Entrepreneurship. Creativity. The American Way.

by
Dave Amaditz

Change. Uncertainty. It's a bit daunting for most of us to think about. More so for me it seems, as I age. Daily routines and keeping close to the certainties in life are coping mechanisms I use to get by. Recently though, the stable foundations I crave were somewhat shaken. On second thought, I'd say they weren't just shaken, they were rocked to the core.

After waking from elective surgery, my right arm was in severe pain and paralyzed. This complication was completely unexpected, and in my case, magnified, because use of my legs and hands are already limited because of my spinal cord injury.

Although the details of what I had to go through between then and now aren't the focus of this post, I can say with certainty, that for the last four months, my life has been extremely uncertain. The reality of what I was facing turned out to be much different than what I expected.

I thought I'd be in the hospital for a few days. It turned out to be a month. I thought that following discharge I'd immediately resume my normal activities. Two months with the therapist coming three days a week and one month following that I'm still struggling to achieve my pre-operative functionality.

So what does all this have to do with writing, this month's blog topic of patriotism, or this posts title?

Well, when I finally felt energetic enough to think about writing, one of the first things I did was to check out this blog. We were posting about whether there would be a future for picture books, whether the traditional book would still be around since the advent of e-books, what role publishing houses, editors and agents would have in the acceptance and publication of our writing.

As a writer who's followed the business, these topics weren't completely new to me. However, perhaps because of the complications from my surgery, it seemed so blatantly obvious that change was a-coming and coming fast. It scared me. I felt somewhat lost and frightened. And I found myself wondering, even if only for a short time, if writing was something that would be there for me when I was ready to once again hop onto the writing bus.

The questions foremost in my mind quickly became... How these changes would affect me and what could be done about it? The same two basic questions I faced following my surgery.

In no particular order I settled on doing the following. It was not so much a conscious effort as something I simply did, my way of coping, you might say.

1. Obtain knowledge, since after all, knowledge is power. I read all the material I could find about what was happening in the business (by the way, during rehabilitation I used any spare time to educate myself on what had happened to me during my surgery)

I talked to those with first-hand knowledge about the situation... My doctors and therapists were the primary contacts when it came to rehabilitation. My fellow Route 19 writers were first and foremost regarding industry news. This helped to ease my mind. This let me know how to attack the problem.

2. Don't become complacent.  Just taking the first step instead of hiding in your shell where it is comfortable, where you don't have to face the problems or where you can pretend the problems don't exist seems so simple and obvious, but can be the most difficult. However difficult though, pretend you're in the Nike commercial and "just do it". The problem won't get better, and in some cases, may get worse by doing nothing.

3. Don't let the situation overwhelm you. If you feel this is happening don't look at the whole picture because the task might then seem too large to tackle. (This leads to the next suggestion.)

4. Establish goals. Take life and your problems one step at a time, one day at a time... and on those really bad days one hour or one minute at a time. Don't worry if the goals are too small. Keep in mind where you were so you can get a clearer picture of where you currently are and where you are going.

5. Keep in mind why you do what you do. For me, I write because I love to write. I love the sense of accomplishment I feel when I complete a story. I'm happier when I get a story published or a positive critique, but it isn't entirely about that.

I did, and continues to do my therapy because I want to become the best person I could. I want to show my family, especially my children, what can be accomplished through hard work.

6. Keep the faith. Believe in yourself. Believe in those around you. Surround yourself with those who will support you. Surround yourself with those with knowledge that can help you become successful.

I take this one step further. I believe that whatever happens in life is all part of God's plan. I gave up long ago questioning "why" things happen. Instead, I find it much easier to move on and to move on quickly.

7. Find humor in the situation. Even when things seem the worst there's always something to laugh about. It probably won't be at the exact second something bad has happened, but as you reflect, there will certainly be something you will remember. During my most recent problems, I often complained that I was never "so tired or so sore from doing so little." My friends reminded me that that "I was, after all, getting older."

8. Think about others. When I think my situation is bad I put myself in the shoes of others. I quickly realize how fortunate I am. If that doesn't work, I read the newspaper, watch the television or volunteer to help those less fortunate. It doesn't take long to realize there are others whose lives are much worse than mine.

9. Don't let change keep you down. Don't let it frighten you. Look at examples from the past. I was reminded often by my father, through his father, that at the turn of the 19th century Americans were worried about jobs and about their future because of a new invention called the automobile. What would happen to those who made the wagon wheel, wagons, and those who shoed the horses? In the late 1970s the Pittsburgh area, known for its steel mills, saw thousands upon thousands of jobs lost. What would ever take the place of mother steel? Who could have predicted the success of personal computers and a little thing like the Internet?

