Stephenie Meyer is a Terrible Writer: So What?

Imagine you are at a cocktail party. A stranger making small talk asks you “What do you do for a living?” Innocent question or time bomb? Well, that depends on your answer. There are two professions it is dangerous to admit in any social situation without a foolproof exit strategy. These are jobs which are only glamorous to outsiders and for some reason cause strangers to feel entitled to monopolize your evening and attempt to wring every bit of free professional advice out of you that they can.
Which two jobs?

Doctor and, believe it or not, Writer. Admitting you’re a physician is too often followed up with a list of physical ailments or an insistent invitation to look at a stranger’s mole. “Does this look like cancer?”

So what do writers have to complain about? The same thing actually. The unsolicited demand that we examine and diagnose everyone/anyone’s literary moles.

I have taught, published and edited writing for two decades. I’m proud of what I do. Still I’m tempted to make up answers for the casual inquisitor. “What do I do? Let me think…” Government cheese inspector? Assassin? The inventor of bikini wax?

Me: Okay you caught me, I’m a writer.

Them: I write too!

Me: (glassy eyed nod)

Them: Would you take a look at my writing and tell me if it’s any good?

For some reason this request always comes out as one question. Sadly, the more aggressive the request/er, the more likely I will not enjoy their work.

Truthfully, they are asking the wrong question. And definitely asking it the wrong way. When a student or colleague asks “Is this story/poem/whatever any good?” I answer them with a question of my own.

“Good for what?”

All writing has an agenda: to persuade, to entertain, to inform, etc. Here’s a quick grammar lesson. Every sentence must have at least two components: a subject and a verb. Persuade, entertain, inform: these are all perfectly lovely verbs, but they require more than the subject (your writing) to complete their sentence -and to fulfill their purpose. They require an object. Persuade, entertain or inform whom?

Sometimes we become so obsessed with the technique of writing we forget its purpose: to communicate ideas between the author and the audience.

Is it any good? Good for what? Before you can answer those questions ask yourself this one: Why (and for whom) did you write it? The right question is not is “Is this writing good?” The right question is  “Is this writing successful?” Does it do what it set out to do?
If a poem was written to commemorate your parents’ wedding anniversary or seduce a lover, your intended audience is clear. If you are looking for publication, then you must ask yourself market by market: is this poem/story a match for this audience?

When you meet me at a party, ask me instead “Should I submit this poem to the New Yorker?” The answer is usually “No.” However, if you ask me “Is it publishable?” The answer is always a resounding “Yes.” In today’s market, where publishing is cheap and accessible everything, literally EVERYTHING, is publishable. It’s just a matter of finding the appropriate audience.

Stephenie Meyer did.

Bemuse Webpage finally live just 2 days to go

BeMuse Gala –Meet the Muses

May 4, 2011   7-9pm

Madison’s Grill (Banquet Room) 

1109 Southeast Madison Street

Portland Oregon

Multimedia, multi-artist, cross-pollination, ongoing Art Project BEMUSE debuts! At this gala, Artists meet their muses. Audience meets artists. Performing artists perform. Poets wax poetic. Much fun and inspiration to be shared.

Bemuse! Like Strangers on a Train… without murder! (or trains)

Bigfoot

Oddly enough someone was making conversation at this adult toy review community with I play at (since its connected to this site that actually pays me or at least used to but now the editor seems to have fallen asleep at the wheel or I don’t know what but whatever and also because sex toys are expensive and are you really gonna pay a hundred dollars for that and then find out you hate it?) so this guy is chatting and trying to get people to chat back… in a non-troll way. And wants to know if anyone believes in Bogfoot. Um Bigfoot. But now due to a typo, a whole new species of urban legend is born. Bogfoot. I’ll have to think about that awhile. So here’s what I said to the guy, the guy who said the thing.

I have two Bigfoot stories. When I was 14, my crazy abusive stepfather (may he spin a little faster on a spit in hell every time I think of him) brought home a 23yr old hitchhiker by the name of Reno Gene Kennedy. He was the prettiest man I’d ever seen. Gorgeous. And he could make a noise like a cougar. Heady stuff for a hormone-addled, romance novel junkie teen. He was also insane and not very bright. He insisted he knew Bigfoot personally. Other things he knew: you couldn’t get pregnant unless the man and woman orgasmed simultaneously, being of mixed native descent he was the messiah meant to reunite all the North American Tribes to be one ruled of course by him, etc. Yes, I knew that just contemplating kissing him shaved ten points off my IQ. But I was 14. In yet another one of his bizarre punishments, my stepfather took my family but not me out of state the day before my birthday, leaving me alone with the sexy stranger. I rang in my new year with date rape that I thought was love.

My second Bigfoot story is when I was looking for work shortly after moving to Oregon. I applied for a position as a seasonal caretaker and editorial assistant for a youth hostel in Cave Junction, Oregon. The hostel was a renovated house and xmas tree farm way off the beaten track. It featured Bigfoot tours and had a hiking trail where visitors might catch a glimpse of the shy hirisute legend. The editorial assisting was basically making the memoirs (Bigfoot sightings, garden tips and rants) of the primary caretaker readable. Before my official interview, the caretaker insisted he needed a nap and suggested I take one as well. Although the hostel was empty and filled with beds and sofas, he insisted we should share a single bed. I declined and politely offered to look at his manuscript while he slept. After his nap, which he said was not at all peaceful because of my rudeness, he told me he was saving the job for a woman willing to sleep with him. Not me. He did offer to give me the Bigfoot tour for free. No thanks.

So if I did believe in Bigfoot, I’d have to conclude he was a pervert. And not the good kind.