Failing Well

One great secret to success in life: Failure.

More specifically, the ability to fail well. To shrug off your failure and come back just as hard as the first time. It's what makes champion sportsmen, successful inventors and industrialists and every career artist/writer/actor/dancer/musician/creative type you'll ever meet.

Thing is, that's harder than it sounds. Failure is hard on the ego, and failing at something you really, deeply care about can be devastating.

Or not. Thomas Edison failed something like 3000 times before he got a light bulb to work. Walt Disney was turned down by over 100 banks before he was able to finance his first amusement park. Actors get turned down at one heck of a lot of auditions for every part they get, and there isn't a writer alive, no matter how bestselling, without a fair-sized stack of rejection letters behind them.

Failure is how we succeed, *if* we don't let it get the best of us. And how do we do that? How do we take those rejections, those hard knocks, and come right back swinging?

The key is how we explain our failures to ourselves.

The ones who stay down when they fall, or need MUCH more time to get back up, are those who see their failures as Pervasive, Powerful and Permanent. For example, Joe Writer gets a rejection letter. He thinks, "I suck at everything (Pervasive), this letter proves it (Powerful). I'll *never* be any good as a writer (Permanent)." It takes him a week to work up the nerve to send the next submission, if he doesn't just stick his manuscript in a drawer and give up. After all, he's no good, right?

Those who bounce back do it first in their heads. The better they see their failures as Isolated, Weak and Temporary, the better they do on their next performance. Jane Scribbler gets her rejection letter too, but she is able to think, "It's only one letter (Isolated), and just one market (Weak). Somebody's bound to say 'yes'."

I know, this perspective is easier to say than to do, especially when your latest setback has you feeling like you've been kicked in the guts. But, if you want to succeed, learning to fail well is vital.

###

One side point: Denial, Distortion and Projection are also effective ways to deal with failure. Effective, but not exactly healthy. Refusing to allow that failure into your mental landscape (Denial), reshaping reality to meet our mental needs (Distortion) and pushing the causes of our failures outside ourselves (Projection-- often persecutory in nature), these are elemental ways our ego protects itself from damaging information.

Thing is, what protects our ego often blights our character. Blocking failure robs us of the opportunity to correct the causes of our failure and eventually succeed. Nothing good can come of this...

50 Reasons

Blatantly stolen from the brilliantly-titled Bookgasm,

50 Reasons No One Wants to Publish Your First Book

(click the 50 Reasons to go straight to the post-- the bookgasm link takes you to their latest entertainment!)

A few of my personal favorites:

#46. Historically, books written solely to settle a bar bet seldom make it to print, especially if they were written during a seven-and-a-half-hour period in the same bar where the bet was made.

#43. Writing a 97,236-word thesis arguing the inherent superiority of Wolverine over Batman is intrinsically flawed since no intelligent person could ever take it seriously. I mean, c’mon, Batman would kick that midget Canuck’s ass every single time!

#25. A young-adult novel set in the behind-the-scenes world of network reality television featuring over two dozen characters, graphic underage sex and dead prostitutes? Are you fucking kidding me? No, seriously, are you fucking kidding me?

(that one made the whiskey fly out my nose!)

and...

#6. The world isn’t quite ready for an illustrated children’s book called SOME MOMMIES ARE INTERNET PORNSTARS



How bout y'all? What's your favorite???

Mmmm, Turkey

In what is becoming something of a tradition, I present Steve's Third Annual How-Not-to-Write Revisit of the Turkey City Lexicon.

A few of the rules are specifically geared toward Science Fiction and Fantasy writers, but there's plenty there for all of us.

And as a bit of mashed potatoes and stuffing, or perhaps cranberries and pumpkin pie, here are a few more helpful tips on Bad Words, the Look of the Thing and the Heirarchy of Sloth...

And, for that cold leftover-turkey sandwich two hours after you were sure your stomach would explode but now you're hungry again, I give you some Scooby Don'ts.

Bon Appetit!




That's right, it's a clip show....

Big Rocks First

I could swear I saw this done in the 80's, but my Google-search seems to attribute this anecdote (mostly) to Stephen Covey. Either way, it's a good lesson.

In First Things First, Stephen Covey tells a story that one of his associates heard at a seminar. The seminar presenter pulled out a wide-mouth gallon jar and placed it next to a pile of fist-sized rocks. After filling the jar to the top with rocks, he asked, "Is the jar full?"

