I had just deleted the comments that WordPress had identified as spam and was glancing through a list of my blog posts for the last few weeks when I realized there was one I had started and saved as a draft, but never completed. It didn’t have much in it. Just a video of a live performance of “Sign No More” by Mumford & Sons:
And some of the lyrics:
Love it will not betray you
Dismay or enslave you, it will set you free
Be more like the man you were made to be
There is a design, an alignment, a cry
Of my heart to see,
The beauty of love as it was made to be
And now I wonder what I was going to write about these. Obviously I was going to turn them into a blog post, and then I didn’t. What thought process was I going through at the time? It was in April, the cruelest month (no violets, just dead land). And there were so many things going on in my life and in my head. I remember days when I wanted to hide under the covers because I felt so overwhelmed. There was so much work to do, and it seemed as though spring would never come, warmth and light would never come again.
But this is an optimistic song, isn’t it? In some ways. I think I focused on it partly because I’ve always loved the original, from Much Ado About Nothing, which is one of my touchstones for how to tell a great love story. Between Benedick and Beatrice, I mean. Someday I want to write a pair of lovers with that sort of physical and intellectual chemistry. Here is the original, by that Shakespeare guy:
Mumford & Sons has turned it into quite a different song, of course. No longer about the fickleness of men, which was a popular Renaissance theme, but about love as a process of self-discovery. Which is a much more modern way of looking at it.
The first was that I received my copy of Asimov’s Science Fiction with my story “Pug” in it. Here’s what it looks like:
My name is on the cover! Did you notice? (I think the last time I had my name on the cover of a magazine was way back when “The Rose in Twelve Petals” appeared in Realms of Fantasy. That was my first publication, so I almost feel as though I’ve come full circle. I’m back in a place of infinite possibilities.)
There’s something I want to tell you about “Pug.” Asimov’s calls it a “gentle SF story about a group of Victorian girls.” And it is that (although slightly before the Victorian era – Georgian, to be precise), but it’s also more than that. “Pug” was written to be a sort of puzzle, and I want to know if anyone will figure it out.
If you want to try, I’m going to give you two clues.
The first clue is the epigraph: “Pug is flat, like most characters in fiction. He is once represented as straying into a rosebed in a cardboard kind of way, but that is all . . .” E.M. Forster, Aspects of the Novel
The second clue is the name of the main character: Miss Anne de Bourgh of Rosings Park.
If you think you know what the story is about, send me an email (tgoss@bu.edu) telling me what you think. And if you’re right, I’ll send you a signed copy of In the Forest of Forgetting.
The second very nice thing that happened today is that I learned my story “The Mad Scientist’s Daughter” is one of the five finalists for a Locus Award in the novelette category. Here are all the novelette finalists:
“The Fool Jobs,” Joe Abercrombie (Swords & Dark Magic)
“The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains,” Neil Gaiman (Stories)
“The Mad Scientist’s Daughter,” Theodora Goss (Strange Horizons 1/18-1/25/10)
“Plus or Minus,” James Patrick Kelly (Asimov’s 12/10)
“Marya and the Pirate,” Geoffrey A. Landis (Asimov’s 1/10)
And here are the Locus Award finalists in all categories.
Do you know why I’m especially pleased? Jim Kelly and Geoff Landis were instructors of mine at the Clarion Writing Workshop, back in 2001! It’s rather nice to be a finalist for an award along with your actual Clarion instructors. (Jim and Geoff, you have only yourselves to blame. You’re the ones who taught me all that stuff!)
So all in all, it’s been a very good day, even though I’m still getting over this cold. But I’ll take a cold for this sort of good news!
Yesterday afternoon, I suddenly started to get sick. Aching throat, runny nose, that sort of thing. Just a standard virus, but I was supposed to turn in a revised manuscript that day, and suddenly I couldn’t think straight. I had completed most of the revisions earlier, but I needed to go over the manuscript one more time, make sure everything was right. Because, in case you haven’t figured it out already, I’m a perfectionist. I’m not the sort of writer who can send out a manuscript, not caring whether the commas are in the right places. I don’t believe in getting it done and getting it out. I want it to be as perfect as it can possibly be.
