Charles Said
A Dream So Powerful
Last night’s main dream started out exhausting. I think of it as the main dream because I seem to recall snippets of other dreams. I know from other times that I often have several dreams that I remember in a night.
This one was the last dream of the night. I know that because I awoke from it, and it was morning. Like many recent dreams, chaos flushed the first part. I found myself in a crowd. It was extremely noisy. Everyone was walking, including me, but anxiety suffused me from a dozen different issues. First, I panicked about having my laptop with me. Then, after a weird struggle of turning around and looking for it, I discovered I was carrying a bag. Stepping to one side, I opened the bag and confirmed my laptop was inside.
One problem was solved, but now I worried about the date and time. I started walking again, but I seemed to be walking against the stream of people. Making eye contact with others, I asked them, “What time is it,” or “What’s the date?” Some answered, but I couldn’t understand or hear the answers.
That cranked my anxiety to higher levels. Around that time, I found myself at a crossroads between several corridors. Walls and windows were on either side. I realized that I was in an airport. It shocked me that I was in an airport without knowing it. Then I remembered that I’d flown in. Knowing that, I realized I needed to get my bags and leave the airport.
Nothing made sense in the airport, though. The signs seemed contradictory, and it was more crowded and noisier than before. People jostled me and ran into me, pissing me off. Somehow, I found the baggage area, got my bags, and left.
I needed to go to a hotel. I thought it was close and decided to walk. With a hot, humid, and sunny day outside, I was soon sweat covered. My feet hurt, and I was tired and thirsty. I also wasn’t sure where I was going, stopping to look at signs several times. I remember thinking, I wish I had a map, and I remember thinking about setting up my computer and trying to get online to find where I was.
I didn’t do that, though. I kept deciding which way to to and walking. Eventually, I realized that I was close to the ocean, and that’s where my hotel was. That excited me and gave me new hope. Seeing a sign for the beach, I went that way.
The beach wasn’t busy. It was flat, with white sand, and a bright blue sea. Walking toward the crashing waves with my luggage, I reveled in the smell, sight, and sound, and then stopped to enjoy it. There was a large rock off the coast about a hundred yards. I thought I recognized from my travels, but I couldn’t place it.
Looking back, I noticed a man in a black suit with a white shirt and a blue tie step onto the beach. I thought it was strange beach apparel, and that a suit was too hot for this weather. No one else was on the beach, so I wondered what he was doing.
I realized he was coming toward me. His approach made me anxious. I didn’t know him or what he wanted. Coming close, he called me by name, and said, “I’m glad I found you. We’re ready to start.”
“Okay,” I answered.
He took my luggage but I kept my laptop. “Is it far?” I asked.
“No, it’s just up here, around the corner,” he said.
I felt good because that meant that I’d been going in the right direction even though I’d been clueless.
We went around the corner of a building. I realized it was my hotel. But we didn’t go there, which surprised me. Without saying anything, the man in the suit led me across the street. People were lined up by a building. As I approached, some clapped. That confused me, and then some engaged me. I realized from talking with a few and looking around that they had a book that I’d authored, and were talking to me about it. They wanted me to sign it. So I stopped and started signing books and talking to people.
The man in the suit tried interceding. “We should go inside,” he told me. “It’s time to start.”
Apologizing to the people, I followed him, and then woke up.
Surprise and confusion filled me when I woke up. I knew where I was, but I didn’t think I should be there. Sitting up, I looked for my laptop bag, panicking when I didn’t see it, and then sought the man in the suit. As I didn’t see him, either, I realized that I’d been dreaming.
It astonished me because it felt so real. After thinking about it, I decided, what a hopeful, wishful dream.
Sue and Me
I haven’t personally known many published, established, successful writers.
There was Maya Angelou, met at a conference in San Francisco one year. Larry Niven, met at a computer conference in Europe while I was in the military. And there’s Ellen Sussman, met at a writing conference in Fort Ord, California, one year.
Then there are Lawrence Block, Orson Scott Card, and Sue Grafton. I met each of them in different years at writing workshops in Yellow Springs, Ohio. I enjoyed conversations with each, but especially Sue Grafton. “F is For Fugitive,” and “G is for Gumshoe,” were out and doing well, along with the earlier books in her series.
