Falling in Love Again

Note: the advice that follows should not be applied to marriages.

My manuscript is going to copy editing today. It's getting close to no longer being the thing that I live, eat, breathe, and dream about twenty-four hours a day. And that scares me. I feel like I'm on the cusp of losing a lover.

A writer friend of mine lost her lover a while ago, and I watched her become adrift. I remember when her advance reading copies were released — a beautiful middle-grade/young-adult novel. She wrote to me only weeks later in a dither: a prestigious review journal had published its list of monthly starred reviews, but the current batch didn't include her book. In the sort of meticulous insanity that only an author can exhibit, she had looked up all the other starred reviews, and had seen some with pub dates after hers, which could only have meant, in her tortured mind, that her book would not be receiving a star. Then she started to worry that it might not be reviewed at all by that journal, and went on to fret that she was not prepared to hear any reviews, let alone bad ones.

In comforting her, I came up with a bit of advice that has grown to become a personal mantra of mine: it's time to fall in love again.

When I was writing Syrenka (title change to come soon), I literally had the sensations of being in love. (In fact, I wonder if anyone has done scientific research on the hormones generated by creative pursuits.) Being in love with your own manuscript is an embarrassing thing, and I'm baring my soul by talking about it, but perhaps my example will encourage other authors to kindle manuscript affairs, and realize that it's a tool for productivity.

Here were the symptoms of my love: each day I wanted to be in the fictional world I had created as much as I wanted to be in the real world. I also had a wild crush on Ezra, the 1873 naturalist who falls in love both with Syrenka (a dangerous mermaid), and later with the main character, Hester. It was a healthy sort of crush, I assure you: yes, Ezra is so hot that it was impossible for me not to swoon over him myself, but mostly I wanted him for Syrenka and Hester: I delighted in shaping the early meetings he had with Syrenka; I took joy in having him spar with Hester and seeing her attraction for him grow; I was besotted when I discovered that he was protective of her. And then, in re-writes with my editor, Hester's friend Peter became a more substantial character and more important to the plot, and suddenly, unexpectedly (bonus!), I was in love with Peter, too. His steadiness and devotion to Hester made me eager to open my laptop every morning. He was the perfect blend of a geeky teen biologist, a physically strong sailor, and a loyal best friend. What a joy to write for him.

Lest you think I'm a pervert, it wasn't just handsome, young, male characters who made my heart palpitate while I was writing the book. The Scottish pastor — white-haired, wrinkled, and stooped — absolutely thrilled me. He was hilarious. He was noble. He was clueless. He was terribly, tragically flawed. I couldn't wait to write and re-write his passages. And then there was Noo'kas, the hideous, disgusting, deviant sea hag who tries to kidnap Hester and keep her as a plaything. I admit that I caressed that witch with language every chance I got. Even the settings in the novel made me love them: the trees and gravestones on Burial Hill called out; I wanted to be near the ocean of my book, to smell the sea, and look out over the bay each day.

Like new love, the feeling of writing a good story is addictive. I'm convinced it provides a rush of oxytocin that bonds you to your work and makes you want to be with it every day. The trouble is, when the book is finished and out of your hands, you no longer have that chemical coursing though your veins, and worry, insecurity, and obsession become your body's withdrawal response. When there's a lull in your writing, you move from a healthy romance straight to online stalking of your former lover.

That's when it's time to leap into new love — to distract yourself with another manuscript. My own next manuscript is just a gleam in my eye, but already I'm beginning to daydream in the most delicious way about the romance I will have with it. It will be the equivalent of a buddy flick: a Midnight Run, but with a boy and a girl. They will hate each other; they will protect each other on their journey despite those feelings; they will begin to see that the other is the one they can trust more than anyone else; they will eventually (maybe too late?) fall in love. I can't wait to be with them, and I hope my blossoming enthusiasm distracts and sustains me through the ups and downs of the promotional work, reviews, and sales returns of my old love, Syrenka.

"No Response Means No" is Poor Manners, My Dear.

What Would Emily Post Do?

My writing partner recently received a rejection from a prestigious literary agency. It was the Holy Grail of rejections: it was prompt; it was 212 words long; it complimented the submission as "charming and fun" (which it is) and gave an honest reason for the rejection (they liked it but can only take on projects that they are "wholeheartedly committed to and enthusiastic about"); it encouraged her to continue pursuing her passion for children's literature, and ended with the magic words, "We would be happy to see more work from you in the future."

At a time when some agencies have a "no response means no" policy, this letter is positively effusive, and it's a hopeful sign that my friend's early chapter manuscript is closer than ever to finding representation. The letter also shows good manners, which pleases my old-fashioned sensibilities.

