Читать книгу You Can Be a Winning Writer - Joan Gelfand - Страница 11
ОглавлениеEarly in my career, after some moderate success as a poet, I got bitten by “novel fever.” Post-college, I had had a fair number of poems published in literary journals. I had performed at prestigious venues like the Oakland Museum, Litquake and the Beat Museum. I had even had the excellent fortune to have a poem turned into a song and recorded by a rock band. The song was aired on the local radio station and nationally. But I still didn’t feel like a winning writer.
I didn’t set out to write a novel. I mean, really? I had cut my teeth on Simone de Beauvoir, Virginia Woolf, Willa Cather, Kurt Vonnegut, Gunter Grass, and Wallace Stegner. I was satisfied being a poet, known to my local community.
Writing a novel seemed like a terribly pretentious, misguided idea. No. I did not start out to write a novel. I started out with a story that, after two years, and much encouragement from my writing instructor, grew into three hundred pages. I had written my first novel without planning to do so.
It was with that first novel that I began to understand that becoming a successful writer wasn’t just about writing. It was several years after my first attempt to find a publisher for that first novel that I understood the business of writing.
I learned that the letter I got back from an agent asking me to revise my manuscript was a serious request, not a rejection. And, I learned the hard way that without confidence, without commitment and community, I was never going to become a winning writer.
While the Four C’s approach encourages you to improve your craft, it also provides suggestions for the design of a productive work practice, recommends ways to cultivate a supportive network, and gives clear and practical examples of how to build your confidence. What makes the Four C’s approach unique is that I will teach you how to develop all these skills at the same time.
Does it sound like a lot of work? It is.
Over the years, I’ve coached innumerable writers who start out insisting that they barely have time for the actual writing. Just getting to their desks, crafting a piece of writing, and finishing it is a tremendous challenge. And it is. But just finishing a piece of writing is not enough.
After just a few sessions of working with me, these same writers find their priorities shifting as they begin to understand the importance of cultivating a network and building community. They realize that sending out their work one or even ten times is not enough. Soon, they find themselves more confident about every aspect of their work.
I’ve worked with clients who, after secretly aspiring to see their work in journals that publish their “writing heroes,” find themselves side by side those very same heroes.
I’ve worked with professionals who do not consider themselves writers, but manage to get the help they need to tell their story and get their important books into the hands of the public.
The Four C’s system: Imagine that your writing career is a stove with four burners.
Craft. Commitment. Community. Confidence.
Each burner has a pot on it that needs to be watched. Each pot is cooking up something tasty.
Craft is bubbling while commitment is on a low simmer; you are out in the community, seen everywhere! That pot is on full boil. While you were out, confidence has scalded; that last manuscript rejection has you wondering if you’ve got what it takes. Who said you could write your way out of a paper bag anyway?
As the Head Chef de Cuisine, your job is to fire up all burners at the same time. Your job is to attend to them to make sure one is not boiling over while the others are stalled.
Juggling is involved. Timing is essential. But this is your piece de resistance! You can do it.
What Are the Four C’s?
On the front burners are craft and commitment. On the back burners are community and confidence.
Whether you are a seasoned cook, or have never donned an apron, whether you are Cordon Bleu trained or a self-starter who learned to steam fish from a YouTube video, you are about to create this special meal. Winning writers keep all burners warm.
It is not an easy task. It’s demanding. It requires an exacting sense of timing, keeping a keen eye on the clock and the intuition to adjust the seasoning just right. It might also require a last-minute replacement of a burned dish, a broken plate, or repairing a malfunctioning burner.
Why work so hard?
Your project at hand is a book, right? You’re not really preparing a meal for twenty. Or are you?
Let me explain: In the past, writers, many of whom self-identified as “introverts” could sell a manuscript to a reputable publishing house. The editor and the house believed in them, supported them as a member of that house’s family. The publisher assigned a publicist and a marketing budget. New books were added onto a publisher’s list which book reps reviewed with book buyers when they visited bookstores. In the past, the marketing department kicked into gear, and, if everything went according to plan, the book was well reviewed. Voila! Book sold. Self-identified introverted author didn’t have to go on book tour if he/she didn’t want to. If all went well, that author could have a shot at another book. If the book didn’t sell, it was remaindered.
Fast forward to 2018. On the one hand, publishing is in a sea change and on the other hand publishing is the same as it ever was. Did you know that Walt Whitman self-published Leaves of Grass? Walt Whitman! Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen self-published Chicken Soup for the Soul. Other best sellers that were self-published include Fifty Shades of Grey, What Color is Your Parachute?, and a long list of iconic books.
