Some Short Advice
Cross-posted from Deadline Dames, where we had “Ask A Dame” this past week. It’s more fun than cats plus helium balloons, go check it out!
Since I’m currently moving like a little old lady (I’m in the body-aches section of the Cold From Hell) this Friday’s writing post is going to be shorter. I poked through the Ask A Dame questions and none of them really set me on fire, though a few of them did give me springboards into other things to think about. But I’m probably going to blaze my own path today.
Like that surprises you, right?
So, here’s three things I’ve found out about this career. Your mileage may vary, of course. Ready? Okay.
Getting published might cost you a “friend”. The instant I got published, some people decided they didn’t want to be around me anymore. I agonized over it and tried to make it better until the Muffin told me flat-out it wasn’t me. Success (of any stripe) is threatening to the people who don’t want to work for it–people who expect it to be handed to them. (I still thought it was me for a long time, though. Before I got a little wiser.)
It was with great surprise and a sneaking sense of relief that I read about someone else’s exact same experience on an author loop the other day. The recollection involved a “friend” getting nasty and knocking someone who had just joyfully made it into print as a result of years of backbreaking work. The writer who had gotten published beat herself up over it and felt terrible for months until she realized it wasn’t her. This is, by the way, part of why I feel the way I do about “writing” groups.
I’m not saying that every friend who falls away is jealous of one’s success. I’m just saying, it happens. It’s happened to a lot of writers. Some people think that success for one person means nothing for everyone else–a zero-sum game. I don’t happen to think it is. My friends getting published means more connections for me (and publishing is such an incestuous little business, those connections are GOLD) and a reason to break out the chianti and celebrate. It’s awesome, and if I’m a little envious, well, then it’s a reason for me to find the discipline and means to work harder. And feel grateful that my friends are so awesome they provide me with motivation. Nuff said.
An agent is not a panacea. Getting an agent is a big step, but it’s not ALL you need to do. In fact, getting an agent means the stakes are higher–one needs to produce and act like an adult, or one won’t get invited back. The agent is there to handle business so you can concentrate on writing.
An agent is not a foolproof path to the NYT Bestseller List. An agent is a help and a refuge in times of contract negotiation (God bless my agent, who puts up with my frantic calls during That Time) but s/he cannot write the damn books for you, and cannot make you look like less of an ass if you do your editor wrong. It’s all up to you.
Just like it always was.
Do not get involved in Internet imbroglios. Don’t pile on during huge Internet arguments even if you have an opinion. (The last big SF/F fandom blowup was a perfect example of something that could have been a great discussion destroyed by high emotion, nasty behavior, and different brands of entitlement on both sides.) If you feel the urge to respond to a negative review, DON’T. Just don’t. Get used to letting things go on the Internet.
A lot of people behave badly on the Internet because of perceived anonymity. Still others (and part of the first group) behave badly because the distance between their physical body and what they’re typing feels so large. It feels like there’s no consequences. But there are. There are consequences to Internet imbroglios. Think very hard about what you want out in the open.
The Internet is not ubiquitous. It just feels like it is to people on it. On the other hand, it’s becoming a useful tool for people to dig up dirt with. Don’t make it easy for the dirt to be dug, don’t give people ammunition. You don’t need the aggravation; it takes time away from writing. The Internet is already a big timesuck for a lot of writers. It’s a tool, and a wonderful one–but like any power tool, it needs to be used with caution. It can give you a wonderful time if used wisely, and it can give you a huge effing pain if it’s not.
All right, chickadees. That’s it from me today. I’ve got to get back to revisions on the YA. I have this scene with a girl crawling on a slate roof and a boathouse meeting interrupted (I think) be werewolves to get down. No rest for the wicked, eh?
Keep writing.
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March 6th, 2009 at 1:34 pm
Your first point is more true than you know, because getting published cost me a few friends. It also cost me a marriage. When I first got involved with my ex fifteen years ago last month, I was a “writer” by dint of having been published in about seven or eight little zines with a total readership of about 50. My ex, who fancied herself a writer but who never actually bothered to plant butt in typing chair and write, talked a good game, and we did very well for about the first two years. Then I actually started getting commentary on my writing.
The first sign that I was going to be in trouble was on our first anniversary, when I got the cover story in one of our local weekly newspapers. The two of us went to a poetry reading by a friend of hers, and all anyone wanted to ask at the reading was about my article. (This was because it was an April Fool’s article that almost everyone fell for.) It didn’t get bad until the middle of 1996: we’d just moved to Portland, and were staying in a hotel a couple of blocks away from the big Powell’s flagship store. Literally the day we walked in, the latest “Year’s Best Science Fiction” collection was out, and there I was mentioned in the Year In Review essay. Admittedly, it was Gardner Dozois whining about my making fun of Locus when I was a columnist for Tangent, but there was my name in a book by a real publisher, and it just ate out my ex’s heart.
What I dealt with over the next nearly five years is why I tell everyone with delusions of becoming a writer not to get involved with a fellow wannabe if you want the marriage to go well. The problem was that my ex wanted all of what she thought were the perks of being a writer without actually having to write and risk rejection. Therefore, she got an English Lit degree, she paid for multiple writing workshops, she worked for at least five bookstores or publishing-related companies in the time we were together, and started another bookstore after we divorced. It was bad enough when I started getting paid for my articles. It was worse when I was actually being invited to conventions and events because of those articles, because then she became determined that she should get the same level of respect and patronage for being the spouse of a writer. By 1999, her temper tantrums at conventions were so famous that the staff of one convention in New Orleans referred to her as “the Nancy Spungen of fandom.” (This was the convention where she literally went into a bawling fit because my admission badge was ready, but hers wasn’t. Never mind that she decided she wanted to go literally three days before the convention: she proceeded to tell everyone on staff for the entire weekend how unprofessional they were because her badge wasn’t ready, she didn’t get a discount in the dealer’s room, and the convention didn’t have someone at the airport waiting to pick us up.)
I’m not saying I was blameless in all of this: one of the reasons why I quit writing was because I realized how much emotional investment I was putting into work that was so ephemeral and pointless. Back in the day, since I’m a supremely nonpolitical animal, I would get myself worked up to no end about individuals in the genre who were getting recognition all out of proportion to their talent. (In my old age, I realized that the writing is what endures, and many of those shooting stars are now either gone or commonly recognized jokes.) I also realize now why I’m so happy these days: I’m in a much healthier relationship with someone with good self-esteem, and we’re too busy trying to buoy each other’s businesses instead of trying to horn in on it. I’ve realized this, and my biggest regret in life is that my ex will probably never understand why it’s important. Then again, she wasn’t happy until she’d gnawed at the people in her life until they turned on her, in which case she could milk the tragedy for as long as she could.