I signed with Sara back in January
of this year. It is now October. We met for the first time, in person, about
two weeks ago.
When I mention that I finally got to meet my agent, most people react the same way: "That's so awesome! How was it?"
Exciting! Wonderful! Different!
And exactly the same.
Sara and I have been communicating digitally for nearly a year. Between the phone calls, emails, and tweets, we've gotten to know each other fairly well. (Twitter is the best, though. The amount you can learn about someone in 140-character snippets is truly amazing.)
So when Sara and I met up to chat last week, I asked her how her move went (she'd recently tweeted that moving with a 2yo was actually worse than moving preggers), and she asked me how my WIP was coming (I'd been tweeting about being thisclose to done). We sat down, having never seen each other face-to-face, and continued a conversation that had already been started elsewhere. And later, when I packed up my bag and we parted ways, the conversation didn't end. It picked up again on Twitter (I mentioned that my train was delayed and Sara shot back her apologies).
Earlier this summer, I flew to DC to attend a conference with a bunch of writer friends. Similarly, it was the first time I was meeting them in person. There was not a single awkward moment. It was as if we had all been friends our entire life, and in the way that I can spill a million stories to my old high school buddies after having not seen them in years, we were just picking up where we left off.
The internet has done some amazing things for communities, friendships, and communication in general. Digital conversations and in-person conversations have started to blend together, overlap, weave into one. Maybe it's due to the casual, chatter-like vibe of Twitter, or the on-the-go but still accessible nature of smart phone users. It's probably a little of both. Either way, it is fascinating to see how far technology has come in such a short time, how we can be miles apart and still interact with each other every single day. And so intimately, at that. We get to know someone so well that when we sit down to talk for the first time, it feels like (and is) the 500th.
People talk about "online" friends and "real-world" friends. Sometimes the "online" ones are are dismissed as being less than authentic. Weaker. Frivolous. But the truth is, some of the strongest friendships I've made in recent years are ones that have formed digitally. Friends are friends, period. It just so happens that today's technology makes it incredibly easy for many of these friendships to be forged online.
The internet – Twitter especially – has allowed me to connect with so many people in this industry, people I would never have had the chance to meet otherwise: agents, editors, writers, readers, bloggers, critique partners. Some of these people have become my dearest friends. For that, I am truly grateful.
Next time I'm in NYC, or traveling anywhere for that matter, I'll try to meet up with more of my "online" friends. Tweeting and emailing is great and all, but I can't really share a glass of wine with my computer screen. And unlike avatars, I like how a person can smile back at me.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Dan Wells interviews Rob Wells
Dan: You have a book coming out?
Rob: That I do.
Dan: And that book is called?
Rob: Variant.
Dan: Variant, that is a very good title. Tell us a little about the book.
Rob: The book is about a kid from the slums of Pittsburgh—a foster kid that always bounced around all his life—and in the first chapter of the book he gets a scholarship to this boarding school in the middle of nowhere. When he gets there he discovers it is actually some sort of prison or experiment where there are no adults and the kids run everything and it is gang-ridden, but someone is controlling it.
Dan: And they are all locked down, and no one can escape.
Rob: No one can escape, no one can communicate with the outside world. But there is someone watching them; there is surveillance all over the place and the kids have to do all the work. They cook the food, they mow the lawns, they take out the garbage, and they can all earn contract points for doing these things. And so what maintains order is that the gangs in the school have kind of made a truce based on these contracts and that is what kind of keeps people from killing each other.
Dan: So, it is basically our life growing up at home?
Rob: Essentially.
Dan: Very nice. Now this is modern day, correct?
Rob: Modern day.
Dan: But with some crazy crap thrown in?
Rob: There is crazy crap.
Dan: How much are you saying about the crazy crap?
Rob: I say little about the crazy crap except that it's science fiction. On my website I label it as dystopian-ish.
Dan: Dystopian-ish?
Rob: Dystopia has become such a marketing term, and I don't think the book is dystopian, though it is science fiction. But it's funny to read the reviews that are coming out about the book because everyone dances around the genre, because the genre itself is a big spoiler. And so I say it's science fiction, but it is modern day and it's very “science fiction light.”
Dan: Up until the point it becomes “science fiction heavy.”
Rob: Well, even then, it’s a paranoia book. Early in the writing process the bad guys were the school. There were guards, there were crazy things, and I purposely shifted it so it is very much a “Lord of the Flies” situation. Yes, there is science fiction, but the conflict is student against student. It’s very personal and very human. And yes there is this ultimate "bad guy", whoever it is that’s running the school, but the danger comes from gang against gang action at the school.
Dan: Ah ha. Now tell me, because as you know, and some of our readers may know, my first book was plagued by weird genre considerations; it seems a lot of people read it thinking it was a real crime novel and then it goes all supernatural halfway through, which freaked a lot of people out, and it was very interesting to read the responses. Different people would say, "I could tell from the first page that it was going to be supernatural" and other people would say, "this came out of nowhere." How concerned are you about those typse of reactions? Because you have a very similar build up: it’s all paranoia and then halfway there’s a big genre twist.
Rob: Yes, I am not too concerned. The blurb on the cover of the book talks about a big twist, and so I think people see that something is coming. Also, most of the reviews have not seemed to have a problem with it. My favorite "bad" review that I have ever gotten—most of the reviews have been quite good, but this one particular blogger tore the book apart and then said: "I will give him one thing, it is an idea that I have never seen before but maybe that’s because it's not a good idea."
Dan: That is awesome! I am glad you were able to tap into that underused but crappy branch of storytelling. And as for the twist, I think the fact that the book is so weird to begin with puts it into speculative territory from the beginning, so the sudden of appearance of science fiction will seem much more natural.
Rob: Yes. And when the science fiction appears, it appears and then it’s gone. The story isn’t about the twist, it’s about characters responding to the twist, and that makes it less of a stumbling block.
Dan: And the big twist of course is that chickens can talk!
Rob: Yes.
Dan: Tell me a little bit about how you became a writer, because I happen to have known you for the past 33 years, and you spent most of that time hating books. I would not have predicted in our childhood that you would have grown up to be a writer.
Rob: I would not have predicted it either. Yeah, I think it was more that you were my brother and you were a year older than me and I wanted to do everything you didn't do.
Dan: Which worked out well, because I also wanted you to do things that I didn't do.
Rob: Yes, and so you liked reading and you liked writing and so therefore I liked the visual arts. I did a lot of painting and drawing in high school and that kind of thing. I enjoyed sports. Whereas you enjoyed...
Dan: Cool things!
Rob: ...lethargy.
Dan: You're going to knock me for enjoying lethargy when you are currently wrapped in a blanket working from home?
Rob: I have a mental illness.
Dan: Oh, don’t worry; we will get to you having a mental illness later. I’m saving all the good questions.
Rob: Sweet. So as you know, I always had a really intense interest in history.
Dan: We have a lot of “maid and butler” dialog in this interview don't we?
Rob: Yeah we do!
Dan: As you are well aware, we are conducting an interview.
