Best or Worst? YOU decide
I miss New York. So every day, when I have my coffee, I read the "rags." The New York Daily News and the Post. They aren't great papers. They aren't great journalism. They're call the rags for a reason. Their columnists are "real" New York. When I read them online, I swear I can smell the pretzels and souvlaki and gyros for sale on the street corner. So it was two days ago, I saw this:
NICHOLAS Sparks - who has 100 million copies of his books in print, including "Message in a Bottle," "Nights in Rodanthe" and his latest, "The Lucky One" - told Marymount College writing program director Lewis Frumkes he can't stand so-called literary writers whose prose seems to scream out, "Look how brilliant I am," instead of just telling a good story. "In my opinion," said Sparks, "Stephen King is without question our greatest writer. No one tells a better story than Stephen." He describes his own books as modern Greek tragedies that put readers through the range of human emotions. "I set out to write a good story with 'The Notebook,' one that would sell 10 million copies and make me rich . . . and I did." He also told Lewis that Disney has already bought his next book to make into a movie. Asked what its title was, Sparks said, "I don't have a title. I haven't even begun to write the book."
Now, what he says . . . I can go with. I agree it should be about story. I guess what strikes me as . . . I don't know . . . negative, is setting out with the goal to "get rich." Don't get me wrong, I would LOVE to make 10 million dollars. I have the "dream," if you will, that maybe a book will just really, really take off. (I also know sustaining the take-off is beyond difficult.) But I suppose I think of story, of readers, of my characters and their lives. When I am writing, I have never sat down--not once--and thought, "Let me come up with the moneymaker." I have MET writers who do that. I have met them so often, it's the ol' "If I had dollar for every time . . . ." And with one exception, none of them ever got published. Why? Because it became TOTALLY about "Listen to this hook--I know the reading public will love this"--and it was never about sustaining the book beyond the hook. It strikes me as utter condesencion. That somehow people don't DESERVE a good book all the way through. Because they won't recognize it. That learning craft is immaterial. Because no one will notice if I come up with this 10-million-dollar idea. I had one guy I worked with who NEVER (and I mean never) could get a book past page 100, because his hooks ran out of gas. And he wondered if he could just sell on proposal and have his editor help him with plot.
Um. No.
I also worked with a writer anxious to break into chick lit who threw in every (and I mean every) chick lit device known to man. "Let me toss in a gay guy! Let me add a wedding!" with the idea that somehow this combination was what made the best-seller--not the story.
So is Sparks refreshingly honest? Is he any good in your opinion? (I have never read him . . . if you like him and he's an awesome storyteller, let us know, for real). Is this idea offensive? Does it represent the best of ideals or the worst?
Weigh in.
Happy Friday! And hey . . . I'm heading to Manhattan this weekend. I'm eating souvlaki. Just kidding. I actually hate the stuff. But I will be walking for miles while clutching my Starbucks and holding hands with my OLDEST DAUGHTER. (Yeah, we're really dorky like that--we still hold hands.) I will post pictures. I can't wait to hug her!! I even loaded David Sedaris for us to listen to on my iPod. AND--bonus--get to see my best friend from high school and stay at her place.
NICHOLAS Sparks - who has 100 million copies of his books in print, including "Message in a Bottle," "Nights in Rodanthe" and his latest, "The Lucky One" - told Marymount College writing program director Lewis Frumkes he can't stand so-called literary writers whose prose seems to scream out, "Look how brilliant I am," instead of just telling a good story. "In my opinion," said Sparks, "Stephen King is without question our greatest writer. No one tells a better story than Stephen." He describes his own books as modern Greek tragedies that put readers through the range of human emotions. "I set out to write a good story with 'The Notebook,' one that would sell 10 million copies and make me rich . . . and I did." He also told Lewis that Disney has already bought his next book to make into a movie. Asked what its title was, Sparks said, "I don't have a title. I haven't even begun to write the book."
