Gone With The Wind

In what probably remains the greatest novel ever written about the Civil War, Margaret Mitchell laments…with a nostalgia so keen it makes the reader weep…the Old South that is “gone with the wind that had swept through Georgia.”

I love Gone With The Wind. I started reading it when I was sixteen and never stopped reading it for the next ten years. When I reached the end, I immediately turned back to the beginning and began it again. Whatever else was going on in my life, whatever else I was reading, I was always, simultaneously, partway through Gone With The Wind. The vivid characters, the dramatic sweep of storytelling, the tears and laughter and thrills it evoked, never grew old to me. What a story! What a voice! The braiding together of a tumultuous romance and a rip-roaring, suspenseful, edge-of-your-seat war story is unique.

And yet. And yet.

What does the book romanticize, after all? What precious, irreplaceable world is “gone with the wind that had swept through Georgia”–? Why, lookee here. It’s the loveliness of slavery, that’s what. It’s the languid, beautiful life of the Southern slave-holding aristocracy.

Oh.

Guess it’s not so sad, after all, that a wind swept through Georgia and smashed it.

Gone With The Wind is such a great book that I still turn to it from time to time. I still urge others to read it. But I always recommend it with a caveat, now, and some of its passages cause my mouth to twist in a grimace of derision. This is sad, right? But necessary.

Racism, even when–perhaps especially when–expressed with affectionate, sentimental condescension must be noticed before it can be called out. Happily swimming in the dream Margaret Mitchell weaves, there comes a moment of “wait a minute.” It jolts you out of the story. First with lifted eyebrows. Then a frown. And finally a realization that a book you loved will never be the same to you again.

A wind is sweeping through Romance Writers of America (RWA).

I have written so lovingly of RWA in this blog that I feel compelled to address this subject. I adore RWA, especially its annual conferences. Without RWA, would I ever have been published? There’s no way to know, because there was RWA, and through it I grew and learned and made vital contacts that got me through the doors. I feel that I owe RWA my career. Do I? Maybe. As Aslan explained to Lucy, there is no way to know what would have happened. (“You mean,” said Lucy rather faintly, “that it would have turned out all right – somehow? But how? Please, Aslan! Am I not to know?” “To know what would have happened, child?” said Aslan. “No. Nobody is ever told that.” — Prince Caspian by C. S. Lewis) At any rate, I did  get published, and it was RWA that pointed me down the path I took. There may have been other paths. But it’s fruitless to wonder, and I suspect the other paths were fainter and more difficult to find.

In my last conference blog entry, I rejoiced that RWA was finally growing more diverse. But at the moment it is struggling to come to terms with that. I don’t know if it is suffering growing pains or death throes, but it’s certainly intense. Maybe these are labor pains, and RWA is about to give birth to something entirely new. At any rate, the story is unfolding so rapidly–and chaotically–that I can hardly follow it. When the dust settles, I shall return to the subject and attempt to say something wise and pithy. Right now, I can’t even imagine what that will be.

Racism Dispute Roils Romance Writers’ Group – NY Times

 

Picking Nits

I just read a Regency-set historical romance – part of a bestselling series by a bestselling author. It has 80+ customer reviews on Amazon with a 4.5 star average rating. Which makes me wonder if I am crazy, because I thought it was an embarrassment to the genre.

This is not a self-published book, so the anachronisms, Americanisms, and errors ought to have been corrected in the copy edit stage. It’s “lightning,”  not “lightening,” and normally one perceives it prior to hearing thunder, not afterward. This error occurred multiple times, so it was not a typo; I honestly can’t imagine what you would call it other than a “I’m-writing-to-deadline-and-don’t-have-time-to-correct-anything” boo-boo. Regency-era children rarely exclaimed “Wow!” – and if they did, an adult would likely not respond, “Wow is right!” And everyone in this book, including the children, addresses everyone by first name regardless of their station, relationship, or length of acquaintance. Nobody takes offense, corrects the children (“Please don’t call the vicar ‘Joe,’ dear”), or apologizes. There are holes in the plot, but since the heroine’s emotions repeatedly “purl” in her belly, perhaps the author intended to knit the holes together at some point.

