You're not my target audience!

I belong to a wonderful group of writers¹ who meet monthly to give feedback on our fiction writing, with the occasional poem and non-fiction piece thrown in for variety. We’ve been together for years and have become very good friends.

We generally like each others’ writing. Sure, we have plenty of suggestions and ideas for how to improve each piece, and the discussions can get pretty lively with lots of points of view. But, overall, we like each others’ work.

Most of the time.

Sometimes one of us will dislike² the odd story or chapter. The discussion always starts out slowly, but once we get warmed up, the inhibition goes down and we can be pretty ruthless. It’s all in the interest of constructive criticism, but when you’re on the receiving end of negative commentary, even seemingly benign stuff can feel like an quick jab to the solar plexus.³

To deal with these awkward, organ-crunching instances, we’ve created the “You’re not my target audience” defence mechanism. When you’re on the verge of crying or punching a good friend’s critical lights out, a “You’re not my target audience” through a clenched-teeth smile is our safety tap. Our “Back off, motherfucker, or you’re going to have my hari-kari on your conscience.”

I think it takes incredible balls to send your work out for critique. Even to people you trust and like. Even when you know the critiquers⁴ have your best interests at heart.

Sending your work out to complete strangers? Now, that’s just nuts.

Several months ago I sent out my sort-of-finished novel to the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia’s Atlantic Writing Competition. The contest is unique in that every entrant receives feedback from the judges, win or lose.⁵

I was confident sending in my novel. I knew I would never win, but I was happy to finally have something semi-worthwhile to submit. As we came closer to receiving the judges’ comments, however, I got more and more nervous and embarrassed. What was I thinking putting my piece in this competition? The comp skews heavily in favour of literary works, and my piece is about as non-literary as one can get. Despite my terror, I did eventually open the envelope when it arrived.

First judge’s comments:

“I totally enjoyed this story and read it in one day. I love the relationship between the women—reminiscent of Candace Bushnell does the Maritimes. However, lose all the extra e-mails, forwarded jokes, etc. It bogged down a great piece of work. With some work this could be a great take on chick lit. Don’t give up on this one!”

Well, colour me stunned. That was worth the $30 entry fee alone.

Second judge’s comments:

“Fiction is an art form.⁶  It transforms and heightens reality to make a particular author’s perceptions and view of life interesting to others.  What you present here seems like a direct copy of text messages between people we don’t know.  In fact, some of the “forwarded messages” I’ve received myself.  If you use a format such as this, it would be advisable to condense and refine it, to avoid the endless repetitions and useless markings and spacing.  Also the profusion of typos and misspellings,⁷ even though they do appear in many text messages, become quite annoying in a written work.  The Prologue and Epilogue are intended to give this some structure, but the characters are not sufficiently developed or described to give them any individual identity, and unless these people become real to the reader, their lives do not evoke much sympathy or concern.”⁸

Yikes!

Knowing what an oversensitive stress-bag I am, you must be wondering why this one didn’t elicit the afore-mentioned ritual self-disembowelment.

Well, it’s mostly because I read the other judge’s comments first.⁹ Not only did the first judge’s comments make me all warm and glowy inside and out, but the juxtaposition with these comments also highlighted in storey-high neon letters that, Judge #2? NOT MY TARGET AUDIENCE.

I mean, it’s like they didn’t even read the same book. And that’s perfectly OK. I know my book won’t appeal to A LOT of people. But those who like it, seem to like it a lot. This poor soul clearly did not get what I was trying to do or say and I feel for him/her—it would be torture to have to trudge through an entire book you hated or didn’t “get.” I know, because that’s how I feel about a lot of literary fiction. Luckily, I am not contractually obligated to finish a book I don’t like. These judges—volunteers who make a huge commitment of time and energy to help aspiring writers like me—have to read whatever they get handed. This judge must have been ready to rip his/her eyeballs out after the first chapter.

Point #1: Not everyone will love everything you do. When you’re feeling battered and bruised by rejection, repeat this saying in your head or aloud (as the situation permits) to your rejector: “I fart in your general direction.”

No, no no. That’s not it.¹⁰ Rather, say, “YOU ARE NOT MY TARGET AUDIENCE.” Say it whether you believe it's true or not. Trust me. Just say it. 

Point #2: Congratulations and respect to the winners of the Atlantic Writing Competition.¹¹ But, really, all of the entrants are winners. Not because we all get desperately coveted feedback, but because we had the courage to send our babies out there into the cruel, merciless world of the Judgey MacJudgersons. 

