There’s a golden rule in writing, one so taken for granted that people often don’t even talk about it. It’s simple: never, ever, ever, ever, ever respond to a negative review. Ever. I mean, you can if you really want to. No one is going to ARREST you if you do. But you are going to look like a huge jerk if you do, and the entire internet will laugh at you. Why? Because people are entitled not to like your work. Yes, even stupid people, for stupid reasons. Yes, even people you respect for reasons that are actually pretty good. Even your mom. Anyone is entitled at any time not to like your work, and there is exactly nothing you can do about it.
Certainly, it is a wonderful age in which we live, what with this whole “internet” thing where everyone can say whatever they want—and the problem of course, is that everyone can say whatever they want, which leads to things being wrong on the internet. Sure, you get reviews that say things like, “tihis book was so boring it had no vampirs u don’t know how to rite!” and you have to take it on the chin. You don’t answer back. What on earth would you say, even if you did? “I can TOO rite (WITH A W!)” These don’t really present a problem.
And I’m not talking about “official” reviews either (though you REALLY, REALLY shouldn’t respond to them). Not that official reviews are so far removed from reader comments on forums or Amazon, really. I think there is sometimes the notion that any review that has ever been printed is some kind of Official Word—not actually proclaimed by God, but possibly by someone in his office, and most likely on letterhead. Like in order to become a reviewer you have to pass a series of important tests and physical challenges . . . reciting The DaVinci Code backwards, perhaps, entirely from memory. Or maybe you have to coax a chicken away from an alligator through song and dance. And only when you have passed these many tests will you be allowed to Review, and the mantle of Ultimate Rightness will be placed over your shoulders.
This is most certainly not the case. I know this because I was a reviewer for a Big, Fancy Publication, and let me tell you something—I cranked those reviews out hard and fast, often at three in the morning, because they paid me fifty dollars each and ALL I did was write negative reviews. Why? Because you get to crack better jokes and sound smug and smart. This, as it turns out, it a very common behavior, so it’s not just me. There is nothing quite as fun as writing something an evil, snarky critique.
Reviews are just opinions. Some reviewers and publications are better than others, and all have their good and bad days and their personal preferences. One of my favorite writers in the world was a reviewer by trade. I worship the man, and he wrote a DEVASTATING review of something I love. I have learned to reconcile this in my mind, but it took time. If you go back and read reviews of books that everyone accepts to be Good and Important Books that Everyone Has To Like, there will be a reviewer who hated it when it was published, or who hates it now. So that’s not anything to freak out over either.
Does this mean all reviews are meaningless? God, no. It just means that there are a chorus of voices in the world, and you have to pick which ones you are going to listen to. This, as it turns out, is more or less the point of Writing School. In my writing program, you had to go through two years of writing and presenting your work to your class or thesis group. In a room of, say, ten reasonably smart and talented writers, you are going to get ten totally different opinions. And for those two years, you had to train your ear to listen for things that rang true—comments both good and bad—things you could build on.
So, I listen still. I have to admit, I don’t sit and read every comment written about me, because I would go insane, but I scan through every once in a while to see what’s what. In general, the experience is pretty lovely (which is part of the reason I don’t do it that often because I will get a BIG, SOFT HEAD). In doing this, I’ve noticed something in a few reader comments that has me worried. I’ve seen versions of this comment time and time again, both for my books and for similar “realistic fiction” books.* The comment usually goes something like this . . .
I read this book and it was okay but why would this happen? It is just totally not probable. I mean I liked the story and the writing but I just don’t think this would happen in life.
This makes me quiver. Not with outrage, but with fear and concern, because I am terribly worried that a lot of people are growing up with a slightly mixed-up idea of how stories work and what they are meant to do.
Stories are not meant to be probable.
Probable means the thing that is most likely to happen. There would be little point in reading about the thing that is most likely to happen. So I am confused about the expectation here. Is the problem that the reader thinks the story isn’t about something common enough? Of course, amazing stories can be written about very common, everyday things, exposing deeper meanings and levels of communication. The first example that leaps to mind here among thousands of possible examples is A&P by John Updike, one of the first short stories I remember reading as a tiny mj. It’s literally about a guy working the cash register at an A&P when a girl comes in dressed only in a bathing suit and bare feet to buy some jarred herring snacks. The narrator (a teenaged boy) admires the girls (in many ways), but the manager wants to throw the girls out, so the narrator takes off his apron and quits. That’s it. That’s the plot.
A&P is a probable story, I guess. It’s quite possible to walk into a grocery store in a bathing suit and buy some herring, if that’s how you roll. But in 1961, when it was written, it was a bit more of a shock to see a girl in a bathing suit walk into a store. It was unlikely. It was a statement. It meant something.
So I guess A&P isn’t probable at all. It was about an exceptional moment—certainly one that falls within the boundaries of physical possibility, but still, a moment that stood out and provoked a strong change. And that was the most probable story I could think of.**
Possibly, there is a confusion here with logical. Stories should be logical. You can write the most far-fetched story in the world but it must make sense within itself—it has to obey its own rules. As I sit here typing this, I have the Alfred Hitchcock movie The Birds on in the background. That’s another short story I remember reading as a kid, and another possible but not probable premise: one day, all the birds decide they don’t like people, and they attack. “This isn’t usual, is it?” one of the characters just said, after a flock of birds destroyed a picnic. No, it is not usual at all. But it is a story with nice, simple rules, which it follows carefully: birds are normal, birds get squirrelly, birds &*@# everybody up, birds get progressively better at breaking into houses and running people off roads, birds take over town. It’s bad bird behavior, but it follows a logical progression.
But since I keep seeing this comment in so many places and for so many books, and since the phrasing is often so similar, I am very worried that these readers mean exactly what they say—that they are expecting something to roll out in a certain way, that they think there are ways that stories are supposed to go. You’re either fighting off the space leopards with your rainbow sword or you are buying a pair of jeans and making a call on your cell phone (brands included, natch!) . . . and there is NO MIDDLE GROUND. If the book is “realistic,” then the coordinates have been predetermined. Weirdness is not encouraged and will not be tolerated. This bothers me both as a writer and as a weird person.
I write fiction. I make things up. To date, I have not included many space leopards or their ilk (though that is going to change soon), but I’ve never felt this is in any way a limiting factor. There are many strange and fantastic things that are quite real—and any number of styles or techniques can be employed when telling “realistic” stories. Many of the “realistic” writers I admire write complete lunacy, and this is a very good thing in my opinion.
So the kneejerk “this isn’t probable” reaction seems to me quite similar to the “this place is weird” reaction to foreign travel, or “this tastes funny” when eating something new. It suggests that there are people who think they know what normal is. And if I can impart any wisdom at all*** I would like to impress this little nugget: there is no normal. You are not normal. No one is normal. And if you think there is a set way a story (or life) is supposed to go, you are mistaken—and happily so. Because there is a lot of fun to be had and things to be learned be had when you shake off those preconceptions.
Now if you will excuse me, I have to go do some riting (WITH A W!). If YOU would like to add to this discussion, please do so in the COMMENTS!
* My friends who write Sci Fi and Urban Fantasy and all of that good stuff don’t get this comment, but they get lots of others, usually along the lines of “Why did you kill so-and-so?” or “Why haven’t so-and-so made out yet?” even if so-and-so are related.
** And I have absolutely no doubt that someone out there has written some critique that says, “I guess this story is okay but it is so boring and why would you quit your job just because a girl in a bathing suit came in to your store? That is just not probable.”
*** Unlikely, but roll with me here. I have a cold. Cut me some slack.
Has it really been THREE WEEKS since I blogged last?
But soft . . . I should explain where I have been. Or rather, where I AM, for I am still there, in the place where I am. I am in England. I’ve been here since the 24th of June. I come here a lot, as you may know if you have read this blog over time.
What have I been doing on this particular trip? Well, seeing a lot of people. There was the London Gathering. I’ve also been working on the SEQUEL TO 13 LITTLE BLUE ENVELOPES, and another project for AFTER that. I’ve been spending a lot of time doing research around London. And I will be going to Ireland later this week, if I ever get around to making the arrangements. I’ve also been watching Torchwood and have eaten some cookies and had some tea and got a tan in the hot English sun.
But I wasn’t always busy, friends. Which brings me to today’s question.
Kira902k asks: How do I survive this entire summer doing NOTHING?
Kira, I know your pain. When I was in high school, I had a few summers of such excruciating boredom that when I even think about them, my teeth begin to strike together and my shoes get too tight. It was horrible.
The reason for this was a complicated matrix of badness. Thusly:
- I went to school in the city, and thus, lived kind of far from my friends. (And I went to a girls’ school in a convent for the rest of the year.)
