Terrible Week

Of course it didn’t turn out the way I wanted it to.  I wrote half a page on Monday.  Half a page on Tues.  Then I gave up.

I know this will sound like an excuse, and it is, of course, but there was another death in my life. I’m not going to write about it here as I have some others because this person was not a writer. 

Her death colored my whole week.  I am left as the keeper of the secret.

Tomorrow I’m going to the movies as I do on many Fridays.  Monday I’ll try again to make some headway on this novel.  TRY.

A Year Later

It was at this time last year that my editor at Ballantine called me and told me he was leaving. I wrote that here and it created a tempest in a teapot.  Still, it seemed awful at the time.  I, without knowing it because he didn’t tell me it was a secret, revealed his plans and in so doing betrayed him.

I also discovered that my blog was read by many people who were in the publishing world.  I had no idea.  I was naive about the blogosphere at that point.  And suddenly people were saying awful things about me and leaving provocative comments on my blog.  I didn’t know then that one could block Anonymous people.  I even made Nitwit of the day (or was it week?) on Miss Snark’s blog where people I didn’t know threw barbs at me.

Anyway, I’m still here and having expressed my concerns with who would be my editor and if he/she would be twelve years old, it didn’t do anything to my career as some had predicted.

I don’t regret it, except for hurting my editor.  I hope he knows I never meant to hurt him. Most likely he never thinks of me or that time.

Tomorrow I’ll go back to working on my book.  I’m not looking forward to it.  It scares me a little.  In fact, I don’t want to do it at all. 

Quote

"I think I ought to be shot for writing such nonsense, but it's questionably good escapist literature and I think I should rather like it if I were sitting in an air-raid shelter, or recovering from flu."

Georgette Heyer

Back In Business

I’m not sure what business I mean here.  I guess the business of seeing.  Operation successful, patient lived to see another day.

Thanks to everyone who wished me luck.

This week I have more doctor appointments and then there’s Thanksgiving, so settling down to continue to write my book isn’t an option.  But it is an option next Monday.  I hate to give myself a starting date in case I don’t make it.  Still, Monday the 27th is what I’m shooting for.

Meanwhile, I won’t be reading Thomas Pynchon’s new book.  I wouldn’t be reading anyone’s book that is 1,088 pages long.  I’m from the school of less is more.  What could any novelist have to say that needs over 1000 pages to say it in?  I sniff narcissism.

I also don’t want to spend my time decoding whatever is in those 1000 pages.  I want to read books that tell me a story in robust prose.  I don’t mean that everything has to be linear but I do like a beginning, middle and end.  Most of all I like to understand what I’m reading. And I admit that I don’t understand Pynchon.  Yes, I tried once.  I was young and naive and I thought I had to read everything that was touted as literary.  Some I enjoyed.  Pynchon I did not.  I have no idea what V is about.  I tried more than once.  I had the time then.

Call me a philistine, I don’t care.

Quote

"I'd rather be a failure at something I enjoy than be a success at something I hate."

George Burns

The Eyes Have It and Other Things

I don’t write things here that are personal unless it has to do with writing.  But I think the fact that I’m having eye surgery on Tuesday qualifies.  This past week it has been impossible to write except for Monday as I’ve had one appointment after another.  I’ve never been able to write when I’m constanly interrupted.

The week before I did get two chapters done. And I liked them.  I still don’t know how I’m going to get where I want to go but maybe it’ll come to me after the surgery.  I have no idea how soon I’ll be able to see the computer screen again but I’m sure it won’t be more than a week or two.  Maybe not even that.  When I asked my doctor he said he didn’t know.  Very reassuring, as they always are.

Am I nervous about this?  Yes.  But I’m told it’s not a big deal.  Still, my niece, who is a nurse, says any surgery is a big deal.  I tend to believe her.  You never know.  Fortunately I won’t be under a general anesthetic so that cuts the risk way down.  But it’s my eye.  The doctor, to CHA I’m sure, told me that I could go blind, but that it happens in very, very rare cases.  Oh, good.

