Putting My Money Where My Values Are

There are elitists in every area of life, and the mystery writing field is no exception. I thought I knew them all. I did know about the folks who thought you weren’t writing a real mystery unless it was (insert one) noire, a private detective novel or written in the style of the late great Agatha.

I didn’t think the people who were supposed to be my support system would turn out to be elitists–all under the guise of helping me. By now many of you know of some of the turmoil of the last year or so in some of the mystery groups to exclude from certain privileges those of us who are published by publishers who use print on demand print processes, or who do not give advances. First we were told that our publishers had to be on some list of “accepted publishers.” To be truthful, I didn’t pay much attention then. My publisher is a legitimate royalty paying small press. They vet subs–taking only a small percentage, edit, use Baker and Taylor, take returns, the whole nine yards. And they were on the accepted list. I could have fought for the self-pubbed and excluded presses–but I didn’t. And now I’m sorry.

Then authors from print on demand presses were told we would not be on panels at certain conferences. When authors protested on the organization’s list, we were told that this wasn’t their decision, it was up to the organizers of the conferences. When we pointed out the organization sponsored some of those conferences, they came up with a different excuse. This was done, or so they said, because people need to be wary of some publishers or even (Horror of Horrors!) self-publishing. The organization mustn’t seem to endorse these folks. There were other reasons, of course, but this is the one that stuck in my craw. Apparently the organization doesn’t know that we’re all adults and can make our own decisions whether that be N Y press, small press or self-pubbing. Neither did they acknowledge that it used to be honorable to self-publish. Jane Austin, (see Michelle’s post last week) Mark Twain and Virginia Wolf all did and never suffered a stigma. Then any discussion of the problem was banned from the organization’s listserv. It served no purpose they said. As my children would say with a roll of their eyes, “Whatever!” Many of us decided there and then not to attend conferences and hope that our small (monetary) contributions would be missed.

Then we were told that the list of accepted publishers had changed. Furthermore, unless we were on it, our books would not be listed in a printed list of the organization’s authors’s books. This list was sent to bookstores and librarians all over the country so this was a huge loss. We could, though, be included in the on-line list.

We were given the option to petition if we felt a mistake had been made. Another writer who is published by Trebleheart Books did petition. I was busy looking for a second job and didn’t. Plus I was mulling the idea of petitioning for my e-publisher too. (Just to see their reaction–if they are that worried about POD what must they think of E?) Then I kicked myself about not doing anything for a while. But here’s the deal. I jumped through hoops to get published. I shouldn’t have to jump through them for my support system. Now that same mystery writers’ society is wondering why I didn’t re-up. They’ve had a few problems with PayPal. Has a mistake been made?

Maybe. I am certainly capable of changing my mind. But right now, I see no reason to.

Getting through the bad days

.I know how depressing it can be to write and write and write, and never get anywhere, never get published, or recognised. I know how draining it can be, this feeling that you’re getting nowhere, that you are constantly banging your head against a brick wall, and that horrible, insidious voice that whispers in your ear at 4am, telling you that perhaps you’re wrong, maybe you can’t write after all, and you should just give up before you embarrass yourself further.

There are ways to get over these moments of writer’s depression.

First of all, ignore the little 4am voice. It is scientifically proven that this is when the human body and spirit are at their lowest ebb, and if you happen to be awake and thinking at this time, you are bound by nature to have depressing thoughts. Roll over and go back to sleep – if you can’t sleep, listen to the radio.

Remember very few writers have it easy. Forget writers like Christopher Paolini, who have massive successes with their first novel when they are barely out of school. Think of J.K. Rowling- who wrote for years before coming up with Harry Potter, who had her first Harry Potter manuscript rejected, and who’s first novel had a very small print run, because no-one was sure it would sell. Think of Mary Wesley, who had her first novel published when she was 80. Think of Charlotte Bronte, who couldn’t sell her first novel (The Professor) and had Jane Eyre rejected four times before it sold (she, touchingly I feel, naively and frugally used the same wrapping paper each time she sent off her manuscript, merely crossing out the name of the last publisher she sent it to, and writing in the name of the new one). Think of Jane Austen, who had to pay a publisher to publish Northanger Abbey – and he still wouldn’t publish it! (This was before the success of Sense and Sensibility – Northanger Abbey was published after her death).

Or make a plan – sit down and plan out what you going to do – the publishers and magazines you will try, targets to set yourself – a plan of attack. Give yourself order and ambitions, instead of sinking into a morass of failure.

Publish something online, on a site where you can get feedback, like fictionpress.com. You can publish there, and get feedback in an hour (be prepared for bad feedback though). It’s always a boost to your ego, to read a stranger’s email telling you are wonderful.

And if all else fails – forget about the writing for a while – just a little while, no longer than a week, and enjoy yourself. Go out, go on holiday, slob on the sofa with all 7 days of 24 on DVD (wow, that’s an entire week!), spend three days in the cinema, go to the seaside and paddle whilst eating ice cream, go to a party in your best dress and drink champagne (my own plan for the evening) – just get out of your own head for a while, and relax. It’ll recharge your batteries, and you’ll come back happier, focused and ready to try again.