The group replied, "Yes."

He then got some gravel from under the table and added it to the jar. The speaker jiggled the jar until the gravel filled the spaces between the rocks. Again, he asked, "Is the jar full?"

This time, the group replied, "Probably not."

The speaker then added some sand and asked, "Is the jar full?"

"No!" shouted the group.

Finally, the speaker filled the jar to the brim with water and asked the group the point of this illustration.

Someone replied that you could always fit more things into your life if "you really work at it."

"No," countered the speaker. The point is, if you don't put the big rocks in first, " . . . would you ever have gotten any of them in?"

As you start the new year, think of the "big rocks" in your life as the things you can do to make this a healthier and happier year for yourself and others. When making decisions during the moments, days and months of the year ahead, ask: "Is this a big rock?"

Say "yes" to your "big rocks" first. Don't feel you need to explain each "no" when the smaller gravel and sand try to fill your time. "No" can be a complete sentence!

I get a fair amount done every week. And that includes a fair amount of that slack, do-nothing, hang-out-together time that the Dynamo and I enjoy together. I don't tightly schedule *anything*, but I do keep my Big Rocks few, and make them my priority.

1000 words a day on the novel.

Say something sweet to, do something sweet for and generally enjoy the Tiny Dynamo.

Read an hour or two a night.

Work enough to keep the doors open.

That's it, really. Just those few things. The smaller stuff, the gravel, fits in easy enough: surfing the net, painting for fun, writing the odd blog post, drinks with friends, etc. Like sand and water, the *really* small stuff has to fit in where it can. I don't sweat it.

I know some of you are thinking about your bigger job commitements, the time that children eat up, that sort of thing. Cool. Those are your Big Rocks, and they do deserve your time. And if your job is a Bigger Rock for you than your writing, expect the appropriate results.
You'll need to go slower, or to push some sand out of the way.

Right now, CS Harris is writing despite some serious, and unavoidable, upheavals. I have faith in her. After all, this is the same woman who wrote Why Mermaids Sing in the middle of Katrina. Now me, I tend to think, "Oh no, XYZ popped up and I won't get what I need to done." Then I think of Candy and feel inspired. I drop some other, smaller rock and get back to work.

I'll offer three important tips:

1. Get the must-do stuff done first. Little fires ignite all day long. If nothing else, they're going to take some energy to put out. It's easy to end up too tired at day's end to do your best. Some folks are exceptions to this, your mileage may vary.

2. Clarity. Be clear and honest with yourself about the size of those Big Rocks. Sometimes, the answers may be a little painful, but in my book a little pain's better than decades of lingering hollow misery and nagging doubt caused by living an untrue life.

3. Focus. The fewer Big Rocks you have, the easier it is to focus on them. A person with only ONE priority in life is (yes, likely to appear slightly deranged, but also) virtually unstoppable. A person with five #1 issues is a fool.

As always, take what you like and leave the rest.

And let's see, on Day... hm, Day 38 (had to take off my shoes to count that one), the Full Throttle Daily Wordcount-O-Meter stands at 40,900 words. And I'm one scene away from my Great Big Tentpole Plot Development. Fun!

Anti-Art

Riss did a recent post that got my teeth to gnashing. She did a short rant on creative-types who spend more time talking about their work than they do DOING it.

Yup, everyone out there just thought of somebody. No use denying it, I know you did.

That's because they're everywhere. And the minute they sense the creativity in you, they descend those wraith things that guard Azkabhan, trying to suck the warmth and the life from your art.

These ghoulish creatures have been possessed by the spirit of anti-art.

Some, as in Riss's post, talk endlessly about what their work *should* be saying to people. They'll go on and on (and on-- you didn't have to be anywhere, did you?) about statements made by light and shadow in their poetry, about PostModern Deconstructionalsim and the New Structure in their dance pieces, about hearing forms of visual music in their paintings and about how, really, their work challenges the essence of what we have, until now, thought of as a novel, painting, sculpture, dance, mime, poem, song, pile of crap lying on the floor that you were about to clean.

This is one reason I steer clear of university coffee houses. These assholes are everywhere, but at least at the pub their words are smaller.

