The Story You Are About to Read is True-ish

The story you are about to read is true-ish, as true as memory allows. Most of the names and location and what we were eating, etc. have been obscured to protect me from any potential wrath or prevent the embarassment of anyone involved.

We were at a restaurant in a big city some time ago. Cap'n Slappy and I had managed to wrangle a dinner with some people in the book biz. There were at the table another writer, two agents, and an editor from a major publishing house.

The event was a writing conference that all of the above were attending. Not Slappy and me. We were just there for dinner and talk.

You know about writing conferences. Every years tens of thousands of hopeful writers, maybe more, show up at these things and pay a fee to spend two or three days at workshops, readings and – this is the big draw – getting a pitch session with a real live agent or editor.

We're all like that, we writers, desperate to get in the door, convinced that our work is good enough that the cost of the conference is a splendid investment. All it takes is one, we tell ourselves, one person on the inside who recognizes how good our writing is, or at least how marketable. We'll get that first contract and be on our way.

That's what we tell ouselves.

Seated with Slappy and I that night were:

Agent A – a real alpha male. Smart and quick and self-assured, always leading every conversation.

Agent B - A quiet young woman, but smart. She didn't say much, but oh lord, you could just tell how smart she was, easily the smartest person at the table, maybe the smartest person in the city.

Editor - Bright, funny, very positive. Almost scary in how positive she can be.

The Writer – Didn't say anything memorable, does not appear further in this story.

Mark and I mostly listened. The agents and editor had been two days at this conference with one more day to go. They had seen scores of hopefuls each pitching their stuff. That's why they were there. I was struck by the fact that several hundred people at the hotel down the street had paid hundreds of dollars for the chance to spend 20 minutes with some of these people. Mark and I were having dinner with them. Sometimes life is good.

The three were telling stories, very funny stories, about the people they'd met during the pitch sessions over the years. It was a "can you top this" of weird meetings. Things such as:

– The poet who saved scraps from road killed wildlife he found along the highways as a tribute to their fallen spirits. He offered Agent B a bag of feathers, fur and a few bones, telling her to pick one in thanks for her time. She gingerly took a feather. After he left she washed her hands over and over and over.

– The guy who had been the most successful car thief in the history of some backwoods area until he'd finally been caught. He was out of prison now, and writing. But not about his career as a criminal. According to Agent A, the big, burly former car thief had leaned over the table dividing them and confided, "I know who killed my mother."

– Another poet who was also a hypnotist and had filled his writing with keywords that would break down the inhibitions of women it was read to. "Great," Agent B thought, "Date-rape poetry." He was looking for a legal opinion on whether there was any liability that might come back to haunt him if someone used his poetry for nefarious ends. Like getting laid. She replied that she had no idea, but if he had to ask that ought to tell him something. He read a passage, and Agent B admitted she got slightly flushed.

And lots more stuff, almost all very funny. People who got abusive when told their material wasn't good enough. Or who laughed. Or who cried. Or who behaved in, shall we say, unusual ways.

But I wasn't hearing any stories of success. Not a single, "I think I just signed my next best-selling author" or even, "I heard a couple of people I might want to represent." And these were three people who had been going to three or four conferences a year for years. Granted, their expenses were paid so they weren't on their own dime. But still, that's a huge time commitment if all it turns into is an exercise in weirdness

So I asked. "Have you ever found anyone who made it worth coming all this way and spending all this time, any writer you ended up signing, anyone who was ever successful?"

There was silence. Then the Editor, who had been to about a dozen, said, "Yes. Two. No, three, but one of them ended up signing with someone else."

For her, those two successes outweighed the enormous number of writers whose material just didn't measure up or who were weird or clueless or potentially psychotic, people who want to be published but just aren't good enough yet. The chance that somewhere out there, unheard and unrepresented, was someone who had a distinctive voice and a story that needed telling, made it all worthwhile.

My point, I guess, is that you should be very, very sure of the quality of your work before shelling out the several hundred dollars to attend one of these conferences, and when you get your chance to meet with a real live editor or agent, be ready to hear an honest, maybe even a brutal, critique. And don't be weird.

And before writing the check, ask yourself – Do I really want to take the chance of becoming someone's funny story the next time agents and editors get together? Do I want to risk being a punchline?

The New Kid in My Head

A character came up to me Saturday and introduced himself.

That's how characters are sometimes. You're writing along and suddenly a character will do something you had no intention of them doing, had never thought about. But you realize that's exactly what the character would really do, based on how you've written him or her. And if you're being honest in your writing you let the character do that even if it conflicts with the plot you had in mind. If you force the characters into actions that conflict with the kind of person you've created just to fit the constraints of the preconceived plot, it won't work. We've all read books like that, where the characters were cutouts moving mindlessly in response to the writer's plot devices. They're always disappointing.