Am I peeved? Yes. This is the kind of book that gives my beloved genre a bad name. Reading all the uncritical raves on Amazon fills me with anxiety, because I can easily imagine someone buying this book based on the reviews … and what if that person is not a romance reader? What if that person has decided to try their first romance novel ever, having been told by their friends that they should stop sneering at a genre they know nothing about, and this is the one they pick up? Ai yi yi.

I wrote this blog post years ago and never posted it because I was afraid someone would recognize the author or book. Now that sufficient time has elapsed, I am going to post it. Because I know I am not the only reader who cares about this stuff.

Self-published books — which this one was not — frequently suffer from editorial neglect, and I hope any of you who notice errors in my work will report them to me, since I alone am responsible for corrections. But this author had a publishing team at her back, and they let her down. Wow, did they ever let her down! Wow is right!

 

What Readers Want

I can’t say it better than Stephen King does, but I also can’t find the quote. So I’ll have to tell you the story the way I remember it. He confesses that people often ask him… less frequently, perhaps, than they did when he was starting out… “Why do you write that stuff?” And the question stymies him. Mostly because (he says) “They seem to think I have a choice.”

In other words, Stephen King writes what the muse sends him.

Oh, anxious young writer, desperate to produce something that sells, I see you. I see you at writers’ conferences, studying the latest publishing trends with a seriousness and a concentration that should be reserved for prayer. I see you in bookstores, frowning at the shelves with a mixture of contempt, jealousy, and longing rarely experienced outside of high school. And I promise you from my heart: writers who chase trends are like those guys who wander through haunted houses with video cameras, forever disappointed. Trust me. You, too, are chasing a ghost.

Whatever is on the shelves in that bookstore, publishers purchased at least a year ago. By the time it hits the store, it is only an example of what publishers used to like. Mimic it at your peril; they are buying something else today, and by the time you complete and submit your masterpiece based on the trend you see before you, it will be next year (if you’re lucky), and the wave you hoped to catch will have long ago spent itself upon the sand.

So write what the muse sends you. Listen to no one else. Write what you love. Write the story that resonates with you, and trust where it leads you. And it will lead you. Outline bedamned; you’ll know you are doing it right when the story slips off its dockline and heads for the rapids, dragging you in its wake.

I worry about you, fledgling writer taking copious notes at the conference. I mislike the intensity of your expression. Do not trust your notes if they send you north while your muse whispers “east.” Nod and smile and thank anyone who gives you an “industry tip,” but take every tip with a gigantic grain of salt. Many of the tidbits are good to know, and some will come in handy. But none of them will matter if you ignore your muse while following the advice of People Who Know.

The thing is, nobody knows what sells books. If publishers really knew what readers would buy, there would be no bins of deeply discounted remainders at the front of your local Barnes and Noble. Each book in the bin represents some editor’s roll of the dice, his or her best–and demonstrably wrong–guess at what readers want.

You can’t write a sure-fire bestseller, so you may as well write what you love. Your muse knows as much about what readers want as anyone else does. Probably more. It knows what you want, and aren’t you a reader?

No matter what you love to write, if you love it enough to do it well, there are like-minded readers out there. Ten years ago, you had to get past an editor at a publishing house before your work could reach anyone else. No more. So it is the best of times to stop chasing trends and write what the muse sends you.

And yes, I just gave you advice after telling you to listen to no one but your muse. The irony does not escape me! Oh well …

Don’t Miss to Read this Fiction Book

I am not a believer in book promotion. The only time I buy a book based on an author’s tweet is when I am already a fan of said author and have been eagerly awaiting his/her next release. I tune out the constant background noise on social media urging me to try this author or that, trumpeting the release of books that don’t interest me written by people I’ve never heard of. This is why I limit my own promotion (if you can even call it that) to family, friends, and those dear souls who already follow me. I post and tweet messages along the lines of, “Hey, guess what, Epic Cool is finally out. I bet you thought I’d never finish it.”

Except once.

A little over a year ago, I was approached by someone who was starting up an author/book promotion business. This person was so kind, and so persistent, and so cheap … one dollar! For a year’s worth of regular tweets! … that I finally relented and gave her a dollar.