- I didn’t drive in high school. This was partially because I was kind of young, and because car insurance was expensive, and I generally wasn’t allowed to get it even though I wanted it more than I wanted anything. This was a great divide at Chez Johnson, one we don’t even talk about TO THIS DAY, and I am totally grown up and everything. Bottom line: I was never allowed to do ANYTHING.
- So I was totally stuck in my podunk suburb. This, remember, was BACK BEFORE THE INTERNET . . . or, at least, it was back before there was anything good to do on the internet. I am sure it was AROUND. So all I had was the phone and friends with cars who would rescue me as often as they could. Which wasn’t often enough.
- Compounding the problem was the fact that for my junior and senior years (from when I was 15 until I was 17), my father’s job transferred him around the country, first to Louisville, Kentucky (where we knew no one) to Houston, Texas (where we knew no one).
I will never forget my 15th summer, simply because it was so excruciatingly boring that it seemed to warp time and space. I sometimes wonder if that summer isn’t the reason I tend to write books about summers. Suite Scarlett, for instance, is about Scarlett’s 15th summer. Perhaps I am on permanent redo on that one.
That was the summer my dad was in Kentucky, and it was about 105 degrees every single day, with a heat index (that was the summer I learned what a “heat index” was—it means “how much you will actually suffer”) of about 115. We had to go visit my dad for six weeks, so I couldn’t plan to do anything else that summer, like get a job, or give myself up for medical research, or sell myself as a child bride. We flew to Kentucky, and we spent SIX WEEKS sitting around in my dad’s apartment. SIX WEEKS.
I could have been doing so many other, more useful things.
It was too hot to spend any time outside. Seriously. Your lungs would just explode. Not that we knew where to go, or had anyone to see. We were Philadelphia people, and this was a new, strange place. We had my dad’s car during the day, so my mom and I just went to bookstores, often used, where we would buy up huge piles of books, crank through them, and then resell them at the end of the week. I know I read a lot that summer . . . but for some reason the only books I clearly remember reading are the entire Fletch series up to Fletch and the Man Who. Somewhere in there, I also remember reading The Great Gatsby for the first of what would be about 200 times. So that was a summer romance that LASTED. And I think that’s probably when I read Roughing It by Mark Twain, to try to give my westward journey some exciting context. There were a lot of books, but a strange proportion of them seemed to be Fletch-related.
And I wrote. There was that.
When not reading, we baked cakes. One week, we baked a cake every day. We didn’t even want the cakes. We just baked them because it was something to do. I remember my mom saying, “I have never been so bored.” And my mom has 105 Cat’s Meow decorative houses, if this gives you any idea of what she can withstand.
Throughout it all, I missed my friends. To quell the pain, I would bake YET ANOTHER cake and put it with the others, which we lined up on the kitchen bar, using the same display method used in olden times, when countries used to line their architecture with the severed heads of their enemies to send a message. Our message was: we are bored.
What I’m saying, Kira, is that you have come to the right person. I understand. But you know what? It’s almost impossible to do NOTHING. I feel I came pretty much as close as I am (hopefully) ever going to come to doing nothing during that summer, and in retrospect, I was doing things. They just weren’t the things I necessarily wanted to be doing at the time. But all of that reading and writing . . . it paid off! There is something to be said for dealing with this nothing. Creative acts come out of the quiet—when you simply must make something.
What I am saying is, if you spend the summer doing nothing, you will end up EXACTLY LIKE ME! Think about that!
Badhandwroter asks: I have a lot of ideas for stories that I'm currently working on but I can't seem to buckle down and work on just one and fully develop it. What are some ways to keep my focus on just one idea?
We writers have a saying, Badhandwroter. Well, not a saying. More of a commonly accepted idea that has yet to be assembled into an easy-to-carry quote. I will attempt to correct this now: “There is nothing so appealing as the next thing you want to write.”
When you first start writing something, it is all sweetness and joy, because you are skimming those awesome ideas of the top of your brain—that delicious sweet cream. Sometimes it’s an idea for a first scene. Sometimes just one character. Sometimes you get a cluster of ideas: a location, a bit of dialogue. Some people ride high on just a title and a mental image of a cover.
Oh, it is a fine drug, this “first idea” stuff. The unwritten story or book is always SO GOOD. Sure, when you flip the pages in your mind, you can’t actually SEE ANY WORDS, but you know when you fill them in, they will be like NECTAR.
Thing is . . . once you actually start writing, you have to live up to that Shangri-La in your brain. So you sit down and start working, trying to produce that wonderful, shimmering stuff. And while it may go well for a while, you are probably going to reach a point where it DOES NOT, and you have NO IDEA what is supposed to come next, and you take a DIM VIEW of what you’ve done so far, and it’s all HOPELESS and you are TERRIBLE.
This is usually when the new shiny thing comes into your mind . . .
Your innner LOLcat comes out.
This is also where the writing BEGINS. This is precisely the point where you press on. You can jot down the note about the other shiny thing, but if you want to write, you keep going.
Now, you may ask, “But mj, don’t some ideas just die because they have no legs?”
Some ideas are maybe a little shaky. That’s true. But stories are like Cootie. Ever play Cootie? That game where you get the plastic body of a Cootie bug, and you have to keep playing until the thing has eyes and a mouth and antennae and legs to stand on? The more you work on a story—the more you press on—the more you’ll find that you get new parts. New ideas will grow.
Cootie.
But your question is: HOW? HOW do you keep focus and press forward?
My friend, I feel your pain. It’s hard. But the only way is JUST TO DO IT. The most useful technique, aside from flat-out discipline, is to be accountable to someone. Joining a writing group, for instance, where you have to produce a chapter by a certain date for the others to read. More hardcore people might chain themselves to their desk using a time lock or deny themselves showers or food until they have met their daily writing quota. These are also very effective methods.
And then, when you are done your story or book, you get to TAKE IT APART and MAKE IT COOLER. Because now that you’ve made it once, you can get a good look at the thing and see where improvements and changes are necessary. Then you enter into another time-honored writerly period, the opposite of your first problem: namely, the endless revision . . . which is sort of the literary equivalent of projectile barfing.
Trouble ahead and trouble behind, Badhandwroter! Happy writing!
Megan asks: How do you manage to come up with an idea and stick with it throughout an entire novel . . . Also, I was wondering how you were able to continue with your novels without getting bored with them or without quitting half way through one? I know a lot of people who start writing only to stop because their novels don't interest them anymore.
Well, I don’t quit because I’m not ALLOWED to. Don’t think I haven’t tried. I’ve explained the basic process of what I go through in my post on how to write a book.
But okay . . . you want to know what you do when everything slows down and goes splat. The problem PROBABLY isn’t that you’re bored, it’s that you don’t know what comes next. When you know what comes next, you rarely get bored. When you know what comes next, you often become an anti-social weirdo who spends all his or her time attached to the writing machine, eschewing food and sleep and the contact of others.
But scenes often get broken, or the next step is elusive . . . and then, the brain fog seeps in. This is because it’s actually quite hard to write a good story. It’s pretty rare for someone to just sit down and pound out a whole novel (or one that makes any sense) without having practiced the smaller steps that teach you about story, voice, and general writing discipline.
All that really means is that I think you have to start small and work big. I mean, I could probably build a house if someone taught me how.* But first, I would have learn all the basic skills—how to hammer, how to drill, how to put boards . . . in places boards should be . . . or whatever houses are made of. Plastic, concrete, ice, seaweed, ghosts in solid form . . . I have no idea.
The point is, I would have to learn the small, basic skills and do them a whole bunch of times. Then I could start fitting them all together to make an entire structure. Which is why when I get notes from people who are in high school or younger, worried because they are having trouble with their novels . . . well, first of all, you guys are brave to be working on them! I LIKE IT! But it’s no shock that you’re having problems. You’re trying to build a really big thing when you probably haven’t had the opportunity to work all the building blocks yet.
Does that mean you shouldn’t try, or should stop? HELLS NO! You learn to write BY WRITING. This is an annoying truth that every writer will tell you. Which is why I think doing things like Blog Every Day April is a good idea. Setting a commitment to yourself to sit down and produce something every day—even when you think you can’t, or don’t want to—it builds the muscles you are going to need. You must dare to suck. You must try even when you’re not sure where it’s going.
It helps me, I can tell you. I’ve written eleven blogs in eleven days. I can’t believe it myself. Since my blogs average in at 1500 words (sometimes much more, but that’s the average) . . . I’ve created about 16,500 words that I wasn’t really planning on. I just decided to do it, and I found them. It took time. It occasionally had me sitting at my computer until 2am. And I’m going to have to find about 28,500 more before the month is out. (This is all on top of my normal output.)
