Directions Not Included
May 14, 2008 Pondering many things today, but what I was thinking about most is how our writing careers don't come with directions or a road map. Some people just seem to have it figured out and some never figure it out. Most of us, I suspect, who have any success at all, are like Frodo and Sam in the Lord of the Rings, who are pretty much given directions--meet me at The Prancing Pony and we'll go from there--without really any real directions involved. We take that first step out the door with no real idea of the challenges awaiting us.
Go write and send it out, we'll go from there.
Never mind the hundreds, maybe thousands of rejections. The loss of self-esteem. The frustration. The broken dreams. The anger. The denial. The depression.
Hell, none of that was advertised in the brochure. Why didn't someone tell me?
In a lot of ways, the very act of writing is the same way. You can pretty much read all the writing books in the world, pretty much read all the books in the world, even have a mentor who guides you, but really, the only way to get there is to sit your ass down and write and figure out what works and what doesn't and when. It's like we're given this real cool, complicated toy, but we have no idea what it does or how it works. The only way to figure it out is to use it.
And try not to break it or get bored with it in the process.
Because that happens, doesn't it?
My kids are video gamers and one of the things I've noticed is that if the game is too easy they whip through it and are bored with it. If it's too hard (doesn't happen as often now) they'll get so frustrated with it they'll give it up. But if it's challenging, if it's fun, and if they can find themselves making progress and discovering new aspects of the game, they'll play it for days and days and it'll become a pretty standard part of their gaming repertoire.
I don't imagine I have to club you over with the head with the point here.
So to that extent, I think it's worthwhile, no matter where you are in your writing career, to occasionally look backward and see how far you've come. Got an agent? Get something--anything--published? Got a kind word from an agent or editor? Went around a corner and realized you're a better writer? Got a contract? Making money? Making a living?
Is the cool toy still cool? Or is it a constant and un-ending source of frustration, anger and depression?
Cheers, Mark Terry
p.s. My wife, Leanne, has had a sort-of promotion with a sort-of new job. In other words, more responsibility, a new title (General Manager), but no increase in pay to go along with it. She works in a laboratory of a very large international clinical laboratory provider that will remain nameless. Her new lab job really only sorta has a name, so I provided one.
GO-ASK-LEANNE SHE-HAS-IT-THOUGHT-OUT LAB.
In other words: GAL SHIT-O-LAB Leanne Terry, General Manager
Q&A With Mark Terry
May 13, 2008 Q: Shouldn't you be working? A: Yes, but I'm self-employed, so the boss is temporarily out of the room.
Q: How's your work-in-progress going? A: My two characters are about to get into even bigger trouble than before, so it's going fine.
Q: Any novel coming out soon? A: Not that I know of. If you hear differently, let me know.
Q: How's the marketing of other novels going? A: Fine, if you define "fine" as being regularly rejected by major publishing houses and having a manuscript fall into a black hole at a smaller house for five or six months.
Q: How's the writing biz going? A: Booming. I'm swamped. I should be working on something but instead I'm having an imaginary interview with myself. I just finished interviewing a woman in Utah for an article I'm writing.
Q: When are you going to New York? A: Rumor has it first week of June, though I was hoping next week. We'll see.
Q: When are you going to Houston? A: Second or third week in June. Should be hot.
Q: What did you have for lunch? A: Greek pita, chips and grapes. And diet Coke.
Q: How do you take coffee? A: Without the coffee. I don't drink coffee. Can't stand the taste and I rarely drink warm/hot beverages.
Q: Seen any good movies lately? A: Iron Man. Robert Downey, Jr. rocks no matter what he's in, but this movie was a lot of fun (He was brilliant in "Zodiac." Check it out). And I have no desire to be Peter Parker, but Tony Stark? You bet. Seriously cool. If I want to be a super hero, it'll be either Iron Man or Wolverine. Wolverine's got even better health benefits than CEO Tony Stark.
Q: What's on your Netflix queue? A: "Gone, Baby Gone" and "Letters from Iwo Jima" and "Lions to Lambs." It's our depressing movie trifecta.
Q: What would you like as a last meal? A: A drink from the Fountain of Youth. Failing that, pizza, breadsticks and an antipasto salad.
Q: If you were stranded on a desert island and could only have one album with you, what would it be? A: Welcome to Margaritaville by Jimmy Buffett. I figure with that, it's only a matter of time before a cruise ship shows up to drop off tourists and I'd be rescued.
Q: If you could be anything besides a writer, what would you be? A: Besides an independently wealthy philanthropist? Maybe a hotshot guitar guy like Andy McKee.
Q: If you had to pick one novel to call your favorite, what would it be? A: Either "To the Hilt" by Dick Francis or "Bag of Bones" by Stephen King. Don't make me decide.
Q: How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? A: Four if it's the macarena, five if it's the chicken dance, but only two if it's a tango.
Cheers, Mark Terry
I'm Tap-Dancing As Fast As I Can
 May 13, 2008 It's only Tuesday, right?
