Magical Words

I wanted to write something brilliant about Actual Rules You Should Follow In Writing like my co-bloggers have done this week, but I can’t think of anything else right now that they haven’t covered, so I’m going to write about Personal Style Vs. The Copy Editor.

I’ve just finished up the copy edits for THE PRETENDER’S CROWN, book two of the Inheritors’ Cycle and sequel to THE QUEEN’S BASTARD. They went just fine, although I had assumed they’d refer to the stylesheet they created for the first book when copy editing the second, which turned out to be a mistake. I could have saved everybody a whole bunch of time if I’d known they weren’t going to do that, because, for example, I chose to use the British spelling of words (for flavour, as it were) in those books. The poor copy editor corrected all of my spelling back to the American spelling, which also happened with the first book, but when I said “Gee, I did this on purpose,” they apparently went “oh okay” and let me have my spellings. 95% of the CEs on TPC could have been avoided if I’d known they wouldn’t check the TQB copy edits and could’ve warned them in advance. I felt sort of bad.

But that’s not where the Style Vs CE: FIGHT! comes in, really. In this case it was mostly a matter of semi-colons, which I use *liberally* in these books. Peculiarly, the CE turned many of my semi-colons into commas.

Now, I’m not afraid of commas; my stylesheet that *they* prepared in fact says ‘uses serial commas’. And the purpose of a semi-colon is *different* from the purpose of a comma; it joins together two related but independent clauses, or is a transitional punctuation mark, and, very importantly to me, it denotes a longer *pause* than a mere comma does. This is a rhythmic thing as much as anything else, and I am, in writing these books, *fully aware* of the choice I’m making there. My feeling is that the last copy editor ‘got it’ more clearly than this one did, because my semi-colons were rarely corrected in QUEEN’S BASTARD.

Also: this particular CE didn’t like it when I used colons as I’ve just used one in this sentence. They were also turned into commas. As a writer, I can’t help feeling that the difference between “No, she didn’t” and “No: she didn’t” (and “No she didn’t”, for that matter) is quite enormous.

Similarly–and this has been every CE I’ve worked with–it seems that copy editors in general do not approve of beginning sentences with ellipses. I personally think there’s a significant difference between someone answering a question with “No.” vs. “…no.” Completely different connotations.

And this one was fun: I have in many many places in this manuscript chosen to hyphenate compound words which we would be unlikely to hyphenate today. This is a terribly stylistic thing, but for a story set four hundred years ago, it feels appropriate to me. The CE, of course, corrected them all, and I corrected most of them back. (And the one we couldn’t agree on was “goodbye”, which I spell that way, though I’m willing to admit that for this book it should be “good-bye”, but I hate how that looks, and she changed the few instances where it appears to the hyphenated version. I thought that was funny. :))

Then there are the cases (and this has happened in more than one book with more than one copy editor) where my grammar is corrected–incorrectly. I am, mind you, *good* at grammar. I do not mis-use “affect” and “effect”. Ever. But when a CE corrects me on something like that, I suddenly doubt myself (and then go to my mother and say “here is the sentence, should it be affect or effect?” and she invariably tells me it should be the one I used in the first place.) Similarly with complex verb-noun agreements: “The words stripped Belinda bare and left her ready for shaping, as though she was once more a child.” Copy editor changed that “was” to “were”, which is wrong, and yet my brain runs up against it and goes “wait wait what? did I make a mistake here?” It’s disconcerting.

Really, none of this is a complaint: this was not at all a bad set of copy edits, and I really do feel kind of badly that I could’ve potentially saved the poor CE an easy 95% of the work by mentioning the spelling and the hyphens previous to her attacking a 700 page manuscript. But it’s interesting (at least to me), particularly with my awareness of what I’m *doing*, as a writer, with these books, and how the author’s stylistic ideas can run smack up against more conventional writing, er, conventions. (I’m a professional. Don’t try this at home. :))

Tags: C E Murphy by cemurphy
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If you’re serious about being published, eventually you’ll attend a writing conference and come face-to-face with an agent or editor.  In the same way that following guidelines gives the agent a good impression of you, so does your behavior at a conference.  Conferences can be loads of fun, and should be.  But like your mama probably told you all those years ago, the way you act tells people more than the words you say.  Want to convince an agent you’re a good risk?  Act like one.

For example, drink alcohol sparingly, if at all.  I don’t know about you, but most people think they can handle a lot more liquor than they actually can.  Ever been to a party where Joe’s had one too many and is now swinging from the chandelier?  Getting drunk at a conference can be equally ruinous, especially if you’re a talker.  Insult the wrong bestselling author, and suddenly all the agents and editors in the room know who you are.  For all the wrong reasons.

