Damn Spectacular Feet
By Victoria Mixon | September 8, 2012 |
My 1950s slippers
A funny thing happened to me on the way to Writer Unboxed this week. . .
I was walking along barefoot, and I ran into a woman I know wearing simply wonderful shoes.
“Wow! Those are impressive shoes,” I said. “Congratulations! I work all the time with people who have no feet.”
Wonderful Shoes
Now, I happen to know for a fact that this woman earned the living daylights out of those shoes.
She had to grow her feet slowly and conscientiously, with much hard work and dedication and suffering before she could possibly be in a position in which to wear these wonderful shoes.
Of course, I have other friends and clients with shoes quite as wonderful. And I have a number of clients who sport very snappy numbers upon their own periwinkle toes and are improving their shoe collections at a respectable rate. It’s also true that I work with people still busy conscientiously growing their feet so that someday they can wear wonderful shoes too.
I’m not entirely barefoot myself—I do own footgear, which I do not go to a whole lot of trouble to improve upon (a pair of old 1950s leather slippers that I got at my local thrift store, which, by the way, I love).
But that all makes hers no less amazing.
She has really wonderful shoes.
However, the really extraordinary part is that her wonderful shoes are actually almost completely invisible to many people these days—those very people desperate to sell for cold, hard cash photos of anything they’ve happened to randomly step in.
No Feet
“Dude, I was just stumbling along footless to Amazon, and I stumbled right into a cow-pie. Now my where my feet should be it’s all filthy. And I’ll sell you a picture of that filth for only 99 cents!”
I’m not certain these sellers of cow-pie photos even know wonderful shoes exist.
-
Are these people offering to sell pictures of fully-grown feet?
No.
They have most often barely begun the long and arduous process of growing feet upon which to wear any kind of shoes at all, much less wonderful ones.
-
But, do they have just naturally spectacular feet?
No.
People do not come into this world with fully-grown feet. And those whose feet turn out to be so spectacular that people flock to them in droves in order to get photos of them even without wonderful shoes still don’t get any attention until those spectacular feet are fully-grown. I’m right now reading the collected letters of Vincent Van Gogh, published in 1937 under the title Dear Theo—a brilliant book. Vincent Van Gogh was a man with naturally spectacular feet. But even he worked like the devil to grow them before he showed them to anyone.
-
So, are these feet shod in the most wonderful shoes available in our era?
Not necessarily.
There is a new kind of shoe available now that suffices, in many cases, as a substitute for wonderful shoes. We all cover our eyes—like Harpo Marx—and peek grinning between our fingers, pretending what we see are shoes that are good enough. However, I know a little something about new kinds of shoes that are not, in fact, good enough, but only seem impressive to people unfamiliar with really wonderful shoes.
When I was a child in rural Ecuador, the local children wore to school the most god-awful flimsy plastic fake shoes ever seen on this planet. I couldn’t imagine where those shoes came from or why the children wore them, until my parents explained that they came from cheap plastic crap factories who sold them in Third World countries to people who couldn’t afford real shoes, where the children were required to wear shoes to school. So this was what they were stuck with. We used to find random plastic shoes littering our little, bucolic mountain village, because whenever the cheap plastic shoes blew out—as they always did—they became instant garbage.
Years later, these shoes came to the US and were marketed briefly but heavily to American children. I knew someone whose kids wore them. They were called “jellies.”
“Don’t you know,” I said to the parents, “that those shoes are cheap plastic crap?”
It had not occurred to them.
Okay, guys—what’s the premise (the whole point) of my story?
When you meet someone who has won five O. Henry Awards, been nominated for the PEN/Faulkner, been the recipient of a Guggenheim, two National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowships, and a residency at Yaddo artists working community, whose papers are archived at the Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas in Austin—those are some wonderful shoes.
And when you meet someone with no previous experience who spent last November spurting a few misshapen toe buds for NaNoWriMo and then walked through a cow-pie and now wants you to buy photos of it from them—you might as well just flush your cash down the toilet.
It’s very true that not everyone needs wonderful shoes in order for photos of their feet to be worth paying for, taking home, and making a part of your life.
But if they don’t have wonderful shoes. . .they’d better have some damn spectacular feet.
Do you?
