The Writer's Mailbag: Installment 294

Bill

All I can say is I must be the strangest of writers! Why? because I actually enjoy the marketing side of things!

Not as much as the actual writing I'll grant you, and I don't enjoy it when I can't work out what I do wrong, but I've slowly been working a few things out, and at least with my UK ads things are going well!

As for rewrites, I've changed covers on my books, changed the blurb at the ge back, even corrected spelling mistakes and grammar errors that slipped through when I published but thats where the line is drawn! For me, the time for rewrites is before the book gets published.

Some good stuff to think on here, and congrats on the memoir.

Blessings

Lawrence

Bill, I couldn't agree more that the speed of production is valued more than the quality of the product. Thanks for emphasizing it for us. My question is related to a small degree. Would you elaborate on these two methods of writing which are antithetical to each other? Right now I am in the middle of a story which I know I have been forcing from sentence one. It is not flowing. I am constantly backing up and "fixing" parts that are inconsistent.

Then I would like you to contrast that with letting the story tell itself. I know it is good when I am writing as I see it happen in my mind.

What do I do with the former? Keep it? Throw it out? How can I cultivate the latter?

We have a saying in the operating room, "perfect is the enemy of good." But than, surgery is an art form. Congratulations on your award, you deserve it!

I know most of the writers find marketing bore. But marketing is very important in today's times. Extensive marketing even makes below average books sell like hot cakes.

Congratulations again. You deserve that award just for the mailbag and you do so much more.

You know, Bill, I was thinking about Kobe Bryant. I believe there were eight people aboard that helicopter. The only names I ever heard mentioned were his and his daughter. Celebrities or not, other people died that day and their lives were completely overshadowed by the rich and famous. Something doesn't sit right with me.

Some quite engaging questions and answers, Bill. I liked Denise's rewrite and Eric's question, too.

Have a great week, my freinds.

Blessings

A pachyderm is a thick skinned animal. The term includes hippos and rhinos as well as elephants. I agree the young writer should leave his book alone. He has honed his skills and now needs to practise them on a new novel. He is reducing his income possibilities. Who, apart from a parent, would buy the same book over and over?

it's delightful to know that you have been winning the Hubbie Award for the last 7 years continuously.

I agree with your rant regarding this celebrity syndrome we witness nowadays. The public blindly wants to be associated with celebrities. Its a mania spreading wildly. None feels any love or affection for normal helpless fellows.

The rewrite incident narrated above seems to be a funny act of the writer. It's too much of crossing the limits.

Denise's story about rewrites is amazing. I've never heard of so many rewrites of a book before! I certainly agree with your advice to put the pen down and walk away. Congratulations on your award, Bill.

"I honestly wish, at times, that I could turn off the old noggin’ and just go through a day sort of brain dead, you know?" - Sigh ... tell me about it.

"I’m talking about philosophical thoughts and heavy social thoughts, matters of great importance" - Well, this is the quadrillion dollar question: what is important? I wrote an article here years ago talking about "Responsabilities". I was trying to find some common responsabilities for ALL humans. I failed. I'm still failing at it. So, how can we move together when everyone's running in different directions, haha!! Look: shiny!

"Why do most writers hate marketing and sales? ... far too self-serving" - That's what it is for me. Like here, read what I wrote because what I wrote is so important and You have to pay me for it.. Even the $%^&ing "I", has to be $%^&ing capitalized in this language, unlike any other language on this planet. Like me, me, me. I am so important. Some might have noticed that I capitalized all the "y"s in "You" and I do it for that same exact reason: why would I capitalized my "I" but not the "Y" for "You"? How egocentrical You have to be to do that. But ya, I write. I don't sell writing and I do not write to sell. (I sold writing in highschool 'cause i needed some money. I got no allowence.) I find that some people do write to make money though lol. I write for the sake of writing with no strings attached. Wow ... lol I really got going on this one, huh? Haha!!

"We have important things to do in life, and who the hell has time for high standards?" - *Raises hand*

"I better not hear a word about low water supplies this summer." - Well, I'm sort of happy about that. It's been raining here a lot just this past week but I'm thinking at least we shouldn;t have any Forests lighting up on fire this summer. Prayers.

"To win that award seven years in a row is humbling to the max." - Wow ... really? Congratulations! Maybe You can make room for some others now, haha!! I'm kidding. I know nothing about this award thing and obviously I didn't vote for You, or anyone else for that matter, ever. I'm not really into contests. I only compete with my own self. If I can out-do myself, that's an improvement and that's all I am looking for. I'm not looking at creating "losers". *wink*

Cool beans! Did You start on that canoe? Could have been half way done with all the rain. Haha!! I'm joking. Just thinking of You canoing down the road. : )

Best of luck!

