1. Where do you get your ideas?
Ikea. I have to assemble them myself, but they have awesome names like Verklempt, and they’re very affordable.
Actually I get most of my ideas in Austin. Often while driving or in the shower.
(And by “in the shower” I mean, “on the toilet.”)
2. Will you read my manuscript?
Hell, I don’t even want to read mine after the first six times. Look, just because someone does something for a living doesn’t mean they want to do it for you for free. Never assume a chef wants to cook you dinner; don’t expect your computer programmer friend to fix your damn PC (again). That doesn’t necessarily mean they won’t be willing to help you out, but it’s presumptuous and rude to put someone on the spot like that. They might offer, in which case by all means take them up on it, but by asking, you place the writer in a very uncomfortable position, and I don’t mean in the back seat of a Volkswagen.
A professional editor is paid to read manuscripts, and it takes a lot of time and effort to plow through that much crap. Writers don’t do that for a living. We tend not to have the ability to tell someone “this sucks goats” in a tactful manner…and the thing about most manuscripts is, they suck goats. It’s an editor’s unenviable task to sort out which ones could be turned into readable books. I personally lack that kind of testicular fortitude.
While we’re on the subject, don’t ever ask a writer if they can send your manuscript to their agent/editor and grease the wheels for you. That’s just tacky as hell. If someone went through the months of rejections, revisions, and self-doubt and came through with a book contract, automatically thinking you can just jump past all that because you “know somebody” is really kind of shitty. Yes, who you know can make all the difference, but I promise you, being published doesn’t convey some kind of magical ability they can pass to you via mystical initiation.
Step 1: Sit down at keyboard. Step 2: Open a vein.
3. How big was your advance/how much money do you make on a book?
The answer is: probably not much. Ignoring the craptastic economy, there are maybe 20 authors out there right now making huge amounts of money on their books, and if you have to ask, you’re not talking to one of them. Getting published is no guarantee of success, fame, fortune, or anything except a lot of long hours editing, revising, and pushing toward deadlines with no assurance whatsoever that anyone will ever buy what you’ve spent the last year or more creating. My observation thus far is that in order to make a comfortable living writing novels (as in, not needing a day job) you have to have quite a few in publication at once, and have built up a substantial following, which takes years. The reason why you hear amazing stories about so-and-so whose first novel was a runaway success is that this almost never happens, and when it does it rarely has anything to do with the quality of the book. There are myriad forces at work in determining the success of any one novel.
4. One of these days when I have time I’m going to write a book.
Sure, okay. And one of these days when I have time I’ll become a ballerina.
There are a lot of misconceptions about the writing/publishing process, especially about how much time and work it takes…and to be honest, if you’re not the kind of person who feels compelled to write, you probably don’t have the dedication to finish a book, much less survive the publishing process. Believe me, there are easier ways to pay the bills than by writing, so when you consider how difficult it is to succeed in the industry, most writers do so because that’s what they do, who they are, and how they thrive. The average writer has been writing as long as she could write, and would continue to write no matter how crappy her career ends up. It’s a sort of creative OCD, and if you know many writers, you know we’re all somewhat…nuts to begin with.
5. You know, you really should write a children’s book/a Young Adult novel/something about talking cats, or whatever.
Young Adult novels are the big moneymakers right now, true. But not just anybody can write credibly from the perspective of a teenager – as is evidenced by a great many quickie YA novels out there meant to capitalize on the Twilight craze and other assorted trends.
I don’t write for children because I don’t especially like children. I write violent books with sex in them. I don’t identify with kids. I didn’t even identify with teenagers when I was one. I mostly read adult novels when I was a teen. If I were to try and write YA, it would sound like a 30-something year old woman trying to sound like a teenager. Some people know how to capture that kind of voice, but just because you can write one thing doesn’t mean you can write everything, or want to, or should.
How about this – I’ll write a YA novel, and Anne Rice will write a picture book for toddlers, and Stephanie Meyer will write hardcore gay porn. Yay!
