It hurts to be in love

It hurts to be in love.

There is so much about it that hurts.

People don’t admit it, don’t talk about it. But I doubt if I am alone.

By "it", I mean IT, the need, want, passion, prayer to write. Often it’s lit inside you in childhood, after falling into the disturbing wonderland of books.

When I look back on it all, my “writer’s journey” (as so many of the more sickening how-to books call it) has been rocky in the extreme. Long stretches of struggle and hard work with tiny rewards, except for getting it down on the page. Brief upflashings of what can only be called inspiration. One sweet, almost unbelievable passage when I published my first novel and received the kind of reviews a writer can only dream of (only to be followed by negligible sales and quickly turning into box office poison).

Following that, I had a void. I had an abyss. I had a time in my life when I wandered strange. I don’t know what caused it. I had no way out, no compass. All I had were a few friends to wave at me as I stumbled by.

During this interminable time, I wondered if it was “all over”. It FELT over. I poured my feelings into a journal so self-absorbed that I would never consider showing it to anyone (though someone suggested I turn it into a blog – at a time when I barely knew what a blog was).

I can’t remember, except that I do, when the spark flared. I can’t quite find the end of the ball of string. Except to say I had Turner Classics on (which I suppose reveals my age, something around blltxyx years). It was a silent movie, black and white, and someone was walking away from the camera. I could only see his back.

His back was – what shall I say, jaunty? He was in character, obviously, and this was the way he walked.

After a few seconds, I said out loud, “That’s Harold Lloyd.”

I was not sure I knew how I knew, and this reaction was to come up again and again in the next couple of years while I beavered away at the novel. Yes, the novel: The Glass Character, a fictionalized account of Harold Lloyd’s life seen through the eyes of an obsessed fan who virtually stalks him for 300 pages.

Something happened then: I fell back in love with the process. Every day I approached the computer with excitement and joy. Surely THIS was the best thing I had ever written? If not, why did I feel that way? I spent a year and a half researching and writing about Lloyd, falling so in love with him along the way that I wondered if I had lost my objectivity.

During the writing, I would not talk about the project. I was close-mouthed. I knew if I talked about it, I’d kill it. I sometimes blurted things to my husband, just so I would not go insane with it, the isolation. When it was finished, I cautiously talked about it to people who asked if I had written anything lately (hoping, in that manner of people who hope you will fail, that I would avert my eyes, shuffle my feet and say, 
“Well. . . “)

Almost to a person, when I said it was about Harold Lloyd, I got a puzzled look. One of those “I really do think you’re out of your mind and are making things up, but I’ll iron out some of the crinkles in my forehead and tone down the gimlets in my eyes in order to humour you”. Then when I explained, stumblingly, “He was the silent movie comedian who climbed up the side of a building and hung on to the hands of a huge clock”, I almost always got, “Ohhhhhhh, THAT Harold Lloyd!”

And I’m sure they didn’t know how they knew.

My dreams were high and dizzy.  There would be a movie version, surely (which I cast in my mind: never mind who, I’m not that masochistic), or at very least a decent-sized book contract. I began the heartbreaking process all over again.

Every time I talked to anyone about trying to market a manuscript, they always seemed to say, “Just get an agent.” The “just” (which I am going to blog about, as I think it’s a casual form of sadism or at least dismissal) felt like a sort of “oh, quit kvetching, it would be easy if you did this the right way”.  One, two, three, and you’re in.

Oh yes, I tried! I tried. With my typical savage perseverance and propensity for running headlong into a brick wall, I tried. I did work with an agent in the mid-2000s, and at that time she actually approached me, a dizzying development. Of course I grabbed at it, even if it didn’t work out.

This time it was different.

Agents have to make a go of it, and I can see why taking on things like books of poetry and literary fiction won’t sustain them. They’d make next to nothing and starve to death, as would their authors. That said, it was pretty heartbreaking not to be considered at all: most of them would only look at non-fiction and children’s books, preferably series.

A few at least allowed me to send a sample of my work. The one that sticks out in my mind is the agent who asked for “the first two pages”. I had to blink twice before that sank in. The answer, based on those first two pages, was no.

