...And Another One Encourages the Dust

From another well-known agent, just the other day:

Hi Alex, I am so so sorry to be slow. I have been outrageously behind, and when I see the date of receipt of this ms I am horrified and so apologetic.

I had an intern read it a few weeks ago and she brought it to me with arelatively good report, so i started reading myself. My thoughts are these: you are a fabulous writer, and you create each of these characters with style and smarts. There is so much to admire in this book. BUT I find that I had trouble getting fully engaged in the overall plot and shape of the book as a whole, as I tried to become engaged in each of these lives you present. They are all done quite well, but I really respond much better to a novel that has a more centered plot. This plot works, I wouldnt deny that, but for me, a matter of taste more than anything else, it did not arouse passion. I think you are quite good but I dont think I am the right match for you. I am so sorry. But your talent is real, and I urge you to get other readings ... I wish I could help you but you need someone who has a strong vision for the novel and its place on the market, a vision which unfortunately I cannot provide to you.

I wish you much success with this, and I am so sorry I cannot help. BUT please keep faith in your work because you are truly a wise and talented writer.

Yours, XXXXXX

I have to remember that this is, in fact, a good thing. I just feel so close, and yet so dizzyingly, insurmoutably far. I simply have to remember that a response of any kind is a blessing, and that a response like this is a great, generous gift. There seems to be an accumulation of wisdom in these rejections--somehow, although the characters are engaging and the plot is successful the novel is not fully engagingor successful. I would give millions (if I had them) for a month of retreat to wade back into the novel's big pool.

The Link-tastic Ascension of Neil Patrick Harris

This morning at the gym a commercial for one of the Harold and Kumar movies strobed the screen.  And although Matt and I have had both "White Castle" movies on our Netflix queue for a while, we've never actually managed to watch one.

Despite our deep and abiding love of Neil Patrick Harris.

Now, this is not a new love, but it's not one that either of us had nursed for years, since those long ago days of Doogie Houser.  No, we fell for Neil in the past two years, in appreciation for the delicious, "wait for it... awesomeness" of his comically brazen Barney on How I Met Your Mother on tv.  

That show, while not as utterly madcap brilliant as It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia, relishes its intelligence, rewards the viewer for paying attention, and showcases, again and again, each cast member's talents and quirks.  Alyson Hannigan's "Lily" is a close second to Harris' Barney, but --let's be honest-- he really steals the show.

Just watch the episode recapping his lost virginity, his fear of being slapped, or this season's ending close-up on his face.  It will tell you everything you need to know.

Oh--I'm reading The Groom to Have Been, by Saher Alam.  Just since I normally mention books.

PS: Links are fun!

Tonight!

Politics and Prose
7pm
Washington, DC

I'm on a panel representing Stress City: The Big Book of Fiction Featuring 51 DC Guys.

Come listen in.

Ignorance

This morning in a meeting I had the clearest sensation of standing in the middle of a windstorm. That I was the eye of a hurricane of all the things I don't know. Grayed, blurry concepts and facts and potentials and pitfalls swirled around me, not so fast as to cut me, but steadily enough that my view of the real, of what is right in front of me, was obscured.
A hollow, scouring noise filled my ears.
This new job is so potentially vast, Conservation International is so literally vast, that I am struck, again and again, by how ignorant I remain about the world. I am still 'discovering' countries, or discovering that countries I assumed were in one place are actually in a wholly other part of the world.
And I need to rent my apartment.
And the wedding plans (though solidifying steadily, and joyously) continue to whip by.
So it may not be ignorance I'm pelted with.
It may be, simply, life.
And the not-knowing what's next might be the best thing for me after all.
I need to write.
(These posts almost always come back to that.)
But how, with a brain unable to swim the information-swell much less surf it, do I make room for the blessed, muse-sweet ignorance that is the fiction in my head?

Provincetown

We got back from Provincetown last night, ate Duccini's pizza, read through some wedding RSVPs, and went to bed. It's 6:34 a.m., and time to rediscover the gym.
It's also time to see if, once again, I can hold on to the powerful creative wellspring that Provincetown always seems to connect me with. And time to wonder, once again, how best to take the writing insistence and translate it into everyday life.
It's a question many struggle with, and a lucky struggle to have, but I do still wonder:
How, day-to-day, do I choose writing over other things?
I'm getting married, and the to-do list seems neverending, constantly crowding my mind. I'm busy and engaged at work (blessed be!) writing stories about animals, people, and projects from around the world. I have a partner I absolutely adore, a ready family, a cacophony of friends. I have twenty extra pounds on my frame.
And I have these characters and places and conflicts pushing against my brain.
Today, I will take "Nina" (the newest member of "the British women" cast) to work with me. Try to steal time at lunch.
But that's the problem isn't it? Stealing time.
Why do I feel unable to make time instead of steal it? When does -- How does -- the writer win out?

Work

Hi Kids:

Just an update to publicly announce the degree to which I'm enjoying my new job at Conservation International. Just this morning, my first big "story package" for our website appeared on the main page, as well as being featured in the e-newsletter.

Check out "For the Birds" here!

Good Things

Project Runway is back on TV,
My new website is live,
Alyson wants The Tree Museum,
(an agent might be interested, too).
We leave for Provincetown in two days...(sigh)
and
Matt bought me a new Maggie O'Farrell novel last night.

