On Other Blogs

Today Saddlebums interviews author James Reasoner, one of the hardest-working writer I know with 200 books to his credit under various nom-de-plumes. In the time it has taken me to write this post, he’s written half a western novel.

The actual writing process is pretty much the same for me regardless of what name is going on the book. I take a lot of pride in the work and I have to entertain myself as I’m writing, first and foremost. Everything else comes after that. There is a certain sense of freedom in writing a book when you know your name won’t be on it. You won’t get any of the blame if it’s terrible. But that’s balanced out by the fact that you don’t get any credit for the good ones, either. And I don’t want to write terrible books, anyway. I want them all to be as good as I can make them.

You’d think that a show celebrating excellence in television would at least be entertaining. Well, you’d be wrong. It was the worst show in years (even if you were fast-forwarding through the worst parts, like I was), and my friend Ken Levine does a great job today skewering it on his blog.

James Spader over James Gandolfini??? Sally Field over Edie Falco?
Ricky Gervais over Alec Baldwin?? Thomas Hayden Church over anybody???

[…]You could tell Robert Duvall won for a cowboy movie.  Even while standing he looked like he was riding a horse.

The best acceptance speech wasn’t even aired.  It was Elaine Stritch’s from a week ago.  “I’m a recovering alcoholic, a riddled diabetic and I’ve got laryngitis – but I just won an Emmy!”

AMERICAN
IDOL “Gives Back” resulted in AMERICAN IDOL “Gets Back”. They finally
won an Emmy. Next year look for the very special TWO AND A HALF MEN
“Gives Back” episode.

There’s lots of good stuff on my favorite blogs lately…

Saddlebums, a blog dedicated to westerns, has more than lived up to its promise. It has quickly become the best, and most entertaining, resource anywhere about western literature in print and on film (far outshining the dull and irrelevant magazine published by the Western Writers of America). So far, Saddlebums has offered fascinating interviews with authors like Brian Garfield, Johnny D. Boggs, Jory Sherman, and Robert Randisi, as well as reviews of new novels and up-to-the-minute news about what’s happening in the genre. If you love westerns, this blog is a "must-read!"

Over at Murderati, my friend Paul Guyot is talking about How Television Series Are Created, from idea to pitch to sale (or no sale, which is usually the case). It’s very entertaining, informative, and frighteningly accurate. He should really write a book about this stuff. Between this essay, and the posts on his old (and dearly missed) blog, he certainly has the material.

Ken Levine compares the promos for the 1976 BIONIC WOMAN and the new one premiering this fall. I’m actually looking forward to the new BIONIC WOMAN…the promo I saw in the movie theatre a few weeks back was pretty good (as opposed to the one on Ken’s blog, which isn’t).

And author  Sandra Scoppettone pointed me to this interesting essay by bookseller Jim Huang about — what else? — bookselling.

Saddlebums is a new blog dedicated to westerns and it kicks off splendidly with a great interview with novelist Brian Garfield and a review of James Reasoner’s new book.

Author Sandra Scoppettone is having a dry spell or, worse,  is going through a bitter, creative depression. Either way, she’s candidly chronicling it on her blog. On June 20th, she wrote, in part:

How long has it been? I don’t know. It seems like months. It is months? Huh. Actually it seems more like a day. That’s how much I’m enjoying it. It being not writing.

On June 23rd, she wrote, in part:

I hear about the new upcoming writers and I read them.  Some are damn good.  I wish I could be part of them, in their grade, their class, so to speak.  But it’s no longer my time. That’s okay.  I had my chance.  Now, despite my wishes, which, by the way, are for the forty year old me, I don’t have any idea if I’ll publish again.  Or write again.  I’m inclined to think I’ll write, but that doesn’t mean I’ll be published. That’s not okay.  But there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.

On July 21st, she wrote, in part:

I’ve been reading a lot and I have thoughts about the books I read, but this blog was meant to be about writing thoughts, as it says above.  The problem is I have no writing thoughts. […]Here’s the thing: I don’t miss writing at all.  I have no idea how long that will last.  Maybe forever.  Maybe until Labor Day. […] I know I’ve posted about publishing before.  So what more is there to say?  We all know it’s only going to get worse.

On August 3rd, she had a one-line post:

The title for the book I might write just came to me.

And then, four days later,  another one-line post:

I now hate the title.

On August 12th, she wrote:

Why am thinking about writing this book that I’ve had in the back of my mind for a few months?  What do I know about the things I’d have to include?  Who would be interested in this? 

I’ve said to myself and maybe here that I would probably start after Labor Day.  That’s 21 days away.  On Labor Day I’d be facing writing the next day. When I think of that it makes me sick.

If I start in September and don’t have interuptions (this has never happened) it’ll take me four to six months to complete a first draft.  And another one or two to rewrite.

And then what?  Give it to my agent?  She’ll hate it.  So maybe I’ll have to find another agent.  Not easy.  Or maybe my agent will decide to try and sell it.

