“I have this whole book in my head.” Beth (Beth’s fake name) leaned closer to make herself heard over an animated crowd in the hotel bar. “It’s like a movie I can see, all the way down to characters, plot, and even conversations.”
Authors tend to gather at the bar like wildebeests to a watering hole in the Serengeti to discuss writing and the literary world. Folks who spend months alone with their imaginary friends are always looking for conversation.
My new acquaintance at the writers conference drew a long, deep breath to maintain her hold on her our exchange. “There’s this one scene when my main character gives the story an entirely different twist, and that’s where the music in my head starts playing.”
As an author, I’d heard this one before, years ago, from myself. “Have you finished it?”
She rolled her eyes. “I haven’t started yet. That’s why I’m at this conference, to get an agent or someone interested in it.”
“They’ll be more interested in the actual book itself.”
“My husband thinks I’m crazy, especially after I told him about the character who–––.” She looked over her shoulder. “–––is really Merlin.”
“Are you looking for someone?”
“I don’t want anyone to overhear. They might steal my idea.”
“You can’t hear a chainsaw in this crowd. Don’t worry about that.”
“You won’t write this, will you?”
“I want you to do it.” I held up my little finger. “Pinky swear.”
Surprising me, she hooked her pinky with mine. “I just need time to get started.”
“You have this whole conference. Lock yourself in your room and pound out twenty or thirty pages. Go do it now while I get another drink. Talking about it won’t get the book done.”
“I don’t know where to start.”
“At the most compelling scene.”
“That’s when my characters meet on dark night in a hotel lobby while it’s raining. That’s the setup and introduces all the characters at one time.”
“I’d start somewhere else, with some kind of action. What’s your genre?”
“I don’t know. I’m not much of a reader. I prefer movies.”
Before I could respond, she waved. “Oh, look. There’s my new friend. Bill, come over here. This is Reavis. Tell him about your book.”
I caught the bartender’s eye and held up my empty glass. The nice man brought me a double.
Stepping up close, Bill crossed his arms. “Well, I haven’t started it yet, but it’ll be a memoir.”
He looked to be about twenty-two years old. Personally, I figured he needed more life experiences, and a reason for writing memoirs.
“You must have a great story to tell.” I’d hoped to hear he’d been in special forces, the entertainment industry, or law enforcement, or maybe someone who’d grown up under witness protection. You know, not a boring an entertaining story.
“It starts with my uncle. He’s a great character and his stories will become mine.”
He and I had different ideas of memoirs. I hoped his uncle was famous, maybe a singer. “Have I ever heard of him?”
“I doubt anyone has ever heard of Uncle Albert.”
“Then, I’m confused.”
“I’ll use his stories, he’s really funny, and hang some of my own experiences on them.”
“What’s your background?” Still hopeful.
“Well, I grew up with some interesting people in Crouchhop Arkansas, and graduated high school four years ago and worked for Dad roofing houses, then I left to see the country.”
“Oh.” My interest piqued. “Did you hike, or hitch?”
“No, I used Dad’s clunker Mercedes and drove to California. I’m thinking of all the coffee shops and people I met on the way.”
Returning my attention to the Beth, I gave her a grin. “I’d suggest you start writing tonight. Consider it a job and put your rear in the seat every day for a year, for at least half an hour each time, or long enough write a page per day. And Bill, good luck with your memoir. I hope you can find an agent to represent whatever it is when you’re finished, but both of you remember, these have to be killer books. A year ago, I read that around three hundred thousand books are released each month in this country.
“If you figure thousands of books hit the market each day, you’ll have to work hard to get noticed. Find your writing voice, and a subject or genre you want to shoot for, then start building your brand. Do you guys have any knowledge of social media, or a presence with followers?”
Beth nodded. “I have a Facebook account with a hundred friends.”
“Work harder. Establish a brand specifically for your and your books. Find a hook to get people interested.”
“Won’t my agent do all that for me?”
“Agents represent authors when they’re accepted, and they help with editing your manuscripts, to a point.” I could have sworn I heard someone fire up a chainsaw, probably to clear away from a similar conversation. “Their job is to connect authors with publishers. They negotiate contracts and other legal issues. They’re a buffer between authors and publishers. They aren’t PR folks, unless it comes to promoting you with interested publishers.”
Bill raised a finger to get my attention. “That’s why I’m going to self-publish.”
“Then you’ll do all that yourself…after you finish your manuscript. There are a few other steps that follow, too.”
“Can you help us, then?”
“Sure. Go write your book in your own voice, keep at it until you finish and don’t use television as a research source, and then come see me here next year.”
Faithful readers, I’m sure you’ve all found yourselves in similar situations, do you have variations on these conversations?
I get “I want to write a book, but I don’t have time.”
Or “I’d love to write a book, but I don’t know where to start.”
Or “I wish I could be a writer, but I don’t know what to write about.”
Just yesterday, my physical therapist told me he wants to write a book to help people get in shape. He probably has a better chance of getting his book written than the others.
You’re right. Nonfiction is the way to go right now. Thanks for all your support here, and on Substack!