As long as they actually, you know, *have* some work to talk about, I find these folks the most forgivable. A certain amount of self-promotion is necessary to pay the rent, and we all prefer an artist who can give a coherent and concise teaser about their work, the 'elevator pitch'. Key words being 'concise' and 'coherent'.

Others love to tell you about the work they'd make, if only it were possible. This bunch usually think they're visual artists of some stripe (painters, sculptors, installationists, etc), though I have known a fair few writers who were only too happy to tell me (at length) about how they'd write this great novel if only
a) they had a computer,
b) the computer was a laptop,
c) the laptop had a more intuitive word-processing program,
d) they had silence in which to write,
e) they had crowd noise around them, people talking and so on
f) the computer didn't make that little hum
g) pens and paper didn't cramp their hand
etc. etc. et freaking cetera...

Once, I thought these poor souls actually wanted to make something. Sadly, it took longer than it should have for me to realize that what they really wanted was to suck me in to their world of slack.

And then of course, there's the garden variety failure. Older men seem to delight in this role, but it's not a closed shop by any means. You know The Failure, you meet him all the time. When I was a kid he'd say, "Painting, eh? I used to paint a bit m'self, even had a picture on the wall in a coffee shop once. No money in it, of course. No, you'll soon come to your senses as I did and sell car upholstery over the telephone."

Now, they usually like to tell me how they had an idea for a novel once. It was going to be about a financial services advisor who lives in a van and solves supernatural crimes. Had a really great twist in mind, too... (furtive look from side to side) (hoarse whisper) the ghosts weren't really ghosts at all. They were going to be these old guys, dressed up in bedsheets and roller skates, pretending to be ghosts!

*sigh*

I joke, but these Spirits of Anti-Art aren't funny. If you allow them, they will derail every last bit of creativity, sucking you dry until there's little left but rattling bones. You'll drift up to that shabby kid typing in Starbucks and say, "Screenplay, eh? I have a fantastic idea, uses shadow and light to challenge the very essence of linear storytelling. I'd write it, if only I could use electronics underwater in a sensory isolation tank. Of course, nobody actually makes a living in movies, that's all just smoke and mirrors and accounting tricks. I should know, been an accountant for..."

Until you see the light fade from that kid's eyes, too...

Tale of Two Train Wrecks

(Lessons from failure, with a brief digression)

C.S. reminded me this week that it's Mardi Gras season again. I know a lot of tourists see the holiday as little more than three B's: Booze, Beads & Boobies. They're right of course, but at the same time, sadly wrong.

Mardi Gras (or Carnival if you like) is a dance of death. It's a final and frenzied revelry before the symbolic death of Lent. (Well, technically, I seem to remember Lent is an extended symbolic suffering before the symbolic 'death' on Good Friday, but that doesn't change Mardi Gras's 'Gather Ye Rosebuds' metaphor.) And yes, we must die before we can be born anew at Easter. Denial. Death. Rebirth. It's a powerful and blood-soaked symbolism.

Of course, now the symbolism has changed, deepened. The city's death was real. Its rebirth is real. Every Mardi Gras since Katrina is a raging cry, a proof of life.

I only lived in New Orleans for a year and a half. I didn't know it then, but that was all the time the city needed to burn itself into my soul.

But I digress. Long story short: I got a bit homesick and rented a pair of New Orleans movies.

Sadly, those movies were The Big Easy and Heaven's Prisoners. Two of the most godawful train wrecks imaginable. Really. Ouch!

So as not to waste a valuable opportunity, I put my Storyteller's hat on as I watched. After all, we can learn as much or more from bad work as from good.

The Big Easy:

About 45 minutes in, I nailed the problem: SLEEPWALKING!!! Just about everyone involved sleepwalked through their patch. The script was okay. It had the mystery, the action sequences, the meet-cute and a little sex. There were the usual twists and reversals and by-the-numbers-surprises in the pacing. It was... okay.

The photography was... nice. In 1988 (or whenever), it wasn't hard to get a beautiful shot in New Orleans. You could shoot some nice stuff without thinking about it. And the DP (director of photography) didn't.

Neither did the director. He did some nice things with blocking (that's how the actors move around the set), but not enough imagination went into camera angle.

And the actors, don't get me started. Almost the entire cast treated their roles as a paid vacation on Bourbon Street. The extras all but waved at the camera and mouthed 'hi mom'.