You’ve all heard the tales of people following agents into bathrooms in hopes of getting a moment alone.  It’s crazy, and rude.  But I’ve seen another version of that, just as annoying – the tagalong.  Would-be author Sharon met the agent on Friday while in line to check in to her hotel room, struck up a conversation, and decided she would stick with the agent for the entirety of the conference.  Wherever you looked, if you saw the agent, there would Sharon be, at her shoulder, glaring daggers at the person who’d had the gall to speak to HER agent.  Sharon was at every meal table, every panel discussion.  If the agent had one-on-one meetings with other people scheduled, you could be certain to see Sharon in the hallway, waiting.  By the end of the weekend, the agent was so tired of Sharon, she’d promised herself she’d never look at a single word Sharon wrote.

I’m not perfect, believe me.  I’ve blown it myself once or twice.  Several years ago, I was at a writing conference, and we’d thrown a small room party, to which an important NYC editor had come.  I was so excited I could hardly breathe – here she was, drinking a glass of wine at my party!  Surely this was a sign!  I spent a while chatting with her and her husband, until I saw my opening, and mentioned my fantasy manuscript.  Instantly her eyes changed, but I kept blathering on, until at last she said, “Why don’t you send me your first three chapters?”  I should have thanked her and gone to get her another drink, but I didn’t.

I almost don’t want to admit this.

I reached down to my bag, and whipped out my submission package like I was a magician pulling a rabbit from a hat.  “I happen to have them here,” I said, triumphantly.  “You can read them on the plane.”

Yes, I really said that.

She (being incredibly gracious) took the package and said she’d be in touch.  And she was true to her word – I received a very polite rejection about a week later.  She may have actually read the pages, but if she did, she was reading them with the memory of my pushiness.  I wouldn’t have wanted to work with someone like me.  I learned my lesson.  The next time I approached an agent, I was calm and professional.  I gave her my pitch, and when she expressed interest in talking further, I mentioned we had a meeting scheduled that I was looking forward to very much, then I let her continue on to talk to other people.  During our meeting the next day, I remained calm and friendly, and we had a delightful conversation about not only my book, but other authors we both enjoyed reading.

Sure it was hard to keep it cool, when all I wanted to do was throw myself at her feet and beg her to represent me.  But it paid off - she offered me representation a few weeks later, after she’d seen my whole manuscript.  I was elated.  Not only had I gotten what I wanted, I’d done it by following the rules.  I felt as if I’d redeemed myself for my terrible gaffe with the editor.

My mama is so proud.

Tags: Misty Massey by Misty Massey
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Because Catie is posting on Friday this week, I was going to post yesterday and then I got buried in rewrites… So here it is on the day it was due. Building on David’s post about submissions, I’d like to add a story and comments. First, the thing David said about going to each agency’s and publisher’s website and following the guidelines. You *must* submit your work the way each and every agent and pub requests it. It isn’t an option if you really want to get a foot in the door.

At South Carolina Writers Workshop conference in… 2007, I think it was, all the agents were up front on a panel, taking general questions from the entire assembly. There were nearly 500 people that year, so there was huge crowd, and really good questions. Until… This guy stood up and said (paraphrased), “You make it too hard. I have to go to every single website and read every single submission requirement - and some of you want three chapters and a five page synopsis, and some of you want only a query and a one page synopsis and some of you want only Times New Roman font and some of you want Courier and why can’t you all do the same thing?”

A fell a hush on the room. Really. Because no one had ever heard something so stupid. And every one felt sorry for the poor guy because he just didn’t get it. His question was treating the industry as a company. And-it isn’t. Publishers may be friendly with one another, but they are competitors; each does things its own way.

Finally Lucienne Diver took the mike and tried to explain, gently. I no longer remember what she said, but here’s *my* response.

If you were applying for a job, you would fill out each different company’s paperwork, neatly because you would be trying to make a good impression. You would not photocopy one generic application and send it in to every single company. Why? Um…because you want to work for a company not an industry. Industries do not pay you. Companies do. So when you submit something - do it the way the company (agency, publisher) requires.

Second in my free flowing line of thought is the worst query letter my other agent ever got. I’ve paraphrased it here before, but it should be repeated often. It read:

Dear Agent,
I am 62 years old. I have a book to sell and I don’t have much F***ing time.
Signed,
Idiot

Okay - the writer’s name is fake, but it fit the situation. My agent’s reply:

Dear Idiot,
Neither do I.
Agent

Frankly I was surprised that he even wrote back to the guy.

