Pep Talk: Ways to Announce That You're a Successful, Unpublished Writer (And Have the World Agree)

The only painting Van Gogh sold in his life time:
 “Red Vinyard at Aries”

This "Pep Talk" post was published at the Grub Daily, by yours truly, under my other name:

“I love writing,” said a Grubbie in a one-to-one Career Boost, “but whenever I announce that I’m a writer, someone always asks me what novels I have in print.  When I tell them I’m unpublished, they give me a pitying look, and I feel like a failure.”

Of course, this writer is far from being a failure.  She is working at her craft, devoting time to her writing, and producing great work.  But in a society that too often believes lies about writers, we have to use some activism and turn those lies around.

Here are some of the key lies that the world too often believes about writers:

1. You’re only a successful writer if you’re published by paying markets, such as the magazines that you can buy in Barnes & Noble.

2. You’re only a successful writer if you’ve published a book-length work with a big publishing house.

3. It is hard to write a book, but if it is good, you’ll easily get it published and earn money from the royalties.

4. If you don’t publish a book, you can’t write very well and you’re certainly not a professional.

5. If you’re not earning large amounts of money, you’re not successful in terms of your career.

6. If you self-publish, it means you aren’t talented and/or professional.

All of these are lies.  And ultimately, they’re boring lies.  Plus they are easily disproven.  For instance, Anais Nin self-published Under a Glass Bell because she couldn’t find a publisher.  She sold a tiny amount of copies, until the little book of literary stories made its way into the hands of an editor and was reviewed by the New Yorker.  Fame at last.  Then we have Van Gogh who sold one—just one—painting in his life (and who wants to argue that he wasn’t a serious artist?).  What ‘s more, the great works of British Medieval authors were given away—to music, sometimes—by oral storytellers on the streets.  Grateful donations were optional.  And even further back in history, Anglo Saxon England saw its oral poets as being so vital that they bonded together people of all different classes through the essential power of story.  In fact, story wasn’t generally bought or sold, story was a right.

Of course, these are notions that we can use to argue that writing success isn’t about glitz and money.

Now, I argue that it’s exciting when one of us stands up and says, “I know society views things that way, but I see them differently.”  That shows initiative, rebelliousness [...] 

If you'd like to read the rest of this post, please visit the Grub Street Daily where I pen the "Pep Talk" column under my other name...

Making Sex Sing (It's All About Language, Baby)

There is a wonderful BBC version too!

Are you looking for sex scene or erotic writing tips?  Here's a post that I wrote a while back for the Grub Street Daily:

Whenever I talk to a non-writer about crafting erotica, I always mention the importance of rhythm and flow—or as we writerly types call it, sentencing and meter.  People tend to look puzzled.  “But why?” they say.  Perhaps some of them want to believe that hot sex scenes are all about C- and F-words or brazen visuals, but while these aspects can add to a sex scene, they’re not usually key.  No, to get to the heart of powerful sex—or indeed sexual desire—we must express its rhythms and flow.  Of course, it can be powerful to show such rhythms rather than tell them—and a great way of doing this is to “feel them onto the page.”  Like poets, we can create this flow via meter and sentencing.  (In fact, poets often make fabulous erotic writers because they are skilled at expressing feeling via meter).

Here is an excerpt from one of my favorite writers, Sarah Waters, whose sexy novel, Tipping the Velvet, caused quite a stir in the UK when it was released.  Nan, our narrator, who is a Victorian music hall actress, has fallen in love with her co-star Kitty Butler—the more famous of the two.  They are both in their late teens, and Nan has never had sex with a woman before:

“May I really – touch you?” I whispered.   She gave again a nervous laugh, and tilted her face against her pillow.
 “Oh Nan,” she said, “I think I shall die if you don’t!”
 Tentatively, then, I raised my hand, and dipped my fingers into her hair.  I touched her face – her brow, that curved; her cheek, that was freckled; her lip, her chin, her throat, her collar-bone, her shoulder…  Here, shy again, I let my hand linger – until, with her face still tilted from my own and her eyes hard shut, she took my wrist and gently led my fingers to her breasts.  When I touched her here, she sighed and turned; and after a minute or two she seized my wrist again, and moved it lower.

Even by listing the places where Nan touches Kitty (“her brow, that curved; her cheek, that was freckled; her lip, her chin…” and soforth) Waters builds Nan’s growing passion via meter and flow.  And what long, gliding sentences we have in this paragraph.  These bring a sense of longing and wonder, allowing us to share in Nan’s experience.  We are shown the primal music of her feelings, without being told of it.

As a Senior Editor at Go Deeper Press, I am reading many erotic submissions at the moment.  When I find myself thinking, "I'm not engaged in this sex scene," It's often due to a lack of rhythm...

Read the rest of the post at the Grub Street Daily.  And find out more about my writing coaching here.