Authors Electric

We all have our lists of Great Ideas. And, no matter what agent Don Maass thinks, we're not always bubbleheads when we pitch a new book as our best. But another list claims my attention today: Great Impossible Ideas. Imagine, for example, a TV show called American (Wr)Idol. Or So You Think You Can Write. Or The (Inner) Voice. That's right, a sizzling reality show that brings the same excitement to the writing business as the others to singing or dancing. We could start with a montage of lead contestants training (perched for hours at their desks...taking long walks on the beach...filling trash cans with rewrites and bottles of booze...etc.). Then we'd move briskly along to the auditions for auditions: writers working for weeks on their queries which net them form rejections: 'Promising but too pitchy'...'You write well in places but--well, not for us.'...Onward to the Main Event: the final 12 who make it to full manuscript reads by top agents...And on....

There were lots of little steps along the way to my becoming a real writer, from getting my hands on notebooks and pencils at primary school, to joining a writers’ group, to getting my first novel published, but I didn’t do this by myself. Like a ball on a bagatelle board, I’ve often been pushed to the next step by something I’ve read, words that became mantras, or by mentors, wonderful people without whom I doubt I would ever have become a writer. Like thousands of others, I’m a huge fan of the ‘The Voice’.  The Voice UK judges 2014: courtesy of telegraph.co.uk For anyone who hasn’t seen this tv show, it’s a competition to find the next superstar singer, judged by four famous singers who don’t set eyes on the contestant until they’ve chosen them to go on, solely on the sound of their singing. I like the banter among the judges, I like will i.am’s mad metaphors and Kylie’s rain dance, even Tom Jones’s name-dropping. He’s sung with Elvis, you know! But what impresses me mos...