What I have to do, what I want to do

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I revised chapter 2 of Trust and gave it to a writers' group to look over. And it was fun!

I mention that it was fun because to be honest, I forget about that sometimes. I bother writing at this point in my life because I enjoy it. For whatever reason (overactive superego?), it's easy for me to lose track of that, especially for something like a novel, which is a big project with lots of deadlines. I mean, writing a novel is certainly a lot of work, but sometimes I forget that this is work I enjoy.

I've always written, and until quite recently I always wrote for a living. Things changed for me rather suddenly last year, and now I no longer have to write in order to survive. And my thought was not, "Now I don't have to write!" It was, "Now I don't have to write commercial stuff!"

There's still a lot of stuff I have to do that I don't really enjoy--I don't think you ever really get away from obligations in life unless you're an incredibly irresponsible sociopath (which, for the record, I am not). For example, right now, a hell of a lot of my time and mental energy is being taken up by my rain gutters. This follows a surprisingly lengthy and complicated campaign to get the smell of cat pee out of my living room. Neither is a particularly edifying or entertaining focus.

Although some of this is unavoidable, I think there's something to be said for what Unclutterer calls living as close as possible to your ideal self--i.e. trying to manage as much as possible to spend your time doing what you really like, instead of doing what you think you ought to do (or what you think you ought to like).

Which brings me around to marketing. I met a self-published writer the other day who has been marketing herself very aggressively to local media outlets--and with great success. So of course I felt guilty I wasn't doing that. And then I was looking at Goodreads and feeling guilty that I wasn't on there, plus I'm now following Dr. Grumpy on Twitter, which means that I'm not exactly focusing on Twitter's potential as a marketing tool, so there's some more guilt.

But finally I realized that I don't want to do all that! I really, really don't want to spend my time marketing and marketing and MARKETING AND MARKETING until finally I am so unbelievably sick of this whole book-publishing-and-marketing nightmare that I'd rather hang myself than crank out another fucking title that I will then have to go MARKET!!! And you know, if I were in a situation where I needed to sell a gazillion copies or I would starve to death, then I would certainly suck it up. But I'm not.

I think it's worth it to send out review copies (if only for the ego boost I get from a positive review), and once I get Trust out I'll noodle with pricing and some advertising. But those things are basically one-shot deals--you send out copies, set a price, and buy an ad, and then you pretty much forget about it. You don't have to run around constantly buttering a bunch of strangers up in hopes that they'll like you enough on a personal level to support you.

Non-alpha-male heroes

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[This is an old post from 2007.]

I am reading Young Miles by Lois Bujold. Because the hero of my book is really not the alpha-male type (and in the current crappy state of traditional sci-fi publishing, that means the book is not a commercial book), I've been getting recommendations for other sci-fi books that don't feature alpha males.

The first book like this I read was Foreigner by C.J. Cherryh. The hero of that book is, like the hero of my book, a diplomat. But while Foreigner is quite good when things are actually happening, I found the hero to be just too damned passive. His life is in danger, he doesn't know why, and he is surrounded by people he can't trust. For roughly 200 pages there isn't a lot of plot action, and all the hero does is meditate on the fact that his life is in danger and wondering why that is, while the people he can't trust pass him around like he was a sack of potatoes. Their doing so only leads him to contemplate the fact that he can't trust them and that they may very well be passing him around like a sack of potatoes for some nefarious end (ya think?)--not that he's going to do anything about it. It's almost as bad as the movie The Pianist, which put me as close as I have ever been to rooting for the Nazis to kill someone, but at least Cherryh’s hero doesn’t take it for granted that everyone else will risk their lives in order to protect his, which is more than I can say for the pathologically self-centered "hero" of that movie.

Bujold's Miles Vorkosigan stories feature a different kind of non-alpha-male--Miles is seriously physically handicapped. But he’s extremely ambitious, he’s an enormous risk-taker, he uses what advantages he has (a title, some money) to their limit, and so far, Young Miles is a lot of fun. It's also more of a madcap adventure story than Foreigner, so in some sense it's probably not fair to complain that one hero is less enjoyable than the other, but at least I don't find myself thinking that maybe Miles deserves to bite it. Even the famously non-alpha, indecisive, sensitive Hamlet caused trouble in the court, drove his girlfriend to suicide, and left a trail of bodies in his wake. He didn't just sit there, moaning "What can I do?"