I’m not saying that to dazzle you with my fancy numbers. I just like to count.
Honestly, I wasn’t sure if I COULD do it, but I just did it anyway. The fear of failure really just has to be set aside.
So . . . my suggestion to you is to do something like BEDA, or NaNoWriMo, or a group or a class . . . anything that commits you to writing every day, so you build up the habit, build up the muscles, and stop worrying so much that you might be doing things wrong.
Say you finish your draft.
Amy asks: How do you deal with the internal critic when editing your book arrives? Or, if the annoying voice doesn't bother you, how did you frighten her off? Finally finished a first draft of a novel, but for the life of me, can't get through the next draft.
If you HAVE finished a draft of a novel . . . WELL DONE! And I do have some suggestions for what you should do now.
1. Take some time off
When you first read your work after you complete a draft, it often seems crazy. That’s because your brain is still hot and overworked and knows the words too well. You can’t read them correctly. You’re basically insane when it comes to your draft. You have to walk away for a while. A few days, a week, a few weeks. Don’t look at it! The critical voices are craziest right after you’ve finished.
At first, you won’t feel quite right.
2. Read the whole thing
When you return to your draft after a reprieve, you should be a little more kindly disposed to it. You might even have missed it. And here it is, an old friend, waiting just for you. Read it at least once without stopping—no pens, no notes. I often try to make this reading as pleasant as possible. Make yourself comfortable! Get a nice drink!
Have a nice read.
3. Now read it again
You have probably noticed a few things on the first read that you know need to be fixed. If you didn’t . . . if you read through your first draft and thought “Well, that’s perfect! Nothing to change!” . . . I’d admire your self-confidence, but, that’s not a good sign, really. First drafts exist to be wrong. You’re probably going to see things on all levels—wide-ranging story issues to individual lines. Worry about the big stuff first.
For myself, I usually take the entire first draft apart with a hatchet and dynamite. I kill characters and rip out scenes and change locations and endings and major plot issues. The book you see at the end rarely looks anything like the book you see in the beginning.
You must destroy the draft in order to save it.
4. Killing your darlings
This is a phrase you’ll hear a lot when people talk about writing. What does it MEAN? I’ll tell you. The “darlings” are those pieces of writing you LOVE, but you know don’t really belong in the story. Oh, they sound great! And you spent SO MUCH TIME ON THEM. But if they don’t add to the story, you have to remove them. You can certainly save them. Many a story has been created out of the scraps of a previous story. But you can’t leave them in if they don’t belong.
To illustrate this principle, here is the same video from above, just with key words left out. See how much better it is?
Naturally, the world of writing advice is LARGE, and there is no one way of doing things. There’s no right or wrong. HOWEVER you manage to write a book is the right way of writing that book. These are just some ideas.
As always, please SEND IN MORE QUESTIONS, as I have many days to go! You input is APPRECIATED!
* You probably wouldn’t want to live in it, though.
Every year around this time, I get loads of notes asking me if I am doing NaNoWriMo. (That’s National Novel Writing Month, if you’ve never heard of it. It’s where people set themselves the task of writing a 50,000 word novel between November 1st and midnight November 30th.)
I usually say that NaNoWriMo is kind of my life. Every day around here looks like NaNoWriMo. This year, however, I am participating rather literally, as I am finishing up a book deadline on almost the same timescale! Since people have also been asking if I have any tricks or clever tools to help them through the experience, I thought I would share a few PROFESSIONAL THOUGHTS to guide you through an intense 30 day writing stint and make it through to the end. Some of this is guesswork, but it's all based on my own experiences.
WEEK 1: THE EFFORT BEGINS
So, you’ve committed! Feels GOOD, doesn’t it? It’s good to set up your chair, your computer, your mug. For me, the real thrill comes from opening a new Scrivener document. I love my writing program, with its wonderful way of splitting up chapters and blacking out everything on the monitor but the work.
And the story is NEW. The words, they come. The world shapes itself out of nowhere! What’s the goal? 12,500 words? 1,785.7 words a day? Ha ha ha. You’ll be done by the time Thanksgiving rolls around. You’ll be sitting there with your pumpkin pie, editing.
Ready to write.
WEEK 2: CONSTANT COMMUNICATION WITH OTHERS ABOUT MY PROCESS WILL SOLVE EVERYTHING
By this point, a week by yourself staring at a computer has become a tiny bit wearing. Motivation! That’s the key! Community! Time to take a moment and open the old IM, see who’s on . . .
Oh, look! EVERYONE is on! Let’s see who’s one Facebook. EVERYONE! Forums? EVERYONE! How incredibly lucky! Time to talk shop!
What is everyone saying? Something about how it’s kind of good to start and go charging out of the barn like a MAD HORSE ON SPEED . . . but now at 10,000 and 12,000 words in, everyone has caught the first glimpse of that vast, unmapped plain called THE MIDDLE OF THE BOOK. All the other writers have the queasy feeling that SOMETHING is supposed to happen between here and the 45,000th word, and that something should be very exciting! (A lot of people have ideas about those last five thousand words. The question is, how to get there?)
Much chatting about the excitement of the journey.
Time for some friendly chat!
WEEK 2.5: GETTING OFFLINE WILL SOLVE EVERYTHING
The conversation has taken on a grim sameness. Everyone has wandered into the sandstorm now, stumbling and coughing his or her way forward, sometimes just 100 words at a time. What is ahead? What is behind? Who knows.
Why is it going so slowly? That’s the question on everyone’s mind. The realization dawns that I must get offline immediately. That is where my words are going! I am BLEEDING MYSELF DRY in chats and e-mails!
Also, will surely kill that person (luv2rite16) who keeps saying how they are sliding through the middle of their book like a warm knife through butter.
Everyone hates luv2rite16.
WEEK 2.7: RESEARCH WILL SOLVE EVERYTHING
It seemed like a good idea to get offline, but how are you supposed to Wikipedia things like the history of French toast if you don’t have a computer? You need FACTS. You need names for your characters, and maps of Sweden, and charts showing the average rainfall in Kansas, and a few pictures of wombats. Back to the internets!
Log on to find luv2rite16 happily reporting that he/she is now on 35,000 words and is clocking in something like 3,500 a day. And this one day? He/she did, like, 7,000!
WEEK 3: THESE NEW POST-ITS WILL SOLVE EVERYTHING
At about the three-quarter mark, as the deadline comes into sight just over the horizon, I typically experience a mental episode which manifests itself in a compulsive need to buy post-it notes.
I own a lot of post-it notes. I own post-it notes of every size, shape, and description. I use post-it notes to leave myself notes on every door, window, and mirror, telling myself that I am NOT ALLOWED TO BUY ANY MORE POST-IT NOTES. But I cannot obey. One time, I tried to reason with myself by saying that I already had fifteen sealed, untouched packages and therefore how could I need MORE? I solved that by ripping them all open. Surely, the holes in the plot can be sealed if I could JUST FIND THE RIGHT SIZE OF POST-IT NOTE TO COVER IT. None of the others, I say, dismissing the hundreds of now-open packages . . . none of those were RIGHT.
So out I go, into darkness, wind, rain, or snow . . . off to my favorite Staples. I linger gleefully in the aisles, touching all of the shiny new things. Which is how I end up with pens, colored paper, binders, markers, highlights, three-hole punches, and index cards. But the precious thing is always the post-it notes.
I lug home my new stash and dump them out on my desk, which I have cleared off just to properly display my new post-it notes. I look at them happily for at least an hour, not wanting to break their pristine plastic covers. I’m happy because I now have the exact item I need to make this story WORK. If only I had gone out and gotten them sooner!
Eventually, I come to grips with the fact that I have to write things on the post-its. It upsets me to defile them, but I purchased them for a reason, and that reason was TO MAKE SOLUTIONS! I busily open the packages and start writing things down.
My quest for post-it notes is relentless.
WEEK 3.3: THESE POST-IT NOTES ARE GOING TO KILL ME
I am now the owner of a manuscript covered in 300 4x6 post-it notes (along with post-its shaped like arrows and lips). The ones at the front of the manuscript seem to have some pretty clever ideas on them, like “move this paragraph to page 16,” not that I can remember WHY I thought this was a good idea. But I’ll do it, because the me that wrote that note is clearly a smarter me than the one I am stuck with now, the one who writes notes that say things like, “make funnier,” or “make shorter,” or just “fix.”