Nobody will buy it.  Or even if somebody does it will fall through the cracks and three people will read it.

Why bother?

I’m going back to bed.

I find her posts disturbing and sad…especially since her blog used to be filled with such enthusiasm for writing. It’s unpleasant to see her in such a self-defeating, bitter retreat. And I’m not so sure it’s healthy for her career to be posting about it on her blog…then again, that’s probably exactly why she’s doing it. I hope she snaps out of her writing funk soon.

UPDATE: In addition to commenting here to this post, Sandra has also blogged about it.

I’ve been doing some catching up on my favorite blogs today. There have been some fascinating posts on author blogs over the last few weeks about the writing life.  For example, Tess Gerritsen talks from experience about the pros and cons of big print runs…

The larger the print run, the better the chance the book will hit
national bestseller lists.  Part of it is just the visual impact of
seeing huge stacks of BIG GAMBLE in  a bookstore — customers see those
stacks, assume the book must be important, and are inclined to check it
out.  (Seeing only one or two copies of a new novel, conversely, may
make the customer think it must not be a very popular book.)  To sell a
lot of books, you have to display a lot of books, just to catch the
customers’ attention.  Also, if Borders has taken delivery of 30,000
copies, then their sales force will have an incentive to push that
title even harder and will offer deeper discounts to move the copies. 

If the simple secret to hitting the bestseller list is just to print
a ton of copies, why doesn’t a publisher do it with every book?

Because they’d go out of business fast.  That way lies disaster.

Meanwhile, Sandra Scoppettone talks about how good novels aren’t getting published because of the obsession with those numbers and the evaporation of the mid-list. Her musings were  prompted by a rejection letter that an author-friend of hers got:

“This
is a fine piece of work, as you no doubt are painfully aware, but I’m
not sure that we could convince the big stores to buy thousands and
thousands of copies.  And that is my mandate these days.”

It
just makes me feel all warm and cozy.  And it definitely makes me want
to sit down in front of my computer and hit those keys.  Not that I
intend to write a book that will make those big fat stores buy
thousands and thousands of copies.  And that’s just the point.

Who
is going to publish the books I write…the books that you write?  I know
the mid-list category for fiction is nonexistent but I didn’t think it
was happening in the crime genre.

The editor’s mandate.
Discouraging and depressing.  I’ve never sold thousands and thousands
of copies to the chains.  Most of us don’t.  We all know who does.
Ten, twenty at most.  And they’re the people who get major reviews and
big time ads.  Over and over again.

And Sandra has had it with the Numbers Game…she’s not going to play anymore. She’s just going to write. Or not.

I know the breakthrough book isn’t going to happen for me.  That’s
okay.  I had my chance.  Now, despite my wishes, which, by the way, are
for the forty year old me, I don’t have any idea if I’ll publish
again.  Or write again.  I’m inclined to think I’ll write, but that
doesn’t mean I’ll be published. That’s not okay.  But there’s not a
damn thing I can do about it.

I hope the next book I write
is good.  Still, it won’t be the kind of book that’ll make me a
household name or bring in loads of money.  That’s okay, too.  I want
whatever I write to see the light of day and make back the money I was
paid. At this point in my writing life that’s all that’s important.

On the other side of the coin, John Connolly seems to be one of those  authors on the verge of his big breakthrough. He is half-way through his international book tour and it’s catching up with him.

This week marked the halfway point on the tour – 29 days down, 29 more
to go – and the shift from the US to Australia. The first half has been
an interesting experiment in how much travel, etc. a body can take
before it begins to exhibit signs of distress. The answer, it appears,
is roughly 28 days, because meltdown has begun.

[…]Too many flights, and too many 16- and 17-hour days. My body is
starting to rebel. I have managed to tear something in my neck hauling
my bags from hotel room to car to check in desk, and from baggage claim
to car to hotel room. I felt it rip the way paper rips. At the moment,
I’m freezing it with spray, but the spray wears off, and at night I
don’t sleep as well as I’d like. I’m not much good for anything after
about nine o’clock, and this weekend had to bow out of meeting some
nice people for a bite to eat in Melbourne. I went to bed instead. I
feel like an old person.

 

Karen Scott talks on her blog about how much she likes sex scenes that tell it like it is:

I love good sex scenes in my books. I love books that call a cock, a cock, and a pussy, a pussy…

That’s certainly what I try to do in all my DIAGNOSIS MURDER books. Karen believes that sex scenes are required in a good romance novel. 

If the love scenes are well written, then I’m likely to buy, if not, I’ll
probably leave it on the shelf. Does that confirm every stereo-type out there
about romance readers? Probably, but I’m not here to promote respect for the
genre, so I couldn’t really care less.

[…]It
bemuses me to think that there are hundreds of thousands of romance readers out
there who pretend that sex in books don’t matter to them, when in reality, it’s
probably what they’re secretly looking for.

Secretly? All you have to do is look at the covers to know what the books are selling and what the readers are buying.