y o u r w r i t e r s g r o u p...

Do You Feel Your Readers' *Real* Felt Need?

This morning I was back in the orange shag carpet of my childhood home in Long Beach, California. The light green walls and dark wood panneling capturing that perfect inexpensive elegance...

I recalled the impressionable boy of newly-evangelical parents, the sensitive first-born son of a family "saved" in the California Jesus movement. Campus Crusade, Maranatha music, door-to-door witnessing, and 2 men representing two major streams of influence.

Two representatives of the path he could go. 

"Mr. Rogers" of PBS' Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, and Dr. James Dobson, author of "Dare to Discipline." 

Both men asked themselves, what do people really need from me? And both delivered their answer.

Having taught writers to consider their influences at conferences and retreats for several years, it finally dawned on me there was a connection to the 2 questions I've heard most often:

"Is this any good?" and

"What can I do to get published?"

I believe both questions are really one:

"Am I good enough?"

It's a fair question. And I want to move fast and furious to the meat of this because certainly, publishing has long been built on the idea that experience and dedication is how you become worthy of the writer's title. But many, if not most who write will spend years learning to pitch, propose, shape and polish just to publish their story of hope and spiritual guidance to a few hundred and is that really worth all the effort?

Why should publishers and agents require such a high standard? 

After 10 years in the industry, I was so burned out, I was despairing over the disparity between requiring people prove their worthiness and knowing that very requirement was exactly the same as the vice grip of religion, duty, and legalism that bound so many sad, beautiful souls to the lie of performance.

I soon went into full-scale inner debate:

You can't escape this. You must provide an answer. Which way will you send them?

The immature idealist in me wanted to fling the doors wide, burn the ships and create an enclave of revolutionary artists. The other part of me knew that would seal my fate as Editor of Really Bad Books.

But the question I kept circling back to was, What do people really need from me?

It was this side of 35 that I finally discovered my answer. A book arrived out of the seeming blue to help me slow down and look back to focus on what I really believed. The book was eventually titled One Thousand Gifts and it told a story that was too painfully familiar to be just coincidence. 

In time, God revealed that in every situation, people need only one thing from me. It's the answer to that fundamental question: "Am I good enough?" Because strangely, somehow this well-known answer remains a secret. But it's a secret I see now Mr. Rogers knew, and Dr. Dobson as well. At the root, both knew we need to get past the surface to deal with the foundation, to sidestep the mind and get into the heart.

As Jonathan Merritt touched on in an excellent post called "Restoration in the Land of Make-Believe," people need to know their feelings are "mentionable and manageable." Mr. Rogers did this for me. 

But there's something more than that.

I've posted this video of Mr. Rogers before. This is a courtroom moment more real than any Hollywood movie. This is what I believe all writers need to know when trying to get their message across, whether in a pitch, a book, or a radio interview... 

I watch this and consider his deliberately slow way of speaking. I think of the care he uses in his words, the meaning honored by his delivery, how he seems guided by something, or someone higher than himself.

He speaks as a man who knows the answer to What people really need.

....

Is it true that we can never really know what people need, so why try? Should we just give up trying to "please" people and get busy with whatever we want to get out of our writing? 

After all, we're the ones putting in all the work. 

Or is writing less about "pleasing" people and saying what we might want, and more about writing what everyone needs? Isn't the real point of being a writer always about just one thing?

God reveals special needs by inspiration directly to our minds, right in the moment sometimes. And those can be great, instructive directions. But more often, the daily foundation of writing what people need from you will come from knowing this one thing. And when you consider the short time you have to grab attention any more, maybe this is something that can help you.

What if we could really get it into our bones what Mr. Rogers said here, what he came to know so well about his true job, the higher purpose of his work that wasn't really work at all? I believe that's the one thing everyone needs: to feel known, really known in all their struggle and anger, and accepted there for who they really are.

If more writers believed this and came together to support each other in that belief, maybe we'd know better what we were called for, and be able to give what all those before us gave, what our brave Savior gave, what those who leave a legacy have always given....