Stopping and thinking also have value

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I've mentioned how taking a break helped me when I was stalling on Trust (not that you'll be able to tell this week that I'm not stalled--it turns out that there's some more end-of-school-year stuff to do). But I'm going to argue here in favor of taking another kind of break: Taking a break earlier in the writing process to figure out just what the hell it is you're going to write about.

What happens sometimes (and this is encouraged by things like NaNoWriMo, which is part of the reason I've never participated in it) is that people get extremely focused on quantity (50,000 words in a month! 2,000 words each day, minus five days off!) over quality. These people are very, very diligent and disciplined and work very, very hard churning out all these words.

And they produce a wad of directionless crap.

Now, I am all for cranking out a barely legible first draft and then fixing it. That's how I work. I probably threw out 30,000 words on my first revision of Trust. But I have NEVER produced anything of any substantial length without an outline. NEVER. I certainly came up with new ideas while writing Trust, but I did not start writing it not knowing what it was about, not knowing what the major themes were (spoiler: It's called Trust), not knowing who the main characters were, or not knowing how it was going to end.

I would never just sit down and write a long piece, because I think setting off half-cocked is a tremendous waste of time (and as a freelancer I got paid per article, so the quicker I could crank them out the more money I made). And the fact of the matter is, you have to have even more discipline to chuck stuff out after you've produced it. Once you've written something, it's easy to get attached to it, especially if you made this huge push and didn't sleep or socialize for the entire month of November in order to meet your 50,000-word quota. No one wants to hear, "Sorry, dude, back to the drawing board!" after that--it's like going on a huge diet and being very good and losing 80 pounds, and then having the doctor tell you that, no, you did it the wrong way, you need to gain back 70 pounds and then lose it again. But good job on those 10 pounds! The doctor really liked those, and he thinks you show great promise.

In other words: Writing is hard. It's hard! It is hard to write something well, especially something long. And that, fundamentally, is my problem with the whole "Be free! Get inspired! Just sit down and WRITE something!" line. I mean, yes, you do need to actually sit down and write if you're ever going to write anything, but it's not like jaunting off to Aruba for the weekend--it's work. It's hard work, and you need to be ready for that.

That was useful

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I gave the first chapter of Trust to a writers' group and got the feedback today. As I've mentioned, with a second book you have so many Exposition Options:

Option #1: Character background
Option #2: Situation background
Option #3: What happened in Book 1
Option #4: What's happening now in Book 2

And it's basically impossible for me to figure out how much of what to put in. So this was really valuable, because it let me know that I had a maybe little too much of #1 and not enough of #3 and #4.

The problem with having a good feedback session is that you immediately want to go to LOTS of groups to get TONS of feedback, and the problem with that is that you have to give to receive (or at least I'd feel like a jerk if I didn't). In order to participate in a writers' group, you need to read a bunch of other people's work, ideally carefully and thoughtfully, and that takes time--time you aren't spending writing. So, while I do think it's worth doing, I also want to sort of ration my participation.

Anyway, I haven't been doing much work the past week because it's the end of the school year, which is a really busy time. But this upcoming week should be a little better.

Plugging along

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I got more editing of Trust done today--nothing too exciting to blog about, although I definitely prefer this to back when I wasn't getting anything done.

To keep this post interesting, I'm going to outsource the entertainment to the Comics Curmudgeon archive of Pluggers cartoon. Because I used the word "plugging" in my title. See? It's a theme....

P.S. Today, I finally steamed the rug. I got around to it only because the cats were a little irresponsible while I was away.

So, what am I doing?

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I was off on a trip to visit relatives, and now I'm back. It's amazing the amount of piddly chore-type crap that accumulates when you go away, right? Anyway, when I was visiting, I showed someone that essay on book production, and it turns out because I used some odd fonts as section heads, it basically looks like crap on anyone else's computer. Duh...so I fixed that. I also decided that that quote from the New Podler review would work best at the beginning of the book descriptions, so I went back and re-edited them all. I'm also going to give the first chapter of Trust to a writers' group this week, so today I polished that up.

In other words, I'm doing a lot of piddly crap!

I got reviewed in New Podler!

