Conference Wrap-Up

I had planned to blog the conference a day at a time, but that didn't happen because it was 13+ hours a day for four days, after which I got up at bitch o'clock and boarded a plane for home. I had writing assignments and reading and lots to think about, so blogging just didn't end up happening. Neither did sleeping. And precious little eating (the food was atrocious).

On the other hand, I did a huge amount of learning, and a ton of re-thinking much of what I've already done. While I'm happy with my writing as a whole, I know that I can do better.

Some highlights:

• Editing seminar with Betty Webb left me with a much more effective method for manuscript editing that I believe will solve many problems


• Kevin McIlvoy is amazing, both as a writer and as a teacher. His seminar on writing with humor was easily the best I've ever heard.


• I now have some excellent ideas about how to get my work noticed by agents and publishers.


• I also have a much better handle on how to make a living as a writer apart from the income generated by just writing books (thanks, Tania Katan!).


• I met another opera writer who gave me some invaluable advice for completing my libretto and getting my opera put on.


• The proportion of authors to participants was extremely high, which meant that a lot of the authors were actually students in one lecture or another, which was GREAT! It also meant that they were really available if you wanted to talk to them during breaks.

And some lowlights:

• The next time I come, I bring my own food.


• Many of the lectures given by the writers sounded like infomercials for their works.


• The chairs in the hall where the readings were held were designed by Torquemada.


• While overall I had a really great experience of the small-group intenstive, when it came to my turn to have my work reviewed, one of the five in our group didn't turn up, and when I looked at the instructor's notes on my MS, they were illegible and therefore worthless.

Overall, this was the best conference I've ever attended in terms of information received for money spent. The caliber of the classes was several steps above that of the Bay Area conferences I've attended, and the authors were all much more helpful.

I'd recommend this one to anyone who's serious about taking their writing to the next level.

Writers' Conference: Day 1 Continued

Yesterday was the first day of the conference. In the past, I've gone to conferences thinking "I know this stuff already. This isn't helping me."

I don't know whether this conference has much better classes or whether I'm just more committed to extracting every iota of information I can possibly get. For whatever reason, this time around my attitude has been "I'm paying for this, so you're going to answer my questions, dammit!"

The first great lesson came from the editor in chief of St. Martin's Press, who's a sort of nebbish-y looking little guy who was constantly on the verge of losing his voice. But in talking to him one-on-one, he was really great and helpful. I told him about the catch 22 that I find myself in - many agents won't consider you until you have a publishing deal in hand, but most publishers won't consider you until you have an agent.

What he said was brilliant - editors at publishing houses are people just like everyone else. They're looking for the thing that's going to indicate to them that a given manuscript is worth reading, so the thing to do if you can't get an agent is to get anyone you know who's a writer and have THEM read your work and give it a recommendation. If you can say in your cover letter "My dear friend John Grisham read my book and said that it was the best-written three-hanky romance EVER." I also got to spend a lot of time talking to Michael Stackpole about writing science fiction and fantasy. He basically said the same thing - it's all about your network.

Now, this is where my mother comes in. I don't know anyone who's already got a book deal, and if I did, they'd probably immediately stop talking to me because they're too important. On the other hand, my MOTHER knows everyone! She said it'd be no sweat to get my stuff in front of a whole bunch of people who'll just love it and who will gladly write blurbs for it.

The amazing thing about this conference is that I've been downright schmoozy! Talking to people I don't even know like..well, like I don't even know them but they're going to answer my question or me and my shrub of a head aren't leaving. I talked to a woman who wrote an opera about Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding that was put on in New York and is now going to Oregon this season. She was excited to learn that I've written a treatment, and gave me lots of great ideas for finding a composer.

I ended the day feeling like I'd made enormously great use of my time and really invigorated for another go-round.

Writer's Conference: Day 1

I'm at the Desert Nights Rising Stars conference until Saturday night.