Now, what he says . . . I can go with. I agree it should be about story. I guess what strikes me as . . . I don't know . . . negative, is setting out with the goal to "get rich." Don't get me wrong, I would LOVE to make 10 million dollars. I have the "dream," if you will, that maybe a book will just really, really take off. (I also know sustaining the take-off is beyond difficult.) But I suppose I think of story, of readers, of my characters and their lives. When I am writing, I have never sat down--not once--and thought, "Let me come up with the moneymaker." I have MET writers who do that. I have met them so often, it's the ol' "If I had dollar for every time . . . ." And with one exception, none of them ever got published. Why? Because it became TOTALLY about "Listen to this hook--I know the reading public will love this"--and it was never about sustaining the book beyond the hook. It strikes me as utter condesencion. That somehow people don't DESERVE a good book all the way through. Because they won't recognize it. That learning craft is immaterial. Because no one will notice if I come up with this 10-million-dollar idea. I had one guy I worked with who NEVER (and I mean never) could get a book past page 100, because his hooks ran out of gas. And he wondered if he could just sell on proposal and have his editor help him with plot.
Um. No.
I also worked with a writer anxious to break into chick lit who threw in every (and I mean every) chick lit device known to man. "Let me toss in a gay guy! Let me add a wedding!" with the idea that somehow this combination was what made the best-seller--not the story.
So is Sparks refreshingly honest? Is he any good in your opinion? (I have never read him . . . if you like him and he's an awesome storyteller, let us know, for real). Is this idea offensive? Does it represent the best of ideals or the worst?
Weigh in.
Happy Friday! And hey . . . I'm heading to Manhattan this weekend. I'm eating souvlaki. Just kidding. I actually hate the stuff. But I will be walking for miles while clutching my Starbucks and holding hands with my OLDEST DAUGHTER. (Yeah, we're really dorky like that--we still hold hands.) I will post pictures. I can't wait to hug her!! I even loaded David Sedaris for us to listen to on my iPod. AND--bonus--get to see my best friend from high school and stay at her place.
Labels: storytelling
posted by Erica Orloff at 6:48 AM
53 Comments:
I never start a novel thinking about money, or even hooks, most of the time. I start a novel because I have an idea I really want to explore, and most of the time, a character I have an interest in spending time with and getting to know.
Sometimes, more often these days, I'll get to the end and think, "What was the hook?" (Backwards, probably). And I might think, once my agent gets her paws on it, "Hmmm, maybe we can sell this for XXX,XXX."
Frankly, I gave up totally on dreaming of anything like 10 million copies. Even my brain can't seem to get past a fantasy of a $250,000 advance, let alone the million dollar babies.
Interestingly, I think, in David Morrell's book on writing he mentions Nicholas Sparks saying that he had studied the market and decided that each genre/sub-genre could only sustain 2 bestsellers, and at that time there was no male romance novelist (except probably Robert James Waller), so he intentionally wrote to that. Whether that's apocryphal is up for debate, and Morrell cautions that Sparks' approach to the market is probably not the way to go, but it does suggest that Sparks thinks it is.
Mark:
I can see studying market, but the idea that you set out to write what the market calls for leaves out any passion for it.
Don't get me wrong. Writing isn't hard. I mean, yes, it's hard. But it's not, as J.A. Konrath has said, digging ditches. That said, there is some ART to it. Some sense that you are creating something--which to me is lost when you approach it from a financial perspective.
I don't want a writer to bullshit me, so if he really doesn't give a crap about his characters, I don't want him to say he does. I know the Notebook was about a long-term marriage. I'd like to THINK he saw some beauty in their story, but I am thinking--NOT. Whereas, I have to say, at a key point in Freudian Slip when Julian makes the ultimate sacrifice for Kate . . . I cried. I cried the first time I wrote it, and I choke up EVERY time I read it. It takes place in Washington Square Park in NYC, and I can't even LOOK at the park now without thinking of him. And that's no B.S. So I don't know . . . the approach leaves me cold.
E
Yes, I read that from Nicholas Sparks, only I thought it was three big authors per subgenre.
I dare you to read The Notebook and not bawl like a baby. It's short. And same with A Walk to Remember. I'm 98% sure you will absolutely love A Walk to Remember. (Even the movie is awesome.) I believe he approached his choice as pragmatically as this, but this guy was meant to write this stuff. The pragmatic answer he got was pure luck or divine intervention.
And he tells one hell of a story. He's just pragmatically-minded and seems to think it was as easy as 1+1=2 because it was easy as that for him. But it wasn't easy because of his 1+1, it was easy because he tells one hell of a story.
