Too Artsy?

My first born is also available for human sacrifice. Just give the word.*

When I started this blog, I had no readers, so I was free to treat it as my diary, and just jot down whatever I liked. I think I once wrote a post about swine herding in Papua New Guinea. I found it fascinating, anyway.

Now that I have huge numbers of readers (eight? twelve? depending on whether you count the people who googled for the soft porn, “Kama Sutra,” and got me instead) I have to treat it as a professional thingymabob and sound all grown-up and stuff. Agh.

The catch is, I would like to share my ongoing career (ahem) as a writer, but I’m not sure where disclosure crosses the line into unprofessional. No, I’m not going to inflict TMI about my bladder, or my cat, or my cat’s bladder. (Although if I had a cat and that cat had a bladder, you’d better believe I’d be blogging all about it.)

I have my book out on submission with a publisher I am very excited about. (And by “on submission” I only mean they haven’t rejected me yet — I have no idea how close or far I am to acceptance.) Is it a good idea to blog about how nervous that makes me? I’ve been feverishly working on (a) the sequels, (b) a promotion plan for the whole series, and (c) counting the chicks sure to hatch from those eggs in my fridge.

I suddenly panicked, for instance, about a “literary” technique I use at the end of Chapter Three in Dindi. I have a few paragraphs where I use — wait for it —Second Person. I call it a literary technique only because I don’t think you’d blink if you were reading a literary novel and a chapter or two in Second Person, or Present Tense or whatever weird shit, suddenly popped up. But will Fantasy readers be Able To Handle That? Or will they scratch their heads and go, “Huh? Why is the author talkin’ to me?”

I think fantasy readers can handle it, and I think it works. But maybe the editor will disagree and reject my book because s/he will think, “What is wrong with this author? Did she forget she was writing in Third Person Past Tense? Goddam writing n00b.” Or maybe, “Wow, how pretentious. Who does she think she is, Khaled Hosseini? Gimme a break.”

And honestly, although I’m fond of the Second Person scenes (there are only three, I swear, to emphasize three key turning points in the novel), I’m not so attached to my Second Person scenes that I wouldn’t consider dropping them. Which maybe makes me a wimp rather than an artiste, but there you have it. I’d rather have my books be accessible than artistic, but if possible, I’d like them to be both.

Any thoughts, blog world? Anything too artsy to stomach in a book? Does it depend on the genre? How much of your novel would you be willing to change if asked by an agent or editor?

* But better read the The Ransom of Red Chief by O Henry before you try. (“IT LOOKED like a good thing: but wait till I tell you….”)