Rob: I actually got back into books thanks to an experience in college. Our Mom was sick, and I had to take her to the hospital, and I knew I needed something to read so I grabbed a book at random from a shelf on the way out the door. It was Huckleberry Finn. I was supposed to read it in high school, and I didn’t, and then when I finally read it out of desperation and boredom I loved it. That’s when I decided that “hey, maybe these books that I was supposed to read in high school were probably good,” so I got interested in reading again. Meanwhile, I very interested in history, and one night I was watching a documentary about Stalingrad and the battle of WWII and what they were talking about is the that soldiers were so afraid of snipers that they would not go outside. So they would burrow from basement to basement to get through the city and I thought that was such a cool idea. From a fantasy perspective especially. So I called you up and I said, “here is a cool idea for a book,” kind of expecting to give you this idea, so you would write it, and you said...
Dan: Authors hate it when people do that.
Rob: Yes we do. Anyway, at the time you were at BYU and you were working on your English and Editing degree and you said, "I'm working on something else, so why don't you write a couple chapters and come down to my writing group?" And I wrote a couple chapters...
Dan: Now, before we move on, for the sake of history, do we want to mark my sage advice to you as the seminal point in your writing career?
Rob: Yes.
Dan: Excellent! I just wanted to make sure the credit was placed where it was due.
Rob: Well, actually we can place credit even further, because the specific advice that you gave me at the time—and I don't know who you were quoting—because obviously YOU did not say something intelligent—
Dan: Obviously I must have been quoting somebody. I bet it was Ray Bradbury.
Rob: Probably.
Dan: I bet even if it wasn't Ray Bradbury, I said it was Ray Bradbury.
Rob: Probably. What you said was that "everybody says they will sit down and write a book, that one day they will write the great American novel, and the difference between writers and everybody else is that writers actually do it."
Dan: That sounds like the kind of thing I would attribute to Ray Bradbury.
Rob: Yeah, it probably was. So Ray Bradbury may have influenced me but via you. And so I wrote it and started going to your writing group which was you, and Brandon Sanderson, who at the time was unpublished, and a couple other guys.
Dan: And just to undo all of the karmic credit I just got by pushing you toward writing, that writing group experience was abysmally poor for you.
Rob: It was not ideal. But I learned the basics of writing. I mean things like you can't change point of view in the middle of a paragraph, that kind of thing. I learned a lot of basic grammar, because I did not pay attention in high school, so I learned a lot of the basics of how to write a story. And the main thing that I got out of it was I wrote 80,000 words of a novel. And so it was very motivational: I can get through this, yes!
Dan: And you looked back and said “this is a crappy novel and that writing group was useless to me, but look: I can finish a novel.”
Rob: Yeah, exactly.
Rob: Basically, what happened is that I said "this is not what I want to do." You guys were all writing kind of epic fantasy, or fantasy of some sort, and so that is what I was writing, even though I didn’t read it. I was writing it because it was what you guys were writing. It was that first idea I had about burrowing from basement to basement; I had that in a fantasy sense, but the book that I was writing was essentially a World War I story. It was an allegory, essentially, where the Germans were elves, and…I can't remember all the details.
Dan: And half the people reading this interview are going to say “ooh! I totally want the World War I fantasy novel.” And that is a cool idea, you should back to that some day.
Rob: It is a cool idea.
Dan: The reason that our writing group was so bad for you was that every single week we would go "Ooh! This is cool except you should do it this way." And the next week we would say "Ooh! This is cool except you should do it this other way." And you would do it, and you ended up with the most schizophrenic novel, constantly changing styles and viewpoints and purpose and everything. But the writing itself was always improving. By the time we got to the last chapter we went "Oh hey! Rob knows how to write".
Rob: But the book itself was a disaster! I changed the focus with every chapter, but I never went back to revise the earlier stuff to match it, so each chapter assumes that the previous chapter fit with it.
Dan: It's awesome. Someday we'll publish it as-is, and no one will ever buy a Rob Wells book again.
Rob: So, I kind of stagnated with that group because of that, but I wanted to keep writing.
Dan: And my writing group is much better now. I feel obligated to point that out. We learned from having killed you how to not kill anyone else.
Rob: I decided to take the old writing advice “write what you know," and I wrote a book based on a little town I used to live in New Mexico and it was a romantic comedy and that was kind of when I left your group. I thought "they've taught me a lot of stuff but I have kind of stagnated here. I don't want to write fantasy anymore. I know for a fact that I wont be much help to them in them writing fantasy, and I know they won't be much help to me in writing a very light romantic comedy."
Dan: Now tell me, on a total side note here, do you think that the advice "write what you know" is useful advice? I mean, you've never been in a weird, science fictional boarding school.
Rob: Right. I think that it was useful for me at the time as a motivator to write something different, but in general I think that "write what you know" means "go out and learn some things and then write them." I think that "write what you know" means to write plausible emotion and human nature, but no, I do not think that I am restricted from writing about a welder from Bulgaria.
Dan: You just gave away the ending of Variant!
Rob: No! Darn it.
Dan: Dangit. I think that is one of the strengths of Variant: it's this very unique situation that you know would not happen in the real world, but everyone's responses to it are immediately recognizable, and you go "oh, well yeah, that is how I would react" or "that is how my friend would react" and you can see the real world in it so in that sense yeah, you're right, write what you know, as long as there is also something awesome. Now, let's leave your origin story as a super hero and move into the future. You've got Variant coming out and I know there is one sequel to that coming out...next year I assume
Rob: Yes.
Dan: It is called Feedback?
Rob: It is called Feedback, and it refers to not criticism but to feedback in the other context.
Dan: The sequel to Variant is just reader mail complaining about Variant. "This turned into science fiction halfway through!"
Rob: What's next, what's after Feedback, it hasn't been decided yet. I have a three book deal with Harper, and the new one will be something very new, but still in the Variant genre: modern day with a science fiction twist. I really enjoy the modern day but not so much Urban Fantasy. I don't even know what you would call Variant; it is like Urban Fantasy but science fiction.
Dan: Like Urban Science Fiction. I think that's an under-served demographic, so that is a very good niche for you to be in. Alright, so I said we would come back to you being crazy, so let's talk about that. Tell us very briefly about your mental state
Rob: My mental state? Three years ago I got my first panic attack; it was while I was in graduate school. I was doing an internship. I was working in Minneapolis for ConAgra Foods; I was doing brand management for Orville Reddenbocker popcorn.
Dan: Then it's no wonder you're crazy.
Rob - I know. Well, it was MBA internships, which are different than a lot of your undergrad interships where you are fetching coffee. I was probably working about 70 hours a week, and it was about 9 or 10 at night, I was the only person in the office and I was just completely overwhelmed all of a sudden. In a panic attack your heart races, you get shortness of breath, and you get chest pain and you think you're dying, and it is just this overwhelming sense of doom. And I was very stressed, obviously, because I was working so much. So I left, I thought: "I need to go relax, I'll go see a movie," and I went to see the Dark Knight. It was the most unpleasant experience I have ever had at a movie. I wanted to die. And in the three years since then it has developed into Severe Panic Disorder, and it really became bad about nine months ago and progressed and progressed to the point that....tOt is hard to explain panic disorder to people who don't understand it and I think it is the same with all mental illness. There are all these people that think you just need to go outside or cheer up.