The dark thoughts and times can be very dark for us creative times, and the urge to give up can seem very tempting. But don’t. You’ll regret. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life. Okay, I stole that last line. But it applies as much to us and writing as it did for Ilsa and Victor.

The hunt for a publisher continues

In my last publisher update I mentioned that we had received a ‘full’ request within days of submitting the query.  Just the other day we received a rejection from that publisher. 

I was gutted.  I litterally feel like I’ve been kicked in the guts every time I receive a rejection for my work.  It hasn’t gotten any easier with practice. 

It generally takes me between 24-48 hrs to process and recover from a publisher/editor rejection.  I usually can’t even talk about it until this period passes.   The next part of my rejection recovery is to put on some good music and create two more queries. 

As I stood in line at the post office today, I wondered if one of the packages I was holding would result in a deal.  Fingers crossed – again, still.

Too Many Idiots Can Write!

Michelle has a point with her rant–don’t get me wrong. (See “Bit of An Angry Rant”–the post before this one.)  I do think that it takes some talent and some training to write.  The apprenticeship is long. 

But this is Rule of Three and I feel obligated to play devil’s advocate.

We do believe anyone can write. What does it take to blog, for instance? Who sets the bar? You don’t have to read the bad blogs of course. And hopefully the truly bad blogs will soon disappear because their authors get tired of the discipline it takes to keep putting stuff out there with little to no feedback. But really isn’t the whole idea of blogging resting on the idea that anyone can write? If not, why is there a need for books like No One Cares What You had for Lunch? And what about Twitter? Or shouldn’t we go there? But really isn’t it the same idea? I think in some way that we all believe, just a little bit, that any idiot can write.

Bit of an angry rant

.Somebody made me really angry this week, and I’m afraid I’m going to rant a bit. Some of you may understand, and even empathise. I mentioned to someone I was going to writing classes, and he said ‘What do you need classes for? Any idiot can write. If you were really talented, you wouldn’t need classes.’.

This attitude really winds me up – the ‘anyone could write a novel if they could be bothered to just sit down and write’ attitude. Not everyone can write a novel, and even the naturally gifted appreciate a few pointers.

For a start, sitting down and actually solidly writing words down, a few hours at a time, can be hard work, especially if it is a very intense piece of work. It’s not ‘easy’, and it is ‘real work’. A couple of hours working on a short story can exhaust me.

Then there’s the ‘wouldn’t need classes’ attitude. Classes can have a down side – teaching people to write all in the same style for example – but this is only true of bad classes and bad writers. A good class can encourage and inspire good writers – and enhance their work. I knew someone who had a good story to tell, but the book she wrote was unbelievably boring. It was until someone taught her that she didn’t have to use a strictly linear timeline, and didn’t have to tell us every tiny detail, that her story grew, and developed and became interesting.

And even once you’ve produced a decent piece of work, there is a massive amount of work involved in selling and promoting your work, as Christine and Narelle can tell you.

And that’s all assuming that you have the talent in the first place, the talent to take a random bunch of words and string them into coherent sentences, to make your reader laugh and cry, and remember you when they close the book.

So next time someone says to you ‘Any idiot can write a book.’ I shall say to them ‘Oh yes? Go on then.’

Bio stuff

One of the things I should have done a whole lot earlier in the promo game was work on my bio. Some people will tell you they hate writing a synopsis. (Well, I do too.) Others will tell you it’s the query letter they don’t want to deal with. (Okay, that’s not my favorite either.) But writing your own bio is really up there in awful.
Maybe if you have a ton of writing awards and credits this gets easier. You’ve all read this type of bio: “John Doe writes Pulitzer prize winning articles for the New York Times, got the Nobel Prize for literature for his novel, Nothing Much and blah blah.” Not having any wonderful awards sure slows down the bio writing process.
But actually, I’m not sure that would help. Writing your bio involves a degree of bragging that most of us have been taught not to do–especially those of us who were raised Catholic. Mother Helen Matthews instilled in me years and years ago that bragging has got to be at least a mortal sin. My own mother raised all ten of her kids with the idea that if she said anything good about us in our hearing it would give us swelled heads. The only good place for bragging on someone was at their funeral. So–not being dead, I have a problem because, in essence, a bio is telling the world how good you are. You see my dilemma?
Add to that the fact that my books are set in a battered women’s shelter. My husband has no problems with my writing except that he would like me to include a line in the bio that says something like this: Christine Duncan has been married for over twenty years to the same man and anything she knows about domestic violence has nothing to do with him.
So how about this for my bio: Christine Duncan modestly states that she prefers you judge her by her book, not her credits. Oh yes, and her marriage is doing just fine, thanks for asking.
Obviously, I need to work on this some more.

Late breaking (competition) news

I’ve been a fan of the QueryTracker website since the day saw it. I’ve used it to locate agents and I was a member of the forum of a while.  Great community.

Patrick and the crew over at QT are having a top competition. Joanna Stampfel-Volpe of Nancy Coffey Literary is judging one line hooks for fiction manuscripts. Yep, you get one line to win her over. I love that idea. The competition is only open for 24 hours from Monday 13 April at 9am Eastern time (whatever time that is!).

