Side Tracked by Possibilities

Years ago, I heard on the radio, a cancer doctor talking about his patients.  He said something I've never forgotten.  He said optimal performers are not side tracked by possibilities.  What does that have to do with cancer?  I think he was saying people who accept they have cancer, find out what is the best treatment for them, then pursue it doggedly, have the best chance of survival.

That advice and a lot of luck, helped me survive cancer six years ago.  Wow, six years ago at this time, I was in the middle of chemo, the cute little name we give to putting powerful poison into our bodies.  "Chemo".  Sounds like the name of an animated character in a Pixar movie.

I thought she was blogging about writing a novel, you might say.  Well, yes, I am.  I am in the middle of one of the hardest "other things" (see yesterday) and I thought of optimal performers.  The task at hand is writing a synopsis of the whole novel in one page.  Not just blathering on for a page, I can do blathering no problem at all.

No, this synopsis has to be tight, crisp, believable, something that grabs the agents and publishers.  Something that makes millions of people want to read this novel.  Whoa, now I'm scaring myself.  But really, the competition is fierce.  It is kind of scary.  But it's also very exciting.

As I make my way through the last 150 pages of Fifty Shades, the climax of all three books is finally here.  What I've been waiting for.  I said I feared my own writing being contaminated by reading Fifty Shades.  But I have to say the reading is the easiest I've done since I discovered Little House on the Prairie almost fifty years ago.

Reading Fifty Shades has been like eating candy.  But now, finally, the climax has arrived, after fourteen hundred eighty two pages.  A tease equal to one concocted by Christian Grey himself.  You really do have to read all three books to find out what happens.  E. L. James is brilliant.  Although I wish she knew that eye rolling is the universal sign of contempt and bodes very badly for the relationships of those who practice it.

Well, talk about being sidetracked, I don't want to spend too much time blogging about Fifty Shades.  My point is the synopsis of the trilogy can be written in only a few words. Something like, Millionaire playboy with kinky sex life finally finds love of his life and has to face his demons if he is to have the love he deep down desires and so desperately needs to heal himself.

So that is a point in E. L. James' favor.  Especially in the world of marketing fiction.  In that way, E. L. James is brilliant, or has a brilliant agent, or publisher, or possibly all three are true.  Also, sex sells, but we all knew that, didn't we?

Hmmm that gives me an idea.

More later.