Storytellers Unplugged » Writing

Thomas Sullivan: BREAST-FED BRAINS vs. NOITANIGAMI

Thomas Sullivan — Tue, 15 May 2012 22:00:16 +0000

Think back. Way back. Lying-in-your-bassinet back. What kind of formula were you raised on? No-no…I don’t mean breast milk/formula. I mean how was your life orchestrated? Dr. Spock baby? Schedules/organization/chaos/mommy-was-on-Valium? Meat and potatoes lifestyle? (Dunno…I’ve repressed all that)? The answer is very important to your imagination and creativity. No question, creativity can either be given wings or pushed off a cliff while we are still in the cradle – creatle.

True, hardwiring is major. By nature a few of us will never find our way out of the box, and a few others will never find their way into the box; but there’s enough spark of imagination in most of us to escape becoming a zombie spectator to life, if that spark gets kindled early-on. Whether or not that nurturing takes place in a meaningful way may be largely circumstantial. Example:

You are six again…your older sister has taken you to the Roxy theater for a double feature, and you come in two-thirds of the way through the first flick where the plot (and character relationships) has already thickened, as they say. If this isn’t the way you usually see movies, you will probably be overwhelmed, frustrated or bored by an inscrutable story. But if that’s just the way you go to shows – spectator interruptus – then over time you may simply learn to fill in the blanks and connect dots in order to make sense of the films. During that process you’ll need to recognize probabilities in the twists, and patterns in the relationships, and how to reach beyond into possibilities. Some of that will just be predicting things and events, but understanding character relationships and motivations will play large. Did the couple date/mate/hate? Is Lucille trying to marry/bury Hugo? You get good at it after a while. And whenever you’re surprised by a new character revelation or a plot twist, you learn, you grow.

A generation ago that kind of fragmented assimilating was early training for recognizing and understanding patterns and possibilities. You seldom got to hear complete radio shows or saw movies starting from the beginning, owing to the fact that the former were usually heard in short car trips and the latter was the way kids went to theaters – just dropping in, not waiting for a starting time. The result was learning to make inferences, exploiting all the possibilities gleaned from experience, and going beyond into the realm of creativity. It was the beginning of playing “What if…?” But radio as a story medium is largely gone now, and visual media is so comprehensive that there are fewer dots to connect. Imagination, alas, has been spoon fed into dormancy in the average person.

As a writer –and former teacher – I think I’m describing a pretty major generational change here. In short order we’ve evolved from think-on-demand lifestyles through prefabbed consumerism into a world of intense media that seductively offers to relieve us of our last outpost of independent thinking if not individualism itself. Even the process of producing that media has become digitally packaged to play out variables with less need for organic imagination. Need a plot, a character, a story arc? Plenty of apps out there to help you along in whatever medium you are working. Or in almost every other phase of life and labor, for that matter. It’s number painting for the mind. You see the problem here? We need some imagination about our imaginations.

Of course, you don’t have to sign onto passiveness and there will always be mavericks who do not. Is surrendering evermore to the alluring orchestrations of life a moral question? What’s wrong with enjoying the ride, a life of ease and input from outside sources? Well, nothing in an instant gratification and emotive culture; but being dumbed out of the management of existence other than to feel in a world that increasingly offers to take care of you from cradle to crypt has its price. Hello, Big Brother. And if you don’t particularly want to have another sib, big or otherwise, if you bristle at the idea of being kept, if you want to preserve and enhance your native skills and self-reliance, there are ways of doing that. Because the good news is that if you can’t teach creativity, you can still train it. Anyone who enjoys thinking can use the kind of sampling approach I described above to strengthen their grasp of the world around them. But it is always easier to feel than to think. Easier still to make them mutually exclusive and just go with instant gratification and an emotive reflex to the life around us. So, at first, it may require a conscious effort to look for the dots in life that need connecting in a purely analytical way. They’re still there, however. In nature. In prima facie life. Peek through a keyhole, put a cup to the wall, follow some footprints in the snow, or just go stand in nature until “you get it.” Practice extrapolating and interpreting full scenes from scraps and vignettes. It may be as much a matter of NOT joining the masses in the grandstands of life as it is finding your own way. At least that’s a start.

Yeah, I know, sounds silly. Sounds Orwellian or Huxleyistic or some other dire apocalyptic warning done in flashing crimson neon about society going to hell in a basket. But really, evolutionary changes are not revolutionary. They are slow, sometimes insidious. If something restless inside you sparks with recognition as you read this, then maybe you’re a candidate for escaping group-think, for living more freely and independently, for resisting the wave of media-driven usurpation. Maybe you’re an – oh, I don’t know – A WRITER! Leave the crowd behind and you’ll be on your way to something. I don’t have a clue as to what. I mean, this isn’t a formula, is it? That would be going back to breast and bottle. You’re on your own now. IMAGINE that…

Thomas “Sully” Sullivan

http://www.thomassullivanauthor.com

http://www.facebook.com/#!/profile.php?id=1219261326

http://twitter.com/thomassullivan

A Room With a View

Carole Lanham — Wed, 02 May 2012 16:32:30 +0000

Last month, I went hiking off into the desert and completely forgot what day it was. By the time I realized I’d missed my April Storyteller’s post, I was a good fifty feet into the black depths of a dusty mine and at least thirty or more miles from the spot where the last lone bar on my husband’s iphone weakly bled away. There was absolutely nothing to be done about the missed deadline and yet, for a split second, I twisted around and looked back at the little hole of white sunshine that was the opening of the mine. It was no bigger than a flashlight beam by this point and the only civilization to be found beyond were five dirty four wheel drives, two blue tents, a rather handsomely preserved but primitive miners cabin, and the rusted bits and pieces of a community that died off over a hundred years ago. Still, I had the uncanny urge to sprint as fast as I could toward the light and try to get something worked out. Alas, Google wasn’t out there. The majority of people I keep in my phone weren’t out there either. I’ve grown so used to being the press of a button away from everything I “need” in life that I felt the remoteness of where I was more keenly than I ever have before. But hey, this is why I love camping in Death Valley, right?

Missing deadlines is no good and I don’t suggest doing it, but if you prepare right (and I usually do), taking a break from all your worries sure would help a lot. A good number of people here at Storyteller’s Unplugged have said it better than I will say it now, but its a plain fact that you need to step out of the office sometimes and live a little in order to feed your soul and your memory banks.

Here’s the thing: I’m made unreasonably happy by my cluttered desk with its vast piles of un-pitched junk mail, half-emptied coffee cups, and hundreds of little post-it notes reminding me that I need to kill off someone or change the chapter title on page 32 or pick up milk. And yes, I’ve completely buried the postcard that tells me it’s time for my next check-up, and it takes me, on average, six and a half minutes to find a red pen, but I still adore it and am loathe to ever separate myself from the unholy mountains of mayhem. When I’m in the zone, I want to do nothing but write. And maybe eat Frosted Flakes while I write. That feeling carries over sometimes even when I’m not in the zone. That’s when taking a hike is advised.

My first book came out the end of October and I’ve been working my tail off ever since. You won’t hear me complaining about that but hitting the road and driving until the running boards on the truck became shredded by the narrow, brambly one-way passage that led far from my desk – this was a very therapeutic thing! Sometimes the only way to recharge your batteries is to leave the battery-operated world behind.