Doing well. Hah, what a cliche to portray that the books were on the New York Times bestseller list.
I was living in the dorms for that writing conference. I’d brought a bottle of white wine with me from Germany. Sue and I ended up at the same table in the dining room, and I shared my bottle with her. She’d just signed a big publishing deal. Her happiness and excitement were delightful to behold.
It was like that with Ellen Sussman, years later. She and Sue were fresh from the effort of trying for years to break through when I met them. As each put it at that time, “I’m living the writer’s dream.”
You know how encouraging that is to a writer striving for that dream? Yes, if you’re in any of the arts, you probably know full well the effort of struggling alone on your personal trek, wrestling with your demons and chasing your muse. There’s little encouragement. People often know you as that oddball who comes in with their computer or notebook and sits at a table, drinking coffee and scribbling or typing. Or you toil in secret, not daring to let light shine on your dreams of figuring out what’s in your head and spitting out stories and novels. Few know; fewer encourage.
All of these writers are met understood it, and were gracious and humbled by what they’d achieved, but Sue and Ellen were closer to it. The fire of struggle and the joy of catching fire still burned bright when I met them. I was happy to follow their success as it developed in the subsequent years.
I haven’t seen Sue since meeting her that year decades ago, except in newspapers, magazines, and on television. But her enthusiasm and determination helped me push to keep going and going, to never give up. There will be setbacks and diversions, and demands that can’t be refused, but if your dream is strong, you need to feed it and keep it burning, and keep going. It’s not over until you give up. That’s what I learned from her.
I’ve seen it in other writers, ones who I haven’t met, but whose story I still know. John Scalzi. Andy Weir. Kathryn Stockett. Lisa Genova.
It can happen. Just don’t give up.
Writing Time
I became a little distracted while ordering my coffee. That trite statement is an understatement. I didn’t know Sam was speaking to me. Looking inward, listening to other voices, I was experiencing the bloom of another writing concept in my head.
After ordering my coffee and paying, I drifted off with an internal sigh. This concept, too, needed to be kneed aside. I’m on the third book of a trilogy. Need to get it done, and then on to the etcetera of publishing. Once the trilogy is done, it’s back to the third of a novel in a series that’s already published. There are many more novels loaded in my mind in that series to pursue. There are finished drafts that require editing and publishing, and there are marketing needs.
Seems like no matter how much coffee I drink, there’s not enough time to write. Bummer, as I think “Mrs. Elf” could be a fun write.
Ah. Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.
Agents: Writers Wanted
Hey, writers, I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but there are agents seeking writers.
I didn’t know. My wife came across that this morning while surfing the net. “Here are two agents looking for writers.”
I said nothing.
“One’s looking for dystopian novels.”
Of course they are. Dystopian literature is faring well, isn’t it?
I’ve done the agent route. I used to subscribe to sources full of announcements about agents looking for new writers to represent. There’s typically a lot of unwritten fine print between the announcement and reality. It’s a lot like someone selling you acreage on the moon and then explaining what you really own.
I’d often check out these agents seeking new writers, and enter the discovery phase. They only represented Canadians, women, writers from South Africa, or Antarctica. They didn’t want these sort of novels. They did want these sort of novels, forcing me into evaluating my novels to see if they could be wedged into their holes. No epics, please. No dystopian novels. No dragons, swords, or fantasies, etc.
If I managed to convince myself that I fit within their narrowly defined needs, then I needed to address their specifically defined submission requirements. Some preferred a ten page outline with a ten page synopsis and the first fifty pages. A few wanted a paragraph or two in summary, and maybe a longer synopsis, and the first five, ten, twenty or fifty pages. Others did not ever want email or electronic submissions because they worry about computer viruses; send it to them by U.S.P.S. A few had their own application for submitting your novel online for their consideration.
Promised responses varied. Some agents stated they’d only contact you if they were interested. If you didn’t hear from them within six weeks, feel free to submit elsewhere. Some were iffy, specifying they would try to respond but they’re very busy, you know, sorry. More concrete specifications were sometimes given that they would attempt to respond in a window of time or by X number of days. Almost all were adamant, DO NOT CONTACT ME IF YOU HAVEN’T HEARD FROM ME. Likewise, most did not like simultaneous submissions, because, say you submitted to them, and they liked your submission, and decided to work with you, and then they find out that another agent also wanted you. You’ve wasted their time. That makes them very hurt and angry.
