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Well folks, this is it. The last blog before I go bye-bye to Reno land. I suppose because this is the first nationals after the explosion of romance blogging, in which authors and soon-to-be authors treat everyone on the internet to the minutiae of their day-to-day, it stands to reason that this “before Nationals” preparation has taken on an enormous amount of importance in the community. Everywhere I’m seeing people talking about getting ready for the trip, from packing blogs (and here and here, and, god help us, a shopping-for-RWA blog here, to the excited shouts of first-timers (read anything recent of Shannon’s), to musings about the value of RWA ribbons to discussions of post-conference slump and lists of Conference Dos and Don’ts. (I’m a bit more in favor of the “industry prep” posts than the packing lists. This isn’t a fashion show, but if you want to share the top ten tips for pitching, I’m all ears!) I myself ran a pitch session chat, and have been knee-deep in getting my promotional materials and meetings set up.
And then, of course, are the detractors. Alison Kent shares again her opinion about the value of the RWA conference, and RWA altogether, and of course, quotes from the always-contrary PBW about how useless the whole endeavor is. Previously, Kent had argued against former RWA prez Shirley Hailstock’s scolding letter in the RWR admonishing conference crashers. Despite the fact that I thought the “scolding” was kind of childish (leaving the chicken-and-the-egg argument about the increasingly unprofessional behavior of RWA members and the PTB responses to same), I agree with the sentiment. Universalize the action and there IS no RWA conference, no speakers, no workshops, no agents and editors coming — because there are no attendees, just thousands of gate crashers and freeloaders.
This week, they’re backed up by an essay from Suzanne McMinn on Romancing the Blog. (I met Suzanne, interestingly enough, for the first time at a writing conference. Had she not been giving a talk there, I probably would never had heard of her, her website, or her books. So there you go.) Suzanne seems to argue that she was told by RWA chapter members in shrill tones that if she didn’t enter the Golden Heart, if she didn’t go to conferences and pitch, if she didn’t, in other words, do everything to sell her book other than write it and send it into publishers, then she’d never sell. (I gotta wonder what chapters these chicks are in. Alison tells similar horror stories about her RWA chapter, which apparently charges $25 PER MEETING, which is practically as much as my chapter charges per year.) Anyway, of course the argument works, because she sets it up as an either-or situation. Her chapter members told her that if she didn’t do those things, she wouldn’t sell. ::Insert helpless peals of laughter::
Is this what some RWA members are really teaching their brethren? I’m glad I’ve never met those folks then. I was told when I joined that the conferences were great networking events, where I’d get the opportunity to meet editors and agents, to attend enlightening workshops about the craft and the industry, to just soak up all the creative energy for a couple of days. I was never told it was my one and only opportunity to sell. Ditto writing contests. But in speaking to newbies and reading the blogs of ain’t-goings, I see that some people really have come away with this impression (the former that it’s the truth and the latter that it’s being presented as such). It’s not true.
I promise you, I swear on everything that is holy and good and just, it’s not true.
Writing conferences are great. I highly recommend them, both for the educational and networking opportunities they afford, and also for the chance to get out of the solitary writing life and immerse yourself in a world full of other people just like you. If you can’t afford them, or aren’t the public-places type, don’t go. It won’t have any effect on your career. You can still sell a book with nothing more than a ream of paper, the U.S. Post Office, and a $3.85 stamp.
On the flip side, NOTHING you do at these things will ruin your career, with the possible exception of committing stone cold murder in the middle of the room during the RITA awards. In fact, strike that, it will probably help you get a celebrity agent. Roxie Hart, anyone? You might give your career a little boost with the networking, but you can’t sell nothing. Gotta have the book, and for that, it’s you, the solitary life, and that aforementioned ream of paper.
Personally, I think I sold in small part because of an RWA conference, but only by accident. Granted, it was not a conference I attended, but it was one where one of my CPs pitched a book to an editor. Other industry people overheard, and before the weekend was over, I had a handful of requests. But then again, I signed with an agent to whom I’d sent a query, and we sold the book to a publisher the old fashioned way. So I would have sold without the conference. That just happened to be the method I took. Two roads leading to the same place.