So follow submissions guidelines. Very carefully. Make sure no typos are there and - *very* important in this electronic age - before you send *anything* into an agent or pub, send it to a friend who has different kind of computer system (Mac vs. PC) and get that friend to open it and *make freaking sure* all formatting is right. Why?

If you have a writing partner and you have been sending tracked changes back and forth, they all have to go away! I have a pal who sent something to an industry professional and all the formatting that appeared to be gone on her system showed up on his. Like - ouch!

I might think of more later, but this is it for now…

Faith

Tags: Faith Hunter by faithhunter
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Following up on Faith’s wonderful post last week, “Bait and Hook,” and kicking off what promises to be an interesting week of themed posts on submissions, I’m going to cut against the grain a bit.

My fellow writers and I often say on this site that there is no right way to do something when it comes to writing.  You have to listen to your own muse and allow your characters to do the things they’re telling you they need to do.  And ninety-nine point nine per cent of the time that “no-right-way-to-do-this” rule works.  But there are exceptions, and one of the most important involves submissions.

Let me backtrack a moment and begin with this:  many writers who are just starting out assume that agents and/or editors are always searching for that next new star, and to a certain degree this is true.  But these same writers extrapolate from this a second assumption:  that agents and/or editors will look through manuscripts submitted to them with an eye toward finding that star, and will therefore be looking for reasons to love their manuscript.  And that, my friends isn’t the case at all.  (A note here:  much of what I’m about to say is equally true of editors of anthologies or magazines looking for short stories to publish.)

Editors and agents get stuff from aspiring writers all the time.  They have gobs and gobs of stuff to read all the time.  When they are looking through these piles of submissions (or, more accurately, where their assistants are looking through them) they are not looking for reasons to love your manuscript; they are looking for reasons to reject it.  Let me repeat that.  Those who read through submissions are not looking for reasons to buy a book or a story, they are looking for reasons not to.  “What?” you say.  “But. . . but that’s awful!”  Actually, no it’s not.  It makes perfect sense.  They have a pile of manuscripts and only so many hours in a day to read through them.  The faster they can find a reason to reject the one they’re reading, the sooner they can move on to the next, and get one submission closer to being done.  This is why the hook Faith was writing about is so important.

But at a more basic level, editors are looking at presentation.  Does your manuscript look professional?  Is it printed in a simple, readable font?  Is it double-spaced, does it have proper margins?  This sounds like foolish stuff, right?  It’s not.  These folks are dealing with serious eye-strain.  (Okay, that’s partially a joke.)  More to the point, every publisher, every literary agency, every journal or magazine or e-zine that might want your work has submission guidelines that will tell you exactly how your manuscript should look.  These guidelines (GLs in professional parlance) can be found online or can be requested by snailmail with a self-addressed, stamped envelope (SASE).  They will tell you how your manuscript should look, where your name and address should appear on the first page, what other info should be on that first page (some magazines want a word count for short story submissions, some don’t), what font size and spacing format you should use, whether you should send the whole piece or only a certain number of chapters, what other materials to include (cover letter, bio) etc.  Get these guidelines for each place to which you submit work; don’t assume that the GLs for one publishing house or agency will work for all the others.

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Tags: David B. Coe by DavidBCoe
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Blurb
/blɜrb/:
1. a brief advertisement or announcement, esp. a laudatory one
2. to advertise or praise

Yesterday, in her excellent post on “bait and hook”, Faith mentioned an agent meeting that served as a turning point for Kim Harrison. In the weeks prior to the meeting, Faith spent a good deal of time helping all of us learn how to blurb our work. I’m sure you’re familiar with blurbs on book covers, lines of praise that are used to help sell the book. Blurbs are also excellent tools for the author approaching an agent or editor. I don’t know how many of you have been to any writing conferences or met many agents. Sometimes these events are so crowded that your chance at a one-on-one may come in an elevator, or while waiting in line for the lunch buffet. Trust me…if you luck onto two minutes of an agent’s undivided attention, you’d better be prepared. There are a thousand people ready to jump in when the agent turns his head in another direction, and you want him to remember you.

