Author: Kelley

It’s a party!

Nicola has recently published her new novel, Always, and it rocks. Find out more here. Get it at your local bookstore or on amazon.

Next on her horizon: And Now We Are Going to Have a Party: Liner Notes to a Writer’s Early Life. This is a fabulous thing: a memoir of Nicola’s childhood and early adult life with emphasis on how she became a writer –” the events, people, feelings, challenges, fears and joys that led her to the work.

It’s more than a book (although there are over 45,000 words of text): it’s a beautifully designed object, a box of Nicola that includes several small volumes, photographs, juvenilia (Christmas lists, an early poem, her first crayon-drawn book), reproduced diary entries, a CD of songs with her band… and more.

I’ve never seen anything like it. Imagine that someone hands you a small box, perhaps like the cigar boxes of my youth in which kids saved their most precious objects. And in the box is a story in many dimensions, multiple media, so many different ways to experience the memories and feelings and thoughts of the person herself… I think it’s seriously cool, and I think it may well set a new paradigm for memoir. [Edited in 2009 to add: And I’m apparently not the only folks who think so. ANWAGTHAP won the 2008 Lambda Literary Award for memoir.]

See for yourself.

But hurry: it’s a limited edition of 450 signed and numbered copies, and that’s all there will ever be.

Art and commerce

For your Strad.

Sarah

Thanks very much for sending this. I don’t know whether to laugh or pound my head against the wall: it’s the perfect demonstration of how hard it can be to make people hear (literally, metaphorically…). Of course I hope I’d be one of the people who stopped, but maybe not –” it’s so easy to hurry by beauty and skill when it’s offered in passing, when it’s not ritualized by setting. When art is offered out of context, it makes a lot of people nervous and grumpy. It’s weird that our culture is so monetized that we regard freely-offered public performance with suspicion: after all, no one’s making anyone listen, and no one’s making anyone pay.

I wish the economics of art were different, both for artist and audience. And I think those economics are changing. Anyone keeping up with the music industry (a giant rollercoaster ride these days) knows that MySpace and P2P and recent developments about payola and royalty payments are changing the ways that people make a living with music (artists, distributors, broadcasters, promoters, labels… everyone’s world is different today). In February 2009 Someday, there will be no more analog television. Nineteen screenwriters are changing how writers play in the Hollywood sandbox. And what will happen in publishing? I don’t know, it’s a mystery, but I’m confident it won’t be business as usual.

As long as we don’t all end up like Strad… for those of you not familiar with my short fiction, she is the protagonist of Strings, the lead story in Dangerous Space, which I’m delighted to say is now available from Aqueduct Press at a reduced price through June 15 (the official release date). If you’d like a personalized copy, you can order one now from University Books.

[Edited in 2009 to add: I don’t have the personalized arrangement with U Books right now, but if you want a book personalized you can arrange to send it to my PO box. Contact me at info at kelleyeskridge dot com.]

I hope people will enjoy the collection, and that some of you will want to talk about it over a virtual pint. There’s always room at the table.

Cheers.

Words in my head all the time

[Kelley’s note: This post refers to an unpublished story that used to be available on the old website. It isn’t here right now. Maybe one of these days I’ll get it posted… it’s interesting now to me to look at it in light of “Dangerous Space.”]

I read “Shine” earlier this morning and it has stuck with me throughout the day. In trying to determine why, I found myself going back to the story, trying to find those pointed barbs that usually catch my mental attention when I’ve read something good that stays with me. However, this story doesn’t seem to have “points” that are meant to catch the reader (me) as much as it seems like an emotional road that travels from point A to B with a lot of fractional stops in between. There is an emotional movement to the story, starting in the realm of emotional panic (?) of realization towards an ending of acceptance…but then I continue to question myself, could it be an ending that is focused on searching? I loved the movement in the story but am wondering what she would be doing in the next week or the next month. Will she find something in her searching and singing or will she even recognize it should it come her way? (Is she capable of realizing it?) I suppose my question is, if you took this story any further, in what direction do you see it going? Or do you see any direction at all?

I liked it and thanks for posting it.

Christine

I’m glad you liked it. Thanks for letting me know.