Victoria Mixon has been a professional writer and editor for more than thirty years and now works as an independent editor through her blog, A. Victoria Mixon, Editor. Most recently she is the author of Art & Craft of Writing: Secret Advice for Writers. She is also the author of The Art & Craft of Fiction: A Practitioner’s Manual, and The Art & Craft of Story: 2nd Practitioner’s Manual, as well as co-author of Children and the Internet: A Zen Guide for Parents and Educators. Always on the look-out for quality editing clients, she can be found on Google+ and Twitter.
Who can fail to be charmed (and informed) by your circuitous lesson, Victoria? Wonderfully creative. Nice job.
Thank you so much for getting it, Alex!
I work with so many writers all across the spectrum. The extremes of their skills and publishing records is awe-inspiring.
The one thing we all have in common is passionate love of the craft.
I’m writing up my link to this post on my own blog today, and I’ll be quoting you, with a link to your site.
This is a nice parable based on a potent tableau. The crucial question is how one is to know whether one has produced the finest Italian leather loafers or cow pies? I have been making footwear since I dropped out of college to pay the bills, but at first they were workwear for young companies seeking capital, then ballet slippers for musicians and orchestras, and before my first novel, henna tattoos on the bare feet of poetry readers. Who is to say whether my latest line is a cow pie or the apotheosis of the hoof?
Oh, I know, Ronald. I’ve been out there growing my feet in all ways too, for such a long time. And yet my actual footgear is quite modest. I’m not really in a huge race for shoes—I’m much more interested in those damn spectacular feet.
Henna tattoos on bare feet sound beautiful!
As creative (and bizarre) as this metaphor is, I can’t help but see a more than faint hint of snobbishness in the premise. What it seems to boil down to is this: “Unless you’ve been cobbling for as long as I have, or you’re a natural shoe-making genius, you’re not worthy of my time.”
You know, not everyone has the same taste in footwear. I loved those sparkly plastic jellies as a kid, practicality be damned. And though I think there are a lot of cheap strappy stripper heels out there that ought to be incinerated en masse, a lot of women gobble them up. It is not necessarily because they are “unfamiliar with really wonderful shoes.” They may just have a different standard for what “wonderful” means. And if they’re happy, I believe the cobbler succeeded, even if he or she doesn’t meet the established shoe critics’ criteria for “wonderful.”
Look, everyone starts out footless. The first few times you try to “grow a few stubby toes” you will fail miserably. I wasn’t confident in my feet until attempt number four. I worked damn hard to make them. And you know what I got for the effort? A room full of sneers and a, “Oh, Honey. Don’t try to compete with people who’ve made a hundred more pairs of shoes than you.”
I don’t have a whole team of shoemakers’ elves to polish my work to commercial perfection and market it. I don’t have the luxury to cobble for more than a few hours on evenings and weekends, and I’ve had a relatively short time to apprentice. But that does not mean I am trying to sell photos of crap to an ignorant public. Fortunately, now that we can sell shoes online without the approval of the footwear gatekeepers, I can still work at making a living, even if the critics crinkle their noses like I’ve stepped in poo.
Of late, I’ve seen quite a few out there who’ve quickly sprouted what almost surely must be misshapen feet and trying to sell pics of their cowpie covered shoes. Some days it makes me want just throw on some jellies and run out there to join what seems like a lot of fun.
But I know I’d quickly trash the jellies. I know my feet are not quite grown, and that once they are they’ll be worthy of some very nice–and very long-lasting–shoes, indeed. So I keep working at growing them. The life so short, the craft so long to learn. Patience, patience…
Thanks for the fun reminder, Victoria!
“The life so short, the craft so long to learn. Patience, patience…”
It’s so true, Vaugh! We all struggle to learn the craft as well as we can, and yet none of us ever learns it all. It is a life’s love.
As Somerset Maughm said, “There are three rules to writing novels. Unfortunately, no one ones what they are.”
So we work and work and work. And if we’re very dedicated and very humble and very lucky. . .maybe someday we wind up with beautiful feet.
Love the analogy (or metaphor, or parable, or whatever it is). There are some spectacular feet out there, and there are other feet that have been dragged through the cow pies. And, as always, it’s up to the purchaser to decide which they prefer. It’s a mess out there for both readers and authors. Thanks for sharing.
Oh, yes, Richard. The industry is so crazy.
And yet it’s better now than it was twenty years ago, when we were all watching the decline in traditionally-published fiction and wondering, ‘How can this be happening to an art we love so much? What the heck is going on?”
