Success Stories

I love success stories because they are all so different.

A friend of a friend recently had her novel publish by major New York publisher. She wrote the book and then spent nine years trying to find an agent. Nine years of mailing out and no, no, no. Nine years of query letters and rejections. But she stayed with it. And then one day she found an agent in California who "was not taking new clients." The agent read this woman's novel anyway, decided to represent it, and turned around and sold the thing in 24 hours. Nine years of agents thought it wasn't worth representing. And then that.

On the other hand, another woman - whom I had taken a class with - is writing her first novel. It's not done, but she decided, for whatever reason, to approach an agent about it. The agent was so intrigued he wanted her to fly out and see him, which she did. I have never heard of this. I have never heard of this with finished novels, let alone unfinished novels. What's more, when I read parts of the novel in the class, I didn't think it was working. Perhaps I was wrong.

In the case of my wife, I was not wrong. She wrote a children’s chapter book (Violet Bing and The Grand House, Viking), and eventually got the attention of two publishers (with children’s books, you don't necessarily need agents). She then spent two years turning the book from a picture book to a chapter book and then saw it published in April. When I read the final draft, I said, "If this isn't good, then I don't know what good is." And so far, I have been right. Every review (Washington Post, Seattle P. I, B.C.C.B., among others), has been overwhelmingly positive. This is a great relief. A) It’s nice to have my wife's work being well received, and B) I'm glad to see my opinion isn't totally out of tune with the World at Large.

My brother, a creative partner of mine in my twenties, is on the verge of having the first- ever scripted sit-com produced for PBS. My little brother. And this without a college education. Without, in fact, ever receiving a grade higher than a "C" in anything other than Theater in high school. Now he has written, directed, produced, and starred in the pilot. When he first told me the idea for the show, I said, "Well, that's sounds like a great skit, but not a series." I was totally wrong. Never felt so good to be wrong.

And I will be starting a magazine called Author, featuring many cool author interviews, book reviews and writing type news. Also a nice letter from the editor, which will sound not unlike the sort of thing you are reading now.

Good news abounds! Rejection letters be hanged. The world is bountiful if you let it.

Your Loyal Servant

It's easy, for me at least, to become overly enamored with The Brain. Don't get me wrong, I don't consider mine particularly extraordinary, but the brain is such a slavish devotee of facts and evidence and proof, all of which are so attractive for their statuesque certainty. What if The Truth is an argument you could someday win if you just piled on enough facts and evidence? What if The Truth was a single destination to which meticulous research and dispassionate calculation would same day lead you? That's a siren song if ever there was one, though a most appealing one.

Of all the arts, writing would seem the most brain-driven. Your brain is filled with all these word. The bigger the brain, the more words, right? Perception itself would seem to be the brain diluting reality down to its clearest and most digestible parts. Oh, the poets have their soul, but in the end, the novelist's brain, where his research is housed, where his plots are built, where his words are ordered like soldiers to be brought forward and marched across the needed sentences - the brain it where the work happens.

And yet the writer - the poet, novelist, essayist, or blogger - is no different than the painter, the dancer, or composer. All art, all creation, is choice, which is preference. The brain is merely a tool, a loyal servant at the beck and call of the soul, which is the source of all choice and all creation. The soul feels a preference, a direction, which the brain then turns into some kind of mental picture, and then, finally, attaches words to the picture to make sentences and paragrpahs so other people might see and feel the same thing.

I always run into trouble when I try to work from the brain. If you're feeling nervous, the brain is a tempting place to start becuase the brain is all about results and measurements and proof. The soul's only proof is itself. It's always tenuous, in a way, turning to the soul first, because it merely is. It doesn't care what anyone else has written, or what's being bought. or what is clever. It just wants. And yet when you tap into it, when you write from it, when the work travels from the soul to the brain to the page, there is nothing more satisfying. No work can make you feel more alive.

When the work's not coming, it's because you're asking your servant what to say. The servant wants you tell him what to say. He is loyal, hard working, dependable, but utterly uncreative. The brain has never had an original thought in its life.