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Jan. 5th, 2006 11:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shalannaWell, I just did it . . . took everyone's advice and e-mailed both of the editors who had promised to do critiques of my first three chapters after I won their critique offers on eBay last summer. I was very diplomatic, and I'm not angry with them so much as I am disappointed. Of course, I was hoping that when each of them read the opening of _Little Rituals_, they'd like it enough to request the full manuscript to actually consider. Even if that is not what happens, I'd like to hear their suggestions and/or objections.
I didn't e-mail or contact the agent who has my two partials (she said she hadn't gotten to them before Christmas, but said they were in her to-do stack) or her boss, who has another of my partials (I won a critique from her on her website, but she doesn't have time to look at the stuff and they don't mention it any more on their site.) They've GOT the stuff, after all. I thought that I'd better just shut up and pray that they run across the stuff accidentally when they're in good moods. It's too easy to upset and alienate people when you prod them about when something's going to be looked at or what-have-you (even though they've had the stuff since last August. Aaughh.) Writers MUST in all fairness be granted a long life if there's any justice in the world, because we spend most of it waiting to hear back about our manuscripts! Even though we're writing new ones, we can't become "authors" until something is published so we can get a readership. But then TANJ*, necessarily, is there?
*There Ain't No Justice.--RAH**
**Robert A. Heinlein, Grandmaster
# # #
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rachelmanija (whose memoir is now in bookstores, yay!) talks about The Third Alternative, which she uses to mean the third alternative in a plot that seems destined to end with option A (happy ending) or option B (gloomy loser ending). Some authors have a gift for coming up with the perfect option C. Wish I were one of them!
ogre_san talks about the subconscious and who's IN there thinking up all those story ideas, story twists and turns, and character quirks. I remember originally hearing on GEnie about Damon Knight's concept of "Fred" as the subconscious helper (while his wife, Kate Wilhelm, refers to hers as her Silent Partner--more dignified, but less resonant for me, as I have known many good, inspirational Freds.) Of course, on the Jenny's Cherry Writers* workshop mailing list, they call it The Girls in the Basement, which I think fits much better. At least for me. I know there are several girls down there, and sometimes they get into drinking contests and send up some really oddball ideas and dreams. My Inner Child of the Past is likely one of the bunch.
(*JCW is Jennifer Crusie's mentored writing group that you can't get into--no, you can't, not unless you know someone who's on it and who thinks you would be a good addition, and forget about asking me, because I was already thrown off for saying that there could be flaws in J. K. Rowling's life's work. Her fans absolutely will not hear any remarks that do not praise her. That's true anywhere you go on the 'net. In my defense, they ASKED us to discuss the latest book and where the series is going. . . .)
I think The Girls in the Basement are pretty happy when you thank them. If you get all excited when an idea floats up, or when interesting dialogue bubbles out of the percolator as you're typing, or when a new character washes up on the sandy shores of your consciousness, then they're satisfied. It doesn't hurt to praise the work you've done and carry on about how great you think it is (only in private--I am talking about as you sit re-reading it) instead of saying "it's crap and dreck," as some writers claim they do. I suspect that The Girls like praise a LOT more, as do the Muses (who do exist and who WILL occasionally gift you with a higher-level present. You'll know it's not just from The Girls because "it's not the type of thing I am capable of thinking up," otherwise known as "where did THAT come from??")
The reason this is important has to do with the flowstate. When you are writing and you're in the groove, on a roll, in the flowstate, or whatever you term that "gear" you get into when the words are really flowing, you're releasing control to whichever conduit there is to this part of the subconscious--the Girls in the Basement--and you're just using the left side of your brain to narrate/choose words and the right side to come up with sensory cues and colorful characters and access the archetypes. If you get into the flowstate, you'll find you can tap into whatever the Girls have in store. Sometimes if you finish up for the night and then go to bed, you'll think of something that you need to do to fix the scene, or something that has to happen or should have happened in the last scene. Or you'll have an epiphany about the entire book. That's usually a gift from the Girls. If you get stuck and can't think of what to do to get your characters out of the corners you've painted them all into, go to the Net and ask for help. Or run the spelling checker and just zone out while it finds all your typos. You'll probably get into the swing of things by the time it has finished taking you through paragraph by paragraph.
The discussion on Ogre's LJ gives the advice to write one new story a week. Since I'm not a natural short story writer, what I do is work on novels instead. My rule is more like "work on the current book or on revisions at least every other day." I'd like to say "every day," but that's simply impossible sometimes. If you CAN do it, that's good. It'll keep you in practice.
Even LJ entries can grease the skids for more writing to come forth. Unfortunately, they can also become quite a timesink, so be careful. (grin) I've gotta go pick up three prescriptions, drop off the payment for our storage building, and make lunch for Mama (I don't know WHAT I'm going to eat . . . trying to diet, as usual.) So I'll have to schedule some writing time for later today. Where's that calendar. . . .
