Unsolicited Advice

by Joyce DiPastena

[This post springs from some of my personal experiences, both before and after I self-published my medieval novel earlier this year.]

“I can’t sell my medieval novel,” I sigh. “Agents and editors say they like it, but they don’t know how to market it. ‘It has too much plot to be a romance,’ they say. ‘It doesn’t have enough pageantry to be a historical. And it doesn’t follow the mystery formula strictly enough to fit on the mystery shelves, either.’”

Sometimes a writer just needs to whine a little about the unsympathetic publishing world. Sometimes, all we’re looking for is a listening ear, an encouraging pat on the back, a bracing, “Don’t give up.”

But what do we most often get instead? Unsolicited advice.

“I’ve read tons of fantasy books set in the Middle Ages,” my sister enthusiastically informs me. “Just throw a little magic in. Or hey, the ‘alternative history’ field is big right now. Tell a historical story, but change the way history actually turns out. Your book would sell like anything!”

A friend in the ward, after reading my novel said, “I enjoyed your book, but my favorite historical author of all time is Dorothy Dunnett. I’ll bet you could write a book like hers and it would sell. Or Sharon Kay Penman writes books about Henry II, the time period that you like. Why don’t you write a book like hers?

“I’ll bet you could write great LDS novels,” a non-member friend tells me. “You’re so strong and active in your Church. You’d be a whiz at it. Why don’t you try the LDS market?

And my brother? “Aztecs,” he says. “Just put a couple of Aztecs in your [European medieval] novel. That’ll catch an editor’s eye. It’d be a bestseller for sure!”

(It’d catch an editor’s eye all right, but for all the wrong reasons!)

And my weary refrains to each of the above, stating what should have been the obvious?

To my sister: “I don’t want to write a fantasy novel. That’s why I didn’t write a fantasy novel in the first place!”

To my LDS friend: “ I don’t want to write like Dorothy Dunnett or Sharon Kay Penman, I want to write like me. Besides, if those were the kinds of books I wanted to write, I would have written those kinds of books in the first place!”

To my non-LDS friend: “I don’t want to write LDS books. If I’d wanted to write LDS books, I’d have written an LDS book in the first place!”

As for my brother, I think I merely snorted inelegantly. (Aztecs, indeed!)

There is a time and place for receiving advice about our writing. How to improve it when structure, plotting, characterization, etc, are weak. And yes, about marketing realities…when we ask. (And of course, attending such things as critique groups, writing workshops/conferences, etc, carries with it an implication that we are asking.)

But I repeat, there are also times when what a writer—like any human being discouraged about any other subject--needs most of all is just a listening ear. Unless some version of the words, “What am I doing wrong?” spills forth from our lips, it is likely that we are not looking for solutions at the moment nearly so much as we are looking for a sympathetic ear and an understanding heart for what we are feeling.

Free Agency and How to Enforce It

By Liz Adair

My love affair with a baritone horn began about four years ago, a short while after my husband, Derrill, ordered a trombone from Ebay. He was a great trombonist as a young man, and after a hiatus of about forty years, he got the itch to play again.

My daughter and son-in-law were living in our basement at the time while finishing college, and when SIL said he used to play the baritone horn, I ordered one for him on Ebay and found an alto horn for myself.

I had played an alto horn for a week when I was in seventh grade, as that was the only instrument left as a loaner from the school. However, I wanted to play the clarinet, and I begged my mother to rent one so I could get away from that alto horn. She did, driving the winding, two-laned, thirty-two miles to Anchorage to the lone music store in the area and then back, with me squeaking and squawking beside her all the way home.

As I listened to Derrill play the trombone, I thought about my music teacher, Leo Plumbley. I can still picture his broad backside as he leaned over in the instrument closet, rifling through brass instruments and coming up with that alto horn, which I spurned. Maybe it was repentance that made me click on the ‘Bid Now’ icon on Ebay. However it was, I became an alto hornist. But what a struggle! My range was severely limited by my novice embouchure. I scored several hymns for the trio of trombone, baritone and alto horn, but I never got to play melody because I couldn’t play the high notes.

And then one day I played my SIL’s baritone and said, “I think I’m in love.” It was so easy, after my travail with the alto horn. The very same day, I was on Ebay, looking for another cheap baritone.