Yes. That one thing. And nothing less. 

I never met either man, though my life was heavily influenced by those 2 men who guided me in expressing myself with honesty and restraint. And both were heavily influenced by their friend, Jesus, and so I've been deeply influenced by him as well.

To say I'm grateful doesn't quite cover it. But I still try. Every day.

As a friend of mine says, remembering is the way to be re-membered. All the pieces do make a whole again. And only the One who set the model to follow can use your simple, borrowed words for what you really long for.

Because this is what I've come to know: when I'm writing to give my fullest self to what readers really need, I know I'm good enough because of my friend who is always enough.

Editor to Author: Letter to a Memoir Writer

Dearest Author,

I've been thinking about worth lately.

What's your story worth?

At a recent writers conference I taught a workshop on how I saw publishing changing. Modern publishing, the only time in history when we've had separate "markets" for books, has begun to fracture and redistribute. I've shared several times about how The Shack has shifted things. It isn't just a book, of course, it's a bridge. And those bridges are inevitable because it isn't only spiritual people or Christians who recognize God as creator.  

Blue Like Jazz came well before it and created connections between the Christian and secular markets. Lauren Winner's memoir Girl Meets God made some connection points before that, similar to how Eat, Pray, Love did more recently, from the other side of the spiritual divide. Several spiritual/worldly, secular/sacred books have become best-sellers as bridges in the long history of such books since the beginning of print, and some people have traced this line back to the best-selling book of all time: The Bible.

The Secret. The Purpose-Driven Life. The Alchemist. The Celestine Prophesy. The Late Great Planet Earth. Pilgrim's Progress. Books you've never heard of have sold over 30 million copies: Steps to Christ by Ellen White, In His Steps by Charles Sheldon, late-19th century Congregational minister and advocate of the ever-intriguing idea of "Christian socialism." Even Nikolai Tesla wrote about his life a true spiritual man and world-renouned scientist in My Inventions. The Canterbury Tales, The Odyssey, and The Divine Comedy by Dante, written in 1304, has "sold" more than anyone knows and we have no idea how it or any of these books have changed readers and the history of spiritual thought, becoming seeds for the trees of countless theologies.

But of course, we know this is what books are--seeds. And this is what they do: define life and defy death.

"So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee."

So this story that's a part of you, that is you, that defines your work and all of your effort and sacrifices to share it completely (or as completely as possible) for others to use--what's it really worth?

Don't answer. You can't. Simply try to see the fullness of the question clearly. Continue on...

Do you know where your worth is really found?

Yes, in God's ownership of the life and love he's created you to embody (1 John 4:7-12). His ownership, creating, protecting, guiding and infusing of his great, unchanging spirit into us. He dies that we might live (parents always understand this principle). And we die that others might live through our sacrifices. This is the daily work of writing.

Do you know what that is really worth?

Intimately known and held, seen and heard and helped in every way, this knowledge is invaluable, isn't it? We can talk of worth and value, and shift our understanding of that from copies sold to readers influenced, but it's the knowledge a reader will have by the end of your story that makes what you're doing truly valuable. And this understanding of how God fills us and dies for us is the greatest wisdom, the most valuable in the world. And if you are practicing that, that makes what you're doing invaluable.

I want to give you, as a witness of your discovery of that unchanging love, my invaluable opinion on it, my affirmation that you've been seen and heard and that what you've written down is completely worthy. And with your assurance that it's been well established and others will see it and respond, you can continue, knowing it's incredible and invaluable. 

So do you see what your story is really worth?

Because there's no true price tag you can put on it. There's no proper estimating the value of my work, my seeing it, or others' receiving it either. It's in-valuable. We have to simply trust together that whatever comes of it is just a small piece of its fullest value as a seed for God to use, and not at all connected to the worth of what you've written, or what I've done to help. I know you've sacrificed and given for your story, and I've been brought into the processing of it, but regardless of how it will be published and the realities of our modern marketplace, you must know:

What's your story really worth?