If you’re a writer straight through to your core, you will be writing even as you live through the big and small things in your life. Your desk will not end with the dust-covered globe that sits atop the Papa John’s coupons. It will stretch to your grandmother’s bedside, to the weeds under the rose bushes, to the curve of broken ore-cart tracks that wind through the mine you visited on vacation. Its important to remember that inspiration does not come at the keyboard, rather it is brought there from points beyond. Even the realization that you’ve missed a deadline and can’t do anything thing about it can offer you something to write about in the future.

Of course, all of this probably goes without saying but sometimes I personally need a little kick out the door. My hope for you is that your desk will stretch to many fine places this summer and inthe wintery months beyond.

Happy writing!

Carole Lanham is the author of a collection of award-winning short stories called the Whisper Jar.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Whisper-Jar-ebook/dp/B0062ID33K

Thomas Sullivan: AMERICAN “IDLE” or HOW I MET RANDY, JENNIFER AND STEVEN AT A MOTEL 6

Thomas Sullivan — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 00:24:05 +0000

Well, actually the Motel 6 was a Best Western War Bonnet Inn, but that makes the title of this essay too long. In any case, that’s where I was the night a pet theory of mine was severely wounded if not shot through the heart. See, it was my belief that listening to radio as opposed to watching TV helped me develop as a writer. No steady diet of pictures for me, I thought, thank you very much. I mostly supply my own because a visual media demands too much attention and seriously distracts from the on-board entertainment center that came with my brain at birth. For me, TV is largely radio with a visual proxy for one’s imagination thrown in. Oh, I turn TVs on – turn ‘em on all over the house – only, I keep doing stuff while I half listen and fill in the visuals from my own paper thin skull. But being on the road one night brought me face-to-face with a motel bed and a TV and nothing else between Minnesota and Idaho. So there was American Idol, a show you don’t necessarily have to watch. I mean, it’s about music and talking, right? (Like, “Now and then there’s a fool such as I”… Sully!) Turns out there’s lotsa drama, sex, violence, and subtle sabotage going on that you can’t always infer from a sound track. Take this particular night in Montana. There’s Joshua, who Ryan Seacrest tells us is sick with something like bubonic plague, fresh in from ER where he threw up 63 times…

Ryan: “How are you feeling, Joshua?”

Joshua (zombie voice): “Like I’m gonna fall off a ladder…”

Ryan (standing in platform shoes): “I know the feeling.”

Camera pans across tres cool trio: Randy Jackson nods amiably behind glittering dark glasses and flashes his piano-key smile. Jennifer Lopez in a tight mini crosses her left leg over her right, causing a small earth tremor along the Continental Divide as millions of America’s males in the TV audience tilt their heads left. Steven Tyler sits ramrod straight but swaying as if searching for gravity, his dark glasses glittering like miniature versions of Randy’s. Oh, wait. He’s not wearing glasses.

Joshua of the bubonic plague snuggles down the bench where all the finalists sit, driving contestant Jessica in the other direction with a series of gluteal contractions not unlike an inch-worm trying to sprint. She is momentarily saved from catching whatever Joshua has when Ryan calls him forward to account in the voting. But, alas, now Ryan calls her name as well, and Joshua offers her his hand. As they come forward, he drags her into his embrace. Ryan relates more details about the virulent flu that has brought Joshua to death’s door, then tells him he is “safe.” Joshua exhales with huge relief over Jessica, who begins to sway like Steven. When Ryan tells Jessica she is also saved, Joshua smothers her with hugs and kisses.

Camera pans to Randy, still nodding, flashing ivory smile. Jennifer uncrosses left leg, crosses right. Earth tremor along New Madrid fault line as millions of America’s males now tilt heads right. Suddenly Steven is the only person in the studio not swaying and this causes him to open his eyes all the way to a squint. Tremor subsides. Audience steadies. Steven resumes swaying, closes gumdrop eyes.

Ryan announces sneak preview of Jennifer’s new music video. Lights dim. And there she is, legs completely uncrossed, undulating out of skimpy clothes. It appears she will run out of clothes before running out of music, but male dancers surround her with ballet moves sort of like Swan Lake on Viagra. Video ends with Jennifer still dressed. Music wins — no FCC fines. Cut to commercial for Coke.

Live return focuses on benches, where Jessica has now turned into Typhoid Mary. Bubonic plague Joshua is puckering up to spread more good will. Other contestants perform a never-before-seen version of “the wave” to avoid them both. Ryan stands 10 feet away as Jessica drops dead. Cut to tasteless Charmin commercial of bears with toilet paper stuck to mangy fur butts.

When we return, the least physically endowed female — who sings exactly 2.9 times better than nearest rival — is being voted off. Inversely, male cutesy hunk whose chainsaw voice achieves almost a full octave on a good night is revealed to have garnered the most votes. Piercing screams from 10-year-old females fill studio, causing Randy to cringe, his eyes exploding into spotlights while his smile fades as though he is connected to a rationed power grid. Jennifer tries to cross both legs at same time, causing major neck dislocations across America. In Wyoming Yellowstone dome blows. Steven unperturbed. Appears to be humming Gregorian chant. Over on benches, Joshua goes for group hug. Three more contestants drop dead –

…CUT!

OK. Maybe I’m exaggerating just a tad. You see how my subconscious works. The techs of my imagination in charge of visuals aren’t used to this much stimulation. They’re used to winging it. Which is the whole point. I don’t want to dumb them down, smother their creativity, or put them out of work with TVs prepackaged orchestrations. But that’s not what just happened. On this particular night and at this particular dosage of canned visual media my circuits are working the same way they work in real life from prima fascia evidence. This is a useful discovery for a writer. It turns out the ON-OFF switch isn’t just on the Idiot Tube remote, it’s in my mind. I don’t have to watch like a spoon-fed infant or Igor the Zombie lying on a coffin couch with a six-pack of beer and half the refrigerator. I can interact satirically or with nuanced perceptions to play out all the “What if’s” of what I’m seeing, same as I do in everyday reality. Thank you, Motel 6. Thank you Ryan, Randy, Jennifer and Steven (…cool guy, Steven). Dunno if I’ll be back with full attention – I still like to move around the house multitasking when TVs are on – but I am nothing if not adaptable. So I’m fine-tuning the concept of being a spectator. I am an interactive spectator. Hey, maybe I should tape THAT – the running commentary on whatever I’m “watching.” Wouldn’t have to be just sarcasm, could add a touch of poignancy here, a little poetry there, and meaningful social/historical context…and let’s not forget romantic idealism, and – are you getting this? This could blossom into a new reality TV show. Imagine GUEST interactive spectators in my living room! Like, like…hey, Steven, what are you doing next — uh-oh. Got to shut down those rogue neurons in my papier-mâché brain before they go viral. Shakespeare Sully’s imagination has left the building.

Thomas “Sully” Sullivan

http://www.thomassullivanauthor.com

http://www.facebook.com/#!/profile.php?id=1219261326

http://twitter.com/thomassullivan

http://www.amazon.com/The-Martyring-ebook/dp/B0069CIFL4/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1321818520&sr=1-1

Reviews and Such

Gerard Houarner — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 09:00:52 +0000

Last month I did something I usually try to avoid – look for reviews online. It’s one of those “be careful what you wish for” exercises I regret more often than I find satisfying. I did find a nice quote from a review of a story published in a U.K anthology, Blind Swimmer:

There are writers who write stories for the sake of entertainment, and then there are storytellers who understand what stories and myths are meant for. Gerard Houarner is both a writer and a storyteller.