“Shine” is the first fiction I wrote after Solitaire, and it reflects my search for the next thing — in writing, in life, in myself. Joanne’s older than Jackal; she’s wrestling not with the complexities of assuming an adult identity, but with the damage to our dreams and sense of self that seems inevitable as we live adult lives. In the two years after “Shine,” I wrote 16,000 words of one novel and more than 20,000 words of another… still looking for that next thing. I talked a little over a pint or two about wrestling with these books; and ultimately I had to step away from them because I couldn’t find my way past the pretty writing into something that was both risky and real for me the way that Solitaire was, and “Eye of the Storm” (the most recent story prior to “Shine,” written while I was working on Solitaire).

Walking away from 36,000 finished words (plus many, many more in draft) was not a happy experience. I wondered in public (somewhat indirectly) a year ago if I was even meant to be a novelist, and what I was really thinking was that perhaps I wasn’t meant to be a writer. There was a difference between doing (even doing well) and being that I could see but not touch, much the way Joanne came up against her own reflection in the rain.

And then came screenplays — and I fell in love with the form and thought, Okay, I’m a writer after all, but maybe not a fiction writer. And then I threw myself headfirst into “Dangerous Space,” the new novella for the collection, and it was…amazing. 25,000 finished words in six weeks and the only reason I stopped was my deadline. Unlike “Shine,” unlike the aborted novels, “Dangerous Space” is a story that makes me excited and nervous and itchy to have people read it. I think some people will find it eyebrow raising. I think some people will hate it a lot. I hope some people will find all the layers in it that I think are there, underneath the in-your-face surface.

When Matt Ruff talks about a writer walking the line of not embarrassing herself (in his blurb for the collection), I think he’s talking at least in part about this story — and no doubt some people will think I have embarrassed myself. And you know what? That’s fine. Because it’s the first fiction I’ve written in years that puts me right out there on the edge of myself as a writer, not because it’s so beautifully stylized, but because it is as transparent, as lacking in ‘style,’ as I could make it. And that, brothers and sisters, is where I want to be right now. I want to be writing pretty words that don’t show. I want you to mainline the story, to feel yourself inside the characters, have the experience of living with them jack right into your system and run away with your brain without you needing to appreciate how clever and articulate and wordcrafty I’ve been.

And now I’m just so in love with writing again that I can’t see straight. Words in my head all the time. It’s just astonishing.

Which means you may not see a story quite like “Shine” from me again, at least not anytime soon. It’s a good story, and there’s a lot of truth in it — it rings clear to me (see my essay with Nicola about writing if you want to know more about what that means) — but it’s a chronicle of a journey, not the journey itself. And right now as a writer I want a more direct experience when I write and when you read. I don’t just want to show you things: I want to put them so far inside you that you have to dig them out with a spoon (and there’s a little taste of “Dangerous Space” for you).

I hope that the sense of ’emotional movement’ you’ve described will always be a part of what I do. And as for your question about Joanne — well, if you have come away from the story wondering what she’ll do, caring about what choice she makes, then it’s your story now to continue as you see fit. I’ve talked before about my belief that once the story is out of my head and in yours, that I as the writer don’t have any particular authority over how you should read it. But if you’d like to know what I think, then here it is: yes to all of it. Yes, it’s acceptance. Yes, it’s searching. It’s Joanne acknowledging that this may be all she ever has of her dreams, so she’d better have it with all the gusto she can. And it’s also Joanne continuing to want the rest. Does the knowledge that she will never be a rock star keep her from being the best rock star she can be? I don’t think so.

Screen and short stuff

Long time, no pint.

Congratulations on finishing your FIRST screenplay! This is very exciting stuff! What’s the title? What is it about? I’m working on a family drama called A Simple Kind of Man. Did you happen to catch the Screenwriting Expo in October?

Out of left field and rambling (grin)… Perhaps I should stop by more often and hoist back a few with everyone else?

Cheers!

Lindsey

It’s feeling like old home week in the virtual pub (grin). Glad to see you again, Lindsey.

I’m excited about the screenplay, and wish I could talk more about it right now –” but it’s Out In The World as we speak, and I think it’s best to let that process play out before I start slinging details. Although right now it seems that everyone has left Hollywood for the holidays so the process is that the screenwriter sits and waits.