Not to mention the 45 random flags I stuck all over the place which now FLAP IN THE WIND but tell me nothing about what I’m supposed to know about those pages. Oh, I’m sure I had my reasons for putting them there. But those reasons are gone. Gone like the dinosaur, with only little clues about their existence left behind, like a random thigh bone in a tar pit. What did it belong to? How did it die? WHO CAN SAY?
Set manuscript in corner of desk and try not to look at it.
WEEK 3.5: SCRIVENER WILL SOLVE EVERYTHING
I was such a moron to think that post-it notes could solve my problems. What is this, 1983? Why did I turn away from my beloved Scrivener, which gives me everything I need? I have a virtual corkboard to outline the story. I can move chapters around. I can annotate. This program has it ALL!
Technology is the key.
WEEK 3.8: SCRIVENER IS GOING TO KILL ME
Have done nothing for past day and a half but shuffle chapters in the sidebar and change the colors of the cards on my virtual corkboard in an attempt to see the pattern behind it all.
There is no pattern. Whether I label some broken scenes pink and other broken scenes blue, they are still broken.
It is clearly time to go back to the post-it notes. DO I HAVE ENOUGH? Back to the store!
More post-it notes are needed.
WEEK 3.9: SUBCONSCIOUS
Dreamed about being out in a rowboat with luv2rite16. luv2rite16 was rattling off beautiful, perfectly turned phrases about the scenery with seemingly no effort. When luv2rite leans over to gaze into the water and make comments about the nature of ripples and reflections, smacked him/her in head with oar and then beat down until he/she stopped clawing at the side of the boat.
Back at shore, luv2rite is there, working on laptop as if nothing happened.
Woke up in cold sweat.
WEEK 4: THE END IS IN SIGHT
Time to tally up and see what’s left to do!
WEEK 4.1: YOU GOING THE %#$^%# AWAY WILL SOLVE EVERYTHING
Look, just LEAVE ME ALONE. I’m FINE. Just LEAVE THE FOOD BY THE DOOR AND BACK AWAY. I just have 14,835 more words to write. I DON’T CARE WHAT THEY ARE. WEEK 4.6: THE SOUND OF TYPING
Not, you will notice, the sound of things like showering. Or the sound of having a life.
WEEK 4.7: TYPING
That crick in your back? And neck? You embrace it. You have never known a time it was not with you. Also, who needs pants? NOT YOU!
WEEK 4.9: OH MY GOD, THIS JUST MIGHT HAPPEN
You don’t know what it is, exactly, that you’ve created. But you’ve created a lot of it. but that’s a first draft! A pile of who-knows-what! Doesn’t matter as long as there is a pile of it!
WEEK 4.932467
Errr . . . did that . . . was that . . . is that . . . does that say 51,236 words?
Step away from desk. Confused. Look out window.
Go back to desk. Submit.
Ignore the fact that luv2rite16 submitted five days ago.
Now, at this point . . . this is where I would take the shower and get ready to do all of that AGAIN. Not starting over, but going right back to the start. Every month.
I hope this helps! If there are any specific questions you need answered, I will certainly do my best! Leave them below!
(Many of you want to know what I did for Lauren Myracle’s scare-a-thon challenge! I’ll tell you what I did! I got an extension, along with Libba Bray. Libba got one because she was on tour in Europe, and I got one because of the election, so we are likely doing something scary TOGETHER. Video to come!)
In reading through the comments on my last post, I saw this:
anonymous said... Maureen -- I was wondering how you get to be just an author (with no day job) who lives a fabulous life between NYC and London?? Economic crisis aside, don't you have to be JK Rowling to do that? Is it all because of money from your books, or is it also because of speaking visits and stuff like that? I'd really love to know...since my dream in life is to be a full time writer!!!
Well, anonymous, be careful what you wish for! Let me tell you about a typical day of working on my new book, Scarlett Fever.
7:30: Wake. Do yogic finger exercises to prepare for the day’s writing. Shower, dress.
8:00: Breakfast of Coco Puffs and Juicy Juice at desk while answering e-mails and reading news.
8:27: Examine board of perfectly organized story notes. Congratulate self on way that book never gets off track in any way. Writing process is like well-oiled machine.
8:33: Have second helping of Coco Puffs and Juicy Juice as way of recognizing own achievements, as loving yourself is very important psychologically.
8:57: Realize have been Googling “dog on surfboard” images for some time. Cannot remember why, as dogs on surfboards have no role in book.
8:58: Roll up sleeves, get to writing.
8:59-9:22: Writing.
9:23: Finish off Coco Puffs. There were just a few left. Easier just to eat them.
9:50-10:21: Writing.
10:22: Official mj magician gets in touch with new trick developed for Let It Snow:
10:27-11:01: Writing.
11:02 AM: Angelina Jolie on phone. Question: “Do my lips look big in this picture?” Answer: “Yes.” I assume that she will take this as a compliment, as everyone loves her big lips, but she does not. I panic a bit and ad-lib: “Know what would make them look smaller? Adopting another baby.” This does not go down as hoped. She hangs up. She is very sensitive.
11:03-11:26: Writing
11:27: Emergency phone meeting with creators of Doctor Who. They are stuck on a scene and need my help. They haven’t even started explaining the plot of the episode when I am struck with the answer: “The bad aliens all have pets that look like rabbits, but it turns out the rabbits are actually in charge and the aliens are slaves. The Doctor frees the aliens through carrot-trickery and sends the evil rabbits back to their home planet. Make jokes about Easter Eggs. More TARDIS.” I hear someone say, “Genius!” but pretend I do not, as acknowledging this is bad form. In background, David Tennant realizes I am on phone and tried to run over in time, but I hang up. Have lost seven minutes of precious writing time. But if it gets them through the episode, it was worth it.
11:33: Peanut butter snack.
11:40-11:56: Writing.
11:57: Angelina Jolie on phone again. Apologizes for hanging up earlier. Wants to know if I was serious about the adopting a child as a way of reducing perceived lip size thing. I say no. She says that is what she thought. Obviously needs affirmation about her lips, so I tell her they are great, like two flesh-pillows on a bed of perfect skin. Realize too late that this is creepy, but she does not seem to mind. Remember that Angelina is herself kind of creepy, what with the collecting knives and wearing former husband’s blood around neck in jar. Brad says hi in background.
11:58-12:14: Writing.
12:15 PM: Leave for lunch meeting with creators of High School Musical. Think this is just friendly lunch, but they are soon pumping for ideas for the fourth movie in not so subtle way by asking questions like, “What rhymes with prom?” and “Do you want to play a game? It’s called, “Fill in the blank lines in this script!”” Excuse myself and leave after appetizers. Cannot believe they are so undignified. Flip over table as I go and throw breadbasket at one producer’s head for good measure.
1:02: Peanut butter snack, this time while squatting under footbridge in Central Park to keep it real.
1:24: Write four pages in my “Magick Dreams Sticker Journal.” Strictly private.
1:32-2:14: Writing. (Of book.)
2:15: Off to some committee meeting. Not even sure for what. I am on so many, I cannot keep track. Something about giving swans to orphans. Or bears. Not giving bears to orphans (or the other way around, LOL!), just bears. Actually, I think was about giving books . . . to someone. Possibly swans, bears, or orphans. In any case, this is the kind of thing I support wholeheartedly so write check for a cool ten grand and get my afternoon back to get some more writing done.
2:46-3:05: Writing.
3:06: Cheese snack.
3:12: Off to a theater downtown to consult on a production of Woyzeck, the classic German tragedy in 29 scenes first produced in 1879. I am somewhat out of ideas at this point, having exhausted most of them in my “Magick Dreams Sticker Journal” but try to bluff my way through by suggesting all-ABBA soundtrack, focusing on the heart-wrenching “One of Us.” Point them to the strangely compelling video that is based entirely on Agnetha taking things out of boxes, putting things on shelves, and hanging wallpaper. Leave through back while they are watching video on Youtube, but can tell that they like it.
3:57: While leaving theater through back door, spot J.K. Rowling lingering across street. Get in cab to make escape and almost succeed, but am spotted at last moment. She gets in cab to chase me.
3:58-4:11: Cab chase through Manhattan.
4:12: Shake her loose in traffic. Have cab take me to Scott Westerfeld and Justine Larbalestier’s house. Once there, continue writing in safety, after reflecting on experience in “Magick Dreams Sticker Journal.”
4:55: Am just cracking a difficult scene in book when phone rings. Angelina Jolie AGAIN. Am seriously regretting ever giving her my number, assigning her that “My Humps” ringtone. Ignore.
4:57: FIVE VOICEMAILS??? Angelina does not get that writers need quiet time to think. Also, do not understand how she has so much time to call me while maintaining status as world’s sexiest woman and top movie star while raising six small children and Brad Pitt. When “My Humps” plays again, throw phone out window. Wanted new model iPhone anyway.
