Marie at 1 Write Way

Self-doubt, self-publishing, and other selfish writer-isms

March 24th, 2013

Self-doubt, self-publishing, and other selfish writer-isms. This blog post by Eric John Baker is worth a read not just for the post itself, but also for the comments. The debate of traditional vs self-publishing is still raging, only now I think with more nuance. Not only is it easier to produce hard copies of our novels, poems, and stories, but there are also more venues for selling your work than there were just a few years ago (think: Amazon, Smashwords). Writers aren’t stuck with the old vanity presses that took your $$$ and gave you a printout with a cardboard cover in return. Each route has its downside, though, and deciding which way to go is tricky. Getting picked up by a traditional publisher can take years, even with an agent. Sending out submissions can be time-consuming, costly (postal fees), and deflating (as when the number of rejections you get equal the number of submissions you’ve sent). Self-publishing might be less expensive (relative to postal fees of submissions) and quicker, but then who is going to market your book, who is going to make it sell? Then again, even in traditional publishing, writers are expected to go on book tours. They might have help with their itineraries, perhaps some of their travel expenses are reimbursed. But they are the ones selling their books, they are the ones doing the hawking. Getting published by a traditional press might give a writer a bit more “legitimacy,” but the writer still has to put as much if not more work into the process, especially post-publication when the book is suppose to sell and make the publisher a lot of money.

I suspect that eventually I will self-publish. I’m not a patient person generally, and I’m getting less patient as I get older. I am easily dismayed by rejection letters (especially form letters). And I’m an introvert, a shy, sensitive introvert. Not the person you want to send on a book tour. I won’t give up entirely on traditional publishing. I can still keep submitting and hope that the rejection letters eventually become more personalized. But given the short time-frame I have before me, the best I can hope for is to bring a novel or collection of short stories to a point where it is ready for prime-time (meaning I will employ a professional editor) and then self-publish and, in my own quiet way, spread the news and hope for the best. And the best might be the two or three total strangers who pay to read my book. And that will be okay.

Why Did Creighton Commit Suicide?

March 21st, 2013

Recently I finished the first season of Treme. By the last episode I was truly hooked. I had wiped away tears when LaDonna’s brother was finally found (dead), sung along with Davis as he recorded his campaign song, swayed to Antoine’s “bone”, and embraced Creighton’s righteous rages on YouTube (FYYFF!). And as one who loves literature and whose greatest influences were English teachers, I embraced Creighton himself. How I would have loved to have had classes with him! I wanted him to keep “speaking Truth to Power,” and to write the book he wanted to write.

And then they killed him. The writers had Creighton do something that was not only unexpected, but seemingly out of character. Oh, they dropped heavy hints: his passionate kiss good-bye to his wife, stopping his daughter to tell her he thought she looked very pretty, his calmness before the storm. And The Awakening. OMG, he’s talking about Edna’s suicide as if it were some hard-fought-for prize. I practically shook my flat-screen TV, screaming at Creighton not to look so longingly at the water, as if that were the only place he would find peace. I could barely sleep that night, asking myself the same question over and over: Why? Not just, why did Creighton do it; but also, why did the writers do it? Why did the writers choose suicide for Creighton and not the stroke or heart attack that seemed far more likely given his appetites, girth, and volatility. Why not the death that seemed inevitable if boring?

I found an answer of sorts in a paper by Julia Leyda (http://www.academia.edu/1682220/What_a_Character_Creighton_and_Excess_in_HBOs_Treme_Draft). Leyda points out little clues or red flags spread across Season 1 that suggest Creighton was a doomed character. He was already going off the edge in the very first episode when he lost his cool with the British interviewer and threw the man’s microphone in the water. I thought that whole scene was funny. I was used to seeing Goodman perform outlandish, crazy characters (think The Big Lebowski) and I thought Creighton was more of the same. Yes, there were hints that all was not right with him, that he was stressed and probably depressed. But I don’t think those hints add up to suicide. They could have led to more and more drinking, maybe smoking, more behaviors that would have led to a “natural” death. Was a natural death for Creighton too “banal” for the series’ writers?

And here’s my true gripe: I think the Treme writers got lazy. For whatever reason, Goodman wouldn’t be back for Season 2 so they had to get rid of Creighton. What’s easier than a suicide? Guy jumps in water, family devastated, life (and series) goes on. Except Creighton had less reason to kill himself than any of the other characters, and he had the best reasons to live (mainly, a loving and lovingly eccentric family). And it seemed so out of character that Creighton would think his suicide would be anything less than a betrayal to his family. He, of all the characters, would know how cruel such an action would be.

