Category Archives: Miriam

March 23, 2011   Miriam   celebrity, characters, fun, in memoriam, Miriam, opinion  
1

Heroes of their own life stories

There’s a dusting of snow in the grassy areas all over the tri-state area today and a cold rain is falling from the leaden skies here in the City.  The fact that April is eight days away and that this has been one of the more gruesome winters I’ve experienced in a couple of decades is enough to make me want to just go back home, get in bed and pull the covers over my head (and not emerge until June).  But, if the general foulness of the weather wasn’t enough, the news this morning that Elizabeth Taylor has died makes the grayness feel a bit more enveloping.  Needless to say, I was (and am) a big fan of  Ms. Taylor, a great beauty, a sometimes brilliant actress, and a larger-than-life public figure who often used her powers for good, rather than evil.  A woman who could have coasted on her looks all her life instead demanded to be taken seriously as an artist, businesswoman, and humanitarian, while never losing her sense of humor and her ability to mock her own faults, excesses and failures.  Upon being named a Dame of the British Empire, she famously quipped, “I’ve always been a broad, now I’m a dame.”

Thinking about how much I’ve always admired Elizabeth Taylor’s spirit and resilience I came across this piece in the Huff Post featuring eight women writers’ female heroes (one of the authors is our own, wonderful Tayari Jones).  I expected that the heroes chosen would be literary types—the usual suspects such as Jane Eyre, Jo March, or even some unusual ones like Olive Kitteridge—but instead, these authors picked women like Hillary Rodham Clinton, Rosa Parks, and Zelda Fitzgerald.   Dynamic, smart, dogged, defiant, and mostly unforgettable real women.  It occurs to me that these iconic figures spark our imaginations in ways that eventually find their lives and actions reinvented and reinterpreted (and sometimes rediscovered) in books, plays, and songs.   From Joan of Arc to Eleanor of Aquitaine to Evita Peron our female heroes have become great fictional characters as well.

But how about all the literary figures who are merely based on a real female hero?  What are your favorite examples of veiled portrayals of great or famous or notorious women who made their mark in the real world and whose avatars live on in fiction?

March 16, 2011   Miriam   advice, controversy, marketing/publicity, Miriam, opinion, social networking  
8

It’s not always good to share

We DGLMers have spent the better part of the last two years hammering the idea of how important it is to build an internet platform into our clients’ heads.  We even went so far as to create a social media guide that we share with new clients when their agreements are signed.  Obviously, having a successful blog, lots of Facebook friends, Twitter followers and downloads of your videos on YouTube are the name of the game in today’s competitive publishing market. It’s not enough to write a great book, you have to be able to subtly, humorously, and persistently get all your friends, followers, and online stalkers to buy it and, better yet, talk about it.

But, as with all things, there’s a dark side to this platform building; when in our zeal to “share” our innermost thoughts, beliefs, and philosophy with our vast audience we get ourselves in trouble by writing or saying things that are better kept between the pages of our paper journals, you know, the ones with locks on them.  The recent firestorm caused by a prominent mommy blogger who confessed in a post that she preferred her son to her daughter is a case in point.   As the back and forth between the blogger and her readers became more irate and meanspirited, I wondered whether the blogging format with its insatiable need for content is in part to blame for this kind of injudicious oversharing.

Then, I think of certain writers who have no problem writing in a public space about their contempt for the publishing business in general and agents and editors in particular while assiduously courting us to represent or publish their work.  Are these people forgetting that everyone can see their posts…including the people they’re dissing?  Or are they just giddy with the thought of the thousands who will read their rants, if not their books?  I can’t speak for all my colleagues but I don’t think I’m alone in feeling that however brilliant an author’s work is if s/he is given to vilifying our industry while trying to get their foot in the publishing door and keep it there I don’t want to work with him or her.

So, yes, you need to blog and friend and be followed but be smart about what you say and how you say it.  And, really, before hitting “post” on that nasty or ill-advised commentary, put it aside and wait a while.  If you still want it out there after thinking it through, well, that’s what makes for internet s***storms.

Have you guys come across any particularly egregious examples of what I’m talking about?