Dan: If you have ever said that, dear reader, you're an idiot and nobody likes you.
Rob: Panic disorder is crippling!
Dan: Now you described this to me once as having your brain's fight or flight reflex just constantly turned on. A chemical imbalance in your brain is making your brain think you are being chased by a leopard like non stop for nine months.
Rob: That is what is going on: the autonomic nervous system is constantly firing and I think that I am constantly in danger, and so my brain is being filled with all the adrenaline and serotonin and it just makes me think I am going to die. Consequently, when I get a panic attack--and here I am a rational adult and I know that I know I am not going to be eaten by a bear--it is not at all uncommon for me to crawl into a corner under a blanket and sit there and try to breathe things out. Like, the number one place my wife will find me, and I know this sounds weird, is either in the closet or in the little crack between the bed and the wall.
Dan: See that makes perfect sense. Bears can't fit in there.
Rob: I know! Anyway, about three months ago I finally went to the doctor. For a long time, I think with all mental illnesses, you think "this is my fault, why can't I handle this, this is just me being overwhelmed by stress and I just need to muscle my way through this." I think it is the same way with depression or anything else. But I finally went to see the doctor and I've been going the rounds with the medicine. Some medicines have been better than others. For the first two months I was worse on the medicine than I was off. The way the medication works is it has to build up in your system and it's kind of a trial and error thing, so they will try something and then they will give it a month and if at the end of the month it does not work they will try something new. So basically you are getting all these side effects with the medicine--and there are plenty--plus you are having the panic and you have no idea if it is going to work.
Dan: That just sounds delightful
Rob: Oh yeah, it's fantastic. I am on the third round of medicine now and I am optimistic that this is the right one. I think that we are going the right direction.
Dan: That is awesome.
Rob: I still have my issues and I live on a Valium-type medicine, and I take heavy tranquilizers. Your brain thinks you're being chased by a bear so your body is not going to let you sleep, and so insomnia is usually a big part of it and I take some pretty heavy duty sedatives. I am also now seeing a therapist for cognitive therapy, which is therapy to help you talk your way out of an attack. So for example in the therapy you would force yourself to hyperventilate and then the therapist would kind of talk you thought the hyperventilation process as you calm down so that you can understand it and work your way out of it.
Dan: Interesting. And I have to thank you for going through this, because I have a book coming out next year called The Hollow City, about a guy with schizophrenia, a very similar mental disorder that deals with a lot of the same brain chemicals, and he goes through the process of treatment that in a lot of ways is mirroring your own. At every step of this process, whenever you tell me some new awful thing that has happened, I think "Oh, that is so sad for Rob...but it means I got it right!" So you have been doing excellent secondhand research for my novel, so I thank you very much.
Rob: If I start seeing the things that your character sees, then we will know how things are working.
Dan: Just let me know, because I want to sell the "my brother is crazy" movie rights. But that is awesome that you are conquering that, so hooray!
Rob: Yeah, so we are getting over it, but one of the biggest problems with it is that it is very strongly associated with agoraphobia.
Dan: Hence us hiding in your basement wrapped in a blanket.
Rob: Yes. My work has been very good about me working from home, but it is very hard for me to go essentially anywhere. My writing group is on hold. People who listen to my podcast know that I am not podcasting right now, essentially because I cannot get together with my podcast people. With more than one other person in the room I am a mess.
Dan: Because the noise gets too loud and the bears can tell where you are.
Rob: Yes.
Dan: So how are you so certain that this a mental illness, and not that you've been bitten by a radioactive brown recluse spider and you now have a driving need to hide in dark holes?
Rob: I can't be certain. I wish other that other powers had developed.
Dan: Well, that is it: you get a preference for crevices. I don't know--have you bit anyone? You may have necrotic poisoning.
Rob: I should try to bite someone. I do have a launch party coming up.
Dan: Yes, the launch party for Variant is at the Kings English Bookstore in Salt Lake City, Utah, on Thursday, October 6. So if you want to see Rob kind of dazed and high on Valium, trying not to get drool on his book as he tries to sign it, then come on down to King's English.
Rob: Let me just tell you guys: I want you to come. I want you to be there. I am going to be high as a frickin' kite, I will be comatose and zombie-like because I can't handle two people, let alone 80 or 100. So I am looking forward to it, it will be fun!
Dan: At any point did you ever considering hiring someone to be you at public appearances?
Rob: Oh, that is a good idea. Maybe I could teleconference.
Dan: You should Skype in from the space station like that dude from Contact.
Rob: Right.
Dan: Is there anything else you would like us to know about the launch? Will you have a giveaway? Maybe some Valium?
Rob: Not giveaways, but there will be refreshments. There is going to be fun and joy.
Dan: I will make sure that we have a giveaway.
Rob: We'll give away something, and it will be something RAD! I don't know what it is...
Dan: It will be a surprise.
Rob: Yeah, October? It will be a bag of candy corn.
Dan: Awesome! All the sugar-flavored wax you can eat. Well, Robison, it has been a pleasure speaking to you.
Rob: And it has been a pleasure speaking to you.
Dan: Broadcasting live from the crevice in your basement.
Rob: Yes.
Dan: Good luck with VARIANT, it's a fantastic book and I hope it does very well.
Rob: Thanks.
Dan: Excellent. Are there any action figures available for your book?
Rob: No there are not.
Dan: Well screw you then.
Rob: Well pardon the hell out of me.
Dan: Goodnight, folks, from the Wells Brothers. We will see you later.
VARIANT by Robison Wells was published on October 4th by HarperTeen. Dan Wells is the author of the I AM NOT A SERIAL KILLER trilogy (Tor), and the forthcoming thriller, THE HOLLOW CITY (Tor, April). His YA debut, PARTIALS, will be published in February by Balzer & Bray/ HarperCollins.
Rob: That I do.
Dan: And that book is called?
Rob: Variant.
Dan: Variant, that is a very good title. Tell us a little about the book.
Rob: The book is about a kid from the slums of Pittsburgh—a foster kid that always bounced around all his life—and in the first chapter of the book he gets a scholarship to this boarding school in the middle of nowhere. When he gets there he discovers it is actually some sort of prison or experiment where there are no adults and the kids run everything and it is gang-ridden, but someone is controlling it.
Dan: And they are all locked down, and no one can escape.
Rob: No one can escape, no one can communicate with the outside world. But there is someone watching them; there is surveillance all over the place and the kids have to do all the work. They cook the food, they mow the lawns, they take out the garbage, and they can all earn contract points for doing these things. And so what maintains order is that the gangs in the school have kind of made a truce based on these contracts and that is what kind of keeps people from killing each other.
Dan: So, it is basically our life growing up at home?
Rob: Essentially.