I read about the process from the agents’ points of view, too. Know thy enemy business. They cite the numbers of submissions received, the reading and time required of them to consider an author and their submission. It’s tough because they’re busy with existing clients and contracts. You understand.
Sure, that’s why I was contacting them, because publishing is a business. I submitted to the requirements and submitted to the agents, and tracked it all. Websites and apps exist that will track your submissions and the salient details associated with them, you know, so you can quantify the business process of submitting and being rejected. I just kept an Excel spreadsheet. It was as effective as anything putting my gloom into numbers.
I’m a bitter, cynical and impatient person. I struggle with these traits, and internalize my frustrations and disappointments. These submissions to agents were carbohydrates for all of these negatives and my fears and flimsy self-confidence. So, I quit doing that. Eventually, I declared, “Fuck it,” and self-published. Well, it’s not much more fun than the agent grinder. Publishing is a harsh business, just like any twenty-first century business.
So I’ve resigned myself. I write; I self-publish. Dreams and hopes really end about there.
Understand, I don’t hate agents. I’ve met some, and they’re very nice humans. They are all about businesses. I get that. That’s the world of today, and the conundrum that we ride.
A Pick-Me-Up
It’s an odd expression, a pick-me-up. Slang, it’s an expression for anything that raises our spirits. It used to be that it was about tonics or drinks but it’s moved beyond that.
For me, a pick-me-up can be an inspirational story, its use today. While going through the inbox and surfing blogs last night, I encountered a 2016 article about famous rejections.
I love famous rejections. Like many struggling writers, I look for those tales of famous writers and novels being rejected only to find publication and vindication. This post featured five famous that I already knew. Still, it was fun reading and a nice pick-me-up. After those five, a list of fifty more famous, successful rejected novels was posted.
Need a pick-me-up for your writing day? Check out Michael David Wilson’s column, ‘5 Famous Bestsellers That were Rejected (And 50 More).
Of Plans and Reminders
Charles French had a post on Arrowhead Publishing a few weeks ago. Its subject was creating business plans for books. I’d come to a similar conclusion to his ideas on my own a few years ago as part of my quest for greater organization, but his ideas had greater depth than mine. It’s always good to find something like that and learn more.
But after reading his post, I continued along thinking I’d begun weeks ago about the need for larger involvement in the business side of my self-publishing efforts. And after reading French’s post, I realized that I’d conceived many of the needs and ideas required but had failed to execute.
I had the dream. I had an action plan. I wasn’t acting.
After considering that realization with irritation and annoyance with myself that ended with a stern lecture, I answered myself, with some plaintiveness, as the business persona of my being, I’m not given much time or energy for taking care of business. The writer gets the most attention and indulgence. That’s followed by the husband, friend and son. Then the human gets attention (for things like time off, socializing, partying and exercising beyond the daily ritual of decompressing), and the editor, leaving crumbs to the business person.
I agree, I answered. Part of this is because I don’t to do the business side. But accept it: it must be done.
Okay. What can we do about it?
Well, like writing in the beginning and everything else, it’s about allocating time. I’d planned to give these matters attention – that’s why I was annoyed – but permitted my resources to be diverted into other things, important things like killing time by playing computer games, reading books, or playing with cats. Just as I do for everything else, I need to structure recurring time in my life for the business side of publishing.
And it is a recurring need. Publishing and selling books is as dynamic as any marketplace. As an unknown with no name recognition trying to learn the business, I need to work harder, as hard as an athlete trying to make a team, or a writer writing a book. As I wrote in a post when I began thinking about this, I Will Do Better, my efforts are meager and weak. It’s shocking to realize that I wrote that in the middle of January.
Once again, I remind myself, intentions aren’t sufficient. Just as writing in the first place, exercising, or acquiring and degrees, focus and application are needed. I can’t accept that, oh, I did this, and now I’m done. No, this is very much trail and error. It should all be considered as a first draft. Sometimes the blurb written and used isn’t working. New venues for publishing, distributing, advertising and selling are always springing up. If I want to expand my sales, I need to expand my efforts.