I did not anticipate that I would find tweets promoting my own books just as annoying as all the other book promotions flooding my Twitter feed. Nor that the tweets would be composed by people who were not fluent in English. A tweet recommending The Fortune Hunter by someone who clearly lacks the language proficiency to have read it is not a convincing endorsement. For over a year now, my Twitter feed has been filled with images of my covers accompanied by messages like, “Don’t miss to read this #fiction book”  and “Read author @DianeFarr amazing Book.” :sigh: Bless their little well-meaning hearts.

I haven’t noticed a huge spike in sales, in case you are wondering.

 

Inspiration Overload at #RWA16

My brain can only handle about two days of RWA before it fries. I wouldn’t miss a minute of it—I wouldn’t dare, for fear I’d miss the best minute ever—but as I sit here in the San Diego airport, waiting for my flight back to the real world, I am feeling so inspired, so energized, so filled with information, gossip, tips, data, and carbohydrates, that I can barely think, let alone write. I am fit only for Candy Crush at this point, but the airport charges for wifi. So forget it.

The conference hashtag (#RWA16) will fade into history, the awards will find their permanent resting place on mantelpieces and bookshelves across the English-speaking world, and all the excitement fizzing in the air at the Marriott Marquis will scatter with the attendees and disperse. But as the old lyric says, the melody lingers on. The word “amazing” is used so indiscriminately today that its original meaning is diluted through overuse, but I’ll risk it. RWA is an amazing organization, and I mean that in the original, jaw-dropping way.

Are women truly wired differently than men are? Why are other creative organizations so cutthroat, and Romance Writers of America so nurturing? I don’t have an answer for it that doesn’t sound sexist, so I’ll simply thank them …us … for consistently amazing me. Every conference is uplifting as well as informative. Members who have progressed in their careers are cheered on, and members who have not progressed are supported, surrounded, encouraged, and counseled. It’s like a sisterhood—a sisterhood that includes men. I saw far more men, and a more interesting variety of skin tones, than I did even a few years ago at RWA12. White women, move over. A lot of new voices are offering tales of human pair bonding in all its myriad forms! This afternoon, for the first time, I read a romance featuring “black folk.” It was fantastic. Multicultural romances are going mainstream, and it’s way past time.

Is It Next Week Yet?

Like everyone else in America, I am so done with this week. One of the pleasures of traveling to San Diego to attend the Romance Writers of America conference will be the utter absence of news. For heaven’s sake, people, behave yourselves while I’m gone. When I come back to the real world, I’d like to find you all sitting around a campfire, roasting marshmallows and telling  jokes.

Someone please make arrangements and send out the evites. I’d do it myself, but I have to pack …

Sentimental by Proxy

It’s fun to take a “sentimental journey,” revisiting former haunts to see how they have fared. Sometimes the places you love are unchanged, plunging you into a sea of pleasurable nostalgia and bringing a smile to your face. Sometimes they have vanished — a less pleasurable experience, since the disappearance of buildings and streets once familiar, places that seemed permanent at the time, is an uncomfortable reminder of one’s own mortality. Usually what you find falls somewhere in the middle: The once-familiar place is still there, but time has altered it. And you.

They say you can never go home again. (They’re wrong, but they do say it.) I once believed this sad old adage. Then I moved–bracing myself for disappointment–back to a town I had left years before. And found that I fit right back in. I loved it, if anything, more than I did when I first called it “home.” I’ve had this experience twice now, so I’m happy to report that you can, in fact, go home again. Sentimental journeys, however, remain a mixed bag.

Which brings me to my latest interest: Revisiting scenes of lives other than my own.

I have an uncomfortable suspicion that there is something unhealthy about family history research. Like the old joke about codependency (“How do you know you’re codependent? You get hit by a bus, and someone else’s life flashes before your eyes”), I now find it fascinating to visit places where I have never lived, and research other people’s lives. I’m not alone in this obsession–far from it. Even perfectly normal people feel some degree of interest in visiting, say, Ireland. Or wherever one’s family is from. But when you really stop and look at this impulse, it’s a bit odd.

