Back to the Drawing Board...Maybe

As you know, Dear Blog Readers, I am an optimist by nature and tend to use this platform as a place of encouragement and support. While my view of the publishing industry may seem overly sunny at times, it's because my six years of working in NYC exposed me to many of the smart, well-intentioned, passionate people who work in the industry. Everyone I've ever met who works in publishing is crazy about books and getting good manuscripts into the hands of readers. I like to mention this as often as I can because it pains me to hear these people being repeatedly maligned by those who have little understanding of what really goes on in Big Publishing.

That being said, things can and do go wrong--and I would be remiss to gloss over the bad times. If I'm here to share my experience of the writing life, then I have to be honest when things get tough. Since we writers can be competitive and a little bit protective of our reputations, I think there's a tendency for us to avoid talking about failure. Maybe we don't want to appear vulnerable. Still, we do each other a disservice when pretend we everything is rosy all the time.

As I wrote in a previous post ("The Summer of Crazy"), last May I turned in my first draft of a novel I've been working on in fits and starts since my twins were born ten years ago. At the time, it felt terrific to finally complete something after being out of the publishing world for so long. I was sure it was my strongest work to date and was thrilled to finally show it to my agent. Unfortunately, my agent didn't share my enthusiasm. I cried for two days.

When we discussed the story at length, he raved about the writing but thought the plot needed some work. His comments were insightful and on the money. I felt better--energized and ready to get back to work. I did a round of revisions, pretty sure that I fixed all his points of concern.

I was wrong.

We had another discussion and this time I felt a little fuzzier about what I was supposed to aim for. I did a second round of revisions. I took an ax to the manuscript. It still fell short.

Third round of revisions. This time I felt like I was completely in the dark. I was losing confidence and interest. I was beginning to go against my own instincts. We both knew this was bad news. In the end, my agent's verdict was the same: it wasn't coming together the way he would like. Time to put it aside. Did I have any other stories to develop?

This was really tough news to hear. How could I possibly toss away something I've spent so much time and effort on, especially when I felt this was my best work and that maybe, just maybe he was wrong? I cried--though much less than the first time around--thinking about all the time I'd lost and how the manuscript wasn't any closer to publication. I went to war with myself, considering my options:

Should I....

1) Throw in the towel? Every author has a book or two in their closet that had to be scrapped. This will be mine.

But I can't imagine giving up on this story. This is some of the best stuff I've ever written. My gut tells me that one way or another, something from this manuscript will be published.



2) Cannibalize the story? I could chop the novel up into separate short stories or use a character for something new so it wouldn't feel like a complete waste of time.

This is a realistic solution, but something I'd like to avoid having to do. 



3) Step away from it for a while? Maybe if I put it aside for at least six months I could gain a little clarity and figure out on my own what needed to be fixed.

Aside from losing more time, this is a good plan. 



4) Get a second opinion? Share it with a few trusted readers to get their take on it. If they feel the same way my agent does, then I'll have to really do some soul-searching.

Yes! Other opinions are exactly what I need right now. It can help me make an informed decision about what to do next.



5) Get a new agent? Maybe it's time to find someone else who can better articulate what the story needs or whose vision is closer to mine.

Something to consider, but not something I'm inclined to do. Aside from this hiccup, we have a good relationship and I trust him. Plus, he's a top agent. Trying to find another agent is a big risk on many levels. 


So, after thinking it over a bit, my plan was to set it aside for a while and come back to it in six months with fresh eyes. 

Then, an interesting thing happened: I met with my writing group. I had been giving them a few scenes at a time to get their opinions and the response was overwhelmingly positive. They seemed to love the characters and were very invested in the story. They couldn't wait to read the rest and wanted me to send all of it at once instead of in dribs and drabs. I couldn't believe it....and I was more confused than ever.

Suddenly, I found myself unable to put the story aside. I contacted a friend of mine who is a novelist and he offered to take a look. I'll be interested in hearing his point of view. I have a feeling he'll be a 'tiebreaker' of sorts and his feedback will give me a better sense of how to proceed.

In the meantime, I'm polishing an old short story I've been wanting to finish and hope to send it around in a few weeks. It will be nice to have something else to think about for a while.

Have you encountered a big setback in your writing career? How did you move forward?

The Curse of the Six-Figure Advance

Don't let anyone fool you--writing is NOT its own reward.

Writing is fulfilling, fun at times, and most of us would do it for free (shhhh...don't tell anyone), but a large part of the reward is putting our work out into the world and seeing what comes back. We need to see some positive results, something that tells us our time and effort are worth it, something that keeps us motivated on those days when it feels like the story is going nowhere and we don't think we have the will to carry on.