So I emailed to ask for an extra day.
This morning I woke up and got to work. I didn’t feel well enough to change, so there I was in a pair of gray pajamas, sitting on the bed, reading over the manuscript while sucking on Ricolas and blowing my nose at regular intervals. And then sitting at my desk and typing in corrections, which required more Ricolas, more tissues. I finished and sent off the revised version around one in the afternoon. By then the cold had started to get better. I finally showered, dressed in jeans, a navy blue t-shirt and cardigan, and thought, what now? I was so tired that I couldn’t start another project, not right away. So instead, I got in the car and ran two errands. One was to test Coco Mademoiselle, because I had decided that I might like it as an alternative to Chanel No. 5, which is really for evenings when I go to the theater. (Which I have not done lately. Anyone who wants to take me to the theater, feel free to volunteer.) And because ever since I read her biography, I’ve been fascinated by everything Coco Chanel. This, by the way, is a sign I saw last week while walking up Commonwealth Avenue:
That was a frivolous enough errand for a day on which I was sick and had already put in a morning’s work. The second errand was to go to Barnes and Noble, just to walk around. I find that I learn a lot from just walking around in bookstores, both the independents and the large chains. It was nice to see books by friends of mine. And it gave me ideas too – for my own projects.
I know, that doesn’t sound like a very exciting day. And I have to admit that sometimes I get impatient. I feel as though I’m in the process of creating the life I want. But on days when I am sick, or lonely, or feel as though there’s no hand in the dark, nothing to hold on to, I wonder, when will it happen, when will I make it happen? And then I work on it some more. But some days, it’s difficult not to get despondent.
I’ll do it – I’ll change my life in the way I want to – because I’m persistent, and smart, and usually patient. But there are days when I get tired, and then I get impatient, and then I feel like doing something impulsive, getting on a plane and flying somewhere. It’s silly, I know. But there it is.
What I do instead is think about the life I want: the cottage I can write in, the friends I want around me and to collaborate with. The work I love doing. I know it’s possible, that my dreams are both achievable and realistic. It’s just that I get impatient and want it now, whereas I know there’s a timeline, and that I need to complete a series of tasks to get there. I’ll get through them. I just have to fight the good fight, one task, one deadline at a time.
After all, in this world all things change. And after darkness comes the light, just as after winter comes spring.
Oh no. What happened? Three hours ago, I was feeling fine. And now I’m sitting here shivering, with my throat aching, my nose running. Sick with whatever was going around the family this weekend. I thought I had avoided it, but I guess I was wrong. So I’m writing this post now, before I feel any worse. Hopefully, it will make sense.
Several days ago I wrote a post on the need to market one’s work, and perhaps oneself as a writer. And I got some very interesting responses. One thing my post did not address was how one actually does it. How does one market effectively, without becoming boring or obnoxious? And I thought, there is a formula:
1. Do cool stuff.
2. Give it away.
Now, an important part of being a writer is doing cool stuff and then selling it. So the question is, what to give away? But this formula does make clear, I think, that marketing is part of being a writer, an extension of it, not something additional to it. You don’t write and then do something completely different. You just do what you already do – in a way that is more accessible. Usually free.
Let me give you an example from one of my favorite writers, Terri Windling.
I don’t know when Terri created The Journal of Mythic Arts. I do know that it was a labor of love. She didn’t do it to market herself as a writer. (I haven’t asked her, but that’s my guess.) It was a gift to the world of readers – filled with articles, reviews, stories, poetry, and the most beautiful art. All free. But it did showcase Terri’s talents and expertise. When I was growing up, Terri was fantasy, for me and for many other fantasy readers – and aspiring fantasy writers. They knew who she was, and if they didn’t, there was something wrong with them. Now that she’s no longer working on The Journal of Mythic Arts, she has what I think is an absolutely beautiful blog, The Drawing Board. I find so many things there that take me away to Devon, which is evidently synonymous with Fairyland. And that teach and inspire me. I go there to live, for at least a few minutes a day, in Terri’s world.
