Author: DWDLLC

 

So I promised that I would talk about money today.

Such a depressing topic.

It’s not that money is evil. In fact, it’s rather lovely, especially when your children are hungry, or they have outgrown their sneakers for the third time in a year or they want to live in something other than a tent, especially when it snows.

But money, as Mother was so very fond of pointing out, does not grow on trees.

So you get a real job to earn money. That takes about 40 hours a week. Plus commuting time. And if you have family, they take up an addition 100,000 hours a week. And then you have to make time for things like dentist appointments, getting the car inspected, taking the hamsters to the vet, etc.

And then you have to make time for writing. Right?

Many people (like me) feel that if they could just get their novel published, it would be the end to their money woes. So in addition to all the creative pressures they feel when writing, they add financial pressure. And then? And then? Some people shoulder even more burdens. They hope that the novel they’re writing will let them get a divorce, it will stop the bank from foreclosing, it will cure their smelly feet, it will make a lost love return to their arms.

Those kinds of expectations will destroy your writing and break your heart.

This post does a pretty good job explaining the math of publishing. It is rather dreary. If you prefer to focus on the success stories of J.K. Rowling and Stephenie Meyer, go ahead. I don’t blame you.

Looking at my experience and that of other writers I know who are making a living and paying the bills from writing, this is how you can get there.

   1. Write a great book.

   2. Get an agent to represent you.

   3. The agent sells the book to a publisher.

   4. You celebrate, but you don’t quit your day job.

   5. Over the next decade, write and sell five more books.

   6. And sneak in whatever kind of publicity you can in your free time so that…

   7. All of your books earn out their advances and you have a steady royalty stream.

   8. Calculate how you’re going to pay for health insurance.

   9. Decide to keep the day job a while longer

   10. After 15 years and 8 or 9 books, take a deep breath and quit the day job.

(Note: if your significant other has a great job, you obviously have more flexibility.)

Are you still with me? Still want to be a writer?

Now that you know the icky part, what questions do you have about the money and publication side of things?

Today’s quote

 “The arts are not a way of making a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.”

Kurt Vonnegut

 

Today’s prompt: Write your success story, the People magazine version, about how your novel is going to put you in the ranks of  J.K. Rowling and Stephenie Meyer. Be sure to include the wording of the note that you’re going to send me when you prove this blog post completely wrong!

 

 Scribble… scribble… scribble…

 

This picture? Elephant playing in waterfall? This should be you writing.

No, that is not an unkind remark about the way you look in those pants. I am not implying that your life is that of a caged animal forced to entertain strangers and attend to all bodily functions in front of a crowd that throws peanuts.

 I am pointing out that many writers get caught in the “tortured artist” mindset. And if you are a product of the American work ethic (i.e. you don’t feel like a good person unless you are working, nose to the grindstone eighty hours a week), then you are likely to slip into a frame of mind in which you regard writing as laborious, exhausting, work.

This is compounded by the neurotic tendencies many of us have about the quality of our work, and made even gloomier if you are hoping that what you are writing might one day pay the bills.

Sound familiar?

I’m not judging. I recognize this behavior because I fall into it all the time (as do my closest writer friends, who shall remain nameless because I love them).

The trick is to be aware when you stumble into the Bad Attitude Sewer Hole.

If the act of writing is not its own reward then why bother? Life is short, you’re going to die, the world is full of beauty and adventures. There are about a gazillion things that you could be doing with your writing time that would be fun and rewarding.

The next time you find yourself acting like a dramatic third-grader flinging herself on the couch, back of hand to her forehead, moaning about how hard it is to be a third grader and nobody understands and she hates doing it and she wishes third grade would just be finished magically and she needs a piece of chocolate cake now or she is going to faint…. stop.

Creating is fun. It’s a blast. Exercising our boundless imaginations feels magnificent. It changes our reality and strengthens us.

Yes, there is much about the publication process that is discouraging. (I’m going to talk about the whole Money Thing tomorrow.) Yes, it takes longer than you want to write a novel and it is confusing trying to keep all those pesky chapters straight.

But you are playing. It’s OK to enjoy writing. If you do, the chances you’ll make time for it everyday increase dramatically.

 

Today’s Quote

“Writing gives me such enormous pleasure, and I’m a much happier (and therefore nicer) person when I’m doing it. There’s a place in my head that I go to when I write and it’s so rich and unexpected – and scary sometimes – but never ever dull.”

Julie Myerson

 

Today’s Prompt: Think of the most duty-bound or boring person you know. (Or make one up.) Think of an incident that will snap that person out of her daily drudgery and recognize that there is more to life than working and having folded sheets in the linen closet. Write the scene that changes this character’s life.

 

 Scribble… scribble… scribble…

In 1992 I was a stay-at-home mom with a 5- and a 7-year-old. I worked part-time as a freelance journalist, writing for magazines and the Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper. And I watched a LOT of the The Oprah Winfrey Show. It had been a lifeline to sanity from the days when I had a newborn and a toddler who resisted toilet training. It gave me a sense of community. It reminded me to read. It nudged me along my spiritual path. I adored it.

My life as an author began on September 7, 1992. (I’ll post more about that red-letter day in a few weeks. Probably on September 7.) That was the day I put my youngest daughter on the bus to first grade. That was the day I committed myself to becoming an author.

I kept writing for the newspaper, but I began to tell people that I was trying to become a children’s author. Most people would look at me with the kind light of pity in their eyes and say, “But don’t you want to write a real book?”