The more I study genealogy, the more aware I am that we are all connected. We all come from everywhere. Go back far enough, and it is clear that “the family of Man” is more than a turn of phrase. It’s a description of reality.  So why be more interested in your direct ancestors than you are in their contemporaries? Is there actually some sort of mystical bond … a connection to the land that survives somehow in the blood? Or is it all vanity?

I vote for the mystical bond. I’m a bona fide history buff and actually am interested in people from the past to whom I am not related. All lives are interesting. But there is an extra edge of excitement in learning about an interesting life whose genes you share. You hear their stories in your own voice, and ghosts crowd up behind you to peer over your shoulder as you pore over the microfiche or eagerly scan a ship manifest for long-sought names.

So I take sentimental journeys by proxy, driving past farms long gone and buildings remodeled beyond recognition, strolling from a train station to a house I’ve never lived in, retracing steps taken a century ago by a man who died when I was three. It’s strangely satisfying. I feel their approval, these ghosts who travel beside me, looking through my eyes at places they inhabited once upon a time. They seem to be as interested as I am to see what’s become of their old stomping grounds.

Too bad they can’t return the favor. I can’t look through their eyes and see what used to be there. But hunting down scraps of history is great fun, and I’ve always had a good imagination.

Just wish I could lose the nagging suspicion that it’s seriously weird to be so interested in dead people.

Me, beastin’ on history at the Santa Cruz museum archives

 

 

 

 

The First Week of the Rest of my Life

I’m loving it. Was there ever any doubt? Last night was unusually balmy for April. I was lulled to sleep by the song of frogs and the scent of jasmine, blissfully unaware of what time it was and knowing that it didn’t matter; I would wake with a gentle glide to consciousness whenever I was ready. Even on vacation, one must usually wake at a time certain in order to “get going” — sites to see, places to go, things to do. Retirement bestows a freedom I haven’t experienced since childhood summers. July, say, when school is a distant memory and returning to school seems so far in the future that it’s not worth bothering about.

Okay, today I’m going to start work on the final chapter of Epic Cool. But that hardly counts as working, because I get to do it when I darn well feel like it.

Some people, I hear, have a rough transition when they leave their jobs. These must be the kids who moped around the house during summer vacation, whining that they were bored, that there was “nothing to do.” Good grief. Now as then, I’ve got so many delicious things to do I can scarcely choose between them. So…catch you later; I’m off to paddle happily in my pool of projects!

My Last Weekend

It occurred to me, as I pulled into the garage Friday evening, that this would be my last weekend. My last real weekend, a Saturday and Sunday spent catching up on chores and trying to snatch some “down time” with the threat of Monday morning circling overhead like a buzzard.

Next weekend, as Alice Cooper is wont to remark, school’s out forever. I am leaving my much-loved job at the California Arts Council and returning to my interrupted writing life.

Writing full-time has its own set of frustrations, of course. The income is unreliable, the work itself can be mentally agonizing, and it’s impossible to really do it full-time. At least for me. I can write for about four hours before my brain fries. This is why I went to work for the state of California in the first place; I couldn’t write more than twenty hours a week anyway, so why not get a part-time job for the other twenty hours? This worked fairly well until the Arts Council lured me into a full-time position. I enjoyed the job, and it took eight hours to fry my brain instead of four, but at the end of the day I was fried all the same. And with no words on the page. Needless to say, my books suffered. I have had no new product out since 2012, and the only reason I was able to finish that one (Scary Cool) was that I began it in 2006! One book every six years is insufficient to keep one’s momentum. Trust me.

I hope to do better now, but if you happen to be one of my long-suffering readers, I warn you: I have never been a fast writer, and am unlikely to suddenly flood the market with books.  On the other hand, they will almost certainly appear more frequently than every six years.

Meanwhile, it’s Sunday afternoon and I’m about to start my last real work week. I can hardly wait to throw out my alarm clock.

Where the heck have I been?

Allow me to explain …

https://calartscouncil.wordpress.com/2016/04/04/losing-our-voice/

The Arts Council bids farewell to social media maven Diane Farr Golling

So am I back, and will I be blogging again? Why, yes. Yes I am, and yes I will.