Working on the next book, believe it or not. Busy with that! And so busy with Impact Bay Area, with which I've been assisting, so for the last couple of weeks I've been super busy during my time off watching women learn how to be SO incredibly awesome. So here I'm stealing from an email (let's call it recycling!) that I sent to a couple of writer friends recently. There's writing info here that might be helpful to the writers among you, and perhaps interesting to readers, too. A peek behind the curtain:
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I have to chime in about entering the "real" world — When I was in undergrad, I was super stressed. There was a reentry student in one of my English seminars who was about 60 or so. I mentioned I was worried about the real world, and she just pulled her glasses down and looked at me: "Oh, honey. The real world is SO much easier than this is."
I took such heart from that, and it's true! Even with writing deadlines making your whole life feel like a homework assignment, it's nothing like school. School is false, created stress (meaningful, etc blah etc). In real life, when you have stress, you can work on managing, changing things. In school, if you're behind, you're just fucked, you know?
I absolutely love what you say about getting comfortable with rejection by continued submission. When I was submitting to agents, I checked my email every seven seconds for about six months, and every time I was rejected, I wanted to cry (and sometimes did). But every single damn time, it got easier, and I would just submit to five more (is five the magic answer? just enough to feel like you're really working? I like it).
How I handle rejection: With a very stiff upper lip. When Harper Collins fired me after my first three books, I told everyone it was fine. Totally understandable, I said. Borders died the week my second book came out while we were in negotiations for a new contract, thereby halving the sales of the first, and there was no recovering from that blow. <–this is true, but it is also a convenient excuse for Why My Career Stumbled Like a Benadryled 5 Year Old in Heels. And then I would sit at my desk and feel pathetic. Yep. I would never write again. I wrote sad letters full of self-pity to good writer friends who all told me what I needed to hear — you'll make it, you'll come back from this, just keep writing, this happens to everyone — and I never believed them, even though they were right. You're right, it's so easy to cheerlead everyone else, and so HARD to cheer ourselves.
Do you keep a file of positive things? Can I encourage you to do that right now? I call it my mash note file (does anyone else still use that term?), and I have a physical one (that I just went through while going through papers; I found a bunch of nice notes from writers I knew in school reacting to my stories) and an email file. I put the best, most cheering letters in there, saving them for the rainy day when Kirkus pans me and Franzen says something terrible about my womanly morals and I know for certain that my career is over. The most recent one I added was from my dad saying he'd read Splinters of Light and how much he loved it — and from what he said, he GOT it. He totally got the book. That made my whole life, and in it went to the mash file.
Thus the mash file of notes, hedged against the Very Worst Days. Just knowing it's there is all I need. Did I mention I've never gone into it? Not once. Well, I tried to read some once, but honestly, the notes embarrassed me and I ducked back out like I'd accidentally wandered into the wrong hotel room.
It comes down to self-care, I think. You need to know what you need (I need saved mash notes, days off to not write at all, wonderful books written in any genre but the one I happen to be writing in, and writing friends). And then you need to be willing to give yourself those things. Also, wallowing is allowed. Know how much time you want to give yourself. I give myself about 30 minutes, usually. I like to get back up on the horse. I have a friend who gives herself a day of wallowing when she gets a bad review because that's what she needs. My first major revision letter sent me to a coastal hostel for a weekend.
Personally, I have a couple of friends who pass our 1-star reviews back and forth, trying to best each other with the most shocking and/or poorly written ones, and this amuses the HELL out of us, and takes all the sting out. Oh! Here's a good one from my second book: "Rachael rlghts an interesting story = It is to bad she feels like she has to keep us interested withso much foolish sex." <– what is not to love about this??? *falls sideways in joy*
and to your question, writing about real people: When I wrote my essay collection, that was a huge challenge for me. I did this: If I loved the person, I let them read the essay before publication. They had the right to insist on a change in verbiage if necessary. There was only one essay in the book that was even slightly critical of someone else (all criticism directed toward self!), but I changed his name and location and called that good.
Re: fiction, that's harder. Characters are never based on anything but facets of myself, as all my characters are. Sometimes, though, people insist on believing I'm writing about them. And dude, there's nothing I can do about that belief. I just keep being truthful with them, gently, insistently. I've found this over and over again (and other writer friends have, too — I think it's a universal): if you do happen to base something on real life or real people, no one will ever notice, I promise you. One of my friends based an awful character on someone we both know, and that person LOVED the book, just gushed over it. If you write a difficult scene/story/character pulled right from your brain, nowhere else, and labor over it to make it really REAL? Everyone will think you wrote it about them. A compliment, really, isn't it?
Success really is, most of the time, just time spent in the chair. Even on my worst day, even when I just move a paragraph out and then back in again, the work has lived in my brain and breathed long enough to continue breathing when I close the window. (Oooh, I like this image. I might not be actively looking into the window, but the characters keep growing while I'm doing other things — it only works if you give them fresh air every day… feels true…. too much?)
I've promised myself 3 hours in the chair with the internet off today. So right now doesn't count. I've already done one agonizing hour, and the next two won't (can't!) be that uncomfortable, so huzzah. My new best practice is to wake up, get coffee, meditate for ten minutes at the desk before I open the computer, then go to work IMMEDIATELY for 45 minutes before looking at the bigger world. Then I go back in and work some more in 45 minutes chunks. It's been working like a charm, which perhaps, it is. I know it's woo-woo! But it's kind of life changing. I never knew how to meditate, never knew that I could LEARN to still my crazy brain till last year when I took Headspace's free 10 day course. Highly recommended. I actually stuck it in Splinters of Light — one of my characters is an homage to Andy Puddicombe, the Brit who teaches meditation so beautifully over there… But as I said, based on my experience, he won't think it's him. ;)
Onward!
I keep Birthday, Thank you notes, and Holiday cards that have especially nice messages in them. They’re important enough to me that they spend time in a fire proof safe…which is fine because I have most of them memorized by now. And I’m blessed to have a lot of really complimentary people in my life. and I don’t care if they’re really a bunch of very skilled liars, I’m happy. 🙂
I’m glad you figured out the mash file works for you. 🙂
Wonderful advice for writers, and I do love that review! I literally just two minutes ago finished my first Headspace meditation. I love that app! I’m a first-thing-in-the-morning writer, too, but now I think I will add the meditation piece in first.
This self care phenomena comes in a few flavors. We scientists have a thing that we like to do when we get a badly scored grant or a paper gets rejected: we write a rebuttal letter using all the things that we would like to say (liberal use of words that start with F). There is even one of those Hitler downfall videos about academic publishing. Maybe we are a little more hard hearted than you, because I like your version better.
Just catching up on some posts and just signed up for Headspace. Thank you for that! I think that it will be a good thing for me to try to add to my life. Andy has a wonderful voice and delivery. I have thought of meditation before, but never really knew where to start. Thanks again.