Max Does a Workshop
And sorry to abuse your email inbox, but I’ve just signed on with
the good people at ChuckPalahniuk.net to run an online writing workshop
based around novel-writing. Places are limited, so if you want in,
clicky clicky:
Yes, they photoshopped me into a suit.
14 commentsThe Response
I heard back from Bill, my editor, about my new book. It wasn’t good news.
It wasn’t bad news, either. It was kind of inexplicable news. I’m still trying to
digest it.
My fear, of course, has been that Bill would say, “Max, you know this book you’re so excited about… well, it’s not so great.” Every time this has threatened to overwhelm me the last couple of weeks, I shooed it away, because I knew in my heart that surely that could not be true: this was a great book, my best, even.
And it turns out that Bill does think it’s great. So too, apparently, do other people he’s shown it to. I pushed him on this, in case he was doing that thing where you say only nice things to the author because my God they’re temperamental, but no: I really think he considers it quality.
That’s the good news. The bad news is he can’t publish it.
It’s hard for me to explain why. It’s hard for me to understand why. I think it has a little to do with the nature of the story, and a lot to do with the nature of the publishing business. I can’t relate the details here without being immensely unprofessional, even for me, so that will have to do, sorry. But the situation is incredibly bizarre, like something out of one of my books. (One of the published ones, ha ha.)
Bill is a genius editor. When he says there’s a publishing problem, I completely believe him. I know he’s looking out for me and my career. He’s proven his skill and dedication over a couple of books.
There are options. I have to believe I can get this book out there somehow. Surely we’ll figure out something.
Surely.
This is a very weird feeling.
Max Craps On About Writing: Originality
I mentioned
earlier
that I’m planning to talk a little about writing this year.
Today I carry that threat through.
To those of you who couldn’t care less about this topic: my God, can you put aside your own selfish interests for five seconds? No, wait, I mean: sorry. But there are people out there interested in this. I know because whenever I post about it, I get emails of weeping gratitude. That’s hard to resist.
So to originality. I raise this because I think it’s reasonably common for unpublished (and underpublished) writers to think: “Man, the only way to make it as an author is to churn out predictable, formulaic crap. Nobody’s interested in publishing really original books.” Well, when I say this is a common attitude, I mean I used to hold it, and I assume everybody is like me. There I was in 1998, collecting rejection letters for Syrup, and the underlying message seemed to be that it wasn’t mainstream enough. And I couldn’t describe my own book; I couldn’t find the pithy couple of sentences that people seemed to want, that would make them say, “That sounds interesting,” instead of their eyes glazing over with confusion. I needed something like: “Terrorists hijack a submarine and ex-Special Forces agent Jack Fyre is the only man who can stop it.”
It’s tempting to believe that formulaic crap sells because there seems to be so much of it. But I now think you can look at a shelf full of Grisham novels or whatever and assume they’re all the same until you read them. Then you find some common elements, for sure, but much less than you thought. There is formula out there, but not much of it.
I reacted to my Syrup rejections by writing a standard, genre thriller. It was terrible. And I learned that you never improve anything by making it less original. It’s the opposite: the worst thing writing can be is not new.
I’m convinced this isn’t just me. I think everybody wants newness. Editors, agents, readers: we all want new plots, new ideas, new ways of looking at the world. Nobody wants to get twenty pages into a book and know where it’s going, or even feel too much like they’ve seen all this before. Even within a genre’s iron-clad conventions, we want twists, surprises, and reinventions.
Young writers in particular can sometimes try to crawl inside a pre-conceived box labeled “novel” or “screenplay,” and end up with something far less interesting than if they’d forged their own path. I’m not saying you want to hit the other extreme, and pursue a lone, bizarre vision with no regard for how it reads. But you must nurture the things that make your story and your writing unique—that make you unique, since writing is letting people crawl around inside your head. Billions of people can write a sentence. Why should I bother reading yours, unless they’re different?
The Exceptionals Goes to Manhattan
Now I don’t want to go on and on about this new book. Well, I do. I really do.
But I realize that’s of limited interest when you can’t actually read it, and
probably won’t be able to for at least a year. And maybe it’s of limited interest
even then. Although why are you bothering to read my blogs? That’s
just weird, man.
Anyway. The fact is, the most exciting thing I did this week was email it to my agent. From there it will go to Bill, my editor. Bill hasn’t read it yet, so I will wait with thoughts like these: “He’s going to love it. It’s by far my best book. Maybe he’ll hate it. It’s probably all wrong for my demographic and the market has changed and he’ll ask if I’ve written anything else lately. Oh, shit. I’ve wasted a year.”
Now I know from responses to a recent blog that some of you find the idea of my career heading anywhere but upward laughable. Or at least you were kind of enough to pretend that. But you have to keep in mind, I’ve been dumped by a publisher once. If you had heard nothing but positive things right up until the moment they showed you the door, you’d have paranoia issues, too.
So even though I love this book, love it, I know that until I hear back from Bill I will fret. I will regret posting this blog, for making the humiliation when it gets rejected so much more public.
But today: damn. I just sent my best book to my publisher. I’m ecstatic.
The Joy of Creation
So I’m almost finished the last pre-publisher draft of my new book, and
I’m watching the TV show Heroes. Where I live we’re about
three months behind the US. Well, a few weeks ago on Heroes
they introduced a minor character with a super power that’s very similar
to one of mine. Uh, I mean, similar to a particular talent that one of my
characters has. It’s not particularly original—it’s a form of mind control—but in
the show it’s described in an atypical way, the exact same
atypical way I’ve used.