Usually you think you know how the story's gonna go, and usually you're right. You are the author, after all. But sometimes it's a complete surprise. And as a writer, when the characters jump up and surprise you, that's when you know it's working. Go with it. Its actually very exhilarating.

I think of my plots as a road map. If I'm going to drive from Los Angeles to Tampa, I want to have a general idea of the roads and directions. But don't become a slave to the map. If the characters decide to take the scenic route or detour through Indiana, you've got to be willing to go there with them. And if you've created characters that become real, that are reacting plausibly to the situations you create for them, you have to be willing to listen when they say, "Nope, not going to Tampa. We're heading for Vermont." You might decide to still go to Tampa but you've got to listen to what the characters are telling you about your story. Sure, you thought it up, but they're living in it.

Well, the problem with this character that showed up Saturday is I've never met him, he's not in the current story or the next one I've already got some notes on. He's in a completely different story. Yet there he was, suddenly in my head. I could seem him clearly, 11 years old, a little on the short side, average build, with short, curly brown hair, glasses, and a cocky grin that's almost a permanent fixture on his face. And I knew his story. His name told me his whole story.

This kid is pretty insistent. I don't want to tell his name yet, want to let it stew a bit. But he won't go away. I talked to Tori about him and she had a great idea.

I'm going to finish the first draft of Bones, that oughta take another month, six weeks. Then I'll put it aside, give it room to breathe before I start the rewrite. In the meantime, I'll work on this kid's story. And I'm going to write it in one month. 30 days. See if the self-imposed deadline forces me to open up. I have a tendency to overwrite the first draft. I'm gonna see if I can just pound this one out, lean and sharp.

If nothing else, it will be an interesting challenge. And if it takes 37 days instead of 30, no big deal. It's not a contest, just an idea for a book.

But that's enough for now. Got to get back to The Bones in the Closet. I sound like I have the attention span of a hummingbird, but in fact I'm trying to be disciplined here.

I just need that kid to shut up and go away for a little while. He's really pushy.

jb

A Perfect Opening

Tori and I had to take a long drive (well, long for this island) and as we did we were talking, first about Bones and where I need to go with it, then generally about YA fiction.

I was complaining – you might even say whining – that editors and agents seem to want action out the wazoo, right from the start. They don't appear to want you to take time developing a character, I complained, no matter what the story is actually about. She agreed, and also pointed out that they want them to have magic or the supernatural, regardless of the story. Nothing gets a YA book published like a witch or monster.

But if that's how it is and if you want to get published, you have to take that into consideration, she said, practically. She asked me to come up with an opening that would meet both rules. Easy, I said. The first sentence is:

"Pirates!" shouted the vampire!

Someone a Lot Smarter than Me (2)

Words to write by, as wrtten by someone a lot smarter than me. (Or if you prefer, "a lot smarter than I am." But I don't prefer it. Sounds all wrong.)

If I waited for perfection, I would never write a word. – Margaret Atwood

jb

Hey, chaos works for me

I work best with the TV on.

I know that's weird, possibly even illegal. But it's true.

Everyone tells you to avoid distractions while you're writing, to make your desk area or office or wherever you work a haven, a little island of solitude where you can commune with your muse. That doesn't work for me. My muse apparently has different tastes.

I worked more than 30 years in a newsroom. Those are not quiet places. No private space, no privacy, no walls or cubicles or anything. There's always a dozen people, typing away, talking on the phone, having conversations from across the room or while standing at your elbow. You've got a deadline, usually in 27 minutes, so you learn to focus like a very tight beam and get done whatever it is that has to get done while bedlam reigns all around you.

About 10 years ago I left the newsroom and got a university job as a "science writer" for an on-campus agency. I had my own office. Even without a window and with an ancient desk that came out of the university's storage, it was the Taj Mahal to me.

And I found it really hard to work the two years I was there. Especially in the afternoon. By about 2 p.m. I'd be doing the nod-off/head jerk, where you tilt back in your chair, then suddenly snap forward with a lurch as you find yourself fading out. Or you find yourself with your head stuck to the desk by the little dried pool of drool where you fell asleep. I wasn't used to solitude. By that time I'd been in newsrooms for 20 years. Silence wasn't good for me. I thrived on the energy of those around me, sucked it up and used it to get my work done. Even leaving the door open (my own office door – what a luxury!) didn't help, because – academia, you know – it was always hushed, with people walking quietly and talking in low, serious tones. And it didn't help that my boss was always talking about projects that I might want to plan on by next summer or the next fiscal year, something like that. I was used to being told to get on it and get it done by tomorrow. A week from now was a long-range plan and next summer was impossible to think about.