Say I’ve written the gripping saga of Lisette, a lady’s maid in fin de siecle Portugal, who discovers her own latent magical ability to throw fire from her eyes when she accidentally sets the family home on fire while the lord of the manor is molesting her, and must learn to control her strength while she’s on the run from the Inquisitor and his vicious knifemen who hope to catch her and cut out her heart, which will transfer her power to the Inquisitor if he consumes it. Oh, and she falls in love with one of the knifemen when he meets her in her disguise as a stable lad, did I mention that?

Yeah, that’s long. And unwieldy. If the elevator is an express, we probably reached the agent’s floor before I got to the part about the knifemen. Since I would never dream of following the agent to his hotel room (and I’m sure you all know the bathroom is even MORE off limits!), I’ve blown my great chance. So what should I have done?
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Tags: Misty Massey by Misty Massey
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Last week I blogged on the reason why a first book by UnPub usually has to be so much better than the bestseller by Author X, Y or Z. Question four I left hanging so I could devote a bit more time to it. And it was…

Let’s say I don’t have mega-luck on my side. What can I do to make my chances of a first-book-sale better?

The answer is – a lot! It’s a writing (and advertising) device called Bait and Hook. Not Bait and Switch, which a lot of writers (and stores) try, but Bait and Hook. And yeah – think advertising.

I love to tell the story of the way my mystery agent does business. He’s a one man agency, and he gets an average of 35 submission s a day, seven days a week, holidays and vacations included. Some are email queries which he handles with a quick yes/no form letter. He has three:

1. Yes, send three chapters and a synopsis.

2. Yes, send the whole manuscript, and I want an exclusive. (Not used much.) and

3. No thank you. 

That will leave some ten to fifteen manuscripts and three-chapter submissions to read.  *Every dang day!* So, he has a rule of thumb, phrased as a question: How little do I have to read to stop reading today? That is where you, UnPub come in with Bait and Hook, but more on that later.

If the first sentence is not a grabber he sends a rejection. If the second sentence is bad, ditto. If the first paragraph is okay, he’ll set it aside to read further. When he has weeded out all but five, he’ll read the first five pages of each. If nothing grabs him, it gets a no. If something grabs him, he’ll send it to his daughter. She will read the first five pages, and send it back with a graded reply:

1. You should take a look at this one.
2. This one is fantastic!
3. This one stinks. (Lots of those.)

His daughter is 16 years old. She has been his reader for four years, weeding out the non-acceptables. Yeah, a twelve-year-old was rejecting writers’ manuscripts, and doing a great job at it. How sad is it that even a twelve-year-old girl can see when a book stinks? Does that mean that your book stank? No. That day he may have been on vacation and he sent out blanket rejection letters. I know –  *Ouch.* But every agency has days like that, which is why, if you don’t have a personal entrée to an agent or editor, it become a numbers game.

Example: Kim Harrison. Not name dropping here (maybe a little) but she has a great story. (Jump in here, Misty, anytime!) I was a member of a writers group at the time and was mentoring Kim and several other writers. This was back in my work-butt-off-phase of life which I have thankfully left behind, at least a bit. I was also in charge of putting together the mystery author and agent panel for a prestigious writing conference. I had already met (via Internet) the agent I wanted her, and other the writers in the group, to have. I asked him to come to the event. Kim and all the writers’ group were all invited. Mind you – Kim had already written a query to this guy and he rejected her. He met her, liked her blurb, and asked for the manuscript. He read it on the way home from the event and signed her. Well, he asked for a monumental rewrite, but when she delivered, he signed her. And the rest of history.

Every agent I know has a system (criteria is the polite word) to answer the most important question of their day: How much (or little) crap do I have to read to stop reading today? So, UnPub’s job is to blow the agent away. Bait and Hook. Kim tried it via the standard method and didn’t meet the agent’s criteria. So she tried another way and voila, she was in.

More below tag-line, I hope…

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Tags: Faith Hunter by faithhunter
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“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.”
–Mark Twain

I know a lot of writers who have amazingly supportive partners. I know a lot who don’t.

I can imagine doing this job without a partner at *all* (although my husband, Ted, is unbelievably good at plotting, so I get a hitch in my get-along at the idea of actually *having* to!), but I can barely imagine doing it with an active detractor in my life. It’s not an easy way to make a living, and, like any other kind of art, it requires a fair amount of nurturing and faith.

My husband has committed acts of faith repeatedly in supporting me as a writer. I got laid off from my web design job at the end of 2004, an entire year before we were planning for me to quit and pursue full-time writing. He encouraged me to go ahead and write full-time, even though we knew it was a financial risk. He has (correctly, which is very interesting to me) predicted various sales to publishers long before I had any belief they would go through. He encouraged me to pursue the comic book that’s debuting next month. He’s never once said, “You know, going back to a day job might be wise,” even when it would have been; in fact, he says he takes pride in the fact that I’m a full-time writer, regardless of it being a hard haul for both of us at times.

