Buzz, Balls & Hype

THE DOCTOR IS IN

THE LIMITATIONS OF KNOWLEDGE

Education is a great shield against experience. It offers so much, ready-made and all from the best shops, that there’s a temptation to miss your own life in pursuing the lives of your betters. It makes you wise in some ways, but it can make you a blindfolded fool in others.         

                                                                         --Robertson Davies, World of Wonders

 I have been rereading the Deptford Trilogy and finding this extended, completely engaging meditation on the nature of art (among other things) even more profound than in previous readings. 

The above quote made me catch my breath, because of course what I have been doing with every spare moment over the past several days is pursuing my betters, i.e., Davies. And Davies himself was an academic (and so much else); one of the most highly educated, literate writers I have ever been exposed to. 

But Magnus Eisengrim, the actor/magician who makes the above claim, is a genius—ignorant of literature, history, and much other knowledge we generally consider essential to civilization, but observant, creative, engaged and alive in ways that give great weight to his statement. 

Later in the book, another brilliant artist, a filmmaker, states, “The truth of the past is to be seen in museums, and what is it? Dead things, sometimes noble and beautiful, but dead….Once a man showed me a great treasure of his family; it was a handkerchief which somebody, on 30 January 1649, had dipped in the blood of the executed English King Charles I. It was a disgusting, rusty rag. But if you and I...had the money and the right people, we could fake up an execution of King Charles that would make people weep. Which is nearer to the truth? The rag, or our picture?”

And Eisengrim again: "Everything has its astonishing, wondrous aspect, if you bring a mind to it that's really your own--a mind that hasn't been smeared and blurred with half-understood muck from schools, or the daily papers, or any other ragbag of reach-me-down notions."

What is happening here?  I wondered when I read these passages again, with a novelist’s eyes. Is Davies having fun with us? Or did he really believe that immersion in facts, in the “dead” past, in literature and history, impedes the creation of art? 

It couldn’t be the latter, given his own immense range of knowledge, but I don’t think it was the former, either. I believe his point is that all of the erudition in the world doesn’t make an artist; that education and knowledge can back us up if we don’t allow them to master and blind us, but that real creativity takes place in the moment, in an open and undefended place.

At least that’s what the lesson is for me, this reading. I’ll let you know what comes up when I read it again in a few years.

Susan O'Doherty, Ph.D.,is a clinical psychologist with a New York City-based practice. A fiction writer herself, she specializes in issues affecting writers and other creative artists. She is the author of Getting Unstuck without Coming Unglued: A Woman's Guide to Unblocking Creativity(Seal, 2007). Her Career Coach column appears every Monday on Inside Higher Ed's Mama, Ph.D. blog, and she is a regular guest panelist on Litopia After Dark. Send your questions to her at Dr.Sue at mindspring dot com.  

THE DOCTOR IS IN

DANGEROUS FICTION

One hundred years ago Monday, Fitzhugh Coyle Goldsborough shot and killed David Graham Phillips, a writer who, he believed, had insulted Goldsborough’s wealthy Washington family in one of his novels. 

Goldsborough was clearly unbalanced. According to Peter Duffy, “Not only did Goldsborough believe that Margaret Severance…was based on his beloved sister. He also came to believe that Phillips had the power to read his mind, what he called in his diary a ‘lucrative method of literary vampirism.’” 

Shortly before expiring, Phillips disavowed Goldsborough’s accusation. But what if he had, indeed, based an unattractive character on an actual person? As Duffy writes, “After all, the fiction writer has pledged an oath to serve a calling higher than mere feelings. Why should F. Scott Fitzgerald worry over the sensitivities of Max Gerlach in creating Jay Gatsby?” 

Artists are rats. We snatch morsels of experience—our own, our friends and acquaintances’, even sometimes the work of other writers—and scurry back to our nests to arrange them to our purpose. We don’t mean any harm (most of the time). 

And yet, intention isn’t everything. I can push you down the stairs without intending to hurt you—I just want to get by, and you’re in my way—and your hip will be just as broken as if my purpose had been malicious. 

