Lilith Saintcrow

For the past couple weeks the Deadline Dames have been blogging about How We Got Published. We’ve had:

* Dame Devon: How I Got To Where I Am
* Dame Jackie: My Path To Publication
* Dame Rachel: The Echo Of My Own Voice
* Dame Keri: The Long Road To Publication
* Yours truly: The Rocky Road
* Dame Jenna: An Overnight Success
* Dame Kaz: Dark Nights and Brighter Days
* Dame Toni: A Business Analyst Becomes A Novelist

There’s a lot of good stuff there, and frankly I don’t have much to add. Earning a living through writing is a chancy proposition, and certainly not one I’d recommend unless one has near-pathological persistence and a taste for punishment, as well as tolerance for manic-depressive career swings. (I’m only exaggerating slightly here, if at all.)

So why do it? Why on earth would anyone pick this way to make a living?

I can’t speak for anyone else. Why do I do this, then?

I’ve always loved writing. No, that’s not quite accurate. I have always written, ever since I can remember, and sometimes I love it. More often, I write because I am in the habit of writing and I am unable to stop. I compare my urge to write to a socially-acceptable mental disease, and I am only half joking. I am compelled to write, and extraordinarily uncomfortable when I do not write.

Writing is how I’ve chosen to make sense of the world for years now. Writing was my sanity during my childhood and difficult adolescence, my most trusted friend in young adulthood and my faithful ally now. Writing was and is my constant companion, the way I chose to sharpen my skills of observation and expression, the thing that made me feel sane when the world was falling apart. (Or if not sane, then, at least, marginally more able to cope. I’ll take what I can get.)

I write because it feels good. I write because it helps me make sense of the world. I write because there is a pressure inside me, and the writing bleeds that pressure off. I get paid for writing, true–but that’s merely a recent development. My writing life has spanned a good twenty-five years, and it’s only in the last four or so that it’s paid enough to be considered a decent living.

Don’t get me wrong. I love making a living from writing. To be able to make a living from the thing that makes me feel most alive is a gift I will always be grateful for, and one I intend to hang onto for as long as people will read the stories I spin. As Louisa May Alcott once said, I have taken Fate by the throat and I intend to shake a living out of the bitch. I am determined that if my career goes south, it will not be because I’ve given up. It will not be because I’ve stopped trying.

But.

I am going to be writing as long as my body and mind permit such an activity, whether I am paid or not. I cannot not write. I literally don’t feel right if a day happens along that I don’t write. I can only think of a handful of days in the past decade when I haven’t been able to write, and most of that handful have diary entries to mark them, so I’m not sure they count. Writing is just what I do, and if it is an addiction I don’t particularly mind. I don’t know what might happen anymore when I don’t write, simply because any attempt I make not to write during a day results in extremely uncomfortable tension. I wouldn’t hesitate to call it anguish, even.

So, I write because I must. I have grown accustomed to it, it seems, much as I’ve grown accustomed to caffeine.

Yet I also write to please myself. I listen to editors who help me make a book better and I listen to Readers and reviewers, of course. But when it comes right down to it, you have to get something out of the hours a day you sit, day after day, and pour out the words to make a novel. If you’re not getting some pleasure or enjoyment out of the process, it’s not going to end well. When all is said and done, I revise to please my readers, of whatever stripe they be.

I write, I create, solely for my own pleasure. And what a marvelous pleasure it is.

When I was about twelve, I got a set of Mary O’Hara books–the Thunderhead and Green Grass of Wyoming novels. (Curiously, though, I have never read My Friend Flicka.) Thunderhead was a magnificently ugly white horse, and he could run. He didn’t care if it was on a racetrack or with the herd. When he decided to, something would go off inside him, and he would shift into a curious, floating gallop and leave everyone else in the dust.

This made quite an impression on me. Because every day, when I am writing, I feel like I’m doing the thing I was made for. I feel like Thunderhead probably felt when the explosion happened inside him and the gallop took over. Making a living from writing is damn fine, and I don’t ever intend to stop. I’ll do it as long as the Readers let me. Still, like Thunderhead, I don’t care if I’m at the racetrack or a city street, a meadow or a canyon or the surface of the moon. Every day, that explosion goes off inside me…

…and I write. I really can’t see doing anything else.

