Writing the Black Novel After 9-11
* If you wanted to write a black novel, after 9-11, what form would it take?
*
Where would you get the money to live on, while you wrote it?
* Where would you
send it, when you were done?
* What else would you write but a black novel, after
9-11?
What Form Would It Take?
* The first thing an agent wants to know is, "What genre is it?"
*
Is it fiction?
* Is it autobiography?
* Is it narrative nonfiction?
* Is
it poetry?
Is It Fiction?
* Autobiography is fiction. Narrative nonfiction is fiction. Poetry is fiction.
*
One selects. One chooses.
* One stresses. One underplays.
* Things are left
out. Some memories are imagined.
* The toughest market to break into is literary
fiction.
* Especially if it has poetry and autobiography in it.
How Will You Live, While You Write It?
* A novel takes time. One needs to concentrate. One needs dedicated time. Uninterrupted
time.
* Time is the least thing we have of, Hemingway said.
* Christopher Hitchens
said he got paid to talk.
* Talking interferes with writing.
* You have to
talk to get the time to write. To suffer fools gladly. To chat up fools.
* You
have to blow your own horn and make nice. Who becomes a writer to do that?
Where Do You Send It, When You're Done?
* You send it to New York.
* To get a publisher, you need an agent.
* To
get an agent, you need to have a track record, or a platform.
* A platform is
a track record that hasn't been exploited yet. Hasn't been realized. Has commercial
potential.
* If you've been working at a job outside of writing for 35 years,
publishing on the Internet and in self-published pamphlets, being turned down for
grants and prizes, and writer-in-residence positions, you are in a death-spiral:
the better you are at it, the less New York is interested.
* You are small press.
That's a stigma.
What Does This Have To Do with 9-11?
* It was this way before, but it's worse now.
* The Bush-Enron Administration
used 9-11 as an excuse to consolidate their gains.
* So did corporate publishing,
the media, arts agencies and cultural foundations, and university Creative Writing
programs and English departments.
* It's a buyer's market and you're a seller.
*
You are criticizing what the market does best. You are a sore loser who couldn't
hack it. Come back when your face clears up, kid.