Not that I’m bored. I’m working on a new short story for a collection that I hope will be out next spring –” I’ll post details as soon as the publisher and I have a contract. For those who follow my short fiction, the new story is about Mars (a character about whom I have written before, not the planet). I love the Mars stories and am delighted to be living inside one again for a while.

I’m also working on new screenplays. Regardless of what happens with the one that’s under submission right now, I’m serious about walking through this door that’s been opened for me –” and that means plunging right into the next thing. I’ve got some ideas. Now I have to swim. Robert Frost said in a poem that “work is play for mortal stakes,” and that has never been more true for me than now. I’m having serious fun, fierce fun, and the personal stakes are very high for me.

So, now that I’ve been so annoying uninformative (laughing), can I ask about A Simple Kind of Man? What’s it about, and are you enjoying working on it? What’s it like for you?

I didn’t go to Screenwriting Expo, although I scoured the panel descriptions with longing and would love to be there sometime in the next couple of years, god willing and the creek don’t rise. I’m also dying to attend one of the three-week courses of TheFilmSchool here in Seattle –” intensive learning experiences work pretty well for me as a rule. The last six months have certainly been intense. I’ll look forward to talking more about it when I can.

How’s Bonnie? I remember her quote, “Love and work are both four-letter words” every time I feel like throwing something I’ve written against the wall–¦.

Back to serious fun. Happy Holidays to all.

Hope and happiness

I had been vacillating on whether to come on board and say hey ever since before last week’s Election Night. Reading this decided me.

Your more than gracious response to my own rant after the 2004 election came back to me unexpectedly in the days running up to this year’s election. I found a printout I had made of my rant and your response while cleaning the house and carried it with me as a talisman against the crippling fear of a repeat disappointment. I was terrified before the election, but only vaguely cognizant of what exactly I was afraid. Corruption, stolen elections, a continuation of the triumph of the politics of fear and hatred and lies. What you wrote about hope had to serve as a placeholder for my foundering hope for a few days until the election, which turned out much better than I had been hoping. So thank you again!

But this post has given me more food for words, as follows:

— First, I haven’t read Tracy Goss’ book, but based on your description, I think I’ve had a similar first reaction to yours. It just doesn’t read for me. If I’m following you, Goss’ point is that acceptance of hopelessness leads to freedom from fear and, as you quoted “…the opportunity, instead of giving up, to play with full engagement…” But without hope, what motivation does one have to show up in the first place? Why be fully engaged with no hope? In other words, if one does not have a ‘hope’ for a certain outcome in a given endeavor, why bother engaging in the endeavor at all? What is hope if not inherent motivation, a reason to go on? Maybe I’m splitting semantic hairs here, but acceptance of life as it is does not require for me letting go of hope. To let go of hope is, in a strong sense, letting go of life itself.

— Second, but relatedly, you ask “are hope and fear two sides of the same coin?” The metaphor implies that they are opposites, but I don’t think that’s true — I don’t feel that fear is the opposite or absence of hope, or vice versa. They co-exist, in some cases very closely, but I don’t see it as a 1-1 correlation. While they are sometimes connected, I don’t feel that the amount of hope one has directly determines the amount of fear one has (as if one could quantify emotion!) And I certainly don’t believe one must lose hope to conquer fear. I’ve seen too many folks conquer fear as a direct result of having hope to believe that.

— Finally, you ended with a wonderful Castaneda quote, which reminded me that I often use quotes as a source of solace, or joy, or hope. And one of the more hopeful new quotes I’ve encountered in the past year, one, in fact, I’ve often repeated to friends, family, co-workers, goes like this:

“I still believe in plans, but more and more, I think it’s a Plan B world.”
— Kelley Eskridge

Keep passing the open windows (—John Irving)

Adam D.

Hey Adam,

Lovely to hear from you. I was thinking about you at the elections, as a matter of fact. There was a certain amount of anxiety in our house too…. and at the same time, I believed it would turn out the way it did. Very gratifying, and in some sense so predictable. The wheel turns.

I can recommend the Goss book, if your definition of “recommend” includes wanting to throw a book at the wall but then being compelled to read it again just because…. And I don’t think I’ve represented it accurately (maybe not even coherently). But there is something about it that speaks to me lately.

