Nobody Knows Anything

While waiting to pick up the kids today, I had an unusual conversation. More accurately, I was on the receiving end of a monologue about the state of this person’s marriage, their net worth, court orders in their possession concerning child custody, what type of person they like to date, and did I mention net worth? Repeatedly?

I didn’t say anything and I guess I didn’t need to. But should I have? I wonder which response would have worked for me:

1) “You really need someone better qualified than me to help you work through this traumatic situation”; or

2) “Just so you know right off the bat, I’m a writer, and wow am I using this.”

You can read a little bit about my hunt for an agent and my thoughts on the process in this interview at QueryTracker (which is totally the greatest website if you’re looking for an agent and trying to manage the process).

Today I sent off the manuscript with my agent’s comments incorporated.

Tomorrow…the world! Muahahahahaha… okay, maybe I’m a little punchy from this edit…

There’s the famous Zen koan about the Zen master, his student, and the cup of tea — rather than repeat it, I’ll point you to this retelling of it — I often think about. Particularly during writing workshops. People often come in with their work and they don’t want feedback, they want praise. And they tell you that your criticisms of the work are wrong — who are you going to believe, the writer or your lying eyes?

I’ve seen a couple examples of this recently. In playwriting class we do a cold reading/basic acting out of someone’s script, the writer speaks about what they think of how it turned out, and then the class critiques what they’ve just seen. There’s always one writer — maybe one or two per quarter, thank goodness, not every week — who starts to argue back. And it goes on. And on. Until people (finally) realize it’s a lost cause and stop commenting.

All of the feedback you get might, in fact, be wrong. This can absolutely be the case. But you have to consider it first. Empty your damn teacup and look at the tea. Not the right tea for you? Great: toss it out. But taste it first before you decide. (In fact, I should tell the playwriting teacher we need a new rule: as now, the writer gets to speak first, and then they shut the hell up.)

Now, I have been guilty of the teacup full of hubris myself: I think I know it all, only to discover, Eh, whoops, not so much. In fact, thinking I know it all and finding out I’m dead wrong seem to go hand in hand. So whenever I’m completely certain I’m right and they’re wrong, I take a moment to consider various ways to look at it.

This doesn’t mean I accept any and all criticism as valid. I’m still the one in charge of my writing, and I have to decide if what they’re saying is true or not.

There are several levels of criticism:

1. “You are a bozo and ugly and you write like crap.” This is criticism it is safe to disregard because it’s non-specific as to where the problems in the story lie.

2. “I dunno. I just kinda didn’t like it.” This is tough, because you then have to work with your critic to pick out what they didn’t like. When did they stop? Were they just bored? Was there anything they did like?

3. “I didn’t like your main character. He should be a ninja!” Aha. Here we get to the Problem and the Fix. It is always safe to disregard the Fix. Your critiquer’s Fix may turn out to be exactly what you need, but more likely it’s not. It is a pointer to where a problem in your story might be.

4. “He should be a ninja!” Either your critiquer thinks every story should have a ninja, or they’ve leaped right to the Fix stage, wanting to help get your story into the best shape ever. It’s incredibly tough to hear this and not think, “Yeah, tweedy insurance adjuster…not fun. He should be a ninja.” When what you’ve got to think is, “Okay, there’s a problem with my main character being too boring, too passive, or not wearing enough black.”

   This stage requires you to know your critiquer. Is this how they generally express their feedback? Or are they trying to write your story for you? Also, your main character may be completely fine as is and your critiquer is out to lunch.

5. “I thought the middle section, where they string up the witches and beat them with cream pies, was kind of slow and I lost interest there.” They know where the problem is, but they’re not diagnosing it for you. Excellent. Even better, you know the problem always comes before the point where they lost interest. You can analyze that section and move backward.

I’m sure there are several other types too. (Feel free to post in comments.)

Yes, there can be all kinds of misguided feedback in workshops or writing groups. A certain amount of groupthink does go on and you have to decide, Is this feedback about my play, or do they tell everyone that every play needs a fool character?

So pick your commenters wisely, listen to them, and then consciously decide which parts of the feedback are valuable for you and how.

Otherwise, you’re just wasting all of our time.

What’s been going on Chez Diane:

• I set up a Google Alert with my name. Apparently I am a spokeswoman for the Connecticut Lottery spokeswoman and a labor market consultant. Which is so cool, ’cause I thought I was horrifyingly underemployed.

• I originally spelled “Connecticut” as “Connecticult.” Ira Levin lives!

• Spring has hit our household with a vengeance. We finally said, “It’s time,” and bought the kids their Serious Bedroom Furniture sets. They had been living with Ikea specials, which are great for little kids, who are quick on the draw with markers, stickers, and who knows what else. However, after seven years of doing their worst, the kids defeated the Ikea furniture decisively (and they used penalty kicks for good measure).

