I Prefer My Authors Dead

Posted on September 23, 2011 by Annie Neugebauer

Originally posted on March 17, 2011 at 3:37 PM

No, this is not some creepy, horrific, horror-creeper creep-fest. I love my authors alive, too. And I don’t mean to make light of those who have come before us. It’s just that, well… you can’t ask dead authors questions, that’s all.

And people do ask living authors questions, which is fine – most of the time. By all means, milk them for their knowledge. Everyone in any field should be so lucky as to get an opportunity to talk craft with an expert. This doesn’t bother me. Except when I hear a question like this, “Did you intend for the color of Falula’s shirt to symbolize her inner turmoil?”

Omg. Why would you ever ask an author if they intended for their book to carry a certain motif/symbolism/theme?

You see it enough to ask, don’t you? So it’s there. Who cares if they planned it? What difference does it make?

Any author worth his/her salt knows that people will see things in his/her book that he/she never planned to be seen. Maybe that they never even wanted to be seen. This is the value of interpretation. Otherwise, we would use a different word. Like maybe uncovering. Which is so High School English, isn’t it?

There are no rights and wrongs here. As an adult reader-by-choice, there are no tests for you to fail, essays for you to “get right,” or spur of the moment questions you must be prepared to answer in front of your peers.

I had this one English prof at UT who taught contemporary literature by authors such as Philip Roth, Toni Morrison, Lorrie Moore, and Don DeLillo. That was by far the most difficult class I’ve ever taken. It was the closest I came (ironically, it was also the very last class I took) to ruining my 4.0 GPA that I’d worked so hard for. I squeaked by with an A, but I’m pretty sure the fluid I was sweating during that semester was thicker and redder than water. But hey, I learned a lot.

The professor told us a story about how he was lucky enough to have dinner with Don DeLillo, which is, to be fair, a pretty huge deal. I know I would be cleaning house. But then he proceeded to tell us that he and the author stayed up till some ungodly hour discussing DeLillo’s books. And Professor Nameless was so excited to finally ask DeLillo if the deeper thematic considerations he’d been teaching to college students all these years were indeed intended by the author.

If you ask me, that takes all the fun out of it.

Each reader brings their own set of ideas, values, and backgrounds to the story. And furthermore, each reader has that right. I believe we should all be able to read a book and decide what the different parts of it mean to us, free of someone else’s preconceptions of such – even if that someone is the creator.

I might be in the minority here; I’m not sure. What do you think? Does it matter if the reader’s interpretation matches up with what the author’s intentions? Does seeing something unintended mean it isn’t there? Does that devalue the author’s work? You know my thoughts; what are yours?

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11 Things I Learned at DFWcon

Posted on September 23, 2011 by Annie Neugebauer

Originally posted on February 28, 2011 at 4:47 PM

Just got back from the con last night, and man my head is spinning. Not only did I get my first requests (yes, plural!) for full manuscripts, but I also got requests for partials, met tons of awesome writers and almost a dozen amazing agents, had a blast with my writing BFFs, and learned enough good stuff to turn my brain into mush. So, let’s make your brain mush too!

1. The Gong Show is more entertaining than TV.

2. The Gong Show is also the most educational way to study queries. I learned more about query-writing in that first hour and a half than I have in a lifetime of classes, critiques, and articles. Fabulous.

3. When at a con, agents are pseudo celebrities, but nicer. (You can actually talk to them!)

4. Thanks to a fabulous class by Jessica Sinsheimer: I can put myself in the top percentile of query-ers just by following directions, being intelligent, and putting in the effort.

5. If you wear a hat, you are more memorable. (Jeff Posey’s got it down.)

6. My friends like to sleep with the room extraordinarily cold.

7. Writers’ conferences (or at least this one) are an incredible value and well worth the money.

8. Holding a glass in your hand at a cocktail party makes everything easier, even if you don’t drink from it. (Something to make you look less awkward.)

9. “High concept” is almost impossible to explain, but easy to recognize. Not all books are high concept. This is okay. Thanks, Colleen Lindsay.

10. “Portals happen.” –Amy Boggs

11. If you really want something, it is definitely worth hoping, worth overcoming fear, and worth taking risks. Dude, just go for it.