Meanwhile it’s been brought to my attention that Lee Goldberg sees my posts about writing as me being in agony.  I know I sometimes go over the top in writing about my troubles with writing so I guess I’d better make it clear.  I love writing probably as much as Lee does.  There’s nothing else I’d rather do except be able to sing like Barbra Streisand.  I’m not sure I find it fun…except on those rare occasions when it all clicks. And I certainly find it more fun than taking tolls on the thruway.  Any thruway.  Writing is more fun than working at a fast food place.  Or waiting on tables.  Or taking movie tickets.  Or being a stockbroker, or being in real estate.  Writing is more fun than being an electrician, or a plumber.  Or being in politics.  This is how it is for me.

But it’s hard.  I’m not a writer who hates it because it’s lonely.  I don’t find it lonely.  I like being alone.  In fact, having worked in the theatre and on a few movies that never got made, I know I’d rather be a novelist than a playwright or screenwriter.  I don’t like to collaborate.  But as Lee says, ( and I’m paraphrasing) I’ve been fairly successful and it’s never enough.

Some of you are at the very beginning of your careers, some in the middle.  I’m guessing Lee’s in the middle.  I’m coming down the homestretch.  Not that I’ll ever retire. But where once I wrote ten pages a day I now write maybe five.  And at the beginning and the middle I always had an idea I’d rather be working on than the one I was doing.  That doesn’t seem to be true anymore.  It’s harder to get ideas.  Harder to sit in my chair for three or four hours a day.  Still, I always made my deadlines right up to the last one I had.   Now I don’t have one.  After publishing 19 books I’m writing my 20th on spec.

Mark Terry on Lee’s blog says in a comment about all this “Sure. It's easy. Just like brain surgery. “  I love that.  Diana says “I suffer these insecurities about my writing every single day. At least she has been published!”  But that’s just the point.  It doesn’t matter that I’ve been published.  Of course it matters, I mean I’d rather have these troubles as a published writer than one who never has been published.  But the feelings don’t change.  And the idea that I or any other published writer should be through with these feelings doesn’t fly.  I’m sure when Diana gets published she’ll still suffer insecurities.  And Keith Snyder says, “Creative hell beats boredom. I've never been bored writing a book.”  Neither have I.  I don’t think anyone would find an allusion to boredom while writing, anywhere in my blog.  There are lots of other interesting responses to Lee’s post.  Take a look.

Now that I approach a possible time period when I can’t write I, of course, want to do it more than ever.  In a rational state I know I’ll get back to writing this 20th novel (20 was always my goal) and deep down I’ll love doing it, but I’ll still have problems and insecurities.  And I  know that’s okay.  That’s the way it goes for me.

I’ll be seeing you.

 

Where Am I?

Last week I was in NYC.  I don’t get to go to big bookstores where I live so I went into a B&N.  Of course I headed to the mystery section which was fairly large.  I always look for myself first.  I didn’t expect to find any of my books except for the paperback of  This Dame For Hire.  Nope.  Nothing.  Nada.  I tried to tell myself it was because they’d sold out.  It didn’t work.  I knew that wasn’t true.  If they’d sold out why didn’t they reorder?

TDFH was my 18th published novel.  But where was I?  Not among all the other writers, some I’d never heard of, some self-published I was surprised to see.  I wasn’t the only working writer who wasn’t there.  Others were missing, too.  I’m not naming names.  But there were plenty of name brands, and why wouldn’t there be?

It was depressing.  Demoralizing.

I went back to work yesterday and did pretty well.  Today was a mess.  I feel like throwing the manuscript into the water and deleting all copies on my computer and back ups.  I know I won’t.  But I wonder how much of my discouragement is laced with my bookstore blues.

Still, I’m on page 178 and I feel I don’t know what I’m doing, where I’m going or who these people are.  My closest friend just told me she wishes she had a tape to playback to me because I always say these things. 

But this time it’s real.

 

Authors Earning Back Advances

Westvillageidiot left a comment the other day that a publisher was taking a risk on publishing Donna Leon and Fred Vargas in this country.  I countered by saying I didn’t think it was a risk to publish authors who had written 26 books between them.  Westvillageidiot wrote that Neither author has earned back her respective advances from previous English-language publishers.

Perhaps that was because the authors had been paid too much to start with.  Or none of those publishers had done anything to help the books along.  I say this with first hand knowledge.  Some part of that has happened to me three times.

