and-breakfast owner who’d moved up to Maine from New York. As she read, Cynthia spluttered with ever-increasing incredulity. Finally, she shouted aloud: “A Maine lobsterman would never be best friends with a New Yorker!”

***

That’s all for now. If you’d like to find out why Cynthia, who identifies as a Mainer, felt so affronted by the idea of a lobsterman from her home state befriending a New Yorker, you’ll want to read the rest of the book. It came out from Aqueduct Press in 2005 and is still available online from the publisher and other online booksellers.

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 .

So far 2010 has been a busy year for me, and although we’re only two months in it’s a good time to take stock and reevaluate where I am. In part this is because a lot of us make new goals in January, but often find that by February some of those goals have gone out the window.

So, writers out there, I ask you: What did you decide to accomplish this year, and where are you right now as opposed to where you thought you’d be? And is this good news or bad news or just the way things are?

For my part, I had my wife change the password to my facebook account so I wouldn’t waste any time online during a period of intense deadlines. I’ve also learned that, for now at least, it’s important for me to spend much less time in the electronic world in general.

In Booklife I have a section on relinquishing all fetishes, which is another way of saying don’t let having to use a fancy pen or special desk get in the way of writing. As I mention in the book I’ve learned to write anywhere at any time, and to never stifle my imagination just because I’m not in the ideal writing situation.

I give this advice in the book because we most commonly procrastinate and find reasons not to write. But the fact is some “fetishes” actually aid our creativity.

Case in point—the photograph above. On the left is a leather-bound, hand-made writing pad I bought in Victoria on Vancouver Island while on my honeymoon. I’d had it in the closet in my office ever since then, more than seven years. Every time I pulled it out, I put it back in the closet again. The thing just seemed so nice, so opulent, that I couldn’t imagine writing in it. And yet I’d bought it because it was tantalizing–it suggested adventures I’d never write about in any other journal.

Well, this past week I finally found the perfect use for it. The paper inside is perfect for writing, but also perfect for art. I’ve started a rather odd story that includes extensive illustrations, and no other writing pad I have gives me the same sensation of effortless motion while both writing and drawing. Even the odd size of it helps, because it better accommodates the art and the words. Suddenly, everything about this impulse purchase that turned me off is helping me get into the groove of writing, energizing me, and recharging my imagination.

Meanwhile, next to it in the photograph is a plain black Moleskine notebook. In it, I’ve written several book reviews and a new short story–a very conventional, Southern Gothic-style story. The utilitarian look and feel of the notebook seems to help me keep focused and on task. I could no more write the reviews and the Southern Gothic story in the opulent oversized writing journal as I could create the illustrated strange story in the Moleskine. Each is perfect for its particular purpose.

So my question to you, because I’m curious, is: Have you had similar experiences with your writing tools, your writing surfaces, your writing life?

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.

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.

We’re taking a break here at Booklifenow, returning with new content next week. But since it is Thanksgiving week here in the United States, we’d like to know what you’re thankful for in your writing and your career. Also feel free to tell us about your upcoming books or other creative projects.

Me, I’m thankful that I have such amazing and creative friends–like my partner in crime here, Matt Staggs–that I am able to do this five-week book tour, and that I’ve had the opportunity to write, edit, and create so many different types of books. I’m also deeply thankful for your patronage of Booklifenow.com, and your acceptance of my book.

Good morning! How’re you feeling this morning? Optimistic? Not so optimistic? Still need your coffee? Regardless of how happy you are now, chances are you’ve had bouts of despair about your writing. I know I have–and not just as a beginner trying to get published. Over the entire course of my career waves of despair have at times washed over me. Writing is such a perilous calling that you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone engaged in it who hasn’t succumbed to these kinds of feelings. Here’s an excerpt of what Booklife has to say about despair. Will you feel better or worse after reading it? It might not matter. The point is: acknowledging that despair is something everyone has to deal with can be a kind of balm. We’re all in this together.

***

Despair is a companion who keeps coming back to you no matter how far you’ve traveled along the path toward a sustainable Booklife. Things go wrong. What you have visualized does not come to pass. That opportunity you thought you had turns to dust. This is most difficult for beginning writers.

If you have not yet held your own book in your hands, despair over the here-and-now can seem like it will last an eternity. You walk into the bookstore and your book is not there, will never be there, no matter how much you want it to be there. (Cue: violins and videos of endless rain.)

But it’s important to know that even widely published writers experience despair, too. The setback that threatens a whole career. The sense of being so close to something major, which then recedes, like some amazing deep-sea creature glimpsed for just a moment through the murk. Granted, a writer with a few published books has perspective. That writer knows, if they think about it, that the despair one feels today can turn to triumph in a month or a
year or a decade. Sometimes, too, it is more satisfying when it comes to you later. Sometimes, despair is the vanguard of great success…

The writing life is hard, and it is a constant struggle to keep the engine running, to make progress, often in the face of random cruelty, stupidity, incompetence, and indifference. You get scar tissue. You get paranoid at times. You forget that the deal you think is make-or-break important, the situation that must go your way, is only part of the journey. (Usually, there’s another deal, another break, out there.)

Another important point, which came up in conversation with Tessa
Kum, whom I’ve quoted elsewhere in this book, concerns the fact that, as she puts it, “Despair is not clean. Returning to writing is not necessarily a happy ending. Discovering what is right for you is a better ending.” A tumultuous relationship with writing doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be a writer, but if the decision “not to write gives you exactly no regret, then so be it. You tried, and now you know for sure.”

Above all, then, you make yourself vulnerable in many different ways, even if you don’t show this to many other people. Letting go of all of this can be a relief or a release, even if it means giving in, or, even, giving up something, or part of something, that you love.

If you do decide, after a bout of despair, to continue writing–no one can make that decision but you–remember that, although not always easy, the writing life usually does reward talent and perseverance to some degree. But, at core, especially if everything goes to hell career-wise, you have to ask yourself one question that speaks directly to despair: Is my Private Booklife about my expectations of success or is it about the work?