I don’t think that’s meant to be effective marketing, and if it were just meant to be that, I’m not sure it would work. I’m not sure it would have the absolute authenticity it does. Rather, it’s an extension of who Terri genuinely is. But it does work as marketing, doesn’t it? If I see Terri’s name on a project, I’m going to buy it, because I want to participate in the worlds she creates, in her imagination.
I think that you market to people in the same way that you do anything else, as a writer. You entertain, inform, inspire. Show people things they want to see, tell them things they want to hear about, just as you would in a story. But do it for free. And if they like what they can get for free, they will hopefully want to purchase what they can’t.
So marketing is not just about telling people what you’ve created in the hope that they will buy it. It also involves creating something, whether that’s a reading, a video, whatever. That’s what I think, at least. And in a way, I think that makes marketing more palatable for writers, who have a difficult time simply talking about what they’re doing, or asking people to purchase their work, or vote for them at awards time.
Be creative, and give stuff away.
If you can do those two things, you can market your work and yourself. Without having anything to be ashamed about.
I’ll end with three examples of what I consider effective, very creative marketing. The first is Catherynne Valente’s trailer for her novel Deathless:
The second is Seanan McGuire’s Albums page, where I can read the lyrics to many of her songs and listen to some of them as well. This is the page that made me want to buy her CD Wicked Girls, which I now play over and over and over again. It’s one of my favorites.
The third is Rima Staine’s blog The Hermitage, which makes me want to buy her art. And also move to Fairyland. I mean Devon.
I hope you’ll love these examples as much as I do and support these artists. And spread the word about them. There, how’s that for marketing?
All right, I did it. I used Audacity to make a bunch of audio files. If you look at my Poems page now, this is what you’ll see, right at the top of the page:
I’m still learning this process, and there are places on these files where I can hear things I don’t want to: me breathing, for instance. (Don’t get me wrong, breathing is good. I just don’t want to hear it in the middle of a poem.) And there are places where I could be more expressive, places where I could be – oh, all sorts of things. But I’m learning, and each time I do something like this, I’ll learn more about the technology, about how to use my voice.
So, feel free to comment and critique my efforts here. But I hope you enjoy having poems to listen to. And there will certainly be more to come.
Long ago, I decided to celebrate holidays however I wanted. Otherwise, what was the point? It wouldn’t be much of a holiday if I spent it trying to live up to some set of societal expectations, would it?
So this was how I spent Mother’s Day.
In the morning, I asked for perfect quiet so I could work on the Secret Project, which is due on Monday. I still can’t talk about the Secret Project. There is only one person, other than the publisher, who knows about it and who actually partially inspired it. But I did recently notice something that the publisher posted, and that provides the only hint I’m going to give you now. If you’re interested, click here.
Then we had lunch, with everything I had requested: corn and pepper soup, roast beef sandwiches, chocolate mousse cake. Ophelia had picked out a bunch of tulips, and I put them into a white stoneware sugar bowl I had bought long ago. It had been missing its lid, but I thought it would be perfect for flowers. And so it is.
She has good taste in tulips, doesn’t she? Going for the dusky orange.
Then, I went to pick out my present. That’s another thing I decided long ago, that I was going to buy my own presents. That way, I would be sure of getting what I wanted. And what I wanted this time was a digital camera, because mine is so old. So I went to Best Buy, and now I have a brand new Olympus that can even take short videos. With all of its accessories, it was about $150, but I think of that as a business expense. After all, I’m going to Wiscon in two weeks. I’m going to need a camera.
Later today, I have more work to do on the Secret Project. I’m going to tell you about it soon, I promise. Sometimes, as I work on it, I wonder what its partial inspirer will think. I’ll know eventually, I suppose.