That’s kind of like evaluating a speech by the intake of breath before the speech even begins.

I’m not crazy enough to get into the ins and outs of approaching conventional publishers, except to say that one submissions page currently says that it is permissible (though ONLY after your manuscript is accepted for publication) to mail it to them on floppy discs.  But along with this startlingly modern, Jetsons-like form, you must also mail the printed manuscript (typed on 8 ½ x 11” white paper, double-spaced, on one side of the page only and in 12-point pica type or larger) along with it.

And all on your own dime.

Am I complaining because nothing has happened? I don’t know, maybe. Have I just killed my chances because I quoted something from a publisher's web site, nearly verbatim? (To deal with the literary world is to be on permanent eggshells.)  Is this novel not quite as good as I thought? Hard to say. Did I lose my objectivity, fall in love with Lloyd to such a degree that I could never write about him with the proper detachment?

So what DOES sell now? Fifty Shades of Grey, bad soft-core Mommy porn. Maybe I should have had Harold Lloyd tied up and whipped.

Oh, and another thing I constantly hear (along with, "Wasn't the fun of writing it enough?") is: “JUST self-publish”. Or epublish, interchangeably. It’s a fast way to jump over all the barriers that “paper” publishers erect. It’s true, this new-ish form does open a gate that often seems permanently closed and barred. But the problem is that there are no standards. None.

I’ve been a book reviewer for 30 years, and I think I have some capacity to judge. It’s the Wild West: one big tidal wave of good, bad and indifferent. And the thing is, if your work really is good and worthy to be read, how will anyone ever pick it out of the flood?

People always quote an epublished success story, a “for-instance” like Fifty Shades or the latest Stephen King, but isn’t that something like winning the lottery? After all, SOMEBODY has to win, don’t they?

But unless you were born under a brighter star than I was, I can almost guarantee you that it won’t be you.

"You had me at hello"

Visit Margaret's Amazon Author Page!

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K7NGDA

Why "just" is so unjust

 

Did I make a total fool of myself?

Was I unrealistic? Was I wrong to think, this time, maybe this time things will turn out differently?

I thought I had magic on my side. Not so much because of my writing, which frankly took a very long time to get off the ground. When I look back at some of my early efforts, I feel as if I have bitten into a lemon.

No, it was the subject matter, the discovery. When I jumped into this world, the story began to write itself, and I was certain I was on to a Sure Thing.

It was all about Harold Lloyd, sometimes called the Third Genius of silent film comedy. His life seemed unexplored, or at least not explored in the way Chaplin's or Keaton's had been. Turner Classics had just started showing his films, a lot of them, so it seemed as if every time I tuned in I saw him in some obscure short or other. Later I saw him in his full glory in the feature films that propelled him to greatness.

I was in love, and writing feverishly: a story had sprung up about a young woman going to Hollywood to fulfil her obsession with Harold Lloyd. And yes, I was aware the premise might be seen as cliche - the young girl getting off the bus and being awed by the Hollywoodland sign (as it existed then) - but my hope was that Harold's dynamism and quirky charm might win readers over.

I have never researched anything to this depth, and somehow I'm still doing it, finding bits and pieces that fascinate me, even though, at the same time, it's like being steadily kicked in the teeth.

When I allowed myself to fantasize - and for the love of God, what else do writers DO? - I saw this book soaring, finding a substantial readership for the first time. My first two novels were (wince) "critically acclaimed," code for "they didn't sell" . The Glass Character, a reference to Harold Lloyd's nickname for his screen persona, did not soar as I had expected, but plummeted like a shot partridge, landing with a sickening thud.

I am aware that since I last published in 2005, things have changed. Hell, everything has changed, even my own attitude. I anticipated a sort of
comeback, and after awhile it evolved into an expectation. I forgot all about the Ten Commandments which some rinkydink Charlton Heston of an instructor chiselled into my brain at some writer's conference: A writer must hope, but never expect.