Just getting here has already been an adventure:

1. It's Girl Scout cookie season, and my family has ordered a packing crate of cookies. I picked them up yesterday, two hours before I had to leave and spent another hour sorting and re-packing them for the trip. I was originally going to drive myself, but there was no way I was going to be able to schlep a 50-pound crate of cookies along with my other luggage, so the Pirate very sweetly offered to drive me. I swear, he's too good for me.
2. We got to the airport and I was going to do curbside checkin, but the very sweet skycap told me that I'm on the list. Yes, apparently, I'm a terrorist. My mother is convinced it's because I have a habit of leaving rude notes for the TSA in my checked baggage, telling them things like "I've rubbed my dirty underwear all over everything in this bag. Have fun!" There are some folks who'd pay good money to sort through my dirty laundry. Oh, wait. I mean that there are some folks to whom I have to pay good money to sort through my dirty laundry. Anyway, long story short, I got to talk to a kindly TSA agent who told me nothing of use (no, they can't tell me why, when or how my name got on the list, but I might be like 30% of passengers on "the list" who have names that happen to match those of actual terrorists or terrorist groupies or terrorist sympathizers or some such). They gave me an often-copied piece of paper that tells me to contact the TSA with a whole boatload of information to get my name off "the list," which will take 6 to 8 months.
3. I got into the airport and started pacing. It's a 2-hour flight and I wanted to get a little exercise while I could. I was paced by a cop on a Segway. I don't know if you've ever seen a Segway, but the little platform on which you stand is a good 8-12 inches off the ground, and even with that platform, the cop was barely taller than I am (I am 5' 7"). The entire "Toulouse LaCop" image was completely ridiculous, but having already been branded a terrorist, I decided that now was not the time to push my luck by pointing and laughing at a guy with a gun.
4. As I was pacing the terminal and listening to "Augustus," a biography of Augustus Caesar, I happened to walk as far as terminals A1-A and A1-B, the international terminals. They're newer, rarely-used and cleaner-looking than the rest of the San Jose airport. There was one other guy in the terminal, standing there talking on his cell phone. He was obviously looking for some privacy, as the minute I stepped out of the long hallway and into the football-field-sized room, it became too crowded and he left. I walked to the far end, hearing one of the white courtesy phones start to ring. The sound of a phone ringing in a giant, empty room is a very lonely, creepy sound, and the creepiness was only made worse by the fact that as I drew abreast of the phone, it stopped ringing and the silence was even louder.

The plane ride was uneventful, I got to bed at a little after one and was here at the conference bright and early at eight this morning so that I could be sure of getting parking. I've laid out my schedule, which says that I have tonight off, but otherwise I'm here until 9:30 every night. *sigh*

Maybe It's You

I'm leaving tonight for a 4-day conference in Phoenix. One of the things to which I'm really looking forward is the "small group intensive." Me and four other people will be getting together over lunch every day and going over our writing, trying to refine our voices and perfect our technique in an effort to stem the tide of rejection that we all face as writers.

The thing is, as long as you're writing and submitting, you're going to face rejection. There are really three ways to react to the constant rejection that's part and parcel of being a newer writer:

1. You can give up.
   It's easy to say "I just suck" and stop submitting at all. What's worse is when, in anticipation of "I just suck," you don't submit at all. I can't begin to tell you how to develop the thick skin necessary to brave multiple rejections, but there are a couple of things that helped me:
   
   • Have a cheerleader. Having someone who's both unfailingly enthusiastic about your work and at the same time willing to give you honest criticism will help you feel like your work is something you can both take seriously and have some pride in.
   • Have someone else do the submitting. This one's a little harder and involves some expense, but there's no enthusiasm like the enthusiasm of the paid employee. After all, they're not the one getting rejected. It's not like it's any risk for them to keep your stuff in circulation.
   Really, you have to find the motivation and method yourself, otherwise it won't be yours.


2. You can examine your work, make improvements, and THEN resubmit. For me, there's nothing that feels better than getting good feedback on a piece of writing, making some edits, and ending up with a piece that I feel is even stronger. To get to this "no pain, no gain" attitude, though, I had to go through years of writing for a magazine, struggling through every paragraph and sentence, having every piece handed back to me multiple times with advice like "cut it by 150 words."
   