I know I’m proud.¹⁴ I hope all of my co-entrants are, too. We did it! Well done! We rock! We write! We rebound!

And the-e-en, we write again...¹⁶


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1. I call us “The Fictionaries.” Admittedly a little poofty, but, damn, don't I think I’m clever sometimes.

2. Loathe.

3.  Like this. With the bad hair. And the people laughing at you as your writhe on the floor. Yep, making you stronger.

4. Is “critiquer” a word? Critic seems too Roger Ebert-y.

5. It may not sound like much, but in an industry where feedback is practically non-existent (unless your book/story/article is picked up/signed by a journal/publisher/agent), this can be gold.

6. Uh oh. This ain’t gonna be good.

7. The typos and misspellings are on purpose. Seriously.

8. This critique was typed, by the way. And I left in the two spaces the critic used between the sentences. Just sayin’.

9. Props to WFNS for ordering the judges’ comments appropriately. Methinks they’ve talked more than one destroyed writer down from a ledge and thus know what they’re doing!

10. But, after all, no one expects the Spanish Inquisition.

11. I hate you. I fart in your general direction. With a French accent.¹²

12. Just kidding!¹³

13. Except about the French accent.

14. And eternally grateful to the judges. ALL of them.¹⁵

15. But especially to my Judge #1. XO!

16. Caper inside joke. :-)

The unbearable lateness of being... me

So, tonight I inadvertently cured my daughter of ever wanting to be early again.

You see, I can’t seem to be on time for ANYTHING. I actually once used the wind as an excuse for being a half hour late to pick up my daughter from school.¹

On this allegedly blustery day I went for a walk with a friend (good for me) and completely misjudged how long we would be gone (bad, but typical, for me). It normally takes me six minutes to walk from my house to the local Starbucks,² but it took fifteen minutes to do the reverse that day. Now, according to my mother-in-law, there is an incline on the road to my home.³ Plus this was the end of an hour-long walk and I’m pathetically out of shape. The hurrieder I’d go, the behinder I’d get, so I deduced that the wind must be impeding my progress.

Since I was already fifteen minutes behind schedule, I started to panic. Daughter’s school is at the top of a hill⁴ that generally boasts some absolute gale-forced gusts,⁵ but on this particular day (of all days) there was nary a breath of air to be found atop the hill. I arrived at the school to find a beautiful, breezeless sunny day. An observation I, of course, did not make until after I told the other parents I was late because of the wind.

Oh well. I’m sure they’ll be nicer to my kid if they think her mother’s developmentally delayed.

At any rate,⁶ my point with this idiotic digression is that I tend to be late a lot, seemingly for no good reason. Or rather, whenever I try to explain the reason, I further reinforce my DD designation.

But tonight we were early for soccer. Well, actually, we were late picking up hubby after work which somehow made us a little bit early for the game. We wanted to have plenty of time because daughter and four of her Under-10 teammates had been called up to play for one of the Under-12 teams.

We were the first to arrive for the 7 o’clock game – we were just in time to see another U-12 team from our club get to half time. They spotted my daughter in her striped game shirt and ran over, begging her to play or they’d have to forfeit the game because they didn’t have enough players. Only eight years old but already showing promising signs of the full-fledged guilt of a grown woman, daughter agreed to play even though she was absolutely terrified to play alone with these big girls – some of whom were four years older and about a foot taller than she is.

My point?

Uh.... Who the hell knows by now? Maybe it's that I’m always late because I never shut up?

Oh wait, I remember now. My point is... sorry I’m late with my blog. Again. :)


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1. Don’t worry, there are usually other parents around, and she knows to go to the office if the others leave and I’m not there yet. She knows this because, well, I’m late a lot. Or at least I used to be. I did ok this past school year. Most days. Except windy ones.

2. A fact determined once when my in-laws visited us for three weeks.

3. Albeit a slight incline. A really slight one. Like, not visible to the naked eye nor detectable by anyone who walks more than the length of themselves twice a week.

4. A bona fide hill this time, I swear.

5. Lemme esplain how frikkin' windy it is up there. If Chicago showed up and challenged the St. Stephen's hill to an arm-wrestling contest, the home of Oprah would henceforth have to be re-nicknamed the Gentle Tropical Breeze City. 

6. My father’s “time-to-end-this-conversation” catchphrase.

My hair looked fabulous yesterday

...for about 15 minutes.

More blogging soon, I promise.

That is all.

