Count-down to the count-down

It's! Almost! December!

I'm pretty excited about this year's advent count-down blogging treats-surprise. Aren't you? I think this might just be the best year yet. Check back here on Wednesday for more.

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Snail and tortoise and publishing

So. People ask me a lot about the novel.

I ask myself a lot about the novel.

And I ask my agent a-fair-amount-but-waaaaaaay-less than I want to about the novel.

It's been with my agent, a good agent, from a very good agency, for months. For too, too, long. And, sometimes, this makes me frustrated, or sad. But then I go online and find things like this (from former agent Nathan Bransford's blog)and feel a little bit better, if a little bit worse. :


"How Long Does It Take to Sell A Novel?

About that long.

In the last couple of weeks I've received several distressed e-mails from authors who have reputable agents and who have novels out on submission to editors, and really they want to trust their agents and they're trying to be good and non-high maintenance, but seriously could the submission process really take this long?

Yes, it can.

But what if, one of these authors asked, a publisher expressed interest several months ago and then nothing has happened at all. Could they really still be interested? And if they were interested a couple of months ago why in the heck haven't they made an offer already?

Happens all the time.

I always assure these authors to just keep in touch with their agent, be patient, take up knitting, and go easy on the bourbon. Settle in for the long haul. A book might sell in a week or it might sell in a year. You never know.

So why does it take so long for an editor to make a decision anyway? Well, there are many reasons. First of all, it takes a long time to read a book. 6 hours on average, if you are a speed reader (and you'd better be if you're in publishing), and editors receive multiple submissions a day. Do the math and there just aren't enough hours in the day, especially when you already have a full time job while you're not reading. The first major delay is the editor simply sitting down with the book in question for a six hour stretch.

But let's say the editor does read the book, loves it, and wants to make an offer. What then?

Well, unless they are a serious publishing mucky muck, editors have to get approval to make an offer, a process similar to unlocking a nuclear bomb. They have to get it past editorial board, they have to get more reads, these reads have to be good, they have to unlock the failsafe and contact the president to press a button on the nuclear football, the sales team gets a look, some higher up has to sign off on it..... and all of these people have to read the book too. Multiply those six hours by ten, and then maybe the editor gets approval to make an offer of a certain amount.

Now, what's funny about all this is that when there's a hot project all of this goes out the window and people quickly lose their minds and the whole above process can be condensed to a couple of hours. Frankly it's a good thing publishing companies don't actually control our nuclear stockpile -- one whiff of a rock star memoir and bye bye Uzbekistan.

So I know it's terribly frustrating to go months and months looking for an agent and then FINALLY the book gets submitted....... and then wait months and months while you're waiting for editors to read it.

Welcome to publishing. You have no choice but to stay a while."



Oh. Okay. Fine.

"How intra-textual musical association in novels develops and defines literary character"

And, just like that, I'm

A DOCTOR!

A real, live, PhD-haver. I am.

(From the University of East Anglia. Here is their awesome crest:)



And, the best thing about it is that I really learned tonnes and tonnes of stuff. I am so grateful to Stephen, my supervisor, for being an incredibly picky (in the kindest way) stickler for academic preciseness, clarity, knowledge and evidence. I know I would never have been able to hold my own confidently in this incredibly competitive, terrifying, and stringent world of 'real high academia' without his guidance.

So, if anyone's curious about Derridian implications of literary polyphony, just let me know. In the meantime, I'm gonna go change my title on my Grocery store club-points card...

HURRAH!

(And, as an after-thought. This probably marks the end of 26 years of nearly-consecutive schooling. wow.)

My friend TED

TED talks are great, hey?

More than a force for good, they're a force for thought which is more long-lasting and, therefor, maybe, important. It's like the old BodyShop slogan about teaching people to fish. Only, here, it's:

Be nice to someone and they'll improve for a day.

Teach someone to think about what being nice really means and the whole world gets better forever.

Or something like that.

They're not all ground-breaking or intriguing, but many, maybe even most, are. Here's one of my favorites in terms of thought-provokation (not a real word, yet):

Some more Finnish Things

So, I'm back in Finland, on a mini-tour, and have, for you:

Two more great Finnish things:

1) Running along an isolated road deep in the dense pine-and-birch forest, I am passed by a red car. Not long later, the car has turned around, driven back to me, and stopped. Inside: an older man (70s? 80s?) and a dog (beagle). The man rolls down the window and says something to me in Finnish. I say one of the very very few things I can say in Finnish: "I don't speak Finnish. Do you speak English?" he laughs and says he doesn't speak English and proceeds to get out of the car...

So. In a lot of places this would be the scary bit. For me, it was the hilarious bit. Even though he knows I don't speak Finnish, the man goes on to talk to me about...stuff in Finnish. Shakes my hand, gets excited and says "Arteles!" in a happy way. We establish, through gesticulation, that I am here as a musician and, through gesticulation and the fact that his suspenders have hunting scenes on them that he is here hunting. He laughs a lot, shakes my hand again, and drives away with his dog.

Finland is awesome. Imagine driving back to introduce yourself to every stranger you saw in LA.

2) The "recycling shop" which is a lot like our charity or second-hand shops except...everything is free! What? Yeah! House-hold items, clothes, toys, furniture, whatever. The government provides funding for the rent, heating, etc, and, in turn, people throw away a lot less stuff and waste a lot less money! I got two toques, ten buttons, and some really nice mittens. All for free!

All this is reminiscent to me of a book Charlie was reading once, called "The European Dream" . I think these countries may be on to something ( ahem ). And I think I like it.