In between the extremes are the reams of “I’m not going! Poor me!” laments. Some have set up “stay at home” writing challenges, or found other ways to amuse themselves. Seeing that deadline approaching, I’m a little jealous, to be honest.
Some are not taking it quite so well. I actually saw a post on an RWA list that complained about the amount of Reno-related posting, stating that it wasn’t fair to those who were staying at home and everyone should cut it out. They were feeling left out. What was special for them? (cf. earlier statement about childish behavior). Come on. This isn’t an elementary school birthday aprty, where you need to invite everyone int he class or not hand out the invitations at shcool. If I were a car salesman, and all the car salesmen were going to a car sale convention, but I couldn’t make it, and I posted something to a professional car salesman’s email list about how everyone needed to stop talking about the convention right now, because I wasn’t going, and it was mean, I’d fully expect to be laughed out of the car sales union. If you aren’t going and glad of it, good for you. If you aren’t going and devastated, there there. There’s always another year, and you will probably get all the pertinent info as soon as people are back. Write hard, both parties.
I assume that this blog will mostly be read by those of you staying at home. I’ll miss you. I’ll see you when I get back. Write hard people, and rest assured, there will be 2000 full reports (though if you honestly expect me to tell you what went on outside the bar, you don’t know me well-enough) when everyone returns.
Sorry I’ve been so blog deficient of late. My entire mind, soul and body have been focused on the following things.
1) RWA conference in Reno.
2) Finishing this manuscript.
3) Marinating the ephemeral New Idea.
4) Secretly celebrating the wonderful new good news. (I’ll out it when I get back).
In the meantime, go to Gena Showalter’s blog and vote on her author photos.
I’m pretty swamped this weekend (must write mucho pages) plus the apartment is a pit, and this is my last chance to get all the odds and ends together before Reno.
So meanwhile, a few locations to keep you all busy:
Babies Named a Bad, Bad Thing: Subtitled “A Primer on Parental Cruelty” this sight had me laughing so hard I almost lost control of my bodily functions. Absolutely not to be missed.
Fametracker From the people who bring you Television Without Pity comes the “almanac of celebrity worth. My favorite, of course, are the “Fame Audits” though I also love the “Galaxy of Fame.” Another don’t-be-drinking-anything-while-you read location.
What hilarious websites always brighten your day?
There’s been a lot of “defending the genre” talk whirling aroud the blogosphere of late. I was reading Jill Shalvis’s blog the other day and came across a post about the negative reaction of a bunch of women at a garage sale when Jill informed them that she wrote romances.
1. Jill, baby, women at a garage sale? Please, chil’. Who were they trying to outclass in that setting?
2. ::Insert usual “defense of genre” argument here.::
It’s so wearying, isn’t it? I admit to skipping over the “defense of genre” articles in the RWR every month, if only because I’m so damn tired of the topic. Tired of fighting. “Romances make up fifty-one percent of all paperback book sales.” “What, don’t you like the idea of love and commitment between two people who care about each other enough to overcome obstacles?” “What’s wrong with S-E-X?” “No I don’t write trashy novels. I write good, uplifting novels about the triumph of the human spirit.” “Sonnets have a formula, too. And mysteries. Always a crime, always solved.” Blah blah blah blah blah. It’s the same thing with chick lit. “No, my books aren’t about designer shoes. They are about women discovering themselves and their place in the world.” “No, I don’t consider my books insubstantial and fluffy, thanks for asking.” “No my books aren’t stupid and shallow.” Etc. ad nauseum. (And, I’ve noticed a rising trend in genre writers deriding literary fiction as being all “boring” with “unhappy endings.” I find that just as tiresome, prejudiced, and inappropriate.)
