In Other Words

Archive for the ‘writing’ Category

Over the past few days, I’ve visited this blog and attempted to write a new post. I want to. I miss writing here regularly, and I miss writing well and about meaningful things. But I’ve been cursed with a lack of ideas, the usual problem, and I’ve deleted each attempt because, frankly, it sucked and I already feel my posts have been declining in quality. No need to worsen that.

I’ll tell you what’s on my mind, though, aside from the regular stuff. As I said, I miss writing, and in my few spare moments when not editing or at the clinic I’ve been reading stories online, a few fiction journal submissions, etc. I’ve been feeling very motivated to get something out I can publish. The question is, as always, when can I make time, and what do I write about when I don’t have any ideas? I think my failure to prioritize writing time stems from my fear of wasting that time chewing my fingers and writing twaddle.

And then I think of something I watched JK Rowling say in a documentary that covered a year of her life. In fact, I saw this on Saturday and I haven’t stopped thinking of it since. She said she was lucky to have had the idea of Harry Potter. When asked how she got it, she said, “I was taking a long train journey from Manchester to London in England and the idea for Harry just fell into my head.” Another time she answered, “Harry just sort of strolled into my head, on a train journey. He arrived very fully formed.” (Note the ease!) The rest you already know.

Twilight author Stephenie Meyer had a dream one fortuitous night about a vampire and a human girl in love. The rest of that story I assume you know as well.

I have thought that, yes, these women were lucky to have been hit with their ideas, and then smart to have seized the opportunity to develop and write them. But now I’m bothered by that word lucky. Words and their meanings are important to me as an editor, and luck is a word often thoughtlessly used. I keep asking myself, what does luck really mean? In this case, does it mean there are chosen ones, Lucky Ones? That I am not lucky because I haven’t had a good story idea? That I have to wait to get lucky or that I might never? Suddenly, things don’t seem very fair. And since I was kid, fair has been a big deal to me.

To a great extent I do believe that we create our own reality, that our choices dictate our lives. Luck, then, doesn’t seem to have much to say, although I admit I slip and let feelings of victimization and unluckiness overwhelm me. But if we determine what happens, if life does not just happen to us, I suppose that would mean that authors like Rowling and Meyer came upon their ideas by maintaining a state of creativity, being observant, as good writers are, and focusing on how they’d rather their lives were. Neither of them imagined the fame that would result; the important thing is that they recognized opportunity and followed through.

Of course, then, this means I have to do the same thing in order to succeed. I have the basic requirements met: some writing talent that can be worked with and the extreme desire to write something really satisfying that is also publishable and marketable. I think that while not wanting to believe in luck because it seems so unfair, I have been believing in it anyway, waiting for it to strike, holding out for that bolt of inspiration to hit that I can act on, when all along I should instead be fostering the right conditions that would allow my brain to conceive something brilliant.

I don’t want to believe that writers who get published are lucky. As an editor, as someone who is aware of how difficult it is to not only be published but be successful, as someone who knows how much work goes into writing and the publishing and marketing process, I’d like to believe luck has nothing to do with any of it. As Thomas Jefferson said, “I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.” Even the author who is accidentally discovered when an agent happens to walk into her workplace and she happens to mention the novel she’s working on and the agent happens to be the kind sort who says, well, send it to my office and I’ll have a look, and then he loves it and she gets published—even she is not lucky. It’s something else. It must be.

Yet part of me still struggles with the idea. What of the girl who gets discovered while shopping at the mall and becomes a supermodel? Sure, she had to have the material to work with first, as did the author who met the agent at her work, and it might have been as a result of healthy eating and regular exercise—or smoking a gazillion cigs and drinking litres of coffee and getting no exercise, whatever—but what of the girl who was simply born with good genes? Luck seems to be rearing its smug head right about now.

The thing is, I need to believe I’m in control, even if that means (much) more work. As much as I would love to be lucky, I can’t stand the thought of thinking I might not be so fortunate. My idea might not come upon me while I sleep and I might not be visited by a character while riding the train. I might not be in the right place at the right time. Instead, I have to work hard at not only the writing but also the development of an idea. Just in case.

