Trimming the pot you have + words, writers strike, & agents
How pottery is like writing and vice versa; sensitivity readers; visuwords; agent debacles; brain-free scrollings; WGA strike; viral book tweet excitement; drag storytime; lemon cheesecake
Thanks for your patience with this delayed issue. Your regularly scheduled Book Marketing Now feature will be out next week!
Greetings readers & writers,
My pottery instructor held up a bowl. It was thrown last week and left to dry until it reached “leather hard” — soft enough to carve, but strong enough to hold it’s shape. It looks like a bowl, for the most part, except for the bottom which looks heavy, lumpy, unfinished. She highlighted the different aspects of the dish: it’s heft, how it’s tapered to a smooth rim, how wide it is, all dictated by how she shaped it when she threw it on the wheel. She pointed to the inner curve of the bowl and showed how that should guide how one trims the outside to match. “Trim the pot you have,” she explained, “Not the pot you wish you had.”
Readers, you know I love a good metaphor. This idea rang out like a bell to me, reverberating through all my creative uncertainties. Trim the pot you have. What if, when I see other people’s publication success and silently curse my slowness/the choices I’ve made that have “delayed” my career, I remind myself: Trim the pot you have. Trust the “you” you’ve built. When revising a WIP and wondering how I ever thought I could write a novel because doesn’t it all just sounds like garbage? Trim the pot you have. Trust the story you wanted to tell.
This isn’t to say that stories can’t be rewritten or lives can’t be redirected. An unfired pot can be folded in on itself, re-wedged back to nascent clay. But I also like the idea of taking stock of the present shape of things — whether it’s a novel, a life, or a pot — and taking action to get the inside and the outside to align. What can be trimmed away to focus on what I’m trying to create? It allows for setting aside past regret (the bowl’s too small! the novel isn’t finished! life is too busy!) and welcoming future adaptation: the decision to turn an imperfection into something fulfilling, lovely, and fit for purpose.
It reminds me of the luscious Dear Sugar letter, “The Ghost Ship That Didn’t Carry Us” where
openly draws the line between the life one chooses and that “sister ship” of a life which sails on without us, unreachable, containing all the what if’s our current life precludes. She encourages her letter-writer to deeply consider the idea of future regret, and allow that to shape his decision making. But once the decision is made, once the ship is on it’s course, it’s important to let go of what no longer can be, any mistakes that might have been made, and instead embrace what is.Trimming a pot is less about correcting mistakes, and more about carving away what you don’t need (to be recycled or repurposed) and revealing the truth of the concept you cast at the beginning. “Trim the pot you have” doesn’t mean settling for what you’ve got. It means mining the richness of your already beautiful imagination.
Stay-tuned for a frank interview with author/illustrator Jarrett Lerner about his new illustrated novel-in-verse for young readers, A Work in Progress. He shares the complexities of paving a new genre path, fictionalizing the personal, shaping a book-as-object, and the teamwork behind the success of every published book.
Last month:
For more interviews with newly releasing authors on their marketing and publishing journeys, check out the Book Marketing Now archives. Interested in participating? Fill out this form.
Writing/Marketing Resources
A really interesting and well-rounded look at the role of sensitivity readers in publishing {Writers Unboxed} and the difficulties, benefits, and drawbacks they present writers and publishers.
You know I love a good interactive map. Visuwords is a free graphical dictionary of word associations that connects you to synonyms, root words, and related terms in a neural-network-like pattern. Click on the nodes to see more associations!
A lot of weirdness has been going down in the agent world again (see news below). Agent
shares important tips on understanding if you’ve got an agent problemReading Corner
Look, reading can take many forms. Here’s what I’m currently reading/scrolling when I can’t brain anymore:
Substack Notes (comes say hi!)
Whatever (John Scalzi’s blog)
Spelling Bee (The New York Times)
Industry News
An agency debacle rocked the internet this weekend, when New Leaf Media suddenly informed 27 of their authors via email that they would no longer be represented by the agency {Locus}, due to the “amicable” departure of their agent, Jordan Hamessley, who, from her statement about her departure, seemed equally surprised and upset.
The Writer’s Guild of America has been on strike for almost three weeks. {LAist} If you are a writer affected by the strike (or want to support said writers) there are a number of charitable foundations stepping up with support. {The Hollywood Reporter}.
Twitter doesn’t sell books… until it does. In a perfect Twitter-style lightning strike/viral storm, the gorgeous 2019 book This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and hit bestseller status on Amazon last week because of an effusive tweet by a one Bigloas Dickolas Wolfwood. {Gizmodo}
This Alaska bookstore in Sarah Palin’s hometown isn’t backing down about its drag story time. {LitHub}
TGI… Cheesecake!
Now, I’d rather eat blintzes (also sweet! also dairy! far superior!) than cheesecake any day. But my husband always requests this cheesecake for his birthday (though any excuse — like Passover or Shavuot!— will do). I know, I know, “Passover” cheesecake? But hear me out: this recipe is simple, unfussy, and highly adaptable. You can easily substitute the matzo cake meal for the flour of your choice (including more almond) and/or the zest and vanilla for your favorite flavor combo.
Check in with a writer buddy today. What are y’all working on? Give your muse a little space and see what comes of it.
~Allison
Writer & Marketing Coach
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Excellent article. I am suffering from incompletion due to chasing the far off ship instead of focusing on the ship I’m on. I have many pots that need trimming for sure. Great article and have fun throwing clay! It’s so much fun.