What we have here is a failure to comisserate

[shalanna]

I feel I should clear up a foggybottom or two from my previous post. I wasn't trying to say that Diana is wrong to state her opinion on the subject or that there's anything wrong with the people who get their stuff published within three years of "really trying." (*burning green with envy*) I was just marveling at the possibility that occurred to me, which is that perhaps if you do NOT get published within the first three to five years, you never will . . . or you're in it for the VERY long haul. It's an interesting postulate to make, but if it's true, it hasn't been true forever. As I mentioned, many authors before (say) 1990 claim that they took much longer than that to break in.

Still, length of apprenticeship may not be getting counted in that question, as coneycat points out. *I* thought my first novel was seriously ready for prime time and sent it out . . . but others may count from the third or fifth book.

If you're not tired of the entire James Frey debate, go read That Girl Who Writes Stuff and Slushpile.Net on Frey. Interesting arguments. I still think Frey should have told people just how fictionalized the book was. On the other hand, if somebody waved a NY publishing contract in my face and all I had to do was pretend that one of my books was autobiographical truth, I don't know if I could resist. That's a pretty arousing aphrodisiac. And of course all this publicity is selling more copies of the book. *Life's Little Ironies Alert*

Hmm, what am I saying, "I don't know if I could resist"? If they said all I had to do to get a NY publishing contract was *bleeeep* every Marine in boot camp, even though I hate to *bleeeep* like a hippo hates to hop, I'd be there quicker'n a bull with a burr under his tail. Heck, I'd change my made-up brand names to whoever's product we're pimping this month if you showed me a contract. Still, the Frey story isn't well written, and so it gets twenty demerits from me. Ten points off for every time he capitalizes every non-proper noun, as though English were German. Schweinhund!
* * *
Donn Pearce wrote the novel _Cool Hand Luke_ and worked on the film's script. In an interview for Esquire, he recalled some advice that a fellow inmate gave him.

“In Raiford [a state penitentiary in Florida where he did a two year stretch for breaking and entering and grand larceny],” Pearce told the magazine, “there was this old guy, an old newspaperman, an obvious drunk. And he said, ‘You’ll write a million words before you publish your first thousand.’ That always stuck in my head.”

That's from Slushpile.net on Cool Hand Luke the movie. Yes, the fellows screwed over Cool Hand Luke after all he did to try to help them. Sound familiar? Repeats over and over, doesn't it, in all fields of endeavor. I've grown so soft-hearted and sentimental in my dotage that I can't watch that movie any more because of the ending.

Comments

[coneycat.livejournal.com]

This is the "foggybottom" that I believe needs clarification, quoted from your earlier post:

Let's try to analyze why people who never wrote anything before could learn everything you need to learn in order to sell in three years.

That is your assumption, and it is not based on anything the author said. She said she finished her first novel for publication, i.e. the first novel she decided to try to sell, in spring of 2002. She did not say she'd never written anything before, in fact elsewhere in that very same Q&A session someone asks if her first published novel was in fact her first completed novel manuscript and she says no, she has four others.

She never said that the first MS she sold was the first thing se had ever written. You just decided that's what she said.

I mention this simply because you have a tendency, which I've noted several times on this journal, to respond not to what the writer/poster actually said but to what you have apparently decided they said.

If you're going to "analyze" something, especially if it's an opinion or statement you're going to attribute to another person, you should probably take a little more care to make sure you're actually talking about what that person was talking about.

And it's not Diana P's "opinion" that it took her three years from the time she started seeking publication to succeeding at being published. If that's what happened, that's a fact.

Following the logical threads

[shalanna.livejournal.com]

I didn't say anywhere that it was her opinion that she'd published in three years. Could you clarify where I said that?

What you're quoting--"Let's try to analyze why people who never wrote anything before could learn everything you need to learn in order to sell in three years."--is indeed *my* hypothesis that I stated in that post. But I didn't relate it back to what Diana said other than to start off the post using an example the mention that "it's about average" to get published within three years (which is how the statement reads; I'm not asking that she change it, but the way it reads is the way it reads, whether you mean it that way or not, as you're telling me here.) I was taking the possibility a step further. Her statement inspired me to speculate and wonder at the implications.

The part of her FAQ that I thought was surprising is that she says, after mentioning that it took her three years from first finished manuscript for publication to when she sold (presumably that one, the way the question reads), "I hear that's about average." That's what I said I was taking exception to. That makes it sound as though three years or so is the "average" time it takes to get a novel published, or to get your first novel published. Given what's written, it's a logical assumption to think that is what is being said. And it's an interesting idea, as well, because it may be true in chick lit circles or someplace--that's what Dennis and I are discussing, the possibility that our length of time doing this is having something to do with our style or approach. If I don't consciously decide to write as though I'm from another generation, then I'll continue to have problems because of the attitudes/word choices/passages that make it clear I'm not eighteen. If I need to write differently to increase my odds (which still isn't clear), I'll have to re-evaluate my ritual status.

>She never said that the first MS she sold was the first thing
>she had ever written. You just decided that's what she said.

Because that's what the FAQ question implies. Yes, later on she says that she wrote other things (one assumes before the one that sold). However, the question I was taking issue with says, "How long did you write before you sold?" I responded to the literal text.

A few comments down, she is asked, "Is Society your first book, or do you have unpublished manuscripts?" She replies that she has four unpublished manuscripts, of which only one is unpublishable, but that does not mean she's seeking publication for the others at this time. I assume that you're basing YOUR assumptions on THIS passage. Assume further that she thought at the time she was writing these that they were intended for professional publication. That would lead us to conjecture that these were written before she sold, and that they were done during the three-year period we're talking about. I can believe that, as I've written several books per year (first and second drafts, not polished books) during many years. It just means she's good at this and will be able to write quickly. But nowhere is it said that these prior books were done as part of a long apprenticeship. I think (and I'm not trying to be nasty here) that is YOUR assumption.

