Misconceptions

Maureen McGowan, whom many of you remember from her remarkable tale of agent-offer-at-conference that we shared on Diana’s Diversions back in February, has a blog. Today, on this blog, she is discussing her own early misconceptions about how this whole “pursuit of a writing career” was going to work out. Most aspirants have illusions of some sort. Though I never labored under the self-publishing fantasy (boy, is that the subject of another blog), I had plenty of my own bizarre theories.

Back in the early days, I even had a list somewhere detailing exactly when I expected my first book in each Harlequin category line to be released. I was not one of the people who failed to research the category lines. Oh no, I read all of the paragraph-long descriptions, then matched them up to each of my (unwritten) story ideas. At last count, I think I was going to be writing for Temptation, Blaze, American, Special Edition, Desire, and Superromance. And then, Red Dress Ink. Of course, that was just at Harlequin. And it was going to be all unagented. And within two years. After all, it took a year from the time of acceptance for my book to come out, would probably take me a month or so to write each book, and they’d clearly accept it right away, seeing how good it was.

And this is after STUDYING the market. I wasn’t going to go in blind, you see. I’d pored over all the information on the then-nascent eHarlequin.com (which promised I’d “Learn to Write,” a subject heading which has since made me grimace), and I’d read an older version of Kathryn Falk’s opus on romace writing. I was an EXPERT. I understood all the little rules (i.e., “it takes a year” “category lines have very different personalities”) and knew that if it took me one night to write a 6 page term paper (which had like, no dialogue and was in a smaller font besides) then it would never take me more than 40 days to knock off a whole book. Oh, and if my book was massively different than anything that they’d ever published before, they’d like it even MORE, because finally someone had given them something fresh! Like, say, a romance without a happy ending! That would blow their socks off at Silhouette!

Um, right. Around this time, two things happened that shattered all of my illusions. The first thing was, I met a real romance novelist while doing an article for my newspaper. And, despite all her claims to the contrary, she’s actually a phenomenally nice person who didn’t laugh me out of the Mexican restaurant (though, in retrospect, I think I did a pretty good job hiding my sheer stupidity from her). I also tried to write a book, and it was much harder than I’d thought. Julie said I should join RWA, but since I was broke, I promised my now-sober-and-disillusioned self that I wouldn’t spend a penny on this pipe dream until I completed step one: actually writing a whole book.

The day I finished that piece of crap (which at the time I thought was marvelous — come on, sex scene on a pool table? What’s not to love?) was one of the proudest days of my life. I instantly signed up for RWA and basically dived into the deep end of the pool. I wanted to figure out what else I’d gotten wrong and how to go about getting it right. My friends in TARA will bear witness at my eagerness (read: officiousness) and dedication (read: obsession). When I, like Maureen, did not sell at the two year mark (my 25th birthday) I cried bitter tears. Sailor Boy, who has somehow propelled me up this gorgeous New Zealand South Island Mountain in order to watch a phenomenal sunset over the Tasman Sea, was unable to console me, despite the spaghetti and tuna he’d prepared for my birthday dinner (he’d even packed candles).

Now, sometimes when we witness the newb fantasies, a writing friend says to me, “Diana, were we ever this clueless?” I usually say no, but now I’m not so sure. That list of mine is out there somewhere. Now, don’t get me wrong. The publishing business is a complex and often opaque industry, so I full sympathize with newcomers who can’t quite suss it out. I couldn’t, and I thought of myself as a pretty bright cookie who was doing her research. Luckily, I fell in with a great crowd: a writing group who welcomed the little upstart with open arms (I Heart TARA) and a mentor that never ever ever ever laughed at my ignorance. I’m, um, not that good. I’m trying to be. Part of the reason I write about craft and industry stuff so much on the blog is that I want people to have more to read on this matter to counteract all the misinformation out there (by, say scam agents and vanity publishing outfits). But, anyone who sees me rant knows that I’m not perfect where that goes.

It’s been a while since I’ve read Plato, and Zeus knows I don’t agree with half of it, but I do try to remind myself often that the path to knowledge starts with admitting how ignorant you are. As soon as I met people who were actually in the industry, I realized how off my interpretation of my research had been. I’ve been observing a lot of what I’ve been calling “willful ignorance.” Folks unwilling to look at the hard truth because it contradicts with whatever they have been insisting to themselves. No matter how much information and advice they receive to the contrary from experienced writers, editors, and agents, they keep looking for the one person or website, or whatnot who will confirm for them what they’ve already insisted is true. I think that’s the part that I was never like. I was an idiot, sure, but I didn’t want to be one.

Special Note: I’m off on a very special activity today. I’ll tell you all about it when I get home.