….like replacing ‘s’ with ‘z’. I mean how 1987 lame is that?
One of the downsides to reading tons of very informative and entertaining editor and agent blogs is that I get a window into the business side of publishing. Useful certainly, but sometimes all this knowledge gets in the way of the writing part of writing.
Like this fascinating blog: Scroll down to the Thursday Oct. 9 2009 entry.
Susan Adrian Blogspot/Agent Suzie Townsend
One agent’s opinion, yes, but one who apparently knows her stuff.
I read this and nodded until I got to #2 and then my heart plummeted to my socks, my throat closed up and I felt like crying. ‘Cause guess what the premise of my latest book is? I pity my agent trying to flog it out there. He loved it so much but perhaps he was wrong?! Wrong ! Wrong ! Wrong!
Who knew there was a dystopian (so much cooler sounding than post-apocalyptic and easier to say too!) sub genre out there and that it’s already been done to death?
I cannot write well if I am spending even an iota of time worrying about the trends out there. I can only write the book that I am dying to write and then leave the rest of it to the gods. Agents and Publishers probably have to consider such things but I do not. I mean, I know from Publisher’s Lunch that tons of vampire romance books are still coming out and how long ago was the death of that trend announced? To quote Mark Twain sort of, “The news of its death has been greatly exaggerated.”
I guess what I’m saying is that if I did have an awesome idea for a vampire book I would probably go ahead and write it. If I loved it and couldn’t stop thinking about it and if I put the hours and months in and ended up with something I thought was good and unique I would certainly do it. Well maybe not vampires because I do feel that has been done to death and there just aren’t too many more interesting spins you can put on the subject, but I will say that I will write the kind of book that I like to read whether that pertains to a trend or not.
Next up may be the orphan boy raised by telepathic pigs in space and his horrifying encounter with a rocket full of werewolves trapped in a never-ending orbit around the moon, but I haven’t quite decided that yet. Thanks to @buffysquirrel on Twitter for lighting the fire.
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Of course I can’t find the article now, but just read something that says that the dystopian genre is the hot new thing!
I need to remember the rule that for every opinion there is an equal and opposite opinion.