  What this meant was: We had to totally and completely take all of the crap out of both kids’ rooms—both the one they were sleeping in and the one meant to be Simon’s room but was mostly a storage area. We had to get Sophia’s room (formerly: both kids’ room) painted. We cleaned the rooms out and moved the new furniture in. Both rooms look fabulous. Sophia loves that she can stay up and read without keeping Simon awake. Simon loves having his own space (although it took him a night to adjust to being by himself).

  Our dining room, however, is a mess, stacked with boxes and boxes of kid-crap we have to go through and sort into keep and, more likely, throw out.

• Darin also finally went through our boxes and boxes (and boxes) of comic books. We’re keeping one bookshelf worth, and tossing 7 or 8 book boxes full of comics. That’s a lot of comics. I called a local shop to ask about trade-ins for our comics, most of which are 10-15 years old, primarily Vertigo stuff. “Gotta be honest,” he said. “The trade-in for recent stuff is pretty dismal.” But…you’ll take ‘em, right? ‘Cause this is 7 or 8 boxes full of comics and I really don’t have a garage to store them in.

• Also part of spring: getting the termite killers in. Oy. This involves several days of them ripping up floors and putting stuff in the walls of the house and hammering on everything, it appears. Lots of hammering. I don’t know how I’m going to write with this nonsense going on.

• Speaking of writing: I’ve begun the time-honored tradition of querying literary agents for my mystery novel. The first week, I queried three agents, as sort of a toe-in-the-water beginning. One agent rejected me immediately… and then another one asked for a partial! Whoo hoo! I thought. A 66% response rate per week! That rocks!

  Needless to say, I’ve queried more, and haven’t gotten one additional response. This is what I get for hubris. However, my March horoscope sounds very promising. Of course, their job is to sound promising. I’m keeping an eye out for developments on March 7.

• In case you’re doing research on where, how, and who to query, here are some sites to check out:
  • Query Tracker: make lists of the agents you want to query, keep track of when you queried them, and how and when they responded.
  • Agent Query: listings of just about every reputable agent in the biz and what they represent.
  • Publishers Marketplace: who’s selling what to whom and for how much. Invaluable. Yes, it costs. You can subscribe to the free lunch newsletter, but access to PM’s archives is wonderful.

• I don’t really use horoscopes to judge how well something is working out. I use Tarot cards.

• I’m workshopping my new novel, an urban fantasy, at Critique Circle. It’s free to join, and so far I’m seeing thoughtful, intelligent critiques. If you don’t have a writing group but you want to try out your stuff on other people, check it out.

• I don’t really use Tarot cards either. But boy, they’re pretty and fun and good for generating story ideas.

The other night, Darin and I headed to Oakridge Mall down in San Jose to a)go to Cheesecake Factory to eat their yummy new Fried Chicken Slider appetizer as our dinner and b)go to the movie theater and see the Spiderwick Chronicles, to see if it was okay for the kids. The sliders were indeed yummy, and then we went to buy tickets.

The movie showing was not up on the gigantic LED board.

We went to the ticket seller.

“We cancelled that showing,” he told us.

Then the family behind us walked up and said, “Don’t you have an 8:25 showing of Spiderwick Chronicles?” and he had to explain again.

I have never heard of a theater canceling a showing. Certainly not at one of these big mall theaters. Once again: I learn something new every day.

So we went to Borders, where we spent an inordinate amount of time and money on books (like we don’t have any around here already…). We started a basket and periodically walked by to drop a few new books into it. On one round, I excitedly showed Darin my new find.

Howdunit Book of Poisons (A guide for writers) by Serita Stevens and Anne Bannon.

He gave me a look.

“Hey, it could be useful!” I said.

He nodded. “That’s what I’m worried about.”

The loudest sound in the world
is the click-click
of the ballpoint pen
your husband uses
to mark changes in the text
of your finished novel
while he sits in bed
and you’re trying to sleep.

I found this quote in the morning paper:

Still, PG&E said Sunday that it was hoping nearly all of the lights would come back on by Tuesday or Wednesday.

“What!?” said Godfrey Muehler of Sunnyvale. “We’ve heard 10 a.m., 1 p.m., 3 p.m., 7 p.m.

Anybody see what made me sad? Is it the fact that all of my brethren do not yet have their lights and power on? Is it that PG&E is swamped and there’s yet another storm headed our way?

No, it’s the San Jose Mercury News using “!?” as punctuation. T’ain’t standard, man. Don’t make me take out my Chicago Manual of Style. You get to pick an exclamation mark or a question mark. You don’t get both.

A couple of weeks ago my friend Tamar, who’s also a member of the Backspace writers’ board, said, “You know, you’re almost done with your novel and getting ready to submit. You should come out to this conference to talk to some agents.” So I talked to Darin about it, and, despite the fact that it would be a midweek trip (seriously harshing Darin’s working buzz), I decided to do it. The decision was made a lot easier by the fact that I was going to stay at her house, which would allow me to skip the cost of a hotel room in New York City (where, no matter what the room rate, they always get you on the city tax).

So last Monday I flew out to Newark, spent Tuesday and Wednesday at the conference, and then flew home first thing (and I do mean first thing) Thursday morning.

