Latest Posts in the Sanity Bubble

The dog days are over and the blog is back:

Sic Transit Gloria (11 October)
The Oddity of One's Own New Book (9 October)
'Tis the Season to Rip Off New Authors (8 October)
The Joy of Printing (4 October)
The Writer's Hangover (29 September)
Making $ on the HubPages "Content Farm" (29 September)
The Bar-Code Scandal (10 September)
Walrus Publishing Interviews Me (2 September)
Veblen's Vacation Home (24 August)

A Use for Twitter

I am not into Twittering as myself. I have in fact denounced Twitter as "impacted madness." However, my alter ego reviews online horoscope sites, writing and issuing short little articles on that topic twice a week, and she finds Twitter quite useful.

She got a free account at hubpages.com which gives each of her articles a separate URL. She uses Twitter to announce a new article and what it's about, giving a link to the URL. To locate followers, she sought out names indicating an interest in astrology, horoscopes, the zodiac, stars, and so on. She "followed" the ones who didn't seem like nut cases. (She herself is not a nut or a flake, but merely interested in explanations as to how this universe operates; and she knows others want to know, and that they also want to know if they're being well served or made fools of.) In turn, some have done her the favor of becoming her "follower." She needs only eight or nine good established followers to get the word out about what she's doing. Regular, informed, and trustworthy reviews result in referrals and more followers. It also helps to sift through followers' followers seeking more people to follow.

She finds (and has informed me):

• When it comes to Twitter, quality beats quantity. Twice a week is plenty.
• Tweet in the a.m.; the p.m. is less active.
• Tweet on a regular schedule. Announce this schedule and stick to it. This establishes your reliability not only as a tweeter but as a source of information.
• Tweet when you have something to offer, not to "P.R. yourself," or to tease people, or for the heck of it.
• Twitter is good if you have a highly specific target audience or niche.
  

Unagented? Expect No Advance

Trending, I just heard about it: Book publishers who'll consider unagented submissions if the author agrees to forego any advance should the work be accepted. Last night I met a first-time novelist (genre: psychological thriller) who signed such a deal. Thrilled to pieces, she is, and her friends are impressed. That's her compensation. Unagented, with no one advising her, she has no clue that she has sold herself short and made it yet harder for all other writers on the face of the earth to obtain an advance.

Expect the "non-advance contract" to become the norm, because it's great for the publishers and because the authors are so desperate and vain they don't care. When you yourself find a publisher, expect to be handed a non-advance contract, and that your objection will be met with the response that such contracts are now standard industry-wide.

(Extended useless tirade goes here; instead, watch Pay the Writer, 3 minutes 25 seconds.)

How to Write When You Despair

From Tricia Grissom and her blog Coffee and Critique: "How to Write When You Despair of Being a Writer." We all have those times.

22 Poems in Two Days

The notebook exercise, done the past two Fridays, yielded first drafts of 22 poems (!!!!). There were more but I chose to transcribe only those. Got my crafting and editing work cut out for me for probably the rest of '09. So nice to have something on paper.

How to Kill Your Readers

Start with any of these to kill any reader's interest in your memoir:

• "My father..."
• "My mother..."
• "As a child, I..."
• "During my childhood..."
• "During my senior year in high school..."
• "I finally made the painful decision to..."
  
• "When Mother couldn't take care of herself any longer..."
• "A recurring dream I have is..."
• "My sister [brother] has always been..."
• "I have always wondered about my..."

It doesn't matter how beautifully written and moving it is or how hard you worked on it: If your memoir doesn't open with something more inclusive than yourself and your family -- readers won't read it.

Unfinished

The closet door in his room opened into an enchanted land, where Polka the Giraffe led him on magical journeys, and Dunkin Bunkin (a rabbit) and Beeky (a woodpecker) had seagoing adventures and talked like 18th-century Englishmen, and their antagonist, Fantod Willie (a rat) made his living selling bubbles. . .

None of these wonderful stories was ever finished. I have the author's manuscripts. They are all about 3/4 complete.

Langston Hughes remembered a teacher who told him, "Always finish." This advice haunts me as I read these stories that almost -- could have -- made it into the world, and made it a better world.

Keep Up Your Confidence

Read this "How Successful Writers Keep Up Their Confidence." Wise words from a book editor. Link acquired through Tricia Grissom's writer's blog Coffee and Critique.

Get Born

Acquaintance, perhaps 20 years younger than I, has finished his first novel (writing it, not reading it), and isn't sure if it's good or saleable. He said he gave it to five friends to read. One friend read it; no word from the other four. He expressed anxiety. What I saw was a writer being born. It ain't pretty.

Picking up the forceps, I said, "Why don't you hire a professional editor to read it and give you feedback?"

He said, "But that's so counterintuitive!"

Clamping the forceps around his head, I said, "Business is counterintuitive. But business is part of writing. We can be 90 percent artist, but have to be 10 percent businessperson."

Then I decided I didn't have the right to yank on him; he might yet be 10 to 20 years away from being ready to be born as a (professional) writer. But if he's ready, he will:

-budget to pay for professional advice.
-not be scared to learn a professional's opinion. In fact he will be eager for it.
-realize he needs help, that he can't do it alone or with just one or two writer friends his own age.
-see that I am not trying to drag him down to my (less talented) level; I'm just telling him something I learned.