I don’t buy Creighton’s suicide. I don’t buy that such an important character, one that, “in his excesses and extreme emotions such as grief and rightgeous anger, represents that city’s critique of the failures that led to the devastation” (Leyda), would off himself in the first season. Maybe in the second season … maybe, but then, I think not.

An important public service announcement

March 16th, 2013

Yes, I Have Regrets: Part 1

March 15th, 2013

I often claim that I have no regrets, that life happens and it all works out in the end. Like, if I hadn’t had that accident that nearly amputated my leg, I wouldn’t have received training for a new job and I wouldn’t have gotten a new job at the firm where I eventually met my future husband. Except I don’t really mean that. I do have regrets. Lots of them. And for that incident in particular (because the accident was in fact my fault), I always think that we would have met up some other way, if it were truly our destiny to be together. I’m a romantic but not so much of a masochist that I think I should have had to injure myself to meet the man of my dreams.

I don’t wallow in my regrets (at least not often), but I try to learn from them. Like, when I gained a chunk of weight because (in part) we had moved from an urban area where my feet were my primary mode of transport to the suburbs where the Almighty Automobile rules the streets. I didn’t make the necessary effort to keep my weight in check so while adjusting (badly) to the odd concept that I had to make time to walk, my clothes got tighter and tighter.

That weight gain was regrettable because there came a time when I needed very much to feel sexy and attractive, and I was anything but. Just roll me in flour …

Adding insult to fattiness, I’ve had to double-down with exercising and dieting. I’ve got my waist back along with a more presentable butt, but I still have a long way to go to get back to my pre-suburbs weight (if ever). At least I don’t feel as self-conscious in downward facing dog as I used to.

Lesson learned is that when the weight comes off, it must stay off. Think black lacy thongs. Not an attractive thought where you’re 20+ pounds overweight. So the weight is being shed slowly but surely, and one at a time the thongs are moving from the bottom of my underwear drawer to the top.

Public vs Pubic Hair

March 10th, 2013

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been obsessed with my body hair. Except for the hair on my head, I hate my body hair. I shaved my legs for the first time when I was 12 and have nurtured a deep resentment toward my body hair every since. I am near neurotic about plucking errant hairs from my upper lip and eyebrows, but that pales compared to the disdain I have for the hair that sprouts below my waist. I have done everything short of electrolysis and the Brazilian wax. I am truly dismayed that my body hair has not diminished over time; rather, it’s done the opposite. Possibly due to a cruel twist of fate, the hair below my waist and on my face has thickened and darkened as if to say, “I’ll make a man out of you yet!” I fight back as best as I can without breaking the bank for weekly wax jobs. I draw the line at Brazilian waxes for the totally sensible reasons that I am (1) totally opposed to pain and suffering, and (2) at my age, I don’t think a hairless mons veneris would be terribly attractive, least of all to me who would have been the one going through the pain and suffering. And I have done some research (both visual and conversational) on pubic hair removal. Results are mixed. Women I’ve met who have had Brazilian waxes were usually happy to let their pubic hair grow back. Porn films I’ve surveyed (yes, really, I’ve watched porn just for the sake of analyzing the variety of hairy to hairless Venus mounds) reveal that some women apparently shave (mons veneris with a 5 o’clock shadow), some like to leave a little tuft of hair (aesthetics?), and some seem to have indulged in the full Brazilian wax thing. I’m trying to find a happy in-between …

The best thing about waxing is that, if one is disciplined (which I tend not to be), eventually the hair does thin and grow back more slowly and sparsely. At least, on my legs. My bikini area is another story. Since I don’t wear bikinis, I tell myself there’s no urgency to wax there. Of course, it’s also awkward and somewhat painful. The need to wax is all in my mind. I spend 95% of my time fully clothed (a bit less during the summer months when sleeping naked is necessary to sleep at all). I have a life partner who professes to love me as I am and never says anything disparaging like, “Really, couldn’t you at least trim around the edges of your panties?” But every time I drop my pants, I cringe at the dark hair curling up between my thighs. I’ve had some missteps with taming that hair: an infected hair follicle from incorrect waxing can be rather painful and scary. Shaving with a razor leaves razor burn and an almost unbearable itchy sensation as the hair grows back (as it does, rapidly). Shaving with an electric shaver is fine for a quick deforestation, but it only lasts for a few hours. Who cares? Who cares except me?