So many of my clients are brilliant writers—dedicated craftspeople—enormously committed to the craft. And it’s heartbreaking to see them fight their way through the bottleneck of agents’ inboxes only to find themselves stranded on the crowded shores of publishers’ quandary: “We love your fiction so much! Everyone on the editorial board is doing everything wey can for you. But the marketers say the market isn’t big enough.”
So we work and we watch and wait to see how it’s all going to shake down.
But in the meantime we keep growing our feet. Because, as Van Gogh makes so clear in his letters, it’s the growing that matters.
Wow.
The posts on WU offer wonderful vitamin ointments (for free) to help us grow our feet.
Thanks.
Thank you, Bernadette! That’s why I love being here—Therese and Kath have made Writer Unboxed a hub around with artists can congregate. Busy, always busy, growing!
If Mickie D’s and the like can hawk cowpies in a burger bun for 99 cents, I don’t see a problem in selling pictures of cowpie covered toes for that price. When banks charge you $10 a month fee to view your own statement from your smartphone and a cup of joe costs $5, when the waithelp at the restaurant rolls their eyes at your requests but you still pull out the bare 15% or not less than a $1 to sit at their table, I don’t mind taking the 99 cent risk on whether or not someone else’s hours of labor are up to my very subjective standards. I was entertained by Ms Mixon’s story, but I found the premise both elitist as did others AND strangely a race-to-the-bottom for writers. When we do not balk at being gouged for basic services in mundane areas of our lives yet begrudge someone 99 cents for their creative output, there is something inherently wrong with the values of our society. And don’t hate on me for America bashing, because although that statement may apply to the country or even the world at large, it is the society of writers I hold culpable. If we don’t value each other’s work, how do we have hope to expect the rest of the world will?
I repeatedly find myself reacting to 99 cent throw-aways by newbie writers exactly as Victoria Mixon has here. “What a pile of crap!” I grumble. Then I lay out big bucks for a multi-award-winning book by some super star author with 31 books in print and have the same reaction.
On the other hand, there’s the occasional free little jewel in the Kindle Store or a critically acclaimed, traditionally published Edgar winner and both books knock the breath out of me with their beauty, their emotional intensity, their power to challenge assumptions.
As T.K and Lori argued, our tastes are not all the same. I might agree with the Guggenheim judges sometimes, disagree others. So please don’t disparage the 99 cent ebook. Don’t tell me I’m a fool for buying it. I treasure the thrill of discovering a little jewel by an unknown author. I want her to have an opportunity to be heard and o grow. The “let the cream rise to the top” philosophy is democracy in action in the publishing industry.
Let the people decide.
Oh, Skip, I never lay out big bucks for modern fiction. The industry has changed too much in the past thirty years for that.
But I also don’t buy cheap stuff just because it’s cheap. I research authors—find recommendations of other authors by those authors—and seek out the work I want to read.
Life is short, and I am up to my neck 40 hours a week in helping others writers grow spectacular feet.
I simply don’t have time to waste on reading stuff that doesn’t inspire me, teach me, make me ever more passionate about my own growth.
I’m in agreement with TK Marnell.
Also, sometimes people have been ‘growing their feet’ FOREVER and I still get more enjoyment from a pic of a cow pie than from their work.
I don’t think length of time spent working is a very good gauge of quality of work.
It’s just like those people at regular jobs who think they should get kudos for punctuality and good attendance even though they goof off or cause trouble while they are actually at work.
Frankly, this post turns me off of your work as you sound bitter.
So the stories by established writers (e.g. Lawrence Block) that are priced at 99 cents are garbage? Price determines the quality? Your point is obscure as your story is convoluted.
Let me first say I appreciate your blog idea here and the way it sparked conversation. Then let me be the person that tells you I work hard at my writing, but I also (literally) own a pair of manure-covered crap shoes.
They were in a cattle lot all morning and tonight, they sit in a room with a gorgeous pair of Pradas while I try to write creative pieces in my spare moments since I still have to have a 40-hour week job to pay my family’s bills. We all wear different shoes for different occasions. I hope we can all appreciate everybody’s taste and love of shoes, even if we don’t walk in their shoes…
P.S. – if you want a picture of my cow pie shoes, I’ll send it for free. :)
Oh, please do send us a picture of your shoes, Bolton! That’s why I showed you guys mine—a pair of old 1950s slippers I got at my local thrift store. I would love it if we were all showing and claiming our shoes exactly as they are.