Thanks, tangetonline. I’ll be using that one. But, of course, I found some less than enthusiastic comments about other things, and, more disturbing, silence. Chunks of work, ignored. It’s like sending a piece out and not only don’t you get an answer, there’s not even a response to a query.

But that’s just business. You bust your butt, but there are no guarantees. Maybe your work gets published. Maybe it sells to an editor who maybe asks for a few changes, says some nice things, puts together a great project, and you get to see your name in print and cash a check.

Maybe a reader says something nice, sometime, in a convention hallway or on Amazon. Movies, awards, yeah, they’re all right around the corner.

The best warning I’ve heard about reviews is that if you believe the good ones, you’ll have to believe the bad ones.

Good ones don’t help sell the next book. Bad ones won’t kill your career.

Sales will.

Reviews won’t help you write the next one, either.

But. In our new online universe, reviews are a form of currency. They appear everywhere, from retailers to reader sites to blogs to social networks. Good ones encourage attention, which may lead to sales. Bad ones, especially a lot of them, pretty much kill the deal.

Used to be, dedicated specialists, hardcore readers, folks with an understanding of some kind of literary history, whether world, western, genre, or maybe just what they read when they were growing up, used to write them. They were a kind of mint, producing a steady stream of dependable currency. And because these reviews were printed in little magazines, or specialty magazines, or the NYT and Atlantic Monthly and such, there were standards maintained for reviews, and a community of a certain kind of audience found them and made their buying decisions accordingly.

Not anymore. The community has gotten better. Anybody can write them. Everybody’s got an opinion. Standards, well, they’re all over the place, and often no place at all.

(An interesting discussion of reviewing occurred recently on Jeff VanderMeer’s Facebook page, bringing up the point that reviews, in general, are still an individual reader’s experience of a story and tastes and subjectivity play a role, no matter how intricate the intellectual dressing. And then there are the pressures of pumping them out on deadline. Oh, yeah, and opinions change over time, anyway. And not just about Melville.)

It’s hard to earn good (and by good, I mean genuine and positive) ones, just like real money. People who like your writing need to care enough to post something. That’s hard, because it’s often easier to complain about something that you think sucked than to be write something positive about something you liked. Being pissed off gets you energetic. Being happy makes you do other things that make you happy, which often isn’t sitting online writing reviews. Human nature. Sometimes, you have to go after them by encouraging readers to post.

Or you can make them up in your own little counterfeiting operation.

That’s part of the problem, of course. Little conspiracies, friends popping up with the same wording on the reviews like perps telling the same story the same way to understanding detectives – very embarrassing. But, human nature.

Unfortunately, hundreds of short, even monosyllabic five star reviews tend to cheapen the occasional good, genuine ones, and overwhelm the dozens of genuine bad ones. Alas, this creates confusion and cheapens the currency, makes it suspect.

But the currency doesn’t seem to be going away. At every turn, we’re asked to evaluate, to review, to give feedback. It’s the age of accountability, after all. Or, maybe it’s the age of spin control. Is it the age of bullshit, yet? I get confused, sometimes.

Despite the problems, I do believe a healthy account of positive reviews behind a book listing does garner attention. Builds that all-important readership, the kind of people who like what you do, not how – as in what specific genre or style you might decide to work in – you do it. The kind of people who want to read anything by X because they like what X does.

(Yes, I know, some folks stray way off the reservation and go all “abduction” or “Jesus” on people, driving away even the core readership. Human nature is a bastard.)

In my own shopping experience for anything, I’ll research, read the reviews, read them critically for factors like taste (current Amazon.com reviews for Ghost Story have 12 one-stars, 15 two-stars, out of 139, seriously). One guy says a jacket’s sleeves are too long, okay, got it, but if two or three people have the same reaction and not enough evidence to the contrary services, pattern recognition kicks in). In hotel reviews, there’s always somebody who was stuck with a bad room, a noisy neighbor.

So, what to do about earning some more of those genuine good reviews?

Hmmm, still thinking about that one. Does asking nicely really help? I’ve seen writers gently ask folks who may have written a nice formal review if they’d post it on Amazon, and I’ve seen some reviewers do that unasked.

Run contests for posted reviews? I’m uncomfortable with that.

There’s the old editor’s response to “what will it take for me to sell you a story” – write better stories, of course.

If you read it and you like it don’t clap your hands, post a review.

Just ask.

Look, I started this off with the old advice of not taking this stuff too seriously. But, with reviews becoming so much more important as a marketing tool, and with money at stake, that’s not so easy to do, anymore.

Once again: But.

Lots of people have opinions. Some of these opinions are pretty well informed, or at least founded on a set of literary standards, a well-defined sense of taste and some skill and experience in presenting an argument. Doesn’t make them right for you, of course. Other opnions, not so much.

Take it easy out there. I’ll take my little tangetonline quote, use it on the site. Maybe it’ll wind up on a book or an ad. I got a moment’s validation out of it, which very quickly evaporated. A few of them put together may sustain the illusion of a career, if you’re lucky. Not as much as contracts, checks, and work coming out on a regular basis. Just don’t let them lull you (or depress you) into lowering your guard, ambition, work ethic, creativity, standards, discipline, and all the other things that keep a writer looking more at the space where the next word goes instead of the space occupied by other people’s opinion of what you’re doing.

Otherwise, well, if you haven’t caught up to it yet, you can check Christopher Priest perhaps taking the “awards” thing (not unlike the “review” thing) a bit too seriously.

http://www.christopher-priest.co.uk/journal/1077/hull-0-scunthorpe-3/

He’s not the first person I’ve heard who wanted to fire judges. Some folks wanted to fire the professionals who supposedly selected this or that as the best, or the readers, who picked a over b,c and d.

If you listen more than you talk at certain kinds of gatherings, you hear old stories and questions about this or that award ceremony, the legendary meltdowns, the gossip, frustration and resentment. The CP tempest in a teapot inspired a range of reactions, some pretty funny. I liked Nick Mamatas’ response:

http://nihilistic-kid.livejournal.com/

Stop whining.

The Literature will survive. If it’s worth it, so will (some small portion) your work. If you’re very, very, very good. No matter what the reviews said.

This is Lawrence Block on blurbs, which are kind of related to reviews:

http://lawrenceblock.wordpress.com/2012/03/24/no-i-wont-give-you-a-blurb-heres-why/

And finally, word from a publisher:

http://www.gollancz.co.uk/2012/03/right-to-review/

Civil reviews and critiques. Yes. Never mind that you can get away with saying anything from behind an electronic mask. Say it like you’d like your boss or a customer, your spouse, your kid, to pull your coat on something you did that was less than stellar.

Say it like you’re saying it to somebody’s face. Take the same risk the writer did to put the work out there.

And if you’ve got it, show some love.

Thomas Sullivan: SORTING OUT GERONIMO IN EAST MUNGLEOPOLIS

Thomas Sullivan — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 00:26:27 +0000

Wazzup, World? Goin’ for the jugular here. This month’s column is gonna lay out the case for: What You Should Spend Your Hard-Earned Moolah and Precious Time Reading. Too glib? Okay…rephrase. This month’s column is: A Discussion of the Best and Worst Genres. Too blunt? No problem…upgrade to: A Polemic on the “A Priori” Attributes of Meritworthy Prose. Blah. All right…the essay this month is: Good Writing vs. Bad. Except for one thing…

No matter how I style the title, I can’t tell one from the other, even as an example in kind of good or bad writing.