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So, all that sending Trang out to review blogs paid off--I got a nice one by David Drazul on The New Podler Review of Books.

Ever since receiving a "magna plus!" on my senior thesis by someone who clearly did not even remotely get it (he liked it because he was the department's token Southerner--he wasn't the only Southerner, he was just the token one--and I wrote about Eudora Welty), I've distinguished between positive reviews and good reviews. In a way, it's more annoying to get a positive review that is bad ("I like Trang because this guy named Patch has weed tattooed on his arms. Wouldn't it be awesome if weed tattoos actually, like, got you high? And then you'd, like, be high all the time? Because tattoos don't wear off? That would be awesome. I really loved this book, man.") than a really insightful review by someone who, in the end, didn't like the work--I mean, I doubt the latter sort of thing helps sales, but at least you can respect it. (Actually, come to think of it, it might help sales anyway--I've certainly checked out things after reading negative reviews if the reviewer was made to think.)

Drazul's review, I thought, was both fairly positive (and it gave me a good pull quote, which I certainly appreciate--"Trang is a clever return to the social sci-fi days of yesteryear" is everywhere now), and it was good. He has my number: I'm not interested in how the technology works, and I have a main character who couldn't tell you even if I was. I put a lot of effort into the dialog (and, see--the cussing is important for purposes of story!), and one of the little underlying themes is that the Special Forces are almost as alien to Trang as the actual aliens. I was rather obviously inspired by the social sci-fi of Star Trek and Babylon 5--I love that kind of thing. (District 9, Firefly...ah.)

I also don't doubt that an editor or at least a real copy editor would have improved the book--that's true of everybody, and it's much, much easier to edit and proofread someone else's work rather than your own. (Although I don't think I'd do a hard-core edit at this point--I know people do that, because nowadays you can without too much trouble, but it seems weird to me to have two markedly different versions of the same book floating around.) Hopefully now that I'm poking around writers' groups I can connect with someone...well, apparently someone like me who isn't me who would be willing to proofread. We'll see.

Eh, might was well write off another entire genre.....

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I haven't read much Stephen King--I read a couple of short stories in college, wasn't impressed, and never went back. I was feeling a little guilty about that (his novels tend to be very long, which always makes it less likely I'll risk a read if I'm not sure I'll enjoy it), so I recently read The Green Mile.

And you know, it was pretty good--definitely good prose--but I feel like it would have been better if it hadn't been written by someone whose name is pretty much synonymous with horror fiction.

I've mentioned that I'm not a huge fan of romance, and I have a similar ambivalence about horror. Some horror is good, but a lot of it is very formulaic.

For example, I had heard that Clive Barker is a top-notch horror writer, so I picked up one of his short story collections. And he is a fantastic prose stylist, but the plots of his stories could pretty much all be summarized thusly:

Story #1: Farmer John Works in the Field
I. Farmer John is working in the field.
II. A HORRIBLE MONSTER comes along.
III. Everybody dies.

Story #2: Dick and Jane Go to School
I. Dick and Jane go to school.
II. A HORRIBLE MONSTER comes along.
III. Everybody dies.

Story #3: Joe and Moe Go on Vacation
I. Joe and Moe go on vacation.
II. A HORRIBLE MONSTER comes along.
III. Everybody dies.

In other words, there was a certain sameness...to the degree that when I came across the occasional story where everybody did not die, it was very exciting. I don't think this is because I am squeamish--I loved Hyperion, and pretty horrible things happen in that book--so much as that I do get bored fairly easily, especially if I know exactly how something is going to end.

Also, if you look at those story summaries, you have two kinds of characters: The HORRIBLE MONSTER, and the cannon fodder. Is there going to be much character development there? Any kind of arc? No--HORRIBLE MONSTERS don't change, and cannon fodder doesn't matter. (Predictability and a lack of character development are also why I don't particularly enjoy plays like Into the Woods or movies like Reservoir Dogs where you just sit and watch the characters get picked off. Add a twist, like Keyser Söze, and things get interesting again.)