I remain your solid co-laborer in the process of delivering these invaluable words. Never assign its worth to money, public perception, publication, or anything else. Your heart is here, and that's established and it's something you have written definitively, and just as we have agreed together at the outset here, others will when they read it.

We don't know how it will all play out. But I'm on your side and not looking for specific outcomes big or small. Don't think in terms of what's "fair," but decide you will pay with your life what's necessary to give to this project. What you give is directly proportional to what that seed will be able to produce in readers. And in terms of return and profit, I believe Cohelo is right: the universe will conspire in our favor.

So what's your story really worth?

 

Your Loving Editor,

Mick

This Dangerous Platform

Writers who are honest feel fear about self-promotion.

The initial excitement and hope fades into something else, and those fears can blossom into putrid black blooms. (Did you know there's a guy leading seminars on how to make videos go viral who intentionally falls off a stage and posts the videos on YouTube as examples? The quest for fame does make people do some pretty stupid things.)

I get one of two questions from authors when they're about to be published. The first is, "What should I do to get the message out?" And the second: "What if I become a phony?" (they don't always use that term. But I know what they mean.) Phonies are people who fake it. They don't feel real, so they have to pretend they know what being real is. And they desperately have to prove it to you. But even if you have fame shoved on you, problems with being a phony only come when you begin to worry about it. Fame requires authenticity and people know the real deal when they see it.

"But won't I have to change?" they ask. Well, yes, but you always have to change, even if you don't become well-known. Remember Holden Caufield's big fear? After the success of The Catcher In the Rye, part of the reason Salinger disappeared was because Holden was a part of him, and when fame came, it became his prison. Can we blame him?

How do you write without being affected by all that noise? You have to ignore it. People will not like it and they won't always like what you write. But fame or no fame, everything changes you and it's your job to take it all as it comes and continue responding positively and inspiring the same. Everything is an opportunity to invest a little more.

Many people say “God, if you make me famous, I’ll use it for your glory” but if you really meant that would you want to be famous? I’ve told several authors I’d only take their book forward if they promised not to become a phony when the accolades came. Most have no trouble saying it, expecting few accolades. People who stand on truth are far from the danger of falling off their platform, big or little. I haven’t seen many dramatic changes in authors who went on to become famous in their genre or area of expertise because I tend to work with well-grounded people. No matter what you might get at some conferences and reading the trades, publishing books isn't much like American Idol.

I once read a great email from Dave Eggers whose postmodern memoir Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius went on to become a #1 bestseller for several months, and somewhat launched the "young po-mo memoir" publishing phenom (along with Augusten Burroughs, Haven Kimmel, Lauren Winner, Don Miller, several others). Eggers denounced the perception that fame had made him a phony, contesting he didn't much care if people thought he'd sold out. Because look what he was able to do with it, much more good than he'd ever been able to before. I think that's something. How does a kid with his story end up with that truth--that giving to others for a higher purpose is the real focus and worrying about selling out is so juvenile and self-conscious?

I've always been a myopic kid, so concerned about "selling out." But once I saw how adolescent it really was, I decided to be done with it. The right question is, "Am I selling out right now to the idea of changing things for the better?" Because that's entirely up to you. I’ve had a half dose of fame since growing up in a fishbowl as a pastor's kid, possibly to inoculate me and convince me it's a necessary evil and certainly not something to strive for.

You may think you'd like fame, but believe me, sane people don't like it. You think it'd be so nice being known, being of interest. But fame is never really being "known." What people know, they want it from you, and many act as though they have a right to claim it. They don't, but when you're famous, you don't get to decide that. I grew up the oldest son of the senior pastor at a growing church. I was known in that little circle in our small town, so even becoming a book editor took me time to embrace. I still don't enjoy the attention I sometimes face. People come with all kinds of expectations that feel very similar to being told I had to perform perfectly to set a good example, and that this was God's plan for me, to do good things so others would. Then God would be happy. I never knew if what I was doing was enough or good enough, and most the time, I fought the desire to secretly rebel just to get the voices out and deny their access.