So I conclude, while damning myself for it because now it means I have to follow through and work at not writing twaddle, there can’t be any such thing as luck. Luck just isn’t fair. As Seneca said long ago, “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”

At the desk that’s too high for you, in a wobbly dining table chair, you pick at your nails, massage your tight neck, and listen to the pop songs on the radio in the reception room, wondering at and irritated by the constant repetition of uninspired stanzas. You pokes holes in your eraser with your sharpened pencil and glance at the clock for the fifth time in two minutes and stave off tears of boredom and frustration. For someone so passionate and with such high hopes, for someone with so much potential, why have your choices led you to the exact opposite? When will you come across and recognize and not be afraid of and commit to the choice that turns your life around? When will you do something for you?

The phone rings and yet again you answer as though you have the best job in the world.

Every so often I read a book that does more than simply impress me: it also inspires me. Over the last couple of days, I started and finished Miriam Toews’s The Flying Troutmans. Something about it, but probably not the content or even the characters and more likely its Canadianness — (so there to all the many whiners and critics and academics who still debate and mourn the lack of Canadian identity) — made me feel like writing again. Most of the time I don’t feel I belong in Canada. But when I read Canadian literature, which I believe has very distinct flavour — in fact, each region has its own flavour — I sense a kindred spirit.

It’s been a long time since I was a prolific writer, and a longer time still since I last wrote a story. Not just a good story, any story. I have my old ones on this site not just to share but to remind me that I once had a skill I wasn’t afraid to use, a glimmer of talent that I was actually compelled to flesh out, that I enjoyed cultivating. The other day, as I was making sure the pages on this new theme looked all right, I found myself reading a few snippets of my own stuff, posts here and there, bits and pieces of stories.

I thought, It’s one thing when you immerse yourself in your own writing because you think you’re good at it and you enjoy reading yourself. But it’s quite another thing to have your own sentences snag your attention by accident and then surprisingly keep it, even after much time has passed. I’m good at this, I thought. I’m actually good at something and I’m not even doing it. I’m wasting a talent, or skill, or both. I’m wasting the opportunity to become even better at it.

Two things surprised me about all this: first, I genuinely believed my writing was good and I was experiencing a deep but not yet fully fledged hope, a flickering of belief that if I allowed myself to, I could be successful at writing. I didn’t apologize for that feeling, and I didn’t allow myself guilt for being immodest or fear that people would feel I was daft in thinking highly of my writing. Definitely surprising. Second, I came across my about page where I’d long ago written that I wish to be published, and I realized with a start that this is actually still true. I do still wish to be published. Perhaps this is a sign I’ve been waiting for?

There have been two constants in my life so far: my deep and abiding love for books (reading them, admiring them, buying them, smelling them, caressing them, possessing them) and writing. From the graph of alphabet attempts I made at age 3 1/2 or 4, to the twenty-odd journals, to the stories, paragraphs, writing assignments, essays, articles, letters, to the blog posts and snippets of dialogue or character sketches on scrap paper, I’ve spewed words upon words, found the right ones, rolled them around in my brain and on my tongue (a word sommelier), and strung them together as (instinctively) artfully as I could. Trying to let these constants guide me toward what I might want to do for a living, I’ve worked in bookstores and for a publishing company where I designed layouts, typeset, edited, project managed. I’ve worked in libraries. I copyedit and proof manuscripts. I began this blog. But nothing has hit me between the eyes yet.

I’ve lamented here before that I feel I lack purpose, that I have no clue whatsoever in which direction I wish to take my life. And then how can I go anywhere if I don’t know what I want? Jack Sparrow’s compass pointed in the direction of your heart’s true desire, and it stubbornly refused to work if you weren’t sure of what you wanted. I’ve agonized over my belief that nothing is ever for certain, a belief likely caused by my inability to make decisions, my fickleness, and my fear of commitment. I have actually wished that God, in his ultimate frustration at seeing his little Pisces flopping and floundering on dry land, would take pity and pick me up, dust me off, give me wings, and send me flying in the right (very clear) direction. A flying fish. That shimmering little marvel that every now and then leaps out of its comfort zone to feel the wind in its wee sails.

