Option two really is better for my blood pressure but I can only coast for so long before something breaks.
Something broke.
Remember back in March, when I was ranting about a panel I had attended? The one given by a solidly mid-list author who advocated that the best way to maintain a career was to sit down, shut up, and take it? Among the many statements this author made during her presentation was a mystification with respect to the term "book of your heart." This is how I paraphrased what she said:
* Forget this idea of the "book of your heart." What is this book of your heart business anyway? That's for amateurs. Everyone with the sense that God gave a cabbage knows that's what a diary is for. Who cares what you feel deeply about? This is about writing a book that will sell. It doesn't have to be for a lot of money, either, because we know that publishers are just looking for cheap words. The minute you get to be too expensive (read: problematic) they'll drop you anyway for someone who can write the same thing and will be willing to do so for less money.
I had hoped this was an isolated incident. Alas, not so much. Over and over since then, I've heard authors not just claiming they have no understanding of the book of your heart concept, but openly mocking it, as if those authors who do believe in it are rank amateurs or newbies or entirely too naive for words. (Or worse yet, poseurs with pseudo-literary aspirations.)
What I want to know is when in hell did claiming that something you wrote was a "book of your heart" become a dirty thing? Something to scrape off the bottom of your shoe? You know what? Every book I write, regardless of genesis, becomes a book of my heart. Carmen is a perfect example. I wrote that book based on an idea an editor gave me. And I crafted it and shaped it and molded it into a story I love deeply. In some ways, this is one of my most deeply felt stories, partially because of what I've gone through with it, but more because of how much I love the story and characters. And I dare anyone to come to my face and mock me or call me some sort of rank newbie. Come on, I dare you.
Hot on the heels of the "book of your heart" mocking, come writers who are advising that you should never ever ever put anything controversial in your books. You might upset the readers... alienate them. Do what you can to make it easy, make it... nice.
Really?
REALLY?
Okay, I can get that there are people who don't grok the book of your heart concept even if I don't understand why they choose to write at all, but making an actual effort to not put in anything controversial is like someone speaking Martian to me. I really, really, really don't get it. Because if there's anything guaranteed to fail spectacularly-- if there is one universal truth to be acknowledged, it's this:
Someone, somewhere, will always be offended by something. Doesn't matter what it is. Doesn't matter if you're not even aware of it. People will find something to be offended by. My friend Alyssa Day recently received reader fan mail questioning her over her excessive use of prime numbers. She used too many of them.
This came as quite the shock to Alyssa. Seeing as she had no clue.
And it's the perfect example of the sheer randomness of what people will choose to be offended by. So to shy away from a topic because it might offend someone? Seems like an exercise in futility because baby, someone's gonna be offended, so you might as well write about something that engages you, gets your juices flowing. For god's sake, write something you feel passionate about.
Even if it leads to...
(Come on, you know what I'm going to say, right?)
A book of your heart.
Join us next time when we'll be advocating independent thought.
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Comments
I know which I'd rather read.
Edited at 2009-08-30 07:28 pm (UTC)
I wonder if it's a trend that's more restricted to genre or is it an across the board sort of thing?
A BotH can be a book that tanks, or it can sell, and sell, and sell. A book that you love like a friend can tank, or it can sell, and sell, and sell. A book that you write without feeling anything for? It may sell, but it's damned rare that it backlists. Readers know.
Speaking as a (former) book editor -- editors do NOT want cheaply written words. They want well-written words that will strike passion in the hearts of readers, and turn a book into a must-read that will backlist forever. It's finding those books that's problematic -- for everyone, because a well-written book that inspires one person will offend the next, and all you can do as an editor is.. well, buy the books that speak to your heart.
[or, in many cases, yes, the ones that speak to your bottom line. But that's much more rare than would-be writers believe. In fact, a lot of what would-be and lower-list writers seem to believe is pure self-protective crap.]
And OMG magical thinking. Seriously. You go from "if I just write the PERFECT cover letter on cream-laid bond paper, it's sure to sell" to "My book would TOTALLY have been a best-seller if the publisher had supported it." That's what I was getting at with the self-promotion techniques poll; my suspicion was that a lot of the stuff writers told other writers to do (esp. bookmarks) didn't help anything but your feeling of having tried.
I did come away solidly, solidly convinced that the sample chapter is your best friend, and a handsome paper sample chapter might well be a very smart thing to put on the freebie tables.
[or, in many cases, yes, the ones that speak to your bottom line.
And right now, with the market the way it is, it really seems that bottom line is trumping speaking to the heart, so it's not like I can totally blame writers for wanting to pin their hopes on picking the "right" genre and writing to market, but man, it's just depressing, because right there, they show a fundamental lack of knowledge of how publishing works, in terms of the time frames.
But then, I get to a point where I think Publishing Darwinism. Either they'll learn or they won't.
You can never guess, as far as I can tell, what's going to sell and what won't sell.
If you don't write something that you're passionate about, what the hell is the point of writing anyway? Because the only thing you can be sure of is pleasing yourself. Or, at least, trying to. :)
Corrina here. btw, I can't seem to comment normally on your journal. Something funky with my browser.
