I’m not misguided on the self-promotion issue, though. Your advice is your self-promotion: it is the content that keeps people returning to your blog and puts your name in people’s minds. It’s the USP of your blog. Given the emphasis you place on self-promotion and getting yourself out there, I find it hard to believe you don’t see your blog as being an obvious and enormous part of that. But it’s just semantics, I suppose. Isn’t it all?

Ah yes, I remember. You say ‘knife incident’ and it conjures up grainy CCTV images of gangs of feral youths in sportswear squaring off over a bottle of white lightening cider, under a typically restrained Daily Mail headline, when in fact what happened was some a rather genteel misunderstanding about a bowl of washing up.

JOE’S RESPONSE – Don’t enter contests. If your story is good enough, find an editor who will pay for it. But guess what? If you do the things I mentioned not to do, you won’t find an editor. Also, someone is knocking on your door. It’s Life, and he’s holding a big sign that says “I’m Not Fair.” Maybe you should let him in and get to know him.”

Just … must … not. No, no, no, no, no. No! NO! NO!! NO!!! Aaaargghhh!!!!!

Actually, it ties into something you, JK, said on my prologue post about constraints being useful for creativity. I think that’s a genuinely useful point. In a trivial sense, I always liked it in school when I was set a title to work from. And my friend Ben is an artist (you remember him, JK? there was a knife incident at a party…). At one point, he did all his paintings on a certain size of canvas, and I presumed there must be a reason for that. In fact, he told me, he did it because it was one less thing to consider, and so it freed him – focused him, maybe – to concentrate on the things that mattered more. A decision made. Constraints can aid creativity in that way; they can set you off, start you going, free you to do something new and original and interesting. And I suppose I saw Joe’s constraints as being offered … well, not exactly in that spirit. Maybe the opposite.

But that’s enough.

Anyway. Laura, I like weather too: as a metaphor, as visualisation for a setting, or just because it’s so well-suited to beautifully descriptive prose. So I figured I’d quote from an author I love, Graham Joyce. The entire (short) prologue to his novel The Stormwatcher, which is about the sexual conflicts between various friends on holiday:

———-

“All motion in the atmosphere is caused by the unequal heating, by the sun, of different parts of the planet. Heat is constantly seeking to exchange, between the warm tropics and the cold polar regions. This causes the movement of air, winds, changes in air pressure, temperature, fluctuations, clouds, precipitation of rain and snow.

Everything we call weather.

Going round and round in an endless effort to settle and even out that which can never be settled or evened out.”

———-

The metaphor is obvious, especially if you’ve read the back of the cover. But then … well, there’s that second sentence, where heat is personified: actively seeking. That makes the metaphor far more interesting, but it’s only by reading on that it becomes clear. If you read on.

It’s not even his best book, but – you know – my world has been improved slightly by reading it, regardless of how many it sold. And that, perhaps unfashionably, is a better definition of success for me.

“people who want to publish are so very hungry.”

That sounds 83.5% right to me. I imagine also that ~91.1% of the published were, at some point, also very hungry. Add a dash of that uncertainty y’all refer to and I think you have a potion that will make anyone succumb to a little bit of superstitious behaviour – lucky pens, golden rules, only ever drinking tea, the right kind of paper, rituals.

Late to the party and breaking my own rules about not getting involved in Internet discussions, but I decided to pull my own volume of short stories off the shelf and see how many rules I’ve violated. Not because I think I have any standing as a good writer, but because I want to see if breaking these rules means I’m a shitty one. (I know I’ve done weather, but that was with my second novel. I happen to like weather.)

Let’s see: Do No Start With a Character Description:

“Sofia was a lean, hipless girl, the type older men still called a tomboy in 1975, although her only hoydenish quality was a love of football.” From “Hardly Knew Her.”

I’ve broken this at least two more times, in “Scratch a Woman” and “ARM and the Woman.”

Do Not Start a Story by Addressing the Reader:

“You won’t believe this, but this really did happen to me just last fall, and all because I was five minutes later, which seemed like a tragedy at the time.” (“Dear Penthouse Forum (A First Draft))

You know, this actually is pretty crummy writing, but it’s a letter to Penthouse Forum! Oops, there’s one of those pesky exclamation marks.

Do Not Start a Story with Cliches:

“This is true:” (From “Femme Fatale.” “This is a true story” was specifically outlawed, but this comes pretty close.)