But you know who shined? Ellen Barkin and John Goodman. Both were relative unknowns at the time, and by God, they got their chance and ripped into their roles with claws and teeth.

Lessons for Storytellers:

a) You can't phone it in.

b) An exotic setting and exciting events aren't enough.

c) A few clever moments aren't enough.

d) It's possible to make powerful work out of a stale plot, if you have the passion and the drive.

e) You CAN'T phone it in!

Heaven's Prisoners:

Almost the exact opposite of The Big Easy. Every frame of film showed a great deal of caring and commitment. The actors all brought their A game, as did the director. And the DP... wow. New Orleans has never looked so good!

So what went wrong?

They tried to be too faithful to James Lee Burke.

Burke's novels are gorgeous, elegiac, poetic and wise. They're everything that film is not. Yeah, the movie caught the steam rising from the streets after a summer rain. It caught the improbable wealth and grinding poverty. It even managed to convey the powerful swirl of self-destructive energies that threaten all of the principals, Dave included.

Sure, they made some changes. Fan favourite Clete Purcel was written out in favour of a now-African American (and more politically correct) Minos Dautrieve. Fair enough. What I seem to remember as a shootout in Algiers ended up somehow as a brawl on a 'speeding' runaway streetcar. (Old joke about the streetcar: if it passes you by, just walk on down to the next stop and catch it there!)

But they tried to keep the wrong stuff. They tried to keep Dave's PTSD dreams. His phone calls from the dead. They tried to stuff JLB's lovely narrative prose into the mouths of characters as dialogue. All of these are sequel. None of them are what film does well.

Lessons for Storytellers:

a) Use your medium. Novels, graphic novels, spoken word and film all have their own unique strengths and weaknesses. Learn them. Use them.

b) Without the right tools, passion just isn't enough.

Sure was a pretty movie, though...

An Unnecessary Mess

Right now, the Smart Bitches are tearing through a certain author's works. They found pages and pages of 'marked similarity' between the historical fiction of Cassie Edwards and various dusty volumes of non-fiction published between 1902 and 1937.

The Smart Bitches cry plagarism. Signet Books shouts fair use.

I mutter, "Sloppy writing..."

Historical fiction's tough. It's as tough as science fiction or fantasy world-building, but with the added bonus of other people being able to shout 'Anachronism!' at the top of their lungs if you screw up. Research, accurate research, is soooooo vital!

And since the appeal of historical fiction is the chance to be transported back in time, we the reader know, or at least really really HOPE, the wrtier did her research.

The Bitches' issue with Ms Edwards doesn't seem to be the accuracy of her research. It's that her authorial voice changes when she wants to show that research off. Changes so much, they googled those odd bits. Then googled some more... It becomes clear that the writer's awkward info-dumps (if your readers notice the change in voice, that's awkward) were literally scooped up and dumped from source material to novel.

"Plagarism!"

"Fair use!"

Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy. Lazy.

By contrast, yesterday I started 'Why Mermaids Sing' by CS Harris. It's a murder mystery set in Regency England. September 1811, to be exact.

I'm reading with a sort of sense of wonder right now: beautiful language, flowing dialogue, local dialects that actually work, a deft hand with characterization and a cracking good pace. Seriously, this writer belongs on the bestseller lists.

So it should be no surprise that her research and historical texture are spot-on as well. And restrained.

Marvelously restrained. Her characters move through their world without feeling the need to stop every few pages and 'break the fourth wall' explaining it to us. Yes, it took me a few chapters to figure out what a 'tiger' was, but it was worth it. I'm about a quarter of the way through, and not a single info-dump narrative or 'As you know Bob' in sight!

It's a walk along a knife's edge, giving the reader enough information without giving too much. And it's a bloody magic act pulling it off without the seams showing. Mermaids does it, and damned if I can quite see how...

Doing all this research. Ignoring it while you write. Using facts sparingly. And then doing it in a pleasing and entertaining way: it's a lot of heavy lifting. A lot. And as a guy with a lazy side myself (for two years I hired a lawn service rather than mow my own), I can understand the aversion to heavy lifting.

But here's the thing. We love what we do. Otherwise, we'd do something else. And love means doing the heavy lifting.