It was a great conference (and, alas, probably the last of its ilk). Two days of panels and schmoozing with literary agents. The highlight of each day was the “Two Minutes, Two Pages” workshop in which writers brought the first two pages of their novel to be read out loud, and the agents would say where they’d stop. At least, that’s how the panel has worked in earlier incarnations; it didn’t work so well this time because there were so many writers at a few tables that the noise was unbearable. The table I sat at on Tuesday decided that instead of reading the pages aloud everyone would read silently (since we all had copies) and the agents would start talking when they’d stopped reading. Where they stopped, why they stopped, etc.

What I learned: Unbelievably illuminating.

Tamar had volunteered to work at the conference (she’s agented already) and she was in charge of cracking the whip at the table I was at the first day. We compared notes later and we both said: Wow, that was great. You know how you always hear “Show, don’t tell”? There were plenty of scenes that I would have said were “Showing” — dramatic, showing things in medias res, describing what was going on there and then And the agents very quickly distilled why they considered it telling and why they’d stop.

Despite being completely wasted from my flight out Monday, and then my terrible night’s sleep Monday night, and a full day at the conference, I rewrote my two pages for the second day of the conference. Did it pay off? Well…both of the agents at my workshop the second day said they’d keep reading, so I’d have to say, Yes.

Or, as I said to Tamar during one of our train rides, “Do we ever stop learning stuff we thought we already knew?” She said, “I don’t think so.”

The main things I learned at this conference:

• Wow, are agents always looking for clients. You’d think, Why would a bunch of agents who are getting 1000 query letters a week take a few hours out of their day to chat up a bunch of unpublished, unagented authors? Because they really, really, really want to find someone. They might get 1000 queries a week, but it sounds like some intensely small percentage of that 1000 are anywhere near the bulls’ eye in terms of what they need.
• Wow, do agents’ tastes vary. Scott Hoffman told a hilarious story about a previous panel he was on where he described a query he got that was completely and totally perfect for him, and the agent next to him said, “I got that query. I hated that book!”
• Most of the people who query agents do not have their shit together. The people at the conference (who clearly were there because they were interested in the getting of agents) were much further along than most of the people who are hawking a book. Research the damn agents already. Don’t send urban fantasy to an agent only looking for political nonfiction, ‘kay? This information is easier to find than ever before. Do your homework.
• You’ll help yourself immeasurably if you can distill your novel into one or two sentences. If you tell someone your premise and get a “Whoa!” you’re on to something. You need to be able to distinguish your novel from every other one out there. (Scott Hoffman had a good exercise for everyone: turn to the person next to you, tell them the premise for your novel, and have them pitch theirs. Now, would you pay $25 for their book? Would they pay $25 for yours?)
• Referrals? Really do help. So use the power of the Internet to network — also easier than ever before. A referral won’t get you an agent, it’ll just get you read faster. You still have to show up with the goods.

Definitely worthwhile for me to go. I don’t know if Backspace is going to do another one, alas.

Now to make the agent I totally fell in love with totally fall in love with my book.

I think I’ve been in this discussion:

This morning, during our run, Rob said, “I can read frothing about the iPhone just about anywhere. How’s the play coming?” (Yes, I see Rob two to three times a week and he still keeps track of what I’m up to via my blog.)

The Foothill New Works Festival rehearsals are in fact under way. I go twice a week for an hour and a half and watch the director go through the script with the actors, blocking movement on stage, working out the characters and why they’re saying what they’re saying. I sit there and applaud and offer absolutely no feedback to the actors other than to say, “Wow, this is great! You’re wonderful!” Because this is now the director’s show, not mine, and for the writer to contradict or overrule the director during rehearsals is A Bad Idea. This is made much easier by the fact that I think my director’s doing a fabu job.

After rehearsal, when the actors have taken off, I compare notes with Brennan, my director. I’ve made a couple of changes to the script—for example, God and Lucifer are both being played by women (strangely enough, the Almighty is female in every single play in the festival, and this wasn’t planned in any way, shape, or form), so I changed all the pronouns and possessives to female, because using “he” and “his” was grating on me. In general, the rehearsals have been wonderful: the actors are really doing a great job bringing these characters to life. A few times (and just a few) I’ve pointed out places where I think the actors should use some different choices. What’s been awesome is that Brennan always seems to be on the same page and often has the exact same notes.

The best thing by far has been the way Brennan and the actors have found stuff in the play that I wasn’t even aware of putting in there. At one point, God says, “Don’t mess up the furniture,” and several minutes later Lucifer and St. Peter are jumping on the tables. I was completely unaware of the link there. But Brennan’s highlighted it, by having St. Peter make a show of putting the furniture back the way it was when God returns.

Actually, the best thing was when Brennan said, “We’re all about the coffee in this show.” Because, as anyone who knows me knows, coffee is pretty much the major theme in all my work. And it was nice to have someone else recognize that.

You know you want tickets. It’s going to be a fun evening of theater! Here is all the info you need.