I’ve been a little tardy writing and blogging this week because my remunerative clients have all come at once screaming for work to be done by Christmas. Ah, the joys of self-employment! However, mustn’t grumble. Work is good. If it wasn’t for the last recession then I wouldn’t be in this position to fund my writing ambitions now, and this recession might just be the making of many a debut author’s ambitions. How so? Let me explain: it’s all a matter of perspective.
In 2001 the dot com crash directly affected my own line of business, while most other professions were spared. I lost my job that year, so I know how recessions can bite. I decided that was the time to finally set-up on my own as I had thought of doing for a long time. It would also give me the chance to write the novel. It took a good year to establish my client list, but now those clients are paying off when times are tougher for others and a permanent job might not seem so permanent anyway.
The point of all this? Out of disaster springs new opportunities. When DARPA revoked funding for military IT projects back in the ’70s, those talented researchers dispersed. Some set up companies, and the whole disaster gave birth to Silicon Valley, including today’s big success stories like Microsoft, Apple, et al.
So apply this to what is happening now in publishing and what it might mean for debut authors. Last week, many publishing jobs were lost. Debut authors (like myself) initially fear this will mean less opportunities for our books and perhaps lowers advances. Well, some of those masterless publishers and editors will no doubt now be thinking (as I did in 2001) this is the kick in the pants to do what they’ve long thought of - start up their own businesses. In an industry where jobs are scarce, self-employment becomes a necessity. Some might change career, others will become agents, or even set up new publishing houses. The necessary agile practices of newer, smaller, and leaner publishing houses will challenge the ingrained practices of the older, larger publishing giants and perhaps one day surpass them. But they need one thing to do this. You’ve guessed it — novels! Our novels.
In assembling my list of agents for submissions, I always tried to include agents that were new to agenting, or recently moved agency, because that means they are looking to build their author list. The chances of getting taken on are significantly higher with such a person. A relocated, experienced agent with a history of previous deals and lots of publishing contacts is, of course, preferable to a green agent. The agent who first requested a reading of Broken Evolution was a newly moved (but experienced) agent. So, debut authors, keep a keen eye out in next years Writer’s Yearbook for new publishers/agents and agents on the move. They’ll be looking for their own, new, big names, while the old fusty publishing giants will be focussing on wringing the most cash out of their bestselling authors and less likely to take a chance on new talent.
Recessionary times — as at any time — can present opportunities as well as obstacles. It’s all a matter of your perspective on it.
Meanwhile, the new story plays in my mind. I’m looking forward to writing the snowboarding sequence!
You see that? That’s me destroying the planet, that is. That stack represents all the paper used by one draft of my novel. That’s only one draft, mark you. No, it’s not a doorstop novel either. That stack holds an editing copy for me, another copy for beta reading, and returned submission material. I reckon there’s a nice thick cross-section of tree trunk in that pile - and it’s just one of many.
Is there any remedy to my proclivity for planetary destruction?
“Buy a Kindle for editing - it would save paper,” my eco-conscience cries.
“New trees can be grown,” retorts I. “Paper can be recycled. Besides, I kinda like the idea that my toilet roll might have been an old worthless draft of my novel!”
“The Kindle is eco-friendly,” my eco-conscience tries. “It has a non-toxic screen, and is low power.”
“What about the toxic battery and plastic case? And any power it uses is CO2 you ain’t getting back!”
But would I even use a Kindle for editing? No. Until it comes with a stylus that allows me to scribble on the page in multiple colours, draw smilies, pen insults to myself, and connect lines drawn between pages, then it just doesn’t have the kind of flexbility that I need when editing.
Sometimes we writers are beaten over the head by the amount of paper we use (which in my case would leave me concussed).
The writers among you might notice that the top page of my stack is not printed as the standard double-spaced single page editing format. For my personal edit copies, I prefer to print two pages per A4 sheet. Why? Is it to save paper and save the planet? No. I find it easier to edit text which is laid out as a final novel. I just sense better what writing works and what doesn’t if I’m reading it as a book. I think it’s a psychological (not an ecological) thing; if I feel I’m reading my words in a printed book, I’m less inclined to let myself away with anything sloppy. You know - something that I might cringe at years later if I saw it in one of my published books.
“My published books” - sigh - well, a guy can dream.
Can that day ever come, I ask myself, if I continue to destroy the planet with my accursed words?
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some recycling to do.