March 09, 2011   Miriam   e-books, Miriam, reading  
14

Highlighting the lily

Andrei Codrescu’s commentary on NPR’s All Things Considered always makes me smile. His lovely Romanian accent imbues all of his pronouncements with a crabby world weariness that implies centuries of despair, toil and heavy drinking. Too, of course, I’m a sucker for literate cranks.

So, imagine my delight when, driving home on Monday, I found myself listening to Mr. Codrescu as he ruminated about how the discovery of highlighted passages in his brand new Kindle e-book enraged him. His sonorous, vaguely funereal delivery gave perfect voice to my own outrage about finding other people’s muddy tracks on the pristine pages of my book.

As big a fan of electronic books as I’ve become, there is a part of me that disdains the enforced democratization of the reading process that they represent. While I fully understand the logic behind .99¢ pricing of e-books, for instance, I wish that we valued books enough to be willing to pay more for them—after all, .99¢ is the price of a song on iTunes; a whole book is a much bigger undertaking than a song. And, I do certainly resent Amazon for thinking that allowing me to see other people’s highlights on the text I’m reading will somehow inform and enrich my reading experience. Reading, as Mr. Codrescu points out, is “the most private of peaceful activities.” Can’t we move forward technologically and yet preserve that privacy and peace?

Are Andrei Codrescu and I making too much of a silly marketing device by the Kindle folks or do you guys agree that highlighted passages are all kinds of wrong?

March 02, 2011   Miriam   book club, fun, Miriam, reading  
4

Clubbing

Because I seem to be one of those (un)fortunate people who needs books around all the time in order to stave off a massive anxiety attack—one of my worst fears is getting stuck in an elevator with nothing to read (Okay, you have your fears, and I have mine. Don’t judge.)—and because, clearly, my job doesn’t provide enough proximity to and discussion of literature, I belong to a neighborhood book club.  This, of course, is in addition to our very own DGLM book club which happens six or seven times a year and which is the source of great infighting, churlishness, resentment and lively debate. Oh, and there’s a lot of name calling and dissing of each other’s literary tastes as well.

My point, and I do have one, is that I think book clubs are swell.  I love hanging with my neighbors over cheese and wine or elaborate appetizers (made by some of our more gourmet minded members) and chatting about why we loved, hated or were ambivalent about that month’s selection.  What we read and how we discuss it gives me wonderful insights into the books, but also my friends.  Every title inevitably leads to a conversation about someone’s past, dreams, fantasies, fears and just as inevitably showcases how much we all have in common despite our very different personalities and experiences.   From a business point of view, I’ve learned invaluable lessons about what people outside our business like to read and why and I’ve come to understand that we publishing folks are sometimes a bit too insular in our thinking about what constitutes great literature.

This piece from the Huff Post made me think about our neighborhood’s current book club selection, Mary Stewart’s Nine Coaches Waiting (which was actually suggested to me by our wonderful client Anne Stuart).  Written over 50 years ago, the book is a master class in romantic suspense and as fresh and engaging as any read from today’s bestseller lists.  If you haven’t discovered this author yet, get on it!

What do you all think about book clubs?  Do you belong to one (or more)?  Do you find that they change the way you think about the books you read and the whole process of choosing them?

February 23, 2011   Miriam   advice, agents, Miriam, relationships  
3

“Hello,” he lied

Don Carpenter, novelist and screenwriter, famously quoted a movie agent thusly: “’Hello,’ he lied.”   Agents, whether they ply their trade in Tinseltown or Gotham, have a rarely deserved reputation for being, well, unscrupulous and underhanded.  In fact, most of us are honest, hard-working professionals whose job description on any given day includes being a tough negotiator, an unlicensed therapist, a financial advisor, an editor, a producer, a critic and a fan.   There are entrenched codes of ethics in our business (check out the AAR’s site, if you don’t believe me) and most of us who care about our reputations would never consciously breach the trust placed in us by our clients.  As Jane has been drilling into my skull for about 150 years now, our reputation is all we have.

