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Monthly Archives: April 2009
Monthly Archives: April 2009
I took a personality test as part of a study which is going to compare people’s personality traits to the type of writing in their blogs. I would give you the link, but it’s based on random sample, so I can’t.
The good news is I’m supposedly less “neurotic” than 98% of the population. (Don’t believe that for a minute.) As those forced to live with me will attest, I’m actually quite neurotic; my insanity just bothers them a lot more than it bothers me, and in our crazy world, that somehow translates to sane. Go figure.
I’m agreeable and trusting. (Read: “Dupe.”)
I’m open to experience, with “a general tendency to appreciate emotion, adventure, and unusual ideas or experiences.” Apparently this means I am “intellectually curious, appreciative of art, and sensitive to beauty.” I should hope so, or boy am I in the wrong career.
However, I’m a hermit and lazy to boot. This last trait is the one which makes me wince. “Individuals low on conscientiousness tend to show less persistence and may have trouble seeing things through.” Ouch. It’s great to be sensitive to beauty and all, but without discipline, I know I can never succeed as a professional novelist.
The test is based on five different personality dimensions collectively known as the “Big Five”. I’ve taken many variations before — I’m sure some of you have too. It’s the same as the Meyers-Briggs, except M-B skips the “neurotic” component. So, no big surprises for me. Yeah, I already knew I was a guillable, flaky artsy-fart nerd, and happy about it. (I’m an INTP for you Meyers-Briggs affectionados.)
I love personality tests. Love to take ’em, and especially love to give them to my characters. It’s a great way to know my characters better. Admittedly, given my favored genres, some of my characters don’t always know how to answer the questions:
QUESTION: When the phone rings, do you rush to pick it up or wait to see if someone else answers it?
HARL THE PRINCE OF TORGLA: What is this ensorcelled object? It wails in pain — someone must be trapped inside! I will smash it open and free the trapped soul!
QUESTION: Do you prefer activities which are lively and fun or quiet and intellectual?
ZOMBIE: Argggg! Brains, eat brains….
Your results
The questionnaire you filled out measures your scores on five different personality dimensions collectively known as the “Big Five”. Below are your scores on each dimension based on the answers you provided, along with some interpretation. If you’d like more information about these personality dimensions, the Wikipedia entry is a good place to start.
Neuroticism
Neuroticism (sometimes also called Emotional Instability) is the tendency to experience negative emotions such as sadness or anxiety. People who score high on neuroticism are vulnerable to stress and tend to experience negative feelings more often. People who score low in neuroticism tend to be less susceptible to stress, and experience negative feelings relatively infrequently.
You scored 13 out of 50. This score is higher than 2.9% of people who have taken this test.
0%
100%
Extraversion
Extraversion (or Extroversion) is the tendency to experience positive emotions and seek out stimulating situations. People who score high on extraversion tend to be active, energetic, and enjoy being around other people. In contrast, people who score low on extraversion, known as introverts, tend to be quiet, low-key, and are typically less involved in the social world.
You scored 24 out of 50. This score is higher than 18.0% of people who have taken this test.
0%
100%
Openness to experience
Openness to experience is a general tendency to appreciate emotion, adventure, and unusual ideas or experiences. People who are open to experience are intellectually curious, appreciative of art, and sensitive to beauty. People with low scores on openness tend to have more conventional, traditional interests.
You scored 46 out of 50. This score is higher than 83.0% of people who have taken this test.
0%
100%
Conscientiousness
Conscientiousness is the tendency to show self-discipline and persistence. People who score high on conscientiousness tend to be persistent, responsible, and duty-driven, but are sometimes perceived as being overly perfectionistic and concerned with order. Individuals low on conscientiousness tend to show less persistence and may have trouble seeing things through.
You scored 21 out of 50. This score is higher than 4.4% of people who have taken this test.
0%
100%
Agreeableness
Agreeableness is the tendency to be sympathetic and cooperative towards others. People who score high on agreeableness strive for social harmony and value getting along with others. Disagreeable people tend to be more suspicious and hostile towards others.
You scored 46 out of 50. This score is higher than 94.8% of people who have taken this test.
0%
100%
http://e-xperiments.org/personality/results/8R54E0I030
All creative people eventually have to sell their work, usually through intermediaries. For writers its agents and editors, for actors its agents and casting directors.