Hard Resolution

“If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put foundations under them.” — Henry David Thoreau

"Move with purpose. The world will meet you, or at least get out of your way." -- Steve Malley

Tis the season for new year's resolutions.

All around our Western Civilization, gym memberships are swelling. It's hard to find a chair this month in Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig and all those other diet programs. Online dating sites are doing a booming business.

In a couple of weeks, maybe a month, most of those new faces will be gone. We used to see it all the time in the martial arts gyms of my youth. Every January, and every time a new action movie came out, the new folks piled in, most of them six week wonders.

Kate has a list of her new things in her life, and they've been happening. Candy has four well-thought resolutions. Charles, only one (but it's a goodie - cut down on the computer games). Timothy Hallinan has a beauty of a list for any writer.

I don't make New Year's resolutions. For some reason, my off-beat life makes them impractical. Instead, I make my resolutions for the next twelve months in October.

This year I don't have any new ones. I'm too busy with year three of an old resolution: Move from comics into prose.

That meant my life needed to change. I finished out my comics commitments and did not take on new ones. I work fifteen hours a week in the tattoo shop, a compromise that gives me money enough for books and time enough to write.

And I do write. I write and I read and I study this strange craft. I'm in for a long haul.

The best things in life don't give instant gratification. Being in shape is great: sweating in the gym sucks, especially those sore first few weeks. No matter what Beyonce's doing with maple syrup, weight loss needs to be gradual to endure. Loving and being loved is awesome, but it's work, every day. I didn't expect life as a writer to be an exception.

I suspect that's where the six-week wonders go wrong. At the end of the day, it's easier to chase the quick fix pleasure than to hunker down for the bigger reward.

Heirarchy of Sloth

Bernita wrote a fine post on the sigh. I figure it applies to smiles, frowns, raised eyebrows and hands on hips as well.

Especially smiles. How many scenes have you read where the characters smile at each other, like, every other sentence? Think about it. The only people who smile that much in *real* life usually want to talk to you about Jesus. Or get ou to drink the Kool Aid.

Lazy writing is all it is. But only middle-of-the-road lazy. The writer is trying to get you into the character's emotional state, so yay. And there *are* worse ways to do it. But there are better: much, much better.

So here, for the record, is Steve's Heirarchy of Sloth:

1. I'm Telling: This one's the King of Flab. Feel lazy enough to lie in your writing and make trash angels? Just give us your characters' emotional states in so many words. Watch what could be an exciting moment lie flaccid at your feet:

"I don't love you any more," Tom said. It pained him to say it.

His words broke Emily's heart.

2. The Swiftie: Anybody else love those Tom Swift adventures when you were kids? I did. Then I turned eight or nine, and using an adverb to 'tag' the emotion onto dialogue became unnacceptable.

"I don't love you any more," Tom said sadly.

If you want to be aggressively stupid, have the dialogue and adverb amplify each other: "I'm going to kill her," he said menacingly. Do. Not. Do. This.

3. Smile, Sigh, Frown: We've made a big jump here, up to the level of the barely acceptable. You're letting the reader fill in the *tiniest* of gaps, enough to know that happy peoplle smile, unfulfilled ones sigh and those who disagree or disapprove frown.

Tom frowned. "I don't love you any more."

"I was afraid of that," Emily sighed.

I'm reminded of men 'letting' women use their tools. The impulse to stick a hand in there and take over is only *barely* restrained...

4. Use the Environment: Completely acceptable, and readers even like it.

"Do you love me?" Emily said.

Tom stared at the patterns on the rain-streaked window. The room was cold away from the dying fire.

"We have to talk," he said.

Readers are smart cookies. They're easily capable of making that jump between the rainy day, the cold room, and Tom's feelings for Emily. No stick-beating required. And if you can do three or four hundred pages of this with nothing really happening, literary prizes and fellowships may fall at your feet!

5. Striptease: Ever ask a question and get a question for an answer? Were you ever have so much at stake about an answer that you couldn't bring yourself to ask the question outright?

Revealing our feelings is often a gradual, I'll-show-you-mine-if-you-show-me-yours striptease. There's no reason for your characters not to do the same.

"It's been awhile," Emily said.

The waiter set their coffees in front of them. The cups were tiny, the porcelain almost unbearably fragile.

"Not that long." Tom sipped at his coffee and made a face. Emily stirred hers without drinking.