Have a GREAT time in New York, and congratulate your oldest from me! I read in one of your comments somewhere that she was doing fabulous! Way to go!
I don't think that Sparks approach was wrong - because it worked. Like you said, E, gazillions of writers have the same thought, but it doesn't work, so we never hear about it. I've never read Sparks either, but he fills a need and tells a story well - for his readers. If he looked to fill and niche and did so enough to make it big, I say "Good for him." The fact is, that rarely works, but I hold no grudges against people who do things differently than I, and have success. He had to have had all the ingredients to make it big - because like you said - just the hook alone doesn't do it.
And of course Sparks thinks his way is the right way, it has made him rich. I'm sure there are many Sparks-wannabes out there. Few will make it, if any. But if one does, it will be right for him or her as well.
I'm only tackling my first fiction. When I get a new idea I jot it down and simply in awe that I may have another book in me somewhere. I'm writing because I want to be published. If I didn't I'd simply blog and that would be enough.
PS: Funny enough, he and you remind me of each other, what with your deep, heartfelt, fully-fleshed characters that breathe SO real.
Spy:
I saw the movie A Walk to Remember. I wanted to hate it on principle. (Just seemed corny, and come on, it had MANDY MOORE in it). But I cried . . . I actually really liked its sweetness. Didn't know he wrote that.
E
Spy:
And you make an incredible point, by the way. It's like when I ask my daughter, "How do you DO that" with violin or perfect pitch. "It's so easy a monkey can do it," she'll say. (Not really, but you get the idea. She CAN'T explain it . . . so her answer will seem like 1 + 1 = 2.)
E
Hi Amy:
I agree. I guess for me, it seems so ODD to approach it like a science experiment. And in all seriousness, it's not best OR worst, but simply his approach. But again . . . very odd to not approach it like Mark with an idea, or . . . me and "I have this character."
E
I agree with the whole "it's as easy as 1+1=2" bit, because for writers like him, it's just like that for some writers. But you most definately DO get a sense of condescension that just makes you wanna pull your hair out in handfuls and say "Screw you!"...I totally get what your saying.
I felt EXACTLY the same way you did about "A Walk To Remember". Never read the book either. But I've learned over time not to make judgements on movies just because "so and so" is in it, especially with movies like "Saved!" and "Southland Tales". I thought I was gonna barf Hollywood all over myself with the cast of those flicks, but they were both awesomely awesome movies in their own right.
And that's not one bit corny that you still hold hands with your daughter. That's beauty. I'm 32 years old and I STILL hold my momma's hand and pet her hair like I did when I was in kindergarten. That's just LOVE. Plain and simply. :)
Lawrence Block once had a very thought-provoking column about how "talent" may just mean that things come easily to you. He talked about a friend of his who was determined to become a novelist and couldn't give his novels away, but he started doing travel writing and pretty soon was being sent all over the world by his editors, but he was determined to become a novelist. And Block noted that although he himself wrote nonfiction about writing fiction, and he loved to travel, he couldn't write travel nonfiction or any other type of nonfiction without it being like wading through wet cement. That for him, the fiction came easily.
And by easily, I think he meant the success part of it, that he wrote books and they got published, pretty much from the first.
And I wonder about that myself, why the nonfiction seems to come so easily to me, but the fiction (in terms of getting it to take off commercially and get published, etc., not in how easy it is to actually write it) doesn't.
Not an easy topic, though.
Hi realm:
I really love movies, and I try to be open to different kinds, but in GENERAL, I don't usually like romances. So I totally didn't expect to like it. It was one of those, "I'm clicking through, I tune in for five minutes, thinking, God, what the heck IS this . . . and then I'm hooked." LOL!
And sigh . . . yes, "petting" hair. :-)
E
Mark:
Well . . . have you ever seen this?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0328962/
I highly recommend it. There is a guy in there who charts his jokes/laughs. Dissects them to pieces. And Seinfeld tests things out and goes through this anatomy of a joke. But the one guy maybe overdoes it, I don't know. He's just not NATURAL at it. Perhaps there is something to being an organic storyteller.
