ilona_andrews

Patty Jansen has an interesting post up. Let me quote:

I quite enjoyed Harry Potter and Twilight. Sure, when I look at them with my writerly eyes, I can see places where I thought things got a little wobbly, but I can’t think of a single book I’ve read where that wasn’t the case. The overall reading experience was a positive one. Which is why I totally don’t get why so many aspiring writers take delight in dissing these books as pieces of crap. The universal writerly crapometer seems to be set at a particularly sensitive setting for very successful novels.

I think a number of reasons contributes to this.  First, it’s very difficult to be rejected month after month after month.  You want to break in so much, but you just can’t.  We all develop defense mechanisms to deal with constant rejection.

Some people brew conspiracy theories.  Oh, the publishing world is an incestuous group of elitists who only let their friends and relatives in, and the ordinary Joe has no chance.   These successful authors know somebody.

Some people tear down successful novels out of sense of backward hope.  This was published and it’s pure crap.  Surely, my stuff is so much better, when I break in, I will hit it big.

Some people want more.   The mega-bestsellers are mega because they have a broad appeal.  They might not necessary be superb on all fronts, but they do a number of things well.  Most importantly, they’re able to connect to a wide audience by triggering some of the universal themes.  I remember reading Harry Potter and having an acute sense of envy, not of the writer, but of the characters.  You know how much I would’ve wanted to attend Hogwarts?  To me, that’s where Rowling’s writing is magic.

But for some people, it’s not enough.  They want more.  They want to read a book that deals with gender issues as it relates to the magic society.  Or they want a book that explores more of the magical theory.  Or they want a book… You get the point.  That’s a normal part of being a writer – most writers write the book they wish they could read but can’t find.

And some people are simply envious and bitter.  I know a young writer who has to take time off every time one of their “friends” experiences a little bit of success, because it turns her into an emotional wreck.

A little envy is normal and natural.  I have it too.  If I were Jane Doe Megabestseller, I’d be writing this post from my villa in Greece, smiling at the Mediterranean.  (That’s where I would live if money was no object.  I just have to see Mediterranean or Black Sea and I instantly drop fifteen pounds.  If I taste the salt in the water, I’m five years younger.) How can you not envy someone who is incredibly successful in your chosen profession?  But I don’t spend any time agonizing over not being Jane Doe Megabestseller.  If you call me on it, I’ll admit to some mild envy, but I have my own stories to tell, my own swamp lights to chase, and I’m happy doing it.

It’s hard not to become bitter, but you can’t let it overwhelm you.  If you do, you risk never making it, because you lose your ability to see what successful novels do well.  You lose your critical insight.  So I advise taking that five minutes to unapologetically sneer at whatever mega-bestseller might push your buttons and then opening it to find out what it does well.

Mirrored from One Crazy Dame. Comment here or there.

miladyinsanity

• Richelle Mead's Stormborn: I wasn't going to pick this up, but Karen Mahoney said she keeps getting better and better. 
• Greg van Eekhout's The Norse Code: lots of raves
• Laura Anne Gilman's Curse the Dark: I've read the first book, and have been wanting to get the second book for ages.

• My dad works next door to the building where the bookstore is, and I sometimes would get my dad to pick up something for me if it was coming in, and I was not going to be in the area.
• I'm the one who practically never reads 2 books by the same author.

cdpeck

He was tired.

mizkit

(sorry for repost, it is due to WP/LJ crossposting dipshittery)

- get a picture frame
» put together gift basket box
- get envelopes
» put chance issues in envelopes :)
- box up Walker Papers for Mr. M
- DEMON HUNTS revisions^H^H^H^H change of plans, work on critique instead
- call bonk
- make bread
- do laundry (Ted’s doing this, bless him)
- send receipts (VERY IMPORTANT)

Nice swim this morning. I did my first 500 in 9 minutes, which is faster than I usually…bother to do, if we’re being honest. I don’t think I could do one faster than about 8 minutes right now anyway, but I was pretty pleased to have done a 9-minute one. Technically I’m supposed to have one more day of 1K swimming, but I did 1300 meters today (to, er, bring my ytd km swum up to a round number, because I’m a dork like that) and I may just go straight to 1500 meters tomorrow.

This morning I received Jackie Kessler and Caitlin Kittredge’s BLACK AND WHITE, which is a superhero novel I’ve been dying to read ever since Jackie mentioned it. Now I must restrain myself and not read it until at least tonight, ’cause I have work to do! (Apparently that’s how reading is going: I either want to read something RIGHT NOW, or I can put it off indefinitely. No wonder I haven’t been buying a lot of books.)

Oh, speaking of reading, it turned out I had the ( HOUSE OF M graphic novel... )

(x-posted from the essential kit)

varkat

If you’ve read my blog (or any agent’s blog) for a while, you know that ours is not a nine to five job.  Not by a long shot.  My weekends have a striking resemblance to my work weeks.  Lots and lots of reading and critiquing —queries, client manuscripts, partials, proposals….  If I don’t read at least six to eight hours in a weekend, my work piles up to ridiculous heights.  Don’t forget that I read in the evenings and sometimes even during the business day if I don’t have contracts to look over, submissions to get out, checks to chase, e-mails and phone calls to answer, rights reversions or reconciliations to print to request….  But every once in a while, I have to give myself permission to take a break, otherwise I lose all perspective.  Reading and critiquing works back to back to back can lead to burn-out.  And I’m not truly serving my authors, who come first, or queriers, who, by necessity, come second, if I’m not giving it my all.

So every once in a while, like on the fourth of July, I have to give myself permission to pause.  (Not the fifth, in case you’re concerned that I’ve turned to workaholics anonymous.  Then I stayed home to read for hours in the morning while my husband and son went off to Busch Gardens with friends to ride coasters and eat funnel cake to make up for my slacking the day before.) 

I’m talking about it here because authors need to do the same.  Every once in a while, find what gives you peace.  Change your venue, if need be, and quiet your mind.  You’ll be surprised what it’ll come up with when you give it a chance to catch up with you.  Because, let’s face it, the brain never shuts down.  We may be doing other things—playing with the puppy, doing dishes, watching fireworks—but our stories are so all-consuming that they’re always in the back of our minds, we’re constantly, subconsciously working on the puzzle.  I had a difficult end to the last week, where I got a “this could be huge” comment on my concept and, essentially, a “change everything” on my execution of a new mid-grade series I’m working on.  It threw me into torment, because I’d had the same sense of Eureka! on the premise, but have a terrible self-defeating fear that I won’t be able to pull it off.  Very, very awful to feel that you just might not be good enough to go for the gold.  So I balked against the notes and shut down.  Didn’t work on the novel for days.  Little did I know, it just doesn’t work that way.  By Sunday, my mind had, unbeknownst to me, worked out several ways to change or enhance what I’d already done.  The beginnings of my finished novels hardly ever resemble the first chapters of my early drafts.  I always have to remember that.  Still, it’s torture to throw out so much work and begin again, not even knowing if all the blood, sweat and tears will be worth it in the end.

Anyway, whatever you do—writing, agenting, painting—you sometimes need to give yourself a break.  Don’t think of it as slacking (easier said than done, I know), but as refreshing.  In the end, it’ll be more productive than slogging along down the wrong path or slowing and slowing because things have lost their luster to the point where you come to a complete stop.

This has been a public service announcement brought to you by the word epiphany.  Learn it, live it, love it.  Ephiphany.