I don’t think it’s so much that she is asking people to not bring hope to the party. Or maybe she is asking that — and maybe the real issue is what does each of us mean by hope, anyway? I think she’s saying that many people having a notion of hope as a kind of crutch, almost as a blueprint for “here’s how my life should be, and I’m going to hold my breath until I turn blue or until my life turns out this way.” I think what she’s trying to say is that kind of hope can hold us back, because instead of desire without expectation, we tie ourselves to a particular vision of how things should be, and then regard any variance from that as “failure.” And then our hope is “lost.”

I’ve been thinking a lot about expectations lately. It’s been said that all anger is the result of failed expectations. I know that most personal conflict I’ve experienced comes down to disappointed expectations — I “expect” that strangers will honor the social compact and not cut me off on the highway, or be rude to me at Starbucks. I expect that my closest people will always be wise, kind, and respectful of my little personal quirks (along with being able to read my mind). Et cetera. I know that my greatest mistakes with other people happen when I write scripts in my head for how things should go in any particular interaction — and then discover, much to my surprise, that everyone else has failed to learn their lines, and in fact aren’t acting in my little play at all.

I have not let go of hope — in a big way, I’m all about hope and always will be. But I’ve been astonished by some of the things I’ve been able to do in the last year by releasing hope and instead just doing the thing I yearn to do, or the thing that needs to be done (which are sometimes the same and sometimes not). I don’t hope for the thing to work out in any particular way. I just do it and see what happens. I don’t assume that it’s “good” only if it works out the way I want it to. I don’t know how to explain it better right now, but it sure is making me think (grin).

I agree that hope and fear are not opposites. And I don’t think hope is in any way a bad thing. But I believe that hope gives fear a doorway into our lives. We fear the loss of what we hope for. Is it better sometimes to live without hope? Is it possible to live without hope and at the same time to not be “hopeless”? I dunno (scratches head).

Although, actually, that’s not true. I do know, in some ways. I no longer hope for a cure for MS, for example. I look at Nicola and give great thanks for my life with her. I don’t look at Nicola and think that if we only do the right thing, make the right choices, if only we are good, that she’ll be without MS someday. I no longer regard MS as something that might go away. It never will. Is that hopeless? Or is that simply moving hope out of the way so we can get on with our lives?

This doesn’t mean I never hope. I just don’t want hope for a particular thing to define my happiness.

I think I’m starting to climb down my own navel here. Apologies. And these are real questions, not rhetorical ones. Comments welcome.

I’m glad you like the Plan B quote. I still stand by it (grin). Here’s another one I like:

— Strangely enough, it all turns out well.
— How?
— I don’t know. It’s a mystery.
— Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard, Shakespeare in Love

The conversation

Hi, I saw the reply about you and Nic separating and was wondering, what makes your relationship work? It’s very rare to hear about couples succeeding in the long term — and you two still seem very happy, passionate, and seem to genuinely like each other. 🙂

Also, (if it’s not too personal) I was wondering why you chose not to have children? By the way, I love both yours and Nicola’s work and can’t wait until “Always” comes out next April and the “Solitaire” movie is out! Thanks for everything!

Candace

I’m not the goddess of all relationship wisdom (that would be Carolyn Hax). I don’t know that I have anything profound to say about it except that we love each other and we make it work. And that I think most of the credit belongs to Nicola.

There’s a story in a book called Fierce Conversations about a “typical marriage” (Is there such a thing? Who knew?) in which a husband wonders why his wife keeps wanting to talk about their relationship all the time. Couldn’t they just have one giant conversation about it every once in a while and move on? And then it finally occurs to him that the conversation isn’t about the relationship: the conversation is the relationship.

Nicola and I have a lot of conversations. Some are more fun than others. Some are very, very hard, but I know down to my toes it is better to have them than to keep silent. Knowing this has changed my criteria for important relationships. I don’t offer intimacy of any kind to people who aren’t willing to have the conversation.

We don’t have children because Nicola has multiple sclerosis, and because we decided that we would rather focus on taking care of each other than taking care of a child. I believe if we had a child, I wouldn’t have much of a life right now beyond service to the needs of others, and that’s not enough for me. Nicola and I would maybe not have had time for all those conversations (and beer, and writing, and exploring, and adventures…). I don’t regret any of that. I do occasionally mourn the lack of relationship with a teenage and adult child –- I think I’d have enjoyed that very much, found it very rewarding. No choice without loss.