I’ve always paid a good deal of attention to the authors of the books I’m interested in. Aside from noticing that I have a very indefinable taste in literature, what has struck me is the age of these authors. Increasingly, I find that the authors of the books I choose are young, my age or even younger. It gives me pause every time: there’s a twinge of jealousy, regret, that strange feeling of mingled hope and despair. I can yet write something (I’m not yet “too old” to be one of these authors!) but when am I going to do it?

Sounds like Someday Syndrome, doesn’t it? Alex and I are just starting to work on this. My first assignment is to make decisions and stick with them for this entire month, even if I feel afterward that the decision was 100% wrong. We’re working on my confidence, on my sense of being lost, on trusting myself. So far I’ve cheated: the other day when I couldn’t decide on which tea set to buy with a gift certificate I received for my birthday, I bought both (no regrets!).

This morning, I stumbled on a blog and found the question What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail? And then later today, while I was in Chapters (making decisions on which books to buy), I happened upon another question, on the back of a novel: Who would you be if you weren’t who you’ve let yourself become?

Interesting, yes? All these signs? Perhaps this is God dusting me off and pointing me in the right direction. Because my answer to the first question was WRITE. And my answer to the second question was A person not afraid of failure…or success. A person not afraid to write.

Seems to me, however, that I’m left to grow my own wings.

Okay, everyone, especially you writers out there with manuscripts and query letters, check this out. This is a really great opportunity to both get your work or query letters critiqued and save a life at the same time! I frequent acquisitions editor Moonrat’s blog, Editorial Ass, and this is what mischief she’s up to lately.

Prizes available:

-One winner: A full manuscript evaluation (up to 120,000 words)*
-One winner: A partial manuscript evaluation (up to 50 page)*
-One winner: A query letter and revised query letter critique*
-Five winners: A choice from select titles in Moonrat’s library, which will be mailed with a love letter from Moonrat, who enjoys writing love letters.

Please see details of the raffle (tickets are cheap!) here. Scroll down to see each item offered, and do read the rules, guidelines, etc.

Just thought you may be interested. If you decide to participate, all my best wishes!

ryanraddatz.com

I just wanted to apologize for not delivering the promised post on methods of letting go. Basically, I have had to set my priorities and the ones on the top of the list happen to have everything to do with EditQuest. Because frankly, that has to get done. So in essence I’ve temporarily let go of the things on my “To Let Go” list.

The EQ web copy is finally completed and the ebook on how to get published is just about done. If I could, I’d give you a peek at the theme but I have no clue how. Nothing has been uploaded yet, since there’s still a bit to be done in that respect first.

I’ve been taking longer than expected with the ebook because I’m distracted by all the information people are dishing out lately on their blogs. Everyone’s posting frequently enough that I’m having to admit, once again, I can’t keep up and comment and post here and also get my work done. I must pare down, for now, and I hope no one will think of it as my lack of interest. It’s simply not the case.

In truth, I also find myself feeling a bit contrary lately, torn in different directions as well, and I don’t want that to carry over in my comments. I’m getting a bit frustrated with all the stuff I’m absorbing and I have to remember that this is all pretty much people’s own interpretations of things based on their experiences. To whom do I listen? In whom do I put my trust?

Not whom, but rather what. The answer is my gut.

What’s on my Mind

I’m also finding I haven’t given much thought to many things being discussed, or I just don’t know enough to form a strong opinion that doesn’t constantly waffle back and forth. I’m not one to shy away from admitting when I’m wrong, but it’s frustrating to me to discover that, as usual, I have so much to learn.

Ellen wrote a very thought-provoking post the other day on what it takes to be a writer. While I’ve been editing for a long time now, I yet find myself confused by the difference of opinion out there on what makes a good writer, and what constitutes the publishing process. Everything is based on personal experience, even among publishers and agents.