 

What if we assumed that attitude towards, say, sex? Would the human race even exist any more? What is hope, anyway, except a form of expectation? In any case, I tried everything I could think of to get this book published and got absolutely nowhere. Very few even read the thing. Maybe the very idea of a novel about silent film seemed boring to them, something the public would never be interested in. Never mind that The Artist, a silent movie about silent movies, had just won Best Picture at the Oscars, one of the biggest upsets in film history, and Martin Scorsese's Hugo featured a Harold Lloyd scene with the main character dangling off the hands of a huge clock.

Did I lose my objectivity, fall in love with Harold Lloyd to the point that the story somehow went off the rails?

Did fascination somehow devolve into a crashing bore?

 

In my writer's life, it seems I've had mostly failure, if you count failure as rejection and not being able to get your projects off the ground. It's all about being noticed. Wagging your ass, as far as I am concerned. When I referred to wearing a clown suit the other day, I was talking about something that actually happened at a writer's seminar.

A woman who had had a formulaic detective novel published with a small press claimed that if you wanted to be published, you had to be "shamelessly self-promoting" and do anything and everything to get noticed.

"Wear bright colors!" she exclaimed. "Stand out! Make them remember you!" I remember she had an eye-assaulting orange shirt on with rainbow suspenders. It really did look clownish, as if Wavy Gravy had landed in the literary world.

I wonder about this "shameless" thing. So what is the opposite of "shameless"? "Shameful", I guess. The implication is that self-promotion is usually seen as shameful, something we simply must not do if we are to keep our dignity.

This is worse in Canada, it really is. We have to hate our own work, or at least disparage it and be modest about it to a clinical degree. And for God's sake, don't let anybody see it! At the same time, our heads are swivelled around 180 degrees by the (mostly-American) lecturers at the Surrey Conference who tell us to promote, promote, promote. Leap over the usual rules like Evel Knievel soaring over the Snake River Canyon.  If you don't somehow make this leap (it used to be Oprah's book club, until even Oprah plummeted to the very last name on the Fortune 500 "50 Most Influential Women" list), you'll either be stuck in the perceived backwater of literary fiction, or will never publish at all.

Everyone seems to know that the main way to make the fabled leap is to "know the right people", but it's never spelled out exactly how you do this. Every attempt I haved made to contact people who might help me has been brushed off or ignored outright, leaving me feeling humiliated and stupid.   Maybe you really do have to attend cocktail parties where everyone is slightly swacked, and rub your foot against an influential guy's leg under the tablecloth (or maybe tackle him in an empty conference room). 

 

In case you think I'm some sort of paranoid crackpot Ma Kettle type with a smoking shotgun, let me tell you a story. I went to the Surrey conference just as my first novel Better than Life was about to come out in 2003, and it was like attending one big giddy literary party.  I had already signed deal for the second one, then called Nola Mardling. I also had an agent who appeared and disappeared in the happy hubbub of the conference. I ran into an old professor of mine who was obviously thrilled with what was happening. Then I won a minor writing award at the conference. And when people found out I had a "book out", a real live PUBLISHED book, they were amazed and wanted to buy a copy. It was a heady time, but it was also very typical of me and my life that it all crashed, savagely, a year or so later. And I still don't really know why, because I swear to God, I tried as hard as I could.

The book had been taken out of my hands and no longer resembled what I had written. Even the main character's name and the eponymous title had to be changed. I can't describe how this affected me. She died. She was dead, her identity had been destroyed, and yet I had to trot around and promote the thing as if she were still alive and well.

The result was, I didn't know my character any more. She was a stranger to me. Everyone was mildly shocked: why should this bother you so much? Why is it such a big deal to you, only two words changed? Readers won't know the difference, and that's all that matters. Not one person saw why I was upset, no one tried to help or defend me; I was completely abandoned at one of the worst times of my life. By now we were on two different planets, and I was no doubt being perceived as "difficult" or even crazy. 

And a writer must be, in any and all circumstances, grateful.

Why did I put up such a fuss over such a minor detail as my main character's name?  Because it changed the entire energy of the book.

Think of it.

Oliver Smith?

Moby Brown?

Suzy Karenina?

You get my drift.

So why would I want to venture into such shark-infested waters again?