For what it’s worth, that’s the clearest explanation I can give of why I do what I do. Your mileage may vary. The world is an odd place, and we are forced to make sense of it in whatever way we can. Mine is with words.

What’s yours?

So today we open up the Deadline Dames mailbag, since I’m seriously scraping barrel-bottom on blog post ideas and it’s Friday. I know my brain will serve up other stuff about writing soon, I’ve just been in revision. Which eats a lot of braincycles, believe me.

So, I’ve stolen a question from the mailbag. Other Dames might have different answers, but I figured I’d give my twopence. Said question is from Reader Sara H., and is very interesting:

So, I’d like to write, maybe not as a career, but as a creative outlet, potentially getting to the point where I might try to have something published. I love the research portion of getting ready to write and I have ideas, but getting them onto paper and getting them onto paper in a grammatically correct way is becoming a problem. I have a, History degree, so I can write a fantastic essay about the Nazi art movement or how Martin Luther was the first multi-media rock star, but writing a scene of dialogue or switching POVs makes me want to break out in a cold sweat. I’ve thought about signing up for a creative writing class. Is this a waste of money? Should I maybe just go out and buy a style guide or am I beyond all hope?

Hi, Sara.

Well, you’ve taken the first step, which is realizing that academic or history-essay writing isn’t the same as fiction or genre fiction writing. I like to compare it to sports–different sports use different muscles, and writing in different styles or to different purposes uses different mental “muscles.” You wouldn’t believe how many people who want to write a novel that has a chance of selling don’t grasp that simple, essential fact.

First of all, are you absolutely sure you want to write to publish? Maybe research is all you want to do. If you’re absolutely certain you want to go ahead, think about why. Make a list, verbalize what you want to a trusted person, that sort of thing. A few moments spent discovering your own motivations and what you hope to get out of striving toward publication can be extraordinarily helpful, not least because it can tell you if this is something you really want to do. It’s a lot of hard work.

If you’re sure you want to get something published, and want to develop your novel-writing muscles, then here are some things you can do, and some things you should probably take into account. Ready?

* Treat this goal as a priority. Yeah, I say this a lot. No matter how talented or special you are, the chances of you tossing off a manuscript that will get snapped up first thing are pretty damn small. If you expect just to weekend-warrior it, your chances of getting to the finish line on any novel, not least a publishable novel, are not very high either. Get out your timers, make your lists, do whatever you have to do to prioritize two chunks of your time. One chunk is for researching the novel-writing and publication process. (There’s tons of advice, both at the Deadline Dames and on my own blog, not to mention many others, that can help you here.) The other chunk is for sitting your ass in a chair, putting your fingers on a keyboard, and taking a whack at it. Which brings us to:

* Recognize that there is a learning curve, and your first attempts will suck pretty hard. Just like you didn’t write a 1500-word one-subject essay perfectly the first time, you will not write a reasonable novel weighing in at industry standard (75-120K words, complex plot, characterization, etc., etc.) the first time. You probably will not even get close. Sorry about that. This sort of thing takes practice. For the first two novels, you’re not looking to win or to place. You’re just looking to finish.

* Don’t get bogged down. Do not cough up one novel-sized chunk of text and think you’re done. If you want to get published, endlessly flogging your first attempt at the novel form is not a good way to maximize your chances. It’s like van Gogh stopping after the first painting he ever attempted and declaring that he wouldn’t set brush to canvas again until someone recognized his geeeeenyus and paid him for it. Not only would that not have worked no matter HOW talented dear Vincent was, it also would have deprived the world of his later works.

* Study the form you are attempting. You already read novels, I’m guessing, and since you’re asking the Dames I’m betting you’re reading what you’d like to write–UF, paranormal suspense/romance, etc. If you’re not reading what you’d like to write…start. Set aside time for doing this. Give yourself a couple months to read with no other purpose than enjoyment and familiarity. Then get out a legal pad and a pen while you read, and start writing things down. Write down what works for you in the novels you’re reading, write down what doesn’t, write down what you would have done differently, make a note of typos or continuity errors you find. (You’re not doing this to “catch someone out”–try to avoid the little self-righteous thrill you may receive when you spot a typo or error.) This is to force you to think critically about the form and structure of what you’ll be attempting.