Last episode, this character shot herself in the head. On the sofa, I said, “Yes!” It was a terrific moment.
Hopefully by the time my book comes out, nobody will remember her.
Travel Diary: Days #11-13 (San Francisco, Los Angeles, Melbourne)
I wake to the aroma of banana loaf. I’ve made barely a dent
in Katrina’s goodies, and my hotel room smells as if
Momma’s been a-bakin’. It’s quite delightful. Hotels should
consider leaving out banana loaf instead of chocolates, I think.
Take two for Google. This time I seem to have the right day, and Ricky leads me through the campus to do my talk. And oh my God. The stories are true. It is the most wonderful place in the world. It’s like the company is saying, “Just come in, hang out, and I’ll give you everything you could possibly want. And if, you know, you have a minute free and want to do some work for us, that’d be cool, too.”
There are endless cafeterias; free, of course. Snack and drink machines everywhere. Massage chairs. A laundromat. A beach volleyball court. A wave pool. Grass, trees, open space. A full-scale model of SpaceShipOne. A T-Rex skeleton being attacked by a flock of pink flamingos. And geeks, geeks, as far as the eye can see: young, free, happy geeks. I want to weep for the years I spent at HP: why did I waste a single minute of my life there when this exists? If I didn’t already have my dream job, I swear I would throw myself on the Google doorstep and beg for employment.
Which makes things a little ridiculous, because I am here to preach about the innate evil of workplaces, and Google’s campus is so wonderful that I expect bunnies to frolic amongst the cubicles while chocolate donuts rain from the sky. Still, I’m not persuaded that my thesis is wrong. I strongly suspect that Google will never be as good a place to work again as it is right now. Today, Google’s corporate identity is dominated by the personality of its founders. I expect that as it ages, and outlives the people who started it, the corporation’s natural inclinations will gradually take over. After all, one time, long ago, HP was something like this.
The good thing about speaking to a room full of people who have probably never heard of me is that I can dredge out old stories I no longer tell on book tour out of fear that everyone who cares has already heard them. I also try to make the most out of the sensation that I am a Person Worth Listening To, because I know that in 24 hours I will be back to Person Who Needs To Do Those Dishes.
[Update: Here’s the full Google video of my talk.]
The very first question is whether I am wearing the same shirt as in my author photo on the back of the book. I confess that I am, and use as my excuse that it’s all I have clean on my last day of tour. But hey, I’m at Google. There are guys here who probably consider it unnecessary and inefficient to own more than one shirt.
Back to my hotel, and as I pack for the last time I begin to feel like I might miss this. I dunno; there’s just something about people rushing to open doors for you and delivering hamburgers to your room at 1am that’s fairly easy to get used to.
The desk clerk asks if he can fetch me a cab, and I say, “No thanks, I’m catching Bart.” I am quite excited about my plans to catch Bart, and being able to use the sentence, “No thanks, I’m catching Bart.” I was meant to take a cab, but when I mentioned this to Katrina last night she was horrified at the idea, since Bart pretty much runs direct from my hotel room to SFO check-in. So I trundle my suitcase down Market St to the station. Unfortunately it’s 5pm and a lot of people are doing the same thing, only without suitcases and with annoyed looks at people standing around with suitcases trying to figure out where they’re going. I know that most public transport systems don’t make much of an effort to tell newbies how to use them, but Bart seems to take that to a whole new level of mystery. It even leaves up to me how much the ticket should cost: at first it suggests $20, I bargain it down to five cents with the down arrow, then we compromise on $5, which sounds about fair to me. I hope any transit police I encounter feel the same way.
The train is packed and disappointingly not covered with Simpsons characters or, really, remarkable in any way. It’s just a train. So sitting there with my 50-pound suitcase biting into my thighs, I’m thinking I probably should have caught that cab after all. But I don’t want to leave you with the vague idea that this is all Katrina’s fault. I want that to be clear. It totally is.
On my ninth journey through airport security screening in eleven days, I find myself appreciating how polite and serene the staff are. They deal with the exact same situations about a million times per day. I am already shouting in my head: Hey, you! Shoes off, idiot! You there, a laptop in your bag? What are you, stupid? Whoa! Where do you think you’re going with that jacket? Hey! Yes, moron, you! Shoes! SHOES!
For the flight home I am reaquainted with my old friend seat 48G, which no amount of begging, calling, and mouse-clicking over the last two weeks has been able to budge me from. But it turns out that the seat beside me is miraculously empty—one of only a handful of spaces on the entire flight. This allows me to angle my legs diagonally under the next seat along and, oh sweet jesus yes, straighten them. It’s a wonderful feeling, knowing you can fall asleep without risking Deep Vein Thrombosis.
We touch down in Melbourne and before long I’m through Customs. At first I can’t see Jen and Finlay, and do a big circuit of the arrivals hall. Then I spot them from behind. I yell, “Hey!” They turn and grin. Jen sets Fin down and she stumble-runs toward me across the floor. It’s like the day I left, except instead of leaping into my arms, she pulls up right in front of me, looking suddenly shy. I sweep her up and hug her tight, and after a second I feel her little arms hug me back.