That was the beginning. I think to date I have purchased eight baritones. I loved the instrument so much, I figured everybody had to love it, too. I leaned on another son-in-law, who played saxophone in our mostly-brass family band, and made him take up the baritone. My viola-playing daughter, married to the SIL who got my first Ebay baritone, is now playing baritone. My son, who used to play string bass in orchestra and who avoided being sucked into family band until I got him a baritone, now plays with us. His wife has a baritone, too, but is pleading pregnancy (she’s due in 2 weeks) before beginning. Some of the horns look as if they were run over by a truck. Most have lost quantities of lacquer. But all the valves and slides work, and they sound pretty good. Well, they sound adequate. Our aspiration is to be mediocre, and manage to do that once in a while.

So, now our family band consists of a trombone, a French horn, and seven baritones. Most of us are beginners, but there are moments when we play “O Little Town of Bethlehem” that we sound as mellow and rich as Christmas chocolate, and “Hark, the Herald” has full and majestic parts—at least when we play in a small room.

What has this to do with agency? It doesn’t. It was the absence of agency that made each child and in-law salute, take the proffered baritone, pucker, and blow.

Which reminds me: my youngest is bringing a young woman by to meet the family for Christmas. Time to hit Ebay again. This will be the acid test—probably more for her than for us. Do you think it’s over the top to require playing the baritone as a prerequisite to joining the family?

On being forgetful and laziness, and homonyms

by Anna Arnett


My blog for Dec 5 – on Dec 8 (I hope).

Another woops. I forgot to blog. It’s the first time all year I actually forgot, though I admit to being late. I even checked on Wednesday, felt disappointment that no blog was posted, and still didn’t remember the missing one was supposed to be mine. I could give you a nice long list of things that kept me from blogging, but why enumerate lame excuses?

I read this morning in Kiyosaki’s “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” that he thinks the most common form of laziness is that of being busy so you won’t have time to do something important (which, I suppose, for some reason or other you would rather not do). Now, this hit me hard because with me at least, it’s true. I do all kinds of handwork—knitting, crocheting, etc.—rather than tidy my rooms (though I love a clean house) or even write (though I love to have written, and once I get at it, it’s really quite fun).

So, rather than tax my brain right now, I’ll be lazy and send you something I got this morning in my email. And surprisingly, I read it through correctly the first time. A couple of them gave me pause when I didn’t pick up on the homonyms, or more specifically, the homographs and heteronyms, because I read the meaning without even noticing the identical spelling. I found it interesting. Hope you do, too. Take a minute now to discern the minute differences, and minutely become minutely aware. (Excuse me, but that last clause was fun, though I would hardly call it good writing.)

English Is A Crazy Language - Part One...

English is a tough language to learn: Can you read these right the first time?

1) The bandage was wound around the wound.
2) The farm was used to produce produce.
3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
4) We must polish the Polish furniture.
5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.
6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present .
8) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
10) I did not object to the object.
11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
13) They were too close to the door to close it.
14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.
15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
18) Upon seeing the tear in the painting, I shed a tear.
19) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
20) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?
BJLAuth.
Hope you enjoyed it.

Never Give Up

by Donna Hatch

Since today is Pearl Harbor Day, I’d like to remind us all about the spirit of the Americans who never gave up, and draw a parallel to writing. When Pearl Harbor was attacked, Americans alternated between shock and despair at the horrific loss of life caused by a people with whom we technically were not at war. Then Americans got mad and did something about it. The rest, as they say, is history.

As a writer I encounter all kinds of people, often very well-meaning, who do or say things that I find discouraging. It might be a critique partner. It might be a contest judge. It might be a rejection letter. Writing for other people, rather than just for oneself, opens up a writer to all kinds of opportunity for heartache.

A friend of mine, after critiquing someone else’s writing, got back the complaint, “I feel like you just told me my baby is ugly.” Whose fault is that? The critique partner? Maybe. She might have been un-diplomatic or un-gentle about her criticism. More likely it’s the fault of the writer for taking offense and worse, lashing out at her critique partner. If you can’t take criticism, you don’t have any business trying to get published. Sure it hurts. Sometimes, after years of writing, entering contests, and submitting, I still get my feelings hurt. I cry. I pout. I rage. I eat chocolate. Then I roll up my sleeves, take a second, and hopefully objective, look at the criticism, and ask myself if there’s any truth in their words. Sometimes no. Sometimes yes.

The point is to not give up. If, at some point in the race, you fall down and skin your knees, get up, dust yourself off, put on a Band-Aid, get a kiss from your Mommy (or whoever is in your corner cheering you on), and get back into the race.

Persistence will eventually pay off. And sweet victory will follow.

Happy Writing.

Donna Hatch