Catching Waves

Hi, everyone. It's good to be back at MGC after a nice Easter break.

Thanks to Amanda for running a great Friday slot! And plugging my upcoming novella in the Yos universe - Flight of the Phoenix - which is coming from Naked Reader in May:)

We took the whole family and the dog up to Currimundi beach on the Sunshine Coast, just north of Brisbane. We had a nice time catching waves and running about on the sand.

While the surf was not excellent, the water temperature was perfect. It made it worth getting in even when it was a little windy or overcast.

Catching waves - body surfing - is a favourite pastime of mine from way back. My family used to own a fibro holiday shack at Palm Beach on the Gold Coast (Queensland), and we used to go down in late spring every year.

Learning to judge a wave is really an art. The way it looks, the feel of the water drawing back across your legs and body. You get the feel of the power of it, when and how it will break, and whether it stands any chance of taking you down to the edge of the sand.

There are those perfect waves - the ones where all you have to do is get yourself in the right place at the right time and jump on board. You need to do little but enjoy the ride.

Then there are the rest of the waves. Some just do not have enough power to take you anywhere, but there are a lot of waves that may not have enough power to pick you up, but will get you through the surf if you give them a bit of a hand - paddle and swim furiously enough to stay on board until they break and the water gets shallow enough to give them extra speed.

I think publishing - and success in general - is a lot like catching waves. What you start out looking for is that perfect wave. Being in the right place at the right time. Some people get lucky and actually catch it. They sit back and enjoy the ride. And there is nothing like whizzing past all the other people in the surf with a wave like that at your back - you feel like a king.

Then after the perfect wave fails to appear, or for one reason or another you were in the wrong place to catch it, you realise that the real way to get back to beach is to catch any damn wave at all and just swim like hell!

At one point I was watching a television documentary about the 'hot' actors of the 1980s and 'where are they now'. It was fascinating. All these guys were at the top. Most were talented.

Yet the ones that really stayed at the top were the ones who worked. They might have had even more flops than the young guns who ended up in B-grade - but they had twice as many that worked! They were not afraid to take roles, and even if the role stunk they damn well gave it there all. They put away the pride and did not let the fact that they were 'hot' stop them from experimenting, taking risks and generally putting their hand up for just about everything - even if their 'hip' contemporaries sneered at similar roles as being beneath them, or not lucrative enough.

Anyway. I guess what I am trying to say is you never know where a particular piece of work or project might lead. At one point I sweated for months over a SF novella - The Eyes of Erebus. Like everyone else I dreamed of publication in Asimovs, or maybe Analog. In the end I could not sell the damn thing anywhere. Then I got an offer to publish it electronically in the Daikaiju series put together by Robert Hood and Robin Pen. I really vacillated. Then in the end I just thought. Why not? It's getting it out there.

In the end the editors decided to publish it in print in Daikaiju 2: Revenge of the Giant Monsters. The story then went on to be short-listed for the Aurealis Award in the SF category.

Have you ever been surprised by a story that led to unexpected success?

Telling Fortunes

Cross my palm with silver. More silver. Um... let’s try platinum.

Oh, there it is, I see now. The future is coming into focus: Any of you who really want to be successful at writing and who are willing to fight enough for it, will make it. Oh, there will be setbacks. There will be blows of fate. And, yes, you’ll make mistakes (probably many) but you will eventually make it. If you live long enough. And if there is still a publishing industry.

Why all the weasel words? Because there is no fate. It is all in your hands.

I’ve told everyone I’ve mentored that writing is one of the most “superstition inducing” professions there is, because so little is in our hands. So, if you’re one of my fledgelings, right about now you’re scratching your head and going “Sarah, you have, as they say, zee issues.”

Yes. Comes with the territory. But what I’ve said isn’t necessarily contradictory.

Let me explain. Yesterday I caught myself thinking “If only I could have gone back and told my idiot twenty something year old self that I would eventually get published. How much anguish I’d have saved.” And then I stopped, because what I’d just thought smacks of fatalism, of resignation, of a pre-scripted future. For just a moment, I was in that place where I was born to be or do something; where I would have become that regardless.

