The Psychology of Writing

A serious post from Martha Wells.

“I’ve never had a book come out that met anybody’s expectations, and I’ve always felt like a disappointment, I’ve always failed the people who bet on me. This is a job I’ve been doing for twenty years, and in one big way, I’ve never been any good at it.”

This is more or less where I live, too. I’ve had books earn out, but I’ve never had one break out. I keep hoping, though. Maybe BLACK DOG will be the one that makes it onto shelves in Wal-Mart! You never know! It could happen! Lots of readers really love werewolves!

The truth is, it’s terribly important to define success in at least some ways that have nothing to do with any measurable criteria of commercial success. Winning an award. Being shortlisted for an award, whether your book eventually wins or not. A great review from Kirkus. A great review from someone whose taste you admire. A book on the shelves that pleases your readers. Or that pleases you.

And it’s terribly important to make a real effort to be happy for other authors who win better awards than you have (yet), who get more industry buzz than you have (yet), whose books are on shelves in Wal-Mart when yours aren’t (yet). A little jealousy, eh, that’s tolerable as long as you’re also genuinely pleased by the success of great writers who aren’t you. But envy is a terrible thing.

And in a world that generally focuses on the new and shiny, let’s hear it for book bloggers and readers who keep a little bit of their attention for great authors who have not yet had the commercial success they clearly deserve.

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This is a nice post on the post-publication roller coaster. I don’t think I roller-coast as much as some authors, but I still like this post.

“You sneak into a bookstore and just stare at the book on the shelf, trying not to cry. You see your Amazon rankings shoot up the lists the first couple of days. And even though you know — you know — not to get your hopes up too much, you do anyway. You get fan mail. You’re on top of the world.

And then, the buzz dies down. The rankings slip. Fewer reviews trickle in. The world has gone on to other new and shiny books. People are still reading you—but most are not reviewers. They’re not as likely to tweet to you that they enjoyed your book or post a review. They read it. They liked it. Or they didn’t. They go on to another book and you’ll never know.”

I never have an impulse to cry in bookstores. But I agree with this, basically. I do know not to hope for too much — but I hope for it anyway. I know buzz will die down, but I’m disappointed by that anyway. I expect every single author rides this particular roller coaster to some extent. I think it’s important not to take it too seriously when you find yourself on the downhill side, too.

Unlike Laura, let me add, I never worried that it might be rude to ask my publishers for sales numbers, but on the other hand, I never ask. I don’t really want to know. Eventually you find out, I don’t mean you can live permanently in that bubble. I know that THE FLOATING ISLANDS has earned out and that HOUSE OF SHADOWS hasn’t. But basically you do what you can to promote your books, and you trust that your publishers are at least making a reasonable gesture in that direction, and then the numbers are what they are, you know? You can’t do much about that. It’s better to just forget about it and write a new book. Which is Laura Lam’s conclusion, too, by the way.

Laura has a recent guest post that follows up this first roller-coaster post here. I see her PANTOMIME has been shortlisted for five awards, so that’s great for her. Hopefully that will do something to offset the falloff that plagues series. I do think the worry that PANTOMIME might draw significant anti-gay reaction was perhaps unnecessary. Surely readers can be expected to notice that Micah is not actually gay so much as unique.

Anyway, PANTOMIME ends on rather a cliffhanger, so I will be interested in how that works out in the second book, SHADOWPLAY, which is either just out now or else coming out any day. The Goodreads reviews look very strong so far. And the cover is fantastic imho — PANTOMIME had one of my favorite covers last year, and this one is also excellent. Here it is:

Do you love that? I really do. I think it is intriguing, beautiful, different and perfect for the story.

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Click through and watch this video over at Janet Reid’s blog.

It will take under a minute. There’s no soundtrack you need to mute. It’s just a short, silent little video of words, with different fonts and stuff.

You will probably like it even if you are not currently writing a book or thinking about writing a book or hoping someday to write a book. But if you ARE, then yeah, click through and watch the little tiny video.

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So I happened across this post over at Nathan Bransford’s, and though I usually like Nathan’s blog and find him thoughtful in his opinions, I have to say, I could not disagree more with the point he is making here.

Here is what Nathan says: “When people encounter the phenomenon otherwise known as “writer’s block,” what they are really describing is one thing and one thing only: writing stopped being fun.”

And then he goes on to give advice about how to get over yourself and write even when it’s not fun. Which is all very well. But he is missing the OTHER kind of writer’s block. You know. The real kind. The kind that honestly does crush a writer’s ability to write. The kind that Judith Tarr describes here

“For all those who deny that there is a genuine, gut-wrenching, brain-breaking, soul-destroying inability to get words of fiction down on a page, I am here to tell you in all sincerity: Lucky, lucky you. May you always be so blessed. And may you never slam head-on into that wall and have to hear that there is no wall and you are just making it up and what you are going through is bogus.”

