What Happened Next

by Janis Patterson

I have always been a story-teller. My mother could have vouched for that. I was an expert at giving a positive spin to whatever was under question at the moment, which was usually some mischief on my part. I (almost) never told a direct lie, but could usually twist the truth to my own ends. Mother caught on quickly and acted accordingly – and sometimes vigorously. Still she always said it came from growing up in the family advertising agency and the genetic consequences of being at least a third generation wordsmith. (We aren’t sure about the preceding generations – for all I know, our disposition for hyperverbosity could go all the way back to Chaucer, practically if not genetically!)

However, as I grew and learned the hard way the errors of my ways, my storytelling took a more salubrious turn. Never popular in school and always regarded as somewhat snobbish and geeky, I learned that I could draw people to me with my story-telling. It wasn’t the norm for a fourth or fifth or sixth grader to write, so that made me stand out and become marginally acceptable. I took to telling my ongoing ‘novel’ to my tablemates at lunch (big mistake, as I later learned), always ending on a high note so that they would all exclaim “But what happened next?”

That was a ‘novel’ which – in spirit, at least – would have done justice to Charles Dickens. Every lunchtime narration was full of derring-do, improbable escapes, danger, high romance (at least, what elementary school kids in those days thought of as high romance) and all kinds of excitement and cliff-hangers. That novel kept me semi-popular (at least tolerated) all the way through to spring, when we moved and I went to another school. One, I might add, sadly less interested in literary outpourings however exciting. Sigh. I didn’t play football or cheerlead or have a rich family, so I faded back into unpopular snobbish geekiness.

I did learn two important lessons from that exercise, though. First of all, always keep the reader wondering What Happened Next? No, you don’t have to have a cliff-hanger end to every chapter (though that is effective if not overdone) and you don’t have to keep the emotional burner on high with every word (though that can be effective, too, if used with proper discretion). Now I prefer a balanced effect – lows and highs on every front. Think of a symphony, and how boring it would be if it were played at the same volume and tempo all the way through. You’d lose your listeners pretty quick. It’s the same with a book – vary the intensity and the timing and your bursts of emotionalism/adventure/whatever. Keep the reader asking What Happened Next?

The other lesson learned became one of my personal mantras – Write, Don’t Talk. Every time you talk about your story, you diffuse a little of the energy, the spark, the originality of it. That belongs on the paper (screen?) not in your mouth. Put all that passion and vibrancy into the book itself – don’t beat it to death by talking constantly about it.

And now, in what is hopefully a clever segue, I want to tell you What Happened Next in my continuing quest for the reversion of my books from several publishers. Some of you have been so kind in wishing me well and asking about my progress. I’m happy to say that two of my former publishers didn’t blink an eye. They didn’t even wait out the time I stated in my reversion request letter (these books were all long out of contract) but pulled them immediately and sent me an official letter returning my rights. The third publisher waited to the last day, but on that day did pull the books from their website and from several of the smaller vendors, though the books stayed up on the three big ones. R-day was a Saturday. Knowing that sometimes it takes these behemoth vendors a little time to get things done – and thinking that after ninety days what did forty-eight more hours make – I waited until Monday morning to send an official, excruciatingly detailed and lengthy DMCA once I verified the books were still there. By Tuesday morning the books were down from all but one. I was prepared to wait another twenty-four hours before siccing the legal system on them, but it proved not to be necessary. The books were down by late Tuesday afternoon. Yippee!

I never did get an official reversion letter from the last publishing company, and never really expected to get one. This publisher is notorious for never ever sending reversion letters. I think that’s stinky and unprofessional, but my DMCAs are public record and my books are down, and that’s what really counts.

All in all, this has been a much easier process than what I had feared, and appears to have been better for me than for others who have tried to leave the third publishing company. I am sorry for them, but happy for me. My books are my own again, and that is good.

Writing As A Business

by Janis Patterson

Is there anyone out there who doesn’t know writing is a business and should be treated as such?

Unfortunately, our business has always attracted groupies and wannabes, which is both good and bad. Some do develop into good writers. Some don’t – ever, no matter how hard they try and study. Some just want to be known as having written a book, basking in the automatic profit and adulation which is inevitably due to any published writer. (You may snigger or cry here, or both.) Some just want to claim a published writer – preferably a famous one – as a dear friend – whether they actually are or not.

Along with groupies, there are others who populate our lives and must be considered – family, friends, co-workers, our children’s (or grandchildren’s) teachers and schoolmates, libraries, lecture groups – add your own categories in here. They are legion.

Unless they are a writer, though, most people don’t realize that this is a business, and not an easy one. People who wouldn’t dream of calling you to chat or expect you to go lunch/shopping/to a movie during the day if you were Assistant Supervisor of Fralumpkins at Blurpkinner Enterprises will happily interrupt your writing. After all, you’re just writing, and that’s easy, isn’t it? And everyone knows that if you work at home you aren’t really working, are you? You’re your own boss, so you can do what you want. Then they get offended when you say you can’t, interpreting it as you don’t want to be with them. The situation is even worse for those dedicated writers (of whom I stand in awe) who juggle a day job and children, squeezing their writing into those precious slivers of time between immutable obligations.

Writing is work, something that must be pursued and applied and sacrificed for. Writing well is all that and more, just harder. And it’s not just writing – there is publicity that must be done, street teams organized, interviews done, guest blogs… all kinds of things that must be done to get your name and your book, once it is finished and published, in front and hopefully in the hands of the buying public. If you’re self-publishing, the work load is doubled. You must deal with (and pay for!) editors and cover artists and, unless you are computerly gifted, conversion into the various electronic formats – to say nothing of the brave new world of paperback self-publication.

Plus, in the middle of all this you need to be writing the next book. One of the facts of success in the publishing world is having books for the reader to read. Perhaps literary authors can linger for years between books as their fans wait and salivate for their next offering, but popular fiction writers are expected to produce much and often or their career withers on the vine. Sigh.

So – lunch? A movie? Shopping? Forget it. You’ve got to work, whether or not the people who populate your life understand.

Unfortunately, this disregard for the hard work of writing is not a new thing. Charles Dickens once wrote :

“‘It is only half an hour’–’It is only an afternoon’–’It is only an evening,’ people say to me over and over again; but they don’t know that it is impossible to command one’s self sometimes to any stipulated and set disposal of five minutes–or that the mere consciousness of an engagement will sometime worry a whole day… Who ever is devoted to an art must be content to deliver himself wholly up to it, and to find his recompense in it. I am grieved if you suspect me of not wanting to see you, but I can’t help it; I must go in my way whether or no.”

As usual, he said it much better than I ever could. Way to go, Mr. Dickens!

Now – back to work.