(In their pointy heads, real = for grown-ups.)

I made every mistake a wanna be writer could make. I sent out first drafts. I wrote what I thought would be published instead of what was in my heart. I collected hundreds of well-deserved rejection letters, until finally, FINALLY, I got The First Phone Call from an editor saying that Henry Holt want to publish a picture book of mine. That book, Ndito Runs, came out in 1996.

Most people looked at me with the kind light of pity in their eyes and said, “That’s nice, but when are you going to write a real book?”

My mother-in-law, Anastasia, never did. She said, “I bet you’re going to be on the Oprah Show. She likes all kinds of books!”

In 1999, Speak was published and named as a National Book Award Finalist. That was also the year that Oprah Winfrey was awarded the National Book Foundation’s 50th Anniversary Gold Medal in recognition of her efforts to promote reading. I saw Oprah across the room at the cocktail party for the authors before the dinner. I was too chicken to do anything more than steal glances and admire her shoes. (She looked amazing.)

I knew that I’d never have a book featured on Oprah’s show, though I will admit I’d fantasize about it. I kept writing and writing and eventually I was getting more contracts than rejection letters. Anastasia’s faith in both Oprah and me never wavered, not even when I divorced her son. (One of the most peaceful divorces in the world, btw. That’s also a post for another day.)

Well, Anastasia, the day you told me would come is here.

Chains was chosen for Oprah’s 2012 Kids’ Reading List!!!

 

(Excuse me for a moment while I get up and dance wildly around the house again!!!)

There are many other wonderful books on the list, too, so be sure to check out all of them.  Haven’t read Chains, yet? Then read this new review.

I lift my mug of tea and salute Anastasia and Oprah for two decades of encouragement and support! Thank you!

This extremely glamourous photo is of me and Anastasia the morning of my daughter Meredith’s wedding a few months ago.

Today’s Quote

“The biggest adventure you can ever take is to live the life of your dreams.”

                                                                                                                                          Oprah Winfrey

Today’s Prompt: Write down this date: August 17, 2032. How old will you be? Next, jot down five of your writing dreams. Pick the most outrageous of those five dreams and write a paragraph or two – from the perspective of August 17, 2032 – and describe how that dream came to life. Then list the three things you can do TODAY to bring yourself one step closer to that dream.

If you haven’t talked to your mother-in-law recently, give her a call or send up a prayer to her today.

 Scribble… scribble… scribble…

(OMG, don’t you want to be the dog in this picture????)

Several of you wrote to me yesterday and said how inspirational you found Jackie Woodson’s quote. I thought you would really appreciate something she tweeted late in the day: “My book is falling apart. I should keep writing but grabbing a towel & heading down to the water. Maybe the answer will ebb in with the tide.”

Perfect, isn’t it?

Even more perfect than you might realize because I’d been struggling with that feeling for about five days until late on Tuesday when finally, FINALLY, the line that totally helped me understand abo-so-freaking-everything about a critical character in my novel showed up.

(I felt just like the dog in the pic above! I tweeted my reaction: “Sometimes, after plugging away at a story for months or years, the perfect line drops into your lap. That line is a gift.”)

What’s the lesson here, besides the observation that tired, desperate authors vent on Twitter?

Writing a novel is never pain-free. In fact, I’d venture to say that most, if not nearly all, of the time you are writing a novel, you’re going to feel like crap. You have to find a way to simultaneously a) feel like a stupid, arrogant idiot who can’t write anything that is good enough to put on the bottom of a bird cage and b) believe in your dream and your talent and your vision of the story.

The secret is perserverance.

You muddle through the muck and keeping revising and eventually the story becomes less crappy. Marginally so, but you take strength from any source, right? As Jackie pointed out in yesterday’s quote, most people get to that awful hellhole, that spot where they have lots of pages filled with tangled plot lines and confusing characters and they become overwhelmed by the crappiness of it all so they bury the manuscript – and the dream – in a box, and tell their friends that really, they always wanted to learn how to play the glockenspiel much more than they wanted to publish their book.

I’m not judging here. To count the number of times I wanted to do that, multiply 365 days by twenty years. Seriously.

I think the reason I wound up with a career as an author is that I have a vivid imagination and I am epically stubborn. Every time I wanted to quit, the part of me that punched the boy from across the street when he teased my little sister rises to the surface. I. Don’t. Back. Down. Not from bullies, not from stupendously dreadful drafts, not from nothin’.

Make peace with the fact that you are uncomfortable with the quality of your work for most of the writing process. Take the energy you used to waste being afraid that your writing sucked, and apply it to making your writing sing.

Today’s Quote

“The unreal is more powerful than the real. Because nothing is as perfect as you can imagine it. Because its only intangible ideas, concepts, beliefs, fantasies that last. Stone crumbles. Wood rots. People, well, they die. But things as fragile as a thought, a dream, a legend, they can go on and on. If you can change the way people think. The way they see themselves. The way they see the world. You can change the way people live their lives. That’s the only lasting thing you can create.”

Chuck Palahniuk

 

Today’s Prompt: As fast as you can, write a list of all the things you have learned in your life. Do NOT be philosophical or abstract. “You can’t change other people” won’t cut it for this exercise. “Don’t eat spinach at a business lunch because it’s hard to tell if it’s stuck in your teeth” does.

Bonus: Write a story about you or a character learning one of these lessons, or doing the opposite of the piece of advice.

 

 Scribble… scribble… scribble…