Haven’t a clue. On the other hand, I’m reasonably sure no one else can make a universally agreed-upon distinction between good writing and bad either. This is not a face-saving position for a writer to take. Still, readers know what’s good or bad, don’t they? The reader in each of us has no doubt whatever. Consider the following:

Hannibal Gacy Geronimo from East Mungleopolis requires three copiously bleeding murders per chapter in order to avoid snoring. Arty Pharty hates stories in which something actually happens. Brandy Bonbon reads three books a week about women made beautiful by buff men with x-ray vision who see only their souls. A. B. Cee prefers one-syllable words and anything past two gives him lip cramps as he sounds them out. Howie Bangs reads from the waist down and pictures are a plus. Gramma R. Wooden gets heartburn whenever she sees a dangling participle and will read a sentence fragment over and over until it completes itself or she gets a migraine, whichever comes first. Al L. Gore zones out and does a face plant across any page with less than a graphic description of a pint of bile and two cups of other bodily fluids. Dewey Gettit goes catatonic whenever he reads a metaphor — you know, things like Snow White or Sleeping Beauty or Rip van Winkle or… And while Hugh G. Warfann loves a book about a man who stabs a blood-lust herd of saber-toothed tree shrews to death before taking out six laser-guided missile sites and saving the Universe from the do-deca-nano-mega bomb planted in a baby pacifier, Bambi Hart only wants to know how said hero FEELS about his wife and children while his life is passing before his eyes.

Bambi may have it right, if there is a right. At least in so far as all stories need to get us on board emotionally. Reader identification. People Stories. But is there a Golden Mean that reaches all those readers, a one-size-fits-all approach for the writer trying to communicate universally? Can a writer appeal across content lines in a preference neutral style?

Short answer, no. Oh, you can try to get it all in, but that’s like feeding each animal on Noah’s Ark every other species food. Call that forced diet dim sum dumb, because you’ll wind up with all partakers who have an opposable thumb shoving it down their throats. Still, across categories there is common ground in the use or omission of certain content and stylistic elements. These have mostly to do with emphasis and proportion, I believe – in other words, how you serve up what you serve up. But before you can decide the “how” you have to consider carefully what the choices are. If you simply go with your artistic reflexes, you won’t have that choice (which is fine so long as you understand your narrowed focus). Here are just a few balance elements that even in the most tightly strictured genre can help a writer adjust their aim to either narrow (fine tune) or broaden their range of readers. I’ll present them as opposing couplets that represent reader preferences:

ACTION (spell it out, for crying out loud) VS. INFERENCE (oh, please, let me figure it out a little and don’t bore me with tired sensory bombardments – even adrenaline can become a cliché)

CHARACTERS DRIVEN BY FEAR (jangle me with cheap thrills and confirm my cynicisms about life) VS. CHARACTERS DRIVEN BY DESIRE (give me hope and fulfill my fantasies)

NARRATION (take me for a tightrope walk between show & tell) VS. DIALOG (let me overhear life just like it really happens)

THINGS & EVENTS (I know who I am, just put me some place and do something) VS. IDEAS & PEOPLE (been there, done that, so show me the impact and skip the meaningless action – if a tree falls and there’s no one around to hear it, does it make a…?)

PHYSICAL DETAIL (describe, describe, please) VS. EMOTIONAL/PSYCHOLOGICAL DETAIL (…yes, but what’s going on below the surface?)

ENHANCED LANGUAGE (metaphors, images, adjectives etc) VS. LITERAL LANGUAGE (grunt level nouns and verbs, please!)

ASSOCIATIVE FLOW OF TIME AND MEMORY (let me move freely through all aspects of people and their stories) VS. SEQUENTIAL WRITING (and then and then and then…)

There are many more juxtapositions, of course; but these are the potential imbalances I see that so often deny category writers a general readership and lock them into the most dogmatic corner within a genre. Of course, you can do it all wonderfully right and you are still at the mercy of market perceptions and how you are promoted even after you are published. Lots of luck on that one…

And I’ll close with deepest thanks for the astonishing volume of response from last month’s Q&A column [ http://storytellersunplugged.com/thomassullivan/2012/02/15/thomas-sullivan-of-silver-souls-and-carousels/ ]. Clearly many readers identified with me or my soulmate. Advice, opinions and questions crossed all borders, and I very much appreciate the feelings and frustrations you shared. Still weighing how to respond in some future Sullygram. Meanwhile, being of Irish persuasion, I offer you this St. Paddy’s Day wisdom: The trouble with a bore is that he lacks the power of conversation but not the power of speech.

Thomas “Sully” Sullivan

http://www.thomassullivanauthor.com

http://www.facebook.com/#!/profile.php?id=1219261326

http://twitter.com/thomassullivan

http://www.amazon.com/The-Martyring-ebook/dp/B0069CIFL4/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1321818520&sr=1-1

Prepare to be boarded

Bev Vincent — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 10:25:08 +0000

I’m not sure I’ve ever been this busy before. At least as far as writing is concerned. I have a major deadline coming up in about 6 weeks and I’ve got the nose to the grindstone, working every waking hour, to get this book done on schedule. It’s fun, but it’s hard. There are distractions. I have to get the taxes done. There are TV shows I’d like to watch and books I’d like to read. All of that goes onto the back burner until April 1.

However, things arise that require my attention. Such as a recent advisory at the HWA message board that a site was hosting pirated copies of work. I checked out the site and yes, indeed, something of mine was there.

This isn’t the first time I’ve had people giving away (or, in this case, selling access to) copies of my work. I’m not an obvious target, but apparently these pirates cast a wide net. I filed a DMCA notice with the site (they provided a helpful template to do so) and within about 48 hours the offending content was gone. Just mine, mind you—the site still offers scads of books by names you would certainly recognize. [Addendum: after I wrote this article, I found a site containing two pirated anthologies featuring my work. DMCA notices filed. In this instance the response was that it would be "difficult" to remove the file, but they would try. Hmm.]

It’s a little like playing whack-a-mole, though. You bop it down in one place and it pops back up again in another. Thanks to sites like the now defunct MegaUpload, people have plausible deniability. They can upload the content anonymously and provide a link to it from some other equally anonymous site. When challenged, they can claim that they are just providing a link, not hosting the content. I’ve dealt with this before. I usually focus my efforts on the hosting site, since all the links in the world don’t mean a hill of beans if there’s nothing at the end of them. Every once in a while, one of the link providers will provide a shame-faced apology when challenged.

I’m sure there are people who are saying, “What’s the big deal?” This instance doesn’t represent a big financial hit for me. The work was originally offered as a give-away chapbook, for which I was paid in advance. It’s now available only as an eBook, and I do get royalties from this, though they won’t buy me a fancy dinner most months.

However, it’s the principle of the matter. This work belongs to me. If I want to give copies of it away, that would be up to me (and the publisher, of course). No one else has the right to do so. The situation isn’t the same as with a physical book, where a person can buy a copy and then do with it what they want—short of selling photocopies of it or scanning it in and giving away (or selling) the scans. It’s perfectly acceptable for you to resell your paperback or hardcover copy of a work. It is not acceptable to distribute an eBook. In effect, when you purchase an eBook, you are licensing it in much the same way that you license software. There are terms of agreement that you enter into with the author and the publisher.