A slight caution here: once you’ve exercised those critical muscles, it might be difficult to go back to reading plainly for pleasure. Sorry about that. This is, incidentally, why I read so much nonfiction–because when I read fiction, I tend to reach for my pen and pad and start making notes as if I’m an editor. *headdesk* A book really has to work to pull me along so I don’t start checking under the hood, so to speak.

* Publishing is hurry up and wait. So’s writing, sometimes. When I finish a manuscript, I have time built into my schedule to set the damn thing aside. I don’t look at it–sometimes for a couple weeks, sometimes for a month or two. This is so when I go back, it’s relatively fresh for me. I have a better chance of reading it critically, of spotting small errors, and of seeing continuity/character problems.

Also, getting an agent or getting a manuscript accepted for publication is so not the end of the road. There are revisions, copyedits, proof pages, cover copy and other decisions, the wait for a release date, then the waiting for “numbers” that may or may not mean the publisher will want another book…in short, writing the manuscript is only the very first step of a long and arduous process. This process will take ten to twenty times more time than you ever dreamed possible. It will wear your nerves down to nubs. You’ve been warned.

Now let’s move along to some nitty-gritty.

* Dialogue is how people talk, but it’s also moving the plot along. Dialogue has to serve three purposes. It has to reveal character. It must also move the plot forward. Not only that, it must not sound clumsy/unreal. This is a tall order! So, to sharpen your ear for dialogue, go to public places (the mall, a casino, etc.), settle down with a coffee and your trusty notebook, and eavesdrop. Listen to how people speak. Listen to what they don’t say. Get your favorite movies and “watch” them–blindfolded. Listen to the dialogue and think about how it reveals character, see if you can tell what the people onscreen are doing by what they’re saying. Read your own dialogue out loud and think, really think about if it advances the plot and sounds like something a Real Person would say.

Real People talk with “um”s and “uh”s and “yeah”s and all sorts of other placeholders. People in books or movies can’t do that without a VERY good reason. Ideally a piece of dialogue gives you a mental snapshot of how a character’s thinking or feeling AND gives you information/impetus to move the story along. Sounds difficult, right? That’s because it is. Listen and practice, and your dialogue will get better.

* POV must be a conscious choice–you must know WHY you’ve chosen a particular POV. When I write in 1st, I have a small keyhole through which I–and the reader–must view the world I’ve created. That tight focus allows for immersion into a character, an immersion that theoretically makes it easier for the reader to identify with/feel for the main character.

The problem with 1st is that I must show other characters doing things and responding in a way that the reader will recognize but that the narrator may not. When I write in 3rd, I have much greater leeway and a broader “scope”, but I have to work twice as hard to show what my hero/ine is really thinking or feeling–and three times as hard to get the reader to identify with and care for said hero/ine. Each is a tradeoff, and you won’t know which is right for a story until you’ve practiced with both and understand the limitations and advantages of both. This is, incidentally, a big reason why anyone’s first finished manuscript pretty much sucks. This takes time and practice to figure out.

Opinion time: I have read ONE book in my life where the author pulled off multiple 1st-person POVs and made them work. (This was Peter Beagle’s The Innkeeper’s Song, if you’re interested.) If you have to cheat by throwing in another character’s POV two-thirds of the way through the book because there’s information your main character/reader can’t get in any other way? Unless you’re extraordinarily skilled AND talented, I’m going to call that a cheat and you’re going to lose me. It’s jarring, and I dislike it intensely. This is why I say POV must be a conscious choice–you’ve got to know why you’re doing it, and play to the strengths that particular POV gives you while figuring out a way around its limitations.

* A class might be a good idea. Or it might not. We all know how I feel about workshops, classes, and agendas. The only two creative-writing classes I was ever in were run by petty tyros who got off on destroying their students emotionally. On the other hand, I’ve run a couple writing classes myself, and they seem to have gone OK. (You’d have to ask the Scupperlout if I was a petty tyro, though.)