It’s not actually practical to dispose of one’s partner if that person isn’t supportive of your writing career, but I very much hope people who don’t have that support at home can find it elsewhere. Writing groups, either online or off, or other family, or friends, whether they write or not. It just seems so critical to me. It’s a hard and lonely enough row to hoe without doing it without a cheerleader or two.

Tags: C E Murphy by cemurphy
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Last week I posted about the similarities between writing and the visual arts.  Last night I went to see Jerry Douglas and his band play at the Belcourt Theater in Nashville.  It was an unbelievable concert in a small, intimate venue, by one of the finest musicians on the planet.  Not surprisingly, this week I’m thinking about music…

At first blush, music and writing would seem to have as little in common as any pair of art forms.  Consider this for a moment:  You go to a music store and find that your favorite musician has just released a new CD!  You’re so excited!  You buy the CD, take it home, and listen to it beginning to end.  And then you put the CD on its place on the shelf and never listen to it again.

I know that some people will reread their favorite books again and again.  But generally speaking, we read a book once and then put it on a shelf, where it gathers dust.  Maybe after a while we lend it to a friend who never returns it, or we sell it to a used book store.

All this by way of saying that people tend to think differently about music and literature of any sort.

But that certainly doesn’t mean that as writers we have little to learn from music.  On the contrary, I would argue that the rhythms, structure, and tonality of music can teach us a great deal about writing.

To my mind (and all the usual caveats apply — there’s no right way to do this, your approach might vary and be every bit as valid, objects in mirror may be closer than they appear…) good writing should be constructed musically.  Themes should recur as they do in a classical symphony.  Sometimes those recurrences might be obvious; at other times they might just be hinted at, a passing reference that echoes something you’ve done earlier.  A certain amount of freedom should be built into any outline that you use, so that you can improvise in places as might a jazz or bluegrass musician.

Writing should also have a compelling cadence, just as good music often has a captivating rhythm.  This works on a number of levels.  In its most basic sense, this means that you need to vary sentence structure and length.  Generally speaking, you don’t want every sentence to be a simple declarative, because you’ll end up with a stiff, staccato rhythm that becomes too repetitive.  (There are exceptions to this — at times, that’s just the effect you might want; but in most instances you don’t.)  On the other hand, too many long complex sentences in a row can muddy your prose, making it difficult to follow the narrative.  You want a mix.

But rhythm also works in a broader sense.  Actually, this might also be defined as dynamics rather than rhythm, but you’ll see what I mean.  I like to vary the level of action in my books from chapter to chapter.  There are certainly times when I’ll have one fast-paced chapter after another — lots of action, violence, sex, frequent plot points.  Fun stuff.  But I also believe that readers need opportunities to catch their breath now and then.  Just as a good music album will have a mix of up-tempo pieces, slower blues, and ballads, a novel should have chapters that move at break-neck speed, and others that are somewhat slower.  You don’t want your narrative to stall, but neither do you want it all happening at the same pace all the time.  At least that’s how I feel.

Finally, writers can learn from the tonality of music.  What do I mean by this?  Think about your favorite piece of classical music, or jazz, or whatever.  There are points in the piece that build musical tension.  Sometimes it’s a matter of a rhythmic syncopation, but at other times it’s a failure to resolve tonally, to resist going to the note or chord that closes a melodic passage.  For those of you who aren’t quite sure what I mean, listen to a Mozart symphony, and you’ll find that as you hear certain passages you can anticipate the last note of a musical phrase.  You know what note is coming, because it resolves the musical tension in ways that are familiar.  But at other times Mozart holds that note back, upping the musical tension.  You anticipate it, but you don’t get it.  Sometimes a composer will even throw in a modulation that sounds almost sour, and thus further ratchets up the tension.

Writers ought to do this, too.  Sometimes giving readers the equivalent of that tonal resolution in the middle of a book can be quite effective.  Resolving a long standing conflict, or consummating a romance that’s been in the offering for several chapters can do it. This gives readers an emotional touchstone that can be reassuring, or it can provide that resting point I mentioned before when I was writing about rhythm.  But more often than not, even when we’re moving the action at a slightly slower pace, we can maintain the forward momentum of the narrative by upping the tension, by refusing to give that tonal resolution, or even by hitting a sour note.  Action isn’t always about body counts and violence; subtle tensions can propel a plot forward without any of that other stuff.  By simply holding back that tonal resolution, by doing the unexpected with the “melody” of your narrative, you make your book more exciting, more compelling.  You keep your reader turning the pages.  And that, of course, is the whole point.