I’m not going to get into the whole “piracy can be good for your career” argument touted by some authors. I don’t believe it anymore than I believe that leaving the jewelry store unlocked at night is good for business. Letting unauthorized people control the distribution of your intellectual property just isn’t right, regardless of any perceived “benefits.”

Writers are facing the same situation that musicians did a decade or more ago when file sharing services started robbing them of the royalties they relied on to make a living. There is a general belief that this situation has shaken itself out for musicians, that entities like iTunes and Pandora have legitimized online music distribution. All you have to do is hit Google, though, to see that there is a lot of music being illegally distributed on the internet. And now books, as well.

All we can do is go after the sites that are illegally distributing our works, one at a time. Whack that mole and wait for the next one to appear. I recommend putting Google Alerts to use so that you can find out when your name or a particular title shows up on the internet. That’s the main way I find pirated copies of my work. I’m too busy to go trolling cyberspace all the time, but when cyberspace comes to me, I act.

One sad fact, though, is that some of these sites are beyond my reach. If they dig in their heels and the server is located in some distant land, there’s little I can do about it. Hell, there’s little anyone can do about it—even the big authors with deep pockets and lawyers on retainer.

That doesn’t mean, though, that we should just throw our hands in the air and give up. We pick them off one at a time. People will always steal—and some offenders don’t even consider this theft, more the pity—but this is a kind of theft that we can stop some of the time, at least. Intellectual property is real property, with real value. And I have the royalty statements to prove it.

Thomas Sullivan: OF SILVER SOULS AND CAROUSELS

Thomas Sullivan — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 21:17:10 +0000

Like some infamous interrogation room, the designation “Q&A” is starting to take on the ring of doom for me. I know I’ve been weaseling away from my prior commitment to use that format, but please do not doubt that I am exceedingly grateful for your questions and your interest. No one could have more sensitive or astute readers than I have – love you all – and I take it as some kind of affirmation that I must be dealing with meaningful issues whenever I read your penetrating questions. November’s column in particular brought in several dozen questions, most of them emotionally daunting for me, and something over half asking for details about what I meant by, “…almost found that single star to steer my ship.” Jeani of Ventura, CA, may have expressed the gist of responses best:

“…You are wrong to think that ‘[no] one could relate to the rather emotionally spartan specifics of my life anyway.’ I’m sure others would be just as intrigued as I to hear tales of little Tommy Sullivan! You did not hatch, shaved head and all, in the middle of Elm Creek on skis. Actually, I might believe that, if I did not possess a little knowledge of you prior to that version.”

Well, as I commented back in November, I asked for it, didn’t I? Thought I was going to be very candid and cleverly manage this, but now I’m thinking this is an onion, and I need to go one layer at a time. Hmmm. Not even convincing myself yet. Sorta like saying I’ll tell the truth any day except the ones that end in “y.” Okay, lemme ease in with a couple of softball questions first…

Q [Chicago, IL]: How cold do you like the MN whether before you shake your fist at it? Bonus question: do you write with more clarity during the cold weather?

A: By the time it’s that cold, my fist is embalmed in double-insert gloves with heat packs. And only a writer who has penned by candlelight in a cold garret could ask your bonus question. Your inference is true, methinks, cold does seem to sharpen perceptions, as if each thought has the crystal clarity of an icicle. But clarity of thought isn’t necessarily compelling in scenes that need emotion. E.g. they say Hitler’s optimum working temp was 62°F when he wrote Mein Kampf – so maybe cold isn’t conducive to writing warm, fuzzy stuff. Ever try writing in snow (no, not the way you’re thinking)? “S’s” done with a ski pole look like backward “Z’s.” In fact, any letters with curves done with a ski pole suck – I mean zuck. Lots of luck writing SOS.

Q [from Bonny, USA – judging from the question]: Do you ever watch American Idol? I love Stephen Tyler. His humor reminds me a bit of yours! When a person sang especially well the other night on Idol, he said Oh, I just had an eargasm ! I thought, that is something Sully would dream up!

A: Used to think I knew who I was, Bonny, but I get enough “you-remind-me-of’s” so that I now have an identity crisis and talk to myself in 7 languages. I’m flattered at your choice though, as I’ve been compared with Boris Karloff, Dracula, Hugh Laurie, the kid who played Harry Potter’s enemy at Hogwarts, and others I care not to remember. Only comparison I ever liked was Christopher Walken, and the only way I can see that is that Walken reminds me of my father. Can’t say I actually sit down to watch American Idol, though I often have TVs on all over the house while I’m doing other stuff, so I’ve seen/heard Steven Tyler – and like him (and Aerosmith) – thank you very much.

Q [Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa]: Is any of your work in talking books?

A: SOON! One of the very top audio readers in the world – Bob Walter – is doing THE MARTYRING as I write this. Details forthcoming in an upcoming Sullygram. BORN BURNING will follow thereafter, with four other novels on deck.

Q [mucho locales]: OK, gonna try to bundle the mega-faceted questions alluded to at the start of this column into a one-shot answer. And I’ll use these two questions to summarize the batch: [Englewood, FL] “…I am most interested in more details about that ‘almost found that single star to steer my (your) ship’ you described ?” and [Hampstead, MD] “…you speak in mysteries and wonderments that leave me wondering now what did he mean and what happened that he and changed his mind and wonder wonder wonder. What single star did you find to steer your ship? Or what happened to cause you to say when irony has the upper hand the less likely you will be to find a true companion for the journey.”

A: When it comes to love, I’ve gone to waste all my life. At least that’s what I thought. The waste was sorta voluntary, because I never expected to meet my fantasy soulmate (ha ha ha ha). Srsly. It was even more unlikely because I never went looking. Formally. Ms. Soulmate would have to turn up in my environment somehow. The thing of it is, when you rule out flesh and blood fulfillment of your dreams, it becomes safe to think free and live true to the highest romantic ideals of your heart, mind and soul. You can fantasize a relationship that is virtual romantic perfection. Which is what I did. Only I should have known better than to tempt the gods of irony. Because that’s when they dropped the biggest improbability of all into my improbable life. Blindsided doesn’t cover it. She wasn’t anywhere where it should’ve happened, and we were impossible, and I wasn’t going to do anything about it anyway. But she walked into my blueprint for romantic perfection as if she had a script and had been practicing all her life for the role. Not just fantasy perfection for all the senses – anyone’s senses – but of the heart, mind, soul in a rare way that made us a matched set…and I might have resisted even that, except that her values were totally contrary to what her looks and charms could’ve gotten her. She was as counterintuitive as I am. She defied all the rules of procedure, which was my final gatekeeper. No games. No gender dynamics. She had the courage and the depth of love to tell me and make it happen. How could I not love her for that alone? Not that it was rushed. She had known for years she told me, and yet she waited patiently while our minds met before our souls touched before our hearts melted before our bodies merged. And all of this was like lightning igniting words and deeds out of every part of me I’d held back in life just so that I could give it to one transcendent person – to her. I was like a little boy opening his hot little hand for the first time to offer up a shiny treasure he has hoarded because it is the essence of what he feels to the core. And she took it. Trembling. We were both trembling. Thereafter, inspiration, motivation and imagination went into overdrive far beyond the sweet sting of passion between us. … Yeah, yeah, I know, it’s an old story. But it’s not like I don’t know the drill of successfully evading heart/mind/soul commitment. Given the improbabilities of my life, I use the word “unique” advisedly. This was unique. And tangled. Hollywood pales. And the gods of irony are still having their fun in a most unbelievable way. Like I said previously, it only takes one star to steer a ship, if it’s the right star. But even our galaxies collided – one of the first gifts she gave me was a picture of colliding galaxies along with the CD of Howie Day’s “You and I Collide” – only, like most galaxies, hers had a black hole in the center that gobbles up stars. … So that was probably the last chance for me to be domesticated. Somewhere along the line the balance tips between avoiding loneliness and preserving romantic ideals. The perfect equilibrium between being tamed and my unconventional life is likely gone. Still, never say never. Because if you do, those same gods of irony will take that as a challenge. So, place your bets, kind readers – all you who have penetrated my abstractions from golden fields to white feathers – before we spin the wheel that spins the galaxy and sends the silver ball — silver soul — soaring round its cosmic carousel. Yes? No? Permit me the arrogance to weigh in with an opinion, though I’ve never won a single dream. It will be neither Yes nor No. Place all your chips on the one sure bet. That whatever happens to me next will be…unique.