LoMyFuMiMo

Many writers rejoice (or shudder) as November approaches, for our favourite cold damp month brings with it NaNoWriMo, AKA National Novel Writing Month. During NaNoWriMo, some crazy writer types in the US and beyond commit to writing a 50,000 word novel (each!) over the course of one month.

After a slow start (I did a bit at the beginning, then nothing for three weeks), my NaNoWriMo is looking a little like LoMyFuMiMo (Losing My Mind Month) at this point. However, progress has been made.

Since I’ve already got one novel drafted and another started, and there was no way in hell I was ever going to write 50,000 new words this month, I committed instead to a serious schedule of revising and writing. So JoReWriMo (Jodi’s Revising and Writing Month) broke down into 5,000 new words and 72,000¹ revised words. Or, in other words², a couple of chapters in the new novel and a few blogs for the new, and a completed second draft of the existing novel for the revision.

To me, NaNoWriMo is all about just doing it. Getting ‘er done. Ass in chair, hands on pen/keyboard. Making some goals and sticking to them. Staying up late and shunning paying work for the dream.

And for the past week especially, that’s exactly what I’ve been doing.

So why am I boring you with this poopstorm of decidedly unfunny facts and numbers? Because JoReWriMo is precisely why I haven’t been blogging lately. Yes, after only a month into production, I had to take a hiatus from blogging to make a sincere run at draft two. Plus my daughter turned eight and my in-laws visited for two of this fine month’s fours weeks.³ Life gets in the way.

But the cold November rains will soon be gone, I’ve got 2,750 new and 67,000 revised words in the can and I am going for the win.

So stay tuned and wish me luck—we’ll be talking again before you know it...

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1 - Yah – you read that right. 72k. Although it’s turning more into 80k because of the stuff I’ve added in.

2 – Jodi’s are punny.

3 – Yah – you read that right. Please see Now We’re Talking! “Some people (me) never learn...” re: not blogging self out of wills. Also, see this blog. :~)

Mwah! Mwah! Mwah! (1)

So I was going to do a post about rejection (in all its many forms), but I’m feeling pretty damn huggy this week, so I’m going to instead do some Now We’re Talking² (aka Now We’re Talking With Jodi³) shout outs. Word!

First of all, Now We’re Talking⁴ shout outs to each and every one of you who have stopped by, shared a link, made a comment and showed unfathomable support and love. I am touched and humbled.

A Now We’re Talking⁵ shout out to the ultra-fabulous Halifax Broad. This super-talented graphic designer by day and blogger by night (or vice versa) talked about (and expanded beautifully upon) the Kegel Pole-ka™ in her amazing blog and I’m sure is responsible for the handful of new followers I have who are not my friends or relatives! Yay! People I don’t know! Now YOU are my friends too!

Another Now We’re Talking⁶ shout out to the organizers of and participants in the MSVU Celebration of Writing. After all my angst, I ended up having a fantastic time. My panelmates, Jon Tattrie and Jan Morrison, were particularly charming and clever, and I sat front and centre to listen to the lovely and delightful Sheree Fitch's keynote address. (I laughed. I cried. I’m not proud.) During the panel, Sheree⁷ and a few awesome buddies of mine were kind enough to ask me questions that made me feel like a real writer, rather than the poser I am on most days. Now, someone may burst my delusions of grandeur, but I believe I didn’t make a complete fool of myself. And sometimes that’s all you can hope for in this world.

So the next time someone calls and asks you to do something waaaay outside your comfort zone, try saying yes. You might have fun!⁸

That's quite enough treacly sweetness for today. I promise a funny post when this insanely busy week is over. Plus all this happiness—well, let’s just say I’m funnier when I’m agitated, so I’ll work on that.

On a COMPLETELY unrelated topic (*cough*), did I mention my in-laws are staying with us for two weeks? *whistlesasherassgetskickedoutofStarbucksafterbeingthereforsixhours*

Mwah! Now we’re talking!⁹

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1. Those are kisses, in case you didn’t know. Onomatopoeia is not a strong suit for me. Nor are metaphors and symbolism. And here I fancy myself a writer. HA!

2. Shameless whoring of self/Now We’re Talking to search engines, part 1.

3. Shameless whoring of self/Now We’re Talking to search engines, part 2.

4. Shameless whoring of self/Now We’re Talking to search engines, part 3.

5. OK—last one. I swear.

6. I lie like a rug. Better for you to find out now, don’tcha think?

7. Who thinks I’m funny, by the way.

8. Hey Susan D. Rushdie, you can come out of hiding again! Mwah! to you too! Thanks!

9. Jodi Reid... carrying a joke too far... (David Spade voice)