My Writerly Blog

The word "idea" sounds all fresh and innocent, doesn't it? It sounds exciting, refreshing, hopeful. In truth, ideas are dirty little buggers. Deceptive and manipulative, they worm their way into your mind like microscopic parasites, like prions determined to feed off your neural impulses. They grow like a cancer, taking over your head until you can do nothing but vomit them up in a verbal spew known as the dreaded first draft. The phrase "original idea" is an oxymoron. No idea is original. Search hard enough, and you'll find that at some point, somewhere, someone not only already thought of it, they wrote the book. I've been stumbling over this speedbump for the last few months. My current novel seems to be fairly "original" - as in, I haven't read the exact same premise anywhere - thank the fates. But no less than 3 times now have I come across novels or stories that seem to be based entirely on entries from my Idea Matrix (yes, it...

The first few rejection letters you receive as a writer are heartbreaking. You've worked and strived and sweated to create this story that shines, that is perfect in your eyes. You had every sympathetic friend and relative read it just so you could build up the courage to actually submit it somewhere. You sat in a library (yes, this was "back in the day") with a notebook and the most current Writer's Market from the reference section, choosing the best possible magazines or agents for your masterpiece. You wait anxiously for that SASE to show up in your mailbox, the one from the editor who was so blown away by your talent and skill that she wants every word you've ever written. Not only that, she has an agent friend who happened to read your submitted story and wants to sign you right now, and thinks he can get a multimillion dollar sale for your first novel. But what actually comes is a slow trickle of photocopied pages: "Thank you for submitting...not f...

Writing is hard. We love it, we're addicted to it, can't live without it, but it's definitely a long term relationship. You have to work at it. Every darn day. Vacations really screw the dynamic up. I went home to the States last month, and though I took my flash drive and stole my mom's laptop, all I got done was a proofread on an agent-requested manuscript. Not a word written. I'm one of those cyclic writers; I go in fits and spurts, sometimes inspired for hours on end day after day, and sometimes it's like giving a pound of flesh to get one mediocre sentence out. I envy those writers who can sit down at 5 a.m. every day like clockwork and churn out chapter after chapter without blowing their own head off. So this past month has been a bit of a dry spell - uninspired, and somewhat discouraging. Then bang, bang, two things happened: an agent I have a lot of respect for loved my sample chapters and requested the full. Just as I was ready to shelve this m...

I should know better than to so much as crack the spine on a book with those words inscribed on the cover. "Never Before Published" translates to "this author is a big name, brings in lots of dough, so we'll publish anything s/he has ever written, ever , even this pile of poo smeared on the page. Stupid readers well never know the difference." Note to publishers: yes we do know the difference!!! I just finished a torture-filled read from an author who always had my respect in the past. This author's books are usually original, entertaining, well crafted. This one was painful. The same cliches repeated over and over. It's clearly a novice effort, with little attempt to edit before publication. The author initially made a name for herself as a romance novelist, but topped the bestseller lists by breaking free of the traditional format and formula of the romance genre. In this book, I could see the beginnings of that transformation. The eye-rolling s...