How did the "no response means no" policy gain traction? What would Emily Post say about the scenario in which a person labors over a creation, crafts a polite query asking if the other person would like to read it, and never even hears back that the query was received? I'll tell you: Emily would be mortified.

There are cases in which no response is tempting: the query is addressed to several people at a time; the name in the salutation is misspelled; the salutation gets the gender of the agent wrong; the material is something that the agent does not represent; the query is poorly written, making it almost certain that the work itself will be; the same query, or very similar query, is sent to the same agency several times. (One author sent the Harvey Klinger Agency the same query every day for a year.)

It's true that agents receive hundreds of e-mails a day and would never get anything else done if they responded to each one in depth. It's also true that a good agent would rather spend time taking care of authors they already represent, or reading promising partials and fulls, than type e-mails to people they never expect to interact with again. And sometimes rejections with even remotely specific comments inadvertently engage persistent authors, wasting precious time. Moreover, all agents have experienced hostile responses (or occasional threats) when they've refused a query or sent a rejection, and of course they would like to avoid that.

I've never been an agent or an editor (and I'm sure I don't have the chops for it, given how slowly I read) so this is easy for me to say, but I think agents should respond to every query they receive, even if it's a form response. Here's why:

1. It's part of your job. You accept unsolicited queries in order to find new talent. Unfortunately, new talent is, by definition, swimming in a whole sea of slush. Some of the slush is actually pretty good but doesn't appeal to you or isn't right for your list. A chunk of it is just awful. Once in a great while your pulse quickens as you read and your hands start to shake — it's a manuscript that seems written for you, that you must represent or you'll burst. But even as you woo this particular author, you owe it to the "also-rans" to acknowledge their efforts.

2. It's polite. Civility exists for a reason. The less we have of it, the closer we are to the dystopian future of some YA novels. If an author responds to a rejection with hostility, that's when he or she should be ignored. But giving the cold shoulder to ninety-nine well-meaning people just because one jerk might act up just doesn't make sense. A corollary to this is that you can't have enough friends: the author you snub may become someone you want to speak to at conferences, or who sits on a panel with you.

3. E-mail technology is less than perfect. We can no longer count on e-mail messages to get through, or to bounce back as "failed" if they didn't get through. Thus, from the author's point of view, "no response" can mean either "no," or "not received," which is an agonizing no-man's land to live in for all eternity. (Note that tweeting the date that you've caught up to in your manuscript reading doesn't truly solve this third problem, since authors understand that an agent might not notice when a requested partial or full doesn't arrive.)

So what etiquette should we settle on in this busy age, when agents are swamped with submissions and genuinely working their tails off, but have too few hours in the day? I have a suggestion. It's not the personal response to each query that Emily Post might have naively preferred, but it's much more polite than "no response means no," and it will still save agents precious time.

1. Launch a dedicated e-mail address for queries only.

2. Set up an auto-responder for that address with a polite message that the query was received. Thank the authors for their queries and remind them of your submission policy: there will be no further contact from you if you're not interested in reading a partial or full; this e-mail address is for initial manuscript queries only and no other correspondence should be mailed here. Include a link to your web site.

3. Post your submission guidelines on your web site, stating that the auto-response (like the old SASE) is the author's proof that the query was received, but that due to the volume of submissions received you can only respond to the queries that you're interested in. And don't hold back: be extremely gracious in both the auto-response and on your web site.

4. Respond to every requested partial or full manuscript personally, from your regular e-mail address, even if it's a form response. "No response means no" for material you asked to see can't be justified in anyone's etiquette book.

Done! Agent is happy. Author is happy (or miserable, but at least not in agony). Emily Post, rest her soul, is happy.

Series Envy

Three books. Three years. Show-off.

As a kid I read the entire Baum Oz Series. There was something both exciting and comforting about knowing that the next book was waiting and ready for me when I finished the current one. Flash forward to my adult life: I read The Golden Compass so voraciously, I ended up doing the reading equivalent of chain-smoking The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass. 

These were both series that were completed before I discovered them, allowing me to pick up the next book immediately after closing the covers of the last one (no matter what time of night it was). I didn't have to wait for them to be written, unlike readers of the Hunger Games trilogy — who passed the time drawing fan art, posting on forums, predicting the plot, and generally hyping the heck out of the series by word of mouth.

Authors of series who write a book a year are in the same mystical category as marathon runners to me. I jog 2.5 miles every day of the week — I adore running almost as much as writing — but it is physically impossible for me to run a 4.7-minute mile...let alone twenty-six of them.