My biggest concern right now is making sure what I put in my ebook is not simply my own experience. If I wish to help writers get published, I need to broaden the scope of that experience. And at the same time, focus it so that it will not be confusing for others, and balance that with what I believe as an editor and what the nasty truth is about publishing.

Regardless of others’ opinions on writers and writing and publishing and their experiences and what worked for them, there is one absolute. That is this:

Acquistions editors do not buy stories because they are well written.

They buy stories that will give the reader the maximum reader experience, if I may borrow a bit from Kelly. They buy stories that will sell. As always, that is the bottom line. Which seems to mean that what makes a writer good is his ability to write what the editor wants.

You see my conflict here as a copyeditor. All my life I’ve strongly advocated what I feel is good writing, and I don’t necessarily mean by the rules. After all, once you know the rules you can certainly break them.

But the truth seems to be that once you can write a literate sentence, what being a successful writer comes down to (and I cringe here) is your ability to write something the people (including publishers) want. In this case, Ellen was right. All you need, then, is desire to write. And knowledge of what the publishers want. Sounds suspiciously like changing your voice, doesn’t it? Or at least tailoring your writing to what you know will sell? Remember how in school you just wrote what you thought the prof wanted to read so you could get a good mark?

Yeah. That was never me. I wrote what I wanted to read. Because I had a huge problem with being graded. (But that’s another story.) I was lucky that worked for me in all except one class I didn’t give a shit about anyway. I also have long had a very strong opinion on what I think good literature is. And working at a bookstore and a library quickly showed me that either most people have shitty taste or it isn’t about good writing at all.

Publishing isn’t necessarily about great books. It’s about books that sell. Publishing is a business, after all. And unfortunately, so is writing. At least writing to get published. This saddens me to no end. The business aspect, the ugly underbelly of the industry behind the making of beautiful books, is what turned me off and led me to choose against taking the publishing program in BC.

It’s obvious to me, and likely to you, that those two — excellent writing and books that sell — are not necessarily the same thing. Unfortunately, there are scads of rejected brilliant manuscripts because they don’t offer what the people want to read. And there’s an abundance of not-so-brilliant writing that gets accepted on a daily basis.

How do I reconcile my desire as a copyeditor to make writing the best it can be? I don’t believe in an author changing his or her voice to suit what the public wants if they don’t naturally offer it. I don’t believe in changing a writer’s story altogether or adding profit-making bits that may not necessarily fit. I believe in great writing. I believe in producing literature that doesn’t suck. At the same time, I totally believe in helping people get published.

On the edge of the abyss this week, doubting my entire purpose, my use, as a copyeditor, three things occurred to me.

1. Of all the stories that are marketable, the editor WILL choose those that are well written (and this includes having the elements of characters the readers can relate to, having a great plot, etc., not just technically good writing) over those that are not. Thus, writers need to stick out from the crowd to be chosen.

2. I don’t believe in not making something better if it can be improved. Nor do the thousands of copyeditors who successfully exist around the world and who form part of the association to which I proudly belong.

3. There are tons of writers out there with simply a desire to write, as Ellen says. And that’s it. But I don’t believe that’s all you have to have. As mentioned, you at least have to have a good idea that may need tweaking and reining in. They have no connections, no knowledge of how to go about getting published, no idea how to format a manuscript or see that they have great dialogue even if their idea is salable. If their writing is bad but they have a good story, how will they get noticed? Their query letter and book proposal cannot be bad. Those must be well written or the editor or agent won’t even find out there is a winner behind the writer.

What do these three points lead to?

Yes. That I am still needed.

Thus, like a superhero on call, I swirl my cape, sheath my editor’s pencil in my pocket protector (okay, I don’t really have one of those), and raise my ink-stained fist in the air.

To infinity and beyond!