So what is our responsibility here? How protective do we need to be of others’ sensibilities, when we write fiction and, more transparently, memoir? 

I’m not an ethicist, and I don’t have clear-cut guidelines. I do think that this is a question we need to ask ourselves, not during the original writing process, but as we edit and revise. And not just because the wrong answer might get us shot. 

Susan O'Doherty, Ph.D.,is a clinical psychologist with a New York City-based practice. A fiction writer herself, she specializes in issues affecting writers and other creative artists. She is the author of Getting Unstuck without Coming Unglued: A Woman's Guide to Unblocking Creativity(Seal, 2007). Her Career Coach column appears every Monday on Inside Higher Ed's Mama, Ph.D. blog, and she is a regular guest panelist on Litopia After Dark. Send your questions to her at Dr.Sue at mindspring dot com.  

THE DOCTOR IS IN

THE WIDDER GETS HER MITTS ON HUCK

Last week, part of our “Litopia After Dark” discussion centered on the trend toward “cleaning up” the classics, specifically the new combined edition of Tom Sawyer  and Huckleberry Finn that has excised two racially offensive terms (“nigger” and “Injun”) and substituted theoretically more acceptable ones (“slave” and “Indian”) throughout the text. 

Alan Gribben, the English professor who performed this operation, explained that his intention was not to “sanitize” Mark Twain, but to make the books accessible to sensitive readers. He argues that readers may “resent” books that use racially insulting language and may thus be deprived of a potentially rewarding experience. By tweaking the prose a little, without altering the plot or the author’s viewpoint, he has removed the barriers to appreciation of the beauty and richness of the books. 

Professor Gribben seems to be sincere and well-intentioned. But I have to say, I think this is a horrible idea. 

First, great writers choose every word for a reason. If Clemens had meant to say “slave” or “Indian,” that is what he would have said. “Improving” his language seems disrespectful. 

Second, to a psychologist, this sort of revisionism reads as a disturbing form of denial. It’s as though we are wiping out a chapter of history; pretending that these ugly words—and the attitudes that underlie them—were never commonplace--and it follows that of course none of us harbor such attitudes now. Not only does this give the reader a skewed perception of the culture being depicted, but it cuts off the possibility of contemplation and thoughtful discussion that reading a book with controversial elements can evoke. 

And third, with all the promising books that don’t get published every year, do we really want to waste resources putting out a watered-down edition of a work that’s already available? 

Susan O'Doherty, Ph.D.,is a clinical psychologist with a New York City-based practice. A fiction writer herself,she specializes in issues affecting writers and other creative artists. She is the author of Getting Unstuck without Coming Unglued: A Woman's Guide to Unblocking Creativity(Seal, 2007). Her Career Coach column appears every Monday on Inside Higher Ed's Mama, Ph.D. blog, and she is a regular guest panelist on Litopia After Dark. Send your questions to her at Dr.Sue at mindspring dot com. 

LONG LIVE BOOKS

The good news in all the bad book news is that there really is good news 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's becoming more and more obvious that books aren't dying - not books in general and even more exciting not titles that have legs. Not good books. Not wonderful stories.

What is dying is the dreaded and crazy two week marketing PR blitz and single title marketing effort.

Those are going to become less and less workable.

We're moving into an era of marketing an author and all her backlist and frontlist on an ongoing basis.

We're moving into a world of marketing where our books don't go out of print and when someone finds one of our books they can easily buy more right away with a click of the mouse.  We're going stop loosing royalties to used books.

Smart Marketing is an investment marketing. And digital marketing affords us an opportunity for taking single title marketing and expanding it into investment marketing.

We can reinforce more than one book at a time– we can reinforce an author’s brand, backlist or an imprint.

We can reinforce more than one title at at a time - we can reinforce a verticle group of books.

Every ebook of a front list title can have live links to every backlist title. Or suggested reading lists on similar topics/genres.

An author or publisher can invest in marketing during the year - all year long - or for specific periods  - and amortize it over several or many titles. We can keep books selling longer. Nothing is a waste anymore.

There's a new wave of thinking coming and the results of investment marketing are going to be very exciting to watch.