Of course, sometimes a noted horror writer like Stephen King produces a book like The Green Mile where everybody doesn't die. What to do then? Well, apparently the answer is to make everybody wish they were dead, because even though this isn't a horror book, for some reason we are still in the horror universe where nothing good can possibly ever happen. So you have a bunch of people murder someone, but it's OK, because the world is such a horrible place that he's better off dead, and then you have someone miraculously given near-perfect health and a long life, but that just makes him miserable, because the world is such a horrible place that he's better off dead. Where's a HORRIBLE MONSTER when you need one?

Seriously? Near-perfect health and he's complaining? What a whiner! Someone is in desperate need of a gratitude journal.....

What style is right for you?

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See, to me a question like that should be about literary style--you know, does the person use long sentences or short ones, is their writing lyrical, that sort of thing. But if you are proofreading, style means, essentially, correct grammar, punctuation, and the like. A professional proofreader reads for style as well as spelling and typos--which doesn't mean that if your writing sucks, they'll make it better (unless it's obviously awkward or incomprehensible, in which case they'll suggest improvements).

Why people who write books on grammar like to call it style, I do not know. I assume it's because language is a human creation, so when we talk about rules of grammar, we're just talking about rules that people have agreed on. Different people prefer different rules. So, the English put commas everywhere--that is their style--and Americans don't. But it's not like there's some law of physics out there preventing you from using no commas or nothing but commas--you can if you like (just don't get all whiny when no one understands what the hell it is you're trying to say).

In the publishing biz, there are two dominant style guides: The Chicago Manual of Style and The AP Stylebook. Chicago style is used by book publishers, while AP style is used by newspapers and magazines. Actually, to be precise, Chicago preferred style is used by book publishers.

What am I talking about? Well, let me describe The Chicago Manual of Style: It is roughly the size a dictionary. It is a reference book designed for professional proofreaders--it is supposed to be on your desk at all times, and you are to look things up in it to see if they are correct.

Once you do, Chicago is going to give you the entire story surrounding your grammar conundrum. Wanna know if it's "Douglas' dog" or "Douglas's dog"?* Chicago will give you no fewer than three different version of the rules to chose among: One version says that "Douglas'" is correct, and two versions say "Douglas's" is correct. One of these rules ("Douglas's," unless he is actually Jesus or Moses) is their preferred rule.

So, really, you can use Chicago one of two ways: You can follow Chicago preferred style, or you can rely on Chicago to tell you the outer limits of what is acceptable ("Douglas's dog" or "Douglas' dog" but NOT "Douglas' came over for dinner," or God forbid, "Douglas's came over for dinner"). If you have some stylistic quirks that you are really attached to, take a look in Chicago--chances are that if it's even remotely acceptable somewhere, it's in there, and then you're covered.

The main problem I find with Chicago is that even Chicago preferred style is full of weird little exception (like "Jesus'" and "Moses'"), and as a result, it is hard to memorize. This is NOT true of The AP Stylebook. AP was written for reporters who cover breaking news. They can't carry around a damned dictionary, and they don't have time to look up some damned rule--they have a deadline to meet. NOW. Wondering about Douglas and his dog? It's "Douglas' dog," period. End of story. On to the next rule.

A lot of writerly types whine about AP style because they feel like it's less literate, less traditional, less booky, less beautiful, less individual, less whatever. But it's easy to learn, which is no small thing if you are trying to produce clean copy. When I worked in publishing, the only people who really knew Chicago preferred style were the copy editors. In contrast, I would say that just about everyone who works in journalism in any sort of writing capacity carries AP style around in their head--I certainly do.

Obviously, you can have your own preferences (I do--look at that footnote down by the asterisk), and if you are writing speculative fiction, or fiction about children, or fiction set in a community that uses non-standard grammar, you may have to make up your own rules, just as you may have to make up words. There's also a lot of drama to be had by deliberately breaking the rules (for example, when a character is breaking down under stress). But if you give the impression that you never had any idea what the rules were to begin with, that's a problem: You may think that you're so very brilliant that you don't have to follow the rules, but you shouldn't expect the same indulgence from readers.

* Bonus points if you noticed my random use of British style here! I like to put punctuation outside the quotation marks when it's not actually part of the quotation, which is not the traditional American way. I was kind of sneakily doing it before I read Eats, Shoots & Leaves (which is a very entertaining book on grammar by a Brit) and was thoroughly convinced that the British way really does make a lot more sense. Now I'm trying to set a trend....