Ever see Last Action Hero? I find that movie very entertaining. There’s a scene in it in which Arnold’s character is talking to his ex-wife, and pulls out a box full of tapes with labels like “I wasn’t there.” “I’m so sorry.” “Ask your mother.” etc., sticks one in a tape player and lets it play for his wife who is blathering on on the other end of the phone. I’ve considered taping my genre defenses and just pressing play for some of these yahoos (from Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift: a race of brutish boors). I usually go for the round-eyed “Why, whatever can you mean?” Followed up by “What do you read?” At one party, I was told by a snootish guest, “Oh, I don’t read romance. It’s all trash.” “Oh, what do you read?” Get this: her favorite writer was Nora Roberts, and boy was she shocked when I said Roberts was a devoted member of RWA. She was under the mistaken impression it was only romance if it had Fabio on the cover, and of course, had never looked beyond said cover to see if the books inside were “trashy” or not. If people hand me a bad romance novel, I say, “Well, there are some pretty terrible players in the NFL. Does that mean that football players suck and we should all go watch golf or we’re not good sports fans?”
But it’s just getting tiring. One poster on Jill’s blog said that sometimes she doesn’t admit she’s a writer, because she doesn’t have the energy. Always defending, always arguing, always trying to convince people of their ignorance and prejudice. Methods of defense are different for everyone. I understand now why so many published authors deign to defend themselves in favor of laughing all the way to the bank. Harder to do before the sale though. But, we use what we’ve got in our arsenal. Sales figures, history, market share, reader loyalty, whatever we can throw at ‘em. I like to point out the naysayer’s ignorance. Of late, I’ve been known to invoke the name of Random House. And, if the person is determined to be a jerk, I’m blessed with a last resort weapon, what my college friends and I used to call the Y-bomb: “Oh yes, literary fiction. I enjoy good literary fiction too, but of course, I already cut a wide swath through the Western Canon in my freshman year at Yale.”
And, in the ensuing silence, I occasionally add, “In Latin.”
Sometimes it gets more difficult, like with the backhanded compliment. On the occasion of my sale, my father, bless his heart, told me, “I always thought you were in the wrong genre. I’m glad you decided to write something that was more worthy of you.” I made the usual noises, “Dad, I want everything I write to be worthy of me, whether it’s a 250-word website review or a 400 page novel.”But what I really wanted to say was, “Dad, you don’t read romances. You hardly ever read novels. You’ve never read any of my books (upon my request). How do you know what’s worthy of me?” He’s read the partial of (Secret) Society Girl, and loves it, but I think he probably would have loved my others, as well. Because I try to write good books. Not good romances or good chick lits or good action-adventures. Good books.
Another thing I find bizarre is that since I write romance and chick lit, some people seem to think it’s all I read. I recommend novels to friends, and they say, “Oh, I don’t really like romance.” “Um, okay, but this is Dean Koontz. It’s a paranormal thriller.” Here’s the thing: I like good books. Genre doesn’t really matter. Wash, rinse, repeat.
I’m very fortunate that my job is filled with avid readers of all varieties — they read chick lit, romance, mysteries, thrillers, biographies, literary novels, non-fiction historical treatises, military adventures… and they don’t look down on any of it. One day they are expounding on the things they’ve learned from a hefty tome about the tradition of crabbing in the Chesapeake, the next day they’re all over the new Sophie Kinsella. It’s beyond cool. And if they don’t read a genre that another reads, they assume it’s due to personal taste, and not another person’s lack of it. I love being a writer who works there. I love that the other workers (who are often writers and artists themselves) are so welcoming and respectful of the creative process.
I wish I could get to the point where I don’t feel it is necessary to defend what I write and read and enjoy to others. It’s a goal. Someday.
Meanwhile, I’m getting new batteries for my cassette player.
Pages Written: 1
Pages Left: 84
1. Yesterday, I was twenty-six and a half.
2. One of my favorite editors from my old newspaper, Kelli Kwiatkowski, is now an acquiring editor at Ellora’s Cave and Cerridwen Press. Just don’t ask me to pronounce her last name.
3. I’m all packed for Reno!
4. My email was down for several hours the other day, and my new credit card still hasn’t arrived.
5. My amazing fantabulous editor has dangled a big green-and-purple carrot in front of my face. A carrot performed by Jim Dale. A carrot that is the sixth carrot of its kind. A carrot (for those of you still in the dark) that is the audio version of a title that rhymes with Gary Plotter and the Gaffe Mud Since. Must… finish… my… book… first…
Off to write. And, um, hide the 17 discs before I lose my resolve.