4:58: Justine wants to know why I am throwing phones out of her window. Explain Angelina Jolie, big lips, “My Humps” situation. Justine chastises me for associating with Hollywood types. Says I am not keeping it real. Assure her I am, show her reflections I recorded earlier in “Magick Dreams Sticker Journal” while squatting under footbridge (will occasionally show small portions to certain people). Justine takes statement back, gives me cheese snack.
5:15: Leave for disco lesson.
6:17: Have just enough time to get to cocktails at the Famous Authors Club. Everyone is there. Too many names to list. Would sound like namedropping.
6:48: Libba Bray wants to know why J.K. Rowling has been calling her from my phone. Says all she did was some deep breathing, shout “I WROTE HARRY POTTER,” and hang up. Find out that this has been happening to EVERYONE in the last hour! J.K. Rowling found my phone! Disaster, disaster, disaster.
7:14: Emergency appointment at Genius Bar at Fifth Avenue Apple Store. Explain Angelina Jolie/lips/”My Humps”/J.K.Rowling situation. Genius explains that there is nothing Apple can do if I throw my phone out of a window into the waiting hands of the world’s best-selling author. I tell Genius that it is bad form to go around calling himself that. Purchase new iPhone, but not without a certain amount of indignation.
7:28: Glumly eat candy snack at candy counter of F.A.O Schwartz toy store while reprogramming new iPhone. Regret the way I treated the Apple Genius. Purchase him a four foot high stuffed giraffe as apology, but find when I go back to the store that he has gone home for the day.
7:49: Walk to literary landmark Algonquin Hotel with four foot high stuffed giraffe for second cocktail party of the night. Am refused entry, not because of giraffe, but because of calls made from my phone.
7:51: Very traumatic session with “Magick Dreams Sticker Journal” at Times Square Olive Garden, alone with endless breadsticks, salad, and pasta bowl.
8:27: Cancellation of old number/processing of new number complete. Immediately get 19 angry voice mails. Fast forward through most of them, pausing only to listen to the one about how I gave ten thousand dollars to an organization that forces orphans to make books about swans for bears. Wonder how this organization could ever come into existence and how I managed to join it. Last message is from Doctor Who people telling me that my idea has resulted in David Tennant being rushed to hospital after suffering a serious and never-before-experienced allergy attack while holding a rabbit. Angelina seems undeterred. Day looking to be total failure.
9:03: Back on street with giraffe, now called Barney, slogging along under bright lights of Broadway.
9:23: Stop at Starbucks to regroup. Decide to pour today’s experiences in Scarlett Fever instead of putting them into “Magick Dreams Sticker Journal.” Write like a crazy person, ignoring ringing phone, stares of other customers. Am in the world of the characters now, running around the Hopewell Hotel with Scarlett and Spencer and Lola and Marlene.
11:00: Thrown out of Starbucks. Have written an entire chapter. Feel good about this. Get in cab with Barney. Listen to messages. Have been forgiven by other Famous Authors, asked to come back to the club. Also, David Tennant, though gravely ill, has given a hopeful thumbs up.
11:12: Direct cab driver to secret disco club, where they only play ABBA. Cast of Woyzeck is there. Disco dancing until dawn. Well, 12:15. Tomorrow’s a work day!
I hope this helps provide some perspective. If you have any other writing questions, leave them below!
Friends, I am getting very bored of saying, “I told you so.” First ABBA, now this.
Today, four newspapers reported that many people were stung by jellyfish during the New York City Triathlon. Specifically, Lion’s Mane jellyfish, which can be up to eight feet in the body, and have been known to have tentacles 120 feet long.
Hold on. Let me look at my list of “last things I want to hear” and see where that is . . .
6. The Cloverfield monster is here to see you. And he’s brought flowers! Oh wait, those aren’t flowers. That’s a fistful of screaming, half-dead people. Nevermind.
5. I bought you a Vespa, but then I got hungry and I ate it.
4. Sir Ian McKellen has been cast as the lead in High School Musical 4 as Troy’s long-lost twin brother, Felix.*
Oh, here we go.
3. New York, your small island home, is surrounded by eight-foot-wide jellyfish.
I guess it’s not that much of a problem now because it’s not like I swim the East River very often, and by often, I mean ever in my life. But the jellyfish are getting closer. I think it is only a matter of time before they get Metrocards and start showing up on the subway, cleverly hidden behind copies of The New York Post or Twilight.
So, rather than dwell on that . . . let’s talk about going to school for writing. This came into my mind because I just looked higher up on this list and noticed this:
37. I am majoring in creative writing as my undergraduate degree!
I get a lot of notes asking me what I think of this, and I am happy to tell you.
I think it’s a bad idea.
Meg Cabot has been saying this for years, and just today, Justine Larbalestier wrote a great blog about this very subject, which says almost everything I am thinking. She talks about the importance of having a broad background with skills in several subjects, about the fact that most writers have some other job aside from writing, about the fact that many great writers never studied writing as a major. Let me EXPAND on this a bit, because I have A LOT of thoughts on this matter and it will keep me from thinking about THE COMING JELLYFISH INVASION.
“But Maureen!” some of you will say (clearly the people who have read my bio). “Weren’t you a writing major?”
I was, so I feel I can talk about this subject as someone who knows. I did not one, but TWO degrees in writing, one undergraduate, and one graduate. Neither was in “Creative Writing.”
My undergraduate degree is in technical writing and rhetoric. Rhetoric is a tough, sensible, ancient approach to making words work for you and figuring out WHAT THE HELL YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT. There were also additional classes in research technique, editing, layout . . .
“Creative writing,” as a term, makes me quake inside. I don’t know what it means. It’s like getting a handful of jello. I guess it’s workshops in writing fiction . . . but who knows? It could mean ANYTHING. Maybe it trains you to play Wordwang:
I think my big objection is the word “creative” in the name. I feel like I have the same problem with this as I do with muses . . . that there’s this idea that writing is all about traipsing around and being weird and “inspired” all the time, and that somehow the best training involves making word clouds and collages and listing fifty adjectives that describe the inner you.
That’s fun and fine and I am ALL FOR BEING WEIRD, just not as a class. Or, maybe one class. But not as a major. No one can teach you how to be creative.
Maybe this is just me. I am the byproduct of a Marine/engineer and a nursing professor, and there is something in me that demands A SYSTEM! RESULTS! LOGIC!
I guess one of my big fears is that you will end up in a department run by writers. I mean, that’s great if your teacher is, say, Nabokov, and less great if your teacher is, say, me. I don’t want to be a part of any department that would have me as a professor . . . unless it’s the Department of Swedish Disco or Fear Studies or something.
Another problem . . . when I have to write all the time, the last thing I want to do is write. This is true of almost every writer I know. We all love writing, but when someone makes you do it, it kind of sucks. However, I did loads of writing in trigonometry! If I had been a math major, I would have written about twelve books by the time I graduated. In retrospect, I see this is a GENIUS IDEA and encourage you all to think about it!
The question of a graduate degree in writing is a bit different, but not a lot. I speak as someone with an MFA in writing. I went to an Ivy League school, had amazing professors and classmates, got great feedback, and generally have nothing but good things to say about the experience, and I’m STILL not sure if it’s something I’d recommend.
Let’s face it . . . at least in the United States, an MFA is a costly thing, and it takes two or three years to complete. Know what you’re getting into. Don’t do it with the expectation that the degree itself is worth it, that those three letters will open any doors. They won’t. The MFA is entirely non-functional for any practical purpose.
If you’re getting an MFA in writing, do it to pump the most out of the experience as you possibly can. Go to a place you feel strongly about—a place with writers in the faculty you want to know and learn from. Do it only with the expectation that you hope to get a bit better, that you’re going to focus, that you mean business. Speaking of business . . . go to every single workshop the program offers about the business of writing. (Writing programs in New York will often bring in editors, agents, and other publishing professionals to talk about real-life experience. Go to these events and take notes!)
If you’re uncertain, if you don’t really care that much, if you’re in any way just doing it to go to grad school . . . take your $50,000, or $80,000, or $100,000, get a lot of books, and go to the beach and write for a year. That’s presuming you have $50,000, or $80,000, or $100,000. Most people don’t, and end up borrowing it from one of the Loan Giants who own too many of us already.
