novelist, failed writer, schmo
This video is based on my interview for The Rumpus with the fabulous Thaisa Frank. She said a lot of incredible things about the writing process during our conversation, but there was one particular thing about the “failure of the intended story” that really knocked me out. Let me know what you think…
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In this first episode, I (pretend to) talk with Elizabeth McCracken about the challenge of writing when you’re not obsessed with your project.
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It’s been a tough month. A tough month with very little writing. A month of reading at bookstores around the west coast and doing interviews and doing a not-so-great job at publicizing the release of my novel. It is amazing how consuming even doing a bad job of publicizing a book can be. I can tell you that I’m not a natural at publicity. Follow my lame Facebook author page to get an idea. (I’m admittedly better at Twitter, but if you follow me on Twitter, you’ll learn more about my drinking and parenting problems than any book news.) Even though there have been plenty of moments this month when I want to hide in my attic and never confront humanity again, there have been some fabulous moments too, like when someone grabs me after a reading and says, “I made my husband read your book. He never reads fiction. But he loved this book… even the weird parts.” Those moments are worth a hundred hide-from-humanity moments (which gives you an idea of how many hide-from-humanity moments I’ve had lately)……
While I get my head on straight with how to proceed after this book tour, I wanted to share the video I used while on my book tour. I billed it as a “MAKING OF… VIDEO” for my book. It was my experiment at finding a fresh way to talk about a book while still keeping the audience entertained. It attempts to address one of the biggest questions I get about my book: What the hell is true and what is fiction? It also addresses another question I get a lot: How the hell did you piece this thing together? (I guess a lot of my questions have the word “hell” in them…)
Consider subscribing to my second-rate blog either by email or RSS. Or, to hell with my blog, just check out my book. Or, to hell with it all, never come back again.
I know the book has already been floating around online and in bookstores, but today is the official release of my debut novel: A BRILLIANT NOVEL IN THE WORKS.
For one, I’d like to share with you the announcement by video (aka: I can’t help being pantsless any chance I get).
This round I have a short video with a bit of an update related to what’s been going on with me as my novel approaches the official August 14 launch date (along with, of course, the emotional baggage that goes along with any of my stories). I’ll let you watch the experience for yourself… A crying, drinking anteater can more effectively express the experience than any of my words.
West coasters: check out my event schedule to find out if I’ll be fumbling my way through a presentation at a bookstore near you. (ALSO! Note a few recent time changes on the calendar…)
And don’t forget my passive-aggressive method to get other bloggers to blog about fear and failure the week of August 14th.
And in other news: As former president George W. Bush once said, “Fool Yuvi into being a guest on your podcast once, shame on Yuvi; fool Yuvi onto the podcast twice, shame on you; three times and everyone should be ashamed about being a fool.” In other words, I had a great time on the “Mikes on Mics” podcast talking about the many layers to being “done” with a book. Check it out: Are We Done Yet? with Yuvi Zalkow.
And finally, a moment of respect for the great David Rakoff who died at the young age of 47 today.
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I’ve said before that I’m terrified about reading in public… especially this upcoming weekend in San Francisco where I’m reading with Cheryl Strayed to celebrate the release of her enormously beautiful new book TINY BEAUTIFUL THINGS. I’ve also admitted to being scared of how people will review my book once it comes out on August 14. Even more than these two fears is my fear that I can’t tackle my next novel. Or that I won’t be able to figure out where to take my failed writer video series. I’m scared of failing on all these fronts. I’m not talking about one of those fakey failures where everything comes out just fine a week later and I’m better for it. I mean one of those big messy failures where I’m crushed by the disappointment of book #1 and I grow too disheartened to write book #2 or make any more videos. Or where I start drinking heavily instead of writing or my marriage gets really rocky due to my paralyzing self-loathing. Or something like that.
This week, my friend Kate Maruyama coached me through yet another writing life crisis. So permit me to spill the borcht.
Now that my book is close to publication, now that I have a galley copy in my hand, now that I can see this beautiful thing right in front of me, I’m horrified. Because: what if my book is actually no good?
In this episode of my writing crisis, we walk through my take on networking as a terrified coward. But it gets more complicated because I’ve mistakenly succeeded in a few areas, while failing at others. More than other Failed Writer videos, this is an area of the writing life I’m still pretty undecided about — even more of a work-in-progress than other areas. But it’s something I’ve had to confront as my book approaches the publication date.
So here goes, Failed Writer Crisis #12:
I intended this video to be about the way I once organized my whole submission plan for magazines. I had this fancy pants spreadsheet characterizing my every step. But a few minutes into making this video, I realized how much I have changed over the years. Now there’s a wife. There are kids. I don’t have time to fetishize the process. But it’s more than that. I also see how we writers are so compelled to obsess over the accolades we think we deserve before fully maturing our writing chops. And so this video turned into a talk about the need to write. To write a lot.
Without doing a lick of research (or even bothering to read his book), I swiped Malcolm Gladwell’s notion that it takes 10,000 hours to master a particular craft. (Don’t quote me on this!) I just love the idea of that number because it is a damn big number. And I think it is roughly true. It takes a long time for most of us mortals to get good at writing.
And so here is my not-entirely-educated take on it:
You can find a list of all my videos here. And you can subscribe to my second-rate blog either by email or RSS.
There’s an aspect of the publishing process that I’ve been obsessed with and it has to do with the editing work I did with my editor/publisher. I’m not talking about the copyediting (which was also interesting) but the type of editing where serious reshaping of the book can happen. Let me elaborate…
