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There once was a mom of 4 kids,
And momming was all that she did.
She wanted to write, like she used to at night,
But the baby never shut his eyelids.
All through the summer she played
At the pool for days upon days.
She soaked up the sun (and SPF fifty-one!
Don’t worry, the baby had shade!) Continue reading
It only takes a few words to get started. Happy writing everyone!
An interesting point from fantasy writer Sir Terry Pratchett:
“You can’t build a plot out of jokes. You need tragic relief. And you need to let people know that when a lot of frightened people are running around with edged weaponry, there are deaths. I’m not writing ‘The A Team’-if there’s a fight going on, people will get hurt. Not letting this happen would be a betrayal.”
-Sir Terry Pratchett
And that, my friends, is as good an explanation as any of why good authors write profane scenes. Something has to happen, and it has to be honest.
Hello friends! This week’s quote comes from the enigmatic Harper Lee:
“I would advise anyone who aspires to a writing career that before developing his talent he would be wise to develop a thick hide.”
—Harper Lee, WD
True indeed!
And because my daughters and I are completely enraptured by A Wrinkle in Time at the moment, today’s quote comes from the great Madeleine L’Engle:
“You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.”
― Madeleine L’Engle
Beautiful!
Writers can be pretty critical when it comes to, well, writing. I’ve been a member of several writing communities, and one thing is always certain. If you get enough writers in a room (real or virtual), someone will have a story about a writing error they’ve come across that bugs them bad enough to spit slugs. (That’s not a real thing. Just my attempt at avoiding a cliche.)
Don’t get me wrong. I am one of those writers. Sometimes I complain to my non-writerly friends about some gawd-awful passage I’ve read in a New York Times bestseller. “How does this person have a publisher? And so many readers? She can’t even put a coherent sentence together!” And my friends just shrug at me. “Uh…sorry?” Yes, I know. Only the writers get it. Grammar, usage, diction, voice, style that breaks all these rules for all the right reasons…these things are IMPORTANT, darn it! Continue reading
Today’s quote comes from the great Oscar Wilde:
“Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault. Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty. There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
I doubt if anyone could have said it better!
I’ve actually never written New Year’s Resolutions before, but I do like setting concrete goals, so I thought I’d give it a try this year. Here are a few things I hope to accomplish this year with my writing: Continue reading
If you’ve been reading this blog, you know that I’ve been on a mission to get one or another of my books published for a few years now. I’ve received rejection upon rejection from literary agents. Some of them were encouraging. The last agent to reject Women Like Us wrote, “I was highly entertained reading your pitch and sample pages. You have a great comedic voice and I thought your narrator was charming.” I enjoy hearing that. It honestly makes my day, every time. From what I hear, literary agents are unbelievably busy people whose inboxes are jammed with so many query letters they need to hire help just to open each one and hit “send” on the form rejection. So if one of them liked my writing enough to send me a personal note about specific things she enjoyed in my book, I call that a win.
Of course, most of my rejections came as form letters. I’ve got close to two hundred of those. You’d think this would mire me in a deep depression, but like I wrote here, I’ve learned not to let the rejections get to me. I see, “RE: Query: WOMEN LIKE US” in the subject line and my first thought is, “Oh look, I’ve got another form rejection.”
Sure, there’s hope too. Just before I open the email, my thoughts jump to, “Maybe this one will be different. Maybe she wants sample pages. Maybe she wants a full manuscript. It’s still possible!” But I banish all expectations from my mind before I click that email open. I don’t want to get my hopes up only to have them crushed. That way, when I read, “Thank you for querying me with your project. Unfortunately…” I can go, “OK, just what I thought. No big deal.”
So imagine my surprise when one day, I opened one of these emails to read lines like, “A great novel…once I started I could not stop…acquisition discussion phase…set up a conference call.” This email was from a publisher, not an agent, and it was certainly not a rejection. This publisher wanted my book.
I was over the moon happy. I told everyone I knew. Thoughts about what it might be like to be a published author pre-occupied me for days until that conference call finally came along and I got a chance to talk to the publisher who fell in love with my book. This was the best conversation I’ve ever had in my life. I have never spoken to anybody who gushed about my writing more, including my mom. (Sorry mom. Nobody is more surprised than I am. You are still the Queen of Gushing.)
I was a little skeptical, because this was an indie publisher without much of a history. I talked to some friends who are published and asked for their advice before the call, and I wrote down a list of “must know” questions to make sure I was fully informed. Here’s the list, if you’re curious:
1. Can you tell me some sample titles that you’ve published? (So I could later look them up on Amazon.)
2. What is your experience in publishing?
3. What is your editing process?
4. How will I be compensated? Do you expect me to have any financial obligations in publishing or marketing this book?
5. What is your marketing plan for my book? Can you give me some examples?
I also asked her a couple of specific questions about the plot of my book, just to make sure she’d actually read it. I didn’t really doubt that she had, but I’ve heard horror stories about unknown publishers acquiring any books they can get their hands on with no intention of ever actually selling them. I wasn’t obvious with the plot questions, and I framed them so it sounded like I wanted her opinion on certain plot points. It would be rude (and a little desperate-sounding) to come out and say, “Have you really read this book?”