I won’t go into why this view – regardless of what some scientists think – must be wrong. The short of it is that it would require the belief in an all-controlling (and dumb) divinity. Any scientific theory that requires Deus ex Machina, isn’t. No, not particularly going to argue it. Not here. There will be a blog on this in the future but not here.

Instead, I’ll go into why it’s so prevalent in writers’ (and other artists’) minds. First, it’s because most of us are in the grip of a compulsion. Surely we can’t want to do this so much if it’s wrong. Second, it’s because it absolves us from our failures.

Heaven knows that half the time in this field, the failures really aren’t our fault. As Dave has mentioned several times, you can’t attribute every crash to drivers’ error. There are a lot of factors influencing this unstable situation. That, of course, is the other end of it. Sometimes, no mater how hard you fight, you are doomed. And in retrospect, it seems inevitable.

The thing is that writing is not “all your money behind one horse.” Oh, sure, if you only ever write one novel, and it can’t succeed for whatever reason, you will fail. The question is “Why do you only write a novel?” “How much can you want to make it, if you only write one novel?” Yeah, it might be the best novel in the whole dang world. It still won’t make it, if it’s something no one wants to read/publish right then. You keep on trying and you’re not being defeated by fate. You’re being defeated by you.

Take it from me – you will make it as far as as you want to make it, dependent on how hard you’re willing to work.

This comes prettily from an almost unlimitedly ambitious writer who isn’t even a NYT bestseller yet, doesn’t it? Sure does. Because it's doable. Eventually. If I live long enough. And there have been times along the way when the world not only wasn’t my oyster – it wasn’t even my kumquat with mustard on the side. That I haven’t got there yet is a function of “How hard I’m willing to try.” In my case, two factors have forced me to take – shall we say? – the scenic route: a) the one thing I will not sacrifice to writing is my boys’ future. This means times when I should have pushed hard were “wasted” shepherding them through childish issues and teen angst. (Not their fault. I signed up for it. Glad I did it too.) b) I don’t work as hard at self promoting as 99% of authors. This will have to change. I know it will have to change. But it goes against a basic part of my personality (yes, the lazy part, smarty. True to an extent. Writing is far more of a pleasure than promoting, so I write more than I promote.) and those can take time to defeat. It can be done, it’s just takes a long time.

Are you really whining “but what if I don’t have enough talent?” Right. Because that’s the operational quality. You sit down, you breathe deep and writing flows from your fingertips IF you have the magical thing “talent.” Look... I won’t deny there’s such a thing as “talent.” I.e. by inclination and character, you do some things more easily. For me, that’s characters. But to compensate, I’ve fought EVERY inch of the way for plot and I don’t flatter myself I’m any better than “solid midlist” on THAT (Except for the last submitted book, Sword and Blood.) I don’t know anyone – not a single professionally published author – who is naturally good at the many parts that make a successful novel. Besides, come on, so far as there’s talent and you can discern it, read the bestseller list. You’ll come across at least two at any given time who have NO discernable talent. But they made it. Now, yeah, maybe they were golden children, raised up by fate with no struggle. However, my guess is if it looks that way, they’re REALLY good liars.

So, this is the bad news: you’re not fated to be a massive bestseller. These are the good news: You’re not fated to be ANYTHING. The future is wide open and even if at times it looks like the south end of a northbound donkey, it is open to change.

And now, like any good fortune teller I want you to open up so I can advise you (Only if you answer me, I suspect you can advise you after ;) ): What are your fears? What do you think can block you forever? What are your limiting factors? What will you not sacrifice to your writing, no matter what? What is your special talent? What do you know you suck at? How do you plan to get better at that? AND – for fun – what is your ridiculous superstition which you know is nonsense but makes you feel “safer” as you’re on your way? (My own security blanket in this area is that if I eat at Pete’s Kitchen in Denver, I sell something. Might be a short story, mind. Or Japanese rights. But I sell something. So far, so good.)