   I knew that my editor liked my writing. I knew that he wasn't criticizing me as a person, my style, my education, my "voice" or anything else personal. He was looking at the layout and seeing too many words for the amount of space he had on the page and needed fewer words. Or more. Or a lede with a better hook. Or something. He seemed to like me as a person just fine, but he was also tasked with making the writing for the magazine the best it could be. Other editors at other magazines for whom I don't work feel the same way, and it's up to you to take their rejections for what they are - indications that your writing may be just fine, but it doesn't work for the space the editor is trying to fill.
   
   It's rare when you get an editor who's willing to give you feedback on your story. If you get some, listen carefully to it - this is the voice of your potential audience. In most cases, though, you're going to need to recruit your own editors and get them to give you feedback. Don't use your mother, who's likely to be unfailingly generous and tell you what a genius you are for being able to spell all the words correctly. Find other people whose writing you know and trust - people who are willing to tell you the truth, but in a tactful way. I'm always wary of the person who says "I have to be honest with you..." and ends with a searing, insulting rant.


3. You can assume that anyone who rejects your work as "not good enough" is a moron and die bitter and alone. I've run into a ton of these people, and so have you. Their work may have the germ of a good story, but for whatever reason, it's not publishable. Instead of looking at their own work and saying "Readers don't understand it. I should fix that flaw," they say "Readers are a moron and don't deserve a genius of my caliber." I have been told by many an insufferable hack that I'm "too stupid to appreciate" his/her work. They rail against the publishing system that only rewards vapidity and commerciality (okay, that's partly true); they rail against editors who are all untutored fools who wouldn't recognize a good book if it landed in their laps; they rail against the reading public who are stuck on conventions like plot and readable sentences. Bastards!
   
   Their fiction is PERFECT. And not only is it perfect, often it was perfect on the first try. "Take that, Anne Lamott! Take that, Strunk & White! I don't need any of you because I am capable of wiping my ass and producing a work of inutterable...genius. I can dash off a first draft that's so far above anything being published today that no editor or publisher is even CAPABLE of recognizing its true genius." Sound familiar?

I have decided to spend more time this year polishing up my own prose, finishing things that need finishing and in general putting in the effort to get more of my stuff published. I have a plan, and that plan includes taking some serious time for reflection and learning from my past.

What's ironic is that I've been having a series of discussion with the Pirate about folks we know who are in this exact same boat - with their love lives. We know people who have just given up, too defeated to do the very hard work of fixing things. We know people who put a lot of time and effort into changing the things in themselves that they see as obstacles to romantic happiness. We also know a few people who have stated in no uncertain terms that they are PERFECT, and that the world is a MORON for not being able to appreciate their perfection.

The point is that publishing is a for-profit business. Publishers are looking for books that are going to sell lots of copies and therefore justify what it costs to produce them. Similarly, life is a for-profit business for each and every living creature. Individually, we are looking for people and things that add pleasure, or at least don't actively piss us off all the time. Being defeatist - giving up and never looking at yourself and your own actions - guarantees that you're never going to find what you're looking for. The other end of the spectrum, being so egotistical about your own worth that you think that the world should love you as you are, despite empirical evidence that it doesn't, is equally doomed. The people who are the most successful in publishing and in romance, are the ones who are willing to admit that they need some work, put their heads down, and get to it.

The Joys of Dissection

I was just talking to a good friend about things we've read: specifically about authors who are very popular but not very good.

I'm not going to get on my high horse here and claim that I've never read trash. I'm not even going to claim not to have enjoyed it. It's just that when I'm reading something strictly for pleasure - something I know is not going to illuminate ANYTHING, I don't question it. I just let the words wash over me and create the story and forgive them when they suck.

Mostly, though, I read stuff that I want to learn something from. I'm reading nonfiction to figure something out, or reading the work of authors I'd like to emulate. When I'm reading those things, I'm not a fast reader. I will read the same paragraph many times to figure out why it made me feel a certain way. I will look at how a very skillful writer weaves imagery without necessarily resorting to metaphor or how verb choices set the tone for an entire scene. I like noticing the use of color and texture in writing, and whether or not a writer pays attention to the musicality of the work.

I can tell you, in lengthy and vivid detail, why I like the authors I like. I can tell you what distinguishes them from other similar authors and why I think they're better or not as good. I can tell you their weaknesses and their strengths.

I hope, at the end of the day, all this comes out in my own writing.