WHY ARE YOU SO POPULAR
http://features.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2012/08/29/cassandra-clare-richard-rumelt/
So, I take a walk down memory lane and something awesome gets given to me. Dungeonwriter, as always, you rock.
In case you decided not to read the article, it's about Ms. Clare. Rather than regard her with bemusement and the shadow of the old rage that she used to inspire in me, I decided to read what she and her father said. Thoughts below.
So, if you don't give this an in-depth read, if you just look at the picture of she and her dad, both rich and happy, you would come to conclude that her success is a classic case of nepotism. Once again, it's not just what you know, but who you know that can get you past all the guardians and to the people who can actually make the decision that you care about.
This is still undoubtedly true.
But you read the article, and you come to understand that there was a lot more playing into Ms. Clare's success than just her writing, or just her connections. You read it and you get a sense of just how savvy she really is. She wasn't afraid to speak her mind and set definite parameters for the success of her books. She had goals, and they met key criteria in terms of specificity and being measurable. More than that, she paid attention to the market and the adjustments that were happening there, and was unafraid of trying new ideas that panned out really well.
It makes me think, really it does. She didn't approach this just as an artist - she approached it as a marketer, as someone willing to develop a brand and see where it took her. Whether or not she deserves it on a moral level is another matter entirely; as it is, her success is the result of nothing less than a well-played game.
There is one part in particular, though, that digs at me a little bit.
CLARE: I think that there's an enormous amount that my father has influenced in my career. We as artists are actively encouraged-by other authors, your agent, publisher, and society-not to think about money, strategy, how to manage your career, how to create a brand, because we're supposed to focus on the art.
That's a very fair point, actually. We don't think about the hard realities of the art once it's left our hands. We're just supposed to focus on the art, on the love of storytelling, and that's supposed to be enough. It obviously isn't.
On the other hand, I think someone who's really new at this, or someone who's really insecure in the quality of his work (who, me? Never! Ha ha... ha....) would be in danger of reading this and putting the cart before the horse. Like it or not, love of story is all I've got. I can't focus on making my story sell-able or perfectly unique. It's impossible. A friend of mine told me about a short story she was writing for a podcast, and a freaking novel based on the very premise was released a few days later by another author.
Frankly, I think she's downplaying something that is at the core of writing in general - you have to have a story. And in order to get that story, you have to believe in it enough to sit down with a notebook or a laptop and bleed for however many nights it takes to get the damn thing wrote. And then you have to make the story bleed in turn when you edit and chop it to bits to get an editor to look at it so that they can kill it more.
I guess that for me, while the article is incredibly informative, it's not practical. I need a story worth bleeding for, and things like brands or careers or promotions or whatever... they need to wait until I can actually reach them.
So, I take a walk down memory lane and something awesome gets given to me. Dungeonwriter, as always, you rock.
In case you decided not to read the article, it's about Ms. Clare. Rather than regard her with bemusement and the shadow of the old rage that she used to inspire in me, I decided to read what she and her father said. Thoughts below.
So, if you don't give this an in-depth read, if you just look at the picture of she and her dad, both rich and happy, you would come to conclude that her success is a classic case of nepotism. Once again, it's not just what you know, but who you know that can get you past all the guardians and to the people who can actually make the decision that you care about.
This is still undoubtedly true.
But you read the article, and you come to understand that there was a lot more playing into Ms. Clare's success than just her writing, or just her connections. You read it and you get a sense of just how savvy she really is. She wasn't afraid to speak her mind and set definite parameters for the success of her books. She had goals, and they met key criteria in terms of specificity and being measurable. More than that, she paid attention to the market and the adjustments that were happening there, and was unafraid of trying new ideas that panned out really well.
It makes me think, really it does. She didn't approach this just as an artist - she approached it as a marketer, as someone willing to develop a brand and see where it took her. Whether or not she deserves it on a moral level is another matter entirely; as it is, her success is the result of nothing less than a well-played game.
There is one part in particular, though, that digs at me a little bit.
CLARE: I think that there's an enormous amount that my father has influenced in my career. We as artists are actively encouraged-by other authors, your agent, publisher, and society-not to think about money, strategy, how to manage your career, how to create a brand, because we're supposed to focus on the art.
That's a very fair point, actually. We don't think about the hard realities of the art once it's left our hands. We're just supposed to focus on the art, on the love of storytelling, and that's supposed to be enough. It obviously isn't.
On the other hand, I think someone who's really new at this, or someone who's really insecure in the quality of his work (who, me? Never! Ha ha... ha....) would be in danger of reading this and putting the cart before the horse. Like it or not, love of story is all I've got. I can't focus on making my story sell-able or perfectly unique. It's impossible. A friend of mine told me about a short story she was writing for a podcast, and a freaking novel based on the very premise was released a few days later by another author.
Frankly, I think she's downplaying something that is at the core of writing in general - you have to have a story. And in order to get that story, you have to believe in it enough to sit down with a notebook or a laptop and bleed for however many nights it takes to get the damn thing wrote. And then you have to make the story bleed in turn when you edit and chop it to bits to get an editor to look at it so that they can kill it more.
I guess that for me, while the article is incredibly informative, it's not practical. I need a story worth bleeding for, and things like brands or careers or promotions or whatever... they need to wait until I can actually reach them.