In 1977 I published a book called Some Unknown Person. It was the first adult novel I wrote.  Putnam published it in hardcover and Bantam bought it for paper back.  They paid me an almost mid six figures.  That’s a lot of money now but it was an incredible amount of money then.

Putnam took out a full page ad (opposite the table of contents) in  the NYTBR.  What a thrill that was. Between that and the Bantam sale I was riding high.  But guess what?  Nothing happened.  When Bantam brought out the book they made the cover look like a modern slut novel.  It was all in pink and it had a young girl with long blonde hair doing what?  Nothing. This was a book that was set between 1901 and 1931.* 

No one knew the book existed.  I had already made back my five figure advance from Putnam so that was not a problem.  But there was no way that the money from Bantam was ever going to be made back.  First, of all, it was way too much money to pay me for that novel.  And secondly, the comany abandoned the book.  You’d think having paid that much money they’d want to get behind it.  You’d think.  But you’d be wrong.

And then it happened again with other publishing houses.  When you’re offered a lot of money (the next two times the amount was nothing like the first) you’re not going to say “No thanks.  I’d prefer you to give me less so I can be sure to earn it back and then you’ll want to continue to publish me.”  At least, I would never say that and I doubt that any author would. 

Of course I didn’t earn back either time. And the third time nothing was done to let anybody know that the books existed.   Was I dropped.  Naturally.   

I’m not suggesting that publishers offer authors impossibly low advances but doesn’t there have to be something in between?  Most writers I know are happy to be published.  They want a decent advance but don’t expect an insane amount.  Giving authors, who aren’t stars, six figure advances is destructive for both parties.

But if they do they should be willing to back it up.  How?  At least a small ad somewhere to let the public know the book exists.  I know that publishers say ads don’t help but I don’t believe that.  One small ad, I say.

I’m sure anyone reading this in the business is thinking that I’ve cut my throat.  Once again.  What do you think, Miss Snark?  Do I qualify for Nitwit of the day?

 *The second time the paperback of Some Unkown Person was published by Carroll & Graf the cover was much, much better.  And the cover of the HC from Putnam was wonderful.

Best Laid Plans

I was planning to start writing yesterday but I got sick over the weekend.  No, I don’t think it’s psychosomatic.  I think it’s annoying.

I’d like to write about a comment that westvillageidiot left yesterday but I don’t have the energy.  It’s about authors earning back advances.  A subject close to my heart.  I’ll do it as soon as I can.

Yes, I know, you’ll be waiting with bated breath.

A Good Example That's Bad

I received an email from an old Bouchercon writer friend the other day. When I wrote back I asked her if she’d been writing as I hadn’t seen anything by her for a long time and I always thought she was very good.  This was her answer.

   I've been writing all along, but I haven't been published since 1995 (a non-fiction book) and  I haven't published any novels since 1992. Not that I wasn't writing them--no one was buying. I was at (name of pub. house) and then one day in 1993 my editor left to go to (name of pub house) swearing that I'd be in very good hands with my next editor. I never heard from him, and after five months I found out that he had just taken a job with (name of magazine) by reading one of the trade papers. The novel I was under contract for just disappeared into the void. And anything I wrote after that (about seven novels, I forget how much non-fiction) got a cold shoulder. I think my favorite rejection was "this book is too well-written to be commercially viable."  It's been pretty hard for me emotionally and psychologically--I was/am one of those people for whom writing was/is the be-all and end-all.

   The agent I had long ago retired from the business, and anyone I've contacted since has been willing to consider me as a client, but with one big codicil. I swear, every single one of them has said to me, "Write me the new Da Vinci Code!"  In the first place, I wouldn't know how to go about writing something like that, and in the second place, I can't write that badly. It's a knack, you know.

 

This breaks my heart.  Not just for her.  I know there are lots of good writers that were making it in the 80’s and the early 90’s who haven’t published a thing for years.  And I’m sure the reasons are exactly like the ones in the email above.

 

There was a period within that time frame when too many people were being published.  That may sound odd, but I believe it’s true.  This is what publishers do.  They get on to a good thing and then they do it to death.  I think it’s the same in all the arts. 

 

A lot of mystery writers who weren’t good got published during that second Golden Age. Some were unreadable.  Some were terrific and made it big.  They are, of course, still being published.  And some were good, very good, and there’s no room for them now.

