Archive
Monthly Archives: April 2009
- by Tara Maya
Two Minds
A quote from a book I’m beta reading struck me with particular force.
“Of all the conflicts of the world, nothing can surpass the conflict between two minds wanting sole possession of the same body.”
Lady Glamis, struggling with some of the same issues I am in rewrites, said, “I have a feeling that the fabric full of holes might be heavier than I think.”
“Write what you know,” we are told, as writers. “I’m sick of that phrase,” she said. Me too. As if we need only to know a thing, and then expressing it will be easy. Ha.
We don’t write to express ourselves. We write to know ourselves.
(Art by thadeoradicarlous.)
- by Tara Maya
Are You Dancing Or Just Swaying Back and Forth?
Some of you may have already seen one of these links on Janet Reid’s blog. More inspiration from Britain’s Got Talent.
It made wonder. How can you tell if you should keep holding onto a creative dream? Here are two people who are well into their lives — one 49 one 60 — who haven’t given up.
But how do you know if the world is crazy for overlooking you or if you are crazy to keep trying?
How do you know if you’re dancing or just swaying back and forth?
* * *
Here’s what Paul Potts, another Britain’s Got Talent discovery had to say:
“I feel like I’m living on gifted time as an artist. You don’t own the time, it is given to you by your fans and public who buy your music and support you. For that I will never stop being grateful and I appreciate the journey I am on even more. In life you sometimes take a turn you weren’t expecting, you don’t know where it leads but you have to take that path. This is what happened with me and Britain’s Got Talent. I still don’t know where this wonderful journey is headed but I certainly appreciate every moment of it.
And if you think suceeding once stills the questions and self-doubt, think again. “The second album is always a challenge, when your first is such a success you cannot be complacent and believe the second will do the same. There is more pressure, you have to work harder, be bigger, better, this is the same for every artist.”
- by Tara Maya
Show Me the Money
I always find it interesting to see how much money authors actually make. We all know that J.K. Rowlings is the exception, not the rule; but real dollars-and-cents figures are guarded more closely than goblin’s gold.
I found this breakdown from one helpful e-publisher, New Concepts Publishing, about the average payout over three years for various Romance sub-genres:
Average payout over three years (contract period) $450.00
Science Fiction/Futuristic range: $127.89–$8455.46
Paranormal range: $78.00–$5673.50
Contemporary range: $55.18–$7913.78
Historical range: $75.16–$3863.12
Romantic Suspense range: $124.24–$1977.20
Fantasy range: $44.00–$4774.80
Remember, all of these are actually in the Romance genre, so you sf freaks, contain your jubliation unless your aliens have their sexy on. I suspect mainstream fantasy and sf sell in much lower numbers. If anyone has any real figures, ballpark or specific, I’d be interested.
* * *
Small e-presses are probably the first step above vanity presses in terms of renumeration. (Some snobs would also say in quality, and this is sometimes true, but not always; some small presses are even more particular about their books than large presses, since they have limited budgets and time.) The figures above also refer solely to royalties. (These small presses are usually royalty-only.) What about advances?
What about the big, mainstream presses? Here’s what the NY Times had to say about advances (emphasis mine):
In the preface to “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius,” Dave Eggers broke form by telling the reader he received $100,000 for the manuscript, which — after his detailed expenses — netted him $39,567.68.
…As a payment to be deducted from future royalties, an advance is a publisher’s estimate of risk. Figures fluctuate based on market trends, along with an author’s sales record and foreign rights potential, though most publishers I talked to cited $30,000 as a rough average.
…The numbers can sound much bigger than they are. Take a reported six-figure advance, Roy Blount Jr., the president of the Authors Guild, said in an e-mail message. “That may mean $100,000, minus 15 percent agent’s commission and self-employment tax, and if we’re comparing it to a salary let us recall (a) that it does not include any fringes like a desk, let alone health insurance, and (b) that the book might take two years to write and three years to get published. . . . So a six-figure advance, while in my experience gratefully received, is not necessarily enough, in itself, for most adults to live on.”
To break that down, start with $100,000. Pay your agent 15,000, and you’re left with $85,000, divided by 5 years (2 yrs to write, 3 to be published) and you have an income of $17,000 a year, which doesn’t include medical insurence or work-related expences — publicist, anyone? Travel expences for your book tour? Maybe some publishers cover that, but I wouldn’t count on it. This breakdown is even more fun if you start with the “industry average” (?) advance mentioned above, $30,000. Pay your agent, and you have $25,500. Divide by 5 years and your income is $5,100 per month.
A minimum wage of $7.75 per hour (the rate in Illinois) translates to $16,120 annually. Now consider the amount of education needed to hold a minimum wage job and the minimum level of education needed to write novels.
I’m just telling you what you already knew, right? The person who seems to have a hard time grasping it is my educational loan officer.
* * *
The cartoon is by this totally cool dude who doodles cartoons on the back of business cards. That is so gimicky. Don’t you wish you’d thought of it first? Me too.
You might wonder if you can make more money selling business-card cartoons than blogging or selling novels, and the answer is apparently, no.
- by Tara Maya
First Person Retrospective
Since I decided to write my Secret Novel in first person, I’ve been rereading some of my favorite first person novels. There are two major approaches to first person:
Immediate First Person: Sometimes this means first person present tense, which is as intimate and immediate as it gets. However, even first person past tense can feel very much “in the now”; the narrator tells what she felt at the moment she is describing, nothing more. She doesn’t “cheat” by implying she knows more about what happens next any more than the reader. If she misjudges someone, this is revealed only when she herself discovers it.
I turned around when I heard the shot, crying, “Edwin, don’t!”
My eyes fell on the smoking gun first, then the body, and in my shock it took me a dozen heartbeats to make sense of the French manicure on the hand holding the gun, or the fedora hat soaking in a pool of blood.
Gloria met my eyes. “That’s right. I was the one who went to the pawn shop last week. You never suspected. You dismissed me — just as Edwin did.”
Retrospective First Person: Many first person books, however, take the opposite tact. They are written as faux memoirs, in a retrospective mood, in which the narrator of the events slyly or absent-mindedly refers to future events. This kind of narrative voice can compare past knowledge and emotional states with future ones (the “present” of the narrator).
When I first met Gloria, I dismissed her in one glance as a mouse. She spoke only in monosyllebles at that first dinner. Her husband Edwin boomed over the platters of greasy food, and continued to rattle the empty glasses long after the wine ran out. I paid scant attention to his tirades after the first half hour.
“We have to get together again,” he promised when I finally begged the waiter to bring the check. He pumped my hand and clapped my back at the same time. “This was marvelous, we have to do this again sometime.”
I would have wasted less dread on the prospect had I guessed that would be the last time I would see him alive.
There are dangers of telling too much, becoming too conversational and chatty in any version of first person. Either method, handled well, can work. The question, as always, is what works best with this story?
How does one determine whether a sense of retrospection or a sense of immediacy is preferable for a story?
In my blog about first person vs third person, I recieved some wonderful tips from the commenters.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this too.