What Judith Tarr is describing, and Nathan Bransford is missing, is writer’s block as an expression of serious clinical depression.

I should add that this is not Tarr declaring that writer’s block can arise from clinical depression. This is me stating that what Tarr describes fits clinical depression to a T. If you have ever feel the way described in Tarr’s post, then I hope you seek help for depression rather than waiting it out, because I’m convinced that depression is the underlying issue.

Clinical depression is not something that you can overcome by an effort of will. If I’m right that some cases of writer’s block actually arise from depression, then when a writer is suffering from this kind of writer’s block, it will not help to have anybody deliver well-meant advice that there is no such thing as writer’s block and they should just sit down and the words will come. Because they won’t.

I am not, happily, speaking from experience. I think I have mentioned before that my family seems to have lucked out on that particular genetic lottery.

But it would be nice if those who, like me, are spared the ravages of real honest-to-God clinical depression, hesitate to declare unilaterally that no one else suffers, either.

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You know, I honestly was not feeling at all secure about the overall structure of PURE MAGIC (which, you may recall, is the sequel to BLACK DOG, which is coming out in February.) I introduced a new pov character — and I already had two! I divided the plotline and didn’t really pull it together till right at the end! These things made me nervous, especially because as you fiddle around with revising, it gets harder and harder to tell whether the story is at all successful.

It’s not like revision is so very much fun, generally. And when you can’t tell whether the book is any good, it’s worse.

This is why *really good* beta readers are so extraordinarily important, even if they give you a whole lot more revision to do.

Sarah Prineas — who, as you may know, is the author of the MG MAGIC THIEF series — happens to have killer editorial skills, especially when it comes to characterization. So when she declares, “Natividad continues as one of my most favorite YA characters. Her voice is so great — I love her balance of sweetness and power and uncertainty. I love her fluffy pink bathrobe!” — well, that is a great relief. Especially when she immediately adds, “The Justin intro scene is terrific. Introducing a new character at this point is a really good idea.” Even when she goes on to critique his characterization — and I hate fiddling with a protagonist’s overall characterization, such a tedious fiddly sort of job, and impossible to know whether you’ve got it right except by sending it back to your beta reader — anyway, knowing that the basic bones of the story are working is so reassuring.

Especially when my agent, Caitlin, adds, “I loved PURE MAGIC! This one is particularly sure and strong. I like the addition of Justin’s pov and your action scenes are fantastic throughout.”

Particularly sure and strong? *I* did not feel that way. Whew!

And you know what? Despite the fact that both Sarah and Caitlin then go on to load me down with stuff to fix, that first positive reaction is the most important part. Because without that, I feel like, Is this even worth bothering with? But after these brief positive statements, I feel so much happier, even almost enthusiastic about leaping back into revision. This is independent of now having a much better idea of where the ms. is weak and how to fix it.

I mention all this because I just thought: if any of you are thinking of writing or are now in the process of writing a novel . . . it’s important to know that the process really may generate a predictable roller coaster. After finishing the first complete draft of a new story, I *often* feel that it may not be very good, that there may be huge structural problems that may not be fixable, that the characters may not work, that (if the book is a sequel) I might have missed re-capturing the protagonists’ voices. I felt that way with Land of the Burning Sands and with House of Shadows and with a ms I am (still) not supposed to talk about and now with Pure Magic. And in every single case, the ms. was basically fine. Even if there is always more revision to do.

Being confident of that is totally crucial for creating the basic willingness to continue messing around with the revision process.

Knowing that the It’s-Not-Working feeling frequently arises and has never been accurate in the past is one big advantage a writer gets only as she completes one ms. after another. Especially because I don’t *always* feel that way, which makes it harder still to tell whether the feeling is based on anything real. Here’s what experience has taught me: for me, this feeling — that at a very basic level, a story may not be working — is completely untrustworthy. You should never trust it. Or at least, *I* should never trust it. It’s important to let your (extremely competent) beta readers make that call.

Revision usually does not take all that long, provided you tackle it with some determination. I hope to have PURE MAGIC completely revised by December. Or no later than midway through December, which is when my month-long Christmas break starts and I like to work on something new.

In case you ever do need to tackle a complicated revision, what works for me is to make a bulleted list of Things To Do and cross them off as I fix things and never, ever go back to revisit an item after it has been crossed off. If you want to *finish* a revision, letting it be done is kind of crucial. You can trust your beta readers to let you know if there is something that still needs work after you have done the revision. But generally, if you work on, say, fixing a protagonist’s characterization, you will find that even if you can’t tell whether you’ve succeeded, you have. Feelings of insecurity about this are just another iteration of the unjustified insecurity that is (often) part of the writing process. Tolerating those feelings and moving forward is one key skill for a writer.

Or at least, for me.

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