Okay, but I already knew all of this. I wasn’t acting on them. This was a case of out of sight, out of mind. Just as I need structure to pursue writing my fiction, I need structure for selling it. Moving the business guy up in the order of priorities isn’t necessarily needed, either. Rather, I realized that I needed to remind myself that the business side needs to be attended.
So I jumped into my Google calendar and set up reminders. Do this, do that. Check this, check that. And I set aside time via reminders to research and read about the business aspect of publishing and selling my own work.
Writing, publishing and selling isn’t a destination. Just like life and living, it’s a journey to be embraced and taken every day. Recognize what must be done but recognize it doesn’t need to all be done at once.
But recognize, it must be done and keep going.
The Fuel
I’m mostly a self-driven vehicle, writing out of need to imagine and tell stories, and entertaining myself. Mostly, I energize via reading what I’ve written, editing and revising it and pressing on. Mostly, I write from practice and habit, walking to awaken the muse, giving her a mocha to encourage her engagement, and then shutting off everyone in me except the writer.
Mostly.
But that’s all about the writing side. The damn business side is depressing. The need for accepting rejection, considering advertising campaigns, hunting for copy-editors, beta readers, cover designers, publishing venues, publishers and agents are all depressing.
I’m not nuanced in demographics and specific costs structures, operating margins, etc., of the publishing industry, but I do understand that it’s an involved, expensive business on the traditional side, and it’s a crowded field in the self-publishing and digital publishing arenas. I understand on emotional, physical, intellectual and financial levels about the difficulties with finding representations, publishers, sales and readers.
That doesn’t make me feel any better.
I read fiction and non-fiction to study and absorb others’ ways with ideas, stories, characters, plots, words, settings, beginnings, middles and ends. I read them because I enjoy them. I want to be entertained and I want to escape.
But I read other writers ‘like me’ for true incentive about writing, dealing with rejection, and why it’s difficult to solve the writing, publishing, sales and marketing puzzles. Writers are my tribe; we write because we often feel we must, or we’re addicted to the dream or the process, or we’re using it to therapy to cope with who and what we seem to be.
Several families co-exist in that tribe. One family consists of the writers who have made it – King, Rowling, Chabon, Frantzen, Erdrich, Collins, Lee, Green – how many need be named? We each have our writing heroes.
My family is that other one, the family of writers who write each day, wonder how much writing is enough writing, publish short stories online, the writers who are struggling not to write, but to live and exist as a successfully published writer. I spent much time with their words and blogs online. I take comfort in our shared misery of struggling. It allows me to say, “See, it’s not just me. It’s not just Michael Seidel.”
And that’s a relief. I often think it is just Michael Seidel. I often feel like I’m right on the cusp of making a breakthrough and then the moment is gone. It’s exasperating and debilitating. Yet, I sense other writers live in that same zone by the words they write online.
From them, I get my fuel. Because sometimes, I want to stop. Sometimes the muse asks, “Excuse me, but are we wasting our time here?” Sometimes the internal writer agrees, “Yeah, shouldn’t we just go wash and wax the car and have a beer, or volunteer for some charities, or go find a job? Wouldn’t any one of those things be more productive than the daily rituals we follow?”
But my family of writers and I all answer, “No.” I can elaborate, “You’re not correctly measuring what it means to be productive, that being creative and imaginative is more worthwhile to me than those tasks you ask me to undertake instead.”
We know this. Commercial and critical success is a matter of validation and pride. It’s driven in part by family and friends asking us, “How is the book coming along? When will I be able to read it?” They do not understand the difficulties not just in writing, but in getting published and noticed, of making sales.
Usually, we don’t bother to explain the intricacies their question deserves. Nodding, we just tell them, “It’s coming along.”
Then we add the exchange to our fuel.
A Year
It’s been a year since I collected my last IBM paycheck.
I expected a lot of changes in that year. I’ve been disappointed.
One bitter reason for wanting to leave IBM was my unhappiness of how callously we were treated as individuals. That’s my perception. Others may not share it. The work had become routine and boring. I was rarely engaged, and my circle of involvement seemed to be shrinking. So, I was receiving less validation that I was worthwhile to the company or that anyone there appreciated my work or efforts. Hence, I wanted to leave. When they offered me the choice, I took it.