If you really want to take a class or a workshop, go into it prepared to learn–but not necessarily to learn about writing. Classes and workshops are more often about someone’s emotional agenda than about information-sharing; that can be great material. There are exceptions, but my personal advice is that the time is better spent writing and the money is better spent on postage or research on the market.

I could go on–especially about style guides and reference books–but this post is already a monster. Sara, you asked a very complex and interesting question, probably far more complex than you really knew. I hope this helps. You’re the only person who can decide if the goal of writing to publication is for you, and you’re the only person who can write yourself there. A lot of it is hard thankless work, but you do get a few chuckles along the way.

Good luck!

Crossposted to the Deadline Dames.

It’s been a rough year. To say the least. Major Life Changes, some I talk about here and some I don’t, have come thick and fast. Eight months ago I wasn’t sure I’d make it. Three months ago I saw light at the end of the tunnel. A month ago I decided I was, in fact, okay and going to stay that way.

I’ve been writing all the while.

On Wednesday I finished the zero draft of the fifth Strange Angels book. I never leave the keyboard after I finish something, whether it be a chapter or a whole piece, so I opened up the next Jill Kismet book and tinkered on it a bit. Then I dragged my weary self to bed, nerves jumping and the flywheel that was powering the story still sparking and fizzing inside my head. Finishing a book is like that, for me–there’s a nervous sense of all that energy and focus bleeding away but not nearly fast enough to let me rest, everything in me raw and quivering. It’s kind of like the adrenaline aftermath of a crisis, before your body gets the memo that everything’s over and it can collapse.

I lay in bed, and I realized with a start that I’d actually finished three books since my life began to implode last May. I was afraid during each one that I wouldn’t be able to get to the end, that the crises would rob me of needed energy to finish or that without the fuel of adrenaline and pain I wouldn’t be able to write something good. This is a perfect example of the irrationality of severe stress, because I was afraid of contradictory things at the same time. Telling myself it was irrational did not help, because then I felt crazy. The only thing that helped was the habit of looking at what needed to be finished first, putting my head down, and plowing through. Breakdowns, crying jags, and dealing with the minutiae and paperwork of a life undergoing massive changes was all very well, but I had wordcount to achieve.

I was so afraid I wouldn’t make my deadlines. There’s no shame in admitting I was terrified. Would I lose my edge or my empathy for my characters if I wasn’t miserable? Would I have to find another job because the writing would suddenly fail? Would my editors look askance at the manuscripts I turned in and gently tell me, “This is unpublishable…just go away”?

I was afraid of all that, and more.

Yet I finished three books. My editors liked the first two as much as they’ve liked anything else, revisions were just the same as they always were. The third has to rest before I can make any judgment, but I suspect it will be no worse than any other messy, terrible, hole-filled zero draft.

Time and again I keep coming back to the simple fact that writing is what I was meant and made to do. I can’t imagine living without it. And writing keeps saving me long after it feels like the rest of the world’s given up. All I have to do is show up, and the Muse is there. As long as I suit up and start swinging, she keeps feeding me the balls. My end of the bargain is simply to make writing a daily priority, and writing takes care of the rest. It is my life-raft, my safety line, my rope, my net, the way I make sense of the world and the way the world makes sense of me.

At the rock wall on Thursday, one young man could barely get four feet off the ground. Shaking, sweating, but grimly determined, he would clip in and climb those four feet. The belayer on duty encouraged him each time. “It doesn’t matter how high you climb. It just matters that you get on the wall. It’s okay. Take your time. It’s not a race or a contest.”

Watching that, I thought of where I was months ago, too frightened to reach the top of the wall. Clinging, terrified, to any hold I could reach, despite marked routes. Just getting into my harness and clipping onto the rope was a victory. Just putting my hands on the wall was another. The actual climbing? A series of small victories. And I thought, as I dusted my hands with chalk and glanced at my belayer, real courage isn’t fearlessness. It’s trusting yourself despite the fear.

I keep coming back to this essential fact, over and over again. Writing has taught me this much, and writing keeps patiently reteaching me when I forget, as I frequently do. Sometimes I feel like an idiot when I realize that once again, I’ve proven to myself that all I have to do is show up and be ready to work, and the writing takes care of the rest.

I suppose I’d feel a lot more idiotic if I actually quit.