Well let me tell you, she’d really read the book. And she loved it. She told me her favorite parts, which qualities of my characters spoke to her, which parts surprised her and made her laugh out loud, how much she loved the manner in which my characters accomplished their goals. She made me feel like a brilliant writer. At the end of our call, she said, “Whatever you choose, whether you publish with us or not, you’ve got a fan for life. I will read whatever you put out there.”
Wow. I defy you to find one writer who wouldn’t be thrilled to hear those words.
She also answered all of my other questions satisfactorily. I really thought I was on the verge of signing a publishing contract. Then came the contract itself. I decided that, since I wasn’t represented by an agent, I should have an attorney review it. The publisher and her contracts manager were very supportive of this idea. They said, “We don’t want you to sign anything you’re not comfortable with. Getting an attorney to review it is the perfect way to ensure that everything in the contract is in your best interest.”
So I got an attorney referral from my father-in-law (Thanks Ray!) and sent it off. There was nothing inherently wrong with it. They weren’t trying to screw me over or anything. In fact, most of it was boilerplate. But my lawyer did suggest a few changes that, according to him, were to “clarify terms.” Seemed innocent to me. I read over his suggestions, asked him a couple questions to make sure I understood, and sent the amended contract back to the publisher.
Now, all of this took some time. My lawyer had a vacation, the publisher had a conference, there were other books they were working on. So several weeks passed while the contract was going back and forth. During this time, I decided to do something I should’ve done from the beginning. I read some of their other authors.
Some of them seemed very talented. But there were a few whose writing I thought just wasn’t publishable. It was full of awkward sentences, echoes of the same word used way too many times, and verbose passages that could’ve been cut down by half without losing any meaning.
I thought, “If they think this writing is good enough to publish, why are they interested in mine? Do they think my writing is at the same level as these guys?” Then the more devastating realization, “If I publish with these guys, and this is the kind of stuff they’re putting out there, will anyone take me seriously?”
The answer, unfortunately, is probably not. When I ask other published authors to blurb my book, the first thing they’ll do is look up other books put out by the same publisher. If they’re terrible, that author will not want their name associated with them. When my publisher sends my soon-to-be-released manuscript to bloggers and book reviewers who’ve received dozens of poorly written books from these same guys before, they’re likely to never even pick mine up. As far as they know, it’s not worth their time. No matter how much time and effort the publisher puts into marketing my book, if they’ve got a reputation for selling stinkers, the writing community will assume my book should fit into that same category.
Realizing this broke my heart. I didn’t want it to be true. I tried convincing myself it wouldn’t work out that way. My book is good. My writing isn’t clunky and awkward. It’s snappy. Funny. Poignant. I’ve got a great comedic voice, for crying out loud! People will see the difference between my work and theirs, and they’ll love my book. And even if they don’t, even if it doesn’t sell, that’s no big deal. I’ll write more books. I’ll have learned my lesson and I won’t publish with these guys again. My career can move on.
But what if it doesn’t? I’ll never be a first time author more than once. Any agent or publisher who’s interested in one of my future books will first look up the sales figures of my previous books. This is something that could haunt me forever.
Even still, I didn’t want to believe that. I continued to talk to the publisher and negotiate the contract. But a funny thing happened. These people, who had always responded to every email I sent them within a few hours, started getting pretty distant once my lawyer got involved. Even though they’d welcomed his review in the beginning, once they saw his suggestions they started backing off a little. It took them a long time to respond to his last round of suggestions. When they finally got back to me, they said his changes would drastically alter the contract. My lawyer and I were both surprised by this. We thought they were simple, clarifying changes. What was going on here?
Still despite all these red flags, I told them I was willing to continue negotiating with them, and I was confident that we could work out a deal that we were all comfortable with. In other words, “I’ll work with you! Don’t worry!”
After that, their communications with me got even more cagey (and infrequent). I finally had to admit, this publisher is not for me. I’m kind of embarrassed about how long I let it go on, and how much evidence I ignored.
This is not to dis all indie publishers. I love indie publishers. The world would be a much less colorful place without them. And I’m sure there are thousands of writers out there who have had wonderful experiences with them. I’m just saying I’m relieved that I didn’t sign that contract.
I finally sent them my break up email last week. I told them that I enjoyed talking with them about my book, and I was grateful for their enthusiasm for my writing, but in the end, we weren’t a good fit. It’s kind of ironic to be on the sending end of an email like that. It also sucks.
Do you have any stories to share about heart break in publishing? Or success stories from working with an indie publisher? I’d love to hear those too. It would make me feel more optimistic about the world in general to hear some good news. I LOVE hearing from you!