When my daughter was learning violin, there were a number of girls who played all the notes correctly. And my daughter would get up there and play--and maybe even every note wasn't perfect, but she could just make it EMOTE. I don't know how else to say it. People would come over to me and say, "My kid plays . . . but your kid . . . I think I'm going to be able to say I knew her when." And I was always struck by that in a sense of something innate.
But my bigger answer is . . . I just don't know. ;-)
E
The Notebook was Sparks's first novel. He snagged the first agent he queried. After being on submission for two days, the book sold for seven figures.
See boys and girls? That's all there is too it!
I hate his guts.
Seriously, though, I've read a couple of his books, and while I don't think he's as great a writer as he thinks he is (I've heard him compare himself to Hemingway, LOL!) I have to admit he knows how to touch an emotional nerve. I think that's what makes bestsellers, the ability to get a large number of people's spidey senses tingling.
Sparks found the formula that works for him, and The Notebook enabled him to quit his day job and write full time. You can't argue with success, although I think maybe it has gone to his head a bit.
Jude:
Hmmm . . . interesting.
You know, it's funny . . . when I meet readers at conferences or signings, or whatever, there will be some who say, "I loved Spanish Disco" and talk about how funny it is. But the conversations with the women who liked "Do They Wear High Heels in Heaven" is totally different. People either cry or they say something about how the book touched them and they bought ten copies for their friends for Christmas. So . . . I do think there's a hunger for emotional books.
But the quote still irks me. ;-)
E
Here's a question I wonder about sometimes: does it matter how Nicholas Sparks approaches his craft if it works for the readers? I've heard over and over (never read any myself) that his books are incredibly moving. Real tear-jerkers.
So what difference does it make if he cynically sets out to sell a gazillion copies and uses a flow chart of emotional plot points to get from A to "The End"?
Ultimately, I think it's the art and the audience that matters, and the artist is usually forgotten over time. Didn't Tchaikovsky write the 1812 Overture as a contract piece for the Russian aristocracy? And didn't he despise it? And wasn't Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (the movie) commissioned by a candy corporation to sell candy bars? The movie outlasted the product it endorsed.
So I dunno, you know. I guess I don't really care how something was produced so much -- I don't know Nicholas Sparks well enough to know if he's truly that cynical or if this is some kind of elaborate defense mechanism or if he's a narcissist or if he's messing with the reporter on a dare from his wife or what. But ultimately, I think where the rubber meets the road, he produced a piece of writing that resonated with millions of readers for their own private reasons.
JVZ
You are talking about several things here. (At least in the comments)
First, I also agree you have to love writing in order to write. Coming at it with the "I'm going to make millions" approach is the death knell for most writers, because luck is not on everyone's side. I'm sure Sparks would not exist (at least in our world) if he received as many rejections as Stephen King. That's where the love comes in. I truly think there is no way to keep going when you don't like to write.
That's also the trap, because no matter how much you love to write that doesn't mean you IT factor to sell. Or the stars and the moons being lined up just right when you send off that query, partial, full. For me the IT factor is writing a story that resonates. Kind of like hitting the perfect note.
Also the other thing you are discussing is the natural ability to do something extraordinary. My father plays the piano. He could hear music playing on the radio, play around with a few keys and pick up the melody. I don't think he's ever used sheet music. He can read it, but he's just EASY for him to play.
And for some writers, writing a damn good story is easy.
I like to say I hate them, but I really just envy the ability to shoot out a good story without the angst. *Nora Roberts, anybody?*
The quote irks me too. I think he's full of crap, an intentional "quotable quote," if you will. I don't think any sane person could start a novel with that kind of fame and fortune in mind. The odds are probably about the same as winning the lottery.
JVZ:
I guess for me, as a consumer, I like to believe (naive soul that I am) that I am respected in the process. It's why I really dislike most pop. I dislike I record executive choosing someone who cannot sing (compare a Christina Aguilara's pipes with Britney Spears, for example) . . . and packaging them in a way that says, "People are dumb enough to buy this crap."
So he may be great, but I guess the quote irritates me in the same way. But then again, Justin Timberlake, who CAN sing, came out of N'SYNC. So sometimes the talent is just natural.
