We live on earth. There are lots of us here. We all have hopes and desires. I’ve discovered that all of us are writers, striving to publish our manuscripts, or write them in a month, or toy with the idea of a book. Everyone is a writer, these days. Ask ten people if they have been working on writing a book, and at least six of them will admit to it, and the other four will be inspired by your question to think and plan and outline and try to come up with something, because everyone thinks they have the best taste in things and stuff.
Of these ten, at least four will go to a convention, at some point, because that is, apparently, where everyone says one goes to get an agent or an editor or something. I once met a man who was told he should go enter an MFA program to get a literary agent, and I thought it was the silliest piece of advice anyone had ever taken seriously. I assume, by now, this otherwise intelligent individual was quick to realize that the fact that they took that silly advice to begin with was an indicator that an MFA was a good thing to get, because more knowledge was required from people who know what they’re doing. Going to conventions or programs or conferences with the express purpose of accomplishing professional goals is silly. Getting an MFA to work on your writing with other writers is a great idea. Going to conventions to share ideas about a common field of human endeavor is also a great idea. Doing these things to achieve professional goals and network your way into knowing a guy who knows a guy who can publish/represent your stuff? Waste of time. Worse than a waste of time.
If you are going to a convention because you want to promote your work, your unpublished writing, hobnob agents or editors, or anything like that, don’t go. Just don’t go. Sorry, but this is the absolutely worst thing you can possibly do, when people go to these and they seek out people to get inside the industry. It’s a waste of your time, money, and energy, and it’s really obnoxious most of the time. It doesn’t matter if you go to the bar, or go to the panels.
Wait, wait, you say, for everyone else recommends going to these and everyone says it’s a great way to meet editors and agents and other writers.
They are. They can be. But, it’s not what you do. Rather, it’s how you do it.
I go to conventions as often as I can. Once upon a time, in what I consider to be the lowest point in my life and my career, I worked in outside sales. I was taught all sorts of things about how to sell things to businesses by people who had been doing it for years. Within about two conventions, in the SF community, I realized there was an important distinction between the two worlds of human activity. In the business world, people are not considered human so inhuman tactics that follow the strict codes of corporate gamesmanship work very well. At SF conventions, even professional ones, following these normal tactics of business – for writers, especially – is like peeing on yourself in public. The only thing you should ever do at a convention is have a good time among people with whom you clearly (I hope) have something in common. “Networking” is a misplaced term that carries over into our world from the corporate world. For us, in our world, it isn’t a contest to see who can collect the most business cards at the event (actual ridiculous thing done during my outside sales days). For us, “networking” is about just being ourselves, and making genuine friendships with people with whom we have something in common. Just be yourself, find your tribe, and have a good time. (Also, be cool. Don’t sexually harass or grope people. Be respectful to different points of view. You know, the basics. These things bear repeating, unfortunately, particularly the don’t-sexually-harass-no-groping thing. Seriously, don’t sexually harass or grope anyone. Period. No ‘buts’.)
You see, in the regular business world, one cog is generally as good as any other. Your computer programming can be done by another programmer. Your marketing can be done by another marketer. Your reports and analysis can be accomplished by others as skillfully as you. Doctors can be replaced with limited impact, as well as teachers, as well as nurses and nannies and receptionists all the way up to VPs and CEOs. In that world, relationships are really the only thing that differentiate one person from any other similar-shaped cog in the corporate machine. In that world, relationships are vital.
In ours, one artist or writer cannot really be thoroughly replaced by any other. We are all unique cogs, that work in unique ways. We are handcrafters. Ergo, if you want the results of my particular mental machinery, you can only come to me. I am the only one who writes the novels and stories that J. M. McDermott writes. Stina Leicht is the only Stina Leicht. Will McIntosh is also the only Will McIntosh. Etc. We are irreplaceable producers of unique goods. The businesses that take our goods to market do, in some respects, seek out the cog in the machine that works well within their system of cogs, but even they will rework everything around the best possible book.
The old adage to write a great book is still true. Want to get published? Write the best book you can. Make it a really great book that people will love. If your book is great, it doesn’t matter who you know, or if you met anyone, or what you look like or what you smell like or how “professional” you are.
Karma works, in our field, and good things happen to good people, while no things happen to bad people. (More specifically, “nothing” tends to happen for bad people in that people will choose not to work with you whenever possible and you will get nothing). Be a part of karma, if you can, because that’s why it works in our field, and help along the good people in your way. We are all in this together. Honestly, I hope we can become friends, fair reader, whoever you are, because I like to meet new people and encounter new ideas and make new friends. It’s the reason I go to conventions.
If your writing is good enough, it doesn’t matter what your politics are, if you are homophobic or racist or sexist. By the same logic, if you are the coolest person in the world, it doesn’t matter if your writing is no good. The work needs to stand on its own. Everyone knows someone in the industry who is socially inept and unfun to be around, but who cares because their work is amazing. The work will stand or it will not. I’ve dipped my toe into slush before, and it is not a joke that the cream rises fast. Good writing stands out. Focus on that, and don’t stress out about conventions or what to do at them, because the only thing to do is be true to yourself and have a good time.
I’ll say this again: Unlike the regular business world, where most of your true value is not in what you do (you are an enormously replaceable cog in a machine that is designed to replace cogs!) but in who you know, fiction is the world where the cogs are irreplaceable. No one writes like you do. No one writes your stories, or shares your precise, narrow aesthetic as an artist. In our world, the business is about making more wonderful things to make the world more wonderful. We are not widget makers. We are not Goldman-Sachs-esque vampire squids. We are a rowdy bunch of obnoxious, passionate, artists swirling off in a thousand directions like wildflowers along the roads of time trying to make the world more like what we imagine it should be, more beautiful, more wonderful, more livid and alive, more, just more.
I have professional goals, sure, and I carry them with me when I go to conventions, but I only bring them up if it comes up in an actual conversation with a person with whom I am talking. I try to limit my “sales pitches” to the introductory remarks of a panel, and even then I occasionally catch myself going on way too long and have to remind myself to stop being a d***, and to practice a better, more-concise introductory remark for next time. And, I am generally uninterested in pitching my projects at conventions to the working professionals I encounter there. At the end of the day, the manuscript will arrive on someone’s desk, and it will be a good manuscript or not. No amount of networking can change that. The work is more important than ego, always.
My first novel was literally bought out of a slush pile when I had no prior publications worthy of listing there. My agent and I have never met in person, and I only knew him by reputation when we first spoke on the phone. Though I’ve met the folks from Nightshade at World Fantasy Con, and they are very cool with awesome beer, I’m willing to bet that brief meeting had very little to do with their decision to publish my work, or not. I just had a short story collection come out from Apex Books, called DISINTEGRATION VISIONS (link), and I have had a relatively long and very positive working relationship with Jason Sizemore. I’ve never actually met him, or even spoken on the phone!
Go to conventions because they are fun. Have a good time. This is easy to do at conventions because they are fun. When you get home, get back to work and let your work stand on its own.
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The ever inspirational Maria Popova (@brainpicker) today tweeted this gem, which inspired the title of my blog for this week. And today, with tributes flooding in for Maurice Sendak, it also seems an appropriate day to think about the call of the wild things.