I didn't e-mail or contact the agent who has my two partials (she said she hadn't gotten to them before Christmas, but said they were in her to-do stack) or her boss, who has another of my partials (I won a critique from her on her website, but she doesn't have time to look at the stuff and they don't mention it any more on their site.) They've GOT the stuff, after all. I thought that I'd better just shut up and pray that they run across the stuff accidentally when they're in good moods. It's too easy to upset and alienate people when you prod them about when something's going to be looked at or what-have-you (even though they've had the stuff since last August. Aaughh.) Writers MUST in all fairness be granted a long life if there's any justice in the world, because we spend most of it waiting to hear back about our manuscripts! Even though we're writing new ones, we can't become "authors" until something is published so we can get a readership. But then TANJ*, necessarily, is there?
*There Ain't No Justice.--RAH**
**Robert A. Heinlein, Grandmaster
rachelmanija (whose memoir is now in bookstores, yay!) talks about The Third Alternative, which she uses to mean the third alternative in a plot that seems destined to end with option A (happy ending) or option B (gloomy loser ending). Some authors have a gift for coming up with the perfect option C. Wish I were one of them!ogre_san talks about the subconscious and who's IN there thinking up all those story ideas, story twists and turns, and character quirks. I remember originally hearing on GEnie about Damon Knight's concept of "Fred" as the subconscious helper (while his wife, Kate Wilhelm, refers to hers as her Silent Partner--more dignified, but less resonant for me, as I have known many good, inspirational Freds.) Of course, on the Jenny's Cherry Writers* workshop mailing list, they call it The Girls in the Basement, which I think fits much better. At least for me. I know there are several girls down there, and sometimes they get into drinking contests and send up some really oddball ideas and dreams. My Inner Child of the Past is likely one of the bunch.(*JCW is Jennifer Crusie's mentored writing group that you can't get into--no, you can't, not unless you know someone who's on it and who thinks you would be a good addition, and forget about asking me, because I was already thrown off for saying that there could be flaws in J. K. Rowling's life's work. Her fans absolutely will not hear any remarks that do not praise her. That's true anywhere you go on the 'net. In my defense, they ASKED us to discuss the latest book and where the series is going. . . .)
I think The Girls in the Basement are pretty happy when you thank them. If you get all excited when an idea floats up, or when interesting dialogue bubbles out of the percolator as you're typing, or when a new character washes up on the sandy shores of your consciousness, then they're satisfied. It doesn't hurt to praise the work you've done and carry on about how great you think it is (only in private--I am talking about as you sit re-reading it) instead of saying "it's crap and dreck," as some writers claim they do. I suspect that The Girls like praise a LOT more, as do the Muses (who do exist and who WILL occasionally gift you with a higher-level present. You'll know it's not just from The Girls because "it's not the type of thing I am capable of thinking up," otherwise known as "where did THAT come from??")
The reason this is important has to do with the flowstate. When you are writing and you're in the groove, on a roll, in the flowstate, or whatever you term that "gear" you get into when the words are really flowing, you're releasing control to whichever conduit there is to this part of the subconscious--the Girls in the Basement--and you're just using the left side of your brain to narrate/choose words and the right side to come up with sensory cues and colorful characters and access the archetypes. If you get into the flowstate, you'll find you can tap into whatever the Girls have in store. Sometimes if you finish up for the night and then go to bed, you'll think of something that you need to do to fix the scene, or something that has to happen or should have happened in the last scene. Or you'll have an epiphany about the entire book. That's usually a gift from the Girls. If you get stuck and can't think of what to do to get your characters out of the corners you've painted them all into, go to the Net and ask for help. Or run the spelling checker and just zone out while it finds all your typos. You'll probably get into the swing of things by the time it has finished taking you through paragraph by paragraph.
The discussion on Ogre's LJ gives the advice to write one new story a week. Since I'm not a natural short story writer, what I do is work on novels instead. My rule is more like "work on the current book or on revisions at least every other day." I'd like to say "every day," but that's simply impossible sometimes. If you CAN do it, that's good. It'll keep you in practice.
Even LJ entries can grease the skids for more writing to come forth. Unfortunately, they can also become quite a timesink, so be careful. (grin) I've gotta go pick up three prescriptions, drop off the payment for our storage building, and make lunch for Mama (I don't know WHAT I'm going to eat . . . trying to diet, as usual.) So I'll have to schedule some writing time for later today. Where's that calendar. . . .
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Date: 2006-01-06 03:22 pm (UTC)Mine too! Multiples!
I think The Girls in the Basement are pretty happy when you thank them. If you get all excited when an idea floats up, or when interesting dialogue bubbles out of the percolator as you're typing, or when a new character washes up on the sandy shores of your consciousness, then they're satisfied.
Gosh, I thought all that shouting was them. She heard a voice shouting, and after reading Shallana's LJ realized it was her own? :-))) g,d,r
It doesn't hurt to praise the work you've done and carry on about how great you think it is (only in private--I am talking about as you sit re-reading it) instead of saying "it's crap and dreck," as some writers claim they do. I suspect that The Girls like praise a LOT more
Good point, unless they go "Aw, shucks, m'am" and run away.
the Muses (who do exist and who WILL occasionally gift you with a higher-level present
Good distinction. I think I'll give my Girls a nice cloud to sit on, tho.