Dan: Very nice. Now this is modern day, correct?
Rob: Modern day.
Dan: But with some crazy crap thrown in?
Rob: There is crazy crap.
Dan: How much are you saying about the crazy crap?
Rob: I say little about the crazy crap except that it's science fiction. On my website I label it as dystopian-ish.
Dan: Dystopian-ish?
Rob: Dystopia has become such a marketing term, and I don't think the book is dystopian, though it is science fiction. But it's funny to read the reviews that are coming out about the book because everyone dances around the genre, because the genre itself is a big spoiler. And so I say it's science fiction, but it is modern day and it's very “science fiction light.”
Dan: Up until the point it becomes “science fiction heavy.”
Rob: Well, even then, it’s a paranoia book. Early in the writing process the bad guys were the school. There were guards, there were crazy things, and I purposely shifted it so it is very much a “Lord of the Flies” situation. Yes, there is science fiction, but the conflict is student against student. It’s very personal and very human. And yes there is this ultimate "bad guy", whoever it is that’s running the school, but the danger comes from gang against gang action at the school.
Dan: Ah ha. Now tell me, because as you know, and some of our readers may know, my first book was plagued by weird genre considerations; it seems a lot of people read it thinking it was a real crime novel and then it goes all supernatural halfway through, which freaked a lot of people out, and it was very interesting to read the responses. Different people would say, "I could tell from the first page that it was going to be supernatural" and other people would say, "this came out of nowhere." How concerned are you about those typse of reactions? Because you have a very similar build up: it’s all paranoia and then halfway there’s a big genre twist.
Rob: Yes, I am not too concerned. The blurb on the cover of the book talks about a big twist, and so I think people see that something is coming. Also, most of the reviews have not seemed to have a problem with it. My favorite "bad" review that I have ever gotten—most of the reviews have been quite good, but this one particular blogger tore the book apart and then said: "I will give him one thing, it is an idea that I have never seen before but maybe that’s because it's not a good idea."
Dan: That is awesome! I am glad you were able to tap into that underused but crappy branch of storytelling. And as for the twist, I think the fact that the book is so weird to begin with puts it into speculative territory from the beginning, so the sudden of appearance of science fiction will seem much more natural.
Rob: Yes. And when the science fiction appears, it appears and then it’s gone. The story isn’t about the twist, it’s about characters responding to the twist, and that makes it less of a stumbling block.
Dan: And the big twist of course is that chickens can talk!
Rob: Yes.
Dan: Tell me a little bit about how you became a writer, because I happen to have known you for the past 33 years, and you spent most of that time hating books. I would not have predicted in our childhood that you would have grown up to be a writer.
Rob: I would not have predicted it either. Yeah, I think it was more that you were my brother and you were a year older than me and I wanted to do everything you didn't do.
Dan: Which worked out well, because I also wanted you to do things that I didn't do.
Rob: Yes, and so you liked reading and you liked writing and so therefore I liked the visual arts. I did a lot of painting and drawing in high school and that kind of thing. I enjoyed sports. Whereas you enjoyed...
Dan: Cool things!
Rob: ...lethargy.
Dan: You're going to knock me for enjoying lethargy when you are currently wrapped in a blanket working from home?
Rob: I have a mental illness.
Dan: Oh, don’t worry; we will get to you having a mental illness later. I’m saving all the good questions.
Rob: Sweet. So as you know, I always had a really intense interest in history.
Dan: We have a lot of “maid and butler” dialog in this interview don't we?
Rob: Yeah we do!
Dan: As you are well aware, we are conducting an interview.
Rob: I actually got back into books thanks to an experience in college. Our Mom was sick, and I had to take her to the hospital, and I knew I needed something to read so I grabbed a book at random from a shelf on the way out the door. It was Huckleberry Finn. I was supposed to read it in high school, and I didn’t, and then when I finally read it out of desperation and boredom I loved it. That’s when I decided that “hey, maybe these books that I was supposed to read in high school were probably good,” so I got interested in reading again. Meanwhile, I very interested in history, and one night I was watching a documentary about Stalingrad and the battle of WWII and what they were talking about is the that soldiers were so afraid of snipers that they would not go outside. So they would burrow from basement to basement to get through the city and I thought that was such a cool idea. From a fantasy perspective especially. So I called you up and I said, “here is a cool idea for a book,” kind of expecting to give you this idea, so you would write it, and you said...
Dan: Authors hate it when people do that.
Rob: Yes we do. Anyway, at the time you were at BYU and you were working on your English and Editing degree and you said, "I'm working on something else, so why don't you write a couple chapters and come down to my writing group?" And I wrote a couple chapters...
Dan: Now, before we move on, for the sake of history, do we want to mark my sage advice to you as the seminal point in your writing career?
Rob: Yes.
Dan: Excellent! I just wanted to make sure the credit was placed where it was due.
Rob: Well, actually we can place credit even further, because the specific advice that you gave me at the time—and I don't know who you were quoting—because obviously YOU did not say something intelligent—
Dan: Obviously I must have been quoting somebody. I bet it was Ray Bradbury.
Rob: Probably.
Dan: I bet even if it wasn't Ray Bradbury, I said it was Ray Bradbury.
Rob: Probably. What you said was that "everybody says they will sit down and write a book, that one day they will write the great American novel, and the difference between writers and everybody else is that writers actually do it."
Dan: That sounds like the kind of thing I would attribute to Ray Bradbury.
Rob: Yeah, it probably was. So Ray Bradbury may have influenced me but via you. And so I wrote it and started going to your writing group which was you, and Brandon Sanderson, who at the time was unpublished, and a couple other guys.
Dan: And just to undo all of the karmic credit I just got by pushing you toward writing, that writing group experience was abysmally poor for you.
Rob: It was not ideal. But I learned the basics of writing. I mean things like you can't change point of view in the middle of a paragraph, that kind of thing. I learned a lot of basic grammar, because I did not pay attention in high school, so I learned a lot of the basics of how to write a story. And the main thing that I got out of it was I wrote 80,000 words of a novel. And so it was very motivational: I can get through this, yes!
Dan: And you looked back and said “this is a crappy novel and that writing group was useless to me, but look: I can finish a novel.”
Rob: Yeah, exactly.
Rob: Basically, what happened is that I said "this is not what I want to do." You guys were all writing kind of epic fantasy, or fantasy of some sort, and so that is what I was writing, even though I didn’t read it. I was writing it because it was what you guys were writing. It was that first idea I had about burrowing from basement to basement; I had that in a fantasy sense, but the book that I was writing was essentially a World War I story. It was an allegory, essentially, where the Germans were elves, and…I can't remember all the details.
Dan: And half the people reading this interview are going to say “ooh! I totally want the World War I fantasy novel.” And that is a cool idea, you should back to that some day.
Rob: It is a cool idea.
Dan: The reason that our writing group was so bad for you was that every single week we would go "Ooh! This is cool except you should do it this way." And the next week we would say "Ooh! This is cool except you should do it this other way." And you would do it, and you ended up with the most schizophrenic novel, constantly changing styles and viewpoints and purpose and everything. But the writing itself was always improving. By the time we got to the last chapter we went "Oh hey! Rob knows how to write".