There are three prizes ranging from a 10,000 word submission to full manuscript submission.   Full datails are available from the QueryTracker blog – http://www.querytracker.blogspot.com/

No matter how pushed for time you are, I’m sure you can fit in a one line hook for your manuscript.  I know i’ll be having a crack.

Very best of luck to us all.

Music

.Often, when I’m writing a particularly intense moment I find it helps to create an atmosphere around me – and what helps create that is music.

I normally avoid listening to songs with lyrics as I write as I get distracted – however, a few pop songs have been perfect for inspiring the feeling I need. For example, recently I was writing a story about obsessive love, and put Kelly Clarkson’s ‘Addicted’ and Darren Hayes ‘Insatiable’ on a loop as I wrote. They did the job – the scene came out obsessive and crazed and a bit sexy. And a lot of my Stargate fanfic was inspired by MeatLoaf songs.

But normally I use classical music, so I’m not tempted to sing along. ‘One Fine Day’ from Madame Butterfly for those heartbreaking moments. ‘Nessun Dorma’ from Turandot (NOT sung by Pavarotti – the Jose Carreras version) for something darker. The finale of Mozart’s Don Giovanni for moments of inescapable and destructive destiny – Mozart’s requiem for death scenes, naturally. Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata for sadness, Tales of Hoffman for seduction, and Ravel’s Bolero for sex. And practically the whole of Carmen for passion. As for love – any of the great duets by Verdi or Puccini.

Once the music is on – just in the background, so I’m only really picking it up on a subliminal level, I sit down and start to write, with no real clear plan, letting the music guide me. If I get stuck, I lie back, turn the music on and let my mind wander and I’ll get the answer.

Classical music is a closed book to many people, and in that case use something you know moves you. But whatever you like music can be a really helpful way to get the creative juices flowing.

(By the way – in case you were interested – I did write last weekend, and yes I felt the tingle – and yes, I think this one may be good enough to try and sell – if I can find the right place.)

Tweeting

I’m in a bad mood today. First off, Twitter is slow. Glacially slow. Most updates are taking 15 minutes or more to show up. Which wouldn’t matter except that I’m trying to figure out all the Twitter apps. I use Ping.fm to update twitter and a couple of other sites like facebook and myspace. But not often because it somehow seems easier just to tweet.
I also use Twitterfeed. That’s easier because I haven’t had to do a thing since I set it up. Basically, it feeds the first few lines of this blog to Twitter when something changes–like when a post is new. So everytime we write, Twitter is getting the feed and tweeting it for us.
But I keep seeing the Twitter ap on Firefox(what is it, Twitterbar?), thinking maybe I should use it to speed myself up. The problem with anything on Firefox is they keep updating the dang things and expecting me to do the update. Way too time consuming.
And for a while I was using Netvibes, which is a blog aggregator because I could update Twitter there while I was checking all of my favorite blogs, but that took forever to load on my slow dial up connection.
I keep hearing good things about Tweetdeck. It is supposed to help you find groups, I guess.
Here’s the thing, folks, I don’t have time to keep up with all these applications that are supposed to save me time. And I’m kind of wondering if I even want to anymore.
But then again, I’m a bit of a geek. So I’ll probably keep it up. Sigh, anybody know of an app that will write a blog post for me?

The Tingle

.“Got any plans for the weekend?”. Why, yes I have. Thank you for asking.

I shall take a notepad (checking it has plenty of spare pages) and two pens (in case one runs out) with me, along with my Starbucks card, and a book to read for when I get writers cramp. I shall go down to Starbucks, settle myself in the warmest corner and write.

Because it is all coming back. After the dark days of winter, the urge – and more importantly, the skill – to write is coming back. Two weekends ago, I actually managed to write, edit, rewrite and publish (on fanfiction.net) a Dr Who fanfic.

Now I know many of you write all the time, and don’t see the importance of that tiny event. But I have difficulties, and haven’t reached this stage for ages. This time, for the first time in ages, I didn’t ignore the idea, I didn’t give up half way through writing, I didn’t tear it up in disgust and I thought it was good enough to post. (Not my best – it rambles, and has no real plot, and it ends on a cliffhanger, even though I have no thought of a sequel – but it was good enough to post. And in my defence, I hope the cliffhanger will lead nicely into the TV series).

But the most important thing was that I got The Tingle. I don’t know if you get this. It’s a little tingle I get in the bridge of my nose when I read a sentence, or a phrase that just feels special. Something that is just so right – perfect in fact. Tingling in the bridge of my nose, the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, and I give a little gasp. I used to get it for other people’s work – phrases like ‘Reader, I married him’ or ‘misanthropic ice’ (Bronte and Dickens).

But every once in a while, I’d write something, read it back – and there would be the tingle. It was the ultimate thrill – better than drinking or drugs. It kept me going, searching for that elusive, sweet, addictive little tingle. But I hadn’t felt that for anything I’d written for a very very long time.

This time, however I managed to write a tiny little tingle into my story. Just a tiny one, but it was finally there, back again. So this weekend, I shall curl up, and write, chasing my tingle.