Happy New Year

I love new beginnings. I love picking up a new book and entering a universe where I'll meet new characters.

Maybe that's why I love new years so much. It's a fresh start on a new adventure.

I just finished writing a message to an bitter wannabe writer. He is angry because all he keeps getting are form letter rejections. He blames the publishing industry for being cowardly and calls the agents who've rejected him amateurs. He refuses to compromise his art for anyone and rages that his 600,000-word manuscript is being ignored.

I asked him "why" he writes. His response was eloquent, well-written and a bit schizophrenic (the way all writers tend to be sometimes). He writes for the joy of it, because he can't help himself and because he wants to earn money.

And therein lies the rub. When you're writing for yourself, you can write anything and any way you want. Your vision is what counts.

When you are writing for money, you must be able to adapt to
the vision of the buyer. That means, as a writer, you must produce what publishers are looking for.

I get so tired of reading posts about a repressive and short-sighted publishing industry that crushes artistic endeavors.

The industry isn't trying to crush anyone or anything. It is trying to stay alive.

The only other industry I can think of that takes as much flack is the filming industry. And, in both cases, the public is to blame, not the producers. We vote with our dollars. If we keep watching reality shows and Rambo 15, we'll get more reality shows and Rambos 16 through 22. If we buy crappy books, we'll get more crappy books.

Look at it this way. If you hired a painter to paint your house and agreed to pay him $5,000 to do it, you'd expect he'd paint it the way you wanted. If you asked for cream with black trim, you'd be pretty unhappy to get red-and-white polka dots. His explanation that polka dots were a part of his artistic vision probably wouldn't placate you.

That same principle applies to publishing. If a publisher asks for a 80K to 120K word fantasy, it's going to reject a 600K-word submission--no matter how well-written.

When someone tells me she has a 250K-word manuscript, I can almost guarantee I'll find tons of unnecessary backstory, tedious details about daily activities, and gobs of introspection. Any action will be lost in a sea of endless narrative. Some critics would call this literary fiction {grin}. I'd call it unsaleable.

I urged the writer who'd complained to decide on the purpose of his manuscript. He can write to please himself, or he can write to please his buyer. Hopefully, he's flexible enough to find a compromise that will permit both.

Otherwise on 1/1/09, we'll be having this exact same discussion all over again.