In my limited experience, the more people you encounter, the harder it becomes to hear God.

The struggle is good and worthwhile, but my portion of fame has taught me that the challenge is only an opportunity when I'm striving very hard against it to hold onto resting in God. Will you become a phony? Or are you sold out to changing things for the better?

People who become phony are people who don’t know themselves. They want to present an image and fit in because they lack assurance about who they really are. Most of us know this on some level, but plenty of folks--self-proclaimed Christians--self-promote like crazy, as though becoming famous may finally convince them they're lovable and finally overwhelm their fragile egos with sufficient evidence that they're good enough and smart enough for people to like, doggone it. And some become crazy, attention-grabbing loud mouths.

Listen: when there’s no misunderstanding about where our identity is secured, that doesn't happen. On the other hand, if there’s a in you wanting to be liked, affirmed, comforted by a surrogate daddy, you will smell desperate. And it's a bad cologne. Writers conferences usually reek with it, people desperate to be published. It’s hard to miss. But the real phonies are those with an entourage. They have handlers and no real ability to write. The book is their next chance to be a star and pop the panacea to keep the affirmation fixes coming, the endless fixes that haven’t quite fixed them. Regular folk don't have to worry much about becoming a vampire like them.

My best advice for those worried about self-promotion is to get with your maker right now. Do some soul work and ask the omniscient Creator to point out any place where there’s still a desperation in you to be loved, affirmed, comforted or known. He'll show you and your eyes will be opened. Do the work he gives you. And forget everything else and just keep doing it. Give that to him and let him fill that void in you. You will find your peace and no substitute can look attractive when you have that.

And from there, you won’t have to shun the limelight, though you may want to. If you can use it as one more of his gifts for reconnecting with others, you may end up feeling his smile on you. Imagine his pride in you for investing wisely. Be realistic and don't expect it to be easy, invasive fans waiting to confront you about your sins, mobs of hungry faces looking for a morsel of your flesh, enemies who'd like a chance to stone you. Most people won't care. It normally takes a long time in publishing to gain people's attention. But some will care too much. And they'll hurt you with their hurts.

Remember your real goal is hearing those words: “Well done. Well done my wonderful son, my wonderful daughter of grace.”

Faith is a gift. It is not an ability to gain. It is not a commitment to muster. God supplies it to those who ask for it. So ask. And use your platform the same way you use all his gifts, to highlight the wonders you’ve been shown. To point others to the source. To turn their eager faces to the one who provided your eyes to see it. The ones who help you craft it. The supporters who readers need to know have helped and invested so they could receive it. The endless gifts given to make more and more opportunities to share his love.

As a good friend of mine likes to say, all is grace. And I've discovered it’s really true. All is grace. So what part of ALL do we not yet understand?

Life as research: Confessions, Part 1

You know what I love about being a writer? No, besides all the beautiful babes. Seriously! It's that you’re never wasting time. Any time you spend paying attention is helping you become a better writer. No time spent just observing is time wasted. No time spent reading is wasted. No matter what you’re doing as a writer, you’re doing research. That's a pretty sweet deal, right?

I think I realized this sometime during college. After graduating, traveling, working, and getting married, in the end, I saw moving to Colorado Springs (of all places!) as little more than an extended research trip for us. That's the God's honest truth. The fact that it’s still going on six years later may lead you to some other mistaken conclusion, but my whole goal has always been to gather experience for writing. Which is the central reason for this blog, if you want the whole truth. And that I’m still young (and dumb) enough to be writing far-too-truthful things on this blog about my hare-brained ideas for influencing CBA, and being confidently assured something is going to come of sharing it with you here. Certainly, my experience in Christian publishing so far has been useful for such a lofty goal as being a paid writer, and ten times better than anything I got in college (no hard feelings Westmont). And the fact that there are people like you out there who are entertained by my idle prattle and evasive self-deprecation here convinces me to hope that maybe it hasn't all been just a big mistake.