E
melissa:
Yeah . . . as with any threads, there's definitely rival discussions going on here. Is Sparks a natural talent? Is the comment cynical and does it matter? And . . . for most people, if you don't do it for love, you won't keep toiling.
E
Jude:
Mark has posited that same thought on his blog a couple of times.
Then again, sometimes you just get quoted for an offhand thing. I really DID stick Spanish Disco in a drawer, and I really did intend not to do anything with it, and I really did show it to an agent I knew socially . . . and it really did sell to the fifth house in under three months. And it was my first book, if you don't count a single thriller from my 20s that I didn't submit. So . . . if I got quoted, it would sound kind of jerky. Then again, I didn't make 10 million. ;-)
E
I enjoy Sparks's stories but it irks me that he sets out to write a blockbuster. I suppose he's had enough success that he knows what sells, but still. I haven't read his most recent books and now I don't really want to.
Oh, but I did BAWL while reading the Noteboke, and again during the movie. So badly that my now-husband asked if I was ok. :)
melanie:
I only saw the last ten minutes of the movie, but I have always been a Gena Rowlands fan--and a James Garner fan. My daughter owns in on DVD. I should check it out, I guess, when I need a good cry (something probably only the women who visit this blog might relate to).
E
First I would like to say I shouldn't write comments six o'clock in the morning. I'm surprised you were able to understand it.
Is Sparks a natural talent?
I would say so. I've read his first romantic suspense. No one dies in this book. (The body count is off scene). He did an okay job with characterization, but I finished that book pretty quickly. (A real page turner) BUT I don't see how he's selling all these books. That's just me. I stopped reading Danielle Steele, because of the emotional roller coaster and uncertain end.
Then again you can say he has talent because he has the ability to write these stories.
Is the comment cynical and does it matter?
I don't think it matters how someone approaches writing a book. My beliefs may be totally different from yours. Does that mean your books are crap? No. The arts are seen as something mystical and all this other jazz. His comment offends the majority of us who believes writing is something special.
And . . . for most people, if you don't do it for love, you won't keep toiling.
Okay, you may hate me after saying this, but if I made millions of dollars doing something that didn't kill the environment, people, or my belief system--I'd keep doing it. For millions of dollars I could learn to love something.
Yes, I'm a sellout, but I live below the poverty level.
Sparks fills an emotional niche. He's like comfort food.
Have a great weekend with your daughter.
melissa:
Oh, heck . . . if I could mke a million writing about cows and only cows, I would. :-) I was more referring to . . . would someone like Sparks keep toiling forever if he hadn't hit it big? For people who write for the passion of it, they will likely toil forever simply because they can't give it up. But if you are writing to make a million . . . and just filling in the numbers . . . then will you keep on if you got 150 rejections? I don't know.
E
Hey Birthday Lady (anti-wife, for those of you who don't know . . . and visit her blog . . . she's offering up her wisdom accumulated from her years on her journey) . . .
Comfort food is sometimes just what we want.
E
I was more referring to . . . would someone like Sparks keep toiling forever if he hadn't hit it big?
A Big Fat No. It's different when you sit down to write and think, "Hey, I kinda like this." and then of course it turns into an obsession.
Vs.
"I absolutely hate, hate, hate this, but it might make me money" but then the rejections start rolling in. And more rejections until you can be buried in them. You don't see the point of wasting your time on something you hate that so far hasn't made you money.
But from what I'm getting from Sparks. There were a few nothankyouverymuch's and then he hit it big.
WTF?
But I do love the Notebook.
You know, I wonder if that quote is kind of 'hind sight is twenty twenty'... maybe because it was so easy for him, he never hit the same kind of wondering if I'm good enough most writers hit with rejections - and then, later, he recounts it as if it was more intentional than it really was. I mean, okay, maybe he researched the markets and really tried for a commercial success, but again, I doubt he would have uttered that quote prior to publication.
I've read a few of Spark's novels and he's a good writer. I didn't get into The Notebook but I think that was a me personal thing - my favorite aunt, who I adored and named my daughter after, died of Alzheimers... I quit work to take a day or two a week with her when it was clear she couldn't be alone... I think that journey was different (as they all are) than the one he portrayed and it was too fresh for me to get into his character's story.
