Company re-organization
Is it a good idea to sell a book to a publisher, then extensively
re-write it? The marketer in me says, “No.” (Also, “Put pop-up
ads on NationStates!”) But that’s pretty much what I’ve done
with Company. At first I was just going to do a little
tweaking: snip a sub-plot here, pat down a character foible there,
that kind of thing. But the more I re-wrote, the more I saw that
needed re-writing. Then, before I knew it, I had a new second half
to the book.
(Of course, when I say, “before I knew it,” I’m using artistic license. No-one actually ends up with a novel “before they knew it.” I’m always seeing this in movies: someone decides to write a novel and two weeks later they’re typing THE END into a laptop at Starbucks and exhaling in satisfaction. Two weeks! I can’t get a sentence right in two weeks. Also, I hate people who write novels at Starbucks. And people who exhale in satisfaction in public; them too. So you can see why this annoys me.)
This is something of an addiction of mine; I’m always throwing out the last half of novels and trying again. I never intend it; I just get obsessed with improving things. This is not necessarily a bad thing, if you ignore the fact that I’m spending enormous chunks of time writing bits of novels only to cut them later (which I try to). But now I’ve done it to a book a publisher has already bought, and, presumably, thought was pretty good.
So I’ve confessed to Bill, my editor. As I e-mailed in the new draft, I put the question to him: am I a hard-working, committed author, or just some kind of idiot? He replied:
It depends on what you’ve done. If it’s turned into a searing portrait of the artistic struggles of male ballet dancers, I shall not be pleased.
He’s reading the draft now. There are no ballet dancers. But I’ll have to wait and see what he thinks.
The many faces of Jen
I’ve
received a bunch of foreign-edition Jennifer Governments
lately, which is always cool. There’s a Finnish version called
Jennifer
Valtiovalta, a wicked little
Japanese version
called something your computer probably doesn’t have the correct font
to display, and, my favorite, an Italian
Logo Land.
The groovy thing about that is they’ve gone with the original cover
design, but
re-shot it for no apparent reason.
It’s the 1998 Psycho of book covers.
And speaking of covers… and… um… posters, this thing to the left comes courtesy of Rob Treynor, who responded to the Fark.com challenge: “Photoshop a scene from the next movie that Hollywood will make that butchers a good book.” Oh yeah!
(Now I know I’m going to get mail about this otherwise, so for clarity: no, Drew Barrymore has not been cast in the movie. This is just one guy’s amusing vision of hell.)
Thanks
I’m grateful and completely humbled by the response to my last post.
The overwhelming kindness I’ve received from so many people has made
an awful time much more bearable. I’m truly touched and amazed.
Thank you.
Dad’s funeral is on Tuesday. It will be a simple, private service, as he wanted. Those who were close to him will help each other deal with the shock of his death, and, more importantly, celebrate his life. I’m thinking of telling a story about Dad’s running. He was a mad keen runner for the last 20 years of his life, even completing a bagful of marathons. But the memory that sticks in my mind is when he competed in a fun run around what I think was a national park. I was about ten, and course the most important thing in the world at that age is that your Dad is better than all the other Dads. So I loitered around the finish line with a certain trepidation. And then, bursting out of the trees—there he was! Pounding toward us, scattered applause breaking out, he crossed first… and kept running. He’d decided the course was too short, and he went around again.
To me, this was the most heroic thing that had happened in the world ever.
I was enormously lucky to have this man as my father, and on Tuesday I will give thanks for that.
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Thanks
HTB
This is my Dad. He died yesterday. I can’t begin to
describe what that means to me, so won’t try. But I want people to know
about him; to know that he was a good person and good father.
Dad was the most practical person in the world. “When I go,” he said, “just put me in a cardboard box.” Today my brother and I had to choose him a casket. The funeral director handed us a page with a list. They started at twelve thousand dollars (metal, lots of gold) and worked their way down to four thousand (solid wood). “Then if you flip that page over,” she said, “you’ll see our particle board caskets.” They were one thousand dollars. I laughed. I knew what Dad would be saying.
Still, I can’t put him in particle board. He’s getting a solid wooden one.
I love you, Dad.
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HTB
Of course she has
Maybe it’s just me, but I found the following little story in my local
newspaper hilarious. If only I could write satire like this.
British pole dancer Donna Cleeve has been forced to quit her job because she’s allergic to the metal pole. The 20-year-old from Portsmouth developed a red rash after each show before she realised nickel used in the poles was to blame. “It’s hard to look sexy when your legs and body are inflamed. I tried to ignore it, but in the end it wasn’t worth the pain,” she told London’s Sun. She’s now given up her dancing and taken a job in sales.
Retrospective #2: Mary-Kate, Ashley, and a rabid reader
We return now to some stories we were following earlier. Again.
Yes, see, from time to time I go back and write little follow-ups.
It gives a sense of continuity and closure. It does too.
My web traffic soared on the back of my review of a Mary-Kate and Ashley novel, partly because quite a few people liked it but mostly because there are an awful lot of internet searches for “mary-kate and ashley”. In fact, that phrase quickly became the #3 search people used to get to my site, coming right after “jennifer government” and “max barry”. (Alas, “max berry” is #6.) For a few days Google actually listed my site in its first page of results for “mary-kate and ashley”, which, if I have this right, makes me one of the world’s foremost Mary-Kate and Ashley experts. This is awesome. Now if this novel-writing thing doesn’t work out, I have something to fall back on.
In response to my Everybody just left the room post, I received an emphatic e-mail from a guy named Jason:
just fuck off with your boring egotistical ramblings… if you cant reply to your email you can go fuck your self.. silly marketing c—t pretending to care…
fucking stick to the marketing, you do it better than writing books
you have the time to write bullshit about 9/11 but not answer your emails… wat the fuk?
There was more, but it became repetitive. I was surprised; I hadn’t realized that visiting my web site was compulsory. Also, while I am a long way behind on my e-mail, so is the Pope and people don’t write him hate mail. Or at least not just about that. And I was a little confused about the references to marketing. I do what marketing better than writing books? Was he talking about how I promote my novels, like on this web site? If so, wouldn’t it be self-defeating to stop writing in order to concentrate on promoting my writing?
I searched through my In Box in case there was a previous message from Jason and found two. One was from a week ago, in response to my True Love & Drool post (I’m better now, thanks), and it said:
i know your a good writer and all, i did read your book.. but having a pissy throat infection is not a good enough reason to not reply to my email. Maybe your too important and your time is too valuable to deal with “readers”… i maybe a low life, uneducated skum bag.. but at least im more enlightened and “educated” than the people who have marketing degree’s and PHD’s and all this truly meaningless “education”…
I was beginning to sense a theme. I opened up Jason’s original e-mail and was surprised to see it was a mere 4 weeks old. For most people, sure, that’s a long time to reply to an e-mail. But for me, that would be lightning-fast. That’s why the page with my e-mail address lets people know I’m running several months behind.
In light of that, I felt Jason was being a touch unreasonable. But I also felt guilty about my pile of unanswered e-mail, so I decided to reply to his original question. Here it is:
hey Max
Iv just started reading ur book, its great so far! Im just interested in what made you see the light? ie. realise that marketing is fundamentally evil… and turn towards a more satisfying and creative career?
thanks, Jason..
Well, Jason, there were a few reasons. But partly it was so I could reach out and touch people like you.