Ever see a movie where someone is outside getting bad news on her cellphone and then suddenly the sky opens up and she is getting her bad news in a very symbolic rainstorm? I always think stuff like that never happens. Oh, how wrong I was.
Wednesday evening, I got an email from a friend who is a literary agent. He said that he wanted to talk to me about the two book chapters I sent him and would call me the next day. Based on the terseness of the email, I assumed that he wasn't planning to tell me I had just written a best seller, so I prepared myself. We didn't catch up until a few mintues ago, when I called him while I was walking home from work.
"Let's start with the bad news," I said optimitically.
"Well, there's not bad news per se, but not great news either," he began. I braced myself. "There's no narrative arc. It seems like you just put two essay together. Also, there doesn't seem to be a lot of character development. You are telling me a story, going from one line to the next zinger, which is great when you tell me a story, but not good writing. That's a minor flaw - the writing is not good."
"Uh, a minor flaw?" I said laughing painfully as rain drops splattered around me. "It seems like a big fucking problem to me."
"Well, you've never written a memoir before, so don't be too hard on yourself," he said kindly.
I swear as I hung up it stopped raining. It was weird, and while i was glad to not get soaked and appreciative of his brutal honesty, I have to say it sucks. I thought that I had made major improvements in showing, not telling and all that. Look, I know that I didn't become a miserable child care facility expert overnight. It took years before I was utterly miserable but super knowledgable. I'm sure that the writing thing works that way, too, and I haven't even been at it for a year. But this is really disheartening. Sometimes I think either you have the talent or you don't, and if you don't have it, there's no amount of practice that will make you good. I am really fearful that I just don't have what it takes.
At least its not raining any more and I can finish walking home. (Yeah, I stopped at my gym, which has internet access, on the way home since I was so upset.)
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Tough news, eh? But please, please don’t give up. Writing is damn hard work. Sure there are people who wake up one day who say, Gee I think I’ll become a writer today, and basically vomit out a bestseller. But those people are few and far between. Writing is damn hard work. And this is according to people I know who write for a living. You stress and strain and revise and rewrite and just when you think you have achieved something magical, your editor rips it to pieces. It’s kind of like trying to get acting or modelling gigs, only, some might say, more soul crushing.
ReplyDeleteYou are an incredibly interesting person with amazing and fascinating stories. Please don’t let a little disappointment keep you from sharing yourself with the world.
Love,
Mara
Everything Mara said is true. If you just keep at it and listen to people's constructive criticism, things will improve. Just look at how much better your writing has gotten since you started using dialogue!To be honest, I used to feel like your blog, while entertaining and a good read, would be much more entertaining and a much better read if you actually wrote about half the stuff you wrote about "in scene." And now you're doing that, and it seems less like a "blog" and more like an ongoing memoir about your life. Which is a very good thing, indeed.
ReplyDeleteDon't give up the ship. You can do it!
-Rebecca (Blogger is not letting me log in...stupid, stupid)
Hearing someone talk to you about writing is hard. It's like your baby. No one puts Baby in the corner.
ReplyDeleteMy first writing teacher told me that during revisions, he has to put the writer in a locked room and give the editor free reign. The writer and the editor fight like cats and dogs if they are left alone together.
Hearing stuff like that sucks. It SUCKS. But somewhere in there is a way to improve and even the best writers in the world can improve somehow or another.
:) Saying chin up and keep the faith is sort of a cliche...but...chin up and keep the faith. At least you're doing it. Just keep doing it. Ooh, Nike pops up in the weirdest ways sometimes....