Where to Get Good Advice About Your Writing

-your writing group.
-your writing teacher or former writing teacher.
-a writing workshop, course or critique group (online is fine).
-a classmate from one of your writing courses, past or present.
-a professional writer or editor whose credentials and references you have thoroughly
checked.
-a peer whose writing and moral character have earned your respect.
-a mature and well-read platonic friend whom you know will not fail to give you an honest opinion.
-books and handbooks for writers.
. . .Or any combination of the above. If you are unsatisfied or made uneasy by a response, do your mental health a favor and get a second opinion.

For Bad Advice About Your Writing, Just Ask

-any relative or in-law.
-your lover.
-a roommate or neighbor.
-your pastor.
-your landlord.
-anyone who is a model for a character in your short story or novel.
-anyone mentioned in your nonfiction.
-anyone who “wants to write” but never did.
-a former writer or blocked writer.
-any professor, except a creative-writing professor. (A literature professor will dig up and show you the creative writing he did while in college, and point out how it is superior to yours. Think I'm joking? I've had that happen to me TWICE.)
-anyone who tries to shrug off your request.
-a famous person, writer or not. If he's a writer, he's too busy writing to give advice. If he's not a writer, why ask him?
-a substance abuser, including hip and stylish marijuana smokers.
-anyone who works for you.
-anyone who fawns or is thrilled to pieces to be asked to read your manuscript.
-someone not yet of legal age.
-someone you’ve just met.
-someone you want to impress.
-anyone who jokes that he or she should get a percentage of the proceeds when you sell the manuscript.
-an “agent” you’ve found on the Internet who requires you to pay a “reading fee.”
-anyone you secretly think is conceited or a pest.
-anyone who asks to be paid with something other than money.

NEXT: Where to get good advice.

It Hurts to Be First

A small group of fellow writers, acquaintances, good people all, asked me to meet with them to get some guidance about a self-publishing project. I asked to be paid $100 for this, and through the contact person we set a date to meet.

Then the contact person sent a polite and apologetic email saying the group was following the leads I had suggested to them previously, had learned what they felt they needed to know, and frankly some of them had been uncomfortable with the idea of paying me -- someone they knew -- and therefore had decided not to meet with me after all.

It hurt. Clearly, the money was the sticking point. I feel embarrassed having asked for it. I think the writers' perceptions of me have changed. But I wouldn't be following my own advice if I had bartered a Sunday afternoon, a 40-mile round trip, and hard-won expertise for "Thank you, you're very generous" and "Isn't she a nice girl." I want to say, "I AM a nice girl. But I'm 51 and if you've noticed that I'm on the skinny side these days, it's not because I'm dieting."

As small as this incident is, as small as I feel, this was a victory in the battle for writers to get paid.

Advice to a Co-Worker Leaving Her Job to Enter an MFA Program

• Get to know everyone.
• Attend every literary event that you can.
• Keep a journal.
• When you’re suffering, telephone (don’t E-mail) a fellow student.
• Your mistakes are okay.
• Understand that some of your fellow students applied to the MFA program and didn’t get in, so they are getting a regular M.A., and boy are they jealous of you.
• If you teach freshman composition, know that some of your students cannot be saved.
• Sleep on it before submitting it to workshop.
• Love affairs that start in the first weeks of grad school will end badly.
• Get a bicycle.
• Make yourself go to your writing professor’s office during office hours, just to chat.
• If you need money, get a part-time job no matter what your contract with the college says.
• Don't bug famous writers to help you, because they won't.
  
• It's not an illusion: Male and female writers are not treated the same.
  
• You'll get discouraged sometimes, but don’t let anybody stop you.

Annie Dillard Helped

Annie Dillard (nee Meta Ann Doak) helped me today as I chose 6 unpublished poems to submit to an anthology that is no sure thing, that I suspect might never be finished or published. So I wanted to hold back a couple of poems just too good for it, thinking: I bet these could impress a bigger editor -- later. Then Dillard's words came to mind:

One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better.

And I sent my 6 best poems and felt the rightness of it, the healthiness of having set them free, trusting that I will write even better ones. Thank you, Annie.

Advice for the Unpublished

Picture a longtime couples therapist who has written a book for men. It's short and snappy, because men can't read good. Publishers also told her that men don't buy or read books, especially books about relationships, and that's because they're sort of like, well, unevolved, and live in basements, and now and then their women and kids throw bananas down the stairs. After a year of rejections, the author, unwilling to give up, came to the January meeting of the St. Louis Publishers Association. The speakers were two authors fiendishly successful at marketing their books. The therapist presented her problem and asked for advice.

I listened, majorly, because I wanted to tell everyone with unpublished manuscripts what was said.

Could you maybe start a blog about relationships? they asked the author. Everyone's interested in relationships. Did you place some articles on that topic online at ezinearticles.com or Helium? Yeah, you don't get paid for those articles, but it costs you nothing and your name is on them, and a link to your website or blog, and if they're good articles and get picked up by various websites and e-zines, they travel, give you a presence, establish your credibility as an expert in this field, which is what you are. Then publishers might give you a listen.

And maybe put excerpts from your book online? Maybe some chapters on your website? Yes, before it's published, so people will get to know and appreciate your work.

"But I don't want to give too much away," the author said.

"There's no such thing as giving too much away," the expert said. "If people like what you have on the Internet, if they read and value what you write there, they will want to buy your book."