That one WSJ print ad can support a year of advertising online that can keep people discovering your books all year long.

I'm going to be moderating a panel at DBW on Jan 26th on just these topics. More about that here. Hope to see you there.

 

The Doctor Is In

Dear Dr. Sue –

I need to be able to want to critique for my peers again. I used to critique and have been told that I do a good job because I mix support with good suggestions.  

 Last year, I volunteered to help judge a contest. Five entries, 20 pages, not my genre. Unfortunately, that contest seems to have “broken” me.  Now, I’m having trouble being supportive when I do critiques. I’m a lot less diplomatic when I offer recommendations. I simply don’t want to critique anymore. For good or ill, my own work is nearly ready for the critique circuit, and I’m dreading the reciprocal arrangement.

 I need to be able to do my part and be a good member of the writing community. How can I regain that energy and enthusiasm for critiquing again?

 

Thank you!

 

Cranky Critiquer

 

Dear Critiquer,

 

My son, who is an enthusiastic reader with a broad range of interests, once told me, “No matter how interesting a book might be—even if I’ve read it before and loved it—as soon as a teacher says I have to read it, it’s over. I don’t even want to look at it.”

 

Most adults are not quite that radical, of course, but I think we’d agree that required reading brings out the cranky in the best of us—especially if there’s going to be a quiz at the end. No matter how excellent a book or story may be, we resist it if we’re in the mood to read something else. It’s like having a taste for scrambled eggs and being served chocolate cake instead—however much we might enjoy chocolate cake under other circumstances, we’re likely to resent it under these. (Yes, I know that a truly hungry person will devour whatever is offered. And when my e-reader ran out of charge on the subway, I read my phone manual. But I wouldn’t say I savored it, and if I’d had to critique it afterward, I would have had a few choice words.)

 

I don’t know of any research on this topic—not surprising, since most studies of resistance assume some form of underlying pathology, and what you’re describing is a perfectly normal reaction. I do have a few strategies to share, and readers are invited to share their own in the comments section.

 

1.     Be slow to say yes. Of course you want to be “a good member of the writing community,” but you can accomplish this while setting realistic limits on your participation. Everyone’s capacity is different; some of us read more slowly than others or have greater demands on our time. Decide what you can handle—one book-length manuscript per month is reasonable for some—and stick to this schedule. If a writer needs her work to be read right away, and you have a backlog, explain that she might be better off going to someone else first, and you will reserve February for her book. You might also be conservative about reading the work of strangers. We all want to nurture new talent, but again, set reasonable limits.

2.     Don’t substitute “chore reading” for “pleasure reading,” at least initially. Put manuscript reading on your list of unpleasant but necessary tasks, along with dishwashing, toilet scrubbing, etc., and make time for it during your official chore hours. If the work takes over your life so that you actually want to read it in your leisure time, so much the better (and be sure to tell the author!)—but if not, giving up your preferred reading to make way for an imposed experience is guaranteed to sour you against the work.

3.     Use your writer’s imagination to make the task more palatable. For example, I pretend I’ve been asked to edit, rather than critique, certain manuscripts. This automatically allies me with the writer: I’m thinking about ways to improve “our” work, rather than about what’s wrong with what she wrote. Thus, all of my comments are constructive. You might also pretend that you’re reading a recently discovered early work of one of the “greats” (pretty much everyone wrote a dismal first novel, so this isn’t much of a stretch), and look for the signs of great promise embedded in the otherwise difficult prose. You get the idea.

 

Thank you, too, for the reminder that a critique of our own work that seems unnecessarily harsh might simply have been issued by a cranky and overwhelmed reader.    

 

Susan O'Doherty, Ph.D.,is a clinical psychologist with a New York City-based practice. A fiction writer herself,she specializes in issues affecting writers and other creative artists. She is the author of Getting Unstuck without Coming Unglued: A Woman's Guide to Unblocking Creativity(Seal, 2007). Her Career Coach column appears every Monday on Inside Higher Ed's Mama, Ph.D. blog, and she is a regular guest panelist on Litopia After Dark. Send your questions to her at Dr.Sue at mindspring dot com.