I’ve finished Round One of revisions for Brother’s All (yep, still using the working title!) and will soon hear back from my editor on that. Right now I’m putting together a short non-fiction piece about including a romance in a general market novel. On the one hand I believe writing is writing. Whether it’s fiction or non-fiction, if you have a flair for writing it should come easy. And in some ways non-fiction is easy. Certainly blog writing and website content is considered non-fiction (at least on my sites!) but somehow writing here is a lot easier than trying to write a how-to article that’ll be in print with a publisher’s logo on it.
I guess that’s the difference. Internet publication, if you want to call it that, holds only the author’s opinion. No one else is endorsing it or going on the line for it. No editing, either.
But article writing, either for a book or magazine publisher, isn’t just between an author and a reader. It goes through an editorial process, which should be helpful of course, and once it appears in print has the unspoken but understood stamp-of-approval from the publisher. No thirty-second disclaimer about the views of this author not necessarily being the views of So-And-So Publications — at least not on the pages of the publication a how-to article like the one I’m writing will appear.
It does add a certain amount of pressure. It raises the standards from just your own.
It reminds me of a cooking attitude I used to have. When I was younger and I dutifully tried to help out in the preparation of a meal at someone else’s home, I would become this insecure, ill-equipped cook. To me, at a young age, working in someone else’s kitchen meant I should cook like they cook. But how could I possibly know how they liked their vegetables chopped? So I’d ask, or try guessing and feel like my way must surely be wrong.
I had an aunt whose favorite saying helped immensely in getting over those early fears: However it turns out, that’s how we like it. Now that I’m older I just do it my way.
In the kitchen this was extremely freeing. But in publication, while I might be free and even encouraged to “do it my way” the fact of the matter is that the publisher’s logo is still going on the cover. The publisher does have a thumb print on content.
I guess the challenge here is that I’m dabbling in the unknown, not having a non-fiction background. Making it worse is my own notion that if someone were to ask me how to write a book, I would say sit down at the computer and write. I don’t use formulas, I don’t follow a set pattern for the most part. I have a general idea of the story and the theme and the characters and take it from there. I could give tips on research, but beyond that I’m a die-hard seat-of-the-pants writer. Can you teach that?
So today I’m off to write non-fiction, but in someone else’s kitchen.
Join Me!