"You look good."

"So do you."

"You ever, you know, think about it?"

"Sometimes." Tom drained the rest of his coffee. The taste was black and bitter.

"Yeah, me too. Sometimes." Emily stood up, her untouched coffee splashing on the table. "Well, it's been nice, but I've got to run. Things to do, you know..."

In good fiction, as in real life, wearing our emotions openly is an invitation to get them stepped on. And yeah, I used a little cheat: Tom 'made a face', but it's a small cheat, and their exchange holds up without it. In fact, you may notice that the coffee is mostly there for 'stage business'-- it helps me control the beats and pauses in this uncomfortable conversation. But the 'stage business' does some extra work, too. The fragile cups, Tom's black and bitter coffee, Emily's refusal to drink, all have a little something to say about their relationship.

6. Deny, Deny, Deny: Rare air up here. This can be unbelievably effective, or it can fall on its ass. And it all depends on your reader, how much attention they're paying and what kind of sophistication they're bringing to your work.

You've got these POWERFUL emotions running, but you leave them completely under the surface. It's up to the reader to winnow them out. Think of the movie Goodfellahs, where Robert DeNiro waits until a fellow hood leaves, then asks the guy next to him, "You think he talks to his wife?" Without another word, nobody's a bit surprised when the guy and his wife show up dead.

Tom and Emily lay together. The tangled sheets smelled sour, and cold shadows from the rain-streaked window crawled across their bare skin.

Emily stroked Tom's hair. He stood up and began to dress. She bit her lip and said nothing.

Notice I fell back on my #4 crutch there, the sheets and their skin. Nobody says you can't, and I rather like that image, but the point is, I could take it right out of there and still be left with a sparse, bare, lean passage that works.

At least, it works *if* you get Emily's touching Tom's hair as tenderness, and Tom's standing up and hiding under clothes as denial of that bond. Hemingway used this technique powerfully. Or if you didn't get it, it was a man and a woman on a stalled train, and nothing really happened...

So, to recap, Steve's Heirarchy of Sloth:

1. I'm Telling

2. The Swiftie

3. Smile, Sigh, Frown

4. Use the Environment

5. Striptease

6. Deny, Deny, Deny

And just to be honest, I have bad-writing days, same as anyone. But you'd better believe that every time I catch a character smiling, sighing, frowning, putting hands on hips or, God forbid, saying something menacingly, I go in there with red-hot tongs. Some smiles, etc. *do* have good reason to remain, but very few survive my trial by fire.

Knockout Moments

Some dead French guy once said something along the lines of, "A writer tells lies to reveal the truth."

Or if he didn't, he should have. Cause that's what we do: we make stuff up, left, right and center. But the stuff we make up has to ring true to hold up our end of the story contract. For her part, the reader agrees to put aside some skepticism to play make-believe with us.

Until we drop the ball.

I'm not talking about the obvious suspects:

Info-dumps ("As you know, Bob, these caves are rumoured to have been...")

Eye-crossingly bad dialogue ("If you dare to move I will shoot you," he threatened menacingly.)

Hackneyed story tropes (A needlessly complicated serial killer makes fiendish puzzles out of his victims, and a moping vampire crimefighter needs to stop him before the innocent love interest is next. Yawn.)

Those are all style problems, and bad style can be unlearned. I'm thinking today of those times we tell the reader the wrong lies and knock them out of the story. CS Harris did a couple of great posts on man-stuff and women-stuff that strains story credibility.

Or on Killer Year, Sean Chercover put up this post on fictional firearms gaffs. My personal pet peeve is the hero giving us the make and model of the gun the bad guy's pointing at him. I've had guns pointed at me, and never once did I think, "Why, that's a Colt Python .357 Magnum," or "Hmm, now is that pistol a Berreta or a Sig Sauer? Sigs have that slim line, but I think it's the Berreta has that particular butterfly safety."

Or whatever. To be honest, I can't remember what the hell I ever thought in those moments. I'll buy James Bond or Jack Reacher being disinterested enough to think about these things. The rest of us? Not so much.

It goes back to the writer's sense of the world, and of people. When it differs too much from the reader's, the reader is knocked out of the story. Naked women admiring themselves in the mirror, men commenting on their own chiseled jaws and sensuous mouths, teenagers who talk like the Scooby Doo gang, all are at odds with life as I know it. And probably the reader, too.