And even later today, when the house is quiet, I’m going to record some of the poems I have online. I’ve been meaning to do that for a while, and I should have some time tonight. It won’t take long.
I’ll post those when they’re done, and you’ll be able to hear me read some poetry.
That was what my Mother’s Day looked like. Tomorrow, more work to meet my deadline. And then I have to finish my teaching work for the semester. And then I have another deadline to meet, for the last dissertation chapter. It’s a lot, I know, and it may sound as though I didn’t have a Mother’s Day, exactly. But you see, this is what I want to do. If I had free time, time to spend exactly as I wanted, I would think up new projects to work on. That’s the way I am. Sometimes I think I get bored more easily than other people, or that I wasn’t made for ordinary, everyday life. What is this, I ask myself – this relentless drive to create, to become, to live intensely? Although if you saw me this morning, sitting for hours in front of the computer, just typing, you wouldn’t think I was living intensely. Unless you could see into my mind, see that at every moment I was creating a story, living in my characters. Thinking, feeling. Sitting perfectly still, only my fingers moving, but completely alive.
That was my Mother’s Day. May every day be as productive.
Last week, I read a book called Talent is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else by Geoff Colvin.
About a year ago, I don’t think I would have told you that. It would have implied that I wanted to be a world-class performer, which would have seemed terribly ambitious. And in my family, while people are in fact terribly ambitious, they never, ever talk about it. (I mean, my father is an MD/PhD and my mother is an MD/JD. And their children take after them in various ways.) When I look back at it now, I realize that I was raised according to the oddest standards, the standards of a nineteenth-century aristocratic European family. There were things one simply did not talk about. Money and ambition, for instance, although it was always assumed that one would have money (not that we did), and that one would accomplish at the highest level (well, we did that, I think). I grew up with the distinct impression that if your possessions were too new, you came from new money, and there was something shameful in that. That a woman should never call a man first, or accept money or any gift of significant value (unless they were actually engaged). I know, it sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? I also know how to ride horses and crochet lace. Seriously.
Where was I? So I was reading Talent is Overrated, which is a very interesting book about how anyone can develop world-class talent if he or she puts in the necessary work. The necessary work turns out to be a lot, about ten year’s worth of what the author calls deliberate practice. I’m still thinking through the book, but here is what I’ve gotten out of it so far, at least for myself as it applies to my writing. Here are the steps you need to take, to achieve world-class talent.
1. Know where you want to go.
Where I want to go is a writing career, of course. By which I mean a lot of things that I’ve written about before, so I won’t try to explain them all here. Let’s go through these steps first.
2. Decide what skills you need to get there.
The skills I need are writing skills. I need to be able to write a terrific story, poem, essay, novel. I think I probably also need the skills to market my writing effectively. I need to be able to do readings, create ebooks and podcasts, that sort of thing.
3. Practice those skills deliberately.
There are several ways to accomplish this step. First, you need to practice a lot, but that by itself is not enough. You need to practice in a targeted and effective way, focusing on specific skills that will go into creating the work. You need to find good teachers – who for my purpose can be teachers I interact with or writers who have long been dead, but whose writing I can still learn from. You also need to seek out and receive feedback on your progress, so you know what you’re doing well and what you need to keep working on. And you need to modify your practice to reflect your growth.
This is a lot, and I need to write about it more, separately.
4. Develop a deep knowledge of your field.
The book says that the best performers are also the most knowledgeable about the field in which they excel. A chess master will understand chess in a way that a lesser player does not. The same goes for a world-class musician. I think you see this among writers. I’m reading a book by P.D. James on the history of the detective story, and it’s clear that she understands her field inside and out. Stephen King seems to have a deep knowledge of supernatural horror as a literary genre.
What is my field? Writing – so I need a deep knowledge of the literary tradition and of writing more specifically.
I have to think further about these four injunctions, because they make me think differently about what I do. For example, do I actually engage in deliberate practice? I need to think about that one. But I’m hoping to write about it later in the week. When I’m a little less tired!
Theodora Goss 