Clearly, we are all capable of making mistakes, whether intentional or un-, but the one thing authors need to be assured of is that their agents are looking out for their best interest…always.  Authors should manage their relationships with their agent the way they would their most important personal and business dealings:

  • Be respectful but firm about your needs and goals.
  • Make sure you read all contracts and ask questions when you don’t understand something.
  • Get satisfactory answers to your questions (backed up with paperwork when appropriate).
  • Check out that agent’s reputation before signing on—call others of his/her clients if necessary.
  • Be involved in the publishing process from the get-go.  Don’t just wait for a phone call.  Be proactive.
  • Communicate with your agent (without being a pest) and demand good communication back.
  • If things aren’t working out, sever your ties—again, respectfully but firmly.  Make sure you have a written release of your property to the extent allowed by your agreement.

I’m sure I’m preaching to the choir here, but I know that sometimes, in the elation that follows that initial phone call from an agent telling you s/he is interested in representing you, all caution goes flying out the window.  This is when you should do your Snoopy dance quietly, take a deep breath, and start checking that agent out.

February 16, 2011   Miriam   fun, Miriam, music, reading  
6

Literary sounds

A lot of bookish people I know are also obsessed with music.  It seems to me that the gene that accounts for compulsive reading and the almost psychotic belief that characters and situations on a page are as real as our next door neighbor and her cat is the same that allows us to catalogue our lives through the music we were listening to at the time important things were happening.  In the last weeks of my pregnancy, for instance, I vividly remember sitting in the waiting room of my doctor’s office reading Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides.  I also remember walking to Lamaze classes while listening to an odd mix I’d made that included music from Johnny Cash, Janis Joplin, Oasis, and Stevie Nicks, among other wouldn’t-be-caught-dead-on-the-same-tribute-album artists.

Driving in to work this week, I’ve been listening to my latest bizarre playlist featuring Sting’s haunting “Moon over Bourbon Street,” which was, of course, inspired by Anne Rice’s Interview with a Vampire.  That tune got me thinking about other great literary songs that I’ve loved, like Kate Bush’s “Wuthering Heights” and Suzanne Vega’s “Calypso.”  Literary and music geek that I am, I get positively giddy when confronted with a great song that references a beloved book or literary character.

So, tell me, what are your favorite literary songs?  (Maybe my next playlist will be a collection of book inspired music!)

P.S.  Here’s a performance of “Moon over Bourbon Street” which offers the added bonus of Sting speaking French:

February 09, 2011   Miriam   advice, fun, Miriam, opinion, reading, writing  
16

First lines and all that

I’ve been on a fiction reading tear of late and, like Jim, excited by several manuscripts that have landed in my inbox since the beginning of the year.  Because, as we’ve mentioned countless times in this blog, it’s relatively rare (percentage wise, that is) for us to fall in love with a novel to a degree that makes us want to represent it, I’ve been (again, like Jim) wondering why this sudden embarrassment of riches.  I’ve actually been reviewing my “process” in order to try and figure out what about these novels grabbed me in the first place.

Then, I came upon this piece in the Huffington Post and remembered how insidiously effective a great first line is.  Not all first lines are as pithy as “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” or “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way,”  of course, but a well crafted opening in a novel immediately grabs you by the metaphorical lapels, drags you into a comfortable chair, and forces you to keep turning pages until, hopefully, you reach a satisfying conclusion.  Sometimes it’s not until you reach that last page that you turn back to the beginning and see how everything was presaged and encapsulated in that first sentence (or two).

I know that I’m not communicating anything new here (we’ve even had a first lines contest on this blog) and that all of you avid readers have had the experience I describe above numerous times, but I think it’s necessary for all authors and those of us who work with authors to remind ourselves how crucial a novel’s opening salvo is.  Once you nail that, I’m pretty sure the rest of the novel just writes itself.  (Kidding…or am I?)

What are your favorite first lines?   One of mine is “It was inevitable: the scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love.”

February 02, 2011   Miriam   advice, Miriam, opinion  
3

Directions? What directions?

These days I often find myself trying to take roughly 750,000 tiny plastic pieces and build them into a working nuclear reactor that my five-year-old can pretend to save from evildoers with his Batman action figure.  Okay, maybe I exaggerate.  There are probably only about 600,000 pieces per box.  Point is, I often find myself totally ignoring the folded piece of paper containing diagrams that take you step by step through the process.  For some reason, I always think that I can figure it out faster on my own.  Invariably, after two and a half hours and many muttered curses, my son has moved on to another game that doesn’t involve mom’s help and I am face to face with my nemesis: the instructions with the wonky diagrams and the incomprehensible text.