Hiatus is over, baby! (At least for a little while)

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Yeah, I edited the beejebus out of Chapter 1 today! Whoo-hoo! It's honestly a big help just to know that I'll be giving it to a writers' group, because it makes The Reader (specifically The Reader Who Hasn't Read Trang) more concrete.

I'm going to have to take another break in a couple of days because of some family obligations, but I'm happy just to be, you know, refreshed and recharged and ready to write. There's a scene in Mad Men where Don Draper says that, when you do creative work, the times of no productivity have to happen, otherwise the times of productivity don't. Since I've generally made a living as a writer and not as a bohemian or fashionably tortured artiste, I tend to look askance at that kind of thing, since it can be used to rationalize endless procrastination. But I guess sometimes ol' Don Draper is right.

E-readers and "print" media

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This is a really interesting article from The New York Times. It's one of these articles that at first glance is about something really simple--chicks like to read their magazines on the Nook Color--but it also touches on some really interesting questions, like, Do people want a single-purpose simple gadget, or an all-purpose Swiss-Army-knife gadget? and, How will Barnes & Noble survive? (Apparently by selling a better gadget. I've said this before, but there's a lot of denial out there on the Interwebs, primarily by people who don't know squat about business, so I'll say it again: B&N is not even pretending that it can survive as a traditional bookseller.)

The thing that makes me happy is that a traditional print media now has a little electronic gadget that promotes its use. If you think of people trying to figure out how to spend their limited leisure time, print used to have this big advantage--you could pick up a nice, portable book/magazine/newspaper any time and get your story. But over the past few decades, a tremendous amount of technology has gone into making things like video and music easier to use: It became common to have devices in the home that let you watch or listen, and then it became possible to watch or listen whenever you wanted to, and to top it all off, music and video became extremely portable.

At this point, if you have the right kind of little device, you can watch or listen to whatever you want, whenever you want, wherever you want, without expending too much effort (and it's only going to get cheaper and easier). Indeed, while print used to have the advantage of portability and interruptability (?? not a word, is that? I mean you can put a something you're reading down and start it up again whenever), it is now at a disadvantage--you have to make a special trip to a bookstore or library or newsstand to get something to read. But if you can get whatever reading material you want on some electronic device that you are already carrying around with you (like your phone), well, then, that's at least going to even the playing field. Given the size advantage of print files over, say, video files, it may even tilt it back toward print. This is why, although e-publishing is going to suck for people who work in traditional publishing, for people who write, or read, or just think everyone else should read more, e-publishing is not a bad thing.

You like to think of your talent as your own, but....

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[This is another old post, from 2009.]

In my career, I've worked places where the best writing was encouraged, and in places where it was actively discouraged--where you were supposed to produce material that was bone-dry, or where sloppiness was encouraged, or where every story was supposed to follow the same format, no matter what. Not shockingly, the places I enjoyed working the most were the places where I produced the best writing. That was not simply because I like to win things or because I like to be challenged, but also because the people were just plain better to work with--they were smarter and more pleasant and didn't spend their time trying to kick everyone down to some allegedly desirable level of mediocrity. I remember when I applied to journalism school looking at the material I had produced during a fairly lengthy spell at a place where good writing was actively discouraged, and realizing that I would never send any of that material anywhere as a writing sample, because it was all God-awful. I also realized that, if I was interested in pursuing writing as a career, this would be something I would need to pay attention to--not just looking at a job as a paycheck, but looking at it as a source of clips. ("Clips," for the normal people, is a term used to mean the articles you actually write--and then clip out of the paper to show, say, your mom or potential future employers.)

Anyway, my point is that the place you work for can really affect the quality of your writing. I've recently discovered the Web site of a writer friend of mine who I have lost touch with, and this person has posted a lot of their clips on the site. A lot of this person's older work was for a publication that clearly put a premium on good writing, and those stories are quite good. But a lot of their newer work is for a publication that clearly does not--the newer stuff reads a lot like what is called "notebook dumping," which is what happens when a reporter just dumps everything from their notebook onto the page without organizing and pruning and massaging it into a proper story with a beginning, middle, and end, and all that good stuff.