Many people wonder, does the MFA improve your chance of getting a book deal? It improves your chances if it makes your writing stronger. Otherwise, it makes zero difference. Editors don’t read your resume, they read your writing. They normally don’t know or care about your education, unless your education has some bearing on what you’re doing. For example, if you submit a book called How To Do Plastic Surgery At Home Using Simple Household Items Such As Corkscrews And Staplers . . . an editor might care to know that you are a board-certified plastic surgeon with a medical degree. They might also want to know if you are certifiably insane.
I have yet to meet an editor who cared ONE IOTA if I had an MFA or not. In fact, I think it would have been of much more interest if I had a degree in almost ANYTHING ELSE, since my bio reads like this: “Maureen studied writing, and then she studied more writing, and now she is writing. She spends most of her time sitting down.”
It would be so much better if my bio said something like: “Maureen is a former professional trampolinist who released three techno albums in Belgium before doing advanced work in science, specifically with little squishy cells that do totally awesome stuff, like wobble in time to music. She is currently at work searching for a new kind of triangle. She lives on a penguin farm.”**
Now, THAT’S an interesting author! No MFA in sight!
We idiots with the writing degrees have to dredge our backgrounds to pad out these stupid bios we have to write. We have to write bios because teachers make you write book reports. (Also, they won’t let me put my recipe for taco soup on the back flap of my books, under my photo.) It’s a good thing I worked in theater for so long, because I have a few stories about working with tigers and smoke machines and putting out fires to fill a paragraph or two. My Ivy League MFA is a footnote.
In any case, I’m not sure you should be taking academic advice from me. I wouldn’t. But those are my thoughts, if you wanted them. I guess the bottom line is that I think we just need more environmental scientists because this jellyfish thing is clearly getting out of hand. So please major in something like that because it is SERIOUSLY FREAKING ME OUT. (It doesn’t help that I am actually going away for a few days to a beach.)
Today’s random commenter Suite Scarlett winner is Haley!
In reading your comments, I saw many excellent questions and points, and I still have to talk to you about MAMMA MIA, which I have now seen. And yes, it was BEAUTIFUL. But clearly I needed to talk about this today . . . so if you could just let me know what I should discuss in my next post, that would be great. And, of course, there is another book to give away!
* actually, I think this is a misprint from my list of “things I totally want to hear”
**which I obviously am and have and did and am but let’s not get off the subject
Here’s the problem with having a contest in which the only task is to finish the sentence, “MJ should send me Suite Scarlett because . . .” I read all of the entries. Three times. And there are a lot of them. And they are all really good. I learned that a lot of you have never won ANYTHING, EVER. I found out that Scarlett has been creeping off her card and following quite a number of you. Just look at some of the reasons that came in!
catherine said... Oh, and I also wasn't able to participate in the Amazon challenge because I was away at my grandmother's house, which smells like cabbage and broken internet.
MJ: Does your grandmother live in my old high school? It sounds like she might. My high school REEKED of cabbage. It was the sisters’ #1 favorite side dish at dinner. Their favorite main dish was yelling at me to pull up my knee socks.
italianeyes83 said... MJ should send me a copy of Suite Scarlett b/c my only sister just ran off to Italy and I don't know when she's coming back.
MJ: If she sends you 13 blue envelopes, let me know . . . because I think she’s in my book.
norah said... MJ should send me Suite Scarlett because I Googled "Maureen Johnson" and discovered that MJ the author no longer has any Google gainers! In fact info on, about or by Maureen takes up the entire first page except for one hit somewhere in the middle that is about the girl from Rent.
MJ: Ha ha! Take that, Johnson! You may still have a tango, but I rule your Google world!
jen said... MJ should send me Suite Scarlett because I am fighting the good fight against the oceans. Last time I went to the beach I didn't go in the water once, I just stood and gave that pool of evil my most steely glare.
MJ: YES! YES, YES, YES!
How am I supposed to choose? Why do I have so few copies? Am I going to have to take my personal copy and come to your houses and read it to you? It’s an idea, but frankly, this would not be so good for you, as you never know when or in what state I will arrive. You will just hear the clank of my ladder hitting your bedroom windowsill, and there I will be, book in hand. I’d be worse than J.K. (Well, that may be overstating it a bit.)
At least I planned for this eventuality, and I recruited a crack team to help me, which included John Green and Oscar Gingersnort. They assisted me in the effort of reading and going through the anguish of choosing one winner.
After much consideration and hand-wringing, this was the chosen entry. It appealed to the judges because it was all about bringing Cheer to others, and because the winner had been shafted in the Amazon Challenge (which, as promised, provided bonus points):
laurenzo said... You know why I should receive Suite Scarlett? Because I want it. Really, really badly. I have never won a contest of any sort EVER in my short, pathetic little life, but maybe that's only because I'm hardly into it yet. My life, I mean. Regardless, I shall use that important point to lure you into giving me a copy of your precious novel. Secondly, I did not get much for Christmas (a truckload of pajamas and some chocolate), because my family gave most of our Christmas money to St. Jude's hospital, in order to help Spread The Cheer to kids who were in more need of it than I was. And Suite Scarlett would be the ultimate belated Christmas present. Much more rewarding than trivial items such as cell phones and video game consoles (because I play Super Mario OLDSCHOOL, YO.) And to receiving those extra special BONUS POINTS (look, capslock!), I will not hesitate to inform you that I have been away from my computer during most of this Christmas holiday, and missed out on the Amazon Challenge of Awesome.
Laurenzo, please send along your address. Scarlett is on her way.
The good news is: I have another copy!
Whenever I get a copy, I obviously have to give it away, so . . . this means I have to think of another contest. I thought about having a contest in which people give me suggestions for contests, and the winning contest suggestion won the contest . . . but that logic made me so dizzy that I had to go sit down for a while. I will come up with something.
Today, I want to talk about The Writing Of Books.
I have many things on the To Do List for 2008 besides writing the next Scarlett book. One of the big ones is . . . revamping this site! And one of the big things that this site needs, I know, is a big FAQ to help you with your book reports. I know this because I get letters almost every day from book report sufferers—and most of them contain ten questions or more that you need answered IMMEDIATELY!
The sad truth is . . . I’m almost never able to reply to these, not because I don’t want to, but because I don’t have time to answer them all individually. However! I want to make something that helps you! So I am compiling a list of Questions You Think I Should Answer in an FAQ.
But since it seems to be the height of book report season, I’ll answer one I’ve gotten a lot recently, one all authors get . . . where do you get the ideas for your books?
You know, I asked Libba Bray this question the other day, just to see how she would react. She did exactly what I do . . . she got a spooked, far-away look in her eye, like she was noticing Zac Efron slipping out her window with her prize hamster in his jaws.
Almost every writer I know hates this question. We are, by nature, a lazy people. Hard questions disturb our state of mind. This is one of the hardest of the hard, topped only by things like “How do you write a book?” and “Why are there so many headless girls on the covers of your novels?”
I always try to make something up . . . some weird, cobbled-together, IKEA-quality answer that will definitely fall apart the second you attempt to deconstruct it. This is because, for me, there IS no answer.
The ideas just come from my brain. I store stuff up there, and the brain monkeys play around with it and put together different combinations. They come to me with stuff all the time, as your brain monkeys must do for you. They are not always helpful.
BRAIN MONKEYS: Hey! Guess what we put together today! That time you got stung on the lip by a bee, your hatred of fried eggs, and that wallpaper pattern from your bedroom when you were little!
ME: That’s nice. What am I supposed to do with that?
BRAIN MONKEYS: We have no idea. We just put stuff together. Now we’re just going to run “My Humps” through your head for an hour while you try to work.
ME: #%$#$&*^&^!
BRAIN MONKEYS: Oh, and that question you were going so crazy about . . . what was it, two weeks ago?
ME: What question?
BRAIN MONKEYS: About that scene you were writing, with the thing . . . anyway, your iPhone cord is in your purse.
ME: That’s not what I asked! BRAIN MONKEYS: Yes you did. You were wondering about that an hour ago. About an hour. Maybe it was yesterday. Anyway, that’s where it is.
ME: What about the scene?
BRAIN MONKEYS: What scene?
ME: You just said you figured out that scene I was having problems with! What scene was it, and what’s the solution? BRAIN MONKEYS: Oh, we don’t have a solution. We were just thinking about it. That was a tough one. We have some random facts about squirrels, if that will help.
ME: It won’t.
BRAIN MONKEYS: How about the smell of blue cheese after a wild summer rainstorm?
ME: Do I even know that smell?
BRAIN MONKEYS: Probably not. We were going to work on it for you. Do you think Fergie felt at all self-conscious when she sang the words “my lovely lady lumps”?
ME: Just shut up, okay? Turn off the song.
BRAIN MONKEYS: If you want. We have some commercial jingles we were going to play for you later, but if you want them now . . .
The writer's brain is always at work.