Tags: David B. Coe by DavidBCoe
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Somebody posted that in my comments a few days ago. Actually, I’d written a thinks to do list upon which I’d posted about seven things I’d already done, and another five or six that needed doing, and she said, “You know what’s cool about being a successful writer like you? You have this easy schedule, can do your own thing, you’re your own boss…” and then followed it with the ‘you work harder’ line. I don’t usually think I do–it’s just that I make lists of what I need to do and post them publicly whereas most people are doing their jobs at work and have a totally different structure than I do–but today, as I delivered the proposal for the fifth Walker Papers book and found myself contemplating a weekend, it did occur to me that most people at least *have* weekends regularly. I’m terrible at taking them.

This is a problem for anybody who works at home. It’s hard to leave the office behind when the office is at the house, or when emails, both personal and professional, come to the same address. It’s hard when *all* your work, whether committing fiction or networking is done at a computer (and no doubt made more complicated still when significant socialization happens at the computer, too). For at least a couple of years now I’ve been dreaming of a time when I could create a so-called normal schedule for myself, one that involved working five days a week and having two days off. (Or 4 days a week, with 3 off! no point in being your own boss, etc, right?)

I suspect the reality of the situation–even if I would stop overloading myself with projects–is that for me as a writer, it wouldn’t work that way. As it is even now, I’ll often go for several weeks without writing (although not without *working*: there’s an awful lot of this job that’s definitely work without being butt-in-chair committing fiction) and when I start writing a book I do it All The Time. And I find myself torn on that.

On one hand, if you don’t skip any days of writing, you don’t lose the narrative thread. On the other hand, if you don’t skip any days of writing, you get to this stage of wide-eyed vacant staring horror of the keyboard. (Or at least I do. This may be a result of too many years of too many deadlines.) So how, exactly, can this balance out? It doesn’t balance as nicely as it should, with weeks of actual total Time Off when I’m not writing a book, because I’ve got emails to answer from my editors, comic book material to organize, a looming awareness of upcoming deadlines…and so there’s never *really* the down time that you can get a bit more easily if you have an out-of-house job*.

So do other people handle this better than I do? I rather have the idea that the answer is ‘no’, but I’m all curious now!

*Trust me, I’m not kidding myself–I know how much effort goes into trying to organize the *rest* of one’s life around stable work hours…but even if you’re frantically getting other things done, it’s usually not *work* hanging over your head in the off-hours….

Tags: C E Murphy by cemurphy
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Hi, I’m Misty, and I’m a slow writer.

Have you ever tried to pour the last quarter-ounce of honey out of the plastic bear?  And waited for what seemed ever just for it to reach the hole in the top?  That’s me.  I blame my day job when anyone asks, but the reality is that I write really slowly.  I can’t leave a paragraph and go on to the next until I know it’s verging on perfect.  I’m hideously jealous of people who can slap out 10K words in a week, words they don’t worry about editing until the whole book is done.  I’ve been told by professionals and I’ve read books that tell me I’m doing it wrong, that I should spill words onto the page the way a toddler spills milk, waiting until later to clean up the mess.  I’ve tried, to no avail.  I sign up for NaNoWriMo every year, not because I think I can manage 50K words in 30 days, but because the arbitrary deadline at my busiest time of year does help to keep me focused.  In the last five years of playing along, I’ve only “won” once.  I spent a summer in The Artist’s Way, faithfully scribbling those morning pages the Way demands.  When the course was over, I was right back to my old ways.   Sometimes I can go nuts with pen and paper, but even that loses its luster after a few days.  I’m not a spiller - I’m a careful placer.  It’s how I roll.

Two weeks ago, I was asked to read the galleys of an upcoming Tor title and provide a quote.  Reading the book took two days.  Writing the quote?  An eternity.  I worked on it every day, worrying that this word wasn’t quite right or it was running too long.  I eventually sent it off, and the recipient seemed happy with what I’d crafted (even though I was stressing as soon as I hit “send”.  *hee*)  It’s okay, though.  The words come slowly, but they come.  And if I manage five or ten pages in a week, I can be proud that those pages are the shiniest prose I can bleed onto the screen.

Tags: Misty Massey by Misty Massey
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