The Eternal Student

When I was in Law School at dear old Boalt, I made the mistake of complaining to my Contracts teacher about the hundreds of pages of homework he assigned after each class.

“I can’t wait until I’m practicing and no longer a student,” I said. “And homework will be a thing of the past!”

He laughed. He laughed maniacally.

“To be a lawyer is to be the eternal student,” he said, wiping away tears when his laughter subsided. “You will always be learning. The law is not static. It changes every day. And if you are to be a competent lawyer, you will have to keep up with the changes. That means you will have to be reading new case law at night because you’ll be too busy during the day. Every new case will bring an issue you have to research. And the State Bar will require you to take refresher courses so you don’t grow stale.”

Then he laughed maniacally again. And I wondered if it was too late to get into plumber’s school.

He was right, damn his eyes. I have been practicing 34 years and still have to read cases, do research, take legal seminars. In fact, next year I have to show the State Bar I’ve taken 12 hours of Continuing Legal Education. Ugh.

As a writer, it seems I am always being told I need to learn new things. It’s not enough that I read voraciously in a dozen different fields (my latest kick is Asian literature). It’s not enough that I try to write 500-1000 words a night. It’s not enough that I revise and revise and ask others to read my work to improve it.

No, I need to go back to school. Again and again.

Writer’s Conferences. Writer’s Seminars. Writer’s guidebooks. How-to-write-your-bestseller books. Video seminars. Writer’s Digest and Writer Magazine. Poets and Writers Magazine.

All of them promising to give me the final bit of knowledge I need to write that book the publishers will love.

Meanwhile, I read books the publishers have committed to paper and find that all of the advice I’m being given is cheerfully ignored by the authors they love.

For instance, the iron-clad rule for agents and publishers these days is that a mystery cannot have a prologue. A prologue, for the uninitiated, is a short passage at the start of the book which sets up the rest of the book. Usually it does not feature the protagonist.

I used such a device in my novel “Minerva James and the God of War.” Everyone said I shouldn’t. Yet of the last 4 new mysteries I’ve bought at Barnes & Nobles, half have had prologues.

Another thing they say is, you’ve got to start with exciting action. Don’t have your character driving down the road, walking down the street, having coffee at a cafe, etc. Start with a fist fight or a car chase or “the inciting incident”–e.g., the murder.

Yet of the last 10 new mystery books I’ve read, only one started in such an exciting way. The others all started with the protagonist moving into a new home or having breakfast thinking about their past or waking after a restful sleep or walking into their place of business.

In other words, do as I say, not as I do.

I sigh. But you have to play by the “rules” if you want to get a fair hearing. Because the publishing world, like the movies, TV, and music, all want to do what everyone else is doing. 90% of them have no imagination. It’s why J.K. Rowling’s boy wizard went through 30 different publishing houses before she found an editor who wanted to work with her–and then only because the editor left “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” on the kitchen table where his 13-year-old daughter picked it up.

I am working with a “development editor” to iron out these little burrs in my story. We’ll see if I need to go back to school or if I can graduate to having a novel published by a traditional house.

Stay tuned, my friends.