Your thoughts are welcome, your attention valued. I’m truly grateful for your interest and feedback. And for those who have asked, my latest release is a low-priced e-book edition of my World Fantasy finalist for Best Novel available here: http://www.amazon.com/The-Martyring-ebook/dp/B0069CIFL4/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1321818520&sr=1-1

Thomas “Sully” Sullivan

http://www.thomassullivanauthor.com

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Thomas Sullivan: SEGAMI RORRIM

Thomas Sullivan — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 02:48:10 +0000

If something has to be kept secret, it must be true. Secrets are self-proving. Lies are loud and wear red hats, e.g. Santa Claus. Okay, I’m being a tad glib here. I do not mean that only secrets are true or that all red hats – i.e. loud proclamations — are lies (your red hat is still true blue, Santa). But secrets tend to be true, else they wouldn’t need hiding. I think that most people believe this at some level. In fact some OVER-believe it, glomming onto every “exposed” secret as innately true because life after all is run by conspiracies and manipulative forces. Consider the power that this reflex gives to persuasion. Want someone to believe something outlandish? Present it as a secret.

And in this way my premise statement moves from being a truism about content to a truism about style. Because if you pretend something is secret only to make it seem valid when you expose it, you’ve given it the style of truth but not necessarily the substance. And that can be a literary device to disarm the reader. An effective literary device. In fact, take it a step further. Let the secret be some discovery you make contrary to what the writer is saying. No truth is more acceptable than underlying truth you think you perceive by yourself, after all. Better yet if you have to pry it out, testifying to your astuteness. In this model the falseness is the literal statement, parading itself as truth. The truth is the secret you discern hiding behind the falseness, and it is its opposite. Thus we have Mark Twain giving us his truth about all humans being of equal worth by having Huck Finn believe he is going to hell for helping the runaway slave Jim escape. The world has it backwards, Twain is showing us. Social morality is the real falseness and Huck Finn in the simple purity and honesty of his soul has it right though he believes he will go to hell for his choice. Edgar Allen Poe gives us an even more direct stylistic example in the beginning of “The Tell-Tale Heart.” “True!” his first person narrator tells us too loudly in the very first word, “nervous, very dreadfully nervous I was and am, but why will you say I am mad?” Already you know the character is mad. (“Methinks he doth protest too much.”) He is in your face, asserting his “truth” so loudly that you immediately know it’s a lie.

Life is full of opposites, isn’t it? It is tempting – particularly in an improbable life like mine – to put more faith in the counterintuitive then into the face value of things. But that would be another grave error. Nevertheless, it is counterintuitiveness that seems to yield the most insight into truth when it comes to understanding people and presenting characters. We are devious, after all, you and I; yet relatively transparent as well to the observer who has developed objectivity. So, in human behavior, it is often enlightening to look for opposites, contrasts, and apparent contradictions lurking beneath the surface.

These show up most clearly under stress, but with some people the occurrence is pathological. I find these pathological types to be the most predictable because they always try to be unpredictable, and I often use them for catalyst characters. They are people who have discovered a game, a posture, an attitude, or a tone that works for them. They are usually one-trick types who continually use the single gimmick of reverse psychology. Over time they tend to lose credibility, and so they wear their audiences down to the gullible, the susceptible, or the impaired. You might see them holding forth where education is scarce, or playing the victim, or sounding witty under neon lights just before “last call.” Drunk or sober, “in the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.” Their conflicts are seldom internal but instead come from trying to manipulate the external world. That’s why they make good catalyst characters.

More fascinating to me are people who are internally conflicted, because they are not neatly consistent or as predictable. Especially if their emotions are strong. This happens more with women than men. And, no, I’m not saying that women are less rational than men. But I am saying that they tend to be influenced by a more complex range of emotions than men usually are. In evolutionary terms, anger and aggressiveness work strongest for archetypal men, while a fuller range of emotions has more survival value for archetypal women. The former (male) tends to solve immediate tactical problems and be direct; the latter (female) may address long-term strategic goals and be indirect. Which is probably why women get hung with the tag of being unpredictable. In any event, if this makes sense to you, you can easily see why marketing biases favor physical action books for men (external conflicts) and emotional tension books for women (internal conflicts). Of course, just as in reality these stereotypes of men and women exist as a mix within individuals of either sex, fully developed writing reflects a mix of simple action and character complexity no matter what the genre or gender. The nod, though, goes toward internal conflicts with its focus on substantial characterization, if only because most readers are women. I like that. It takes me right back to the deliciously counterintuitive wildcard that emotions introduce.

Think of how many things can go wrong with internal conflicts as opposed to external. In external you have things and events; in internal you have things and events plus all the interpretations and psychological/emotional consequences of external happenings. Internal is where external crosses into human experience, the nerve center, the point of impact – if a tree falls, does it make a sound? (Does it matter to you, if you don’t hear it – if you don’t internalize it?) If you want to experience and communicate life fully, free your characters to be human. Let them become contradictory, confused, emotional, unstable and changeable – then let them find their way back (or not). And while you’re at it, free yourself from being that writer/person who has a one-trick pathology and writes/sees with one eye open in the country of the blind. With two eyes open in life, you have twice the chance of seeing the magic.

Your thoughts are welcome, your attention valued.

Thomas “Sully” Sullivan

http://www.thomassullivanauthor.com

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Thomas Sullivan: ANGELS IN THE REARVIEW MIRROR

Thomas Sullivan — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 02:15:20 +0000

There have been moments — bound in some way to a place or a period of time — that have taken my compassion to another level and made me a more complete writer. Such a time and place was a bitterly cold Christmas when I was living in an old men’s hotel filled with human wrecks. It was a hotel for very old men, indeed. I was 19.

5 years ago I told this story in a column titled EMPTY BOXES I HAVE WORN, and every Christmas I still get mail about it. Like a pocket of Foxfire glowing on the calendar of my life, that anniversary will not die. Guess that doesn’t quite make it a tradition, but anything that still endures after half a decade of cold storage will bear revisiting…

The Lawndale was $7 a week the first year I lived there (no, it wasn’t during the Civil War, though it did burn down eventually). Could’ve fled back to the ‘burbs of Detroit for the holidays, could’ve found a home-cooked meal. But I was proud, stupid, a little too martyred when I was actually in that horrid coffin of a room, which was not often. I was doing selfless things gratis for others, I thought. And I was a bit of a maverick, not succeeding where everyone said I was supposed to succeed, nor given to letting my emotions show over the failures. Never mind that I got a million dollars worth of self-pity out of it. I knew that writing was an option that was open to me, but I had the camera pointed in the wrong direction. It was pointed at me. I think a lot of writers start out like that.

