Finishing One Last Book Before the Year Ends

Writers are driven by deadlines. Most of them self imposed. A big one is the end of the year or the beginning of the holidays. Lets face it is just about game over and time to start tallying up what you accomplished or didn't accomplish in 2013. This is the way writers think. Where am I in comparison to a year ago? And one way to stave off that accounting is to slip in one last book before the New Year rings in.

Some writers just say to hell with it. There is next year and when everything calms down I will begin that next book or finish that next book. But then there are people like me who see the holidays as a natural Finish Line. This is the self imposed deadline critical to getting a first draft finished. Lets face it at a point the holidays just takes over and no work is done.

So it really is the moment. The book has to be finished now or not at all. And the real reckoning with that awful question (did you finish a book in 2013) looms. So the race is on and I figure maybe three weeks left of work. Maybe. Three weeks left to justify a year.

www.williamhazelgrove.com
The Pitcher

Publishing Old Manuscripts

Everybody has them. All those books that misfired and never took off or just blew up on the launch pad. They represent years and years of toil and you would like for something to come of them because they represent your heart and soul. So in the new environment of EBooks, you think, well maybe there is something there that escaped the publishers eyes and these books should have been published except for a short sighted editor who couldn't see the diamond in the rough. And so you start tracking them down on your computers.

Usually they are a couple of computers back that you dig out of a closet and there they are; floating around your desktop like space junk. They have weird file names you started giving them after the twenty third rewrite and you have to piece them together like cars in a junkyard. Lets see, I'll use this beginning with this middle and where is the end...ah here it is. There it's a book. So you start to read your old prose. Dammit. This was good! This should have been published! And so you continue, getting excited. Yes. Yes. Readers will finally be able to discover this great story that has been stopped because of some nimrod of a publisher.

And then...somewhere along page thirty two, the thing goes off the rails. Maybe it is the tired prose, the lackluster plot. Maybe it's just sort of hackneyed and old. But there is something missing. Some bit of modernity that gives the book spark. The prose just dries up on the page and is dated and dead and the book turns back into that old manuscript in a moldy box in a basement. And you want it to be good. You really do. You want it to be the book that it could have been, but it's just not.

So you try and resucitate some others, but they fall from the sky like satellites gliding out of orbit. There were problems. There was a reason these books never saw the light of day. And even the ubiquity of e-publishing won't save them. So you pull the plug, let the dust motes settle, and throw the computer back in the corner where it belongs.

And that book stays in darkness....where it belongs.

http://www.billhazelgrove.com/

Agent Etiquette or the agony of Waiting

There is such a thing as agent etiquette. Most writers get their first agent and the relationship goes wrong very quickly. This is because no one knows the ground rules and there are ground rules. You finally get an agent and you are ready for the next step, getting a publisher or selling your next book. Since agents have taken on the role of editor in fiction  you spend a lot of time working with your agent getting your book ready. Then it is ready and this is when the agent does  his or her thing. ]And you...wait.

Here is the first place where things go bad. The writer is axnious naturally. Years have gone into your book and now you are just going to sit and wait? A week passes. Another week passes. You are going crazy. The third week passes and you call or email. The agent lets you know that there have been a few rejections but he or she will press on. You wait. A week passes. Another week passes. Another week passes. This time you pick up the phone to get to the bottom of what the hell is going on.

Your agent tells you that yes there have been a few passes and you make some suggestions and call the editors idiots and begin to doubt your agent. You email suggestions. A week passes and you call again. Your agent doesn't take your call this time. Now you freak. You call and call and call. He or she  gets fed up with you and you get fed up with them. You are done.

Agent etiquette can be summed up in one simple sentence: grace under pressure. Or;  never let them see you sweat. Your agent will let you know when he or she sells your book. Believe me. Until then you just have to put it out of your mind and let them do their thing. Unless you are ready to switch. Like a marriage a lot of times the relationship goes bad. But when you find a good one, then leave them alone.

http://www.billhazelgrove.conm/

The Letters of Max Perkins and F Scott Fitzgerald

I read letters. I am a sucker for any book of literary correspondence which I suppose is a bit like reading over someones shoulder but since people don't write letters anymore it is also a dying art form if not already dead. So I have been reading an old book of the correspondence between Fitzgerald and his editor Max Perkins. The legendary Scribner editor handled alot of the greats of course. Hemingway and Fitzgerald among them.

So what do you get when you read a book like this? Well you get a lot of envy because Perkins is just about as close as you will ever come to the Saintly editor. Scott needs money or advice or anything and Max accommodates him. Fitzgerald suggests books and Perkins does his best to publish them. It's almost unbelievable There is no editorial board , no sales meetings to get approval from. Perkins seems to make decisions and it just happens.

Of course the discussions of his books are fascinating. The back and forth between Scott and Max shows how a lot of his books took shape. And of course money is very central to alot of the discussions and Perkins seemed almost as much banker as editor. I am doing a horrible job summing up this book but that is because reading letters is like reading mini novels and it doesn't really fit into the world today. The real gems are found between the lines.

And yet, you can't help but feel there is a reason this type of world had to end. It is almost too idyllic in a sense and maybe too civilized. Certainly World War II obliterated the Perkins Fitzgerald world as much as his death in 1940. Still it is a pleasure to read about a time when novelists were kings and editors were Gods.

http://www.billhazelgrove.com/

Rocket Man Paperback or Kindle