Those slippers are only the ones I’m willing to show in public. I have tons of cow-pie stuff. . .boxes and boxes of it from my pre-computer days, folders of it on my computer. I just don’t try to sell it, that’s all.
Like you, I work a 40-hour week. I’m so lucky I’ve been had the experience and passion for this craft that now my work is helping other writers grow their feet, passing on to them what it has taken me decades to learn. I wish I’d had someone to help me when I was young. But I didn’t. . .so now I do what I can for others.
And I squeeze my own beloved writing into the little spare corners of my life, wherever I can.
I get Ms. Mixon’s point and I admire her clever metaphor. Yes, a lot of stuff is getting published that might not pass muster in the “traditional” publishing world. But even in that world, standards are often subjective. How many rejections read something like “this just isn’t for me” or “it doesn’t fit my list at this time” and “keep trying; another agent may . . .” ? Maybe there is some cow pie out there, but there are also some fine writers who are publishing their works in less conventional ways. Sometimes, they even get noticed and picked up by the powers that be. Paul Harding’s TINKERS was rejected how many times before Bellevue Press took it on—a small press, yes, and a prestigious one, but not the traditional, big-money route to fame. I too agree with Ms. Marnell; a disturbing, elitist aura surrounds much of the publishing industry. I don’t think we can say that *all* independent or alternatively published work is bad. Nor can we say that *all* traditionally published writing is good. It’s just not that cut and dried.
Oh, yes, Gerry, I work with these fine writers all the time. Brilliant people. Dedicated to their work. Growing, growing, growing all the time.
I do find this an intensely exciting era in which to be a writer, which is why I have both published traditionally—what a fracas that was—and self-published.
I do talk a lot about, as you say, the “disturbing, elitist aura that surrounds much of the publishing industry” over on my own blog.
However, here in Writer Unboxed I’m much sillier. Therese and Kathleen have plenty of highly-qualified professionals keeping our eyes open to the industry in general.
When I was a little girl, I desperately wanted jellies, because they were pretty and sparkly and came in lots of different colors. The quality of construction didn’t matter to me at all–I didn’t want them because they were well-made, but because they were fashionable and fun.
When I discovered this year that Crocs made a kind of jellies, I bought some with alacrity. They are translucent purple, cool and smooth, and perfect for rainy days. I don’t wear them often, but when I do wear them I always enjoy them.
In my closet are high-heeled boots that got me the attention of the world’s sexiest clubgoing Irishman; a lovely pair of punched-leather hidden-wedge booties I’ve only managed to wear a handful of times because they don’t match anything; a pair of high-heeled silver sandals that would have been called “stripper shoes” a few years ago, but which I actually bought for a wedding; two pairs of sneakers; a pair of Doc Marten loafers I’ve had since high school–scarred and scuffed with age, but that only adds to the charm; a pair of snow boots (faux suede, fleece-lined, and incredibly warm), some hiking sandals (ugly as sin, but guaranteed for life); four pairs of flats (two black, one gray, one glittery silver “brocade”); and the comfortable Teva flip-flops I actually wear most of the time. They all serve different functions, I like them all, and I don’t see a reason to scorn or deride any of them.
My Paw once told me:
Never judge a pair of shoes by the syle of the box they are packaged in; unbox them first to see how they will fit into your life.
Never judge a person’s feet by the shoes they are forced to wear, at least not until you have been force to march around in those same shoes first.
Never judge the thickness of a foot’s soul until you fully understand the ground they have had to stand upon.
Never judge a soul’s future until you have read every line that has scared their growth, for only then can their fortunes be rightly told.
My first great passion came from a man who had a fetish for tiny Hobbit feet.
My most resent love was from a women who’s little boy was forced to wear his cousin’s stinking-hand-me-down-sneakers.
Though the shoes they crafted had the most humblest of beginnings, both writers had grown their feet through long hours of constant nurturing.
It’s true, TR. “Long hours of constant nurturing.”
Whenever I’m discouraged at just how much time and energy and patience and dedication and constant, constant nurturing it takes to grow feet worth sharing (and when I’m bucking up the spirits of my clients, who also go through these periods of discouragement), I remember that Tolkien spent his entire life on his work, and only a very small part of it was published in his lifetime.