I liked A Walk to Remember but it went a little too overboard on the sappy sweet meter for my taste... and I liked Message in a Bottle. I think he's got to have something in order to write like he does, even if his formula doesn't seem right to us.
I had a lot of writers expound the need to outline before writing and have everything mapped out - but I can't write that way at all. I have to start at page one and let the characters show me the story. It means more rewrites, but after trying it the other way, I know this is my process. Maybe it's kind of the same thing - what works for some, doesn't work for all.
As far as his contention that Stephen King is the greatest writer of our time, I can't say I disagree. I like both literary and commercial fiction and I see good points in both. Some writers can pull off one and not the other... but I think a lot of commercial writers get the short end of the stick from literary authors - no one likes a pompous ass, even a brilliant one.
Hi Merry:
I don't outline . . . I'm too much about the emotions/gut, I guess.
And having been an English major. . . I remember disdain for some writing, and to me . . . you want to reach people (I remember some of it being inaccessible--not that I COULDN'T find the meaning, but I wasn't motivated to . . .)
E
E
Erica,
Twain was also a writer who started with characters and let them tell the story - no outline...
And I agree with you, some literary writers expound so much it almost seems to scream, "look at me!!! look at me!!! I'm brilliant!"
I do love the poetry and rhythm of language in some works, but I also love it when an author disappears from the writing and as a reader you forget all about them and identify with the story and characters solely... I think that talent is even more impressive than spectacular prose.
Have a wonderful weekend!!!
When I think of Nicolas Sparks, I see this guy who found a unique place in the industry and swallowed it whole. lol.
I don't read everything he writes, but the stories and movies I've read and seen are brilliant. What I did notice is that he didn't have to follow the word-count rules, etc, that big houses put out in submission info. Some of his stories are under 300 pages. Gotta give him props, he found a way and made it happen. I admire that... And he's really good too. Bless his little heart! :)
I didn't enjoy Sparks's fiction books enough to finish them but I loved his memoir and I talk about it frequently when I talk of memoirs.
Brain Haig was another one of those authors who set out to make money. Six months after he chose to write a book, his was finished and he had a six book contract.
He said he read everything on the bestseller list, picked two authors he thought he could imitate, and did.
ladonna:
You have to give someone credit for appearing to break all the rules and be successful anyway.
E
Richmond:
I purposely AVOID fiction so I don't imitate other writers.
E
LMAO @ "Let me toss in a gay guy!"
hahahahahahahahaha
I don't know why that was so funny.
And SHOES...lots and lots of SHOES.
Maybe it's just me, but I've read a couple of Nicholas Sparks books, because my friends are nutty over them, and I think he sucks. His writing is childlike, his characters are two dimensional, and I can predict everything that happens. Is no one saying this, because they're trying to be nice? (Obviously, I'm not finding that to be a problem.)
To hear him put himself in the same class as "Stephen" makes me gag. To paraphrase Lloyd Bentson, "Mr. Sparks, you're no Stephen King."
Oh dear. Perhaps I had too much sangria tonight. That darn sangria...
I haven't posted a comment here in a long time, but I'm hoping to better manage my time now...
I agree with Sparks about the story, and I think there are stories everywhere. He knows he can write to draw in the masses. So while his statement of "getting rich" bothers me, I don't find it offensive. I interpret it as though he wants to sell a lot of books, and he knows how to. As long as he's not denigrating anyone else, I have no problem with his brashness.
I recently saw the ads for "Road to Roadanthe" and thought, "That's a lot of roads," but was intrigued by the previews so, never having read a Sparks, I went to B&N.com and read the synopsis. SNOOOOZER. Sorry, it sounded like same-old same-old, but if it's what puts money into his 401k, more power to him. It's obvious he writes for the bigs bucks, and unfortunately, people give it to him. I won't.
When I think of NYC I think of Billy Collins at Sarah Lawrence; and how I wish I could have been there to take one of his classes. I think of J.D. Salinger and "Catcher in the Rye". When I think of NY I can't help but embrace the chorus of five zillion dialects. That's New York.