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Horror and Terror

Posted on September 23, 2011 by Annie Neugebauer

Originally posted on February 19, 2011 at 7:10 PM

*Disclaimer: this is the horror-genre connoisseur’s post. If you don’t like that genre, you probably shouldn’t read this. It might make you angry. It might make anyone angry, for that matter. Fair warning.

“Horror” and “terror” have always been interesting words to me. They’re often used together, so obviously they have some connection, but the fact that they are used as a duo (as opposed to interchangeably) also signifies that they have distinct meanings. Otherwise, why list both?

I’m certainly not the first person to think on this. In fact, it’s been an ongoing discussion in the literary community since gothic writer Ann Radcliffe (author of the fabulous The Mysteries of Udolpho) first brought it up almost 200 years ago. Here’s what Ms. Radcliffe had to say:

“Terror and Horror are so far opposite that the first expands the soul, and awakens the faculties to a high degree of life; the other contracts, freezes and nearly annihilates them …. And where lies the difference between horror and terror, but in the uncertainty and obscurity that accompany the first, respecting the dreading evil?”

Essentially, what I interpret Radcliffe to be saying here (and in other readings I’ve done), is that terror inspires fear while horror inspires distaste. And furthermore, that the first is sublime while the second is despicable. I’ll wait. Go ahead. Re-read that.

*gasps*

*other people wondering why there were gasps*

*someone goes back to re-read it*

*more gasps*

*confused looks*

Okay. I’ll explain. You know that slow-moving ghost story that keeps you awake at night for fear of a bodiless man standing over your bed? That’s okay. Desirable, even. That takes you to new heights of living. But you know that movie that you’d be uncomfortable watching with your mom? The one that involves eviscerating people with a pocket knife? That’s not okay. That makes you a scum bag.

Horror-genre lovers, you may gasp now.

As much as I love Radcliffe, I believe her to be a victim of her time. Thankfully, horror creators today don’t share her qualms, although at least the most notable among them seem to agree with her distinctions:

“I recognize terror as the finest emotion and so I will try to terrorize the reader. But if I find that I cannot terrify, I will try to horrify, and if I find that I cannot horrify, I’ll go for the gross-out. I’m not proud.” –Stephen King (emphasis mine)

Why, Mr. King. Perhaps you’ve tapped into something.

I agree that terror, as a horror writer, should be the priority. I.e., causing fear in the reader. But I don’t agree with why. I don’t think it’s the “finest emotion” of the two or that it “expands the soul.” I think, quite simply, that it is harder to accomplish. Any Jo Blow off the street can gross you out or sicken your morals, but only the most talented can make you look over your shoulder, make goose bumps stand out on your arms, make your neck crawl. And thus the hierarchy is based on skill, not on some philosophical idea of one emotion being finer than the other.

I’m not arguing that gross-outs are noble. I’m arguing that terror isn’t.

And while I’m at it, I might as well piss everyone off: neither is romance, love, empathy, pity, bravery, loss, or humor. Sorry guys, but I’m just not buying it. We are humans. Emotions are biological responses. One is not greater than another, just different.

So by all means, horror writers should strive for terror first, horror second, and ickies third. But not because of some mislead notion that one will get them (or their readers) to Heaven faster. Just because it’s a way of narrowing the field. The best writers can accomplish the first, the worst only the last. Go ahead, scare the crap out of me. Prove yourself.

Disagree? I love to debate. Feel free to comment.

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In Defense of Daily Quotas

Posted on September 23, 2011 by Annie Neugebauer

Originally posted on January 26, 2011 at 9:35 PM

A writer friend of mine has thrown out some excellent writing metaphorage in reference to marathons vs. sprints. But to play the devil’s advocate…

The quota works for some people. Namely, me. And as much as “mull it over” writers might hate to believe it, I don’t think my 2,000 words a day are shit. Some days, sure, but everyone has those days – sprinters, marathoners, walkers, and cab-takers alike. Everyone. Saying that people who write more daily don’t write as well as people who write less every few days is like saying that people who run the marathon faster didn’t run it as well as the people who ran it slow. They all ran it, right? As long as you don’t quit, who cares how long it took?

There’s a reason that sitting down every day to write a quota with *almost* no exceptions works. Any (non-metaphor) runner will tell you, you have to get over the hump. Every level of runner hits it at a different place, just as some writers might feel exhausted after 300 words and others after 3,000, but every long-distance anything hits it. If you quit there, your endurance never builds, nor your skills. You’re running and for the first however many miles your body just goes, “Nope. This is madness. I refuse to participate in this senseless torture.” But if you ignore your body and just freaking run, it eventually gives in and you can run for miles. Miles and miles more than you thought you could. And every time you do that, your hump gets further along. Your endurance builds.