If it weren’t for the scars on my thighs and lower right leg, I might not care at all. When I was 23, I severely injured my lower right leg. Now it is disfigured and the skin on the front of my thighs look like a peach-and-white patchwork quilt. Adding insult to injury, hair grows on only half of my lower right leg, the half that was not injured, the half that was not skin-grafted. So, unless I tackle the hair on the rest of my body, I look and feel like a freak. So there it is. You’d think I’d be over it by now, but, no, not even close. Recently I called my partner from the mall crying because, when I was trying on shoes, I got a glimpse of my leg in a mirror and saw it’s ugliness. I see my naked leg every day, sometimes several times a day, but seeing it in a mirror, seeing it as other people must see it, is always a kick in the stomach.

So I obsess and curse the hormones, genes, whatever, that cause my body to sprout hair where (in my opinion) it has no place being. And I keep waxing.

A Horror Story: When Readers of a Self-Published Book are Offered Refunds (and Not By the Author Herself … But She’s Paying for Them)

March 8th, 2013

For anyone who is self-publishing in the hopes of attracting a publisher, here’s a horror story for you: If A Publisher Offers You a Contract for Your Self-Published Book, Will You Be Forced (By Amazon) To Refund Past Customers Who Bought It?. You can also read the writer’s original post here: http://www.jamiemcguire.com/amazon-beautiful-disaster-emails/. What is happening to this author doesn’t make any sense at all. The original book isn’t “defective” like a short wire in a waffle iron (and then those companies rarely inform their customers of the defect and offer a refund). Is (part of) the lesson that one avoid doing business with Amazon?

On the fence with Christopher Hitchens

March 2nd, 2013

Seems like one either loves or one hates Christopher Hitchens (http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2013/02/25/richard-seymour-s-tawdry-christopher-hitchens-bio.html). I was in either camp at different points in Hitchens’s life. My antipathy toward Hitchens had started with his relentless attacks on Clinton during Clinton’s presidency and while Hitchens was writing for The Nation. At first, I was mostly disenchanted, throwing off Hitchens as just a gadfly who liked to stir things up and get talked about. I’m not an apologist for Clinton, but I often felt that Hitchens (and others) were always lying in wait for Clinton to screw up so they could crow and strut about in their righteousness.

His support for the 2003 invasion of Iraq was the tipping point for me. I wanted nothing to do with him after that. I don’t think I actually believed that he believed that the invasion was a good thing. Rather, to me, he was just pandering. He was a narcissist who would say and do anything to get airtime or his words in print.

And then I heard he was dying and that he wasn’t suddenly converting to organized religion in an attempt to save his soul. I waited for that conversion, but it never came. What did come was his appreciation for those people who said they would pray for him, especially those who said they would pray without attaching any strings. He didn’t slight them, ridicule them for their beliefs. I think he might have actually felt a bit humbled, just as anyone might feel humbled when total strangers with whom you have nothing in common, wish you well, wish that you don’t suffer, wish that you survive. A sadness crept slowly over me as I heard about or read bits and pieces of Hitchens’s last days. I felt uneasy about his illness, his impending death. It’s so much easier to criticize people when they are healthy and you think they are going to be around, annoying you, for a very long time.

And then I read Mortality. A beautiful, slim, tastefully produced volume of Hitchens’ last essays and notes. With Mortality I began to understand that here was one very complicated guy. In his essays for The Nation, he could be such an asshole, throwing ad hominids around as if they were bon mots of cleverness. But in Mortality, his humanity rises to the surface. I could feel his vulnerability, his curious attention to the cancer that would ultimately kill him, his surprise that he wouldn’t be around to see his children marry, his desire to live, his desire that his cancer have a greater purpose than just to kill him (for example, that new treatments could be tried on him and, even if they failed, what might be learned could save someone else). Whether or not he realized it, by continuing his writing and detailing what his cancer was doing to him and how he was surviving from one day to the next, he was in fact giving that cancer a greater purpose.

After reading Mortality, I went on a bit of a Hitchens’ binge. I felt obsessed with him, but something held me back from going out and buying all of his books. A friend told me how she had finished with Hitchens after he wrote an essay for the The Nation in support of 2 Live Crew and the lyrics of their songs. She had been offended by his statements regarding rape, how rape is every male adolescent’s fantasy, wink, wink. I was crushed. There’s nothing funny about rape. I tried in vain to find the essay, to read it for myself, in the hope that I would interpret his words differently and prove her wrong. I did find the context: 2 Live Crew had been arrested in Florida on obscenity charges. OK, so this was a free speech issue, a censorship issue, but Hitchens could have supported 2 Live Crew’s right to free speech without calling their lyrics “poetry” and suggesting that since rape is every male adolescent’s fantasy, we are hypocrites if we are offended by those same lyrics.