Yet, being freed from employment didn’t do anything to enhance my sense of validation. If anything, the solitary habits I employ and my social awkwardness remain, so I’m just as out there on my own now as I was when I was employed, and experience even less evaluation. It’s tested my strength and determination.
I thought my writing career would take off. It hasn’t. I didn’t appreciate the hard work required to not just prepare a book to publish but also to market. I naively thought, “If I write it, they will come.”
My year of being unemployed, the first since I was seventeen, taught me how much I require structure, goals and a vision to keep me moving forward. I’ve been forced to re-evaluate what I’d established in the past that helped me succeed, and create new structures, goals and a vision. That’s all still in progress. I also needed to educate myself more about the writing business, something also underway. Frankly, it’s wearying.
In thinking about all of this, I resolved, “I will do better.” It’s a big poster in my mind, glowing at me all the time. “I will do better.”
Today’s writing session is finished. I only wrote about fifteen hundred words and edited some. The novel is becoming hugely busy. I reached the point that I felt like a puppet master getting entangled in his puppets’ strings. Pacing across the coffee shop with impatience and frustration, I gazed out the window and recognized, I need to stop today. Regroup and marshal my energies and intentions to proceed. It’s a complex novel, with complicated plots and societies, set in the future, with unique words, and yada, yada, yada.
Those of you who write will totally understand.
I Will Do Better
I’d been reading articles on success by Nichole McGhie at The Excited Writer, and how success is defined by Lisa Kron at Writer Unboxed, along with posts about believing in myself and being great, both by Jay Colby.
I was intimidated about trying to be great. I am intimidated about trying to be great. Who am I, to dare to think I can be great? Hell, I’m intimidated about trying to be mediocre.
I used to facilitate strategic planning sessions for U.S. Air Force units. The steps were about defining how the units viewed themselves and what they wanted to achieve. The mission was who they were and why they existed; the vision is who they wanted to be, which would be gained through their accomplishments. Goals were established and plans put into action.
Likewise, I used to write and conduct performance reports. While I’m unimpressed with the standard performance report processes and mechanisms the USAF and many corporations use because they’re rich with folly, the best part of the process for me was asking myself and my people, “What do you really to do? What do you really want to be? Who do you really want to be?”
This worked well. My teams and the individuals were stronger for the effort. The visions provided structure and discipline.
I did the same for myself for my writing endeavors. Such a vision is a powerful, sustaining force. When you’re tired, depressed, frustrated or bitter, a vision of what you’re pursuing is a magnificent catalyst for taking a deep breath, mining out some new source of energy and determination and pressing on regardless.
It’s done wonders for me. I write consistently and patiently, defining and re-defining my process as I learn. I’m pleased with myself as a writer.
I’m not pleased with myself with the business aspect of writing. As I’ve noted before, I had a vision, write a novel. Done, done, and done again and again and again. But guess what? As writers, editors, and publishers all know, writing a novel is the beginning. So while my vision was beautiful for being a writer and writer, it was not significantly developed for being a successful published writer.
I was thinking of all of this today. Using Jay Colby’s questions in his post on greatness as a starting point, I decided I would treat myself to an off-site and set aside a large part of a day to defining my vision for being a successful published writer. Along the way of thinking and deciding this, I considered my meager, weak efforts so far. They’re frankly embarrassing and depressing, yielding the results you’d expect from such half-assed mediocre work. That’ when the voice in me said, “I will do better.”
I know that voice; it’s my inner voice of determination. It’s not a wheedling, apologetic voice used while called on the carpet and groveling. It’s not a voice employed to mollify another, nor a voice of regret when I’ve been caught doing something another doesn’t like. This is the voice of one who has been down, recognized he’s down, and decided that he’s fucking tired of being down. I know this, because I’ve heard this voice before, several times in my life. Each time, though, it took a descent into a morass of doubt, self-pity and self-flagellation for me to speak and hear the voice. The difference this time is that I only usually answered with that voice only after others told me I had the potential to do more and be more; this time, I’m telling myself.
“I will do better.”
Michael Seidel, writer 