Reading "The Breakout ..."
August 30, 2001
7:24 a.m.
For those wondering--no, I'm not going to WorldCon this year. Perhaps you'll see me at World Fantasy, though. I'll probably decide on that one in mid-September.   So Lisa got me Donald Maass's Writing the Breakout Novel, and I'm reading it voraciously. Let me give you a secret: Don't read this book right after "finishing" a book. Maass's basic premise appears to be this: If you're not selling well the problem is almost certainly that your writing sucks. He then goes on to describe exactly why it sucks, and what it really ought to look like. And as you're reading you're saying "Well, sure. Right. Of course. Did I do that? Ugg ... I'm not sure I did that at all. Jeeze ... Come off it, already, Don ... can't we just skate past all these things and just cash the check?" And you think back to the book you're working on and you wonder if you should really just jump off the nearest bridge, or whether (since you really don't have the guts to do it yourself) you ought to lay out the cash to pay a hit man to make the whole thing more abrupt and unexpected. I mean, get serious, Don. Where do you get off saying that the best way to sustain a career is to write really good stuff? Actually, of course, it's a great book with lots of interesting stuff--exactly what you would expect from Donald Maass. Manuscripts prepared. "Old" novel delved into. Records updated. I'm getting back into the general flow of things. Who knows? Maybe tomorrow I'll actually clean my desk ... ... nah. Here's an interesting link for those who want a possible preview of the Hugo award results. Have a great day.  Daily Persistence is © Ron Collins |
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The root cause of most midcareer meltdowns is the author's own writing. Donald Maass |
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