Addendum: Sailor Boy is having me put al 17 discs on his iPod tonight. Sheesh. Talk about cruel and unusual…
Pages Written: 8
Pages Left: 85
Killer writing day today. And boy, did I need it! Thank you so much to all of those who sent notes and posts of encouragement. I truly appreciate your support.
I entered Act Three. At some point in my development as a writer, I realized that I organically followed many of the steps writing instructors discuss in their books. (This isn’t to say I was a natural-born storytelling genius – though I *was*. LOL!  I had and have and will continue to have other problems. The following just don’t happen to be examples of them). GMC? Check. Hero’s journey? Okay, got it (aside from all those hoity-toity metaphors. Caves? Really?). Chapter hooks? Woo hoo! I struggled with wrestling my story ideas into the concept of the three-act structure, until I saw it explained as truly a four-act structure, and then I realized that there was no wrestling involved. I think that with extensive reading and other methods of soaking up storytelling, certain rhythms just become ingrained. I don’t fill out GMC charts or think about my “acts” before I plan my novels, though if I find myself running into a problem, I use the tools in order to diagnose it.
I am a fan of the four act structure. I think envisioning your story like that is one of the easiest ways to avoid the “sagging middle.” Even if you do it naturally, going back and making sure that this is what you have done can often help you avoid later complications from bad planning. (I’m a big planner, by the way. BIG.) At it’s most simple, it can be viewed as follows:
Act One: Ordinary world and inciting incident
Act Two: Complications leading to a crisis.
Act Three: Consequences of that crisis leading to a climax.
Act Four: Climax and resolution.
To illustrate, let’s look at The Matrix, one of my favorite films.
Act One: Neo meets strange individuals who reveal to him that the world he has lived in is a lie, and he is in fact asleep inside a computer program. (ordinary world) He awakens, naked and bald in a pus-filled pod in the war-torn real world, forever disconnected from his digital life. (inciting incident)
Act Two: Neo trains to join an army of cyber-warriors. He learns that his leader believes he is a prophesized savior, but is told by an oracle (and believes himself) that it isn’t true. (complications) Returning from the meeting with the oracle, the crew is betrayed and murdered, and his leader is captured by the evil machines. (leading to crisis)
Act Three: Neo and the remaining members of the crew must fight to save their leader before he is forced to reveal the codes to their secret base. Neo believes he is at fault for his leader’s capture because the leader so firmly believed that he was the prophesized, invincible savior. (consequences of that crisis) Neo’s abilities are indeed astounding, but after saving the leader, he is fatally shot by one of the bad guys. (leading to a climax)
Act Four: As Neo dies, one of the crew reveals that she has always known that he was, indeed, the savior. (climax) Neo, realizing that it’s the truth, shakes off the fatal bullet wound, and proceeds to kick the bad guys’s asses, showing that he is indeed, the invincible savior. (resolution)
Ooh, this is fun! Let’s do other movies! The interesting thing is, authors often switch the setting upon a change in acts. That’s a signpost that you’re in a new act, and a hint for those looking to diagram stories. In The Matrix, Act One is almost entirely in the computer world, with Neo “waking” at the end. Act Two is half in the real world, and half in digital. Act Three begins in the real world for a pow wow with a quick return to the digital, and act four, again, is triggered by a powerful moment in the real world. The other important thing to keep in mind is that the “climax” in this structure is an emotional one, not a physical one. Often, they are intertwined, but the emotional high point of the story is the true climax. When Neo, the hero, is dying, and Trinity says that she loves him, and because her destiny was to love The One, he must be it, even the most hardened punk-metal action movie fan in the audience was holding his breath. Was Trinity right? Would Neo survive (to claim the kickass, raven-haired, leather-clad hottie)? Stay tuned for Act Four!
These acts don’t have to be the same size. In fact, they usually aren’t. Act Four of The Matrix is maybe 10 minutes, and most of those are Neo being a show off.
And, to illustrate how valuable this exercise is, in doing it, I realized that I’m not ACTUALLY in Act Three yet. I’ve begun the crisis, but it doesn’t reach its full strength for another chapter. (By the way, you non-planners out there, this is why it’s okay to plan, even if you end up changing things. My structure remains intact. My crisis is the same as it always was, it’s just got a different page count.)