Congrats on your Hubbie Award and on your book sales. You have informed us of every detail about writing questions asked and answered and encouraged writers to continue to wrote. To learn from their mistakes and to accomplish their goals. I have learned a lot from your hubs well done on your achievements.

Hi Bill. Interesting mailbag this week. I am definitely an introvert and I always over think things, sometimes to the point of getting nowhere. From the moment I open my eyes every morning there is no going back to sleep because my mind immediately goes into overdrive thinking about whatever happens to be going on at the moment. Have a great week.

This is for John Hansen: I wasn't aware that the term pachyderm was an overall term for such animals, so thank you for educating me. I agree the writer should get a pass on that.

As for your use of dashes, Bill, I hadn't noticed that. Perhaps you use it for pacing or for emphasis, in which case, it makes sense to me.

Congrats Bill. Well deserved 7 years of inspiring us. I am still on a prolonged holiday which might even get longer with the coronavirus fear. Since the start of my holiday, I have turned off serious thought and start honing my other senses. I have not had much success. I am still working on my confidence as a writer which you're feeding weekly. I am enjoying reading your memoir. I feel like a friend is telling me a story not like reading a book.

Happy Mailbag Monday!

Re: Blissfully Zoned Out? I wish I could turn off my 2-4am thought churn. I see I have company.

Re: Rewrite Overkill. Over "kill" is right. It can be a perfection problem as you identify. But it can also be fear, not so much of being perfect, but fear of publishing. That is a completely different skill than writing. And many writers just want to stay in writing mode so they don't have to face it.

Re: Introverts? True, sales and marketing isn't comfortable for introverts. But extrovert authors struggle with it, too, often because they tend to get aggressive and then don't sell anything either.

Re: Yin and Yang. Oh yeah, I've been delighted and disappointed with past or current writing projects. But I just realize that I was in a different mental and emotional place when I wrote it.

Re: Sloppy Work. The opposite of perfectionism. Guess there's no middle ground, eh?

Anyway, glad to hear the memoir is selling. Still reading and enjoying. Will review as soon as I'm done.

Again, congrats on the Hubbie. Well deserved. Have a great week!

Firstly, Bill, congratulations for winning a hubbie award for seven years straight. That must surely be a record. It is actually cloudy here today so maybe are going to get some of that nectar of the gods.

Good questions and answers. As for Zulma's question. I am sure the short story she read was sloppy but maybe she should give the author a little flack in regard to the use of "pachyderm." Here is a definition: "The term pachyderm (meaning thick-skinned animals) is the original classification for elephants, hippopotamuses, rhinoceroses, pigs and tapirs."

Thanks for agreeing with me. I don't know how to tell my son but I had to suppress an audible moan when he told me he was doing another rewrite. The thing is, I think his concept and book were great in the beginning. Now I'm not sure what it is. Congrats on the book sales and the Hubbie award. You deserve it.

Blessings,

Denise

Congratulations on your book sales as well as the Hubbie award. Not surprised at all with either one. Your writing is superb and your freely offered advice given weekly is always welcomed.

It was like summer here today, around 60, but now it's 443 and turning dark, so I know we'll get more rain. Interesting mailbag today. Congrats on winning the award. See ya.

Another great mailbag installment. I, too, suffer from perfectionism.. I've gotten better as I've gotten older, but sometimes it comes out full force and I feel helpless to stop it. Glad I'm not alone in this. Have a wonderful week!

And I was so wrapped up in me, me, me I forgot to congratulate you on your (seventh!) Hubbie award. That's awesome Bill.

9

Happy Monday Bill! And congrats on your Hubbie award--again!! That is quite the accomplishment and shows what loyal readers and friends you have here on hubpages.

Have a great and productive week!

I often wonder why everyone is so obsessed with celebrities..what about the true heroes of the world; Yes Kobe Bryant did a lot of good but some people do good every single day... I had mentioned I am thinking about writing again for Hubpages. Gotta figure out the navigations...anything new I should know... The mail box 294. where has the time gone??/ Hope all is wonderful in Olympia..It is a great city because my husband was born there.