We’re looking forward to Always (a fun, fine, fierce book, wonderful stuff). And wouldn’t it be fun to have the lights go down and Solitaire come up? I get a lot of pleasure imagining it….

More naked

Kelley,

First off — glad to hear you and Nicola are staying together!! I was sure worried about that. (Rolling eyes way into the back of my head.)

Thanks for taking the time to give me a thought filled answer here and here.

Your answer helped to clarify my “question”. (I put that in quotes because now I see it’s always been more of a felt observation rather than question.)

The issue has been one of you (as writer) being there naked on the page and what that experience is like for you. If I understand your answer you’re saying that when the writing comes out of you (the physical entity that you are) it is not you the personality of Kelley. Rather the writing is art, creativity, something other. You’ve cleared Kelley out of the way for whoever the fictional characters are. So, not only are the characters not you but in order for them to be real in their own way you Kelley, must absolutely NOT be present.

Seems clear enough. I get that. Then I must ask this one final question on the issue.

Are you Kelley ever surprised by what comes out when you open that door? When you Kelley go back to see what you Kelley-as-writer has written, are you ever surprised? (This is where Robin the psychologist, is hovering in anticipation.) Despite the rhetoric you use, the words and the characters are still coming out of you the physical entity. Your mind has “created” them. All along this is what I’ve meant by “seeing yourself naked on the page”. In this sense my use of ‘yourself’ is simply another word for the capability of your own mind.

This conversation has been helpful in ways you Kelley (grin) cannot imagine.

Hoping you and Nicola live forever!!

Robin

Thanks, I hope so too (big grin). And I hope you still mean it after you read this (another grin), because I’m about to do a 180 on you in some ways. Try not to throw anything….

This is an interesting conversation, and the timing is a bit spooky, since in the last months (even since July, when we last talked about this), how I think about writing has changed — maybe partly because of this conversation, who knows? So first, let me clarify a little more what I meant, if I can, and then talk about what’s new.

In all the times I have written novels and short stories, I’ve been present, but almost (in the best writing) as if standing to one side. Or maybe it’s more like trying to stand very, very still while a river runs out of me, the rush of story that can be so easily derailed if I’m not both relaxed and utterly focused. Like aikido, if you’ve ever practiced that art.

When I talk about getting out of my own way, it’s not that my personality disappears and some other writing force takes over. It is, in fact, all me. Perhaps “personality” is the wrong word. Perhaps what I mean is that those parts of me that are culturally constructed (or culturally constrained) need to be put away as much as possible.

I can’t write beyond my own limitations (as a writer and a person) unless I find a way to put those limitations off in the corner, preferably with a muzzle. If the characters in a story do or say things that I wouldn’t, feel things that I don’t (or, more to the point, things that I do feel but don’t want people to know about), I have to go there anyway, as honestly and completely as I can. I have to understand and embrace those things, make them imaginatively possible for me so I can make them accessible to the reader. No matter how unsettling it is for me.

I trained as an actor, and for a while I thought that’s what I’d do with my life. For me, writing is very much like acting. And so it occurs to me that my last answer to you wasn’t complete and wasn’t honest. Because it is all me there on the page, in some way that is not “Kelley Eskridge is Jackal Segura,” but rather “When you put these particular elements — situation, background, feelings, relationships, fears, hopes, et cetera — into the mind and soul and deep dark places of Kelley Eskridge, Jackal is the character that comes out.”

And that process makes those “fictional” experiences psychologically and emotionally real for me in ways that do reveal me, or change me, as a person and a writer. They do.

But that’s not the point of writing, and it can’t be the goal. If that process becomes too conscious, then result is self-indulgent and boring. So part of getting out of my own way is just letting the process happen without getting too bound up in it at the time, without stopping to think about what I’m exploring or revealing or changing. I may on some level choose to write a particular story so that I can have particular fictional experiences, but I’d better not know too much about that while I’m doing it — or it becomes all about me and the story suffers.