Rob: But the book itself was a disaster! I changed the focus with every chapter, but I never went back to revise the earlier stuff to match it, so each chapter assumes that the previous chapter fit with it.
Dan: It's awesome. Someday we'll publish it as-is, and no one will ever buy a Rob Wells book again.
Rob: So, I kind of stagnated with that group because of that, but I wanted to keep writing.
Dan: And my writing group is much better now. I feel obligated to point that out. We learned from having killed you how to not kill anyone else.
Rob: I decided to take the old writing advice “write what you know," and I wrote a book based on a little town I used to live in New Mexico and it was a romantic comedy and that was kind of when I left your group. I thought "they've taught me a lot of stuff but I have kind of stagnated here. I don't want to write fantasy anymore. I know for a fact that I wont be much help to them in them writing fantasy, and I know they won't be much help to me in writing a very light romantic comedy."
Dan: Now tell me, on a total side note here, do you think that the advice "write what you know" is useful advice? I mean, you've never been in a weird, science fictional boarding school.
Rob: Right. I think that it was useful for me at the time as a motivator to write something different, but in general I think that "write what you know" means "go out and learn some things and then write them." I think that "write what you know" means to write plausible emotion and human nature, but no, I do not think that I am restricted from writing about a welder from Bulgaria.
Dan: You just gave away the ending of Variant!
Rob: No! Darn it.
Dan: Dangit. I think that is one of the strengths of Variant: it's this very unique situation that you know would not happen in the real world, but everyone's responses to it are immediately recognizable, and you go "oh, well yeah, that is how I would react" or "that is how my friend would react" and you can see the real world in it so in that sense yeah, you're right, write what you know, as long as there is also something awesome. Now, let's leave your origin story as a super hero and move into the future. You've got Variant coming out and I know there is one sequel to that coming out...next year I assume
Rob: Yes.
Dan: It is called Feedback?
Rob: It is called Feedback, and it refers to not criticism but to feedback in the other context.
Dan: The sequel to Variant is just reader mail complaining about Variant. "This turned into science fiction halfway through!"
Rob: What's next, what's after Feedback, it hasn't been decided yet. I have a three book deal with Harper, and the new one will be something very new, but still in the Variant genre: modern day with a science fiction twist. I really enjoy the modern day but not so much Urban Fantasy. I don't even know what you would call Variant; it is like Urban Fantasy but science fiction.
Dan: Like Urban Science Fiction. I think that's an under-served demographic, so that is a very good niche for you to be in. Alright, so I said we would come back to you being crazy, so let's talk about that. Tell us very briefly about your mental state
Rob: My mental state? Three years ago I got my first panic attack; it was while I was in graduate school. I was doing an internship. I was working in Minneapolis for ConAgra Foods; I was doing brand management for Orville Reddenbocker popcorn.
Dan: Then it's no wonder you're crazy.
Rob - I know. Well, it was MBA internships, which are different than a lot of your undergrad interships where you are fetching coffee. I was probably working about 70 hours a week, and it was about 9 or 10 at night, I was the only person in the office and I was just completely overwhelmed all of a sudden. In a panic attack your heart races, you get shortness of breath, and you get chest pain and you think you're dying, and it is just this overwhelming sense of doom. And I was very stressed, obviously, because I was working so much. So I left, I thought: "I need to go relax, I'll go see a movie," and I went to see the Dark Knight. It was the most unpleasant experience I have ever had at a movie. I wanted to die. And in the three years since then it has developed into Severe Panic Disorder, and it really became bad about nine months ago and progressed and progressed to the point that....tOt is hard to explain panic disorder to people who don't understand it and I think it is the same with all mental illness. There are all these people that think you just need to go outside or cheer up.
Dan: If you have ever said that, dear reader, you're an idiot and nobody likes you.
Rob: Panic disorder is crippling!
Dan: Now you described this to me once as having your brain's fight or flight reflex just constantly turned on. A chemical imbalance in your brain is making your brain think you are being chased by a leopard like non stop for nine months.
Rob: That is what is going on: the autonomic nervous system is constantly firing and I think that I am constantly in danger, and so my brain is being filled with all the adrenaline and serotonin and it just makes me think I am going to die. Consequently, when I get a panic attack--and here I am a rational adult and I know that I know I am not going to be eaten by a bear--it is not at all uncommon for me to crawl into a corner under a blanket and sit there and try to breathe things out. Like, the number one place my wife will find me, and I know this sounds weird, is either in the closet or in the little crack between the bed and the wall.
Dan: See that makes perfect sense. Bears can't fit in there.
Rob: I know! Anyway, about three months ago I finally went to the doctor. For a long time, I think with all mental illnesses, you think "this is my fault, why can't I handle this, this is just me being overwhelmed by stress and I just need to muscle my way through this." I think it is the same way with depression or anything else. But I finally went to see the doctor and I've been going the rounds with the medicine. Some medicines have been better than others. For the first two months I was worse on the medicine than I was off. The way the medication works is it has to build up in your system and it's kind of a trial and error thing, so they will try something and then they will give it a month and if at the end of the month it does not work they will try something new. So basically you are getting all these side effects with the medicine--and there are plenty--plus you are having the panic and you have no idea if it is going to work.
Dan: That just sounds delightful
Rob: Oh yeah, it's fantastic. I am on the third round of medicine now and I am optimistic that this is the right one. I think that we are going the right direction.
Dan: That is awesome.
Rob: I still have my issues and I live on a Valium-type medicine, and I take heavy tranquilizers. Your brain thinks you're being chased by a bear so your body is not going to let you sleep, and so insomnia is usually a big part of it and I take some pretty heavy duty sedatives. I am also now seeing a therapist for cognitive therapy, which is therapy to help you talk your way out of an attack. So for example in the therapy you would force yourself to hyperventilate and then the therapist would kind of talk you thought the hyperventilation process as you calm down so that you can understand it and work your way out of it.
Dan: Interesting. And I have to thank you for going through this, because I have a book coming out next year called The Hollow City, about a guy with schizophrenia, a very similar mental disorder that deals with a lot of the same brain chemicals, and he goes through the process of treatment that in a lot of ways is mirroring your own. At every step of this process, whenever you tell me some new awful thing that has happened, I think "Oh, that is so sad for Rob...but it means I got it right!" So you have been doing excellent secondhand research for my novel, so I thank you very much.
Rob: If I start seeing the things that your character sees, then we will know how things are working.
Dan: Just let me know, because I want to sell the "my brother is crazy" movie rights. But that is awesome that you are conquering that, so hooray!
Rob: Yeah, so we are getting over it, but one of the biggest problems with it is that it is very strongly associated with agoraphobia.
Dan: Hence us hiding in your basement wrapped in a blanket.
Rob: Yes. My work has been very good about me working from home, but it is very hard for me to go essentially anywhere. My writing group is on hold. People who listen to my podcast know that I am not podcasting right now, essentially because I cannot get together with my podcast people. With more than one other person in the room I am a mess.