Well, I've been battling a cold, which is no big deal (to you, it's fairly annoying to me). On Sunday I got to spend the afternoon in the company of much of my wife's family, the less said the better, but I got to hear a 17-year-old who's probably joining the Army in a year say, "I want to go over there and shoot some sand niggers."
I also got to hear the term "tree hugger" spoken as a pejorative and some comments about the African-American man and white woman who are running for president, as well as at least one anti-gay sentiment.
It's not a good place for a knee-jerk, bleeding-heart liberal such as myself to hang out, but I guess family is family, although it makes me quake a bit when I realize just how much of America sees the world the same way. I actually like some of them, despite this--what can you say?
Then yesterday I more or less took the day off. My brother and I met at my sister's house, who had picked up my mother (who has Alzheimer's, but she was having a good day; not a great day, because I'm not sure she knew who I was, but she knew we were someone she knew). My niece and her husband were there from Boston with their puppy Kaia and we hung out for a couple hours and I enjoyed myself a lot. We talked politics in a rational, intelligent way and my brother told us some stories of academic infighting that weren't dramatically different than what I encountered at my in-laws, except without the the overt racism, misogyny and bigotry (is that redundant? On, never mind). It's amazing how intense people can get defending their own turf, even if their turf is small and largely in their imagination, isn't it?
Then I drove back home to do a couple hours of work.
I did a report for a big new client this year and they're throwing all sorts of work and potential work at me, including a possible newsletter editor and managing editor jobs, for which I will be conference calling later in the week. I'm pretty excited about the opportunities, so keep your fingers crossed for me.
Meanwhile, I think I should probably try to get some work done today.
Cheers, Mark Terry
A Devil's Deal
May 12, 2008 I expect to be a little scarce this week, so let me give you this to think about.
The devil shows up at your door and makes you a couple of offers.
1. He'll give you $1,000,000 a year, no strings attached, if you give up writing entirely.
Or...
2. You can make $125,000 a year writing anything BUT fiction.
Do you take either of these deals?
Cheers, Mark Terry
A Master's Class In Creative Writing
 May 8, 2008 I received a package from Amazon yesterday--the new John Sandford novel, PHANTOM PREY. I started reading it and was quickly struck by just how good a writer Sandford is. That's not something I always say about writers, no matter how successful they are. They may be good storytellers or they may be good writers or both (or neither, but that's a separate issue). I think Sandford is both. Anyway, I'm going to put up a couple passages from his book that made me sit up and take notice, partly because how much they showed about the character, partly because of how entertaining they were.
You might agree or disagree, but I do think when you come across a writer who not only is very successful, but to whom you respond as a reader, you should pay attention and try to figure out what it is you're responding to and try to adapt it to your own work. So here goes:
Lucas looked down at the laptop, where he'd been wrestling with bureaucratic ratshit. He was late with the annual personnel evaluations, and some time-serving wretch, deep in the bowels of the bureaucracy, whose life work involved collecting evaluation forms, was torturing him with e-mails and phone messages.
And what, really, could he say about Del? Or about Virgil? Or about Jenkins and Shrake?
The questionnaire asked if Del presented himself in a manner that conformed to standards of good practice as outlined in Minnesota state regulations. In fact, the last time Lucas had seen Del, he's been unshaven, hungover, three months late for a haircut, and was wearing torn jeans, worn sneaks, and a sweatshirt that said, *underwear not included.
Virgil, Lucas knew, drove around the state pulling a boat and trailer and almost daily went fishing or hunting on state time, the better to focus investigative vibrations--a technique that seemed to work.
Jenkins and Shrake carried leather-wrapped saps. Jenkins called his the Hillary-Whacker, in case, he said, he should ever encounter the junior senator from New York.
Should all of this go into a file?
* * *
That's when the end-of-winter blues got him. March was a tough month in the Cities. Dress warm, and the day got warm and you sweated. Dress cool, and the day turned cold, and you froze. Cars were rolling lumps of dirt, impossible to keep clean. Everybody was fat and slow, and crabby.
* * *
Lucas had jet-black hair salted with streaks of gray, and his face was pale with the winter. He had strong shoulders and a hawk's beak nose, blue eyes, and a couple of notable scars on his face and neck. Traces of the job.
His paternal ancestors, somewhere back through the centuries, had paddled wild fur out of the North Woods, mink and beaver and otter and martin and fisher, across Superior and the lesser Great Lakes, down the St. Lawrence. A bunch of mean Frenchmen; and finally one of them said, "Screw this Canadian bullshit," and moved to the States.
When that happened was not exactly clear, but Lucas's father had suggested that when it did, the immigrant might have had a case of blended whiskey on his shoulder....
His mother's side was Irish and Welsh, and a bit of German; but Lucas wasn't a genealogist and mostly didn't care who'd done what back when.
* * *
Well? What do you think? Does it work for you? Is it vivid? Does it entertain and provide insight? What's he doing here that works? Or maybe it doesn't. Thoughts?
Cheers, Mark Terry`
|