The definition of insanity, in some circles anyway, is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. I suppose that is what I have been doing, trying to transcend what happened and transcend the news that everything is different now, that it's nearly impossible to get published unless the publisher thinks your book will sell, not just sell but leap across that fabled gap into Fifty Shades of Greyhood.

I'm just waiting for Fifty Shades of Grey Part 7 or 19 or whatever it is up to now.  These things make writers crazy, for I hear the book (books?) is/are absolute shit. I can't stand to read them (so obviously, I have no right to have an opinion), but throwing up was never my idea of a good time. When I try to work a little sex into my novels, everyone is deeply embarrassed and tells me I must tone it down or take it out altogether. Meantime, middle-aged porn rules, with frumpy fat schoolteachers furtively masturbating in bed besides their oblivious snoring husbands while the heroine gets tied up and whipped by some guy who looks like Fabio in a suit.

 

It's a fuck book, folks, and it just shocks me that it has taken over the way it has. All my writer's life I've heard, "Well, why don't you just write. . . " (whatever is "hot" and selling like mad at the time). I want to do a whole post on that word "just", because it makes me want to SCREAM. "Just" means, "it's simple, don't you see it? Why aren't you doing it already? Why haven't you thought of it by now, any idiot can see it!"

Just find an agent. Just write a genre novel. Just copy someone else's salacious, gut-squirming style. It's like telling a terminally-ill person to "just" take milk thistle or meditate, it's very simple, or "just" have a more positive attitude, and you'll be all better in a flash.

 

The number of "justs" in someone's vocabulary is in inverse proportion to their actual knowledge about the subject. The less a person knows about writing and publishing, the more they bore and exasperate you with their endless blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.  And I have had it, I really have.

I hate "just". It's a diminishing sort of word, condescending, implying you somehow can't see the most obvious solution to your problem and need to be set straight.  It's  almost the opposite of "just", which means, more or less, fair.  Just, in the sense of insulting gratuitous advice, isn't clearly defined in any of the dictionary meanings I've found. It's not an adverb, but a kind of command, and the closest simile I can find is "simply" (meaning you could do this easily, if you had half a brain). Simply write a novel, get on the bestseller list, and make a million dollars.

just (just) Pronunciation: /dʒʌst/

adjective

• based on or behaving according to what is morally right and fair: a just and democratic society fighting for a just cause
• (of treatment) deserved or appropriate in the circumstances: we all get our just deserts
• (of an opinion or appraisal) well founded; justifiable: these simplistic approaches have been the subject of just criticism

adverb

• 1exactly: that’s just what I need you’re a human being, just like everyone else
• exactly or almost exactly at this or that moment: she’s just coming we were just finishing breakfast

• 2very recently; in the immediate past: I’ve just seen the local paper

• 3barely; by a little: inflation fell to just over 4 per cent I only just caught the train

• 4simply; only; no more than: just a bad day in the office they were just interested in making money
• really; absolutely (used for emphasis): they’re just great
• used as a polite formula for giving permission or making a request: just help yourselves
• [with modal] possibly (used to indicate a slight chance of something happening or being true): it might just help

• 5expressing agreement: ‘Simon really messed things up.’ ‘Didn’t he just?’

 

 

 

(I notice that the last one looks a little like "sexpressing". Maybe my next novel should be called Sexpression. Or how about How I Tied Up and Tortured Publishers for Fun and Profit? Or even How I Learned to Love Being Tied Up and Tortured? It might just fly.)

 

I'll have another. . . disappointment

Sept. 20, 2012

Diary of some writer or other, somebody I don't even know but have seen in the mirror a few times

 

 

(I thought this was worth quoting, even if it's totally irrelevant to anyone else but me.)

It’s as if I can’t think too closely about my life because if I do, I see the emptiness. The failure. The promise not fulfilled. I know I am not the only writer facing this, or at least I hope so. I found a blog post yesterday that said due to financial necessity, literary fiction  has been largely handed back to the literary presses, making it harder for writers because the literary presses must be inundated with stuff. I would imagine at least 80% of it is totally unpublishable, so if you don’t grab them immediately you’re lost.