Dan: Because the noise gets too loud and the bears can tell where you are.
Rob: Yes.
Dan: So how are you so certain that this a mental illness, and not that you've been bitten by a radioactive brown recluse spider and you now have a driving need to hide in dark holes?
Rob: I can't be certain. I wish other that other powers had developed.
Dan: Well, that is it: you get a preference for crevices. I don't know--have you bit anyone? You may have necrotic poisoning.
Rob: I should try to bite someone. I do have a launch party coming up.
Dan: Yes, the launch party for Variant is at the Kings English Bookstore in Salt Lake City, Utah, on Thursday, October 6. So if you want to see Rob kind of dazed and high on Valium, trying not to get drool on his book as he tries to sign it, then come on down to King's English.
Rob: Let me just tell you guys: I want you to come. I want you to be there. I am going to be high as a frickin' kite, I will be comatose and zombie-like because I can't handle two people, let alone 80 or 100. So I am looking forward to it, it will be fun!
Dan: At any point did you ever considering hiring someone to be you at public appearances?
Rob: Oh, that is a good idea. Maybe I could teleconference.
Dan: You should Skype in from the space station like that dude from Contact.
Rob: Right.
Dan: Is there anything else you would like us to know about the launch? Will you have a giveaway? Maybe some Valium?
Rob: Not giveaways, but there will be refreshments. There is going to be fun and joy.
Dan: I will make sure that we have a giveaway.
Rob: We'll give away something, and it will be something RAD! I don't know what it is...
Dan: It will be a surprise.
Rob: Yeah, October? It will be a bag of candy corn.
Dan: Awesome! All the sugar-flavored wax you can eat. Well, Robison, it has been a pleasure speaking to you.
Rob: And it has been a pleasure speaking to you.
Dan: Broadcasting live from the crevice in your basement.
Rob: Yes.
Dan: Good luck with VARIANT, it's a fantastic book and I hope it does very well.
Rob: Thanks.
Dan: Excellent. Are there any action figures available for your book?
Rob: No there are not.
Dan: Well screw you then.
Rob: Well pardon the hell out of me.
Dan: Goodnight, folks, from the Wells Brothers. We will see you later.
VARIANT by Robison Wells was published on October 4th by HarperTeen. Dan Wells is the author of the I AM NOT A SERIAL KILLER trilogy (Tor), and the forthcoming thriller, THE HOLLOW CITY (Tor, April). His YA debut, PARTIALS, will be published in February by Balzer & Bray/ HarperCollins.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Sara: On foreign rights and book fairs.
My clients always have questions about foreign rights, especially as we get closer to the big book fairs, because my clients are very smart and ask smart questions. I thought I would talk about what goes into preparing for a fair, and how I did so a few years ago as a foreign rights agent, and how I do so now as an agent who still handles rights for her children's books.
Before joining HK in 2006, I was a foreign rights agent at two different agencies, selling UK and translation rights directly for a big group of agency clients. Now, I have my own client list, and also represent the children's list for UK and translation. I attend the Bologna book fair, and like other agents in NY, especially at this pre-fair time of year, I also take many meetings here with co-agents, foreign editors and scouts.
I know that my experience as a foreign rights agent has made me a better agent overall, not only because I have a better understanding of the rights potential for my projects, but because much of what I learned selling books abroad applies to what I do now. What goes into selling a book in Germany is not so different from what goes into selling a book here. For one thing, selling here or there or anywhere requires research, contacts and knowing the market. Before each fair or foreign editor meeting, I prepare with reminders of our last meeting, of what this editor has read from my list, what other editors at their house may have read, what they liked, what they hated, and then I decide on a few books that I will pitch them in those 30 or so minutes. If I am not meeting the editor this time around, I make sure our co-agents have all of this info. Just as I would not send an editor here 25 projects to see what sticks, I do not want to over-pitch- especially at fair time. That editor has a million other meetings; they do not want you to pitch them all of your books. They want you to pitch them what you think they will be interested in.
Much of my book fair prep has stayed the same. I make sure our foreign rights agent has all of the info he needs about my adult titles, and I make sure our kids rights list is up to date: that newly sold projects have been added, that we've updated sales info, review info, film info, and pub dates for projects already on the list, that it reads well and will make foreign editors want to read our books, and that it will help our co-agents sell our books.
At HK, we love it when our co-agents come to town in the weeks before Frankfurt. We get to catch up, and to talk about the books in person, which is incredibly worthwhile. We work with them because they know the market in their country and it is great to hear what is new and different and what has stayed the same, especially in this time of sweeping changes. Of course, we are talking a lot about ebook markets abroad, but also about how adult publishers in France, Germany and other markets are adding YA imprints. We get to find out what books are really working in their markets (in addition to THE HUNGER GAMES), because not all successes here translate to successes there, and what titles from the list they love and what books they think will sell in their market.
From meeting with scouts at fair time we get an overview of what their clients are buying and we hear about the books being talked about as the big fair books.
By meeting one on one with foreign editors and agents we learn what we cannot learn just from what they publish. It is why we have lunches with editors here, and it is why we meet with editors from all over the world. We learn something about them personally, about their market, their publisher, all things that we could not know otherwise. And it is awesome to meet with editors from Spain, France, Germany, Italy, etc. who have bought one of our books and to hear what their publication plans are and how things are going. And to know if the title will change and if they are using the US cover and if not, to see the cover they designed. Agents want to sell books they love so that other people will find them and love them and when they are translated or sold in the UK or Australia it means more people can find them and love them!
Even though fairs are SO much work, before, during and after, they are such an exciting part of our job and I can't wait for March and Bologna!
Before joining HK in 2006, I was a foreign rights agent at two different agencies, selling UK and translation rights directly for a big group of agency clients. Now, I have my own client list, and also represent the children's list for UK and translation. I attend the Bologna book fair, and like other agents in NY, especially at this pre-fair time of year, I also take many meetings here with co-agents, foreign editors and scouts.
I know that my experience as a foreign rights agent has made me a better agent overall, not only because I have a better understanding of the rights potential for my projects, but because much of what I learned selling books abroad applies to what I do now. What goes into selling a book in Germany is not so different from what goes into selling a book here. For one thing, selling here or there or anywhere requires research, contacts and knowing the market. Before each fair or foreign editor meeting, I prepare with reminders of our last meeting, of what this editor has read from my list, what other editors at their house may have read, what they liked, what they hated, and then I decide on a few books that I will pitch them in those 30 or so minutes. If I am not meeting the editor this time around, I make sure our co-agents have all of this info. Just as I would not send an editor here 25 projects to see what sticks, I do not want to over-pitch- especially at fair time. That editor has a million other meetings; they do not want you to pitch them all of your books. They want you to pitch them what you think they will be interested in.