One can always hope.

Some of you know that when my wife and I first considered moving here from Seattle, having just been married a few months, it was for a job in the publishing department at Focus on the Family. Uh, yeah. Plenty of people warned us. And yes, it was for a low-level, assistant editor job, lowest you could go without being in the mailroom, but that was all beside the point. It was a job in publishing and the fact was it came with some good benefits and a nice relocation allowance. I wasn’t going anywhere as a house-cleaner/drink-slinger with an English degree. So we decided nothing more than a 2-year trial to get my feet wet and see what we could see. Now almost 6 years later, I’ve acquired some book-editing experience and I've worked with a select group of people who’ve taught me some incredible (and unrepeatable) things about making books work. And in the general sense, it’s been a little like reading Left Behind or The Da Vinci Code. Wonderful and horrible at the same time. But above all irreversible.

Along the way, I’ve gotten to spend some significant quality time evaluating what makes good books bomb and what shoots bad ones to the top, some of which I’ve pissed and moaned about here. Overall, the editing gig has been an experience I can’t recommend fully to people until I know why it is they’re asking. Yes, there are a few sad sacks who wonder if they might enjoy my job if I were to get run over by a truck or something, and it just happened that they were next in line for my life of luxury and glamour as a CBA acquisitions editor.

Cue nervous laughter.

Yet since it’s been my good fortune to live this extended research trip into the Christian mecca, I’ve strived to share a few things over the past months and years, particular to my vantage point and deepening education in American Christianity, books, publishing, and the CBA industry. I’ve alienated myself and also made some allies sharing my prejudices and fresh-baked assumptions, figuring my central purpose for writing books could serve for the blog as well: the more me I can share, the less me I have to die alone with. But why-ever you've come and whoever you are out there, whether waiting to take my position, or just hoping I’ll publish your book before the truck immortalizes me, make a venture back to this greasy spot on the information superhighway over the next few weeks for some never-before-shared confessions and (potentially useful) revelations, some of which will no doubt come in handy for that future job interview.

So there's my irresistible set up. More to come…stay tuned.

disclosure

So anyway, about changing publishers. As an editor, it’s pretty significant. Like going to play for a different baseball team you used to consider your competitor. And everything’s different. You use different lingo, wear different uniforms, and stretch out differently. There’s different expectations and rules of conduct and you don’t really know who your friends are and whether they’re threatened, excited, or indifferent about you.

Specifically, when you move after 5 years from Focus on the Family to WaterBrook Press, you’re going to still be grabbing for your nonexistent tie for weeks when you bend for a drink at the water fountain. You’ll still wave your hand in front of the non-existent motion sensor for the towels in the restroom and be shocked when someone talks to you in there. You’ll feel a bit amused realizing what a pathetic creature of habit you are, much as you’ve always denied it. Of course you’ll miss your old friends, but you’ll find some pretty cool new ones too that you really like. And you might just start to realize again how much you love what you get to do, and the wonderful people you get to work with. Those beautifully wounded, tragically comic characters you feel you’d like to live inside for a while, learn to paint their complicated expressions, write them into songs, leave their small, obscure emblems on stone walls and caves. They may seem among the finest people you’ve ever known.

And above all, you’ll feel immensely grateful.

Course, you might also notice anew how restrictive the labels you’ve got to wear can really be. Some of you long-time readers will know I like to challenge labels. Haven’t been doing that so much yet at WaterBrook, though I certainly plan to. Been keeping ol’ Don Quixote in solitary, waiting to assure everyone I’m actually not the insane dramatic idealist I put out there, even if I am not all responsible-business-man either. But as I know from history, ignoring the inner Don Q leads to serious uglies.

And so, the good people of WaterBrook will be challenged. I go forth to spread my toxic memo of spiritual implications as primary publishing considerations.