And to answer your question — Am I ever surprised by what I’ve written? — sometimes, yes, I really am. And sometimes I’m not surprised by what I’ve written, just surprised that I actually wrote it. That I actually went there. It’s not that my work is so brave in an absolute sense, but in fact I have explored things in fiction that I would never easily talk about in a group of strangers. And most of those things will never be noticed, because they aren’t outrageous enough to stick out as “yikes, look at that!”. They won’t attract anyone’s attention. They’re only outrageous, dangerous, naked if you’re me.

So, why the different answer now? Well, I’ve recently finished my first screenplay (“finish” is a relative term in that things can be rewritten pretty much until they’re on the screen…). It’s so far been a fascinating, intense experience, an E-ticket (for those of you who remember the old Disney theme park system of admission). It has, in fact, been like putting writing and acting and the solitary creative fall-down-the-hole process and all my collaborative skills into a blender. I am so happy.

And it has so far been a thousand times more fun than writing novels. Because it’s a screenplay — human behavior directly expressed through dialogue and action, without the veil of prose styling and metaphor and authorial musing — the fictional experiences have been equally direct. And it turns out I love that a lot. It’s exhilarating.

I’ve learned a ton, and have much more to learn. I have the great fortune to work with an executive producer who is smart, communicates well, and is in love with story. I have more joy from the work, and am more productive, than at any other time in my writing life. And I see myself naked on the page and in the process in ways that I’ve never imagined.

So there you go. Either I’ve really answered your question this time, or you’re ready to pour your beer over my head (laughing). Let me know which.

Cheers.

Never

Are you and Nicola separating?

anonymous

What the fuck? (And Nicola says, Huh?)

I am gobsmacked that anyone could read even a sliver of either Virtual Pint or Ask Nicola and come up with this. Are you just trying to wind me up?

But –” on the remote chance that this is a serious question, here you go. Nicola and I will never separate. We will be together until one of us is dead.

What are they putting in the water these days? (shakes head)

Agents

Hi! I have already asked a question, and I have just recently read the answer. First of all — I admire the fact that you take time and effort to help people. Second of all… I have an issue I would like to ask you as a professional about.

I have written a novel, which I have submitted to agencies, and I have already signed a contract with one. (Children’s Literary Agency). Later, I somehow went on the internet to see what books it has handled, and learnt that it is apparently on of the Top Twenty Worst agencies in USA , who charge, don’t work well and turn out to be a scam. I am quite scared about this. I really am. This could ruin things, couldn’t it?

So I started looking for new agents to see if I could find a new one and work with them instead. It is difficult so far — quite a few rejections. Do you have any advice for this serious issue?

First, if you don’t want to work with Children’s Literary Agency (or any other agent you might sign with), your contract should have some provision for ending the relationship. If it doesn’t, then write them a letter saying that you have reconsidered and will not be seeking representation from them.

If your contract says that you can’t end the relationship, well, don’t believe it. And don’t be surprised if they get a little aggressive with you, and try to “persuade” you into staying with them. Don’t let them intimidate you. No one owns your work until you sell them the rights, and no one “owns” the right to represent you without your fully-informed consent. The worst that would ever happen is that if you work with an agent to sell a book to a publisher, and then you leave the agency, that agency still collects commissions on the future sales of the book they helped you sell. And that’s it. So don’t back down in the face of any bullshit you might get.

There are many wonderful agents in the world, and there are some real rip-off artists. It’s up to every writer to a) do some research (which you are doing, props to you), and b) remember that a bad agent is worse than no agent at all. That can be hard, especially when people make promises that they will get you published if you just sign up with them, pay their reading fees, use the “professional editors” they recommend (or that they say the publisher insists on), et cetera.

The bottom line is that a reputable agent will never charge you an upfront fee to represent you. Never never never. Real agents are paid commission only on what they actually sell for you. They get paid when the publisher cuts a check. They may charge you expenses like FedEx or copying, but only for what they actually sell.

A reputable agent will never insist that you use a “professional editing” service as a condition of representation. Never never never. If an agent doesn’t think your work is ready for publication, she’ll usually reject it. Occasionally, she may work with you to improve the manuscript, but generally agents just don’t have time to groom writers.

There are some excellent resources online that can help you identify piranha-agents. The Absolute Write website has a “Bewares and Background Checks” forum where people talk about agents and scam artists. (In fact, they have an entire thread about The Literary Agency Group, of which Childrens Literary Agency is a part.

Also check Writer Beware.