Much of my book fair prep has stayed the same. I make sure our foreign rights agent has all of the info he needs about my adult titles, and I make sure our kids rights list is up to date: that newly sold projects have been added, that we've updated sales info, review info, film info, and pub dates for projects already on the list, that it reads well and will make foreign editors want to read our books, and that it will help our co-agents sell our books.
At HK, we love it when our co-agents come to town in the weeks before Frankfurt. We get to catch up, and to talk about the books in person, which is incredibly worthwhile. We work with them because they know the market in their country and it is great to hear what is new and different and what has stayed the same, especially in this time of sweeping changes. Of course, we are talking a lot about ebook markets abroad, but also about how adult publishers in France, Germany and other markets are adding YA imprints. We get to find out what books are really working in their markets (in addition to THE HUNGER GAMES), because not all successes here translate to successes there, and what titles from the list they love and what books they think will sell in their market.
From meeting with scouts at fair time we get an overview of what their clients are buying and we hear about the books being talked about as the big fair books.
By meeting one on one with foreign editors and agents we learn what we cannot learn just from what they publish. It is why we have lunches with editors here, and it is why we meet with editors from all over the world. We learn something about them personally, about their market, their publisher, all things that we could not know otherwise. And it is awesome to meet with editors from Spain, France, Germany, Italy, etc. who have bought one of our books and to hear what their publication plans are and how things are going. And to know if the title will change and if they are using the US cover and if not, to see the cover they designed. Agents want to sell books they love so that other people will find them and love them and when they are translated or sold in the UK or Australia it means more people can find them and love them!
Even though fairs are SO much work, before, during and after, they are such an exciting part of our job and I can't wait for March and Bologna!
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Lisa: One of the best mistakes I've ever made
When I was revising the manuscript, I did 97% of what my editor asked me to do. But there was one thing I didn't do. The main character, Isabel, gets to compete in a baking contest, and toward the end of the book, travels to New York City for the contest. My editor suggested maybe I should tell the readers the results of the baking contest. It wasn't a command so much as a suggestion. And I decided I liked leaving it open-ended.
I did have a reason for it. I think sometimes, our society focuses too much on winning and losing. Isabel gets to travel to New York City for the contest, which is a dream come true for her. The contest is really just icing on the cupcake. (See what I did there? Huh? Do you? Pretty clever, right?) So, I left it up to the reader's imagination as to what happened at the baking contest.
It wasn't long after the book came out that I started getting e-mails like this one:
"I loved your book, It's Raining Cupcakes. I love all of the characters in the book and how you kept the story moving along so well. It is hard for me to pick, but I would have to say that Isabel is my favorite character. But I have to say that I was highly disappointed in the ending of the story. I wish you would have told us if Isabel won the baking contest." ~ Grace, 11
Highly disappointed? Noooooo. Oh please, no.
And this one:
"I LOVED It's Raining Cupcakes! But I wonder did Isabel win the baking contest? Are you writing a sequel? I NEED to know!" ~ Victoria, 10
NEED to know? Ack!!!
And so it went. I will spare you more of these sad e-mails, but there are quite a few of them. It didn't take me long to figure out what I didn't know before about this age group (8-12 year olds) - they don't really want things left to their imaginations. In Victoria's words, they NEED to know!
Every time I was asked about a sequel, I thought, should I? Could I?
I wrote a few chapters, we proposed it to my editor, and she came back suggesting a companion novel rather than a sequel. The nice thing about a companion is that the books can stand on their own. It also gives the author a chance to tell a new story about a different character. Sophie, Isabel's best friend, is a fun girl, and my editor suggested maybe I'd want to try writing a book from Sophie's point of view. Because Sophie is close friends with Isabel, of course readers would find out what happened to Isabel at the baking contest.
It's another book about friendship, family and sweet treats. And I am really proud of how it turned out.
I admit, for a few months, I felt like a really bad author. Now, I'm glad I made the mistake I did. How often does that happen?
So, want to write a sequel or companion? Make your readers upset about a loose end, and you may have a shot. Just saying...
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Marianna: Launch Day - Keepin' It Real
After a long road, the launch day for my debut novel, Frost, is finally here!
With so many writers chronicling their publishing experiences online, I know perfectly well that while the release of my first novel will be exciting, there will also be disappointments. I figure it will make the whole thing easier if I keep my expectations for launch day firmly grounded in reality. Hence, the following plan.
Morning:
I don’t think I’ll set an alarm, because I’ll probably be woken up early by the buzzer announcing a delivery -- flowers, champagne, that sort of thing. BUT, I am making it very clear to myself that there might not be as many of these deliveries as I’d like/expect. Maybe… ten or twenty throughout the day. Max. Shouldn’t be hoping for more.
After I’m up, I’ll turn on my laptop and go to the NY Times site. Okay, I admit that I’ll be scanning the front page for a headline like, “40-Year-Old Prodigy Releases Great American Novel.” But, you know, let’s be real -- the article will probably not be on the front page! It will probably be in the Books section. If it is, I need to remember not to be disappointed that only people interested in books will come across it.
(Speaking of the NY Times, I’d like to think that Michiko Kakutani’s review of Frost will be in the paper on launch day. Unfortunately, I don’t think her reviews are published on Tuesdays.)
Deciding what to wear on launch day will be tough. I don’t have any actual plans, which means that people must be planning surprise events. But I don’t know what sort of surprise events, so I’ll have to wear something multi-purpose. Also, I don’t want to wear something TOO noticeable, because I’m not sure I’ll be ready for all of the, “Hey! Isn’t that author Marianna Baer?” attention from random people on the street. (This may seem crazy to you, like I’m not sufficiently managing my expectations, but my neighborhood is home to YA celebrities like Gayle Forman, Libba Bray, and Melissa Walker, so people here are used to keeping their eyes peeled for us.)
Afternoon:
I’ll probably go to a couple of bookstores, just to make sure that the display table dedicated to my book is there. If it’s not, if there’s only one of those cardboard display things, I’ll be okay with that. I know Frost is my first book, and the dedicated table might not happen right away. While I’m at the bookstores, I’ll probably have to spend a few hours signing stock. Carpal tunnel on launch day isn’t very glamorous, but I’m not at the point where I can get my “to-be-signed” pages early, like John Green. If I have to sign a few hundred copies at my local B&N, so be it.
The rest of the day will probably be spent much like any other -- here at my computer. Of course, I won’t be able to help checking my Amazon ranking, and that’ll be another challenge. “Be patient, Marianna,” I’ll tell myself. “Your sales rank might not reach single digits for a week or so.”
I’m sure my phone will ring pretty much non-stop; the trick there will be remaining realistic about who will call. The president of HarperCollins, sure – that’s a no-brainer. But even though it’s fun to think that the owner of HC’s biggie parent company, Rupert Murdoch, might give me a ring, he probably has other things on his mind.
Nighttime:
Luckily, I don’t have to keep my expectations for launch night low. I have great friends. They know this is an important event. I’m absolutely positive that they’ll do something pretty special in my honor. (I wonder if they’d be allowed to rent the lights on the Empire State Building and light them up to spell Frost?)