So, it was with wry bemusement that I came across Carol Saller’s fun blog post about this very thing.  What is most interesting to me about this phenomenon is that I spend 85% of my work life complaining bitterly about how our clients, prospective clients, editors, film/tv people, foreign agents, and the place that delivers our breakfast order never follow directions.  I rail when I get a “Dear Sir or Madam” query letter when it says very clearly on our website that we like things personalized; when I get back three signed copies of a contract and I clearly asked for four (4)—I always put the numeral in parenthesis for further emphasis; when I send a detailed edit memo asking for specific changes (technical ones, at that, not the subjective kind) and get the next draft of the proposal roughly 12 minutes later without the aforementioned changes….

Clearly, whether it’s Legos or query letters, we are hardwired to ignore directions (even when we ask for them).  I guess that’s a good thing if, like Einstein, we have the ability to reinvent the rules of the universe.  The rest of us should probably pay a little more attention.

How universal is this syndrome?  What are your most egregious examples of this wanton behavior?

January 26, 2011   Miriam   fun, Miriam, opinion, writing  
7

Warm cockles

Maybe it’s the fact that it’s not even February and we’re already being hit by the 237th snow storm of the season and I have reached that state of crabbiness peppered with despair that only a month of uninterrupted sunny, balmy weather would dispel.  Maybe it’s the fact that I’m typing this while wearing fingerless gloves because my charming attic of an office is approximating the temperature of a meat locker.  Maybe it’s the New Year letdown—we always have such high hopes for it only to find that it’s the same old, same old, except colder.

No, I’m not trying to bring you all into the abyss with me, just attempting to communicate my general mood when I came upon this delightful article about Japan’s newest bestselling sensation, a 99-year-old grandma who took up writing when she was 92.   I’m not a fan of schmaltzy, inspirational poetry (or prose for that matter) and it may be that Ms. Shibata’s writings veer a bit in that direction—not knowing a word of Japanese, I’ve no way of ascertaining this except for the brief quotes offered in the article—but I’m ridiculously  tickled by the fact that this venerable lady didn’t think that she was too old to embark upon a new career and hone a new craft  and that the results have been so overwhelmingly positive.

Aside from bringing some much needed cheer to an otherwise miserable day—seriously, we don’t need any more snow; we’ve got nowhere to put it—this story reminds me that we’re never too old to explore new worlds.  One of the great things about being a writer is the absolute freedom from physical constraints.  As long as you can dream it, think it, and make yourself sit down and write it (or dictate it), you’re a writer—maybe not a bestselling one like this beguiling Japanese grandma, but a writer nonetheless.

January 19, 2011   Miriam   fun, Miriam, rejection  
11

Zen in the art of rejection…or not so much

Every once in a while someone gets really mad at us when we reject him/her and delivers a screed against the publishing world in general and agents’ ignorance, stupidity and lack of humanity in particular.  Usually, these rants come via e-mail or US post; sometimes, via an overlong voice mail message.  They invariably end with “When I’m selling more books than James Patterson, you’ll be sorry!”

Recently, Jim McCarthy received a response to one of his rejections in Latin.  The gist of it was “Pearls before swine.”  We guessed that the swine in question was the agent who threw this pearl away “richer than all his tribe.”

When those of us who work on this side of the business start out, we’re genuinely hurt and angered by these attacks (after all, these people placed their work before us and asked us for our opinion).  As we become more experienced, however, we tend to (sometimes a bit callously) be more amused by the name calling and invective than outraged.

But, you know what?  We are not above some name calling ourselves when something we think is exceptional, that we’ve helped the author develop and have lovingly shepherded to the point where we think it’s ready to be unleashed on the world, is unceremoniously rejected by an editor.   Perhaps it’s because we’ve all been there and all felt the impulse to take our marbles elsewhere, but not before spewing some venom in the general direction of the power brokers, that I found this Swiftian piece by Anis Shivani so entertaining.  Really, though, how practical is it to break all the rules?

Have you ever sent an irate “you done me wrong” e-mail or letter?

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