If you write every single day, your “muse” (whether you believe in that term or not) learns to show up. That part of your brain that produces new, creative sentences gets used to it and starts storing creativity at a faster rate. This is helpful. It means that when you want to write you can sit down and, without thinking for hours and hours first, have something ready to go. Mental note-taking becomes automatic. If you don’t write every day, which plenty of writers don’t, it’s not bad, just harder. You sit down and your muse is MIA. You have to go chase her down the rabbit hole just to put down a page or two. And argue as you will, that page or two is unlikely to be any better or worse than any page or two of a daily quota writer.

Trust me, I’ve been both.

I like to think of the daily quota as me and my muse having a running date. Every once in a while I might not show up, and every once in a while she stays in bed, but most days, we know where to meet. At the keyboard.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m a proponent of breaks when one’s feeling worn-down. Muse vacations, if you will. Any writer who focuses too much on the word count for the sake of the word count has got the wrong priority. Quality over quantity is something I think we can all agree on. But there’s no reason that one has to negate the other. There’s just not. I don’t have a certain amount of “good” writing in me per day that I run out of and keep going. It’s just about effort. Are you willing to put in the effort to make your writing strong, or not? Are you willing to (forgive me) go the extra mile? First draft or fiftieth, seat-of-the-pantsers or plotters, walkers or sprinters, we all want it. All dedicated writers want it. When it comes down to it, at least in the writing metaphor, speed has nothing at all to do with a marathon. Dedication does. And I think, in spite of technique differences, we can agree on that.

Posted in Advice for Writers | Tagged , | 3 Comments

What I Do All Day

Posted on September 23, 2011 by Annie Neugebauer

Originally posted on January 16, 2011 at 6:10 PM

I’ll tell you my very least favorite part of being a writer. It’s not rejections. It’s not waiting for rejections. It’s not the work. It isn’t even being called “a housewife.” It’s submissions.

I. Hate. Submissions.

I work the equivalent of a full-time job most weeks, in being a writer. I write for 3-4 hours a day (unless it’s a really good, fast day) 7 days a week. That’s about 25 hours a week. And then I spend about 2 hours on submissions each day. That’s 14 hours a week. That doesn’t even take into account editing and formatting and blogging and record-keeping. Throw in my 3 hours of critique groups each week, and hell, I’m working over-time.

I’m telling you all this not to complain (okay, a little to complain), but mostly to let you know. When people find out I’m a writer (which is not, I reiterate, the same as being a “stay at home wife”;), they often ask me, “So what do you do all day?” They don’t mean to be rude; they’re genuinely curious. I can understand that. So I’m explaining.

About half of my available working hours are dedicated solely to writing. The other half go to necessary, boring, mind-numbing crap. Hey, it’s true.

At this exact moment in time, here’s how my completed, unpublished works break down:

• 2 novel manuscripts- 2 sent out to a total of 14 agents queried, 1 partial in review
• 2 poetry manuscripts- 1 sent out to 1 poetry contest
• 2 short stories- 2 sent out to 2 publishers
• 8 flash/micro fiction pieces- 6 sent out to a total of 7 publishers
• 289 individual poems- 11 sent out to 4 publishers

As you can see, that’s over 300 works finished and always waiting to be sent and re-sent for publication/representation. That’s not even including all of my WIPs (2 more novels, 1 more book of poetry, and near-constant short fiction and poems). It’s easy to imagine how once I started becoming more prolific than my submissions it became almost impossible to catch up. But it makes no sense to me to stop writing to have time to submit. Writing is the whole point. Publication is desirable, but time-consuming.

 

The worst part of it all? That it never ends. If I got each of these accepted at the first place I submitted to, I’d be golden. But that’s not the way it works. I get rejections in the mail/email, and as if that wasn’t bad enough on its own, it means I have to send that same piece back out again. It takes at least an hour, usually more, for me to narrow down, research, and choose the perfect venue to send a poem or story. Agents are even harder. So when I get a “no” back, it means that piece goes back on my list. Not so fun.

If I were really, really rich, I would hire someone to handle all of my submissions. That’d be baller. Anyone interested in working for cookies?

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