Looking for this essay brought me to his other essays excoriating Bill Clinton and Elie Wiesel and my respect for Hitchens did another nosedive.

I had to stop and think. Hitchens was a gifted writer with an incredible store of knowledge, a facility with language that was seemingly innate. But he was a human being who, in my humble opinion, did not always use his gift in ways that were respectful of it. His ad hominid attacks were nothing for him to proud of, no matter how “funny” or “humorous” his admirers claimed they were. People who engage in such attacks are not advancing the discussion, the debate; they are distracting us from it. They are showing off; you don’t necessarily come away any more enlightened about the subject than you were when the debate started. Hitchens was merely being an entertainer and a glib one at that. He was an extrovert who seemed to engage in little if any introspection.

In an interview with Mother Jones (http://books.google.com/books?id=IecDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA12&dq=christopher+hitchens+rap+Jack+and+Jill&hl=en&sa=X&ei=-VYyUe6iMeTx0wGN2oGABg&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=christopher%20hitchens%20rap%20Jack%20and%20Jill&f=false) he claimed surprise that anyone would think he was a misogynist. Best as I could tell, his surprise was genuine. Other interviews with him and his friends suggest he was a great friend to have, very loyal, unless your last name is Blumenthal. Again, I think he was oblivious to how his actions, his words, his language, could do irreparable harm to a relationship that he claimed to hold dear. I don’t think he really meant any ill-will (except, of course, toward Clinton).

Can one be on the fence with Christopher Hitchens? Would he turn over in his grave if he knew that I (or anyone) felt sorry for him, felt that he was a small man with a big gift? I mean small in the sense of him being needy, like the rest of us. We are all needy, but he certainly never wanted anyone to see him as such. Now until his voice was adversely affected by his cancer treatments, did he realize that he was nothing without his voice (and by extension, his writing): “To lose this ability [speech] is to be deprived of an entire range of faculty: It is assuredly to die more than a little.” As an introvert, I have often (and still do) take pleasure in being silent, without a voice so to speak. But that is not Hitchens and, perhaps, that is one reason why my heart softened when I read his words. He was his voice; without his voice, he might never have been as successful (and as polarizing) a personality as he was.

I am still obsessing about Hitchens, clipping articles and interviews into my Evernote account and wondering why he has this hold on me now. What does it matter? I would have meant nothing to him if he had ever met me. Perhaps there’s some envy here: He wrote and said what he damn well pleased. I am constantly censoring my own work to the point that it rarely is viewed by anyone but me. So maybe some envy, and definitely some regret that I didn’t appreciate the man more while he was alive.

The habits of medieval cats

February 25th, 2013

I was surfing through some of the blogs on WordPress and came across this interesting post … and as a cat lover, I feel compelled to share my find: Paws, Pee, and Mice: Cats Among Medieval Manuscripts. (And it is related to writing.) Enjoy!

A fan’s thoughts on A Beautiful Mystery

February 23rd, 2013

Spoiler Alert! I am a huge fan of Louise Penny, author of the Inspector Gamache series and in the following post, I talk about her most recent novel. If you have not yet read it, then you may not want to read my post since I give too much away. This is an abridged letter I wrote to Ms. Penny after finishing A Beautiful Mystery.

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Dear Ms. Penny,

I have loved your Inspector Gamache series since first listening to Still Life from Audible.com two-and-a-half years ago. You are a master at blending the standard structure of a mystery with the philosophical underpinnings of a literary novel. I deeply admire your skill in character development as well as plot formation. Since I listen to your novels, I’ve been able to “whip” through them while driving to work or knitting or taking walks. I’ve just finished A Beautiful Mystery and now I have that long wait ahead of me until the next novel.

I am writing to you after some careful reflection and a long talk with one of my closest friends, who is also a great fan of yours. I found A Beautiful Mystery troubling in a few ways that I want to share with you. It’s a testament to your writing that Inspector Gamache and Beauvoir have gotten under my skin to the point where I felt strongly affected by this last novel.

I was devastated by Beauvoir’s decision to leave with the Superintendent. His agony, his self-destructiveness was nearly unbearable. I had grown so fond of Beauvoir and was thrilled at the beginning of the novel to find that he and Annie were in love. I can understand that his injuries (both physical and emotional) from the raid would leave him vulnerable to the Superintendent’s manipulations, but was it inevitable that he would leave with him? I want to beg you to tell me that he will be all right in the next novel, that he will be redeemed, that all will be resolved and then all would be right in the world, but I know you can’t tell me that, whether or not you already know his fate.