Among the markers we writers use to gauge our success (for better or worse) are bestseller lists, awards, movie and TV deals, glowing reviews from publications and fans alike, and blurbs from famous people. Oh yeah--and that little thing called a book advance. The single, most concrete measure of the worth of our words. The fact that any publisher would pay to put our words into print is a pretty heady thing, but when a publisher decides they are willing to pay a lot for it, well, that's the stuff of writers' dreams.

The bigger the advance, the better, right? Not necessarily. In fact, sometimes a bigger advance can be a bigger headache.

Before I delve into the reasons why a big advance can be problematic, it's important to understand how publishers determine what to pay for a book in the first place. When it comes to a first-time authors with no track record, it's anybody's guess how many copies of their book will sell. Publishers look at trends, the sales of similar titles, the current marketplace, and then make their best guess. That's right, guess. No one knows which books will hit the bestseller lists and which ones will tank. It's all a crap shoot. So the publisher takes a guess and makes an offer based on that guess. If another publishing company is interested in acquiring the same book they will also make a bid, driving up the price of the advance. Then it becomes not just a game of how well they think the book will sell, but how much money they're willing to risk in order to get the book. As the price goes up, the author gets more and more excited. He may feel this is a reflection of the value of his work, when really it's a competition between publishers to see who will "win" the book. The problem is, it may not be an accurate reflection of potential sales.

Oh, sure, in the short term, a big advance is a wonderful thing. It's lots of money in your pocket that you get to keep no matter how your book sells. It also means lots of publicity--a big book deal is often published in the trades, garnering attention well before publication. The publisher is more likely to make the book a higher priority on their list. And--let's admit it--being in the "six-figure club" just feels fantastic. It's like joining the major leagues.

Over the long term, though, the author's sales might fail to live up to that big advance. In fact, the vast majority of books will fail to earn out their advances. It may not seem like a big deal, I suppose, considering that you've already received a nice paycheck, but what happens when you try to get your second book published? You now have a track record. When a publisher considers buying your next book, they are going to look at your sales. Here, the size of your previous advance matters--a lot.

For instance, let's compare two authors--Author A and Author B. Author A received an average-sized advance of $20,000, while Author B received $100,000. Both earned $30,000 on sales. Who looks better on paper? Author A--she earned out her advance and collected an additional $10,000 in royalties. Her next contract offer is likely to go up considerably.

While Author B sold the same amount of books, his statement shows he still needs another $70,000 in sales to equal his advance. This shows up as a negative $70,000 in total sales. It's likely Author B's next offer will go way down, closer to the sales amount. Some publishers might not even want to take a chance on the next book. And yet both authors had the same earnings. The only difference is that Author B's publisher arbitrarily gave him a higher advance. 

So what's the take away from this? Should you say "No, thank you!" when a publisher makes you a big offer? Of course not! It's free money--are you crazy? What you need to understand is that a big advance does not automatically translate into big sales. Likewise, not being able to live up to your advance is not an indication of failure. On the flip side, a small advance need not feel like a failure, either. In other words, it's a numbers game and nothing more. The game may not always work in your favor, but it's not necessarily your fault. Don't use it to gauge your value as a writer.

You Can Have It All--Just Not at the Same Time

The winter blues have officially set in—and not just because we're buried in fifteen inches of new snow and vacation is now a fading memory. It dawned on me this morning that in June it will be five years since my novel, THE GREATEST MAN IN CEDAR HOLE, was released in hardcover.

Oh, my. Time has certainly slipped away from me.

Knowing that five years have passed and I have not published anything makes me feel quite panicky, I assure you, though I’m a little less panicky than I used to be. The first and second anniversaries of the paperback edition gave me the prickly sweats and led to many sleepless nights. If I had had a project in the pipeline, it wouldn’t have been so bad. But I had nothing. I was losing momentum. The more I white-knuckled it, the harder it was to write.

So, I relaxed. An idea finally did come to me, but the problem was more about time than will. Being the mother of very active, preschool-aged twins leaves me with very little mental or physical energy to be productive. It used to be that when I had a moment to be still, a narrative would constantly be flowing in my head. Now, when I find that rare moment of quiet, I hear nothing.

When I started my writing career, I was single, living in New York, and producing four books a year as a ghostwriter in addition to working full-time at a literary agency. I lived with a constant adrenaline rush, always facing a deadline or having a book coming out. It felt great to be doing the very thing I loved the most. In six years, I produced 14 books, though I won’t pretend for a minute that ghostwriting teen books is anywhere as difficult as writing an adult literary novel. It took me five years to do that, largely because I am a very slow, deliberate writer.

I remember a conversation I had with some housemates (I lived in a boarding house) about work and relationships, and someone brought up an old adage that has many different permutations, but his version was this: “You can have a great relationship, a great social life, and a career, but not all three at the same time.” Everyone at the table looked at me, as though I was the apparent exception to this, but I assured them that even though I had a great relationship and a career I loved, I had no social life at all. This seemed to bring great relief to my housemates, who all felt that they were lacking in some aspect of this trinity of happiness.