When I did have to return to my room at the end of the day – four walls I could almost touch all at the same time – I tried to be numb. Do you know anything as seething with emotion as deliberate numbness? Or as blinding? I hated the Lawndale with such a passion that I was deaf and blind to the human misery and loneliness there, and more importantly for a writer, equally walled off from a lot of incredible stories. In this case, the walls were paper thin, and you could hear the moans and the groans of the dying and the drunk. There were unwritten laws, peculiar to males. If someone came in beat up and bleeding, you might hear every drop of blood dripping on the vinyl runner in the hall, but if you opened your door, the gasping and the rest of it stopped. In that mistrustful place, you didn’t dare flinch before a tiger. No quarter asked, none given. Fine with me. The people I cared for didn’t live at the Lawndale. The place made my skin crawl. And above all, I hated the man across the hall.

All the rooms were as tiny as mine, but unbelievably the man across from me had a roommate. I never saw the roommate, never wanted to, but I had a picture in my mind of a pathetically submissive creature completely enslaved by the brute I did see. The bully would come in, drunk and wheezing, and thirty seconds after his door clicked shut the vilest verbal abuse I’d ever heard would begin. Sometimes it went beyond that, and I’d cringe to hear the blows. But I never quite got the guts to go stop it. Part of the code, you know.

Thus I lived, and so a new Christmas morning came, and with it the hollow feeling that I was, in fact, truly alone. I know now that this is absurd, particularly in a world teeming with emotionally isolated people. But when you are young, there is nothing emptier than the suspicion that your self-pity is justified. I had less to my name than $10 that morning when I set out in my wreck of a car, the “Grey Ghost.” Hit the White Tower, a.k.a. the Porcelain Room, for a “scudburger” Christmas dinner. I don’t remember if there were any other customers at the counter, but I vividly remember the old lady scraping the grill. She was celebrating, you see. Celebrating. Not sitting at the counter waiting to be served, celebrating. It took me a few minutes to catch the irony of that. I had to quit staring at my reflection in the glass opposite and realize that all the photos strung along a green ribbon on one wall were probably her grandchildren. She shuffled back and forth with the gait of someone arthritic or maybe with fallen arches. And, damn it, she was singing. And she had on a silly Santa hat. And there was red and green bric-a-brac and fake snow and angel hair all over the place. A wrapped present, too, though you could see there was nothing in it – just fluffed paper. Don’t remember finishing that scudburger, though it ranks right up there with memorable cuisine. Think I was having a little trouble swallowing at that point. Out of my head, too, because suddenly I knew that if a grandma had to work on Christmas day and could be like that, then I had to stop taking and give something back, and I didn’t have anything. But the bill had knocked my $10 in half, so I left a $5 tip and got the hell out of there.

It was compulsive, and by no means charitable, but I felt better cranking the Grey Ghost to life and starting up Livernois toward Vernor Highway. Hoarfrost on the inside glass of the White Tower, and out here it was arctic, and as I’m approaching the railroad tracks, I see a man in a cardboard box. His head is cut and swollen, blood frozen in his hair, and he’s barefoot. Lawndale rules do not apply in train yards, and the poor bastard, who it turns out has just crawled out of a freight car, is going to freeze very quickly, so I stop. The old story: got drunk, rolled, left to fate. What strikes me is he is naked inside the cardboard box. I mean, they took everything, as if out of malice to let him die. You can’t imagine the blubbering gratitude of a Tennessee man up to visit his sister at Wayne State, who just about becomes a vice-icle when his binge turns bad. It took us a couple of hours to find his sister’s apartment, because he didn’t have a clue, except by scrutinizing every neighborhood as we inched up and down the narrow streets off Woodward. Merry Christmas.

So now I’m feeling pretty good, except that I have to go back to the old men’s burial ground. Revisit the self-pity. Oh, I’d been a good lad for a few hours, and learned something, I guess, but like a movie, it was over. So the Lawndale ate me up, and I climbed to the second floor, and the last room in the line – 210 – which was odd, because later in college I would be in room 210, and again, teaching at Fordson High in Dearborn, 210. Anyway, now that I was back in you know where, you know who came in on my heels and started you know what. The bully was on a tear this time. Drunk, vile and violent. I stood it as long as I could, and longer than I should have by months. Then, when I thought he was going to kill his roommate with the blows, I went out into the hall to stop the creature I loathed. Thought I was going to have to fist his door a couple of good ones, but as it happens it was slightly ajar. He was berating his roommate with terms I cannot begin to write here, and I could hear the smack of flesh on flesh, and as I took two steps toward the wedge of light, I saw it all. The mirror. The face in the mirror. The whole room behind him in the mirror. The marks from the fists were clear on the cheek above the stubble. And I saw the last blow land. But the testosterone boiling in me suddenly went as flat as water. Because he didn’t have a roommate.

He was beating himself. Berating himself. Calling himself everything but a child of God. Nothing I had felt or thought about him all those months could approach the depths of his own self-hate. How could I have been so wrong? An epiphany moment for me? Yeah. You could say. Damn my soul if I ever underestimate any human that badly again, though, I’m sorry to admit, I’ve been over the line too many times since. My self-loathing neighbor slammed the door when he became aware of me, but he opened another to my future as a writer.

I’m not a soft touch. I believe in human excellence and transcendence, if only we can get outside of whatever boxes imprison our thinking. Low expectations cripple people, and are really a vote of no-confidence. It doesn’t matter what that man at the Lawndale lacked. What mattered was what he had, which was a mirror filled with more self-honesty than most of us could stand. He knew who he was. What he was. And at that moment I knew what he could be. I can’t tell you what truths you’ve discovered about yourself or about the human condition, but I know that they will come out in your life one way or another. You may have to look outside the box to find
those truths first, of course. Writers need to engage in that search with openness and vigilance. Good writers never stop searching, or evolving. If people have happened to you today, stories have happened. The world presents us with limitless possibilities. Find the ones you can reach, according to who you are. Until you do that, you have not fulfilled your own potential as an observer, as an artist, or as a human being.

May I thank those who have taken the trouble to email me? What you have to say informs me, shapes me, and makes my life richer. I’m also most grateful for your interest in my books – and, yes, the offer I recently made is still on. My web site is below if you’d like to take advantage of the stocking-stuffer offer. The just released $3.99 E-book edition of THE MARTYRING, my Best Novel Finalist from WorldFantasyCon, can be easily downloaded from Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, etc., and if you’d like to give it as a gift, I’ll e-mail an author’s greeting to the recipient. Just send me a name and address, and I’ll follow through on Christmas Day. E-book downloads can be read on Kindles, Nooks and any other eading device, including computers.

Thanks for reading. Your thoughts are welcome, your attention valued.

Thomas “Sully” Sullivan

http://www.thomassullivanauthor.com

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When The Deadtime Comes

Gerard Houarner — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 20:55:31 +0000

Yes, we’re all busy. All the time, it seems. There are bills to pay, responsibilities to meet, places we have to be and things we must do.