Maybe my reaction to Beauvoir’s breakdown says more about me than the novel, but I do feel so “invested” in this series. Not financially, but up until now, the novels have been an escape for me. Yes, terrible things happen, like murder, like Clara throwing Peter out, like Ruth having to give up her duck, but the murders are resolved, Clara probably needs some time away from Peter anyway, and Ruth showed she was capable of nurturing and loving by caring for the duck.

And the murders were central to the stories as well, whereas, in A Beautiful Mystery, the murder became incidental, almost unnecessary except as a vehicle for putting Gamache and Beauvoir in a closed environment where they had no choice but to face their demons in the form of the Superintendent. By the time the murder was solved, I really didn’t care any more. I would have preferred that Gamache and Beauvoir had left together, leaving the murder for the Superintendent to investigate. The murder just didn’t matter to me once Beauvoir started falling apart.

The cliff-hanger ending also left me feeling distressed. That probably sounds funny, and I do feel a bit embarrassed to admit it. Really, this is just a novel, but the characters are so true to life. Gamache is not perfect; if he was, he would have been more forthcoming with Beauvoir, addressed his anxieties instead of just ordering him about as if the raid had never happened. He is partly to blame for Beauvoir’s breakdown and it makes sense that he is.

I guess I’m really writing this because I want to understand why you chose to end the novel the way you did. I don’t think you needed a cliff-hanger. This was your 8th novel and you are such a celebrated writer that surely you know that your next novel will be a bestseller as well. Really, if Beauvoir had regained his senses and chosen to stay with Gamache, I would still be eagerly awaiting novel #9. I would just have a more happy anticipation. As it is, I’m worried, even scared, that we will lose Beauvoir entirely to the “dark side.” So I await novel #9 with some trepidation, now that I know I care (too) deeply about these characters that you have painted with such skill and love.

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If you’ve read this far and have your own thoughts on A Beautiful Mystery, please share them. I am eagerly awaiting How the Light Gets In (due to be published in August of this year), but part of me also dreads it. What does it mean when a writer, as a reader, can’t handle things going bad?

And then back again

February 17th, 2013

After a 3 years’ absence, I’ve decided to re-enter the blogosphere but with a different purpose. I simply want to write, and I’m tired of writing in my head. Initially, this blog was to be a resource to me and anyone who happened by, a writing resource with links to websites and other blogs devoted to the art and science of writing. I wanted to be useful. I didn’t want to write about Me. I didn’t think anyone would be interested in Me. But recently I finished reading Quiet by Susan Cain and now that I have a better understanding of myself (shy, sensitive introvert that I am), I want to make the jump from thinking nobody would care to I don’t care if nobody would care … about Me. I want to write.

Writing used to be a way to hide from a world that frightened and confused me. I was very introverted as a child, no doubt in part because I needed but didn’t get glasses until I was 10. Everything scared me. Life scared me. And yet there were times when I could act outgoing, although I don’t think anyone much liked me when I was like that. I was very emotional, would cry if anyone looked at me the wrong way, and crying wasn’t something tolerated very well in my home. It was a sign of weakness. Which meant I cried a lot.

I wrote trying to imagine having some control over my life, wanting to believe I had a better relationship with my family than I did. Wanting to believe that at the end of the day, they loved me. As a young adult living away from home, I wrote in journals, trying to decipher the world around me. I had moved to a place radically different from the one I grew up in. I embraced “sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll” and spent too many years making a mess of myself. And writing very little.

I went back to school, took writing classes, tried using my writing as I had in the past, to work through and survive both physical and emotional trauma. What I always lacked was confidence. I never wrote with any real confidence in my writing. When anyone did try to support me (most often, a teacher), I almost literally ran the other way. I don’t know what I was afraid of: most likely, failure, but what kind of failure? I grew up feeling like a fraud, and I still harbor some of that today. I’m afraid I will disappoint. I disappoint myself every day, but I’m used to it. I hate disappointing others. And without confidence in myself, I couldn’t very well use the support given to me. Only a fraud would do that.

So now, decades later, I have very little to show for my writing. I’m way past the halfway mark of my life, and I do have many regrets, not the least of which is I didn’t write more. I might have had a different story if the internet had been around when I was young and isolated. Although there is a lot of crap out there, I’ve come across writers that I never would have known if it wasn’t for the internet. They are not all published writers, but they write. They seize the opportunities that the internet provides. I think some of them might even be shy, sensitive introverts like myself.

I have regrets and some of those regrets I can do nothing about. But the regret that I didn’t write more … I don’t have to die with that regret. That one I can change.

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