Suggestion for your physical therapist (my favorite health profession). The market could use a good book on how to avoid things like knee replacements, shoulder issues. Just because you lift weights and/or jog or walk does NOT mean you can avoid problems with the knees. Unfortunately, our annual wellness exams focus on things like bloodwork but nobody proactively does gait analysis UNTIL there’s a problem. I’d love to see someone address this type of stuff proactively and a PT would be a wonderful person to cover it.
Every time one of my books comes out, my neighbor buys it and critiques it. I thank him for his input and promise to take it into consideration for the next book. He then tells me there’s a lot of trash out there and he needs to write one because he has great ideas. I suggest he start now. He responds, “I’m still figuring out which story to write. I have about four dozen (twenty-five years ago it was one dozen) ideas and I’m sorting through them to pick the best one.” i ask if he would like help picking one, but he just grins and responds, “Nice try, but no spoiler alerts. You’ll have to buy the book and read it.”
I had a similar thought years ago about so much trash being published, that’s why I began to seriously write.
I know another person who has been “going to write a book” since I was in college. He’s still studying on it….
Ah, the bar . . . I remember sitting at a bar during a national conference with a certain mustachioed Texan, discussing the finer points of firearms when a New York writer of some repute interrupted the conversation to assert that by owing firearms, we were in favor of killing children.
At a different bar at a different national conference but with the same Texan during a discussion about John Wayne, a person with ovaries (and Birkenstocks) broke into our conversation to proclaim the Duke to be the epitome of toxic masculinity–the first time I’d heard the term–and that people like the Texan and me were somehow ruining the world. That one went south with blistering speed. If memory serves, the Texan actually, physically, pulled me away from that chat.
My favorite, though: The same Texan and I, at a different conference–this one regional–decided to escape the cacophonous bar to sit outside on some beach chairs, looking at the ocean, burning a couple of cigars and killing a bottle of scotch until zero-dark-early. The real comedy started when we realized that they’d closed the gate access from the beach to the hotel, triggering the need for us to climb the fence to get back inside. Rare is the time when I have laughed that hard.
The image of your legs going over you head as we struggled over that fence still cracks me up. A stellar night that began in the bar, and that’s where all budding authors should go, at least for a while.
Just don’t spend all your time with those of your experience. Move around, meet the more experienced authors and get to know them. Just don’t make declarations that John Wayne is the source of masculine toxicity. Truthfully, Gilstrap and I had to go look that one up.
You have given two examples of crowd mentality replacing common sense. The resulting urge to push that agenda on everyone else is ludicrous. And irritating. Does no one think for themselves anymore?
I think to myself, I need to withdraw from this person and conversation.
“I have a wonderful idea. You’re an author. You write it for me and we’ll split the profits.”
Good lord! I had something similar yesterday. An acquaintance called to tell me a friend of his had a great idea for a story based on a true character from a nearby town. “I gave him your number so he can call and y’all can work on it together and split the profits.
Right.
Debbie, that sounds like the offer you got from James Patterson…. 😉
I get about three of those a week from various “authors” and “book clubs.”
I got one from Robert B. Parker.
When my first book was published, the local newspapers did stories about it. Small towns. I knew nothing about writing or publishing, still in shock that a New York publisher bought something I’d written. After the articles came out, I received over 400 letters, 326 of them asking for advice, or for me to read and critique their book, or telling me they had a great idea for a book and if I promised them at least half the profits, they’d share the idea with me. I got phone calls from people asking me how I found an agent (I didn’t have one) and people where I worked had ideas that would be bestsellers for sure, if I wrote them. It was overwhelming and made me realize that not only would I use a pseudonym for subsequent books, but I would never do another interview.
“Every story has a certain amount of creative energy. Every time you tell someone the story some of that energy goes away. Tell it enough times, and you no longer want to write the story down. If you really want to be a writer, stop talking and start writing.”
That’s what I tell these people and walk away. The people around me who kept telling me these stories never actually wrote them down. They liked the idea of being a writer more than actually writing. Many died without a word on the page.
Everyday. I constantly get comments like this. For serious writers and there are some, I refer them to classes I know will actually help get them started.
Then there is everyone else. Now, when people say they want to write a book, I say, “I know, right? I’ve always wanted to try brain surgery. I have started doing it on the weekends for fifteen minutes at a time.”
They stare blankly and NO ONE has ever responded. And I have said this into the hundreds by now. It is really stunning that people think they can just sit down and write a book. The amount of time it takes to build a body of work is staggering. Can you just sit down and write a book? Oh, absolutely. Does it require a massive amount of work? Absolutely.
I have a list of the top reasons that get in people’s way when it comes to writing.
Good to know everyone is still pre-first draft out in realityland.
Innocently, after I self-published the first novel in my mainstream trilogy, and was trying to figure out how to get friends who read to try it, I would get drawn into these types of conversations.
I was so full of advice! But when it became apparent there was a huge amount of (shhh!) WORK involved, suddenly listeners were no longer interested.
After three or four of these, I realized those people were NEVER going to write that book, much less publish it, self- or otherwise, and stopped wasting MY time.
WORK: the biggest obstacle. Not traditional publishers or agents or Reba’s Book Club (she MUST have one, right?). Plain old-fashioned work.
If they were going to write, they would have had questions, realized I might be a source of answers, and pestered me; they did not. Turned out they also weren’t readers, much.