Ok, so this dude posted on goodreads that he was reading Lucky Man, and we had swapped books with him, and he's a writer we would like to meet, and we were geeked.
And than the other day he just removed himself from the list, and so we thought that maybe he didn't like the book, but didn't know for sure, and so feeling compulsive we dropped him a note and said we were wondering what was up and totally appreciated any feedback he might have. Not too weird, right?
Well, we don't know because he in turn wrote the following:
"I read about half the book. I set it aside for the time being. I'll take another stab at Lucky Man later this year. Don't want to get into workshopping it."
So, we just have no idea what that means. It seems like it could be dismissive, but seriously, we really have no idea. Not sure how to proceed we wrote to friend and awesome writer/blogger chick Amy Guth and asked her, because you know, she knows everything.
Even she though had questions, and while we can't actually copy her full response, because this is a family blog and all, in part she said:"That's weird. Who know what the hell that even means; people are so weird, iddly and into their own world."
As we stated previously, the rest of her response is sort of unprintable, but very funny. Still, we're no closer to the truth, just smiling. And while smiling isn't bad, if you have any thoughts about this, please let us know.
11 comments:
My advice: Just let it go, man. Some people's is gonna like the book, some people's is gonna hate the book and some people's is gonna be all over the place in the middle about the book. Such is life, my friend. Worrying doesn't change lives and once any piece of art is let out into the public it is out of your hands completely. And, I mean, I've been rejected by McSweeney's six times in two months and you have a book published so shush! Haha.
While I'm admittedly not an MFA, my general impression of "workshopping" carries the same connotations as "waterboarding."
Let it go, ah-ah, you don't know us very well. Meanwhile, what fun is that? As much fun as "workshopping" we assume. We plan to revel in every moment of this whole experience, good, bad, and otherwise. Now, all that said, what's an MFA and where can I get one?
Let it go, ah-ah, you don't know us very well.
You could always go and proceed to "workshop" his book...? ;)
On a side note, I would love to read the email with you and Guth in it's entirety...
On another note, I think Honn is right. I mean, not everyone is going to like the book. And so far, this is the only person I know who didn't like it, so that's pretty awesome, man.
And like Josh said, we all get rejected. Some of us by the venerable McSweeney's, others of us--cough, cough, me-- by Mastercard Literary Magazine or Visa Books,who both said that my credit was not of publishable quality yet...oh well...
By "workshopping" perhaps he's saying he doesn't want to talk about your book in a pretentious way that eventually winds up being a discussion about himself. So you have to give him credit for that.
And though I'm not a psychologist, I have been to Ireland with one, and I believe that has given me the power to see into people's minds, and so I can say, almost definitively, that he's a crazy person.
Amazing, the staff gets on a plane for a work trip to Phoenix and we land having missed all this wonderful repartee. Now, we should stress here that while (1) we like you suffer many rejections and mostly don't care, though (2) can still be be quite saddened when anyone expresses any blatant dislike of our work, we were (3) legitimately perplexed why anyone would remove their name from a list of readers on goodreads, because that takes work and implies that something is amiss, though who knows what something is, which is then quite intriguing to us regardless of how the person feels about the book, and (4) are really interested in, and really appreciate feedback, so we can keep trying to improve. Please note, we have had in-depth conversations with many of you about the book and its not like you all dig every piece of it though overall you all really dig it and these conversations have been really helpful as I tackle the new novel. So there, how's that?
You get the weirdest responses, Ben. Keep your chin up, though.
For the record, prior to Lucky Man one of the things we always wanted to build was a network of fellow writers to talk writing with, both the act of writing, the writers we love, the marketing and everything else as well. And now we look at these series of comments and all you guys we have only just met over the last year and we think - how cool is that? Way cool.
Ditto dat.
Very, very cool.
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