For your consideration, here’s a peek into the submission process for actors and actresses.
Ivy Isenberg is a Casting Director with a cool webshow which views actors’ demo tapes and then critques them, sort of the Hollywood equivilant of Query Shark.
I am incapable of turning down anyone who wants to read my novel, but I’ve gotta say, there are reasons to not use relatives as beta readers.
1. You know they don’t really want to read it, would never pick it up in a book store, and are only reading it to be “nice.”
2. Probably because of #1, they make a lot of vague comments, “I liked it”, “Hey, not too bad!” and my favorite, “Wow, so all these pages are part of the book? I can hardly write ten pages, ha ha. It’s so long, you must be a really good writer.”
3. They don’t know your genre. “Well, it’s fantasy, right, so [the characters] can just use magic at the end to fix everything.” “Maybe you should be different from all those other novels and have your heros NOT win in the end.” “How about the hero cheats on the heroine and she dumps him.”
4. Some of them don’t know the English language. Sometimes “had had” is NOT a typo.
5. Some of them are former English teachers. In fiction, sentence fragments ARE okay, if they are deliberate.
6. They don’t grasp historical context or world-building. “This word ‘doublet’ sounds weird, maybe it would be more clear if you just called it, ‘jacket.'” “This king is really mean to his slaves. I don’t think he’d stay in power if he was so mean.”
I’m going light on blogging while I:
A) Catch up on beta reading — which is in itself quite illuminating. So often I’ll catch some problem, say, overwriting, and realize, damn, I do this too.
B) At the same time, I’m using responses from my beta readers and the Donald Maass Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook to edit my Dindi story. (Yes, again. It still has not compelled five agents to scramble over themselves to represent it, so clearly it still needs work.) I’ve read the Maass book by the same name, but never read the workbook before. Has anyone else gone through it?
C) Beyond mere editing, I’m still brainstorming like mad to figure out how to fig-leaf the ginormous plot hole in the middle of my series. This is not even something caught by my beta readers, because they wouldn’t be able to see it until a few more books into the series. But I believe that through the mystical power of the Great Unconscious, they can already sense the Black Plothole sucking all life from the story, even this far away from the event horizon.
Lynn Viehl reached covetted New York Bestseller list with her latest book Twilight Fall. And she’s kind enough to give us the down and dirty on what this means to one’s pocketbook.
My advance for Twilight Fall was $50,000.00, a third of which I did not get paid until the book physically hit the shelf — this is now a common practice by publishers, to withhold a portion of the advance until date of publication. Of that $50K, my agent received $7,500.00 as her 15% (which she earns, believe me) the goverment received roughly $15,000.00, and $1594.27 went to cover my expenses (office supplies, blog giveaways, shipping, promotion, etc.) After expenses and everyone else was paid, I netted about $26K of my $50K advance for this book, which is believe it or not very good — most authors are lucky if they can make 10% profit on any book. This should also shut up everyone who says all bestselling authors make millions — most of us don’t.
She also recieved her first royalty statment (links on her blog):
To give you some background info, Twilight Fall had an initial print run of 88.5K, and an initial ship of 69K. Most readers, retailers and buyers that I keep in touch with e-mailed me to let me know that the book shipped late because of the July 4th holiday weekend. Another 4K was shipped out two to four weeks after the lay-down date, for a total of 73K, which means there were 15.5K held in reserve in the warehouse in July 2008.
Here is the first royalty statement for Twilight Fall, on which I’ve only blanked out Penguin Group’s address. Everything else is exactly as I’ve listed it. To give you a condensed version of what all those figures mean, for the sale period of July through November 30, 2008. my publisher reports sales of 64,925 books, for which my royalties were $40,484.00. I didn’t get credit for all those sales, as 21,140 book credits were held back as a reserve against possible future returns, for which they subtracted $13,512.69 (these are not lost sales; I’m simply not given credit for them until the publisher decides to release them, which takes anywhere from one to three years.)
My net earnings on this statement was $27,721.31, which was deducted from my advance. My actual earnings from this statement was $0.
That could change, if her book keeps selling fast and furious. Though she might have netted only 26K or roughly half, of her advance, she won’t see money from royalties until those have caught up with the total amount of the advance.
* * *
UPDATE: An agent breaks it down for us.