I heart New York. It's my home. (Okay, I'm in Western New York State, but still...) I hope you enjoy your stay and next time you visit give me a shout.
zoe:
:-)
Shoes. Purses. Needing to find a "pretend" date for a wedding. Listen . . . if you are 30 and don't have a suitable number of gay or straight male friends you can have escort you to a wedding without resorting to a sham? WHO ARE these chick lit heroines? ;-)
E
robin:
I want HONESTY. :-) I have never read him . . . so other than the lone movie I saw . . . don't know. Nothing I've read here today sounds like rocket science, so my guess is I might find it predictable. But . . . doesn't mean it won't have me running for a Kleenex either.
E
chris:
Stories ARE everywhere. I totally agree. If anything, I'm always fighting Shiny New Idea Syndrome.
E
kath:
NYC to me is just energy. I love getting home once or twice a year. I just love WALKING. Just being out and about and people watching. The vibe.
And sure I'll give ya a shout. My daughter goes to college near Canada WAY upstate NY. So now I'll be traveling northward more often.
E
I tried to read Sparks. No comment. :-)
Writing to get rich means you're setting yourself up for a worse failure than Lehman Brothers. You can spend years doing it, if you want, but it's not a guaranteed path because it's constantly changing. Of all the authors who have studied the market, how many have it worked for? I'd certainly like to know those numbers. It works for Sparks and nobody can't deny that. But I think it's also irresponsible for him to imply "anyone can do it, if you use his system, too." That comes off like an annoying hawker on one of those infomercials. His system works for him. Period. Great. But JK Rowling made enough money to make him vomit cacti. For her, it was all about the story and hopefully making enough money to feed her and her daughter. I bet having several movies and an amusement park based her books NEVER occurred to her.
Erica, the sangria is gone, but the honesty remains. The only kleenex I needed was the one I used to wipe vomit off my lower lip.
Have fun in NYC! I'm in Bean Town right now. Instead of sight seeing, I'm going to go watch my brother coach my nephew and a bunch of 5 year olds in soccer. But that's a sight I want to see more than any other. I'm so weird. No one should trust my writing opinions.
I must say, though, that I don't begrudge the man making big bucks with a premeditated formula. Works for Harlequin. What the heck.
OMG! I just read the paper and realized I made a faux paux in reference to the Sparks movie/novel. "NIGHTS in RODanthe". I guess his work really impressed me... :)
Hm. Right brain approach. Left brain approach. Which one will make me rich?
Maybe left brain approach and right brain execution. Or vice versa.
The funny part is all the wanna-bes who will try to copy him. Well, it's funny until it makes more publishing houses close their doors to unagented manuscripts. *sigh*
And yes, I dream about the money maker, but I know that's up to how it's received. I have to write a damn good story and write it well to get published. And that's what I'm concentrating on.
If I tried to put my process down on paper, people would scratch their heads and say WTF?.
Wait! Hold the presses!
It's left brain approach, right brain excution, left brain editing and right brain revision.
That's the prefect formula for $$ success.
Yeah, I get ya. I think it's about story. I would LOVE if people loved my book so much that they told three of their friends and those people told three of their friends and it snowballed into this giant thing.
BUT...if I can eventually reach just 1,000 readers with any given book it's enough to have been worth it to write it. I more than recoup my investment and I'm sharing my work with the right readers.
Now obviously my goals are higher than that, but...even just 1,000 readers on any given title would work for me in the sense that I can keep going and build momentum over however many years it takes me.
Have a wonderful time in the city! I can't go up til December because of our bad weekend schedules and I miss it and my folks alot!
Re: Nicholas Sparks. He is not my cup of tea but I can see how he works for so many others. And he clearly has got down a winning formula. I read an article about him in EW this week and it says although he has quite a few ego moments (I think the writer may have been being nice.) that at least Sparks could laugh at himself. I happen to agree with him about Stephen King being one of our greatest writers. I don't know that I agree with Sparks own assessment of his books as modern greek tragedies. Aren't they love stories? Isn't he no more, or less a romance writer? But he takes offense to that? Why? It made him rich didn't it?
I don't believe you should approach writing like a formula to get rich. But just because it worked for Sparks doesn't mean it would work for anyone else.
sarah:
LOL! Love your formula!
E
ello:
I'll have to check that out. Don't you love when you can spot writers being nice to people who are kind of being a jackass?
E
Hi Zoe:
I think formulating goals like that is really important.
E
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