You see, I’ve given my protagonist many things, and she likes them all. She likes her grades, her job prospects, her romances, and her secret society. And now that she has learned to appreciate them, I’m going to take them away from her, one by one, until she is thrust, trembling and determined, into Act Three. Mwahahahaa
Let’s she if she becomes The One.
So I came home yesterday, all fired up to write four pages. This was going to be great — I knew exactly what I wanted to write, too!
And then… I fell asleep. At 5:30. And woke up 12 hours later.
Ugh.
This is what happens when Diana doesn’t get enough sleep over the weekend. This is what happens when she’s up until 1:30 in the morning on a Sunday Night chatting with — well, I’m not blaming *you*, Anonymous Personage. But Diana’s body will make up that missed sleep. Against her will if necessary. So now I’m four pages behind. Sigh. Tonight will be a shut-in, I feel, since now I have to write SIX pages to stay on schedule.
Later, kiddos.
It’s Shark Week on the Discovery Channel, but here on Diana’s Diversions, it’s Theft Week. It’s all I can talk about.
Second Rounds: Interesting conversation about the definition of plagiarism and the concept of “stealing ideas” going on in the comments section of my last post. Oddly enough, I’ve already had this conversation once before (it might even have been with the same poster) on The Knight Agency Blog. The truth of the matter is that I do believe there is such a thing as stealing ideas, especially when the stolen idea is unpublished/unproduced. However, vast themes of human experience and vague concepts (say, a school for wizards or a secret society), are not the property of any one individual. I’d love to see the discussion continued though, because I believe it strikes at the very heart of artistic creation. What is yours, and what is everyone’s?
Scammers: Speaking of The Knight Agency, stealing appears to be rampant these days, as my agent, Deidre Knight, has recently become a victim of identity theft. If anyone has received a fraudulent email from her, please help her discover the identity of this idiot.
Okay, I think I fixed that zokuto thing (turns out, Jaye, that the other one was *based* on Zokuto and plus, didn’t have the word count I needed. Sucks, huh?) Anyway, there appearered to be an extra table command going on that I’ve taken care of. hee hee hee. I feel so html-savvy now!
     42,613 / 70,000
(60.0%)
But I digress. Today, I’d like to talk about horrible things that happen to writers. One writer I know is suffering through an experience with plagiarism right now. I found out about this on the same day that I discovered that my credit card has been stolen. It was a week for thievery. The situation mentioned above was a blatant case of plagiarism, in which the author’s whole book was compromised, stern to aft. But many cases of plagiarism are much more subtle, insidious, and difficult to prove. Take the famous situation that rocked the romance writing world in 1997, when one of its pioneers was found to have lifted passages in over thirteen of another star’s works. It was eventually discovered and the perpetrator forced to pay damages, but that was after seven years of blithe plagiarism. The victim was quoted as calling it “mind rape.” I came to romance after all of that settled down, but I never could bring myself to buy books by the plagarist. I remember reading at the time that people were shocked that the individual thought she she could get away from stealing things from such a famous writer. But here we’ve got an out-of-print category book plagiarized in a small-press, electronically published book. And it was caught. Let that be a lesson, plagiarists. You will be caught. Take it from an obscure source or a bestseller. Take a passage, a whole scene, or a novel. You will be caught. And we won’t read your books anymore.
In other news, I was reading in my university alumni magazine that a professor emeritus of history had published a Yale-set murder mystery. I was very interested in hearing more about this, since the more Yale-set books out there, the better, as far as I’m concerned. So I’m reading the interview with the author, and completely commiserating witht eh poor guy and his dozen rejections. And then, I run across this line:
But after many yeas, one morning my agent called me up and said a new publishing house was soliciting manuscripts. We had to find an old copy and have it retyped.
What a great success story! I think to myself. How lovely that the agent stood by him and tracked down a new house (because it’s a gret way to get in) and then my eyes travel down to the bottom of the page, where it says that the man’s novel is available through Publish America.
Okay, I think. Nice old man, wants his novel published, even through a vanity press. Very sweet, very sweet. But… what about the agent? Did his agent actually send his book to publish America? Even sweeter. Knowing his client wanted to have his book in print, sent it there knowing that it wouldn’t garner him one red cent. Nice agent.