The queen of marathoner writers is of course Jo Rowling. I watched my kids read the Harry Potter series as if this were how every human being had experienced childhood since the dawn of time: each summer you get a new, exciting, increasingly lengthy book involving characters who are actually growing up with you. Each summer there's a midnight release party, and a movie version of a previous book. The summer after Hallows was published, they felt that the natural order of the universe had collapsed.

Readers have begun to assume that they're entitled to a book a year, or sooner if possible. And authors and publishers are somehow (don't ask me, I run a nine-minute mile) obliging. I know why they oblige, however: series have become powerhouses in publishing. If the first book "catches fire," so to speak, the subsequent books explode. The Hunger Games (#1) had an initial print run of 50,000, but Mockingjay (#3) left the starting gates at 1.2 million books.

It's not just the pace of series writing that boggles my mind, it's the authors' ability to write sequels at all. Do they have the entire story arc in their heads when they begin? Do they know the way each book will tie in with that arc, while still telling its own story and having a satisfying end? When they begin writing a sequel, how do they elegantly and subtly remind readers of what happened in the previous book, while creating an engrossing and organic beginning? How can they be sure that each book in the series will be a lion? That they won't just build another Death Star?

Without doing any research, I have a sneaking suspicion that writing a few great stand-alones is not really equivalent — in terms of notoriety, sales, and advances — to writing three reasonably good books in a series. For now I only have stand-alone novels in my story-idea bank, and they'll keep me busy for another couple of years. The reader in me does wish I could write a series, however, and maybe someday, with lots of training and a bit of carb loading, I'll give it a whirl.

It Takes a Galaxy

"With Galaxy," self portrait by Yosuke Shiga.

V.S. Naipaul embarrassed himself again on Tuesday. In an interview with the Royal Geographic Society he said that women's writing was inferior to men's, and he didn't consider any woman writer to be his equal. He went on to bully Jane Austen, presumably because she can't hop on a train to London in order to smack him around. But the real sentiment behind his comments is of course that V.S. Naipaul thinks no one is his equal.

His healthy self-regard transports me back to a dinner that I once went to — a dinner to celebrate an award. A very large award, but I'm not going to say which one. The recipient drank a fair amount of wine, and then it was time for him to say a few words at the podium. His speech was, as Burt from Mary Poppins might say, "extemporized and thought up before your very eyes." Lesson number one: if you're going to get squiffed, you should bring prepared notes.

He proceeded to tell us all how smart he was, and how wonderful his writing was, and how maligned it had been for so many years, just because other people were so obtuse, and how many journals had initially refused to publish it, but how this prize validated him, and now the world finally saw what he knew all along, that his work was genius. I'm paraphrasing, but that's pretty close to what he said.

The astounding thing was, he never once said, "I could not have done this without vital interactions with my brilliant colleagues," or "My family put up with my moods and absence for years, and I owe them everything." (His colleagues and his family were in the audience, to boot.) Lesson number two: acceptance speeches should be about everyone except you.

I'm heading toward the copy-editing stage of my book, and if there's one thing I've learned so far it's that this book will not be my creation alone. It would not exist without a staggering number of other contributors. Patient, devoted contributors. In fact, if the book were ever to win an award, I would have to make a crowd of people stand up at that podium with me: my kids, for starters, who pretty much wrote the outline, and never failed to pull me back from the precipice of lameness; my writing group, who read long drafts, wrote pages of invaluable comments, and even line-edited; my agent, who worked magic with not only her pitch but her diplomacy and negotiations; my steadfast editor, who asked Important Questions I hadn't even thought of, and mercilessly kneaded the prose. Soon, I'll have a copy editor to thank — the person who will have saved me from continuity blunders, anachronisms, and bad punctuation. The book designer will undoubtedly wrap it all up in an enticing package, and someone will create eye-catching cover art. And there are jobs I don't even understand, like the marketing guys, and the distributors, who will talk this book up as if it were the best thing they've ever read — I don't even see that group working, and I know I will soon owe them my gratitude. There are librarians who will recommend it to their peers and patrons, and reviewers who will call attention to it, good or bad.

If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a galaxy to bring a book to publication. I'm a cog in that creative machinery. And even though I'm the one who gets to go to the cocktail parties and the book signings — and the average reader will think it's "my" book — these people are silently, invisibly with me each time I make a book appearance. Unlike Mr. Naipaul and that tipsy academic, but perhaps because of their bad examples, I'll make sure to mention my galaxy every chance I get.