It wasn't a good fit.

So now I'm technically a freelancer, a private contractor who works for the Source. We have no office. We're spread out over three islands. I do 99 percent of my work, both the reporting and the novel writing, at the dining room table, about halfway between the television (16 paces away) and the kitchen, and it's all open space and hard surfaces (tile and plaster) between the two. If you know my family you know it's never quiet. Between the discussions and the television and Max practicing his clarinet or his electric guitar and someone in the kitchen "rattlin' those pots and pans," there's enough chaos and confusion that I can really focus on what I'm working on. I know it's odd, it's just the way I've been conditioned. Chaos is the signal to my brain to get writing, and quiet is nap time.

And in the mornings, with Max and Tori at school and Kate and Millie not up, when I'm usually doing my novel writing, I compensate by turning on the TV, usually on one of those "true crime" channels, where the voice of the narrator sort of simulates the drone of a conversation going on that my brain has to filter out to get the day's work done.

It's weird. but it works for me. What works for you, what kind of conditions do you need to write?

Fight on

Wow, that didn't go well.

The kids were polite. Not enthusiastic, not excited. Polite. Tori said, "That was the quietest they've been all day. You really had their attention." No, I had bored them. I'm sure of it.

In fact, even Tori admitted she hadn't heard the end. She was grading some papers at her desk. Wow. If I can't even hold her ...

Well, that's that. Gotta slay some dragons – lots and lots of dragons – in the next chapter.

And I'm gonna stop writing here about Bones except for the updates, because if anyone actually reads this, they'll think I suck so bad as a writer that even I know I suck. Maybe I'm kidding myself, but it seems like I didn't struggle half so much with Chance and Gladys. And they both turned out really well, efforts I'm really proud of.

With Bones, all I can do is plunge ahead, find my way out of the soup and finish the first draft – with some dead dragons on the way. Then find the story and make it sing in the rewrite. You might say I'm bowed and bloody, but unbeaten. I will make Bones a terrific story.

But boy, that silence was as quiet as any silence I've ever heard.

Schedule really sucks today, don't think I'll have any time to write at all what with the errand for Alex and the meeting about lionfish for the Source. We'll just have to see.

jb

(Note Updated because I saw all the damn typos.)

Killing a Dragon a Day

Right around 800 words today, finished up chapter 16 in Bones, so I've got something to read the kids.

And I tried really hard to "write," give a real word picture of the hot day and the sweat. Some good descriptive stuff, the best I've done, I think.

So naturally I'm worried that not enough actually happens in the chapter.

That I didn't fight any dragons.

Last year about this time I heard about the Percy Jackson books that all the kids were reading and there was a movie out. Never saw the movie, but I read all of them – borrowed them from one of the kids in Tori's class, as a matter of fact. New York kid discovers that not only are the Greek gods real, but he's related to one of them. And there follows a series of adventures as the jealous gods try to keep the Titans from recapturing the earth.

The books are okay. I'm certainly not going to say anything bad about them. The guy had a good idea and went for it, and it paid off. It's way overstating it to compare them to the Harry Potter books, which some critics did. It's like they can't help themselves. If a critic is reading a YA or middle school book and there's even a little magic in it, the barest whiff of the supernatural, they just cannot help themselves from comparing it to Harry. And the Percy Jackson books are good enough, but they're no Hogwarts saga. (And for the record, Neil Gaiman did the "ancient gods in the new world" thing as well as it can be done in American Gods and especially in Anansi Boys. LOVED that book.)

But the kids sure were eating the PJ books up. They love 'em. It was Tori, of course, who put her finger on the formula.

"He kills a dragon in every chapter," she observed. Okay, "killed" is too strong a word, and it wasn't always dragons, of course. The author took advantage of the whole panolpy of mythical beasties.

But the point is the same. A dragon every chapter. That became our new motto whenever I sat down to write – Kill a dragon in every chapter.

I followed that rule in Gladys, and kept the kids on the edges of their seats. And I've been trying to with Bones, but not with the same success. You know how characters are. Sometimes they just want to talk, or to go off and do their own thing, and forget about the author waiting impatiently with his little plot. Bastards.

Something does happen in chapter 16, of course, and it sets up something that has to happen soon. But I'd hardly call it a dragon-killing chapter.

I wonder if Tori will notice.

Anyway, gotta go get a shower before I go to read to the kids.

jb

(Oh, and just by way or warning, I'm feeling some whining coming on. Probably won't be able to hold it off more than another few days. Just so you know.)