But every once in a while . . . a great while . . . they get lucky with the soldering iron and make something I can use. In the case of Suite Scarlett, for instance, I can tell you that I was sitting at my desk when then the brain monkeys handed my something that went roughly like this:
BRAIN MONKEYS: Hey! You know how, when you were little, you liked stories about a lot of people crammed together in one building, like in The Westing Game or the All-of-a-Kind-Family stories?
ME: Yeah . . .
BRAIN MONKEYS: You know what buildings have a lot of people in them? Hotels.
ME: That’s true.
BRAIN MONKEYS: And how you love New York, where you live? And how your best friend was the poster child for Easter Seals when you were in third grade? And all those hours you spent in theater school sitting on the floor watching actors learn how to do stagefights and pratfalls? And how you love Patrick Dennis? And we found this Art Deco sunburst pattern.
ME: Slow down . . .
It went on like this for a few hours, a string of pictures and voices and memories of all stripes. By the end of it, I had written the premise of Suite Scarlett. All six Martin family members arrived, along with Mrs. Amberson, their long-staying guest. The Hopewell Hotel landed right on top of me, like that scene in The Wizard of Oz where the house lands on the Wicked Witch. Obviously, the book wasn’t done, and it took a long time to develop it all, but that’s how it started.
I think this is, in some fashion, how all ideas for books come about. Your brain fuses together a bunch of things. So, you can either take “I don’t know” or “Brain Monkeys” as my official answer. When I make the FAQ, that’s what it will probably say!
If you have questions YOU think would be useful for the FAQ and any potential book reports, please leave them in the comments! I will be coming up with another contest for the next galley.
In the meantime, you can also see me rambling about myself in this quickly-made video. Hank Green (brother of John Green) tagged me in this YouTube thing where you have to say five things about yourself. I am not proud of my answers, but that has never stopped me from answering anything before.
Friends! Your responses to my last post about book banning have been fantastic and insightful. Many of you even have plans of attack to help stop book banning in your communities. It’s amazing!
There are some other things to tell you about. First . . . Devilish is now out in paperback! Right now! And it's even more . . . goldenrod! Yes, the cover has been revamped a little. It now looks like this:
Available now!
Now, on to today's topic . . . I get a lot of e-mails asking for writing advice. I like to give this out on occasion, and now is as good a time as any.
Right now, I am revising Suite Scarlett. It seems like everyone I know is going through some kind of revision from hell right now. It must be revision season. So let’s have a look.
Here is the Writer. The Writer has finished the first (or second, or third) draft of his book. He’s feeling good. Clever. After all, he finished a book—and that counts for something. He has sent the book off to his Editor, and is now enjoying a little breakfast.
There is a certainly smugness that comes from finishing a draft.
The reason the Writer is so happy and smug while the draft is away with the Editor is because he no longer has to look at it. Naturally, though, he knows it will come back. He isn’t finished. He will have to revise.
WHAT IS REVISION?
Maybe this seems obvious—but then again, maybe not!
When I was in college, I was a staff member at the writing center. A dozen or so students, from freshman to graduate level, were assigned to me. All of them were having trouble writing and revising their papers.
And so they came. A third of them were shattered and fearful, convinced they would never be able to finish writing a paper. Another third were surly and looked like they wanted to punch me in the face simply for being alive. The final third fully expected that I would rewrite their papers for them.
Some people who had been told to revise their paper actually heard this: “You suck. Unfortunately, there are no beds open right now in the Home for the Extremely Stupid, so we will send you to the writing center instead, with the hopes that you fall into a big hole on the way over there.”
Other people felt that the professor was in the wrong—that the papers made perfect sense. They took every edit or mark as a deep personal insult. “But this is a personal essay/my story/my opinion,” they would yell/cry at me. “It can’t be wrong!”
Quite a number of people would nod away as I spoke, promising to bring back revisions. A few days later they would return with papers that were virtually identical to the ones I had just seen, with a handful of words swapped around and a few spelling errors fixed.
The angry people still looked like they wanted to punch me.
Two things finally occurred to me:
1. I wasn’t being paid nearly enough for this job. (One day, when I saw my boss floating through the library with that look on his face that said, “I am going to find Maureen and give her more students,” I hid inside a bunch of automated shelves and hit the switch, closing them in around myself. Such was my morale.)
2. People have widely varying ideas about what the word revision means.
I made my escape from the writing center with a shattered view of the meaning of revision.
There’s an adage that “writing is revision,” and I think it’s true. It marks the difference between merely writing something down and really writing something. I can’t take two very quick steps and say I was running. I have to make lots of quick steps in order to call it “running” and not just “quickly changing position.”
It’s sort of the same with writing. Books aren’t written once—they’re written five, a dozen, twenty, fifty times.
“How many times do you have to revise?” you ask. “What’s the right number?”
Who knows? There is no right amount of revision. In fact, you might say (if you are the kind of annoying person who says stuff like this) that books are never finished. When you see them in a shop or library, they are nicely bound between two hard covers and seem stable. But books are actually heaving, organic, ever-evolving messes that have more or less been beaten and tamed into a kind of submission and shoved into a document. Even classic books written by long-dead authors are often edited and tweaked or even rearranged a bit by editors. Shakespeare is a total mess, as multiple versions of the plays exist.
There is always a way to change things around. Herein lies the problem if you do this for a living.
REVISION AND THE PROFESSIONAL WRITER
Let’s get back to the Writer. He has been patiently waiting. He is finished his breakfast now. Let’s talk about what revision means to him.
Revision is part of his job, and he likes his job. He really does. But in order to do it, he needs his Editor.
The best editors are artists—make no mistake. They need to understand stories inside and out. They look at the shape and flow of the events, the way the characters respond, the style of the writing. (Certainly one of the most famous in literary history is Maxwell Perkins, who is repsonsible for bringing us an extrodinary amount of modern American literary classics.)
Editors are also psychologists. They have to tell the Writer all of their thoughts in a clever way that moves the Writer gently in the correct direction. They write up their views in something called an edit letter. (Or ed letter or editorial letter—whatever you prefer. It’s a letter.)
The Writer waits to hear what the Editor will have to say.
The edit letter usually begins with something like: “Dear Writer, Another job well done! This book is really shaping up nicely! I like you a lot!”
The Editor may very well mean these things, but she generally says them to keep the Writer from freaking out and taking an overdose of Scrabble tiles. This is the psychological part of their job. They have to make sure the Writer stays sane and finishes the book.
This particular Writer ignores all those bits and goes right to the part that describes what needs to be done. The Writer already has his own ideas, and maybe the ideas of some friends.
Editors never (or rarely, or shouldn’t) say: “You did this wrong. Failure, Writer! Failure!” They usually talk in terms of what’s working well and what could be done to strengthen what’s there. They will often suggest cuts or places to move material. Editors do not make you do things. They do not sneak into your house and change passages of writing while you sleep. They do not threaten to break your arms (usually). They coax.
Sometimes the edit letter expresses exactly what the Writer is already thinking. Or there may be major curve balls—things the Writer thought worked but the Editor doesn’t really understand or like. There may even also be parts the Writer hated and was planning to destroy—and yet the Editor seems to love them. This is often even more baffling.
Some writers like to have a lot of other people read their books as well. They like the chorus of voices and opinions. That’s a good approach.
However, it’s not an approach I like. The only notes I usually take are from my editor. I could show my stuff around to lots of great people, but then I would go half-insane trying to coordinate all the different notes in my head. For me, one voice is best.
Some people like having this many people looking at once, but I do not.
THE PROCESS
Generally, revisions should go big (global plot points, POV, chapter structure) to small (minor details). Think of it this way: if you were designing a house, you would have to figure out where the kitchen was going to go. Then you think about how everything will fit inside the kitchen—where does the stove go, or the sink? It’s a long time before you ever think about setting the table or sticking up hilarious fridge magnets—largely because you may not yet a table or fridge or maybe even a floor.
So it goes with your story. You need to know what happens in it. What’s the order of events? Who tells the story? These are the kinds of things decided in the first drafts. As time marches on, they’re supposed to remain more or less solid.
In theory. It doesn’t always work in practice.
It’s a good thing that the Writer doesn’t design houses—because he would move the kitchen around seventeen times, rip out all the bathrooms, add six more stories, and set fire to the roof.
Sometimes, in order to save the book, you must destroy it during revision. At least if you are me. I’m certainly not alone. Massive, last-minute rewrites are a well-known phenomenon. You can even read blogs about it! Witness the story of Scott Westerfeld getting 16,000 words into Extras, only to realize that he was writing from the wrong point of view—and then simply chopping those 16,000 words and starting again. Or Justine Larbalestier ripping out entire chapters of her new book.
