My work site is down
Jun 5, 2008 Writing
I changed servers and it’s down and out. Argh! I’ve got promotional stuff going on next week so it needs to be fixed by then!
But enough about work. Because I’m caught up on work, which means I’m sitting here updating my blog and tonight I’m finally getting my long overdue hair cut in part because of that promotional stuff I’ve got going on.
The kids are out at park day and I’m glad Brett was able to get ‘em there even though I’m sad to miss it. I’m also missing out on hosting our small Thursday potluck but then again, I’ll like getting my hair done and I do need to edit something tonight that I finished about ten minutes ago. (If I look at it now I’ll think it’s perfect and I’ll be wrong so I’m letting it marinate.)
So! There’s this essay I want to write. I’ve been thinking about it since last fall because as you all know, I’m a slow writer except when it’s marketing stuff and then I’m super-speedy. I guess it’s better than the other way around because lemme tell you, marketing pays much better than personal essays.
The essay that I’ve been thinking about for months and months would also conveniently be a book chapter so I’m seeing this as a two birds one stone thing. One of the reasons I want to write it is because it’d be a personal essay that wouldn’t actually share anything PERSONAL so I think it would be fun/challenging to try to do that.
I want to write about Pennie’s reasons for placing Madison without ever actually talking about Pennie’s reasons for placing Madison since it’s nobody’s business except hers and Madison’s. Instead I want to talk about how we (i.e., me and the reader) can ever really know and also about the fluidity of “knowing” so that Pennie’s reasons can’t be simplified but instead are an inadequate way to describe a huge complex personal decision with the context of a huge complex cultural creation. I want to show that the decision to place Madison — like any life-changing decision — is fluid and our understanding of “why” changes as we change. (Why did I marry Brett? There are a million reasons and every year I look at that decision and see new nuances and outside/inside influences that I didn’t see before.) I also want to use the essay as an exploration of the statistics and as way to talk about stereotypes and realities of birth motherhood as a way to say, “It doesn’t matter why Pennie placed personally but it does matter why women place culturally.” I want to use it as a way to challenge ideas about adoption and first motherhood and also make Pennie more visible to the reader as a whole person with rights and responsibilities without ever actually giving any of her story away. I want to answer people’s question “why?” in a satisfactory but open-ended way that has them understanding why without ever really knowing the answer.
Hopefully that kinda sorta makes sense.
I’m just at the wandering around wondering stage on this. What I have down here is as much as I have down anywhere (mostly scrawled notes) but that’s how I work so I’m stuck with it.
Possibly related posts
Tags: Adoption, adoptive-parenting, book proposal, book proposals, first mothers, first parents, freelancing
Purpleaster’s frustrations
May 3, 2008 Book work
(Purpleaster has been reading me for like a zillion years, I think. Right BJ?)
Some of what she said (much edited):
I often feel like as a reader, the commercial process of book publishing is sucking out the personality of the writer, and making the books into a common mold, that sucks the individuality out of the books (i.e. the ick-factor of the whole word “momoir” ugh.). I like the story of Dawn, not the story “Two moms: a mother comes to term with the meaning of open adoption” (or whatever gibberish your real story gets transformed into in the publishing world). .. They become stuffed into some niche. … But, as a reader, I fear that authenticity is being sucked out of books by the publishing process, and they’re slowly killing themselves off. …
I definitely think the publishing world is changing because of the internet and I think it’ll be interesting to see what it changes into. I think writers who can stay on top of that will do better than writers who are firm luddites.
Trying to figure out how to make my writing life work professionally can get pretty challenging but the more I learn about it (stuff like this or this or this) the more prepared I feel to tackle it.
There are lots of good reasons to write a book but none of them is “to earn a living.” From what I can tell, most authors make money doing other things, too. They get grants and fellowships; they teach; they promote themselves; they give workshops; they freelance. These are the ones who make a living from their writing — the rest of ‘em have dayjobs. That is the nature of the beast. It’s hard to make money on a book.
A book does other things for you — it gives you an air of authority about the topic or as a writer; it opens other avenues of opportunity; it lets you (hopefully) nail bigger assignments in your target markets; it sometimes brings those target markets to you.
I want those things and I want to write a book I can be proud of. There are obstacles, obviously, and not all of them are in my control. I can’t help it if an agent dislikes the topic of open adoption or if another one doesn’t want to represent books that end up parenting shelves. I can’t help it that the booksellers will put the book there even if I think it ought to go someplace else. (For the record, I feel absolutely neutral about it being shelved in parenting.) But. I can know these things and plan accordingly. I can know and accept that the publishing world has these limitations and figure out how to work around them or work with them.
Frankly, that part of interests me, too.
At an interview for one of my clients they asked why I liked marketing communications. I told him, “Well, I like manipulating people.” Then I blushed and he laughed. I don’t mean manipulating people with lies but I do mean manipulating people with words to give them my insight, my feelings, my world view. (Or in the case of marketing communications the insight, feelings and world view of my clients.) This is fun wordplay. By the same token, once you know the rules of the publishing world you can either rail against ‘em or knuckle down knowing the rules. Me, I’d rather knuckle down.
Yes, the publishing world is too steeped in stereotypes and too worried about the bottom line and too hung up on genres and elevator speeches and the quick and easy sell. Yes, they manufacture bestsellers (read this fascinating article for more on that) leaving the rest of the booklist out shivering in the cold. Yes, yes, yes. So what? It’s a business.
I want to write a book anyway. If not this book, some other book. (But I really want to write this book.)
I’ve been working on my “what’s next” plan re., marketing this book idea and now what I really need to do is write. (I’m at the fleshing out notes stage.) So that’s what I’ll do but I’ll keep casting here and there as the mood hits.
Possibly related posts
Tags: agent, book business, book proposal, book proposals, book publishing, getting an agent, literary agent, literary agents, open adoption, Writing
On the plus side of the equation
May 2, 2008 Book work
Got my fifth agent rejection (nice and personal) and the good thing is that I figure the agents who say no are saying no for the same reason a publisher would say no. So it gives me a chance to consider that feedback and use it as I figure out what to do next. I do think I need to focus on getting more of it written since the best feedback I’ve had is from the agent who was most interested (and who said I need to do this).
This last agent said she’d recently been shopping another adoption “momoir” (argh! that term!) and it didn’t sell. I wish I knew who that writer was so we could commiserate! But hearing that term? Makes me think I need to write more to show this isn’t pure memoir. (Like — “here is my story.”) I need to work on some of the more investigative parts of the book to show this. And also because doing that really scares me. Just thinking about it scares me! So it must be done.
Possibly related posts
Tags: agent, agents, book proposal, book proposals, literary agents