I don't know of any reason to write except you love it. Of course, there's a ton of professionalism involved. As said, you can't just write a book of your heart without applying discipline and writing technique to it. Simply loving the story isn't enough, you have to work at it too.
But I do think the woman at your panel was...really misled. If she's that careful about writing, it can't be any fun at all for her, and then I think "what's the point?"
::pauses to admire the logic of that::
Even when writing something which a lot of writers consider crass and commercial, such as my TV spec script, the sites I've been reading have counseled against trying to "game the market"...the best scripts come from people who like the shows
It's as
That said, the RWA catchphrase "book of your heart" creeped me out, because it was so often used as self-righteous justification. You write the book of your heart because you *need* to write it, because it's what you want to write. But that doesn't -- and there's where it got disturbing to me -- mean that it's a good book, or a publishable book.
I've read your "book of your hearts" and they were books of *my* heart, as a reader, too. I will wave banners for your writing the books you need to so that I get to write them. But you, Barb, don't say "book of your heart" to tell me that you're a tender delicate flower, and I did sometimes hear that at RWA.
Tender delicate flowers do not belong in the Arts of any sort. Or, as I just said in my most recent post -- this job's not for wimps. Go jackhammer roads if you can't stand criticism or failure.
And scrub a kitchen pavement, or break stones
Like an old pauper, in all kinds of weather;
For to articulate sweet sounds together
Is to work harder than all these, and yet
Be thought an idler by the noisy set
Of bankers, schoolmasters, and clergymen
The martyrs call the world.'
Dear Yeats.
That's always been my interpretation as well. Again, I go back to the Carmen book-- that book may have started out as a vague, "Oh why don't you give this a whirl?" concept, but once the idea coalesced it became something I had to write.
But perhaps the one that's the most "BoYH" for me, in that HAD to write it way, was Breathe. And it's been acknowledged that it's very well written and passionate and still sitting firmly on my hard drive because it's not the right book for the moment and the market.
I'd still write it again. Every damned word. Even knowing what I know now. I couldn't NOT write it, you know?
Edited at 2009-08-30 09:18 pm (UTC)
Very VERY good point!!! But how many writers are going to tell you their book isn't publishable? LOL
I actually sent a proposal to my agent a few months back and said, point blank, "I'm not sure this is a NY book and that's fine but I would like your feedback."
Anyway, this mocking of the book of your heart concept is to me an attempt by writers to show that they are market savvy and business-oriented.
Yes! This! That's exactly it-- it's as if they have to find some way in which to feel superior and slightly holier-than-thou and this is what they choose to focus on. I mean, hell's bells, I'm market savvy and disciplined as all hell, but I write because I love it (and hate it, too, but that's par for the course *g*). I'm always looking to be better, in every way and I bust ass at it, but I have to love what I'm writing about too.
I'm at the point now where I say 'Fuck 'em". I owe no one nothing. Like my books, don't like my books. Like why I write, don't like. I don't care. But my writing is all you get. Not my inner thoughts, not my private life, or identity, or my dignity, or my conscience. Writers are not politicians. Their person is not for examination, and writing something unappealing or controversial, does not change that.
Yes, I'm in a pissy, depressed, hopeless kind of mood. Writing used to bring me joy. It hasn't done that for a long time, and no amount of money in the world can compensate me for that loss.
I know what you mean. It's why I tend to shy away from giving that very kind of advice. My criticism of other authors tends to only come when they try to corner me with their commentary. I mean, if someone wants to think that what they write doesn't come from the heart, that's perfectly fine by me-- I can't tell anyone what goes on in their own head, but I'll be damned if I'll stand for being mocked because that's how I feel about my writing, you know?
Yes, I'm in a pissy, depressed, hopeless kind of mood. Writing used to bring me joy. It hasn't done that for a long time, and no amount of money in the world can compensate me for that loss.
I think many of us go through those phases-- and I know what you mean about the writing losing its joy. I know it's personal for every writer, but if there's anything I can do, let me know? I wish I had a wand I could wave for the people I like to have what they most want.
Edited at 2009-08-31 03:45 am (UTC)
Well, are you any good at assassination? :) I've got a little list....
*sigh*
I really wanna believe that one of these days, Karma's going to go bite a lot of people on the ass. With rabies.
Anyhoo...
Not sure if I'm adding two and two and getting 22, but I think so.
You know, I do think you're on to something-- because
Which in turn, perpetuates a trickledown effect in terms of attitudes, which become more and more narrow. It's absolutely mystifying to me that writers, of all people, can be so utterly closed-minded about approaches that are not their own. Hello, shoppers, we have a special on irony, aisle two!
'Least that's the way it's worked for me so far.
*shaking head* I know we can't all hit the book-money jackpot but I firmly believe the amount of money a publisher puts behind you correlates to how much they'll support you!!
Yes, the Book of Your Heart might not sell, but you'll have learned something about writing or about yourself, which is valuable in the long run.
Yes.
This.
So very much this.