I used to think that people who complained about not being able to “have it all” just weren’t trying hard enough, but now I’m thinking that the rule of three is probably true for most of us. I still have the great relationship (and now family life), I have a great network of friends (though some of you keep moving away), but at the moment, no career. There are some people who appear to have no trouble with this balancing act—Soule Mama, for example—but I have yet to figure out the trick to having success on all fronts. Every time I focus on one aspect of my life—writing, for example—something else goes to hell, like the housekeeping. Every time I put out a fire, I inadvertently start a new one someplace else.

I take the edge off my panic by telling myself that there is a time for everything, and right now, it’s my time to be a mother. In two years they’ll be in school full time and I’ll have a much easier time with my juggling act, so enjoy the moment. And I really do. But I’ll never fully surrender to literary idleness, either. My moments of creation are so rare but they still give me such deep satisfaction that giving up just isn’t an option. As far as my career goes, I'm thinking I may have to re-adjust my expectations just a little.

(P.S. If anyone familiar with Blogger can help me with my inconsistent fonts, I would really appreciate it. For some reason, I can't fix this problem.)

Maybe This Cookie Will Help Me Write...

My previous post about the difficulty of filling the blank page reminds me of a conversation I once had with an agent about a certain superstar of the graphic novel world. The writer apparently told her that one of the biggest struggles he faced every day was forcing himself to sit down and work. Hearing that procrastination is a problem for someone of his caliber has been a great source of comfort to me over the years.

I’m one of those writers for whom settling down to work involves a lot of avoidance and no small amount of superstition. I liken it to a professional baseball player up at bat, with all the spitting, helmet-and-elbow-touching, dirt kicking and glove adjusting that needs to take place before he feels psychologically and physically comfortable enough to swing. In order for me to work, I need a glass of water and a comfortable room temperature. The house needs to be completely quiet. The weather can’t be too nice or I’ll want to be outside instead. I can’t be too tired or even a little sick. Then, if all these conditions are right, I have to check my e-mail, my favorite blogs, and do an online crossword. Then I might check the weather, and then my e-mail again. If no one has written to me or I haven’t received notice of a sale at one of my favorite stores, I’m good to go.

Once I begin writing, if I get stuck on a word, I find myself “write walking”--a phenomenon closely related to sleep walking, in which a writer gets up from her desk and suddenly finds herself standing before her open refrigerator with no recollection of how she ended up there. This occurrence is usually followed with an unhealthy snack and a wave of guilt, and can sometimes be repeated several times during the writing of a particularly difficult passage.

If writing is one of my great passions in life, why is it so hard to be disciplined? The best answer I can come up with is fear of failure. When I’ve written nothing, that nebulous masterpiece floating in my head retains all of its perfection; the moment I try to write I realize just how far my work is from my vision. Yet this should never be a deterrent, for it is extremely rare for a work to perfectly echo one’s vision. I wonder if artists in other mediums have the same problem with procrastination. I can certainly see songwriters having similar angst, but what about painters and sculptors or performance artists? Does fear of facing their limitations put them off, too?

Today, I might get down one good sentence if I’m lucky. Or maybe a particular word choice might sing. Or maybe it’ll all sound stiff and boring. So be it. Tomorrow I’ll sit down at my desk, with my water and silence and optimal room temperature, check my e-mail and play my word puzzles. And when all is right I’ll settle down to work and try again.

Keeping the Faith

“I don’t like writing, but I like having written.”

I had this quote stuck to my bulletin board for several years. It was scrawled on a yellow Post-It, along with a few other golden nuggets of wisdom chosen to help me through the daily grind. I can’t remember who the quote was attributed to—though I’m thinking George Eliot. A quick Google search has provided no clarity. Everyone and their mother claims they said it first.

It’s ridiculous to say that writers hate writing. We love it—when it’s going well, that is. There’s nothing quite like the feeling of humming along, when the characters come alive and start speaking and acting independent of your conscious thought, when the words seem to be coming from somewhere beyond you. It’s a freaky sensation and often when you try to describe to non-creative people, they think you’re a little fruity.

When it’s not going well, it’s misery. All that liveliness is gone. You feel dry, abandoned. You start to wonder if all the work you’ve managed to produce in your life is a fluke and if you’ll ever be inspired again. Sadly, this is how many writers feel much of the time. It’s not easy conjuring something out of nothing. Sadder still, it’s not something that goes away as you produce a body of work. There will always be a blank page to fill.

What experience does teach you, however, is to have faith. The more I’ve written, the more I’ve come to realize that I will always have fallow periods—and sometimes they can go on for quite a long time—but the desire to write, as well as new writing ideas will always return. In my mind, writers are born, not made, and it is such an integral part of who we are that we can truly never lose it as long as we remain open and trust in ourselves.