“Modern” life and its freedoms have their pressures. Choices come with consequences. The consequences, frankly, are not as dire as those that come from a lack of choices. But, hey, what’s life without drama.

For many of us, there’s a need to use every moment we can to pursue something or other. To be active, engaged. Boredom, restlessness, frustration seems to come easily. So do opportunities for distraction.

For writers, of course, there are deadlines. The next story to be written. A new market to jump into. And the perpetual complaint that there isn’t enough time to write.

Well, time is relative, as the saying goes.

A lot of us talk about how we carve out time to sit at the keyboard and punch out a few lines. But sometimes it’s hard to come up with anything during those stolen moments. Hard to switch gears, to concentrate, to return to the world we created in our imagination. We might spend a lot of time getting back into that frame of mind.

Sometimes the fight is less about finding time to write, and more about preserving the need and the frame of mind to create.

So maybe another way to approach the writing gig is looking at the time that falls into our laps inconveniently. That would be the unplanned time we spend waiting for something to happen. (There’s an argument to be made that all time is about waiting for something to happen, but I edited that out because, well, I gave you guys a break.)

Some people call it “dead time.” You’re trapped in a commute, a meeting, a waiting room, an event. Whatever. The point is, you’re in a time and place that isn’t engaging you. You’re bored, adrift, perhaps losing your mind.

Some pull out a laptop or even a “smart” phone (don’t get me started) and start working on a piece.

I suspect these days people are more likely to be texting, gaming, shopping online, etc.

Reading is a traditional pastime, and for writers, essential.

But if you want to write, and can’t pull out the project you’re working on for whatever reason (like, you’re driving, or the setting isn’t appropriate), there are ways to exercise the writing muscles, and maybe gain an inch or two on whatever you’re working on.

Writing, even though it’s done mostly sitting down (unless you’re a best-selling media writer who prefers dictating into a machine while taking walks), is an active endeavor. It requires engagement of mind and body, attunement to senses, imagination and cognition. I say again, imagination.

I think we’re encouraged, if not trained, to turn imagination off in many situations. If we live in a variety of “worlds” – family, faith, work, creative, sport, etc – we have a lot more material to work with, but we are also undercover. Spies in the house of God. Locked in roles, tucked away in boxes.

We may spend a lot of time fighting not to think outside the box.

Working out the imagination is not a bad way to pass your dead time.

It can take work. Playing games is definitely easier. So is reading. Sometimes playing someone else’s game is what’s needed to relieve the stress, to give your mind and spirit a break. But in playing your own games, I think you’re preparing yourself to write.

Perpetual daydreamers have a different problem, but the problem, as far as I can tell from my own lost ramblings inside my head, is not being focused on a specific story or purpose. A little more structure can be helpful.

One dead time problem is being stuck worrying or obsessing about whatever is going on in your life, a negative kind of daydreaming. One way to get out of that “head” is to pay attention to what’s around you, looking at things as if they were brand new, through the perspective of someone else, a stranger, someone else in the vicinity, a friend or enemy, whoever is behind the thing you’re obsessing about, an alien, a traveler from another time or place. Focus on what’s outside, rather than inside.

Details make a story real. You’re gathering information, and practicing how to fill out information from the vague, dreamy settings in your mind. You’re also practicing observing the environment from the perspective of different characters. How does a boss view a meeting room, as opposed to the clerk taking minutes, the tech guy, the presenters, the people who will be called upon to come up with reactions. Or a child’s perspective on the family holiday dinner, versus the grandparent, the friends and neighbors, the person the daughter or son brought home to meet the family, the hosts.

Doesn’t matter how many times seen the room, been down that road, passed that pile of rubble, heard the family story or institutional line. Stepping outside of yourself forces you to experience the familiar in unfamiliar ways.

Just because you’ve seen a sunset doesn’t mean you’ve seen anything like the one happening now.

I grant you, the experience is not always pleasant. It’s a little disorienting. Surreal. It’s also…work. So is writing. The value to me in this kind of exercise is that it helps me bore down to the details I need when I’m actually at the keyboard trying to get something done. The other payoff is that, sometimes, I get something out of it I can use in the piece I’m working on.

Along the same lines, you can also get into describing people and places in different literary styles. From spare to lush, hyper-realistic and detailed to metaphorical, trying out different approaches to setting a scene is a good exercise that can break the monotony of your own writing voice or style. Coming up with one-line character descriptions is, of course, an art that may never be mastered, but I guarantee practicing it during dead time on a train ride will not only be entertaining, but improve your ability to call upon the skill when you’re at the keyboard. Finding ways to describe what they’re actually doing – how a doorman stands in the door, waiting, or how a construction worker acts in the cab of a crane, are all fair game. Looking at buildings, sky, bridges, hallways, cars, etc, will either send you scurrying off to Google for concrete details or inspire you to write poetry (if you’re not already one).

You don’t have to use your overly-detailed or metaphorical gems (um, “the parking lot looked as if the earth had tried to shrug it off its tired shoulders,” for example). You just want to play at being another kind of writer. Stretch and practice skills you will absolutely need when it comes down to working on a story. You never know, you might wind up reaching for pen and paper (or electronic device) to actually write something down.

If you’re the crime kind, you can tune the observational game to find, like Sherlock Holmes, or Monk, what’s off in the details of your environment or the people around you. Or, knock one small aspect of what you see out of whack, or make the place or person too perfect. Flaws and flawlessness, the keys to conflict.

Projecting yourself, or a character you’re working with, into your dead time environment is another variation. I often discover a new level of hell in places I find myself – for instance, at work, surrounded by a massive 5 year construction project, the steady pounding of piles being driven into the earth or the whine of the machinery driving them through rock, informs my every working minute. I can look out my window and put myself in and around the machinery, in the ditches and holes, pipes, concrete, etc. My travels take me to all kinds of odd setting, like a massive food distribution warehouse where my mind riffed on hell as an endless warehouse, demons sitting on top of food supplies but providing free access to bleach.

Perhaps a more challenging exercise for me might be to think romantic comedy instead of hell. We all have our lessons to learn.

But looking out on to landscapes from your deadtime vantage point, or following the story happening in a window across the alley, or through the open doorway in another office, are just as productive in a creative exercise kind of way.

If your deadtime is not physically restrictive – say you have an hour to kill before an appointment – then an alternative to sitting in a café and reading or writing might be to explore the neighborhood you’re in, paying attention to details, differences in people and places, architecture, food, etc, from what you might be accustomed to experiencing. Walking a narrative in your mind. Listening for different speech rhythms, music, smells, sounds.

Of course, a more immediate use of deadtime might be to keep the last couple of pages of what you’re working refreshed in your mind, even if you haven’t had time to work on the piece. Some of these games might serve to shake up what you’ve written, force you to look deeper, or come up with another angle on character, setting, plot.

From personal experience, it can also extend the amount of time you’re working on a project. Nothing like getting new perspective on work you think is already done. Maybe it’s good, maybe it’s just putting off the inevitable slide into anonymity. But, for the moment, it can be fun.

Somebody once told me I’m always seem to be working because, at that time, I’d was always writing things down – snatches of conversations from which I harvested titles and dialogue; odd facts; descriptions of friends and family members other people would talk about who seemed interesting as potential characters. I guess I had a lot of dead time, back then. Or, perhaps truer, I used my time better in those days. I certainly aim to get back to those days.

Perhaps, I may even email myself my clever bits, if there are any, while everyone else is texting under the table.