So here’s what I have to say this morning. Do that thing you love. Don’t stop. It doesn’t have to be writing. It’s whatever your thing is. But do it. Show up and swing. Get into the habit of doing it during the good times, so it can carry you through the bad. I can promise you that you will surprise yourself. You will eventually get to the top of the wall. You will eventually get to the end of the book. You will eventually get to wherever you need to go. That thing you love, that thing you do, it’s endlessly faithful. As long as you’re in there swinging, the Muse or whatever else will be right there with you. It’s not a contest; it’s not about winning. Or if it is, winning might not be what you think it is.

To me, right now, the winning is just showing up. It is looking back and realizing that once again, writing has saved my life, because I cared enough to show up every damn day. Even when I was half-dead of heartbreak, even when bathing or feeding myself seemed like an insurmountable obstacle, even when I didn’t know how I was going to get through another five minutes without the pain eating me whole, the writing was always there. The writing, for me, will always be there.

I kind of feel like a goober for doubting it.

Over and out.

Or actually, NOT over and out. I promised a giveaway of Jealousy, due to release on July 29. So here’s the rules: comment over at the Deadline Dames, by midnight PST on Sunday, July 11, (do NOT comment here!) and with the help of Random.org I will pick two winners to receive signed copies of Jealousy. I can only ship to those in the US; sorry about that, but that’s the way it is.

Good luck!

Crossposted to the Deadline Dames. Check out Readers On Deadline and Dame Toni’s excellent post this past week!

Writing is a lonely job.

Yes, you have to deal with people. You have to be personable and professional. You do have to know how to deal with editors, agents, fellow writers, and fans. You go to conventions, you go to signings, you use social-networking because marketing means you must. But that’s only a small (albeit significant) part of a writer’s career. The icing on the cupcake, as it were.

The rest of that cupcake is you and the words. You, sitting in front of your typewriter or keyboard, you with the pen in your hand and the blank paper in front of you. You, you, you.

Nobody else.

This is why I say writing is a lonely job. Even while collaborating, YOU have to do YOUR part of the work. It doesn’t get done by itself. YOU need to carve out time to get YOUR work done. You need to make sure you have the emotional and physical resources to spend on the writing–because writing, like any other activity, takes energy. You must fill the well you’re drawing on, or you’re courting burnout. Which is no fun.

Writing, like any creative endeavor, requires a certain amount of solitude.

We all know about the lone, creative artist. Solitude is an important route to creativity; indeed, research on creative and talented teenagers suggests that the most talented youngsters are those who treasure their solitude. However, the artist in all of us must risk disconnection, for forging a happy and worthwhile life—and navigating through that life fully and gracefully—is itself a creative act. –Ester Buchholz, Psychology Today

Yes, I have a point. I am edging my way toward it, because you’ve all heard me say this before. Here it is:

If you want to have a long-term sustainable career as a writer, a critical component is prioritizing the time you need not only to write, but to be alone with your thoughts, alone with yourself. Solitude is not a luxury, it is a necessity and prerequisite. The responsibility for getting it is yours.

Writers, especially women writers, are used to mortgaging bits of themselves. There’s the day job, and the kids, and the Significant Other, and the bills, and the minutiae of daily life. It’s easy for writing to get lost in the shuffle, to fall through the cracks, for you to say “I’ll get around to it when…” When the dog gets better, when the kids grow up and don’t need me, when the grass doesn’t need mowing, when the groceries don’t need to be picked up, in a little bit, tomorrow, not today, some other time.

These are the little nibbles that eventually end up killing our souls. Or less dramatically, killing the strength and time we need to write.

Did I feel guilty when I ignored the laundry so I could finish a book? You bet. Did I feel terrible each time I was interrupted during a crucial scene by a diaper emergency or some other damn thing and I felt a flash of resentment? Yes. Do I even now sometimes feel like a bad mother/person because I do things purely to keep myself awake and alive (in Peter Gabriel’s words), when I should be sacrificing every moment and every waking thought to someone else’s needs? Sure. Do I feel bad that I’m apparently such a selfish bitch that I sometimes need ten minutes to myself? Oh, hell yes.