Last week I received some good news - an agency, having read my full manuscript, is interested in it. It will require more agency-assisted editing, but that too is good news; they like the novel enough to invest time in helping me make it better. And it’s a big name agency too! I’m like a jitterbug anticipating their suggestions. I took the novel as far as I could under my own steam, and while I know it’s good, at times I wondered just what it was that I had created — that can happen when you get so close to a project. Already, I have an insider’s perspective on its market genre. Wonderful.
It’s invigorating to — finally — have enthusiasm for my novel shared by someone in the business. A glimmer of hope in an morass of economic woes.
The hurdles are yet legion: pending the edits, it still has to become a formal offer of representation; the agent needs to entice a commissioning editor in a publishing house; an editor has to sell it to a pitch panel. In this business, I know only too well from my own experience that one can fall at any of the hurdles. But most are largely out of my control. The only thing I can control now is the quality of the novel, to make it the most irresistible prospect I can, and with the help of an agency, I can do even more about that.
But that is all next year’s concern.
Best of all in this is my internal victory, and the satisfaction it spawns. I have been vindicated. I took the decision to re-write a new draft, rather than start a different novel. I felt passionate about the subject matter and that I could tell the tale in a way that would sell. I believed it important also to learn to whip an errant novel into shape - it is a skill I would need as a writer. I have pulled apart and re-assembled an improved novel that made it over the next hurdle. Having done that, I feel confident that I can handle any edits that now come my way.
“Why do we fall? So we can learn to pick ourselves up.”
I’ve been sitting here in my artist’s garret this week, plotting. All that I’m missing is a white feline to stroke menacingly. I did escape my lair long enough to go see Quantum of Solace, but that is a whole different blog post. No, this is about plotting of a much less threatening kind.
In my day-time career there is a principle that transfers nicely to my shadow career of writing. In the cycle of software development, the earlier in the design process a problem is detected, or a requirement gathered, then the less costly it is to fix it or implement it. It stands to reason. If you discover towards the end of writing software code that there is a problem — something that wasn’t thought of sooner — then significant chunks of it have to be re-written, interfaces to other systems need to be altered, tests have to be run again, and man-hours spent writing the original code have to be written-off. All this affects the bottom line. That is why successful project managers on large software projects are so fastidious about requirements gathering.
So too in writing. It’s striking to me how many parallels there are between the process of writing software and the process of writing a novel. My first novel taught me the importance of having a sound plot outline before a word of prose is committed to paper (or to hard disk platter). It had to be re-drafted to repair plot deficiencies and that took a lot of my man-hours.
But, a story outline can’t be worked out totally in my head; sometimes a few scenes need to be drafted and played with to get the feel of characters, and how they might interact. There is a parallel in software for this too - it’s called a “prototype”, or a “proof of concept”. It the writing world, I think it’s called NaNoWriMo! Do something quick and dirty to see if it works, or how it works, or what the implications will be. Then take what you’ve discovered and add it to the master design.
With my second novel, I want to start similarly streamlining the writing process (insofar as a creative process can be streamlined!) If I do get to churn out novels for a living, then I’ll need to take on-board what I learnt about writing Broken Evolution and reduce the number of drafts needed to produce a novel, if I can.
So for this reason, I lock myself up in my artist’s garret, and won’t put pen to paper, or come out, until I force myself to draft a working version of the story outline. Will such anti-social behaviour turn me into Ernst Stavro Blofeld? Perhaps. I just hope it won’t be Jesse that I turn out like:
Well, you’ve got to laugh, haven’t you? If I can’t find fun while doing this, there’s no point doing it at all, because it’s improbable I’ll be doing it for the money (although more about that in a later post)!
Fun - that’s another thing I want to inject into this new novel. My new protagonist is going to be a bit of fiesty fun for the reader.
It’s invigorating having a blank creative slate again, after rounds of revising and tightening and editing the same story over and over to make it as refined as possible. A new novel is a fresh playground where I can go anywhere and anything is possible. That’s at the start, at least. Creativity is a process of harnessing inspiration, and slowly circumscribing it with boundaries created by the choices a writer makes.
That’s where a story outline begins - with infinite horizons. It very quickly needs to start having its wings clipped.
Today I got the first rejection letter to show the economic recession card. If agents and publishers are more focussed on keeping their current writers’ business in this economic environment, then they’re less likely to punt on new writers. So they say. In truth, new writers are essential to the publishing business, to drive new sales. They will always stump up for what they feel is the right proposition.
What really worries me about it, is that this recession has changed tastes. Who would even believe an international espionage thriller in a world where airlines are going out of business, and the villian people fear most is the faceless one stealing away your job? I can only hope the dish I serve suits people’s taste for escapism in this climate.
