{"id":3810,"date":"2012-02-06T05:00:21","date_gmt":"2012-02-06T11:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/?p=3810"},"modified":"2012-02-06T11:42:12","modified_gmt":"2012-02-06T17:42:12","slug":"in-defense-of-quirky","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/2012\/02\/06\/in-defense-of-quirky\/","title":{"rendered":"In Defense of Quirky"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright\" title=\"Maple Leaves.\" src=\"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/images\/mapleleaves.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"250\" height=\"343\" \/>I&#8217;ve recently mentioned the book I&#8217;m currently working on, <em><a title=\"A Magic Life excerpt.\" href=\"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/2011\/11\/17\/another-change-in-writing-plans\/\">A Magic Life<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>A couple people have emailed to ask what&#8217;s been happening with the novel I wrote before starting <em>A Magic Life<\/em>. That novel is called <a title=\"The first season of Promise.\" href=\"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/promisepeek.pdf\"><em>Promise<\/em><\/a>, and I&#8217;m currently shopping it around to agents.<\/p>\n<p>The general feeling from the rejections I&#8217;ve received so far is, &#8220;Hey, I really like this. You&#8217;re a talented writer, but&#8230;it&#8217;s a bit quirky in places, and I&#8217;m not sure how to market that.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>This was the same reaction I got with <a title=\"Hell Comes with Wood Paneled Doors.\" href=\"http:\/\/www.roadtripfromhell.com\"><em>Hell Comes with Wood Paneled Doors<\/em><\/a> &#8212; a totally different kind of novel.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Quirky Fiction<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>I understand the apprehension surrounding something deemed quirky. At the same time, some of my favorite books &#8212; which are often the favorite books of others &#8212; are quite quirky.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The random [sometimes, almost ridiculous] happenings in John Irving&#8217;s novels are quirky.<\/li>\n<li>My favorite novel, <em>A Trail of Heart&#8217;s Blood Wherever We Go<\/em> &#8212; quirky!<\/li>\n<li>Kurt Vonnegut was a quirky writer.<\/li>\n<li>Many bestsellers are quirky.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><strong>The Power of Quirkiness<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>There&#8217;s staying power in quirkiness; it&#8217;s often the difference between a typical novel and a memorable novel. Quirkiness can be that thing that sets an author apart from so many others, creating loyal fans.<\/p>\n<p>Mark Haddon sat on bestseller lists for <em>The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time; <\/em>Leif Enger&#8217;s <em>Peace Like a River<\/em> did, too. Chuck Palahniuk has made a living from twisted quirkiness. Michael Chabon won the Pulitzer Prize with a novel that has Salvador Dali almost drowning while wearing a diving bell at an upscale party!<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s power in the little things that give an author their voice.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>The Fate of Promise<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>I know I&#8217;m onto something from the feedback I&#8217;ve received so far in regards to <em>Promise<\/em>; I know it takes just that one yes to have a shot.<\/p>\n<p>While what happens with <em>Promise <\/em>remains to be seen, as I loaded a <a title=\"The first season of Promise.\" href=\"..\/..\/..\/promisepeek.pdf\">much longer peek at <em>Promise<\/em> on my website<\/a> yesterday, I skimmed passages that I haven&#8217;t read in months and was proud to be in the company of the myriad quirky novels that came before.<\/p>\n<p>No matter what happens, I&#8217;m not sure I&#8217;ll ever write a more <em>me <\/em>novel in my life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve recently mentioned the book I&#8217;m currently working on, A Magic Life. A couple people have emailed to ask what&#8217;s been happening with the novel I wrote before starting A Magic Life. That novel is called Promise, and I&#8217;m currently shopping it around to agents. The general feeling from the rejections I&#8217;ve received so far [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":""},"categories":[7,28],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3810"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3810\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}