I hope that this post is helpful to others of you who will be releasing your debut novels soon. We have to stay humble and realistic, and keep in mind that this is a job (albeit one that will make us rich and famous.) At the end of the day, the writing is the most important thing. (Well, the writing and the vintage of the Dom Perignon I’ll undoubtedly be drinking for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.)
Thursday, September 8, 2011
Karen: On Being a Novelist
Before I was published, I didn’t have a clue.
Before I had an agent or any idea of which publishing house would release my debut novel, I didn’t know what it meant to be a novelist. Sure, I knew that it meant writing novels, and wanting to be published—i.e., wanting my writing to be read by more people than my mom and a handful of brave-enough friends—but I didn’t know yet how to write a novel that wasn’t drivel. So I read heaps of books on writing and publishing, like John Gardner’s On Becoming a Novelist. I still adore his idea that fiction must be a “vivid and continuous dream.”
Now that my debut came out last year, and my second novel comes out today, I can genuinely, totally, absolutely say I have become a novelist. And while I found On Becoming a Novelist useful, to tell you the truth, I could really use On Being a Novelist.
Becoming a novelist is easier than being a novelist. At least, I catch myself thinking that nowadays. Before, my aspiration to be published was a fierce craving, a borderline obsession, a perseverance to climb over the mountain of rejections and make it to the other side. Once you achieve a goal you have worked toward for years, there’s bound to be some surprise, disorientation, and maybe even letdown. I’m pretty sure I had some sort of misty, heavenly vision of what Life as a Novelist would be like—before it actually happened.
Oh, I thought. This is a job. Also, I have to keep writing books. I can’t just sit on my butt—ahem, laurels—and expect praise, riches, and unadulterated happiness. True, I have gotten a tantalizing taste of each of these three things, but I doubt my debut will sneak into the realm of stratospheric popularity when I’m not looking.
I suspect my somewhat frenzied efforts to be published happened because I was rather young for a novelist at the time—I was twenty when I started writing Other, and twenty-three when it hit shelves. Since I reached the ripe old age of twenty-five on September 1, I’ve had some time to mellow, to slow down, to stop and smell the freshly inked pages. Even though there’s always the temptation to race to finish another manuscript, or follow the blurs of passing trends, I realize that being a novelist requires patience and maturity.
After the infatuation of the first sale fades, you had better love writing enough for a long-term relationship. Until death do us part and all that. Not that I would actually want a manuscript pried from my cold dead hands… but you get what I’m saying. I want to keep writing. Stories keep sprouting in my head. And considering my previous metaphor, that sentence sounds disturbingly like pushing up daisies, so I will leave it at that.
Perhaps becoming a novelist and being a novelist are one and the same. The desire to write, the love of reading, the lifelong learning—these haven’t left me. Maybe I had a clue all along.
Monday, August 22, 2011
Betsy: On (Un)Coolness: Getting to Know My Writer Self
Do you ever get the notion that once you achieve some particular goal, you’ll finally be cool?
That was how I felt about getting an agent. I’d spent my whole life wanting to be a writer, years working on my manuscript, months querying. I clung to the belief that if I could finally break through, finally get a good agent for my book, I would somehow become a real person—not the stumbling geek I’ve been since birth. I would be cool.
At first, the way Sara became my agent gave me hope that that might actually happen. I moved to New York City on June 1st for a summer internship, and that very day I got my full request from Sara—and a representation offer from another agent. A few days later, Sara made an offer, too. After those months of rejected queries, I was beyond elated. I admit it: I felt pretty cool. Sara and I agreed to meet for lunch in Soho to talk about my book, and writing that lunch down in my planner gave me a “could I be a real writer now?” tingle. I couldn’t quite believe it was happening, but nonetheless, I wanted to be ready.
I woke up the morning of our lunch and pondered over what to wear. Unfortunatel, my clothes all belonged to my previous geek self, not the Super Cool Writer I was about to become. Still, I managed to select an outfit, and carefully elected to eat cereal for breakfast so nothing stain-causing could get on my clothes. (My clumsiness is a family legend.) Between the heat of the subway stations and the dry AC in my office, it was shaping up to be a bad hair day, but nothing was going to get in the way of my fast-approaching coolness.
I showed up at the restaurant way too early—the calling card of the uncool—afraid I would make myself late trying to find the right address. I walked up and down the block a few times, dawdling, trying to look like I had a destination. Finally I trotted inside, asked a hip, bearded waiter about the reservation under “Crowe”—another odd thrill—and followed him to a small table.
I slid into the booth side and sipped a tall, slim glass of ice water, trying not to freak out. I knew my own shyness and awkwardness too well, and I was slightly terrified that Sara would see right through whatever veneer I’d been able to paint in our e-mail correspondence, and would know at first glance that I wasn’t a real writer after all.
But then Sara actually arrived, and right away her presence made me feel better. She was sincere and thoughtful, not like the ultra-slick and aggressive agent image I’d built up in my mind. We talked easily about my writing and books we loved, about publishing and editing, about New England islands and Irish nicknames (relevant to my book, I promise). We ate a lovely lunch, and I’m pretty sure I was using the right fork. I didn’t even get quiche or salad dressing on my shirt.
Basically, I was doing it. I was being a real writer. I was a grown-up! I was cool!
(Can you hear the evil cackling of Fate yet?)
As lunch hour wound to an end, I knew I had to get back to my internship, so Sara and I said goodbye. She fished through her bag and offered me two things: her rights guide and an ARC of Frost by Marianna Baer (a brilliant book, by the way!). I was just sliding my way out of the booth seat, and I leaned over to accept the papers in her hand.
And I knocked over my just-refilled ice water with my boobs and it splintered over the table with a spectacular crash, soaking Sara’s pretty, full-color rights guide and sending death-shards of glass out over the floor.
Cool? Yeah, no. Not in this lifetime.
I stood there frozen for a moment, taking in the fact that this had just happened. Hip, Bearded Waiter rushed over to clean up the table and floor. I laughed my best “they always say to laugh at yourself when these things happen, right?” laugh and tried to control my blushing levels by sheer force of will. Sara took it all in stride, and even hugged me goodbye in spite of my water-spattered skirt.
The next day I wrote to her and accepted her representation offer. I signed the contract, my signature looking pretty much the way it has since I was in sixth grade and I used to practice it all up and down my doodled notebook margins. Swirly and round and a little childish. (I could draw parallels between my signature and myself, but that’s a little too on-the-nose even for me.)
So I had achieved this goal, but I was still the same person. Still as uncool as ever. That’s been a strange realization after almost every milestone in my life—that I still inhabit the same brain and body and self, even if something really important seems to have changed.
I suspect that no matter what other dreams I might reach, I’ll still be clumsy, still awkward, still fighting the terror I feel whenever I force myself to talk to someone new. And that’s really annoying, but in a way it makes me feel better, too. I have no idea what’s going to happen in my writing career—or in the rest of my life, for that matter—but at least I’ll be there, tripping over myself, making awkward conversation, and spilling drinks with my boobs. It’s nice to know I’ll have a friend at this party.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
