In which we're still talking to readers
Reader Elizabeth posted the following query: A question I'd like to ask has to do with the fourteen years of writing before you were published: Did anyone outside of your immediate family know what you were doing, or did you not talk about it but save it for the page? I'm wondering if you did tell people you were writing if they were supportive or if they had more "we'll believe it when we see it" type of remarks, and how you handled that.
Elizabeth, very few people knew what I was doing for a number of reasons. First, there is a tendency for people to stare at you blankly when you say you are writing a novel. It's like you're admitting to doing something unseemly and faintly scandalous. They don't quite know how to respond, and so they often don't. They furrow their brows and turn away. It's disheartening.
Second, I've gone on record as saying that the less I talk about my writing, the better it is. (And once again, what works for me is what works for me. Other people might find it terribly restrictive.) But as I said during the interview last week, you have one chance to tell your story the first time. ONE. And if you discuss the particulars with people, you are dulling your own enthusiasm whether you realize it or not. You should be bursting to get the story on the page, and if you have discussed it, somewhere in your subconscious, your creativity is registering the fact that you have already told it.
For me, it was just easier to keep my projects to myself until I was published. A few friends in Texas knew I was writing, but no one in Virginia knew until I had a publishing deal. It was so much simpler to present it as a fait accompli!
As for rudeness, it happens, and it happens to me still. I get a fair number of folks who say things like, "Oh, I've always meant to write a book, I just don't have time." These are people to whom we do not speak any longer than necessary because they just don't get it. (I will confess that I have OCCASIONALLY replied, "Yes, and I thought I'd take up a bit of cardiothoracic transplant surgery on weekends, but who can find the time?" It isn't nice and I don't recommend it, although it feels divine.) Most people are not intentionally unkind, I think. They just honestly don't have the vaguest notion of what it is like to write a book. Getting myself away from rude folks as quickly as possible is the best remedy.
Elizabeth, very few people knew what I was doing for a number of reasons. First, there is a tendency for people to stare at you blankly when you say you are writing a novel. It's like you're admitting to doing something unseemly and faintly scandalous. They don't quite know how to respond, and so they often don't. They furrow their brows and turn away. It's disheartening.
Second, I've gone on record as saying that the less I talk about my writing, the better it is. (And once again, what works for me is what works for me. Other people might find it terribly restrictive.) But as I said during the interview last week, you have one chance to tell your story the first time. ONE. And if you discuss the particulars with people, you are dulling your own enthusiasm whether you realize it or not. You should be bursting to get the story on the page, and if you have discussed it, somewhere in your subconscious, your creativity is registering the fact that you have already told it.
For me, it was just easier to keep my projects to myself until I was published. A few friends in Texas knew I was writing, but no one in Virginia knew until I had a publishing deal. It was so much simpler to present it as a fait accompli!
As for rudeness, it happens, and it happens to me still. I get a fair number of folks who say things like, "Oh, I've always meant to write a book, I just don't have time." These are people to whom we do not speak any longer than necessary because they just don't get it. (I will confess that I have OCCASIONALLY replied, "Yes, and I thought I'd take up a bit of cardiothoracic transplant surgery on weekends, but who can find the time?" It isn't nice and I don't recommend it, although it feels divine.) Most people are not intentionally unkind, I think. They just honestly don't have the vaguest notion of what it is like to write a book. Getting myself away from rude folks as quickly as possible is the best remedy.
Labels: readers
posted by deanna at
7:23 AM
2 Comments:
Thank you! Best wishes on Halloween. I hope your ghostie behaves himself. ;)
~Elizabeth
I'm glad to know that it's not just me. I've told others that I write, and they look embarrassed before looking away, like I just went nude on them. I also feel the same way about talking about works in progress. I already had my author's review copy before I even told my mother that I write.
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