Laura Anne Gilman - Practical Meerkats 52 Bits of Useful Info for Young (and Old) Writers

Copyright 2012 Laura Anne Gilman

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book in any form.

Cover design by Pati Nagle

Cover photo by Laura Anne Gilman

ISBN: 978-1-61138-151-1

Published by Book View Cafe

www.bookviewcafe.com

Ive long felt that most advice geared toward aspiring meerkat owners has leaned, shall we say, toward the artistic side of meerkat operations. Surely by now all meerkat keepers recognize that owning such a wee beastie offers up a host of creative and imaginative benefits, but where are the books about the practical details of meerkat custodianship? Where do we learn about their sleeping habits, their mating peccadilloes, their fastidious attention to eating beetles or their undying addiction to collecting Pokmon cards and drinking bad Canadian whiskey?

And so it is with great pleasure that I come today to provide the introduction for a book weve all been seeking, a book about the pragmatic perils of owning and keeping a

(Chuck, this is not a book about meerkat ownership.)

Wait. What?

(The meerkat is a metaphor. This is a book about writing.)

Oh. Ohhh. That makes a lot more sense.

(It should. This is, after all, a book written after your own heart. Its a book that eschews all the wonky wifty hoity-toity nuggets of navel-gazing and focuses instead on, well, practical aspects of the writers career. The ins and outs of when rubber meets road. It strives to illuminate both the craft and the business side of being a writer.)

The nitty-gritty, then.

(The nitty-gritty, indeed.)

Thats the kind of advice I like. Thats the kind of advice writers need.

You know how in high school nobody teaches you about all the important things? Sure, they teach you about the endocrine system of a seagull or how to find the cosine of a sine divided by the radius of the diameter? And yet, nobody tells you about how to pay your taxes or balance a budget or communicate to other human beings. Ive long said that writers need that kind of advice first. Sure, the talk about blah blah blah The Muse and blah blah blah Higher Calling is all well and good, but do writers know how to really TALK to their agents and editors about things? Or check a contract for clauses that force them to give up crucial parts of their penmonkey anatomy? Or when they should and should not endeavor to drink bad Canadian whiskey - and how to apologize the morning after?

(Thats what this book strives to do.)

Then I like this book a lot. Who wrote it?

(Laura Anne Gilman.)

Oh. Hey! I know her.

(Yes, thats thats why she asked you to do this.)

Shes Practical Meerkat! Ok, this makes so much sense.

(It should. Why are you talking to yourself, anyway?)

I like the company.

(Fair enough.)

Chuck Wendig is the author of the novels DOUBLE DEAD and BLACKBIRDS, and dispenses his own brand of dubious writing wisdom at terribleminds.com.

>raises hand< That would be me. Yes, meerkat really is my nickname. Practical Meerkat is the name of my blog, and its also the way I look at publishing and how I hope, through these essays, to teach you to look at it, as well.

And who the hell am I, to be talking about publishing?

Way back in 1989, I started in publishing as an editorial assistant, working for Neil Nyren (the guy who brought Tom Clancy, among others, to fame). I worked my way up the food chain at Putnam, at Berkley, and Penguin USA. At Penguin, I headed the Roc SF/F imprint for seven years, until I left in 2003 to become a full-time writer.

Ive sold 20+ novels and nearly 30 short stories, co-edited three anthologies, and edited hundreds of writers, from no-name newbies to NYT bestsellers and award-winners. Through all of that, Ive learned a lot about writing, and publishing, and Living in the Arts.

Thankfully, some of those things have stuck in my brain, keeping me from losing my shit, killing anyone who doesnt deserve it, or otherwise making the same mistake twice. As my cohorts at Book View Cafe pointed out, I made mistakes and Ive seen mistakes - so you dont have to.

The following essays are not going to be Deep Truth about Art. This is all practical stuff the career management tools you may not have thought of yet but will need, either tomorrow or down the road. Nor will they progress in any particular How to Write scheme. Practical Meerkat isnt your writing instructor. Im your business survival coach.

Youre not really a writer until certain things happen to you. Your first rejection. Your first sale. Your first revision letter. Your first eviscerating review. And your first panic attack.

One of the things new writers worry about is also one of the things that stresses more experienced writers, too. Im talking about that dread yet inevitable experience: the Full Stop.

Sometimes, while writing, you come to a point where you dont know what the next line is supposed to be. You have an outline, you have A Plan, you may even have a deadline but its not happening. Youre stuck.

Panic! Cold sweats! Frantic twitching and raids on the chocolate!

Some people call this writers block, and come up with all sorts of ways to unblock themselves. Others insist that it doesnt exist, that a block iswell, they have a lot of theories that doesnt account for the fact that sometimes we hit a wall.

I dont believe in writers block as A Thing. But I do believe that this particular blockage is very real. Its also nothing to panic or even worry over.

Yes, thats what I said. That OH MY GOD IM STUCK feeling? Listen to it, but dont panic.

What a full-stop generally means is that despite all your notes, your outlines, and your expectations, things have changed, and youre not entirely sure where the story is going, right then. When it throws up that wall, your brain is telling you stop and think about this, before we go in the wrong direction.

Thats a good writer-brain, doing its job. Give it a cookie, and calm down, and think about it. If talking works, grab a friend, or your critique partner, your agent or even your kid, if you can trap them in the car long enough. Youre the boss of your story get it to work again.

(Aside: yes, I believe in the presence/importance of the muse. I also believe that the muse has nothing to do with getting the work done.)

Ive walked enough writers through this process and faced it myself to determine that the best solution is to go back to where the writing last flowed freely, the last time you were deep in the groove. Go back, and start again. In knitting, Im told, that this is called frogging for rippit rip it out.

If that means before Once upon a time, then so be it.

You know what? Thats okay. It doesnt mean you suck, it doesnt mean the story sucks and should be tossed in the heap. It doesnt mean anything other than that you thought you knew where the story was going, and you were wrong. So what?

Heres one of the great secrets about writing: Theres nobody looking over your shoulder, scoring you on style points. Take another start. Slip, fall, get back up, change your mind, scribble something, draw a swooping arrow from one paragraph to another, yank entire sections and write entire scenes that you know wont make it into the final draft until the words flow again. In many cases, you need only back up a page or two and yes, youll know it when you find it. Trust yourself; you knew what wasnt working, youll remember what did. As soon as you back away from the wall, it will disappear.