I like to write my novels in first person character voice. (Some people call it writing in dialect.) I do it for a few reasons. One, I enjoy reading novels written this way. Two, I think I’m pretty good at it. And three, I absolutely LOVE distinctive human voices, particularly those of the American South.
Writing this way is a challenge. For one thing, I haven’t been to all the places that I’ve set stories in. Right now, I’m writing a novel called Freedom City set in the Ozark Mountains region of Arkansas. Most of my characters are not from the Ozarks. They’re transplants from other parts of the south.
But one character, Pearly, is a ninety-five year old great-grandmother, born and raised in the Ozarks. She’s not the protagonist, but she’s an important character with several point of view chapters. And I (confession!) have never been to the Ozarks.
So what does a novelist such as myself do? I can’t afford to take time off from my life and spend a month with the Arkansas hill folk. And I don’t know anyone from that part of the country with whom I can just sit and have regular conversations, or eavesdrop on. (Incidentally, eavesdropping and conversating are ordinarily my two best tools in learning how to write like others speak.) My soon-to-be brother-in-law is from Missouri, which also encompasses a large portion of the Ozarks, but the one time I tried to get him to spend the day talking like a backwoods hillman, he kept coming back to his regular speaking voice. (What’s up with that, Ryan? ;))
The answer, for me anyway, is read, read, READ! I’ve read every novel set in the Ozarks that I can find. Unfortunately, there aren’t many of these. The only one that I actually enjoyed was Winter’s Bone by Daniel Woodrell. (Read it if you can stomach a lot of darkness and violence.) I also checked out all of the Arkansas travel books owned by my local library. (If you’re wondering, that’s one. One Arkansas travel book in the whole library. Alabama had like five. Don’t people travel to Arkansas?)
So, imagine my delight when I came across this hunk of pure Ozarkian gold.
The book is Down in the Holler: A Gallery of Ozark Folk Speech, by Vance Randolph. This thing’s got chapters like, “Backwoods Grammar,” “Ozark Pronunciation,” “Unusual Words and Meanings,” “Sayings and Wisecracks,” and lots more. I’m telling you, if there were a college course called Ozarkian English 101, this would be the text book. (Can you tell I’m excited to find this book?)
Randolph was not the leading expert on Ozark language and culture, I’m pretty sure he was the only expert. He spent decades living in the hill country, traveling all over the various towns in both Arkansas and Missouri, and just learning about the people. Then he wrote lots of books. I’ve already read his book, Ozark Superstitions (which is available for free download here), so I suppose I should’ve thought to look for this one sooner. But holy cow, it’s good stuff.
And here’s why writing in character voice is so tough. Aside from learning how the people in your novel’s little part of the world might talk, you must also find a way to convey their speech in writing, making it sound as authentic as possible, but without getting so dialecty that people can’t read it. (Or worse, they can read it, but they can tell you’re trying too hard, and it’s pulling them out of the story.)
This is my biggest problem with Pearly. According to Randolph, Ozarkers mix up their vowel sounds and their subject-verb agreement. And they use a vocabulary not likely to be found in most of the rest of the country. (Have you ever heard of a gollywhopper? A goose drownder? A goozle? What about government socks? These are just some of the G’s!)
In other words. I. Love. How these people. Talk. And I’m going to have sooo much fun writing my character.
So here’s a snippet of my first attempt at one of Pearly’s chapters, written in (hopefully believable) Ozark voice. What do you think?
Christine an’ her husband thinks I’m here fer me. Thinks I’m a-ridin’ along. Lettin’ my grand-youngin’ take care of her helpless, susy Nanny, who don’t talk none. Who can’t do nothin’ to feed herself vittles or wipe her own behind.
An’ let me ask you. When’s the last time you seen me a-needin’ my behind wiped? Christine and that man can’t seem to remember that. But I was nary a baby the last time mammy took a towel to my butt, an’ I ain’t needed no help with it since.
Let them thinks it. I gots better things to worry me anymore.
Like a-gettin’ this paw paw spread out an’ around. I sprinkles the grinded-up root around up over the perimeter of our property. I wants to lay out broomsticks too, but Christine might would pick them up when she sees. Clay might could miss them. Might could trip. Wouldn’t that be an awful shame? If only I could know fer sure he’d be the fist one out’n the house.
Fer now the paw paw’ll have to do. That an’ the crosses. I scratches them in over the dirt around about the property, an’ hangs some real ones from up there on the tree an’ bushes. I skips the branch a-stretchin’ up on over Chrisine’s Jesus. He can fend for hisself.
It’s a first draft, but I like it so far. (OK, I’ve been over it more than once. I’d NEVER show you a real first draft.) Bear in mind, Pearly only has about seven or eight chapters in the book, so most of it isn’t this thick. I’m hoping it’s just enough.
Do you have any ideas for improving dialect in your writing? Please let me know in the comments section below. I LOVE hearing from you!