It's not always the writer's fault, either. I rented the first season of The Wire recently. I was riveted. The Dynamo watched maybe five or ten minutes before pronouncing it unbelievable. "Those kids dealing drugs, why aren't they in school? And nobody curses that much, especially not cops."

Widely different experiences of the world. I lent the DVDs to another Kiwi who *loves* The Sopranos. He brought it back the next day. His comment?

"People in the US don't really curse that much, do they?"

Fuck no.

What's Talent Got to Do With It

97,000 words (back on track)

One ending has been chosen, the other locked in its cupboard. The scratching behind that door grows feebler, the weeping softer. Soon they may stop entirely.

Meanwhile, CS Harris got me thinking. She's got a great series of posts up right now comparing bestsellers with similar, though much less successful, books. The differences seem to jump right out.

Which made me wonder, what's talent got to do with it?

The creative fields are a funny business. Art, literature, music-- hell, interpretive dance and mime are crowded with yahoos whose self-esteem eclipses their ability (think American Idol open auditions), and then there are the few superstars who make it to being household names. And those two ends of the scale are all people know.

Mention you're a writer at a party. You'll hear about Uncle Elmer's manuscript, unfinished after twenty years. You'll hear about how JK Rowling's richer than the Queen. You might even get my favorite suggestion, "You gotta get you an idea like that one." Gee, thanks.

It takes an enormous amount of work, training, drive and maybe talent just to rise onto the lowest rungs. And from there? Fuggeddaboudit....

I worked hard, trained hard and drove over, under or through every obstacle to carve out a lovely career for myself in art. Then, selfish prick that I am, I 'decided' (reason for air quotes: see That Twisting Urge) to reinvent myself as a writer.

So what's talent got to do with it?

I had no idea if I had any, for one thing. I also didn't care, for another. Now, I don't mean that in the sense so many Idol hopefuls obviously do. It's just that there are several factors important to success.

Talent's the only one we have no control over, so why worry about it. Most people don't fail through lack of talent, and quite a few succeed despite any discernible scrap of it. They fail due to fear, laziness, priorities and bad influences.

Fear: kills heaps of dreams before they start. Understandable, I guess. The creative life offers no steady paychecks, no built-in understanding from family and friends and the sorts of embarrassment that make standing naked in a roomful of strangers seem easy by comparison. It's not for the faint of heart.

Laziness: A many-headed beast I rail on about a lot on this blog. It takes a lot of hours to write a novel, even a bad one. It takes a lot of hours to do the reading to stay up on the field. And it takes something extra to not settle for any less than your best.

That means not accepting stereotyped characters, flat prose, hackneyed situations and anything less than total honesty in our observations of human nature. I think the horror genre unravelled in the eighties under a flood of 'good enough' work.

Good enough never is.

Priorities: I had to include this to be honest. I have no children and a 'job' that only requires me to work two or three days a week. I keep my needs modest so that I have the time to write thirty, forty, even fifty hours a week if I feel like it. Most people don't have that, and some will just be too plain tired at the end of a day to sit down with pad and pen or keyboard or goose quill and parchment and give it their best.

Fair enough, too.

Bad Influences: Another form of laziness, really. Before I got serious about writing, I read what I felt like, and my tastes are quite frankly a little on the trashy side. I come back again and again to 50's and 60s pulp crime, 80s horror and sci-fi/fantasy. Like a lot of casual readers, I was reluctant to take a chance on any first-time novelist and anybody who wasn't on the bestseller lists.

My first novel sure reflected it, too. I put myself on a strict program of every award-winning debut novel I could find, as well as the top winners in my favorite genres. There was no use looking at where the bar had been set thirty years ago. There was no use looking to certain established authors who'd been writing essentially the same book over and over for years, either.

Where does talent fit in?

It's a tiny, tiny leg up. It's a little rush of pleasure and promise that gets us started. It's an extra inch or two forward on the long, long, LONG road to becoming as good as we can be.

And maybe, in fact probably, it's also the hidden end of our personal ruler. I'm tone-deaf, and I seriously doubt that any amount of hard work, training and perserverance will make me a concert violinist.

Too many musicians out there putting in the hard work who actually have talent, too.