Then that small part—which has now inspired so many of us in our reach for the spectacular in our own small way—was considered a minor cult oddity and largely ignored for ten years before it became the publishing phenomenon it is today.
We do it for the love of it, just as Tolkien did.
And we remember that we all have within our reach the spectacular.
I am an amateur musician. I play in an orchestra that performs for free. Some of our members are very proficient players. Some are beginners. Some are high school students. The results are mixed. The 300 people who come to hear us play, however, have never asked us to stop. Every once in a while, the planets align and we have a moment of brilliance. The audience has even been known to stand and applaud. The same people have done so for the NSO, but I don’t think they are saying we’re equivalent. Have we hoodwinked them because they don’t know any better? No. It’s about context and expectation.
You can argue that music is a different animal as a performance art, but I would respond that although we write because we love to, most of us also want to be read. For every person who feels that no one can/should edit their work, are many others who are serious about what they do and can’t get the publishing industry to give them the time of day. All they want is an audience for their work.
Eventually the market will develop mechanisms to help readers navigate the range of choices. I’m with Lori. When we support each other the market grows. At least people are reading. Sometimes I’ve got the time and money for a gourmet meal, but face it, a fluffernutter sandwich can be pretty darn tasty.
You’re absolutely right, JB. “Eventually the market will develop mechanisms to help readers navigate the range of choices.”
It’s such an enervating time to be a writer—perhaps most vividly so to those who survived the 1980s and ’90s as writers, when our choices of publication were so much more limited.
And, yes, “for every person who feels that no one can/should edit their work, are many others who are serious about what they do and can’t get the publishing industry to give them the time of day.”
These are my clients. We work with what we have in the current industry, but I do spend a lot of my time continuing to support and commune with and share what I learn with my clients long after–sometimes for years after—they have stopped being officially ‘clients.’
Because I have to be out here keeping up with the publishing industry for the sake of my job, and I want them to be at home practicing their craft.
I love great literature, that’s all. And I’ll do everything I can to help its creators succeed.
My son and I were having this very conversation yesterday! I received an email from Chicken Soup For The Soul editors that one of my stories will be picked up for the Angels Among Us edition due out January 2013.
While I am thrilled with this news as it is my first piece of work to be accepted anywhere, after January I will call myself “published” but not “author” for in MY world I am barely past being barefoot…maybe I’m wearing some fig leaves wrapped around my toes and tied with vine, but at least I feel like I’m on the right path and not trying to peddle my writing as some kind of “author wannabe”…;~)
GREAT POST!
Donna L Martin
http://www.donnalmartin.com
http://www.donasdays.blogspot.com
I love your fig leaves tied with vine, Donna!
As Van Gogh said so long ago (when he was still walking in fig leaves tied with vine, too):
“I admit it is very difficult to know what one must do. Money plays a brutal part in society. But I feel such a vivid hope that art will set free our real energy, and keep us afloat, though the first year may be very difficult. My policy is always to risk too much rather than too little.”
I think perhaps those who are declaiming this article as “elitist” are missing the point. Everyone writes drafts, and everyone goes through periods in which their writing stinks. Not everyone attempts to sell the results.
Until this point in history, no one has had the incredible ease of publishing said stinky stuff with such ease and charging for the privilege, and individual humans are famously unable to judge their own work, so yes, a lot of crap is being self-published. I wouldn’t want to pay for a concert by someone who has been playing the violin for a month, nor would I expect to get paid if I were in that position.
I don’t like reading other people’s cow pies, nor paying for the privilege to find out that I’m reading a draft from someone who just started writing. If you do, well, more power to you, but that hardly makes it elitist to encourage writers to show some pride in their work and get an objective opinion, especially with a parable as fine as this one.
Thank you, Elwood, for being yet another of these wonderful folks getting it.
I love you people!
Anne Lamott brought us the term Shitty First Drafts—bless her heart. We all write them. In fact, my comments on this very post are absolutely riddled with typos.
It is support and encouragement and camaraderie and especially humor that gets us all through the long, difficult work of learning this beloved craft.
[…] folks, it looks like I raised a little dust storm over on Writer Unboxed this weekend with a comic post about the difference between quality fiction and the modern frantic […]
I’m having a little bit of a hard time understanding exactly what you’re saying here. Is it that you think people with no talent have no right to try selling their stories? Or is it that you are unhappy that cheaply-made stories are selling cheaply and people are at risk of buying something that’s rubbish?