I'm a little worried because this person is both a good reporter and a good writer, and they have a book coming out fairly soon, and I want it to be a good book that makes them more successful, not a clunker. The bad habits you pick up writing for kind of crappy publications can really screw you up (and the crappiness of a publication is not necessarily directly related to how much they pay, which complicates the issue even more when you're trying to make a living as a writer).

Who is The Reader?

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So, the other day, I was schooling a new writer in the personality and quirks of a strange and ominous character known as The Reader.

Who is The Reader?

The Reader is the person who you write for. ("I write for myself" is code for "my writing sucks.")

Despite your dedication to The Reader, The Reader does not love you back--it's very unfair, I know. But The Reader has many, many other things to do with his or her time than read the work you've just bled out on the page to create. Tell The Reader, even subtly, not to read your work, and he's off watching professional wrestling and getting his girlfriend pregnant. Bore The Reader for a moment, and she's off getting pregnant, only to drop out of high school and wind up on welfare for the rest of her pathetic life.

The Reader is you when you were 10 years old, lying in the back yard, reading Jean Kerr and thinking to yourself, This is how you communicate with people.

The Reader is not educated. The Reader has no prior knowledge. But, although The Reader is utterly ignorant, The Reader is not stupid. Don't talk down to The Reader, s/he will resent it.

The Reader is an emergency responder. The Reader is taking the train home from an extremely draining job. The Reader has no need for your nonsense or issues. The Reader has no obligation to know or love the real you. But The Reader needs your book. The Reader need a world to enter, a way to enter it, and some escape. The escape may be simply a get-away; the escape may be a lesson in disguise; but your book must be, in either case, a genuine escape--easy to enter, diverting to be in, and hard to leave.

A thousand little decisions

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[Another repost! This one's from 2008.]

One of the things I used to HATE was having editors ask to see a rough draft of something. I'd always warn them, It's a rough draft, it's going to suck! I'd ask if I could avoid doing this, and they would assure me that they totally were going to understand.

And without fail, I'd always get this really intense reaction of surprise and displeasure because it was a rough draft, and therefore, it sucked. (I also got really hilarious questions, like, Was I going to take care of the part that reads, "XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX FIX ME XXXXXXXXXXXXX FUCK FUCK"? No, I just figured it could go into print like that.)

Polishing is really key, and it's what separates the good stuff from the rest of it. And it is polishing--you rough out the main points, and then you go back and make it good. So people want to know why what you're giving them isn't shiny and smooth and beautiful, like the stuff you usually give them after you've had time to polish, and it just makes me want to scream. (Let's just say, when Joss Whedon let us crazy Browncoats get an advance peek at the rough cut of Serenity, and some people were like, Why does it suuuuck? Why isn't it great like his finished product always is? I really, really felt for him.) Do you pull a cake out of the oven halfway through and then complain about the texture?

Anyway, the inspiration for this rant is the movie La Femme Nikita, which I finally saw. I saw the English-language remake Point of No Return when I was in my 20s, and I totally did not understand why people were so excited by this whole Femme Nikita idea. The two movies aren't very different in their bold strokes, but it's the million differences in the way they were polished that make La Femme Nikita such a better movie, from the opening shot (four junkies walk down a nighttime street; one holds an ax, and they are dragging a fifth junkie by her feet) to the decision NOT to have the boyfriend be a complete moron.

Anti-progress

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[So, I've been feeling guilty about neglecting this blog--less guilty about neglecting Trust, because that home-improvement project is chugging along nicely--and I figured I'd do the lazy thing and repost an old entry from 2007, back when this blog was mostly about working in a place where sexual harassment and exhibitionism were considered good things. (I mentioned that we worked with children? Yes, I did, but I'll mention it again--we worked with children.)]

I subscribe to Netflix, and since my queue is typically maxed out at all times, I'll hit these really weird runs of movies because 500 titles ago, I got curious about a particular director or actor or genre.

So recently I saw two Tupac Shakur movies, first Gridlock'd and then a few weeks later, Juice. In Gridlock'd, I thought Tupac was kind of what you would expect from a whatever-turned-actor--just a little unpolished and unnatural, a little stagy, a little exaggerated with the gestures and expressions, and clearly someone pretending to be a character rather than someone who really gives the impression of being the character. In Juice, though, he's perfect--very smooth, very natural.