So today, when you turn on your computer, your Ipad, Nook, or whatever other reading device you use to read the latest about the demise of the publishing industry, the downfall of picture books or the future of the young adult novel, remember it's probably not as bad as it seems. Have faith in your fellow Americans. Have faith in their entrepreneurship. Have faith in their ingenuity. Have faith in their creativity. Count on one of your fellow writers to let their creative minds develop a solution to the problems now facing the publishing industry. After all, change is inevitable and in America it happens quickly.

Who knows, future writers might think the worrying we've recently done is just a bit silly.

consider this

Posted by Kitty Griffin

It’s raining It’s pouring

The old man is snoring

Bumped his head

And he went to bed

And he couldn’t

Get up in the morning

Sometimes I read about the next new device coming our way and I want to go to bed and pull the covers up over my head. As my husband and I drove down Polish Hill into Pittsburgh’s Strip District, I couldn’t help but think that when my father-in-law was young he made this same trip—in a horse and wagon. And it really wasn’t that long ago. Our group talks about the digital landscape and we wonder how we’ll navigate. How do people who spend their lives thinking of stories fit in to this new world? Is there an app for that? I downloaded (of course) a new song from a Scottish group called, “We were promised jet packs.” It’s true, isn’t it? I really thought that by the time I’d reached this age I’d have a little jet scooter to get around on. All I have is a computer, Kindle, iPod, cell phone…so the transformation has been not in personal transportation, but in communication transportation, words at the speed of byte...oh George Orwell, you saw it all! What was that drug everyone had to take, Soma/Prozac/Zoloft? oh my.

Here’s my question to you—ten years from now, do you think there will still be books, hard copy, cover, dust jacket books? As writers, let’s consider the future, our future. What will a writer’s life be like in ten years?

Thirsty

Guest Post by Christina St. Clair. Please visit her here.

This is a love story of sorts, but not the traditional boy meets girl, they get hot for one another, they eventually tumble into the bed and live happily ever after.  Such a beautiful fairytale, we all know, does not exist in real life, especially in relationships which, in order to deepen, take work, persistence, insight, and time.

So it is with the writing life, at least so it has been with mine.  Writing seemed a way I might quench a longing I couldn't even name.  When I was at my father's funeral in England, I began telling stories to my small nephews.  It seemed to me perhaps I could turn this interest in story-telling into a refreshing way of living.  How hard could it be?  I became convinced my words would be worthwhile enough for people to pay me money, enabling me to live freely, roam the world, and never again have to work in a nine-to-five job.  Success would surely come.

My first children's novels, I wrote feverishly, full of excitement.  I studied the genre, I attended workshops, I went to writers' conferences, I joined the SCBWI, I constantly read the best in children's literature.  I sent out my manuscripts time and time again.  The result was hardly any affirmation, and certainly no novels accepted for publication by major publishers.  I did get a monetary award for a YA historical fiction novel, which convinced me my novel would sell.  It did not.

Yeah, well--I can see other writers nodding their heads…

My thirst did not abate, but after twenty years of effort, I was ready to throw in the writer's towel, heartbroken at all the rejections, convinced of the utter futility of continuing.  Along came a writer friend, Eddy Pendarvis, who, like me, was a big fan of Pearl Buck's work.  It aggravated us that Buck never received sufficient acclaim for her writing achievements.  In spite of winning a Nobel Prize in literature, her work was strongly criticized by the literary establishment, and still is today.  We wanted to find ways to promote her best works, to acclaim this woman of high achievement and high principled altruism.  Doesn't that make you think of children's literature writers?  We little knew where our ideas would lead, but we wrote a children's story.

Eddy led the way.  She knew a Chinese scholar, Berlin Fang, who'd helped translate Peter Conn's Pearl S. Buck, A Cultural Biography into Chinese.  Berlin suggested we send our work to the Chinese publisher.  It seemed an unlikely hope, but we gave it a try.  We were offered a contract to complete the work: no royalty agreements, no definite yes to publication, merely an agreement the book might be something this publisher could use if we got it to them on time in the length they wanted.  No money, friends said, for all that work.  Don't do it!  When you have hardly made a penny for your work for years, it didn't seem a big deal to decide we weren't in this for the big bucks, but for the Buck book (forgive the pun).  We had nothing to lose.

While we sipped tea at Tim Horton's, we talked about what to write, nurturing each other's suggestions, eventually coming up with twenty chapter ideas.  A lot of reading and research ensued.  If ever I love to do something, it is looking up facts, and letting them blossom into who knows what.  It was pure nectar following leads, trying to get facts straight, writing something tailored for Chinese students.