I myself am snobbish and elitist. I am sick of all the people who think they can write when – oh! god! – they really, really can not. And it riles me up to think of how all their rubbish is blocking the entry point for truly talented writers to get noticed by publishers. But I would never deny anyone their right to give it a go. I wouldn’t even deny them the right to jump on some bandwagon and make a quick buck. It’s like saying no one’s allowed to try flogging their tacky jewelry or their weak coffee or their smaller-than-ideal tomato plants, simply because other people make them better. If we followed this argument, none of us would write because how could we ever meet the standard set by Shakespeare?
I am also sick when I see some trash making the bestseller list. But if I’m honest, the litmus test for what makes a good book is whether readers like it or not. Wonderful writing is always to be appreciated for the mastery it demonstrates, but people buy books because they enjoy the story, they appreciate the ideas, they are touched in some way. Writing is only one part of what makes up a book. It seems to me that a writer can earn all kinds of awards, but of equal value to all those gold stars and prizes is the award which readers bestow upon them by buying the book.
But do forgive me if I have missed the point of your metaphor. I guess it proves a point about the value of an objective opinion, even an educated one – many here find your metaphor powerful, insightful, and easy to understand, but others don’t get it at all, or downright disagree. So who’s to say that one man’s cow pat isn’t another’s gold star?
I hesitate to say this, but with all due respect (and I have long admired you, and am a regular follower of your blog) I’ve noticed that you’ve not responded to those who disagree with you, and that on your blog you’ve labelled them as being on “a negativity bandwagon.” I think a real conversation about this, in which all perspectives were considered, would be interesting and enlightening.
First, forgive me for being three days late to the conversation. I also have one of those 40 hour a week commitments that pays my bills (actually, I’m a teacher, so double that). I should also add that I’m not a published author because I’m still growing my feet, and I’m smart enough to know it.
It’s not snobbish any more than it’s elitist. She’s merely suggesting that before you attempt a playoff game you merely attend some practice sessions, maybe have a conversation with the coach, and develop your skills before you have the audacity to charge people money to watch you play.
My husband is thrilled that I was able to make an appropriate sports analogy. Yay me and goodnight! :)
Yay you, LeAnne! (I don’t know how your comment slipped past me when it first went up.)
Yes, your sports analogy is fabulous. Your husband must be so proud. :)
Imagine a world where all the playing fields were crammed with people who had never played the game before but read all the time these days that ball-players make huge paychecks and get to work from home in their jammies.
Anyone can stop to watch an amateur game in a vacant lot, and it’s often great fun for everyone to spontaneously commune over something they love. We all love this game! Hurrah!
It’s just that we don’t usually sell tickets.
The spontaneous art springing up all over the Internet in recent years never stops amazing and astonishing me. Scott Berkun once made a good point to those of us who grew up without the virtual world, entirely here in the real world where—whenever you saw something incredible—you stopped and paid attention until it was done.
But now we can’t, because if we did that every time we saw something incredible on the Internet we’d never have lives. So we must choose. We must choose what we post and what we try to sell, and we must choose what we spend our precious time and energy and money upon.
And in that choosing, more and more, we must choose with great care.
The freedom of technology has brought all of us unprecedented new rights. But with rights come responsibilities.
I know lots of people who are desperate to be known as shoemakers, cobbling together anything they can get their hands on in hopes of breaking into the business. (And course, I’d love to open my own line of footwear some day — so this isn’t a matter of fetish.) And while they manage to bring home some chump change hawking their wares at the flea market, there’s no way I’d ever buy their shoes.
The thing about bad shoes is they’re really not good for the feet. I’ve had some bad shoes in my day, with bindings that dug into my Achilles’ tendon and soles that cracked the first time I took the dogs for a walk in the rain. I get blisters and calluses, and these, not surprisingly, make it difficult for me to cobble my own shoes properly. Suddenly my line of flats are warped, curved around my sore spots, and those sneakers I was working on came out much too long, the better not to grind against my heel.
This is not to say I won’t find a decent pair of shoes at the flea market, nor that Macy’s will guarantee a perfect fit. And hell, if I can’t even get Payless to pick up a single one of my fashions, I too might join the flea marketers — but I sure as hell won’t be selling shoes on the cheap because I didn’t even *bother* to make a quality product in the first place, even if my feet aren’t all that pretty.
I love how you took the analogy and ran with it, Jane!