Sometimes, buried deep inside the madness resides a ridiculous passel of joy.

A Blessing and a Rant

I've been under the weather this week, and Matt's being very sweet. This morning, he gave me a hug while saying, "You really do have a lot of congestion." Oddly enough, it melted my heart.
I've also been working every day while feeling poorly, so my patience with perceived incompetence is wearing thin. Hence, today's blog about Cosi. How is it possible that wherever you are, whatever store you select, whenever during the day you arrive, and whomever serves you, the service is uniformly, insultingly, offensively bad??
I'm no snob--I recognize and appreciate a chef's heartfelt creations right alongside the mastery of Five Guys burgers from a grill--but the lack of awareness, urgency, or common sense exhibited by Cosi staff amazes me again and again. It even underscores my love of their certifiably AMAZING bread.
I just don't get it, so I'm going to send them a note this morning.
You should too.

The Post-Birthday World

Lionel Shriver is mean, unflinching, direct, and eviscerating. She writes the moments and insights that readers (OK, that I) flinch from in real life. And not in a Jodi Picoult way--there are no kidnapped children or siblings with cancer here. Shriver writes, in the post-birthday world, about the innumerable small choices, concessions, measurements, triumphs, assertions, avoidances, and realities of day-to-day married life.

Though the novel has --rightly--gotten more notice for its Sliding Doors toggling futures structure, what's amazing to me is Shriver's ability to unearth the tiny moments none of us want to admit to in our relationships.

Matt and I have had a few stark talks since I've been reading the novel. Has anyone else found the post-birthday world a helpful, if disconcerting, marital tool?

Rejection/Delight

This, from a well-regarded agent with a number of best-sellers on his list:

Dear Alex,

Several of us read THE TREE MUSEUM and we really enjoyed it. You have a lot of talent and it’s a well-crafted novel. It does, though, lack the tightness and structural perfection we look for in multiple voice novels, which are always harder to sell and need to be amazing for publishers to pick them up. Maybe this is a personal reaction, but some of the voices worked better for us than others. But that said, while we’re passing on this, we definitely would like to see more from you.


Argh!!!!! I've now sent THE TREE MUSEUM to eleven agents, and received rejections from eight. And while I fully recognize that eight rejections is nothing in context of what some authors go through, it's beginning to feel dispiriting.

Equally dispiriting, oddly, is the preponderance of really good rejections. Of those eight, only three were stock rejections. The others say things like the above: clearly talented writer, enjoyable characters, well-crafted, almost took this on, and more. I know I should be -- and ultimately I am -- terribly grateful for these thoughtful responses, but I just so desperately want one of these smart, savvy readers to say "Yes, it has flaws, but I love it. Let's get to work."

Maybe I need to rethink the novel myself... take it back and get to work on my own. There is a clear confluence of ideas among the kinder rejections...there seems to be a theme as to why, so consistently, the novel falls just short of something they want to take on.

So is it back to the drawing board? Dive back in and figure out which characters deserve the spotlight and which can recede? Or do I wait until rejection #11 comes through?

Swingtown

Out of nowhere, I think I have a new favorite show, Swingtown.  

(How 'bout that orange shag text? I'm so tech these days.)  

After the first episode, I wasn't convinced, but now (four episodes in, watched, unintentionally, out of order), I'm hooked.  And it's the surprising development of Susan's original friend Janet--the cartoonishly repressed suburban joke-in-waiting--into a conflicted, beautifully complex character that's done it.  Susan, like Janet, is also revealing layers of salty-sweet depth, as is the initially one-note Trina.  A snap of the three women (arms linked, at a party) gives me shivers of hope and joy.  If you aren't watching Swington, do. 

Relativity

I'm a little bit sad, today. Yesterday, when I bought myself the post-birthday world by lionel shriver at d.c.'s beloved, iconic, and a little bit pompous Kramerbooks (which is, gratifyingly, open at 8a.m. before the office opens its doors), I noticed that the paperback version of Maggie O'Farrell's Esme Lennox was not on the shelves. In fact, I'd gone in to Kramerbooks that morning looking for other novels by O'Farrell, and found none.
The Borders downtown coughed up a similar lack of her work.
Then, last night at the Borders in Clarendon, I noticed piles of the hardback Esme on the discount display, priced at $3.95. It just doesn't seem fair.
Now, post-birthday, on the other hand, spilling forth in copious piles from the front table at Kramerbooks and Borders, is certainly a worthy novel. Deeply, almost viciously observant, the novel is an encyclopedic journey through one woman's mind preceding and --primarily-- following a decision with repercussions beyond any she imagines, or plans. So it's worthy of its audience, for sure.
But shouldn't Maggie O'Farrell have a place at the superstar's table? And for that matter, why did my sweet little first novel wither so quickly on the vine?

The Post-Birthday Book

Last night Matt gave me (a) a new iPod, (b) Mary Oliver's new poetry collection Red Bird, and (c) a 'coupon' for a book of my choice.
Surfing her words, I cried twice at Oliver's God-exposing poetry. I dreamt stories overnight; there is this crashing swell of creativity swirling around me. It's heady, but (awake at 5:30 a.m., typing madly about adulterers in Britain and a terrified boy in an invented world) also suggestive of an undertow.
And this morning I chose the post-birthday world by Lionel Shriver. Kismet. Like Matt, it was meant to be.