I always do the first line well, but I have trouble doing the others.  – Molière

When I finally bought Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love, it was more because of a strange feeling that I had to buy it than anything else. I very rarely buy non-fiction. But I actually couldn’t leave the store without her book. In the car I turned it over and over in my hands. I loved the feel of the matte cover, the flexibility of the book, the smell of the pages, the title. The feelings I had reading it were incredibly intense. My favourite book, probably ever. It’s the book I love so much that every time I see it in a store I pick it up and feel I want to buy it again and again and again, but I already own it. I’ve blogged about it before but on rereading my entry I thought, but that doesn’t carry at all the enthusiasm I felt for it! It doesn’t tell how I inexplicably cried feeling so utterly connected with the author, as though she was me, or part of me. Or how joyfully I laughed while reading. How much love I felt, how much I related, how much I felt inspired. How I dogeared, the first time in my life doing such a thing, my favourite pages. How I have never shelved the book. How I want it to become a well-worn copy rather than keeping it pristine. It doesn’t tell how when I went to her website and read her advice on writing, and read everything else on that site, I cried. I never wanted more, I think, to write like a particular person. This woman awakened in me such longing to write well that, again, I cried. I bought Pilgrims, her book of short stories, and I’m jealous and aching with longing to write stories like this. I cried when I read her influences and what she grew up with, so similar to my experiences. What was I crying for? It was the only way I seemed able to express whatever it was I was feeling. Too deep for words. I’ve never in my life come across anyone so similar to me (or so evocative). Only she’s different in many ways, too, most significantly in the fact that she has shown far more determination and dedication in writing than I ever have. I feel ashamed. Like a fraud.

Although I really don’t want this blog to become solely a diary of my frustrated (frustrating) writing experience — I was hoping it would more reflect actual writing and progress in that department (and I don’t mean blog posts but “real” writing, excellent writing) — I will say now that this afternoon I revisited the one and only story I’m trying to work on. The story that, by the way, began with a great first line and seems to flop from there. I hated all four pages of it. It sucks. I’m angry. I’m upset that this writing struggle is happening, that it’s lasting so long, that I can’t seem to barge past it in spite of all my inspired posts and the wonderful encouragement I receive. I began to edit that story, yet again, and then felt I was making it worse, editing it within an inch of its sorry life in an effort to force it to be better and, more honestly, to avoid having to continue down to page five when I had no clue what was going to happen next. I’ve stared at it. I’ve shed frustrated tears. I’ve convinced myself that becoming an editor was the worst thing I could ever have done to my writer self. It wasn’t the divorce that stopped me writing so long ago, it was the editing. As soon as I started that, the writing stopped. I’ve debated giving up the story and not entering the stupid newspaper contest (deadline next Monday), and made up excuses that perhaps this topic just isn’t working for me. I’ve picked up good books and read a few sentences and just held them wishing for some sort of brilliance to pass through to me, then gone back to the story hoping to suddenly have something flow out of me.

Yes, YES, I know. Stop forcing it. Let it come, let it suck, and just for God’s sake write. Write. Write. WRITE.

But I’m tired. I feel as though nothing makes sense today, least of all what I’m writing. Some days I guess you just have to know when to give in, though it feels weak and and dirty and shameful, like cheating. I just want to run from this hard work.

And then I read this in an interview with Gilbert:

I can’t get behind the ambition to be “discovered” as much as I can get behind the ambition to write beautifully and honorably and steadfastly. Here’s what I believe about creativity. I believe that creativity is a living force that thrums wildly through this world and expresses itself through us. I believe that talent (the force by which ephemeral creativity gets manifested into the physical world through our hands) is a mighty and holy gift. I believe that, if you have a talent (or even if you think you do, or maybe even if you just hope you do), that you should treat that talent with the highest reverence and love.

Don’t flip out, in other words, and murder your gift through narcissism, insecurity, addiction, competitiveness, ambition or mediocrity. Frankly — don’t be a jerk. Just get busy, get serious, get down to it and write something, for heaven’s sake. Try to get out of your own way. Creativity itself doesn’t care at all about results — the only thing it craves is the PROCESS. Learn to love the process and let whatever happens next happen, without fussing too much about it. Work like a monk, or a mule, or some other representative metaphor for diligence. Love the work. Destiny will do what it wants with you, regardless. Just love the work.