Morning Bill, Your theme today of over-thinking, over-working a piece of writing, and your rant about the rain touches home to me. Writing (and life really) has been a torturous journey for me. I never know when to let things go. Even as a child in Grade one for heaven's sake the teacher commented on my report card that I was such a perfectionist I over-worked my assignments until I was pale from the effort. As a news reporter I would re-write a story a dozen times, gather far too much information, and get completely side-tracked from the story, and work all night on things that should have been an easy write. In fiction writing it was the same. It's a curse I tell you!

As for the rain, I hate to complain, but enough is enough! Thanks for letting me rant. I'm not re-writing this!

Congratulations on your book sales (my copy is sitting by the fireplace and is calling to me) and for the Hubbie. Perhaps next year they'll rename it--the Holland has a nice ring to it, don't you think?

Congratulations on your hubbie. I like being in my brain too most of the time, the view from there is nice, and even if I sometimes feel I'm my only fan I'm okay with that. That is not a plea for a sympathy shower, mind you.

Great work, as usual.

Hi Bill,

Congratulations on your award and on the sales of your book.

Thanks for the information and video about marketing. I agree about creatives being introverts.

Have a great week.

Awesome! seven is an occultic number. So you're magical! Congratulations.

Denise son working away at re-write is … well, I don't know, Bro. An interesting one. Maybe he should walk away for six months then come back to it. She's an avid reader or let's say a very loving and supportive mother, naturally.

On this subject of reflections and philosophy, we have some ways to go. This world of us is topsy-turvy and I suppose that the loving Saint in Roman times, was not surprised to be hanged upside down. Peace, Bro.

I never thought of "rewriting" before ;-) maybe I should give it a shot. Hey if I could do that maybe I could rewrite my life script.

I think it funny that introverts can be more open with other introverts. Maybe like those 12 step programs and fellowship like church.

Well once again you schooled me. Mucho Gracias.

I compare your inability to swich off thinking to our digital age. We stayed recently in a hotel with very limited free wi-fi. I came away from it, appreciating a break from 24/7 connectivity. I actually read a newspaper for once.

I was amazed at the number of rewrites in the exampke you gave. There just comes a time when you need to walk away and move on to the next project.

Maybe introverts hide behind a pen/keyboard, while the extroverts get out there and take centre stage.

I wonder if we ever write something that 100% delights us, will we then have reached perfection?

Maybe in the interests of speed some basic elements of quality control are being overlooked. It seems to me that this just lowers the standards of writing.

I laughed at your comment about low water supplies. In the UK, we can have a lot of rain, but it only takes a few sunny days before the word 'drought' is being heard in the news.

So long as your thinking doesn't start tipping into delusions of grandeur, I wouldn't fret too much about it, Bill. lol

I've been rereading some old articles about writing this past week and noticed an odd trend: the dash replacing the comma. Ex: However--as you may know--it was inevitable.

I'm not sure if this was because the style of the article was meant to sound like your talking to a friend, but I found it offputting and mentally replaced it with a comma. I usually only use the dash in dialogue when the speaker is being cut off by another character.

Thoughts?

Have a good week, Bill.

Yes, standards are definitely slipping and I'm beginning to sound like my grandparents! You're right, there should be much more attention to careful, accurate writing, out of pride, out of wanting to do our best, out of respect to our readers. I suppose it's just the money angle that appeals to some, but then they won't get much if they don't write well!

As for over-thinking, I do spades of that too and that's part of my wishes for this year - to be kinder to myself and not worry so much, at the same time caring for what's around me. Is that possible?!

I'm ashamed to say that I haven't even looked at the Hubbie awards, let alone voted. I voted in my first two years here and then stopped. Is that awful? I don't really see the point of them but I do congratulate you and all those who have made the grade.

Winds and cold and drizzle here. I want crispy cold and bright sunshine; is that really too much to ask?!

May your muse make this Monday marvellous!

Have a whacky week!

Ann

Congratulations again on both the memoir and the Hubbie. As for that perfectionist, that young man needs to move on to other ideas. He’s “delivered the baby.” Now do something else.

Entertaining read. Thank you!

Bill, I have to admit I have had to turn off the news this past week with Kobe and also the impeachment trial. Just too much that has been going on and upsetting to say the least. That said, happy that things have been going so well for you and your memoir sales and the Hubbie Award, too. Congrats, my friend and always wish you all the continued success. Happy Monday now :)

I am a perfectionist when writing, not with comments as I see typos, mostly due to my arthritic fingers. In published articles I try to make sure everything is spelled right and that I follow guidelines for a quality article. I don't think too much about the time it takes if I chose to read the writing out loud, etc.

I have started reading your memoir and I have found it interesting and well-written. Have a great week, Bill. I hope the rain gives you a break soon.