Do Not Start a Story with a Setting Description:

“The best Cuban restaurant in Baltimore is in Greektown.” (“Ropa Vieja”)

The point is NOT that I am indisputably fabulous, so therefore Joe is wrong. The point, I think, is that beginning writers need some guidance, but rules gum up the works. I don’t even agree with all of Elmore Leonard’s, although I strongly urge my students to let “said” and “ask” carry 90 percent of their dialogue. But, darn it, I think a good adverb has its place in the world. And I will repeat: I LOVE WEATHER. (I was a journalist for a long time and had to write a lot about the weather and I know good weather writing when I see it, and it always makes me happy.)

I haven’t done an animal yet, but Jan Burke has, brilliantly. Wait, let me rephrase that . . .

I think one thing we — speaking now as a published writer, part of a large and collegial group of wonderful writers, including those I know here — have to keep in mind is that people who want to publish are so very hungry. For advice, for introductions, for magic beans. Mainly for magic beans. In dreams begin responsibilities — cliche? — and those of us who are lucky enough to have published a few books should never forget that.

I return, as I do often, to the scene in Zuckerman Unbound where the Roth-like author is trying to explain to his stalker/writer wannabe why his review doesn’t work. The would-be writer, Alvin Pepler, becomes incensed at what he sees as contradictory advice. (Zuckerman has said a certain line seems to be straining for effect.)

“As serious and uncondescending man of letters as there could ever be, Zuckerman said: “I wonder if it’s worth the effort.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. It was no strain at all. It just came to me. In those words. It’s the only line here that isn’t erased, not one word.”

“Then maybe that’s the problem.”

“I see.” Pepler nodded vigorously because of what he saw. “For me, if it comes easy it’s no good, and if it comes hard, it’s also no good. . . . what you have told me is the following. One, the writing stinks. Two, the thoughts stink. Three, my best line stinks worst of all. What you have told me is that ordinary mortals like me shouldn’t even dare to write about your book to begin with. Isn’t that what it adds up to on the basis of one paragraph of a first draft?”

Of course, Pepler is the butt of the joke here and I’m not sure that Zuckerman, much less Roth, is all that uncondescending, but that is our charge. To speak thoughtfully and seriously about what works. To be honest about what a crapshoot this business is. To eschew formulas, in language and storytelling. The tragedy is that Pepler is right. If it comes easy, it might not be too good, and if it comes hard, it also might not be good.

Someone remind me: Why do we do this? Oh, right. Because, as Anne Lamott once said, there are days when you feel so good that you worry if other people knew, they might set you on fire.

A ‘huckster’? I couldn’t possibly say. But Joe likes attention, and he gets it by being the ‘how to be published and stay published’ guru guy, and I don’t think that’s always easy to summarise in blog post after blog post. My ‘story’ as a writer runs entirely contrary to his advice, and, from everything I’ve seen, success is down to luck and circumstance more than anything else. (My most successful country, I’ve never done a second of publicity in). But saying “write what makes you happy; do the best you can; be creative; have fun; enjoy it for the sheer pleasure of doing it” isn’t going to keep people returning to your site. Fair play to him, but I hate to see people taking his advice too seriously.

Plus, as an aside, I hate the term “newbie writer”. There’s no magical division. No hierarchy. I met a guy at a festival once and asked if he was a writer, and he looked all apologetic and said, “Well … I’m trying”. No – if you’re trying, then you’re a writer. We’re all trying, including the guys at the top table.

Both sides have valid points. Konrath’s “rules” are good for any writer to keep in mind, as violations are often symptoms of weak writing.

I think Steve’s points carry more weight. Konrath does seem to want to have it both ways. He strongly implies he doesn’t read any farther until Steve called him on it. Then he made the circular argument, saying you could get away with these things if you were a really good writer, but he’d never know if you were, because he already gave up on it.

I’m condensing too much, I know, but the tome is there. I’ve read a couple of Konrath’s Jack Daniel books, and, frankly, think they’re too cute by half. The humor is sometimes forced, and sometimes inappropriate to the tension being created. They’re written like treatments for Michael Bay movies. I admire his ability and willingness to work and his tireless efforts, and I have seen him take time online to help aspiring writers with marketing tips, but he comes across as somewhat more of a huckster than I’m comfortable with. Based on this conversation, he can be a little defensive, too.