Note to self: In pub board next week, be sure to reassure bosses there is nothing wrong per se with making money and staying in business.

I’ll have more on this “stewardship vs. compromise” theme next time. We’ll see how I do inspiring my new teammates with the biblical definition of “good business.”

Go in peace, dear writers, to love and serve.

Confessions of a publishing nobody

I’ve been asked to write about publishing from an insider’s perspective. I thought my blather was enough on this blog, but apparently, some people just aren’t satisfied with that, the ingrates.

Suppose we take a few days to talk about the ins and outs of in-house publishing for CBA, since that’s what I’ve been doing for the past 4 years. I know a very little about a very big business, and not nearly as much as most of my colleagues. But the problem with asking them is that most of them are just too busy to blog. Or so I'm told.

As introduction, when I give this class at writer’s conferences, I like to start with my favorite publishing story. For lack of anything better, I usually go with how I came to work in publishing. It’s pretty goofy, but it serves.

The book publishing process and more specifically, the Christian book publishing process is constantly changing, metamorphosizing. Each house operates in some unique ways, each in some universal ways. The similar bond among all publishing houses is one of constant flux and adaptation, a focusing and refocusing of energies. So it can be difficult to learn what’s going on.

When I started out in Christian publishing, I was not actively searching for a job. In fact, I was bartending. Even more accurately, I was an unemployed bartender, out of work after moving to Seattle to convince my wife to marry me. Meanwhile, my mom sent a couple chapters of a short story I’d been working to a friend of hers at a Christian publishing house, God bless her meddling hiney. Her friend called me, I applied, and a few months later, I somehow ended up in an entry-level assistant editor.

I didn't know diddly about Christian publishing, or any kind of publishing for that matter. I'd just written a lot and conditions at Focus on the Family were favorable. I wrote a letter to the senior editor and staff giving reason why I believed God had called me to work for them and, lo and behold, it worked! I still have the letter, and I really do believe every word. Most of all, I cared about helping Focus pursue a new direction in their publishing program, even if they were responsible to the overall ministry in what they published for the general trade market.

In the beginning, I didn't have much of a concept of what this meant. I just wanted to be pubilshed and I thought working in the industry would be a good step in the right direction. I started going to writers conferences and teaching what little I'd learned about professional editing and book publishing from a Christian ministry standpoint. After a couple years, I began branching out into more diverse conferences and conventions, studying the market, and learning the delicate diplomacy required of professional editors. I struggled to be mature and responsible and all those things that came with being an adult with an adult job and representing the department and the ministry to others in my sphere. It frustrated me and exhausted me and I felt very small and alone much of the time.

And then, I decided to start this blog. I figured it might be a fun way to connect with others and discuss some of the things that were frustrating me, mainly, the difficulty of wading through so many manuscripts that only seemed to perpetuate the problems I saw with the industry. Either they added another convenience to modern American Christianity, like a cute, catchy formula for an explosive prayer life, or a thinly-veiled sermon masquerading as fiction. I began to think it was no wonder there was so little in CBA I liked to read.

Luckily, enjoying CBA books wasn't a prerequisite for the job, which surprises people to hear. It's pretty amusing, actually, and when I run into people who are scandalized by that, I do try to be kind and say that it's not that I don't read Christian books. I like books. It's just that some Christian books tend to be more Christian than book. And they usually squint at me and think I'm being obtuse, which I probably am, and we go our separate ways. I've become a lot less compelled to win them over to my opinion in the years I've been at Focus. Some people just don't see it and that's really okay with me.

What's not okay is when they don't think I should be allowed to see it my way. I deal with a lot of judgmental people, but the ones who really wrinkle me are those who forget the commandment to love when their opinions aren't shared.

"Look," I want to say. "We've had a different experience. And not everything comes down to a spiritual or moral obligation. Some things just are." But I never say that in conversation. At least, I haven't yet. Maybe I'm waiting for someone to convince me it would matter.

We've all had different journeys and I can't take credit for mine. I hope to discuss more with you in the coming days.