 

I don’t know how many keep on writing.  I suspect the real writers do.  I hope so.  One day it may all turn around again. 

 

I do pray that The Da Vinci Code clones will disappear.  They aren’t real writers.  In my opinion they’re opportunists.  I don’t know what to call the agents who want/expect writers to imitate Dan Brown.  Maybe stupid is the word.

Death and Denial

Since my last post I haven’t felt too great.  The first week after Jerry’s death I managed to write a chapter.  But this past week was awful.

On Saturday I had a computer disaster and had to reinstall.  I backup so none of my writing was lost.  But if you’ve ever had to do this you know how long it takes.  Because I have backup drives I was able to reinstall  and recover programs I use.  Somehow this took me all week.

Now I know it was because of Jerry.  I couldn’t have written anyway.  I was far too sad.  I was able to deny this until the computer was back in shape.  The computer horror kept me busy and my feelings at bay.

I probably won’t be writing this coming week either.  I have other things I’m going to do. So when I get back to work I will have been away from the novel for two weeks.  It’s okay.  I don’t feel ready yet anyway.

Death sucks.

 

Jerry DeBono R.I.P.

His is not a name a lot of people know.  He wrote mostly for television in the 60’s and 70’s, although he started in the late 40’s.  Episodes of Dr. Kildare, Marcus Welby M.D., Police Woman, Quincey M.E., Hunter and others were written by him.

Marijane Meaker (Vin Packer, M.E. Kerr) was the first working writer I ever met, and Jerry was the second.  The moment we met we were instant friends.  The thing was we made each other laugh like crazy.

At that time I wanted to write plays.  He convinced me I should try television.  So once a week he gave me and Megan Terry (Viet Rock) lessons.  I don’t remember a lot about it except that he had us do scripts for Lamp Unto My Feet.  It was a Sunday program for children, I think.

Neither Megan nor I became TV writers.  But not because Jerry wasn’t a good teacher, he was.  I think it was because we neither of us wanted to write for TV at that time.  I did later on.

After awhile he moved back to California where he was from.  We saw each other over the years…he would come east and I would go west.  In the 80’s he stopped writing and became a teacher of English in a high school. 

We lost touch for awhile. Then one day there was an email from Jerry in my In box.  I was so excited.  He’d gotten his first computer and had found my address. From then on we never stopped writing each other. He was retired and was occasionally directing college musicals.  But he wasn’t writing. 

During that first year of our email life we learned all about each other in a way we never had before.  Childhoods, teens, early adults.  Mothers, fathers, friends.

He told me he was so proud of me, of what I’d accomplished.  And he read all my books.  He didn’t like all of them, naturally.  But he really got a kick out of my latest two.

Our email correspondence got him thinking about his life in a way he never had before and he thought he’d like to write a novel.  But he wasn’t sure of the form and wondered who the hell would want to read a novel about his life. I told him I and many others would. So he started.  I tried to buoy him up when he got discouraged. I don’t know how much that helped but Jerry kept on writing.

When we reconnected I learned fairly soon from a mutual friend that he had non Hodgkin's lymphoma and things could go south at any time.

A few weeks ago they did.  He ended up in the hospital.  I knew nothing of this until I got a call from him.  He told me where he was and that all he wanted was two more months because he thought he could finish his novel in that period.

The next time we spoke he didn’t seem to know we’d spoken before and he didn’t make much sense.  It was the pain medication.  In the hospital he had a course of chemo to see if they could give him the time he wanted.  But it didn’t do anything except make him sick.

So last Sunday he went home.  Two friends kept me informed of what was going on.  Yesterday when I came home from the movies I found out that he’d died.  It went very fast and I’m glad for that.

Needless to say he never finished his novel, but he wrote a lot of it and most of all he wanted to finish it.  Once a writer always a writer.

l miss him terribly.

Good Words

What the editor said about the cuts I made in my story.

“Perfect!! I'll make the change in your original document.”

Okay.

Started

I read the book yesterday and I liked a lot of it.  Today I wrote 4 pages.  It seemed okay.  But I’m not sure how to achieve what I need to achieve.  I’m hoping for a lightening strike, I guess.  Don’t know if it’s going to happen.