Our deadline loomed: we met in Hillsboro, WV, where Pearl S. Buck was born, to participate in the Pearl S. Buck International Writers' Conference.  Eddy orchestrated our participation, and Eddy insisted I come along.  What a good friend!  Others too ( Kitty Griffin, Marie Manilla, Laura Bentley, Philip St. Clair, Kathy Combs, Jim Gifford, Susan Caldwell to name a few), have turned my writing life from arid desert to crystal waters.  Eddy had obligations to fulfill at the event, but in between, we worked feverishly, putting our chapters together, smoothing out the writing, trying to get rid of the overlapping ideas we'd both used.  As I recall, at the end of the evening before we retired to our tiny room in a B & B, we sipped on fruit wine (Yes, Kathy, I am still drinking wine).

Eddy fed our completed chapters to Berlin who, with great mastery of both languages, translated them into Chinese.  We agreed on a three-way split of royalties.

Before long, we sent the best version we could manage to the publisher.  It seemed to take forever, but eventually a contract arrived.  We signed it.  The book we co-authored, Between Two Worlds: a Biography of Pearl S. Buck, was eventually released by the Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press in China as an English/Chinese reader.

The published book, beautifully illustrated on good stock, filled us with satisfaction.  We three (two writers and one translator) received royalty checks for about $200 each--not a huge sum, but a reminder of the power of friendship, persistence, connectedness.  For me, as well, this book gave hope for other writing projects.

My urge to write had definitely been encouraged.  I rewrote, reformatted, revised and sent out tighter versions of two young adult novels.  I gave up worrying about the outcome, I stopped needing anyone to tell me my work was good enough, and I accepted whatever happened.  At last, two publishers offered me contracts.  Instead of Harper Collins or Holt (do they even exist anymore?), my books got taken on by Bloodmoon and Rogue Phoenix.

The big publishers didn't want my novels, which certainly humbled me, but these e-publishers with funky names said yes.  At first, I felt despondent:  Blood moon, I muttered to myself, Rogue Phoenix?  But, you know, it's been a wonderful experience.  The editor and publisher, Christine Young (RoguePhoenix), has given me insightful suggestions greatly improving my historical fiction novel.  Marlene Satter (aka Lee Barwood), my editor at Bloodmoon, whose supernatural novels inspire me, is a psychic soul mate.  Her book, Some Cost a Passing Bell, available on Amazon, is a book about mystical gifts used for love of Mother Earth.

I believe I can hear the universe chuckling.  I am laughing too, no longer concerned about money or recognition, simply enjoying the process, whether good and bad, for no doubt I have become a better writer, and hopefully I am a deeper person.  I feel as if I am drinking sweet water from a freshly dug well.

Will E-readers Destroy the Novel?

"Amazon's going to ruin the Novel," Dear Boy said yesterday.

I looked up from my laptop, where I had begun to suspect I was ruining my own novel, without any help from Amazon. "How?"

"The Kindle offers free samples," DB said. "So the opening will make or break the sale. This will totally warp the way authors open their novels." 

"But that's how I shop for novels already. Especially with authors I haven't read before. I read the first page. Sometimes only the first paragraph."

Dear Boy looked shocked. As if I'd confessed a new secret vice. (He already knows about my old secret vice: compulsive revising.)

"Well, how do you shop?" I challenged him.

"I guess I read the first page. But after that I riffle through the book."

"You riffle."

"I riffle. I think most people riffle."

"Agents and publishers don't riffle!" I crowed. "At one of the SCBWI conferences, an agent told us that if page 1 doesn't grab her, she doesn't read page 2. She can't afford the time. She always has something like 3,000 submissions in her email in-box."

"They just read the opening?"

"Yep. The agent recommended that kidlit authors put an active scene—in dialogue—on the first page of every novel. So books are already being sold or not sold, based on first pages."

"The Novel of Tomorrow: a smashing opening, followed by a long downhill slide," DB muttered darkly. "Soon people will realize that the only part worth reading is the free sample. We'll only read openings. We won't read anything we have to pay for." And he sat down and opened his Kindle.

"What are you reading now?" I asked.

"HEART OF DARKNESS."

"How does that open?"

"Doesn't matter. The classics are free on Amazon." 

What think you? Do Novels open differently nowadays? Must they? Is there a book you love whose opening would fail today? What opening recently sold you on a book? And how many of you really, truly riffle? 

Here are three openings (by authors I had not previously read) that recently made me buy the whole novel. (Guess the publication dates. Answers will appear in my next post.) "It wasn't there. Then it was.  Later, that was how Angela DuPre would describe the airplane—over and over, to one investigator after another—until she was told never to speak of it again."

"I was not the first girl she saw, nor the second, and as to why she chose me, I know that now: it was because she did not like me."

"When the doorbell rings at three in the morning, it's never good news."

And here are three oldies-but-goodies that had me at hello:

"Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents."

"The bear had been their undoing, though at the time they had all laughed."

And my all-time favorite: "'Where's Papa going with that ax?'"