She doesn't mention an apprenticeship, though that must have taken place. If she wrote those four books before the time covered by the three years, she isn't stating that outright. The way that I read the question/answer segment is that she isn't counting those apprenticeship pages that we all do. She is saying that from the time she seriously wrote for publication (finishing the first manuscript) to the time she sold a manuscript (not necessarily the first one), three years passed. Any interpretation other than this that we put on it is going to be our interpretation.

(An awful lot of analysis for a tossed-off answer in a FAQ!, but I've been seeing a trend here in trying to read something that's not there into whatever I say, so I'm going step by step. I'm not trying to put words into Diana's mouth or yours. I'm showing why I read a passage and come away with a particular meaning. Then I take it a step further, which means we go away from the launching point and speculate.)

(next rock)

The next rock

[shalanna.livejournal.com]

Continued from previous post. . . .

The issue I was speculating on is the one you mention last, that "it took her three years from the time she started seeking publication to succeeding at being published. If that's what happened, that's a fact." (And I note again that I never said or implied that it wasn't--I was marveling at the implications for all of us who have been at it a lot longer.) It is also stated that "this is about average." Which would mean that a large number of writers she consulted have said they started writing publishable copy only about three to five years before they succeeded.

If that is so, it's a statistic that we can use to predict success. Just the same way that I can look at statistics saying that (for instance--and I'm just inventing this for purposes of discussion) new grads with a BS in computer science take on average six months to find work as a programmer . . . and then say to my nephew, "It takes people about six months to find work as a programmer." It doesn't say WHY it takes that long. Is it the job market is tight? That people don't want to relocate to where the jobs are? What? That's the analysis we would begin doing. And that's all I was doing here.

But, as I mention in the post, many authors say that their apprenticeships are far longer, and the entire time they believe they're writing something publishable.

*Ah,* I see where I mentioned "opinion"--I said in my follow-up post that I wasn't objecting to Diana's opinion on the subject. The opinion I was talking about was the one that states three years is about average. That's what all this has been about, after all--whether it's actually more likely that someone would publish within the first three years if they're going to. These days, it does seem that many new authors say so. There has to be an X factor involved. It may be that they have their fingers on the pulse of the generation who is reading the chick lit (and buying it), and so there's a "simpatico" reaction that makes their work more valid for the market. If that's so, I need to concentrate on a genre that isn't identified so much with younger generations (which chick lit is) or on literary fiction. Why fight MORE odds than you have to?

I think that I made it clear I was talking about the issue of saying it takes about three years from the time you start writing seriously to the time you sell. That is a pretty good record. It may well be true of many authors. What are the implications for us?

There may be no implications, as you said. Or there may be. Perhaps if I write mysteries like Anne George's, where she appeals specifically to the older generation, I would be in better shape. I'd be preaching to the choir when I mentioned older actors or pop culture references. It's worth exploring.

What I was trying to say, though, in the end, is that the individual path to publication may take longer than three years in MOST cases, in which case three years isn't about average. If I am wrong about MOST writers taking longer than that to sell nowadays, then I need to re-evaluate what's different about them and how I can be more like them. (Which perhaps I should be doing anyway.)

Re: The next rock

[horace-hamster.livejournal.com]

I know a person who took three months from "the time she started seeking publication to succeeding at being published" (assuming you define success as being offered a publishing contract from a legitimate press). Does that daunt you? Upset you? Intimidate you? Make you think the world is an unfair place? Oh, did I forget to mention that this was the twelfth novel she'd written, and she'd never had the guts to try submitting her stuff, until finally someone held a figurative gun to her head and made her submit her latest novel to a publisher?

I know a person who is writing her first novel. She might even finish it someday. When/if she submits it to her list of target publishers, I'm guessing she's got a 50:50 chance of it being accepted. Does that daunt you? Upset you? Intimidate you? Make you think the world is an unfair place? Oh, did I forget to mention that she's written probably fifty short stories and a couple dozen non-fiction articles and a couple dozen scientific grant proposals?

I know a person who sold the first novel she ever wrote to the first publisher she submitted it to, and prior to that had only written a few short stories and really nothing else. Does that daunt you? Upset you? Intimidate you? Make you think the world is an unfair place? Oh, did I mention that her novel is really not very good, and that she just happened to hit the right publisher on the right day with a book in the right genre of the right length that fit a slot the publisher desperately needed to fill?

Trying to decide what's 'average' is an exercise in futility. You can't possibly know anyone else's complete background and circumstances, and you can't logically compare anyone else's circumstances with your own.

[coneycat.livejournal.com]

Crap. My post here sounds much crankier than I intended it to. I apologize for the tone, but I think you need to think about the content.

[darissk.livejournal.com]

"I know a person who sold the first novel she ever wrote to the first publisher she submitted it to, and prior to that had only written a few short stories and really nothing else. Does that daunt you? Upset you? Intimidate you? Make you think the world is an unfair place? Oh, did I mention that her novel is really not very good, and that she just happened to hit the right publisher on the right day with a book in the right genre of the right length that fit a slot the publisher desperately needed to fill?"

Hell yes, it does. Out of all your examples, this one does make me feel the world is unfair. Unless said person is a saint :) But then, we knew nothing was fair and everything was luck, didn't we?:) At least no one can call me a hypocrite.