 

 

 

 

One agent I tried to contact would only read the first 3 pages of my novel.  Her response was, "It just didn't seem to be going anywhere." It killed me, but it told me something about the reality of publishing now.  My hopes for my third novel are in ruins. None of it worked, nobody was interested, and I was crushed because I was *sure* this one would work, bigger than the last 2 combined, maybe even really big.

 

I feel like a total fool for contacting these people, but what could I do? Everyone constantly tells me to “make contacts”, then when I try to, I look stupid and/or desperate. I don’t know how to do it effectively. I’m told all sorts of conflicting things: be outlandish, wear an orange shirt with suspenders and a rainbow wig, and carry one of those honking Harpo Marx things; DON’T be outlandish, wear a three-piece suit and a Smart Phone balanced on your head. Make yourself indispensible, provide certain services, discreetly.  Probably that last one would work best.

 

 

 

 

It could be I am perceived as too old and over the hill, as publishers now want sexy, smoky dust-jacket photos, young women with long hair and a sultry, pouty, “I don’t care if my book sells or not” expression. (I've seen numerous articles about this, but if *I* say it, everyone is horrified I would even think such an awful thing. Oops, there goes my last chance: no one wants to publish anyone spreading such lies just because she's bitter, and too old.) And if you're a graduate of the UBC Creative Writing program, you're practically a shoo-in. I was also told - the identity of this person is forever locked in the vault of my most useful information - that if you're a woman of colour, it really doesn't matter what you write, so long as you write.

 

The problem is, the more queries and manuscripts you send out and have rejected, the worse you look. After a while you’ve used up all your chances, you're perceived as a pest and a failure and a wanna-be, and - then what? 

 

 

 

 

So why am I even thinking of this? To keep up my hope, which you're supposed to do, I suppose.  But I get ahead of myself. I dream too much, and none of it comes true. Then my heart breaks, over and over and over again. Jesus, can I have just *one* more book out, even another failure? Can I do this, am I allowed?  I can’t write another one, it’s not in me to have a big stack of unpublished work that will never see the light of day because all the presses in Canada now see my work and think, "Oh, no, not HER again." (Get out the form rejection letters.) To come crawling like that, and have the door slammed in my face for the 1000^th time - it’s embarrassing, they will be embarrassed for me.

 

It's not as if I've never done this. If anyone calls me "aspiring", I will choke them to death. I won't quote the reviews for my first two novels, except to say about 90% of them were positive, some of them glowing. Some of them even popped up in places which had never received a review copy, such as the U. S. My second novel won a New York City Book Festival award. Big, fat, hairy deal: this meant NOTHING when I tried to get some attention for my Harold Lloyd novel, The Glass Character.

 

 

 

 

Part of the reason might be the fact that no one in Canada has ever heard of Harold Lloyd. There are thousands of small publishers in the U. S. , but that's just the trouble: thousands. . . where do I start? Taking random stabs is a very bad idea because with that many options, you can go on stabbing for years and years without getting anywhere, meanwhile spending vast amounts of time, money, and hope.

 

Not that I haven't tried a few stunts outside the box. I tried to contact Rich Correll, who was like a second son to Harold Lloyd and one of this closest friends. Never got a response.  I sent emails to Harold Lloyd Entertainment, whose CEO is Suzanne Lloyd, Harold's granddaughter (whom Harold raised like a daughter). No dice, only a polite reply. Mostly my attempts were brushed off like dandruff or ignored altogether.

 

I will never get over my bitter disappointment that my talent was never used. You choke on it if you don’t find a way to use it, if you just stick it in a drawer and never look at it again. I used to believe in God, but now I see that it was something like a horse race where you pick the lucky numbers, then stand beside the race-track pumping your fists up and down and shouting, “Go, go, go!” Just like the brief, flukey, heartbreaking career of I’ll Have Another. Yet another "also-ran".

 

But I WILL have another, another disappointment, another heart-crush, because it seems the fates have decreed I haven’t had enough of them. I will never get over this because I do not WANT to get over my life’s work, what I was destined to do from the beginning!