With a healthy dose of the Four C’s, all became bestsellers.
Part of the sea change is that writers can no longer afford the luxury of living the life of an introvert. The writer’s life has become a cruel paradox; the work that requires a person to possess high thresholds of tolerance for solitude now requires high thresholds for public speaking, promotion, and public appearances!
Talk about anxiety-producing! So how does a private person become a winning writer? With patience, a custom menu plan and determination, most writers can follow the Four C’s of successful authors.
And here’s the good news. Mastering the Four C’s becomes easier over time. Once the four pots are simmering away, readers catch a whiff of your excellent cooking! Now there’s a crowd congregating around the stove. Murmurs of “Mmm…” and, “How did she do that?” start to hum. A buzz is going around about this “chef” who appears to be everywhere! Readers are curious!
Now, you can turn down the flame on one burner and turn up another. But not one step can be overlooked or ignored when you are getting started. All your skills will be tested. All your perseverance will be tried. Your confidence will be challenged.
You will want to quit. There’s a reason the saying goes, “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.”
In the chapters that follow, you will learn how to refine your craft. You will learn how to manage the first dozen—or hundred!—rejections. You’ll learn how to build your reputation as you are writing your book. You’ll learn how to build your fan base even before your book hits the stands. And when that book comes out, you’ll learn how to speak to your fans, making each one feel important and loved.
The long and winding road:
A few years out of graduate school, I received what every writer dreams about: a love letter from a top agent: “You are clearly very talented. Your book is compelling, but the second half falls down. Please let us know what you decide to do.”
I had hired a writer’s assistant to send my first novel to agents. I didn’t realize that this agent who had praised my work and was asking me to take a closer look at the second half was the agent of the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon.
This is what we writers call “the backstory.” Established authors can’t help but chuckle when an author is touted as an overnight success; we know the years it took to hone the craft and get the project out into the world. Even Steph Curry didn’t make the cut for the NBA in his early years.
Each author has a unique backstory. While mine is particularly circuitous, you’ll see from the anecdotes peppered throughout this book, I have lots of company.
When the dream letter arrived, I was working full-time and raising a child on my own. I owned a home and was caring for an aging mother. I was writing from 5:30 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. before I dropped my sleepy, pajama-clad toddler to daycare and got myself to work.
I had just met the man who was to become my husband. His response to the encouraging missive from the New York agent was that the letter was an open door, a chance, and a golden opportunity: “Quit your job and write!” The edict came with an offer to help me financially. He didn’t have to ask twice. “I’ll have this book published in a year,” I promised. He already knew what a hard worker I was. He saw how focused and determined I could be. As Adam Gopnik, a columnist for the New Yorker, writes: “No one is hungrier than a writer staking out his reputation.” At the time, I was in corporate sales and had been a top producer in my field for over ten years.
Unschooled in the Four C’s at the time and naïve about the pitfalls of the literary world, innocent about the vicissitudes and the complex maze of getting books published, I took my book to an editor I had read about in the professional press.
I didn’t take the time to vet her or research her reputation with writers. Her advertisement proclaimed that she was a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and editor. From where I sat, I would be lucky to get her attention.
“Your female characters are male, and your male characters are female.” Ouch. And, in not so many words, she proclaimed the book was no good. She even pulled a book off her shelf to compare a passage I had written about loss to a published novel. Cowed, I was sure my book was a loser. The letter from the New York agent must not have meant anything. The agent must just have been feeling generous and decided to be kind to an aspiring novelist.
How easy it is to diminish praise.
“Many writers learn to write by writing their first book,” said the Pulitzer Prize-winning editor. “What else do you want to write about?”
At that time, I actually was anxious to start a book about the characters I had come to know in the tech world. I agreed to put the novel that I’d spent the previous five years writing on the shelf.
Starting a new book meant that I wouldn’t have to confront these terrible flaws that this charming editor had brought to my attention. Starting a new book meant I could start fresh.
I had a BA and an MFA in Creative Writing. I had been encouraged to write the book I was about to shelve by my first writing teacher, a novelist herself, who believed the story, the characters, and the writing to be strong and compelling.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning author billed me a whopping $3,500 and washed her hands of me. I never even got a write-up of comments. Her work was a wholesale smash job.
How quickly I put five years of writing, revising, and editing on the shelf, not to mention the years of getting up at 5:00 a.m. to write for two hours before work. Unbeknownst to me, the “editor” had a terrible reputation for tearing writers down.
What happens next is that I blew it. Big time.