Finally, you can check Publishers Marketplace. Although it’s a subscription site, they do offer a free-to-all search function that will allow you to search for information on agents.

And you’ll find more of my thoughts on how to choose and approach agents here.

And please remember that agents are a part of the giant relationship web of publishing, and that working with an agent that editors and publishers don’t respect is no help to you. Having an agent is kinda sorta like getting married –- it really does matter who you choose. Any so-called agent who promises that if you work with them you will be published is a lying toad (or very very new at their job). Some of the best work in the world never sells, and some of the biggest crap does, and that’s just the way it is. A good agent will understand your work and your goals, help you improve and refine them, be your champion, and have all kinds of strategies for getting your work in front of the right people. But they will never promise you that they have the magic bullet to getting published. There is no magic bullet.

The very best of luck with this, and let me know if I can be of any more help.

Hope and hopelessness

I just read the question about the election and hope. Wow. That is about the best thing I have read in a long time. I wish I’d had those words these long years of exile from my country (I’m an American living abroad because my partner is British, not because of Bush). Thanks for such inspiring words.

J.E. Knowles

And thank you right back, because I read the post again in order to talk to you now, and it turns out that I need to be reminded right now about hope. Not so much in terms of the government — I’m afraid that I have, at least for now, lost my energy to engage with the soul-numbing horror and stupidity that churns out of the Bush administration on a daily basis — but on a more personal level.

Hope is a concept that occasionally turns my head inside out. It’s a huge, huge part of who I am. And (or But) sometimes it’s challenged pretty radically. There’s a book I read a while back that I go back to fairly often because it smacks down a lot of my ideas about hope, but (or and) I think it’s at least partly right. It’s called The Last Word On Power, by Tracy Goss, and it’s ostensibly a business book, except that’s not why I keep reading it. What I come back to again and again is that Goss urges the reader

to accept — as if accepting a gift — these statements:

Life does not turn out the way it “should.”
Nor does life turn out the way it “shouldn’t.”
Life turns out the way it does.

When I say “life,” I mean your life: the life of the person reading this book. And by “the way it should,” I mean the way you most deeply hope life will turn out, the way you have always expected it ought to turn out in order to be meaningful.
— from The Last Word on Power by Tracy Goss

And then she goes on to suggest that going through ‘the eye of the needle of hopelessness’ is a necessary step — and that we can meet this hopelessness with acceptance or resignation. And that acceptance leads to the freedom to take any stand, any action, to attempt whatever you think is good and fail spectacularly regardless of the consequences, if that’s what happens. She says, “Acceptance gives you the opportunity, instead of giving up, to play with full engagement, free from the fear about how things will turn out.”

The first time I read this book, this made me so mad that I actually threw the book across the room. But after many re-readings, I understand what she means, and I don’t disagree. I’m just not sure I am brave enough to believe that I can accept ‘hopelessness’ without feeling hopeless. Because feeling hopeless and bitter and twisted (the resignation she talks about) is not the point. The point is to feel free of fear, and to therefore be bold, to take chances, to make outrageous choices, to be as much of oneself as one wishes to be.

In other words, to be what I’ve always hoped I could be. Except without the hope.

This makes my head hurt, and scares the bejesus out of me because I think she might be right, and where does that leave all my hope stuff? And yet, of course, on some level Solitaire is about this journey through the eye of hopelessness, even though I had not read the Goss book before I wrote the novel.

I certainly haven’t been able to let go of either hope or fear in my life. And the question I wrestle with is, are hope and fear two sides of the same coin? Is it necessary to lose hope in order to conquer fear? This one’s more than a pint, it’s a pitcher. I’d be interested to hear what folks have to say.

And finally, I’m not sure how all this is related, but here is a quote I currently love. It’s the epigraph to The Teachings Of Don Juan by Carlos Castaneda.

Para mi solo recorrer los caminos que tienen corazon, cualquier camino que tenga corazon. Por ahi yo recorro, y la unica prueba que vale es atravesar todo su largo. Y por ahi yo recorro mirando, mirando, sin aliento.
— from The Teachings of Don Juan by Carlos Castaneda

For me there is only the traveling on paths that have heart, on any path that may have heart. There I travel, and the only worthwhile challenge is to traverse its full length. And there I travel looking, looking, breathlessly.