The thing is, Gridlock'd was made five years after Juice. I don't know if it had to do with the subject matter or the director or the other actors, but I find it interesting that Tupac became a worse actor over that five years, rather than a better one.

That's a phenomenon that really creeped me out when I read City by Clifford D. Simak. It's a classic sci-fi book that is a collection of interconnected stories. The last story was written many years after the earlier stories--if I recall correctly, it was written by Simak once a decision was made to publish the stories (which had appeared in magazines) together as a book--and in my opinion, it's by far the worst-written of the lot. This terrifies me, because you really are supposed to become a better writer with time--I suppose it's to compensate for you losing your looks or something. With Simak, I think I know the reason--he spent the intervening years working as an editor for some dry-as-dust publication, and it infected his writing so badly the last story has all the verve and excitement of the product warning on the back of a bottle of vitamins. (I still think the book is well worth reading, just don't expect too much from that last one.)

What writers can learn from America's Next Top Model

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Sometime around the time I was in journalism school--like the summer between the spring and fall semester, or shortly after I graduated--I came across the reality-TV show America's Next Top Model. To the extreme amusement of my friends, I got hooked for a season or two, before the general lack of intelligence among the contestants (NOT the actual professional models, but the wannabe model girls) became too frustrating for me to watch.

Why did I find the show so interesting? Because learning to be a good model is exactly like learning to be a good writer.

Are you insane? you scoff. Models are superficial and vapid! Writers are deep and profound! Well, I say, I may be insane, but you should be careful about stereotyping, because it will blind you to certain truths.

And the truth is, there are many more parallels there than you might expect between the would-be model and the would-be writer. Your typical would-be model, in all likelihood, is not just a pretty girl but a Pretty Girl--she puts a lot of effort into her looks, people compliment her on them all the time, and a big hunk of her identity depends on her being the Pretty Girl.

Likewise, the would-be writer is Deep, Profound, and Talented. They are (cue ponderous music) Putting a Piece of their Soul onto the Paper. Their Deep, Profound, and Talented Soul.

So, Pretty Girl goes on ANTM. She takes a bunch of pictures--prettily! She goes in before the panel of judges and...they tell her her pictures SUCK. She's not holding her body right. She's doing weird things with her mouth. She has a double chin. She's a wreck.

At this point, one of two things happen (at least, they happen if the girl is bright enough to understand spoken language, which is not always the case):

SCENARIO 1: The girl says, Oh, OK, how can I take a better picture? She works on her posture, relaxing her mouth, holding her chin up, whatever.

SCENARIO 2: The girl says, HOLY CRAP!!! THEY THINK I'M UGLY! Instead of, you know, trying to take a better picture, she is devastated. Her entire identity is threatened. She bounces back and forth between deciding that the judges must be wrong and deciding that she must be ugly.

The girl in Scenario 2 either eventually sucks it up and puts herself into Scenario 1, or she stays in Scenario 2 for photo shoot after photo shoot, spiraling down into self-loathing and despair until she is ignominiously eliminated.

Guess what would-be writers do when they first receive harsh criticism?

Is it easy the first time? Hell, no. I did very well in college writing very academic papers, and then I went into children's publishing. Surprise, surprise, it turns out that academic writers don't make good children's authors. The first time I wrote a book, I was crucified. The editor made no pretense: She thought I was a horrible writer, and she was openly skeptical that I had it in me to become a better one.

And I wrote down every bit of constructive criticism that editor had (rest assured, she had quite a bit that was less than constructive), and I completely revised the book. The editor was both very pleased and extremely surprised.

In a way, I was lucky--I had a job that I wanted to keep. If you're a professional writer, you'll follow your Muse right to the unemployment line if you can't take criticism. In some ways, I think things are harder for amateur writers, because if your book sucks, you can always tell yourself that you are simply misunderstood--there's no one with a big stick forcing you to do a better job. But really, what you are doing is choosing to write a bad book, because it is easier than writing a good book. And I have a hard time respecting that.

And by the way

in

The Norwescon ad didn't really do anything--I got some more page views on my Web site, but nowhere near enough to justify the cost. Good to know--given that Norwescon is a big con with a literary focus, I feel safe is assuming that program advertising at sci-fi cons isn't worth doing again. I may still advertise in Locus once Trust is published, and I've read good things about an advertising service called Project Wonderful.