Getting ready to write a romantic scene.  Not a sex scene.  Hate them.  But I don’t mind a flirting scene…that should be interesting since I can’t flirt in my own life.

Sent the editor the change she asked for.  Haven’t heard yet.

Two more days of writing and then Friday to the movies.  Hooray!

Not Perfect

I don’t want anyone to think my short story experience was totally perfect.  I got an email from the editor today, and after saying that she liked the story even more on her second reading, she asked if a certain conversation could be abbreviated.  Or not.  It was up to me. 

I feel fine about the request and I have to take a look at the story to see if I agree with her.

Tomorrow I start reading my novel in progress.

Quote

"Writing has laws of perspective, of light and shade just as painting does, or music. If you are born knowing them, fine. If not, learn them. Then rearrange the rules to suit yourself."

Truman Capote

Sent It In

Yeah, I did.  Sent it to the editor of the anthology when I said I was going to.  The next day I heard from her.  She said, “I love it.”  And other things.  I was amazed and very pleased.

From start to finish … being asked to do this to handing it in … was about three weeks.  I call this instant gratification.  And for anyone who likes instant gratification as much as I do, short stories are looking pretty good these days.

Whoever said I wasn’t flexible?

Short Story Day Five

I finished it today. I guess that’s fast, I don’t know.  It’s about 3500 words.

The strange thing about this story is that it came to me all of a piece.  What I mean is, I knew the protagonist and I knew the end before I began.  And then it pretty much wrote itself.  I never know the end when I start something.  The something is usually a novel.  So what do I know about writing a short story and how it develops?

Still, it was odd for me.  I’m not sure what to make of it.  The process, that is.

I like the story.  And I had to write it exactly as I did.  It had to go the way it went as if it had a life of its own.  I guess it did have a life of its own.

I didn’t know exactly what was going to happen in the middle and I had to go back and add specific material as I wrote.  Yesterday, after a weekend of letting it sit, I made some changes and printed it out.  Then I went out.

Today I made changes on the hard copy put those changes into the computer, printed it out and gave it to First Reader.  FR liked it but had some nits to pick.  That’s what FR’s are for, aren’t they?  Hate it when it’s a big section FR doesn’t like.  But this is a short story so my feeling is either you like it or you don’t and then you can pick.

Took some of FR’s suggestions and ignored others.  Put changes back in the computer.  Read it again on the screen.  Made more changes. Read it again.  Printed it out.  Put it in a drawer.

I’ll send the doc tonight…no …. now.

Third Day

I actually finished the first draft of the story.  I know I said I might, but I didn’t believe it.  I have no idea if this fulfills the requirements I was given.  This draft has enough words to be accepted.  But when I rewrite I usually get rid of words.

Monday I’ll start the rewrite.  Tomorrow I’m going to the movies.

First Reader asked me if I enjoyed writing it.  FR should know better.  I don’t enjoy the whole act of writing.  I enjoy writing when I come up with a wonderful line, or put something together that had eluded me for days or weeks.

What I do like about this short story thing is that it can be over so quickly.  Even if it takes me two more weeks to finish this story it’s a helluva lot faster than writing a novel.  Of course I knew this in the abstract, but now I actually know it.

Still, the novel form is my ticket.  And if the word enjoy can be used here then I’d say I enjoy writing a novel much more than a short story.

I do understand now why Kay Sexton urges people to learn to write the short story before writing a novel.  I still don’t think that’s necessary, but I can see why it would help.  You have limited space and you have to get important information in the piece early.  And the pacing cannot be liesurely.  One can be somewhat liesurely in a novel, but not in a crime novel, I don’t think.  Maybe in any novel because no matter what you’re writing you want the reader to turn the pages.

I’m looking forward to the rewrite.  Not that I’ll enjoy it or find it fun.  But it’ll be interesting.

Some might ask, if you don’t find it fun or enjoyable, why do you do it?  Because I can’t not do it.  I’d be unhappy if I didn’t write.

Maybe I do enjoy it.

 

First Day

I got up early so I started writing early.  I don’t have a title for the story yet, but I managed to bang out over 1000 words.  I always let it rip and go back later.  I feel very good about this.  I don’t mean the story because I don’t know yet.  I feel good that I was able to do what I set out to do.  No excuses.