I’d feel even guiltier if I let the writing slide. I don’t have the luxury of stopping now, because I’m a single mother and this is how I support my kids. In order to work effectively and turn out books some people (apparently, so far, knock on wood) want to buy, I need certain things. One of those things is a certain measure of solitude. I have skirted the edge of burnout and found out it’s not a place I like to be; it interferes with my ability to meet deadlines. So, even if it takes barricading the bathroom door (and since I’ve had toddlers and I still have neurotic cats, actual barricading is sometimes necessary) I’ve learned that taking some solitude is a necessary evil.

Bukowski once remarked that he needed solitude the way other men needed bread. I am not nearly the misanthrope he had the reputation of being, but I understand the principle. I have had to fight not only against the needs of people I’ve lived with, friends and companions, but against my own feeling of selfishness when I say, “No. I need time for myself.” I engage in the battle because writing matters to me, and having the time and energy to write matters to me. (Not least because it’s how I pay the rent.)

No day is so busy you can’t set aside ten minutes to write. Ten minutes of effort every day is better than saying “I’ll write for hours tomorrow, or the day after, or when this crisis is over, or when I have time…” Don’t weekend-warrior it. Little chunks of daily effort will help send the signal to yourself that you are serious about this writing thing, and that you have a right to be serious about it. That you have a right to do something you love for a small amount of time each day. This can be a stepping stone to larger chunks of time, or you may find out that you’d rather weave baskets or something during those ten minutes.

I should probably warn you about this, too. Treating writing as a priority (and getting in the habit of not getting derailed) has a funny way of helping you enforce healthy boundaries in other areas of your life. In sick systems, including some relationships, you’re not supposed to set boundaries. You are supposed to be ever available, a resource to be thoughtlessly used and discarded. Setting boundaries and enforcing them may have unexpected consequences. Someone who has depended on you to be available and self-sacrificing 24-7 may see this tiny slice of time for yourself as a direct threat. It happens, and it’s not pretty.

Not every writer’s situation is so dire. Your true friends will understand when you occasionally say, “Not now,” or “Not today.” They will feel a momentary disappointment, but then they’ll go on to star in their own lives for the rest of the day. Most of the time, pretty much everyone you say “no” to on a daily basis will get over it. Your own feelings of “I should, I should” are much more insidious, much harder to deal with, and much more dangerous.

In the end, you are the only person who can decide how much solitude you need, how important it is, how to get it, and what the consequences are likely to be. You are the only person who can decide if it’s worth the price, the work, and the effort. This is a lonely job, but at bottom it’s not really any lonelier than the choice you make to keep getting up in the morning and going into an office or to any other job. It’s just that the independent-contractor aspect of writing lays that choice a little more starkly bare.

This is all up to you.

It is indeed a lonely job. But I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Even if it is–slowly, grudgingly, fighting through my stubbornness–teaching me how to live.

But that’s (say it with me) another blog post.

Over and out.

It’s time for a Friday post. But this Friday, I’m going to do something a little different.

From now until teatime–4pm PST here at Casa Saintcrow–I’ll be checking in over at the Deadline Dames regularly and answering your questions about writing in the comments. I figure most of you have listened to me pontificate for long enough, and this will also give me an idea of what sorts of things you’d like me to cover in future Friday Writing posts.

Now, we’ve got to have some rules (more like guidelines) to keep things from devolving into anarchy, right? I like anarchy as much as the next girl, but the guidelines, they are a necessary evil.

RulesGuidelines

* Comments are closed here. Go to the Deadline Dames site HERE and ask your questions.
* Play nice. I reserve the right to ban or delete.
* The subject today is writing. If you have questions about my work, check my FAQ.
* Don’t ask me if I’ll read your novel/short/query/whatever or do critique. Please.
* You guys know me. My advice is geared toward the people who want to hopefully aim for making a living from writing for publication. If your aims are different, fine–but keep in mind I’m going to answer according to my lights.
* No honest question is too silly. But please understand if I fall behind on replies–it’s not personal, I have a finite amount of time today.
* Have some fun and offer your own expertise! Mine is not the only route, and I’ll get just as much from this as you will.

All right. You’ve got some questions, I’ll answer as best I can. Pick my brain. Let’s tango.