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| how you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar? It's really true. People, for the most part, really do respond to kindness. It's not really a new idea, I know, but I think it's one that's overlooked - especially in the heat of a conflict. I tend to want to convince people with force of logic, but that doesn't work nearly as well as being nice. They say that nice guys finish last, but I'm not sure that's accurate. Maybe the spirit of that saying is correct - that one should be assertive in pursuing one's goals, but you can be assertive and nice at the same time. In fact, I would argue that assertiveness + niceness is a better formula for success than just niceness. So, from now on, if I really need something done or I have some sort of complaint I need resolved, I'm going to go with kindness first. | | |
| before going any further let me just say that I realize that I am currently on the borders of fantasy land. However, I had a great conference yesterday. Just great on many levels.
First, I got to rub shoulders with other aspiring writers. Share war stories. Trade glimpses of battle scars. And you know what? I'm not nuts. Aspiring writers everywhere are going through exactly the same kind I've thing I've been going through for years. There's trying to keep everything in balance. There's the constant self doubt. There's the complete naiveté about what goes into selling a book. And there's this constant urge to do it.
Side note - I tried to put this off for about ten years thinking that it was just a waste of time. I now feel that I wasted ten years. If you have an urge to create via some medium, do it. No excuses. If you need permission, consider it granted.
Second, I got to pitch my book to agents. In another entry, I mentioned that my current track record on the query letter path is 1 request for more material out of 6 query letters, and that 1 request for more turned out to be a scammer. Yesterday, I pitched 7 agents face to face and got 6 requests for more material. I'm at the front of the line for the "next step". I even got to talk to one about my next project, and he was very interested in that.
So, instead of having to wait for months and months while interns read my query letters, I bypass all of that and have the agent look at my material directly. Best 100 bucks I ever spent. I plan on doing one of these a year for the rest of my life.
Now, to the tempering expectations part. It is most likely that all six of these agents will look at it, pass on it, and never call me back. If I can get a rejection with some helpful notes on it, then I will consider that a success. There's a long, hard, uncertain slog in front of me, but I got a little encouragement yesterday to continue on the journey. I needed it, and I will unashamedly accept it.
One agent made the comment that the idea was good enough to be agented. It all depends on my writing. She said if my writing is good, I will get an agent. So, here's hoping I can sling sentences well enough to get some agent to turn a page.
And, even if I got an agent, there's no guarantee of publication. That's another set of infinitesimal odds to beat.
But, having looked around at where I've been, where I'm at, where I'm going, what I've learned, I'm more comfortable saying I'm a writer. I am a writer. An unpublished writer, but a writer.
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| craft of story writing. For awhile, I've been hung up on the plot of my stories or on the thematic content. But, the thing is, characters are what drive a story. I was writing ass-backwards. The reason I was writing ass-backwards is because I was writing like I read (or like I study literature). For example, I've been taught in my English classes to analyze characters for thematic content or analyze plot for the same. The reason for this method, of course, is that the whole point of analyzing literature is to pull out the themes. But, in writing the story, you can't start with the theme or the plot. You have to start with the characters. Sure, something has to happen to your characters (plot), but if people fail to relate to the characters, they aren't going to care much what happens to them. It's not so much that the readers have to necessarily have an emotional connection to the people in the story, but they should at least find them real enough to suspend disbelief. That's the magic of fiction - pitching something that will seduce your readers into suspending that part of the brain that demands cold hard reality. So, I'm working on writing better characters and letting them decide where the story should go. | | |
| The BookExpo writer's conference in NYC. As part of the event, I get three (count 'em - three) minutes to pitch my book to an agent. Heady times. I've been revising my book again (as well as writing another one - although I've kind of let that one cool for a moment). I think my big weakness is character. That's a horrible weakness to have, actually. You can get by with a weak plot if you have good characters. The key, I think, is making them real, flesh and blood without making them characatures. I wonder if my weakness at character development means I'm stunted emotionally. I dunno. Still, I'm trying to do better. I don't want to say that my story is filled with 2D characters. There are a few in there who I like, but there are a few that are still a little to papery for my tastes. So I revise. Slowly but surely I'm slogging it out. I'm still going to the writer's conference - even if my book needs work. I think going to at least one of those things a year is going to be important if I want to develop my writing. The problem, of course, is real life crowding out the creative life. It's a tough balance to strike, and I'm really out of whack right now. Discipline has never been my strong suit. | | |
| I find that there are certain tools one uses at the poker table that come in handy in life. Not that I'm a big poker player or anything. I'm not. I play maybe once a quarter or so. Still, I've noticed that the game maps to life pretty easily - much better than chess anyway. Chess is a game of hard logic and determined consequences. If this, then that. If this, then that. Most humans (well at least the ones who play a lot of chess) do not think this way. Rather, they see patterns in the board and act based on those. Humans use heuristics. Machines typically use brute force. The soul of chess is brute force logic which is why the best machines are better than the best humans. Poker is about probability and psychology. You must reason probabilistically at the table, and so a knowledge of probabilities helps you make better decisions. The same is true in a lot of life situations, I think. Our experience of life is probabilistic. We seldom have complete information, so we must reason based on likely outcomes. At the table, you must learn the way your opponents play and act accordingly. The way you play against player X is different than the way you play against player Y. So, recognizing patterns of human behavior is important. The same is true in a lot of life scenarios. People are unique and must be approached differently. Between probabilistic reasoning and learning people, most of the time you can come to a good outcome. But life is not so clean cut as that. You can reason correctly, and read a person beautifully and still lose. Your intentions might be great, but you can still do evil. That's cards. That's life. This is why I want to teach my kids to play poker. I think it will help them deal with the world in the long run. It probably won't do anything for them on a deeper level, but I do think it gives good practice for a business/work mindset. | | |
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