Maybe. Or maybe this “agent” is actually a scam artist who has been charging fees to this poor professor-turned-author so that it doesn’t matter whether or not the book sells to a royalty-paying house or that the author has to lay down thousands of dollars of his own cash to see his book in print.
Man, why do I suspect it’s the latter?
Because of
http://www.anotherealm.com/prededitors/pebp.htm
http://www.speculations.com/rumormill/?z=102187
and, let’s not forget
http://www.publishamericasucks.com/
Sigh.
Pages Left to Write: 93
Everyone is gearing up for the Romance Writers of America National Conference in Reno, Nevada, which starts on July 27th. I’m beyond excited myself, as this is my first wiritng conference since I’ve sold my novel. First sale- attendees get to wear pink ribbons on their conference badges. If I have any time after all that , partying, some workshops, etc.
A few months ago, I posted on how surprised I was how freaked out people were getting over the conference. And I really was. I thought they were definitely making a mountain out of a molehill. However, for the past few weeks, I have been participating on an RWA sponsored loop where people are preparing for the Reno conference, and realized that the posts I saw on eHarlequin were merely the tip of the iceberg. For some reasons, writers get really, REALLY nervous about these things. I’ve seen people stressing out about the stock in the hotel lobby convenient store, not being able to sleep unless they had a precise list of every possible permutation of taxi fare from the hotel to any point in Reno (for each company, mind you), and SEVERAL conference goers unsure of whether or not they were invited to conference events. (Oddly enough, thse same people, who thought they couldn’t go to the RITA awards without an invite, thought nothing of crashing publisher parties.)
And now I feel bad. I’m not a particularly shy person, and I’ve traveled enough to get acclimated to new circumstances relatively quickly, but I realize that a lot of people are introverts who may not have spent much time away from home. My heart goes out to these people, especially those that come to the conference without a group of friends to hang out with. My friend Marianne Mancusi says she was overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of writers at her first RWA conference (and she had lots of buddies and an agent already!), and another friend revealed that she always breaks down and cries in the middle, even if she’s a) agented b) sold, and c) up for a RITA.
On another list, officials are formulating lists of rules to hand out to invitees of a party. Let me repeat that — OF A PARTY. My first reaction was that it was a ridiculous notion. Are RWA members so socially inept that they aren’t capable of understanding basic etiquette without a DO and DON’T list? Quite frankly, I think that the people who aren’t won’t magically become so with the help of a rule list. But maybe, as with the conference concerns, I’m not thinking of people who might have been told by some misguided soul to carry their manuscript wherever they go. There’s a ton of misinformation out there.
So, here’s my handy dandy rule list, for newcomers, people who may be unsure of themselves, or anyone who is feeling the Conference Jitters:
1. Do not, under any circumstances, bring your manuscript to conference events. Offering it to editors and agents is beyond a faux pas. If you want to know why, just apply Kantian Universality. Imagine if everyone handed out their manuscripts. The editors would be buried under a mountain of copy paper!
2. Do not interrupt editors and agents (or authors) who are deep in business conversations. And, if you happen to hook up with an editor or agent on the fly, don’t immediately bombard them with your pitch, and, don’t hold them hostage.
3. Do not crash invite-only events. That’s just tacky. If you’re unsure about which events you’re invited to, look in your registration packet. There’s a list. Also, you are invited to all publisher signings.
4. Relax. No meeting, no pitch session, no accidentally dropped pat of butter, is going to make or break your writing career.
5. If you are scared, or nervous, or lonely (or none of the above!), and you see me, come up and say hi. Tell me about your story. Tell me about your awful editor or agent appointment (or how wonderful it was). Ask me if you can practice your pitch. Despite any rants you may have seen on this blog, I’ve been told that I’m actually very friendly. And I want to meet you, I promise! I just don’t always know if you want to meet me when I see you, so that’s why I may not be approaching you. But I’m telling you right now, that I *do* want to meet you. If I’m at the bar, and I’m with a group, it’s not a business meeting. Come say hi. PLEASE.
All right. See you in Reno! ( I mean it!)
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