Water Seeks Its Own Level
I never really understood what the above aphorism meant--didn't water seek the lowest level available, subject to any handy pooling edges that might constrain it againt gravity?--but I was being literalist when the saying is supposed to be metaphorical. (Or at least I think so. A quick google reveals that everyone has a different take on it, and unless we hire a seancer who speeks ancient Greek and ask Aristotle himself, we're not likely to get a definitive answer.)
ANYWAY...I noticed two things in the past couple of days that made me apply this saying to writers.
First, I was posting to Miss Snark's blog and realized that I'm buds with a lot of writers who all broke in around the same time (within 5 years of each other). I have a half-dozen pals who I knew before they got an agent but who now have novels out from major publishing houses, and a goodly number who have recently signed with agents (real agents).
Second, I kept stumbling across posts from a number of fruitcake wannabe writers who get all hoppity if someone points out that their "very reputable" agent is in fact #8 on the 20 Worst Agents list, or that agents and editors have better things to do than coddle their egos, or that you do in fact need to work very hard and write a really good* book, not just a pretty good one.
And I got to thinking about as demonstrative of the dynamics of people. My writer-friends who are breaking in more-or-less simultaneously (in the geologic timescale of publishing) would naturally gravitate to each other; we all met on writing boards or at writing conventions, and we have something in common: we take writing seriously and treat it as a business, not a hobby or holy calling. We seek the advice of those who have been there before us, we trade information, and we mutually support each other in aiming realistically at one goal: getting published (and, I hope, developing a career as a writer. I'll do an update-post in about ten years).
Whereas the fruitcakes all seem to gravitate together, feeding on each other's fruitcakiness, reassuring each other that indeed, there is a conspiracy against them, and they are in fact brilliant writers who shouldn't change a golden word of their prose to suit some sort of artificial "standards" of the Establishment publishing industry. And that the EPI is really mean, and cold, and just chews up the hopes and aspirations of artistes and what's more, those editors get a perverse pleasure out of hurting their feelings, like big schoolyard bullies!
To get back to the water analogy: I wonder if it's possible to work it the other way. Can a fruitcake wannabe start hanging out with professionally-minded realists and become one? Or will the fact that he is a fruitcake make the others not want to interact with him? Or does the fact that he wants to hang out with them and honestly learn from them automatically remove him from the "fruitcake" category and into the "learning better" category?
Anyway, I think that the folks who aren't yet published, don't yet have an agent, but are welcomed by the serious writers, are clearly on the cusp of breakthrough. (Yes, I'm looking at you and you, Steves.) And yeah, how long you gonna hover on the cusp, I dunno. Learning usually comes in quanta, not continuous stream.
Anyway, I realize this is all Captain Obvious sort of stuff, but it just epiphanied on me today, and it seemed worth blogging about.
*Where "really good" = "More appealing to editors than 99% of what they see." What they consider appealing is of course a matter of individual preference.
ANYWAY...I noticed two things in the past couple of days that made me apply this saying to writers.
First, I was posting to Miss Snark's blog and realized that I'm buds with a lot of writers who all broke in around the same time (within 5 years of each other). I have a half-dozen pals who I knew before they got an agent but who now have novels out from major publishing houses, and a goodly number who have recently signed with agents (real agents).
Second, I kept stumbling across posts from a number of fruitcake wannabe writers who get all hoppity if someone points out that their "very reputable" agent is in fact #8 on the 20 Worst Agents list, or that agents and editors have better things to do than coddle their egos, or that you do in fact need to work very hard and write a really good* book, not just a pretty good one.
And I got to thinking about as demonstrative of the dynamics of people. My writer-friends who are breaking in more-or-less simultaneously (in the geologic timescale of publishing) would naturally gravitate to each other; we all met on writing boards or at writing conventions, and we have something in common: we take writing seriously and treat it as a business, not a hobby or holy calling. We seek the advice of those who have been there before us, we trade information, and we mutually support each other in aiming realistically at one goal: getting published (and, I hope, developing a career as a writer. I'll do an update-post in about ten years).
Whereas the fruitcakes all seem to gravitate together, feeding on each other's fruitcakiness, reassuring each other that indeed, there is a conspiracy against them, and they are in fact brilliant writers who shouldn't change a golden word of their prose to suit some sort of artificial "standards" of the Establishment publishing industry. And that the EPI is really mean, and cold, and just chews up the hopes and aspirations of artistes and what's more, those editors get a perverse pleasure out of hurting their feelings, like big schoolyard bullies!
To get back to the water analogy: I wonder if it's possible to work it the other way. Can a fruitcake wannabe start hanging out with professionally-minded realists and become one? Or will the fact that he is a fruitcake make the others not want to interact with him? Or does the fact that he wants to hang out with them and honestly learn from them automatically remove him from the "fruitcake" category and into the "learning better" category?
Anyway, I think that the folks who aren't yet published, don't yet have an agent, but are welcomed by the serious writers, are clearly on the cusp of breakthrough. (Yes, I'm looking at you and you, Steves.) And yeah, how long you gonna hover on the cusp, I dunno. Learning usually comes in quanta, not continuous stream.
Anyway, I realize this is all Captain Obvious sort of stuff, but it just epiphanied on me today, and it seemed worth blogging about.
*Where "really good" = "More appealing to editors than 99% of what they see." What they consider appealing is of course a matter of individual preference.