Sometimes, this is the only way.
I tend to hack the book into all of its component pieces, spread them out, and then systemically (don’t ask me what kind of system that matically refers to) rearrange them and delete them. From there, I reshape the story and write it again.
Here, as an example, is what Suite Scarlett looks like right now.
I can write a rainbow.
Those are the different story events, color-coded by type, arranged into working sections. It is very pretty. I enjoy looking at it. It is behind my head right now as I type this, and it reassures me.
I started doing this because, somewhere around the third draft of 13 Little Blue Envelopes, I tore off the entire first third of the book and changed a major portion of the plot. From then on, I needed to see everything at a glance and track all the big movements. But I write every book differently. I'm really glad I'm not alone in this. Here's the frighteningly wonderful Holly Black talking about how she reinvents her style with each book.
This is one of the exciting things about writing. Everyone does it differently. Maybe the Writer's adventures will be helpful to you, maybe not. My only real, hard piece of advice about the writing process is this: if anyone tells you that there is just one method or a correct way of getting it done (few people would, but there's always someone), they're wrong. If you want to revise your book completely backwards, while hanging upside down covered in bees . . . feel free. Choose your teachers carefully. In the end, you'll teach yourself anyway.
THE END OF REVISION
There comes a point where either a.) the Writer decides the book is as done as it is ever going to be, or b.) it’s just due. Most people I know, including our Writer, use b. as their stopping point. At this point, the books move on to finer levels of editing—line by line and word by word. The Writer still may try to delete or sneak in a new chapter. Sometimes this is permitted, and sometimes the editor must intervene.
The only person I have ever known of to beat the revision process at its own game is the fantastic Jasper Fforde. If you go to his amazing website, you will see that he offers book upgrades—much like computer software gets updated. You just go to the site, book and pencil in hand, and make the changes he lists. And presto! Updated, never-ending book!
Frankly, the thought of that makes me a little dizzy. I may have to go rest my head.
I hope this has helped. If you have any thoughts/tips/advice on revision, the comments are open!
I am constantly amazed by you, readers. Your comments and e-mails are my favorite reading material.
Daphne is thrilled that you are sending in questions for “Ask an agent.” Keep sending them in! This is your chance to have a fancy-pants New York literary agent give you the scoop on the publishing process. And trust me, Daphne is the business. She has the dangerous-looking heels and the impressive view from her office window and everything.
Also, I have been reading your suggestions for my UK challenge with great interest. So far, I have been invited to go to Cambridge to participate in an experiment on autism, to go to the Netherlands, and to run through London with Daphne pretending to be Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. But I think the one I am leaning towards at the moment (and this is not over) is to do a scavenger hunt at Harrods. Harrods is at the center of 13 Little Blue Envelopes, after all.
But I can’t do a scavenger hunt unless I have things to look for or tasks to perform. So what I propose is this: you send in ideas for things to find and do. Harrods is a huge store, and there are plenty of opportunities to do strange things in it.
I leave this to you. There are two more days to get your ideas in for what I am now calling THE GREAT HARRODS CAPER.
Today’s mail brought something that knocked my socks off. Midshipman Tirzah has three pigs, all of which she has made official members of my Pirate Dance Camp crew! Behold, crew members, the Pirate Pigs!
Firstmate Bob, Bosun Arnold, and Captain Fred
But let’s look at a question I get a lot: “Is writing a good career?”
I often dodge and weave around this question, because it is a hard one to answer. But it should be addressed. I would never want you to think that I would avoid a topic just because it is a sticky one.
First of all, writing is not a career in the way that being an accountant or a nurse is a career. It does not have the structure, the hours, the promotions, or anything else associated with a “normal” job. You will also have to go through this conversation a lot:
SOME GUY: Hey, what do you do?
WRITER: I’m a writer.
SOME GUY: No, I mean for your real job.
WRITER: I’m a writer.
SOME GUY: No, I mean for money.
WRITER: Oh. I’m a ditchdigger.
Because you might be. Writers often take other jobs in order to make ends meet. You really shouldn’t consider writing as a career goal if making a lot of money is a priority for you. I’m not saying that writers can’t make a lot of money. I’m just saying, if it’s a requirement, become a banker or a celebutard.
People should be writers if and only if they feel that they have to write, no matter what the consequences. You’ll do it even though you may never, ever get paid for it. You will do it using whatever you have on hand. You prefer a computer or a Moleskin notebook, but you will use napkins if that’s the only thing available. You will probably write when you are supposed to be doing something else, like your German homework or your ditch digging.
I have wanted to be a writer since I was just a tiny mj, and as you can see from this old author photo, I was not the brightest kid in the world. I’m getting my picture taken in a two-foot-by-two-foot photo booth and it seems pretty clear that I can’t even spot the camera.
Look up, Maureen! No, up! Up! At the shiny thing!
I also once ran out of the house to play at my friend’s house, and it was only when I got there and saw her mom that I was informed that I had forgotten to put my pants on. So seriously, don’t base anything on my childhood dreams and desires, because you will be setting yourself up for a world of confusion.
If you are still reading now, you may have your heart set on this idea, so now I will tell you some of the career perks of the writing life.
YOU GET RESPECT
The writing life is a respectapalooza. If you say you are a writer, people will assume you are smart. As I’ve previously said, this is hardly the case, but I never correct this assumption. I get away with it because I have mastered point number nine on my how to be a writer list: I can plaster a smart look on my face for hours and never once will a deep—or even sensible—thought fire across my synapses.
Mostly, I think up sandwich combinations—that’s a big favorite thought of mine when I’m supposed to be being smart.
Reading, or sandwichizing? (Note the touching of the chin. This is key.)
WRITING IS EQUAL OPPORTUNITY
Writing is one of the few careers for which you essentially train yourself, the other two major ones being juggling and pickpocketing. A good education helps—but this is truly one of the cases where you won’t be left behind just because you didn’t go to an expensive school. It also means that people from interesting backgrounds get to work together—doctors, lawyers, ice skaters, chefs, cat burglars. They can all be writers.
Be aware, though: equal opportunity does not mean fair. Very few things are fair.
There is no board of standards to determine who can or cannot be a writer. This means that sometimes bad writers get published and amazing writers get ignored. And if a bad book (or what you think is a bad book) becomes super-successful and gets a huge movie deal and celebrities start coming to the Bad Author’s house to hang out in their tub . . . well, it’s all part of the deal.
If you are the kind of person who thrives on being recognized for your achievements—if you just live for the day when the class rank is announced because you’ve fought tooth and nail to get a 4.3 GPA instead of a normal 4.0 through a clever combination of advanced classwork, alchemy, and kissing up—well, you may find yourself in a near-constant state of frustration.
“Why is Wolves on Skates number #17 on Amazon?” you will ask. “It’s incomprehensible! The narrator DIES in the first chapter. Didn’t anyone NOTICE this?”
You'll probably end up going to some dinner, and you'll be seated next to the author of Wolves on Skates, who will tell you sordid tales of fame, like wild nights of partying at the Amazon mansion and makeout sessions with J.K. Rowling . . . as their assistant sits next to them, cutting up their food into small, triangular pieces because said author is obsessed with pyramids.
Some of these stories will be lies, but not all.
The author of Wolves on Skates may test your patience.
If you really want to be a writer, you will learn not to worry about these kinds of things any more. You will be thinking of new sandwich combinations instead.
READING IS PART OF YOUR JOB
It’s true. You can read pretty much anything you want, and it all counts. Manga. Vampire buddy novels. Phone books. Whatever you want.
The writer at work.
WRITING IS NOT PARTICULARLY DANGEROUS
I watched a show the other night called “Killer Jellyfish,” because that is exactly the kind of thing I have to watch. Did you know that there are people who are professional jellyfish researchers? And that they wade into jellyfish filled waters and pick them up and put them into buckets? In this show, two of the researchers were stung, and they were filmed as they spent the next two days in the hospital, twisting in agony as toxins invaded their system—toxins with no antidote, that produce pain so severe that not even the largest dose of morphine can even dull it?
Writers never have to do that. I mean, some of the rugged ones do it because they want to, but not this writer.
This is one example of a situation a writer is unlikely to end up in, unless they are that kind of writer.
YOU CAN WEAR WHATEVER YOU WANT
Writers laugh at the idea of casual Friday. It’s ALWAYS casual Friday! It’s a “pants optional” profession, which is obviously good for me, considering my history.
Acceptable workwear? YES.
I leave you with that, and I hope that you will be sending in ideas for the GREAT HARRODS CAPER. I put myself in your hands.
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