You can see that I bought my own favorite shoes at the local thrift store. I had to outfit them with fleece insoles, but I love them. They are so comfortable and useful and strong and well-made. Plus they remind me of my grandfather—so they have heart.
It’s all in the aim for quality, isn’t it? That’s what storytelling—even life itself—is all about.
Victoria, where some took your point as elitist, what I hear clearly from you is the “taking of time.”
One responder above mentions that there is a range of tastes and nothing wrong with writers sharing if there is a reader willing to buy, and I agree with that to an extent. I’ve had a short story rejected by some really impressive editors who wrote to say they personally really enjoyed reading it and it left an impression on them, but it did not have the *kind* of impact they needed for it to claim one of ten spots in their magazine that quarter. If a writer has worked hard at their craft and gotten a novel to exactly the point they want it to tell their story, yet received the kind of feedback from agents that it just wouldn’t grab the kind of commercial attention they need to sell it to a publisher, that is exactly the kind of book I want to read as self-published. Like that agent, I’m going to be pleased to enjoy a piece of work that might otherwise be crowded out of a publisher’s list. But these aren’t hasty cowpie pics. These are works a writer spent time with, to learn their craft and get the work as far as they could. I share with many writers the daily task of getting the work, done, and applaud nanowritemo goals for yoking people together to accomplish a complete draft. Anyone who’s done it knows what an accomplishment it is to simply have hit the finished draft stage. Celebrate, absolutely. It is not elitist to say, “That’s awesome. You made it! But it’s not the final stage.”
As one who has been writing for years, I am extremely frustrated to not have final, published versions of my work being read — and share empathy with every other writer out there who just wants to put their work in a reader’s hands. But where I agree with Victoria’s point is that every time I’ve had multiple editors tell me that something was broken with a story, they’ve been right. Maybe not in knowing how I would fix it to maintain my own vision, but in time, I’ve recognized what was broken and had to face that I either had it in me to fix it or didn’t. The same is true of the four — four — novels I have drafted. I know they hold together as stories. I know that much of my writing is pretty good. But they’re not done yet. I am still learning — the stories themselves developing, and my skill at crafting them. I’m close, and hope to be ready to query within months or at most a year, and am impatient to get there. But I don’t feel the temptation to self-publish to get around the need to let the cake bake, so to speak.
That said, what is great in the balance of responses here is the genuine excitement about reading and writing that the new venue for publishing has opened. There are different goals and approaches and ultimate outcomes, but it’s great to see such an animated love for stories.
“But these aren’t hasty cowpie pics. These are works a writer spent time with, to learn their craft and get the work as far as they could.”
Oh, Elissa. My heart is so with you!
I’ve been writing novels since I was fifteen. I once spent fourteen years on one. They were works of love. . .so much time, so much effort, so much passion poured into this craft I love.
But they aren’t worth selling. Their value still lies entirely in what they give to me, not what they give the reader. And the reader—the person who spends their hard-earned money—is the one who matters.
It’s absolutely true that publishing editors have a limited amount of space in their pages, and they can’t publish everything they love. They’ve been saying that for as long as I’ve been in this business. And I’ve been the editor-in-chief of periodicals myself. I know the field of journalism is all about cut, cut, cut.
I do believe the self-publishing industry will, as JB says above, “eventually. . .develop mechanisms to help readers navigate the range of choices.”
A close friend and client (who’s been traditionally published with great success) is now self-publishing her fantasy series, and she just reported to me the other day that the 99-cent market has developed such a bad reputation for crap that writers are now offering the first novels of their series for free in order to distinguish themselves from that market.
I know our own Don Maass told me in an interview several years ago, “It’s a strange thing, but giveaways can help sales of physical books. We can at least say with some confidence that they don’t hurt.” He offers The Career Novelist as a free download, and on the basis of that download I did go right out and buy his other books. It worked on me!
So we see the market developing its mechanisms even as we speak.
A thrilling time to be a writer—an extraordinary era.
Point made in rushing to publish: I posted without rereading, so didn’t realize I deleted a thought about range of writing and interests above, which makes my own post sound elitist. What’s missing from my post above: There ARE a range of reading and writing interests, not all of which require years of revising. And I agree wholeheartedly that we should be willing to pay 99cents for a writer’s work, even sometimes in near-draft inspirational-form, if we’re wiling to pay that and more for so many other not-fully-fledged products in the world.